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

SIX

Even in his sleep Lobon was pursued. His dreams never let him free. In dreams he stalked the dragon and turned to find it ready to spring; and then in his dreams the earth trembled, and he thought that, too, was Dracvadrig’s spell.

But the earth did stir. The wakeful wolves felt it, five quick shocks. They leaped to the mouth of the cave and stood watching the abyss. Pebbles rolled down from above. A lizard slithered to gain purchase on the shelf where it had fallen, and Crieba snatched it up. The ground shook under their feet. Behind them, Lobon rolled over in his sleep, but he did not wake. Shorren began to move out along the cliff, then she drew back snarling as another, harsher shock caught them. A wind hit them suddenly, and Dracvadrig was above them sweeping down out of nowhere. How long had the dragon been watching and waiting there? He twisted in midair before the cave and began to coil around boulders, towering over the opening, dwarfing the abyss. Lobon came awake then, as the dragon struck at the wolves; they leaped at its scaly throat; Lobon snatched up his sword and lunged, slashed across its neck. It lurched away screaming with anger, left blood at their feet. Its roar joined with the roar of the earth as the abyss rocked and shuddered. The dragon twisted on the wind and dove again, its great head seeking Lobon, flame gushing between yellowed teeth; he dodged, and it caught him by the shoulder, lifted him—and he felt another power with him fiercely driving at the dragon as h shook him. Dizzy, hurting, he found his knife. The dragon reared on the narrow shelf, he felt the earth beneath it heave, heard the shelf crack beneath the dragon’s weight, felt the creature falling, as it still gripped him between its jaws. He slashed, was grazed by a rock, fell with the dragon in the shower of stones. He felt the other power with him swelling, battling. Skeelie? No, not Skeelie. He caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, of the swinging runestone. He felt the force of power she poured into that stone for him.

He landed across the dragon’s coils beside its gaping jaw, lay facing one huge, watchful eye. He was sick with pain and knew that in a moment Dracvadrig would reach, open that great jaw, and destroy him. Driven by urgency, he leaped and plunged the sword deep into the eye. A cry of rage shattered around him. Blood spurted from the eye. The dragon twisted away, flailing and whipping across the chasm. Then suddenly it rose upward, screaming, its wings dragging its body up toward the rim.

It disappeared, half flying, half flailing, over the lip of the abyss.

The earth stilled. Lobon let out his breath, felt his reprieve, was sharply aware of the one instant, the one lucky blow. Was Dracvadrig dying? Elated, he began to climb up toward the mouth of the cave. Pain tore through his shoulder and arm. The wolves pushed around him. He leaned on Feldyn, forgetting elation then, in pain, and let the wolf pull him upward.

*

Above the abyss in the black cliff, a pale figure moved to the portal. She watched Dracvadrig approaching in slow, awkward flight as if at any minute he would fall back to the rocks below. She saw without emotion the dragon’s face covered with blood and the ruined eye.

At last she heard him come into the cave entrance behind her. He was losing control, beginning to change into the form of a man. She watched the change intently, until at last he lay sprawled across the stone bench, his lined face gray with pain, the gouged eye running blood.

She tended him coldly, mopping away the blood. She gave him a small portion of eppenroot for the pain.

“Haven’t you got MadogWerg! This is putrid stuff!”

“No, Drac. None.” Then, with disgust, “Your eye will not mend. You must use your Seeing senses to replace it.”

He stared at her in fury. His thin, lined face was distorted with pain—and then as the drug took effect, distorted with its hold on him. “You needn’t be so pleased.”

“You let it happen! You play with your quarry too much. Why didn’t you—”

“Why didn’t I what? Kill him and take the stones? Where would our plan be then?”

“You could have taken them without killing him. You didn’t have to get yourself made half useless!”

He did not answer her. Whatever hatred flared between them at the moment, both knew they needed Lobon. Presently he said, “The Seer will be in the cells soon. He is already nearly on top of the gates.”

“How can you be sure he will keep on toward the cells?”

“I laid a false sense of my presence. Do you think me an imbecile?”

“All right, Drac. All right.”

“Where is RilkenDal?”

“Gone. To fight beside Kearb-Mattus. Gone to deliver mounts from the cells.” She spat against the wall. “His pets! Hateful animals. All that screaming. The disgusting whimpers of brute creatures.”

“They are useful, my dear. RilkenDal’s troops cannot move across Ere on dragon wings as you are fortunate enough to do.”

