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

NINE

Four days brought them up into Esh-nen. It was so cold now, they rode with their blankets around their shoulders and slept close together at night, with the wolves crowded around in a warm cluster. Sleeping close, as she and Ram had sometimes done as children out of fear or in the icy nights on Tala-charen, Skeelie could feel the sense of their friendship grow steadier. She would lie wakeful with the pleasure this gave her, and with annoyance at her own dependence on Ram; but with, sometimes, a longing for him that even this closeness could not quiet. Then she would turn away from Ram and huddle into Torc’s shoulder, choking back tears; and Torc would turn and lick her face and lay her muzzle into Skeelie’s neck. You suffer too violently, sister. Time will take away the pain.

It never can.

Torc could not answer her, for her own pain, the memory of her dead cubs and the pain of her lost mate, had not abated. Together they would lie miserable and wakeful in the cold, still night, sharing their loneliness. Ram slept beside her unknowing, and Anchorstar, if he knew, did not speak of it. The very beauty of the night in this barren place, the moonlight like crystal on the jutting rocks, seemed to make her misery even sharper.

The world seemed to have grown larger and more remote as they ascended. And while at first this had increased Skeelie’s loneliness, soon the immense spaces began to fascinate her, as if they held within themselves powerful and hidden meanings. She began to touch within herself new plateaus of strength that came sharper still as the peaks rose higher and wilder around them.

The ground over which they rode seemed never to have known spring, seemed always to have been as now, frozen and barren of life. The snow, which had at first lay in patches on the frozen ground, increased to a heavy blanket. They dug moss from beneath the rock cliffs for the horses, and Anchorstar took from his pack precious rations of grain for them, but still the animals began to grow gaunt. It was a bleak, heartless mountain. The few trees stunted along the edges of the rising cliffs might have clung there forever, unchanged. The sense of their own smallness became nearly unbearable. The mountain stretched around them white and cold and silent.

Anchorstar, too, became silent, as remote as the spaces surrounding them, so Skeelie felt that at any moment he might fade altogether to become a part of the empty vastness through which they traveled.

Soon the snow was so deep the horses had to fight their way. Then the riders dismounted to trample down a path and make the way easier for the mounts. They kept on so, walking, their feet growing cold, their boots sodden, stopping again and again to dig packed snow from the horses’ hooves. The wolves alone found it easy to move swiftly across the whiteness. They brought meat—rock hare and a small deer—so there was no need for the travelers to hunt.

They came, at evening of the sixth day, up over a rising snow plain to a ridge. Beyond it, the land dropped suddenly, falling down to a deep blue lake far below. A lake not frozen over, but breathing hot steam against ice-covered cliffs. They began to descend, the horses slogging through deep snow sideways, held back from overbalancing by a short lead. Soon they could feel the lake’s warm breath. The rising steam grew thick around them, turning to fog in the cold air, hiding the snow-clad mountains. They descended into a cauldron of fog, of shifting pale shadows and then of unexplained darknesses rising and stretching away like voids between the clouds of mist.

Skeelie could feel Anchorstar’s tenseness. He seemed reluctant suddenly, and at the same time almost eager. She heard him whisper words indistinguishable, then speak a name. “Thorn!” Then, “That Seer is Thorn of Dunoon!” A wind caught the heavy fog and swirled it into patterns against darkness. Suddenly they were not standing in snow, but on a narrow rocky trail winding along the side of a bare, dark mountain, black lava rock rising jagged against the sky. The horses were gone. The air was warm, a warm breeze blew up from the valley below. Time lay asunder once again, twisted in its own mysterious convolutions, and they had been carried with it like puppets, swept away from their destination. Skeelie responded with anger, this time with a sense of betrayal.

Below them lay pastures green as emeralds, and a little village, its roof thatch catching the last light of the setting sun. Below that village, down at the foot of the mountain, they could see a city. Surely they had come to the mountains above the village of Dunoon. No city that Skeelie knew, save Burgdeeth, lay so close to the foot of the Ring of Fire. A flock of goats was being herded up into the high pastures, the herder a young redheaded Seer; and suddenly Skeelie went dizzy. Time shifted again, darkness was on the mountain. Though they could still see the herder, who stood in moonlight now, his goats grazing among black boulders. Anchorstar sighed.

