Ashling

  Ashling

  by Isobelle Carmody

  Determined to forge an alliance between the Misfits and the rebel forces that seek to overthrow the authoritarian Council, teenager Elspeth embarks on a diplomatic journey to meet with their leaders. But will the rebels accept the Misfits as allies?

  At great risk Elspeth makes her way to Sutrium. But not even her enchanted mental powers can prepare Elspeth for the greatest danger of all....

  For Shane

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my editors, Kaye Ronai, Erica Irving, and Jenna Felice, for their enthusiasm and gentle precision, and Donato, for the enchanting mystery of his covers.

  Part I - The Days of Rain

  I

  At first sight, the gypsy woman appeared to be embracing the stake. Her languid pose and mocking smile made it seem impossible that she was about to be burned. Blood dripped steadily out of slits from elbow to wrist, yet she showed neither pain nor fear.

  The gray-gowned Herder lifted his palms to the sky as he chanted the purification prayer. The band sewn on the left sleeve of his gown showed he was a fifth-level priest. Not one of the inner cadre, but powerful nonetheless. He was old, bald-scalped and toothless, but his eyes glowed like live coals as he made the warding-off signs.

  "Beware, demon," he hissed. "You have found an easy vessel in this foul gypsy's body. Yet I will drive you out."

  Shockingly, the woman laughed aloud.

  "You know I am not possessed, Herder. Say the truth and be done with it. Tell them that you burn me because I tried to heal a baby when your own worthless treatments failed."

  The villagers, standing in a cluster about the stake, rustled like leaves with the wind passing through them, but no one spoke in the woman's defense, and none met her eyes.

  "You used herb lore," the Herder said, with hissing emphasis. "It was such dabbling in forbidden lore that brought Lud's wrath onto the Beforetimers for their conceit. The Herder Faction heals with humility, trusting to Lud's guidance instead of sinful pride. The plagues were Lud's warning that the Landfolk tread the same dangerous and prideful path when they close their ears to the Faction, for Herders are the voices of Lud." He blinked and seemed to rein in his religious fervor. "The woman who allowed you to defile her child will also be burned for heresy."

  A woman screamed and fainted, but no one moved to her aid.

  "You are a fool," the gypsy's voice rang out. "You will not be allowed to burn her when the Council can have her sweating her life out in one of their stinking farms."

  "I am a Herder. Lud and the Faction rules me, not the Council," the priest snapped. There was a sullen mutter from the crowd, but the Herder glared them to silence. "She invoked the black arts. Council lore grants me the right to burn her and any who treat with her."

  "What black arts?" the gypsy demanded contemptuously.

  The Herder turned back to her. "You told the woman her child would die and one day later it died. You cursed it and thereby revealed the demon within."

  "I treated the babe, but saw quickly by its symptoms that it was too late to save it," the woman said. "It could not tolerate the potions you fed it. I told the parents it would die on the morrow, so that they might say their farewells and not waste the child's final hours."

  "Do not waste your own final moments with lies," the Herder jeered, pushing a gloating smile into me woman's face.

  Her hand snaked out suddenly and the priest wrenched back with a strangled cry. She gave a throaty laugh of triumph. "What are you afraid of, old goat? Do you think my gypsy skin might be catching?"

  "Beg, demon! Proclaim your guilt, and the cleansing will be swift," he screamed, almost hysterical with fury.

  She laughed again, a humorless bark. "Cease your ranting, old man. Kill me so that I don't have to see your ugly face anymore."

  Even from the back of the crowd, I could see the Herder's face mottle with outrage. Then his lips folded into a vindictive smile. "Evil must not be permitted to think itself triumphant," he said silkily, and turned to speak a word to his acolyte, eyes glittering with malice.

  The boy proffered a selection of long-handled metal tools.

  "Th' bastard's goin' to brand her before he burns her," Matthew hissed into my ear, his highland accent thickened with anger.

  "Am I blind?" I snapped. The amount of blood pooled about the woman's feet told me she would be lucky to live long enough to feel the flames of purification, let alone to be rescued, even if we could manage it. In spite of her defiance, her face was as white as smoke.

