The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

ELEVEN

Venniver reached to spear some roast stag from the tray Tayba held, then returned to his argument with Theel. He hardly noticed her. “. . . doesn’t matter, he’s of no use now, I’m finished with him. The statue . . .”

“He could be of use,” Theel said dryly. “Making tools. The forgeman—there’s a lot needed. One forgeman can’t—”

“We’ll have more craftsmen soon. Next time we go down into Zandour to trade.”

“I suppose so,” Theel said. “The Seer is a troublemaker.”

She turned away, sick at what Venniver intended; sick with the unease that had gripped her all afternoon, that held her now with such power that every movement seemed an effort. Her mind was hazy, confused. She heard Venniver say, “He could make problems. We . . .” Her thoughts turned coldly to the statue in the square.

She had stood beneath gathering storm clouds just before she came in to serve supper, led inexorably to the square to stare up at the complete statue, the rearing bronze god, the winged horses lifting against a last harsh slash of sun that died quickly. She had been touched with awe at its beauty, but had felt something else, too. Something imminent and secret and upsetting. The statue was completed. Something would happen now. Was happening. Ram’s danger was part of it—and a seething, terrible turmoil in the minds around her that she could not—would not—decipher. That was part of it. Forces looming, drawing in . . . the statue . . .

But her mind led her away from the statue in a morass of confusion, away from some knowledge. She could not settle, stood staring at the roast stag, the smell of it nauseating her. What force was all around her, pressing at her? She closed her eyes. What was it she should know? The statue—she felt Jerthon push into her mind suddenly, taking away that which she had almost seen, almost known. She stood scowling, her hands like ice.

Confused and frustrated, she left the dining hall at last to stand in the door to the street.

The damp rising wind changed direction, fitful as a cat. The clouds lay low, heavy as stone. Rain would come soon. The fading light was gray and dull. As she turned, she saw a figure slipping behind a building; a slave, she thought, a slave alone and free, hiding in shadow. Yes, the slave called Pol. Thin, freckled beneath a thatch of red hair. Hiding from the guards. Why was he . . . ? And suddenly and clearly, a vision flooded her mind. She stood hardly breathing; Seeing, knowing; knew the slaves had escaped; knew Jerthon’s plan, every detail in one terrifying instant.

They had come out of the statue’s hollow base through a little door. Even now while she stood staring at the empty street they were moving through the town unseen, attacking the guards in the tower, taking the weapons there, breaking the cell door from without to make it seem that was their way of escape; were sealing the hole in the cell floor with mortar, sealing the side tunnel into the pit they had left only a little hole up into the grove among boulders; that, and the entrance in the statue, its door so cleverly made that a man could stare right at it and never know it was there.

She knew where more weapons were cached. She knew where Dlos had hidden food in the storeroom. She turned, drawing in her breath. At that moment slaves were slipping down the corridors of the Hall behind her, stealing into rooms, snatching up weapons. She clutched at the wall, fear gripping her, and a terrible urgency.

They meant to take Burgdeeth. Her pulse was pounding. Venniver would die this night. She felt a terrible tenderness for him suddenly, a oneness with him that she had never felt for another—in spite of his cruelty. Because of his cruelty, perhaps. Because of his genius. Burgdeeth as he planned it would die this night. The Temple, the beautiful Set . . . Venniver’s dream.

She fled back into the hall. Venniver was laughing at some joke; she could not make him listen, shook his shoulder impatiently, driven by urgency and sickened by something that tried to silence her. Venniver turned, scowling, as she fought for breath.

“What is it? What?”

“The slaves, they . . . The battle within her was fierce, as if hands gripped her and twisted her away. She could hardly speak. “The slaves,” she choked at last, “the slaves are out—with weapons.”

The guards were on their feet snatching up swords and sectbows, Theel staring at her for a moment then hurrying away. Venniver held her wrist in a steel grip. “How? How did they get out?”

“I don’t know. I saw them in the street. I don’t know how, they—they will kill you!” She felt sick at what she was doing, could not control her trembling.

He loosed her wrist, rose, and swung away from her. She stood staring after him in turmoil; and she saw Ram suddenly in a vision against the boiling sky as if he stood on top the world, saw him thrown to the ground, falling, boulders pelting down, and felt immense forces battling there. Then she saw riders pounding fast up along the river toward Burgdeeth, their horses slick with rain, their wet capes whipping in the wind, their faces—EnDwyl. EnDwyl and the Pellian Seers approaching fast as Venniver’s guards battled slaves in the dark streets. She was Seeing, she thought, swallowing. Seeing—willing herself to See.

