The Castle Оf Hape. Caves Оf Fire Аnd Ice. The Joining Оf Тhe Stone

SIX

Ere’s thin moons lit Ram’s way from Kubal toward the River Urobb; then he rode up along the fast-falling moonlit river, atop a ridge, toward the first jagged peaks of the Ring of Fire; rode, knowing that beneath those cold stone peaks the mountains’ bellies burned with molten fire tenuously contained, boiling rivers fettered now, but always eager to be free. All of Ere lived with this sense of the mountains’ captive fire; it was a part of Ere’s race-memory, the knowledge that the land might suddenly burst forth in rivers of fire. Such knowledge should have made Ere’s people close and kind with one another, but it never had.

As he rode, his vision cleared suddenly without warning in a way he could never understand. What made the dark leaders pull back of a sudden, so that those of light could see? Were their powers amassed elsewhere, and thus weakened for a few moments in the blocking of other Seers’ skills? He Saw the Hape suddenly and clearly, saw what it was and how the Seer BroogArl had brought it into Ere less than a year past, saw the Hape’s dark lust, saw the castle that was built for it. He pulled up his horse, turned, sat staring back through the night toward Pelli, the vision holding him. And he understood at last what the power was they had been battling, remembered Jerthon’s voice in citadel, “Something rides with them, Ram. Something more than the dark we know, something like an impossible weight on your mind so the Seeing is torn from you, your very sanity near torn from you . . .” He remembered his own feelings in battle, his words to Skeelie as she tended his wound, “A power that breathes and moves as one great lusting animal . . .”

It was an animal, this breath of evil that BroogArl had brought out of the unknown lands, a monster not of flesh but formed of hatred and lust.

He went on at last, shaken by the dark vision, afraid of it, and awed.

Toward morning he made camp high up a ridge, dozed over a small fire as his horse grazed, then came awake suddenly with a sharp sense of something amiss and saw the moon had set and in the east the sun was already casting its light across the far sea. What had waked him? He sat staring at his dozing mount and slowly, coldly, he began to sense a heaviness: a peril over Carriol. He felt the dark’s attack then, and in confusion, nothing clear, tried to See in a sharper vision and could not, but was gripped with a terrifying sense of disaster.

When at last the vision went from him, he did not know whether the dark had drawn away from Carriol in defeat, or whether Carriol lay defeated. Should he go back, should he ride for Carriol?

But that would be useless, he could not arrive in time. He strained to use his power against the evil monster and could touch nothing, was as blind. He turned desperately and saddled up; perhaps if he were in Eresu his power would come stronger, so he could help. He rode hard and was soon deep in a zantha wood where the leaves hung down like a woman’s hair, trailing tendrils wet from the night dew, drenching him.

He came out of the wood at long last to ride up along the Urobb until he found a shallow fording with a vein of smooth white stone skirting the other side. He forded here and followed that smooth trail quickly, with growing urgency.

He came at midmorning to a narrow, dark canyon with twisting black boulders rising against its walls, a place immensely silent, where his horse’s hoofbeats fell like blows. The land rose steeply, soon was too abrupt and rocky for any horse. Here Ram unsaddled the gelding and turned him loose, leaned his saddle inside a shallow cave out of the weather, shouldered his pack, and started ahead on foot up beside the fast-falling river.

The way grew narrower and steeper still, and distant rumblings began to speak inside the mountains. The sun was high when he came suddenly around boulders to where the river ended abruptly and he stood facing a barrier, facing the sheer rocky wall of a mountain.

The river vanished beneath the mountain; or rather, came flowing out from beneath it in a clear swirl. The water should have been dark but was not, was washed with light as if light itself flowed out from beneath the stone. The old songs spoke of just such a swirling pool washed with light, of the river’s end lighted from beyond: from Eresu. He began to search the mountain’s face for a way to enter into that fabled valley.

He could find no opening among the boulders and crevices, there was no cleft that might lead him through into the valley. As he searched, the mountains to the west rumbled again, spoke long trembling oaths deep inside their bellies, so he was distracted with sudden fear for Telien. He continued to search, but could see clearly only Telien’s face, was distraught thinking of her danger if the mountains exploded in fire.