“We are in my own time, and I know I must move in this time.” His words came heavy, as if he were very tired. Then his voice lifted. “That young Seer—can’t you feel it? Yes—he is linked with the runestone!” He was tense with excitement, now, stood staring down eagerly. “He is linked with the runestone that Telien carried. The runestone that Telien brought out of Tala-charen.”

Ram had caught his breath, stood watching, sensing out.

“He will touch that stone,” Anchorstar continued. “I feel certain of it. He is linked with your prophecy, Ramad. Found by the light of one candle, carried in a searching Linked in a way I cannot fathom. But

Ram . . .” Anchorstar laid a restraining hand on Ram’s arm.

“Telien is not in this time, nor does he know of her—nor do I feel that she will come to this time. That young Seer— I think he is hardly aware of his gift. It is an ignorant time, ignorant!” And then, his voice fading, “Kubal is rising. Can’t you feel their dark intent?”

He was gone, mountain and valley gone. Ram and Skeelie stood alone in fog and snow, freezing cold, the blue lake below. Anchorstar’s horse was gone, its hoofprints ending suddenly in the deep snow just where Anchorstar’s footprints ended. Their own two horses pressed close to them, shivering.

An after-vision filled their minds with Anchorstar, not on that dark mountain now but riding the dun stallion along a flat green marsh next to the sea. “He is in Sangur,” Ram breathed. “Surely those are the marshes of Sangur. How . . .? He stared at Skeelie. “What mission must he now endure, in order to make his way back to the mountains, and to that young Seer? Is there sense of it, Skeelie?”

She could not answer him. They stood staring at one another, caught between wonder and fear at the forces that moved around them, that flung them so casually across Time. Was there sense to it, reason? She remembered, suddenly and vividly, standing with Ram inside the mountain Tala-charen, could hear his voice, a child’s voice, yet very certain of the words he spoke. There is one force. But it is made of hundreds of forces. Forces balance, overbalance—that is what makes life; nothing plans it, that would take the very life from all—all the universe. It is the strength of force in our desires for good and evil, Skeelie, that makes things happen. . . .”

He touched her thoughts. She whispered, “Do you still believe that?”

“I—I don’t know. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I’m not sure how much. I guess—I guess I have more questions now than I did then. Anchorstar is gone. He brought us to this place and is gone. What forces . . .?” He looked at her long and deep, then at last they turned in silence, the sense of their wondering flashing between them, but no words adequate to answer such questions. They looked down at the lake, wreathed in mist, then started down toward its shore.

As they descended, snow turned to ice, for all was frozen here where the lake’s steam melted the snow again and again, then cold winds froze it. The far steep shore glistened with ice, rising up to the mountains. Their boots broke through the thin layer of constantly melting and refreezing crust, and the horses pawed, sidestepping, uncertain and suspicious, moving one wary step at a time. Across the lake, the shore was riddled with caves, visible now and then through the mist, and there seemed to be caves beneath the water, too, dark, indistinct patches.

At the lake’s edge Skeelie knelt, scooped warm water into her cold hands, then plunged her face in, came up dripping. The wary horses settled to drink at last as the wolves crowded around them to lap up the clear, warm water. For some moments, no one saw or sensed the man who stood in the shelter of a snowbank watching them, a big man swathed in white furs, nearly invisible against the snowbank. Fawdref sensed him first, sprang around suddenly, snarling, ready to leap. But then he stopped, did not advance on the stranger.

The man pushed aside the flap of white fur that had covered his face and stared down at the wolf with eyes like fierce black embers. Within the white hood, his face was a dark oval, sun-browned, creased with lines, craggy, his black beard clipped in a square manner, sharply defined. His dark eyes smiled suddenly, eyes filled with depths that seemed to engulf them all as completely as the warp of Time could engulf them. Skeelie fought his power, wanted to pull away; yet his strength remained aloof, did not crush her as she felt it could easily do. He said abruptly, without preamble, “Come then,” turned from them and started around the icy shore, never doubting that they would follow him.