She saw Jerthon’s eyes then, demanding something of her, saw the danger she had wrought for him, his anger; didn’t know who was right or if there was a right. She saw men locked in battle, men fall in their own blood; she stood gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles white.

The slaves would die because of her. Would die. Jerthon would die. . . .

But the dark pulled at her and soothed her. She saw HarThass’s soldiers plunge across the river into the streets, saw Jerthon facing two guards in desperate battle. She heard Ram scream out in fury, fierce as death itself.

She ran out into the street, stood staring in panic at the bloody fighting, saw a slave lying dead beside the steps.

She knelt, opened the dead man’s fingers, and slipped his bloody sword from his hand.

*

The children ran up the spiraling flight past rooms open to the winds, and heard fire ogres screaming behind them; past bright rooms and saw only flashing colors as they ran, their breaths catching. The flight ended in a fall of water. They dove in, stood beneath the downpour as the red flame of fire ogres drew close outside, gibbering, unable to enter.

They came out soaking into a beautiful room, its window thick in the mountain wall, its curved benches deep with bright pillows. At one side a flight led up. They climbed. No one had breath to speak. In the next chamber, water fell again, and in the next twelve chambers led upward, and outside the windows the sky darkened, and rain came whipping to damp the thick sills. Lightning broke the night, and thunder; and that other dark rose with them, an incubus they could not shake. And as the wolves gazed upward, the lust of killing came into their eyes. Ram stopped on a stair and took Fawdref’s heavy head in his hands. The great wolf’s eyes were full of a need that chilled and excited him; and Fawdref’s mind gave back only silence.

“They want to kill,” Skeelie breathed, watching. She stared upward toward the unseen hollow peak of Tala-charen. “What is up there? They . . .”

“Whatever it is, HarThass—HarThass is there too. His forces are in Burgdeeth, are fighting Jerthon, bloody in the streets, in the dark rain.” He swallowed. “But he is there above us too—waiting.”

They hurried on, the wolves predatory and stalking. They came at last to the top of Tala-charen, into a cave lit softly by the glowing stone of the floor, as if they stood on a lake of bright water. Skeelie stared at it, hesitating to step, as if it would give way. “What is it?”

“Termagant. You know, in the myth of the sea god, the stone that catches daylight and holds it for the night.”

She stared, then stepped delicately. And as their eyes grew accustomed, the cave seemed to brighten even more. The walls undulated around the curved open space in the natural formation of the mountain, with a ceiling curving down, a smooth dome decorated all over with inlaid stone in the patterns of animals: the triebuck, mythical creatures, and stag and winged horses and birds, great golden lizards, flying snakes colored like jewels.

It was quite empty, a cool empty room; yet the wolves stood growling, heads lowered. And as the children watched, they became increasingly uneasy. A mist began to form. Only a darkness at first in the center of the cave. Then a deep shadow. Then a cloud, thick and growing heavy.

And it was more than a cloud: it was a shape growing thicker until soon its writhing mass filled the cave. Snakelike, coiling, pushing against walls and ceiling.

Its blunt head sought them, its tongue licked out, its tendrils reached to caress them. Its hungry mouth was fanged, its breath stinking of death. Its pale eyes watched them, and it knew why they had come.

*

Tayba wiped blood from the sword where the slave’s hand had held it, hefted it to get the feel of the grip, then slipped out into the street.

Men shouted, she could hear swords clash; rain swept in her face, dark shapes lurched, appeared suddenly in the downpour and disappeared. She dodged lunging men to search, nearly fell over a fallen, screaming horse. Her hands shook, she ran with fear crowding her—and the dark leading her; knew Venniver and Jerthon had met in battle, ran—there, in the alley.

The dark pulled her on. She felt horror, suddenly and sharply, and did not know why. She reached the alley, saw Venniver’s sword flash through rain. She gripped cold metal. Fury and eagerness took her. She stared at Jerthon. . . .

Then suddenly she went dizzy, was ignobly sick against the stone wall.

Afterward she crouched, drenched and shivering, very ill, staring at the battle; not knowing what she had wanted to do or why she had come. Metal rang as a sword struck stone. “Venniver,” she whispered, her lips numb.

