The Dreamtrails (90 page)

“The woman you bonded with?” I said softly.

He nodded. “Serra was …” He looked away to the sea again and concluded harshly, “She looked like you—the same long dark hair and proud look. The same gravity about her, as if there were hidden depths that one might spend a lifetime trying to plumb … I courted her and we bonded. But Serra was less deep than wont to brood, and after a time she began to fret at me. I felt that she wanted something from me that she could not name and did not even know, and without it she could not be content. She became jealous of my devotion to Gwynedd, and the more she nagged and scowled, the more time I spent away from home. Then she became pregnant. I was glad, for I thought that a child might fulfill her. She gave birth to twin boys, and I could have loved them and loved her for them, but she had become cold and pointed out my faults to them so that soon they regarded me suspiciously and rejected me.”

“You said they were babies,” I said.

He nodded. “So they are, yet Serra’s sullen eyes and her grudging nature look out of their faces. I learned not to care and to laugh and make light of all that seemed serious and deep and true. I discovered that women would laugh with me if I flattered their beauty and paid them compliments and kept my deeper self from them.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I pitied him enough to fight my reticence and lay a hand over his clenched fists. At once he turned his hands and caught mine between them.

“I could find the man I once was, with you.” A yearning in his eyes made the words a question. I wanted to pull my hands away and flee from the naked emotion in his face, but I forced myself to meet his eyes and shake my head. The longing in his face dimmed, but he did not resume the careless, flirtatious mask I had so disliked. Instead, he said with a sad
acceptance that ached my heart as much as it relieved me, “You are different now, too, Elspeth who was once Elaria. I see it clearly in this moment.”

I said, “Since the rebellion, I am freed from having to hide my Misfit abilities, but … there is a man that I love. I knew him when I met you, but I did not know that I loved him. I was afraid to see it.”

He sighed, a long exhalation. “Well, then, perhaps it was that gypsy girl who hid from love and hid her true self that I loved. You are stronger and more courageous than that girl was, and I hope the man you love is worthy of you. In honor of the love I bore Elaria, I offer you my friendship.”

“The friendship of one who is honest and courageous is precious,” I said gravely.

Gilbert released my hand and looked up into the night, drawing a long breath and expelling it. The wind blew more strongly now, and the smell of rain was in the air. “A storm is coming,” he said softly, and walked away.

I watched him go, a strong, straight-backed man with flame-colored hair that caught the lantern light from a saloon window, and I wondered again how love could cause so much pain.

My neck prickled, and I turned to look up at the truncated upper deck where I had sat the previous day with Jakoby. A cluster of lanterns hung from hooks and showed the tribeswoman clearly, standing by the wheel and speaking to one of her men, her hair and clothes fluttering wildly in the rising wind. A little apart from them stood Rushton, gazing down at me with a black rage that sent a cold blade into my heart.

T
HE CLAP OF
thunder that shook the ship testified to the mounting fury of the storm that had come upon us so suddenly and dramatically hours before and showed no sign of abating. Lightning filled the cabin with a weird, distorted radiance, and I got up and staggered over the pitching floor to the window. Opening it a crack, I saw a great jagged spear of lightning slash through the black night, revealing a sky clogged with massive thunderheads. The sea was a heaving gray expanse from which rose the smoking peaks of enormous waves. Then darkness swallowed everything until claws of lightning rent the night again. This time, I saw a massive wave rise alongside the ship and topple over with deadly slowness. I realized with sick horror that just one such mountain of water breaking over the bow would smash the greatship to splinters.

The thought of Gahltha smote me like a blow, and I muttered a curse at my callousness. He and the other horses had been shifted belowdecks soon after the storm began, but the storm would have destroyed his hard-won control over his fear of water, and I ought to have gone and seen him long since, regardless of the need to stay out of Rushton’s way.

