Foretellers (The Ydron Saga Book 3) (11 page)

As the faces, cries and shouts whirled about, Pandy’s mother, eyes and mouth agape, tumbled over the rail yet again. Pandy shouted to her for what seemed an eternity, trying to explain how she loved her and why she had shoved her overboard.

All at once, it was Pandy who was falling. Looking up, she could see her mother’s lips move, speaking words she had to struggle to make out.

“Grab the log,” Roanna cried just before Pandy struck the surface and seawater poured into her mouth.

Pandy sputtered and spat, trying not to take any more in. Then, as she sank beneath the waves, she began wondering. Had this all been a dream? Was it Roanna who had pushed her overboard, and not the other way around? She also wondered why the sea tasted bitter, not salty, and why it was filling her mouth with grit. Something hard and metallic began forcing its way between her lips and her eyes opened at the intrusion. When they did, a blinding light obscured everything and hurt her eyes.

“You’re awake,” Peniff gasped, as she raised her arm to ward off the sunlight.

“That’s good,” he said, exhaling deeply.

Pandy was confused. When she turned away from the thing that was forcing its way into her mouth, he told her, “You have to drink this.”

Nothing made sense. She cleared her head and attempted to comprehend.

“Take a sip,” Peniff said, and she saw he was putting a cup to her lips. “I’m sorry it doesn’t taste better, but you need to drink it.”

Tentatively, she complied. The liquid was bitter and gritty. She almost gagged, but despite the reflex, she managed to force down the liquid, shuddering as she swallowed.

When she tried to sit up, Peniff said, “Here. Let me help you.”

He put down the cup and moved close to assist her.

“I wanted to make the herbs into a tea,” he said as he squatted beside her. “I doubt it would have improved the taste, but it probably would have made it easier to swallow. As it is, without a fire, I’ve been mixing them with water. I didn’t think you could swallow the powder without some liquid to help, especially if you weren’t awake.”

He lifted her to a sitting posture, repositioning her by placing her back against something solid.

“It seems to be working. You’ve been getting it down, although not without an occasional spill down your front.”

As her head began to clear, she regarded his face. For the first time, she saw he looked worried. She attempted to move, but felt something constricting her legs. Looking down, she saw it was an animal hide. She lifted its edge, glanced beneath it and saw she was still clothed, but the waterproof gear she had been wearing was gone.

“I wondered how you could have gotten so ill,” Peniff explained, clearly reading her thoughts. “Your hair was wet, but the sandiath skin should have kept you dry. Once I’d taken you down from the saddle and had a chance to examine them, I noticed a seam across one of the shoulders had come apart. I unfastened the coat and saw you were soaked through.”

He gestured with his thumb at some bushes and Pandy saw her gear was draped across them to dry. He turned to retrieve the cup.

“Shortly before we departed,” he continued, “Bedistai told me he suspected you would want to be leaving soon. When I mentioned I intended to go with you, realizing he was still too weak to come along, he insisted on teaching me certain things, like how to use the herbs he and Salmeh were packaging. It appears he was right. You seem to be recovering.”

He raised the cup, as if proposing a toast. Pandy nodded and smiled back at him.

“Thank you,” she said. “When can we start off again?”

Peniff cocked his head and studied her.

“Really?” he said. “I would think you would want to rest some.”

She shook her head.

“Sitting here doing nothing… I’d go crazy.”

Peniff rubbed his chin, considering. He peered into her eyes and studied her face, then said, “Well, that depends. If you insist, we can start again this morning. Now that I think about it, you can rest in the saddle just as well as you can on the ground. Before we rescued my family, Bedistai and I recovered from the injuries we had sustained by doing just that. An endath’s gait isn’t jarring and we have only lost a day.”

“A day! How can we have lost a day?”

“You were out a long time. In fact, for a while I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. Your fever was burning pretty hot. I’m amazed how fast Bedistai’s remedy brought it down.”

He placed the back of his hand against her forehead, then against her cheek. He shook his head and said, “You feel completely normal, so I guess you’ve recovered. Even so, if it weren’t for our limited supplies, I’d insist we remain a day or two longer.” He sighed and bit his lip. “As it is, we’ve hardly anything left, so I suppose we don’t really have much choice.”

When Pandy nodded eagerly, Peniff rose to his feet.

“Stay where you are while I put breakfast together.” He started to turn, but paused. “Do you have an appetite?”

“I am pretty hungry,” she admitted.

“Good,” he said, then went to the endaths.

She rose to her feet and started to follow until her head began to spin. It made her wonder about the wisdom of her decision, but she was determined to go on. As she considered sitting back down, hoping food would help, she leaned against the boulder she had been resting against and assessed her surroundings.

They were camped on a ridge top. Below the foothills, a deep crescent valley spread flat and unbroken, widening in the distance. Smoke plumes were rising in several locations and she wondered what sort of violence was causing them. The haze they created obscured the horizon, blanketing the sky’s customary green with an orange-brown haze. She looked past her shoulder at the Tairenth Mountains, extending north and south to the limit of her sight.

All at once, she felt alone, removed from all things familiar. She slowly sat down, drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and began rocking herself.

“What land is that?” she called.

He answered, but she could not make out his reply and indicated as much by shaking her head and cupping a hand to her ear. Instead of raising his voice, he turned from the endaths with an armload of provisions. Once he was beside her, he arranged the things he had brought on a skin already laid out in front of her.

“Here,” he said, as he selected an item and handed it to her. “Dried deleth fruit,” he explained when she looked at it questioningly.

