Eleanor (43 page)

“Me neither – if we can take the quick route, let’s do it,” Freddie agreed.

Conlan glared at her and then at Will; closing the book with a sharp snap, he thrust it back into Eleanor’s hands.
 

They did not exactly sneak past the Central Tower, but Eleanor felt like that was what they were doing, coming close enough that she could see its soaring height in the distance. Conlan and Will were wound up so tightly that Eleanor could feel their anxiety creeping through her body, leaving her tense and fearful and jumping at every unfamiliar noise or movement. They travelled mostly in silence; the conversations they did have were terse and whispered. Eleanor found that they were talking in each other’s heads more and more; Conlan noticed and did not seem particularly happy about it. The denser population meant that finding out-of-the-way places to camp was becoming harder and harder, and they were forced to use Eleanor’s dwindling supply of money to stay in various inns in the towns and villages they moved through.
 

Had she not been in an almost constantly elevated state of fear, Eleanor would have found their journey fascinating. The landscape was a slowly undulating, neat patchwork of fields stretching out in front of her. She had no idea what the crops were, but fields of dark yellow, purple and gold stood out among the greens and browns. Eleanor had quietly asked Conlan if he knew what was being grown; she decided he probably did, although his response of ‘Do I look like a farmer?’ had not been very helpful. The towns they moved through ranged from opulent, on the level of the richer parts of Baydon, to miserably impoverished. After Conlan’s comments she had expected broken, despairing people like those she had seen in Baydon’s slums, and while this was certainly the case in some places, it was not true of everyone they met. The main roads were busy with merchants moving carts and wagons between the thronging towns, well-dressed men and women riding past on beautiful, highly-strung horses and large dogs trotting obediently at their sides. Farmers moving herds of cows and black-horned sheep occasionally blocked the way. They even passed a troop of brightly dressed players who practiced their juggling skills in time to the cheerful sound of a flute. Nearly everyone they passed smiled and nodded polite greetings or, in the case of the merchants, tried to sell them something. They also met patrols of twenty or thirty Protectors, who forced all traffic on the road into the ditches on either side as they marched past, but not a single Protector gave them so much as a sideways glance.
 

Five weeks of hard riding during the day and they made it through the area Conlan considered ‘dangerous’ and out the other side. Eleanor had no idea what they were going to do on the way back, as she had money left for maybe one or two nights in an inn for the five of them, but that was a worry for later. The towns and villages they passed through became sporadic and spaced further apart, and they were able to start camping again. Signs of cottage industry and agriculture began to disappear from the landscape, and Mydren reverted to the natural beauty Eleanor loved – vast virgin forests, grassy, rolling hills and a profusion of wild flowers. They travelled west for several weeks, eventually meeting a wide, fast-flowing river. This was one of the five rivers that led to the waterfall she had seen in her dreams and in the book; they followed it southwest along its banks.

The sun had dipped to the warm, golden glow that preceded sunset, when they saw the great lake in the distance. Fed by five separate rivers, the lake sat in a bowl of land, steep sloping hills rising up on all sides. It reminded Eleanor of the high lake at home and she felt a pang of homesickness; how beautiful their lake would look in the warm summer sun. At the far side there was a gap in the hills, and the water ran up to the edge, looking like an enormous infinity pool.
The waterfall.
The land where the lake sat and the rivers met dropped away on the other side of the waterfall, a cliff edge slipping hundreds of feet straight down.
God’s front doorstep.
Instinctively reaching out an energy string, Eleanor investigated the underlying rock strata and found, far below them, a fault line where the earth had just slipped at some point. Eleanor tried to work out from the rocks how long ago that had been, but the strata was too messed up, too complicated – the earth was singing in the wrong key. It felt stable now, as the pressure was currently much further east. She had felt it in their morning meditations, but she also felt how easy it would be to destabilise the fault, to apply a small amount of energy in the right place and Mydren would split itself apart. This was something they were going to have to factor in to their balancing efforts.
 

