The Farseekers Read Online Free PDF

opposite tug from the stream itself, a siren call to merge. My innate fear of losing myself gave me the strength to resist.
    'I have come,' I grated.
    'Deeper,' Maruman urged. 'Must come deeper.'
    I was frightened now, for it was possible Maruman did not realize the danger. I hesitated and felt myself begin to rise. I clamped on my probe and forced it deeper. Now I could feel the wind of the stream and its incredible cyclonic energy below. It seemed to sing my name in an indescribably lovely voice, willing me to join. Again, fear of losing my identity helped me to resist. Then, suddenly, the pull to join the stream and the pull to rise equalized exactly and I floated motionless.
    Then I was on a high mountain in the highest ranges, the air around me filled with cold gusts of wind. I was inside the body of Maruman. I felt the wind ruffle his/my fur. I/We waited.
    An illusion, but real as life.
    I/We licked a paw and passed it over one ear.
    Then I felt the calling. It was not a voice so much as an inner compulsion. Maruman/I rose at once and began to walk, balancing with easy grace on the jagged spines of rock leading to a higher peak. It was there, I sensed, that the calling originated.
    Then I heard my own name, but the voice was not Maruman's.
    I was so astonished that the mountain illusion wavered and for a moment I saw, overlaid, the Healer Hall. I was in Maruman's deepest mind, and yet heard a calling that used my name!
    'Do you know me?' I ventured.
    'I have always known you,' came the response.
    'Who are you? What are you?'
    'I/We are Agyllian,' it answered, in a tone a mother might use in speaking to a small child. 'I have used the yelloweyes to communicate with you, Elspeth Innle, knowing you would come to his deepest mind. He is weary to death and it would be kind to let him join the Stream, but he is not ready to go yet and nor, I think, are you ready to let him go. His pain and his strange mind make him receptive to us and allow us to use him.'
    Then it's you making him sick,' I said indignantly.
    'Be at ease. He permitted it. He will suffer no harm, but he can sustain us little longer lest he pass into the Stream of his own accord. I come only to warn you that your tasks have not ended, and to remind you of your promise. The death machines slumber, waiting to be wakened. While they survive, the world is in danger. When the time is right for you to seek out the machines, you must be ready to act swiftly and without doubt. You must not allow the concerns of your friends or your own needs to sway you. When the time for the dark journey is near, you must come to us and we will provide you with help.'
    'Journey? What journey?' I cried, but I was alone.
    The mountains dissolved and I used the last of my strength to rise to where the upward drift would carry me to the surface of Maruman's mind. I was vaguely conscious the upper levels were now quiet.
    'Are you all right?' Alad asked tensely as I opened my eyes. I was slumped in the chair, soaked with perspiration and vaguely amazed to find it was dark.
    He reached out and touched Maruman gently. 'He will recover. He's sleeping normally now. What did you do?'
    I was too tired to answer. Seeing I was nearly asleep in the chair, Alad and one of the healers helped me to my room.
    Yet lying in bed, I found myself unable to sleep, and even the following day I was preoccupied with the memory of the voice inside Maruman's mind.
    Had it been a deepprobe illusion? They were common among Futuretell novices unused to the strict mental discipline required to deepprobe successfully. But I had not been in my own mind. Such an illusion ought to have been a distortion of Maruman's thoughts, but apart from imagining that I was using Maruman's senses as I occasionally used Matthew's, there had been no sense of invading the cat's dream.
    It was possible the illusion had risen from my own conscience, and from my fleeting worry about what Henry Druid, if he still lived, might find in his