The Red Queen (11 page)

‘Ahmedri was going off to look for water and some sign of the city we were seeking,’ Dameon said. ‘He took Darga with him in case she could sniff out the wolves. Then the storm came and after it was over, you said you were going up to see if you could farseek him. That is the last thing I remember.’

The others agreed that their last memories were of the storm, or of waking half buried in sand under a collapsed tent. I told them about Rasial and Gavyn going after Ahmedri just before the storm struck.

‘They must be together then,’ Ana said. ‘Waiting for us.’

‘They were not together before the storm struck, and even if they met up afterwards, would they wait all these months in the hope we would come to them?’ Swallow asked. I drew a deep breath, and looked around at the others, mustering my strength to tell them my own not inconsiderable tale. ‘Why do you really think we are here?’ I asked.

‘Not because we are the chosen of God,’ Swallow sneered and there was a bitterness I had never heard in his voice before. It struck me that enforced captivity must be far more irksome to a gypsy than to the others. It would explain the tension in his face, his rash attempt to get into the Committee meeting hut. He went on, ‘We did not choose to come here and yet we are not permitted to leave. Certainly prayers are answered here and nothing seems to be wanted of us but obedience to the Covenant, which has the health and welfare of the Speci community at its heart, but we know the world is not a blasted wasteland where no one can survive, so it is not for our good that we are being kept here. There is no question that we are prisoners. The only thing we do not know is
why
, save that it must be the same reason these Speci have been held captive for generations.’

‘Do you have any thoughts about what our captors want?’ I asked, to get their impressions untainted by what I knew.

‘They truly seem to want nothing beyond the mindless placidity and conformity demanded of us by the Covenant,’ Swallow said. ‘Yet how can that serve them?’

It would serve them well, if their aim were simply to keep their tame herd of Speci in good order, I thought. It all fitted.

‘Elspeth, it no doubt looks to you like we have turned ourselves into obedient Speci, and so we must appear to be safe,’ Dameon said coolly. ‘But do not think for a moment that we have given up searching for a way out. The trouble is that there is no way. So we have begun to dig into the stories behind this place, the mysteries here, in the hope that this will lead us to a way out.’

‘Elspeth will find a way, now that she is here,’ Dragon said with earnest certainty.

Swallow shot me a sardonic look, reminding me that he knew all there was to know about the burdens of being a leader who was supposed, miraculously, to be able to solve every problem. Yet there was a glimmer of desperate hope in his eyes, too, before he smiled at Dragon and said, ‘I pray you are right, little one.’

‘I don’t know enough about Habitat yet to form a plan,’ I said. ‘Help me sit up. There are some things I need to tell you.’

Analivia and Swallow helped me into a sitting position then regarded me expectantly. I looked at Dameon whose expression was still cool and asked, ‘Why did you stop me farseeking you when I woke up?’

He shrugged. ‘A good many stories about the Speci who were killed suggest they were Misfits, which means that whoever set up Habitat likely has some way of detecting the use of Talent.’

‘Do the Speci know about Misfits?’ I asked them.

‘They do not use the word but the Covenant describes a good Speci minutely, and anyone who does not fit this description is considered an aberration – a bad Speci,’ Dameon said. ‘And before you ask, they regard my blindness as a misfortune that befell me, so it does not disqualify me from being a good Speci.’

‘You were using empathy on me when I woke,’ I said.

‘I have been using it from the first, and since no one has tried to murder me, I thought it likely that any device that existed was unable to detect it,’ Dameon said, with a touch of satisfaction. ‘Then I discovered that I was not the only empath in Habitat.’

I stared at him. ‘There are other Misfits here?’

‘Empaths,’ Dameon said. ‘Three, and coincidentally – or maybe not so coincidentally – two are on the Committee, but none of them know what they are. One regards it as no more than an extension of ordinary empathy, and she exerts it only occasionally and incidentally. The other is Sikoka, the spokesman of the Committee and its unofficial leader. He is definitely aware of his ability to influence others but regards it as natural leadership, which he exerts consciously, drawing on his empathy to enhance it.’

‘And the third?’

‘Is little Tasha,’ Dameon said, a smile in his voice. ‘She uses it unconsciously when she is engaged in healing manipulations, but I think she is beginning to suspect she is an anomaly. At any rate, she has seemed edgy and unusually reticent of late. I had thought you might sense it about her.’

I remembered that the girl’s hands had trembled but I had attributed this to our talk of enforced bonding. Besides, I had been shielding my emotions for Dameon’s sake. Then something else struck me.

