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

As they made their way down the steep cliff, the wolf’s silence seemed a barrier between them; then Torc turned quite suddenly, went leaping up a cliff on the left and soon was out of sight. There was no contact between them, but Skeelie knew she was not meant to follow. Was Torc leaving her? Going on her own way alone, too intense with the need to kill to follow the slow descent that Skeelie must take? Skeelie could not tell what she, herself, sensed in this wild place. As she descended the steep cliff, she began to feel the lake’s hot breath, heavy and oppressive. When she stood at last close above the wide belt of grass that brushed against the rocky cliffs, she could see the dark mouths of half a dozen caves, below and to her left. She started along toward them, drawn, curious. Then suddenly Torc was before her, ears flattened and eyes flaming, baring her teeth. Skeelie backed away from her until she struck the cliff behind. Stay hidden, sister, there are men!

Where, Torc? How many? She strained to hear voices, but could make out nothing, see no movement against the back cliffs. Had sensed nothing.

Beyond that outcropping, at the end of the valley. Five men. Come, I will show you. Torc led her through a narrow cleft between jagged rock, toward the head of the valley. They stood at last, hidden and silent, watching five riders below them. Now she sensed them, evil and primitive, steeped in some lusting need she could not make out. Four were broad, heavy men, dark and bearded, dressed in fighting leathers. Herebian warriors. The fifth was a thin, pale creature, mounted, but with his hands bound behind him and his horse on a lead. Skeelie felt the cruelty of all five; felt the primitive strength of the warriors, and the weak, groveling avarice of the thin creature. Torc’s head was lowered as for attack, her ears flat, her expression predatory and cold, her mind seeking out to read the shadowy creature, to understand its nature. That is the one I follow, sister, that cold shadow of a man mindless and unliving. He is death, inhabiting the body of a man. I do not understand how. The ancient Seers would have called such a wraith, sister. One of living death. He seeks something here. Seeks something even as I seek him. He has abandoned following you, sister, for something he seeks more. And the greedy Herebians have seen his need and made him captive through his own lusting weakness. They seek what he seeks, they seek a treasure here.

Skeelie could feel it now, the sense of the riders having been drawn to this place. What power had this valley to draw them? What did they seek? And what did she herself seek? She watched them dismount, felt the captive begin to quest out, intent, searching out blindly, then sniffing, turning its face from side to side.

Torc’s eyes glinted, her lips pulled back in the silent snarl of a killer. Skeelie laid her hand on Torc’s rough shoulder and opened her mind wider to the great wolf, nearly reeled with Torc’s hatred and with the force of evil that Torc’s senses touched from the wraith. They stood pressed together, girl and wolf, strung tight; then Torc left her, began to creep forward between the stone cliffs.

Don’t Torc! Four armed warriors. . . But Torc did not pause, and Skeelie followed her, sword drawn. They descended in silence, stood at last just above the men, so close that Torc could have leaped down onto any one of the horses and killed it. Skeelie felt the mind-shield that Torc placed against the beasts, so they did not sense her. The warriors had begun to prod the wraith impatiently; then they made it kneel. It began to crawl, snuffling at the ground like a hunting weasel, inching along smelling the dirt, changing direction again and again in search of some illusive scent, its thin body making jerky movements, its resemblance to a man all but gone. Was it something other than human, in human shell? It doubled back, then thrust forward with an oily, reptilian motion, as if it had found a scent at last; groveled against its tether toward the caves.

What does it search for, Torc?

But Torc stood tense, her thought only a thin breath of meaning. Do not speak, sister. Not even in silence. That one has Seer’s blood. Skeelie felt Torc’s shielding of thought and tried to push out with a shield of her own, but felt clumsy and uncertain, as if the very unhealthiness of the creatures had laid a fog upon her mind. She watched Torc creep forward, felt the wolf’s cold readiness to attack. She followed, knowing this was madness; began to sense shadows from the creature’s mind, to feel the vague shape of that for which it searched: something small and heavy, something buried deep. She could feel the creature’s lust for that treasure.

“She had a vision then of the wraithlike creature as it had stood beside the river Owdneet in darkness, watching her drink. Yes, it had sensed an aura about her, something it wanted, but she could not make out what. But then suddenly it had turned away, drawn to another trail, had followed the four Herebians who moved silently up the mountains searching—searching for what? The vision went dull and faded, left her with only the sense of the wraith sniffing and whispering around the Herebians, caught in its own mysterious greed. Skeelie could see clearly how the Herebians had stripped their pack animal, distributed the packs among the five horses and forced the wraith to mount; and the wraith, eager to search, had not resisted very strongly. She watched it now, knew that it sensed some power buried within this mountain, for it was pulling ahead eagerly toward the largest of the caves.

What did it search for? What lay there among the caves, whispering out such an essence of power that the creature seemed unable to resist?

And then she knew what it searched for, with a sudden sense that shocked her. Something small and heavy, something buried deep. She sensed the creature’s lust for that treasure: a jagged, heavy treasure, shining green, roughly broken, carved with the fragments of an ancient rune.

Treasure of all treasures. That loathsome creature searched for, snuffled after, a shard of the runestone of Eresu.

Three Herebians followed it. They had lit a lamp, held it high. Skeelie could feel their greed; and feel something more from them. Why are they afraid, Torc? They burn the lamp so brightly. Can’t you feel their fear?

It has to do with the gods, sister. A fear bred of Herebian memory of the ancient caves of the gods. They fear the caves, fear the very mountains of the Ring of Fire. And sister, fear, in those selfish minds, makes them even the more cruel and bloodthirsty.

I can never understand their evil, Torc, or why I feel they are different from other men of Ere—different somehow in the very facts of their birth, their beginnings.

All souls born upon Ere are not of an age, sister. Some have lived many times on other planes. Some are new and untried. Some, perhaps, come upon Ere with a wash of evil already sucked into their natures, from willfully embracing past evils.

The men pushed fearfully into the cave, the lamp burning brightly. The fourth Herebian remained behind, holding the five horses. Torc moved without sound; Skeelie crept close behind her, knowing that they could die here, that she could die fighting these men and never find Ram. But she would not abandon Torc. Torc’s hatred, her lust to kill the wraith, was overpowering. When the bitch stopped suddenly and drew back with one motion to lie flat beside Skeelie, Skeelie dropped down, too. Their faces were so close she could feel Torc’s warm breath, smell her musty smell. What do you sense? Why—you’re afraid, Torc! For suddenly Torc’s whole, intense being was caught in some horror that Skeelie could not fathom. She touched the wolf’s shoulder. What is it, Torc? What can make you afraid?