Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  And, sitting before the fire, her thoughts were pulled away from her suddenly. She Saw Telien in a clear vision, knew Telien intimately. Was angered at first by Telien’s presence in her mind, wanted only to be rid of her. But Telien’s fear became her fear, she knew the girl’s terror as if it were her own, knew in every detail Telien’s confused journey into the maelstrom of Time, was stricken suddenly with a terrible empathy for Telien and reached out to her at last, knew she must go to her.

  She tried, forced her powers out away from her own time into Time itself. But as suddenly as it had come, the vision vanished from her, and she could not sense Telien at all. She tried desperately, again and again, and failed. Failed Telien, and so failed Ram.

  She turned away at last, wanting to weep and unable to weep, weary and very much alone.

  *

  When the sense of someone there with her, supporting her, vanished, Telien was more alone than ever, cut adrift again in the eternal vastness of Time, unable to know, any more, what future or past was: she was swept on an endless sea in which she could find no bearing, find nothing to cling to, nothing to tell her, even, who she was.

  Who had touched her mind so briefly? So welcome. A girl, but who? As close as a sister, someone . . . the loss of that brief encounter sickened her further, set her adrift again utterly, more chaotically than before.

  She stood in a rough field. She remembered a rushing city moments before where she had wandered the streets among crowds, seen men strung from crosspoles and cut open like oxen, butchered for pleasure because they were Seers. Terror accompanied her. She knelt in the little field, trembling, her very will all but gone.

  Her mind reeled with a hundred generations, a hundred sights. She had seen women and children kept like animals while ruling Seers wallowed in luxury, seen fields and towns burned with the fires of the mountains flooding down and the people kneeling amidst the burned land to supplicate the gods. Seen men enslaved and driven mad at the pleasure of corrupt rulers.

  She raised her face to stare at the field and was suddenly not in the field, but in near-darkness—in a small, dark space, damp and close, and strong with the sense of death. She touched a wall, shivered. As she grew accustomed to the near-dark, she could make out a man lying at the far side of the cave. She knew that he was dying.

  He spoke, startling her anew, spoke in a rasping whisper. She did not want to hear that voice, did not want to listen; but knew she must listen, was horrified, was compelled by some force to listen, felt she almost knew what he would say. The smell of dying mingled with the damp smell of the cave. His voice was faint. His words made her shiver. “A bastard child will be born . . .” She trembled, covered her ears, could not block out his voice.

  “A bastard child will be born. And he will rule the wolves as no Seer before him has done . . .” He was speaking of Ram, surely. How could it be that he could speak of Ram? In what time was she? In what place?

  “A bastard child fathered by a Pellian bearing the last blood of the wolf cult. My blood! My blood seeping down generations hence from some bastard I sired and do not even know exists!

  “A child born of a girl with the blood of Seers in her veins. A child that will go among the wolves of the high mountains, where the lakes are made of fire. Wolves that are more than wolves. And that boy will seek a power greater even than the wolf bell, a power that even I could not master.”

  Telien drew in her breath. The runestone! Surely he spoke of the runestone!

  The man had stopped speaking. He coughed, lay with his life draining away. She went to him, repelled by him, yet drawn to him beyond her will. She touched him once, shivered uncontrollably, leaped up and ran from the cave—and was running fast through a sunlit wood, running in terror from that wasting corpse that lay, now, somewhere in distant time.

  She stopped herself with effort It did no good to run. She crouched down into a fetal position in a patch of sun between trees. She had nothing to hold to. Nothing. She wanted Ram, wanted him to tell her what was happening to her. She wanted him to hold her so she could not be swept away, never again be swept away.

  The wood vanished. She was in another cave. But this was a high domed cave, and light. A hairy gantroed like a great bristling dragon lay wounded across the floor; and the earth was rocking; thunder filled her ears.

  A dark-haired young boy stood beside the gantroed. She did not understand who he was, but his very presence made her heart pound. Then she saw the round stone in his cupped hands, a stone glowing deep green, and she understood. Ram! Ramad! She stared at him with terrible need, with terrible longing for this child who was Ram.