‘You called her an anomaly . . .’ I murmured, thinking of my Tumen attendant telling me that God wanted all anomalies investigated, by which I had assumed he meant the govamen had wanted all anomalies investigated.

The others were regarding me with varying degrees of confusion and concern. I drew a deep breath and told them about waking myself from deepsleep to find I had been in a cryopod and about my conversations with the Tumen who had tended me, concluding with the fact that he had called me an anomaly. When I stopped, they were all silent, staring at me.

At last Dameon spoke. ‘It sounds like the Speci and these Tumen believe the same things.’

‘I think the Speci believe what the Tumen have led them to believe,’ I said. ‘What this Naha led them to believe, by bringing them the Covenant and living among them till she died. I think she was a Tumen as well.’

‘So this . . . this whole mad place is just something left over from the Beforetime?’ Swallow growled. ‘Why in hell do these Tumen bother?’

‘That I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Yet.’

‘But how does Lud come into it?’ Dragon asked. ‘I mean, God?’

‘My best guess is that the Tumen came from somewhere to Pellmar Quadrants, and for some reason decided to go on with what the Beforetimers had done. The thing that puzzles me is how they managed to work all of the Beforetime machines. The only other possibility is that they are the degenerate descendants of the Beforetimers that set this place up. Either way, there would have been great gaps in their knowledge and understanding of what they found here, and that’s probably where Lud comes in. Whatever is unknown is God’s affair.’

‘But they know the world is not all Blacklands,’ Ana protested. ‘Why would they keep the Speci prisoners like this?’

‘Maybe they came from a place where everything was ruinous, and when they got here, they thought God had guided them and simply went on doing what had been done here before out of gratitude and reverence,’ Swallow said.

‘But what about the babies and children?’ she demanded. ‘Where did they come from?’

‘As to the little ones, maybe they are the children of the Tumen put in here for safety, until they get an all clear from the govamen,’ Dameon suggested.

‘It matters not,’ Swallow said suddenly. ‘Elspeth is right. All that matters is getting out of here so she can get on with her quest.’

‘You entered the mind of the Tumen that tended you?’ Dameon asked.

I shook my head. ‘I tried but I was too weak from waking myself up and he may have been using some sort of blocking device. He called me an anomaly, and given what you have told me, I am certain that he meant Misfit. What I did not discover is how the Tumen regard Misfits. They are clearly interested in them, but maybe only because the govamen was interested in us. He suspects me of being one, but I made sure he does not know I can use my abilities consciously. The fact that I am alive might mean that they only kill people who use Misfit abilities.’

‘I wonder why the Tumen let themselves be seen in the beginning but not now?’ Dragon murmured.

It was a good question and one to which I had no answer. ‘I can only suppose the reason lies in whatever Beforetime directives they are following.’ My voice cracked and Ana offered me the flask, but while I managed to grasp it, I could not lift it to my lips without help.

‘I hate to say it but we need to get Elspeth back to the hut; she needs to sleep,’ Ana said, then turning to me, ‘especially since the Committee may come by your hut in the morning.’

‘So soon?’ I echoed, aghast.

‘It is not usual but no doubt they are curious,’ she said, making a gesture to Swallow who stood and hauled Dameon up beside him. They had just got me into a sitting position when Dragon, packing up the food, suddenly froze, her expression suffused with astonished horror.

‘What is it?’ I asked her.

‘I remember,’ she whispered, sounding stunned.

‘Remember what, little one?’ Dameon enquired gently, no doubt thinking she was remembering some part of her ordeal with Moss.

She was looking at me, and she spoke to me. ‘I remember what happened after the storm. I saw you get up, Elspeth. I was still half asleep, but I followed you. When I got to the top of a dune, you were looking at something sticking out of the sand and a man came up behind you. He was very tall but he moved very fast and he was so quiet you did not hear him. He was dressed in silver and he wore a silver helmet and mask. I called out and you turned and saw him. Don’t you remember?’

I nodded slowly as the memory unfurled and swallowed me.

When I woke, it was with a clear memory of the silver-clad man who had stunned me using the light weapon embedded in his shining helm. Of course I knew now that he must have been one of the Tumen sent out to collect us, but why had he worn a helm and suit? They reminded me of the plast safesuit Jacob had left for Hannah in his false grave, which made me wonder if the Tumen actually believed the outside world was still poisonous. Or perhaps they were afraid that we carried some of the fell sicknesses the Beforetimers brewed for weapons.

In any case, the gleaming plast suits and the helms with their embedded light weapons explained why Jacob and the wolves had called them shining people. The odd thing was that the Tumen must have worn the same attire when they had moved among the Speci in Habitat in its first days else they would not have been called shining beings.

