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

The city he had come from was as remarkable as he, a city of stone cones naturally formed, perhaps by the volcanoes, and the cones hollowed out by patient carving to make dwellings. Here he had lived all his life. His name was Fithern. He answered their questions carefully, but glanced again and again at the suspended runestone, could not keep his eyes from it, and at last Alardded stopped the questions and allowed Fithern to speak as he would. He was silent for a long while, then he spoke hesitantly but with excitement.

“She carried such stones as that! She carried two of them, and a handful of golden ones, too, stones like stars on fire.” There was utter silence in the citadel. No Seer moved.

“And who was she?” Bernaden said softly. Her chestnut hair and high coloring were caught by the sea light. Her gentle eyes tried to warm the stranger.

“The lady of the wolves, Seer,” he said at last. “The lady who traveled with wolves by her side, who came to our city the first time with the prince of wolves himself.” Fithern sighed. “But when she came to the city of cones the second time, with her child, then the prince of the wolves was not with her. Then the prince of the wolves was dead.” There was a great sadness in his voice, as if he mourned a wonderful and inexplicable glory. Still no Seer stirred.

“What prince of wolves?” Alardded asked softly. “What lady? Of what time do you speak, Fithern? Of your own time? Did you see such people?”

“Oh, yes, in my time, Seer. Though I was very young. The lord and lady of the wolves released our people from a possession, where men moved mindlessly. From possession by a goddess that the lady of the wolves called Wraith—though sometimes she spoke of the creature as Telien. The lady and the prince of the wolves took the goddess away with them and drove its spirit out. They carried the green stones, and when the lady returned, she had them still—four stones, she said, though one was the golden starfires, and one was hidden inside a strange bell that she used to hold when she held the stones, and that would make the wolves cry out. She told us a green stone was inside.”

Alardded sat silent. Surely this man spoke of Ramad, but in their own time? How was that possible? And who was the woman? Then one fact startled them all, the knowledge of it flying among them: They could not read Fithern’s thoughts.

Was that, then, why they had not known of the city of cones, never guessed that these people existed? Surely so.

Tra. Hoppa had come to sit among the Seers, drawn to this man. Her voice was quick and eager, her eyes bright. “How do you know that when the lady of the wolves returned without . . . returned alone, that the lord of the wolves was dead?”

“She mourned for him. She wept in her dwelling alone. She told my people he was dead.”

“And what happened to her?” Tra. Hoppa whispered.

“One day she went away with the wolves and her child and no one saw them go. Everything was left behind, hides, bedding, extra clothes, the pieces of pale parchment she liked to write upon.”

“Parchment, Fithern? And where is it now?” Tra. Hoppa’s voice rose, could hardly contain her excitement. “And what does the parchment tell?”

“It lies in her dwelling just as she left it, lady, ten years gone. But I don’t know what it tells. None of us can read writing.”

He had fled the city of cones when a wandering band of Kubalese had come upon it and murdered many. He had been taken captive by another such band somewhere in the Urobb hills. “They held me for a while in the camp of the leader, Kearb-Mattus,” he said. “I know who he is. And I know the Seer RilkenDal. I learned much from the other captives. I saw Kearb-Mattus and RilkenDal myself once, walking among the captive horses. The Seer RilkenDal was tall and dark and twisted in his walk, and he was choosing horses and causing a strangeness to come over them so they followed him unfettered like dogs.”

Meatha shuddered and huddled into herself. The darkness was moving in around them, moving on Carriol ever more powerfully, dark forces closing them in, forces that must be destroyed.

Only the runestone, the whole runestone, could ever defeat such darkness.

She looked up at the jade at last, so rich a green, suspended alone. It turned in the breeze, catching the sea light. The stone would mark her way. The stone would save Ere, and she would be its servant, to carry it.

It was then she Saw Lobon in sharp vision, Saw that he slept; Saw the dragon slipping close to him and felt his peril sharply. Hardly aware of the Seers around her, blocking without thinking, she brought power in the stone, fierce and sudden—so tense, so lost in vision was she that she was unaware of anything around her as she drove her forces against the advancing dragon. Her blocking was a mindless power born of her lifelong need. The creature she challenged was stalking Lobon like a cat stalking a shrew. It must not kill this Seer. It must not have the stones, she knew no other emotion but this.

 

 

 

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