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

Merden turned from combing her little sister’s hair. “Telien—Telien told us about Carriol.” She stared at Ram. ‘Telien spoke of you, of Ramad of the wolves . . .

Skeelie stiffened.

Merden smiled, a faint, uncertain smile. “Telien said that you would care for us, that we could make a new life here, that all who want freedom can. She spoke of the leader Jerthon, too, and of a world—a world very different from what we have known.”

Skeelie hardly heard the child for the unease and pounding in her heart. Yet she had no reason to feel anything for a girl from Kubal. What was the matter with her? She was almost physically sick with the sense of the girl.

Merden said quietly, “Telien said the leaders of Carriol were close to the gods. That you—that you have more powers than we do. That maybe you will be able to stop the killing in Burgdeeth.” She looked at Ram with such trust that he wanted to turn from her—or shout at her. Mawn, seeing his look, whispered diffidently, “Telien told us you command—command the great wolves that live in the Ring of Fire.”

“No one . . .” Ram said, wincing, “no one commands the great wolves. They—they are my friends. My brothers.”

Skeelie said uneasily, angrily, “If a girl of Kubal know such things, surely she is a Seer.” What was wrong with her, why was she bristling so?

“No,” Mawn said, “Telien is not a Seer. She learned what she knows of Carriol, of you, from the other captives. From Carriol’s settlers taken captive. They say Carriol is the only place of freedom in all of Ere.”

Later, when Ram had allowed himself to be helped upstairs by two of his men coming in to raid the larder Skeelie asked Merden the question that would not let her be. “What is she like? What is this Telien like?” And whet Merden looked back at her, that serious, thin, child’s face quietly reflecting, then described Telien, Skeelie could not admit to herself the terrible sudden shock that gripped her.

“Telien has pale, long hair. She is slight and she—she is beautiful.”

Skeelie stared, stricken. “And—and her eyes are green, are they not? Green eyes like the sea.”

“Yes. That is Telien.” Merden watched Skeelie, puzzling. She said nothing more. Perhaps she saw in Skeelie’s face, heard in her questions, more than Skeelie intended to show.

And Skeelie stood remembering bitterly and clearly that moment when she and Ram had, as children, stood inside the mountain Tala-charen, had felt time warp, had seen those ghostly figures appear suddenly out of time, seen the pale-haired, green-eyed girl stare at Ram with such eager recognition, with a terrible longing as if she would cross the chasm of time to Ram or die.

Was Telien that girl? Was she here now, in Ram’s own time? But this time had been only a dim, unformed future when Ram was eight. This time had not yet happened. How could—She broke off her thoughts, her head spinning.

He had never forgotten that girl. Never. Though he had never once spoken of her.

Was Telien that girl? Had she lived in this time? Had she traveled backward in Time to the long ago day when Ram was nine? Was she here in this time, and would Ram find her? Skeelie turned away. Had the thing that she had dreaded so long at last come to pass? She went from the kitchen in silence.

She went down through the town to the stables, got a horse, and rode out along the sea at a high, fast gallop that left her horse spent, and at last, left her a little easier in herself. If this was Ram’s love, come to claim him, then she must learn to live with it just as she had lived with the knowledge that one day it would surely happen.

*

It was not until four days later, in the middle of the simple worship ceremony in the citadel, that Skeelie’s brother Jerthon returned from the battle in the north, coming quickly into citadel in his sweaty fighting leathers. A ripple of welcome went through the citadel, through the singing choir, and Skeelie wanted to run to him. She found it hard to keep singing as he sat down heavily in the back row next to Ram. Jerthon leaned against the stone wall as if he were very tired, stared up at the light-washed ceiling, and seemed to listen to the hush of the sea, to listen in sudden peace to the choir’s rising voices.

The citadel was the largest hall in the honeycombed natural stone tower that had once been the city of the gods. Here in the citadel the winged gods and the winged horses of Eresu had come together for companionship; a meeting place, a place of solace and joy where the outcast Seers had come too, in gentle friendship. A place where the moving light, cast across the ceiling by the ever-rolling sea, seemed to hold sacred meaning; and the cresting sea made a gentle thunder like a constant heartbeat. Skeelie saw Jerthon lift his chin in that familiar sigh, then turn to stare at Ram, saw Ram speak.

Ram stared at Jerthon for a long solemn moment, then grinned. Jerthon’s appearance in the citadel so suddenly was like the sun coming out. Not dead, not lying wounded in some field, but strolling nonchalantly into the citadel in the middle of the service. Ram wanted to shout and throw his arms around Jerthon. He cuffed him lightly. “Your face is dirty. You could do with a bath. Was it bad in the north?”

“Yes, bad.” There was a deep cut across Jerthon’s chin and neck. His red hair, darker than Ram’s, was pale with chalky dust. He was quiet as usual, contemplative. Had learned to be, with half his life spent in slavery to the tyrant Venniver. Had learned not to be hot-headed as Ram still was sometimes. Jerthon’s voice showed the strain of the last days. “We lost near twenty men, lost horses. The Kubalese took captives heavy in Blackcob, took men, women and children—took most of the horses roped together, and the captives made to run before them.” His jaw muscles were tight, his eyes hard. “We relied too long on the skills of Seeing, Ram, and now we are crippled without them. Our scouts saw too little, our border guards did not sense the Herebian scouts or the Herebian bands slipping in. Oh, we routed those that didn’t go riding off with captives and stolen horses before we could rally ourselves. They set on us in waves, there must have been bands from half a dozen Herebian strongholds. Raiders creeping out like rats to snatch and kill and disappear. And something—” Jerthon stared at Ram with a barely veiled slash of fear in his eyes. “Something rides with them, Ram. Something more than the dark we know, something . . . dense. Like an impossible weight on your mind so the Seeing is torn from you and your very sanity near torn from you.”

“Yes. I know that feeling. I had it too. We all did.”

“We must never again—never—allow our senses to be so dulled by reliance on Seeing alone. We must guard against that. We must train against it.”

“Yes. I know we must.”

Jerthon pushed back a lock of red hair so violently that a cloud of the white dust rose to drift in motes on the still citadel air. “I think the hordes will not march here, though I’ve given orders for double guard and for mounts kept ready.” He grew silent, as if he were drawn away. The choir’s voices rose to hit along the ceiling like the wash of sea light.

“. . . faith then, faith in men then, faith to do then, faith to be . . .” rising higher and higher, Skeelie’s voice clearly discernible now; but now that song seemed a joke in the face of the murder Jerthon had witnessed.

Ram hardly heard the voices that rang across the cave. He sat looking inward at his own failure. For if they had the whole runestone of Eresu in their possession, they could easily defeat the dark. That round jade sphere, which he had held in his hands, carried power enough to defeat every evil Seer in Ere.