The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

EIGHT

Alone on the cliff, Tayba stood looking down at the empty moon-washed plain, felt drained of all emotion and strength. No one spoke in her mind now. The power she had felt was gone—had never been there, was all illusion. Her aloneness stabbed at her like a knife. She started down the cliff trembling with apprehension and stood at last at the mountain’s base, gripped with terror at the emptiness, at the looming boulders. The eerie expanse panicked her—and she began to run suddenly and wildly toward Burgdeeth, dodging boulders and the reaching shadows, shivering, until at last she could see the lights of the town.

And a figure was riding toward her.

Venniver. Venniver coming to find her; riding in a fury, beating his horse, his shoulders hunched, coming straight for her. She imagined his quick, fierce anger and stared around her uselessly for a place to hide, a shadow to conceal her. What would he say, finding her here? What would he think?

Maybe he won’t be angry. Maybe . . . She remembered the wolf bell beneath her tunic and pulled her cloak across it. She could tell him that she . . . But he was on her, reining in his horse. She saw his face; fear sickened her. He swung down. She cringed away from him, tried to speak as he grabbed her arm. “Where in Urdd have you been! What are you doing out here!” His eyes were cold, appraising. “Who were you with? Who?”

“No one! I was with no one!”

“Don’t lie to me!” He jerked her to him, twisting her. “I can break that arm if I choose. Now where is he?”

“I’m trying to tell you! There is no one!”

“You didn’t come here alone! No one walks alone on this plain.” He stared at her with disgust. “Who were you with! Where is he!”

“Who would I be with when I could be with you? Don’t be stupid. Why would I . . .” She sighed, reached out to him. “I was walking alone, Venniver. Ram is sick, I was upset. The moonlight—there is nothing out here. It seemed so peaceful—as if a prayer, here . . .”

“A prayed Great Urdd! Don’t lie to me. You came here with some fracking guard!” He hit her full in the face, then spun her around to twist her arm behind her. “Some guard who—” His voice broke with fury. He slipped the stallion’s reins over a boulder; the nervous animal plunged and reared. His fingers bit into her arm; he threw her down so her cloak and tunic ripped, terrifying her. Then he stopped suddenly, staring.

He straightened up, to back away from her.

The wolf bell lay beside her, touched by moonlight.

Tayba swallowed blood, felt the cut on her mouth. She watched him helplessly. Well, he couldn’t know what the bell was. Why was he staring at it? Why would he . . . He bent to pick it up almost as if it would burn him. He examined it turned it over, held the clapper so it would not ring; looked for a long time with growing horror at the grinning bitch-wolf. Then he jerked her up, his fingers like steel, his voice shaking, nearly screaming. “What are you doing with this? I know what this is! I’ve heard the stories!” He stared at her, unbelieving. “You—you are one of them!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You are a Seer. This—this is the bell of the wolf cult! You’ve been on the mountain with—wolves!”

He beat her then until she went limp under his hands, her mind sweeping blackness into the pain, confusing her. She felt herself dragged, then was forced to walk. She felt the stallion plunge against her where Venniver led him. She was forced on and on down the plain. Burgdeeth’s lights swam before her. They were in the gardens, she thought; she could feel mawzee briars catch at her. She saw the back of the Hall but was not seeing properly, was so dizzy.

He forced her on. She was shivering, could hardly walk for the pain. She tried to pull her torn cloak around herself, wanted only to lie down. He stopped her at last. She saw the guard tower above the trees, heard the familiar ring of the iron door.

She was shoved into darkness, nearly fell, heard the door slam behind her.

She reached out and felt hands on her, felt the strength of someone supporting her. She hurt. Great Eresu she hurt.

*

She woke in the dim, close cell. She tried to roll over, went sick with the pain that struck sharp through her arm and side. Her face felt swollen. She touched it hesitantly. Her exploring fingers brought pain along her left side, her left eye. Her lip was big and scabbed over. The candlelight was very dim, flickering. Little groups of slaves reclined on piles of hides, were turned away from her talking softly, paying no attention to her. Out of kindness? Or because they didn’t care. She let her face drop down onto her arms. She would die in this place. She wanted to die.