  "We mun do somethin'," Matthew whispered urgently. He gestured to our gypsy disguise, as if it made some point of its own.

  "Be silent and let me think." I sent the thought direct to his mind.

  The sensible thing to do would be to accept that it was too late to save her, and withdraw before anyone noticed us. I looked at the gypsy again. Her chin lifted in defiance as the Herder approached with the brands.

  I cursed under my breath and slid down from Zade's back, mentally asking the horse to stand quiet until I called. I told Matthew to turn the carriage and take himself back to the main road, not trusting his instinct for drama.

  "Wait for me out of sight"

  "What will you do? An' what about th' wheel rim?" he asked eagerly.

  "It will hold," I said shortly. "If not, we'll free the horses and leave the carriage."

  As soon as he was gone, I pushed my way through the crowd, at the same time extending a delicate coercive probe. Fortunately the Herder was not mind sensitive, so he was not aware of my intrusion.

  "Where is her wagon?" I demanded aloud.

  He swung to face me, eyes slitting at the sight of my gypsy attire. "By what right do you question a voice of Lud?" he snarled.

  "By right of blood," I said.

  It was Council lore that blood kin might speak in defense of their own. In the past, this had not stopped Herders doing what they wished and later making excuses to the Council for excessive zeal. But with the rift between Faction and Council, the priests' power had waned and they were less wont to openly flout Council lore. In any case it was only a stalling tactic, since I had no proof of kinship to the gypsy.

  "Her wagon has been burned, as have all her Luddamned utensils and potions," the Herder said grudgingly, but his memory showed him rifling through the wagon and removing this and that piece before the thing was flamed. My probe slid sideways into a memory in which he had tortured to death the gypsy's bondmate and I shuddered inwardly.

  "You have proof that you are related?" he demanded.

  "All gypsies are brothers and sisters," I answered, not wanting to be caught openly in a lie.

  "Do not taint my ears with the practices of your foul breed," he hissed. "I asked for proof of kinship—you have shown me none, therefore be silent."

  I saw his mind form a plan to report me to the soldier-guards for Sedition, thereby ridding himself of me in case I was related by blood. He turned back to the gypsy and snorted in annoyance at finding her hanging limply from her bindings.

  Alarmed, I reached out a probe, but her body still pulsed with life. She had only fainted.

  The Herder cast down the brand and reached for a torch to fire the woodpile at the foot of the stake. A great rage seared me. Throwing off caution, I reached into the bottom of my mind for the darkest of my Misfit Talents to stun him.

  But before I could summon it, an arrow hurtled through the air to bed itself in the center of the Herder's sunken chest. He sucked in an agonized breath and clawed at the wooden stave, trying vainly to withdraw it. Then his eyes clouded and he collapsed, blood bubbling obscenely from his lips.

  I disengaged my probe with a scream, almost dragged to my own doom by his swift spiral into death. Panting, I
stared down at him in astonishment and, for a moment, silence reigned in the village clearing.

  "The Herders will kill us all for this," a woman wailed, shattering the stillness, her eyes searching the trees for the archer.

  "Not if we kill these gypsies and throw the bodies in the White Valley. We can say we saw nothing of what happened," a man began, but before he could outline his strategy, another arrow whistled through the air, piercing his neck.

  He crumpled to the ground with a rattling gurgle.

  That was enough for the rest. It was one thing to watch someone else die, and quite another to risk your own life. People scattered in all directions, crying out in terror.

  I did not know who had loosed the arrows and there was no time to find out. Situated on the border of the high and lowlands, Guanette was visited regularly by off-duty soldierguards seeking amusement. At any minute a number might ride in and be drawn by the screams to investigate.

  I rushed forward to the stake, ripping at the hem of my skirts. Fortunately the cuts on the gypsy's arms were shallow, since the aim of bloodpurging was to exact a full confession, not to kill. Still, the cuts were deep enough to drain her blood slowly. I bound the torn stops around her arms, automatically setting up a barrier to repel the chaotic wave of unconscious thought that flowed from the gypsy as our flesh met, then I cut through her bonds with shaking fingers, staggering as she fell heavily into my arms. A thick pot-metal band around her upper arm grazed my cheek.

