The Castle Of Hape. Caves Of Fire And Ice. The Joining Of The Stone

When he came at last out of the marsh where the river foamed over rocks, he was among scattered farms, fields of whitebarley and mawzee, fat grazing animals lifting their heads to watch him pass. A horse nickered, but Ram’s horses did not return the greeting, remained quiet and subdued. The sun had dropped behind hills, leaving a pale orange wash preceding nightfall. The council would be meeting now in the citadel, would sit around the meeting table, the jade runestone gleaming in the center. Outside the portal, the thin moons would rise. The council would lay careful plans for the protection of Carriol—plans perhaps destined to go awry, he thought bitterly. And they would discuss Jerthon’s attack on Kubal. Jerthon, riding out again so soon to battle. Jerthon who was more father to Ram than a real father could have been: Seer, teacher of Seer’s powers, his mentor since the days Ram first turned to him for protection from the dark Pellian.

Jerthon, whom his mother loved but would not marry because of the guilt she carried and refused to put aside.

Ram wished she would come to her senses. She need feel no guilt, she had proven that. He wished she would marry Jerthon and be done with this stupidity. Eresu knew, Jerthon wanted her. It was Jerthon who had drawn forth, from Tayba’s willful spirit, power undreamed; more power even than Ram had imagined his mother possessed. It was Jerthon who had taught her to use that power, who had loved her for the strengths he saw despite her weaknesses.

And he had seen her look at Jerthon. He knew what she felt for him. Yet she wouldn’t marry him, felt she alone was responsible for their partial defeat in Burgdeeth, for having to leave the town in Venniver’s hands; felt now, Ram knew, a burning guilt that a child had burned in Venniver’s fires. Believed that without her near-betrayal, her partial betrayal, Burgdeeth would now stand as a free city, and safe for Seers.

And she was, Ram knew, very likely right. Well, but you could not carry guilt all your life. She had made amends, made a new life; she was a fierce, willing fighter for what Jerthon and all of them stood for. Why in Urdd didn’t she marry Jerthon and give him, and herself, some happiness?

*

The cool light of evening washed the citadel. The sea roared like a large, slow animal, and wind hushed through the portals smelling sharply of salt and kelp. Tayba pulled her red cloak lightly around her shoulders and stared almost transfixed at the runestone: powerful talisman, shard of deep green jade, jagged where it had split away from the whole sphere, smooth and rounded at the large end and marked with incomplete runes. A stone that, if it had not been for her lusting, stupid hungers, might lie here whole now, round, perfect and immensely more powerful—though even this shattered shard could concentrate and strengthen the powers of the Carriolinian Seers. Only . . . not enough. Not enough power to battle the Pellian Seers in their new, incredible force.

And this jagged bit of jade was a symbol, too, of the frightening powers Tayba found within herself and which she had not, even yet, learned to deal with easily; though she tried. With Jerthon’s help, she tried.

There sat at the council table eight of Carriol’s fifteen Seers. Five of the eight had come to Carriol from Burgdeeth twelve years ago after freeing themselves from Venniver’s slave cell. They were Tayba; Jerthon, who sat with his back to the portal, the fading light casting a halo around his red hair; his sister Skeelie, her wrists protruding from her tunic as usual, her skewered hair awry, her dark eyes timed to some inward pain as she tried without success to See Ramad on his lonely journey—none of their skills were worth a spoon of spit since the dark Seers had learned to master such cold, impregnable force.

The fourth of the group was Drudd. He sat as far from Tayba as he could manage. Always he avoided her as deliberately as he had done in Burgdeeth. Then, he had had reason to do so. The short stocky forgeman, who had worked by Jerthon’s side to forge the great bronze statue they had left behind them in Burgdeeth, had never ceased to dislike her. But he was a true good man, loyal perhaps beyond all others to both Ram and Jerthon and their cause.

The fifth of those from Burgdeeth was young freckled Pol, a good-natured lad, skilled Seer, though he seldom said much. He was always there when one wanted something done, always there when a raid must be led or a scout sent out in the middle of a freezing night.