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

Fear twisted in his stomach as he mounted. He turned to look back at her, wanted to say, Come with me, Telien. But she was too weak. He watched Rhymannie reach to lick her face. He mounted the silver stallion and was gone into the sky.

 

 

 

Part Three:Telien

 

Love’s will cannot be drawn against the will of Time, but must swing with it. Love’s fate cannot be shaped by the minds of those who love: except as they cleave to the infinity of power that carves out all life. Except as they cleave to the spirit that has birthed them.

There is no path through the fulcrum of Time, there is no promise that one will return, no promise that one will not die lost in Time and alone. There is no promise that what one seeks will be given.

And you who are Seer born, your mission is perilous. If you hold the power of the jade or hold a taint of that stone, those who are dark will lust for it, and follow.

And think not the gods to save you.

Think not the gods to meddle. To twist and warp your path through Time, and so destroy your freedom. You are thrown into Time alone, and so alone shall you travel. And if you come, one to another swept on the tides of Time, and if you cleave one to another, perhaps you cleave then to the power that carves out all life, to the spirit that has birthed you. And if you cleave so one to another, then shall you cleave to joy though Time itself spin you broken as flotsam upon its eternal shore.

 

 

 

NINE

 

Blackcob, scarred from the Kubalese raids, now stood sullen indeed with the ravages of the mountain fires. For, though the lava had not touched her to set her aflame, the volcanoes’ refuse lay around her feet, lava boulders scattered as far as one cared to look, spewed out by the Voda Cul in a tidal flood when the blocked river had finally broken free: black, twisted rock lying now all around the foot of Blackcob’s stumpy hill. And the settlement itself covered with ash, the ruined houses and sheds, the rooftops gray as death, and the ash still drifting down like dirtied snow.

Skeelie and Berd were unsaddling, Berd’s pale beard catching in the harness as he leaned forward. The two young soldiers were bringing hay. Skeelie stared with dismay at the patched fences and sheds, at the great patch of blackened boulders below, ruining the town’s whitebarley fields and gardens. She paid no attention to Berd watching her, she could have been alone, felt far too upset by the condition of Blackcob and by her premonitions about Ram to be civil to anyone.

No one knew where Ram was, she could not sense him now as she had so short a time ago, but the feeling that he would come was intense; and her awful sense of pain remained, pain soon to be known; and she felt she could not face its coming.

Maybe she was imagining it, maybe the fighting and strain of these last days had put wild ideas into her head, maybe Telien was not the same girl at all. But she knew better, knew Ram would come and that with his coming something in her life would change, would die; that she would be truly alone. And—it seemed to her that something terrible waited, something beyond her own pain, but she could not sense its shape, could not put a name to it.

Curse the fettering destruction of their Seers’ powers. The sense of strength she had felt in the ruins, when Ram was freed at last of Burgdeeth, the power she had sensed then when they had all beheld that vision—now it seemed to be fading. What had it been, that power? Was it a strength of the mountain, fading now that those thundering peaks had quieted? A vision would come so suddenly, then be cut away again. Maybe . . . did it come clear while BroogArl’s attention was focused elsewhere, perhaps? While he was strung taut with the conflict of some battle? Did Pelli raid Farr and Aybil, too? Perhaps for supplies? Was it only then, preoccupied, that BroogArl loosed his powers? And then, in his sudden rousing to their increased strength, did he lay hard on them again to destroy that strength?

And the sense of something else bothered her, too. As if someone else were blocking her powers of Seeing, someone . . . Was there something unfinished in Carriol? Was Jerthon hiding something from her, blocking her senses? But why would he? Oh, it was her imagination run loose. What would Jerthon hide from her, and why?

She removed her saddle with mechanical motions, plunging deeper into despair, turned away from Berd when he reached to take her saddle, his old, wrinkled face twisted with concern for her. She was rubbing saddle marks from her horse’s back when a farmer standing high on his shed roof waved his hammer and shouted, “Winged one! Winged one and rider. A Seer . . .”