Foretellers (The Ydron Saga Book 3) (10 page)

Larger and faster by far than any horse, the endaths covered the distance between Mostoon and Miast in only four days, a trip that would have taken any ordinary steed one week or longer. At the journey’s start, their size and primordial appearance had intimidated Pandy, but over the course of the days, their gentleness and desire to please eventually put her uncertainty to rest. In its place, a new fear arose.

“Peniff,” said Pandy, “The vision has dimmed and we’re going the wrong way.”

They were riding east, paralleling the river, and she feared if they didn’t turn south, the opportunity she envisioned would vanish. To make matters worse, black clouds had begun closing in from the west. Knowing how a storm could slow them, she glanced back repeatedly.

Peniff shook his head. “We’re going the only way we can, the way you would have had to if you’d struck out on your own. The Em has been entirely uncrossable, except in one very dangerous place, all the time we’ve been riding. There won’t be a better place to cross until we’re well into Miast. Bedistai described an imposing rock arch that will mark the place we can finally turn south.”

She bit back a sob and asked, “How soon will that be?”

“I think some time today. The terrain has begun to slope upward, so I suspect we’re nearing the mountains. Once we clear this wooded stretch, we should be able to see how close we have come.”

No sooner had he spoken, than they rounded a bend in the road and the forest ended.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Pandy as they reined in their mounts.

The Tairenth Mountains rose before them, ascending to such heights the intervening miles did little to diminish them. Even at this distance, Peniff and Pandy were forced to look up to regard the peaks in their entirety. Snow, a rarity in these parts, covered much of their face, and unlike the gentler hills that spread throughout most of the land, whatever the snow didn’t hide appeared jagged and barren.

“Please tell me we won’t have to go into them,” said Pandy.

Peniff took a moment to reply. His mouth was partly open, as if interrupted at the beginning of a word, and his eyes were fixed on their summits.

Eventually, he managed, “No. We should be able to keep to the foothills.”

After a pause of her own, Pandy said, “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Nor I.”

By mid-afternoon their route had brought them to the arch, a passage through an otherwise unbroken wall of stone. The wall pierced a meadow, an incongruous insertion, as if it had been thrust upwards by some unimaginable force. Soon after they passed through it, the road divided in two. To Pandy’s relief, Peniff led them down its southern extent. A few hours later, the road dipped into a shallow basin through which ran a river, perhaps thirty feet across.

“This should be the Em,” said Peniff. “If it weren’t for all the streams flowing into it, you’d never guess what a monster it would become.”

At Peniff’s urging, the endaths waded in, its gentle flow and shallow depth no longer posing any sort of threat. Once they had crossed, Pandy drew her cloak tight as clouds, visibly scudding eastward, were driven by a strengthening wind. Throughout the remainder of the day, the skies continued to darken until, by the time it was almost dusk, a gentle rain had begun. As a precaution, she and Peniff paused and changed into the waterproof sandiath skin clothing Salmeh had had the foresight to provide. It was a fortunate choice, because an hour or so later, the drizzle abruptly escalated into a downpour.

“I think it would be best if we find shelter,” Peniff said.

When she nodded in agreement, he lifted his hood and stared.

“Really?” he said. When she nodded again, he replied, “I was afraid you were going to object, you’re so bent on making progress.”

“I’ve decided to trust you,” she said. When that elicited a smile, she added, “And I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier.”

He raised his brows.

“You are right. The vision has never vanished, although it does seem to flicker—I’m not sure if that’s the right word—whenever circumstances change. But since we’ve come so many miles farther than I could ever have managed on my own, I had to ask myself how would it be if I hadn’t listened… if I’d left without you.”

“Trust is a difficult lesson,” replied Peniff. “It requires giving up some of yourself. Many don’t learn how to do that until much later in life, usually as the result of a string of other difficult lessons.”

A sudden cloudburst made it impossible to continue.

“Can we talk about this later?” he shouted.

They found shelter between two outcroppings at the foot of a cliff. A fallen tree had long ago spanned the space between. Since then, brush, soil and other debris filled in whatever the tree had left uncovered, forming a roof over what would become their shelter.

Peniff and Pandy brought several satchels inside and began setting up camp. In the process of clearing an accumulation of branches, leaves and other debris, they found they had enough dry vegetable matter to build a small fire—not enough to keep away the cold, but sufficient to warm a meal. As the storm raged and day drew to a close, they huddled together for comfort and resumed where they had left off.

“I’m frightened,” said Pandy.

“What about?”

“I’m afraid of everything. I’m afraid I won’t be able to accomplish what the visions tell me I must. I’m afraid of all the fighting and the killing… of all the wars. I’m afraid of what I’m doing but also of what will happen if I don’t.”

“I’m puzzled,” said Peniff.

Pandy looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“All this time, from when we were still in Mostoon to these last four days, you’ve been preoccupied with where we are going and how we will get there, but not once have you mentioned your mother. I would have thought you would have said you were afraid of what was happening to her.”

Pandy drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and stared at the ground in front of her.

