The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

ELEVEN

Meatha seemed unaware of the dank, forbidding atmosphere of the fissure as she pushed farther in, leading eagerly. Boulders stood across their narrow path so they must force their way around them; the river slipped by dark as a rock-snake on their left, the cliff walls had little growth except the yellow moss. The fissure, cut by the ancient river and perhaps by lava flow, seemed to Zephy to breathe an evil life of its own.

Meatha whispered something Zephy could not make out, and reached back to take Zephy’s hand as one would take the hand of a small child. They came around a boulder with Zephy pulled close to Meatha, and they were standing before a cave that opened black in the fissure wall. Meatha entered it at once and Zephy was pulled along; Thorn followed, silent, watching Meatha with interest.

The blackness became absolute as they thrust themselves in. How did Meatha know where she was going that there was no drop-off? Zephy pulled back, but Meatha would not allow that; she dragged Zephy on, pushing ahead with calm certainty. Only when Zephy glanced behind could she see anything at all, and then just the rapidly shrinking cave opening; she felt they would leave the world behind completely when they left that feeble light. Meatha pulled too hard in her eagerness, pushing into the darkness as steadily as if she carried a lantern.

Zephy strained to see or to feel with some sense what lay ahead and around them, but she could not; there was only the heavy blackness as if she could remember nothing else, did not know what light was. At one point they heard water running and felt a cool surge of air. There was a wall on their left now, smelling of dirt and satisfyingly rough and real. But what lay on the right? Was there an abyss? Zephy clung to the left-hand wall and felt Thorn’s hand on her arm. But whether to steady her from a fall or from her own fear, she did not know.

If you lived in darkness all your life, she thought, and had never seen light, you would not be able to imagine what the world looked like. Do we, Zephy wondered, live in a world where there is something we can’t see, but is there around us just the same?

The vision in the tunnel had implied that this was so. And the Cloffi Covenants taught that there was another world invisible to them. Before, she had never really believed that. Could part of the Cloffi teaching be truth, while the rest of it was not? But of course, Tra. Hoppa had told them that, that the most successful lies had enough truth in them to lead you into belief. Well, she had seen the vision in the tunnel; she had seen that other world for herself.

But then that stubborn doubt nagged at her again: it could all have been imagined. Still she followed Meatha blindly, though her thoughts were confused and uncertain.

At last they began to see something ahead, black shapes in the blackness. The dark was less complete, and Zephy felt as if she could breathe again. After an interminable time more she was seeing the sides of the cave. And finally she could see that they were on a wide flat path walled by earth and stone. It seemed to Zephy now that she could define the murky spaces around her with other senses than her eyes, with the feel of the space, with some sense of air on her skin—though she had not been able to in the blackness.

The ceiling was twice as tall as Thorn in some places, and at others rose to a height Zephy could not judge. The tunnel was still growing lighter. It turned and twisted as if it had been cut by natural forces through the softer areas of rock, as if perhaps the river had run here once. She wanted to ask Thorn, but she could not bring herself to speak, even to whisper.

Then they turned a corner and saw brighter light directly ahead; the tunnel widened into a sweeping cave lit from above. Meatha had stopped, but now she broke away from them to stride quickly on. Zephy stood in the entrance, the space opening before and above her; space and light, for the walls of the cave rose to an incredible height and opened to the sky as if a plug had been cut deep down into the mountain, a round hole revealing a drift of clouds. The floor of the cave was sparsely grassed and the wagon stood at one side, its colors bright against the stone, the two mares grazing near it. A thin line of smoke rose from an open fire like a thread pulled taut to the sky, and on the fire a haunch of meat was browning. The smell of crisp meat filled the cave, making the saliva come in Zephy’s mouth.

The light seemed translucent, gave an other-worldly quality to the cave. She stood quietly, feeling the silence and the mystery, the rightness of it—and then she saw Anchorstar standing at the edge of the clearing.

Over his leather tunic and trousers he wore a brown cape against the chill. It swept the ground and was hooded, his white hair showing at the temples. He gave the impression of great height and strength. Meatha stood facing him. Neither spoke, but their expressions were changing softly, as if with shared thoughts, and Zephy was drawn to watch them in spite of the sense that she was intruding, for the silent speaking was wonderful and frightening to her. She stood staring, half-believing in him and half-afraid.

And then she turned and saw Thorn’s expression, and felt his trust and satisfaction in Anchorstar.

At last Meatha moved away and Anchorstar looked across at Zephy and Thorn and smiled, and the tenseness went from Zephy so she relaxed and was engulfed by a sense of warmth.

He was of Sangur, she knew that at once in a sudden flood of knowledge. He had come up from Sangur’s cape coast through Pelli and Farr, and then Aybil, singing and juggling in the villages, doing his tricks of magic. And she knew that he had come seeking. She had a blurred sense of faces, children’s faces, and of Meatha among them, then a sense of people running—faces full of fear, their open mouths shouting wordlessly: a sense of terror and repulsion . . . then of sadness.

