The Keeping Place Read online

  “No funaga here eats flesh. We/I think it is unnature for our kind of funaga to kill for any reason. Is it not unnature for your kind to kill in revenge/anger? Nature wills beasts to kill for food/protect the young. That cow was not your kind.”

  “She was not. I am unnatured, as are all beasts who dwell with the funaga-li. I am what the master/ funaga-li made of me.”

  “Why did you come here?” I asked. “Why do you stay?”

  She turned her pale eyes on me. “I came to seek my death.”

  “We all journey toward the longsleep, for that is where the road of life leads,” Gahltha sent, his cool mental probe cutting between us. “But now Avra would speak, and we must listen.”

  As the black horse moved to stand behind me, I reached up to lay my hand against his long neck, disturbed by the white dog’s chilly pronouncement. The pulse of Gahltha’s blood beat soothingly against my palm, muted by his shaggy winter coat. The she-dog could not know it, but upon his arrival at Obernewtyn, Gahltha had shared her hatred of humans. Much had befallen him since then that had humbled him and soothed his rage, and he had appointed himself my guardian whenever I was away from Obernewtyn. Despite a hostile beginning, we have grown very close.

  Avra began to address the beastmerge, and I noticed Alad lean near to Freya to translate softly. Though she could sense the emotions of beasts and communicate her feelings to them, Freya was no beastspeaker. If it was not beastmerge, Avra would, out of courtesy, use the signal language, but it was clumsy and limited compared to mindspeech. As it was, Avra left Freya to Alad and spoke mind-to-mind with the rest of us.

  “Greetings. We welcome to this merge ElspethInnle, Alad Beastspeaking guildmaster, and Freya. Greetings also to those beasts who come new to this barud.” Her gentle eyes fell to Smoke. “You have come far. We are glad/enriched by your coming.” Then, to my astonishment, she asked if the dog wished to lead the Beastguild.

  I saw the look of dismay on Alad’s face, but none of the animals seemed even surprised.

  “The whitecanine is strong-minded,” Gahltha sent privately to me. “More than Avra, and so she offers her place. It is the beastway for the weak to yield to the strong.”

  “I will not lead,” the she-dog responded gravely to Avra, “but I will stand with/by you.”

  Now there was a reaction. Gahltha sent that with these words, the she-dog had virtually appointed herself Avra’s second-in-command.

  The mare ignored the murmurous buzz and merely inclined her head gracefully. “Let it be that you will always run by me. Be strong when I falter. Lead if I fall.”

  “I will run by/with you, lead if you fall, but I think you will not, for the heartfire burns bright in you. I will be a gladshield to it.”

  Even I knew that this was a very fine compliment, and Gahltha snorted softly in pride, for Avra was his mate.

  “I name you Rasial, if you will accept my naming,” Avra sent. “Cast off the funaga leashname.”

  The white dog bowed her great head, and Gahltha told me with some amusement that the word literally meant “white shield” in human speech but could also be interpreted to mean “silver tongue.”

  “Enough sweetsaying,” Maruman sent in irritation. “Speak less and say more.”

  There was a ripple of sound from the assembled company that was akin to laughter in humans.

  “Peace, yelloweyes,” Avra sent gently. “Things should not be said in haste, for swiftsaying means little-thinking.”

  She went on to speak of the truce among beasts that existed within the walls of Obernewtyn and asked that those not present be reminded that any who would hunt must do so beyond the barud walls.

  One of the younger horses sent that Obernewtyn was becoming crowded, and before long they would have to turn beasts away.

  “Before that day, Innle will lead us from this place to the freerunning barud where no funaga dwell,” a little goat sent piously.

  Some of the animals looked at me fleetingly, and to my discomfort, Alad gave me an amused grimace. He knew that Maruman had named me Innle, but he had no reason to believe I was the hero of that name foretold in beastlegend.

  The merge moved on to discuss farms where beasts were raised in large numbers for butchering, and a mental cry went up to rescue those condemned to such places.