*

The gantroed’s tendrils snaked out; its open mouth wanted blood. Ram dared not take his eyes from it, felt HarThass in it. Fawdref leaped again, the wolves tore at it. Ram hacked snaking tendrils from the great worm, then he raised the bell. His own power seemed small. The beast twisted, a tendril seared his arm. Tendrils flashed around Fawdref, choking him. The wolf fought, snarling, fangs cutting deep. The gantroed coiled tighter. Ram screamed the words of the bell, reached to tear power from Ere’s night; and the gantroed had Skeelie, pulling her flailing toward its hairy mouth. She knifed at the great tongue; the creature screamed and loosed her.

Ram saw Jerthon fall in battle, saw Tayba . . .

Wolves were knocked away by flailing tendrils, leaped again. The gantroed reared, Ram plunged his sword into its pale stomach. It coiled over them screaming. Ram went sick at Tayba’s intent. A wolf leaped, knocked him away as the gantroed struck, its teeth grazing him. He brought his sword across it, into the worm, but his mind was filled with Tayba, his power was with Tayba, turning her, forcing her. Wolves clung like flies to the stinking hide. The coils grew smaller, crushing them. The creature’s blood flowed yellow. Ram felt the dark forces sway; then he saw with surprise that Skeelie was far back in the cave, nearly crushed by the swinging coils.

She crouched beneath the gantroed, dodging as she searched along the cave walls. The snake slammed against her, slapped at her mindlessly with its wormlike arms as it fought Ram and the wolves. Ram rolled away from the churning wolves and ran. Behind him wolves leaped in unison for the gantroed’s head. He heard Skeelie scream, thought she was crushed; he slipped, fell, was pressed into a corner as tentacles lashed him—but he felt the power drumming, a different power now.

He rose, fought to reach her, saw her tearful, frantic face as she searched wildly along the wall with clutching hands. “I can—there is something. I can feel it, but it won’t come clear for me. Ram . . .”

He touched the wall, and it vibrated under his fingers. He felt along it, his fingers sensitive. The gantroed lunged into them, knocking them against the wall. Something—there. The power came strong. He drew out his knife and began to dig at the stone, a bull’s heavy form—yes. Behind it an empty space. He pried stones out, they fell away to lie scattered across the floor.

Inside lay the cask, carved of pale wood.

Ram drew it out, held it with shaking hands, oblivious to the battle, to everything. Felt the spell on it, saw his fingers try to lift the lid, watched his hands pry at it uselessly.

The dark reached, needed to blind him. He could feel HarThass close. He brought his forces trembling against the Seer; saw Tayba’s sword raised . . .

He shouted into the screaming storm. Wind lashed through the chamber.

*

Tayba faced Jerthon quietly, then looked down at Venniver, fallen and bleeding, looked with shock at her blood-covered blade. Jerthon said softly, “You meant to kill me. Why did you change your mind?

“I could—I could do nothing else.” She stared and stared at Venniver, could feel his pain. Was he dying? Had she killed him? Then she looked up at Jerthon and knew she truly could have done nothing, nothing else but save this tall, fierce man who stood before her drenched with rain and blood, searching her face with an honesty he had, at last, forced her to accept.

They saw too late the soldiers leaping through rain to block the alley, dark shapes in darkness, lurching forward; saw HarThass, cape blowing, sword drawn.

Tayba and Jerthon stood together to face the challenge as, behind them, Venniver rolled onto his side and tried to rise; and suddenly all was confusion, and time twisted with a jolting shock and held cold. Space and time were asunder. The alley and cave were as one. Soldiers were poised; Ram’s fingers reached to touch the stone; the mountain rocked. Lightning flashed in a jagged bolt that turned the cave pale, made the gantroed look white. The lightning seared Ram’s hand, struck the Runestone.

It shattered.

The stone lay white hot in his hands. Nine long shards of jade, glowing white.

Then they began to cool. Turned pale green, then darker until they were the deep color of the sea. The Runestone of Eresu, broken apart. The power shattered. Ram stared at the stones, shocked. Felt their terrible weight. Felt the power that remained; it was the same power, only divided. Not whole, not . . .

The mountain trembled again, and the floor beneath their feet began to crack, a long, jagged wound growing wider. They leaped back as the dark abyss widened. The dying gantroed began to slip down into the emptiness.

In Burgdeeth, Venniver rose slowly and painfully to his feet. Jerthon held him captive and held the soldiers back with his threat to Venniver. They watched silently as HarThass approached.

