The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [175]
I laughed, and my laughter seemed to reverberate off the mountains. No one could heal that fast, and I knew enough of healing to know it was impossible to heal poisoned flesh or banish old, deep scarring.
“Well met,” Astyanax sent pertly. “You are now to see Atthis—Elder of the eldar.”
I climbed warily to my feet and let myself be led across to a cairn of stones and around to face an opening in the other side.
“Greetings, funaga,” came a thought from within the cairn, so clear and gentle it was like a song in my mind. There was the sound of shuffling movement, and slowly, a very old female Guanette bird emerged, her feathers less red than dusty brown with bald patches of pink. The end of her beak was broken right off. But strangest of all were her eyes. There was no pupil, and they were white and milkily opaque.
She was blind.
Looking at the ancient bird, a mist of terror crept through my veins at the sudden certainty that I was not dreaming.
The old bird stopped, eyes turned unerringly toward me. The movement reminded me of Dameon’s blind grace. “So, now you are come, just as was foreseen. You may call me Atthis, and I will call you ElspethInnle, as does the yelloweyes.”
I blinked, startled. Did she mean Maruman? Then something else struck me. This was the voice that had called to me in the old cat’s mind.
But I’m dreaming, I thought dazedly.
The old bird stepped closer, and a suffocating odor of dust seemed to surround me.
“Why do you pretend? You know this is no dream.”
I felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach, and I was nauseous and breathless all at once.
“You made Maruman sick!” I said indignantly, remembering what had been said to me inside Maruman’s mind.
“It could not be helped,” Atthis sent gently. “We could not reach you otherwise, at such a distance.”
Something else occurred to me. “You told me I had to go on a journey. Is that why I’m here?” A dark journey, she had said.
The bird sent nothing for a long moment, but I had the uncanny feeling she could see from those white orbs.
“I did not know we would meet so soon when first I called to you in my dreamtravels through the yelloweyes’ mind. I did not foresee then that the Agyllians would have some other part to play. Even the wise are sometimes pawns.”
The old bird came closer, her tattered wing brushing one of my feet. I looked into her blind eyes with faint dread.
“You do not like the look of my sightless eyes? Well, sight is a facile thing,” Atthis sent.
It was nearing dusk, and a fleeting final sunbeam bathed the old bird in crimsons for a moment. Beyond the cairn lay the rim of the world. On one side, the sky was night-dark, and on the other, the sun shone its final rays. In the west, the moon was rising flat and bright. I looked back to see that the avian face had not looked away from mine.
“ElspethInnle … the Seeker,” the old bird sent.
“I don’t know why you call me that. It’s just a name Maruman made up. I don’t call myself by it,” I sent.
“Not all names are chosen,” Atthis sent. “Some names are bestowed.”
“What is this all about?” I sent briskly.
“You know,” the bird sent, unperturbed. “Have you not wondered at the coincidences and chances in your life? Have you not felt that there were great forces at work about you—forces for good and for great ill? Have you not felt the purpose in your life burning?”
Unwished, a vision came to me of the black chasm I had glimpsed while being tortured by the Zebkrahn. I thought of Jik asking if it were possible for it to happen again and of the Druid and his insane search for Beforetime weaponmachines, his greed for power and revenge blinding him to all else.
“You know,” sent Atthis.