The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

SIX

As Tayba dressed for Venniver that night, she heard the wolves high on the plain and saw again Fawdref facing her, tongue lolling in a terrible grin as if he made fun of her. She saw him sleeping beside Ram, their heads cradled together, saw the little cubs playing, snarling and chewing the children’s hands innocently, tumbling, chasing Ram through the shadowed cave among resting wolves. Saw the wolves watching her, watching.

She closed the shutters so the howls were muffled, tied the throat of the amber wool, took up her cloak and went out along the back halls, past the door to the dining hall. Though the building was closed tight, the cold wind pushed in icy streams through the ill-fitting shutters, to meet itself around her bare ankles. Doors had been left ajar, and she could see the austere rooms, impersonal as Theel’s room. She supposed Venniver’s would be the same, bare and rough. She faced his door, touched the thick wood slabs, and knocked. When he did not answer, she lifted the latch and stepped in—stood staring.

The room was not bare, nor austere. It was a huge, rich room, its furnishings elegant, its colors luminous. She had seen nothing like this since she left Zandour. Tapestries covered the stone walls, opulent scenes in red and garnet and amethyst like spilled jewels. The floor was strewn with mawzee straw and rushes, thick and soft to her tread. The supper table was set near the fireplace, laid with silver cutlery, and plates that must surely have come from Carriol’s white-clay kilns, plates painted with flowers and birds and small animals among leaves. And the wine goblets were of silver, finely chased. The room was huge and square, heavy-raftered. A second chamber opened off it. These rooms must occupy the entire northwest corner of the Hall. They were furnished with heavy pieces of carved furniture like nothing else in Burgdeeth, smooth, polished. Ornately colored oil lamps hung from the rafters, their flickering light catching at the brilliant colors of tapestries and polished wood.

The bed was immense, tapestry covered. There were carved chests, intricately fashioned chairs; and the splendor of the tapestries laid a richness over all. She might have stepped into one of the finest houses in Ere. A room designed for an elegance of living she had not thought of in connection with Venniver—yet thought of now quite easily. It fit the man—fit him perfectly.

There was another, narrower door at the left, but she knew instinctively that Venniver was not there. She pulled it open and saw a room for private bathing, with what must be a drain to carry the wash water away, and a tall cabinet for clothes.

She closed the door and crossed the room, stopping to run her hand over a chair covered with soft hides. She tried it, sinking down deliciously—then rose quickly. This was Venniver’s chair and very big, swallowing her. She didn’t like the sudden sense of being possessed by it.

In the smaller of the two rooms stood a huge painon-wood table with writing crock and quills, and with a row of leather-bound books at one end. Books with their own belted brass covers, each locked with a brass lock. She could imagine Venniver sitting at the table, ciphering, making up the accounts of the town, she supposed. But why would account books be so carefully locked?

She returned to the main room, found a striking stone on the hearth and lit the fire laid ready. And for no reason, the memory of the grotto filled her mind, and the dark wolves whose eyes searched hers with the intelligence of men; and an unease gripped her that took all her strength to put down.

She turned back to the fire at last, but her mind could not settle. The wolves seemed to reach, to watch her so she was not alone there. And there was something else watching, seeing too much, appraising her. She knelt quickly and flung a handful of kindling into the fire so it flared up, then rose to pace the room, scowling. Well if the room was peopled with wolves and Seers, let them see what they chose to see—she was not above being an exhibition if that was what they wanted.

Pacing, impatient now for Venniver to be there, not to be left alone with whatever forces crowded her, she stood once more before the locked books so neatly arranged. What could they contain of such importance?

Maybe one day Venniver would unlock them for her. Or perhaps she would unlock them herself.

When she turned, her hand trailing the brass binding, Venniver stood in the doorway looking at her. He moved into the room slowly, removing his cloak. “Do they interest you, my locked books?”

“They—they are beautifully made,” she said quickly. “As is everything here. To find this,” she said, indicating the room, then her eyes holding his, “to find all this in a city where everything else is—yet so unfinished . . .”

“So rough.”

“Yes.”

