The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [73]
Roland stiffened. “What about the granite outcrops? No one bothers going near them because they are all jagged stone and brambles, but there could easily be a cave in them.”
“It is the most likely spot for a cave,” Domick agreed.
“Well then,” said Louis, looking at me. “We’ll start out walking in the direction of the outcrops as ye seek Rushton. I’ll show ye when we get outside the gate, and from the sound of things, that won’t be long, fer the storm is fading.” We all listened a moment, and it was true that it was growing quieter.
“This is it, then, isn’t it?” Domick said, bright spots of color in his cheeks. He grabbed his coat, then he handed me the one Rushton had given me.
Roland pulled on his own coat and said to Domick, “You get the swords and arrows from the weapons cache, and I will call the others together. Then we will come after you two.” He nodded to Louis.
“Let’s gan,” Louis said to me, and hauled open the door. A few flakes of snow whirled in on the icy air, but the night was again still, the land glowing white and the sky black. We parted from the other two without any more words, and Louis took the lead, walking swiftly and unerringly over what the snow made a trackless, featureless terrain that went as far as my eyes could see. After some time, I saw the wall looming up in the bleakness, a gray band between the black sky and the white ground. As we walked along it, I asked him how he had known about me.
He glanced back. “Selmar told me just before she tried to escape fer th’ last time. Most of her was long ago lost, but there were moments when she came to herself. She said you were like her, but stronger. She dreamed that you were coming, and that your coming would change everything.”
I did not know what to say to that.
Louis stopped when we reached the farm gate. He unlocked it with a key, and after we had gone through, he locked it from the other side. Then he looked at me expectantly. Knowing what he wanted, and feeling strangely self-conscious, I was about to farseek when I remembered what had happened the last time I had loosed my mind on the farms. The Zebkrahn machine had caught hold of me. On the other hand, if it was being used to interrogate Rushton, surely it could not also be able to entrap roaming minds. I shrugged, knowing I had no real choice but to try. I sent my mind out, but after a time, I breathed a sigh.
“I can’t feel him. But maybe the cave wall is blocking me. I have to get closer.”
Louis led me along a snowy track that followed the outside of the wall. After some time, he stopped and pointed. I saw the dim outline of several high stone mounds, gray against a slightly lighter sky. I tried again to farseek Rushton, and this time I felt something. The old man saw the look on my face and leaned forward eagerly.
“It was just the merest flicker, but I think the others were right. I think he’s there. I need to go closer.”
Louis nodded, then his face fell and he cursed. “I am a blatherin’ fool! I locked the gate without thinking, an’ th’ others will not be able to come after us.”
“Go back then,” I urged. “I can see the outcrops now, so I don’t need any guiding.”
“I will, but ye be careful, lass. Find him, but dinna go close enough to be caught,” Louis warned. “We’ll need ye to guide us.”
“You be careful, too,” I said.
Louis nodded, and without ceremony turned to hurry back along the wall.
25
I WOKE TO the dense whiteness of a blinding snowstorm. The events before my fall were tumbled together in a wild kaleidoscopic dream. The last thing I remembered clearly was that I had been walking toward the granite outcrops as the snow fell more and more thickly, until all at once I could see nothing at all. Then I was running. And now here I was, lying in a deep ditch, my head aching and a numbness creeping over my limbs.
I forced myself to sit up, and all at once I remembered what had made me run. I had seen the glimmer of eyes, and the memory of what Ariel’s wolves had done to Sharna