The Rebellion (74 page)

I shivered and looked at the table before me. Under Maryon’s quarter-year dreamscape were Tomash’s chart and map, which I had yet to examine properly. In my cloak pocket were Dameon’s letters, one still unopened. So much to do, and I felt suddenly exhausted.

Sighing, I lifted out the chart Tomash had made and began to examine it.

When Ceirwan brought me a tray a little later, my appetite had vanished. The number of Councilmen, soldierguards, and their collaborators was not as shocking as the Herder figures, but it was still high. I was overwhelmed by the sheer
number of our enemies, and that did not count the rebels and ordinary folk who feared and loathed Misfits.

“Ye mun rest,” Ceirwan said, sounding exasperated.

Ignoring his fussing, I told him of Wila’s findings, and he looked as stunned as I had felt. “So many Herders? Does Rushton know?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “He does not consider the Herders a specific threat, but only an aspect of the threat posed by the Council.”

“The thing that always shivers me is that Ariel is a Herder acolyte,” Ceirwan said.

Incredibly, I had forgotten that, and it was not a thing to be forgotten. Nor was it wise to forget that the ruthless slave trader Salamander also had some mysterious connection with the Herders.

After Ceirwan had left, I allowed myself to long for Rushton. Nothing would be changed by his presence, really, but just having him slide his arms around me would comfort all the vague and nameless fears that haunted me. And where was he? Riding still, perhaps, as it was not yet midnight. Or more likely he was sleeping under a tree, curled up by the equine that had volunteered to carry him to the lowlands. Or sitting at a bench, drinking ale in some roadside hostelry, sifting through gossip and drunken maundering for useful information.

“Rushton, love,” I whispered to the fire. “Time you were home.”

10

S
LEEP DID NOT
come easily that night. I tossed and turned for an age, thinking of the Herders and how ruthlessly they had dragged me from my bed to watch my parents’ burning. At some point, the face of my father became Rushton’s face, and this was too much. I got up again and stirred the fire before wrapping myself in a blanket on the chair. Before long, I sank deeply into sleep, past disjointed images from the day, and down into the chaotic swirl of dreams and imaginings. I sank as if something pulled at me. And I dreamed.

I was in a sunlit garden. It was cold, and there were mountains in the distance beyond a high wall. A girl was seated on a low stool with her back to me. She wore a mustard-colored woolen coat and a scarf. Long dark hair flowed down her spine in a thick plait. Before her was a square, white sheet of paper, clipped to a board held aloft by a three-legged metal stand. There were a few lines on the paper, and as I watched, she reached up with a stub of black charcoal to scratch another line that intersected the others. I was amazed to see the essence of the dark, bare mountains emerging in these few simple lines.

All at once, there were footsteps, and when she turned to see who was approaching, I found myself staring into the face of the girl from the flying machine. I was startled to see how
dark her skin was away from the winking lights and tinted glass. She could easily have been taken for a Twentyfamilies gypsy. Her look of curiosity faded into a scowl, but it was not aimed at me. The man approaching was the target of her displeasure. Clad much as the man in the flying machine had been, he was younger and very handsome, but his eyes were the same flat gray as his coat, and the smile that lifted his curved mouth did not change them.

“Good morning, Cassy,” he said in a smooth voice.

“Mr. Masterton,” she responded coldly, and turned back to her drawing.

His smile did not falter. “I have asked you to call me Petr.”

Cassy made no response. Instead, she began rubbing one of the lines on the paper, smudging it with quick, finicky movements.

“The director showed me the sketches you made of the flamebirds,” he went on, still smiling. “They’re very good.”

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Cassy said icily, still rubbing at her line, still looking obstinately away from him. “I don’t like anyone seeing unfinished work.”

“Of course. Artistic temperament is permissible when there is true talent. But you do understand that his allowing you to paint the birds is an infringement of the rules here?” There was a hard note in his mellow voice now, as if velvet was laid over stone.

Cassy turned at this, standing and facing him squarely, her expression defiant. “What do you want?”

He ignored her manner and went on pleasantly. “It is an infringement of the rules, which, as head of security, I have to regard seriously. It was agreed you could spend time here only if you were kept under control. This is, after all, a top-secret establishment, and there is a great deal of delicate
research going on. Those birds were part of a very sensitive project, and although they are no longer being used, your painting them is a serious breach of security. But there is a solution. I am sure the director mentioned that we have engaged a firm to design a logo for our organization.”

“He doesn’t tell me anything.” Cassy’s voice was rudely uninterested.

“Then he will not have told you that we were displeased with the designs. I would like to suggest to the director that your drawing of the flamebirds would serve very well as a logo. You would even be paid for your efforts.”

“Me design a logo for this place? You must be crazy,” Cassy sneered. “I’d as soon design a logo for a gang of axe murderers!”

