I continued, moving as swiftly as I could without making any noise, and keeping close to the walls. All at once, the walls and ceiling went from being something like raw stone to being smooth and perfectly squared, as if a stonemason had dressed and polished them. This and the machine Alexi had spoken of indicated that I was inside a Beforetime building—or what remained of one.
I passed another lantern and tried again to farseek Rushton. Now that I was within the mound of stone there was less interference, and for a moment I sensed him clearly. He was in pain.
The tunnel began to slope down slightly, and here and there the smooth surface was broken. In one place, a thick pool of multicolored ooze was coming from a crack running up the wall. I kept well away from the slimy mess in case it was tainted. The tunnel curved, and I blinked at the flood of light ahead. Soon, the path swelled out and curved into an enormous, brightly lit cavern. The light came not from lanterns but from a round white sphere on top of a pole. It hummed faintly, and my skin rose into gooseflesh because this was a Beforetime artifact that someone had brought to life.
There was no one in sight. Entering the chamber warily, I saw that all around were silvery boxes of varying sizes, many higher than my head. Buttons and gleaming jewel-colored lights covered the surfaces of what must surely have been Beforetime machines. One had been forced away from the wall. It was very large, with a flat extension coming out one side and many thin colored strands running hither and thither. I wondered if this was the Zebkrahn machine. But if so, where was Alexi? Or Rushton? I looked closely at the machine, but I could not tell whether it was operating.
There were three open doorways in addition to the one I had come through. One way was smooth and perfectly shaped, but the other two were cracked and crumbling, both angling down. Hearing nothing when I listened at each of them, I decided to go through the undamaged doorway. The path leading from it was dark, for no lantern had been left hanging and there were none of the shining insects. I was on the verge of turning back when I thought I heard a voice ahead. Then a little farther on and around a corner I saw light again. It was another lantern hanging in an alcove, but as I reached for it I stifled a cry of fright and staggered back, for two eyes flared at me.
It took me a long moment to take in that the eyes did not move or glisten. My heart was still pounding as I went closer and took the lantern. I saw then that the eyes belonged to a stuffed Guanette bird mounted on a shelf of stone. Even in death, the massive bird’s bright, round eyes seemed penetrating, and I wondered in disgust who would kill and stuff something so rare and lovely.
I heard a sound behind me and whirled, but I could see nothing. I went across to another alcove, where there was a bed set again the wall. Then I saw a movement and realized with a shock that it was occupied. “Rushton?” I whispered.
The person lying on the bed stirred and turned toward me. To my astonishment, I saw that it was Cameo!
The light bathed her face as I approached, and her skin glowed marble white so that the blackness under her eyes looked like crescents of ink. Her eyes flickered open. “Elf?” she murmured, but vaguely. It was strange and terrible to hear her using Jes’s nickname for me, but I reached out and touched her face. She frowned and said more strongly, “Elspeth?”
“I’m here,” I whispered.
Consternation crossed her features, bringing them to life. “No! You mustn’t be here. He … he wants you. I heard him say it. You must go now.”
“Don’t talk,” I begged.
She fell back and closed her eyes. “I knew you would come,” she whispered.
But too late, I thought to myself.
“Not too late!” she protested, and I gasped, for she had read my thought. Then I saw that she had heard my realization as well, for she said, “I don’t know why, but somehow the pain made me … able to hear better. But I still couldn’t do what they wanted. I’m not strong enough. But while they used their machines, I had a true dream. I dreamed there is something you have to do. You alone. I dreamed it was more important than anything else in the world. It has something to do with this place and with the map that Alexi seeks. The map that … shows the way to a terrible power.… He does not realize how terrible it is, and it would not stop him if he did know.”
“A … terrible power?” I echoed, thinking of all the nightmarish stories I had heard of the capacity of the Beforetimers for violence and destruction.
“Worse,” Cameo whispered. “Worse than you can possibly imagine. The map shows the way to the very machines that caused the Great White.”
“No!” I gasped.
