The Rebellion (72 page)

No one was in sight when we rejoined the main road. A smudge of smoke from Guanette was the sole reminder that we were not all alone in the world.

The air was very clear, and as we turned our noses to the high mountains there were rank upon rank of them visible for once, and behind them, what appeared to be banks of clouds were in fact more mountains.

Gahltha dragged my thoughts down to earth, sending that the horses wanted to stretch their legs. We rode at an exhilarating pace for some time, trotted a bit, and then galloped again. It was only early afternoon when we stopped to rest at a public spring just before the turnoff to Darthnor. The horses were thirsty, and there would be no more drinkable water until we had got through the pass. Technically, we were on public property, but boundaries had a way of shifting when gypsies negotiated them, and the memory of Bergold and his sister prompted me to set a watch. Half the coercer-knights posted themselves in trees, perching in branches that gave them a good view of both the road and the turnoff.

Leaning against a mossy fallen log, I realized I was weary.

“I had forgotten,” Fian groaned. He flung himself flat on the ground not far from me.

“Forgotten what?”

“How much I hate to ride. Every bone in my body aches, an’ I know it will be worse tomorrow.”

Smiling, I advised him not to think of riding, since more of it lay ahead. “Fian, do you know why the Sadorians do not speak gadi?”

A true teknoguilder, Fian’s fidgets ceased as soon as his mind was engaged. “They do speak it, but they have chosen
to communicate in urolish. A lot of Gadfians actually learned urolish back in Gadfia, and they simply taught the others after their exodus.”

“Why didn’t they just go on speaking gadi?”

“Partly because they wanted no one they encountered to know where they had come from, in case they were followed. But also I think rejectin’ gadi were part of rejectin’ their country an’ their heritage in a broader sense,” Fian said. “But they still teach gadi to their children, an’ they use it for ceremonies an’ in songs.” He rolled onto his side. “Ye know, when I first figured out that them codes I was findin’ was actually ancient languages, I remember wonderin’ why dinna th’ Beforetimers choose one language an’ all of them speak it? But when I was learnin’ th’ jerman code, I found there were things I could say in that language that there were no words for in our language. I realized a different language is nowt just different words fer th’ same things, it’s a different way of thinkin’.…” He shook his head. “I’m nowt bein’ very clear.”

I thought I understood. “You’re saying that you think the Sadorians want to remember gadi because it lets them say things that our language doesn’t?”

He nodded eagerly. “Exactly. I think there is a part of th’ Sadorians that can only be expressed in gadi, an’ that bit of them would die if they let their language gan. Of course, there’s a lot th’ Sadorians feel is bad about their Gadfian heritage, so they only use it in poetry an’ songs. There is some sort of rule they have about never usin’ it in anger. But still, some of th’ Sadorians say gadi ought to be let die, because although it is a language of poetry an’ passion, it can also express perfectly th’ rage of th’ Gadfian fanatics.”

One of the coercer-knights interrupted to report that she had detected a group of miners traveling from Darthnor to
Guanette. Their leader planned to bring them to the spring.

“I could coerce him to change his mind, but then we’d have to stay hidden for ages until they have gone out of sight down the road,” the coercer said. “It’s better if we go now.”

I told Fian, who sighed and struggled to his feet. “Let’s gan, then. Sooner begun’s soonest ended.”

We arrived at Obernewtyn late in the afternoon. The coercers dismounted by the main gate, thanking their mounts, and Fian took himself off, too, when we came to the grassy track leading to the Teknoguild cave network. His horse offered to carry him there, but he said wryly that he had better walk the remainder of the way or he might never walk again.

I continued on the outer trail running along the wall to the farm gate. I jumped down from Gahltha outside the barns, and he rubbed his head on my chest, then went in search of Avra. I did an attuned scan of Obernewtyn seeking Rushton, but to my disappointment it did not locate.

I was halfway across the furrowed field on the other side of the orchard before Alad spotted me and left his team of planters to greet me. His shirt clung damply to his shoulders and back, and his face gleamed with sweat.

“I see you are exercising the guildmaster’s privilege to watch others carry out your orders,” I said dryly.

He grinned and said he could use a drink and a bit of shade. He led me to where a spreading eben tree grew in one corner of the field. Here, in shadow, a bucket of water and a dipper were half buried in a vanishing snowdrift. He poured himself a drink and asked how the trip to Tor had gone.

I told him about the diving project, and he shook his head and advised me to leave scolding Garth to Rushton.

“I had decided that already,” I admitted. “Have you heard anything more from Rushton, by the way? I had half hoped he would be here by now.”

“He would be riding easy, as traveling jacks do. I’d not be looking for him before tomorrow morning.”

I repressed a sigh. “How are preparations for the moon fair going anyway?” He beamed. “I think this will be the best we’ve had yet, what with all the displays and Gevan’s magi. You must see the wagons. Grufyyd has crafted them.…”

As he talked, my mind drifted back to Miryum’s assertion that people slept unquietly in the mountains. When Alad gave me a quizzical look, I did not pretend I had been listening to him. Instead, I asked if he slept better when he was away from Obernewtyn.

He blinked at the change of subject. “I leave Obernewtyn too seldom to know if I would sleep better away.”

“Do you sleep well in general?” I persisted.

Alad looked puzzled. “What are you getting at, Elspeth? No, I don’t sleep well. I toss and turn and can’t switch my mind off for thinking of planting this seed, or pruning this row, or cutting down on tubers.”

