The Red Queen (86 page)

Would there be any use in telling Ariel that there was no way to use Sentinel safely; that the computermachine had been created to prevent humans controlling or tampering with it; that the original Sentinel had likely been responsible for the Great White and that it would be best to destroy it? That to destroy Sentinel and save the world from utter destruction was such a difficult undertaking that Hannah and Cassy had had to devote their lives to preparing the way for my quest?

I sighed, knowing Ariel would never believe me even if such a conversation could occur. He was too hungry for power, his mind too twisted and cruel to imagine that I might simply be telling him the truth.

I turned my thoughts back to the question of the slave army. The Gadfians would have been fools to bring them into Redport where they would swell the number of slaves they had to control. They were already vastly outnumbered by slaves, and while the Redlanders might be passive, slaves acquired elsewhere would surely be less sanguine about their enslavement. Especially slaves trained to fight.

The world darkened again and I moved swiftly and silently to a rocky outcrop, dropping behind it just as the moon shone down again. I was closer to Redport now and I realised with delight that it was the perfect position from which to see down one of the spoke streets. It ran directly past one of the queer high towers that rose up above the settlement. Wanting to see if I could catch a glimpse of the building with the Red Queen’s face carved on it, I waited till another cloud crossed the moon and moved a few steps south to where I could see the great, shadowed open area I knew must be the Infinity of Dragonstraat. Bright moonlit suddenly bathed the tower and I was transfixed to see that it was intricately patterned with tesserae, some of which glinted and glimmered in the silvery light. The tesserae flowed unbroken from its tip right down in a curving sweep that carried onto the ground and lapped out around it as far as I could see. When the moonlight shifted to the open ground a moment later, I saw with utter astonishment that the tesserae were shaped into the likeness of the same serpentish winged creature that Dragon’s visions evoked!

Was it possible that
this square
was the origin of the terrifying coerced visions after which she had been named?

I wanted passionately to enter the city and examine the design properly, to see the whole area unobstructed, and particularly the building with the frieze of the Red Queen on its side, but not only was the moon shining very brightly now, for the first time,
I saw people.

I dropped to the ground and lay utterly still, beastspeaking Maruman to do nothing to attract the attention of the people coming up the sloping street towards us, for seeing them, I had no doubt they were Gadfian soldierguards. They marched two abreast and though I could see they had a Sadorian look, being tall and brown skinned, they had none of the loose languid grace of the Sadorians. And although their clothes were somewhat like Sadorian attire, being long and flowing, they were styled differently, and instead of oiling and beading their hair, the men, and they were all men as far as I could tell, wore pale cloaks with hoods that shadowed their faces.

I wondered if they had shaven heads, like the Hedra, and whether, had I been able to reach their minds, I would have found them linked into a group mind as the Hedra had done when they moved in unison.

As they came up the street towards me, I saw they all carried long staves topped with large metal ornaments that glinted in the light of torches carried by guards to the front and the rear. The flames illuminated objects at their belts that might have been tools or weapons or maybe some sort of ornamentation.

To my everlasting relief, the column turned off into a smaller street, moving smoothly into single file as they did so. Belatedly, I formed a coercive probe and attempted to enter the mind of the last one I could see, but once again the barrier defeated me.

When the marchers had gone and clouds again covered the moon, I moved swiftly to the back of the nearest building and stood there for some time, my heart pounding. The moon was low on the horizon, on the verge of setting, so I edged along the back of the building and stopped just before a narrow lane. It would be safer to enter here than by one of the spoke streets, but it ought not be too difficult to stay close to it.

‘I/Marumanyelloweyes will guide you,’ Maruman sent.

I tried to farseek Swallow then, realising I ought to tell him I was about to enter Redport, but I could not find his mind. No doubt he had gone down to change watch, but he would know I was on the south side of the settlement, because he had been watching me. I farsought Gahltha and, batting aside his urgent questions, I told him that I was fine and bade him tell Swallow I was about to enter Redport and meant to work my way across it and emerge somewhere near the silver tracks. It would certainly be day by then, and so I would simply get far enough away from the settlement to farseek them to tell them what I had found.

I withdrew then, before he could demand answers to his questions.

I heard Maruman sniffing and asked what he could smell.

‘Mice,’ he beastspoke me dreamily. ‘Rats and hot stone, funaga-li filth, the sea, fish, smoke . . .’