Thorn steadied her, for he had seen it too.

When Anchorstar spoke to them, he spoke in silence from his mind, and they knew at once that he was pleased that each of them responded, had the skill for which he searched. There was a sense of his great wonder as their thoughts filled with his silent words, You have the gift of seeing, of true seeing.

“Ynell’s gift,” Thorn breathed huskily.

Yes, Ynell’s gift, Thorn of Dunoon. You think you have only a trace of it, young Cherban, only enough to tease you, but that is not the fact.

Thorn blanched, dropping his head as if he had been chastened.

“And Zephy Eskar does not understand,” Anchorstar was speaking aloud now. He clapped a strong hand on Zephy’s shoulder and stood looking into her eyes. His eyes were golden, flecked with light, and as she stared into them, Meatha and Thorn faded, the cave faded. There was brightness, a wind. She was swirling, weightless. She was lifted above the land, she was rising on the wind . . .

She was the wind; she was looking down on Ere. She was drifting and blown at a great height above the land, could see clouds swimming below her, and beneath them the green sweeping reaches of Ere, bright green hills washed with moving shadows as the clouds passed below in a space, in a distance, that was overwhelming. The land swept below her, the dark bristling stands of woods and forests, the twisting rivers. She could see how land touched sea in a lace of white beaches and foaming surf, see Carriol’s outer islands like green gems, see the Bay of Pelli curving in between two peninsulas. And in the Bay of Pelli, beneath the transparent waters, the wonder of the three sunken islands and the sunken city, lying still and secret. She could see the pale expanse of high desert with the Cut running through it like a knife wound, the river deep at its bottom lined with green—a trench of lush growth slashing across the pale dry desert.

How bright the other three rivers were, too, as they meandered down through Ere’s green countries from the mountains. And the mountains themselves, black and jagged and thrusting, that circle of mountains, the Ring of Fire, pushed up toward her as if she could touch the highest peaks—snow-clad, some. Then between the peaks a glimpse of a valley so beautiful she was shaken with desire for it, something . . . but it was gone at once, faded, the vision taken abruptly from her.

Something gone, something that had been hidden deep within that valley in the black stone reaches of the Ring of Fire. Something she wished with all her heart she could reach.

Then it was Thorn’s eyes she looked into. She felt drained, as if this cave and all in it was an indistinct dream. As if she had been torn away from reality. Thorn waited, and when she really looked at him, she saw that he, too, had seen the vision. And Meatha—she looked up to see Meatha’s flushed and trembling face.

Anchorstar stood a little way from them, waiting. They went to him, stood before him. 1 am a Child of Ynell, Zephy thought, shaken. Nothing can ever be the same, nothing . . .

“Yes,” Anchorstar said at last, “Nothing will ever be the same. You are Children of Ynell, and you are not to be afraid.”

No, Zephy thought with surprise. Fear was not a part of this; this was beyond fear. “And there are others,” Anchorstar added quietly. “Perhaps many. In Burgdeeth there are children who wait for you, though they know not what they wait for. All of Ere may one day depend on the Children of Ynell. Others have done their share before you, and now it is your turn. If you so choose. But it will be more painful than you know.

“And it may be,” he added slowly, “that time is running out.”

I should challenge Anchorstar, Zephy thought suddenly, and now was shocked at herself. But Tra. Hoppa had taught her well: to take nothing she was told as absolute truth until she had sought it out for herself. Yet she could not challenge him, there was not room in her. If this were to be a lie, then she would have to see it in its own time, in its own way. She could see naught but truth in this man, truth in the visions he gave them. “I am no god,” he said, laughing at Meatha’s unspoken thought. “I am mortal just as you. But a stubborn mortal, child. A mortal with something of your own talents, though latent in many ways. Though I can speak to you, my powers are not constant. They need the help that comes when I speak to another with the talent. For the gifts vary. And you must know that the seeing is stronger close at hand. It is a rare Child, indeed, who can speak at any distance. And a rarer one, still, who can read of the future as you have done, Meatha. The power is a force that, for most of us, takes close proximity, as if it is a spark that falls, dying, at a distance.

“And the power is stronger in these Waytheer years, when the star is close overhead. The star’s very presence seems to give a strength that is needed.”

“If the power is stronger in the Waytheer years,” Thorn said thoughtfully, “and if the Luff’Eresi can be seen more clearly then, are the two connected?”

“They seem to be connected. But there is too much that we do not know. Who knows, even, what a god is? Who knows what we ourselves are or are not? Perhaps the force that put us here has woven an intricacy beyond our understanding, beyond intention of our ever understanding.”