She bit and its sweetness surprised her.

As she began eating, he gestured towards the valley and said, “I believe that’s Yeset below us and those are the villages of danWall and danBarco. In the distance is Meden, where all the fires are raging. Limast had started making incursions when Bedistai and I passed through.”

He squinted, then pointed.

“If you look towards the horizon to the extreme south, there are more fires burning. There’s no telling how far beyond Meden they go.”

She listened in part to his reply while another thought nagged at her.

“Last night… ” She paused to correct herself. “I mean night before last, when we were talking about trust, two questions occurred to me.”

He looked at her and nodded.

“Why… ?” She hesitated. “Why would you leave your family?”

Before he could answer, she said, “You abandoned your wife and children to come with me. Why would you do such a thing? Here I am, feeling guilty about throwing my mother overboard when I realized you just got up and walked away from the ones you love.”

She waited as he appeared to be gathering his thoughts. When he remained silent, she pressed.

“How could you do that? I can only imagine what they are feeling right now, but it doesn’t seem to bother you at all.”

“It bothers me a great deal,” he said. When she started to object, he held up a finger. “I would like to say it bothers me more than you could possibly imagine, but I know that’s not true. I suspect our pain is similar.”

He looked away and his mouth tightened. After a long pause, he looked back and said, “I did what I did for the same reason as you.” When she gave a questioning look, he replied, “There was no other choice. Staying in Mostoon would have been hiding from the problem. By that, I mean the problem this whole world is facing. If I were to do nothing, if I were to stay with them and pretend everything is normal, not only would I be lying to myself, I would be denying the fact that, sooner or later, everything wrong with the world will come crashing down on us.” He looked into her eyes and said, “You know that, too. Don’t you?”

Pandy nodded.

“The only way I can make sure my family is safe is to try to help you complete your mission. I’ve had a glimpse of your vision,” Peniff said. “Not a long look, I assure you. But shortly after the glimpse I had when it first came upon you, I took another peek at the thing that was driving you. I had to know more about it. Then, when I could see the magnitude of what you were facing, when I understood the task you have to perform and what it would take to complete it, I had to know more about you. I had to decide if a fourteen year old girl had the stuff inside to see it through to the end.”

That offended her. She knew it must have showed, because Peniff explained, “Too much is at stake to accept what you say at face value. Too much depends on what you or I choose to do. It was only when I saw you were genuine and caught a glimpse of your true nature, that I realized how helping you fulfill your plan was the only possible way I could help avert the ultimate disaster we are facing. Even then, although the outcome remains uncertain, going south to assist Obah Sitheh is the only thing I can think of that can insure its success.”

“So you don’t think I’m being ridiculous.”

“What did I just tell you?”

Pandy considered his words, then ventured again. “Can I ask something else?”

“Please do,” he said.

“This isn’t one of the ones I mentioned a minute ago,” Pandy said.

“That’s fine.”

“Do you think it’s odd that I’m so confident one minute, then afraid in the next?”

“Of course not. I would be, too, if I were you. To tell you the truth, I’m afraid, too. These are dangerous times. No one is safe. It doesn’t matter if you remain at home, or dive into the hell of battle. That’s why, when you told me you wanted to go to Liad-Nur, I had no arguments against it. If Harad attacks Mostoon… ”

“He will,” she inserted.

“ …you might be less safe staying with the Haroun than you will be in Obah Sitheh’s fortress. Look what happened night before last, well away from any battle. No place is safe any more.”

“I’m so confused,” Pandy said.

“I understand, especially with your new ability emerging. At the time in your life when you should be discovering boys, you’re suddenly cut off from the rest of the world and faced with an enormous responsibility. That’s another reason I decided to come along. I went through a similar experience myself. The world hadn’t gone to war yet, but I experienced the same isolation. You need to be with someone who understands some of what you’re going through.

“Here,” he said, reaching for something else on the ground cover. “Have a little dried meat. I’m going to start packing so we can leave when you’re done eating.”

He started to rise when she said, “I need to ask something else.”

“Why I’m such a coward,” he supplied.

Pandy nodded.

“You want to know why I am so afraid of entering other peoples’ minds.”

She nodded again and he sighed. He looked away for a moment and gathered his thoughts, then turned back to her.

“Three times in my life, I’ve entered peoples’ minds and created monsters by doing so,” he said, startling Pandy with the response.

“The first was the priest in charge of my naming ceremony. The second was a soldier I encountered while travelling with Bedistai and Darva to return her to her brother. The third was Harad.”

“I thought you said Harad was always a criminal, a kidnapper.”

Peniff nodded.

“He was, but he was not always able to read minds. I gave him that ability. It was unintentional, but nonetheless… ” Reading the question forming in her mind, he explained, “In each of these cases, when I entered their minds, I found an unspeakable monster, a person without conscience, someone able to commit atrocities without feeling remorse. In each of these cases, my immediate impulse was to kill and I attempted to do so with my mind, entering each of them and inflicting great horrors upon them.”

Peniff bit his lip.

“In each case, I failed. Each instance resulted in an unexpected creation, another thought gazer. I eventually encountered the priest again. It was in Monhedeth when Bedistai and I entered barakMis as we were attempting to free Miened and the children.”

“What happened?” asked Pandy.

Peniff looked directly at her and replied, “I killed him,” before looking away. “That time I succeeded. I did it with my mind. That’s why I am afraid to step inside another person’s head. I’m afraid of what I’ll find, afraid of what I will do.” He exhaled. “Afraid of what I might create in the process.”

“You told me… ”