Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  He looked at the two of them. Had Tayba encouraged Skeelie in this? No, he thought not. Skeelie’s need was plain. Despite Ram’s love for Telien, she would save him.

  “What makes you think that in the caves—that you can find anything to help you?”

  “I . . . when Ram and I were in the great grotto, when we were children, we . . . Fawdref showed us with his thoughts that there were caves there that held the old tablets and runes of the ancient city. There were powers written there, Jerthon. Powers lost to us.”

  “But powers of the gods, Skeelie. You can’t . . .” He knew he argued uselessly. He would keep her here if he could, and knew she would not stay.

  “Powers any Seer can use, Jerthon. If one is willing to seek them, willing to try them, to risk . . .”

  “Yes. To risk death. Or worse than death.”

  She stared at him, defying him, her thin face drawn, her dark eyes large with anguish, as she had looked so often as a child. “You know I must go, and arguing only makes it harder.” She rose to stand before him, hugged him suddenly in a terrible embrace, clung to him for a long moment. Hugged Tayba with more tenderness, then fled, turning at the door only to say, “I will come to you when I am ready to leave. Meanwhile—take care of her, Jerthon. Care gently for one another.”

  *

  Skeelie rode out for the mountains early the next dawn, accompanied by the older Seer Erould. He would bring her horse back. Would, before he returned home, ride into Kubal as a trader. That had been Jerthon’s idea, to know what was happening in Kubal. ‘To be sure they are not strengthening again. Erould, you crusty old dog,” Jerthon had said, grinning, “you look the part of a trader. Tousle your hair, don’t bathe. You’ll do very well as a trader.”

  Skeelie and Erould rode in silence through the gray dawn up along the sea then along the river Somat Cul. Skeelie looked up toward the mountains rising ahead of them and saw, in her mind, the shadows of wolves, then the shape of the grottoes of Owdneet. She pushed her horse faster, impatient to get on. And grown impatient, suddenly, of company, too, of conversation. Though she should be thankful for Erould’s presence, for this last warm link with men familiar, men of her own time and her own kind. But she could not make conversation in spite of needing human warmth, she mourned Ram too much.

  If Telien were dead—but she put that thought from her. She would save Telien, she loved Telien in a strange, puzzling way. Because of Ram, she supposed, though it made no sense to her. Jealous, pained at Telien’s existence, yet she would care tenderly for her, would bring them both home, and gladly, if ever she could search them out.

  Erould, his mind politely closed to her misery, pulled his cap down over his dark grizzled hair, then waved an arm to encompass the pale loess hills to the north. “Won’t be long, all this will be settled. Farms, a little town. Now the Pellian Seers are dead, the Hape. Oh, we will build, Skeelie. Grow crops—men will come from all over Ere, craftsmen, breeders of fine stock . . .”

  She didn’t want to answer. Just let him keep talking. The sound of his voice was good, tying her to this time for a little while yet, tying her to warmth and human feeling—pushing away her fear of the unknown that she would soon face. Making her know that no matter where she was, in what dark reaches of Time, yet here in this time Carriol would be safe, would be filled with the joy of its growth.

  And Ram might never see it. Would miss it all, the joyful work and growth. Ram. Ram. You loved it so—this time, this lovely land.

  Erould watched her, touched her mind, then, in spite of himself, and drew back pained with her pain, driven for a moment as she was driven, desperate in her mourning and need; so painful were her thoughts that he wished—not for the first time—that he had not the skill to touch another’s mind. He knew where she was headed and why, mourned for her, was distressed for her, and could do nothing. He would not see her again in this life, he felt suddenly certain. He took pains to hide that thought from her. They came to Blackcob at noon, made a brief greeting, a brief meal, and went on. Skeelie had begun to grow nervy, her fear taking hold, thoughts of turning back beginning to rise unbidden. They rode in silence up along the Urobb, and that night camped in the lee of the dark mountains; the next day they followed a goat trail so narrow and with so steep a drop beside it, it made them both nervous. Erould left her at last in mid-afternoon at the foot of the peak where lay the grotto of Owdneet, swung away leading her horse down in the direction of Kubal, left his good will with her and his prayers and did not look back.