“You will not die.”

She lifted her face and turned until she could see Jerthon where he sat beside her. She saw that she lay on hides, was covered with a thick goathide.

“You will not die. But you do look somewhat battered. Here.” He supported her head and held a mug for her. She drank greedily.

“More?”

She nodded, heard the water poured out, and drank again.

“That is enough, you’ll make yourself sick. Could you manage some bread?” Then, to her unspoken question, “Ram is all right. The fever is gone. The Seer has subsided into his black little hole—for the time being.” He broke bread for her. “Your right arm works. Take the bread. Sit up now and try to eat a little.”

Her ribs were very painful, were tightly bound. He helped her sit up. She leaned against the cell wall, nauseated with the effort. A few of the slaves looked at her, and a girl smiled. There was a warmth among them as they looked, a quiet solitude that reassured her. All but the stocky, short man there in the back. What made him scowl so? That was the man called Drudd, the other forgeman.

The girl who had smiled was younger than the other four girls, little more than a child. Her hair shone like fire even in the dim light. Jerthon beckoned to her, and she came to sit beside Tayba. Jerthon said, “This is Derin. She will sleep beside you, in case there is anything you want in the night.”

Derin said, “Dlos will bring herbs for the pain when she brings the morning meal. I put—I put what little we had in your water.”

Tayba held out her hand. “Thank you. It does hurt.” Suddenly she remembered the bell lying in the moonlight remembered that Venniver had picked it up. She stared at Jerthon. “Does Venniver have it—the bell? What did he . . . ?”

“He has it. Ram—Ram wanted to charge into his rooms and take it. He’s stubborn, that boy. It was all I could do to make him wait awhile.” Jerthon searched Tayba’s face, looked as if he would say more, then was silent.

She lay trying to puzzle it out, putting pieces together. Why had Ram been so ill? Why? What did HarThass . . . ? And suddenly it all did come together, the grotto, the Seer appearing on the high bridge; Ram’s determined attitude afterward; the Seer’s fury at Ram for something she did not before understand. She looked at Jerthon quietly. “You were in the grotto with Ram,” she whispered. “You were there with him—just like tonight.”

“Yes. We are five Seers here. We . . .”

She laid her hand on his arm. “What—what did Ram See in the grotto? What was in that high cave that HarThass didn’t want him to see, that he did see and came down so full of? He means—he made some commitment there.” Her fingers tightened on Jerthon’s arm, and she half rose to look at him, ignoring the pain. “What was it? What does Ram plan that—that HarThass would stop him from doing?”

Jerthon paused, studying her, sat for so long in silence she wondered if he would ever speak. When he spoke, it was reluctantly.

“Ram saw, in that cave—he saw pictures of a procession. He saw the gods lay to rest a box containing something of great power. Containing—the Runestone of Eresu. Ram—something is leading him, something compels him to bring that power out into Ere. There is need for it now. He is drawn there, and no one—not you, nor I—can stop him, now, from that quest.”

“But he can’t just . . . where will it lead him? Why must he go! He’s only a child, he . . . Ram has the wolf bell. He has all the power anyone . . .”

He looked at her steadily. The others watched. The cell was very still. Drudd scowled. Derin took Tayba’s hand in her small one. Jerthon said, “It is not for himself that he wants power. You don’t think . . . it is a power that could help many, could change the lives of everyone in Ere for generations to come. Could stop what Venniver and those like him, what HarThass wants. Or could, in the hands of HarThass, bring havoc over Ere. It is so great a force . . .” The light from the candle marked the clean lines of his face, the high Cherban cheekbones. She remembered her awe of him last night as the dark vastness twisted around her.

“If Ram does not seek that power, the Seer of Pelli will take it, now that he knows where it lies. He will climb Tala-charen for it. And if HarThass should hold that power . . .” He took her hands. “I will show you what HarThass could do.”

His grip was warm. He willed her to close her eyes. She fought him for a moment, then began to feel weightless. Her pain vanished. She drifted out of herself to move above Ere as if—as if she flew. She saw Ere stretching below her, saw rivers flowing out from the black peaks to find their way to the sea.

