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

But he had not risen. He lay looking across at her with an expression of utter defeat. “I can’t, Skeelie. Tell them that I sleep.”

She stared at him, shocked and chilled. Never had he refused to support his men, to cheer them when they were discouraged. Below her they sang out with lusty voices of defeating the Herebian, sang a song as old as Ere, as heartening as Ere’s will was. For always had the Herebian bands laid waste the land, and always had men risen to defeat them. Renegade bands plundering and killing, and little villages and crofts fighting back. Though in times past the Herebian lust for cruelty had been simpler, for the dark had not ridden with them as it now did. In times past the Herebian bands had attacked the small settlements and infant nations, done their damage, been routed and weakened and moved on to attack elsewhere. Now all that was changed. Now the dark Seers led the Herebian hordes, and Carriol must defeat them, or die.

If ever Carriol should lie helpless before the Herebian tribes, the Pellian Seers would come forth to rule Carriol and to rule every nation of Ere. If Carriol and her Seers were defeated, it would be a simple matter indeed for the Pellians to manipulate the power of the small, corrupt families that dominated most of the other nations, manipulate the lesser, corrupt Seers there, and so devour those nations.

The singing voices rose to shout of victory; and when the last chorus died, its echo trembled against the ever present pounding of the sea. Ram’s men stood looking upward waiting for him to appear.

‘Tell them I sleep, Skeelie, can’t you!”

“He sleeps—Ram is sleeping . . .”

“ Wake him! We want Ramad! Wake Ramad!” Indomitable, hearty voices. Indomitable young men needing Ram now in their near defeat, in their aloneness and their repugnance of the dark that had stalked and crippled them so unbearably. Needing their leader now; but Ram only sighed and turned in his bed so his back was to the portal.

“I cannot wake him, he sleeps drugged for the pain . . .” She felt Ram’s exhaustion, felt his inexplicable despair as if it were her own.

The silence of the men was sudden and complete. Skeelie stared down at them, sick at their defeat, and behind her Ram’s voice was like death. “I can’t, Skeelie. I think—I think I don’t believe any more.”

She turned to look at him.

“I’m tired. I’m tired of all of it. Do you understand that?”

“No, Ram. I don’t understand that.” She looked down at the men again, wanting to reassure them and not able. They began to sing simply and quietly, pouring their faith into words that might soothe Ram’s sleeping spirit. Ram did not stir at first. But after a few moments of the gentle song, the gentle men’s voices, he could stand no more gentleness; he stirred angrily at last and threw the goathide back.

She supported him haltingly as he made his way toward the portal, then leaned heavily upon the stone sill. The men cheered wildly, laughed with pleasure at his presence, then went silent, waiting for him to speak. He was white as loess dust. He stood for a long moment, the blood oozing through his bandage. She thought he would speak of failure. She trembled for him, trembled for Carriol. How could he lose hope? He must not, they were not that close to defeat. These were Herebian bands, rabble, they fought. Rabble! She watched him with rising dread of the words he would speak to his men as he leaned from the stone portal.

He shouted suddenly and so harshly that all of them startled. “Yes, victory! We are men of victory! We are a nation of victory!” They cheered again and stood prouder as if a weight were lifted. Ram’s voice was surer now. “The dark is ready for the grave! We will geld the dark, we will skewer the Pellians and bring such light into Ere as Ere has never seen!”

They went wild. “Death to the dark ones! Death!”

When at last they had released Ram, stronger in themselves, healed in themselves, Ram returned to his bed to lie with quick, shallow breathing, so very white. She sponged his forehead and smoothed his covers and could do nothing more. He lay quietly, staring up at her. “I have no idea in Urdd how we could skewer even one Pellian bastard, let alone pour light on what that son-of-Urdd BroogArl has wrought!” He closed his eyes and was silent for so long she thought he slept. Then he stared up at her again, his green eyes dark with more than physical pain, with a pain of the mind. “Something—there is something grown out of the Seers hatred into a force of such strength, Skeelie. Almost like a creature with a will of its own, it is so powerful.” He turned away then. But after a moment, “A power . . . a power that breathes and moves as one great lusting animal, Skeelie! That is the way I see the powers of the Seers of Pelli now.”

She wanted to comfort him, wanted . . . but she could not comfort him. It would take another to comfort Ram. She stood washed with uncertainty. Could they defeat the Pellian Seers who ruled now the dark rabble hordes? Could they—or did Ram see too clearly a true vision of Carriol’s defeat?

No. He was only tired, sick from the wound. Pain made him see only the grim side. She reached involuntarily to touch his cheek, then drew her hand back. She wanted to hold him, to soothe him in his pain of body and spirit, and she could not. Only another could do that.

And that other? He might never know her. Lost in another time and in another place, Ram might never know her. Skeelie turned away from him, furious at life, seeing once again that instant when she and Ram were swept out of time itself and Ram had looked, for one brief moment, onto the face of another and had been lost, then, to Skeelie forever.

When she looked back, he had risen and sat stiffly on the edge of his bed, seemed to be thinking all at once of something besides his pain and his own defeat. His look at her was pain of another kind. “Has there been no word of Jerthon? It is nine days since he rode to the north.” He said it with a dry unhappiness that was like a worse defeat.

“He—no word. Nothing.” A whole band out there fighting Kubalese troops and no message, no lone soldier riding back to bring news, no message sparking through Seers’ minds to soothe Carriol’s fears and to inform. Surely farms had been ravaged, captives taken, crops burned and farm animals driven across Carriol’s western border into Kubalese lands.

Were there, then, no surviving soldiers? With the Seer’s skills so destroyed by the dark, it was hard to know. Had Jerthon . . . oh, Jerthon could not be dead. Her brother could not be dead.

“No message? No news, no sense of the battle, Skeelie? Can’t you . . . ?”

“Nothing!” Skeelie snapped. “Nothing! Don’t you think I’ve tried! Don’t you think we all have!”

“But you—Tayba has the runestone. Hasn’t she . . .” But then his frown turned suddenly from Skeelie toward the door, changed to a look of concern, and Skeelie turned to look.

Tayba stood there, handsome even in faded coarsespun, but her dark hair wild, her cheeks pale. There was fear in her expression and something of guilt. Ram rose at once, catching his breath at the pain, and went to his mother’s side. “What is it? You . . .”

“Joheth Browden brought a woman and two children in from his little farm north of Folkstone.” Her voice was shaking. “Brought them in the wagon. They—they were nearly starved and they—they have been mistreated. They escaped from the Kubalese, but before—before that they . . .” She seemed nearly unable to speak. “Before that, Ram—they escaped from Burgdeeth.” She stopped, was almost in tears. Her dark hair lay tangled across Ram’s arm. She swallowed. “Those little girls saw their nine-year-old sister burned to death. Burned, Ram! Burned in Venniver’s fire! In Venniver’s cursed ceremonial fire!” She pushed her face against Ram’s shoulder so her voice came muffled. “It has come, Ram. A child has been burned alive. The thing we dreaded . . .”