The Dreamtrails (40 page)

“You are a healer?” the One quavered, his eyes flickering fearfully to Sover.

“I am not gifted, as Ariel is, but I can help you, Master,” the coercer said gently. “If you will permit me to touch your head?”

“No! No!” The One cringed back; then he screamed, a horrible thin sound that made the hair on my neck rise. “Yes …,” he gasped. “Help me.”

Sover placed a gentle hand on the old man’s brow, and as the One sank back with an exhausted exhalation, the coercer’s face contorted with empathised pain. His expression gradually became one of intense concentration.

“It is working,” Colwyn murmured. I forced myself to relax as we waited. Then Sover turned to nod.

“Master,” Falc said. I had made him sound too eager and modified his tone before continuing. “Master, I fear that our good Ariel places himself in danger. Surely Lud cannot have intended that.”

The One stirred and mumbled, “No man can presume to know Lud’s intention.”

I decided to risk a direct question. “Can the gain of this dangerous mission be worth the risk?”

The One stirred irritably under his quilts. “I have told you, fool. There is no danger as long as Ariel does not linger after leaving the null ashore. The sickness will not become infectious for some days.”

Sover gave me a horrified look, and the One groaned. Immediately, the coercer returned his attention to the older man.

“A plague,” Ode hissed into my ear. “It can be nowt else. It were always rumored that the Herders were responsible for the first plague.”

I nodded. “But one in three were affected, and only a third of those became seriously ill. Fewer still died.”

“Then it is a different plague,” Colwyn said. “One that kills three in three if all are to die.”

“Why?” Ode asked. “What possible use can it be to th’ Faction to kill everyone on the west coast?” His voice had risen
in his agitation, and the One heard him but appeared not to realize that someone other than Falc had spoken.

“Lud’s will is not to be questioned,” he answered dreamily in his strange girlish voice. “He used pestilence in the Beforetime to signal his divine wrath, and he showed Ariel where the plague seeds were hid upon Norseland. All who look upon the desolation that will result from this plague shall know the power of Lud’s wrath. And the west coast will be purified so it can be populated with the pure of heart who worship Lud and obey his servants.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Colwyn hissed. “Why invade one part of the Land if you intend to unleash the ultimate lesson on the rest?”

I could not think past the horror of a sickness deadly enough to kill everyone on the west coast.
Everyone
. “He must be stopped!” I said. “Ask him where the null is to be taken on the west coast.”

Sover obeyed, but the One spoke only of a city where sickness would spread like wildfire.

“He means one of the cities,” Ode said.

“Even if we could sail the
Stormdancer
within the hour, it would take days to visit and search every city on the west coast,” Colwyn said. “And we have no idea what this null even looks like!”

“We need not search every city. We need only put into every port and ask if the
Black Ship
has been there. And Ariel can only just have got to Norseland. He has yet to travel to the west coast before he can think of coming back here. That will give us a couple days’ grace. Send someone to find out if Veril has news of the shipfolk yet.” I stopped, horrified to realize that I was on the verge of tears, for aside from the thousands of innocent people who would die if Ariel succeeded, among
them would be Merret, Jak, Dell, and Ode’s sister Desda, all of whom I had sent to the west coast. Mastering my emotions, I turned to Sover. “Keep trying to find out where the null will be taken.”

Sover nodded, his expression blank with dismay.

I left the bedchamber and found Harwood focused on Mendi, but Yarrow, Geratty, and the others turned to look at me as I entered the firelit audience chamber, followed by Colwyn.

“What is happening?” Yarrow asked.

I gathered my wits and told them, seeing their faces reflect the shattered dismay I felt. Harwood had ceased probing Mendi, and he asked in disbelief, “Did you say
everyone
will die?”

“Everyone,” I said, and I seemed to hear the high mocking sound of Ariel’s laughter.

“S
OMEONE MUST GO
to Fallo to speak with the shipfolk,” I said when Veril arrived to say that the shipfolk had not been brought into the compound, even though a number of Hedra had been sent to summon them. None of us could imagine why they had not yet returned, unless the Norselanders had fled rather than be brought in. The more I thought about it, the more likely this seemed, for what had the Norselanders to lose by fighting?

“I will go,” Yarrow volunteered.

“It will take an hour to reach the gate from here.” I fumed. “We need somewhere more central as a base.”

Harwood touched my arm, and I turned to see that one of the shadows had risen. The boy beckoned and went on silent feet to the dressing room. I followed, intrigued. He went through into the bathing chamber and crossed to the wall behind the bath. Then, to my amazement, he slid open a panel to reveal a dark stairwell. As I went to the opening, he stepped onto the first step and pointed down. Seeing the thin wrists, delicate hands, and slender neck, I realized suddenly what I ought to have seen sooner: the shadow was a
girl
. She began to descend the steps, indicating that I should follow.

“Be careful,” Colwyn called down after me uneasily. Stopping, I glanced back and saw that he and the other coercers had followed us into the bathing room, along with the other
shadows, and now I saw clearly that all were starveling girls. I turned to the shadow who had led me to the stairs. “You know that I am a Misfit, don’t you?” I asked her aloud. “That which the Herders call a cursed mutant.”