  The fire struck suddenly, a long jagged bolt of brilliant light. The jade orb turned white hot. It shattered, lay in nine long shards in Ram’s cupped hands. And the mountain trembled again, and a long jagged scar opened in the floor of the cave and the dragon gantroed began to slip down into it. Then, as the jade in Ram’s hands began to cool and deepen in color, Telien saw other figures appear out of nowhere around Ram. And Ram looked up at her once, puzzled, as if he should know her; and in her hands lay one slim green shard of the shattered runestone of Eresu.

  The cave faded. She clutched the stone, trembling, crying out to Ram though he could not hear her. She gripped the stone to herself and knew that she must give it to Ram. That she must, through all of Time, return to Ram with the runestone.

  She stood on a mountain meadow in sunlight and suddenly she saw Ram again. But he was a very little boy now, red-haired, running in the wind carrying the wolf bell, laughing, followed wildly all around by foxes running. Ram! Ramad! She could not reach or speak to him, and he faded. Then she saw him once more, a little older, his hair dyed black. Saw him running again, but now in fear across a vast black desert, leading a trotting pony, followed by a dark-haired, beautiful woman. She saw men riding hard after them. She saw Ram and the women turn in a wood, to face their pursuers. Ram would be killed! She heard him call the wolves then, in a strange rhyming voice, and saw the wolves come streaming down the mountain to leap and kill . . .

  And she heard Ram’s voice suddenly, deep, as she knew it. Close to her. Imperative. “Telien! Telien!

  She stared around frantically, reaching out, but he was not there. Her own voice died on Time’s winds as she cried out for him, and she was swept away again into darkness.

  She was so tired. Despondent. So close to Ram, his voice so close, and then to be swept away. She clutched the jade to her, sick with fatigue. So confused. She must rest or she would die, must drink. She leaned against the dirt wall of—Was she back in the cave with the dying Seer? Where was she?

  Did it matter where she was, or in what time she stood? She was so thirsty, wanted water, wanted to lie down. As she turned, her hand brushed a hollow in the wall. She raised her face to it blindly. Could there be water seeping out? She reached in cautiously. But it was only a dry little niche. Suddenly, too sick to hold the jade any longer, trembling, she laid it there in the niche, far back, then huddled down on the floor against the earthen wall, shivering, wanting only to sleep, to be left alone.

  “Telien! Telien!”

  She did not hear his voice. She slept, gone in exhaustion.

  “Telien!” But he could not reach her.

  When she woke at last, she was curled up just as she had been in the close dark, but now lay on an open expanse of stone with the wind icy, the evening sky darkening so stars had begun to burn cold in its icy blue. She was freezing cold, stood up, huddling against the rising hill behind her, to stare around her. Far away she could see jagged mountains. She was on a bare plateau. Space fell to her left, and on the rocky hill behind her stood five huge trees, ancient and twisted.

  “Telien!” She spun around, nearly fell. His voice was only a whisper, but real! She stared around expecting to see him, saw nothing but stone and emptiness. His voice was in her mind, only in her mind. She stood barely breathing, tears flooding down.

  *

  Ram had ridden h
ard to keep up with the fleeing wolves, for they seemed bent on reaching the mountains in one day’s run. The Pellian mount he had taken was nearly spent. He stopped at last beside a clump of small trees to rest the poor beast. Fawdref and Rhymannie alone remained with him, urging the rest of the pack away, for their very presence in the lowlands seemed a discomfort to them. As evening fell, he tended the horse, built a supper fire, then stood at the edge of the cliff staring out into the vast northern reaches, at the jagged peaks of the Ring of Fire standing black in the falling light. And suddenly he felt her there beside him. “Telien! Telien!” And yet the ledge was empty. Distraught, frantic, he shouted to her, oblivious to all else but the sense of Telien come so suddenly to him.

  He shouted over and over into the falling night, but now she was gone again, he could sense nothing of her now, there was only emptiness. The thin moons hung dull in the ash-clouded sky, lonely and bleak.

  From Time indecipherable he had sensed her there, standing in the same place he stood, Telien there beside him on the ledge, her presence so close. And then she was gone.