She saw small bands of men, primitive tribes with precarious holds on their little patches of land, saw warring Herebian bands killing them and driving them out. She saw the activity of hundreds of years, saw countries begin to form. She saw the volcanoes boil down across the land bringing terror and death, destroying all that men had built. Jerthon held her mind in his until she had seen the huge pageant of Ere’s young history, seen Seers beheaded, seen them flee to the cities of the gods. She saw Seers ride out over Ere on the backs of the Horses of Eresu, filling men with hatred though they intended none of this. She saw evil Seers rise across the land to rule the little settlements, terrifying men into doing their bidding, and protecting men so they clung to them for leadership. Jerthon’s eyes held her. He lifted her chin to look deep at her. He showed her the Herebian tribes raiding the nations; changes in borders and inner ride as powers struggled one against the other. She was seeing into the future now. She saw Carriol become a nation, and Burgdeeth as part of a new country. She saw that, as a river could split into many streams, Ere’s future could take many ways. In one, the Pellian Seers ate up one country after another as HarThass and his successors, with the power of the Runestone of Eresu, enslaved peoples of Ere into one vast hierarchy of rule where men were as nothing.

In other streams of the future, men ruled themselves in a variety of activities, each as suited his own nature. The tangle of possible futures, of possible balances of power, dizzied her. And in all Ere’s future, the Runestone was the key. And Ram, who vowed to bring that stone out of Tala-charen, was the one who held the balance now. On Ramad of Zandour lay the future of the countries of Ere.

“You,” Jerthon said, beginning to pull her back from that infinite expanse, “you could not have seen all this, Tayba, were it not for the power you deny in yourself. When will you admit to it? When will you face the truth of yourself?” And she was too caught up in wonder to flare at him.

She woke from the vision quickly, was gripped by sudden pain from her wounds, watched Jerthon in silence as he drew her thoughts back from that terrible abyss of space and time. And one question burned in her mind. She groped at it, puzzled. If HarThass could change all of Ere’s history with the Runestone, why had he waited so long to seek it? She looked at Jerthon deeply. “The Runestone must have been in Tala-charen for generations. Why . . . ?” And then, suddenly, she understood. “HarThass—HarThass didn’t know before! He didn’t See it until—until Ram went there to the grotto.” She was twisting her hands; she scowled at them and put them in her lap. She could see by his face that she was right “HarThass didn’t see the Runestone until Ram—until he could see through Ram’s mind that something was there! Until Ram had gone to the cave!”

“Yes,” Jerthon said softly. “That is so.”

“And if Ram—if he hadn’t gone to the grotto. If he had never had the wolf bell, gone among the wolves, HarThass would have no idea . . .”

“Yes, that is true. And if,” Jerthon said softly, “if you had never lain with EnDwyl, Ram would not be here at all.”

*

Ram was dressed in such a bundle of clothes, forced on him by Dlos, he thought he could not move. He tried to keep the lantern from clinking against stone as he crouched beneath Venniver’s window, next to Skeelie. They could hear the men at supper, had seen Venniver quaffing ale at the long table as they slipped by. “I still say I’m the one to go in,” Skeelie said, “you—”

“I want,” Ram whispered as he pried the shutter loose, “I want to do it myself, Skeelie. Now be still—only, hiss if anyone comes.” He climbed over the sill, took the lantern from her, lit it, and shone the light around, catching his breath at the grand furnishings, the rich colors. He went quickly to the chest at the foot of the bed.

He lifted the lid, found the key stuck down between side and bottom. He took the key to the fireplace, pushed away a strip of molding, found the lock. When Venniver’s safe was open, he stared with wonder at the jewels there, the fine goblets and golden bowls. The wolf bell stood on the center shelf.

“Hurry!” Skeelie hissed. “Someone—hurry!”

He grabbed the bell, stuffed it in his tunic, replaced the key and was just over the sill when he heard voices. He dropped down on top of Skeelie, and they lay in a heap, not daring to move.

Two guards strode past arguing. One said something about a donkey that made them stiffen. But the guards went on, unheeding, passing their donkey right by where he stood hobbled in the shadows.

