Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  In the castle of Hape, the battle to control the raw power of the mountains stilled the dark Seers so they seemed as stone. The Hape itself was not visible, but its force was linked with the Seers; and even so the dark powers faltered. For now the Seers of Carriol held power. And on the mountains, fire spewed like blood, fiery rivers oozing down along the valleys burning scrub so grass could spring anew: fires renewing by killing; and the night sky was heavy with smoke as flame burst from far peaks.

  In Burgdeeth, while the mountains rumbled with mute voices, Ram was forced up the temple steps—thinking of Telien, thinking now only of Telien somewhere among those fires. And inside the temple the silent citizens knelt with bowed heads and righteous thoughts, anticipating the ritual of the Seer’s death by fire, so anticipating their own sacred redemption.

  Ram had been stripped naked and his hands and legs bound with leather thongs. He was led hobbling to the altar, the leather biting into his ankles, and there he was forced to kneel. His fear of death rose again in spite of his control, as Venniver stood above him, blank of expression, robed in ceremonial white. On the dais behind the red-robed deacons, wood and charcoal had been laid against the tall iron stake. Venniver’s voice rose to echo in the domed temple. “The gods speak!”

  The people answered as one, “The gods speak.”

  “The gods command the Seer’s death!”

  “They command death!”

  “Evil must be destroyed by fire, by the cleansing fire!”

  “The fire! The sacred fire!”

  Ram was chilled, but sweating. Venniver’s voice rang like thunder through the temple. “Those with the curse of Ynell, those with the curse of Seeing, are as filth upon the land!”

  “The fire! The sacred fire!”

  Two deacons pulled Ram upright, forced him up the steps to the iron stake. He stared at the oil-soaked wood around his feet with a feeling of terror he could not quell, felt the bonds tighten as he was bound to the stake. He prayed then, in cold silence. The mountains rumbled. Venniver glanced up, seemed to take this as an omen to his righteousness. The kneeling people sighed faintly. Ram knew terror, knew it was too late to fight back now, he had left it too long.

  “They who defy the powers of the gods shall be consumed in fire!”

  “The fire! The sacred fire . . .”

  “Must die! Die by fire! The Seer must die by fire!”

  “Die by fire!” Their voices rose, and they began to stir.

  Venniver held up his hands. Their voices stilled as one. He knelt dramatically before the funeral pyre, and the sheep sighed. Venniver seemed then to be praying, made long dramatic ritual all in silence, lighting of candles along the altar as the deacons chanted in deep, reverent voices. Ram stood watching with growing horror his own funeral, sweating, his body numbed by the tightly cutting bonds.

  Venniver rose at last, made signs of obeisance before the raised altar, turned to face the temple.

  Stung by fear, trying to keep himself from screaming out, Ram tried to touch Venniver’s thoughts and could not. He tried to hold steady to the Luff’Eresi’s promise and was overwhelmed by terror as Venniver took up a taper, struck flint so it flared and, smiling, thrust the flaming taper to the pyre. Flame leaped, caught, flared up Ram’s bare legs. He fought in terror, unable to control himself.

  But the flame died. Died as if it had been snuffed. The sheep stared and sucked in their breath.

  Venniver lit the pyre again. Again the flame leaped, again died. The taper in his hand died to blackness, and suddenly the temple door flew open. A woman screamed, men rose from their benches to stare, light poured into the temple brighter than moonlight and icy cold: blinding light, fracturing, dancing light; and from the light a voice boomed.

  “Unbind the Seer! You tamper with our property, pig of Burgdeeth! Unbind the Seer that belongs to us!”

  Venniver stood staring, seemed afraid—yet squared his shoulders in defiance. He seemed about to speak when suddenly his body twisted until he knelt, screaming out in pain.

  “Free the Seer!”

  Venniver scowled. He tried to rise and could not.

  “Free the Seer, pig of Burgdeeth!”

  At last, in obvious pain, Venniver nodded to a deacon, and Ram felt his bonds loosed from behind, felt the brush of a deacon’s robe.

  “Bring the Seer here.”

  Venniver stared at the cold light, again was twisted so he knelt; again nodded to a deacon.

