The Dreamtrails (34 page)

I ought to have been too frightened to sleep, but I was weary to the bone, and as I sat there growing warmer, my eyelids began to close. I fought sleep for a little while; then I lay down, simply too tired and wretched to worry about someone finding me.

I dreamed the old dream of walking through a dark tunnel filled with the slow drip of water into water. The dream seemed colorless and remote, as if it were the memory of a dream. I slipped from it into another dream in which I was flying. It was vivid and thrilling.
I’m free
, I thought. Then, without any sense of the dream changing or any feeling of disruption, I was somewhere dark, and Matthew turned to me, smiling reassurance.

“I need to gan close enow to hear,” he whispered.

“What do ye think ye’ll learn?” asked another voice.

“Listen, these slavemasters of ours came here; they murdered th’ queen an’ enslaved her people. No one kens where they came from or why,” Matthew said. “An’ now this ship has come with its strange white-faced lord, who wants to negotiate the purchase of a great many slaves. Thousands! That is what I heard one of the masters say yesterday. He said someone suggested breedin’ us to meet the demand. But the white-faced lord said that breeding slaves would take too long. Th’ masters mun provide full-grown slaves in a year. The white-faced lord says he will return with ships enow to
carry them and with payment. Why do they want so many slaves all at once?”

“An’ ye think ye’ll find answers to yer questions pokin’ in th’ heads of a few ragtag seamen?” The speaker sounded older than Matthew, and weary. But I could not make myself see him. The vision was fixed on Matthew.

“Seamen ken more than anyone else about other lands,” Matthew said. “I want to find out where this white-faced lord comes from.”

“What difference does it make? It’s all th’ same to us.”

Matthew shook his head impatiently and leaned forward to peer around the corner of the building in whose moon shadow they stood.

I opened my eyes to see Lark’s face illuminated in a spill of sunlight from the porthole, and the events of the night flooded back into my mind with devastating clarity.

“What is happening?” I asked, pushing the dream of Matthew to the back of my mind.

“It’s morning. Let’s speak inside my mind as you did with my father,” Lark whispered. “It will be safer than talking aloud.”

I nodded and evoked a picture of us in his mind.

He flinched.

“This will make it easier for you to speak to me with your thoughts,” I farsent the explanation to him.

“Is it true as Oma said that you made me get my father to take off his demon band?” Lark asked, his image laboriously articulating the words loudly and slowly.

“Yes,” I told him, resisting the impatient desire to simply sift the information I needed from his mind. “What has been happening?”

“Kaga is furious. He demanded to know why the Hedra who went ashore here retreated without even engaging in battle. The captain who had led the force up from the sea caverns said he had commanded the retreat, because almost all of his Hedra had been killed or taken prisoner by a host of mutants and beasts as well as ordinary men and women whose minds were controlled by the mutants, he said no human force could oppose them, however brave. Kaga killed him. He wanted to lead another attack, but the Nine has forbidden it. We are going back to Herder Isle.”

I had known where we must be bound, yet it was still a blow to hear the words. “How many Hedra are aboard the
Stormdancer
?”

“Over half. It is a pity more were not killed, for both ships are overloaded, since they must bear all those who came here on the
Black Ship
, and the
Stormdancer
is taking on a lot of water. We are lagging behind the
Orizon
, because we dare not go any faster.”

“What will happen when we reach Herder Isle?”

“We will anchor in Hevon Bay, which is very close to the entrance to the Herder Compound. Usually, the ships are anchored out from the shore in deeper water, but my father will ground the
Stormdancer
so we can repair her damaged hull. My father thinks that the Hedra and the priests aboard the
Orizon
will have gone inside the compound by the time we drop anchor, but the crew of the
Black Ship
are not Norselanders. They always remain on board, save for Salamander, who will go inside for a time. My father says you must remain hidden on board until it is safe to move. We will cross to the channel in Fallo in small ship boats as soon as we land. I am to go with Oma because my father may have to go into the compound to make a report.”