  Skeelie watched him go and swallowed. She stared down over the land, the lovely land. The hills above Burgdeeth and Kubal were blackened, scarred; but they would be green again. Even in a few weeks, she knew, the green would begin to come. In the far distance a gray smear showed the outline of Carriol’s cliffs and the ruins; and the sea was a bright streak in the dropping sun. Lovely. She bit her lip. Would she see all this again?

  Oh, maudlin girl! Do get on! What are you dawdling for? Maybe you can’t even find a way into—a way . . . She set her jaw against fear, shouldered her pack, and began to climb up the old trail toward the grotto. Did the wolves know she was here, did they sense her? She could get no feel of them.

  At sunset she stood ready to enter the mountain. She looked back over the land once more, softened in the falling light, took flint from her pack, and a lantern. She struck feeble light that lurched across the rock, adjusted the lantern, and entered the tunnel.

  She journeyed through the dark tunnels, through caves, with only her lantern to lead her, came at last deep inside the mountain to the ancient grotto. It rose all in darkness touched only faintly by the last light of evening through its openings on the far wall: high openings, there near the distant ceiling. Here, twelve years before, she and Ram had stood. She knelt, stricken suddenly with the pain of remembering. She wept alone in the great grotto, wept for Ram.

  At last she lifted her face, stared absently at the light-struck stone where her lamp stood. Had she come all this way only to weep? She rose and went on through the grotto and out another portal and up across a grassy hill. The moons had not yet risen. Her lantern guided her, catching at the tall, still grass. She stood at last, lantern raised to look, before the dark face of a building made against the mountain, all of black obsidian. She entered into the great hall that was the second grotto. Here lay the hidden picture stones, the hidden parchments secreted by the gods in ages far past—in ages where she might yet stand this night, she thought, shuddering.

  She began to search among the caves and small rooms, her lantern throwing arcs of light across the carven stone, searching for hidden doors, for passages. She felt into niches, into cracks in the natural stone, searching. She would find it, a parchment, a stone tablet, something bearing the runes of magic, something to unlock the secrets of Time. Something to help her bring Ram home. Ram—and Telien. She meant, fiercely, to find it. She would not leave these caves until she had; would leave them only in a time so far from this time—where Ramad was, where Ramad had been swept.

  Caves of Fire and Ice

  Part One: The Lake of Fire

  From The Mystery of Ramad, Book of Carriol. Signed Meren Hoppa. Written in Carriol some time after her escape from the caves of Kubal.

  The battle of the Castle of Hape was ended, the Hape defeated and the castle burned to ashes and flame-blackened stone. Ramad of Carriol rode away from that victory surrounded by the wolves who had fought so fiercely beside him. He stood that night high on a cliff beside his supper fire as, before him, come out of Time itself, appeared the white-haired time-wanderer who called himself Anchorstar. But even as they spoke, Time warped again; and Ramad beheld the face of his true love, the face of Telien. He held her but an instant before they were whirled away on Time’s tide, flung far, one from the other, into Time’s ever-surging reaches. Lovers destined to wander forever apart upon Time’s dark unpredictable shores? Who could say? Perhaps no Seer could predict such a thing.

  Many mourned Ra
mad, gone from his own time. And never would he return there. Skeelie of Carriol mourned him, the brother of her spirit, the lover she wanted but could not have, mourned him for three long days before she armed herself to follow Ramad through the barrier of Time. Determined to follow him, to find a way across that dark, capricious threshold.

  Alone, she went into the high caves of Owdneet where lay buried secrets that might guide her across Time’s currents, and she carried the silver sword Ram had forged for her. Though he loved another, she would follow him; she could do nothing less. The misery without him was too great.