The man smiled, and if anything, his eyes became flatter. “That is a pity, because I am afraid, in that case, I will be obliged to convey news of the director’s transgression to our superiors. I am sure you are aware that they are also your mother’s superiors, and they might well be interested to know of your … liaison, shall we say, with a Tiban rebel?”

“That is blackmail, Masterton,” Cassy snarled.

“Petr, please,” he said suavely. He unrolled a sheet of paper and handed it to her. “You will produce a full-color work of this. It is my own design.”

I peeked over his shoulder and gaped to see, sketched crudely, the now familiar Govamen logo of three Agyllian birds flying around one another in an ascending spiral.

“I’ll need to see the birds again,” Cassy said sulkily. I could not see her face, because her head was bent over the design.

“I’m afraid that is impossible.”

“Then what you want is impossible,” Cassy said, still looking down. “I work from life. The drawings I made are quick,
thoughtless sketches. I would need to do a detailed study if you want anything worthwhile.”

The man was silent, his expression still. At last he nodded decisively. “Very well. I will see what can be arranged.” He turned and walked away, and Cassy lifted her head to stare after him. I expected to see her look ashamed or angry, but her expression was of ferocious triumph.

I heard a screeching cry overhead and looked up to find the red dragon, its scaly wings outlined by the sun.

“Dragon!” I cried, and lifted my hands, but even as I spoke, the creature swooped, madness glittering in its eyes.

I flung myself sideways and out of the dream. Almost immediately, I was absorbed by a memory of myself as a young child in Rangorn.

I was in the little wood on the hill behind our home. My brother Jes was with my father in the fields, and my mother was hunting an herb she used to season our soups in wintertime. I had gone with her but had wandered apart, drawn by a golden butterfly. I lay passively inside my child self, enjoying my own wonder at what I had imagined was a piece of flame that had escaped the fire. The butterfly vanished from sight behind a tree, and I ran after it on my short legs.

I stopped, for behind the tree lay Maruman in his dreamtyger shape.

“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” he sent languidly, yawning and baring his red mouth.

“Maruman!” I cried, and the child self fell away, leaving me in my own form. “I’m so glad to see you. I was worried that Dragon had done something to you.”

“Marumanyelloweyes is safe. But Mornirdragon seeks ElspethInnle,” he sent.

I gaped at him. “You knew the dragon was her/Mornir?”

“Now know,” Maruman sent succinctly. “Wake now, for the beast seeks you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to wake yet, Maruman. I need to see the doors of Obernewtyn. You said they still exist on the dreamtrails.”

“They do,” he sent.

“Take me there now,” I requested.

He looked troubled. “Dreamtrails danger filled. Mornirdragon confused by feelmusic but seeks ElspethInnle.”

“I have to see those doors, Maruman,” I sent. “It is part of my quest to destroy the glarsh. The oldOne would wish you to help me.”

He gave way suddenly. “Come, then. You must prepare/change to travel the dreamtrails.”

I did not argue, though I had no idea what he meant me to do. The thoughtsymbol he had used for
prepare
was unfamiliar to me. I drew close enough to his mind that I could see him rise nearer to consciousness—he took on his true, one-eyed form. But he did not wake.

I sensed a surge of energy and gasped as a silvery snake arose from his body like some fantastical umbilical cord. Light began to flow along the cord as water through a hose. It ran from his sleeping form and spilled from the end of the cord into a widening pool of silver that soon assumed the dimensions of Maruman’s tyger shape. But it was a form of pure light with no substance and remained attached by the cord to the body. Maruman’s consciousness was still within his flesh, but all at once, I felt his will flow away from it, up the silver cord and into the shape of light. Then the eyes of the shining tyger opened, and golden light flecked with blue swam in one, while a diamond-bright white light shone from
the eye that had been removed in his true form.

“Must do same as Maruman. Only in such form/shape can fly dreamtrails.” Maruman’s voice sounded far away and oddly distorted.

I brought myself close to waking as he had done, then tried to coerce a silver cord out of myself. Nothing happened.

“Must draw on mindstream,” Maruman’s voice whispered.

I did not know what he meant, for surely the mindstream could only be accessed from deep below consciousness, yet he had remained close to wakefulness. Then I remembered that in Maruman’s strange mind, all levels merged and flowed. I sank swiftly through the levels of my mind—too swiftly to attract the dragon, I hoped—stopping only when I could hear the humming song of the mindstream. I locked myself in balance between the pull to rise and sink.

I thought of the way the silver light had run up the snaking spirit cord like water up a tube. I thought of how bubbles of past existences rose from the stream and concentrated on visualizing a tiny tributary flowing up toward me.

At first, nothing happened. Then a silvery thread rose from the mindstream. It moved very slowly toward me, and each fraction of its journey cost me a tremendous outpouring of energy, as if I pulled the entire stream from its natural course. I became afraid as the tendril approached, for to merge with the stream was death, and maybe this was just another form of merging.