Seer of Sevenwaters Read Online Free PDF Page B

and it would be foolish to take any risks while I was out alone.
    At a high point I paused, making sure of my direction. There was a cave near the northwestern tip of the island, a place I intended to visit soon, for it was the source of the powerful protective net that lay over Inis Eala. The cavern had once housed a solitary member of our family who had been wise and good, but unable to mingle with other folk easily. It was a place of stillness, a home of old spirits. I would pray there; I would seek answers to the questions that troubled me. But not today, with time passing and the clouds gathering.
    I found the cove, descended and filled my basket with the slippery strands of seaweed. Beyond this point the terrain rose sharply. The track branched again, one path snaking westward along a narrowing ridge, the cliffs to either side broken by tumbles of fallen stones and earth, over which erratic ways might here and there be made down to the sea. There were seals on the rocks below, and the cliffs were alive with birds. This place was refuge for many wild creatures. It felt right that it had also become a home and haven for some of the wildest of men.
    I climbed back up to the path, then paused. Something still wrong. Something close at hand, holding me watchful, immobile, looking for the invisible, listening for the inaudible. The clouds massed above, heavy and dark. The sea sighed and shifted, a soft accompaniment to the high calls of the gulls. What was it that would not let me set my steps for home? My mind sought, stretched, found it . . . a thread, a breath, a flicker like a guttering flame, fading fast. There was another survivor. Somewhere out here in the dimming light, somewhere between tide and cliff face, a man lay close to death. But alive. Still alive.
    Gods, what to do now? Run for help and risk losing that faint trace, run and take a chance on the light being still good enough to find him when I got back, wherever the waves had deposited him in this crooked landscape of crack and chink and crashing seas? Run and hope the rain held off until I could return with men and ropes and lanterns? Or search now, on my own? He was close by. I felt it.
    No time. No choice. As I made my way out along the narrow, high neck of land, a part of me was running through all the sensible arguments— you’re too small to lift a man’s weight, the tide’s coming in, you didn’t even bring a cloak, what if you can’t reach him, what if . . . what if . . . I took no heed. Someone was alive out here. I must find him.
    The path grew narrower as it climbed, revealing dizzying drops to either side. Gulls wheeled above the rock stacks. There were white caps on the sea now. I could feel the wind’s bite through the wool of my gown. The sky was growing darker.
    “Where are you?” I muttered, hardly daring search my mind for the little spark of life I had sensed before, lest I find it gone forever. How could anyone have survived so long? “Breathe! Stay alive! I’m nearly there.”
    A gust caught me off guard and I teetered, fighting for balance. As I righted myself, heart pounding, I saw him. He lay far below me on a tiny strip of pebbles, sprawled out with his head toward the cliff face and the hungry tide lapping at his feet. Tattered dark clothing; tangled dark hair; a length of wood lying by his prone body. Perhaps it had helped buoy him until he made landfall on this unlikely shore. He looked limp, spent. So long in the water . . . He must be near death from cold and exhaustion.
    I climbed down, my mind repeating the same words over and over. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. The cliff was a nightmare of crumbling rock, of sudden crevices and uncertain ledges. I crept and sidled, slipped and slid, tearing my palms on the clumps of rough grass as I tried to control my wayward descent. I did not think too hard about what I was doing. If my instincts had drawn me here, I must be able to save him.
    I jumped the last few feet and