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

Ice steps led down. Ram chopped at them with the tip of an arrow until they were rough enough to walk on. It was a long, steep descent, and when they reached the floor at last, they were dizzy with the glinting movement of lantern light across ice. The wolves stared into the depths of the cave, growling softly. There is something there, Ramad. Fawdref moved ahead slowly. Something—though I cannot smell it. Something besides the wraith. The sense of the wraith led them ahead in spite of the danger, following blindly the trail it had left between ice pillars. Soon the wolves began to move away from Ram and Skeelie, to disappear among the towers of ice until the two were alone. They went on alone for some time uneasily. Then Ram stopped, set the lantern down. But now, though the lantern was still, light continued to move around them, flashing and scurrying against the ice. They stood staring, weapons drawn, could see nothing but light moving as if light stalked them. As they started on again, light slipped across jutting ice ahead of diem, then was still. High on their left, the ice seemed to move. On their right, a slithering motion caught in light. Where were the wolves? Not one was in sight. Their arrows were taut in their bows, but perhaps useless, for how can you kill light?

Then ahead of them a pale mass of light slithered, then turned and took shape. A giant white lizard, its scaly body nearly invisible against the white ice, its pale eyes on them, unseeing. They watched it for some moments.

“It is blind,” Ram said at last. “Maybe it’s harmless.”

“Then why is it stalking us?” Skeelie kept her arrow taut. “I don’t think it’s so harmless.”

They could see others now. Once their eyes grew accustomed, knew what to look for among the glancing ice, they could see three, four, then at last several dozen of the white creatures surrounding them, their blind faces turned toward them, their tongues curling in and out as if they could sense them by taste. Ram moved on. Skeelie followed. The lizards moved with them. There was no sign or sense of the wolves.

The attack came suddenly, a sound like breaking glass, an immense white shape flailing down at them across cracking ice. Ram sent an arrow into its soft belly as the creature twisted. Skeelie followed. One arrow, two. Then the wolves struck all at once. The creature screamed, blood flowed red against ice. It screamed again and sought them with blind eyes and reaching claws.

The wolves finished it quickly. It lay dying. The other lizards drew back, knowing danger in spite of their blindness, slithering away against pillars of ice. Ram and Skeelie pushed on, shivering with cold, the wolves close around them now. Suddenly Ram stopped, and pointed. “There. An opening. There is fire there! Look!”

She could see it then, a small cave opening far ahead through which fire glowed. She saw a flash of flame leap then die, then leap again. They started toward it, eager for warmth.

As they neared the fiery cave, the ice underfoot grew soft and they began to slosh through rivulets of water running down to puddle at their feet. Soon enough their boots were soaked. They moved eagerly toward the warming flame, watching it leap and die, stood at last in the entrance, warming themselves. Soon their leathers grew so warm they began to steam, though Skeelie could not get her feet warm inside her soaking boots.

The cave of fire was not large, and the fire they must skirt licked out to touch the walls. The heat grew so intense they began to sweat beneath their steaming leathers. They pushed ahead, but soon drew back again, nearly wild with the heat. They stood again in the archway between the two caves, heat pushing at their faces, the cold air from the cave behind swirling up in welcome draft. Ram opened his collar, shed his tunic. “We’ll try it again, running. Make for that opening at the far side.”

But fire flared in their faces; there was the smell of burning fur, and once more they pulled back, stood in the ice cave, several wolves rolling in water to stifle the smoldering. A hank of Ram’s hair was burnt.

“If we could stick ice to ourselves . . .” Skeelie offered. “Water would make it stick to fur, maybe to leathers.”

“The lizard skin would hold it, help protect us, it was thick enough.”

They returned to find a dozen lizards eating of the flesh of their dead mate. The creatures had not touched the tough, scaly skin, so Ram and Skeelie drove them off and began to skin the creature. They cut the hide into large squares, then began to break off slabs of ice from the pillars and walls. As each wolf wet his coat in the runlets of melting ice, Ram stuck ice slabs to him, and tied on a lizard skin. When at last Ram and Skeelie were armored the same, they entered the cave of fire and passed the flame, this time with ease, stood at last in its far opening. There the night sky shone with stars. The twin moons hung thin as scythes above jagged peaks. They pulled off the skins and scraped off the ice as best they could. A meadow rolled away down to a moonlit valley and low hills. The wolves shook free of the last of the ice and flung themselves out onto the meadow, rolling, drying themselves, giddy at being free of the mountain. Soon the smell of crushed grass filled the air. Ahead, beyond the hills, rose a diffused light as if houses stood there, with lamps burning.

They crossed three hills, and at last could see below them a large cluster of strange, cone-shaped dwellings. It appeared to be a city of rough earthen cones that might have been formed during some peculiar action of the volcanoes. Holes had been cut in the cones’ sides for doors and windows, and through these, pale lamplight came. The sense of the wraith was strong, and a sense of defeat or hopelessness permeated the city.

“It is there, Skeelie. The wraith is in that place.”

She could not answer, was cold with foreboding.

“We could wait for dawn,” Ram said, watching her.

“We hadn’t better. We’ll be seen less at night.”

“If you don’t want to go, you needn’t, you know.”

“I want to go,” she said quietly. He looked at her a long time and didn’t say any more, started on.

The cobbled streets were so narrow between the rough stone cones that Ram and Skeelie, walking side by side, felt themselves forced together. The wolves pushed along the silent streets crowding them, wanting to stay close. Here and there a face looked out, silent and shadowed, or a figure stood unmoving in a lighted doorway. There was no sense of threat, but little sense of awareness, either.

Then a figure stepped out before them into the center of the street and shuffled toward them, a sour vacancy about it. Skeelie’s hand trembled on her sword. But the being was only mindless and disgusting. Ram touched its dim instincts, twisted them, and made it turn back into the doorway. It stood there shuffling. It had been a man once, but was now a creature stripped of mind and soul. Nothing else approached them. They began to look inside the doors, where greasy lamps burned low. A grainery, long empty. A cobbler’s hovel with only a few scraps of leather scattered in the dust. A dozen shops, all gone to decay, but with inner steps, not so dusty, leading up to sleeping rooms. And in some of the shops idle men stared back at them. A sweet, sticky smell pervaded the place. Ram soothed each creature they encountered, turned its mind away from them. “The wraith has made a city of slaves. It must feed on them, take their souls, then leave them alive to do the work of the city.”

“Doesn’t look like they do much work. And when it runs out of men to feed on, what then?” She turned to look at him suddenly, realizing only then the full implication of the strangeness of this land. “We are—we are in the unknown lands, Ram. Are there men in the unknown lands, then? Or did the wraith bring these people here?”