  All at once my hair was wrenched savagely from behind and I was pulled over backward, dragging the unconscious gypsy on top of me. For a second I lay still, winded, then the acolyte launched himself at me, renewing his attack, raining blows on my head, his eyes alight with fanatical rage.

  "Demon gypsy! Holocaust scum! Halfbreed!" he screamed in a reedy voice. "They've killed my master! Soldierguards!"

  Fighting free of the gypsy's dead weight, I shoved the boy hard, toppling him to the ground. He glared up at me, a handprint of the gypsy's blood on his chest.

  "You will die for this," he hissed. "Lud has granted my masters great power to kill their enemies. One day we will destroy all of your kind, even the stinking Twenty-families."

  I turned from him in disgust and hauled the woman to her feet. This was no easy task for she was tall and full bodied, her arms and upper body slicked with blood. By the time I had her upright, Zade had responded to my mental summons. From the corner of my eye I saw the acolyte's eyes bulge in astonishment as the horse knelt to receive the woman's body.

  I groaned aloud as two soldierguards burst through the trees, wielding short-swords.

  One dropped like a stone, pierced by another deadly arrow from my mysterious helper. The other soldierguard gave the dead man a sick look and flung himself behind a cart, scanning the treetops fearfully.

  "Quickly, climb/get on my back," Zade sent, rising to stand upright. "Gahltha will be angered if you are harmed in my care."

  Obediently, I vaulted onto him and wound my fingers in his mane, clamping my knees around me unconscious gypsy.

  "Go!" I shouted and he leapt forward.

  Using coercion, I locked my muscles in place, men turned my head, sending a second coercive bolt at the acolyte to erase all that he had seen. The block slammed into the boy's stunned mind, but not swiftly enough to prevent him throwing the bloodpurge knife.

  It pinwheeled toward me with uncanny accuracy: blade, hilt, blade...

  There was no time to summon the mental energy to deflect it but, instinctively, I threw my head backward.

  A split second later the knife hammered into my temple.

  I'm dead, I thought, and the world exploded into painful pieces, sending me into the abyss.

  II

  I was standing on a high plateau at the beginning of a path which led down into the terrible seared deadness of the Blacklands. It was night, and darkly quiet The distant noise of liquid dripping slowly into liquid was the sound of seconds dissolving and falling away into the sea of time.

  Far across the Blacklands I saw a flash of dull, yellowish light. I blinked and suddenly I was down in the valley, the bleary gleam I had seen from afar shining from the gaping maw of a tunnel cut into a rocky outcrop.

  Entering, I walked until I reached the source of the light: two great carved doors set deep in a granite arch in the tunnel wall. Incredibly, though made of stone, the doors were ablaze. Opposite them, illuminated by the flame glow was a small grotto. I felt a surge of terror, for within it dead and stuffed, was the Agyllian Elder, Atthis.

  Then a voice spoke inside my mind; Atthis' voice from the past.

  "Long ago I dreamed one would be born among the funaga—a seeker to cross the Blacklands in search of the deathmachines. One who possessed the power to destroy them... You are that Seeker.... Do not forget your promise to come without question when I call.... Speak of this quest to no one."

  The voice had grown steadily softer and now it faded altogether.

  "Atthis?" I whispered, but the bird in the grotto was as cold and silent as the rock, its clouded eyes gleaming with reflected flame.

  I turned to face the doors again, for there was something about them that tugged at me. Before I could grasp at the elusive memory, they swung open. Standing in their fiery embrace was a radiantly beautiful boy with gleaming white hair.

  "Ariel..." I whispered disbelievingly.

  He gave a prim, cruel little smile. "Of course it is I. Did you really think we had done with one another?" His voice was as I remembered: high-pitched and taunting. "You cannot hide from me. But my revenge will wait, because there is a thing you must do for me."

  "I won't do anything for you," I hissed.