He had no sense of being watched, no normal Seer’s quickening to the sense of another observing him, so skilled was the Seer who stood half-hidden in shadow against the stone cliff. When at last the figure stirred, lifted a hand, Ram started violently.

The man, sun-browned against brown stone, clad in brown robes like the stone, was hardly visible. When he moved, calling attention to himself, Ram stared, startled, drew his sword in reflex so its tip touched the tall man’s belly; but he looked into the face of the tall Seer, felt the sense of him, and lowered his sword, grinning almost sheepishly. This man meant him no harm. He was—he was as pure and unsullied as if he were himself a sort of god. Ram stood with lowered sword studying the man. He was old, his face thin and lined, his nose very prominent. The lid of one eye drooped. His beard and locks were stained with a ruddy hue that must once have been red as Ram’s own, but was pale now.

Ram knew at once the man’s name was Pender, knew he had come here to guide him; knew, with sudden shyness, that the gods waited his coming, felt utterly ignorant suddenly, as inept as a baby, leaden-tongued. So close to the gods now. So close. Felt a sudden fear of going on; but he must go on, and quickly. Must, when he entered Eresu, turn all his power to helping the battle in Carriol before ever he could turn to another mission.

The old man, watching him, said suddenly and abruptly, “Try now, Ramad. I will show you, help you.” And Pender gave him, with sudden jolting clarity, a vision of the battle in Carriol, so powerful a vision that Ram felt the grim determination of the Seers as they battled the Hape. He held the wolf bell, felt his own force grow within him; saw the runestone glowing in Tayba’s hands. He reached out with the council to try to turn the dark, saw silent creatures slithering among buildings, saw Jerthon’s battalion and the dark monster flying above them, its claws outstretched like knives; then saw Jerthon’s men fighting it, and his spirit fought beside them. Saw blood flow and terrified horses rearing and falling as the Hape swung low on buzzard wings, saw Skeelie start forward, and Tayba grab her wrist. Men and women were streaming out of the tower to do battle with the Hape. Ram was with them, felt the Seers’ total strength forcing upon the monster, the power of the stone like fire; felt the Hape unbalancing at last; saw Jerthon’s soldiers strike and slash as its beating wings struck them, its beak struck them; their horses were wild, cringing down, spinning and falling. Riders leaped clear, swords flashing. Ram saw Jerthon kick his mount into submission as he thrust his sword again and again at the bird-Hape, at the dark beak and neck, and Ram thrust with him—until at last the Seers’ powers began to weaken the Hape and confuse it, and for a moment its senses went awry.

A silent moment, the forces balanced. But then the Hape’s powers surged stronger in a last dying frenzy, and suddenly it was three-headed, the horned cat’s head lashing out with teeth like knives, the man’s head laughing, the eel’s head tearing a soldier’s face; but the heads even as they battled weakened in the strength of their images, came and went in clarity and vigor as the creature clawed at the horses so they fell stumbling among their fellows on bloodstained cobbles. The Hape rose surging with fury as the soldiers beat it back; it was mad with their attack now, flung men like toys as others cut and flailed its body. In the portal of the tower, the silent council of Seers hardly breathed in their terrible concentration, and the powers balanced, tilted—Ram brought his own power stronger, sweating, calling the power of the wolf bell; buoying the power of the Seers until at last the Hape weakened again, wavered, swung low in the air. Soldiers grabbed its wings, pulled it down; it thrashed, then it was suddenly wingless, was only a snake writhing and lashing among them, the leathery wings they had pinioned quite gone. They fell on it, striking steel blows, crowding it in their fury until it turned away screaming—but it carried the body of a man in its jaws.

It moved fast, thrashing, crowded on all sides by hard-riding soldiers, would not drop the screaming man, lunged out between buildings toward freedom.