  ONE

  She had been seven days in the caves, wandering in darkness. There was light enough in the great central grotto, daylight, then the light from Ere’s moons on most nights. But away from the grotto, deeper in the mountain, in the small caves and tunnels where she searched, no light came, and her oil lamp hardly cut the darkness. The silence in the low, tight tunnels was absolute and cold. She had squinted over stone tablets carved with the history of Ere, crouched frowning in the dim light to unroll and study parchments stacked one atop the next, row on row of them in stone niches in the cave walls, but had found as yet no trace of the runes for which she searched. Patiently she rolled each one up again, more discouraged each time.

  Her food was nearly gone. She was sick of dried mountain meat, dry mawzee cakes, the metallic tasting cave water. And the lamp oil was running low. Soon she would have to leave the caves to hunt, or there would be no fat to render into oil. She could not search for anything in darkness. But hunting would take precious time, for all the rising peaks had been black and withered when she came up the mountain seven days before. There would be little game. In the caves, the air still smelled of smoke. She fingered her bow, ran an exploring finger over the silver hilt of her sword and remembered painfully when Ram had forged it. They had been children then, come recently out of Burgdeeth. She had carried it all these years, fought and killed with it, had fought the Herebian raiders these last months, with the sword so much a part of her she hardly remembered it had been made by Ram’s hand. Now she remembered, sharply and painfully, as Ram’s face filled her thoughts, his dark eyes intent and serious, a thatch of his red hair falling across his forehead, the line of his long, lean face caught in firelight as she had last seen him in painful vision, before he was swept into Time.

  She picked up the lantern, sighing, and turned deeper into the mountain.

  He did not love her, could never love her. Because of Telien. If she found him with Telien in some idyl far in Time, she could only turn away again to lose herself in Time unending, in desolation unending. And yet she must follow him, she could do nothing else.

  Who knew where Time had swept him, or to what purpose? Truly to follow Telien? Or had some evil reached to touch Ram, to open Time to him?

  She searched for long hours, hardly pausing to eat. She had all but lost her sense of time. Night was no different than day. She slept little, wrapped in her cloak for an hour or so, always cold. Woke and went on until she grew exhausted or very discouraged, slept again. There was enough lamp oil for perhaps four more fillings.

  Then came the moment when she woke from a light sleep suddenly, startled, struck her flint hastily to the lamp. What had awakened her? There was a difference in the cave, she felt a new sense, a sense of something pulling at her.

  Confused and yawning, trying to collect her wits, she rose, jumbled her scattered belongings into her pack, and began to make her way toward that beckoning hope, prodding her anew. Her dark hair, bundled into an untidy bun, had slipped down to her shoulder. Her bow and quiver hung crooked across her pack. Her leather tunic was wrinkled, her wrists protruding from her sleeves. Her dark eyes were intent and haunted. What had reached out so suddenly to wake her, to pull at her? She followed with growing urgency. Had her need to search out the secrets of Time at last awakened some magic deep within the mountain? But why? She had found no key, yet, to unlocking those secrets. Nor did she carry one of the starfires, such as Anchorstar had given to Ram, to quicken the magic of Time. What called to her, then, from deep within the mountain?

  And if she found a way into Time’s reaches, where would that way lead her? To Ram, or a million years from Ram? Once she crossed Time’s barrier, would she have the skills to find Ram? Uncountable centuries swept away to a future unborn and backward to incredible violence and turmoil. How could one enter Time, enter a future unborn? Yet it had happened to Skeelie and Ram when they were children— Time rocking asunder, future and past coming together. That moment had changed the very history of Ere, that moment on Tala-charen when the runestone of Eresu split, when men and women came out of Time to receive the shards of that shattered jade.

  She knew she should turn back to hunt and replenish the lamp oil, but could not deny the power that drew her. She followed the beckoning sense down a dark, narrowing tunnel, pushing always deeper inside the mountain. She had been so tired, but now she moved quickly, the chill gone, hunger unheeded. She remembered the quick vision she had had ten days before of Ram standing beside his supper fire, then suddenly Telien with him, her pale hair caught in moonlight as she reached out of Time itself to hold Ram. Then the sense of the night twisting in on itself, Ram swept out of Telien’s arms shouting her name over and over, uselessly. Ram alone, and the trees only saplings once more—and then the hill empty as Ram himself was swept away in Time’s invisible river.

