Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  If Zandour’s Seers did possess a runestone, surely they would not keep it secret from the Seers of Carriol. The power of that stone, wedded to the power of the stone Carriol held, could strengthen both countries considerably against the rise of the Kubalese. Yet where were the other shards of the jade? Meatha wondered. Lost? Buried perhaps, as Carriol’s own shard had been buried beneath the city of Burgdeeth? Of the nine shards, Carriol held one, and one was drowned in the sea. Seven were unaccounted for. If we had them all, she thought, and the stone were joined—as Anchorstar dreamed, as Tra. Hoppa dreams when she pours through dusty volumes searching for clues to the disappearance of the shards—if Carriol possessed the whole stone, then we could defeat the Kubalese. She thought with distaste of the piecemeal battles—helping one country, then another—holding impregnable only Carriol. And before Carriol had possessed the one shard of the runestone, she had not been able to do even that, had been able only to defend her own borders, and the refugees who came to her for protection.

  Below on the green, four winged ones were being laden with food packs. To see the horses of Eresu wearing pack harness, though it was of their own choosing, so appalled Meatha that she stood staring in dismay for some moments. When she turned away, she was dazzled by the lifting sun. She stood blinking in the brightness, then at last made her way down between broken stone walls toward the green. She could see Thorn now, his red hair bright against the neck of a white mare.

  She shouldered through the crowd to the horses of Eresu, saw a slash of green where Zephy knelt, forgetting her silk gown as she reached to adjust the belly strap around a gray stallion, carefully setting the strap so the pack harness would not chafe him. Zephy, so loving horses ever since she was a tiny girl, when horses were forbidden to them, so close now in her relationship to the winged ones. The stallion’s silent voice told her where the strap was uncomfortable. He stretched his dark wings to feel his muscles pull against the harness, then bowed his neck to nuzzle Zephy’s shoulder, thanking her. Zephy scratched him under the foreleg with casual familiarity. Zephy, so direct and simple in her relationships—a directness belied now by her elegant clothes, her regal looks, she who cared nothing for clothes.

  Meatha felt a strange shyness with her suddenly, as if Zephy were a stranger.

  Zephy glanced up at her, her brown eyes puzzled as she touched Meatha’s unshielded emotions. “What’s the matter? You’re . . .”

  Meatha blocked her thoughts.

  “Is it because I’m got up like this? I’d rather not be!” Then, sensing Meatha’s deeper confusion, sensing her distress, she came to Meatha and put her arms around her. “What is it? What’s happened to you? Something . . .” And suddenly Meatha was weeping against Zephy like a child, the darkness engulfing her so it engulfed Zephy, too.

  When Meatha calmed at last, Zephy drew away and held her by the shoulders. “Where did such darkness come from? What has happened?” She tried to sort Meatha’s thoughts. “Something—last night, so close to you. Something that terrified you . . .” Zephy swallowed and did not continue for some moments. Then, “It found something within you that made you fear it all the more.” She went silent again, sorting. And then with shivering finality, “You cannot find the shape of what touches you.” She swallowed. “Nor—nor can I. Oh, Meatha—take care.”

  She studied Meatha. “Maybe you should tell the council. Tell Alardded . . .” Then suddenly the riders were mounting, Thorn leaping astride a golden stallion, and there was no time to say goodbye. Zephy tried to mount, was caught short in the silken gown. “Blast! I can’t do anything in this flaming dress!” Meatha gave her a leg up. Zephy settled her skirt around her, then bent swiftly to touch Meatha’s cheek. “It . . . tell someone, Meatha. Tell Alardded. And take care.” The gray stallion leaped skyward with a surge of joyful power, following the others, his wings turning the sky to night, then sun slashing across his flanks. Windborne, the winged ones filled the sky; there was a flash of green silk amid the slice of wings, then they were gone in a whirl of color, gone beyond cloud.

  A short flight it would be into Pelli, and already plans for their ceremonious descent were sweeping from one mind to another, from rider to horse to the next rider and horse. Meatha felt the messages winging between them even after she could no longer see them; Saw the images they conjured and knew their rising excitement. She stood for some time with her hand raised in farewell, feeling the freedom of their flight; and feeling empty within herself, and lonely.

  She turned away at last, awash with loneliness.

  That night, again, her dreams trapped and possessed her. She woke more disturbed than the night before and went to her class of seven children so distraught that she made three children cry and spoiled the session for them all. No Seer, child or adult, could deal with a teacher whose mind was in such turmoil. She apologized to them and left them, ashamed, only to find herself weeping in an isolated comer of the tower, terrified by her loss of control, and by the darkness that engulfed her, by the heaviness that gripped her beyond her control.

