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

“I have them. I simply let him carry them. It makes the chase more exciting.” He did not mention his ruined eye. He was close to euphoria with the drug, dulled and rested and inane. “Think, Kish, when the stone is joined . . .” She smiled and nodded and stared at him appraisingly.

“With the power of all the stones . . .” He laughed drunkenly. “Oh, I will have the nine stones, and soon. And then the son of Ramad will be useful!” His long face warped into an evil smile, twisted with the drug and maimed into a mask of horror by the gory eye.

“Will you have them, Drac?” she said cruelly. “You let him defeat you just now. The whelp and the powers that joined him defeated you. Are you too drugged to remember that the girl helped him!” She rose and began to pace. “You had best keep better control, Drac. You had best move that girl quickly! And that band of Seers moving among my cults—I have groomed those cults too carefully to allow . . .”

His laugh became a giggle. He lounged drunkenly on the bench, as if he had forgotten the injured eye, perhaps the socket was as numb now as if no eye had ever existed. “The cults will not dare turn from you, my dear. Though perhaps you are right, perhaps it is time you appeared among them. Perhaps their goddess has been absent too long. I should like to play with some foe besides that puny young Seer for a change. He will follow the trail I laid. The ogres will see to his capture.” He made an effort to rise. “Shall we journey to the battles, my dear? Witness the fun, speak to your multitudes? Ah, then I will be close to the young woman as she brings the stones out of Pelli.”

Kish scowled. “Can you change back to dragon and hold that form with the drug on you? I don’t want . . . Are you in condition to carry us?”

He felt the neck wound with long, exploring fingers, did not touch his eye, moved restlessly, stared at her glassily for some moments with the one good eye. He was trying to change. After some moments, when he remained in the form of a man, he rose unsteadily, took the runestone from its casket, spoke to it, trying to draw power from it.

Nothing happened, he was impotent with the effects of the drug, remained humiliatingly trapped in the human body. Kish watched him with disgust.

At last she drew close to him; scowling at his weakness but unwilling to be deprived of his usefulness. Her voice fell into a soft chant, smooth as honey. “I feel the dark Seers waking, Drac,” she crooned. “I have felt all day their voices calling up out of infinite darkness.” Her voice flowed as compelling and hypnotizing as the spell of a snake luring its prey. “Dark Seers, Drac, dark Seers waking in darkness, keening to the call of the runestones, their spirits rising to draw together and join us, to join the power of the stones. The spirits of the dead Seers, Drac, the spirits of those in whom the spark has lain as dead—too long idle, they will join us now; they will be one with us now, I feel the power of the Hape, of dark beings beyond the Ring of Fire rising—never dead, never really dead.” Her pale hands lifted and caressed him. The firemaster stared at her, bound to her caressing voice. “Now our time is coming, Drac, now our strength gathers, now we will quell the light-struck rule of Carriol.” She wet her lips with a pale tongue. “Too long have they held the stone, Drac, too long their cloying light washed that which should couch itself in darkness, too long spoken of love, and of honor. I feel the dark Seers, Dracvadrig, I feel their spirits waking from times long past, NiMarn who fashioned the wolf bell, NilokEm and his get, HarThass, who failed so miserably to win the soul of Ramad—I feel the dark core of each rising now, I feel powers huge and pulsing, breathing life into those who have slept. Their spirits rise, Drac, they will join us. Feel it, Dracvadrig. Feel them touching you.”

Her mesmerization gripped and immersed him, transported him until, at long last his body began to change into the dragon form, his legs to swell and shape into a coil that writhed and swelled, his wrinkled fingers to lengthen into heavy claws, his long nose and sharp chin to elongate further into dragon face. The wounded eye was larger, a dragon’s ruined eye, and blood flowed from it anew. His coils filled the cave and pressed Kish back against the stone wall. She caressed the cold dragon flesh with pale hands, stroked the creature’s leathery wings that pushed against the roof trying to break free.

All across Ere from dim, deep caverns and dark fissures, the dark listened to Kish and strove and sought out for its kindred spirits, for presences beginning to wake after generations of sleep. These rose as a stench would rise from moldering bodies; and each, waking, joined the next: the spirit of the Hape, the worm gantroed, the ice cat, creatures shunned by animals of light. Now their essences sought to become one, joining with the spirits of dark Seers, joining with the darkness that rode within Kish and within Dracvadrig and RilkenDal, within all who moved in evil across Ere.

Slowly Dracvadrig slid toward the mouth of the cave, until he filled the opening with swelling coils. Kish slipped onto his back. He slid out and down the cliffs side, then lifted his heavy wings and beat drunkenly skyward, into the heavy wind.

They headed south, Kish’s icy hands caressing dragon mane, her thoughts leaping ahead to battles, to the disciplining of her cults, to the destruction of the young Seers who meddled with them. Her anticipation of that destruction was eager and keen.

*

Zephy looked up from poulticing the chest of a sick child, shivered, and didn’t know why. She could bring no vision, but was awash with unease suddenly. She shook back her hair, frowned, all her spirit filled with foreboding; kneeling there by the child, the steaming poultice forgotten, she sought Thorn in her thoughts.

Thorn sensed what she sensed and hid his sudden fear from the men he was drilling; cultists, so slow to learn battle practices.

But now suddenly these men stood confronting him with sharper attention. They seemed wider awake. He stopped his lesson and examined the change in them. Their expressions had become suddenly alert, their minds alert. Some looked no longer docile and obedient, but now looked defiant. And then they began to chant, a harsh whisper that carried across the camp.

“She comes.”

“The warrior queen comes.”

“The warrior queen speaks to us.”

“She moved across the winds to us.”

Zephy’s thoughts touched his mind, cutting across the chant. What is it? What’s happening?

I don’t— But the chants faded abruptly. The scene before Thorn faded as if a sudden fog engulfed the campground. Another scene, of battle, took its place. They Saw the city of Zandour, Saw new troops attacking from the sky, dark warriors mounted on horses of Eresu. Winged ones harnessed and bitted and driven with whips—and driven by some strange compelling power that held them more captive than any harness could do. Then the winged ones were dwarfed in the sky by a monster dragon come out of cloud to dive with them down upon Zandour’s troops: The earth bound horses screamed and fell under its claws, under blows from the sky, their riders slashed by the swords of skyborne riders.

The dragon swept low over the city, licking out flame so the city began to burn, a house here, a barn, wherever its fiery breath caught. And astride the dragon rode a pale, tall woman slashing and killing with a heavy sword. The dragon swept low against the walls of the ruling house of Zandour, once Hermeth’s home, and the walls fell as if eggshells had crumbled. On the hillside, the marker of Hermeth’s grave was ripped away with one glancing blow, and Hermeth’s moldering, frail bones ripped out and scattered and trampled into dust. And then, as suddenly as the vision came to Zephy and Thorn, it vanished, for Kish spun a blocking force around Zandour to confuse and terrify the Seers further.