  When he turned away at last in anguish, in rising fury at powers he could not control, he saw Anchorstar. Anchorstar, standing motionless beside the fire between Fawdref and Rhymannie, his white hair catching the firelight. Anchorstar come out of Time in this empty place, standing still as stone, his eyes seeking Ram’s, his face stern and drawn.

  *

  And in the north of Carriol, Skeelie remained alone by the river as the soldiers made camp. She tried again with an effort that left her exhausted to move into Time, to touch Telien. She went dizzy and sick with the effort, reached, felt Time like a river swirling away from her so no matter how she reached, came close to it, thought she had thrown herself into its current; it slipped aside and was gone; she could not touch Telien. She gave it up at last, defeated.

  *

  Ram went toward Anchorstar, stood facing him across the fire. The wolves had turned, moved around the fire toward Ram, but they watched Anchorstar without enmity, comfortably with him. Where had Anchorstar come from? Out of nowhere in this desolate place: out of Time unimaginable. Where had he traveled since he had battled beside Fawdref at the Castle of Hape, a few hours ago? How many years had he traveled? Had he come to speak to Ram of Telien? Did he know . . . ? Ram’s voice was hoarse with eagerness. “You have something to say, you . . .”

  Anchorstar stopped him with lifted hand. His drawn face was cold. “Yes. She is there in Time, Ramad, yes. I know that she is there. But I have not seen her, nor touched her path through Time. She . . . Time is infinite, how could I expect . . .”

  “But the starfires! You . . .”

  “The starfires, yes. I have never been sure whether they are a help to me in trying to—to return to my own time, or whether—whether it is they that speed my headlong fall. I am loathe to cast them away. They were given me by someone trusted. He said they would help to guide me home. Telien—she carries one now, Ramad, in the pocket of her tunic.”

  “Yes, you . . .”

  “One I gave her because—I felt her need. Though perhaps . . . I knew, Ramad, that she would be sucked into Time. I thought that the starfire might bring her home again. And yet . . .”

  “You are saying nothing! What power have those stones. How can I use them to follow her? You can show me! You . . .”

  “I can do nothing. I am drawn and twisted through Time just as is Telien. I wish—I wish it were not so. I have tried. I have tried, and failed.”

  Ram’s need rose to fury. “You cannot? Or you will not?” He drew around the fire to Anchorstar, stood facing him.

  “You move in Time, Anchorstar. You will show me, or . . .” He had Anchorstar by the throat suddenly, forcing him back against boulders, his fist raised in a madness of desperation. “Show me, man! You can manipulate Time, move through Time!” Anchorstar did not resist him. The tall thin man did not struggle, but watched Ram with ever saddening expression. And even in his fury, Ram was ashamed to speak so to this man.

  Anchorstar looked at him steadily. “You are as hotheaded a young warrior as they say you are. In my time they say . . .”

  Ram drew back his fist. “You are wasting precious minutes!”

  Anchorstar flared suddenly and swung, twisted Ram, held him in a grip like iron. “Back off your anger, Seer! And listen to me!”

  Ram went limp in his hands, shocked at the man’s power, waiting for a moment to take him off-guard. But Anchorstar loosed him, and Ram stepped back and did not fight Anchorstar. The tall man looked at him squarely. “When you called out to her, did you not think—did you not sense her here? I think she was here on this cliff. I think when you called out that she was here with us, but in a different time, Ramad. You would only have to move in Time to . . .” He searched Ram’s eyes. “I cannot tell you how. You must use your own powers for that, Seer. I cannot tell in what time she stands here, but I feel that she is here. I sense her here as surely as I stand on this ledge.

  “The starfires, then! They . . .”

  Anchorstar drew the pouch from his tunic, opened it, and spilled three stones into Ram’s open hand. Ram clenched his fist around them, wanting, needing Telien; and the wolves moved suddenly, raised their heads, and Fawdref s voice broke shrill on the night—and Anchorstar was gone. The wolves were gone. The night was empty. No fire burned, the sky was vaster, the light of the full moons falling clear and unbroken by ash.