But it was dying, writhed twisting in death as it fled. It lay still at last, in a field, the wounded soldier crumpled in its jaws, the soldiers’ swords thick in it as quills, their spent horses resting over it, blowing. And behind them all of Carriol advanced, horses foaming in fear, men and women on foot with weapons raised. The Seers, Ram, brought every power they possessed down through the runestone then, to destroy it utterly.

But it was not destroyed utterly. Suddenly the Hape was no animal but only an essence of dark, a shapeless darkness growing thinner and thinner until grass could be seen through patches of melting hide and blood. And then it was not there, was only a blowing blackness on the wind. Hape was the wind, was a darkness flung between earth and cloud.

The Hape had fled, and the soldier lay dead on the grass, his blood drying in the cold sun.

Ram saw less clearly now, as in a dream. Saw Skeelie running through the bloody streets to embrace her brother, Saw people surging out of the tower to tend the wounded. Saw Seers’ white robes smeared with blood, women and children kneeling over bodies. He saw Tayba standing alone in the portal holding the runestone in her shaking hands, saw Jerthon look up at her across half the town, his green eyes kindling, saw him go to her striding through blood, past wounded men and animals, past Skeelie, hardly seeing her. Jerthon leaped the three steps to the portal and took Tayba in his arms. Ram felt Jerthon’s love for her, and he felt her fear and trembling and her uncertainty.

Ram stood for a long time after the vision faded. So strong a vision. His gaze returned to Pender, to the drooping eye, the thin, lined face. “And,” Ram said, choking, “what—what of Telien?”

‘Telien—Telien I cannot show you,” Pender said. “You have no need, she must find her own way among the Ring of Fire. And you must abide, Ramad of wolves. Now you have seen the Hape at last, Ramad. Would you defeat the Hape?”

“I would, Pender. How—But can I defeat it?”

“Only you, Ramad of Zandour, only you can answer that.” The old man scratched his chin briefly. “And if you do not defeat it, what of Carriol, of Ere?” Pender turned without waiting for an answer and led Ram up along a nearly invisible ledge and into a crevice behind outcroppings of stone.

They entered into absolute darkness, continued to climb, and rose at last into an underground cave lighted from above by an opening where the sun stood flaring down.

Beneath their feet was an immense slab of stone hollowed underneath by the river, the river flowed beneath them into a triangular pool reflecting perfectly the high noon sun.

The cave walls were carved into wavelike shapes by long past action of the river, and the river’s flow now cast the sun’s flicking light back upon these, so the whole cave seemed to be moving underwater. A memory came sharp to Ram, of another cave filled with light, and he was nine years old; he and Skeelie stripped naked were swimming in just such a light-struck pool, in a cave in the old city of Owdneet. Pender turned to look at him.

“The Luff’Eresi await you, Ramad. They would hear you plead your mission.” Then he turned, led Ram in silence toward the back of the cave and through a high opening into a second, larger cave more brightly sun-washed still, and Ram saw far mountains beyond the portal and went forward to the brink of the drop, stared out upon a valley immense and green, so far below that it took his breath.

Below him, perhaps half a mile, the valley floor rolled in green fields and gentle hills and small copses of feathery trees. A river wound through, and across the valley in the cliffs that formed the opposite wall were caves, a city of caves one above the other in clusters, with balconies and windows, and some with steps leading one to another; though no steps led down to the valley so far below.

And then he saw the light shifting and changing in the valley as if something were there. Yes, winged figures barely visible in slanting light among the valleys and hills, shifting and indistinct as light on running water, iridescent shapes moving in and out of his vision, ephemeral as dreams, ever moving, ever flashing against the solid background of hills and cliffs. The Luff’Eresi were there, their images as elusive and compelling as music.

And suddenly near to him, filling the air before him, came the horses of Eresu, not light-washed like the gods, but solid, familiar animals crowding out of the sky to land around Ram and Pender, warm, familiar animals dropping their feathered wings across their backs as they entered the cave, pushing around Ram and Pender with great good humor, nickering, nudging them with velvet muzzles. A gray stallion knelt in the accustomed invitation to mount and took Ram on his back, stood at the brink of the cave, his wings flaring around Ram, catching wind; and they were airborne suddenly, sweeping down toward the valley so the rush of air took Ram’s breath. He turned to see Pender close behind; they swept low over the valley, and Ram could see the light-washed Luff’Eresi now, see a few clusters of white-robed men and women, too, and understood from Pender that, all through time, some few Seers had come into Eresu for sanctuary from the harsher world of Ere.

