The Caller Read Online Free PDF Page A

be as sure as I can be that you’ll get there safely.’
    ‘Don’t send Gort too early, or he’ll be waiting around as you were, while I finish the training. I have no idea how long it will take.’
    ‘Once you are sure, you must send me word. So much hangs on this, Neryn. You realise, don’t you, that if you’re not present at the Gathering any attempt to use the Good Folk in battle is going to end in disaster.’ Her expression was grave. ‘I don’t want to have second thoughts about sending you with Whisper. But I’m having them.’
    ‘Too late,’ I said as Whisper emerged from the entry. ‘It’s time for us to go. Tali, I will take care, I promise. I know what I need to do. I know time’s short. We must trust in the Good Folk to carry our messages, and in ourselves to stay strong and brave no matter what happens.’
    ‘Ready?’ enquired Whisper.
    ‘I’ll miss you,’ I said, setting down my staff and giving Tali a hug. ‘I wish you could come with me. But your true work is here. I know you’ll lead the rebel forces well and bravely. I can hardly believe that the next time we see each other might be at the Gathering, at that moment . . .’
    Tali stepped back from my embrace, her hands on my shoulders. ‘We can do it,’ she said. ‘Never doubt it, Neryn. Go on, then, better be on your way.’ After a moment she added, ‘Sooner you than me.’
    Whisper’s way of transporting folk quickly over long distances was challenging. Travelling on his own, he would fly like the owl he resembled. To bring Tali and me from the north back to Shadowfell, he had required us to stand in complete silence with our eyes shut for what had apparently been an entire night. It had not been an easy way to travel, but at least I’d had Tali with me. This time, there was no human companion whose hands I could hold for reassurance during the blind vigil.
    ‘Ready?’ Whisper said again.
    ‘I’m ready.’
    ‘Shut your eyes, then.’
    I shut them, and the long darkness began.

    My training in the west and the north served me well at such times, for I had been taught endurance and self-control. I had learned to stand still with my eyes closed for inordinately long periods of time without fainting or otherwise losing my discipline. The Hag of the Isles had taught me various modes of breathing that were useful during such trances; the Lord of the North had toughened my will.
    I shut my eyes at Shadowfell in morning light, and opened them again hours later, at Whisper’s command, to find that he and I were in a place of gently rolling grassy hills. We stood on a rise under a single, massive oak. Below us, in a flat-bottomed hollow, stood a group of rounded cairns, like inverted bowls, each the size of a tiny cottage. Elder trees, leafless in the cold, ringed the area like graceful, stooping women. Their shadows made a delicate tracery across the ancient stones of the cairns. The sun was low; it was late afternoon. I judged that we had travelled a long distance to the southeast.
    Nobody in sight; the place looked deserted. But there was a great magic here. I felt the familiar tingling sensation in my body and an awareness of presences unseen. Around us in the grass small birds darted about, foraging. Soon dusk would send them to roost in the great guardian oak. And we must find somewhere to shelter. Standing still all day had left my body full of aches and pains, and I longed for rest.
    ‘Is this where we’ll find her?’ I murmured to Whisper. ‘It seems more a place of earth and stone than of air, but I can feel something close.’
    ‘I canna gae further that way,’ Whisper said. ‘Doon there’s a women’s place. We’d best camp up here, between the rocks, and wait for morning. I canna tell you if she’s there, only that it’s a place folk come tae, your kind o’ folk, tae seek her wisdom.’
    ‘But –’ I began.
    ‘Shh!’ Whisper hissed, ducking down behind a convenient rock. I did the same, following his