They moved round the edge of the water towards the waterfall, having to cross two of the wide, deep, lazily-flowing rivers which fed the lake. At the first river Eleanor was pleased to discover that Horse was an excellent swimmer and followed as she was led across with little trouble, although Eleanor felt an idiot with a bag on her head holding her books, sword and dagger so they did not get wet. Conlan, of course, had no problems at all, because Rand was a marvel on four legs. He did not even have to dismount and sat waist-high in water, holding his book, boot knife and sword above his head, a smug grin on his face. Freddie and Amelia had some difficulties, but they eventually managed to negotiate the water. Unfortunately Will’s horse was having none of it and refused point blank to get so much as a hoof wet. Stripping Rand of everything but his bridal in an effort to reduce water damage, Conlan headed back across the river. Will handed him his sketchpad, pencils, playing cards and sword so that Conlan could ferry them back across the river to the safety of dry land. Then Will tried dragging the moody, black animal into the water. Freddie laughed until he cried over Will’s efforts and Conlan’s dry comment on the irony of the Avatar of Water’s horse being afraid to swim almost finished him off. Wanting to be slightly more helpful, Amelia suggested from the far bank that Will go into the horse’s mind and encourage it to cross the river. As he tried this, the horse reared back and then plunged forward and bit his arm, pulling as far back from him as Will’s grip on the reins would allow, eyes wild and nostrils flaring. After giving them a dirty look from across the water, he shrugged a ‘what now?’ expression. Wondering what was wrong with the animal, Eleanor warned Will that she was going to try talking to it and he should watch out, just in case it tried to bite him again. Gently, carefully, Eleanor entered the frightened creature’s mind. It was a spinning tornado of terror and confusion. Sending out a steady stream of calming, encouraging feelings the spinning finally slowed down, revealing a memory of falling into a river and nearly drowning when the horse had been a foal. All water was bad and to be avoided. While the horse liked Will he was not going in the water for him. Using Will’s trick, Eleanor wrapped the animal’s consciousness in a soft, numbing cocoon of calming love, insulating it from its fear and separating it from reality – lightly anaesthetising it. She then very softly but insistently called it to her. She watched, focused on nothing but the horse, as it walked slowly into the water, its wide eyes holding a relaxed, vacant look. It had a brief moment of panic as the riverbed fell away and it had to swim, but Eleanor sent it calm instructions on what to do, adding layers to the insulation she had placed around its mind. It reached the bank, pulling itself out of the water to stand in front of her, dripping, shivering and confused as to how it got there. Will, who had swum after it, pulled himself out of the water and up the bank, giving Eleanor an odd look.
 

“What?” she asked.

“How did you do that? How do you even make sense of what’s in its head?” he asked, taking the animal’s reins and giving it an exasperated glance.

“I just looked at its thoughts, they’re mostly pictures,” Eleanor answered.
 

“I couldn’t do it, it was like trying to understand modern art; I know I should be able to see something in it, but it’s just a confusing mess. I could see the nasty beast had thoughts, but they made no sense,” Will said as Amelia tried to inspect the bite on his arm.

Eleanor frowned. “He’s not nasty; in fact, he likes you and feels guilty about biting you. He was just frightened. He fell in a river as a baby and nearly drowned, so now he quite sensibly avoids water.”

“Oh… How did you know that? I’m meant to be the mind-meld guy, so why couldn’t I see that?” Will asked, irritated with himself. Eleanor shrugged.

“Maybe you can just talk to fish,” Conlan ventured with a totally straight face, looking mildly surprised when Freddie fell over laughing again.

At the next river Will waited until they had all crossed, and when Eleanor offered to help him he gave her a smug smile and closed his eyes. Eleanor watched in amazement as the river in front of her began to slow. It was as if Will had drawn a line across the water – the river on one side of it stopped flowing, the water on the other side continued to move, draining away into the lake and leaving a wall of water, the river on one side and an almost dry riverbed on the other. Not opening his eyes, his face a mask of total concentration, Will kicked his heels, urging his horse forward. The animal gave the wall of water, gently tumbling and rolling in on itself, a frightened glance, but did as it was told, Will trusting it to pick its way across the riverbed and up the bank. The horse stopped when it reached the other side, and with a shuddering sigh Will let his concentration go. The wall of water collapsed and the river rushed in to fill the void, soon resuming its normal pace, as if it had never been stopped.

