Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

“She—she will be all right?”

“Yes. She will.”

*

“Now Venniver will go on with his plans for the town,” Dlos said, dishing out mawzee cakes, her face flushed from the fire. They had all slept late in the peaceful little valley; the night guards slept still, beyond a pile of pack saddles. She stared at Jerthon. “Is that what you want, Venniver building his little empire?” Her wrinkles deepened in a scowl.

Jerthon gave her a hard, steady look. “It is not what I want Dlos. Nevertheless, Burgdeeth may prove to be of value.”

Dlos stared. “How have you worked that out?”

“Burgdeeth might be,” he said shortly, “a place of tempering. A place of testing.”

“Testing? You are mad, Jerthon!

“No, not mad. HarThass is dead. I don’t think his apprentices will bother with Burgdeeth. They are—a weak lot. If they had the Runestone, they would. But without it, I think the power of the stone that Ram holds will be enough to stop them.” He speared some side meat from the fire, laid it on a slab of bread. “The town is different now. The statue is there. The tunnel is complete, has vibrations of its own. Strong ones. Young Seers born there—if they are of true worth—will have something to lead them, to draw them toward truth. And they will have—a liberal education in what sloth and evil are all about, if they grow up in Venniver’s town.”

Tayba swallowed her meat with a dry throat. She would not two days ago, have bothered to speak out or have cared. “He—he will kill them,” she said evenly. “Don’t you know he means to kill them, even the babies? To burn them on the altar of the Temple?”

“He means to,” Jerthon said. “But that will not come for a while. And before it does, perhaps we will be able to prevent it.”

She stared at him and didn’t see how anything could prevent Venniver from his plans, as long as he was master of Burgdeeth.

“There are ways,” Jerthon said. And would say no more.

*

The children came down a face of rough lava, half sliding, the wolves frolicking across it. Below, horses grazed. The smoke of a campfire rose. A rider spurred her horse out wildly up the hill. Ram began to run.

“ Mamen!”

She plunged galloping up through the woods, pulled her horse up and slid from the saddle to hold Ram fast. She was crying, hugged him fiercely. Other riders came galloping. Jerthon rode up quietly and sat looking down at Ram.

Ram took the Runestone from his tunic and handed it to Jerthon.

Jerthon read the runes carven into the one side. Senseless words, for the rest were broken away. “Eternal . . . will sing.” He looked at Ram. “Did it sing?”

“If you call thunder a song. It thundered when it broke apart. It exploded in my hand, hot as Urdd!”

Jerthon handed it back.

“But where . . .” Ram said, watching Jerthon. “We don’t know, really, where it’s gone. The other parts. The Children out of time . . .”

“It went into time, and that is all we can know.” Jerthon dismounted and laid a hand on Ram’s shoulder. “Now, barring something we cannot foresee, in each age from which those Children came, time will warp again, once, in the same way.”

“There—there was a girl,” Ram said. “A young woman. She—”

“She was out of a future time,” Jerthon said.

“You saw her?”

“I saw.”

“Well, what . . .” He remembered the pale young woman’s look, as if she longed for him. Remembered his own strange feelings.

“Have you ever been in love, Ramad of Zandour?”

“Of course not!” he said indignantly.

“Well, you will be.”

When Ram looked up, Fawdref was grinning at him. Rhymannie raised her head in a sly, female look. Ram scowled at Fawdref. “Old dog, what are you laughing at?”

But then he grew sad, for Fawdref meant to leave them. “Not yet,” he said. “Jerthon goes to Carriol and so do I. You—you could journey with us. At least as far as the grotto.”

But Fawdref let him know his band could travel faster alone. That he would see them in the pass behind the great grotto when they reached it, would perhaps bring fresh meat for them. And so the wolves vanished, faded into the wood that flanked the lava flow and were gone as if they had never been; and if Ram had tears, he let no one see.

They made a feast that night of stag and morliespongs and wild tammi, fat otero roasted on the fire. For at dawn they would split forces, some to ride deeper into the unknown lands through which they were passing, to search for new country or to come, at last, back to Carriol with more knowledge of these lands than anyone now had.

Though most would go to Carriol with Jerthon.

“There is much unsettled land in Carriol,” he said, leaning back against stones besides the fire, Skeelie snuggled close. “The ancient city of the gods, the town that has grown around it—they are not a country. The time has come when Carriol must become a country or perish. It is not strong enough now to prevent the Herebian onslaughts that are surely coming.”

Ram would follow Jerthon. He would go nowhere else. He stared sleepily into the fire. They would go to Carriol and build a county of freedom and great pleasure.

They slept close beside the campfire, the night sentries keeping watch. Drudd snored, his head propped on his saddle. Derin and dark-haired Saffoni shared a blanket. It seemed strange to Ram to sleep without Fawdref’s shaggy warmth. He snuggled close against Tayba, but she was not furry, nor as warm. Ere’s two moons hung low in the clear sky; and the star Waytheer rode between them, its power speaking down to the Runestone, and to Ram.

Ram was nearly asleep when he knew Tayba was crying, holding herself rigid, trying not to wake him, shuddering as she swallowed her sobs. He turned over, touched her face, felt tears. “Mamen? What is it? What’s the matter?”

“I—I don’t know what’s the matter.” She pushed her face against him. “Everything’s the matter. I’m afraid.”

“But it’s all over. You—”

“It’s not all over. I’m afraid.” She sat up, stared into the dying fire, then turned to look at him. “We would be in Burgdeeth now. Jerthon would have taken it, if it hadn’t been for me. I’m scared, Ram. That’s all. Just scared of what I am. Go to sleep.” She lay down, pulled him close. “Go to sleep. It’s all right. I’m done crying.”

He could feel little of what tore at her. He guessed it would be all right. They would make it all right between them. He lay staring at the dying fire and now, once awake, could not go back to sleep. Lay thinking of Tala-charen and seeing those other faces, seeing the past and the future come together, hearing the thunder, feeling the heat of the stone in his palm, the mountain rocking. Smelling the stink of the gantroed.

He shivered with a terrible fear of what he was born to; but that passed, and he lay knowing in some depth of himself the strength he would one day hold. He touched the stone, lying warm in his tunic next to the wolf bell, and knew a sharp anticipation of what waited beyond this night; tried again to see forward in time, and again felt only the yearning he could not explain, could simply hold close as he drifted—and then slept.

#

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shirley Rousseau Murphy grew up in southern California, riding and showing the horses her father trained. She attended the San Francisco Art institute and later worked as an interior designer while her husband attended USC. “When Pat finished school, I promptly quit my job and began to exhibit paintings and welded metal sculpture in the West Coast juried shows.” Her work could also be seen in many traveling shows in the western States and Mexico. “When we moved to Panama for a four-year tour in Pat’s position with the U.S. Courts, I put away the paints and welding torches, and began to write.” After leaving Panama they lived in Oregon, Atlanta, and northern Georgia before returning to California, where they now live by the sea.