The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [85]
“Did he say why?” I asked. I dried my feet quickly and slipped on my boots.
“Nowt a word,” Matthew answered, handing me my walking stick. “He was investigatin’ a rumor that th’ Council meant to establish a soldierguard camp in th’ highlands. Do ye suppose …?” he began, aghast at the thought of a camp so close to Obernewtyn. It had been bad enough when a soldierguard training camp was set up just below the lower ranges. If the Council meant to put a camp in the highlands, it could only be because they intended to tighten their control of the high country.
“It might be no more than gossip,” I said.
Ceirwan would know what had happened, since he had gone with Rushton. As guilden of the farseekers, he would normally have reported to me at once, but Rushton’s call for an immediate guildmerge had clearly made that impossible.
I wondered if any of the guilds would use the unexpected meeting to make requests. I had had no time to prepare a submission since meeting with Garth, but Pavo would be at the meeting and might fill in the gaps. If Matthew’s speculations were right, it was important to act quickly in case Rushton decided to suspend all expeditions.
I shivered as we exited the outer doors of the Healer hall. As ever in the mountains, there was a chilly underbite to the air, and the old burn scars on my feet and lower legs ached. Roland had promised they would heal in time, but two years had passed and they still hurt at the first sign of cold weather.
My eyes went beyond the gray stone walls that surrounded Obernewtyn and its fields and farms to the horizon and the jagged line of the western mountains separating us from the highlands. Those mountains were our best protection, especially if soldierguards did set up camp in the highlands. In winter, snow cut us off from the highlands entirely, and even in the mildest season, the road to Obernewtyn was difficult. The mountains kept us safe, yet the sight of them never failed to disturb me in some deep, incomprehensible way.
Long ago, in one of his queer fits, Maruman had told me my destiny lay in the mountains. Battered and half mad, the old cat had been my first friend and had followed me to Obernewtyn. Expecting a grim existence there, perhaps a horrible death, I had found friends and learned I was not alone in my mutant abilities. Once Rushton had taken control of Obernewtyn from his defective half brother, who had been manipulated by the wicked Alexi and Madam Vega, I had accepted his offer of refuge and stayed on. Alexi and Madam Vega had been killed in their battle to keep control of Obernewtyn, and their young accomplice Ariel had fled to his death in the bitter mountain winter. I could hardly recall Alexi’s face or even Madam Vega’s, but Ariel remained a vivid nightmare image. Of them all, he had left an impression, for his cruelty and his manipulative lust for power, hidden behind his angelic beauty, were evidence that evil might wear its own face.
To my surprise, I had been happy at Obernewtyn. Apart from his periodic wandering, Maruman also made Obernewtyn his home.
Yet I had the sudden chill premonition that the long time of healing and peace was drawing to an end.
“What is it?” Matthew asked.
“I was thinking of the past,” I said. “Everything that happened in the caves with Alexi and Madam Vega, the Zebkrahn machine exploding, these …” I touched my scarred legs. “It all seems so long ago.”
Matthew nodded grimly. “Sometimes I dream of Ariel an’ I …” He shook his head. “I wish I had killed him. If he had nowt died in th’ storm …”
I looked up, surprised at his vehemence.
When I had first met him, Matthew had been thin and frail-looking, with a pronounced limp and hungry, intelligent eyes. The limp had been long since healed with a reset bone, and Matthew now stood a head taller than I, with strong, wiry limbs. He had proven more than capable in his role as Farseeker ward. Ceirwan was convinced he was developing deep-probe ability, saying he