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

“Mamen and I ran away across the black desert toward Burgdeeth. EnDwyl followed us, riding out with an apprentice Seer on fast horses, overtook us as we were nearly into Burgdeeth. I—I called the wolves, then, Telien. In my fear of EnDwyl, I called the great wolves, wolves for the first time, called them down from the mountains to save us. It was . . .” He felt again that thrill, that overriding exaltation diminishing even his terrible fear of their pursuers. “The wolves came streaming down from the mountains, running like great shadows swiftly over the land. Fawdref was young then. Fierce as now. He . . . the wolves would have killed both men, had I not stopped them. EnDwyl held a knife at Tayba’s throat. To save her, Fawdref set EnDwyl free.”

He held her tight to him, aroused by the memory of fear, of that first time the wolves surged around him; sharing this with her, aroused by Telien. He took her face in his hands. How perfect the bones. Her eyes were huge, so clear. Something in him had always been missing since that moment on Tala-charen. And now it was not missing.

She studied his face with great concentration. “When I was a child, Ram, before my mother died, I used to dream of someone—I was always alone, even with other children. I felt as if I were waiting for someone.

“When I grew older, when AgWurt brought our band up into Kubal, I . . . the men treated me badly. But always I thought there was someone who would not. Who would care. Who would know how I felt without my speaking of it, who would be . . .”

When he kissed her, they belonged to the mountain, belonged to Ere’s moons, to the stars reeling and to Ere’s winds: belonged to that vortex in Time when time mattered not.

*

He woke before dawn with a sense of intense pleasure, then was twisted awake and plunged into terrible dread by a clear vision. Carriol was at war, engaged in a battle unlike earlier attacks, a battle in which all in Carriol fought the dark Seers. He sat up, flinging the covers back, Saw the attack all across Carriol, every little farm and croft, Saw Jerthon’s battalion riding hard—but away from Carriol! He stared into the darkness, Saw where Jerthon rode, straight for Pelli! Fast and heavily armed. Three battalions remained in Carriol and they battled the fierce Herebian attacks in skirmishes all across Carriol’s fields and woods. Ram rose, felt the emptiness suddenly, turned back to the stone shelf, and saw that Telien was gone.

He lit tinder, stared around the cave, saw the wolves lined up at the cave mouth and felt their voices, felt Meheegan’s voice. Yes, Telien was gone. Gone utterly. Gone not only from this place, gone out of Time itself, gone this instant as he woke—and they could not prevent it. Ram leaped for the cave mouth shouting her name, spun around to stare back into the cave in bewilderment, snatched up the wolf bell and sent his power winging out to find her—felt no breath of her. “Telien! Telien!” He drove with every strength he possessed to surge across space and time seeking Telien.

He could touch nothing but emptiness.

At last he subsided into cold defeat, and then the battle in Carriol engulfed him once more, against his will. Fawdref came to him, mourning Telien with opaque, distant-focused eyes; but alarmed, too, by the battle, tense with it as a wolf is tense stalking prey.

And now Ram began to sense that all across Ere Seers were stirring to the call of battle. He gripped the wolf bell, trying to force clarity to the breath of vision he touched, saw at last dark leaders raise their eyes as the harsh vibrations of battle touched their twisted minds; for this battle had to do with them, this balance of evil and light to do with them. Slowly Ram felt the slippery and the watchful reach out toward the dark wood, to bring their forces under the powers of Hape.

And he sensed that all across Ere gentle Seers, too, Seers who had moved unrecognized among men, hidden in fear, had begun at last to yearn again, to test their unused powers, to stand taller, to shake off their fear of discovery and listen with widening senses. And they, too, reached out toward Pelli—but, cowards too long, they were now afraid to bring their powers to battle the Pellian Seers, and they paused, ridden by confusion. They might have helped Jerthon, might have laid themselves unto a stronger master and thrown their forces with Jerthon; but they were too weakened by their own failures, too afraid.