“Nasty beasts all the same. Talking like men, pretending to the wisdom of Seers—such as it is. He would be better off with flying lizards. They are more natural.”

“And stubborn and stupid and bad-tempered.” He eased back on the stone bench. “The countries are beginning to panic, Kish. RilkenDal must move ahead now. Now is the time to attack.”

Kish smiled coldly. “Soon all of Ere will be ours.”

“It is not ours yet,” he said testily. “We must watch the girl. Make sure she is successful. I cannot lose my hold on her. Ah, Kish, once we possess the two runestones she will bring us, and the four the boy carries . . .” He shook the stone in the golden casket that dangled at his waist. “Seven stones, Kish. Seven shards of the runestone.”

“You don’t have his four yet.”

“I have them. I simply let him carry them. It makes the chase more exciting.” He did not mention his ruined eye. He was close to euphoria with the drug, dulled and rested and inane. “Think, Kish, when the stone is joined . . .” She smiled and nodded and stared at him appraisingly.

“With the power of all the stones . . .” He laughed drunkenly. “Oh, I will have the nine stones, and soon. And then the son of Ramad will be useful!” His long face warped into an evil smile, twisted with the drug and maimed into a mask of horror by the gory eye.

“Will you have them, Drac?” she said cruelly. “You let him defeat you just now. The whelp and the powers that joined him defeated you. Are you too drugged to remember that the girl helped him!” She rose and began to pace. “You had best keep better control, Drac. You had best move that girl quickly! And that band of Seers moving among my cults—I have groomed those cults too carefully to allow . . .”

His laugh became a giggle. He lounged drunkenly on the bench, as if he had forgotten the injured eye, perhaps the socket was as numb now as if no eye had ever existed. “The cults will not dare turn from you, my dear. Though perhaps you are right, perhaps it is time you appeared among them. Perhaps their goddess has been absent too long. I should like to play with some foe besides that puny young Seer for a change. He will follow the trail I laid. The ogres will see to his capture.” He made an effort to rise. “Shall we journey to the battles, my dear? Witness the fun, speak to your multitudes? Ah, then I will be close to the young woman as she brings the stones out of Pelli.”

Kish scowled. “Can you change back to dragon and hold that form with the drug on you? I don’t want . . . Are you in condition to carry us?”

He felt the neck wound with long, exploring fingers, did not touch his eye, moved restlessly, stared at her glassily for some moments with the one good eye. He was trying to change. After some moments, when he remained in the form of a man, he rose unsteadily, took the runestone from its casket, spoke to it, trying to draw power from it.

Nothing happened, he was impotent with the effects of the drug, remained humiliatingly trapped in the human body. Kish watched him with disgust.

At last she drew close to him; scowling at his weakness but unwilling to be deprived of his usefulness. Her voice fell into a soft chant, smooth as honey. “I feel the dark Seers waking, Drac,” she crooned. “I have felt all day their voices calling up out of infinite darkness.” Her voice flowed as compelling and hypnotizing as the spell of a snake luring its prey. “Dark Seers, Drac, dark Seers waking in darkness, keening to the call of the runestones, their spirits rising to draw together and join us, to join the power of the stones. The spirits of the dead Seers, Drac, the spirits of those in whom the spark has lain as dead—too long idle, they will join us now; they will be one with us now, I feel the power of the Hape, of dark beings beyond the Ring of Fire rising—never dead, never really dead.” Her pale hands lifted and caressed him. The firemaster stared at her, bound to her caressing voice. “Now our time is coming, Drac, now our strength gathers, now we will quell the light-struck rule of Carriol.” She wet her lips with a pale tongue. “Too long have they held the stone, Drac, too long their cloying light washed that which should couch itself in darkness, too long spoken of love, and of honor. I feel the dark Seers, Dracvadrig, I feel their spirits waking from times long past, NiMarn who fashioned the wolf bell, NilokEm and his get, HarThass, who failed so miserably to win the soul of Ramad—I feel the dark core of each rising now, I feel powers huge and pulsing, breathing life into those who have slept. Their spirits rise, Drac, they will join us. Feel it, Dracvadrig. Feel them touching you.”

