The Rebellion (6 page)

We could do nothing but go on with other matters until Maryon awoke. The whole affair completely overtook the excitement of finding the Reichler Clinic, and as we made our way to the kitchens for a late nightmeal, Rushton asked me not to speak of the finding until the Teknoguild had prepared a presentation.

“It seems strange to think of your being related to the very people who were interested in Misfit powers in the Beforetime,” I murmured. “Do you suppose Jacob Obernewtyn built this place?”

Rushton shook his head. “My grandfather, Lukas Seraphim, built Obernewtyn as it is now, but Louis Larkin once told me that it had been built on the ruins of an older building. It’s my guess this Jacob built the original house that stood here.”

“I wonder why Hannah Seraphim started the Reichler Clinic in the first place.” The discovery meant Rushton could trace the line of his descent back to the Beforetime—he must surely be the only person alive who could do that.

But Rushton only gave me a look. “It is a long time past, and her world is dead. The teknoguilders’ discovery of the Reichler Clinic is useful only in that it confirms absolutely that there were Misfits like us in the Beforetime. We have the present to deal with, and that is quite enough without wasting time on historical puzzles. I am far more concerned to find
out what a nameless gypsy could possibly have to do with Obernewtyn.”

I did not sleep that night for wondering what had been so important it had necessitated our immediate return.

The following morning, Matthew came to my chamber before firstmeal to inform me that Maryon had awakened. Rushton had called the guildleaders to his chamber.

I was careful not to wake Maruman as I dressed, and on leaving had to resist an urge to gather the bedraggled cat into my lap and stroke the rough fur and misshapen head of my first and dearest friend. Every time Maruman disappeared, I worried, knowing he wandered far from Obernewtyn in the throes of his occasional strange fey fits. On his previous disappearance, he had been gone for almost a full cycle of the moon. When he had returned, his already damaged right eye had been so severely infected that Roland had no alternative but to remove it.

If he suffered for the lack of it, he made no complaints.

I hurried then to Rushton’s chamber. His face was stony as he opened the door and stepped back to let me enter.

The other guildleaders were seated about the small room, their faces grave. My eyes flew to the Futuretell guildmistress standing in a shadowed corner. Her dark eyes glinted enigmatically across the room at me, and my heart began to beat unevenly.

“What has happened?”

“All in good time,” Rushton said tightly, gesturing to an empty seat. I flushed, for he did not normally speak so sharply to me.

He opened his mouth, then shook his head as if thinking better of whatever he would have said. Instead, he turned to
the Healer guildmaster. “You’d better begin, Roland,” he growled, flinging himself in a chair.

“Elspeth, as you know, the gypsy you rescued is resisting healing,” Roland said. “We cannot work against her body to force her to heal, and it is impossible to enter her mind, because she has a natural mental barrier.”

“Are you saying she is dying?” I asked.

“Right now, we are keeping her stable. However, if this goes on for much longer, she will die.”

“Maryon?” I said, turning to the tall woman in the shadows. “What did you see in your futuretelling? What has the gypsy to do with Obernewtyn?”

Rushton rose and began to pace about the room.

The futureteller made a graceful gesture with her long fingers. “I saw many things. A journey over th’ great water; a gray stone fortress wi’ a Guanette bird flying o’er it.” Maryon spoke these words in a high oratory tone, but now she dropped into a more normal voice, and its very flatness gave her words greater power. “I saw yon gypsy woman mun be returned safe to her people within a sevenday fer th’ sake of Obernewtyn.”

“Seven days!” I cried. Futuretellers often came up with obscure deeds they said must be performed for this reason or that, or for no reason at all that they would divulge. But this was the most dramatic I could remember in some time.

“Futuretellin’ is nowt an exact study,” Maryon said. “There is much to see that defies understandin’. But I did see that th’ gypsy’s people may be found in Sutrium.”

“Sutrium!” That was almost worse than not knowing.

Sutrium was the largest town in the Land—and the most dangerous, being the base of the main Councilcourt.

Belatedly, I realized no one else had reacted to the mention
of it—they already knew this. I wondered why Rushton had not waited for me before telling what was to be told. It was not as if I had delayed coming or had been difficult to find.

“Given that they are gypsies, I dinna know how long her people will bide there,” Maryon was saying. She shrugged. “All I can tell ye is that they are there now.” She broke off suddenly and there was an awkward silence.

“Are we voting on whom to send with the gypsy?” I asked at last.

“There will be no voting on this matter.
You
will take her,” Rushton said tersely.

I was genuinely astonished. Rushton had managed to convince the guildmerge to ban guildleaders from trips to the lowlands, because there was too much risk. Now he commanded me as if I was a novice to make a journey to the most oppressive city in the Land, with an unconscious gypsy fugitive!

“I will impose a sleepseal on her,” the Healer guildmaster said in such a way that let me understand this had been discussed, too. “It will slow down her heartbeat and her dying. Kella can remove the seal in Sutrium, just before you hand her over.”

“Why am
I
to take her?” I asked slowly.

Rushton’s green eyes stared into mine for a moment; then he turned to Maryon. “Tell her.”

The futureteller drew herself up to her considerable height. “Fer Obernewtyn’s sake, Elspeth, th’ gypsy mun be returned to her people. This was the futuretellin’ fer which I sent to recall ye from the city under Tor. But yesterday, when I fell into a second an’ deeper trance, I learned another thing:
You
mun be th’ one to take her back. Nowt fer Obernewtyn’s sake but fer yer own.”