The moon set, and all was darkness at last. I made my way to the lane, but even as I was about to step into it, Maruman hissed sharply and beastspoke me to stop. Such was the urgency in his tone that I obeyed immediately.

My eyes were just beginning to adjust slightly to the darkness, as he leapt by me and into it. Only then did he bid me follow and I saw a glimpse of his thoughts that told me he had feared there might be some sort of fiery invisible barrier of the sort that Garth had once described to me. I had never mentioned the barrier to him, but no doubt he had seen it in his restless roving through my mind. I wanted to scold him, but I realised with a chill that I must stop thinking of him as my beloved long-time feline companion and see him as he now saw himself, as the Moonwatcher and one of the two guardians appointed by the Agyllians to serve the Seeker and see that she completed her quest.

‘Yes,’ Maruman said distantly but sternly.

Then he bade me look through his eyes rather than my own so that I could see where I was going. This truly startled me, for it was not something Maruman had ever invited me to do. Indeed I had only ever done it regularly with Matthew. Entering Maruman’s mind, I could not help but draw in a breath of wonder at the clarity and strength of his vision, as the lane suddenly became perfectly visible. He saw, I discovered, not as if it was daylight, but as if the moon shone bright and full and white as it did sometimes on summer days in the Land.

‘Yes,’ Maruman sent again, rather smugly, which comforted me. Thinking of him as an instrument of fate had always frightened me, for it was a reminder that both he and the Agyllians regarded my quest as more important than his life or wellbeing.

Or mine, I thought soberly.

Then I stepped into the lane and my connection to Maruman was cleanly and utterly severed, leaving me in complete darkness.

I stood still and let myself feel the interference lying heavily over my mind, constraining my Talents. It was not caused by tainted matter, I was now certain, and yet there was something familiar about it. I thought of the Zebkrahn machine that had trapped my mind when I had been at Obernewtyn, and realised it felt something like that, except this had not caught hold of my mind. However, I had only been using Maruman’s vision, not sending out a probe. Perhaps if I tried to use a Talent actively, whatever was generating the interference would become aggressive and fasten onto me. Especially if it
was
a machine being operated by Ariel, or by someone else at his behest, and who else would care about blocking Talents? I stepped back out of the settlement to escape the interference, just to be sure it would not try to hold me, and was relieved to find it slipped away easily. Maruman beastspoke me to ask acerbically what I thought I was doing. He was still in the lane when he beastspoke me, which meant that the interference did not affect him. Indeed, when I told him what had happened, he said that he felt nothing, but that when we were both in the lane, it had seemed as if I had closed my mind to him. He sounded indignant, and despite everything, this made me smile.

I explained what I wanted to try, then I opened my arms and he leapt into them. I stepped into the lane carrying him and found, to my relief, that this time I was not severed from his mind. I was elated, for it meant I would be able to use my Talents as long as I made physical contact. Maruman clawed his way up to my shoulders, and when he had settled himself, I again made use of his eyes. My vision brightened, and to my delight, I found it was even better now that the old cat was on my shoulder, because his point of view matched mine. I made my way along the lane, which wound about, but offered turnings to the north, which I took, keeping my bearings by the nearest of the two towers.

At last, after only two false turnings, I found a small lane that led me back to the wide spoke street and peered out cautiously. I saw that I had almost reached the point where the Gadfian soldierguards had disappeared, but the street was deserted and I could not hear a single sound.

Nor were there lights in any of the windows, and all doors were closed fast.

Heart beating fast, I stepped out and moved along the street to a lane a little further down and on the other side. Paradoxically, the fact that I could see so clearly through Maruman’s eyes made me feel very exposed. I had to remind myself that a human looking from a window or coming along the street would see almost nothing in the moonless dark.

I was very aware of the blanket of interference, for in some way it seemed responsive, but only as a blanket is responsive to the movements of the person it covers. Because we were now in physical contact, it seemed to regard Maruman and me as if we were one person. I tried and failed to get any sense of its origin: it was simply everywhere, pressing at my Misfit mind lightly and impersonally. I felt almost certain now that it
was
being generated by a machine.

