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

To rescue the stone in the citadel, she must have the mare. She could not escape without a winged one to carry her. Michennann must come, in spite of her reluctance. She pressed her back against the cold stone of the stairwell and brought the vision of Michennann around her sharply until she felt as if she herself stood in the far green field where Michennann grazed.

*

Michennann stood with dripping muzzle. She had been feeding on lilies in the water meadow. Now she looked southeast toward Carriol, held within her the sweep of Meatha’s whispering mind, urgent and irritating, then laid back her ears and shook her head, not liking the demanding summons.

She was a beautiful mare, the color of deep storm. Across one shoulder blazed a streak of white that ended beneath her dark mane. Her eyes were dark, the lashes silver against endless depths of darkness, her wings when she lifted them against the morning sky were silver, though they shadowed down to night where the feathers overlapped. She acknowledged Meatha’s presence with annoyance, examined deeply Meatha’s purpose; bowed her neck and tucked her head down in hard defiance. The girl’s quest had a darkness to it, a darkness Michennann wanted no part of, though she and Meatha were old friends. Friendship was one thing, this stealthy darkness quite another. What had changed Meatha? Or did she not see the dark that touched her?

Meatha scowled at the mare’s resistance. What was wrong with Michennann? She pressed harder still, then too late she realized her error, for the mare had drawn away from her completely and closed her mind with a stubborn will, her tail switching with anger.

Meatha drew back, too, and waited. She would not be put off. When the mare had calmed somewhat, she touched her mind more gently, carefully began to soothe Michennann, to calm her. Slowly she gentled and quieted her own driving force and washed away the tension, softened the tension between them until at last their minds could link in a smoother flow. She soothed the mare and soothed her, until after some moments Michennann relaxed satisfactorily; her ears went forward, she lifted one forefoot wet from the marsh meadow and gazed without fury into the southeastern sky.

Michennann held in suspension the last of her unease, the shadow of her reluctance. She let lie at bay the darkness that had now submerged itself beneath Meatha’s gentleness—but she would not forget it. She felt the danger in what Meatha was about, her fear unformed and nebulous but very real.

But she would follow Meatha. For the sake of something she could not put shape to, she knew she would follow her.

She turned to stare at the band of winged ones who stood silently at the other end of the meadow and spoke to them. They moved uneasily, but they did not reply. Michennann pushed back the unease, like rain-blindness, that shadowed her thoughts. She bowed her neck, and broke suddenly from a standstill into a gallop. She was skyborne in three strides, her neck stretched out, her dark nose cutting the wind.

*

In vision, Meatha Saw the mare lift skyward, and she turned away with satisfaction; though still she held a tight, gentle snare of power around Michennann, drawing her toward Carriol. She was aware once again of folk passing her on the stone stair. She let her blocking ease for a moment as her tension eased, turned to follow them, sharpening her blocking again at once.

It would not be easy to sit among others with her secret filling her and yet maintain the constant blocking needed to shut out master Seers. But the urgency of her mission seemed to give her power, and now she felt capable of anything.

Michennann would graze out on Fentress unnoticed until they could depart—until Alardded had departed for Pelli. Her timing must be perfect. Not too soon, not until Alardded was just on the verge of bringing up the drowned runestone. Too soon, and she could be discovered, Alardded alerted. She joined the meeting at last with reluctance, sat down near the entry, and looked over the heads of those in front to where the five master Seers sat circling the stone table. The runestone moved slightly in the sea breeze. She dared not look directly at it for fear her expression would give her away. Alardded and Bernaden had left a space between them, and a man stood respectfully behind the stone bench there, facing the five council Seers with obvious awe. A tall, pale man with a curiously small head and thin shoulders, larger in the trunk and hips, heavy legged—rather like a bag of grain with most of the grain run to the bottom. He was the reason for the meeting: a man brought to Carriol unexpectedly, a prisoner rescued from Kubal. He came from a land they had thought uninhabited, from the unknown lands inside the Ring of Fire. His voice was loud for such a weak-looking person. He answered Alardded’s questions simply, artlessly.

The city he had come from was as remarkable as he, a city of stone cones naturally formed, perhaps by the volcanoes, and the cones hollowed out by patient carving to make dwellings. Here he had lived all his life. His name was Fithern. He answered their questions carefully, but glanced again and again at the suspended runestone, could not keep his eyes from it, and at last Alardded stopped the questions and allowed Fithern to speak as he would. He was silent for a long while, then he spoke hesitantly but with excitement.

“ She carried such stones as that! She carried two of them, and a handful of golden ones, too, stones like stars on fire.” There was utter silence in the citadel. No Seer moved.

“And who was she?” Bernaden said softly. Her chestnut hair and high coloring were caught by the sea light. Her gentle eyes tried to warm the stranger.

“The lady of the wolves, Seer,” he said at last. “The lady who traveled with wolves by her side, who came to our city the first time with the prince of wolves himself.” Fithern sighed. “But when she came to the city of cones the second time, with her child, then the prince of the wolves was not with her. Then the prince of the wolves was dead.” There was a great sadness in his voice, as if he mourned a wonderful and inexplicable glory. Still no Seer stirred.

“What prince of wolves?” Alardded asked softly. “What lady? Of what time do you speak, Fithern? Of your own time? Did you see such people?”

“Oh, yes, in my time, Seer. Though I was very young. The lord and lady of the wolves released our people from a possession, where men moved mindlessly. From possession by a goddess that the lady of the wolves called Wraith—though sometimes she spoke of the creature as Telien. The lady and the prince of the wolves took the goddess away with them and drove its spirit out. They carried the green stones, and when the lady returned, she had them still—four stones, she said, though one was the golden starfires, and one was hidden inside a strange bell that she used to hold when she held the stones, and that would make the wolves cry out. She told us a green stone was inside.”

Alardded sat silent. Surely this man spoke of Ramad, but in their own time? How was that possible? And who was the woman? Then one fact startled them all, the knowledge of it flying among them: They could not read Fithern’s thoughts.

Was that, then, why they had not known of the city of cones, never guessed that these people existed? Surely so.

Tra. Hoppa had come to sit among the Seers, drawn to this man. Her voice was quick and eager, her eyes bright. “How do you know that when the lady of the wolves returned without . . . returned alone, that the lord of the wolves was dead?”

“She mourned for him. She wept in her dwelling alone. She told my people he was dead.”

“And what happened to her?” Tra. Hoppa whispered.

“One day she went away with the wolves and her child and no one saw them go. Everything was left behind, hides, bedding, extra clothes, the pieces of pale parchment she liked to write upon.”