He came easily toward her. “You fit this room nicely. You have an elegance, my dear Tayba—when you are dressed for it, when you have washed the grease away—that goes very nicely here. Now come and pour some wine for us.” He set out an amber flask and two glasses and, while she poured, he laid aside his belt and scabbard of arrows.

And so her life became suddenly one of such contrasts as she would not have thought possible in so crude a town. If, in the daytime, she scrubbed on her knees and hoed, sweating, in the hot sun, her coarsespun scratching unbearably, nights were another matter. Then she bathed herself and dressed in something soft and entered into Venniver’s opulent apartments and into his overbearing and satisfying presence.

She did not speak of this new part of her life to Ram, nor did he. She hoped he had the decency to leave her some privacy. Besides, Ram seemed, since that night on the mountain, completely wrapped in some inner life. And he seemed so much stronger and surer of himself. Once he said, in a moment of confidence and quite casually, “It is not so hard to deal with the Seer of Pelli now. Fawdref has shown me many things.”

“What sort of things?”

“He shows me how to take what I want from HarThass and remain untouched by him.” His dark eyes were inscrutable. She dared not ask him more, but prayed to the gods for Ram, then wondered what good that did and felt helpless and inadequate.

“I must take what I need from the Seer of Pelli. When the time comes that he calls me, when he commands me to leave Burgdeeth, then I will be the stronger and need not follow his command.” He stared up at her, unsmiling. “Yes, Mamen. That is what he prepares me for—or thinks he prepares me for. To come to him. He has never ceased in that.”

“But you can’t—you cannot think to defeat him so easily. No one is stronger than the ruling Seers, Ram!”

“I do not do it easily. I work very hard at it And I will be stronger one day.”

“But if he knows what you plan . . .”

“He does not know. I can shield from him now. And I have help in that.” He looked at her steadily.

She could do nothing but believe in him and pray for him, whether the gods heard her or not.

Ram’s ninth birthday came, and she caught a bird for him in the traditional Zandourian way, in a trap Dlos provided, and let him free it at first light. He stood staring after it, wish making, but too solemn, the wish having a power in it that no normal child’s wish would have.

She knew Ram went to the mountain at night sometimes, and sometimes she heard the wolves’ chilling voices close to the town. If Venniver woke and heard them, he would sleep fitfully and be cross and irritable the next day, so the guards, and Tayba herself, avoided him. Why did the wolves upset him so? They should be—to Venniver—only wild animals no different from foxes or stag. But he never hunted wolves, Dlos told her that, though he went out after other game.

Once he said, “They are not normal wolves. Last year I cornered one in a canyon while I was hunting stag. I meant to kill it, but . . .” He scowled at her, seemed loath to reveal his feelings; but then he continued. “It looked at me the way a man would look. Wolves don’t—ordinary wolves don’t—look a man in the eye, Tayba. Never. This one did. Something—something prevented me from shooting, made me turn my arrow away. I wish—I wish they were not on the mountain.” She felt he was not telling her all of the reason for his fear. But she did not ask Venniver questions. She only listened when he wanted to talk.

He began to give her occasional gifts from the locked trunk at the foot of the bed, then from a safe hidden beside the fireplace. An amethyst ring, a deep rose pendant. He poured out amber wines for her late at night and unwrapped delicacies of soursugar and candied onyrood pods, treasures hoarded from his once-yearly trading in Aybil or Farr. Venniver’s pampering was heady fare; brought her really alive once more, his rapt attentions so very much what she wanted, what she needed to make life seem complete.

And when he told her of his plans for Burgdeeth, his eyes burned with excitement. She marvelled at his words. He had begun this town from nothing; only the plum grove had stood here beside the river Owdneet. He thought it an omen that the grove should stand, missed by the flowing lava. An omen prophesying good for Burgdeeth.

On this site he had found stone, trees for timber, dragon bone nearby. Everything except labor; and Venniver had taken care of that, had ridden into the wild hills to the east with an army of thirty men strongly mounted and routed families there, bringing out not only good slaves, but the gold they mined. Some years later when he rode out again down the river Urobb, he had taken two dozen more prime slaves, five of them Seers. Venniver smiled “I had a Seer of my own then. A willing man with a rare skill. He could block the minds of Seers so completely they never knew we were there. He died later. Died wishing he could go quicker than he did.”

