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

When Lobon woke, the wind was still. Moonlight touched the cavern from above; and the mountain was trembling in long, violent rumbles; that was what had waked him. All around him winged ones were up, balancing with open wings, for the ledge had become a turmoil of moving rock. Meatha clung to a dark stallion; the white mare pushed close to Lobon crying, Mount, Lobon! Mount! The shocks were violent, wave upon wave. The cave could shift or collapse, they could be trapped here. Lobon grabbed Feldyn and lifted him between the mare’s wings, and she leaped toward the hole above. He got Crieba mounted, felt the wolf’s fear. “Hang on with your teeth! Crouch between her wings and hang on!” He saw Meatha mounted and flung himself onto a pale stallion, grabbed a handful of mane, and felt the world drop away from him as he was swept away; felt wings fold tight around him as the stallion slipped through the hole; felt drowned by wind as the stallion beat his way out onto the open sky to make way for those coming behind.

They were free of the cave. Free. But they stood on unsteady, trembling ground; and then suddenly they were caught in a confusion of battle come out of nowhere, out of the sky all around them, no hint, no sense of it beforehand. Heavy wings beat at them, sharp-toothed lizards tore at them, diving, then wheeling away. Lobon had no weapon. The stallion he rode struck and bit. The sky was filled with lizards. Winged horses screamed. Lobon tried to see Meatha, felt teeth tear his arm. The sound of beating wings, of screams, of the earth thundering, all were mixed and confused. The stallion struck and struck, and soon below Lobon could see a dark smear of bodies on the moonwashed earth. Lizards? Horses of Eresu? Where were Feldyn, Crieba?

Meatha’s command was sharp. The wolf bell, Lobon! Use the power you carry!

But he had no chance, for the lizards were drawing away. Almost as quickly as they had come, they were gone, a stutter of wings then a black flock like huge birds against the moonwashed sky.

Why? What had called them away?

The stallion came to earth. Lobon slid down. The dark stallion who carried Meatha winged to earth and she slipped down, to rest her head against the horse’s withers. Ere’s two moons hung like half-closed eyes in an empty sky. Lobon stared at Meatha.

“Why did they leave? It was Kish guiding them. Why would she call them off?”

“She never meant for them to attack,” she said with certainty. “They—can’t you feel it? She can hardly control them. She meant only to follow us. She has sensed something—something . . .” She frowned, groping to put vague images together. “She has sensed something—that I have sensed, Lobon.” She was trembling with the need to See more clearly. What was it? So close, so urgent yet so hard to See. “Something that has lain in my thoughts. Something Anchorstar knew,” she whispered. “Kish senses it.” She turned to look away in the direction the lizards had disappeared. “Kish means to follow us, Lobon. She thinks we will seek—that we . . .”—she caught her breath—“. . . that we know where the eighth stone lies!”

They stared at one another. Slowly, frowning, she began to pull knowledge out of the deeper reaches of her mind, reaches touched by Anchorstar. Slowly a vision began to unfold, the vision Anchorstar had given her: a green valley and the crystal dome. A white-haired child. And, as if she had forgotten half the vision, a sense of power now couched beneath the crystal dome: power that could be only one thing.

“A stone lies there,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He Saw the vision as clearly as she. The wolves Saw it. A shard of the runestone beneath a crystal dome in the center of a bright green valley.

“Kish sees it, too,” Meatha said.

“She means to follow. She means to see us find the stone, and then . . . then . . .”

She reddened, swallowed. “Then see our child born. Take the stones and our child.” She felt a stab of pain as if, indeed, there were a child, tender and helpless child so very vital to Ere. And now she felt pain and shame at having taken the stones from Carriol, pain at her self-deception. And she saw in Lobon’s eyes the knowledge of his own self-deception. She felt his shame at having so long ignored the truth of what he must do, and what his life must mean.

She touched his shoulder. He put his arms around her, rested his brow against her hair, and they knew as one the blind, twisted paths they had both followed, so willful, so dangerous for Ere. Something of their spirits joined in that moment that could never again be parted.

Something much dearer, much stronger than Kish could ever create with her spells.

At last they stepped apart without speaking.