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

“Come, Kish . . .”

“Curse your plan!” she hissed. “Curse the wretched girl, curse your precious stones! If you can’t use them for me, then stuff them in your gullet!” She kicked the horse hard; the animal leaped away in panic into a dead run, freed at last from the monster, frothing and half-blind with its fear. But she kicked and reined it back toward the dark tower, not toward the direction of the divers, knowing full well that Dracvadrig would kill her, if only to save face, if she pursued the stones. Curse Drac! She did not like having him against her. She needed . . . yes. RilkenDal. RilkenDal would do her bidding. The dark Seer could be more than useful now. Defeated in Zandour by wolves, sore at such defeat, RilkenDal would welcome a woman’s sympathy. Later she could consider how to get the stones and deal with the cults, once she had RilkenDal’s forces behind her. And then she would take care of Dracvadrig.

*

Lobon sensed the fire ogres massed beyond the cliff. Cold fear touched him. Flame edged the cliff, then the first ogre hulked against the sky. The wolves crouched to leap; he raised his bow and shot; a good shot in the neck, the creature fell and rolled down the cliff dislodging stones as it flailed. Two more ogres appeared above, then half a dozen rounded the bend of the narrow trail ahead. He shot again, the wolves leaped, a wolf cried out with pain from the flaming hide. He faced the fire ogres with sword drawn. They advanced until their heat seared him, flame leaping over their warty hides and froglike faces, their small red eyes flame-veiled like evil coals as they forced in around him. One fell from his sword, another pushed in. He slashed and parried, and they were so thick now they were as impregnable as a wall, closing in, stepping across their dead brothers, reaching with flaming hands. He was grappled from behind with burning hands, felt the desperate battling of the wolves with more pain than his own, for they could not attack without being burned; felt chains hot as fire forced around him. He fought the chains until an ogre struck him, and he knew no more.

He woke staring at cell bars. His weapons were gone. The wolves were chained to the wall. On the ground beside him lay the deerskin pouch, charred and torn open. He reached for it, searching uselessly for the runestones, knowing what he would find. He shook it, then lay cursing silently.

But when he felt in his tunic for the wolf bell, its familiar shape cleaved to his hand. He drew it out and stared at it. How had they missed the wolf bell?

They did not miss it, Lobon. Feldyn told him. They touched it, and it sent pain through them. We have powers in the bell, too, son of Ramad. And we know a hate for the fire ogres perhaps surpassing your own. Though we had not enough power to keep them from chaining us. The black wolf lay looking across at Lobon, fettered by chains, bleeding and weak with pain. Lobon pulled himself up and went to examine Feldyn’s wounds.

The chains binding the wolves had been locked to bolts in the wall. The smell of singed hair was strong. All three wolves were burned, but much of the burn was hair, not deep into the skin. He looked for his waterskin and saw it at last lying some distance outside the cell bars, charred black. The ground was wet where it had been dumped.

*

Meatha curled down in her shelter of boulders to wait for deeper night. She was glad the sky was cloudy, for dusk had come more swiftly. Alardded’s campfire smelled so good, and supper smelled even better. She munched on cold mountain meat and waited. The drowned stone lay so close, just there in Alardded’s pack.

It had been nearly a day since she left Carriol. Was the illusion she had created in the citadel, of a runestone hanging there, working so well that still no one suspected? When she thought of what she had been capable of these last days, she could hardly believe it was all her own doing. Yet what else could it be? She felt the power in herself. If her illusion held, if they thought the stone was still in the citadel—just until she could slip into Alardded’s camp, retrieve that second stone, slip away to join the battles in Farr and Aybil, banish the darkness there—if only her image of the false stone would hold so she would not be followed. She put her head on her knees and dozed, waiting for those below to sleep, holding her blocking tight around her, secure in the goal she pursued, secure in her love for Carriol.

*

Lobon’s hands were bloody from scraping against stone where he had been digging at Shorren’s chain. He had dug late into the night, and when at last Shorren pulled herself free with a final lunge, the twin moons were low, casting shadows through the cell bars. The white wolf had slunk away deep into the cave to the trickle of water Lobon had found, dragging her chain behind her. Lobon stared down at the rock in his hands, then he began to dig anew, at Feldyn’s chain. Crieba lay patiently waiting his turn. Lobon tried not to think that they could die here, with two wolves still chained to the wall. He tried not to remember that the sense of Dracvadrig he had followed to the cell had been a trap, just as the wolves had said. That if he had listened to them, none of them would be captive now behind a barred, locked gate.

He continued to dig. The digging stones kept breaking, and his fingers were raw. When the wolves’ thirst grew too great, he went into the inner caves and let his cupped hands slowly fill with water from the small, warm trickle there and brought it out to them, making the trip over and over. Shorren brought water in her mouth and let them suck it up.

Once as he dug at the stone he Saw an image of the girl, her beautiful face rapt in some vision he was unable to share, her lavender eyes deep and intent, very determined as if she contemplated something demanding, though he could not make out what. He felt clearly her rising excitement.

Why did such visions touch him? Whatever she was about, whatever vision she cleaved to, had nothing to do with him. Her dark lashes were soft on her cheeks, her dark hair tumbled about her shoulders. Her eyes held him so strongly that he thought she Saw him; but then she rose preoccupied, unaware of anything but the turmoil within herself. She pulled off her boots and slipped barefoot out of the rock shelter where she had been sitting, into the moonlight, and began to move carefully down a steep cliff. He could hear the sea crashing. He saw her destination: a camp below on a rocky ledge. When she reached it at last, she stood watching the two tents, sensing out. Finally she approached the larger one, still in silence, and he could feel her blocking.

How could he See her when she blocked so strongly? He frowned, puzzling. Did he have some special affinity for this girl, to so breach her blocking? Some tie with her that he did not understand? She approached the tent and entered in silence. He sensed rather than saw the two sleeping figures, and startled, for a master Seer slept there. And a boy, also with Seer’s skills. The girl knelt beside the master Seer and began to feel with light, quick fingers among his belongings, quickly touched something of power that made him start and catch his breath.

She pulled the runestone out of the pack, he felt the weight and power of it as if he held it himself. A shard of the runestone of Eresu.

Now she had two shards, he thought, puzzling. What was so urgent to this girl? What exactly did she plan? He watched her retreat softly and climb the cliff. He felt her silent call, then felt the answering call and saw a winged mare bank between clouds and plummet down beside her out of the moonwashed sky; and he felt the strange reluctance of the mare. The girl swung onto her back and nearly at once they were windborne, the girl prodding, forcing the mare. He wanted to move with them, to follow. What was the girl’s destination, carrying the runestones? She seemed to imagine something urgent, but her intention was muddled and confused in his mind. He tried to follow her in vision, but his thoughts remained fixed above the cliff as mare and rider disappeared into moon-touched cloud.