Authors: Isobelle Carmody
'And so we have done these long years past, stealing their cargo and silver when we could, disrupting their festivals and plans, rescuing prisoners and spiriting them away. And we have bided our time.'
Brydda looked into my eyes. 'You asked once why they wanted me so badly. That is why. They are afraid if I grow too strong, I will revolt openly, and that people might follow me.'
He looked at me speculatively. 'If I had a hundred like you, I would dare to try it today.'
'Don't you despise me for my deformed mind?' I asked so coolly Kella gasped.
Brydda spat into the flames. 'If the Herders are normal, then let me also be called Misfit. As to fearing you, I fear no man - or girl. Even if she can talk to dogs.'
Pavo and Kella exchanged a quick look, and Idris looked at Brydda in confusion. I took a deep breath. Then maybe one day you'll have your wish.'
Brydda's eyes flashed. 'What do you mean? Your people would fight with me?'
I shook my head. 'You go too fast. I'm not the one to decide.'
Brydda looked angry, then he laughed aloud. 'That's me all over. My mother always said I was like a wild bull at a fence. Yet I think we will one day be allies.' His eyes had a familiar faraway look.
I was more than ever convinced Brydda had some sort of Misfit ability, a combination of empathy and futuretelling, just enough to make Brydda an infallible judge of character and a lucky guesser. But if he wanted to think of it as a 'knack', past experience told me to say nothing of my theories.
'I have always thought of Misfits as unlucky mutants. Now I see there are Misfits and Misfits,' Brydda mused. 'Life is too short for all there is in it. A man with his eyes open learns something new every day,' he added so ironically we all laughed.
Gradually, the others fell asleep, but Brydda and I stayed up talking far into the night.
His organization was very large and he agreed his was the organization the rumours we heard had indicated. 'But I have no people in the high country.' He frowned. 'You do come from the Highlands?'
I nodded.
By comparison, Obernewtyn was very small fry. But Brydda disagreed, saying more like me might shift the tide of a battle. He was taken aback to discover how young we were, but still believed we could help one another. I agreed to try to organize a meeting between him and Rushton, but I was not sure our aims coincided.
'At the bottom of everything we are Misfits, and few men would have reacted as you did. Can you say for certain all your people would think as you do? Not be disgusted by us, or frightened?'
Brydda looked thoughtful at this. 'I don't know. Maybe the thought of someone who could talk inside your head, or make animals do anything they want . . . would seem frightening.'
I had told him little about our abilities, letting him assume he had seen all there was.
'If people are frightened, it is because of their ignorance and Herder lies about mutations. They could learn,' Brydda said at last.
'Maybe, but we have to be sure,' I said. There is no good in our exchanging one kind of tyranny for another.'
We had decided it was safer for us all to travel together until we reached Rangorn. Brydda knew we were looking for a Beforetime library but this interested him less than our hope that we would find an unknown Talented Misfit in the same vicinity.
Brydda asked Pavo where he thought we would find the library. At the mention of ruins, he frowned.
'I don't know about a library, but there are ruins of an old city near here.'
Pavo looked excited. 'That must be it,' he said, then his face fell. 'But if it is near and common knowledge, the library is sure to have been found and ransacked.'
Brydda shook his head. 'No one goes there.'
'Why?' Pavo asked in a puzzled tone. 'It's not in Blacklands territory.'
'It is haunted by ghosts of the Beforetime,' Reuvan said.
Pavo gaped at him, then burst out laughing. 'But there are no such things.'
Brydda looked at him without smiling. 'So I once thought, but these are real enough. I have seen them.'
'And I,' Reuvan said with a shudder. Terrible monstrous faces twisted in mortal agony.'
'Ghosts?' Pavo echoed, confounded by their joint evidence. I stared from one to the other, just as astounded.
'Ghosts,' Brydda said decisively.
In the early hours, a man rode out from the city with news for Brydda. The attack on the Herder ship and the escape of three dangerous Seditioners aided by the notorious Black Dog, Brydda Llewellyn, was the talk of the town. Huge rewards were being offered for information leading to the capture of Brydda, Kella, Jik and Pavo. There was also a reward for a girl seen escaping from custody at the Inn of the Cuttlefish, believed to have been an associate of the Black Dog.