I had no memory of anything that had happened after Dragon saw me attacked by the Tumen. Obviously I had passed out, partly from shock and partly from exhaustion. I was not sorry, truly, to have been spared the journey back to the hut, though I felt guilty that I had been a burden to the others, for they would have had to carry me. My only memory of the return was a fogged recollection of Ana and Dragon undressing me and bundling me into bed.

I looked around. The thin chilly darkness seemed to indicate very early morning. Opening out my senses, being careful to keep them passive, I was startled to discover there was someone seated in the chair by the bed. I suppressed the impulse to use coercion, but before I could speak, there was a rustle of movement and the sound of water being poured.

‘Not too much at once,’ cautioned the softly spoken Tasha, lifting my head and holding a mug to my lips.

I forced myself to sip, wondering if passive empathy or common sense had told her I was awake.

‘I have been sent by the Committee to massage your limbs,’ she said when I had finished the water. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Better than the last time I woke,’ I said, guessing the others would have avoided mentioning my faint. In truth I felt surprisingly refreshed, and my body, other than being weak, was now reassuringly obedient to my will.

‘It is no wonder,’ Tasha said. ‘You have been asleep for three days since your collapse on the common.’

I suppressed a groan at the realisation that I had lost my chance to pledge to the Covenant quickly and get it done with.

‘Were the Committee angry?’ I asked.

‘Why should they be?’ Tasha laughed a little. ‘You are just resurrected and the newly wakened sleep a great deal.’

‘I thought they were to come here to speak to me,’ I said.

‘They came but they decided you are not yet fit to be tested,’ she said. ‘They are impressed that you were so determined to exercise that you went to the common on your first evening awake. But they felt you had been allowed to get up too soon. Dameon, Swallow and I have been reprimanded for irresponsibility.’ My heart sank and no doubt her empathy detected it, because she added quickly, ‘Do not worry – the Committee understands your friends erred only in their eagerness for you to become a proper Speci.’

‘And you?’ I guessed.

‘I ought to have known better,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry if I got you into trouble,’ I said.

‘It makes no difference,’ she said flatly, and before I could ask what she meant, she drew back the bedding to manipulate my muscles. As she kneaded and pressed, I concentrated and this time I felt her empathy. She was using it unconsciously but channelling it with her hands. Did she need to be touching someone to empathise, I wondered. Certainly that improved the use of any Talent and some empaths could only work by touch. Dameon had no need of touch to empathise a person of course but he was both powerful and experienced.

‘Your friends are at the pulpul harvest,’ Tasha said suddenly.

‘What is pulpul?’ I asked, wondering if the Speci girl had a touch of farseeking Talent, too, for it had been on the edge of my mind to ask about the others.

‘It is a fruit,’ she answered absently, her mind clearly intent on her healing. ‘Unlike the other crops, it ripens suddenly, and must be harvested that same night, for the sun spoils it. It is very nourishing so everyone helps bring it in if they can, so none is wasted. Even Dameon was summoned to the pulpul field.’

There had been a barely perceptible softening in her voice when she spoke of the empath master, and it struck me that her empathy made her all the more receptive to his. Which might also explain the legendary and almost fanatical devotion Dameon’s guild had always had for their master. But was it the potency of his Talent that drew people to him, or his gentle nature and kindness? I was inclined to think the latter, though all empaths possessed some degree of charisma. It was no wonder that two of the three empaths in Habitat were on the Committee.

Tasha said she needed to turn me and I gave her what help I could as she heaved me onto my stomach. She began industriously to press my back, and I thought how odd it was to be handled so intimately by a person I did not know. Eventually I drifted off to sleep again and this time when I woke, I was quite alone. The Speci girl might have been a dream, save that my body felt light and wonderfully loose.

It was still dark but a glance showed me dark curtains were now draped over both the entrance and the window. The few needles of light that penetrated the dense weave to illuminate slow-moving dust motes were clearly daylight. I resisted the temptation to see if I could cross the room without help, and resolved to go over everything that had been revealed the night before to see if there was anything that might add up to the beginnings of an escape plan. A memory came to me of the teknoguilder Fian telling me that I was good at planning farseeker rescues because I hated being trapped. That distracted me into wondering what was happening at Obernewtyn and brought me to the chilling fact that none of us knew how much time had passed since we had been taken captive by the Tumen. What if it really had been fifty years? Fian would have grown from a cheeky youth to a full-grown man verging on old age. And Rushton, if he lived, would be a grey-haired ancient.