  Two deacons came forward, took Ram’s arms, and he was led down the steps of the altar past the sheep, and stood at last in the door of the temple facing the shattering radiance of a dozen winged gods towering over him, their horselike bodies and human torsos ever-changing in the shifting light—light that seemed a part of them. Ram went down to them, walked among them to the square with head bowed and eyes lowered as if he were their prisoner; felt their amusement and returned it with his own, wanted to shout with pleasure and release. He turned at last to see Venniver and his deacons forced out of the temple as if they were pulled by invisible lines. They tried to turn away but could not get free, and their faces were frozen in terror.

  The leaders of Burgdeeth were forced toward the square and there made to kneel before the winged statue of gods. The Luff’Eresi towered around the statue, so brilliant one could hardly look, cast their light across the bronze figures so they, too, seemed alive.

  The sky in the east was a dull red as the Luff’Eresi spoke again. “Call out your people, Venniver of Burgdeeth.”

  The people of Burgdeeth came hesitantly to the square, mobbed together in fear just as fearful sheep would mob, stood before the Luff’Eresi at last, and then knelt of one accord; and they could not look up at that brilliance, none had the courage to look up though the brilliance touched them like a benevolence.

  “Unbind the Seer’s hands! We have no need to bind our prisoners. Do you expect us to take him like a sack of meal! This is our prisoner you have so brazenly played with!”

  Ram was unbound. Stood naked and free and cared not for his nakedness, felt only triumph as he saw Venniver cower before the Luff’Eresi.

  “Listen well, Venniver of Burgdeeth! We tend our own sacrifices. That is our privilege. We deal with the Seers, not you. If you claim another Seer—man, child or woman—you will die. Die wishing you had never been born!

  “Do you hear us well?”

  “I—hear you well.” Venniver glanced up sideways at the gods, then looked down again; his great breadth and height, the bulk of the man, which always made others look puny, had gone. He seemed a small, shrinking figure now before these magnificent beings. For an instant, the thunder of the mountains drowned all else. Fire leaped skyward in the east, and at that sign the men of Burgdeeth moaned as if all their pent-up terror was suddenly freed into sound. They knelt moaning before the gods; and Venniver’s deacons knelt; and the Luff’Eresi thundered, “From now hence for all time you will bring the Seers to us! Do you understand, pig of Burgdeeth?”

  “I understand.”

  “I understand, master!”

  Among the kneeling crowd, some of Venniver’s soldiers had begun to rise now, and to slip fearfully away, seeking their horses, seeking escape. The Luff’Eresi ignored them.

  “Open your mind, Venniver of Burgdeeth, and we will mark the path you will take to bring the prisoners to us! For you will bring them—all of them—to the death stone outside of Eresu. There we will deal with them. One transgression, Venniver of Burgdeeth, one omission, and your own death will be so long and painful an experience that you will beg to die!

  “And think not,” cried the Luff’Eresi as one, “that we will not know what you do here. We see your petty intrigues, human! We see your insignificant thoughts!

  “You will not defy us again, pig of Burgdeeth.”

  Ram felt a stir of air, looked up to see the silver stallion plummeting down out of the sky, heard the indrawn breath of men as they dared to look up, in spite of the gods’ radiance, to see the
winged stallion descend. The stallion came at once to Ram, and he swung himself up between the great wings, stared down at Venniver’s white face, at the awe-struck sheep, and tried to look as submissive and captive as possible, though his spirit was soaring with this taste of triumph and freedom. As the stallion whirled, he saw a handful of men riding hard away from Burgdeeth, saw them felled suddenly. They lay unmoving as their riderless horses fled. And then suddenly the silver stallion leaped skyward and Ram was lifted, was windborne on the night sky between the stallion’s sweeping wings, surrounded by light and by the wild exalted laughter of the Luff’Eresi, filling Ram’s mind with joy.

  *

  In the ruins, Jerthon lifted his head from deepest concentration. Ram was safe, Ram had lifted free of Burgdeeth. He saw tears in Tayba’s eyes. Skeelie was leaning, pale with her effort, against the sill of the portal. She turned from him abruptly, swung out of the room, was gone. Jerthon could sense her striding along the corridor toward the citadel. She would kneel there alone, would pray, would thank whatever there was to thank that Ramad was safe.

