The Dreamtrails (24 page)

Forcing myself to calm down, I asked Dameon if, since my departure from Obernewtyn, there had been any new dreams of the Misfits I had sent to the west coast recorded in the dream journals. He said that he had inquired after the strange encounter with Gavyn, and there had been only one recorded dream. In it, the young empath Blyss and the coercer Merret had been waiting outside a city for a messenger from the rebel Gwynedd.

“The city must be Murmroth,” I said, but Dameon shook his head, saying the dreamer had scribed that the city was right on the coast. Murmroth was the only coastal town not situated right on the coast.

“If messages are being exchanged between us and the rebels, it may be that Tardis is less opposed to us than she was,” I said.

“I think hers was an inherited hatred rather than the fierce and fanatical hatred her father apparently had for Misfits, and it may be that circumstances have so altered in the west that old prejudices have melted away. But it might also be that something has happened to Tardis, because from what was said in the dream, it sounds as if Gwynedd is the leader of the Murmroth rebels now.

“And, no,” Dameon went on, anticipating my next question with a smile, “there have been no dreams of Matthew, save for one brief dream I experienced only last night.” The empath went on to describe the dream, in which Matthew and another man had been speaking of a ship anchored offshore
from the Red Land, which rumor said was delivering a new shipment of slaves. Matthew had been insisting that the ship was the very same that had brought him to the Red Land, in which case it was likely to go back the way it had come once it had emptied its holds. The remainder of the discussion had been about the possibility of boarding the ship and stowing away, which both men had acknowledged as difficult and deadly. Then there had been some incomprehensible talk of something called The Spit, which Dameon said seemed to have put Matthew off the idea of stowing away.

“A true dream?” I asked, knowing it was always harder for Dameon to tell, for his dreams were scent and smell and sometimes taste dreams.

“It felt real, but it was too brief to be sure,” the Empath guildmaster said.

Suddenly Dameon stiffened. “I hear a wagon.”

I scrambled to my feet and saw the wagon in the distance. I farsought Zarak with relief and found that he already knew about the arrival of Rushton and the others, for Asra and Hilder had stopped to speak with them. But when Lo brought the wagon to a halt, Zarak looked shocked.

“What happened to your face?”

“It looks worse than it is,” I said lightly, taking his hand and climbing into the back of the wagon. Darius lay bolstered on all sides by blankets and took up most of the floor space.

“We will send for a healer as soon as we can,” I said as Zarak helped steer Dameon to the seat opposite his father, where there was room for his long legs. As the wagon lurched forward again, Khuria introduced Dameon to Noviny and his granddaughter. Dameon held out a hand, and Wenda put her own awkwardly into it. The empath released her hand and asked if she was a healer. She looked startled, nodded, and
then flushed, realizing he could not see her.

Noviny asked me what had happened at Malik’s camp, for Gahltha’s equine messenger had not been much of a taleteller. I obliged, describing the stampede and concentrating on the courage and brilliance of the horses. When I concluded, Noviny gave a great sigh and said it was a relief that he no longer had to worry himself sick trying to think how to notify the Council of Chieftains about the invasion.

I noticed the glimmer of metal at Darius’s throat, and remembering the key Kevrik used to free me from my demon band, I drew it from my pocket and crouched down beside Darius to insert it into the lock. His waxen skin felt clammy and cold against my fingers as I unclipped the band and pulled it gently out from around his neck. Handing the key to Zarak to remove the other demon bands, I pulled the blanket higher around the gypsy’s neck.

“Poor man,” Wenda said as Zarak removed her band. “His limbs were already inflamed and giving him pain, and then he was so roughly handled by the armsmen. They did not care that he was hurt.” She added, “I was able to find some good healing herbs near the cloister to bring the swelling down and ease his fever. But then he fell into this still, cold sleep. I do not know how to treat him, for I do not understand what ails him, unless it is shock. That can sometimes come after an event and have strange and deadly effects, especially on someone who is already ill.”

“If it is shock, I can help him,” Dameon said, and he asked Wenda to guide his hands to the cripple’s chest. This done, he closed his eyes and concentrated. Then he drew back and shook his head. “He is not in shock,” the empath said with authority. “There is something causing him so much hurt that he withdraws from life rather than endure it.”