‘But why would we be kept asleep for so long and then suddenly released within months of one another?’ I muttered to myself. I realised that I had spoken aloud, but I had not said anything significant. And what if I had? Impossible to believe there were really Tumen listening to every word I uttered – to every word that every one of the three hundred or so Speci in Habitat said. It would require a massive number of listeners, unless listening devices stored words spoken in Habitat even as the memory seed left for me in the Earthtemple had done, and the words were listened to later. But even this would be a massive job. Would the Tumen really devote so much time and attention to the inhabitants of Habitat? Surely they had other things to attend to – their own lives and families, for instance.

I wondered suddenly why Atthis had not warned me to be careful not to get myself imprisoned in Habitat.

Unless her untimely death had prevented it
, whispered an insidious voice.

Scowling, I reminded myself how fiercely I had always rejected the idea of myself as a pawn of fate. Yet here I was wishing to have been forewarned. Well, it had not happened and so here was a moment when I could prove my mettle, had I will and wit enough to solve the puzzle box that was Habitat. And was I not Guildmistress of the Farseekers, architect of a thousand successful and wily escape plans? In one way the problem was simple. We were captives in a settlement surrounded by a high wall with no apparent way in or out. Anything that entered Habitat came via the Hub, which, from its description, did not sound as if it contained any hidden doors leading to the outside.

Yet the Tumen had got me into Habitat and into the Hub, as well as all of the people resurrected here over generations, so there must be a way in and presumably it was not far from the Hub. Its location might most easily be discovered by watching the Hub until something or someone was delivered there, then following the deliverer to see how they got out of Habitat. But aside from the fact that I was too weak to follow anyone anywhere, Swallow would assuredly have tried this. He would also have examined every inch of the wall surrounding the settlement for openings and weaknesses, so the entrance must be very well hidden.

Perhaps the Tumen came over the wall using some sort of Beforetime device. Could they manage that without being seen, especially when they were bringing in someone to resurrect? It seemed highly unlikely, but they might do it in dark clothes at darkmoon when the Speci were absorbed in their ceremonies, their senses afflicted by the ferment they drank. If that was it, then the only way out would require us getting our hands on a Tumen and commandeering his means.

If only I could coerce the individual Committee members. Clearly they were the keepers of whatever power there was within Habitat, and if there was more to know, they would know it.

Swallow had obviously considered the Committee might hold the key to escaping Habitat, and this had led him to attempt to infiltrate the building they used for their meetings. It made sense that it would contain secrets, given that the building was forbidden to ordinary Speci. But his attempt had failed, which was not to say he was wrong, merely that he had been unable to prove what he suspected. A better plan might be to lure one of the Committee members to the remote place the others had discovered, where prayers to God went unheard, and coerce all we needed from them before inducing them to forget the encounter.

But that would have to wait until I was stronger. Besides, I had to find out if there really was some means by which the Tumen could detect the use of Talent in Habitat.

There was no telling how long it would be before we got the chance to talk openly as a group again. That meant the best I could hope for were individual meetings, but for my sake, even these would all have to take place in God’s deaf spots since I had almost no grasp of signal speech, having never needed it to communicate with beasts. What an irony that I should find myself in a place where there were no beasts and no farseekers, and where I could not even speak freely aloud.

I was suddenly tired again, and when sleep once more claimed me, I did not fight it.

I dreamed.

I was near the enormous black gates just inside the walled city on Herder Isle. It had once been a sombre place inhabited by masters and their slaves, and ruled by silent, dark-clad Herder fanatics and their insane leader, and I could remember being led across this very square by Hedra. But now the gates stood open wide, and busy, contented-looking Norselanders were bustling hither and thither with a good sprinkling of Landfolk and even a few Sadorians in their midst looking no less busy and contented. Where once there had been nothing but black and grey stone, there were now flags of coloured cloth and many clumps of green, and instead of oppressive silence, the air rang with the sounds of talk and laughter and music.