Thunder reverberated as I groped for the quilted vest hanging on a hook behind the door. Dragging it on, I looked back at the bed to see Maruman sleeping soundly, oblivious
to the storm. Afraid that he had gone onto the dreamtrails for the longsleep, I staggered back to lay a hand on his warm back, but he was only sleeping. Relieved, I mounded some pillows about him and made my way back to the door. I opened it, and the wind forced it wide and blustered at me with such ferocity that I was flung backward. I lowered my head and shouldered my way out of the cabin, heaving the door closed behind me and making sure it was securely latched.

For a moment, all was darkness and noisy disorienting chaos, then lightning illuminated the deck, revealing slick wood and snaking ropes. Oddly, there was not a shipman or woman in sight.

I had not gone far when the ship nosed into a trough, the hull groaning and creaking as if it were about to break in two. I was thrown from my feet, but instead of crashing to the deck, strong arms caught me. I looked up to find Jakoby holding me in a viselike grip. I expected her to order me back to my cabin, but instead she pointed forward and shouted at me to go to the saloon. I shook my head and tried to explain that I needed to stay out of Rushton’s sight. But thunder rumbled and lightning cracked, smothering my words. Jakoby pointed insistently, and her vehemence made me turn. My jaw dropped at the sight of a sheer stone cliff rearing up out of the churning water directly ahead and extending up out of sight.

“Norseland,” Jakoby bellowed in my ear.

“It can’t be!” I shouted back. Then I laid my hand on her arm and sent, “We can’t have got here so swiftly.”

“The storm blew us directly across the strait instead of along the normal shipping path,” Jakoby shouted. “It was a perilous passage, for we had to negotiate the many shoals in
the midst of the storm, but it is done, and now we are less than an hour from the Norsemen’s Uttecove.”

I glanced at the cliffs, which were rushing toward us at a speed that dried my mouth, but at that moment, the
Umborine
lurched and plunged and groaned, the deck and hull creaking horribly as the ship slowly turned broadside to the cliffs. Instead of looking relieved, Jakoby merely shouted into my ear that I should go to the saloon, for the ship boats would soon be launched.

I gaped at her in disbelief, unable to believe she meant to go ahead with Gwynedd’s strategy in the midst of the storm. Yet Jakoby did not look as if she were joking. I swallowed hard, remembering that I had agreed to take part in what must surely be a lunatic’s venture.

Jakoby was shouting more, and I touched her arm again so I could enter her mind and asked her to repeat her words. “The storm will prevent us from being able to maneuver the
Umborine
close enough to Norseland to see the inlet; therefore, the ships will have to be launched in faith.”

I nodded, understanding that I was receiving a warning, and Jakoby pointed urgently toward the shipmaster’s deck. Then she let me go and hastened toward the rear of the vessel, as sure-footed as a cat on the heaving deck.

I stood for a moment, indecisive amid all the wild wind and water, but then I continued along the deck to the entrance to the hold. I was about to descend when I saw a Sadorian shipgirl carrying a lantern and a coil of thick oiled rope. I lurched over to her and asked where the holding corral was belowdecks. She shouted something, but the roaring of the wind and the raging sea made it impossible to make out her words. Realizing that I could not hear her, she pointed down and then toward the rear of the ship. Then she showed three
fingers. I nodded, understanding that Gahltha was on the third level toward the rear of the ship.

I reeled and stumbled down the steps into the pitching, creaking blackness. At one point, I heard Jak’s voice and realized he must be striving to keep his precious insects safe, but I continued to descend until my nose told me I had reached the holding boxes. I drew a deep breath and shouted Gahltha’s name. My heart lurched with relief and dismay as he gave a high-pitched, terrified whinny of response. Full of remorse for not having come to him sooner, I groped my way toward the sound. At last my straining hands found his hot, trembling flank.

“I am here, dear one,” I sent. “I am so sorry I did not come sooner.”

“It is not your fault that I am a coward,” Gahltha sent miserably.

