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

She pushed her hair away from her face, struggled to remember. “I was . . . it was spring, Ram. Suddenly it was spring, and I was in a garden in the center of a wood. But a dark, ugly garden, all in morliespongs and ragwort and beetleleaf, great dark leaves, and someone was calling to me, soldiers were watching me and I—I must . . .” she stopped, raised her eyes to him. “Where was I to go? What were they telling me to do?”

“Was there a building there in the garden?”

“A—yes! A dark hall, a terrible dark castle with heads! Its top was made of three huge heads! The eyes were windows, the mouths . . .”

He stared at her, chilled through. The Castle of Hape had touched her. BroogArl had touched her. But why?

Why? Because Telien would hold the runestone, was being drawn inexorably toward the runestone—being drawn into Time, the dark Seers pulling at her in their lust to have the stone.

Were they manipulating Telien into Time? Or were they simply following, like jackals, seeking to control her and so to take the stone?

He knelt beside her, tucked the blanket around her, and handed her the plate, found he was ravenous himself. Down in the cave the foal was playing while Meheegan ate of the grain Ram had brought, an expression on her face of wonderful pleasure and contentment. He watched Telien lay her meat on the bread in the Herebian way, taste it appreciatively, then fall to as if she had discovered quite suddenly how hungry she really was. But soon enough she seemed exhausted with the effort of eating, lay down with her head on his lap, her color gone. “What is it, Ram? What’s the matter with me?”

Could it be the wound on her forehead? It was so like the one he had received as a child. That had made him dizzy and sick, though he was never certain how much of that misery was due to the wound and how much to the dark Seer’s attacks on his mind. Attacks that had left him unconscious or delirious while his mind wandered in terrifying vastnesses.

“Ram, tell me what is happening to me.”

“You have had a bad blow on the head. Did you fall?” He saw her nod imperceptibly. “But—but more than that, Telien. The ice and snow. You—you have stumbled out of Time. Into another time, somewhere . . . Just as I did once.”

Meheegan looked up from eating. Telien watched the colt for a moment, in perfect harmony with the mother and foal. But her eyes were large with the fear that would not leave her. “I think, if you would tell me what happened to you that . . . maybe I would be less afraid.”

He did not like telling her. And yet he had known he must, for she had a part in this. If it was still to happen to her, she had better know all she could. He moved close to her. She fit against him, warm, so close. She smelled of honey, he had never noticed that. Distracted, he brought his mind back with effort to his journey into Tala-charen, told her how he had gone there to find the runestone, meaning to stop the evil that Venniver wove in Burgdeeth, meaning to help free Jerthon and the slaves, meaning to battle the Pellian Seers in their increasing sweep of evil upon Ere. He told her how he and Skeelie and the wolves had climbed the icy mountains, fought the ice cat, the fire ogres, had come at last into the cave at the top of Tala-charen to face the dragon gantroed. How, when he found the runestone, it had split in white heat, and figures had appeared come out of time to take the shards. How he had seen Telien there.

She stared at him, swallowed, considered this. “I was there, Ram? I was in that place. But I have not been.” She looked at him for a long time, as if she were memorizing his face. “Then—that is what is happening to me. I am falling through Time. The snow and ice, that was—I am being pulled back there—Tala-charen.” She shuddered, took his hand. “I—I will see you there. Ramad the child . . .” She put her head against his shoulder, clung to him, trembling and cold. But when she lifted her face she seemed to have come to terms with it. “You—you cannot prevent it.” It was not a question. “You . . .” She reached to stir the dying fire, then turned back to him smiling tremulously. “Tell me—tell me why you lived in Burgdeeth. You were a Seeing child. How did a Seeing child come there to Venniver, to that cruel man? Tell me about your life then, when you were small.”

“I suppose I must start with the day I was born,” he quipped.

“Yes,” she said seriously. “Yes, that would be best, I think.”

Evening was. falling, the fire low. A faint breeze blew down to them from the mouth of the cave, and there was the dullest smear of moonlight behind the ashen sky. She settled into his arms once more and he began to tell her. “I was born a bastard. A bastard conceived of my mother’s spite at being sold into unwanted marriage. I was deserted by my father before Tayba bore me. She found her way to a powerful old woman living alone on Scar Mountain. There in Gredillon’s hut I was born and reared until I was eight.” He drew the wolf bell from his tunic. The rearing bitch wolf shone softly in the muted moonlight.

“Gredillon gave me this. It stood on her mantel. She put it into my hands minutes after I was born. She said I was born to it.” At the sight of the bell Fawdref, dozing in shadow, spoke in muffled voice, a low, whining moan of pleasure. Telien touched the bell gently, tracing the line of the rearing wolf.

“As asmall child, I called the foxes and jackals with the bell. When I was eight, the Seer HarThass, three days ride away in Pelli, discovered my skills and sent my father EnDwyl after me, to bring me to be trained as aPellian Seer.

“Mamen and I ran away across the black desert toward Burgdeeth. EnDwyl followed us, riding out with an apprentice Seer on fast horses, overtook us as we were nearly into Burgdeeth. I—I called the wolves, then, Telien. In my fear of EnDwyl, I called the great wolves, wolves for the first time, called them down from the mountains to save us. It was . . .” He felt again that thrill, that overriding exaltation diminishing even his terrible fear of their pursuers. “The wolves came streaming down from the mountains, running like great shadows swiftly over the land. Fawdref was young then. Fierce as now. He . . . the wolves would have killed both men, had I not stopped them. EnDwyl held a knife at Tayba’s throat. To save her, Fawdref set EnDwyl free.”

He held her tight to him, aroused by the memory of fear, of that first time the wolves surged around him; sharing this with her, aroused by Telien. He took her face in his hands. How perfect the bones. Her eyes were huge, so clear. Something in him had always been missing since that moment on Tala-charen. And now it was not missing.

She studied his face with great concentration. “When I was a child, Ram, before my mother died, I used to dream of someone—I was always alone, even with other children. I felt as if I were waiting for someone.

“When I grew older, when AgWurt brought our band up into Kubal, I . . . the men treated me badly. But always I thought there was someone who would not. Who would care. Who would know how I felt without my speaking of it, who would be . . .”

When he kissed her, they belonged to the mountain, belonged to Ere’s moons, to the stars reeling and to Ere’s winds: belonged to that vortex in Time when time mattered not.

*

He woke before dawn with a sense of intense pleasure, then was twisted awake and plunged into terrible dread by a clear vision. Carriol was at war, engaged in a battle unlike earlier attacks, a battle in which all in Carriol fought the dark Seers. He sat up, flinging the covers back, Saw the attack all across Carriol, every little farm and croft, Saw Jerthon’s battalion riding hard—but away from Carriol! He stared into the darkness, Saw where Jerthon rode, straight for Pelli! Fast and heavily armed. Three battalions remained in Carriol and they battled the fierce Herebian attacks in skirmishes all across Carriol’s fields and woods. Ram rose, felt the emptiness suddenly, turned back to the stone shelf, and saw that Telien was gone.