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

She knew, without the Seeing, what Zephy would be feeling this morning, strung taut with the nervy discipline they had learned, reacting to possible danger—even though they did not head into battle—with the aggressive eagerness they had been taught. Zephy, so in charge of herself, so certain about everything. Zephy, so very complete and happy since she and Thorn had married. Meatha wished she might have half Zephy’s self-assurance and direction, instead of the emptiness that so often gripped her—instead of the dark fear that dwelt with her now, stirring a deep, subterranean terror that she did not want to examine.

She needed to talk to someone. Yet that very thought frightened her. Certainly she could not talk to Zephy this morning, could not distract her now. Nor could she talk to Tra. Hoppa without disturbing the old lady’s deep concentration over the work in which she was so immersed.

She could talk to Anchorstar if he were here. She swallowed, her own distress replaced suddenly by grief. Where was Anchorstar? What had happened that day? The sky had been so clear, their mounts so close together their wings nearly touched, and Zephy on his other side, Thorn just ahead of him. Anchorstar had looked across at her, his face in the shadow of the mare’s wings; and then suddenly he was gone, he and the mare gone as if a hole had opened in the sky.

She saw Anchorstar’s lean; leathery face and white hair so vividly she thought for a moment it was a true vision, then knew it was only memory combined with her sharp longing for him. How could he have disappeared? If she could talk with Anchorstar, he could tell her why she had been in the citadel in the middle of the night. He could tell her why she felt such fear.

She wished her Seer’s powers could bring him back, that she could bring him to Carriol by the very power of her need for him; but Seer’s powers had not been enough, nor had the combined power of all the master council together been enough. Nor had any Seer been able to divine what had happened to him. Though there had been some wild and frightening speculations. Had he been snatched into the unknown lands by some evil they did not understand? Or, as Alardded thought, been thrown by forces even more inexplicable into another time, into the future or the past?

Oh, but that was impossible, that was the stuff of tales or ballads. Like the ballads of Ramad. Not fact. Everyone knew Alardded’s ideas could be tinged with madness. Though his inventions were not; they were wonderful. His waterwheels had changed the whole life of Carriol, had made way for goods and luxuries beyond anything they had imagined. And his irrigation network spreading out from the rivers Voda Cul and Somat Cul had brought a richness of pastures and crops never before known across the northern loess plains, so that the fine horses of Carriol had prospered. Yes, Alardded’s inventions were solid enough. But his talk of people moving through time was only a flight of his wonderful fancy.

The sun rose higher, and the gray clouds began to brighten with streaks of reflected light. Then, a sense of flight began to touch her, a sense of freedom, of wild soaring, of wind brushing and twisting past so her heart quickened crazily. She searched the clouds for movement. Below her on the green, folk were all doing the same, staring upward, every Seer sensing flight, every common man taking cue from the Seers, though the winged ones were still invisible in the western sky.

At last she saw tiny specks moving through cloud. She felt their flight, bold and wild and free, as yet unburdened by riders. Her lips moved in silent whisper, she pushed back her dark hair in an impatient gesture, her blood racing at the exhilaration of flight and at the feel of the winged ones’ power, at the feel of the wind around them. She thought suddenly of herself as a child again, staring up at the empty sky waiting eagerly and usually futilely for the winged horses of Eresu to appear among cloud. A guilt-ridden child, afraid she would be discovered looking up at the sky. For in Burgdeeth, dreaming of the winged ones had been forbidden. Speaking with them in silence, as she had longed to do, had been punishable by death.

Suddenly the band of flying horses burst out from the cloud, sun slashing across their sweeping wings. They came on fast, soon nearly covered the sky, were dropping down over the pastures in a mass of movement, their silent greetings caressing her. They banked, turned, filled the sky utterly, then plummeted down toward the stable yard and toward the crowded green, a dozen winged ones breaking their flight to land soundlessly and gently among the onlookers, their wings hiding the crowd for a moment in a mass of light-washed movement, amber wings and saffron and gold, snow-pale wings and black. Then they folded their wings across their backs and stood quietly greeting their friends, nuzzling, speaking with voices that came in the Seers’ minds in gentle whispers. Meatha saw Zephy with her arms around the neck of a tall roan mare. Zephy, dressed in flowing green silk like a real Carriolinian lady; her brown hair, not streaming as usual, but bound in a coronet braided with gold, gilded boots; jewelry flashing as she moved so Meatha hardly knew her. Meatha watched the winged horses crowd around Zephy, brushing against one another, wings brushing against her like a benediction. Then Thorn was there, his fighting leathers new ones, elegant pale hides not yet stained from battle. Soldiers crowded around, the twelve who would ride with them, other groups of soldiers ready to embark on other missions. Meatha stared down at her hands on a broken stone wall and saw that she had gripped until her knuckles were white. She loosed her fingers, frowning at herself, then watched the winged ones accept the delicacies the riders had brought them, knew there would be onyrood pods dipped in honey, mawzee grain made into cakes with nuts and fruits, new green shoots from the gardens. She caught the sense of the horses’ pleasure and endearments, the Seers’ silent and gentle responses. And suddenly she wanted to be going, too, or to be flying into battle again in that close brotherhood between Seer and winged one, leaping down over the heads of earthbound warriors, her bow taut.

Zephy’s and Thorn’s flight would end in a descent from the sky as dramatic and awe-inspiring as riders and horses together could make it: a descent wrapped in magic, in wonder, in illusion, to impress and so convert their quarry. Ceremony that Meatha knew was not any more to the taste of the horses of Eresu than it was to Zephy and Thorn. But necessary, if they were to win over the rising cults that had sprung to life in the coastal countries. If Carriol must win by subterfuge, by illusion, then so be it—though the cults were only a small part of Carriol’s problem. For since Meatha and Zephy and Thorn and Anchorstar, and all that small frightened band of Children of Ynell had fled the Kubalese caves two years earlier, Kubal had not only subjugated all of Cloffi, but seemed intent on defeating and ruling all the coastal countries. On the eastern peninsula, Pelli and Sangur were constantly threatened by raids, though so far they had held their own. In the west, Zandour seemed strong enough, its small council of Seers evidently hardier than the rulers of the central countries. And what was the source of Zandour’s power? Did that country indeed still hold a shard of the runestone, as was often whispered? Zandour’s Seers claimed they had none such, and many folk believed that when Zandour’s leader Hermeth died generations ago, Hermeth’s shard of the runestone had disappeared.

If Zandour’s Seers did possess a runestone, surely they would not keep it secret from the Seers of Carriol. The power of that stone, wedded to the power of the stone Carriol held, could strengthen both countries considerably against the rise of the Kubalese. Yet where were the other shards of the jade? Meatha wondered. Lost? Buried perhaps, as Carriol’s own shard had been buried beneath the city of Burgdeeth? Of the nine shards, Carriol held one, and one was drowned in the sea. Seven were unaccounted for. If we had them all, she thought, and the stone were joined—as Anchorstar dreamed, as Tra. Hoppa dreams when she pours through dusty volumes searching for clues to the disappearance of the shards—if Carriol possessed the whole stone, then we could defeat the Kubalese. She thought with distaste of the piecemeal battles—helping one country, then another—holding impregnable only Carriol. And before Carriol had possessed the one shard of the runestone, she had not been able to do even that, had been able only to defend her own borders, and the refugees who came to her for protection.