The Farseekers (15 page)

At once the roaring water carried us swiftly away from the bank. Lightning flashed, and in that moment, I saw the face of the armsman Gilbert among those who stood watching us, a look of utter anguish on his face.

Seeing me, even as I saw him, Gilbert cried out, but the sound of rain and rushing water made his words no more than a bird call.

Then the raft carried us from his sight and within seconds we were speeding towards the dark bulk of the mountains. For one moment it seemed we would be smashed to pieces against the side of the mountains, then the black gape of a cave opened up before us.

I looked back, and caught sight of Gahltha pawing at the raging water as if it were tongues of fire.

'Here we go,' Domick said grimly, and we plunged into the heart of the mountain.

The Suggredoon had borne us along its ancient course at the speed of a bolting horse.

Domick stood up on the raft, slipping his feet into rope loops and took hold of the paddle which gave him rudimentary steering. I was surprised to find a source of dim light in the cavern, instead of dense blackness. The walls glowed gently and eerily and, only when a cloud of insects stirred and rose, I saw that the light came from the tiny flying insects' bodies. A stiff, cold draught blew in my face from somewhere ahead, confirming that the tunnel was open through the mountain.

For a while it seemed we had exaggerated the dangers, then we came on the first turbulent stretch of rapids. The water boiled savagely sending the raft shuddering and careening through foaming torrents, barely missing jagged rocks. Luck as much as Domick's steering kept us from being overturned or having a rock gouge a hole in the raft.

And there were many such stretches. Each time we began to breathe easy, thinking ourselves lucky to have survived, we would hear the familiar hollow roar ahead, and tighten our grip on the raft.

At one point the entire surface of the river seemed to tilt and we were as much sliding as being swept by the current. The wind whistled past me, whipping strands of hair wildly in my face.

We had known the water must flow down to the Lowlands, and I was convinced the cavern above the water would continue, but I had been afraid secretly that it might be too narrow for the raft to pass. It seemed my worst fears would be fulfilled when the walls began to close in around us. I took comfort in the breeze that must mean there was a way through, but would it be wide enough? For a moment the mountain seemed to throb with brooding malevolence.

Impatient with myself, I tried to ignore the walls drawing steadily nearer and more dim, as if the glowing insects disliked the closeness as much as we did.

Gradually, it became so narrow that Domick could not stand. I needed no empathy to sense Avra's fear. If the cavern became much more cramped, she would not fit. And we all knew there was no turning back.

But, just as suddenly, the way began to widen again and I shivered with reaction. In my wildest fancies, I had never imagined the trip to the coast would be such a road of trials. I had worried about soldierguards, yet in all that had befallen us, we had not even seen a soldierguard.

Hearing a roar ahead, I prepared myself for another battering, but instead, the raft flowed round a bend and through a natural stone arch, into a huge, dark ocean. If not for the stalactites and stalagmites and the rock columns rising from the water to the roof where some had met and fused, I would have thought we had somehow got out onto the Great Sea at night. Like the tunnel, the cave was lit by millions of the tiny insects.

The raft slowed but was still drawn along by a deeper current.

Our wonder at this sea under the mountain dissolved into greater amazement as we drew near to what we had taken as immense rocky mounds rising from the water.

Pavo realized first what we were seeing, and gasped. I was struck by the wonder in his gaunt face. 'This is a Beforetime city,' he whispered reverently.

Squinting, I saw that he was right. The shapes were too smooth and square to be rocks, but the height of them astounded me. These, then, were the skyscrapers of the legends; things which I had never quite been able to believe in.

I stared about me as the current took us between two of the monstrous constructions, along what must once have been a street. There was no way of telling how far below us lay the floor of the dead city. I was silent with this evidence of the Oldtimers' abilities. Out of the distant past, I seemed to hear Louis Larkin telling me there were certain to be rare niches in the world where bits of the Beforetime were preserved.

And what wonders lay inside the buildings with their thousands of dark windows?

Up close, the surfaces were badly eroded, especially at the water line. One day the ebb and flow would eat the foundations and this marvellous city would topple. Gaps in the rows of buildings suggested this had happened already in some cases.