Dameon now turned his blind eyes to me. “I cannot cure what ails him, Elspeth, but I can help him rest more serenely until we reach the healing center in Sutrium.”

I bade him do what he could, and we all watched in silence as the Empath guildmaster closed his eyes again. There was no sign of his empathising and no great change in Darius, except that, to me, his expression seemed to grow more peaceful. When Dameon opened his eyes again, he looked weary but serene as ever, and Wenda let out a breath she had unconsciously been holding.

“It must be confusing,” she said, smiling shyly at Dameon, “to feel what another feels. How can you tell it is not your own feeling?”

Dameon gave a soft laugh. “There are times when it is
very
confusing to be an empath,” he agreed.

By the time we came within sight of the gate to Vos’s property, we were cramped and hot, but despite my eagerness to get out of the wagon, I bade the horses wait until I farsought Dovyn. He told me that Rushton and the funaga had arrived and had subdued the funaga-li, and he bade me enter without fear.

Presently, Zade and Lo were unhitched from the wagon and released to join the other horses grazing peaceably on the homestead’s green lawn. The rest of us stretched our limbs gratefully, save Wenda who said she would remain in the wagon with Darius until he could be carried to a bed. Sover, standing by, heard her and promised to arrange it at once. He was that rarity, a coercer with secondary abilities as an empath.

He went into the house and returned with Rushton and several frightened-looking servants. As Zarak, Sover, and
Harwood gently lifted the injured gypsy, Rushton greeted Noviny, who introduced his granddaughter, naming her a healer and explaining that she had been caring for Darius. Rushton bowed to the girl, thanking her so warmly for her care of the crippled gypsy that she blushed prettily. To my shame, I felt an ugly stab of jealousy at this proof that only I left the Master of Obernewtyn cold.

You are a fool
, I told myself savagely, and felt Dameon flinch. Contrite, I reined in my emotions and forced myself to calmly ask Rushton what had happened upon their arrival. As he turned to answer me, I saw his reluctance, and it made me realize something that I had not known or maybe had not wanted to acknowledge. It was not that Rushton felt nothing for me. It was the opposite. It was as if he constantly struggled to control a powerful aversion to me. This thought gave me such pain that I nearly gasped, and I was glad for Dameon’s sake that he had moved away.

As if from a great distance, I heard Rushton explain that it had been a simple matter to take control, since Vos gave himself up as soon as he saw them ride in with Malik as their prisoner. The rebel leader had been horrified to learn Malik’s true intentions and insisted that he had known nothing of this dastardly plot, that everything from the barricades to the attempt to have himself made chieftain had been Malik’s idea. He had been tricked and bullied. Rushton said this speech had made Malik turn a look of such blazing fury on the rebel chieftain that Vos had nearly passed out. Vos was now confined to his room, as were those of his men whom Kevrik said could be trusted. The rest were in the cells.

As we all went inside the house, Rushton told Noviny that he and some of the knights would be taking Malik to Sutrium as soon as they had eaten.

“Perhaps you would like to come. I believe it would be far more effective for you to tell the Council of Chieftains what you saw that day from the cliff rather than our reporting it secondhand,” Rushton said.

I did not hear Noviny’s answer, because Linnet was telling me that she had prepared a room and a bath for me.

I sank blissfully to my neck in a bathing barrel filled with fragrant hot water. The air was full of steam and made me feel as if I had drifted into a dream, but I made myself wash my cuts and my hair until it floated about me like strands of black silk.

There was a soft knock at the door.

A swift probe revealed that it was Dameon and not Rushton, as my treacherous heart had hoped. “Come in,” I called, and after a slight hesitation, he entered, gasping a little at the clouds of steam that enveloped him, and then his face turned toward me unerringly.

“I have been sent to fetch you for the meal,” he said, standing in the doorway.

“I am just trying to summon the energy to get out,” I said.