Her mesmerization gripped and immersed him, transported him until, at long last his body began to change into the dragon form, his legs to swell and shape into a coil that writhed and swelled, his wrinkled fingers to lengthen into heavy claws, his long nose and sharp chin to elongate further into dragon face. The wounded eye was larger, a dragon’s ruined eye, and blood flowed from it anew. His coils filled the cave and pressed Kish back against the stone wall. She caressed the cold dragon flesh with pale hands, stroked the creature’s leathery wings that pushed against the roof trying to break free.

All across Ere from dim, deep caverns and dark fissures, the dark listened to Kish and strove and sought out for its kindred spirits, for presences beginning to wake after generations of sleep. These rose as a stench would rise from moldering bodies; and each, waking, joined the next: the spirit of the Hape, the worm gantroed, the ice cat, creatures shunned by animals of light. Now their essences sought to become one, joining with the spirits of dark Seers, joining with the darkness that rode within Kish and within Dracvadrig and RilkenDal, within all who moved in evil across Ere.

Slowly Dracvadrig slid toward the mouth of the cave, until he filled the opening with swelling coils. Kish slipped onto his back. He slid out and down the cliffs side, then lifted his heavy wings and beat drunkenly skyward, into the heavy wind.

They headed south, Kish’s icy hands caressing dragon mane, her thoughts leaping ahead to battles, to the disciplining of her cults, to the destruction of the young Seers who meddled with them. Her anticipation of that destruction was eager and keen.

*

Zephy looked up from poulticing the chest of a sick child, shivered, and didn’t know why. She could bring no vision, but was awash with unease suddenly. She shook back her hair, frowned, all her spirit filled with foreboding; kneeling there by the child, the steaming poultice forgotten, she sought Thorn in her thoughts.

Thorn sensed what she sensed and hid his sudden fear from the men he was drilling; cultists, so slow to learn battle practices.

But now suddenly these men stood confronting him with sharper attention. They seemed wider awake. He stopped his lesson and examined the change in them. Their expressions had become suddenly alert, their minds alert. Some looked no longer docile and obedient, but now looked defiant. And then they began to chant, a harsh whisper that carried across the camp.

“She comes.”

“The warrior queen comes.”

“The warrior queen speaks to us.”

“She moved across the winds to us.”

Zephy’s thoughts touched his mind, cutting across the chant. What is it? What’s happening?

I don’t— But the chants faded abruptly. The scene before Thorn faded as if a sudden fog engulfed the campground. Another scene, of battle, took its place. They Saw the city of Zandour, Saw new troops attacking from the sky, dark warriors mounted on horses of Eresu. Winged ones harnessed and bitted and driven with whips—and driven by some strange compelling power that held them more captive than any harness could do. Then the winged ones were dwarfed in the sky by a monster dragon come out of cloud to dive with them down upon Zandour’s troops: The earth bound horses screamed and fell under its claws, under blows from the sky, their riders slashed by the swords of skyborne riders.

The dragon swept low over the city, licking out flame so the city began to burn, a house here, a barn, wherever its fiery breath caught. And astride the dragon rode a pale, tall woman slashing and killing with a heavy sword. The dragon swept low against the walls of the ruling house of Zandour, once Hermeth’s home, and the walls fell as if eggshells had crumbled. On the hillside, the marker of Hermeth’s grave was ripped away with one glancing blow, and Hermeth’s moldering, frail bones ripped out and scattered and trampled into dust. And then, as suddenly as the vision came to Zephy and Thorn, it vanished, for Kish spun a blocking force around Zandour to confuse and terrify the Seers further.

The horror of that destruction, then the sudden absence of any vision, was felt like a shock across Ere; was felt in the far, high deserts as a final challenge that started with the scattering of Hermeth’s bones. There on the desert a band of wolves paused with raised heads to listen, to watch, their lifted faces stern as they stared away past the brutal sands toward the countries below the rim, toward Zandour, whence the vision came.

They were wolves come long ago to the high desert, come generations before out of Zandour, descendants of those who had not joined Ramad when he was swept away out of Time. They had come to the desert and lived generations here; and now suddenly they harked to the pillage in Zandour, to the world their ancestors had left. They felt the warring with a cold fury; and they felt the darkness rising. They Saw the dragon and his woman attacking Zandour’s troops. Their race-memory, and the tales handed down from their sires, knew the kindness in Zandour, knew the gentleness of Hermeth; and they recalled the way in which Hermeth died, possessed by darkness.

