The Seeker (8 page)

He hesitated, then unlocked the door. “Out yer get, then,” he said.

Thanking him profusely, I did as he bade, and he relocked the carriage, muttering about children. I stood blinking at
him. “Go round th’ back. Ye can eat there. Mind ye don’t wander.” Thanking him again, I hastened away, thinking many of the late-night callers at my father’s house had spoken like this, with a slow, singsong lilt. They had looked like this man, too, gnarled and brown with kind eyes.

There was a pretty, unkempt garden out behind the hostel, and I scoured it for a spot under one of the trees.

“Least you/Elspeth could do is share food/meal,” came a plaintive thought. I jumped to my feet in fright, dropping the food parcel. Maruman rushed forward and sniffed it tenderly. “Now look what you have done.”

I stared at him, unable to believe my eyes. “What … how did you get here?” Maruman gave me a sly cat-look and fell to tearing at the parcel. I sat back, my own appetite forgotten.

“I came with you,” he told me as he ate. “In the box with wheels, on the back. I am very clever,” he added smugly.

I burst out laughing; then I looked around in fright, because my laughter had sounded so loud.

“You took a terrible risk,” I sent. “What if you had been seen?”

“I had to come/follow,” he sent. “Innle must be protected.”

I looked into his eyes, but there was no sign of madness. “You won’t be able to come all the way to Obernewtyn,” I sent. “The carriage goes over tainted ground.”

“I will stay here, and you will come to me.”

I shook my head impatiently. “Obernewtyn is like a cage. I won’t be allowed to do as I please.”

Unperturbed, Maruman began cleaning one of his paws. “You will come,” he sent at last. “Maruman does not like the mountains. I smell the white there.”

“Well, how will you live here?” I asked him.

He gave me a scornful look; Maruman had, after all, lived a good many years before meeting me. Just the same, I reflected, he was not a young cat, and then there were his fits of madness. Finishing his ablutions, he curled in my lap and went to sleep.

I thought of what I had said to Daffyd, the boy in the Councilcourt. I had not meant it then, but now I seriously considered escaping. I could run off; it would be far easier here than it would have been in Sutrium. I could find work in some remote hamlet and keep Maruman with me. The thought of escape made me feel breathless.

My mother once had bought a wild bird from an old man who caught the poor things. We hadn’t much money, but she had a soft heart. He had given her the oldest bird, an ugly creature he had had for some time. She had opened the cage to let it fly away. But it was a poor half-starved thing and would not go even when prodded. It died there, huddled in the corner of the cage. My mother had said it had been caged for too long. Neither Jes nor I had understood then, but I wondered if, like that bird, I had been caged too long to contemplate freedom.

A voice called my name. Maruman woke immediately. He leapt from my knee and melted into the shadows just as the coachman and a woman came onto the porch of the hostel. The old man blinked, and I sensed he had seen Maruman, but he said nothing. The woman turned to him. “Just as well for you that she did not wander away.” She flicked her hand at me. “Get into the carriage.”

I followed them to the road with an inward sigh, noticing the horses had been changed. The woman climbed heavily into the seat and glared at me as she settled herself.

“I am Guardian Hester,” she said.

I waited, but she seemed to feel it was beneath her to say more. She yawned several times and soon seemed bored. Eventually she took a small vial from her pocket, uncorked it, and drank the contents. I recognized the bitter odor of the sleep drug. In a short time, she was dozing.

After leaving Guanette, the country grew steadily steeper. The road was still well cobbled, but it became progressively more narrow and winding. The coachman maneuvered carefully around the bends, for on one side was a sharp drop to a darkly wooded valley extending as far as the eye could see. It was slow going, and after about an hour, he pulled the coach over to the right of the road to fetch the horses water from a spring. I called out to him.

“Hey,” he grumbled as he came to the window and peered in at me. “Is that my name, then?”

“I’m sorry. No one tells us names. Can I ride up there with you?”

Predictably he shook his head, peering in at the guardian’s sleeping form. “If ye were alone, maybe I would let ye,” he said softly. “But if she were to waken an’ see ye gone …” He shook his head in anticipation of the coals of wrath that would be heaped on his head.

“But she won’t wake for hours. She took some of that sleep stuff.” I poked her hard to show him I spoke the truth.

He ruminated for a moment, then took out his keys.

“Oh, thank you,” I gasped, astounded at my luck.

“Well fine of me it is,” he agreed. “But she better not wake, or I’ll be in deep troubles.” He finished watering the horses while I capered in the crisp highland air. “Enoch,” the coachman said suddenly.

“Pardon?” I said.

“Enoch, girl,” he repeated. “That’s my name.” He helped
me up onto the seat beside him, and I felt a thrill as he clicked his tongue and the coach began to move.

“My name …,” I began to say, then stopped. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to know my name. Misfits, after all, weren’t supposed to be quite human.

“Your name?” he prompted; encouraged, I told him. He nodded and then pointed to the valley to the west. “That’s the White Valley.”

I stared, thinking that Maruman would not like the name. Enoch went on. “Many have gone to that valley in search of refuge, but it ain’t a friendly place. Strange animals rove there, an’ they don’t love men.”

“Maybe that’s where Henry Druid perished,” I said, to see how he would respond.

The old man gave me a sharp look. “Accordin’ to yon Council, he died in the highlands, true enow, an’ some say they have seen his ghost walk. Me, I dinna believe in ghosts.” He saw my quick look of interest, and his expression went bland.