I did not need to be an empath to read the boy’s fear for his father. “Lark, I am sure that the Herders will be too concerned about the failure of the invasion to worry about your stowing away. What happens after Helvar makes his report?”

“If they allow it, he will come home, too, in our ship boat.”

“Perhaps I can come to Fallo with him?”

“You must wait until the next day,” Lark said. “The Hedra always set a watch on the ships, but they change them every few hours. Oma says you must slip into the water when the watch goes ashore and remain in the shadow of the ship until the new watch comes aboard. They will inspect the ship as the old watch marches back to the compound, and that is when you will be able to swim to the boulders at the end of the beach. Wait until the third watch to move, for the Hedra will be less alert. Oma says to hide in the rocks and wait until my father and the others return to clean the ships and begin repairs on the
Stormdancer
. We will tether our ship boats by the rocks, and while we are working, you can get aboard and hide under the canvas that will be there. The boat is called
Gutred
, after my mother. At the end of the day, we will bring you home with us.”

My heart sank at the thought of hiding in the rocks for a night and day. “Can’t I just swim across to the village? The channel cannot be very wide.”

“Nor is it. But there is a watch-hut atop each corner of the wall surrounding the Herder Compound; one overlooks the channel. You would be seen if you tried to swim across,” the boy answered. “I must go back out now. I will try to come again later in the day.” He rose to his feet, but I forestalled him to ask how long it would be before we reached Herder Isle. “It is not long past dawn now, but because of the currents and the shoals, we will not arrive at Hevon Bay before tomorrow night.”

After Lark had gone, I got up and stood indecisively in the darkened cabin. I would have paced except that I feared making any noise. Eventually, I ate the stale roll Lark had brought, drank the milk, and then lay on the bed. But there were shouts and thuds and footsteps in the hall outside the cabin, and I leapt up a dozen times in fright before I decided to make a seat for myself in the locker. I left the door open and stretched out my legs, knowing that I need only pull them in and close the locker door if anyone entered.

For a time, I cheered myself by imagining the shock the warrior priests must have got at finding themselves opposed by beasts as well as humans in Saithwold. I wondered what would be made of my disappearance. Linnet, Khuria, Gahltha, and Wenda all knew where I had gone, and eventually the tunnel in the cloister would be discovered and followed to the sea cavern where the debris left by the priests would tell its own tale. Then what? They would assume I had been caught. I doubted anyone would judge me fool enough to willingly board one of the ships, though that was exactly what I had intended to do.

Weary of thinking, I drew the locker door closed and made myself as comfortable as I could. Sleep claimed me then, and I was glad. After a good night’s sleep, I would be physically ready to face what the morrow brought, if not mentally.

A thunderous crash brought me out of the locker, my heart hammering. It sounded as if a great cliff of ice had fallen on the ship, but there had been no impact. I scrambled up onto the bed, opened the porthole, and peered out. It was night still, and I could see the lanterns that marked two ships in the distance. One was likely the
Orizon
, though it was impossible to tell at that distance in the darkness. It looked as if the larger
ship was approaching it. There was another great clap of sound, and I saw something bright red fly in a swift high arc from the larger ship to the smaller. Then there was a violent explosion, and a flower of orange and white bloomed against the velvet-dark night as the smaller ship burst into flame. I cried out in shock and then, realizing in horror what I had done, pressed my hand to my mouth, but no one came to investigate my cry. Probably everyone had rushed up on deck, hearing the first crash, and so there had been no one to hear a woman scream on a ship of only men.

I looked out the porthole again and saw that there was now a wedge of drowning flame and a single ship visible. I had no doubt it was the
Black Ship
, for no other ship had such deadly power. But why would the
Black Ship
strike its ally?

I remembered suddenly that I could reach Lark’s mind. I sent out a probe that located swiftly, but rather than communicating with him, I merely listened to the information his senses were bringing to his mind. Incredibly, it seemed that the
Black Ship
had fired on the
Orizon
, and from the furor among the Hedra, no one had any idea why. Then Lark registered with frightened excitement that the
Black Ship
was signaling them. I waited within Lark’s mind, sharing his anxiety as the shipman reading the flags spelled out the message:
The other ship was sunk because it had been boarded by mutants
.