She nodded, and I was surprised to see no fear in her eyes. Perhaps she had not understood me clearly. I said, “I am called mutant by the Herders, because I have the power to speak inside another person’s thoughts and to hear their thoughts as well. If you will permit me, I can enter your mind and speak with your thoughts.”

The girl seemed to consider this carefully and nodded, coming back up the steps.

“My name is Elspeth Gordie,” I sent, and some impulse made me coerce an image of us both in her mind. She gasped in astonishment as my image smiled reassuringly at her image.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“I … I can’t … oh, I am
speaking
!” Her image lifted its hands to its mouth, and she wept.

“Your name?” I prompted gently when she had recovered herself. Shyly, enunciating very carefully, she told me.

“Cinda,” I repeated aloud.

An incredulous smile broke over her pale little face, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks and nodded. From the corner of my eye, I saw the other shadows clutch at one another in evident excitement. Concentrating, I forespoke her image for some time, then she led me down the stairs, where, as she had explained to me, a discreet door opened into an obscure corner of a vast laundry built up against the wall surrounding the compound. Through a door and windows on the opposite side of the laundry chamber, I could see into a walled yard with washing lines strung from one side of the
wall to the other. Cinda explained that a gate in this lesser wall led directly to the main body of the compound. From here, it was only a short walk to the black gates.

When we returned to the others, I explained what she had told me, adding that if it were true, we could remain in the One’s quarters. Then I charged Yarrow and Veril to go to Fallo, find the Norseland crew of the
Stormdancer
, and bring back Lark’s father at all speed. They took Grisyl and were to collect Asra and the coerced Hedra from the barracks on the way, in case they needed a fighting force. After they had gone, using the bathing-room steps, I sent Hilder to the watch-hut atop the wall that overlooked the channel, bidding him let me know the moment he saw a ship boat coming back across. I also told him to let Tomrick in the other watch-hut know what had been happening.

Harwood then ordered Geratty, Colwyn, Reuvan, and Ode to sleep, for we had all been up for many hours and must begin sleeping in shifts if we were to have our wits about us. Sover he bade sleep in the One’s chamber in case the One woke and might be questioned further.

“I daresay it is tasteless of me, but I am too hungry to sleep,” grumbled Geratty.

“We all need to eat,” Harwood agreed, and he asked Cinda, who hovered close by, how the One got his meals. She looked at me, and I entered her mind to learn there was a kitchen that served all in this sector of the compound. Ode went with Cinda and four other shadows to coerce a proper meal out of the kitchen workers. They soon returned with pease pudding, bread, and some queer sour vegetables, and we ate hungrily. We had just finished when Hilder brought news from Veril. Two of those sent out by Mendi to fetch the Norselanders had returned to the compound.

“Veril coerced them,” Hilder said. “We were right about the Norselanders guessing what the Hedra intended. The village where they lived was deserted when they arrived. The villagers have taken refuge in the swamp, and the Hedra have been searching for them, to no avail.”

“Have Veril and the others left?” I asked.

“They have, but I can reach them from the watch-hut before they cross the channel,” Hilder said.

“Do it,” I said at once. “Tell them that they probably cannot reach the Norselanders because according to the shipmaster’s boy, the swamp is full of tainted patches. Tell Veril to go to one of the other villages. Have them ask for the Per and tell him everything. He may even know how to find Helvar.”

Hilder nodded and departed at once. As I turned to speak to Harwood, Cinda came to me shyly with a battered pair of shoes such as shadows wore. I accepted them gratefully, and as I sat to pull them on, I noticed the other shadows watching with sorrowful expressions. I set aside my apprehensions for a moment to enter Cinda’s mind and ask why they were so sad; they need not fear they would be left behind when we sailed away to the Land.

“They do not fear being left,” Cinda’s image explained. “Many of us were taken from the west coast, and although none of us had any hope of returning to our families, we grieve at the thought of their being harmed.”

Full of pity for them as I was, it suddenly occurred to me that the ubiquitous shadows might have heard something said that would help us find the null more swiftly. With this in mind, I bade them come and sit with me by the fire. As they obeyed, Sover entered to say that the One had awakened briefly, but in his opinion, the old man did not know where the null was to be left ashore.

“I think the whole idea of a plagued null was Ariel’s notion,” he added. “The One said that he found plague seeds in some Beforetime storage place, and from what I can make out, he presented to the One the idea of sending a null infected with plague as if it had come to him from Lud. The fact that it would involve a lot of death seems to have made it especially pleasing to the One.”

“With Ariel, there might be no intention, save the desire to use what he has created,” I said grimly.

Sover ran his fingers through his thick, red-brown hair. “I have soothed the One to sleep again. He needs to rest if we are to get anything more from him.” He looked curiously at the cluster of shadows seated by the fire.

“We were just about to talk,” I said, and Harwood bade Sover return to the One’s chamber and rest while he had the chance. I turned to Cinda and asked her to tell me her companions’ names. I was aware of Harwood entering my mind discreetly to listen, but I ignored him and repeated aloud the name of each woman once Cinda’s image had conveyed it. As she heard her name spoken aloud, each shadow reacted strongly.

“Most of us do not ever hear our names spoken aloud,” Cinda explained.

I asked aloud if any of them knew what Ariel was doing on the west coast. At the mention of his name, several of the girls started in alarm, and one looked sick.