They turned as one to look off toward the north’s uncharted mountains where the wolf bell dwelt and where the son of Ramad stalked and swore, fettered by his own fury against full use of the stones he carried. And all time and all evils and all forms of goodness came together into a wholeness for them. A pale dog wolf raised his muzzle and howled. A dark brother joined him, and another. A bitch wolf screamed into the hot desert wind. The band’s cry sent a chill across the high desert that made rock hares freeze in their tracks and lone miners pull their doors to and bolt them.

And suddenly the band leaped away running hard for the rim and for the lands below it.

*

A pale, white-haired child heard their cry like wonderful music and watched them leave the desert. When she turned back toward her small valley at last, she walked swiftly and did not pause until she had curled into her bed beneath the crystal dome and held once more in her small hand the heavy talisman she kept always with her. Now, soon, they would come, a Seer would come searching for the stone. A Seer of light? Or a dark Seer? She could not yet divine which. The dark Seer might kill her, but such a one could not take the stone.

Would the other white-haired ones come now?

She prayed for the salvation of Ere, prayed until at last a vision of the Luff’Eresi came to her like cascading light through the crystal dome, their forms glinting through the heavy crystal panes as if the dome existed not at all, tall, iridescent beings seeming half man, half horse, but more wonderful than either, creatures whose great wings shed rainbow light; and she thought of them as gods though they were not; and she spoke to them as she would to gods.

“Will you help them?” she whispered. “Will you help them now?”

We do not know. They must help themselves.

But even with that vague answer she felt eased; and long after they had left her, she lay dreaming contentedly, the heavy green jade clutched tight in her small, pale fist.

*

A few remnants of the Zandourian army escaped the dragon and fell back under cover of darkness to restore what was left of their decimated battalions. Scouts slipped away to outlying farms to gather reinforcements, though new soldiers would be very young, for the young were all that were left. New horses would be half-wild colts, or old and stiff. And food was growing short, weapons in short supply.

It was past midnight and cold when they knew the dragon had left Zandour at last—surely to bring destruction elsewhere. Winged horses lay dead in a heartrending loss that made men mourn them, sick with agony. The disheartened troops huddled, tending wounds, burying their dead. In far-flung towns, RilkenDal’s officers tethered their winged mounts and bound their wings so they could not fly away, then forced the townsfolk to build up fires and bring drink and food and pleasures, and soon they were laughing and drunk and sacking what little was left of farms and homes.

Five of Zandour’s seven Seers lay dead.

*

The dragon moved through watery moonlight licking blood from his lips. Kish, astride him, was silent, heavy with the satisfaction of killing. He swept soundlessly above Aybil, then down over Farr toward where Kish’s cults were camped. “Go to the dark tower,” Kish said. “My leaders will come to me there.” Both, replete with battle, wanted little more now than a light sleep, perhaps a few moments of mutual pleasure. But suddenly Kish stiffened. Her excitement surged, she could feel Dracvadrig’s senses come alert as he reached out to increase control of the girl. For the girl had gone alone—of her own volition—into the citadel and was very close now to taking the stone. They could see her figure, thin and wispy in the moonlight where she stood beside the granite table, staring at the runestone.

Dracvadrig shook off the last vestiges of the drug with effort and brought his power around the girl, enticing her, cajoling her until at last, at last they watched her lift the stone and begin to strip away the gold thread from which it hung. But then almost at once she faltered, hesitated, nearly dropped the stone. Kish sighed impatiently. Dracvadrig strained, pouring his will into her, forcing her until all reluctance was swept away at last, until aggression replaced that reluctance.

She jerked the gold cord away, and clutching the stone, she ran the length of the citadel to the portal and to the balcony there. The mare who waited ducked her head as Meatha leaped astride digging in her heels, then the winged creature swept out into the wind, lifting, banking across the heavy wind to turn westward, coming back over the land; but coming too slowly, hesitating now, reluctant. And Meatha in turn, at the mare’s reluctance, began again to grow hesitant.

Dracvadrig eased the girl’s mind, soothed her, brought her on toward Pelli artfully until at last she crouched between the mare’s wings complacent in her righteousness, lulled by the knowledge that she alone would save Ere. She urged the mare on with authority, pressed her on in spite of the mare’s stubbornness. And as Dracvadrig lured the girl, he began at the same time to circle Aybil’s dark tower. The stone was theirs now. Soon they would have the second stone. Soon all of Ere would lie at their feet. Already Zandour was done for, and next Pelli would fall, then Farr, Aybil, Sangur. And then—then they would destroy Carriol, with greatest pleasure.

