The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [121]
“The Misfits here helped me stop the block temporarily. It’s not a machine. The static is caused by a baby with coercive powers.”
“A baby!” Matthew echoed.
“Where is this compound? Show me,” I demanded.
Matthew made his mind passive so that I could use his eyes. At once a ghostly vision unfolded in my mind. He was looking down a long, narrow rift between two mountains. There was a fence dividing a barren foreground from a heavily vegetated background. I thought I could see patches of glowing gas in the faint moonlight beyond the barrier. It took a moment for me to realize what I was seeing.
“The Olden pass …”
Matthew confirmed it. “It’s there, but so is tainted ground, poisoned air, an’ gigantic growling beasts.”
“Why build a compound there?” I wondered.
In answer, Matthew turned again. Dirt, rocks, and dispossessed trees lay in mounds on either side of a broad hole in the ground. A row of rough huts sat amidst the debris. “Th’ ground here is safe enough. We’re here to pander to th’ Druid’s favorite obsession: Oldtime ruins. He thinks th’ Great White was made by one of their machines and that th’ machine is here somewhere. Mad as a snake is our Druid, to think it would still be workin’ after all this time.”
Not so mad, I thought with a feeling of cold dread.
“How is Pavo?” I asked.
“He says he refuses to die in a dirty, damp Druid hole,” Matthew sent. “He’s convinced you’ll be along any minute to rescue us. ‘Elspeth is a survivor,’ he keeps sayin’.”
“I wish I shared his faith. There’s no hope now of getting to the lowlands and back before wintertime.”
“If only we could farseek Ceirwan at Obernewtyn,” Matthew sent.
I shrugged. He knew as well as I that it was impossible. But he was right—we needed to contact Obernewtyn. “I want you and Louis to take Mira and Lo and go back home as soon as you’re free. Make sure you don’t leave tracks or get caught. Someone has to warn Rushton about what the Druid is up to here.” I made Matthew repeat the message back to me before bidding him goodbye.
Next I sought Domick. This was harder, and he instinctively responded by trying to repel me.
“You!” I saw him assimilate my ease in demolishing his defenses. “Have you escaped?”
I told him all I had told Matthew. “Then we are still going?” Domick asked when I had finished. “You know we can’t make Maryon’s deadline if we go that way. We are already cutting it too close because of the delay here.”
“We dare not head back to Obernewtyn anyway, since the Druid would follow,” I said flatly. “I’m sending Matthew and Louis to warn Rushton. The rest of us will continue, if only to draw the Druid’s attention away from the high mountains. I’ll contact you as soon as we get outside the baby’s static. In the meantime, stay out of sight. A group of armsmen went out this morning to hunt. Where are you now?”
Domick was unable to let me use his eyes, but he projected a picture with painful force into my mind. Cross-guild farseeking had its drawbacks. The coercer was right at the foot of the mountains. “Tor,” he sent in explanation. “I’ve been hiding in the cave where the Suggredoon goes into the mountain. There’s a good wide ledge. Pity it doesn’t go right through alongside the river, or we could simply walk to the other side.”
Severing the contact, I found myself back inside the room. The group was still hand-linked. Gathering my exhausted senses, I reached out to Jik. He was overjoyed to hear Darga was safe. I was in the middle of explaining the escape plans when the contact was severed neatly, and Lidgebaby’s static filled the air.
I opened my eyes in time to see Gilaine pitch forward. Jow picked her up gently and laid her on the floor, using his coat as a pillow. She moaned, and her eyes fluttered open. I went to her side, stricken with guilt.
“She was the focus. Lidge likes her best,” Saul said petulantly.
“Did you get through?” Jow asked.
I nodded. Gilaine reached out for my arm and projected a message to us all. “It will be difficult. Perhaps