  The tunnel became so low she had to walk bent over, her hair catching in the stone of the roof, very aware suddenly of the weight of the mountain above her, tons of stone above her. She turned the lamp lower to save oil, knew she must save two fillings to return to the main grotto or be trapped in darkness. The press of stone against her shoulders made her want to strike out, want to drive the mountain back. She controlled herself with effort, pulled urgently forward by something insistent, something compelling. Something evil? Was that which beckoned to her evil?

  At last the tunnel ended, and she stood in a cave that seemed not bounded by walls, seemed to warp and to hint of distant, terrifying reaches. Her guttering light caught at uncertain shadows and at dark so thick that light could not penetrate it. Nothing was clear, but the cave seemed to extend far beyond any area the mountain could possibly contain. A terror of infinite space yawned beyond her vision, and suddenly she could not bring herself to go forward, was terrified of the very thing she sought, terrified of falling into Time, of being lost in Time. All her determination disappeared, and the fear she had kept at bay so long overwhelmed her. She wanted to turn back, wanted to run blindly. She stood with clenched fists, trying to control herself. You’ve come this far, Skeelie. You can’t turn back. You can’t run away now. She was caught between her sudden horror of the unknown and her need to become a part of that dark emptiness in Time where Ram was. She moved on at last, shivering.

  Soon she could make out something painted on the walls. She held the lamp up. Scenes of farms and villages, of battles, scenes shifting between shadows, then changing as she moved on. Who had painted such images so deep in the caves? Her lamp sputtered and grew dim.

  Then the scenes came clearer and seemed larger suddenly, crowding toward her between the chasms of darkness. Scenes of war and violence leaped out at her; men opened their mouths in silent screams as swords flashed. She heard the din of war faintly, then it rose in volume until it deafened her. She smelled blood and death. Had she moved into Time suddenly? Clouds raced across dark skies. All was movement and shouting, a dozen places in a dozen times. She was caught like a fly at the center, suddenly mad with desire to thrust herself into those scenes. She searched for Ram’s face among infinite battles, searched for a flash of his red hair. Once she reached out her naked hand toward a battle, then snatched it back and pressed it to her mouth to stifle the cry that rose: for the shadows had changed to form themselves into a twisting tree. The battles faded. The tree filled the cave, huge and pulsing with life. It pushed gnarled branches against the cave walls,
forcing up, bending against the dirt roof. Its bark was rough and dark, its roots humped like twisted, naked legs across the cave floor. Its trunk was wrinkled into seams and angles that formed the face of an old, old man. His eyes watched her from some terrible depth. Eyes cold and knowing, eyes like windows into Time. His voice was like the rasp of winter wind.

  “I watched you come. I watched you search. I know what you seek here. You will find it, young woman. You will move through Time unending, and you will suffer for that. Time cares nothing for your suffering. And you care nothing for reason if you plunge into Time’s reaches”.

  “I do what I must. I can do nothing else.” She held her shaking hands still with effort. “Who are you? What—sort of creature are you?”

  “I am Cadach. 1 have dwelt in this tree since my death. Fear of him flickered in her eyes despite her bold stance. My soul dwells here. I have no strength to move toward what you call joy and fulfillment. I have no stomach for atonement. Traitor in my life, traitor to Ere and eager slave to evil, I am left filled only with the dark and twisted, I hunger only for the dark. I do not choose joy, I have no use for joy, it is too bright, I do not choose to be born anew.

  “My children wander Time endlessly. My children atone for me. His sense of agony filled Skeelie. My children know not that I exist here. They know only that their need is to reach out, to hold a light to the darkness that comes again and again upon Ere. For they, each one, carry within them the higher spirit that I would have become, that I denied with my evil. They carry that spirit which I will never carry, my five white-haired children.”