The Herder ship had been found floating aimlessly, empty but for the wounded ship's master. He had described Brydda's attack as ruthless and bloody, claiming thirty cut-throats had descended without warning.
'Now you see where I came by my terrible reputation,' Brydda said.
According to the ship's master the priests had been set adrift by the villainous Black Dog, after freeing an important prisoner, and had been taken by slavers.
Brydda was delighted with the way the Herders had linked the events. 'How they will sweat wondering what a Herder novice had to do with the Black Dog,' he crowed.
More disturbing was the messenger's report that a search party was combing the town. 'It will only be a matter of time before they come on the unguarded north gate and realize you have got out. Then they will begin to search the plains,' the messenger said grimly.
After the messenger had gone Brydda said, 'They want me badly because I stand as a symbol to all those who, though they don't fight openly against the Herders, wait and long for us to rise.
'For their sakes I can't take the risk of being caught. There are four watch towers in Aborium with a clear view together of the plain from the Blacklands to the Great Sea. They will be watching for any movement away from the main roads, and all roads will be guarded. We must go at once, while it is dark. I have no desire to go to your ruins, but right now it is probably the safest place.'
We packed up the camp quickly. Reuvan and Brydda rode the two horses they had stolen to leave the city, I rode on Avra and the rest went in the cart with Idris at the rein. Fortunately it was a black, moonless night but the darkness made it impossible for us to move quickly.
To while away the time, Brydda made me help him devise a method of signalling that would let him communicate directly with the horses. He was intrigued by their intelligence. 'I always liked animals better than people,' he confided.
Later he asked Jik and myself to demonstrate our abilities. He was amazed to find his emotions swayed by Jik. 'Imagine such an ability in battle. He could shatter the nerve of a dozen good men without firing an arrow. He and more like him could mean a nearly bloodless victory.'
'It wouldn't be very fair to make brave men act like cowards,' Jik said.
Brydda gave him an incredulous look.
Pavo spotted the ruins first.
He had always seemed ageless to me, but now he looked ancient, shrunken with pain; Kella told us the illness raged freely through his frail body. His hair and teeth had begun to fall out and this made it look as if he were ageing at an accelerated pace. Yet he seemed untouched by his outward transformation, in better spirits than anyone, apart from his perplexity over Brydda's ghosts.
We had been riding in silence, each busy with his own thoughts, when Pavo stiffened and pointed.
'There it is,' he said, his voice a triumphant sigh.
At first we could see nothing. Then I saw the square shapes of buildings barely distinguishable from the dark night. Up close, they were in far worse condition than the ruinous buildings we had seen under Tor. Here the walls rose only slightly above our heads, the stone cracked and grown over with a weedy beard of green scrub and moss. The faint moonlight gave the buildings an intangible look, as if they were a mirage that might dissolve any second.
We were within two lengths of the first building when Brydda called a halt. 'We'd better stop here. The ghosts will rise if we go nearer. I think it will be safe enough. No one would dream of us taking refuge here.'
I looked at Pavo's determined face. 'Pavo and I will be going in to look for the library. The rest of you may wait here with Brydda, or come as you please,' I said.
Idris said he would wait with Brydda but the rest, even Reuvan, said they would come. We left all the horses except Avra, who would draw the cart to bring back the books we found. Reuvan, Kella and Jik elected to walk, while Pavo and I rode in the cart. Pavo was holding his precious drawings and maps tightly on his knee. He did not look at them, knowing them by heart as he had studied and pored over them so often.
'I know where we are now,' Pavo said suddenly. From that point on, he directed us. Occasionally he led us to a road that rubble had made impassable, then he would frown and take us another way. Without his guidance, we would never have found the hidden book store.
I did not believe in ghosts, but the deeper we went into the dark maze of stone and crumbled walls, the more uneasy I became.