They sorted themselves out, unhitched Pulyo, and hastened through shadow up toward the plain. They had already said good-bye to Dlos, were loaded with mawzee cakes and bread the old woman had slipped out of the sculler, with smoked meat and some chidrack eggs carefully wrapped. Skeelie led the donkey, taking a proprietary air with him after her sore trial getting him out of the herd. “He’s mine now,” she said, hugging the gray scruffy neck. “I stole him, and he’s mine.”

“Will Venniver come after us, do you think, if he finds we’re gone?” Ram said.

“Why should he?”

“The donkey, for one thing. I still say, Skeelie . . .”

“Would you want to carry all of the pack, blankets and food?”

“I still say we didn’t need—”

“Yes we do. You don’t know anything. Besides, Venniver won’t come into the mountains. He’s terrified of them.”

They heard the wolves, then.

The wolves had begun to come out of the caves, crying out at the night, showing themselves for an instant then slipping away down the mountain toward the children, their eyes like ice as they paced and stared down across the shadows. Ram heard their cries and thrilled to them, remembering Gredillon’s words, read so long ago from an ancient book she had kept wrapped in silk in her cupboard.

For NiMarn shaped a bell of bronze that would call the wolves out of the wild night or send them cringing down among the shallow rock-caves where they denned; a magic of power concentrated in the metal and the fashioning. He stared up the mountain, heard Fawdref’s wild call, and quickened his pace up the plain, the little donkey trotting along as if he went every day to join wolves.

*

In the morning the slaves were taken out to work, and Tayba left alone in the cell. A guard, herding the others out, said, “You will be given a few days to mend. But hurry up about it, Venniver does not like to feed idlers. You will be expected to work like the rest.” When they all had gone, she felt the darkness of the cell close in around her, her wrists prickling oddly at the thought that she was locked in, trapped here like some wild thing caught in a furrier’s cage.

She lay huddled in the cell ignoring the bread and water Derin had left her, the herbs Dlos had brought She tried to remember all that Jerthon had shown her and could not. Some of it, yes. But a haziness came over the pictures, maddening her. There was something else, though. Something that lingered in her mind, secret and urgent Had she gotten the thought from Jerthon? It was as if there was something they would not trust her with, something they had shielded from her.

But she did know. She knew. She rose so quickly the pain brought tears and began to prowl the cell. What was it that Jerthon had hidden in his thoughts, did not want her to know? How could she know something he had not intended her to see? Unless she . . .

“No! I do not have that power!” She stood staring down at the pile of hides where Jerthon had slept trying to shake off the unwanted knowledge. And she knew, with perfect clarity, that if she pushed those hides away—she thrust the hides back with her foot and saw the loose, unmortared stones underneath. She knelt folded the hides back, and began to lift out the stones.

Beneath them was a wide plank. She lifted it out and knelt there staring down into a black pit.

Crude steps went down, to disappear m darkness. Three lanterns stood on the top step; she reached for one, and struck flint adjusted the wick. Now she could see the bottom step, and the beginning of a tunnel. She started down, then turned back, leaving the lantern on the stairs.

She covered the loose stones with hides, then pulled hides over the plank and pulled that over the hole behind her as she descended.

The tunnel ran on farther than her light reached. Heavy timbers supported the roof—Venniver’s timbers, she thought, grinning. And Venniver’s stones and dragon bone mortared into the walls.

She had gone some distance when she came to a pile of loose dirt where the slaves must recently have been digging. A side tunnel opened here, smaller and unmortared. A stack of long timbers stood at the mouth. She counted twenty exactly and could hear Venniver shouting, “Where in Urdd do timbers go! Where does someone hide timbers! You don’ t . . .” She went on, smiling to herself.

Soon her way was blocked by the tunnel’s end. Shovels had been left here, a pick, an adz. A sled for carrying dirt. There was everything here. How in Urdd had they gotten it all, right out from under Venniver’s nose?

“Skeelie stole it,” Jerthon said quietly. She spun at his voice, her lantern careening light up the walls.

