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

Below on the green, four winged ones were being laden with food packs. To see the horses of Eresu wearing pack harness, though it was of their own choosing, so appalled Meatha that she stood staring in dismay for some moments. When she turned away, she was dazzled by the lifting sun. She stood blinking in the brightness, then at last made her way down between broken stone walls toward the green. She could see Thorn now, his red hair bright against the neck of a white mare.

She shouldered through the crowd to the horses of Eresu, saw a slash of green where Zephy knelt, forgetting her silk gown as she reached to adjust the belly strap around a gray stallion, carefully setting the strap so the pack harness would not chafe him. Zephy, so loving horses ever since she was a tiny girl, when horses were forbidden to them, so close now in her relationship to the winged ones. The stallion’s silent voice told her where the strap was uncomfortable. He stretched his dark wings to feel his muscles pull against the harness, then bowed his neck to nuzzle Zephy’s shoulder, thanking her. Zephy scratched him under the foreleg with casual familiarity. Zephy, so direct and simple in her relationships—a directness belied now by her elegant clothes, her regal looks, she who cared nothing for clothes.

Meatha felt a strange shyness with her suddenly, as if Zephy were a stranger.

Zephy glanced up at her, her brown eyes puzzled as she touched Meatha’s unshielded emotions. “What’s the matter? You’re . . .”

Meatha blocked her thoughts.

“Is it because I’m got up like this? I’d rather not be!” Then, sensing Meatha’s deeper confusion, sensing her distress, she came to Meatha and put her arms around her. “What is it? What’s happened to you? Something . . .” And suddenly Meatha was weeping against Zephy like a child, the darkness engulfing her so it engulfed Zephy, too.

When Meatha calmed at last, Zephy drew away and held her by the shoulders. “Where did such darkness come from? What has happened?” She tried to sort Meatha’s thoughts. “Something—last night, so close to you. Something that terrified you . . .” Zephy swallowed and did not continue for some moments. Then, “It found something within you that made you fear it all the more.” She went silent again, sorting. And then with shivering finality, “You cannot find the shape of what touches you.” She swallowed. “Nor—nor can I. Oh, Meatha—take care.”

She studied Meatha. “Maybe you should tell the council. Tell Alardded . . .” Then suddenly the riders were mounting, Thorn leaping astride a golden stallion, and there was no time to say goodbye. Zephy tried to mount, was caught short in the silken gown. “Blast! I can’t do anything in this flaming dress!” Meatha gave her a leg up. Zephy settled her skirt around her, then bent swiftly to touch Meatha’s cheek. “It . . . tell someone, Meatha. Tell Alardded. And take care.” The gray stallion leaped skyward with a surge of joyful power, following the others, his wings turning the sky to night, then sun slashing across his flanks. Windborne, the winged ones filled the sky; there was a flash of green silk amid the slice of wings, then they were gone in a whirl of color, gone beyond cloud.

A short flight it would be into Pelli, and already plans for their ceremonious descent were sweeping from one mind to another, from rider to horse to the next rider and horse. Meatha felt the messages winging between them even after she could no longer see them; Saw the images they conjured and knew their rising excitement. She stood for some time with her hand raised in farewell, feeling the freedom of their flight; and feeling empty within herself, and lonely.

She turned away at last, awash with loneliness.

That night, again, her dreams trapped and possessed her. She woke more disturbed than the night before and went to her class of seven children so distraught that she made three children cry and spoiled the session for them all. No Seer, child or adult, could deal with a teacher whose mind was in such turmoil. She apologized to them and left them, ashamed, only to find herself weeping in an isolated comer of the tower, terrified by her loss of control, and by the darkness that engulfed her, by the heaviness that gripped her beyond her control.

And more terrifying still, there was a part of her that welcomed that darkness and embraced it.

She must talk to someone, in spite of her reluctance. She must talk to Alardded.

*

She found Alardded taking breakfast alone on the green. Usually there was a crowd around him, for his sweeping, unfettered mind and his solid, comforting ways drew men to him. He looked up from a plate of ham pie and charp fruit, watching her approach. He was, Meatha thought, in spite of his sometimes wild ideas, as steady as the great black peaks that rose in the north. As steady—and as unpredictable, too, for Alardded could burst forth with a sudden storming fury just as those peaks could burst forth with fire.

Was he alone now because he had known she was coming to him so distressed? His dark eyes were alert to the small, nervous movements of her hands, to the way she stood too stiffly before him. “Sit down, child.” His mind examined her blocking with curiosity, and she could not understand why she was blocking. “What brings you to the green so early? Have you had breakfast? Some tea?” He gestured to his small waiter, and the child came running, his long apron flapping around his ankles. She sat stiff and silent, blocking wildly, and puzzled at herself, as young Sheb brought tea. Why was she so reluctant to speak, or to make any vision, so shy and uncomfortable with Alardded?

She stared at his sun-browned, wrinkled face and gentle dark eyes and tried to make small talk, but she was not adept at it. Alardded laid a comforting hand on her arm. She was sorry she had come. But why did she block with all her power, a blocking she had perfected in childhood when blocking would save her life—a blocking that now stood as powerful as the master Seer’s own skills? Alardded watched her quietly, his own thoughts hidden. Young Sheb returned with fresh-baked bread; Alardded paid him in silver, and he went away happily clinking the coins. Meatha bent her face over her teacup as the darkness of last night again engulfed her.

She had awakened standing in the moonlit citadel, pressing against the stone table, reaching greedily for the rune-stone; had felt her own lusting greed sharply and suddenly, and had drawn back with a cry, filled with shame. Yet at the same time filled with a desire she could hardly resist to hold and possess the runestone.

Alardded sat quietly waiting for her to ease her mind to him, puzzling at her reluctance, her secrecy. She felt, abstractly, his admiration at the power of her blocking. Then he looked up, and his expression went closed. Hux Tanner was standing behind her chair. She turned to stare up at him, annoyed.

Hux grinned down at her. He did not even feel her anger. His dark beard was sleek and wavy, his grooming perfect as always, to show off the good looks that all the girls admired. Meatha wished he would go away. He must have returned from trading just this morning. He touched her shoulder lightly and sat down beside her, helped himself to Alardded’s tea. He had no sense of what had transpired in silence, so filled was he with his own good humor. Alardded rescued his cup, stared absently into its empty depths. “You’re back from trading early.” The smell of baking filled the air, and they could hear the clatter of pans from the nearby shop. Alardded studied Hux comfortably. “Back in one piece, anyway. You had some close scrapes, Hux. We Saw Kubalese soldiers flanking you several times in visions as sharp as the threat itself. What happened when that large battalion bore down on your wagon just outside Dal? We Saw them and felt the surge of your temper, then nothing. A sense of your horses running, but we could See nothing more, did not know whether you were dead or alive until we touched, much later, a vision of you sprawled before your campfire swilling honeyrot from a Farrian clay jug.”