The Dreamtrails (100 page)

Rushton gave me a sleepy-eyed smile. “Do I hear one of Zarak’s theories?”

I laughed. “Now that you mention it. But really, it makes sense. She gazed at the mountains and talked about Obernewtyn, and that was how the rumor of the wondrous place there began.” I was silent a moment, thinking hard. Then I drew in an excited breath. “What if she remained up in the highlands and eventually bonded and had children? Might they not have talked of her obsession with the mountains, even generations later?”

“You think my illustrious ancestor Lukas Seraphim built Obernewtyn because of stories told to him by
his
ancestor, and then my mother’s mother came to hear of the tale and took to staring at the mountains, too? A very convoluted theory,” Rushton laughed, yawning.

“Rushton, I know it sounds strange, but think of it. If Hannah Seraphim lived through the Great White and had children, they could be your ancestors
on both sides!
Hannah would have been trapped on the other side of the mountains
during the Age of Chaos, and while the worst of the madness was happening in the cities, we know that it was much calmer in remoter regions. Just the same, people from the cities came to the Land, and they brought upheaval and fear enough that a family might easily be scattered and lose one another. If I am right, it would explain your name, Lukas’s determination to build Obernewtyn, and your great-grandmother’s fascination with the mountains.”

I looked at Rushton to see how he had taken my revelations, but his eyes were closed. The slow rise and fall of his chest told me that he was asleep. I glared at him indignantly for a moment and then laughed softly. No matter, for I could not tell him the last part of my speculations: that the main reason Hannah would have yearned to cross the mountains was because she knew her bones were supposed to lie with Jacob’s and with the key Cassy had given her, for the Seeker to find.

Rushton stirred, and I realized he had woken from his drowse when he reached up to capture a strand of my hair in his fingers, distracting me from the wild tumble of my thoughts. “Like silk,” he murmured, stroking it between his fingers. “Black silk.” He reached out, and this time I did not resist as he drew me onto his chest. He studied my face with a hungry longing that made my blood sing.

I said unsteadily, “We are supposed to be preparing for a feast.”

“That is exactly what I am thinking,” he said very purposefully, and his mouth closed on mine.

T
HAT NIGHT WHEN
the moon rose, as ripe and golden as a peach, a desert horn sounded, announcing the start of the night’s festivities. A Sadorian tribeswoman named Kaman had been sent to bring me fresh clothes and desert sandals, saying they were gifts from Jakoby. She had imperiously shooed an amused Rushton out to make his own preparations and sent a boy running off for hot water so she could help me bathe and dress. I had tried to tell her I needed no help, but very politely she made it clear that my wishes were irrelevant, since they conflicted with Jakoby’s command. Seeing no other course than to submit, I had allowed myself somewhat self-consciously to be disrobed, sponged down, and toweled. Then she had oiled my skin in a massage so delicious that I had actually fallen asleep. Which was just as well because the hairdressing that followed had been a very long and wearisome business. I had managed to endure it only because Kaman had begun describing the process of smoking and drying and salting the fish they gathered each year.

It was fascinating, though I asked if she did not fear to eat fish that had washed up dead on the beach. She answered that the fish were not dead when they washed up and that even if one threw a fish back into the waves, it would swim ashore again. I was pondering this, wondering what Ari-noor or Ari-roth would say of this determined suicide, when
Kaman went on to tell me that the tribes believed the fish were regarded as a promise that one day the earth would be healed and that the feast on this night was a thanksgiving for the sea’s bounty, without which the Sadorians would not survive. This was a night, she added, when tribesfolk bestowed gifts upon one another to echo the gifting of the sea.

At last, Kaman pronounced that my hair was finished. At her command, I removed the light wrap I had worn to soak up any excess oil, and she helped me dress in the exquisite blue and green silken robes that Jakoby had sent. They felt beautiful against my skin.

Kaman bowed and departed, which was when I heard the desert horn. I took a deep breath and emerged from the tent. The desert looked like a frozen sea, with waves and troughs filled with greenish shadows running away into the indigo night, and the stars sparkled, despite the moon’s brightness. I drew a long deep breath of the sweet desert air and turned to look at the tents glowing white and billowing slightly. A number of people were walking among them and back toward the trade stalls, and I began to move in the same direction, farseeking Maruman, but he was either sleeping or had boarded the ship. I strove for Gahltha and, finding him wooing a Sadorian mare, withdrew at once, not wanting to interrupt.

“Elspeth?” said a voice. Seely stood with Jakoby and Jak, clad in brown and gold sandsilk robes. Like mine, her hair had been elaborately plaited, and seeing the lovely and intricate design woven into it, I felt less self-conscious about my own hair.

“Both of you look well in desert attire.” Jakoby approved so maternally that I guessed she must have gifted Seely, too, and I thanked her for my own clothes and for sending Kaman. I wanted to ask if she had any news of Bruna, who
must surely be in Templeport, but before I could speak, Jakoby said briskly that we ought to go to the feasting ground, for Jak must make his speech to the tribe leaders before Bram spoke. She took Jak’s arm and drew him a little ahead with her as she began explaining the formalities that must be observed when presenting his gift of taint-eating insects. Jak said it was not so much a gift to the tribes as to the earth.

“Nevertheless,” said Jakoby, “you must present the insects in this way, for what you propose to do will change the earth, and that is a very serious thing in our eyes. Indeed, you must present your gift specifically to the Earthtemple.”

It dawned on me belatedly that Jakoby intended the teknoguilder to present his gift this night, and Seely confirmed this, saying that Jakoby had suggested it, for this was a night of gift-giving, and was not the bestowing of Jak’s insects a gifting?

