Ashling by Isobelle Carmody

Author:Isobelle Carmody [Carmody, Isobelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-12T13:02:08+00:00

XXIII

"I guessed that you and your friends were Seditioners or escapees from a Councilfarm," Swallow went on. "I do not ask you to tell me if I am right. Yet when next we meet, there will be no lies between us."

"Next time ... ?"

He held up a hand. "Let that rest for a moment." He lowered his hand and hesitated, as if trying to frame what he would say in words. "You asked why I include you in the ancient promises. Know that there are those among my people with the sight—an ancient power passed down from the first D'rekta, which sometimes allows those who possess it to see what will happen before it comes to pass."

Futuretelling? His eyes caught my involuntary movement and he stopped, but I said nothing.

"This seering is a strange power and perhaps a fearsome thing. My people do not invoke it lightly for if it were known, those possessing it would be burned. One of my people with such power told of Iriny's capture. When I returned from Guanette, the same seer told me that she would be brought safe to Sutrium by those who held her,

but he could not tell if she would return safely to us....

So I waited and set those I trusted to watch for you and your wagon. They saw nothing but one night a voice spoke in my dreams, such as the first D'rekta heard, telling me that if I would find Iriny, I must go at a certain moment to a certain market."

From the edge of my sight, I saw Maire gape at him, and understood this was as much news to her as to me.

He looked at her. "You know I am no seer and so it seemed madness to obey a dream voice. Yet, Maire, there was such power in it mat it was not in me to disobey. When I came where the voice had bidden me, I saw you, Elaria, dressed as a boy, with a Landgirl buying birds. I meant to speak with you when I rode after you, but you outrode me."

The gypsy's face was pale and tense, his eyes looking inward, dark with wonder.

"The voice spoke again into my dreams that night, sending me to another market, lest all promises be broken. That is exactly the words I dreamed: lest all promises be broken. What could it mean but the ancient Twentyfamilies promises? I obeyed and so came to find you being whipped. 'Save her,' the dream voice had told me. 'She is everything to you.' "

We stared at one another. I thought my expression must mirror his, pale and shocked. Two people, I thought, sent out by seers to find one another. There was a terrifying symmetry in it. Worse, I thought I knew whose voice had commanded Swallow to my aid; that voice of power which spoke in dreams.

"When I obeyed the dream voice, you must believe that it was not because I feared to die." He said this as if he needed to say his thoughts aloud.

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