The Rebellion Read Online Free PDF Page B

Maruman disappeared, I worried, knowing he wandered far from Obernewtyn in the throes of his occasional strange fey fits. On his previous disappearance, he had been gone for almost a full cycle of the moon. When he had returned, his already damaged right eye had been so severely infected that Roland had no alternative but to remove it.
    If he suffered for the lack of it, he made no complaints.
    I hurried then to Rushton’s chamber. His face was stony as he opened the door and stepped back to let me enter.
    The other guildleaders were seated about the small room, their faces grave. My eyes flew to the Futuretell guildmistress standing in a shadowed corner. Her dark eyes glinted enigmatically across the room at me, and my heart began to beat unevenly.
    “What has happened?”
    “All in good time,” Rushton said tightly, gesturing to an empty seat. I flushed, for he did not normally speak so sharply to me.
    He opened his mouth, then shook his head as if thinking better of whatever he would have said. Instead, he turned tothe Healer guildmaster. “You’d better begin, Roland,” he growled, flinging himself in a chair.
    “Elspeth, as you know, the gypsy you rescued is resisting healing,” Roland said. “We cannot work against her body to force her to heal, and it is impossible to enter her mind, because she has a natural mental barrier.”
    “Are you saying she is dying?” I asked.
    “Right now, we are keeping her stable. However, if this goes on for much longer, she will die.”
    “Maryon?” I said, turning to the tall woman in the shadows. “What did you see in your futuretelling? What has the gypsy to do with Obernewtyn?”
    Rushton rose and began to pace about the room.
    The futureteller made a graceful gesture with her long fingers. “I saw many things. A journey over th’ great water; a gray stone fortress wi’ a Guanette bird flying o’er it.” Maryon spoke these words in a high oratory tone, but now she dropped into a more normal voice, and its very flatness gave her words greater power. “I saw yon gypsy woman mun be returned safe to her people within a sevenday fer th’ sake of Obernewtyn.”
    “Seven days!” I cried. Futuretellers often came up with obscure deeds they said must be performed for this reason or that, or for no reason at all that they would divulge. But this was the most dramatic I could remember in some time.
    “Futuretellin’ is nowt an exact study,” Maryon said. “There is much to see that defies understandin’. But I did see that th’ gypsy’s people may be found in Sutrium.”
    “Sutrium!” That was almost worse than not knowing.
    Sutrium was the largest town in the Land—and the most dangerous, being the base of the main Councilcourt.
    Belatedly, I realized no one else had reacted to the mentionof it—they already knew this. I wondered why Rushton had not waited for me before telling what was to be told. It was not as if I had delayed coming or had been difficult to find.
    “Given that they are gypsies, I dinna know how long her people will bide there,” Maryon was saying. She shrugged. “All I can tell ye is that they are there now.” She broke off suddenly and there was an awkward silence.
    “Are we voting on whom to send with the gypsy?” I asked at last.
    “There will be no voting on this matter.
You
will take her,” Rushton said tersely.
    I was genuinely astonished. Rushton had managed to convince the guildmerge to ban guildleaders from trips to the lowlands, because there was too much risk. Now he commanded me as if I was a novice to make a journey to the most oppressive city in the Land, with an unconscious gypsy fugitive!
    “I will impose a sleepseal on her,” the Healer guildmaster said in such a way that let me understand this had been discussed, too. “It will slow down her heartbeat and her dying. Kella can remove the seal in Sutrium, just before you hand her over.”
    “Why am
I
to take her?” I asked slowly.
    Rushton’s green eyes stared