My ears roared, but I forced myself to remain within Lark’s mind in case there was more.

“How could Salamander know there were mutants aboard?” he heard one of the warrior priests ask another.

“He has one of Ariel’s nulls aboard,” the other answered impatiently.

“But everyone knows their visions can only be interpreted by Ariel,” another spoke.

My blood turned to ice in my veins at the thought that Ariel had been aboard the
Black Ship
all this time. And how long before he knew that I was aboard the
Stormdancer
?

Lark did not come until dawn lightened the sky, staining the clouds rose-gold. He brought a tray heaped with food and a privy pot that he handed over with a blush, explaining that his father had pretended to be angry and had sent him to Oma’s cabin. Most of the crew were on deck, and the Hedra were practicing their martial arts, so it was unlikely anyone would come along the passage, but, he warned, we must be careful to keep our voices very low.

I nodded and asked where Oma had been sleeping. He answered that the big shipmate had slept on the deck like others of the crew. Fortunately, this was a common practice, so no one thought it odd.

Lark began to tell me what had happened to the
Orizon
, but I told him that I had seen its destruction. I told him what I had overheard and asked if it was true that Ariel was aboard. To my intense relief, the boy shook his head. He said, “Salamander always keeps at least two of Ariel’s nulls aboard his ship, and it is said he can read their visions almost as well as Ariel himself. The flagman told me that the
Black Ship
had been on its way back to Herder Isle so the Herder could make a report to the Three when Ariel’s nulls began screaming that mutants had taken over the
Orizon
. I have known those shipmen all my life, and now they are dead. But I think you must grieve, too, for your people were also aboard.”

I nodded, my mind still groping to take in the news that nulls were capable of seeing the future even when Ariel was not with them. Which had to mean that they were real futuretellers! Then I thought of those who had perished aboard
the
Orizon
and felt like weeping. “I do not know which of my friends were aboard or how they managed it. But Ariel has been responsible for too many deaths of people I loved,” I said, feeling the weight of my grief.

“Ariel is responsible for many deaths on Herder Isle, too,” Lark said. “But you need not fear that you will be exposed by the null as your friends were, for the flagman sent that both nulls died confirming the vision. Nulls are fragile and rarely last more than a few visions.”

“It is strange that the nulls did not see the failure of the invasion,” I said.

Lark shrugged. “They do not see many things, but what they do see is almost always true.”

I did not want to think about which of my friends might have died, so I forced myself to change the subject. “Tell me what you know about Ariel’s residence on Norseland.”

He answered that he knew little, save that the residence stood on a rocky knoll at the high island’s less populous end. The closest settlement to it was Cloistertown, which had grown up around what had once been a Herder cloister. It had been abandoned, and now all the priests on Norseland dwelt in the island’s only other cloister. This was walled, Lark added, and its watch-huts overlooked Main Cove where all ships anchored to unload those who would climb the narrow road up to the top of the island. Covetown had grown up around the top of the trail from the Main Cove and was the largest settlement on the island.

“I heard there was a training camp on Norseland,” I prompted.

He nodded. “That is on a plateau that rises up from the flatland behind Covetown and the cloister.”

“How did the Herders take control of the Norselands in
the first place?” I asked curiously.

“Partly by treachery,” Lark said. He went on to explain that some generations past, when the Norse king was making his annual journey from Norseland to Herder Isle for the sevenday summer festival, a great storm had blown up. After the storm, a broken ship carrying thirty-nine Herders was found cast up on the beach at Hevon Bay. They were brought to Hevon City to be cared for, and when the king asked where they had come from, they said only that their homeland was no more. Pitying the stranded priests, the old king had offered them land on which to build homes. He also gave them permission to woo and bond with the Norse women that they might settle more truly. But these men wanted no women, and it was not homes they built upon the rocky land behind Hevon City but a small compound where they lived communally and worshiped their punitive Lud.