A powerful-looking woman with short-cropped hair suddenly flung an arm companionably about the shoulders of a slender woman with whom she had come through the gate. When the latter offered a laughing smile in response, I was startled and delighted to see that it was the shadow, Cinda. Then I recognised her companion as Ursa, who had once offered herself unarmed as a shield against a murderous group of brutal Hedra. Remembering their determined courage when they had risen against the Herders, I felt humbled anew by the way she and the other shadows had defended me, and how ready they had been to fight for their freedom; to die for it if that was what was required. After it was all over, Ursa had called me sister, and I saw with pleasure that the Norse woman was wearing the little cloak pin I had given to Cinda for her as a gift, the last day we had spoken together. Cinda alone had known I meant to leave Obernewtyn forever. I had not told her. Atthis had forbidden me to tell anyone about my secret quest to find and destroy the weaponmachines left by the Beforetimers, but Cinda had seen my intent in my mind. In retrospect I realised I might have denied it or coercively altered her memory, but I had not considered it. I had not known Cinda long and yet the intensity of the experiences we had shared on Herder Isle had made me feel very close to her. That I was dreaming about her confirmed that closeness. She bent her head to look in the basket she carried on her arm and I noticed that she was wearing the silver comb I had given her as a gift, fastened securely into hair that was a good deal thicker and longer than it had been when she visited Obernewtyn with Elkar. Almost as if she felt my thoughts, Cinda lifted a slender hand to touch the comb.

‘It is strange but I dreamed of her last night, too,’ Ursa said, touching her pin. ‘No doubt it was all that talk between Yarrow and Harwood about her in the Beforetime cavern on Norseland. In my dream she was staring at one of those computermachines the Teknoguilders are so hungry to wake, though the goddess knows why. She was sitting there all alone and then there was the sound of a wolf howling. Then the dream changed and she crouched down in a field, only now there was someone with her and it was clear they were in great danger because she kept looking up fearfully, and the whole time I could hear wolves.’

Cinda made a few urgent, fluid hand motions, which I recognised as the signal speech devised by the shadows to communicate without the knowledge of their punitive masters.

‘Wolves in the sky?’ Ursa said, frowning. ‘Well that is odd and no mistake, but what kind of dream is that anyway? It makes no sense.’ Cinda made a downward curling motion and tapped her cheek with her knuckles, her eyes sad. Ursa shrugged. ‘I do not know how you or she can be so sure you will never meet again. The fact that you dream of her so often makes me feel certain you will see her again.’ Cinda made some more hand motions and Ursa shrugged. ‘Well, you told me that she said she would not return to Obernewtyn or the Land. But Norseland is not the Land, and it may be that you and Elkar will travel to the Red Land. He seems to think there will be more books there that will help them to get their infernal machines to talk to them as that computermachine is said to do in the Westland. Myself I doubt much reading and scribing goes on in the Red Land.’

Cinda made some further motions. I tried to enter her mind coercively, as I would have done in life, for I wanted very much to know what computermachines they had found on Norseland, but in the dream her mind was impenetrable.

Ursa was looking puzzled. ‘What do you mean? She was to travel with the four ships to the Red Land.’ A pause. ‘But how could anything be more important than keeping slavers from our shores?’

‘Cinda!’ A piping voice called, and both women turned to smile at the lad skipping along the street towards them. I recognised the tall boy approaching them as the blue-eyed child, Mouse, who had been cared for and hidden away from the Hedra and their masters by the mineworkers after his mother died. He was not so much older than I remembered, but the dark circles beneath his eyes and the chalky skin told their own story. Despite the efforts of the men who had cared for him in the mines, he had spent too much time near tainted material. I felt a weary sadness both for the boy and for the sorrow his death would cause his father, the renegade Herder Sabatien, who had helped orchestrate the uprising that defeated the Herders. Yet the boy’s bright spirit seemed entirely undimmed, and when he hugged Cinda, he smiled into her face with his whole heart in his blue eyes. Then he turned and urged someone to hurry up. Moments later a plump and panting boy I did not recognise came running up.

‘What are you two wildlings up to?’ Ursa sounded amused.

‘Guess what!’ Mouse demanded. ‘Babick knows what happened to that boy Erit the Landfolk were looking for ages back. Remember they thought he stowed away on one of the ships that came over here from the West Coast?’

‘Oh yes,’ Ursa said.

‘Babick overheard his da and mam talking about it! Turns out he stowed away all right, but on one of the ships going to the Red Land to fight the Gadfian slavers.’

‘He took a
dog
!’ said the other boy, as if this were the most astounding thing of all.

‘Ye gods,’ muttered Ursa, casting a look that was both amused and appalled at Cinda. ‘I hope Lark didn’t have aught to do with this.’

Cinda moved her fingers and Mouse nodded eagerly.

‘One of the Landfolk who came over for the opening of the library saw it in a dream,’ he said, obviously answering her question. ‘Him and a dog sneaked aboard when no one was looking, and hid in the hold. I wish I could stow away!’

‘We would all miss you too much, rascal, and think what a hiding this Erit got when he was discovered,’ Ursa growled and swooped on him to his shrill delight.