The Dreamtrails (41 page)

“It was Ariel who chose us and supervised the … the cutting.…” Cinda gestured to her mouth. “Also, he … he uses us as he wishes, and he is very … cruel.” Then she told me that they knew nothing of Ariel’s conversation with the One, for he always made them leave.

Another shadow made several slight gestures with her
hand, and Cinda raised her own hand and made several evocative gestures in return. I realized that the women had invented their own language of signals, just as Brydda had done to enable unTalents to communicate with beasts.

Harwood asked aloud how Cinda had come to Herder Isle, for she was not a Norselander. Cinda and the other shadows gave him a wary look. To her eyes, I realized, he was another Hedra with his split robe and shaven head. I explained to her and the others aloud that Harwood and all of us, save for Reuvan, were mutants in Hedra guise. Harwood added that his Talent was coercion: the use of deep-probe abilities to control the minds of others. Cinda glanced in sudden comprehension at the blank-faced Threes, the Herder Falc, and the two Hedra guards seated in a row against the wall, blank faced and docile, and Harwood admitted that he had manipulated their minds. He added that the shadows need not fear he would use his abilities on them, for Misfits did not tamper with the minds of allies. He smiled as he said this, and although he had a kind face, none of the shadows responded to his smile.

Cinda returned her serious gaze to my face and tapped her head. I took this as a request to raise an image in her mind and obliged, but I told her that the image was not really necessary. As long as I was within her mind, she need only imagine speaking, and I would hear her words. Her image nodded, and she began to tell her story.

She had been taken from the west coast by the Herders, along with her brother, who had been destined to become a novice. He had killed himself before he could be made an acolyte, and she had only learned of it some time after because Ariel had selected her to serve the One, and she had been in the healing hall while her severed tongue healed.

Harwood interrupted to ask if all shadows had their tongues severed, and she shook her head. It had been Ariel’s idea that girls be used as body servants for the One, she explained, for although the old man hated clumsiness and roughness, he hated women even more. Ariel had suggested that his body servants ought to be slender girls whose hair was shorn and whose tongues were cut so he need not consider them females. They would serve until they began to develop breasts and were starved to put puberty off as long as possible, for the One disliked change, too. Once the chosen shadows became too old or shapely, they were put to work as invisible drudges in the compound’s kitchens and wash-houses with the other women, many of whom could speak but did not for fear of having their
own
tongues cut out.

“Are all shadows women?” Colwyn asked, for he, too, had been monitoring the tale.

“There are male shadows, but they work in the mine or at the demon-band works. Their tongues are not cut,” her image explained. There was pity in her face, which astonished me, because how could one whose existence sounded so awful find it in herself to feel pity for another?

One of the other shadows, whose name had been given as Lure, made some gestures, and Cinda told me she had said that the Lud of the Herders must have died, else how could we have come to destroy the Faction?

Pity rose in me again, and I said aloud, “We did not come here to do battle. There are too few of us to fight. We must leave as soon as the ship we came on can be repaired. We must stop Ariel from bringing plague to the west coast. But know that in the Land, we have been preparing ourselves for a battle against the Faction, and the day is near when we will come here to fight them.”

The shadows exchanged looks, and then Lure made some emphatic gestures to Cinda, who nodded and said, “Lure says that you have begun the battle here already, and you must remain to finish it. She said that we will fight with you. All of the shadows will, from child to eldest. We will fight with teeth and nails if you have no weapons for us.”

“We are too few,” Harwood said aloud gently.

“You are few, but there are hundreds of us,” Cinda’s image told me in a low, fierce mindvoice. “It is as Lure said. If you will command us, we will serve. We will kill the Herders.”

I stared into her stormy eyes, amazed that such savage purpose could issue from such a waiflike figure. And when I looked at the others, their eyes held the same grim fire.

“If you rise up, many of you will be killed, especially if the Herders still have Beforetime weapons,” I told her gently.

