The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

TEN

The way grew too narrow and steep for the donkey. Skeelie had her arms around his shaggy neck, trying to hide tears. “We can’t just leave him, Ram. He’ll starve. Or something will kill him here.”

“You should have thought of that.”

“I did, but I thought—well, that there would be a valley somewhere with grass and water, and he’d stay. But there’s nothing here, only stone. And now—now we’ve seen the other wolves, the common wolves that would kill him—oh, he’s been a good donkey, Ram. Couldn’t you—couldn’t you lay a spell on his mind? Make him go home again, and quickly?

“I can try,” Ram said uncertainly. He rubbed the donkey’s nose and fondled it in the way it liked. Then, slowly and warmly, he let his mind flow into Pulyo’s as if they were one. As if they shared all memory, all feeling. He thought of the trail back, and of Burgdeeth, warm and safe. He thought of Pulyo going back hastily, cautiously, along that wild trail.

At last Pulyo raised his head, put forward his ears, stared back down the trail, and began to bray.

Ram loosed him and patted his rump. The little animal set off at a trot, soon had broken into a gallop. As he rounded the first bend of the narrow path, his braying echoed back and forth between the peaks. Skeelie said, “I hope he gets that out of his system. He’ll have every wolf in twenty miles following.”

Ram thought of silence, stealthy silence. The idea might be foreign to a donkey, but the braying stopped at last. “Go in safety,” Ram whispered.

They moved up along precipices now. And then at the edge of a sheer drop, the ground cracked suddenly beneath Ram’s feet; Skeelie grabbed him, Fawdref lurched, pressing him back. They stood pushing against the wall of stone behind them, Skeelie very white, Fawdref unwilling to move away from Ram. The wolf’s warmth, so close, was comforting. Ram looked at the broken precipice, and down to the mile-deep valley into which he would have fallen. Into which the rock had fallen clattering, then, without sound. They had not heard it hit. He picked up a stone, meaning to drop it down, but the thought sickened him. Skeelie said, “I thought the ground moved—before the cliff broke.” She was chilled into silence. They stared at the edge where stones had sheered away as cleanly as if they had been hit by an ax. And Fawdref looked at Ram with pain. Ram knew he felt the agony of not having foreseen that falling stone.

The near accident confused Ram. They both should have known, should have seen what HarThass was about. The Seer had ways of secrecy that were terrifying. Ram knew that to be tired decreased his powers, and that angered him too. There were such subtle skills yet to learn, ways to avoid his weaknesses—but how could he learn them here, when his job was to keep them safe on the mountain?

The clouds hung low and heavy. There had been rain farther down, their clothes were wet and cold. Resolutely they moved on, following the narrow precipitous trail along the cliff until, late in the afternoon, the trail ended suddenly and sharply. Only a steep drop lay ahead. The cliff wall on their right, which continued upward a long way, was sheer, broken only by wrinkles of stone inches wide, far too narrow for even an agile goat to climb. Ram swallowed. “We can’t go back! There isn’t time to go back, the Seer’s army will sweep into Burgdeeth, Jerthon—Jerthon will need the help of the Runestone. I must—I must hold that power against the Seer. . . .”

Fawdref stood leaning over the lip of the trail, staring down into the valley. Cautiously the children looked, and there across the far green valley floor an immense snakelike shadow writhed. “Gantroed,” Ram breathed. The shadow oozed closer to the cliff wall directly beneath them, then disappeared into the shadow of the cliff itself.

Skeelie whispered, “Can it climb the cliff?”

“Of course it can. You know what it’s like, those legs—they can grip anything.”

Fawdref turned his steady gaze on Ram, then looked upward. He spoke in Ram’s mind with an intention that chilled Ram; Ram touched the pale, soft fur along the wolf’s muzzle, then laid his head against the great rounded skull, swept by the power of Fawdref’s thoughts—swept by terror at what Fawdref meant to do.

“You could do it alone, but you can’t . . .” He stared at Fawdref. “You can’t balance with our weight. It’s too sheer, a goat couldn’t . . .”

Fawdref let him know that he could.