“Mine?” I echoed.

Maryon went on, her face grave. “On th’ journey, you—an’ only you—will have th’ chance to learn what the word
swallow
means. If ye fail, I have foreseen … that ye’ll die afore th’ next Days of Rain.”

4

O
N THE SIDE
of the road were patches of scrub and a few of the immense white-trunked ur trees that characterized lowland terrain. Matthew had not seen many of them before, but the trees had grown in great profusion around my childhood home in Rangorn.

I thought fleetingly of picking berries in their shade with my mother. Then I sighed and shook myself.

Rushton, Dameon, and Ceirwan had seen us off at first light, the gravity of the expedition diverted at the last minute by a hysterical tantrum of the young empath-coercer Dragon, whom we had rescued on a previous expedition. She had suddenly realized she would not be going with us, and it had taken all of Dameon’s empathy to prevent her from flinging herself after us as the gypsy wagon pulled away in the gray mountain dawn.

My last sight of Rushton had been of him frowning after me, arms folded across his chest.

Thunder rumbled now, and I looked up at the lowering sky, wondering if we would reach Sutrium before the storm broke. We had not long passed Glenelg Mor, its sodden earth invisible beneath a veil of mist.

I sent a brief command for Matthew to take up the reins, rather than letting them hang down loosely. “It will look odd
if someone comes along and sees no one is steering the wagon.”

“Gypsy horses are trained to stay on the road while their owners sleep. Besides, who in their right minds would be out so late with a storm brewin’?” Matthew grumbled, but he did as I bade.

A few minutes later, a horse galloped around a bend behind us. I gave Matthew a pointed look, though in truth he was right about seldom meeting anyone on the road. He did not notice, because he was all agog at the sight of the exotic-looking gold-skinned rider—wrapped in a purple cloak and bent low over the horse’s neck—who thundered past and out of sight around a bend in the road ahead.

“That were one of them Sador tribesfolk,” Matthew said excitedly. “I’m goin’ to visit Sador someday.” His eyes glowed at the thought.

The road to the remote region had only just been opened up in the last year, as the Blacklands taint along the eastern shore of the Land faded, allowing a slender, and some said dangerous, passage along the coast.

The Council had always maintained the Land was all that remained unpoisoned of the world, while the Herders preached it was all Lud had seen fit to spare of the corrupt Beforetime. Seafarers had long known this to be a lie, but they had a rigid code of silence imposed by the Council. Even so, word had leaked out, initially as gossip and rumor. But with Sador suddenly accessible and known to all, it seemed more likely than ever that there was a world beyond the Blacklands.

Looking before us to where the Sadorian rider had disappeared, I remembered Gahltha, who was scouting ahead for
danger. I asked Matthew how long the horse had been absent.

“Nowt long. He won’t go too far with you here.”

I ignored the questions implicit in his tone. There was no way of explaining Gahltha’s transformation from a vicious human-hating fury into my devoted guardian without relating the whole fantastic story of my deliverance from death by the Agyllians. It was Atthis who had called the black horse to carry me down from the high mountains, and whatever the ancient bird had said to keep him waiting through the long months of my convalescence had altered Gahltha completely. Gahltha now believed utterly that I was to rescue beasts from their long slavery to humans. No surprise that he and Maruman both had insisted on accompanying me to the lowlands.

I sighed, sick of living my life at the directive of the vague whims of fate and futuretellers.

At the conclusion of our impromptu meeting the day before, Rushton had suggested I say nothing of Maryon’s predictions concerning myself to the general population of Obernewtyn. I had been only too glad to agree. Success would simply add to the myth surrounding me, and if I failed, it would not matter what had been predicted. Matthew had been told that the purpose of the journey was to return the gypsy to her people, which was true enough, and that while in Sutrium we would inspect the safe house and inquire as to whether Brydda Llewellyn’s rebels would accept us as allies. Rushton still had no answer since his visit to Sutrium, and he feared missing an opportunity to ally ourselves with those who could very well be the next rulers of the Land.

If only they would accept us.

I glanced back over my shoulder to where the gypsy lay on one of the wooden pallet beds, Maruman curled fast asleep at
her feet. I judged her to be about forty years of age. Her features were too strong for beauty, but she was handsome and her hair was as black as my own. One sleeve had ridden up to reveal the potmetal bracelet she wore above her elbow.

Her stubborn resistance to healing had begun to take its toll. Despite Roland’s sleepseal, there was an unhealthy pallor to her skin.

“She’s nowt dead yet,” Matthew said defiantly.

I frowned at him. “Let’s hope she lives until we get to Sutrium and that we have no trouble getting her through the gates.”

“We have papers,” Matthew said.

“Yes. False ones. But, Ludwilling, the soldierguards will not have a description of her yet—or of me.”

The farseeker paled. As usual, he had given no thought to the realities of the situation in his dreams of heroic deeds.

“I wonder where th’ gypsy who shot them arrows in Guanette rode to in such a rush. I dinna see him very well through the trees, but he were tall and well-muscled. He had gray hair in a gypsy plait, an’ he were wearin’ a blue shirt,” Matthew said dreamily. Beyond his sloppy shielding, I caught a glimpse of a vision in which a tall gypsy hero thanked us regally for the return of his companion.