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

Venniver rose at last, made signs of obeisance before the raised altar, turned to face the temple.

Stung by fear, trying to keep himself from screaming out, Ram tried to touch Venniver’s thoughts and could not. He tried to hold steady to the Luff’Eresi’s promise and was overwhelmed by terror as Venniver took up a taper, struck flint so it flared and, smiling, thrust the flaming taper to the pyre. Flame leaped, caught, flared up Ram’s bare legs. He fought in terror, unable to control himself.

But the flame died. Died as if it had been snuffed. The sheep stared and sucked in their breath.

Venniver lit the pyre again. Again the flame leaped, again died. The taper in his hand died to blackness, and suddenly the temple door flew open. A woman screamed, men rose from their benches to stare, light poured into the temple brighter than moonlight and icy cold: blinding light, fracturing, dancing light; and from the light a voice boomed.

“Unbind the Seer! You tamper with our property, pig of Burgdeeth! Unbind the Seer that belongs to us!”

Venniver stood staring, seemed afraid—yet squared his shoulders in defiance. He seemed about to speak when suddenly his body twisted until he knelt, screaming out in pain.

“ Free the Seer!”

Venniver scowled. He tried to rise and could not.

“Free the Seer, pig of Burgdeeth!”

At last, in obvious pain, Venniver nodded to a deacon, and Ram felt his bonds loosed from behind, felt the brush of a deacon’s robe.

“Bring the Seer here.”

Venniver stared at the cold light, again was twisted so he knelt; again nodded to a deacon.

Two deacons came forward, took Ram’s arms, and he was led down the steps of the altar past the sheep, and stood at last in the door of the temple facing the shattering radiance of a dozen winged gods towering over him, their horselike bodies and human torsos ever-changing in the shifting light—light that seemed a part of them. Ram went down to them, walked among them to the square with head bowed and eyes lowered as if he were their prisoner; felt their amusement and returned it with his own, wanted to shout with pleasure and release. He turned at last to see Venniver and his deacons forced out of the temple as if they were pulled by invisible lines. They tried to turn away but could not get free, and their faces were frozen in terror.

The leaders of Burgdeeth were forced toward the square and there made to kneel before the winged statue of gods. The Luff’Eresi towered around the statue, so brilliant one could hardly look, cast their light across the bronze figures so they, too, seemed alive.

The sky in the east was a dull red as the Luff’Eresi spoke again. “Call out your people, Venniver of Burgdeeth.”

The people of Burgdeeth came hesitantly to the square, mobbed together in fear just as fearful sheep would mob, stood before the Luff’Eresi at last, and then knelt of one accord; and they could not look up at that brilliance, none had the courage to look up though the brilliance touched them like a benevolence.

“Unbind the Seer’s hands! We have no need to bind our prisoners. Do you expect us to take him like a sack of meal! This is our prisoner you have so brazenly played with!”

Ram was unbound. Stood naked and free and cared not for his nakedness, felt only triumph as he saw Venniver cower before the Luff’Eresi.

“Listen well, Venniver of Burgdeeth! We tend our own sacrifices. That is our privilege. We deal with the Seers, not you. If you claim another Seer—man, child or woman—you will die. Die wishing you had never been born!

“Do you hear us well?”

“I—hear you well.” Venniver glanced up sideways at the gods, then looked down again; his great breadth and height, the bulk of the man, which always made others look puny, had gone. He seemed a small, shrinking figure now before these magnificent beings. For an instant, the thunder of the mountains drowned all else. Fire leaped skyward in the east, and at that sign the men of Burgdeeth moaned as if all their pent-up terror was suddenly freed into sound. They knelt moaning before the gods; and Venniver’s deacons knelt; and the Luff’Eresi thundered, “From now hence for all time you will bring the Seers to us! Do you understand, pig of Burgdeeth?”

“I understand.”

“I understand, master !”

Among the kneeling crowd, some of Venniver’s soldiers had begun to rise now, and to slip fearfully away, seeking their horses, seeking escape. The Luff’Eresi ignored them.

“Open your mind, Venniver of Burgdeeth, and we will mark the path you will take to bring the prisoners to us! For you will bring them—all of them—to the death stone outside of Eresu. There we will deal with them. One transgression, Venniver of Burgdeeth, one omission, and your own death will be so long and painful an experience that you will beg to die!

“And think not,” cried the Luff’Eresi as one, “that we will not know what you do here. We see your petty intrigues, human! We see your insignificant thoughts!

“You will not defy us again, pig of Burgdeeth.”

Ram felt a stir of air, looked up to see the silver stallion plummeting down out of the sky, heard the indrawn breath of men as they dared to look up, in spite of the gods’ radiance, to see the winged stallion descend. The stallion came at once to Ram, and he swung himself up between the great wings, stared down at Venniver’s white face, at the awe-struck sheep, and tried to look as submissive and captive as possible, though his spirit was soaring with this taste of triumph and freedom. As the stallion whirled, he saw a handful of men riding hard away from Burgdeeth, saw them felled suddenly. They lay unmoving as their riderless horses fled. And then suddenly the silver stallion leaped skyward and Ram was lifted, was windborne on the night sky between the stallion’s sweeping wings, surrounded by light and by the wild exalted laughter of the Luff’Eresi, filling Ram’s mind with joy.

*

In the ruins, Jerthon lifted his head from deepest concentration. Ram was safe, Ram had lifted free of Burgdeeth. He saw tears in Tayba’s eyes. Skeelie was leaning, pale with her effort, against the sill of the portal. She turned from him abruptly, swung out of the room, was gone. Jerthon could sense her striding along the corridor toward the citadel. She would kneel there alone, would pray, would thank whatever there was to thank that Ramad was safe.

Tayba’s voice was no more than a whisper, so shaken was she with her effort, with the fear that had gripped her. With the wonder of that moment when the gods had spoken. For they had all Seen the gods clearly, Seen Venniver quail before the Luff’Eresi. The five of them had stared at each other in wild exaltation. “Was it . . .” Tayba whispered now. “Is it the power of the gods that we feel, Jerthon? Or the power of the mountains, as you said?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps—perhaps both.” He studied her quietly. “But this . . . this I know. That power—and I feel it still, do you not?” She nodded. ‘That power, whatever it is . . .” He did not need to finish, they all knew, they lifted their faces in sudden eagerness at his thoughts:

Yes! This power must not be wasted! This power must be used, and now. Used while it flowed strong, while they felt it buoying them, urging them on. “We will arm at once,” Jerthon said softly. “Ready supplies, men, horses. We will ride for Pelli in a day’s time. Now is the moment to destroy the Pellian Seers if ever we are to do it!”

They stared at him, lifted and renewed. To attack Pelli, to attack the dark Seers and the Hape. Yes! As one, Tayba and Drudd and Pol turned, preparing to depart, to give orders for supplies, for preparations. Jerthon stopped them with a quiet thought. They stood watching him, waiting. “There—there is enough power, if it holds, to block our thoughts from Skeelie. She—she will be wanting badly to ride out before dawn. A vision touches me . . .” He looked at them, questioning. The others felt out Tayba nodded, then Drudd and Pol. “Yes,” Jerthon said. “Skeelie will touch that vision, she will soon know that Ram will come to Blackcob—come in some need. She—would be with him then. I think—I think she should go unknowing.” Again there were nods of agreement. If Skeelie knew about the attack on Pelli, Ram would know soon; she could not keep such a thing from Ram’s mind as long as this sudden power surrounded them. They could keep it from Ram, perhaps, but Skeelie never could. Yes, the next moments, the next day, would be a time that might never come again for Ram. The next hours might never be remade, would be gone all too soon.