It was clear some disaster had befallen the ruins, for there was far more damage than to other ruins I had seen on the Blacklands fringes. In one place, pale moonlight glimmered on a charred wall showing the shape of a man running. I did not know what it could mean, but I felt a deep chill in looking at it. Jik stared at it, his eyes bulging.
I began to think of all the stories I had heard of ghosts, how vengeful they were supposed to be when their territory was invaded. If there were ghosts, the ancient ruin would be the perfect place to find them. I wished we had waited until dawn to begin searching.
Though the previous day had been cold, the early morning was icy and when a faint breeze blew across from the sea, smelling of damp stone, the cold began to seep into my bones.
My apprehension increased with each step yet there was no overt reason for it other than the strangely compelling atmosphere of the city, as if it were alive, and watching us pass. The others were showing signs of disquiet too.
Kella's breath was coming fast, though she was walking quite slowly, and Jik stayed very close to the side of the carriage. I was surprised to see even Pavo looking about him with a faint distracted frown.
'I'm frightened,' Jik said suddenly, his voice quavering in the stony silence.
'So am I,' Kella admitted.
'Something is going to happen. Can't you feel it?' Reuvan said, in a voice made flat with suppressed fear.
There was a faint moaning noise and we all froze, staring around nervously.
'What was that?' Kella whispered.
'The ghosts,' Jik said in a high, frightened tone.
'The wind,' I said, but my voice sounded uncertain. I looked at Pavo.
'I don't understand it,' he said. 'I am afraid too, but what have I to fear?' He reached out and took up a brush torch and set a flint to it. The flame flickered and blazed, throwing light onto his bony face. 'We are not far from the library now. Just down here.'
The lane ended in a mass of twisted metal and rubble.
'We'll have to clear this,' Pavo said.
I looked at him in dismay. 'It will take weeks.'
He frowned then climbed out of the cart with an energy that belied his illness. Taking the torch, he began to clamber over the rubble.
'It doesn't matter about the light,' Reuvan said gloomily, mistaking my look of concern. 'We often see ghost lights moving around the city. No one will come to investigate.'
Watching Pavo peering about then scrambling higher, I found myself unable to believe anything could have survived the devastation that had overtaken the city. Nothing was left but enduring stone weathered with time. Paper was a thousand times more vulnerable. But Pavo seemed undaunted by the look of the city.
My neck prickled and again I had the queer feeling we were being watched.
'I think we should leave while we can,' Reuvan whispered. Kella and Jik said nothing, but looked as if they felt the same. With shaking hands, I lit another torch.
'Here!' Pavo shouted, disappearing over the crown of the rubble mound. 'The entrance is over here.'
I had no desire to go into the dark alley waiting like a toothless mouth. But Pavo was alone, and calling for me. The pain in my feet was a welcome distraction from the fear creeping into my veins as I climbed after him. The mound did not extend very far into the alley, and Pavo was kneeling on the ground beyond it, scrabbling in the dirt and muttering to himself.
He looked up excitedly. 'This is strange. I understood the lock worked from the outside, but it seems to be locked from the inside. Do you think you can open it? It will be complicated.' He described the mechanism, which was so complex I wondered why such a lock would be wanted to protect books which were supposed to have been plentiful.
I looked around, not liking the way the dark seemed to crouch just outside the wavering circle of flame light. Pavo's scratchings had marked out the squarish shape of a door. There was a great deal of earth layered over it, but Pavo assured me it would make no difference. I let my mind feel out the lock until I understood how it worked. It was as much a seal as anything, but somehow it had been activated from the inside, jamming the mechanism so that it could not be opened except by force. After a long moment, there was a distinct whirring sound. The ground trembled, and a section of earth seemed to drop, and slide away into a concealed space, showering dirt onto the metal steps running down from the opening. I had expected the air to smell bad, but it was very dry and cool.
I knelt and peered in. Fear struck at me with the almost physical force of a blow and I fell back, instinctively raising my hands in defence, certain something was about to leap out at me.
'I'll go first,' Pavo said impassively.
'Wait,' I said.
Climbing back to the top of the mound, I told Reuvan to stay with Avra. Kella and Jik came to help, carrying their own torches.