Her eyes fluttered, and I saw the effort it took for her to go on. “You have to stop them from finding the machines, Elspeth. You have to find them first and make sure no one can ever use them.” The veins in her neck stood out like cords.
“I can’t do that,” I said, my mind whirling.
“You can, for you are the Seeker,” she said.
“Please,” I rasped, and discovered that tears were running down my face. For Cameo was dying. It is my fault, I thought. All along it was me they really wanted.
“You came,” she whispered.
I fell to my knees by her bed and cried while she stroked my hair with a hand no heavier than a breath of air. Then her hand was still.
I wept bitter tears until a laugh echoed down the passages and penetrated the fog of sorrow that had enveloped me. I stood up. I knew that laugh, and it dried all the tears and sorrow in me, leaving a rime of brittle determination. I set off down a hallway that led deeper into the structure, vowing that Ariel and the others would pay for what they had done to Cameo.
When I got closer to the source of his laughter, I saw there was light ahead. I extinguished my lantern and set it down before continuing.
I had been creeping along for several minutes when Madam Vega suddenly spoke, so near that it sent ice sifting over my skin. I inched forward until I could see into another room, and listened hard.
“You are collaborating with the Druid, aren’t you?” Madam Vega asked. “You need not answer. What the Druid’s man told us reveals that much. Did you really suppose we would allow you to come in and take what we have schemed and killed to gain? I suppose the old man promised to help you take Obernewtyn for yourself, if only to rid himself of us? As if he has the power for anything but skulking in the wilderness.”
“The Council does not allow a defective to inherit, but it will allow a bastard son to do so,” said Rushton.
My heart leapt at hearing him speak. I regretted that I had not tried to farseek Louis before I had entered the stone hillock, for I had clearly arrived before him. I decided to go back outside to wait for the others, but Madam Vega’s next words froze me in my tracks.
“There is no proof that you are Michael Seraphim’s illegitimate son,” she said in an amused tone. “Your mother could easily have lied.”
“There are my father’s letters to her, and my appearance,” Rushton said. “When my mother sent me here, she thought my father still lived. She thought he would see himself in my face, and so she gave me no letter or token to show the man she sent me to find. Nor did she tell me that he was my father.”
“Too bad Michael Seraphim was dead before you arrived,” Madam Vega sneered.
I had listened to what they were saying with growing amazement. That Rushton was Michael Seraphim’s illegitimate son would explain much, but would he really ally himself with Henry Druid in order to make a claim for Obernewtyn?
“I will enjoy killing you,” Madam Vega said softly when Rushton made no response. “As long as you were ignorant of your true status, it amused me to let you live. Even to indulge you. But you have proven troublesome and ungrateful. Now, there are a few questions I want answered.”
“I will tell you nothing,” Rushton grated.
There was the sound of a sharp blow.
“Have some respect,” Ariel said silkily.
Creeping around a bank of machines, I saw Mada
m Vega, Ariel, and what looked to be the tip of Rushton’s boot. He was lying on a metal tray before an immense machine, and my heart seized at the sight. This must be the Zebkrahn machine, I realized.
I was just summoning up a probe to reach out to Rushton when a voice spoke behind me, soft with menace.
“How obliging of you to come to us,” murmured Alexi. Then something heavy crashed into the base of my skull, and a wave of blackness filled my mind.
Alexi and Madam Vega were talking when I woke. I was lying down and bound hand, foot, and throat. I kept my eyes closed and listened.
“Why did you have to hit her so hard?” the woman complained. “You could have killed her!”
“She will not die,” Alexi said dismissively.
“What about him, then?” Ariel said. “He fainted, and you said he wouldn’t. Now we’ll have to wait till he wakes to finish questioning him.”
“I’m not interested in him any longer,” Alexi said coldly. “We have the girl.”
“Nevertheless, I want to know how they are connected,” said Madam Vega. “Rushton accepted pain rather than revealing the whereabouts of this girl, and it is obvious now that he did help her to escape.”