They went in single file, Ram leading his mount, then Skeelie leading hers, the wolves coming behind, austere and silent. The only sound was the crunch of frozen snow as they made a solemn journey around the lake to where a white hill lay, a long mound with smoke rising from its center. The power of the man drew and enfolded Skeelie until she no longer wanted to be rid of it. She did not attend to how his power affected Ram, so caught was she in the sense of this man who was the Cutter of Stones.

As they drew close to the white mound, they could see a white door in its side. The Cutter of Stones pushed that door open, and they entered through the wall of snow into an inner court, open to the sky. Log outbuildings and stables stood on three sides of the court, their roofs covered with high banks of snow. A long, low house of heavy logs flanked the right side, snow roofed.

Two stalls had been made ready for their horses, with dry grass and grain and leather buckets of fresh water. The goats and sheep in the other stalls watched with marble eyes as Skeelie led her bay gelding into a stall and unsaddled him. She was tired suddenly, aching with weariness. Perhaps a weariness born of the intense isolation of this place—outside of Time, outside of any world they knew. Or perhaps it was a weariness born of her sure knowledge that she and Ram moved now, inevitably, toward crises in their lives, toward turning places. She was not sure she was ready for any kind of crisis. At this moment, all she wanted was a drink of something hot and supper and a warm bed. She began to rub the saddle marks from the gelding’s back. He ate greedily. When she turned from him at last, Ram was leaning in the doorway.

She studied him, his brown eyes, his olive skin glowing now from the cold, the long, thin bones of his face, unruly thatch of red hair. Wanting to touch his cheek, she shielded her thoughts from him, feeling stupid and ashamed of her love for him, because he could not return it.

“We are farther than the end of the world, Skeelie. Farther than any world, maybe. Farther . . .” His jaw clenched, pushing back the pain of Telien.

“You let it eat at you, Ram! What good—you . . .” She turned from him, furious, then was ashamed all over again. What was she so angry about? He couldn’t help it. She was tired, needed a hot meal, a bath. She turned back, took his hand and pulled him out into the courtyard. It was starting to snow. The wolves rose from around the door like a pack of great dogs, grinned and were off through the court and up the side of a hill to hunt. Ram dropped her hand, was unaware he did so, or that he had been holding it. She stared at him reproachfully. There was nothing she could do to make him aware of her when he did not want to be. And nothing she could do to relieve his pain for Telien. She could only stay beside him and help him search and do whatever was needed. Doormat! she thought angrily. Doormat! But it was what she wanted to do, must do, or life would have no meaning. When he had found Telien, when they had gone off together—if they could save her, if they could release her from the wraith—then, Skeelie thought, she could dissolve into self-pity, and after that make a new life for herself. Now there was only the search for Telien, and it didn’t matter if she was a doormat.

They entered the hall. Skeelie dropped her pack by the door, thankful to be rid of the weight. The warmth of the great room and of the blazing fire engulfed them. It was a huge, square room with three log walls, and a fourth of stone where a fire blazed beneath a deep stone mantel. Rafters thick as a man’s waist caught the reflection of leaping flames. Cushions were stacked before the hearth, and beside them a low table made of some dark, dull wood. There was no other furniture. Fur hides and fur cushions were strewn in piles about the room. A black stewpot hung to one side of the fire. The Cutter of Stones was stirring this.

He had removed his white furs, was clad now in a plain brown tunic and trousers. His dark eyes saw Skeelie clearly, saw her aching tiredness, her hunger, her discouragement. He held out steaming mugs to them, a heady brew scented with spices. And all the time, he looked directly at Skeelie. His voice was deep, comforting. “I am called Canoldir.” Then, “Come Ramad, make yourself comfortable before the fire.” Ram turned from them.

