The Farseekers (16 page)

Kella shook her head emphatically. 'I don't think it occurred to them.'

I frowned. 'If Katlyn is a Herb Lorist, she wouldn't want soldierguards here, so we're probably safe enough for now.'

A flicker of anger crossed Kella's face. 'You're too cynical, Elspeth. It makes you blind to things right under your nose,' she added obliquely.

'What about the others?'

'Everyone's fine except for a few bruises and bumps. Pavo is not too good, but that has nothing to do with the accident.'

'Jik?' I asked.

She smiled. 'A cracked rib. He's milking the goats with Grufyyd. Domick has gone off to scout the area. Once a coercer . . .' I was astounded to see her eyes soften and wondered if friendship was all that had grown up between them.

Kella stood, taking the empty bowl from my fingers. I could not remember drinking the soup.

'Sleep and get better. The world will wait,' the healer said.

Weary as I was, I could not rest easy. The expedition seemed to be in tatters, without disguise or papers, two all but unfit to travel. Would we ever get home again?

Domick returned late that night.

'Elspeth?' he whispered outside the window.

'I'm awake,' I answered softly, sitting up. 'Come in.'

He climbed through the window. 'I am to sleep in the stables with Jik and Darga, but I wanted to talk to you while it was quiet. Katlyn and Grufyyd are good people,' Domick said. 'Kella believes it and so do I. I don't like lying to them.'

I hid my amazement at these un-coercerlike sentiments. Domick went on. 'They seem . . . accustomed to people like us - people on the run, scared and without anything but a flimsy cover story. The medicines, the food, the lack of questions . . . makes me think they have done this before - sheltered runaways.'

'What are you trying to say?' I asked.

He frowned. 'Something Katlyn said, right at the start makes me think this son of theirs, Brydda, might be mixed up in Sedition, rescuing other Seditioners. It's my guess he sends people here from time to time.'

'Are you sure? How do you know?'

He shrugged. 'Instinct as much as anything. Remember a while back one of the Misfits we rescued spoke of rumours in the Lowlands of a Seditious organization where escapees from the Council Farms could find help.'

I nodded thoughtfully. 'If you're right, it means we're safe enough here. But we have to get going again soon, or we'll waste the time we gained coming through the mountain. The expedition must go on, even if some of us are to be left behind.

Domick's face was impassive and I knew he had come to the same conclusion.

'We're close to Rangorn, but we can get to the Ford without being seen. It's unguarded, though Grufyyd says there are guards further down at the ferry. I'll get some papers before I have to go across, but what about the rest of you?'

'We'll manage without them. I think the best thing is for you to try to get hold of a cart. That way Pavo and I will be able to move more quickly.' I touched his hand. 'Go to bed now.'

He left as soundlessly as he had come.

Later Katlyn came in to change the bandages on my feet. 'Poor ill-treated feet,' she said gently, unwrapping them. 'I put on a salve to numb them so you could sleep. The scars are deep and have not healed well, though they are old.'

'I have to walk,' I said.

Katlyn nodded. 'If you must, these will carry you. But walking will increase the hurt. If they are ever to heal properly you must rest them completely for many months, perhaps even longer.'

Katlyn looked up at me, her expression serious. 'Child, there is something I want to say to you. By the look, you be th' leader of these bairns. Kella told me you are making for the outland coast regions, in search of sanctuary. I tell you, I do not think you will find any safe place on the coast. I want you to think of staying here with us.'

'Here?' I echoed, astounded.

Katlyn reached out and touched my hand. This is truly a safe house, a refuge for runaways . . . and for others. You could help us in our work. Help others like yourself. . .'

I stared at Katlyn, my heart beating fast, for her eyes told me clearly that she knew we had not told her the truth about ourselves.

'Think on it. Talk with the others. Let us know tonight what you decide,' Katlyn said softly.

'What will you tell her? Won't she find it odd that runaways refuse refuge?' Pavo asked, when I told the others of Katlyn's offer.

'I have decided to tell them the truth,' I said. 'I think we owe them that or as much of it as we can tell.'

Grufyyd turned out to be a big, silent man with a brown beard and sombre, smoke-grey eyes. After we had eaten nightmeal, my first out of bed, I asked if I could retell our story.