“Don’t you love her?” he pressed. “Don’t you miss her?”

“Of course I do,” she snapped without looking up. She bit her lip and turned away.

“Then I don’t understand. Why haven’t you ever mentioned her?”

A long silence followed, during which the only sounds were the wind and the rain and the endaths shifting stance.

Eventually she said, “I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.”

Her voice broke and she bit back a sob. Peniff sat patiently, watching without forcing, until she collected herself and was ready to resume.

“I’m finding that, while the outcomes of certain acts are foreseeable, many others are not—at least not immediately. I’m beginning to suspect certain events are so likely to occur because either so many people are working to bring them about, or else they are too… What’s the word my mother used?” She searched for a moment, then nodded when she found it. “Imminent. Yes. That’s it. They’re too imminent for anyone to change.” She related the incident in danTennet. “No one could have stopped the assassin and so many people are bent on killing Lord Cargath that, if any one person, or even a group of them change their minds, if Cargath himself were to learn what they were planning, there would still be no way for anyone to halt the event.

“On the other hand, some actions lead to many possible outcomes because there is no single guiding force to determine what series of events must follow. Perhaps there are too many people involved with too many different needs. There may be chance events that will only happen if one choice is made, but not another. Depending on what one person chooses, other events are set into motion that were only distant possibilities until the actual moment that decision was acted upon. In these cases, it is impossible to see what will happen afterwards. Choice plays a tremendous part in our future,” she said, turning to look at him to drive the point home.

“When I pushed Mother into the ocean, I could only see that she would die if she remained on board the ship and that she would live if I pushed her overboard. I also saw she would reach land. Beyond that, there were too many possibilities and the visions of what would happen after she landed became muddled and confused.”

“So you don’t know if she is alive,” Peniff ventured.

“Oh, she is alive alright. I am certain of that. While I have been considering my own choices, her image has appeared to me time after time. It would not do so except as a memory if she were dead.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but memories and foresights have very different qualities. They feel as different as a dream and the moment we’re experiencing now. I can’t explain how I can tell one from the other, but I can. The problem with the visions involving my mother is that the outcomes keep changing. I suspect it’s due to the choices she or those around her are making.”

She grabbed Peniff by the wrist and said, “You have to understand that almost nothing is set in stone. It may seem so at times, but when you can see as I can how the fabric of time is constantly rewoven, it becomes obvious how important our choices really are.

“I try to make choices of my own that will end with my mother and I being together, only nothing stays the same. In saving Mother’s life, I may have insured that I’ll never see her again. The good part is that she is alive. Even if I never see her again, I will die knowing that I saved her. The only way I know to be with her again is to keep myself alive. To do that, I have to make the right choices. Those involve focusing on myself and, as selfish as it sounds, forgetting about her. That’s why I haven’t mentioned her and that’s why I have to focus on the broader picture, on the vision that started this journey.”

Peniff placed his hand upon hers and asked, “And this one is more constant?”

“Generally, yes. Some of the less important details keep changing, but the central event has only two possible outcomes. Those depend on my reaching Liad-Nur in two weeks’ time, or my failure to do so.”

“And that will cause everything else to follow.”

“Not immediately,” she replied. “But it is the first in a series of necessary steps leading up to what I believe must happen.”

“And what are they?” asked Peniff. “Those… outcomes.”

Pandy sighed and it felt as if the whole world were crashing down around her. Then, in the next instant, the immensity of it all made it feel like some kind of joke. She laughed softly and said, “Nothing much. It’s only whether Hath Kael defeats Obah Sitheh, or the opposite. It’s whether the entire world is eventually enslaved or whether we all are eventually free.”

Pandy sat upright and stared into the darkness. She reached out for Peniff and her grip on him tightened as she broke into a sweat.

“We have to leave,” she said.

“What’s… the matter?” Peniff asked haltingly, trying to wake up.

“Now!” she demanded.

“But it’s raining.”

“Curse your manners! Read my thoughts. We have to leave now.”

As she tore her hand away and struggled to her feet, she heard Peniff swear.

“Voreth’s horns!” he said, then leapt up behind her, crying in bewilderment. “Who are they?”

“Who cares?” she cried as she ran from the shelter.

Tuweh was already kneeling when Pandy burst into the rain. With hardly a thought to the convenience he was offering, she inserted her foot in a stirrup and pulled herself on board. Tuweh was already rising when Peniff climbed onto Chossen. Seeing he had followed, Pandy did as he had instructed during their ride across No’eth. Lying prone across the saddle and extending her stirruped feet rearward, she ran each arm under a strap that encircled the front of the saddle, gripped the pommel with both hands and prayed.

She had issued no command, but Tuweh understood her desire at once. As soon as she was secure, he wheeled away from their shelter and took off. From out of the night and the driving rain, men’s voices rose all around, shouting as something hissed past Pandy’s ear. An arrow! she thought. Tuweh abruptly swerved right and it was all Pandy could do to hang on, understanding in that instant how the odd position secured her. She was low in the saddle with her arms and legs pinioning her in place. The increasing number of cries all around suggested a great number of enemies. Tuweh swerved left, then hard right, as missiles hissing like vipers clove the air around her.