“Skeelie is clever and quick. She could steal Venniver’s beard off his face.” He came toward her. His clear green eyes held her. “I wish I could—could be sure of you.” He made a barrier between them that she could not broach. “Well, what you have already seen is enough to get us all killed.” He took her lantern from her and held it up; and where the tunnel had stopped in a fall of dirt, now it was suddenly open in an illusion so real and sudden she gasped. It went further than the light could reach. “That is how it will be,” Jerthon said. “We . . .” he stopped speaking, startled, as two figures appeared there ahead, young girls, their hair long down their backs. This was not a vision Jerthon was giving her, this had come unbidden. She could feel his sharp interest as the brown-haired girl began to rummage in a crevice in the tunnel wall; Jerthon caught his breath as the girl drew her hand from the niche, closed around something small and glowing; and suddenly the tunnel began to grow light, to open out, the space becoming huge and so brilliant Tayba could hardly look.

An immense space opened out before them and seemed to be expanding. There were vague mountains in the distance; but the towering winged figures close at hand made her go weak with awe, want to kneel. Their human torsos rose above the horselike bodies, tall, burnished; and their wings flashed against the brilliance of expanding light. Their eyes, their faces held wonders that made her want to cry out, drowned her in a world quite beyond her.

You are come, they cried, and their voices held a terrible joy. You must reach out, you will reach out—if you are the chosen. She was clutching Jerthon’s hand.

The vision vanished. There was blackness. Tayba had heard something drop to the floor, saw dimly that one of the girls knelt to search across the dirt for it—then that, too, vanished. She stood staring, felt Jerthon beside her, looking up to see him as stricken as she.

He shook free of the vision at last. “I have to go back. I will be missed.” He seemed not to want to speak of what he had seen, to lock it privately within. He led her back along the tunnel, then turned away from her into the side tunnel. “This goes into the pit.” He smiled for the first time, then swung away, brushing the wall with his shoulder. Loose grains of dirt fell, then dirt fell from the roof—she didn’t know what was happening, she was covered by falling dirt; she couldn’t see, felt Jerthon grab her shoulder and push her roughly away—Jerthon was there in falling dirt she saw a timber fall. Dirt roared down, she dove under the timber reaching for Jerthon, jammed her shoulder under it so it nearly knocked her flat, the pain making her cry out.

She sprawled beneath the timber’s weight covered with dirt and could feel Jerthon buried beneath her.

She twisted over, clawing at the dirt beneath her. Jerthon! His face was covered, he could not breathe. She fought dirt, twisted down into an impossible position, digging, scraping dirt with her hands. The pain in her side tore at her. She felt Jerthon try to move his leg, felt his panic. She clawed like an animal, and at last could feel his shoulder, his neck, began to dig dirt away from his face; could feel his mouth at last, felt him suck in breath. The pain in her side was like knives. She clawed dirt away from his mouth, his nose. She could feel his breath on her hand. Nausea swept her. She began to clear dirt from his eyes, could feel dirt falling on her back.

Something touched her back, she started violently, then realized someone was clearing dirt from her body. She twisted around and saw Drudd pushing a block of wood in next to her to support the timber. He wedged another block in farther down, then began digging with a small spade as she held her hands to protect Jerthon’s face. Drudd cleared her first, to get at Jerthon, then she dug beside him. Jerthon kept himself quiet with great effort, she thought. He was sweating, his jaws clenched. She thought he wanted to fight the confining dirt mindlessly, as she would have.

When he was free at last, he stood in the tunnel looking at them, very white, collecting himself. There was nothing for anyone to say. Drudd and Jerthon soon went around the slide and back up to the pit.

Shaken, Tayba returned to the cell and began replacing the plank and stones. When she had finished, she sat down on the skins wishing the nausea would pass, wishing her hands would stop trembling.

What had caused the cave-in? Had it been a natural thing, there where the tunnel was yet unsupported? Or had the Pellian Seer brought it down on Jerthon in a moment of cruel retribution for Jerthon’s part in saving Ram? Meant, she thought, shivering, to kill both of them there?

She did not know. Perhaps neither did Jerthon. Perhaps he had been too terrified to wonder or to care.

And when she thought of Jerthon’s knowledge of her, of the power within her that she would give anything to be rid of, she wondered if, were it to happen again, she would be quite so quick to gamble her life to save someone who not only knew of that power, but expected her to come to terms with it in a way she could not bear to do.