Dameon said shakily, “I ought to have shielded myself but I wasn’t expecting anything.”
“I fear none of us were expecting this,” Swallow said. He laid a hand on Dameon’s shoulder. “I am sorry, my friend.”
“Don’t be concerned for me,” Dameon said. “Tell me what you see, if you can bear it.”
It was Analivia who answered. She was again staring out to the east. “This is what I saw in my dream,” she said. “This dead, awful blackness, not just beyond the mountains as we see now, but forever and everywhere. This is what will happen to the Land and to Sador and all the other places if we don’t make sure Sentinel can never be used. The worst of it is that I have seen how the world is trying to recover from what was done to it. I always heard that these mountains were utterly barren and full of tainted ground, but we have found trees and grass and clean water. The mountains are trying hard to heal and maybe even down there on the plain there are places where the taint grows thin and life is struggling back. But what is the use of it if the Great White happens again?” she demanded, rounding on us fiercely. Her voice and face were determined, though tears were running down her cheeks.
“I am terrified to go down there and walk over that, and I fear what it will mean for all of us, even if the wolves can find a cleaner path some of the way,” she went on urgently. “But if that is what it takes to keep the world safe, I will do it.”
I stared at her, struck dumb by her courage.
“I do not see what you see, but I feel what you feel and I am ready to do what must be done,” Dameon said quietly.
“And I,” Swallow said, though he was staring at Analivia.
“My brother’s woman lies beyond that darkness, and I am honor-bound and sworn to find her,” Ahmedri said. He looked at me. “Yet your quest is greater than mine, and I will do all I can to help you.”
“My thanks,” I said softly. Then I looked around at the others. “My thanks to all of you, for your steadfastness, but there is much I have yet to tell you.”
“I think we will be glad of any tale you can tell us, crossing that,” Swallow said with bleak humor.
But I was looking at Gavyn, who had walked the whole way since he and Rasial had rejoined us an hour after we had set off from the hollow, and yet he showed no sign of tiring. Of course, we had not galloped or even cantered, but neither had we rested more than briefly once leaving the plateau. He was picking a burr from Rasial’s fur, his wheaten hair ruffling in a slight breeze that had blown up. He glanced at the Blacklands with utter indifference, then got on his knees to investigate a hole in the stone. Beside him, Rasial sat gazing east like the rest of us, the breeze stirring the thick ridge of fur along her back.
She turned to me and her silver eyes shone. “I am not afraid, ElspethInnle,” she sent.
“I smell clean earth and green and growing things,” Darga suddenly sent.
We decided to go on since according to Darga the wolf spore continued down toward the clean earth he had scented. The sun had set completely, the moon had risen, and though the sky was full of great hurrying clouds, there were enough gaps that we could simply stop when it was too dark to see and wait until the moon emerged. We were all weary but the thought of green and growing things and clean earth was enough to spur us on. Certainly none of us wanted to sleep on poisoned ground, however light the taint.
The first part of the descent was neither steep nor difficult, being no more than the matching second half of the slope we had climbed earlier, but at the bottom we had to negotiate fold after fold of stone, as if the high peaks on either side of us had rucked up a stone rug between them. It would have been tedious to negotiate them, especially since they were so narrow that the travois had to be untied from Sendari and laboriously and carefully carried by Swallow and Ahmedri, but each fold was filled with very sharp loose scree, which made it impossible to walk on. In the end it proved easier to travel along one fold, then turn and go back along the next.
When at last we reached a flat slope midway through the two mountains rising on either side of us, I was weary enough to have fallen down like a stone and slept, but Darga warned that the ground was still tainted and his reminder that there was clean ground and water ahead was enough to make us decide to go on.
As we passed through the gap between the mountains, the slope became a narrow passage that turned at the last into a deep, twisted runnel. This brought us to a wide, flat-bottomed canyon running east between two great long spurs jutting out from the base of the mountains like immense exposed stone roots. I had been unable to see what lay between them from above, but now we came upon a strange bush growing over a mound of enormous broken boulders. Its pallid fleshy leaves hung down like great long gray fingers, and Analivia, gesturing to them, asked if they were not proof that we had reached clean ground. When Darga insisted that the ground was still tainted, Analivia pointed out that the taint must be very slight if plants could grow. “We should at least stop here for an hour to light a fire to cook a meal,” she said. “I need to tend to the girl’s wounds.”
“Let us keep going until we get to clean water,” I said, and we plodded on.
In truth, I did not like the feel of the canyon where the strange bush grew. Its pendulous leaves reminded me unpleasantly of dead hands and made me think of Moss’s body being soundlessly carried away. Glancing up, I thought I saw tiny pale eyes high up the wall, but when I blinked they vanished. Another time, looking up, I thought I saw something enormous moving over the face of the mountain, but when the clouds parted a little later, there was nothing to be seen.
All at once, the wind began to blow strongly from the east, into the canyon. It seemed that I could smell the sea in it, though it was impossible that the scent of the distant sea could travel so far. Yet I found myself reminded of the morning I had woken washed up on the shore of the Westland bathed in sunlight and amazed to be alive. For some reason, the memory lifted my spirits.
