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

“I am right here. Where would I go? Telien—how do they bring food to you?”

“There is a drawbridge on the other side. I can see it when they let it down. I can go down there into the lower chamber, to empty my chamber pot. Down past the cells with the bones of men in them. The messenger leaves food down there for me. I can hear him let the bridge down, then hear him walking across it. The hooves of his horse make a hollow sound. I can hear the lock to the inner door rattle, then it opens. I know every movement by the sound. He shouts and leaves the food and goes away again. He has never spoken to me, except for that brutal shout. I wait on the narrow stone stair until he is gone. I always hear him coming and know it is another week.”

Skeelie felt sick. She turned away to examine the narrow balcony, though she already knew it ended abruptly and there was no way to get around the tower to the other side except to swim, or to climb along the vines. The top of the tower was high above, and she could see, leaning out, that the vines ended far short of it. She stared below her again. “I saw a small window climbing up here. It was barred. Are there others?”

“There are six. All little, and all barred. You can see them in the lower cells. I tried to dig the bars away in many places, but . . .”

Skeelie saw where Telien had dug into the dragon-bone mortar and had a sudden quick image of Telien’s spoon, ragged and bent from digging. Who knew how deep the bars were set into the mortar? She shook one, then another, then dug with the tip of an arrow. The mortar was nearly as hard as rock. At last she settled her scabbard and bow more comfortably across her shoulders and felt down with her bare toes to find a foothold in the vine. “I will try to reach the drawbridge,” she said shortly. The idea of climbing again above the dark water did not enchant her. Telien touched her shoulder, wanting her to stay. Skeelie wriggled her foot into the vines, reached farther with her other foot, swung out, ignoring Telien’s need. The girl began to talk rapidly, as if to keep Skeelie there, though Skeelie was already away. Skeelie wished she would be still. “The vine will hold you, Skeelie. It is thick on the banks of the lake, you’ll see when it is morning. It grows inside the cells, lower down. Where it was not cut away, it grows right over the white bones of dead men—”

‘Telien, take your blanket and go around to the next window. Tie it to the bars, and tie another on if you have it. Find a stick, something to push the blanket to me if I tell you, if the vine grows thin.” Anything to keep Telien occupied. Skeelie gripped the vine harder, swung away to her left, jolting the breath out of herself, clung there cold and fearful, gripping vine with her toes. Great Eresu, she wished she were home. She swung on around, reaching and clutching, until at last she saw the blanket hanging just ahead. Above, Telien’s white fingers gripped around it where she had reached out through the bars. “You can move the blanket on, I’m all right this far.” The blanket jiggled, then made its way upward until the end of it slid over the ledge. Skeelie worked herself on around, feeling out blindly, gripping, clinging, not wanting to look down at the far black water.

She came to the blanket again, feeling as if she might be destined to repeat this action forever, to look up innumerable times to see Telien’s white face above her. She pulled herself on around the tower, came to the blanket a third time and, when she looked down, could see a thin silver line crossing over the dark lake, crossing to the shore. A rope? She could see the vine crowding along the shore in thick clumps as if it had climbed over itself again and again reaching for the sky. She made her way downward until she came to the rope where it was fastened into the stone wall of the tower beside a tall slab of wood like a huge door: the wooden drawbridge pulled up against the wall of the tower.

She felt among the vines until she had located the pulley system, then began to haul on the rope. It was awkward, holding herself to the vine with one hand and pulling with the other. But at last the drawbridge began to lower toward the far bank. She clung, resting finally, as its own weight pulled it on down. And it was then, as she rested, that the sense of men drawing near made itself heard in her mind. She clung there cold and aching, very tired, knowing that riders approached. Herebian warriors. And a dark Seer among them.

And did something else move with them? A shadow darker even than NilokEm? A shadow that was death itself, come there seeking? Did it follow NilokEm’s runestone?

She saw clearly for a moment, in a cold vision, dark, thin NilokEm, heavy-robed against the night air, riding across open meadows with three dozen warriors at his side, riding hard and silently and less than an hour away. They had warning of her: NilokEm knew she was at the tower.

And then she sensed another rider moving through the wood. Her heart raised with hope. A friend? But as she clung shivering and feeling out to him, she knew he was not a friend.

This was the regular messenger, bringing Telien’s food, sent out before Skeelie came to the tower, before NilokEm was aware of her there.

The messenger would bring the food and leave. NilokEm and his band meant to stay long enough to see that Skeelie would never leave the tower alive, for they knew her for a Seer. But the wraith intended that she live. Following its own purposes, suffering from festering wounds in a sick body, it sought like a beast of prey for a new body. She felt that its will and its power had strengthened. Why? Did it carry the runestone that should have been Ram’s and draw strength somehow from the jade? A tremor touched her. Her hands shook. The wraith meant to find a new home for the bodiless evil that was all that remained of a thing once human. Its intent, cold seeking filled her. It meant that she would leave the tower alive and soulless, empty inside herself save for its own presence. But why her? Why not NilokEm? NilokEm, too, was a Seer. Did the fact that he carried a runestone make him too powerful for the wraith to overcome? Or did she, by her friendship with Ram, who had held the stone at its splitting and who surely was destined to join together that stone, if ever that should happen, did she through that friendship present some even more compelling scent to the weasel-like wraith?

SIX

Torc lay before Ram’s fire, her shoulder bandaged, her eyes closed in a deep, dreamless sleep. Ram crouched on the other side of the fire, exhausted, his hands stained with her blood, the Herebian arrow lying at his feet. The strength of his mind-power over the bitch wolf, giving her blessed sleep, was all that had enabled him to cut so deeply into her shoulder. He kept the shadows heavy on her mind, now, for she needed rest. He wished they could both sleep, but was afraid that without the spell she would wake and the pain would be too great.

He kept her so for several days, her mind shadowed into sleep against the pain, her wound packed with birdmoss, which he gathered along the banks of a small, fast stream. He hunted for the two of them, let her wake sufficiently to eat. Took his own rest in short, fitful periods. He had hobbled the four Herebian mounts, though he meant to turn all but one loose when at last Torc was able to travel. If he did not suddenly disappear from this meadow, leaving the hobbled horses, and also leaving Torc to travel alone.

By the fifth day she was well enough so she needed no more spells for sleeping. Ram slept the night around and sat beside her the next morning much improved, roasting rock hares over the coals. He had stripped the Herebians of their valuables and buried the bodies beneath stones at the base of the mountain, wishing he were burying the wraith with its dark soul intact in it. Skeelie’s sword hung from his belt. The bitch wolf watched him now, across a fire gone nearly invisible in the bright morning sun. Her golden eyes were steady, but her thoughts were drawn away in some private vision that she did not share with him. He reached to lay more wood on the coals, and suddenly her thought hit him quick and surprising, jarring him so he dropped the wood, making the fire spark wildly. “What, Torc?” He stared at the golden bitch, her head lifted regally, watching him. “What did you say, Torc?”