Canoldir looked at Skeelie so long she felt a blush rising. At last he took her arm and guided her through the hall to a corridor and down this to a chamber. He did not speak, but his very presence seemed to rest and strengthen her. “This room opens onto the lake. There is no one about, you may bathe. Supper will be ready when you are.” He turned away, was gone; she felt only the sense of his mind, for a moment still watching her. Then she was quite alone. She pushed the door closed behind her and stood surveying the room.

It was large and square though not nearly so huge as the hall. There were a few pieces of simple furniture, a big bed covered in a red woven tapestry, other tapestries hanging against the log walls. In one wall was a great window, opening nearly to the floor, made of hundreds of small panes of precious glass. It looked out on the lake and the icy shore.

There was a fur robe lying across a bench, along with fur slippers and linen towels. She stripped down at once, pulled the robe around her and stepped barefoot through the window out into the snow. Her feet began to tingle from the cold, a strangely exhilarating, comforting feeling. She stood for a moment at the edge of the lake, staring up through scarves of steam at the white mountains, watching the first stars come in the deepening sky, her mind on Canoldir. At last she slipped out of the robe and dove in one motion into the water, luxurious in its warmth, rolled languidly, then dove deep, felt the aching tiredness leave her. Finally she struck out in a long line across the lake, sharply aware of the contrast between the warm water and the icy bite of air across her cheek and lifting arms and shoulders.

At the far shore, close to the caves, she dove again and peered into shadowed grottoes. Then, in a little pool beneath snowbanks she floated on her back staring up through steam and past ice-crusted cliffs at the first stars. When she rolled over again, a vision came so suddenly and sharply it shocked her. So clear, so very real! She stood in a hut made all of saplings, stood beside a center fire pit and held a babe in her arms; the love and warmth that filled her was nearly too much to bear. A babe urgently important, not only because of the love she felt, but because of much more; though what, exactly, she could not sense.

The vision vanished. She floated between icy banks, feeling the loss of that child like a wound.

Whose child? Whose child had it been? And when, in what time?

She swam back at last to the white hill. She could see now that the window through which she had come was partly hidden from the lake by a jutting snowbank. When she stepped from the water, the icy air made her tingle. She pulled on her robe and made her way absently through the snow, thinking of the child she had held.

Once inside she returned to the large hall dressed in the long fur robe and fur slippers, deliciously soft against her clean skin. The low table had been set with wooden plates and with a loaf of warm new bread, a pot of ale, a garnish of some pale, long-leafed vegetable that she did not recognize, and the steaming stewpot set on a metal trivet. She settled herself on cushions opposite Canoldir and looked around the room with appreciation.

Canoldir’s weapons hung beside the fireplace: a fine sword, knives, a beautiful bow, arrows with game tips. Canoldir watched her careful appraisal. “There is game on these snowy peaks, Skeelie. Stag and small deer and a great cow-like animal that wanders the snowbanks in search of moss. There are sheltered valleys where they can dig deep for fodder, and valleys where the burning heart of the mountain gives forth heat enough for the grass to grow thick. There is game in plenty, and I speak a prayer for them when I must kill them.”

She saw then that across the mantel, beneath Canoldir’s weapons, were carven five faint lines of words. She rose, stood before the blazing fire to read them.

Those who have torn away the seams of Time,

through the repetition of their birth upon Ere itself,

can move through the tapestry of Time

and can weave new powers into the intricate fabric

of the one power.

When she turned, Canoldir was dishing up the stew. She watched him, caught up in the words. What was their meaning? So like the tree man’s words, One of the few born to weave a new pattern into the fabric of the world.

She came to the table abstracted, seated herself on the low cushion with her feet tucked under her robe. The stew smelled wonderful, rich and brown. Canoldir cut bread for her, said quietly, “Why do those words worry you? Do you not understand them?”

“I’m not sure. That—that most are born again in different lives, some in different worlds, some born twice upon Ere? But then . . .” She saw that Ram had read the words, and waited for him to speak.

“Those born again on Ere have woven a new pattern into the warp of powers. You, me, Telien, Anchorstar have woven a new pattern that can reach through Time.” Ram looked to Canoldir for agreement.