  "Do as you wish and you shall still do my bidding," he said with an angelic smile. "And when you have served my purpose I will kill you. Until men, let me give you a gift of pain to remember me by."

  I backed away from him, but before he could do anything, Maruman leapt from the darkness into the tunnel. The old cat was huge—the size of a wild wolf—and he positioned himself between Ariel and me, tail twitching back and forth. Tattered ears flat to the skull, he gave a yowling cry. The sound lifted the hair on my neck.

  Ariel's eyes widened with terror. He made a warding-off shape with his fingers and all at once, as if by moon fair conjury, it was not Ariel on the threshold of the burning doors, but another blond boy—Jik.

  The sight of the empath filled me with sorrow and I barely noticed that Maruman had vanished.

  "Promise," Jik murmured, the words barely audible against the crack of flame.

  "Jik..." I began.

  "Promise!" His voice drove into my mind, his eyes bright with dread.

  Before I could summon the wit to answer, he lifted a hand to me. Instantly fire licked at his sleeve and leapt into his hair.

  At last I found my voice.

  I screamed, but the noise that came from my mouth was a slow, rumbling growl that shook the world.

  I opened my eyes and squinted in the dim light, my heart pounding sluggishly. The stone walls and tapestry hangings told me I was in the Healer hall at Obernewtyn.

  I frowned. I had dreamed a long, oddly chaotic dream. And before that? The effort of trying to remember made my head throb.

  Thunder rumbled ominously, and I looked out the window. Stormclouds darkened the horizon, and distant flashes of lightning threw the edges of the high mountains into sharp relief. Closer, in the gardens, the tops of trees whirled in a dervish dance in the rising wind.

  As if my waking had been a cue, it began to rain heavily. I started as someone moved to the window, blocking my view.

  "So the Days of Rain begin," Rushton murmured.

  The sadness in his voice startled me, for the Master of Obernewtyn rarely displayed emotion. I felt immediately uncomfortable at his presence.

  What was he doing here?

  "It is as well this season is brief for, in truth, it casts a shadow on my spirits." Dameon's voice rose out of the darkne
ss, with the slightly stilted formality of the highborn, for so he had been before being charged Misfit. The blind empath was the only one of us for whom the light made no difference. But what were they doing at my bedside? For that matter, what was I doing in the Healer hall?

  "They feared for you, Elspethlnnle," Maruman's voice whispered into my mind.

  The old cat was curled by my head in his usual position. "You were in my dream!" I beastspoke him with a remembering astonishment. "But you were much bigger."

  "Things are not always what they seem on the dream-trails," he sent composedly.

  "I wish it were summerdays all th' time." Matthew's voice came from a chair alongside the window.

  "Softly," Rushton murmured. "You will waken her."

  "I'm awake," I rasped. My mouth felt dry and furry.

  Rushton turned on his heel to face the bed, and I could not see his face at all. After a momentary stillness, he crossed to a table, poured water into a mug and brought it to me. I was careful not to let our hands touch as I took it from him. Lifting my head slightly, I drank a mouthful, then froze at a sudden vision of a knife spinning through the air toward me.

  "What happened in Guanette.?" he asked.

  I reached up to touch my temple. There was a slight lump on my head but no broken skin. Odd. I explained the sequence of events in Guanette after Matthew's departure, assuming he had told the rest. "The Herder's acolyte threw a knife at me just as I mounted Zade," I said at last. "I hadn't time to deflect it. The hilt must have hit me."

  I had thought the blade struck me. I even seemed to recall the feel of it cutting into me. Or had that been part of the dream? I shuddered, remembering that in it Ariel had promised to kill me.

  "Who would've thought that weedy acolyte would have had such a throw in him," Matthew marveled, with what seemed to me tasteless relish. "It's just lucky ye'd locked yer muscles in place. Zade brought ye to th' wagon absolutely frantic. I near died meself when I saw ye covered in blood. I thought ye were mortal wounded and raced back to Obenewtyn. Thank Lud th' wheel held. It were only when I got ye here that I realized it were th' gypsy's blood on ye, fer ye'd nowt a scrape."