Reluctantly Ram shed his pack. He felt weak and uncertain. They could die here—and they must not die. He slipped the last of the mountain meat into his tunic, then began to remove his sword belt; but Fawdref nosed it back. They could hear a crunching sound from the cliff below, heard some rocks break away. Ram dared not look down at the valley again. He glanced at Skeelie and knew she felt the same. He felt Fawdref’s strength reach to steady him. He was weak with terror. He would rather fight the gantroed, he would . . . Fawdref nosed at him again. He looked into Fawdref’s eyes, then at last he climbed obediently onto the great wolf’s back, all power within him silent now, withheld in mortal fear; he was a tiny child again, wanting comforting.

He turned to look at Skeelie. She was so deathly white he thought she could not do it.

Skeelie shed her pack and laid herself atop Rhymannie’s back, her legs bent and gripping, her arms tight around the bitch wolf’s neck, her face in Rhymannie’s thick coat. Her eyes were closed tight.

Ram felt the lump of the wolf bell wedged between his ribs and Fawdref’s back and forgot helplessness then, beginning to pour all the skills he knew into the bell’s power—the bell was not a vessel to command wolves now, but a source of strength for them all.

*

HarThass dismounted. A soldier took his reins and led his horse onto the scow. The wind was still, the narrow inlet clear and calm. On the other side, Farr looked small and ragged. Both scows smelled so strongly of fish it was no wonder the horses balked. It had taken the fool Farrians half the morning to get their catch unloaded and the scows ready for passage. He boarded the larger scow and stood at the rail.

The water was the color of dead grass, but clear enough; he could see the dark shapes of the sunken islands deep down, and the outline of Opensa’s sunken towers. He caught a sense of alarm suddenly from the young Seer, AcShish, and reached out to see why the swarthy boy stood staring so intensely toward the mountains.

HarThass let the vision fill his mind; then slowly he began to smile. He saw the wolves crouching, preparing to scale the sheer cliff, the children clinging. He saw the gantroed hidden below them, seeking, sliding up the sheer wall, led and nurtured by the aura of dark that he, HarThass, had so skillfully woven around the children, taught his apprentices to hold. The aura moved with them constantly up the mountains, bringing the gantroed now, out from its slimy stone den into daylight it may not have touched for centuries. He raised his hand—he could flick wolves and children from that wall in one quick surge of power, into the gantroed’s jaws.

Yet, did he want to kill Ramad so soon? Might he not, even yet, seduce the boy into turning back? Or, better, seduce him into bringing the Runestone down the mountain to him? A moment of uncertainty gripped him. He stared blindly up toward Tala-charen, seeing the wolves crouched.

And then quickly he sent his powers in a dark sudden surge. The gantroed writhed more agilely up that rock wall toward the children. He would turn them back, delay them, weaken them further. . . . Let them live yet awhile.

But he met a jolt of violence, sickening him: his own force was gripped and twisted back. He stared into the element of dark and saw Jerthon facing him, laughing. Laughing! He trembled with fury; he would see Jerthon burn. He felt his five apprentices drawn taut against Jerthon, and still their power, all together, was not sufficient Those slaves! Those damnable, fracking slaves. And they stood as one with the wolves and with that impossible boy and his bell, grown stronger, grown beyond tolerating.

*

Jerthon forgot the pot of molten bronze in his hands as he knelt before the forge fire, his mind, his very soul on the dark peaks, caught in battle as he stood with Ram to drive HarThass back, to slow the gantroed as the great wolf crouched to leap. He pulled the silence of death from the far world of night and flung it down on HarThass, pulled the force of earth from the mountains themselves, from the morass of stone and sent it down on the Pellian to snarl his web of terror and the insidious illusion of uncertainty he spun. And Fawdref tensed.

Ram, his face against the great wolf’s shaggy neck, could see the sky out beyond the cliff, the peaks far below, see dark clouds rolling closer. He felt Fawdref measure the spans, one above the next, gauge where each foot would strike and cling. Once Fawdref made that first surging leap there could be no stopping or his weight and Ram’s would pull them back to spill them into the valley. His first momentum must keep them moving upward in one terrible, straining effort until they stood at last safe on the crest—or until they failed, and fell.

The wolf sprang suddenly upward in a rending surge of raw power that took Ram’s breath, an explosion from crouching haunches that lifted them high up the cliff, clinging, paws scrabbling, leaped again, straining up and up the mountain, leaning into the cliff’s side. Again upward . . .

Rhymannie mimicked him, came flying up. Each leap Fawdref made, she made also as Skeelie clung in empty terror.

Five leaps, six. Ram expected to feel the momentum reverse and know they would plunge down. He willed Fawdref upward, made himself as a feather on Fawdref’s back, weightless . . .