“But then the wraith . . .” Skeelie began. “The wraith makes a new pattern yet again. And, I would hope, not a lasting pattern, but one that will fray and fade.” Canoldir reached to refill their mugs with hot brew.

“But why were we born a second time upon Ere?” Skeelie said. “And the Luff’Eresi are so born, too? I don’t—”

“The Luff’Eresi are a different matter,” Canoldir said, watching her. “The Luff’Eresi are not, as were you and Ram, born a second time of the same race.” He saw her puzzlement. “Nothing made the repetition of your birth, Skeelie. Your birth is chance, only chance. The repetition is a new thread woven into the warp of an incomprehensible pattern. A pattern born of chance, but fitting and meaningful beyond anything we can imagine.”

They ate in silence for some time, Ram and Skeelie puzzling over questions that interlocked even as the forces that touched them interlocked. At last Canoldir began to speak again, to speak of Time and of things both strange and familiar, then soon of things so remote that both Ram and Skeelie were caught with fascination in the rising web of his words. And as he spoke his moods were as changing as quicksilver, and with each mood, his face, his whole presence changed. He might have been a dozen men, some terrifying in their fury when he spoke of the dark Seers or of evils across Ere, some as innocent and filled with joy as a young colt. When there was joy, Canoldir’s dark eyes shone with clear light. When he spoke of evil upon Ere, his eyes were a killer’s eyes.

He showed them Time in so far distant a past that humans had not yet come into Ere, a time when only the triebuck and the great cats, the snow tigers and white-horned beasts and animals with long slim necks and hides like saffron roamed Ere. And great dark beasts, neither bull nor bear, dwelt among the woods and fields of Ere; and then his eyes laughed with pleasure. He showed them a time when the first Cherban peoples came into Ere from across the sea, just as the old myths told, and sank their ships at the point of Sangur’s coast in solemn ritual and spoke no more of those ships or of the land from whence they had come. He showed them the Cherban making settlements along Ere’s coasts, and then showed the Cherban decimated by death and slavery as the first Herebian raiders came down out of the high desert lands. He showed them the young Cherban herder, Ynell, who was the first in whom the Seer’s powers rose, the first to speak with the gods; and then they saw how the Seeing grew among the Cherban peoples from that latent talent, suddenly catching fire among them at Ynell’s persecution and at the growing threat from the Herebian raiders. “But that,” Canoldir, said, “that was long ago.”

Then he showed them, abruptly, a vision of Telien that made Ram catch his breath and draw away from them in painful silence.

“Yes, Ramad, you search for Telien. You search for the wraith of the dead Yanno, who gave his soul to the drug MadogWerg in the caves of Kubal. Who would have destroyed Anchorstar and many more, except for the skill of a few young Seers—young Seers wielding the runestone that Telien brought with her out of Tala-charen.”

Ram stared at him. “The runestone she . . . but then that runestone is found!” He watched Canoldir, perplexed. “She had—she did not remember.”

“Telien did not—will not find it. And that time is yet to come, Ramad, in the way of your lives. I could tell you that that runestone is found in that future time; and yet all Time can change at the whim of forces that even I—who move outside of Time—cannot understand truly. Let us say that that stone is, in all likelihood, found.” He paused, watching them; then idly he began to brush the crumbs from the sliced bread into a little heap and spread them out with one deft movement of his palm, began to draw in the thin veil of crumbs, one thin line across, bisected by another. When he looked up at last, he had scribed the little circle of crumbs into nine sections, eight fanning out, and one in the center. Ram sat staring at the sketch. Skeelie was silent, following Ram’s thoughts. Just so had the shattered runestone of Eresu lain in Ram’s palm, in nine jagged pieces. “It had a center stone,” Ram said with amazement. “I remember now; but I did not remember. I remembered well that there were nine shards of jade, but not that one was a center stone. Gone. Gone from my mind. I see it clearly now, one long, oval stone. The center—the core of the runestone.” He raised his eyes to Canoldir. “A golden stone—amber . . .”