“My great-hearted Gahltha, you are the least cowardly creature I have ever known,” I told him fiercely, sliding my arms around his neck and kissing his silky muzzle.

“You are leaving the ship,” Gahltha sent, having seen it in my mind.

“I must,” I said. “But when I return, we will go to Sador, and after that, we will ride back to Obernewtyn.”

Unable to offer any further assurances, I held him and stroked him until at last I felt the keen edge of his terror blunt. Then, knowing I could delay no longer, I kissed him one last time and made my way back up to the deck.

The cliffs seemed closer than ever in the flashes of lightning, and I told myself that at least no one would have seen us approach the island in the middle of such a black stormy night. The first the Hedra would know about anything was when the
Umborine
sailed into Main Cove. I could just make
out movement around the ship boats, which had been lashed to the deck beyond the saloon, but I had one last errand before I could join the others. I ran back to my cabin and wakened Maruman to explain what I was going to do. Before he could utter any of the protests I sensed gathering in his mind, I knelt by the bed, took his small pointed face in my hands, and looked into his shining golden eye.

“Maruman, darling heart, listen to me. There is no time for tantrums,” I told him with stern tenderness. “I have to go ashore for many reasons, some of which are connected to my quest as ElspethInnle, but Gahltha is very frightened. I need you to go to him and help him to endure the storm. Will you do this for me?”

For a long moment, he looked into my eyes. Then, at last, he sent softly into my mind, “Maruman/yelloweyes will go to the Daywatcher. Be careful, ElspethInnle.”

Outside, the wind had grown stronger, and now it was beginning to rain. A Sadorian, seeing me emerge, leaned into the wind and handed me the end of a rope, indicating that I should tie it around my waist. I obeyed and he made another gesture, which I did not understand, before hurrying off.

I made my unsteady way along the deck toward the main saloon, but the rope was too short and brought me to a sudden stop. I saw another rope end tied and coiled against the wall and realized the meaning of the Sadorian’s gestures. He had been trying to tell me that I needed to move from one secured rope to another. I tied the new one about my waist, untied the other, and fastened it to the wall before continuing along the ship. Beyond the saloon, I could see the Sadorians unlashing the small ship boats, but there was no sign of Gwynedd or his men, so I untied the rope from my waist, curled it around a hook to which a number of other ropes
were fastened, and entered the saloon.

Just as I passed through the doors, the ship tilted again. I flew into the room and fetched up hard against the end of a table. Lightning flared, giving me a brief glimpse of startled pasty faces turned toward me; then the ship tilted the other way, sending me staggering drunkenly backward. I would have reeled back through the doors, except that Brydda caught me and thrust a towel into my hands, shouting that he would get me an oiled coat.

I sat down, hooking one foot around a leg of the bench to steady myself, and dried my face. Looking around the long room, I saw Jak in the next flash of lightning, looking pale but composed. I had been astonished when Brydda had come to me after the meeting in the saloon and said that Jak would also travel with the three ship boats. The teknoguilder had apparently volunteered, pointing out rightly that he would have the best hope of recognizing and knowing how to dispose of the plague seeds if we found them.

It had been decided that any weapons on Norseland were most likely to be kept in the Hedra encampment in an armory, but it seemed likely that the plague seeds would be in Ariel’s residence, unless he had taken them with him. Jak and I and several others would make our way there, leaving Gwynedd free to meet with the Norselanders and with their help mount an attack on the Hedra encampment.

We did not know the exact location of Ariel’s residence, but I had heard enough on Herder Isle to know that it lay at the end of the island farthest from Fryddcove, and this meant that Uttecove must be closer to it than to the nearest settlement. From what Lark had told me, this would be Cloistertown. Gwynedd reckoned from the things I had told him that Ariel’s residence would be no more than a two-hour walk in
a straight line from Uttecove, but since we did not know where it was, it would be safer to follow the cliffs around, which would take somewhat longer.