And at last Fawdref stood on the crest of solid rock.

Ram loosed his arms from the shaggy neck, felt his feet strike the ground. He turned to look at Skeelie. She slipped down off Rhymannie’s back and grinned at him.

They were on a thin, long ridge that ran through space to join a mountain and fell away on both sides to the valleys below. Mountain peaks lay below them like a carpet, fading into the far horizons. And beyond the first mountain they faced, rose a second: taller and very thin; symmetrical as a tower. Tala-charen. There was no mistaking it. It thrust above the mountain ranges and into the sky like a castle meant to rule clouds, meant to be approached only on the winds. And those winds bit at them with icy fingers as they began to cross along the crest of the ridge.

But the ground was warm, and ahead of them steam rose through cracks in the stone, and there was a red glow over the cracked ground and tongues of flame licked out. The other wolves had scaled the cliff and now began to slip past Fawdref light-footed, to go on up the ridge toward the first peak as if they wanted to get quickly away from the burning stone.

*

The scows pulled into Farr’s shore, HarThass swearing roundly at the ineptness of apprentice Seers who were no more help to him than a clutch of hens. To let the gantroed go sluggish as a garden worm, unable to climb to the ledge in time to turn the children back. When his horse was brought, he snatched at the reins with such violence that the animal reared and plunged away and had to be caught again, sending soldiers and apprentices alike into a flurry of confusion. He mounted, jerking the creature’s mouth so it nearly unseated him. The apprentices—seething at his anger and at their own failure at such a simple thing and shamed by their master’s failure—smirked at his discomfort and looked the other way.

They rode up through Farr’s southern village scowling at the staring populace until all but the bravest stepped back inside their doors out of sight. HarThass’s angry mood did not abate until they were well on up the river Owdneet and nearly into Aybil. This was low, marshy country. The soldiers killed some ducks for supper and a large water snake. They would eat, rest for two hours, and move on as soon as the moons gave them light.

*

Tayba knew Ram was in danger. She yearned to reach out to him, was frozen with fear for him and could do nothing. She did not know what danger, only that dark powers swung and tilted around him, tried to force her to stand with them against him; to give herself to them. But she had nothing to give, would never stand against Ram, was unable to deal with this. She felt herself torn, knelt weeping and did not know why she wept; felt gentleness touch her, seduce her, felt the darkness soothe and warm her, drug her. . . .

*

Where the ridge joined the first peak, a cave led into the mountain. The children, pressing close to the wolves, entered the cave gladly after so much height and empty space around them, sighed with relief at the closeness of stone walls. Even the dim light seemed pleasant, and the protection very welcome, for it had started to rain again and that high ridge had been terrifying in the sweeping rain.

They drew deeper into the cave, and deeper. The dim light took on a red glow, dull red pulsing along the cave walls. After several turnings they came to a lake of fire, red molten rock bubbling, sending out a heat that at first was lovely, then as they drew closer made them hesitate, was so hot they wanted to turn away from it. A narrow ledge ran beside the burning lake, against the sheer wall. Beyond the lake the cave widened. They saw dark shadows move there, then disappear. “We—we had best go on,” Ram said.

“But the shadows—”

He started across, his jaw clenched. It would be worse if they stayed. “The gantroed is still behind us somewhere,” he said quietly.

*

Tayba felt the dark soothe her, caress and join with her; and gently she gave herself to it. As the children and their companions started along the path beside the burning lake, she knew only the seduction of that unknown warmth and yielded to it, let it wrest a power from her she did not know she gave, felt herself lifted and reaching out with some greater strength than her own.

Jerthon, alarmed, came into her mind quickly and directly, made her see him, stared into her eyes so that they widened. Made her see Ram then, see what she was about: and the power within her exploded outward in a violent wrenching that sent a wolf sprawling toward the burning lake; she screamed, terrified, drew back, pulled back, twisting away from the dark. Saw Jerthon’s mind and heart reach out to catch the burned wolf and lift her to safety.

She knelt breathless and sick. What had happened? She did not want to see, to face it. She pushed Jerthon away in panic; and he turned from her willingly, sick at what she had done, allowed to be done. HarThass had shaped a skill over her that appalled him.