“Yes, Ramad. The core of the runestone, just as Time has a core about which it weaves endlessly.”

Ram drew from his tunic the leather pouch and spilled its contents onto the table. The two jade runestones. The three starfires. But suddenly the starfires were four. His hand paused in midair. He looked up at Canoldir again with cold shock. “Telien’s starfire? Telien’s . . . You brought it here! Is Telien . . .”

“It is Anchorstar’s,” Canoldir said quietly. “Anchorstar has no need for such a stone now. Anchorstar moves in his own time, thirty years beyond the time in which you mourned and buried Hermeth of Zandour, Ramad. Perhaps Anchorstar may move in Time yet again, but only shallow slips through Time, I feel. I think that he will not need the power of the starfire in that time to which he truly belongs. That time in which he was bred by Cadach. For Cadach, too, born twice upon Ere, wandered Time, bred his children through Time, in different times by different women, before he turned his powers into an evil that was his undoing.

“The starfire belongs with you, Ramad. You have need for all the starfires together, in the semblance of the one stone. Perhaps that need in part is simply to signify that in some time yet to come, you will join the stone itself. Make it whole again.”

“You seem very certain.”

“I am not certain. But if your powers seek out sufficiently well, if your powers, your commitment, are strong enough, unswerving enough—then that very force can change and realign forces moving upon Ere, can well bring you, at some time not yet clear, into the realm of all the shards of the jade. And then, Ramad, all powers may align with you—the powers you can touch but do not fully comprehend. If you are strong enough, all powers may draw in as they did at the splitting of the jade, atop Tala-charen. But this time the jade might be fused again into one whole stone. I do not say this will happen. I say that it is possible. It will depend on you. There is something in your blood, in your breeding, that belongs to the stone and its joining.”

“If all depends on me, is Anchorstar’s mission of no concern then? Does he search for that one stone in vain?”

“Anchorstar’s mission is urgent. All powers, all forces, must move as one, Ramad. You may be the last key in the final joining, or someone close to you may. But the powers and strengths of all who move in this battle are of urgency. Anchorstar’s mission is a part of the whole; the mission that consumes him now is to battle that which has gone awry. He moved with such intensity that he has all but forgotten that which has occurred before. Other times have become as a dream to him. His ruling passion, now, is to find that lost shard of the runestone and to aid those Children made captive by forces uglier than any that have yet touched the Children of Ynell.”

Canoldir picked up the starfires, placed them on the table before him, and began to arrange one next the other in the way they had been cut. Fitting perfectly, they made a rough oval but with a hole where one stone was missing. “The starfire that Telien carries.” He then took up the two runestones. “Now tell the runestones for me, Ramad. Count them.”

Ram pushed his bowl aside, gave Skeelie a long questioning look, then, unexpectedly, a comforting one. “The stone that I brought out of Tala-charen is lost in the sea, off the coast of Pelli.”

“Yes.”

“The stone that NilokEm brought out of Tala-charen and passed down to the dark twins is the stone in your left hand, given me by Hermeth.

Canoldir nodded.

“The stone in your right hand, the wraith dug out from beneath the mountain Tala-charen.”

“Yes. You took it from the wraith at the moment that it possessed Telien.”

Ram studied Canoldir. Did this man care that Telien had been taken by the wraith, that her very soul was captive? But why should he care? What was Telien to him?

“Continue, Ramad. What I care about is not of moment here. I would not have brought you here had I not intended to help you pursue Telien. Though I care for more than that. I care for the fate of the stones. And I care for a coupling you do not dream of; and of which I will know a long sorrow.”

Ram watched him, unable to make sense of his words. “What coupling? What do you speak of in such riddles?” Yet the sense Skeelie caught from Canoldir’s thoughts was so disturbing she upset her mug, occupied herself for some time mopping it up with her napkin.

Canoldir said softly, “Continue, Ramad, with the naming of the stones.”

“The—the stone that Telien brought from out Tala-charen when she was first flung into Time, that stone is lost somewhere in darkness and she could not remember where. ‘Lost in darkness. Found by the light of one candle, carried in a searching, and lost in terror,’“ Ram repeated.

