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

She sat her horse woodenly, her mind awash with the truth—with the horror of the Kubalese caves, as raw as if it had been yesterday, the feel of the cold stone where she had lain wanting only the drug, more of the drug, the cold terror when the drug was withheld from her, the sense of suffocation, of being crushed by cave walls as if they closed in on her, the terrible panic as she withdrew from the drug, wanting to lash out at the walls and run blindly, her terror of being crushed inside the cave, unable to bear the dark confinement of the cave.

Unable to stand the confinement of the cave. Driven to terror and to madness by confinement.

This was what Alardded knew. That the effects of the drug were not gone. That, given the right circumstances, panic would return. To Clytey; to herself. Given the dark, confining diving suit, given the confinement deep beneath the sea, a victim of the MadogWerg might go mad.

It was with them still, the effects of the drug, would always be with them, unseen and crippling.

She turned her horse away from die others and node back to the tower alone.

Part Two: Heritage of the Dark

From the journal of Skeelie of Carriol.

I must try to write of that earlier time before Ram died, before ever we lived as husband and wife. Perhaps if I write of our lives together, I can ease the pain of remembering. And perhaps not, perhaps the pain will only be worse. But I know that I must try.

We came away from that first visit to the city of cones across the mountains carrying Telien. She was so pale, so very close to death. The spirit that had possessed her, the wraith that Ram had driven out, had left little more than a shell, only a small spark of life. We nursed her as best we could, but by morning Telien was dead.

We buried her on an unknown mountainside in the unknown lands. Ram turned from the grave of his lost love in silence, and we headed south at once, where the known countries must lie. Ram walked as if he were alone, wrapped in darkness. But he looked up when we heard the high, keening wolf cry on the mountain, and his eyes darkened with a bitter triumph, for we knew then that Torc had destroyed the wraith that had possessed Telien. Too late—too late destroyed. Soon the bitch wolf joined us, filled with her dark vindication.

Our way was slow. We met jagged walls of stone and gashes in the land far too wide and deep to cross. We retraced our steps many times. When at last we found a way over the mountains, we were heading north away from the known countries of Ere. Ram grew impatient then, for which I was grateful, for his armor of mourning seemed less severe. Soon he began to think once more of the four shards of the runestone he carried—and of the shards still to be sought. Slowly and with pain he began to mend from Telien’s death, as much as ever he could mend.

We meant to find our way south, back to our own lands, but now Ram seemed pulled northward. We traveled among creatures and plants new and strange to us. Soon we were in high, jagged country, and cold, for a glacier rose to our left beyond a black cliff. It was here we were attacked by huge winged lizards with teeth like knives. We took shelter in an abandoned dwelling place, little more than a few bed-holes carved into the cliff, with narrow steps from one hole to the next, and the bones of game animals littering the floors. But the holes were deep enough so the flying lizards could not reach into them, though they forced clawed talons in, incredibly ugly beasts with wrinkled, scaly hides and breath that stunk of decay. The creatures gave way at last, either from boredom or discouragement, and we went on still hoping to find a way south. But the cliff was a sheer wall on our left and rose even taller ahead of us. Soon we came to a deep chasm. We could hardly see the other side, and it stretched so far to our right that it ended in haze against distant peaks. Deep down we could see red molten rivers. The place excited Ram, but the wolves paced restlessly along its lip. Fawdref was as cross and edgy as I have ever seen him, all dark, fierce killer with blazing eyes. Even Torc was upset with the sense of the place, and moved as if she were stalking, head down, watching the abyss. Ram stood at the edge staring down to the fires that burned far below, and I felt his intention chill me long before he spoke. “I must go there, Skeelie. I must go down into that pit.”

I was sick with fear for him, but I could say nothing. He must follow his own way.

We were eight years in that valley, living on wild plants and rock hare and deer. Ram studied the abyss and traveled again and again down into it, convinced that somewhere below, among the fires, lay a shard of the runestone of Eresu. He could feel its presence there, touching him. I knew he would never leave that place without it—and he did not leave it, not in body.

Our son was born in that valley.

We found a shelter of boulders that first day, to make a beginning dwelling, and piled stones to enlarge it. I thatched the roof to cover the cracks between the boulders, and Ram went to hunt with the wolves. As easily as that we established a home. Though it was a long time before we lived as husband and wife. The delay was not my doing. When Ram healed at last from the worst of his mourning, I was able to ease his pain somewhat, to give him of warmth and gentleness, someone to cling to. I hid my joy from him. I was afraid to let him know how much I cared.

From the entrance to our rock home, gazing southwest, we could see in the far distance beyond the cliff and beyond the white apron of the glacier, a peak rising so high and alone that Ram felt sure it was Tala-charen. He could feel a power from that peak that seemed to reach toward our desolate valley, a power he felt was linked to the runestone. He was more and more certain that a shard of the runestone lay down in the burning chasm, and sometimes he felt a presence down there, too, as if a living thing were watching us. I could not speak my fears to him, nor would I turn him aside. I knew I might see him die, but I would not hinder what he must surely do. We went again and again into the pit. It was a place of mystery, of shifting smoke, the changing lava flows and the falling stones tearing away the land so our way was never the same. We saw fire ogres there with flame playing across their thick, wrinkled hides, ogres only the heaviest arrows could kill. And something larger and infinitely more evil lay in that abyss, a creature formed perhaps from the heart of the abyss itself. Something that watched us at first only half-alive, that followed the sense of our movements, followed the sense of power from the runestones Ram carried with ever growing interest, as if it were slowly acquiring life, slowly becoming more powerful.

Could the stone that lay in that abyss have nurtured such a creature? Could a shard of the runestone, if it lay long enough immersed in that evil place, have bred evil? Bred a creature that, on sensing Ram’s four runestones, quickened to life further and thirsted for ultimate power? Or was there another explanation? And how did the runestone get into the abyss? And when?

The creature moved unseen, eventually tracking us and tracked by us. Over the years its power became stronger and the sense of its size seemed to increase. And then at last the sense of its name came to us. It called itself Dracvadrig. We sensed that sometimes it was like a man, sometimes like a great worm. And it had about it the essence of death. Had it risen from death or near death? Was it a creature like the wraith, perhaps? The wraith had once been a man, given over to the drug MadogWerg and to the evils that grew from it. Was this thing in the pit the same, a man unable to die, growing after his body’s death into another form? Had it lain in the pit long after its death, its moldering body couched around the runestone before life came seeping back sufficiently for it to rise and watch us, and to grow slowly into the monstrous dragon that we saw at last? I do not know. I only know that it was Dracvadrig who killed Ram.