  “I would speak, who am newnamed Rasial,” the she-dog sent, and a respectful silence met her scything mental voice. “To save one beast or ten is useless. More will be bred to take their place. Avra has told me that you have a network of beasts throughout this land and that you perform rescues of beasts. We must use this network to destroy these deathfarms.”

  I agreed that the deathfarms should be targeted but warned that open sabotage would rouse the fury of the Council.

  “If they learned beasts had worked against them, they would rise up in fear and rage and destroy many beasts, and those that did not die would be chained and punished.”

  “Do you say we should not act against the deathfarms?” one of the younger horses demanded with some anger.

  “I say only that your sabotage/rescues must seem mischance with no one to blame, beast or funaga.”

  I offered the help of the Farseeker guild, but there was a murmur of discontent at this. Some of the animals muttered that I was implying they could not act without human help. I pointed out that every human rescue and expedition we had undertaken had been accomplished with the help of beasts, so why should beasts not be repaid with our assistance?

  Avra spoke then of gelding, and the meeting fell into uproar, for the practice of rendering beasts incapable of bearing young was horrendous to all of them. Freya rose and, using the signal language, explained that her father had been a horse trader. She had traveled about the Land with him before they parted company and had seen horses gelded.

  “Beasts are bred for selling by the funaga-li, who desire strength or what they think of as the beauty of a certain color or other attributes. They think of breeding as an art.”

  Avra questioned Freya closely about the beast sales, learning they were held in the upper lowlands during harvest season and were attended by many hundreds of folk who traveled from as far away as the west coast. Once sold, most equines were gelded so that breeding could be controlled by the Council. I was interested to hear that pureblood gypsies also attended these harvest fairs but would buy only ungelded beasts and paid very high prices for them.

  Rasial asked how one distinguished a Council funaga-li from another funaga, but no animal could answer. I sent that there was no way to tell, for Councilmen were merely powerful humans descended from those who had united to take control of the Land after the Great White. Their original aim had been to establish order, which later grew into a determination that humans would not again go the way of the Beforetimers.

  “Do they not?” the she-dog asked bitterly.

  “They do, who most claim to prevent it,” Alad sent sadly. “But we here at Obernewtyn oppose them and so do many funaga who are not Talented. If the Council fell, things might be different.”

  “If funaga fight funaga, whoever wins will still be funaga,” Rasial sent.

  They began talking about which beasts should labor in what manner during the planting season at Obernewtyn. It went on so long that I fell asleep.

  The night was darker than any night I had known, and silent but for the sound of liquid dripping into liquid.

  Then the sun came near to rising above a distant horizon, and I saw by the dawn’s gray light that I was standing on a high, rocky plateau. Below the place where I stood, trackless Blacklands stretched on all sides.

  I heard a cry in the distance and saw something rise above the horizon. It flew, and yet no bird was ever made that size or shape. I squinted my eyes and thought it looked red.

  Could it possibly be a red-plumed Agyllian—those which Landfolk call Guanette birds and which Maruman called oldOnes—the very birds that now guided me in my destined task to destroy the Beforetime weaponmachines?
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  “It is no bird.”

  I looked down to find Maruman standing beside me, swishing his tail back and forth and gazing at the horizon. I knew now that I was dreaming, for he was in a shape he often took when he entered my dreams of his own will—far larger and stronger than in his true form, with slash marks on his coat. He looked very similar to those great cats that Beforetime books called tygers.

  “Mayhap this dream form is truer than that other shape I bear,” Maruman sent, and he let out a roar that seemed to shake the stone under us.

  “It is louder, in any case,” I sent. “What are you doing in my dream?”

  “The old Ones sent me. They say you must not walk dreamtrails without me, ElspethInnle. I must guard you on them, as Gahltha guards your waking trails.”

  “I do not walk the dreamtrails. I do not even know how to find them. I am only dozing a little and dreaming aimlessly.”

  “Dreams may have purposes the dreamer cannot fathom. They are gateways to dreamtrails and may lead also to longsleep,” Maruman sent. “Wake now and be safe.”

