The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [93]
I was on a high mountain in the highest ranges, the air around me filled with cold gusts of wind. I was inside the body of Maruman. I felt the wind ruffle his/my fur.
An illusion, but real as life.
He/I licked a paw and passed it over one ear.
Then I felt the calling. It was not a voice so much as an inner compulsion. Maruman/I rose at once and began to walk, balancing with easy grace on the jagged spines of rock leading to a higher peak. It was there, I sensed, that the calling originated.
Then I heard my own name, but the voice was not Maruman’s.
I was so astonished that the mountain illusion wavered, and for a moment I saw the Healer hall overlay the mountain.
“Do you know me?” I ventured.
“I have always known you,” came the response.
“Who are you? What are you?”
“I/We are the Agyllian,” it answered in a tone a mother might use when speaking to a small child. “I have used the yelloweyes to communicate with you, ElspethInnle. The strangeness of his mind and his pain make him receptive to us and allow us to use him. He is weary to death, and it would be kind to let him join the stream, but he is not ready to go yet, and nor, I think, are you ready to let him go.”
“So it’s you who is making him sick,” I said indignantly.
“Be at ease. He will suffer no harm, though he cannot sustain us much longer. I come only to warn you that your tasks have not ended, and to remind you of your promise. The deathmachines slumber, waiting to be wakened. While they survive, the world is in danger. When the time is right for you to seek out the machines, you must be ready to act swiftly and without doubt. You must not allow the concerns of your friends or your own needs to sway you. When the time for the dark journey is near, you must come to us, and we will provide you with help.”
“Journey? What journey?” I cried, but I was alone.
The mountains dissolved, and I used the last of my strength to rise to where the upward drift would carry me to the surface of Maruman’s mind. I was vaguely aware that the upper levels were now quiet.
“Are you all right?” Alad asked tensely as I opened my eyes. I was slumped in the chair, soaked with perspiration and vaguely amazed to find it was dark outside.
He reached out and touched Maruman gently. “He’ll recover. He’s sleeping normally now. What did you do?”
I was too tired to answer. Seeing I was nearly asleep in the chair, Alad and one of the healers helped me to my room.
Yet lying in bed, I found myself unable to sleep, so disturbed was I by what I’d experienced in Maruman’s mind.
I told myself that my visit to the Teknoguild caves had caused a deep probe illusion based on the memory of the misfit Cameo, who had died there some years before, after she whispered to me that it was my destiny to destroy the weaponmachines that had caused the Great White. Or more likely, the dream was simply the product of Maruman’s distorted mind, for he believed that I was a figure in beast mythology named Innle, or “the Seeker,” destined to save what remained of the world.
It was foolish to dwell on what had happened as if it were real, yet the voice that had spoken to me had felt so real. And I knew, as no one else did, that the weaponmachines that had destroyed the Beforetimers were intact and might be used again.
The next morning, I came across Dameon and Matthew making their way toward the kitchen. I watched them approach, wondering what kept Dameon from running into things. His empath ability could not help him see, yet he was never clumsy.
“Elspeth?” he said unexpectedly in his soft, well-spoken voice. His father had been a member of the Council before his death, and Dameon had been a product of that privileged class before a cousin had arranged to have him judged Misfit in