“Show off,” Conlan said, but he did not look surprised.
He’s seen Will do this before
, Eleanor realised, still trying to understand what she had just witnessed. Freddie’s look of impressed amazement matched her own; Amelia, however, looked worried and annoyed.
 

“Wow, that was so cool!” Freddie said, staring at Will in admiration.

“If you can do that, why are we getting wet?” Eleanor asked.

“Because what he just did takes every ounce of his strength and he shouldn’t be doing it at all,” Amelia muttered, moving her horse towards Will as he slumped forward in his saddle. She managed to reach him before he fell to the ground and helped him to stay upright while he took slow deep breaths.

Freddie was still staring. “Really, Will, very cool – just like Moses.”

Will raised his head and smiled faintly, his eyes unfocused.

“I don’t understand,” Eleanor said, her ever-churning mind spitting out questions and filling her head with confusion. “In our balancing sessions I’ve felt Will manipulate the water flow of far bigger stretches of water, and that didn’t do this to him.”

Will gave her a long appraising look. “Eleanor, changing the flow of water is easy; a small nudge, an alternative route, letting it do what it does anyway but just in a different direction. What I just did was stop the flow, I made water do something it doesn’t naturally do. Could you stop the earth turning?” Eleanor shook her head, shocked by the concept. Will nodded and continued in a slow, tired voice. “When I stopped the river flowing I held back the weight of the whole river, held the molecules within it, from here all the way to the river’s source. That’s a lot of water, and it takes a lot of effort.”

“Really? Totally awesome,” Freddie whispered as Amelia glared at him.

“Don’t encourage him!” she snapped.

There was an uncomfortable silence, broken by Conlan’s confused question.
 

“Who is Moses?”

They set up camp under a large tree by the side of the lake, where the bank slid gently into the water via a rocky beach. They built a large fire and made racks so they could dry their clothes and bags. Eleanor, still damp, pulled her boots and leather wrist cuff off and went swimming with Amelia and Freddie. The water was cool, deliciously so, and made her nerves tingle, washing away the dust and aches of travel. Without having to worry about Horse or getting her books wet, Eleanor was able to enjoy the experience. Amelia tried to get Will to rest, but it lasted ten minutes before he came to join them, unable to resist the obvious pleasure that being immersed in water gave him. After much badgering they even convinced Conlan to stop oiling Rand’s saddle and get wet again, splashing and playing, Conlan trying and failing to beat Will in a swimming race. Moving away from the boisterous play of the others Eleanor relaxed, floating on her back, her soaking clothes sticking to her body and trapping air bubbles so they tickled as they moved around her body, looking for release. Above her the delicate pinks and oranges of sunset streaked the sky with colour.
So beautiful.
She could feel the tug of the current as it moved towards the waterfall’s deadly drop, but she was too far away for it to be a concern, as their little beach was sheltered by a small, natural harbour. The sun dropped and Eleanor began to feel cold; the fire looked inviting and she swam to shore, avoiding Freddie who seemed to be on a mission to dunk everyone.
A strange quest for the Avatar of Fire.
Clothes heavy, dripping and clinging, and hair plastered back against her head, Eleanor pulled herself out of the water. As she stood up she was able to see out over the lip of the waterfall to the land hundreds of feet below. She could hear the water crashing down, recognising the noise from her dreams with a shudder.

The next morning, Conlan and Freddie spent several hours scouting out a way down to the bottom of the waterfall as Eleanor, Will and Amelia packed up the camp. To take the easiest route they travelled several miles down from the waterfall, where the cliffs were not as steep. They moved carefully, leading their horses while moving along narrow, rock-strewn pathways. It took the better part of the day to reach the bottom, but fortunately it was not as hot as it had been; the sky now overcast with threatening dark-grey clouds. Conlan asked Amelia if she could stop the imminent storm, as it was hard enough moving down the cliffside without water making everything slippery. Amelia examined the clouds and was confident that they would make it to the bottom before it started raining. The entire journey was a terrifying, nerve-wracking experience for Eleanor, as the drops were horrendous and the ground rushed to meet her from dizzying heights. She kept a firm hold of Horse’s reins, letting the brave animal offer her comfort and support and trying her best to focus on just the ground in front of her.