The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [105]
Making a last sweep of the area, I encountered a blank spot. I tried to penetrate it, but it was like trying to see in a blinding snowstorm.
Defeated, I withdrew and opened my eyes.
“Are ye all right?” Matthew asked.
“Did you find anything?” Domick asked.
I told them the result of my farsensing. “It sounds like Blackland static,” Matthew said.
“It was like that but denser and cloudier,” I said. “Maybe it was tainted water.”
“But no settlement,” Domick persisted.
“I couldn’t sense even a single person, let alone a settlement,” I said, feeling relieved. “Maybe it was a hunting party.”
Matthew looked doubtful. “I dinna think anyone would come here to hunt. T’would be like takin’ midmeal in a graveyard. Maybe it were soldierguards lookin’ for escapees or robbers?”
I chewed my lip. “It wouldn’t be possible to have a machine that would create that kind of blocking static, would it?” I asked.
Pavo looked thoughtful. “That would mean someone had found a way to modify another Beforetime machine. The Zebkrahn took years to modify—first Marisa Seraphim, then Alexi, and then the Teknoguild worked to change what seems to have been no more than a thing originally devised to measure brain waves. Besides, I think you would know if it was a machine.”
“It must be some sort of taint, then,” Domick said dismissively.
It was a cold night. I slept restlessly, dreamed of running through dark tunnels, and woke with the feeling that I had forgotten something important. After racking my brain, I pushed the nagging feeling to the back of my thoughts.
Pulling the flap aside, I was delighted to find sun streaming through the treetops. The others stirred in the blaze of light, blinking and groaning. The ground was soaking wet, and there was no question of lighting a fire, but it was lovely to stretch our legs and walk around. I was very stiff but suspected I would have been worse without Kella’s healer wizardry.
Gahltha and the other horses emerged from the trees as we were finishing a scratch firstmeal. Darga accepted a bowl of milk with a polite flap of his tail. We tied the oilskins, which were still wet, on top of the caravans and washed our faces in a streamlet. Domick worried that the water might be tainted, but Darga pronounced it safe. He had an acute sense of smell and could tell when water was bad.
We set off far more cheerfully than the previous day. I felt happier despite Gahltha’s insistence at my riding bareback. Mounting him was an awkward debacle, because my legs were too stiff to flex easily. But once up, I felt more comfortable than I had on the saddle, though less secure.
The sun shone in a golden autumn way, and Jik played a jaunty harvest song on his gita, accompanying himself in a surprisingly sweet singing voice. Even grim Domick appeared to enjoy the impromptu concert, and the horses perked their ears as if they liked the sound.
Later, I listened to a communication between Darga and Avra about funaga. I was amused to hear their interpretation of human parenting, but Gahltha snorted loudly at Avra’s observation that the children of funaga seemed less dangerous than grown funaga.
“You do not know anything about the funaga and their ways,” he told her icily. “They are all the same. I have been beaten savagely by a funaga child who laughed at my pain and jeered when I bled. Like poisoned ground, funaga bear poisoned fruit.”
I shivered at the venom in his voice.
Gahltha’s pace quickened after that. On a flat stretch, he broke into a trot without warning, and I fell. My only consolation was that the wet ground was soft. My anger made no impression on Gahltha, who insisted that I would not have fallen if I had been gripping with my knees the way I was supposed to. Louis laughed uproariously,