“We will ask the girl,” Alexi said after a thoughtful pause. “She will respond swiftly enough after we threaten him, if they are allies.”
“He’ll talk if we use her as a lever,” Ariel said eagerly. “You should have seen his face when we came to that mess the wolves had made in the courtyard. At first, we thought it was her that had been torn apart. Rushton seemed to go mad. That’s why I had to shoot him.”
“I’m not interested in this,” Alexi snapped. “I want that map.”
“We will have it soon,” Madam Vega said soothingly. “The girl will locate it for us. And what power we will have over the Council once we have Beforetime weaponmachines. They will refuse us nothing. And if they displease us, we will give them a demonstration.”
I felt a caress on my face and opened my eyes.
“Awake …,” purred Alexi, his face close to mine, his eyes dark. I shuddered as far away from him as my bindings would allow, and he laughed wildly until Madam Vega took his hand and bade him calm himself.
“We don’t want to make any mistakes. We cannot afford another Selmar.”
“I will get the diaries,” Alexi said, ignoring her admonition. He turned, addressing Ariel as he left. “She is sweating. That might affect the machine. Clean her.”
“I am not his servant,” Ariel hissed.
“Be silent and do as you were bidden,” Madam Vega snapped.
Sullenly, Ariel wiped my face with a cool cloth. “Crazy as a loon, he is. Lud, but he’s creepy with those monster eyes,” he muttered under his breath.
“You forget yourself, Ariel,” Madam Vega said. “Without Alexi, all of my plans will come to nothing. Only he understands these infernal machines. Now come with me.”
I heard their voices receding in the distance and bitterly cursed my carelessness. I had practically given myself as a gift to them. And they meant to use me to find the weaponmachines that caused the Great White. Would it be any use to tell them what Cameo had said? I could not think so, remembering the relish in Madam Vega’s voice when she had spoken of giving a demonstration of power to the Council. I knew I must not help them to find Marisa’s map or I would be directly responsible for unleashing the horrors of the Great White on the world again. Bleakly, I prayed for the courage to keep silent, but the thought of being tortured terrified me.
I heard a groan and knew it meant Rushton was waking up. I decided I must tell him that his friends were searching for him, and that they had a good idea of his location. Now that I looked about me, I saw that I was strapped to the extended table of the machine I had seen earlier. I could not turn my head far because of the binding about my throat, but I could see a hand tied to a chair. It moved, straining against the bindings.
“Rushton?” I whispered.
“Elspeth?” he croaked. “I thought you were dead.”
“It was Sharna the wolves killed,” I said with a stab of renewed grief.
“I thought they had torn you apart,” Rushton said again. “I wanted to kill Ariel. Instead, he shot me with a bolt from his crossbow.” He stifled a groan, and I saw that he was again straining against his bonds.
“Rushton, I need to tell you …” I broke off, hearing the approach of footsteps. It was Alexi, and Madam Vega returned with Ariel a moment later. Among them, they had brought scrolled papers and maps and parchments, as well as several fat, battered-looking books.
“We will begin with the diaries,” Alexi announced, taking one of the books and staring down into my eyes. “I wish you to use your Misfit abilities to learn where Marisa hid a map she made. I know you have the power to hear the thoughts she had when she scribed her notes. If you cooperate, I will not need to use the Zebkrahn.”
“You will kill me, whatever happens,” I said, thinking I had to give Louis and the others time to find us.
“You will tell me!” Alexi raged. He turned to the machine, and Vega hovered behind him with anxious eyes.
“Be careful, Alexi,” she warned.
“I will teach her not to defy me,” he snarled. He did something to the buttons, and several colored lights began to pulsate. The machine hummed very faintly, and Alexi took up a bowl-shaped helmet and fitted it over my head, his strange black eyes burning down at me.
All at once, I felt a faint buzzing in my head. It was only slightly distracting, and my spirits lifted. If this was the extent of their torture, the secret of the map’s whereabouts would be safe with me. I wondered suddenly if Marisa had even known the terrible capability of the weaponmachines she had located. I remembered that cold, enigmatic face in the portrait and thought it must be so.
