Trey pulled back, reigning in his senses until he was out of her mind and a mere observer again. He saw his own body slumped against the side of the cave, Alishia twitching on his lap, and at least now her eyes were closed.
Perhaps his presence had brought some measure of comfort.
Or maybe now she was dying.
Trey moved away quickly and passed by Rafe, resisting the temptation to reach out. He was terrified of what he would find in a mind such as his. The boy stared into the rain, stretching out his hand now and then to touch the curtain of water dripping down across the cave entrance, testing it, piercing it as if it were a shield between two realities.
Trey moved on, out of the cave and up into the crying sky. He felt an immediate sense of freedom as space grew around him, and as he spun and swooped way above the ground he pushed out his perception, comforted to find that there were no minds nearby. Not human, at least. Skull ravens sat chattering in trees farther up the slope, silenced by his touch. A herd of mountain goats munched wet grass. Nestled against a collapse of boulders far up the hillside, a tumbler quivered and shook in the rain, and Trey steered clear of its multiple captured minds. They were all screaming, and he had no desire to find out why.
He swept back toward Pavisse, passing through small valleys and over low hills, dipping into thickets of trees, finding a few dwellings where families huddled before the fire, hiding from the rain and dark. Some of these minds he touched on briefly, but he found nothing there to interest him. There was little to interest even themselves; they were sad, empty places, bereft of hope, concentrating instead on simple existence. None of them seemed to look farther forward than the next morning, when sheebok would need milking, fields hoeing and planting, ditches clearing, fences repairing…
He found the freedom exhilarating, and again he wondered just how far he could project himself like this. Underground there had been miles of solid rock to temper his explorations… but he also wondered whether his horizons had been too limited. He had never been tempted to move aboveground to see what it was like, even though perhaps the ability had always been there. As a miner he had often considered journeying topside at some point in his life. But as a fledge taker, he had never been tempted to take full advantage of the opportunities it offered him, other than guilty forays past Sonda’s bedroom window. His boundaries had been too insular, he knew that now. It had taken the disaster of the Nax to open his mind.
And then something appeared in the distance, something more powerful and less human. Trey dropped down near the ground, pulling in his exploratory senses and hiding himself as effectively as a raindrop in the storm. It would take some time for the thing to reach him, so he tasted the rain, felt it hitting the ground and splashing back up, loaded with dust. It was a summer storm, warm and welcome, but it carried taints of autumn, smells of dead leaves and bare trees. Things were changing, and even the rain swore to that.
The thing came closer, and Trey did not have to extend himself to know what it was: a Red Monk. He sensed it in the distance, saw it, heard it, felt its horse’s hooves shake the ground. It rode slouched in its saddle as if injured, but he thought it was probably trying to track, searching for footprints stamped in mud or hoofprints etched in the loam. Trey sank down into the ground, smothering himself in earth, hiding, feeling a slight tremble around him as the horse passed by not far away. He drew himself in, making his mind less than a point, nothing to see. The Monk did not pause. He had not been sensed.
He waited a few minutes before rising into the open once more. The rain was heavier than ever. He had to return to the cave. It was a good distance away, but the Monk would be there before daybreak.
Trey skirted south to make sure he did not pass too close to the Monk. Its mind had seemed foul, and he had no wish to approach touching it with his own. He skimmed low through a valley, into the lake at its base, shifting past fish and other things that swam in its depths, careful not to touch them. The water was black, and deep down it had begun to freeze. There were shapes struggling against the thickening water. Trey went deeper and sensed more things, large and small, frozen solid.
He surfaced and traveled back through the sky. At least there the rain smothered things that should not be.
“NOT FAR,” TREYsaid. “An hour, if it rides fast.”
“On our trail?” Kosar asked.
“Perhaps. It was tracking something.”
“We have to go.”
Trey had stood and wrapped Alishia in blankets, wiping tears from her cheeks. He remembered her voice, that sad voice lost in her own mind: Has it gone, Trey? Will it come back?
“I won’t let it come back,” he whispered, hoping that somewhere she heard his words and hoping they gave comfort.
“What was that?” Hope asked.
Trey glanced at the witch and shook his head, looking away. She frightened him.
Rafe suddenly appeared by his side, standing over him and Alishia. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked. “Did you touch her mind?”
“Hardly. It’s been driven too deep. She’s barely herself anymore.” He glared at Rafe, blaming the farm boy and the magic he had wrought. It had terrified Alishia almost to death. This girl who had read so much and seen so little, exposed suddenly to such an event, driven mad
…
“Then who was she?” a voice said from back in the cave. Trey turned to see A’Meer sitting up, nursing her head with one hand and her elbow with the other.
“I don’t know,” Trey said, remembering more of his journey, more of what Alishia had been muttering in the deep parts of her mind. “But she’s afraid that something is going to come back.”
“What could that be?” Kosar said. “I don’t know anything of the girl. Is she normal?”
“She’s a librarian,” Trey said. “This is her first time outside Noreela City.”
“Trickery,” Hope said. “For some reason only the girl knows, she’s feigning this sleep. Has she stolen any of your fledge, miner? Is she guiding the Monks to us, even now?”
“No!” Trey said, fear of the witch fueling his anger. “She’s good. Something drove her from her own mind, and she’s terrified-”
“So why has it gone now?” A’Meer asked. Everyone turned to look at her. “And where? She’s only been like this since Rafe… since he touched me. We all felt what happened then, we all know what it was, but why would that drive the girl to distraction?”
Nobody could answer. The silence in the cave was loaded.
“Well, it scared the shit out of me,” Kosar eventually whispered.
“There was something inside her,” Trey said. “I saw the space it left, the scars on her mind. They were huge. ”
“Something left her mind when it saw magic,” Hope said, staring at Rafe. “The boy did just what he claimed he couldn’t, and something fled Alishia’s mind.”
“You sound like you blame me,” Rafe said.
“I blame you for never believing.”
“It’s the Mages,” A’Meer said.
Heads turned. Nobody spoke, and the rain provided the counterpoint to their disbelief.
“Perhaps they got wind of what was happening, knew somehow that magic was making a return. They have their spies in the land-they have ever since they left-gathering information, feeding back news, trying to ease their eviction with stories of how the land has been failing ever since. Maybe they heard that the Red Monks were on the move. They have access to things most people do not. Hope, they have your arcane knowledge, and much, much more.”
“But they fled northward, way past The Spine,” Kosar said. “It would take a couple of moons to travel that far.”
“As I said, Kosar, they have access to things. Trey, did you have to run across the land just now to report the Monk to us? No. Why would the Mages’ spies have to?”
“But what…?” Kosar said.
A’Meer sat up slowly, wincing as her bruised and battered body protested. “A shade,” she said. “They mastered controlling damaged shades during their reign. Who’s to say they don’t still have a certain influence?”