He told her how he had captured the slaves along the river Urobb, slitting the sentries’ throats and driving the horses off to be rounded up later. “Fine horses, as fine a catch as those slaves, or nearly.” He lived the battle again, lustily. “They fought well. And fought the whole night before we routed them. We clubbed and bound them—a real catch, you can pick them out. The tallest, strongest ones. They’re the cleverest, too. And we have two bronze workers among them, just the thing to make the statue. That short, fat fellow, he’s of passable talent, and as strong as a bull. But the tall, defiant one with the long hair, the Seer. He’s a troublemaker, but he has real skill with the metal. He’s worth the extra trouble—until the statue’s done.”

“What—what will you do with him then?”

“Kill him, I suppose. He’s a nuisance to have around. Sell him, maybe.”

She felt a sickness grip her, then a sudden compelling desire to look at the statue, to look at Jerthon again. Felt a terrible sickness for Skeelie, who loved her brother too much. She tried to understand Venniver’s pride in the ownership of men. He looked at the slaves as if they were work animals. She rose from the deep chair, nearly spilling her wine, and began to pace. She couldn’t understand her own concern. For Urdd’s sake, what did she care! They were only slaves. “What were they doing anyway, riding along the Urobb?” she said irritably.

“I think they were fitted out for some expedition. Seeking new land, maybe. Well,” he chuckled, “they found their new land all right.” He laughed heartily, and she felt a moment of revulsion, but then watched him with increased interest. His lust for living, his cruel, headlong lust in taking life, in taking what he wanted, excited her.

And when he talked about his plans for Burgdeeth, she could see the town as he did, the grandeur of the finished city. He drew her to his desk one night to show her drawings of the Set he would build south of town, a sprawling white stone building with inner gardens and fountains where a man could live as he was meant to live. A Set with a high wall around it, and a gate that could be locked. With stables to house the mounts of the army he would keep. And at the gate of the Set, a white temple of worship for the people of Burgdeeth—but with all this, still he did not show her what was so carefully locked in those brass-bound books.

The bronze god-statue would stand in the square of the town, dominating all. She stared at the drawings, hardly believing the magnificence he dreamed. His plans were as opulent, as rich, as the apartment was. A rich taste for luxury, he had. A rich taste for women, too, so he wanted her powdered and perfumed, draped her in gowns of the softest Sangurian silk. She had not been so pampered since her father’s wives had groomed and dressed her, preparing her to be sold.

And he gave her the duty of taking food to the slaves, a privilege Dlos had enjoyed, though Tayba couldn’t understand why it was a privilege. “You will take the supper from now on,” he said. “It is part of the ritual I plan for Burgdeeth.” The idea of being chosen pleased her. The actual duty did not. She did not like marching behind guards the length of Burgdeeth with the supper basket like some Moramian chattel. Well, but if Venniver wanted it . . .

“It is an honor to carry food to the slaves,” Dlos said. “But do not speak to them. The guards will report everything.”

She set off several nights behind the two guards, feeling stupid and conspicuous, was glad when they entered the plum grove away from the stares of the other guards on the street, there by the brewhouse.

The ancient grove stood just beside the pit and mound. The twisted trees had been there long before Burgdeeth. How they could have escaped the ravages of the volcanoes was hard to see—unless the gods had so provided. Beyond the low cell building, the tall guard tower thrust up. Three guards lounged in its open loft, looking down. To her right was an outhouse and a washing shed with some tattered garments hung to dry.

At the door to the cell the taller guard took her basket from her, pulled back the cloth, and lifted each item to inspect it, the five loaves, the three boiled chidrack, some kind of pudding in a crock, then jumbled them carelessly back. On the third night he stripped the meat from the leg of a chidrack with his teeth as if he enjoyed defiling the slaves’ food. He stared at her insolently, a lump of meat clinging to his pale mustache, and motioned her forward as the other guard unlocked and swung open the iron door. As she passed him, he caressed her shoulder. She stepped farther into the dark cell than she had gone before, to hide her anger; and at once was caught up with curiosity.

