The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [74]
I climbed out of the ditch as carefully as I could for the sake of my aching head, only belatedly realizing that I might have crawled into the mouth of the very wolf that had sent me hurtling into the ditch in the first place. Fortunately, there was no wolf in sight. Brushing off the snow and stamping my feet hard, I looked around and wondered how long I had been unconscious. The fact that I had not frozen suggested it could not have been long. Then I thought of Rushton, and a sense of urgency filled me.
I heard a noise behind me and turned to find myself looking into a pair of gleaming yellow eyes. I would have run, but terror drained the strength from my legs.
Then a familiar voice spoke inside my mind.
“Greetings, ElspethInnle.”
“Maruman?” I whispered incredulously.
“It is I,” he answered.
I burst out laughing, half in relief and half in hysteria.
“You fell,” Maruman observed disapprovingly as he came closer.
I felt the laughter rise again but fought it down. “How on earth did you get here?” I asked.
“You did not come, so I/Maruman came,” he sent. He sounded offended, but there was no time to soothe him.
“I could not come to you,” I told him. “I have been a captive until this very day. But now I have escaped, and I have to help a friend who is in trouble.”
He mulled that over for a moment, then sent in a less haughty tone, “This night I came over the poisoned snowy ground in the wheeled creature drawn by the equines. Funaga rode within. I came because I saw that your nameshape was in their thoughts. But when the horses stopped, I could not sense you anywhere. I slunk into the house, and then I slept and dreamed of you.”
“You were clever to find me,” I sent quickly. “But there is no time for mindspeak.”
“Your friend?” Maruman inquired with pointed politeness.
“He helped me; now I must help him,” I sent.
Maruman’s thoughts showed he approved of that, at least. “Where is Innle friend?” he asked.
I explained that I did not know exactly where Rushton was. “He’s in a cave nearby. I was walking to the mounds of stone, but I fell and now I don’t know where I am.”
“I will lead you to the mounds of stone,” Maruman told me.
I told him cautiously that I thought it would be better if he stayed behind and waited for me, but he fixed me with a penetrating look.
“Innle must seek the darkness, and I/Maruman must go with her to watch the moon.” I shivered and felt a mad impulse to forget everything and flee as fast as I could from the mountains and from all of the dangers and mysteries that lay within them.
But then I thought of Rushton and his cool green eyes, and knew there was a debt I must pay.
“Come then,” I sent. “But we have to move quickly. I have wasted too much time here.”
I had run right by the mounds of stone, as it transpired, and as we retraced my steps, Maruman proved to be an expert guide. Twice he prevented me from stumbling into holes filled with snow. Another time he stopped me from walking onto wafer-thin ice covering a frozen pool of water and camouflaged by a dusting of snow.
So when he stopped just ahead of me, fur fluffed, I froze immediately.
“What is it?” I asked.
He told me that his nose had caught the faint spoor of wolf. I picked up a stout stick before we continued, but saw almost immediately the large humped shapes of granite.
“That is where we will find my friend,” I told Maruman.
Given my delays, I had no idea if Louis Larkin and the others had already come and gone, but I did not want to risk using the energy it would require to perform an open farsensing so close to the Zebkrahn machine. First I needed to locate Rushton, and a mental probe shaped to find him would use far less energy. I waited until we reached the bramble-covered rocks that formed a spiky barrier around the mounded stone humps, then I closed my eyes and loosed my mind. I strove about the granite hillocks and several times felt something, but the contact was too slight for me to know if it was Rushton.
“There is danger here,” Maruman