Many of the smooth fagades were crumbled, revealing the great black steel frames inside them, like the bones of some mouldering animal. Much of the walls that were not broken were covered in a livid yellow fungus. The glowing insects either lived or fed on it, for wherever the fungus grew, they were clustered thickly, and their collective light was brighter.

I wondered if the city had somehow sunk into the mountain during the Great White, or if the earth had spat the mountains on top of it like a grave-stone.

I found myself wishing Matthew could see it. He had long worshipped the Oldtimers with a glib surety that had always troubled me, but the city told a story of men who were certainly great, but men just the same with flaws that all their brilliance had not helped.

It was a sombre and sobering experience. It was not hard to think the people who had built such cities as capable of any wonder - or terror. Looking around me, I had no doubt that such a people could create a weapon that would live far beyond their span. The stark reality of the brilliance and insanity of the Oldtimers struck me then as never before.

After a while the current turned, taking us down what had been an intersecting street. Here, enough of the buildings had fallen for the rubble to rise above the water in a stony shore. Pavo asked Domick to take the raft closer. 'I mustn't lose this chance,' he whispered.

But Darga barked sharply in warning as we changed course. 'These stones and all about us are poisonous. Only the water is clean, because it flows.'

I relayed his warning. Pavo smiled faintly and I knew he was thinking that it no longer mattered as far as he was concerned. Yet he nodded, giving Darga a speculative look.

'This is a bad place,' Avra sent uneasily.

As much to distract myself as the mare, I asked her about Gahltha's strange behavior.

She whinnied forlornly. 'The funaga who had him before almost drowned him when he was first brought to them. It is a funaga way of breaking the spirit of an equine, if it does not kill them first. They did not break him, for he took refuge in a savage hidden hatred, but he has a dread of water that goes beyond reason.'

'I'm sure he's back at Obernewtyn by now,' I sent reassuringly, thinking she was afraid he had been caught by the Druid's armsmen.

'He is proud,' she sent. Too proud to bear such shame easily.'

I stared at her, puzzled. 'There is no shame in what happened. No one will blame him.'

Avra sighed in a very human way. 'He will blame himself. I do not think he has gone back to Obernewtyn.'

Unable to offer her any comfort, I turned to Domick and complimented his raft-building skills.

He smiled wanly. 'I had the feeling it would need to be strong, but even I never imagined how bad it would be. We're lucky to have got through.'

'Then if luck has brought us this far, let's hope we've not used our share up,' Pavo said. 'We have not gone down nearly far enough yet.'

Hours later, we were still gliding through the ancient city. The immediate wonder having worn off, we talked about what to do once we had reached the Lowlands. The loss of our gypsy colourants meant we could no longer pass for gypsies. Kella said she might brew a new stain, but it was decided gypsies on foot would be more conspicuous than ordinary folk. But going on foot would slow us considerably.

'I still don't understand how they found us so fast,' Domick said suddenly. He always wanted to know why a thing had failed so that it could be guarded against the next time.

'It was no one's fault. Remember I warned you there were armsmen out hunting? Well I recognized one of them on the bank. It was nothing more than a bad chance.' Kella interrupted to explain the connection between Gilbert and my bonding. She had also seen the ginger-haired armsman.

'So, maybe he was in a hurry for another reason?' Domick said.

I felt my face redden. 'This is no time to be acting like an idiot.' But I could not help thinking of the way Gilbert had looked after me on the bank, and wondered what he had called.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Kella and Domick exchange a look and realized the stresses and perils that had beset us since leaving Obernewtyn had a good side too. The old emnity between coercer and healer, symbolized in Kella and Domick, seemed to have disappeared. I was imagining what effect their unexpected friendship would have on their two guilds when we passed suddenly out of the big cave, and back into a tunnel. Immediately the raft picked up speed and in seconds we were back in rapids.

Another hour passed with little respite from the ferocious white water which seemed more frequent on this side of the underground sea. Domick was swaying on his feet with exhaustion.