'We have so often had to lie that it's hard to see where the truth can be told,' I began. 'It is true we are escapees, in one sense, but that was a long time ago. Now we, and others, have a secret . . . place in the high country. There are a lot of us now, mostly no more than children, and mostly runaways. Some came to us, more we helped get away. Until recently, we thought our existence a secret. Then we started to hear rumours of a Seditious organization rescuing people from the Council and we were afraid it might mean us.'

Katlyn and Grufyyd exchanged an odd, tense look.

'We also heard the Council meant to investigate the Highlands, and that meant we were in danger. So it was decided to send us down to see what we could find out. And at the same time, we mean to search for a friend we think is hiding somewhere near Murmroth and Aborium.'

'How did you come to be half-drowned on the banks of the Suggredoon?' Grufyyd asked in a rumbling voice.

'We came across the White Valley looking for an Oldtime pass through the mountains. We didn't want to use the main roads. But we stumbled on a secret camp run by Henry Druid. He takes prisoner anyone who gets too near, and they have to join him. He makes all the men join his armsmen,'

Katlyn cast an appalled glance at Grufyyd. 'Armsmen. Then he still means to get revenge?'

Grufyyd shook his head sorrowfully.

'We managed to escape, but the Olden way proved impassable. We were desperate with the Druid's armsmen close behind us, so we rafted the Suggredoon through the mountain.'

Katlyn gasped. 'But is it possible?' No one answered since we were the living proof of our story.

'Looked overmuch damage for an overturned boat,' Grufyyd observed dispassionately.

I continued. 'Now ... all I have told you is true, but I have not told everything, mostly to protect the ones we left behind. But I would not have said this much unless I trusted you, and because we want you to understand that we can't stay here.'

'We are no strangers to necessary secrets,' Katlyn said gently. 'I spoke impulsively this morning, though I guessed you would not stay. But we would like to offer you further help, in return for a favour.'

'What favour?' Domick asked.

Grufyyd rose suddenly and decisively. 'You have heard enough, I reckon, to guess our son Brydda does not live strictly according to Council law. In short, he is a Seditioner. He helps people who are to be Burned for Sedition to get away and start afresh. It is possible his organization is the one your rumours spoke of. Our problem is that we have lost contact with him. Brydda has neither visited us, nor sent people to be hidden for two moons, and we are afraid something has happened to him. No one would send word to us, because no one else knows about us. He keeps us secret for our own safety and for the safety of the people he sends.

'We are too old for intrigue, and we ask that you will go into Aborium and bear a message to Brydda from us.'

Domick looked at me. 'No,' he said decisively. I was startled at his brusqueness after his words the previous night. 'If I were with you . . .' he said.

'We mean to part before Morganna, you see,' I explained. 'Domick will be going to Sutrium alone. We have no papers and had meant to stay away from the towns. And Aborium does not have a good reputation, even in the Highlands.'

Grufyyd nodded. 'It is a bad place.'

'You spoke of help,' Domick said belligerently. 'I don't see how delivering a message to a dangerous city can be called helping.' He was looking down at Kella, and suddenly I understood his agitation.

Grufyyd nodded with grave courtesy that made Domick seem rude and brash. 'I meant to offer you the use of our cart, which your horse can pull.'

'We will be happy to deliver a message to your son,' I said, deciding. I gave Domick a hard stare. 'It is the least we can do after all you have done for us.'

Grufyyd's face broke into a beguiling smile. He crossed abruptly to the door, gathering up his coat. On the threshold he turned. 'Soon the rains will come. It will be best for you to go soon. Tomorrow morning.' Without waiting for a response, he went out leaving a startled silence behind him.

I looked around to see Katlyn looking at Domick. 'He has been frightened for Brydda, we both have. Do not fear for your friends, Domick. No one checks papers in Aborium. And it is even possible Brydda can help you.'

Katlyn looked at me and smiled. 'Now . . . food and drink to travel.' She turned to her store cupboards.

'How are we to find Brydda?' Jik asked timidly.

Katlyn smiled over her shoulder at him. 'You must go to the Inn of the Cuttlefish and ask for Brydda Llewellyn - that is the name he calls himself, but it is also a password. Wait then, and he will come to you.'