Dracvadrig came down atop the broken tower. His reaching feet knocked away broken stone walls so stone tumbled and clattered onto the old iron bed in the top room of the tower, open now to the sky. More stone fell into the black lake from which the tower rose. Along the shore of the lake, the cults slept peacefully.

*

Zephy and Thorn, restless, shaken by the vision of Zandour, slept at last, but for what seemed only moments before the winged ones near camp spoke to them. Thorn felt Zephy stir. He rose and lit the lamp. She stared up at him vaguely, her brown eyes huge with sleep, then roused herself and sat up. She had been dreaming of Meatha. She shared the disturbing vision with him, but it fled quickly before the urgent voices of the winged ones. The dragon comes. The warrior queen comes. The dragon sits atop the tower like a buzzard, the dragon that killed our brothers.

They Saw the dragon hunched atop the tower. It must wait until dawn. Thorn said. I would battle it in daylight, not in darkness. Even with the Seeing, not in darkness.

Yes, the winged ones said, it will sleep now. See, it is turning itself back into a man. It will lie with the woman there, and we will keep watch.

Zephy let the vision of the dragon go. She felt the more urgent vision was with Meatha. She let it flood her mind once more. Thorn felt her distress, took her hand, and sat calmly and silently sorting until at last he had joined her in the vision, knew her alarm as she watched the mare Michennann wing through the night sky, heading straight for Pelli, Meatha sitting straight and tense between her beating wings. “What is she . . .” Zephy began. “What does she carry? What . . . ?”

“The stone!” Thorn said with sudden conviction, gripping her hand so tightly she winced. “Zephy, she has the stone, she has taken it from the citadel.”

“The runestone? But she can’t, she—”

He stood up and hung the lamp from the tentpole. Light caught across his red hair, across his bare chest. He looked down at her, still scowling with disbelief and anger.

“The master Seer would never let her,” she said stupidly. “Never send one alone . . .” She did not want to believe what he was telling her. She looked up at him until at last she had to believe. She tried to touch Meatha’s mind and to know Meatha’s intent.

She could sense great calmness from Meatha, a sense of lightness, a sure, purposeful feeling that what she was doing was necessary and right, was essential to the salvation of Ere. She Saw truth in Meatha’s purpose: She knew well enough that the master Seers would never let the stone leave Carriol—knew in this moment so close with Meatha, that to carry the stone into battle, to wield it in battle, as Ramad of the wolves had once done, and with it vanquish the Kubalese troops and their dark companions, might be the only sure way to stop the slaughter and to destroy Kubal. She felt uneasy at the theft of the stone, but she felt with Meatha the urgency and lightness, too. She looked up at Thorn. He was watching her intently. They must trust Meatha for a little while, bear with her for a little while. Give her fair chance, not withhold their trust from her. Not yet.

Thorn gave her a questioning look, nodded at last, then blew out the lamp and lay down beside her. Almost at once he was snoring. Zephy scowled at the ease with which he slept, and she lay worrying for a long time. Should she alert the council? Thorn had withheld his judgment in this in deference to her. She felt unease at the strength of Meatha’s power. And yet if Meatha was right, if the fate of Ere could lie in that one stone carried into battle—Zephy sighed and tossed and could not sleep. And knew, beneath all her arguments, that she must be silent at least for a while. She could not do otherwise. She could not betray Meatha so easily.

She slept at last, restlessly, tossing, then woke again before dawn to find Thorn wakeful beside her, both of them gripped as one in a vision that lifted and excited them, and brought hope. They Saw sleek, fast-running shapes slipping into Zandour and felt the sense of them lusting to destroy dark warriors: wolves, flowing into the ravaged villages, seeking out the drunken, sated Kubalese troops and killing them. Dozens of wolves killing silently then moving on to kill again.

*

Dracvadrig the man sat atop the broken tower seething at the vision of wolves. Wolves! Great Urdd, how he hated wolves. Fury overwhelmed him at their slaughter of RilkenDal’s troops. They could not waste troops on wolves. Writhing with fury, he grew nearly without volition into the dragon form, forgot the girl who slept among boulders there on the sea cliff, forgot Kish sleeping in the iron bed near him, thought only of the destruction of wolves. Hunched atop the tower, he spread his wings onto the night sky and leaped into darkness to circle once then head for Zandour, left Kish sleeping.