“They
would
die, if they rose up without any plan,” Harwood broke in. “But with a plan, if there truly are hundreds of shadows willing to oppose their masters, it may be that we really can take control here.”

I gaped at the coercer in astonishment, for I had always seen him as rather cautious. “You know that when I spoke of taking control, I meant only that we should do so to get the ship repaired,” I said.

“I know it. But, Guildmistress, by pure chance we have managed to slip inside the very skin of the Faction, and we have the One and the Threes in our power. Would there ever again come a moment so ripe for the taking, even if we sailed up with ten ships to Hevon Bay? We came here, as you did, by accident, but these shadows have made me wonder if it was not mere chance that brought us here, but purposeful fate.”

Cinda and the other shadows gazed at the coercer-knight as if mesmerized.

Cinda touched his arm, and because I was still within her mind, I felt him enter her mind and heard her say, “Lead us and we will fight until the last of us drops!”

“Wait!” I said. “I understand what you are saying, but we have to go after Ariel and stop the plague, or there will be more deaths on the west coast than any of us could imagine in our most terrible dreams.”

Harwood rose and came to pull me to my feet. “Elspeth,” he said fiercely, “we can do
both
. Once the ship is repaired, you will travel with some of the others to find the null, and I and whoever else remain will lead these shadows.”

I farsent to him, “Harwood, only think! These are starveling girls and women with no fighting skills, and the shadow men are like to be the same. If they rise against the Faction, many will die.”

“We are dead already,” Cinda’s image said, for both of our minds were still within hers, and she had heard me. “If we fight, we will fight to live.”

Harwood said aloud, “Guildmistress, people died in the Land, too, during the rebellion, to achieve freedom. And we need not wage an open battle here. Look how these shadows move around within the Herder Compound, hearing everything, seeing everything, unnoticed. They cook food and serve drinks that might be drugged. They can go anywhere without anyone wondering why. They deliver messages that can be falsified or altered. Their very meekness and fragility would stop anyone seeing them as a threat. With their help and knowledge and our Talents, we could cut the heart from this place before the Herders know they are in danger.”

His words made me think of what my father had cried out before the Herders burned him. If we were to strike a blow against the Herders here, we would be striking at the heart of the foul organization that had killed my parents and my brother. “The Norselanders might fight, too,” I said at last, and Cinda and the other shadows nodded excitedly.

Slowly, I nodded. “All right. We will try. But nothing must hinder us from making the
Stormdancer
seaworthy.”

Cinda turned to gesticulate urgently at the others, and Harwood sent to me, “I agree. Our first priority must be to stop Ariel, but until the shipfolk return, let us begin to make a map of this place.”

His words gave me another idea. Aloud, I said, “Ariel has chambers here. Coerce the Threes to find out where they are, and I will search them for clues about which city is the destination of the plague null.”

Cinda reached out to touch my wrist, and when I turned my attention to her mind, she said, “I will take you to my friend. He may know more of Ariel’s doings.”

Twenty minutes later, I was following the slender girl down the steps from the bathing room again, Falc’s hood drawn forward to conceal my hair.

Cinda opened the door to the laundry, and I froze, seeing that it was no longer empty. The coppers were now full, and there were shadows flitting about, their thin dark-clad forms half obscured by dense steam clouds. I hesitated, but Cinda assured me that no shadow would trouble me. Sure enough, the black-clad women paid so little heed to us as we passed that we might just as well have been invisible. But then Cinda stopped and gave me a reassuring look before she clapped her hands loudly. All the shadows turned to look at us, their
faces bland. Cinda lifted her fingers and flicked them for a long time. Gradually, the blankness in the women’s faces gave way to wariness and then to amazement, hope, disbelief. Some of the women lifted their hands, but Cinda shook her head, fingers still fluttering, and in a moment, all the women had returned to their work, leaving me to feel I might have imagined the brief transformation I had witnessed.