Ram saw, in that instant when he and Skeelie together snatched at the falling wolf and felt Jerthon’s power with them—in that instant he knew Tayba’s confusion and her betrayal. He went sick at the knowledge. Not only his life and the wolves, but so much more—she jeopardized it all. He could not bear to think she would, yet it was so. She had let the dark power in, had welcomed it simply by denying her own power. And now—now, for the rest of the journey up into Tala-charen, she was likely to betray them again. Tayba—Mamen . . . He was faint with the heat of the burning lake that boiled beside their hurrying feet, was dizzy with the hot, steaming air. His anger at Tayba seemed one with the heat, he was light-headed, dizzy and sick. . . .

*

It was growing increasingly difficult for the slaves to hide their plans from HarThass as the Seer drew closer to Burgdeeth—if, indeed, he did not already know of the tunnel and the importance they placed on it. A tunnel to lie like a talisman of freedom beneath Burgdeeth. A hidden place, a place of safety for generations yet unborn. If they failed to take the town, and Venniver’s religion became a reality, it would be there always to harbor those who would escape. And if they took the town, the tunnel would become a bulwark against attack, where women and children could hide from the cruelty and maiming that a later Herebian attack could bring. A tunnel from which the vibrations of the relics of the past and the vibrations of the statue would speak out to young Seers.

HarThass would destroy it if he knew; and HarThass was far too capable of digging deep down into one’s mind, to seek out just such knowledge.

*

“You see!” EnDwyl said. “Even with all that, she botched it. She’s too unpredictable. She—”

“Those cursed apprentices botched it!” HarThass scowled at the five rigid backs riding ahead of them, then looked at EnDwyl piercingly. He did not admit his own failure. “Given a little more time, I’ll have the girl as carefully fettered as this stupid animal I ride. Meantime, they are not past the burning lake yet—wait and see what my”—he raised his voice threateningly—“what my skilled apprentices will do to them before they are past it.” He kicked his mount brutally and sent it up into the bit to bow its neck in useless effort in HarThass’s idea of spirit

EnDwyl gave him a sideways glance, then looked away across the low hills that flanked the plain. The horses were growing tired, they didn’t need HarThass’s stupid treatment. He stared at the plain, the hills, and thought that if they—when they took Burgdeeth, they would take all this land as well. His thoughts were broken suddenly as HarThass jerked his horse to a clumsy halt and sat like a dead weight in the saddle. EnDwyl reined in beside him. The other five Seers had reined up too, turned, looking disconcerted. The soldiers turned in their saddles to eye them with patient annoyance.

HarThass, still as stone, began to sweat with the force he was using in some cold effort; at last he said, raising his eyes to the other Seers, “You fracking incompetents! Even without the girl to hinder you, you can’t—I did not mean for them all to get by that molten lake! Not all. What were you about? Daydreaming. You could have put a wolf or two in to boil!” He glared at EnDwyl as if it were his fault too and kicked the gray in the ribs to vent his anger, went lurching off at a gallop that nearly unseated him as the animal shied around a boulder.

He was no great horseman, the Seer of Pelli.

*

Ram and Skeelie stood some yards beyond the boiling lake, the wolves clustered around them. The wolf who had nearly fallen in lay licking her burned leg. They had barely made it across as the Seer of Pelli sent a second sickening force to topple and unnerve them; had clung creeping along the damp wall, the heat nearly unbearable, singeing whiskers and faces, the Seer’s force pulling them like a magnet toward that boiling mass; had tumbled at last onto cool, firm stone nearly breathless.

Skeelie said, “Well, at least our clothes are dry. We were cold, we wanted to be warm.”

“Warm. Not singed.” He knelt to examine Celic’s burned leg. They didn’t even have water to ease the burn—and all of them were thirsty now—no salve to help her, nothing. They stared back at the flaming lake, then turned away from it, sick at the close escape. The smell of burning flesh and hair filled the cave.

Red reflections from the fiery lake glanced across the cave walls. The hurt bitch moaned, then was still. She was a gentle, deep gray little wolf. “Celic,” Ram said. “Celic.” She looked at him with kindness in spite of the pain. They went on at last, Celic hopping on three feet. The cave grew smaller, then larger again, always lit by a dull light as if fissures opened somewhere above them. When they made a crude camp at last, the wolves paced guard, several at a time, as the children slept. They came, near to noon the next day, to a honeycombed expanse through which they must crawl. Blind white lizards scuttled away, stirred by their vibrations against the stone. Skeelie shivered. “We must be near the other side of the mountain by this time. And we keep dropping.”