“Tra. Hoppa told us once,” Zephy said slowly, “that we can only see a very small portion of what there is to see or know. But that—that when the Landmasters deliberately prevented us from seeing, from trying to see, they were committing a sin. And that people who did not try to see were sinning, too.”

“Perhaps I should have said,” Anchorstar corrected himself, “beyond intention of our easy understanding. Perhaps we were meant to question and to seek after answers that would not come easily, that would stretch our minds in the seeking, stretch our very souls.” He paused and studied her; but the picture in his mind was of Tra. Hoppa, so that Zephy stared back in surprise.

“Yes, I know Tra. Hoppa,” Anchorstar said, answering her silent question. ‘Tra. Hoppa is an old and trusted friend. I saw her in the crowd on Market Day, and she saw me of course, but we dared not speak. To cast suspicion on Tra. Hoppa in that way would have been more than foolish. To go to her home secretly, watched as I was, would have been too risky. We will meet again, perhaps. I would like that; a meeting in safety, where she is not jeopardized. Do you not know her story?”

They shook their heads.

“Come then, let us sit by the fire. I will make a meal for you and tell you her history.” He led them to the fire and brought out cushions from the wagon, then began to carve off slices of the roasting haunch and lay them on new bread. As steam rose from the meat and the juices soaked into the bread, Zephy found she was ravenous.

When they had satisfied their first hunger and were content to eat more slowly, Anchorstar settled back against the cave wall and began to speak quietly of Tra. Hoppa.

“In Carriol when I was a young man, Tra. Hoppa and her husband lived on a promontory overlooking the sea, a wild place with the breakers crashing below. There was always a hearthfire that was welcoming, and they harbored Children of Ynell from all the more primitive countries. Children come to Carriol because there they could be free. The Children would stay there until they could find a place to work, a place to live, a bit of land to farm, or until they went on, perhaps to the unknown lands.

“Then Tra. Hoppa’s husband died, and she left this work to another. How she came to Burgdeeth is a long and complicated story in itself. She was in Zandour when she heard from a trader that the old teacher of Burgdeeth had died, and that his apprentice had suddenly left Burgdeeth. It was just what she had wished for, and she came at once up to Burgdeeth. The story was that the apprentice and the teacher had had an argument, something to do with silver and with trading in Aybil. I don’t know the rest of it. She came leading a pack animal, tall-seeming in her Carriolinian gown, I was told, and regal. She acted every bit the Carriolinian lady, and let herself be entertained at the Set in a manner that no other woman in Ere, save one of Carriol, might have expected. She helped the Landmaster to fashion some of the teaching myths, as much as she loathed doing that, and made herself useful enough so that, what with his need his natural abhorrence at engaging a woman was at last overcome. I had the story from a trader, shortly after she became teacher. I have not spoken with Tra. Hoppa since she left Carriol.

“And you three know the rest. That she has taught more than she was told to teach.

“Most of Tra. Hoppa’s special children have left Cloffi. A few of them, just as you, were the Children of Ynell. They have done much good in Ere, secretly, though some have left Ere, too, and gone into the unknown lands. Perhaps one day they will return to Ere and to Cloffi. Perhaps one day, together, we can bring truth to the Cloffi cities, make Ere a place where people can rule their own lives as they were meant to do.”

“That,” he said slowly, “is why the Children of Ynell are feared in Cloffi. Because they could reveal the Landmasters’ deception, the false history, reveal the twisted religion for what it is: a tool to enslave. And the Kubalese fear the Children too, as spies. But the Kubalese are clever. They fear them, but they use them.” He looked at them for a long time. “In what I am going to ask you to do, I want to make clear that each of you must choose or reject it for yourselves. I am going to ask you to go back to Burgdeeth with deception foremost in your minds, to do the work for which you are better suited than I. You will not be suspected there as I would be.

“I want the other Children of Ynell. I want the younger ones brought away safely, the ones I feel are in greater danger now than ever before in Ere’s history. I believe the Kubalese smith is there to take them if he can, and that it will be dangerous indeed to slip them away from him. I want you three—but Zephy and Meatha most, for you are of Burgdeeth—to help me in this, to help all of Ere and your true brothers and sisters in this. But I want you only willingly. If you have doubts, I do not want your promise.

“War may come to Cloffi, and if that happens, I believe that all the Children of Ynell, even you two, will die or be taken captive for the use of the Kubalese.

“On the day of Market, it was Kearb-Mattus who alerted the Deacons that I might be a menace, who encouraged them to drive me out at once. He trusts me no less[more?] than I trust him.”

Zephy thought of the gold coin hidden on the black goat, of the game of search-and-seek in the alley, and all at once she saw clearly the answer to the questions that had puzzled her. “He is searching for them!” She cried. “Kearb-Mattus is searching out the Children of Ynell!”