Ram reached to give Jerthon power from the stone he held. And in the cave hazy figures had suddenly appeared all around him, ghostly figures growing clearer. A girl with long brown hair leaped from the back of a winged horse to run toward them; a red-haired young man turned to stare at Ram; a man dressed in blue robes looked up in surprise; others, a pale, lovely young woman who gazed into Ram’s eyes with such recognition that he went giddy with a feeling he had never encountered.

The figures stood with hands cupped upward in ceremony. Ram’s hands were the same, palms up. And the terrible weight of the jade shards was lighter; for now only one section of the Runestone lay in his palm. He stood staring at it stricken with the shattering of the stone, the shattering of that perfect power. Felt the power of the one stone, though. Saw that in those other, ghostly hands, lay shards of jade. Two? Three? He could not be sure. But there had been nine.

Had some gone, then, careening down into the dark abyss? As he stared down into the emptiness, the jagged cavern began to narrow, to close. They all drew back, watching; the ghostly crew mingling quite comfortably among wolves.

The floor closed slowly until only a jagged black scar marred the cave floor. This remained. The gantroed’s bones, white and clean, protruded from it; wedged deep in the mountain, perhaps to mingle with the lost jade.

*

Jerthon held the soldiers frozen, felt HarThass’s power like a tide. He glanced at Tayba. “Are you with me? Help me hold them.” She felt him draw her out. She swallowed, brought her power stronger to lift and surge upward, catching her breath. How did she know to do this? Jerthon faced HarThass, swords clashed; their figures spun, were as one in the dark alley; she held the soldiers back, held Venniver back, straining; gasped as HarThass went down and Jerthon stood over him, his sword at the Pellian’s throat; turned away with shock at the Seer’s quick death.

But they could not hold Venniver long. He rose, came at them bleeding. She faced him sword drawn, as Jerthon whirled and had him in a grip like steel. She stared into Venniver’s eyes, could not speak, his hatred chilling her through. Would Jerthon kill him?

But Jerthon backed away from the guards, Venniver his captive. “He can’t hold that rabble forever.”

“Even—even with the power of the stone? Ram—”

“Even with Ram’s power, in that one shard of jade. HarThass’s apprentices are well trained—out there somewhere. Can’t you feel them?” He glanced at Venniver, held tight against him, then at her, appraising her. “This one will buy our freedom. If it is freedom you want.” He was watching her, but she could only look at Venniver. His hatred was terrible, she stared back at him, sick. Yet that hard, confining shell around herself had cracked away. Something new was determined to live, something beyond what she had known with Venniver. Something more real and urgent than anything in her life. She looked at Venniver and swallowed, looked away. Her tears were mixed with rain, salt and bitter.

She stood beside Jerthon and, in a power she had never admitted, never wanted, she held with him, held the soldiers back. A power that rose, now, from the very core of her being. She stayed the guards, the Pellian Seers, her mind coolly linked with Jerthon’s. They forced Venniver down the street toward the band of mounts that waited, guarded by Dlos. Some of the horses were saddled, some roped together. Derin and Saffoni led horses forward. Tayba could not speak for the effort she made to hold strong against the Pellian forces, against Venniver’s stifled guards. How long she could hold, she did not know.

Slaves were coming out of the dark, some leading the soldier’s horses. The rain had slacked, nearly ceased. She saw men carrying wounded, felt out with Jerthon in quick assessment. He said, “Drudd? Pol?”

“Yes. We are here,” Drudd said, lifting a wounded man up. “Trane is dead. And Vanaw. I don’t think . . . where are the women?”

Derin rode up, leading saddled horses. “They . . . Barban and Hallel are dead.” Her voice caught. “Cirell is here, with Dlos. We . . . must we leave our dead?”

“Yes,” Jerthon said shortly. The rain had ceased. The clouds began to part so that a little light touched the hurrying band as they mounted and sorted themselves out. Tayba could feel Jerthon’s effort with her own, holding their pursuers.

Were there still horses there in the dark street that could be used to pursue them? More slaves were coming. But they were not slaves, she thought suddenly. They were free now. At last, all accounted for, they rode quickly out of Burgdeeth, Venniver tied to his mount, furious and silent, his bleeding staunched with rags.

They turned him loose somewhere above Burgdeeth, to struggle home on foot as best he could. Then they loosed their waning hold on the soldiers and guards and heard them shouting back in the town for horses they would never find.

