Ширли Мерфи - The Castle Оf Hape. Caves Оf Fire Аnd Ice. The Joining Оf Тhe Stone

The Luff’Eresi smiled, shifted; light flashed around them so Ram could not be sure they were still there. Then he could see them once more, iridescent, leaping skyward so quickly he could only stare. They were leaving him, they would not help; then suddenly the gray stallion leaped to join them, wings shattering wind, nearly unseating Ram. He was airborne suddenly, flying up over Eresu among the Luff’Eresi in one swift climb, and the Luff’Eresi said in his mind with one voice, So be it, Ramad of the wolves. You have had the courage to come to us, to ask of us when you doubted we would help you. So it is the doing of one man, of a man’s, caring, that turns the scale. One man, Ramad, has thus laid his change upon Ere.

Ram frowned, puzzling. “But that would mean—that anyone could come to you. With any kind of . . .”

No! They thundered. It is a matter of commitment, Ramad, a matter of truth, of the true right to ask. But Ramad . . . and their voices were as one in his mind . . . the deception upon Venniver must be done our way. And you may not like that way. You will be our decoy, Ramad. It will be you, Ramad of Zandour, Venniver’s old enemy, who will stand tied to the stake in Venniver’s temple waiting to die by fire.

Ram swallowed, felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach as if the stallion had dropped sharply in the sky.

Have you faith enough in our word to do as we direct you, Ramad of wolves?

He looked around him at the glinting, light-filled figures, huge, filling the sky around him so their wings overlapped in a torrent of shattering light. He felt the immensity of their minds, of their spirits, an immensity beyond any petty human concerns. He swallowed again, said without question, “Yes. I have faith. I will do as you direct. I would . . .” and he paused, wanting to be very sure he spoke truly. “I would, if it were needed, die to free those who are captive of Venniver.” And a sense of death filled him suddenly and utterly, and with it the sense of Telien, of her face, her cool green eyes; a sudden longing for her twisted and held him as nothing in his life ever had.

They moved fast over jagged peaks. Below, a gray stain of smoke rose to tear apart on the wind. A faint rumble stirred the air. The mountains were speaking; and again, with their voices, Ram’s fear for Telien came cold and sharp.

Could the dark be making the mountains stir? Did the dark have power enough, now, to draw fire from the very mountains? He was clutching the stallion’s mane, his palms sweating. Well, but the red stallion was with Telien, he could fly with her clear of sudden disaster—if he would fly clear, if he would leave his mare to perish. Or would the red stallion prefer to die with Meheegan, and so let Telien die?

SEVEN

Telien knelt beside the mare, rubbing dolba salve into the poor, swollen legs. The passage up the mountain had been hard on Meheegan, the weight of the unborn foal slowing her. The winged ones’ legs were not made for hard treks over stone and uneven ways, for climbing rocky cliffs. The mare watched her, head down, her breath warm on Telien’s neck, the relief she felt at Telien’s attention very clear.

Telien had followed blindly after the mare and stallion, could only guess where they might go, had come to the valley near dawn and found it empty, had stared uncertainly out over the emerging black ridges against the dawn-streaked sky, wondering if she had been a fool to think she could find them in these vast, wild mountains. She had scanned the bare peaks not knowing which way to take or what to do, wondering if she should turn back, when suddenly she had seen them high on a ridge, making their way slowly up along the side of a mountain. She had galloped after them eagerly, had come upon them at last to find the mare so spent she could not go farther, unable to get down into the sharp ravine where the stallion had found water for her. Telien had carried water in her waterskin, tipping it out into her cupped hand so the mare could drink; then she had doctored Meheegan’s wings where the tender skin had rubbed against stone until it bled. Now she rubbed in the cooling salve, smoothed it into the mare’s swollen legs, then watched as the mare went off slowly to find a patch of grass between boulders.

The stallion came to nudge Meheegan softly, caress her; then at last he, too, began to graze. Telien’s own mount ate hungrily where she had hobbled him. He stared at the mare and stallion sometimes with a look of terrible curiosity, but he did not like to be near them.

Telien made camp simply by spreading her blanket beneath an outcrop of stone. She drank some water, chewed absently on a bit of mountain meat as the afternoon light dimmed into evening. The immensity of the mountains was a wonder to her. She had lived all her life at their feet and never once climbed up into them. AgWurt would not have allowed such a thing. To slip away to the hill meadows was one thing, but to go as far as the mountains, that long journey, and not be found out had been impossible. But these dark peaks stirred her, she wanted to share this with Ram; she imagined his voice, close, so she shivered. You do not remember the thunder and the shaking earth? Then, If you do not remember, then that which I remember has not yet happened to you. Not yet happened? She lay in her blanket puzzling, but it made no sense to her. She wanted to remember, she wanted—her caring made her tremble with its intensity. They had been meant always for each other, the separation of their early lives had been a mistake of fate only now made right.

She was so tired. Dreaming of Ram, she turned her face to the mountain and slept, slept straight through the night and deep into the morning, woke with the sun full in her face and the thunder of the mountains harsh all around her. She stared across at the stallion, his wings lifted involuntarily as instinct made him yearn skyward, his nostrils distended, his ears sharp forward, his eyes white-edged. He blew softly toward the mare. Her head was up, staring wildly. Telien shivered, her mind filled suddenly with tales of burning lava flowing over the lands. And where was Ram, was he safe from the flow of fire? Ram—alone somewhere deep within the mountains. Ramad . . .

She did not see the winged ones passing high above her, did not see the glancing swirl of light made by the Luff’Eresi in motion, nor see the one winged stallion, silver gray, carrying a rider above her across Ere’s winds.

Suddenly she remembered, for no reason, her father’s face in death and was chilled, very alone. He had been a cold, unbending master who beat her, who tortured helpless creatures before her for the pleasure of seeing her distress. The powerful, mindless threat of the mountains was not like AgWurt’s purposeful threats; though the mountains could destroy her just as easily as ever AgWurt might have.

*

The winds swept and leaped around Ram, the gray stallion’s wings sang on the wind; on all sides the flying Luff’Eresi shone as if the stallion beat through a river of shattering light. Below, the jagged peaks lay brutal as death. Along a dark ridge Ram could see smoke rising in windborne gusts. He thought of Telien with sharp, sudden clarity, with a harsh longing, as above the wind came the rumble of shifting earth, speaking of fires deep within. Ram’s fear for her was terrible. But the Luff’Eresi laughed, a roaring, thundering mirth of great good will, and one swept so close to Ram his light-washed wings seemed to twine with the stallion’s feathered wings. He said his name to Ram, and it was not a word to be spoken but a handful of musical notes cutting across the wind. She will be hurt and afraid, Ramad. But there is likelihood she will live.