“It feels warmer,” Ahmedri observed a little later, and then he stopped. “There is light ahead.”
He was right and both he and Swallow unsheathed their knives as we moved forward quietly, having left Dameon to wait with Gavyn and the beasts. The light was coming from a narrow cave in the southern wall of the canyon, half hidden by mist, which hung queerly before it.
“It must be badly tainted,” Analivia said.
“No,” I said. “The glow is too yellow and the mist is only steam flowing out that catches the light.”
“Then what is the light, if not tainted matter?” Swallow asked.
“A colony of taint-devouring creatures,” I said, certain of it. “The mountains are full of a strain of them that lives in hot water, unlike the ones in the Land, which prefer damp, cool walls.”
“Do you speak of the little glowing creatures that the teknoguilder Jak gifted to the Earthtemple?” Ahmedri asked.
“I have seen them, too, in drowned Newrome,” Analivia said.
I described the great colony of the creatures I had seen in the rift when I had first entered the High Mountains and in the glowing pool in the wolves’ valley. Finally I told them my theory of the creatures adapting to different conditions and spreading through the waterways that riddle the eastern side of the Blacklands Range to do their silent, humble work cleaning the water and land of taint.
“It is my belief that they originated here and that the ones in the Land came from them. I think they are the reason the mountains are less tainted than we were given to believe and why we have found so much water that is untainted.”
“Work you call it, as if these insects have the will to clean the world of taint, even as your Jak would have them do,” Ahmedri said thoughtfully.
I shrugged. “It almost seems that way to me, and yet it is surely only that the creatures live and by their living, serve the earth.”
“And the heat?” Swallow asked, gesturing at the steam.
“There are hot springs near Obernewtyn that rise from regions of g
reat heat and movement deep inside the earth. The pool in the wolf valley must have arisen from that source and I think the spring inside this cave does the same.”
“But how did the taint-devouring creatures get into the springwater?” Analivia asked.
“Either they exist in deep caverns through which the water flows, or rain washed them down from the heights,” I said. “My feeling is the latter.”
“And that is the light,” Analivia said.
“Perhaps Jak is right and these creatures truly are the key to cleaning the world of taint,” I said.
“If only they were not so very small,” Analivia said. “As it is, it will take them eons.”
“If Elspeth is right, they have already been doing what they do for hundreds of years,” Swallow pointed out. “That is why we have been able to come this far without harm. It is our good fortune that the remnants of the Beforetimers’ roads cut through the same territory the insects inhabit.”
“Let’s see what is inside the cave,” I said.
Analivia, Swallow, Ahmedri, and I went in, after I had farsent Rasial to let the others know what we were doing. I knew that Faraf would explain to Dameon, who we had left sitting on the edge of Dragon’s travois, which now lay flat on the ground. It was immediately clear that the cave mouth was too narrow for the horses to pass through, but after a short distance it opened out into a whole series of linked caves, all of them lit by pool after pool of glimmering springwater, some tiny and bubbling furiously, some lukewarm and wide enough to swim across. The air itself was hot but unpleasantly damp, and as I had guessed, there were clusters of the shining creatures around the sides of all the pools. There were a good many more in the boiling pools than the tepid ones, judging by the brightness of the glow coming from them.
“It is beautiful,” Analivia said, gazing around with delight.
“The air is too wet,” Ahmedri complained. He glanced up at the cave roof with mistrust and unease.
“Everything is wet,” Swallow said, touching the wall. “We won’t be able to sleep in here.”
“Maybe there are drier caves deeper in,” I said. “They do seem to go on and on.”
“Which is a good reason not to go wandering without marking a trail,” Swallow warned. He went back out to check on Dameon and had not been gone long when Ahmedri called out to say that he had found a passage leading off one of the caves that might come out farther along the canyon, since he could feel air flowing along it. He wanted to find out if the way was wide enough to bring the horses in out of the canyon.
“Take care,” I called.
“This draught is strong enough to guide me,” he replied.
I wondered if his eagerness to bring the horses in arose from the fact that, like me, he had felt that we were being watched. Analivia asked whether it was safe to refill the water bottles, for hers was empty, and I went back with her to the largest cave, where there had been several warm pools.
“Darga said the water is clean, but I think it would be unwise to consume the taint-devouring insects,” I said. “Perhaps we can use a bit of muslin from your healing pack to strain the water.”
We were in the midst of trying this when Ahmedri returned, panting, to say that the passage led back to the canyon and that it was easily wide enough for the horses. Also, he had found a good dry cavern close to the end of it where we could make a fire and sleep until dusk, when presumably the wolves would come.
The cave was perfect, once a fire had been lit so that we could see it. It was large enough for all of us, with a high roof and a dry sandy floor. There was even a tiny rivulet of cold water running down the stone; the beasts were able to drink from this, but it was not enough to fill our water bottles. Swallow began to prepare a meal and I collected all of the empty gourd bottles to fill them. When I asked Dameon for the bottle he kept at his belt, he gave it to me, saying he thought we should carry Dragon into the hot spring pools and immerse her.
“Ana washed her yesterday and she is going to bathe her wounds as soon as I bring some water back,” I said.