“Do you dream much?”

He snorted. “Now you sound like the novice we have nagging me to fill our dream journal. The thing’s a damn nuisance.” His exasperation dissipated in resignation. “All right, I do dream, if you can call them dreams. I’d call them distorted memories. Last night, for instance, I dreamed that Domick, Roland, Louis, and I were racing to the Teknoguild cave network to rescue you and Rushton from Alexi. That was pure remembering, but then it turned into a nightmare.” He shook his head.

“A nightmare? What do you mean?”

“One minute we were running through the trees just as we did in reality, and the next this giant dragonish beast flew at me. I screamed, and then I was awake and covered in a muck sweat.” He noticed the expression on my face. “What is the matter? You look as if
you
just had a nightmare.”

My lips felt numb. “The … the monster that came at you. You called it
dragonish
?”

“Oh, well, I meant no offense to our poor wee Dragon,” Alad said. “It’s just that the beast looked so much like those visions she conjures.”

I was flabbergasted at the sudden realization that it was not a critical mass of Talent distorting dreams and making sleep difficult at Obernewtyn. It was one Talent in particular.

“Things wear different shapes on the dreamtrails,” Maruman had sent to me so many times.

Different shapes.

9

“H
OW HAVE YOU
all been sleeping lately?” I asked.

“Are you joking?” Gevan demanded bluntly. “You called me in the middle of a vital rehearsal of the magi to answer questions about my sleeping habits?”

“I was mixing a difficult preparation,” Roland growled.

“And I am Mistress of Obernewtyn in Rushton’s absence,” I responded coldly.

There was a startled silence.

“Well, then, if it matters so much, I slept badly,” Gevan said. “Last night and for as many nights past as I can remember. But no doubt it is because of the moon fair preparations. I was up until—”

“Dreams?” I interrupted.

His irritation faded, and he nodded. “Now that you ask, I dreamed of Ariel and his wolves going after Selmar all those years ago. I dreamed I could hear her screaming. I seem to be dreaming a lot of the past lately.”

“Roland?”

The healer nodded. “I sleep little, and I toss and turn and can’t seem to settle. It is the same with all my people. Last night, I dreamed of trying to heal people with the plague. Hundreds of them, and as quickly as they were healed, they were ill again.”

“Angina?”

The young empath said softly, “I dreamed of Hannay climbing up the cliff during the Battlegames in Sador. I dreamed of how scared he was of falling.”

I looked at Maryon, who did not answer but spread out what appeared to be a large, beautifully dyed, woven map.

“What land is this?” Gevan asked, striding across to peer over her shoulder.

“Not any land such as ye will walk upon in wakin’ life,” Maryon answered. “ ’Tis a dreamscape.” She flicked me a darkly knowing look. “Ceirwan did nowt say what ye wanted it fer. We have many ‘scapes coverin’ different periods. But I had th’ feelin’ ye might want this one, which covers dreams experienced by members of my guild from wintertime to last week. An’ to answer yer question, I have slept restively over that period, as has everyone in my guild. We dream vividly as ever, but it is growin’ more difficult to futuretell, an’ there are more ancestral memory dreams.”

“At Obernewtyn, people are dreaming more, particularly of the past, and are sleeping badly,” I concluded flatly. I let my eyes rove over them all, seeing they were now intrigued enough to have forgotten that I had dragged them from other matters. “Away from Obernewtyn, however, we sleep well and dream little.” I brought my gaze to Maryon. “Would I be right in saying that if you compared an older dreamscape to this one, there would be a substantial increase in dreams?”

“We have only just begun to monitor everyone’s dreams, but that is certainly true fer th’ Futuretellin’ guild. Assumin’ this is so, th’ amount of dreamin’ at Obernewtyn has increased dramatically.” She swayed over the dreamscape and touched a slender finger to an inky blot. “This signifies dreams that we would generally call
nightmares
. There has been a marked increase in them as well.”

I pointed to a red blotch overlapping the black. “What does this represent?”

Maryon held my gaze as she answered. “It is a recurrin’ nightmare.”

“By recurring, you mean …”

“In this case, it means a nightmare experienced by many people. We noted it only because recurrent nightmares usually plague a single dreamer. If a number of people share the same nightmare, ‘tis generally a warnin’ of an event that will affect many—like a firestorm, or a roof fallin’ in. But this particular nightmare does nowt concern anythin’ like that. It centers on a great flyin’ reptile that swoops or manifests suddenly in some threatenin’ manner, then vanishes.”

“Wait a minute,” Alad said. “Maryon, are you saying other people have dreamed of a great red flying beast?”

Gevan gaped at him. “You? A couple of my people dreamed of a savage red-winged beast, but I thought it was because of the masks we have been making for our plays.…” He frowned at Maryon. “I think you might have told us about this.”

“To what end? Until recently, I knew only that my guild were dreamin’ of th’ same beast. But knowing we are all dreamin’ the same thing doesna help in learnin’ what it means.”

“Still …,” Gevan began, but Roland rose with an unusual look of mingled embarrassment and worry.

“Perhaps it is I who should have spoken sooner,” he said. He glanced at me in apology, and I nodded for him to continue. “I had no idea others were dreaming of this creature. I thought it was only healers. Because of the proximity …”

“Proximity to what?” Gevan demanded.

“To her …” Roland sighed. “To Dragon.”

“Dragon? Little Dragon?” the coercer said. “Are you telling me we are all dreaming of a monster created by a comatose girl?”