“Even if you find what you want, the Council will not let you rule them,” Rushton said.
“He’s just trying to get you mad,” Ariel sneered.
Alexi turned his hot, mad gaze on Ariel, who visibly quailed. “I’ll kill you if you say anything else that annoys me,” the man hissed.
“Concentrate on the girl,” snapped Madam Vega, giving Ariel a warning look. Alexi came back to the machine and turned a knob, and the buzzing in my head increased sharply. The sensation was still a long way from being painful, yet I thought uneasily of Cameo and Selmar. Selmar, who had been more like me than I could have guessed. Was it this machine that had broken her mind?
Alexi took the diary, opened it, and held it in front of my eyes. I tried not to look at the crabbed scribing, which I recognized from the maps and books in the doctor’s chamber, but the nearness of the diary was such that I could hear the faintest whisper of the woman’s thoughts. I strengthened my shield.
“I have dreamed of the power that will come to me,” Alexi said. “It is my destiny, and Marisa had no right to keep it from me.” He moved a lever on the machine, and the buzzing increased. It was uncomfortable enough to begin eroding the solidity of my shield. Again I heard the whisper of Marisa’s thoughts rising from the diary like a scent. Complex calculations. The desire for a certain book. An unkind thought about her baby son, whom she suspected of being dull-witted. Irritation with her husband.
“Open your mind to her,” Alexi commanded, and again the buzzing increased. Now there was pain. I could tolerate it, but there would be more, I knew, and worse. What if I could not hold out?
Fear made me grope for Rushton’s mind. If I could just speak with him, I might find courage enough to endure.
“Think of Marisa,” Alexi commanded.
My mental probe found Rushton’s mind, but it was blocked. I despaired for a moment, but then I realized that his mind was not consciously shielded. Nor had he a natural block. The barrier I encountered was unlike any I had felt. It was like a thick wall of cloud or mist. I gathered my strength and arrowed my way through it into his mind. Distantly I heard him moan.
“What is the matter with him?” Vega as
ked.
“He’s fainted again,” Ariel said contemptuously.
But he was wrong. Rushton had retreated into his thoughts to deal with my intrusion. Quickly I identified myself.
“It was you.” I heard Rushton’s thought and, with astonishment, recognized the mind of my rescuer. At least, his mind seemed part of the entity that had helped me get free from the Zebkrahn once before. But I could tell he had no Misfit ability.
Seeming to guess my puzzlement, Rushton explained. “There are many among my friends who have mental abilities like yours, and though none are as powerful as you, they are able to combine their strength. Somehow they use my mind to focus their energies, and carry me with them. If I had succeeded in making my claim on Obernewtyn, I would have made it a refuge for them.”
I told Rushton he must not give up, for his friends were on their way with help.
“My friends?” he echoed.
Swiftly I shared with him everything that had happened since we parted last. It took but a moment, because I used mental pictures rather than words. I read in his mind that he was unaware that the weaponmachines sought by Alexi and the others were those that had caused the Great White. I chose not to burden him with the knowledge, though he asked if I could do what Alexi wanted.
Before I could answer, the effect of the Zebkrahn increased dramatically. I tried to withdraw from Rushton’s mind, but he held me.
“Let me go!” I begged. It would have been easy enough to tear free, but he would be hurt.
“I can help you endure,” he said. “Draw on me.” I warned him that he would share my pain if I stayed inside his mind, but he insisted. “If you give them what they want, they will kill us both anyway, so I help myself in helping you.”
“This is taking too long,” I heard Ariel say impatiently. He reached up to adjust the machine, but this time there was no increase in the pain. Had the machine reached its limit? I prayed so, for on the other side of my mental barrier, I could sense Marisa’s thoughts clamoring.
“Don’t be afraid,” Rushton told me. Then I heard him moan and realized with horror that he was shielding me from the worst of the pain. I did not know how it was possible, and yet he was doing it.