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

She knew she should turn back to hunt and replenish the lamp oil, but could not deny the power that drew her. She followed the beckoning sense down a dark, narrowing tunnel, pushing always deeper inside the mountain. She had been so tired, but now she moved quickly, the chill gone, hunger unheeded. She remembered the quick vision she had had ten days before of Ram standing beside his supper fire, then suddenly Telien with him, her pale hair caught in moonlight as she reached out of Time itself to hold Ram. Then the sense of the night twisting in on itself, Ram swept out of Telien’s arms shouting her name over and over, uselessly. Ram alone, and the trees only saplings once more—and then the hill empty as Ram himself was swept away in Time’s invisible river.

The tunnel became so low she had to walk bent over, her hair catching in the stone of the roof, very aware suddenly of the weight of the mountain above her, tons of stone above her. She turned the lamp lower to save oil, knew she must save two fillings to return to the main grotto or be trapped in darkness. The press of stone against her shoulders made her want to strike out, want to drive the mountain back. She controlled herself with effort, pulled urgently forward by something insistent, something compelling. Something evil? Was that which beckoned to her evil?

At last the tunnel ended, and she stood in a cave that seemed not bounded by walls, seemed to warp and to hint of distant, terrifying reaches. Her guttering light caught at uncertain shadows and at dark so thick that light could not penetrate it. Nothing was clear, but the cave seemed to extend far beyond any area the mountain could possibly contain. A terror of infinite space yawned beyond her vision, and suddenly she could not bring herself to go forward, was terrified of the very thing she sought, terrified of falling into Time, of being lost in Time. All her determination disappeared, and the fear she had kept at bay so long overwhelmed her. She wanted to turn back, wanted to run blindly. She stood with clenched fists, trying to control herself. You’ve come this far, Skeelie. You can’t turn back. You can’t run away now. She was caught between her sudden horror of the unknown and her need to become a part of that dark emptiness in Time where Ram was. She moved on at last, shivering.

Soon she could make out something painted on the walls. She held the lamp up. Scenes of farms and villages, of battles, scenes shifting between shadows, then changing as she moved on. Who had painted such images so deep in the caves? Her lamp sputtered and grew dim.

Then the scenes came clearer and seemed larger suddenly, crowding toward her between the chasms of darkness. Scenes of war and violence leaped out at her; men opened their mouths in silent screams as swords flashed. She heard the din of war faintly, then it rose in volume until it deafened her. She smelled blood and death. Had she moved into Time suddenly? Clouds raced across dark skies. All was movement and shouting, a dozen places in a dozen times. She was caught like a fly at the center, suddenly mad with desire to thrust herself into those scenes. She searched for Ram’s face among infinite battles, searched for a flash of his red hair. Once she reached out her naked hand toward a battle, then snatched it back and pressed it to her mouth to stifle the cry that rose: for the shadows had changed to form themselves into a twisting tree. The battles faded. The tree filled the cave, huge and pulsing with life. It pushed gnarled branches against the cave walls, forcing up, bending against the dirt roof. Its bark was rough and dark, its roots humped like twisted, naked legs across the cave floor. Its trunk was wrinkled into seams and angles that formed the face of an old, old man. His eyes watched her from some terrible depth. Eyes cold and knowing, eyes like windows into Time. His voice was like the rasp of winter wind.

“I watched you come. I watched you search. I know what you seek here. You will find it, young woman. You will move through Time unending, and you will suffer for that. Time cares nothing for your suffering. And you care nothing for reason if you plunge into Time’s reaches”.

“I do what I must. I can do nothing else.” She held her shaking hands still with effort. “Who are you? What—sort of creature are you?”

“I am Cadach. 1 have dwelt in this tree since my death. Fear of him flickered in her eyes despite her bold stance. My soul dwells here. I have no strength to move toward what you call joy and fulfillment. I have no stomach for atonement. Traitor in my life, traitor to Ere and eager slave to evil, I am left filled only with the dark and twisted, I hunger only for the dark. I do not choose joy, I have no use for joy, it is too bright, I do not choose to be born anew.

“My children wander Time endlessly. My children atone for me. His sense of agony filled Skeelie. My children know not that I exist here. They know only that their need is to reach out, to hold a light to the darkness that comes again and again upon Ere. For they, each one, carry within them the higher spirit that I would have become, that I denied with my evil. They carry that spirit which I will never carry, my five white-haired children.”

His voice went silent. His face seemed carven once more, then collapsed as it began to recede back into the bark. Skeelie stood staring, shaken, wanting stupidly to cry out for him not to leave her. His eyes, dull and lifeless now, disappeared last. She backed away from the trunk. His fading voice breathed out once more, hollow now, hardly a whisper. “Follow through the maze of this cave as your mind bids you, Seer.” She strained to hear. “Follow you the path of the starfires. Find the Cutter of Stones who made them, for he will give you strength. Follow to the source of Ramad’s beginnings, touch the place of his childhood and his strength. And know you that Ramad must search through Time for more than his lost love, know you that he must search for the lost shards of the runestone of Eresu if he be true to himself.” She could hardly make out his words, leaned closer to the hoary bark; and one question burned in her.

“How do I know I can move into Time? I do not carry starfires. I do not touch Time’s secrets, nor have I found a rune.”

“You are one of the few born to weave a new pattern into the fabric of the world. Those so born are not anchored to a single point in Time.”

“I do not understand.”

But he was gone. The ancient tree slept, retreating into a million years of repose whence its core had risen. Skeelie moved past it into the darker shadows, wondering, trying to make sense of his words. How could the old man know of Ram, of the starfires? Surely he was a Seer. A Seer trapped, his immortal soul taken. A Seer of evil? A traitor as had been BroogArl, and HarThass before him? A traitor trapped so, never to be born again? She shivered. And his white-haired children . . .

Could Anchorstar be one of Cadach’s children? Anchorstar— my white-haired children . . .

Anchorstar had carried the starfires, had given one to Telien, had given three to Ram. Follow you the path of the starfires . . .

Her stomach was knotted. Her hand clutched her sword hilt. Her mind raced eagerly ahead between the dark reaches, seeking now with awe, pushing toward those other worlds that had begun again to shine around her, toward the cries of men in battle, listening for Ram’s voice. Voids and piercing space threatened to swallow her. She left each scene behind her for she could not find Ram. She sought deeper and deeper into the mountain.

There she came suddenly to a pillar carved with runes that made her catch her breath, for three words shone out at her. Words so familiar, so very painful: Eternal. Will sing. Those words had been carved on the splinter of the runestone that Ram had brought with him out of Tala-charen, the splinter that now lay at the bottom of the sea, lost when the Hape had nearly killed Ram. They had never known the whole rune that appeared on the complete, unbroken stone. Ram had not had time to read it in that instant before it shattered. But these three words were part of it, and they blazed at her like fire from the pillar.