That will make the climb longer, up into Tala-charen.”

“There’s nothing growing, no morliespongs, our food wont last long if . . .”

“Maybe—maybe between the mountains something will be growing. We’ll need water. There’s nothing, just those trickles in the rock.” The children had lapped at the damp rock just as the wolves had, absorbing every drop into their dry throats.

The cave grew narrower, the ceiling lower. They were so thirsty. The weight of the mountain above them was oppressive. Celic kept up on her three legs very well. Ram felt the powers converging on Burgdeeth, knew that the slaves would come out soon through the completed statue, to challenge Venniver. That the Pellians were drawing close to Burgdeeth. The power that lay in Tala-charen could help Jerthon; and without it, the battle would be bloody indeed, very close. He pressed on, pale and silent.

The tunnel grew very tight, almost completely dark. HarThass’s darkness rode with them; the mountain whispered with voices that touched their minds then vanished. “I’m afraid,” Skeelie said quietly, but did not slack her pace. Something cold pushed past them unseen; the air stirred suddenly.

Then in the distance they saw flame blocking the tunnel, a nearly human figure with fire playing over its warty hide. Ram felt out to touch its sullen cruelty; then slowly and carefully he spun a web of confusion, deluding, misleading until at last it turned away into some dark fissure. When they passed the narrow opening, they saw its red reflection moving. Fire ogre. “Cruel, but mindless,” Ram said to reassure himself; but it didn’t reassure him.

And he felt the gantroed, knew it crawled in caves directly above them, ever pacing them.

There’s a stair ahead,” Skeelie said. “Look.” They could just make out a narrow, twisting stair leading upward; they ran, began to climb at once, feeling their way with care, clinging to the stone steps. The wolves growled at something Ram could not sense and pushed on quickly upward.

Finally they thought the air was fresher; then they began to see the steps clearly, and there was light coming down from above them. Soon they could see the stormy sky and feel the damp wind in their faces. They came up out of the well of stairs into the sky; and ahead rose Tala-charen, its peak lost in cloud. They had only to cross the green saddle of valley that ran like a bridge across empty sky. The setting sun cast one harsh orange streak beneath the boiling clouds, then disappeared.

They started down across the meadow, and when their feet touched soft grass, the wolves lapped moisture from the blades. Ram turned to wait for them and felt the mountain lurch, the earth beneath them jolt sickeningly. He grabbed Skeelie, threw her down as the wolves went belly low. The mountain rocked. Ram felt the Seer’s power, knew HarThass would wait no longer. The ground rocked so hard he thought the earth would tear away. The empty spaces below them heaved up. “Crawl!” he shouted uselessly, for they were all crawling across the swaying meadow. “Get into Tala-charen.”

*

They could see its entrance, a thin opening, dark. And then suddenly fire ogres appeared in that dark hole, blinking as if the tumult of the earth had driven them from sleep. Ram tried to stand up, feet apart, and the valley shook, and the lower peaks tipped and swam. Thunder echoed. Fawdref pushed close to him. They were spun toppling again, clinging to the unstable earth.

The entrance to Tala-charen blurred, was lost in a burst of flame as more fire ogres emerged. The wolves moved forward, teeth bared. All the forces of Ere seemed to converge as the two mountains lurched. Stones broke away, went tumbling down. They heard a crack and saw flame burst from a peak far below.

At last they had crossed the rocking valley, knelt against the mountain in terror as boulders rolled and fell crashing. The fire ogres came toward them, ranked close, reaching. Skeelie’s knife was poised to strike; she screamed without sound. Fawdref leaped, and the stink of burning fur filled the wind. Ram grabbed him, wrapped his arms around him to extinguish flame, shouting the words of the bell: demanding. An ogre had Celic, flame covered her. Wolves cried out as they bit through flame. “Now!” Ram screamed, his fury more than his own; and caught his breath as rain came crashing, thundering down at his bidding.

The flames were drowned. Naked fire ogres like great toads fled falling over stones, back into the fissure. The wolves rolled in rain, killing fire. Ram stroked and stroked their poor burned faces.

They ran at last through the entrance, drenched, safe as long as they remained wet; ran past flame-filled caves, past staring eyes, fiery hands reaching then drawn back, to a spiral flight thin as glass; ran, loving the clammy feel of their wetness as they surged upward, wolves and children; and heard the ogres start up the steps behind them.