The endaths had been in flight for only a few moments when Tuweh abruptly slowed to a walk. A second or two later, Chossen came alongside. Pandy opened up her mind. With no evidence these intruders were part of her future, she drew in a breath and sat upright.

“Thank the gods,” she gasped. “We got out just in time. I wonder who they were.”

“I read their thoughts. Those men were Ben Haro’s,” said Peniff. “We’re still in Miast, and Miast is at war. We’re lucky you recognized they were coming.”

“How did they know we were there?”

“The light from the fire. We were stupid to have set one. Bedistai taught me better and I should have remembered.”

“So it’s cold food from now on?” A discouraging thought came to her and Pandy slapped her thigh. “Oh, no! We forgot the food.”

“We have one satchel left,” said Peniff as he patted the saddlebag behind him. “We’ll just have to ration carefully until we can find a way to replenish.” When Pandy yawned, he said, “I suggest we keep going until we’re out of these foothills and it’s light enough to see.”

Swiping her hair from her face and rubbing her eyes, Pandy nodded.

“I really need to sleep. I was just starting to dream.”

“We’ll sleep in the saddle. In the dark, there’s no way to recognize where to set up camp.”

“In the saddle?”

“Let me know when you can’t stay awake and I’ll tie you in.”

The storm was relentless. The wind howled and the rain beat without letup. Much to Pandy’s relief, both Tuweh and Chossen seemed undeterred and walked on without hesitation. Her visions were becoming almost constant and she took encouragement from the unwavering quality they were taking on. She made an effort to continue engaging with Peniff, hoping conversation would keep her awake. But no matter how hard she struggled, her lids became heavy and she found she could no longer follow the conversation’s thread.

… … … … …

The chirping of birds awakened her. They seemed to be everywhere and Pandy realized it was no longer raining. But though the suns pierced her eyelids and she felt their warmth on her skin, she was chilled to the core and could not stop shivering. She was starting to look where she was when the impulse to cough seized her. She hacked and hacked until it seemed it would go on forever.

“Pandy!”

She opened her eyes, flinching against the brilliance, and pushed herself onto her elbows. All the while memories of being chased and shouts in the night jumbled together.

“Are you alright?”

Through the maze of confusion, she struggled to recognize who was speaking.

“Pandy, look at me!”

Slowly and with effort, she turned and saw it was Peniff.

“By the gods, girl! You’re white as death,” he exclaimed.

He knelt beside her and placed the back of his hand against her forehead. She was marveling how cold his hand felt and wondered if he were as cold as she.

“You’re burning up,” he said, then looked around frantically and Pandy’s sluggish mind wondered what he could be searching for.

“We have to find a village,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “We need to find a healer.”

He spun, looking across the distant valley then back to the mountain face above. All at once he halted, his eyes fixed on Chossen.

“I wonder,” he muttered, and Pandy could not understand whom he was addressing. He certainly was not speaking to her.

“Chossen,” he called.

At those words, the endath knelt and Peniff ran up to her. She watched him remove a bag from the saddle and begin rummaging through its contents.

“Thank the gods,” he said, again speaking to no one in particular. “Yes!” he cried as he withdrew a handful of packets, then held them aloft for her to see. “I think these are medicine, Pandy. I’m not sure if they contain what we need, but Salmeh is amazing, so I suspect a few of them might be.”

He shuffled the packets, looking closely at each, tracing his finger over what appeared to be markings. He paused at the third, hovering over it, tracing then retracing the inscriptions. He looked up and smiled.

“I’m almost sure of it. I’d only begun learning their markings a short while before we left, but I believe this one fights fever.” He looked heavenward and said, “Thank you, Salmeh.”

He returned the rest to the pouch before tucking the one he had identified inside his jerkin. He rummaged some more before producing a metal cup and a water skin. He set these aside, then turned back to her.

“Stay there,” he said.

Pandy’s head spun, unsure if it was her or the endath he addressed.

Peniff was on a new quest now. He began by examining nearby brush, attempting to break off deadwood. He examined the pieces that succumbed to his efforts, then, one by one, flung them to the ground. Pandy wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he was growing increasingly agitated, each throw more violent than the one preceding. He began to swear—at least, the words she could make out sounded like profanity.

Eventually, he returned to her. Arms hanging at his sides, Peniff appeared to be on the verge of tears. Much of what he was saying was incomprehensible as Pandy strained to make out his words through a growing swirl of confusion. By now, her trembling had become violent. She was sure he was telling her, “Everything is soaked through,” and, “I can’t build a fire,” but she failed to comprehend what he meant when he said, “I’m supposed to make tea.”

Was this a party?

Peniff was standing beside her endath now and Tuweh was kneeling. She didn’t remember him going to the beast, but now he leaned forward until he was resting against the endath’s side. He was examining something fastened to the saddle when Pandy’s world turned black.