Horses of Eresu were grazing on the hills. Some leaped skyward now and again in bucking play. Ram watched a dozen colts run across a hill to launch themselves clumsily into the wind, flapping and fighting for height. Some dropped down in defeat, but two lifted onto the wind at last, kicking and bucking.

The silver stallion descended, and below, the Luff’Eresi were gathered and waiting. Ram looked with surprise, for there were females among the Luff’Eresi, women’s shapely forms rising from the softer curves of mare’s bodies. He felt the ripple of amusement stir among the Luff’Eresi at his amazement, felt Pender’s silent laughter. Had he thought the Luff’Eresi were of one sex and did not reproduce themselves?

Yes, he realized, he had thought just that, had believed the Luff’Eresi immortal in spite of his childhood reasoning that they were not. In his most private self he must have believed the Luff’Eresi immortal—or have wanted to believe this—for reproduction and birth, and thus dying, had never been a part of how he pictured them.

Their voices rang like a shout in his mind. Yes, we are mortal, Ramad of wolves! Their laughter rocked him. Mortal just as you! Not gods! Never gods!

The gray stallion landed on the grassy turf in a rush of wind and bid Ram remain on his back. Ram saw that even mounted he had to look up to the Luff’Eresi. From the ground he would have been a tiny creature indeed, staring upward to face the two dozen winged gods. No, not gods! But it would take him a while to get used to that idea. And, if they were not gods, what made them shimmer and seem to shift in space so they could not be clearly seen?

We dwell on a different plane, Ramad of Zandour. We live among the valleys and mountains of your dimension, but our dimension is different. So you do not see us clearly. You perceive us as we perceive you, as through a changing curtain of light-struck air. It is because of this, in part, that we have been thought gods. But we are not gods, we are mortal just as you.

“If you are not gods, then those of Carriol who pray to you . . .” he broke off. The beauty of the Luff’Eresi stirred a wonder in him so he wanted only to stare, to memorize every line, the lean, smooth equine bodies so much more beautifully made than horses, the clean lines of the humanlike torsos more perfect than the bodies of his own kind. Their expressions, their whole demeanor was of such joy, it was as if they found in life the very essence of joy, found pleasure and meaning that humans had not yet learned to perceive. As if they had no time for the small, trivial unpleasantnesses of humans, no time or patience for evil and its ways.

“If you are not gods,” he repeated, “then those who pray are praying to—a lie.” His words shocked him. He felt the wrongness of this and the discomfort it caused them. But he needed to know, he needed to sort it out.

We are not gods, Ramad, but there is a power beyond ours; prayers are heard not by gods as humans imagine them but by a higher level of power. There was distant thunder then, but the Luff’Eresi seemed not to heed it. Dark formless clouds—or was it smoke?—lay above the western peaks.

There are lives on many planes, Ramad of wolves, and powers in many degrees, power above power; but all depends on the freedom of each spirit to make its own choices. And Ram understood within himself quite suddenly the force that linked all life, touched each living being. Those who pray can touch it, Ramad, just as we touch it now as we speak to you. A Seer touches that power each time he reaches out. Ram saw, more clearly then than he ever would afterward, layers of life stretched out through all space and time, understood the wonder of being born again, and again, into new lives, each one reaching toward an ultimate brightness.

Born again, Ramad, provided one has not nurtured evil nor sucked upon the misery and pain of others. Such a one knows, through all eternity, crippling fear and pain. This is the choice of each. But that, Ramad, is not why you come to us. Now that you know that the children who burn in Venniver’s fire will likely be born anew to a higher plane, do you still wish to pursue your quest?