“That prediction, Ramad, is one of the wonders that moves through Time unchanged. Ever, ever changing are the winds of Time, ever nebulous and moving. And yet moments among those winds, words or predictions sometimes, the fate of a man sometimes, can move through those winds unchanging even as the swirling storms of Time change. ‘Found again in wonder,’ the prediction says. ‘Given twice, and accompanying a quest and a conquering.’ That is four stones, Ramad. What of the other five?”

“The fifth is the starfires, of course.”

“Yes. Though the starfires do not hold the same magic as do the other runestones. The starfires know only their own magic, they know only the work of the core, which they are; they know only the magic to plunge into the core of Time.” Canoldir lifted the ale pot from beside the hearth and poured out more of the spiced liquor into their empty mugs. “Five stones, then. Five you have accounted for. And what of the other four?”

“I do not know. I know only that all the shards must be brought together, that Ere cannot know peace until the runestone is whole once more. Four missing shards. Four—”

“No, Ramad. There are not four. There are only three.”

“But I—”

“You carry the sixth runestone close to you. Do you not know what you carry?”

Ram stared at Canoldir. “I carry no other stone. I know no other stone. I carry no stone but these. What do you . . .?”

“Reach into your tunic, Ramad, and put on the table what you carry there.”

Ram drew out from the folds of his tunic the only other object he carried and placed it on the table before Canoldir. The bitch wolf grinned in the firelight, her long rearing body turned red-gold before the flame. Ram raised his eyes to Canoldir, unbelieving.

Canoldir did not speak. The room began to fade, fog to come around them, then the space to warp and remake itself, so Ram and Skeelie stood in a small stone chamber lit with torches round the walls. A young man dressed in a deep blue robe knelt there in some private ritual; then suddenly a brilliant white light shattered around them and they were in Tala-charen, Ram a child again holding the shattered runestone in his hand while all around him came figures out of Time to receive those shards in one flashing instant, and among them the man in the blue robe. Ram recognized his face from having seen it in a vision long before; it was NiMarn, a younger NiMarn than Ram had seen, who had fashioned the bell of bronze. NiMarn, founder of the cult of the wolf. Time warped again, a dark-clad forgeman labored by NiMarn’s side. The blaze of the forge flared and died and flared. He poured his molten metal, and NiMarn, in a strange, quick ceremony, placed the jade shard within. They saw the casting harden, they saw NiMarn raise the bronze bitch wolf aloft, smiling cruelly.

Long after the vision faded, Ram sat staring at Canoldir. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. “How can it be? The wolf bell was already made when—when the runestone shattered. How . . . ? It cannot be. The bell . . .”

“The turning in on itself of Time can be, Ramad. Not often does it happen, not even with the strongest powers. But the power that night on Tala-charen was power gone wild, power warping into new patterns, into new paths. Such a thing might never happen again, in all of Time. It was, it is. The jade is there inside the wolf bell and will remain so now until you yourself release it. Or until one close to you does. The sixth runestone of Eresu, hidden there inside the belly of the bitch wolf.

Ram touched the bronze wolf reverently. No wonder the bell had such power. And now—he lifted his eyes to Canoldir. “Three stones unaccounted for, then. Three stones to search out . . .” His voice caught with wonder.

“Three. But remember, Ramad, the wraith covets all of this,” Canoldir said, sweeping up the two jade stones and the starfires into the leather pouch and tossing it to Ram.

*

Once, late in the night, Skeelie woke to hear the wolves howling on the mountain. She turned over, hardly aware of them, her thoughts all of Canoldir. Fawdref’s voice raised in a wild, gleeful song, wailing, cleaving the night with furious joy. The others, the bitch and dog wolves, cleaved their voices to his in octaves like wild bugles ringing, crying out across the night against all that would fetter them.

Did another voice, a human voice, rise with their song, deep and abiding? Later, Skeelie could not be sure. She slept smiling, strangely unsettled.