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

The Luff’Eresi roared in his mind, Cannot! We cannot do such a thing! And it is not the right of any of us to ask Telien to abandon what she is about. You must abide, Ramad! And no creature of Ere can stop a tantrum of nature! People—simple people, Ramad—believe we make the fires. We do not do that, no more than are we gods! To think we are gods makes them feel safe, for that is easier to understand than to try to understand our differences. And they think we make the fires because that is the easiest thing to believe. But humans grow, Ramad. They believe, then they question that belief. They find a new truth, then question again. They come at last, by a long painful route, to real truth. And that truth, Ramad, is more shot with wonder than ever was the myth.

Ram looked around at the light-washed bodies moving on the wind, so alien to him yet so right. “How does . . .” he began, and felt very young and unsure. “How do we know the truth when at last we find it, then? How do we, when some think each belief is truth?”

The Luff’Eresi’s laugh was a windswept roar. You prove it, Ramad. At each belief humans find ways to think they prove that belief. At last one day they will understand how to find real proof, to look at the small, minute parts of a thing and understand its nature from that. Even then, Ramad, even when he is able to prove, humans will only see the beginning of proof and think that is everything.

Ram puzzled over this and stored it away to ponder at a later time, felt awed by the thoughts it began to awaken within him. He could see Kubal now, off to his left, lit by the dropping sun. He turned, stared back toward the eastern mountains and saw smoke rising there and a stream of red lava winding down toward the Voda Cul, for there in the east, too, a mountain had erupted. Twisting around, holding a handful of mane to steady himself, he stared out beneath Dalwyn’s lifting wings to see five peaks spaced around the rim of the Ring of Fire, spewing smoke: all along the ring, then, some great underground force was belching up. He turned back, looked toward Carriol. The ruins did not seem threatened, nor the loess plains in the north. Blackcob, farther west, was the only part of Carriol that lay directly below the fires, and even there the lava was well to the north of her. Carriol’s coast lay untouched, softened in mists that rose from the sea. He longed for the peace of his cave room, with the rippling sea light washing across its ceiling, the roar of the sea like a second heartbeat. He imagined Telien there, then turned away from that thought.

They were past the mountains now and above the foothills near Burgdeeth. Ram leaned across the stallion’s neck to stare down at the grassy, empty hills, and at the great desert plain south beyond Burgdeeth that brought sharp memories. He had fled from the Seer HarThass’s apprentice across that plain, he and Tayba, he a child of eight, and Tayba caught willingly in HarThass’s web so she had nearly got him killed.

The stallion landed between rocky knolls, but the Luff’Eresi remained skyborne like a bright, swirling cloud above him. We leave you here, Ramad of wolves, but we will return. Now go you into Burgdeeth. Become Venniver’s captive there—if you believe in us, if you trust us to return, if you believe in what you want of us. Go, and allow yourself to be taken.