The room was only dimly lit by the open door, and by the one tiny window at the far end. It smelled of too many people. She could see a mass of huddled figures, could pick no one out. She moved deeper into the room, wanting to see, and was stopped by the guard’s clipped words. “Far enough! Hand the basket out.”

She did as she was told and felt a hand brush hers as the basket was taken from her. Felt something touch her mind so she startled, caught her breath with shock. The guard pulled her away, and the door was slammed and locked. Only an instant had passed, she had heard no voice in the cell. But something had laid bare her mind in that moment, completely opened her most private self in an inspection that shocked and infuriated her.

She made her way back to the sculler unable to quell the helpless feeling of exposure. And in the sculler she dropped a plate, then stood staring at it stupidly where it lay in pieces on the stone floor.

In the past, Ram had touched her mind. The Seer of Pelli had touched it and nearly driven her mad. But nothing like this had ever invaded her. She felt betrayed; nothing, nothing had ever touched the skill in her that she feared so violently and did not want.

She dressed carefully for Venniver that night, wanting gaiety, needing to wipe away that powerful assessment of herself there in the slave cell. With Venniver, in the opulence of his presence and his attentions, she could, forget the slave cell. Nothing bad could happen to her as long as she was with Venniver.

Their splendid, rich nights were broken only occasionally by the sudden chilling voices of wolves on the mountain, or wolves crying close by on the plain. Chilling howls that would goad Venniver into irritability so that he became cruel with her, frightening and angering her.

And then one night when Ere’s two moons rose round and golden over the eastern hills, making all the plain shine with a pale, black-etched glow, the wolves came into Burgdeeth.

They came directly into the town and stood in the shadows, raising eerie howls that echoed between the stone walls. Doors were flung open, men shouted, candles and tapers were lit. Lanterns swung wildly in the streets, and the guards pulled bows taut; but the wolves moved so fast, were nearly invisible in the shadows. She could not believe Fawdref would come here, endangering his pack. And she was terrified for Ram, for surely Ram would rush to help them and could be shot. Cold with panic, she watched Venniver fling on his cloak and rush out; then she ran to the storeroom, terror-stricken—and found Ram gone. She returned to the front of the hall and stood shivering in the doorway trying to see, wanting to run into the night shouting for Ram and not daring.

Men were running in the street, moon-bleached then invisible as they passed through shadow.

There was squawking from the chidrack pens. But these wolves would not come into Burgdeeth to steal chidrack. A wolf howled close by, chilling her; sending a hush upon the town as men tried to locate its position; wolves were everywhere—and nowhere.

Terrified for Ram, she slipped away from the building into shadow as wolves howled from several directions: one then another as if they played games with the men. Arrows plunked against buildings as guards shot on the run, pursuing shadows. “Ram!” she whispered, wanting to scream out to him. Two wolves howled from opposite directions, drawing the men out; drawing them away from the town.

She heard a commotion above the gardens then, heard screaming as if a horse had been brought down. Wherever the wolves were, surely Ram was there. She began to run, stumbling, pulling up her skirt to keep it from her flying feet, dodging guards, hoping Venniver did not see her, keeping to shadow when she could.

She came at last around the hall to the gardens and saw black shapes of guards against the moons with bows drawn, and beyond them the leaping silhouettes of wolves. Arrows were loosed, the wolves began to run and leap in the moonlight, doubling back and forth. A second round was loosed, silver streaks—and not a wolf fell. Again the arrows sought them and missed.

Cries of disbelief rose among the men. She heard Venniver shouting and ducked back. Mounted guards thundered around the hall, and more wolves were streaming out now from the town pursued by mounted men.

Then the wolves began to retreat: those that leaped against the moons, and those that fled to join them. No wolf lay dead. Arrows silvered the ground. Venniver’s men thrust forward running, bows taut, the riders overtaking the wolves and passing them.

Near to Tayba, standing in shadow, someone—Ram was there. Silent, intent—yet when finally she had moved to join him he had disappeared.

Something drew her eyes to the white guard tower beyond the south gardens. It rose like a shaft of ice in the moonlight, well above the grove. Was that Ram running toward the grove? She ran too, in plain sight now, unsheltered from the moonlight.

