The Farseekers by Isobelle Carmody Read Free Book Online Page B

suspiciously.
    'I said I'll handle this,' I hissed aloud.
    I was relieved to hear the Herder boy tell his master he had been dreaming and injected my own calm control over his outward expressions. The priest departed with a final hard stare. My own heart was thudding, reacting to the boy's fear.
    'He knows,' he sent forlornly. I had not meant to make an approach so soon, but the desperate loneliness I sensed in his thought decided me.
    'You could run away,' I suggested.
    'Where could I go that they wouldn't find me?' the boy asked miserably. 'If they suspect, they won't let me get away. They are interested in Misfits. They don't send them to the Council.' I saw a fleeting thought that confirmed rumours of the Herder interrogation methods and shuddered. What would happen when they discovered our kind of Misfit? What would happen to the boy if they did guess the truth? Suddenly I was very curious about the mysterious Herders.
    'You know I am no demon,' I sent gently, after a moment.
    'Yes,' the boy sent simply.
    'Once, I was an Orphan. Like you, I was different. I didn't fit in and I was afraid of being found out and Burnt, or sent to the farms. Now I live free, with others like me.'
    'Misfits,' he sent, using the hated word.
    'Like you,' I sent. 'You could join us,' I added lightly.
    Hope flared, swamped by a sudden regressive fear that I might, after all, be a demon tempting him to the loss of his soul. 'The other one. The first one I met. Is he there?'
    I called Zarak and shielded his beam while they talked. In the end, the young Herder agreed to join us.
    'He wants to know if he can bring his dog,' Zarak asked with a grin.
    Zarak, Matthew and Ceirwan brought him out. Officially Zarak was still in Coventry, but the Herder boy trusted him, and had insisted he be present.
    Gradually over a matter of days, the boy gave his Herder masters the impression he was becoming increasingly homesick. He talked constantly about his family and refused to eat. He let his masters think he was having trouble with the mental disciplines of the priesthood. When he escaped, it was made to appear as if he had run away with his dog, and had drowned trying to cross the Suggredoon.
    It was a good scenario, one of the best we had designed. It had to be or Rushton would never have passed it. It was artistically managed, even to the point of having clothes washed up on the bank, and beast-speaking scavenger birds to hover ominously about the spot when the Herder search party arrived. It was one of the few rescues that had gone without a single hitch.
    The boy proved not only to be a powerful farseeker, which we had known already, but also an equally strong empath, which explained how he had sensed my presence when I was shielded. The joint ability was unusual. There were only two other farseekers among us with weak empath Talent. To my regret, the boy Chose the Empath Guild, little wonder since Dameon had taken him gently in hand from the start. Within days he had developed the empaths' traditional adoration for their gentle leader.
    His name was Jik.
    The expedition was due to depart in only a week, when I met with Rushton to discuss the final plan. Discovering my name on the list of those to go, Rushton had exploded. He was furious to hear of my agreement with the black horse and even angrier that I had not spoken of it to him sooner.
    'I won't be threatened,' he shouted.
    'It is an agreement,' I said calmly. 'We really don't have any choice. We need the horses. And I am the strongest farseeker and a perfectly good candidate for this expedition.'
    Rushton shook his head. 'I will agree to this test in principle, but you won't be the one riding the black horse. I won't risk a guildmaster on an expedition.'
    Using Alad as translator, Rushton argued with the black horse, but it was useless. 'He says why should the equines risk one of their leaders if the funaga will not? He says a test should involve leaders,' Alad said.
    'Then offer me as his rider,'