  The few small trees were gone. In their place rose five huge trees, centuries old.

  The loneliness was overwhelming. He whispered her name into emptiness, “Telien. Telien,” and prayed she would come to him and did not understand how he could expect that out of all time she could come to him; and then suddenly she was there clinging to him in desperation, pushing her face into the hollow of his neck, warm, so warm, her skin soft against him and smelling of honey.

  He held her, sought every detail of her face, knew her mind and her fear and knew the terrible journey she had suffered, touched her and was unable to believe her presence, was terrified she would be gone again as Anchorstar had gone. “It was so long,” she whispered. “So—so empty, Ram. You can’t—you can’t think what it’s like. I . . . Hold me tighter. Hold me so I can’t go back. Don’t let me go, I can’t go back if you hold me, it can’t take me from you . . .”

  But she was fading in his arms.

  ‘Telien!”

  He could not feel her in his arms, there was only emptiness, she was a cloud. She gripped him once with trembling fingers, was twisted away and fading, and was gone from his reaching arms.

  The plateau was empty.

  And when he turned away at long last, turned back to where a fire had once blazed, the full moons had taken a different position in the clear sky, and the great, ancient trees that had stood on the cliff were gone. Only a few saplings could be seen beginning to push above the tall, still grass.

  *

  Jerthon’s battalion rode into Carriol in silence at dusk of the following day. The Hape was defeated. BroogArl was defeated, his Seers dead, the castle burned. The streets of Carriol were crowded, should have been wild with victory. There should have been shouting, singing. But all was silence. Carriol’s men and women lined the streets in quiet attention as the battalion rode in. For in spite of victory, Ramad was gone from them.

  The vision of his disappearance had come clear to Tayba and to Skeelie, to the Seers who had stayed behind. Ram might return as abruptly as he had disappeared, but somehow the sense of his going seemed, to those Seers who had viewed it, one of terrible finality.

  Jerthon knew that Tayba was not among the crowd, that she stood alone in the tower, in the solitude of her room—reaching out in vain toward Ram, across time she could not manipulate. Reaching out, and sorrowing, unable to touch him.

  Had Ram been sucked into Time by powers yet unimagined? Or had he only, mourning for Telien, thrown himself into that maelstrom in search of her? Even with the vision of his going
that had come so clear to them, the sense of Ram’s feelings was not clear. All had happened too fast: an instant when Ram faced Anchorstar, an instant when it seemed he clung to Telien somewhere, and then he was gone.

  Jerthon dismounted, left his horse to another to care for, and went up into the tower. Tayba would need him. She would be drawn tight inside herself and short with him in her grief over Ram; but she would need him now. He could not think what to say to her. But that did not matter.

  Gone. Ram gone. He shook his head, trying to drive out the nightmare, but it would not go. Gone into Time. Had Ram found Telien in some realm so remote from this time that one could hardly imagine it? And did Telien have a shard of the stone, could the two of them, perhaps, with the power of the stone, yet return to their own time?

  Or would they, foolish, young—valiant—try to seek out the rest of the stones across a warping vastness of Time that no man could truly comprehend? He came up the third flight and stood before Tayba’s door, knew she was pacing. He knocked, heard her answer with muffled annoyance.

  He found Tayba pacing, and Skeelie there, worn from battle, from her swift journey home, kneeling before an old chest rummaging, muttering, her shoulders hunched beneath stained fighting leathers, her face, when she turned to look at him, pale with loess dust from the ride out of the north, her eyes haunted with the knowledge of Ram’s loss. She said nothing, would not meet his eyes, was strung tight with the agony of her loss—loss to Time as well as to Telien. At last she pulled out a cloak of heavy wool from the chest, closed the lid, and sat back on her heels, lowering her eyes before him, then looking up at him suddenly and defiantly. “I am going there. I am going into the mountains, and please don’t argue. To the caves of Owdneet first, to find runes I think can . . . can lead me. Can take me into Time, can . . . I will not rest until I have done this.” And, seeing his scowl, “Please don’t argue, Jerthon.”