  Tayba’s voice was no more than a whisper, so shaken was she with her effort, with the fear that had gripped her. With the wonder of that moment when the gods had spoken. For they had all Seen the gods clearly, Seen Venniver quail before the Luff’Eresi. The five of them had stared at each other in wild exaltation. “Was it . . .” Tayba whispered now. “Is it the power of the gods that we feel, Jerthon? Or the power of the mountains, as you said?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps—perhaps both.” He studied her quietly. “But this . . . this I know. That power—and I feel it still, do you not?” She nodded. ‘That power, whatever it is . . .” He did not need to finish, they all knew, they lifted their faces in sudden eagerness at his thoughts:

  Yes! This power must not be wasted! This power must be used, and now. Used while it flowed strong, while they felt it buoying them, urging them on. “We will arm at once,” Jerthon said softly. “Ready supplies, men, horses. We will ride for Pelli in a day’s time. Now is the moment to destroy the Pellian Seers if ever we are to do it!”

  They stared at him, lifted and renewed. To attack Pelli, to attack the dark Seers and the Hape. Yes! As one, Tayba and Drudd and Pol turned, preparing to depart, to give orders for supplies, for preparations. Jerthon stopped them with a quiet thought. They stood watching him, waiting. “There—there is enough power, if it holds, to block our thoughts from Skeelie. She—she will be wanting badly to ride out before dawn. A vision touches me . . .” He looked at them, questioning. The others felt out Tayba nodded, then Drudd and Pol. “Yes,” Jerthon said. “Skeelie will touch that vision, she will soon know that Ram will come to Blackcob—come in some need. She—would be with him then. I think—I think she should go unknowing.” Again there were nods of agreement. If Skeelie knew about the attack on Pelli, Ram would know soon; she could not keep such a thing from Ram’s mind as long as this sudden power surrounded them. They could keep it from Ram, perhaps, but Skeelie never could. Yes, the next moments, the next day, would be a time that might never come again for Ram. The next hours might never be remade, would be gone all too soon.

  “Let them be,” Drudd said. “Let the young ones be. They will help us in battle in their own time.”

  They nodded again, turned, went out of the chamber to prepare for war.

  *

  Telien had slept heavily, as if she were drugged, woke with a throbbing pain in her head and did not know where she was. She tried to understand why the darkness was so red. Why was her room so hot? She smelled smoke. She stared at the walls and saw that this was not her room, not any ordinary room, but a rough cave, and dark. The red light outside was . . . She rose on her elbow to stare. Was—fire! Fire! In a panic she tried to rise and was dizzy, sank down to the stone shelf again, trembling and sick and confused, had to get out, could feel the heat now, terrifying her.

  Finally she could sit up, was calmer, saw there was no flame near, only the red sky through the cave’s high opening, remembered the mountains. But how did she get here? She rose, stumbling, knelt beside Meheegan who only raised her head and moaned low. She made her way up to the cave’s mouth. Her heart was pounding. She stood there, facing the flaming mountains.

  And she saw that the red light was from reflection in the sky, that fire flared on peaks below and around her, but there was no fire here on this mountain—though below her the ridges shone red where a fiery river ran down, flaring suddenly as it struck a huge tree.

  Behind her, Meheegan stirred with a moaning sigh. The smoke made Telien’s eyes water. The mountain rumbled faintly, then the only sound was the hiss of cooling steam and the hush-hush of slow-burning foliage far below. Were the flames dying, was the mountain’s tantrum subsiding? She remembered it all now—their journey up the mountain—but did not remember how she had come to this cave, remembered very little after she had fallen. Her head hurt so. She stared out at the red, angry turmoil of the mountains, sweating, her face prickly. After some moments of the unbearable heat, she made her way down again to the cooler interior, pausing once with the sick dizziness of nausea, which finally passed. She had a vague memory of climbing up rock. Had they climbed here, she and Meheegan? But they must have. She could remember the red stallion forcing and pushing at her.

  Below her the mare had risen and begun to move restlessly back and forth. Telien saw the stallion then, at the far side of the cave, lying out full length, his wings folded around him. What was the matter with him? Was he . . . ? He raised his head and nickered to reassure her, and she let out her breath in relief.