*

Ram and Skeelie lay on their stomachs in the deep window of the room where they had slept, staring down the steep side of Tala-charen at the wild, empty land. Ram said, “We’ll go down this way, come out in that long valley.”

“But we came the other way, into the other side of the mountain. How—”

“I think . . . I just feel that we can. We’ll have to see. Those stairs—didn’t you wonder how Tala-charen could crack apart but leave the rooms untouched? Didn’t you—”

“Oh, I figured that out,” she said offhandedly. “There, where the mountain bows out. The crack is in there, the other side of the caves.” She stared at Ram, giving him a picture.

She had waked at first light to climb up onto this sill and lie so, looking out at the sun-touched peaks of the lower mountains to the northwest, Tala-charen’s shadow cast long across them. She had seen where the crack in Tala-charen might be. She had slid down from the sill and gone down the spiraled flight to the next room, and the next below it. There the wall was cracked too, the gantroed’s bones pushing through. She had reached in among those bones to search with blind fingers; but no shard of jade had she found, had turned away at last disappointed. Nothing in that dark crack but bones and more bones. She turned to look at Ram.

“Why did the stone shatter? After all that climb and nearly getting killed, the cliff, the fiery lake—if you were meant to have the stone, why did it shatter?”

“It just did,” he said simply. “No one planned it. I wasn’t meant to have the stone—the time was just right that I seek it.”

She only stared at him.

“You don’t think . . . ? The forces on Ere . . . everything was right for me to seek out the stone, but no one planned that I do it. And no one said, ‘Now we will shatter it.’” He watched her, frowning a little. “Mostly it was HarThass’s power, though. He waited too long, he played me too long, like a clumsy fisherman. And then when it was too late he threw all his power into the shattering of the stone, to destroy it. And with the other forces there, wheeling, all that power . . .” He spread his hands. “It—is shattered.”

“But those others, those who came and held the stone then. That wasn’t accident, Ram!”

“Yes it was. It was accident. All—all those forces, balanced like that for an instant, threw—threw us outside of time. And those who desired the power for good—somehow they got through. Maybe—maybe there were others among them. I don’t know. Now,” he said with awe, “in other times there are shards of jade like this one. Power, Skeelie. All strewn across time. Because of accident, because of a clashing of powers—because of one Seer’s lust for power that tipped the scale.”

“What—what will happen because of it?”

He stared out over the mountains silently, longing to See all of time spread before him just as the nameless peaks were spread, but seeing only peaks. “No one . . . no one can know, Skeelie.”

“How can you be so sure? How can you be sure, Ramad of Zandour, that there is not one force making—causing all this to happen?”

“Nobody is sure,” he said patiently. “There is one force. But it is made of hundreds of forces. You can feel it—a Seer can. But it doesn’t make things happen. They just happen. Forces balance, overbalance—that is what makes life; nothing plans it, that would take the very life from all—all the universe.

“But something—something judges,” he said with certainty. “In all of it together, there is a judgment.”

Fawdref came to push close, and Ram put his arm around the great wolf’s neck. “But it is the strength of the force in our little desires for good and evil, Skeelie, that balances and counterbalances and makes things happen. Makes life happen.” He stared hard at her. “It is not planned! Like—like a recipe for making soap!”

He looked out across the unknown mountains, and she could feel in him the challenge of those forces. He tousled Fawdref roughly, making the great wolf smile. Out there—across the unknown lands and back behind them in the seething, warring countries—there was all of life: to explore, to come to terms with in his new power. What could he do, what good could he help to draw from the balancing, ever-changing forces of Ere? She wanted to be with Ram in this, wherever he went, whatever forces he touched.

He took her hand, and they started down out of Tala-charen toward the north.

They emerged on the other side of the mountain from the place where they had started, stood blinking in the bright sun.

The wolves tasted the air, gave the children a parting nudge, and went to hunt Ram and Skeelie started up the long valley, wishing they had horses. “I think,” Ram said, scanning the mountains on either side, “I think. . . .” He knelt found a small stone, scraped away grass, and began to draw on the ground. “Here we are in the valley.” He drew mountains, another valley, a narrow way around mountains and then a valley beyond that, very wide, dotted by lakes of fire and steaming geysers. And beyond that again, cliffs. Then at last a round valley through which the Owdneet flowed. “They are there; they are beginning to pack up. They will come this way, Jerthon knows we are here. Mamen . . .” He began to smile. “Mamen knows! Mamen Sees us, Skeelie!”

“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.

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