“I told them to rejoice, for we are about to rise up against our masters,” Cinda said, leading me out of the overheated washing chamber into the yard, where the numerous lines I had seen earlier now sagged under the weight of wet sheets, towels, and hundreds of white, gray, and black robes. “I told them that you and your friends are powerful mutant spies who have already overpowered the One and the Threes and that you will lead us in the fight to come.” She saw my unguarded reaction and read it accurately, saying, “Do not fear that any of us will give you away. All who work in this laundry once served the One and so cannot speak, and the priests know nothing of our handspeaking.”

“I do not believe you would betray us even if you could speak,” I said, shamed by my momentary doubts.

We reached the gate Cinda had mentioned earlier, and it brought us to a narrow lane that passed along the rear of two long rows of buildings. As we hastened along it, Cinda explained that this way was safer because such back lanes were used only by shadows, novices, and the occasional acolyte. They were called shadow paths because the Hedra rarely used them.

“Are there other paths in the compound?” I asked, and she nodded. We came to a small area outside a door where a Herder novice of about fifteen chopped kindling. Before I could think what to do, he turned and saw us. Cinda stepped
forward, moving her fingers rapidly. The youth flicked an incredulous glance at me, but Cinda caught his arm and continued speaking with her hands. I realized this must be the friend she would have me meet, but I had not imagined he would be a novice. He was as tall and strongly built as she was thin and small, but when they turned to me, they wore the same look of yearning. The youth said in an uneven voice, “Is it true what Cinda says? You are the mutant who hid aboard the
Stormdancer
? I heard that you had been taken to the cells.”

“I am a Misfit,” I corrected him. “And I was rescued by friends who are also Misfits.”

“Cinda says you can speak inside her head and hear her thoughts.”

“I can listen to what she wants to tell me,” I said. “I can show you, if you like.”

He shook his head hastily, and Cinda flicked her fingers at the novice and laughed quietly. He scowled at her, red-cheeked. “I am not afraid!” Her expression became contrite, and she moved her fingers until he seemed mollified.

“Cinda asks me to tell you how I ended up here,” he said. He glanced warily both ways along the lane and then said, “I never wanted to be a Herder. Hardly any of us do, but those who fail the training are sold as slaves or become mine shadows. Those considered difficult are sent to the demon-band works, and after a few moons there, all of your hair and teeth fall out, and your bones start crumbling inside your skin. So I do my studies and I am obedient. But I am not a Herder, and I never will be,” he added almost savagely. “Is it true that you and your friends mean to overthrow the Faction?”

“All that she told you is true,” I said. “But there are few of
us, and it will take time to establish real control, even with the help of the shadows. We must proceed with care, for the moment your brothers realize we are in their midst, they will put on their demon bands and we will be helpless.”

“If you control the Threes and the One, you are far from helpless,” said the youth. He glanced at Cinda, then back to me. “She said you need information about Ariel, but you need not trouble yourself about the Pale Man, for he has gone to Norseland. It is said that he will go to the west coast before he returns.”

His last words gave me pause, but realizing Cinda had told him nothing of the plague null, I did so, explaining that I needed to know where he might have taken the null. “Faugh!” the lad spat. “It does not surprise me that the Pale Man should come up with such a foul plan. All novices fear him, because when first we come, he tests us to see if we would suit being made into nulls. He smiles when we scream, as if our suffering pleasures him. I know nothing of this matter of the west coast, but I can question the other novices at midmeal. It is unlikely anyone knows more, for the Pale Man’s chambers are in a sector on the other side of the compound where few of us have call to go.”

“How many sectors are there?” I asked.

“Twenty-one,” he answered. “The only reason novices leave their sectors is because a Herder bids them go, and you must go only where you are told and then return directly. Sometimes my master sends me to the ink house or paper press, but occasionally I accompany him to the library, which is right across the compound.”

“Is movement controlled?” I asked.

He nodded gravely. “Any unaccompanied novice or
acolyte outside his sector must produce his master’s token to show he has been sent on an errand, and the token is marked with chalk to tell where he is meant to go. If he is in the wrong place, a whipping or time in the tide cells would be the least he would suffer.” He glanced again both ways along the lane.