The Rebellion (120 page)

“Y
OU KNOW, THE
story doesn’t say what happened after the prince awakened the sleeping princess,” I said. “It doesn’t say if the princess liked the prince, or if they were happy.”

Dameon and I were seated at the window of my turret room, enjoying mugs of cold cider as the sun fell behind the mountains. Maruman was curled on the sill, sleeping soundly.

“Such stories are about events, not aftermaths,” the empath said. “It will take time for Rushton to recover fully.”

I sighed, realizing he would always see to the heart of things. “He will have to face what the Herders did to him sooner or later.…”

“Be patient,” Dameon said mildly. “Has he not resumed his place as Master of Obernewtyn? Didn’t he meet with Brydda and present our suggestions to the rebels admirably?”

“I know he works hard, and outwardly there is nothing wrong with him. But until he opens his memories, they will poison him.”

Dameon sat up and turned his blind eyes to me. “I think you are troubled more because of his manner toward you than because he will not let anyone inside his mind.”

I wanted to tell him he was talking like a fool, but all at once I was close to tears. “Shouldn’t that trouble me?” I asked at last. “He avoids me.”

Dameon sighed and reached out to touch my arm. “If he avoids you, Elspeth, it is because he fears to see your contempt.”

“Contempt!”

Dameon shrugged. “He feels he is failing you, because he cannot yet cope with delving into what happened to him. It would not be so if you did not demand so much.”

I swallowed a bitter feeling of injustice. “
Do
I demand so much?” My voice sounded flat and unhappy even to my own ears.

“Of yourself, perhaps, as well as him,” the empath said gently.

Blinking back tears, I turned to look out the window. Dusk cast a reddish light over the trees and rooftops, and a warm breeze lifted the hair from my face.

Dameon set his mug down and stretched, saying he had better go. “I want to see Dragon before nightmeal.” He hesitated. “Will you come with me?”

I shook my head. “I am the last person she would care to see.”

“Elspeth, you take her memory loss too personally. The important thing is that her coma has broken. And although no one can get into her mind, Maryon is confident that she will remember all when she is ready.”

“You really believe that?”

He smiled. “I do, and you must as well.”

Dameon rose and embraced me before he left.

I had been devastated when it became clear that, although awake and sane, Dragon remembered nothing. Not only was she unable to recall her distant past, but she also had no recollection of her time at Obernewtyn. All she remembered was her feral existence in the ruins on the west coast, and upon
waking, she had barricaded herself in a corner, shrieking and gibbering in fright and confusion. No one had been able to approach her except Dameon, who wooed her with empathy and his own patient gentleness.

When I had visited her, she bared her teeth at me in a snarl, cowering into the Empath guildmaster’s arms. Dameon urged me to persist, but as yet, I had not been able to bring myself to it.

I wandered back to the window and sat on the sill, enjoying the breeze and watching everything vanish into shadow. I felt less melancholy than when the empath had arrived with a jug of cider, and I suspected he had been subtly empathising hope and comfort to me the whole time we had talked. I had imagined my distress over the rift between Rushton and me was unnoticeable, but of course, Dameon had sensed it.

I took a deep breath of the sweet night air and counseled myself to be patient, as Dameon had urged.

“At least they are safe here at Obernewtyn,” I murmured aloud.

That was more than could be said for all the Misfits trapped on the west coast or for Domick. The coercer-knights had been unable to locate him—or Miryum, who had completely vanished with Straaka’s body. Neither had Brydda managed to locate Daffyd, who needed to hear that his beloved Gilaine was alive in the same distant land as Matthew. The likelihood was that both Domick and Daffyd were on the west coast, but there was no way to be sure until the rebel ships were completed.

Brydda felt these would be ready to sail by the end of the following spring. A year away. And it would be at least that long before I could begin to search for the clues and signs left me on the west coast by Kasanda.

Unless Swallow returned for the diving suit.

I reached into my pocket and withdrew Fian’s tattered translation and read it through, though by now I knew the lines by heart.

I was fairly certain that the key lay wherever Hannah was buried. Given Garth’s fascination with the Beforetimer, it was only a matter of time before he learned the whereabouts of her grave. In addition, Kasanda had left something where she gave birth to her son and something else inside a monument built to acknowledge the pact between the Council and the gypsy community, and she had given yet another thing to the Red Queen before leaving her land.

I sighed and thrust the paper back into my pocket.

I had learned much since the beginning of the rebellion, yet still I had not managed to find a single sign left by Kasanda. In fact, I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that the Cassy of my dreams was the Sadorians’ revered Kasanda and the gypsy D’rekta.

And that Ariel was the dreaded Destroyer.

“Have patience,” Maruman sent.

“It is harder to wait than to act,” I responded.

Maruman sniffed contemptuously. “Time does not care about you, ElspethInnle. Nor this barud nor any who dwell here. It cares nothing for this world nor for your quest to save it.” His mindvoice had taken on a fey tone that chilled me, and he turned to stare out at the moon, newly risen above the jagged horizon.

It was fat and red. An ominous moon, almost full.

“Maruman …”

“The moon waits,” Maruman sent distantly. “The H’rayka waits. The glarsh waits. All wait for ElspethInnle to walk the darkroad.” He looked at me. “Are you so eager to walk it?”

I licked my lips and found them dry. “I don’t want to leave Obernewtyn. I love … I love it here. But my whole life has shaped me to go.”

“And go you will,” Maruman sent sternly, turning his single flaring eye back to me. “When all things are as they must be. Until then, eat the days and nights that come. Do not wish them gone/away. They will succor you when all is dark and you are alone.”

His words frightened me, but they also drove away the last remnants of my melancholy. Dameon was right. I had felt that Rushton was failing me, and Dragon too. That they were getting in the way of my quest. In truth, it was I who had been failing them.

I farsent a probe to Rushton and found him with Alad on the farms.

His mind reacted with a wariness that hurt me, but which I knew I deserved.

“I thought we could go for a walk after nightmeal,” I sent gently. “It is so warm, and it will be light enough to swim in the high springs.”

I felt his cautious pleasure. “You would like that? To walk and swim?”

I laughed and sent my laughter to him. “Why not? We have time.”

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Nan McNab, for stepping into the breach with her own particular brand of sensitive, meticulous editing; to the Australia Council, for their creative grants which allow that things sometimes grow where you least expect them; to Choice Connections in Geelong, and in particular to Adrian, who gave emergency computer counseling, on the phone and sometimes halfway round the world. And thanks to Mallory, Nick, and Whitney, for giving the stories new life in America.

Last but not least, thanks to Jan and to my darling Adelaide, for tolerating this immense cuckoo in our nest!