I stepped into another, slightly larger lane and saw that it ran north in a relatively straight line. I was tempted to go along it rather than to continue down the broad spoke street, which continued past the Infinity of Dragonstraat, for it might well be there were other soldierguards there. But I wanted very much to go and see it properly as well. Standing there, undecided, I suddenly became aware of the smell of Redport, the ordinary yet astonishingly complex smell of many people living close, the odour of cooked and rotten food, perspiration and perfume, human waste and smoke. Somewhere nearby were beasts, and the ripe odour of soiled straw or hay reminded me vividly of the barns at Obernewtyn where I had spent so much time with Louis Larkin and his beloved cows. There were scents I did not recognise mingled with those I did – spices and perfumes and certain strange sharp odours. But the scents of cooking food and smoke reminded me that while the settlement seemed to sleep, there were probably people already awake and stirring behind the closed shutters that hid many of the windows.

Suddenly Maruman hissed and beastspoke a warning.

I turned to look back up the spoke street towards the plain as he had directed, prepared to see someone approaching, but to my astonishment, it was Darga padding towards me! When he reached the lane, I knelt and laid a hand on his head, only to find he would not allow me to enter his mind. Somewhat puzzled, I asked Maruman to ask why he had come, for Swallow had told me he had gone to take a closer look at the settlement to the north of Redport.

‘He said the Daywatcher asked him to come with you,’ Maruman told me disdainfully. That was no answer but it appeared that it was all the answer I was to have. I rose and decided to take the lane after all, my recent fright making me abandon the idea of going closer to the towers.

It was an hour before we managed to find a way out of the snare of streets and lanes, and maddeningly, I found we had come back to the same spoke street. We were closer to the tower, but I dared not go nearer because I could see hooded soldierguards standing about in small groups. They were not speaking or moving and I would not even have seen them had I not been looking through Maruman’s eyes. The thought that I might have gone blundering into them chilled me, until Maruman sent acerbically that he would never let me be such a fool.

I watched them for a time, wondering if they were guarding something, and if so, what it might be. I willed one of them to come into the lane where I was standing, so I could make contact and coerce him. That would be the swiftest and easiest way to get vital information about Redport, but the soldierguards remained where they were.

Giving up, I reluctantly entered another lane, determined to work my way through it to the next spoke street. But I had not gone two steps when I almost stumbled over a very small white dog with enormous ears, lying on a doorstep. It roused and growled, its miniature hackles bristling. I froze, terrified it would begin to bark, for I could not beastspeak to ask for silence without first making physical contact, and it was so quiet that I feared the soldierguards would come at once to see what had roused the little beast. Maruman made it worse by standing up on my shoulders, hunching his back and yowling a low, vicious challenge.

To my relief, Darga glided between us with an authoritative growl and the other dog immediately quieted and let the big brindle dog sniff at him. I saw that he was a male and when Darga ceased his sniffing, he stood still while the other dog rose and sniffed him in return, plumy tail wagging enthusiastically.

Maruman uttered several rude comments about canines and their unsavoury habits, which I ignored, and when the white dog approached me at last, I knelt to offer my hand. He pushed his tiny snout into my palm and I beastspoke a greeting, assuring him that I meant no harm.

To my astonishment, he stood on his hind legs and rested his forepaws on my knees, greeting me formally as Innle. ‘Another canine told/tells of ElspethInnle coming with the one-eyed Moonwatcher. But Usha knew you.’ He glanced rather warily at Maruman, who bared his fangs, then danced away.

I hushed Maruman firmly. The little dog had named himself as beasts often did, but there was something odd about his mind. Penetrating it slightly, I found that it was as labyrinthine as the lanes I had just so laboriously negotiated and full of strange thoughts and notions. I decided to ask Darga to question him a little about the other dog he had mentioned, reckoning another canine would be better able to understand the odd little dog, but when I looked about I found that the Herder dog had vanished as suddenly as he had come.

Maruman announced rather balefully, ‘All canines are unreliable.’

‘That is not true,’ I chided him mildly.

Usha nuzzled at my leg and used the contact to reiterate that he had
seen
what I was when I touched him. This seemed to astonish and dazzle him. It also confirmed my long-held belief that my role as the Seeker showed somehow in my spirit, which beasts could glimpse with their waking eyes.

‘
What
did you see when you looked at me?’ I asked curiously, having never been able to get a sensible answer out of any other beast, including Gahltha and Maruman.