I looked at the wood and wondered whether the Druid still lived.

“That were a fine cat,” the coachman said presently. “Some don’t like cats. Reckon they’re incapable of love or loyalty, but I dinna agree. A cat can love, fierce as any beast.”

“He’s not a very pretty cat,” I said hesitantly.

The old man grinned. “All that’s fine is nowt necessarily fair. Look at me. But as a matter of fact, I thought that cat a handsome creature.” He glanced at me. “I’ve a good mind to have a bit of a look for him. Maybe he’d fancy living with me. Of course, he might not take to me.”

“Oh, he will!” I cried. “I am sure of it.”

The coachman grinned and nodded, and we rode for some
distance in companionable silence. Perhaps Enoch would find Maruman. I hoped so.

The valley was lost to sight at last as we wound into the mountains. “That stuff would kill a pig,” said the coachman. He jerked his head back to where the guardian slept. “Now, me mam gave us herbs when we couldn’t sleep. Good natural things. That were good enough for us.”

“But herb lore is banned,” I said.

He looked taken aback. “An’ so it is. Damned if I didn’t forget fer a minute. But it weren’t so when I were a lad.” He paused, seemingly struck by the oddness of something that had been a good thing in his youth but which had since become evil in the eyes of the community. Finally, he sighed as if the problem were unresolvable. “Things were different then,” he said.

Looking around, he pointed again to where we had come back into the open. The mountains hid the White Valley from us, but there was a broad plain on the other side of the road. “Th’ land hereabout is Darthnor, and th’ village of Darthnor is that way,” Enoch said, nodding to the east. I stared but could see no sign of any settlement. “ ’Tis a strange place,” he said, “an’ I say so even though I were born there. None dwell in these parts but a few shepherds. Those in the village are mostly miners, but I reckon th’ ground here is tainted, so I dinna go under it as me father did before me.” He looked sad. Then his expression sharpened and he brought the coach to a halt.

“Ye’ll have to get in now. Soon we come to tainted ground, an’ the vapors are pure poison,” he said.

Regretfully I climbed down and held the horses while the coachman tied rags around their noses and faces, and bags on their hooves.

“Won’t you get sick?” I asked. He shook his head, saying that he would be all right for the short time we would be on tainted earth. Nonetheless, he tied a scarf around his face before leading me back to the carriage.

Suddenly he gave a shout and pointed up. I looked but saw nothing.

“That were a Guanette bird,” he explained. “Ye missed it, an’ that’s a shame, for ’tis a rare sight.”

“A Guanette bird?” I gaped, thinking I had misheard him. “I thought they were extinct.”

Enoch shook his head. “Nowt extinct, but I guess it might be better to be thought so. They’re rare, and rare things are hunted. That village back there were named after them by the first Master of Obernewtyn, Sirrah Lukas Seraphim. A grand queer man he must have been to make his home up there with the Blacklands all round. His grandson is master up there now.”

There was a subtly different note in his voice at the mention of the present Master of Obernewtyn.

“Have you seen him?” I asked, hoping to elicit further information.

“He never comes down from the mountains,” said the coachman. A strange look crossed his face, but it was so brief I thought I had imagined it.

“In ye go,” he said. I clambered into the carriage. On the verge of locking the door again, Enoch hesitated. “Look, if ye be special fond of animals, I’ve a friend of sorts up there. His name be Rushton. Tell him I vouch for ye, an’ maybe he’ll find a job ye’ll like.”

But before I could thank him, he had locked me in, and the carriage lurched as he resumed his seat.

8

I
DREAMED
.

In my dream, I was somewhere cold and darkly quiet. I could hear water dripping, and I was afraid, though I didn’t know why. I seemed to be waiting for something.

In the distance, there was a bright flash of light. A feeling of urgency made me hasten toward the light, stumbling over uneven ground I could not see. A high-pitched whining noise filled the air like a scream, but no one could scream for so long without stopping to breathe. I sensed danger, but the compulsion to find the light overrode my instincts. Again it flashed, apparently no closer than before. I could not tell what the source was, though it was obviously unnatural.

All at once, a voice spoke inside me. Shocked, I skidded to a halt, for it was a human voice.

“Tell me,” the voice said. “Tell me.”

There was a sharp pain behind my eyes, and I flinched in astonishment that a voice could hurt me, understanding at the same time that the whining noise and the voice inside me were connected. I turned to run, at last obeying the urge to escape. Then the ground beneath me burst into flames, and I screamed.

I woke and stared wildly about, my heart thundering even as the nightmare faded. I could feel perspiration on my hands
and back. I lay there trying to think what such a dream might mean. I rarely dreamed so intensely.

It was dark, and bruised purple clouds scudded across the sky. A distant cracking noise heralded the coming storm, and within moments, a flash of lightning illuminated the barren landscape. There was a rumble of thunder, then another crack, and this time the scent of charred wood drifted in through the window. I pitied Enoch and hoped Maruman was somewhere safe.

I sensed the unease of the animals, and with each crash of thunder, their tension grew; yet I had the odd impression it was not the storm but something else that unnerved them. There was another loud crash, very close, and a log fell right alongside the carriage.

The horses’ suppressed terror erupted, and they bolted, plunging along the road at a mad pace, jerking the coach after them like some doomed creature being dragged to its death. I could hear Enoch’s blasphemous thoughts as he fought to control the maddened team.