Anchorstar nodded.

“But he—but he . . .” she swallowed, and felt sick. “Three children have died in Burgdeeth. He has killed them!” She stared at Anchorstar. Meatha had gone white.

“No,” Anchorstar said softly, “Kearb-Mattus had killed no child.”

“But he . . . Nia Skane is dead! And the two little boys who drowned. They were all children who . . . bright children, different children! How can you . . .” her disappointment at Anchorstar flared too quickly.

He remained calm, his expression steady and appraising. “Not dead,” he repeated at last. “They were taken.” He banked the fire and poured wine from the flagon into pewter mugs.

“But I saw her body, Nia’s body, and the little boys—”

“Only taken,” he repeated. “They were made to seem dead, they were viewed as dead in the ceremonies, white as death with the drug MadogWerg that the Kubalese keep.”

Zephy remembered Nia’s white face. Surely it had been death she had looked upon. Then she remembered the hunting party in the street the night of Nia’s funeral, remembered Kearb-Mattus’s dark figure pulling the cape over something tied behind his saddle.

Anchorstar saw her thoughts and nodded. ‘Taken,” he repeated softly. “Made captive, prisoner for the uses of the Kubalese.”

“What kind of use?” She breathed, sweating with sudden fear. “And where? Where are they?”

“I do not know where. It is part of the work to be done, to find them. The mind drug is so potent that the children seem truly as dead, their minds inactive. No other Child of Ynell, seeking them out in their thoughts, has been able to sense the slightest hint of them. But I am certain they are alive. The Kubalese value the Children. They fear them, yes, as spies against Kubal. But they value them, too, as spies on their own side, if they can, with drugs and mind-forming, make the Children twisted in their thoughts so their allegiance is to Kubal alone.”

“That is what they want,” Thorn said. “That is what you have traveled across Ere to prevent. Spies. Faithful, mind-twisted spies.”

“But how can they!” Meatha breathed. “How can they make the Children—even with drugs . . . 1 wouldn’t, I never would spy for Kubal!”

“The youngest children will,” Anchorstar answered. “Those who can be made to believe untruths about Kubal, just as children are made to believe untruths about the Luff’Eresi by the Temple training in Cloffi. It is easy to train a young child’s mind into falsehood if you take time and skill with it and have nothing to counteract the training. The drugs will prevent their knowing the Kubalese intent until it is too late even for the Children of Ynell, until there has been subtle damage to their minds, so that they learn to love the corrupt. A Child of Ynell can be turned to evil just as anyone else can, can be made to lust after falsehood and evil, and desire to control others with his skill; never doubt it. But it would be difficult indeed to train you older ones, if you are strong-minded. Not without a good deal subtler effort than the Kubalese are prepared to put forth. The young ones are more malleable, and the young ones’ own passions can betray them. The young ones, and those older ones who are weak. Kearb-Mattus wants only the Children who can be made to want to use their powers for Kubal. He does not want you, you three are a threat to the Kubalese plans, if indeed Kearb-Mattus knows what your talents are.” He sighed and laid a hand on Meatha’s hair as if he, as Tra. Hoppa, found her delicacy and beauty a source of sadness.

“I believe the Kubalese will not attack Burgdeeth until all the young Children of Ynell have been taken by Kearb-Mattus. Though the last one or two might be taken at the very beginning of the attack. I would think that only a few are left in Burgdeeth even now.”

“But how can Meatha and I get them away?” Zephy said. Then she saw Meatha frozen into that inner speaking. Zephy paused and delved deep into the silence, into the voiceless words; and she saw the tunnel. Meatha was showing Anchorstar the tunnel that ran beneath Burgdeeth.

She understood that the Children could be taken there, hidden there until the small hours of darkness when they could be led away to meet Anchorstar beyond the house-gardens. Yes, perhaps it could be done. If only their talent for seeing were stronger. And then she saw the stone, lying in its niche, and she knew they had the power. The power was there, the stone was the key, the weapon that would strengthen their talents. Meatha showed it to Anchorstar, and his exaltation was great, his look intense as he examined the experience they had had with it; the vision Zephy shared with Thorn now, so he was there with her seeing the gods, feeling the immensity of space and of light.

Then Anchorstar’s voice rang deep in their minds, as a prophecy would ring, and Zephy knew he spoke the words he had spoken to Thorn on the mountain when first he came into Cloffi.

I seek a lost runestone, a stone of such power that the true gift would come strong in one who held it. Found by the light of one candle, carried in a searching, and lost in terror. Found in wonder, given twice, and accompanying a quest and a conquering . . . And the time to wield that power may be soon, for there are rumors across the land. . . .

Zephy stared at Thorn and felt, a chill touch her, of fear and of anticipation. They stood looking at each other, linked, shaken, lifted into a dimension that exalted and terrified her.