'And if he doesn't?' Domick asked.

Katlyn's back faced us, but it seemed to shrink. 'Then that will mean he cannot come. The journey takes three days. If you leave very early tomorrow morning and travel steadily, you will arrive at Aborium at day break, and that is the best and safest time to enter the city. Tradesmen from outlying regions come then, when the gates are opened.'

'It is a walled city?' Domick asked sharply.

'The gates are open freely and unguarded in the daylight hours,' Katlyn assured him.

She turned to us suddenly, her face serious. 'I would not ask this of you unless there were no other way. But remember the rumours you have heard about Aborium, for all its open gates. Do not linger more than you need. Many disappear and are never seen again.'

'Slavers . . .' I murmured.

Katlyn's expression altered subtly. 'You have heard of such things?' Domick and Kella gave me a wondering look.

'I heard a story while we were in the Druid camp. I didn't know if it were the truth or not.'

'Many things that seem impossible are true of Aborium. In its own way, it is worse than Sutrium. There the Council rules, but Aborium belongs to the Herder Faction.'

Jik paled.

'It is a bad place, bad and dangerous, and I fear for my Brydda,' she added in a whisper.

We arrived at Aborium three days later.

Bypassing Morganna on Grufyyd's advice we travelled on a lesser road. Only when we were near Aborium, did we venture near to the coast.

From the distance the town was curiously ugly. Sprawled along the shore, it seemed to be made up of smaller versions of the square skyscrapers we had seen under Tor. Above the city hung a dense, bleary mire of smoke.

'I don't like the look of this place,' Kella said.

Avra was disinterested in the city. 'All such places where the funaga live like rats in a nest stink,' she observed with disparagement that would not have shamed Gahltha.

She was more interested in the sea which provided a dazzling setting for such a grimy jewel. Being mountain bred, she had never seen the Great Sea and was fascinated by it.

We had meant to arrive outside Aborium at dawn, but the loss and slow repair of a wheel delayed us half a day. In the end we had our first glimpse of the city just before dusk. I did not like the idea of going into the city by night, so we made camp on the shore. We would enter Aborium as Katlyn had suggested - at dawn with the tradefolk.

We used the wood Grufyyd had somehow known we would need to make a fire sheltered from the city and the road by a lump of rock, then watched the sun fall into the sea in a blaze of coloured glory.

Suddenly it was night.

Kella set a cauldron of Katlyn's herbal soup to warm and made some damper bread to cook in the coals. Pavo and Jik reorganized the cart, concealing the all-important maps in a pocket in Avra's halter.

There was a slight breeze but it was a warm night and the air smelled fresh and salty. Moved by impulse, I went to the water's edge, barely visible in the moonless night. I stared into the shadowy waves for a moment, then took off my boots. The water was surprisingly warm after the initial chill. I stood there letting the rim of the Great Sea break over my feet and wondered what lay ahead of us.

I started to find Avra beside me.

There is a story among the equines that there are many Lands beyond the sea which leads to the sky, where there are no funaga, and beasts rule themselves,' she sent. We stood awhile in silence, half-mesmerized by the murmurous sighing of the waves on the shore.

Returning to the fire I found the others seated, staring into the flames with the half-dreamy expressions a fire always seems to evoke.

'I have never seen the sea before,' Kella said softly. 'I did not imagine it would be so beautiful, or so frightening.' Her voice fell nearly to a whisper on the last word.

'Frightening?' Pavo took up the word as if it were a curio.

Kella nodded without looking at him. 'It reminds me how big the world is, and how small I am to be pitted against it.' She nodded at the sea where the ghostly reflection of our fire glinted on black waves. 'I wonder how many people are like that, with their own dream, thinking it's the right way, the right dream for the world. Perhaps all lives are little and meaningless really.'

Pavo regarded the healer silently for a moment, then a smile lit his pale, bony face. The world is large, but each life is important to the liver. Think of the Beforetimers making the city under Tor. If they had let themselves feel small and insignificant, they would not have bothered. Such a city is the end of a thousand dreams.' He stopped, panting faintly. Jik and Kella looked impressed, but I could not help thinking that their illusion of greatness had also led them to the making of death machines.