Then we heard a noise. At first we checked our binding ropes, thinking there was another bout of rapids ahead, but as we came nearer to the source, the roaring became louder, taking on a curious vibrating quality.

I noticed Pavo was listening intently. There was no fear on his face, only fierce concentration.

'What is it?' I shouted. 'More rapids?'

'Let's hope that is all it is,' Pavo answered.

I opened my mouth to ask what he was afraid of when the raft tilted abruptly sideways. Being tied on was all that kept us together. I heard Kella scream and then we were falling as the Suggredoon became a giant waterfall, plummeting us into a black void.

My face felt hot and damp at the memory of that fall.

I tried to open my eyes. A bead of sweat trickled down my face and into the hair behind my ear. I lifted my hand to feel if my eyes were open, wondering if I had gone blind.

'Shh, lie still,' Kella said softly.

'My eyes,' I croaked. My throat felt dry as old paper.

'Your eyes are fine. They're stuck shut by blood from a cut on your forehead. Wait . . .'

I heard footsteps on a stone floor and the murmur of voices. It was strange to hear and not see; that was how it was for Dameon. Two sets of footsteps approached and there was the sound of curtains being drawn. I felt a warm cloth on my face and gasped at the unexpected sting.

'There are lots of small cuts from the rocks,' Kella explained gently. 'There now.'

I opened my eyes. I was in bed in a small whitewashed bedroom with sun streaming through a window and birds chirruping outside. Kella was sitting beside me on a stool, a bowl of bloodied water on her knees. Her cheek was badly bruised and her arm was bandaged. Behind her was a plump matronly woman I had never seen before.

'I am Katlyn,' she said with a warm smile.

I did not know what to say and looked helplessly at Kella. 'Katlyn and her bondmate, Grufyyd, found us washed up on the banks of the Suggredoon. They know we escaped from a Council Farm,' she said pointedly.

'Don't worry about that now. You need to rest,' Katlyn said. 'That is the best healer of all, but first I will bring you some food.'

She went out, taking the bowl of stained water, and returned in a moment with a bowl of soup.

'That smells wonderful,' I rasped.

She smiled. 'It is an old recipe, a special healing mixture. Eat and then sleep. You can talk later.'

'Where are the others?' I asked Kella as soon as she had gone.

Kella pointed to the soup. 'Eat, if Katlyn says it will heal, it will. She's incredible. She knows so much about healing and medicines. I've never seen such a herb garden.'

'Herb?' I asked sharply. Herb Lore was illegal.

'Katlyn is a Herb Lorist. She has herbs I've never even heard of, and bags and bags of dried herbs. I wish Roland could meet her. Her grandmother and mother practised the Lore before the ban and she has kept on with it. People from all over the Land use her mixtures.'

'Does she let her name be known so freely?'

Kella smiled. 'She talks about the Council and the Herders as if they were a collection of naughty boys. She knows what she does is dangerous, but she says it's her job.'

'How long have we been here?' I asked, suddenly anxious that we had stayed too long in the house of a woman who cared so little for her safety.

'Only a day, but without her help we would have taken much longer to heal,' Kella said sternly, seeing my disapproval.

'I'm grateful for her help,' I said. 'But it's my job to keep us safe and finish this expedition without getting caught by the Council who are a lot more dangerous than bad boys. Now tell me, do these people live alone here? And where are we?'

Kella shrugged. 'We're not far from Rangorn and the Ford. There's a son, but he doesn't live here. Katlyn didn't say what he does now. She talks about him as a child. She said he was always putting himself in danger, never thinking of the cost.'

I reflected that this seemed to be a family trait. 'Where is he now?'

'I think, it was something Katlyn said, that he lives in one of the coastal cities.'

'Good. How did you come to tell them we had escaped?'

'Domick insisted on telling them something. No one would have crossed the Suggredoon so high unless they were trying to avoid being seen. There was no way of hiding that we had been in a boating accident. I couldn't tell them we came out of the mountain, so the Council Farm runaway story seemed best.'

'You are certain they didn't send word to the Council? There is a reward for information leading to the capture of runaways.'