He shook his head. “Remember when the healers and empaths were trying to help those poor dogs that Ariel had tormented to near madness?”
I nodded, puzzled. “It did not heal them.”
“No, but Roland used to say that it calmed and soothed them more than anything to be immersed in warm water. I was thinking that if Dragon is still in shock, as my empathy suggests, being immersed in warm water might help her.”
Analivia enthusiastically endorsed the suggestion, saying, “It is true that immersion in warm water can soothe a person in great distress. I have used it sometimes in midwifing, when a birthing is very long or difficult. And the water will completely cleanse her wounds and ease some of her aches and bruises besides.”
“But she once feared water,” I said.
“In which case immersing her may stimulate her memories enough to wake her!” Swallow interjected.
“The reason she feared water was because she either saw her mother drown or jumped from a ship after her mother had been killed before her eyes and almost drowned,” I said sharply. “I do not think that we want to stimulate such memories.”
Analivia’s eyes widened, as did Dameon’s, but the empath said calmly, “I will not allow it to be frightening or alarming. I will get into the water and hold her so that I can better empathize calmness and serenity to her.” He smiled ruefully. “I believe I could do with a bath anyway.”
I was genuinely startled by his words. I knew that empathy worked differently from other Talents, since the demon bands were no bar to it, but I had never heard it said that empaths could use their Talent in the water. In truth the only person I had ever known who could do so was Dragon’s mother, who had been able to communicate with sea creatures. But the others were already beginning to prepare to take Dragon back to the spring caves.
Ahmedri and Swallow lifted her up and bore her effortlessly to the spring Analivia had selected because it was both shallow and not too hot. They left then to prepare a meal and feed the horses, and Dameon stripped down to his smallclothes and climbed into the water. Analivia and I lifted Dragon between us into the water. It had been Analivia’s suggestion that we need not remove her clothes since they were little more than filthy tatters stuck to her wounds. We would be able to remove them less painfully in the water. In the end, I removed my trousers and shirt and climbed into the water to help Analivia bathe and undress her.
Dragon looked very small and battered cradled in Dameon’s muscular arms, and I was almost startled to see how much he had filled out in the last year. I had always seen him as being strong in Talent but as rather soft physically.
When he glanced at me curiously, I swiftly shielded my emotions and focused my attention on Dragon, embarrassed to think the empath might have felt me pondering his body.
Dragon had not made a murmur as we lowered her into the water, nor did she react in any way as we bathed her, though perhaps that was because Dameon had been emanating calmness so strongly that it near sent Analivia and me into a trance. It was only when I noticed blearily that Analivia’s eyelids were drooping that I realized what was happening.
“Dameon! If you keep that up, I am like to fall asleep and drown,” I chided him gently. He looked startled; then he glanced at me and at Analivia and flushed, looking sheepish.
“My apologies,” he said quietly. “I am not usually so careless. It is the water.”
I was about to ask what he meant when Dragon gave a murmur and stirred. We all froze, holding our breath, but she merely settled back to sleep. Yet it was the first time she had done anything but lie as if she were dead and my heart swelled with hope. Analivia began washing her hair again, this time with a gentle soap. As she rinsed it, she marveled aloud at the coppery sheen of the long skeins floating in the water. But then she touched a black and purple bruise on Dragon’s temple gently, and her expression darkened.
I wondered if she was thinking of the bruise
s and wounds she had endured at the hands of her brother.
At last I held Dragon while Dameon got out to dry and dress; then he held her while Analivia dried and dressed her in the fresh clothes we had gathered. This done, she began to comb the girl’s hair, humming softly to herself, while Dameon continued to empathize.
I sank back and turned to float on my back, enjoying the luxury of hot water. I tried to hold on to the calmness that Dameon had unwittingly empathized into me, but I was desperately afraid that, sooner or later, I would have to enter Dragon’s mind to bring her awake again. The last time I had tried it, I had become trapped, and if I had not been able to unlock the dream that held her captive, I would have had to destroy her mind to break free. And when she had woken, she had lost all memory of her time at Obernewtyn and of our friendship.
What would she lose this time if I were forced to take the same course?
Later, when we sat about the fire after eating, I asked Dameon what he had felt when he held Dragon close, for skin contact always increased the sensitivity of a Talent.
“I was mostly empathizing to her, and at first I could only feel her shock like a great wall of ice between us, but gradually it melted and then I felt fear and anger and more fear. I am afraid that she is reliving her journey with Moss.”
My heart sank, for it was the dream of her mother’s betrayal and murder, which had kept replaying over and over, that had trapped her in a coma the first time. What if the same thing happened again? Garth had told me once that the mind formed habits and patterns very quickly.
Dameon reached out unerringly to pat my hand. “Take heart, Elspeth. This sleep feels very different from when Dragon lay in a coma all those months.”
“I hope so,” I muttered, looking over to where Analivia now sat by the horses alongside Dragon’s travois. Darga was stretched out next to her leg, and I thought that, whether he knew it or not, the dog was becoming attached to her. I did not know whether to be glad for him or pity him, given what lay ahead of us.