  “Soon,” I told him. “Do you know what that was, flying above the horizon? You said it wasn’t a bird.”

  “Is great winged beast, and its madness goes out from it along dreamtrails like a wind that shudders all it touches. Do not think of it, for doing so will summon it.”

  “Haven’t I already summoned the beast, since it was in my dream?”

  “You did not summon me, yet I came. Dreams touch other dreams, and things may travel from one to the other unbidden. That beast rides its madness like it rides the air, and it enters into those dreams which draw its notice—as will yours, now you think of it.”

  “I don’t understand. How did I draw its notice in the first place? How could I have been thinking of its before I saw it?”

  “Perhaps it thinks of you,” he responded, but distantly, as if his mind wandered elsewhere.

  I felt my arm being shaken, and all at once I was awake. Alad was smiling apologetically down at me, and behind him the yard was almost empty. Little remained of the fire but a few glowing coals in the pit.

  “The merge is over, Elspeth,” he said.

  I rubbed my eyes and shook my head to restore my wits. “I wanted to hear what went on, but I did not sleep well last night.”

  “Do not apologize. I have slept ill of late, too. Maruman is wisest of us.”

  The old cat was still sleeping. Now I could see him in the ember glow. He looked very small and frail, and his whiskers shone gray.

  “He walks the dreamtrails, as is his wont,” Gahltha sent, coming over with Avra. “Do not fear for him, ElspethInnle, for he has long walked those strange ways.”

  “I am wakeful. I will watch over the yelloweyes,” Avra offered.

  I glanced at the mare’s swollen belly and did not wonder at her wakefulness. She had to be very near to foaling.

  “Will you walk back to the house with me?” Freya asked diffidently.

  I nodded, and we left the courtyard just as a light snow began to fall.

  2

  WE ENTERED THE gate to the greenthorn maze that separated the main buildings of Obernewtyn from its farm and fields, walking somewhat awkwardly beside each other on the narrow track that ran between two thick-packed banks of snow. The nights were still painfully cold. I pulled my coat around me and sank my face into the collar.

  Our progress was noisy, for the ground was covered in a crust of ice that cracked loudly when it was broken. For some way, we did not speak but only watched where we walked. It was very dark, and aside from the possibility of slipping, greenthorn stings were unpleasant.

  Fresh snow fell like a dusting of flour on the black earth and on the evergreen foliage of the bushes flanking either side of us. The moon rose when we were halfway through the maze, and our shadows appeared on the path before us, deep blue and sharp edged. There was less need to watch our steps so intently, and Freya asked, “Do you miss Rushton?”

  “He only just left, so it is less a matter of missing him than knowing I will miss him,” I said wryly. “Certainly I already miss him as Master of Obernewtyn.”

  “I suppose it is no pleasure to have to stand in his stead,” Freya said. “I would not like the responsibility.”

  “I doubt Rushton likes the responsibility of being master here, if it comes to that.”

  “But he is Master of Obernewtyn, and it is not his nature to question what is,” Freya murmured. She knew him well because she had spent much time trying to help Rushton to reach his latent Talent.

  I glanced sideways at the empath-enhancer, and it struck me that something was troubling her. My instinct was not to pry, yet this rose out of my discomfort with emotions. I had always found them cursed awkward things, but these days I was trying to be as receptive as a nonempath could be. The fact that I had noticed Freya’s mood proved that at least I was honing my awareness somewhat. Nevertheless, I struggled a little with my own reticence before speaking. “Are you happy here?”

  A fleeting smile bestowed on her plain features a quicksilver beauty. “If I could not be happy here, then I am incapable of it.”

  “And yet?” I sounded abrupt rather than sympathetic and regretted my clumsiness.

  Freya sighed and blinked snowflakes from her lashes. “When Avra asked me to speak about those days traveling with my father, it all came back to me.”

  Freya had been sold by her father because her gift for soothing horses—the very Talent by which he had made his livelihood—had caused the Council to mutter of the black arts.

  “Many poisons rise at night and seep away by morning,” I said.