  And more terrifying still, there was a part of her that welcomed that darkness and embraced it.

  She must talk to someone, in spite of her reluctance. She must talk to Alardded.

  *

  She found Alardded taking breakfast alone on the green. Usually there was a crowd around him, for his sweeping, unfettered mind and his solid, comforting ways drew men to him. He looked up from a plate of ham pie and charp fruit, watching her approach. He was, Meatha thought, in spite of his sometimes wild ideas, as steady as the great black peaks that rose in the north. As steady—and as unpredictable, too, for Alardded could burst forth with a sudden storming fury just as those peaks could burst forth with fire.

  Was he alone now because he had known she was coming to him so distressed? His dark eyes were alert to the small, nervous movements of her hands, to the way she stood too stiffly before him. “Sit down, child.” His mind examined her blocking with curiosity, and she could not understand why she was blocking. “What brings you to the green so early? Have you had breakfast? Some tea?” He gestured to his small waiter, and the child came running, his long apron flapping around his ankles. She sat stiff and silent, blocking wildly, and puzzled at herself, as young Sheb brought tea. Why was she so reluctant to speak, or to make any vision, so shy and uncomfortable with Alardded?

  She stared at his sun-browned, wrinkled face and gentle dark eyes and tried to make small talk, but she was not adept at it. Alardded laid a comforting hand on her arm. She was sorry she had come. But why did she block with all her power, a blocking she had perfected in childhood when blocking would save her life—a blocking that now stood as powerful as the master Seer’s own skills? Alardded watched her quietly, his own thoughts hidden. Young Sheb returned with fresh-baked bread; Alardded paid him in silver, and he went away happily clinking the coins. Meatha bent her face over her teacup as the darkness of last night again engulfed her.

  She had awakened standing in the moonlit citadel, pressing against the stone table, reaching greedily for the rune-stone; had felt her own lusting greed sharply and suddenly, and had drawn back with a cry, filled with shame. Yet at the same time filled with a desire she could hardly resist to hold and possess the runestone.

  Alardded sat quietly waiting for her to ease her mind to him, puzzling at her reluctance, her secrecy. She felt, abstractly, his admiration at the power of her blocking. Then he looked up, and his expression went closed. Hux Tanner was standing behind her chair. She turned to stare up at him, annoyed.

  Hux grinned down at her. He did not even feel her anger. His dark beard was sleek and wavy, his grooming perfect as always, to show off the good looks that all the girls admired. Meatha wished he would go away. He must have returned from trading just this morning. He touched her shoulder lightly and sat down beside her, helped himself to Alardded’s tea. He had no sense of what had transpired in silence, so filled was he with his own good humor. Alardded rescued his cup, star
ed absently into its empty depths. “You’re back from trading early.” The smell of baking filled the air, and they could hear the clatter of pans from the nearby shop. Alardded studied Hux comfortably. “Back in one piece, anyway. You had some close scrapes, Hux. We Saw Kubalese soldiers flanking you several times in visions as sharp as the threat itself. What happened when that large battalion bore down on your wagon just outside Dal? We Saw them and felt the surge of your temper, then nothing. A sense of your horses running, but we could See nothing more, did not know whether you were dead or alive until we touched, much later, a vision of you sprawled before your campfire swilling honeyrot from a Farrian clay jug.”

  Hux smiled with satisfaction. “I guess my image-changing worked so well that not even you could see me lighting out with that old wagon clattering over the hills.” He threw back his head in a huge laugh, his dark hair boiling down over his forehead. “Forty-seven Kubalese raiders chasing after a rock hare thinking it was me, while I drove the wagon, bent-for-Urdd, off in the opposite direction!” He grew serious then. “Kubalese raiders are coming out of the hills everywhere, raiding, then gone. Folk travel heavily armed, on the ready for trouble. For the most part, the cities are still able to drive them back. Our raids help to keep the Kubalese down, but there are Seers among the Kubalese, Alardded. Unskilled Seers, but cruel. If we had more than one shard of the runestone, maybe we could thwart those Seers—strengthen our forces enough to destroy the fracking Kubalese! As it is . . .” He leaned forward. “The stone in the sea, Alardded—if we had one more stone . . .”

  Meatha watched Hux now with gentler feelings. She liked him best when he was serious, was concerned for Carriol, angry at Kubalese oppression, the hearty, attentive role dropped—though he seldom used it with her, never with Alardded, of course.