Ram stared at the tall winged being who had come forward and stood close to him, his color like light over gold, his torso bronzed, his eyes deep and seeing, compelling. He thought about children dying by fire and could feel their pain. He understood too clearly that what he desired was against all the Luff’Eresi believed. That to change the lives of humans was to destroy that which humankind had woven of the web of survival and of learning. To take away one evil from that web was to act as gods in altering human lives. He understood that this would weaken humankind, that people could be strengthened only by altering their own fate. But again he felt the pain and fear of children dying by fire, and he could not let that rest. “Yes,” he said at last. “I wish to pursue my quest. I wish to beg your help for the children, to beg you once to touch the lives of my people and change them. Will turning aside one evil destroy all of Ere? Venniver will not be destroyed, only discouraged from killing. The Seeing children, the Children of Ynell, can then survive to destroy him as they should. If those children do not survive, the power that fights against Venniver will be crippled perhaps beyond all hope.

“Without your help in turning Venniver aside from this destruction, the only other course is for Carriol to march into Burgdeeth and destroy her,” Ram said quietly. “And I do not know, with the dark so strong, with the powers against us at this moment so great, whether Carriol can destroy both Burgdeeth and Pelli. And we must, at all costs, destroy Pelli. Destroy the Hape, before it places all of Ere under its will. Burgdeeth—the Seers of Burgdeeth can survive if only a measure of fear is laid down upon Venniver. Something to prevent his senseless killing. We need you now, we need this one thing of you—in the name of freedom. In the name of kindness and love for those who are imprisoned.”

Do you ask it, then?

“I ask it. In the name of the innocent who suffer. In the name of the Children, those skilled above all others, who might bring great glory upon Ere if they are but given this one chance, this one small shift in Ere’s path of dark, I ask that you help us.”

The Luff’Eresi smiled, shifted; light flashed around them so Ram could not be sure they were still there. Then he could see them once more, iridescent, leaping skyward so quickly he could only stare. They were leaving him, they would not help; then suddenly the gray stallion leaped to join them, wings shattering wind, nearly unseating Ram. He was airborne suddenly, flying up over Eresu among the Luff’Eresi in one swift climb, and the Luff’Eresi said in his mind with one voice, So be it, Ramad of the wolves. You have had the courage to come to us, to ask of us when you doubted we would help you. So it is the doing of one man, of a man’s, caring, that turns the scale. One man, Ramad, has thus laid his change upon Ere.

Ram frowned, puzzling. “But that would mean—that anyone could come to you. With any kind of . . .”

No! They thundered. It is a matter of commitment, Ramad, a matter of truth, of the true right to ask. But Ramad . . . and their voices were as one in his mind . . . the deception upon Venniver must be done our way. And you may not like that way. You will be our decoy, Ramad. It will be you, Ramad of Zandour, Venniver’s old enemy, who will stand tied to the stake in Venniver’s temple waiting to die by fire.

Ram swallowed, felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach as if the stallion had dropped sharply in the sky.

Have you faith enough in our word to do as we direct you, Ramad of wolves?

He looked around him at the glinting, light-filled figures, huge, filling the sky around him so their wings overlapped in a torrent of shattering light. He felt the immensity of their minds, of their spirits, an immensity beyond any petty human concerns. He swallowed again, said without question, “Yes. I have faith. I will do as you direct. I would . . .” and he paused, wanting to be very sure he spoke truly. “I would, if it were needed, die to free those who are captive of Venniver.” And a sense of death filled him suddenly and utterly, and with it the sense of Telien, of her face, her cool green eyes; a sudden longing for her twisted and held him as nothing in his life ever had.

They moved fast over jagged peaks. Below, a gray stain of smoke rose to tear apart on the wind. A faint rumble stirred the air. The mountains were speaking; and again, with their voices, Ram’s fear for Telien came cold and sharp.

Could the dark be making the mountains stir? Did the dark have power enough, now, to draw fire from the very mountains? He was clutching the stallion’s mane, his palms sweating. Well, but the red stallion was with Telien, he could fly with her clear of sudden disaster—if he would fly clear, if he would leave his mare to perish. Or would the red stallion prefer to die with Meheegan, and so let Telien die?