  We came in mutual silence to the end of the maze path and parted in the cobbled area beyond its gate. The snow had stopped falling and was melting on the stones as I entered the Farseekers’ wing of Obernewtyn. Mounting the stairs to my turret room, I felt as if I would sleep for a year.

  Yet it seemed but a few minutes before Ceirwan was waking me with a tray of hot tea and toasted bread, and a list of matters to be dealt with at the Farseeker meeting to take place that evening after nightmeal.

  “I thought ye mun want to go through th’ agenda an’ add a few things after last night’s beastmerge,” he said. “I’ll pick th’ list up later.” I nodded sleepily, and he fussed about for a time with papers and the fire before opening the door to go. Maruman entered as he left, slinking across the room and leaping onto the window ledge.

  I rose and splashed my face with icy water, then brought my tray to the ledge. Maruman refused any of my food, saying he had drunk his fill on the farms.

  I ate, looking out upon the patch of garden clasped within the elbow of the rambling west wing of Obernewtyn. Over it, I could see a segment of the gray stone wall that surrounded our land, and past that, because the land sloped up, the mass of the forest that lay around us in the mountain valley. Most of the trees were still bare, and above them rose the high mountains—shoulder upon shoulder of them, still clad in their wintertime pelt and seeming almost to float in the sky.

  They looked so pure and untouched, and yet the snow concealed the streaks of blackened earth left by the holocaust poisons, where still, centuries after, nothing could grow. In many places, the poisons were so virulent as to sear and blister the flesh at a touch, and more than the briefest exposure to them ensured a painful death. The world was full of such tainted places, some vast beyond imagining.

  Maruman reached out a lazy paw and batted like a kitten at a strand of my hair caught up by the wind. I felt a rush of tenderness for him but resisted the urge to run my fingers over his soft belly fur, for he little liked to be petted as if he were a tame beast.

  Thinking of beasts reminded me of Dameon’s letter. In it, he urged me to press Alad to send a beastspeaker to Sador to teach humans and beasts there Brydda’s finger speech. Unfortunately, the empath knew only a little of the signals and movements that made up the language, as it was ill designed for a blind man’s use.

 
; I ought to have mentioned Dameon’s request at the beastmerge, I thought, and sighed. So much time was spent in meetings and merges, and in hurrying to yet another meeting to speak of what had been decided at the one before.

  I pulled my shawl tighter, enjoying the delicate pink-gold quality of the light. It contained the promise of the brief, sweet season of spring. Each year, I both desired and dreaded the end of wintertime and the thawing of the pass that was our only access to the rest of the Land, for though it meant the end of the bitter cold, it also meant we were again accessible to our enemies.

  It was the fear that we might be found and attacked by the Council that had led us the previous year to seek an alliance with their sworn enemies, a Landwide network of rebels. They had largely rejected us as freaks and mutants, so we had tried to prove our worthiness as battle companions, only to demonstrate to the rebels and to ourselves that our Talents did not incline to aggression or violence.

  This had been a revelation, and instead of lamenting our inability to be warriors, we had rejoiced, determined to henceforth concentrate our resources and abilities on seeking nonaggressive means of defending ourselves from the Council.

  We had parted from the rebels without anger, and I had been sure that we would see Brydda Llewellyn from time to time. Not only because he was our friend, but also because his parents had moved to Obernewtyn. But none of us had known what to make of his missive requesting that Rushton meet with the rebels in Sutrium. Rushton had gone out of friendship and curiosity, and because a journey to Sutrium was an opportunity to talk to the coercer Domick.

  Domick had been changed terribly by his work as our spy within the Councilcourt, for in this role, he had been forced to witness and accept torture and other horrors. He had become strange and remote and had severed himself from his bondmate, the Healer ward Kella. Just before the wintertime, we had received a letter in which he formally withdrew from the Coercer guild and from Obernewtyn, saying he could not accept our new oath of nonviolence. “It would be like a lamb declaring to a pack of savage wolves that he was a pacifist. What do the wolves care!”