We were now passing through the trading area where numerous stalls and tables were laden with everything from oranges to glimmering stones, perfumes in tiny bottles, feather sunshades, and great soft bolts of sandsilk. Surprisingly few people were buying and browsing, but when I saw the number of people crossing the stretch of sand to our same destination, I realized that all Sadorians would attend the feast. The distance was not great, and soon I could see fifty enormous bonfires dug in a semicircle facing a long semicircular table at which sat all the tribe leaders. Fire pits and tables formed a complete circle, with two halves facing one another, and people sat about the fire pits on woven mats. The smell of cooking food was strong, and I realized that much of it was buried in the embers of the fire pits. But there were also young Sadorian boys and girls, beaming with
pride, moving around the fire pits with trays of cold food and ceramic mugs of fement.

“Come,” Jakoby said to Jak, and the teknoguilder smiled reassuringly at a suddenly anxious-looking Seely, saying he would join her soon.

We were close to the last fire pit, and there were plenty of empty woven mats set down. Just as we took our places, Jakoby called for silence. Seeing Jak standing nervously beside the tribeswoman, I realized that the teknoguilder would speak immediately, and my stomach clenched in sympathy. To his credit, Jak looked pale but composed as Bram rose to present him to the tribes as a senior Misfit of Obernewtyn, explaining that on this night of thanksgiving, Jak wished to present a gift to the Earthtemple on behalf of his people, the Misfits.

Then the old man took his seat. I knew Jak had no taste for speaking nor any particular skill at it, but he spoke without pretense and with care, and although his voice shook at first, it steadied as he became absorbed in explaining his interest in the shining insects that inhabited dark wet caves in the Land and his discovery that the tiny creatures could consume tainted matter and transform it within their bodies so that it was harmless. He told how he had conceived a plan to breed the insects until they were capable of surviving in the open, in the hope of being able to set them loose on the edge of the Blacklands to begin the massive task of undoing the damage that had been done to the earth. But all Blacklands were arid, and the tiny insects needed cool, dark, damp surroundings to thrive in their natural state; therefore, they would have to be bred to tolerate dryness and even heat. His research had been completed during his exile in the West land when he had finally succeeded in breeding a hardier if less long-lived form of the insect.

“Given your reverence for the earth and your belief that healing is possible,” Jak said, “it seems more than fitting to me that this is where I will release my insects. Therefore, I offer my insects and my skill in settling them here in the desert lands as a gift to the Earthtemple.”

The wording was formal and careful, and there was almost no response to his speech, save that the silence seemed very concentrated. Jakoby rose smoothly from the place she had taken at the end of the table and went to stand beside Jak, saying, “I would like to thank the teknoguilder Jak, who has brought to the desert lands a gift of even more extraordinary importance than he can guess, for his gift fulfills an old prophecy that says a day will come when the earth begins to heal itself, and from that day, no woman shall immerse herself in an isis pool. For once Jak releases the insects, it may truly be said that the earth has begun to heal itself.”

I saw by Jak’s expression that he had not expected this announcement, and I suspected it was the same with Bram, though he was too canny to show his reactions openly. Other tribal leaders muttered and scowled to one another. Then a woman’s voice shouted out to accuse Jakoby of deliberately misinterpreting the prophecy because of her obsession with ending the practice of immersions.

“It does not matter to you that other women do not fear the immersion, Jakoby, for in suffering, we show our allegiance to the wounded earth.”

“The earth did not choose to be poisoned, Galia.”

There was an uproar at this, with cries of anger and distress from the audience, and shouts that the immersions did not signify choosing to be poisoned but a sharing of the earth’s pain.

Jakoby heard the latter and swung on the woman who had
spoken. “And what of the babes who are deformed by this wondrous sharing, for it is they who must bear the burden of their mother’s choice,” she said icily.

There was another outcry, and then a man called out to ask how the Earthtemple would survive if there were no more deformed babies to serve as Temple guardians.

Jakoby’s eyes flashed, as if she had been waiting for this question. She said grimly to the man, “And now the truth comes to show its face. Are there no whole Sadorians who will offer themselves in service to the Earthtemple? Only those born maimed and crippled are worthy to serve the earth?”

The ensuing hum of talk was less angry and more confused, but now Bram rose to say with authority and finality that this was a night of thanksgiving and not for angry debates. The gift offered by Jak had been properly announced, and the overguardian of the Earthtemple would either accept or spurn it. There was some low muttering, but Bram called to the chanters to offer the Song of the Fish in praise of the sea, and soon their voices drowned out any protest.

“What was all that about?” Seely whispered worriedly when the chant ended some minutes later and we had both been served mugs of a sweet light fement.

“The Sadorians feel it is an honor for a woman to offer herself to the isis pools once a year. They are tainted, and by risking the health of any child they might be carrying, many Sadorians believe that they are showing their solidarity with the wounded earth. Any child born with deformities is given as a gift to the Earthtemple, where it will be cared for and trained up as a guardian,” I said.

“And this prophecy Jakoby spoke of. Who made it?”

“I do not know who prophesied it, but no doubt it was one
of the kasanda. It is only Jakoby’s opinion that Jak’s insects fulfill the prophecy.”

“You would think that the people here would be grateful that they need not risk their unborn children,” Seely said indignantly.

“Some probably would be, but the immersions have become tradition, and people do not like breaking traditions. And, of course, they fear what will happen to the Earthtemple. For them, the deformities are natural in the guardians. They revere the guardians and are guided by them. A person deformed by reverence to the earth is no ordinary person. But to have an ordinary man or woman as a guardian or even an overguardian?” I shook my head.

“A tradition based on harming unborn children is wrong,” Seely said.