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

Still, it spoke to her. She closed her eyes and let it bid her. It made no vision, but led her directly, gently, to the fiery lake with so strong a bidding that she hardly saw the rocky ground, saw little clearly until she stood on the lake’s shore, staring down at the blood-red lava. The heat was intense and soon nearly unbearable, so she ripped open her collar, then at last removed her tunic.

The vision came suddenly, turning the lake black as jet, and she saw Ram reflected in a brief flash of battle, his face smeared with blood and his mouth open in a silent shout. Then the lake grew red and boiling again. As if she had dreamed and was only now awakening, something shouted silently, Open your mind, Skeelie. Open your mind and look. She tried to see deeper, then closed her eyes at last and let herself float on the incredible heat, letting go, felt a calm take her and opened her eyes to feel cool wind above the red lake. Then the colors of lake and mountains began to dim, to soften, and the sky to grow iridescent, the grass along the cliffs to turn silvery. And mists were blowing across the lake forming the shapes of creatures, shimmering, animals crowding all around her, mythical animals, a silver triebuck, a pale snow tiger, animals she could not afterward remember, all cream and silver and pale-hued. At first they did not move or blink. Then one shifted, its movement so slight she was not sure she had seen movement. Another turned its head deliberately to stare at her, but the motion was so smooth it might have been only shifting light. And yet it stared, its eyes like translucent moons.

And then came a great dark lumbering animal pushing between the others. It was all movement and weight, was neither bear nor bull, but so strangely made that it seemed both of these. It came shouldering up to Skeelie, smelling of musky deep places half-forgotten and carrying heat about it, a breath of musky heat. She could see the ridges and roughness of its coarse-haired hide. It knelt before her suddenly and clumsily.

She knew she was meant to mount. She watched its little dark eyes. A shudder rippled her skin. She took up her pack, her bow. The beasts stood watching, silver and tawny pale, the great dark animal like a misshapen mountain patiently awaiting her.

She mounted at last, swung up onto the beast’s broad, warty back and settled herself into its heavy folds of rough skin. It wheeled with her, and the wind caught her face; she saw the other animals wheel in a blaze of silver, lifting into the wind, lifting through white space. Valley and lake vanished in a blur. Space was light, and light was Time, and nothing existed but this moment endless across wind, careening, wind tearing at her.

The animal’s body was warm, but her pack and bow were like ice against her back. Her hands gripped the warty skin along its neck. They sped through space, leaped winds. Time melted into one great wind, and she rode at its center, her blood pounding in her ears. The pale beasts crowded against her legs in their headlong flight, their wind-torn breath warming her. Once the great dark beast turned its head to look back at her, and its eyes shone white and wild in that dark, ugly face.

They sped through a world of ice and crystal and pale shadows. Pastel-tinted waters slid past against pale hills. White sunsets rose before them like great diamonds, and on they sped. The animals’ occasional clash of hoofbeats over rock was like the sound of jewels spilled on marble. Time was the wind rushing past them in tearing waves, showing now a bloody snatch of battle, now a peaceful village, all vanishing at once. A face, a woman crying out, a scene of death. All gone at once.

Then suddenly, with no change of motion, the beast had ceased to move. He stood still upon a ridge of craggy stone. Skeelie sat staring dumbly about her, realized they were still, realized that the wind had stopped, the flight stopped. The pale beasts stood silently around her and then began to fade. Her own steed was fading; she must slide down, must not fade with them.

She dismounted, shaky and unsteady, stood staring helplessly as the beasts became thin and transparent. They shimmered as if they were seen through water; then they were gone.

She stood alone on a mountain path in bright midmorning.

The sense of wild flight and of terrible cold, and of the beast’s warmth and its musty scent, clung about her. Midmorning in what time? A path in what place?

FOUR

She stood on a narrow, rocky trail. Far below her sprawled a city, and beyond it gleamed them pale smear of open water. The Bay of Pelli? The Bay of Sangur? Or could it be the wilder sea beyond Carriol? At the thought of Carriol her heart contracted with longing. Could that city be part of Carriol, a city grown beyond her wildest dreams? No, from the position of the sun she must be looking south toward the Bay of Pelli. And this mountain was far too close to the coast to be a part of the Ring of Fire. It could only be Scar Mountain, standing just above Zandour. Scar Mountain, where Ram had been born; and like a whisper the tree man’s words touched her, stirred her, Follow the source of Ramad’s beginning. Touch the place of his childhood and his strength.

Could this be the time of Ram’s childhood? The thought excited and terrified her. Up this narrow path would she find Gredillon’s house carved into the side of the mountain? Find the young Ramad there, a child, as she had first known him? Would his Seer’s skills tell him that she would one day be his friend, in time still ahead of him? She started up the path with bent head, uncertain in her emotions. Was she afraid to see Ram so, small and vulnerable? She felt very tired suddenly, almost weak. She realized she was hungry and could not remember when she had last eaten. Early morning beside Gravan’s campfire? No, she remembered cooking rock hares on the mountain. That seemed a lifetime ago. She turned a bend in the path, thinking of her empty stomach, and came on the stone house abruptly. Stone slabs against the mountain, heavy timber door.

It was just as Ram had shown her in their childhood visions. Inside, she would find it carved deep into the mountain, half-house, half-cave. And its walls would be all carved into shelves where stood hundreds of bells wrought of amber and clay and amethyst, of tin and of precious glass and bronze. How often, when he waked from nightmares, had Ram yearned after his home, yearned for Gredillon? Was the bell woman here, waiting for her to push open the door just as she had waited for Ram’s mother before Ram was born? Was Ram here?

She remembered the clay bell in her hand then. But her fist was tight, and when she opened her palm, only clay dust lay there. Had she shattered it in the excitement of the wild ride? In her tense climb up the mountain? She could not remember. Or had it shattered itself, when its mission was done? She mourned its loss, felt a strange fear because she could not remember when she had last held it lightly, when she had clenched her fist so tight. She did not like to be unable to account for her actions. She knocked and waited, knocked again, and then with sudden impatience, almost with fear, she flung the door open and lurched inside, hastily pushing it to behind her.

The room was very dim, with only small, shuttered windows to light it, the shutters partly broken, with some of the heavy slats hanging crooked. There were plates on the table, and chairs pulled out as if a meal had just been finished. But the food was petrified into dry greenish lumps; and a layer of dust thick as gauze covered plates, table, the chairs and beds, covered shapeless litter scattered across the floor, heaps of rags or clothes, and the scattered bits of what she made out to be broken bells, as if someone had pulled them from the shelves in a rage and flung them on the stone floor. She remembered then, Ram telling of his father’s fury when he came searching for Ram and could not find him; how he had torn this house apart, searching. She remembered Ram’s words suddenly and sharply. Ancient scenes began to rise out of the dust, and voices to speak in the room. She was immersed suddenly and wholly in Ram’s childhood, immersed in joy, in pain, in a dozen scenes, sweeping her through those painful, growing years until she was a child again herself, loving Ram with all her child’s soul.