He came down on Zandour screeching with such fury that the very dawn seemed made of dragon screams, swept low back and forth above the hills. But below him lay only emptiness. No wolves to be sensed or seen. Nothing. He dove and raked to death a dozen surviving Zandourian troops and their mounts and tore apart their camp, but his heart wasn’t in it. He could think only of wolves and of his own thwarted fury. He snatched one of the horses aloft and carried it back toward Pelli, sucking its blood as he flew, crushing it in his terrible anger.

He returned to the tower to consume the rest of it, spitting the heavier bones into the lake below. The sound of his eating soon woke Kish. She stared at him, half with repugnance, half with fascination, as the horse’s head disappeared. “So you save the head for last.”

He smiled a bloody smile and sat digesting horse in silence, hating the wolves in secret. Where had they come from, those cursed wolves?

Kish said nothing, but as she watched him eating, she felt his thwarted fury growing around her. She slipped inside the armor of his blocking as cleverly as the serpent slips between stones. She sat quiet, soon Seeing his thoughts clearly. “Wolves!” she hissed. “How did they come without your knowing! How did you let them! Why didn’t you . . . ?”

He was sated with horse, his belly distended, in no mood for a tirade. He hunched up across the top of the tower in his haste to be away from her, snarled at her once, then launched himself heavy as lead. He would find somewhere else to digest his breakfast, where he could have peace and silence.

*

When Dracvadrig did not return, Kish went down through the dark tower, treading ancient stone stairs around and around past tiers of battered cells where bones lay rotting inside. The drawbridge was down, lying broken and crooked across the black water.

Soon she had passed through the ancient wood and stood at the far edge, surveying her encampments beneath a muddy sky. She saw the four hide tents that housed Carriol’s Seers, but she went not to those tents, but to the tall, elaborate bower that her people had raised for her.

There she dressed herself in the finery kept ready for her, then called the cultists out of sleep to gather before her. The queen was come, the warrior queen. After ordering the Carriolinian Seers bound and brought to her, she stood scowling impatiently, waiting for her orders to be carried out, for the cultists hardly stirred. They seemed as confused and mindless as a batch of chidrack. What was the matter with them! Only a handful moved toward the Carriolinian tents, then even they were held back forcibly by their neighbors. Kish stared at them, unbelieving, then brought powers down on them that sent them to their knees. But still they would not move to fetch the Seers. Their eyes blazed with the old reverence when they looked on Kish, but they would not do her bidding.

And in their tents, knowing what she intended, Zephy and Thorn and the twelve strong young Seers brought their powers, in turn, against Kish. They had been building for this: nursing the sick, conjuring magical ceremonies, doing everything they could to win the awe and love of the cultists. Now they joined together in all their power, in an effort so strong it might not be long expended, but that must wed the cults to the light while it held.

Again Kish made her subjects kneel, flashing pain through them. But some rose in spite of the pain and moved toward her. Alarmed, she spoke out in silence to Dracvadrig: She would bring the dragon here and see them all dead before they defied her!

But Dracvadrig did not answer her. He had gone on to the north, beyond Zandour, where now he glided above the high desert, immersed in the hunt like a harrying kestrel, searching over the hot sands and into shadows for wolves, and he had no time for Kish and her toys.

The cultists watched Kish coldly. Her power locked and held against the power of Carriol’s Seers. Neither gave. She strained harder until at last, two dozen men broke from the ranks and joined her, taking up weapons to face the rest. But the Carriolinians’ power in those brief moments was strong indeed. Who would have thought a handful of Seers . . . ? She needed the power of a runestone. Then she would make the cultists crawl. Blast Dracvadrig for not coming to help her. He could have fetched his stone here, could . . . Well, she would have a runestone all right, a runestone much nearer than the one Dracvadrig carried. Maybe even two stones. And with that power she could destroy the puerile Seers. Yes, perhaps she could retrieve the second stone, too, she thought smiling, for already the girl Meatha crouched among boulders watching the divers prepare to bring it up out of the sea.

In a hastily conjured ceremony, Kish appointed new leaders from the few faithful, then she had a horse brought. Dressed in her finery, mounted, she made the beast rear and roll its eyes, spun it, bid the cultists kneel again before her, then with effort she laid a fog upon their minds like glittering mist so only her face was clear amidst shifting images. She held the vision strong. When at last it faded and the cultists looked up, she was gone.