*

Ram had stood in the shadows, held nearly mesmerized with the strength of the force he created as he brought the vision of wolves out from within himself, as he conjured running wolves leaping before arrows that could not touch them—a dozen wolves, twenty, twice that, until Venniver and his guards were nearly mad with impotent rage, firing and firing, shouting. Then at last Ram let his phantoms retreat, watched delighted as Venniver’s guards thundered after them. He felt Fawdref’s cool, silent wolf laugh from somewhere the other side of town.

When Ram slipped away from behind the Hall, he knew that Tayba was standing close by, watching, not understanding what she saw any more than Venniver did. He was disgusted with her for that; she could have understood, had she wanted—had she tried. He knew she saw him, followed him. He doubled back, nearly invisible in the shadows as he moved to join Fawdref and the real wolves above Burgdeeth.

*

When Tayba reached the dirt mound beside the grove, she stopped. She could not see Ram. There was stealthy movement down in the pit. She crept past the mound to see, stood staring into the blackness.

There were men down in the pit, moving something heavy. Carrying long, heavy objects between them down and down into somewhere black, into deep shadow. Then guards were riding toward her, spurs rattling. She dropped down the side of the pit, skinning her leg, and lay still until they passed. She was not certain why she hid, except she could never explain her presence here to Venniver.

When it was safe to move, she stood in the pit trying to make sense of the twisted, indecipherable shapes on every side of her. She could hear movement somewhere to her right. She put her hand out to something lifting in a curve and felt metal. It looked—it was a wing; she could feel feather shapes under her fingers. Yes, an immense bronze wing. And there, she could make out the head of a horse lying against a pile of timbers. She looked up and caught her breath.

Towering above her, pale in the moonlight, rose a god. He leaped skyward flanked by two winged Horses of Eresu, almost soaring already as they rose in flight.

But they could not lift in flight yet remain poised, so still. She crept forward to reach out, hardly daring . . .

They were made of wood. She let out her breath and found her heart was pounding.

She turned then and saw a line of men in the near dark, carrying long timbers between them. When she turned back she saw a man standing beside her, silent, so tall, his red hair loosely knotted. His eyes were full on her, terrifying her. Jerthon! There were sweat stains on his tunic, and his hands were scarred over with burns from the smelter. She wanted, unreasonably, to touch them.

He saw what she felt about the statue. She thought he knew everything about her, and she was so shaken she thought such probing was his right. He destroyed her, lifted her—in an instant he showed her a world of wonders that elated and terrified her, showed her the real gods, lifted her in flight as the gods lifted, showed her the sense of wonder and immense sadness that belongs to the Seer; showed her more than she could grasp. They stared at each other in silence; and then it was she who turned and fled.

She felt his disappointment in her as she climbed out of the pit to safety. He had made her see visions she could not cope with, concepts quite beyond her in their vastness. She stood in the empty square hearing the wolf hunters far away and feeling so desolate and lost she thought she could not move from that place, wanted to crouch there weeping, to bury herself there and never face anything again, to die there.

She should be searching for Ram and was unable to think where to search, heard men’s distant cries that meant nothing. She turned in confusion toward the hall, then stopped, staring.

The wolves stood in a circle on the plain above the hall, facing into Ram and Fawdref. The riders were drawing close to them—then Ram raised his arms, and a second mass of wolves appeared in front of the riders, running hard. The men shouted, closed the distance on straining horses, were almost up to the wolves when—the wolves vanished. Simply disappeared.

Ram’s wolves seemed to smile, their tongues lolling. She saw pale Rhymannie lift her head with cool pleasure, saw Ram grin. The riders were milling, shouting; and then the phantom band appeared again suddenly in the other direction. The riders wheeled after them.

They had not seen Ram or his wolves.

The fleeing band led them a chase, then she heard shouting again and knew that, again, the wolves had disappeared.

Wolves running on the plain one minute, and gone the next. She stood staring at Ram in awe. This child—her child; maker of visions.

He looked at her and grinned, then said softly across the night, “Yes, Mamen. Visions. Visions for our leader Venniver.” And his meaning made her shudder and turn away.