  Telien stood watching Meheegan pace, driven by the pain of labor. The stallion rose at last and came to push tenderly at Meheegan as, again, nausea swept Telien. She knelt, weak and miserable, and was sick.

  She did not see the wolves watching from the deep shadows of the cave, waiting in silence for the mare’s extravagant event. But she felt a calmness suddenly, and a strengthening. She rose and went to touch the mare, to try to comfort her and steady her against the pain. The mare groaned and tightened herself, crouching, straining.

  The pains and constrictions came sharper, closer. Then, as the first touch of morning began to wash the sky, so drifts of ash could be seen on the hot wind, the foal began to come slipping out, a silvery sack. There was blood. The mare groaned. Telien knelt, fighting the sickness and nausea, trying to help. Her hands shook.

  It was then that the wolves crept out, silent and huge and gentle. The silver-encased foal sought strongly to tear itself away from the last vestige of dark, warm safety,, to leave the womb in a madness of life-lust, in a questing after a mystery it did not understand, yet sought with all its strength. The mare screamed. The foal slipped free. At once a pale wolf came forward and tore the sack open, and then Meheegan turned and began to lick the new young stallion that unfolded from its fetal shape. Telien watched, half-drugged with dizziness and pain, but missing none of the wonder; and then she went limp, sprawled across the cave, her head wound bleeding harder.

  The five wolves stood over her. One licked away the blood. The dark dog wolf put his face close to hers and seemed reassured by her faint but steady breathing. They watched the foal begin to wriggle, trying almost at once to loose those tight-folded stubs of wings. The wolves watched as it tried to rise on long, rubbery legs; and they watched Telien wake and saw her fear of them.

  She stared up at wolves all around her, huge and shaggy and rank-smelling, and fear cut through her, sharp and cold. The largest, a dark, broad dog wolf, approached her. His head was immense, his eyes stared unblinking.

  But his expression was not an animal expression, was so very human. She looked up at him partly in fear and partly with rising wonder; and in excited desperation she thought Ram’s name, Ramad of wolves. “Ramad,” she croaked, and put out her hand. Were these wolves Ram’s brothers? She was so dizzy, and still very much afraid in spite of her rising excitement. Animals hated fear. The big dog wolf came close to h
er. She knew, somehow, that she was expected to touch him.

  She reached. Her hand trembled. His teeth gleamed in a—was it a smile? He grinned widely, she could see the dark roof of his mouth. When she touched his face at last, the little hairs along his muzzle were soft as velvet. He looked down at her not as a wolf would look, and she repeated, “Ramad,” gone in terror. Gone in wonder.

  The wolf licked her hand and laid his head on her shoulder, and his gentleness wiped away her fear. How could she have feared him? She looked across at Meheegan and Rougier and realized that the mare and stallion had never been afraid; they stood among the wolves in perfect friendship.

  In the dim cave the red stallion and the five great wolves, the exhausted mare, and Telien stood watching—all alike in their wonder—as the new foal sought to rise and spread his wings. A colt red as his sire, born among the flames of the mountains. And Telien thought, Ram will love him. Then tears for Ram came suddenly and painfully, and she crouched against the shaggy dog wolf clutching his coat and weeping for Ram, washed with a sense of Ram’s danger, wanting Ram and so afraid for him.

  But then all at once, without Seer’s skill, her mind lay open. The dark wolf spoke in her mind, and she saw Ram bound to the stake, saw fire blaze around his naked legs. She knew this was a vision of something past. She heard a faint chanting, the fire, the sacred fire, and then she saw the glancing shattering brightness of the Luff’Eresi descending upon Burgdeeth and saw the dark Burgdeeth leader—black of beard, broad of shoulder—quail before the gods. And she saw Ram loosed from his bonds. She saw Ram carried aloft on the back of the silver stallion amidst the bright dazzle of the gods and knew that he was safe.

  *

  Ram rode between the stallion’s wings, oblivious to the fury of the Pellian leaders at his escape. Oblivious to their dark push to touch his mind. So numbed by exhaustion was he that only an echo remained in his mind of the Luff’Eresi’s voices, swelling with laughter and thundering victory. They had risen with him above Burgdeeth, then, very high above the hills, their light had shattered all around him and they had vanished. Simply vanished; the night sky suddenly empty except for the smoke-dulled light of Ere’s moons.