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

He felt the stallion sweep suddenly in a different direction, seeking again, disoriented and unable to touch the others with his thoughts. The great horse’s direction was confused and uncertain. They soared low between mountains where smoke still rose sullenly, dropped down across a valley that steamed from the cooling lava. Everywhere there was lava going gray, burned brush and trees. The sweating stallion moved with the same uncertainty that a crippled bat might move, sensing his direction then foiled of it suddenly, blinded again so his course changed, changed again. Dalwyn grew weary, his wings heavy; the hot air did not hold him well. He came down at last to rest.

It was well after midday. Ram dismounted beside a stream bed dried up, the land above it charred. Between ancient boulders he found a protected place where the heat had not come so fiercely and dug with his knife until at last he uncovered a bit of dampness. They waited for an interminable time until the water had oozed up to make a small pool from which Dalwyn could drink. Ram said, “You cannot hold the sense of the red stallion, Dalwyn. Will we ever find them?”

Dalwyn lifted his head. He did not know. Rougier would come into his mind then fade at once, and Dalwyn’s idea of the direction would twist and become confused. He was as the hunting birds of old Opensa that were whirled around in baskets until they had no notion of which way were their eyries, and so returned to their masters at last in confused submission.

So were the dark Seers confusing Dalwyn now.

“But why? Such a little thing as finding Telien . . . Ram stared at the stallion with rising anger. “Why should BroogArl care if . . .” Then he stiffened. Why should BroogArl care? And why should he not care? It was Telien—Telien who would bring another stone into Ere!

Of course BroogArl wanted her lost. Lost to Ram and to Ere, forever. Ram laid a hand on Dalwyn’s withers, touched his sweating sides. “We must find her, and soon.” He took off his jerkin and began to rub the stallion down, wiping away sweat, smoothing his coat. When water had seeped again into the cupped sand, Dalwyn drank a second time, then they were off, Ram forcing his powers now against BroogArl, against the Hape, in an aching effort to stay the dark while Dalwyn circled, sought out Rougier, and swept off in a direction from which they had recently come. The air was smokey, drifting with ash, so hot in some places, that their vision was blurred. Ram held with great effort against the dark, felt the strength of the wolf bell sustaining him, held so until at last Dalwyn swept down suddenly and surely to the mouth of a cave high in a dark peak, and Ram knew she was there, could sense her there.

Dalwyn came down fast to the lip of the cave. Ram slid off and was inside running downward into the darkness. He startled the mare. The little foal jumped away from him in alarm. He laid a hand on the mare’s cheek. He was sorry to have frightened her. But Telien—Telien was not there.

He searched the small cave for other openings. There was one; but he turned back to the entrance, the mare directed him back. Dalwyn called to him in silence.

Outside on the mountain, he followed the silver stallion up a thin thread of path that climbed steeply beside a steep drop. The heat was terrible here, rising from the burned hills. He found Telien at last, lying cold as death, inches from the drop. How could she be cold? The air was stifling. She was barely conscious, shivering, her skin like ice. He lifted her and held her, trying to warm her. She whispered so low he could barely hear her, “The ice—it’s so slippery. I can’t climb, I can’t get to the grass. She is so hungry . . .”

Ice? The mountain was hot as Urdd. And yet her hands and face were freezing cold, her tunic cold and wet and, in the creases, stiff with ice crystals that melted at his touch. He stared at the swollen, blood-crusted wound on her forehead, and a memory of just such a wound made him feel the pain again. He knew at once the dizziness she felt, the nausea, guessed her confused state.

But why was she cold?

Her arms and legs, her face were scraped and dirty. Her legs were black with ash but smeared, too, with the melting ice. Beneath the grit her skin was pale. Her hair was tangled with twigs and dead sablevine and dulled with ashes. When he tried to smooth it, she sighed, reached to touch his hand, then dropped her own hand, palm up curving in innocence. But then she looked at him suddenly without recognition, fell into sleep again, frightening him anew.