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

The citadel was the largest hall in the honeycombed natural stone tower that had once been the city of the gods. Here in the citadel the winged gods and the winged horses of Eresu had come together for companionship; a meeting place, a place of solace and joy where the outcast Seers had come too, in gentle friendship. A place where the moving light, cast across the ceiling by the ever-rolling sea, seemed to hold sacred meaning; and the cresting sea made a gentle thunder like a constant heartbeat. Skeelie saw Jerthon lift his chin in that familiar sigh, then turn to stare at Ram, saw Ram speak.

Ram stared at Jerthon for a long solemn moment, then grinned. Jerthon’s appearance in the citadel so suddenly was like the sun coming out. Not dead, not lying wounded in some field, but strolling nonchalantly into the citadel in the middle of the service. Ram wanted to shout and throw his arms around Jerthon. He cuffed him lightly. “Your face is dirty. You could do with a bath. Was it bad in the north?”

“Yes, bad.” There was a deep cut across Jerthon’s chin and neck. His red hair, darker than Ram’s, was pale with chalky dust. He was quiet as usual, contemplative. Had learned to be, with half his life spent in slavery to the tyrant Venniver. Had learned not to be hot-headed as Ram still was sometimes. Jerthon’s voice showed the strain of the last days. “We lost near twenty men, lost horses. The Kubalese took captives heavy in Blackcob, took men, women and children—took most of the horses roped together, and the captives made to run before them.” His jaw muscles were tight, his eyes hard. “We relied too long on the skills of Seeing, Ram, and now we are crippled without them. Our scouts saw too little, our border guards did not sense the Herebian scouts or the Herebian bands slipping in. Oh, we routed those that didn’t go riding off with captives and stolen horses before we could rally ourselves. They set on us in waves, there must have been bands from half a dozen Herebian strongholds. Raiders creeping out like rats to snatch and kill and disappear. And something—” Jerthon stared at Ram with a barely veiled slash of fear in his eyes. “Something rides with them, Ram. Something more than the dark we know, something . . . dense. Like an impossible weight on your mind so the Seeing is torn from you and your very sanity near torn from you.”

“Yes. I know that feeling. I had it too. We all did.”

“We must never again—never—allow our senses to be so dulled by reliance on Seeing alone. We must guard against that. We must train against it.”

“Yes. I know we must.”

Jerthon pushed back a lock of red hair so violently that a cloud of the white dust rose to drift in motes on the still citadel air. “I think the hordes will not march here, though I’ve given orders for double guard and for mounts kept ready.” He grew silent, as if he were drawn away. The choir’s voices rose to hit along the ceiling like the wash of sea light.

“. . . faith then, faith in men then, faith to do then, faith to be . . .” rising higher and higher, Skeelie’s voice clearly discernible now; but now that song seemed a joke in the face of the murder Jerthon had witnessed.

Ram hardly heard the voices that rang across the cave. He sat looking inward at his own failure. For if they had the whole runestone of Eresu in their possession, they could easily defeat the dark. That round jade sphere, which he had held in his hands, carried power enough to defeat every evil Seer in Ere.

He had held it, seen it shatter asunder, seen its shards disappear from his open palm—seen those shards vanish out of Time into the hands of others, mysterious figures come out of Time in that instant.

He had returned to Jerthon with one small shard of jade. That shard, that bit of the runestone, was now the only force beyond their Seer’s skills with which they could battle the dark.

That moment would burn forever in his mind. He had felt the earth rock, felt Time warp and come together, was shaken by thunder as Time spun to become a vortex out of Time. He had stood helplessly as the stone turned white hot and shattered in his hands. And something of himself had gone then, too. He had known, since that time, an oppressive loss, a loss he did not really understand.

He and Skeelie had come down out of the mountain Tala-charen the next morning to make their way across unknown valleys to meet Jerthon and Tayba, meet all those who had escaped from Burgdeeth and Venniver’s enslavement.

He had placed the jade shard in Jerthon’s hand, and Jerthon had looked down at him—a tall, red-headed Seer staring down at a nine-year-old boy who had so recently seen his dreams, his hope for Ere, shatter. Jerthon had read the two runes inscribed on the jade; “Eternal—will sing,” then had looked hard at Ram. “Did it sing, Ram?”

“If you call thunder a song. But where—the other parts . . . ?”