Dameon smiled, but there was an awkwardness in his expression. For a moment, it came to me that he was troubled at my being in a bathing barrel, but then I chided myself for being absurd. Even if I had stood naked before the empath, he would not be able to see me. Something else must be bothering him. Ashamed that I had been so full of my own troubles and doings that I had not even thought to ask Dameon how he had been faring, I said, “Stay a little and talk to me, if you can bear the steam. There is a bench along the wall on your left where you can sit.”

He made his way to the seat so clumsily that I was
startled. Dameon’s usual grace made it hard to believe that he did not see. Then I almost laughed as I realized he was in pain! I remembered all too well the awfulness of my early riding days, and I asked, as delicately as I could, how he felt. He took my meaning at once and laughed, seeming suddenly to relax.

“Wenda has given me some salve that I am told will help.” His smile faded. “In truth, I am more bothered by imagining you at Malik’s mercy than by my own small discomforts. Do you think he meant to kill you?”

“I think when he beat me in front of Vos, he was making a point to him and his men. But the more he hit me, the more he wanted to hit me.”

“I cannot bear to be near him,” Dameon confessed. “His hatred is like some putrid fountain whose noise and stench I cannot ignore.”

I sighed. “I wonder how the other rebels will react to all that has happened here. Especially those who have supported Malik.”

“Rushton wants to question him in front of the other chieftains to make sure we cannot be accused of falsifying anything. But it is my feeling that his former allies will discover they always suspected him of being a traitor,” Dameon said with rare cynicism. “Ironically, his treachery is more likely to bring peace and stability to the Land than anything anyone else has done, because no matter what the individual chieftains believe or how their desires conflict, none of them wants the Councilmen or the Herder Faction back. Their outrage at Malik’s betrayal will force the chieftains to stand united for the first time since the rebellion was won, and they will have to work together to meet this threat, rather than concentrating on their own regions. Rushton hopes that Dardelan will
use the threat of invasion as a reason to postpone the elections a moon or so, and that will please the rebels, too. Indeed, it may be put off longer still if Dardelan decides to do as Zarak has suggested and take the ships, for he is certain to want to use them immediately to surprise those on the west coast.”

As he spoke, I climbed out of the barrel and began to towel myself. Dameon tilted his head, his sensitive hearing allowing him to track my movements as I padded over to the clothes Linnet had left me.

“Tell me how Maryon’s futuretelling came about,” I said, taking a towel to my hair again now that I was dressed.

Dameon nodded. “I was in a meeting with Rushton and the coercer-knights when one of the younger futuretellers came running in to say her mistress wanted us urgently. When we arrived at the Futuretell guildhall, Maryon was still drifting in and out of a trance. She told us much that seemed to have no meaning, but what was most important and unambiguous was that danger awaited you in Saithwold. The coercer-knights set up a great baying that you must be rescued. But Maryon bade them be silent, for she needed to think. Then she was quiet again for a long time. At last she said that no one must go after you, because a path awaited you in Saithwold that was yours alone to tread. There was some puzzlement at this, because Zarak at least would be with you, unless something was to happen to them. Rushton asked, but Maryon said she did not see anyone in your party coming to permanent harm. You were the only one in danger, and the probability of your surviving was high.

“Rushton asked what was so dangerous to you in particular, but Maryon just said there was danger there that would eventually threaten everyone in the Land and that your going
to Saithwold would avert a catastrophe. Then she mentioned something about ships, which made no sense until you told us of the invasion and Zarak’s idea about capturing the ships.”

“So Rushton agreed to let things unfold as they would?” I asked coolly.

Dameon laughed. “He told Maryon in that icy, cutting tone he sometimes has, which is worse than being shouted at, that she ought not to tell us someone was in danger if we were to do nothing about it. Maryon only said rather loftily that we would need to ride to your aid but not yet. She would let us know when it was the right time. And so she did, though it seems that you had managed everything by the time we arrived. Unless our part is to finish what you have begun by taking Malik to Sutrium.”

“You saved me from having to coerce Malik,” I said fervently. “For that I am more than grateful.”

Dameon stood and said gently that he had better go back to the others or they might think he had lost his way. At the door, he turned back to tell me that Gahltha and the prisoners—scathed and unscathed—from Malik’s camp had arrived and had been dealt with.