Usha responded in an excited muddle, which involved seeing my wings and the moon bursting into fire. I bade him be calm, and he stood still, but he was trembling as he insisted that all beasts in the barud knew Innle was coming to lead them to freedom from the funaga.

‘Because this other dog told them?’ I asked.

The dog broke free and frisked and whined and then uttered several sharp and very loud barks before managing to quell himself so that I could again lay a hand on his head and beg him to be quiet. His barks had sounded terribly loud in the silence. I tried once more to ask him what he saw, but it was no use. He spoke of the moon bursting into fire and even offered a startling vision of the moon cracking open like an egg to reveal a creature almost exactly like the ones Dragon summoned up coercively, breathing out fire!

I gave up trying to understand him and rose, wondering if the soldierguards in the infinity would come to investigate his excited barking. Then the ground shuddered under my feet – it was another tremor. Without warning, the most enormous and terrible sound shook the air for long awful moments – a dreadful groaning roar that caused the ground under my feet to shudder once more. Usha flattened his ears to his skull and raced away down the street. Maruman warbled softly, his claws sinking into my shoulder, but when I questioned him, he had no more idea than I did what sort of creature had uttered the dreadful cry.

I heard a door opening and had wits enough to flatten myself against the wall beside the step one moment before a bearded man with a white cap and a long tunic peered out. He looked right at me and my heart leapt into my mouth, but after an instant of sharp fear, I realised he could not see me, for he turned to look in the other direction and then shouted, ‘Orsha!’

Moments later, the dog came pelting back along the street and straight through the door. The man closed it behind them and I could hear his barking inside, and the man’s voice, his tone soothing and chiding.

‘Ye gods,’ I breathed.

‘Stupid canine,’ Maruman muttered.

I stayed where I was, expecting other doors and windows to open as people looked out to see what had made the awful groaning bellow, but nothing happened. Then it struck me that the man who called the dog had reacted only to its barking, not to the dreadful roaring nor the tremor that had surely roused it.

I took a deep breath and stepped away from the wall, though my heart was still hammering. Maruman demanded to get down to relieve himself, and I guessed my fear was irking him. I told him that it would be as well to go now, for I intended to knock on a door soon and coerce whoever answered it to take me in. I wanted to get out of the street in case the barking had drawn someone’s attention and I told Maruman he had better wait outside. If Darga returned, he could tell the dog what I was doing and they could wait together. Maruman sniffed at the suggestion then he leapt from my shoulder to a sill and vanished into the sudden darkness that enveloped me.

I had forgotten I was using his vision but resisted the urge to call him back and simply waited until I adjusted to my own limited sight, before I continued along the street. It was no wonder the man had not seen me, for it was truly dark. I walked into another street and then another, wanting to set some distance between the soldierguards and myself before I knocked at a door. I was also looking for a light that would tell me someone was awake, for otherwise, a knock was like to summon every person in the house. I was profoundly frustrated at being unable to use my Talent to help myself. I had managed in Habitat without my Talents, disciplining myself not to use them, but choosing not to use my Talents had been a good deal easier than simply being unable to use them.

As I walked, it occurred to me that the awful groaning cry I had heard must have been made by the mutant beast Matthew had spoken of, trapped in a mine chasm. I could not imagine what sort of beast would produce such a shattering roar, nor
why
it had growled, unless it truly was that the tremor had unnerved it. Yet there had been other tremors, and it had not cried out then.

A more awful possibility was that the beast was roaring in anticipation of the miners who would come by the entrance to its lair. Or worse, it might have scented Swallow and the others, who were a good deal closer to the domes than the miners, who must dwell in Redport. Of course I was only guessing that the domes covered mine entrances, but their location perfectly fitted what we knew of the location of the mines and what other purpose could the domes serve? My only comfort was that the creature was supposed to be unable to leave its lair. Obviously the residents of Redport knew this, which explained why they had not reacted to its cry; they were accustomed to it. I turned into another lane that ran along a row of houses backed up against the wall of one of the dwellings. I was elated to find that the lane led to one of the spoke streets, this one cobbled and running, I soon saw, right down to the shore of the bay. I cursed the fact that I had let Maruman go, for it was so dark that I could see nothing in the bay but an ephemeral glimmer of moonlight on the water near the shore, certainly not any ships.