  Alardded leaned back in his chair, pushed his plate away. “Perhaps we will have the stone soon. Perhaps. The new diving suit works very well. It is ready for testing in deep waters. The wax-coated leather and lighter metal were just the thing. I plan to take it up to the Bay of Vexin in a few days.”

  Hux leaned forward eagerly. “I will travel with you, then. I have a cart full of wares to deliver to the charcoal burners and miners, everything imaginable, Zandourian wine, Farrian carved leathers that I had to buy dearly in Dal, boots. I want to see the diving. If the diving suit fit me, Alardded, I would try! Think of it, the stone has lain there for six generations, and only now has anyone known how to bring it up!”

  Alardded smiled. “The stone is not in our hands yet, my lad. Though I’ll admit I’m excited. It must have been frustrating indeed for our fathers to know where it lay, so deep, to sense it there and not be able to go into those deep waters. But as to the diving . . .” He gave Hux a wry look. “You won’t fit the suit, Hux my boy. You’re nearly twice the size of Nicoli or Roth. I’d hate worse than fires in Urdd to have to pull you up at the end of the rope!

  “But we’d be glad of your company north,” he added. “You can help Nicoli with the horses, and I’ll be there to protect her from any amorous ideas you might have—though the wily Nicoli can protect herself, certainly. Now show us, Hux, the countries you traveled, and how they fare.”

  Meatha tried to put her own unsettled emotions aside and attend as Hux showed them in sharp visions the cities of Zandour and Aybil and Farr, the stone and sand fortifications, the patrolling soldiers. He showed them the walled city of Dal, where the dark Seer RilkenDal had reigned before his rule fell to an angry coalition of farmers and sheep men who drove him out of the country keeping only his fine, well-trained mounts. “No one knows where RilkenDal has gone,” Hux said. “But all fear him. Fear he will return and retake Dal. Folk seem to want to make a legend of him, which only increases their fear. They speak of him appearing here, there, come out of the sky mounted on a winged one.” Hux scowled. “No winged one would carry such as RilkenDal!”

  “I would hope not! No winged one would carry a dark Seer!” Alardded said.

  They grew silent, lost in speculation. A wagon team passed their table, and the smell of fresh-cut hay filled the air. From a nearby shop the voice of a woman rose, scolding her child, then was still. The young waiter filled their cups.

  “However,” Alardded said slowly, “there is something amiss among the winged ones. They do not speak of it, but a darkness stirs among them. Nicoli senses it. And some of the outlying bands have not been heard of for a long time.”

  Meatha shivered, was alarmed by Alardded’s words; but then, at his mention of darkness, was engulfed in her own confused thoughts once again, so she heard little more of the conversation until suddenly Hux cast into their minds a sharp vision of the place where the cults had gathered along the Pellian coast. She Saw suddenly the mass of hide tents and lean-tos clustered above the sea cliff, and she could imagine Zephy and Thorn and their companions there now, making impressive ceremony for the gathered cultists. Hux showed them the cultist’s passive faces, their quiet submissive minds, so very puzzling.

  “They swear hatred of the Kubalese raiders,” Hux said, “but they will not attack them, even to save other cultists. There is—there is a leader who guides the cult leaders, but I can get little sense of him—or of her. Sometimes I think it is a woman. Someone they think of nearly as a god. The cults are so . . .”

  “Yes. So committed to good,” Alardded said, “yet so unwilling to uphold that commitment.” Then, “We have known nothing of such a leader. We must speak in Council of it. We must speak with the missions that have gone out. If Zephy and Thorn and the other missions can learn something of an unknown leader . . .”

  Hux nodded. “Perhaps, in the journal I bargained for in Zandour and carried hidden in my tunic, there might be some answer to the puzzle. It is written by a Zandourian soldier and covers many years up to the present—but a rambling, incomplete history and hard to read. Handwriting worse than my own.” He showed them in vision the small leather-bound volume he had given to Tra. Hoppa at first light, going directly to her chambers from unhitching and tending his horses. They felt Tra. Hoppa’s excitement as she stood in the doorway, her white hair ruffled from sleep, and took the little book in her thin hands, then eagerly turned the pages. Felt her disappointment at the scratchy, illegible script. But the old woman’s eyes had filled with hope nonetheless, hope that with patient deciphering the cults might be explained, or, even more important, some clue to the missing shards of the runestone might be found.

  The sea wind quickened up along the cliff, lifting the tall grass that grew between the broken old walls, then slicing down into the town. On the cobbled street beside the green a line of carts drew up and began to unload vegetables and bags of grain and flour and bolts of cloth from the north of Carriol and to load up ale kegs and hides and small parcels. Along the upper-story living quarters above the shops, curtains blew in and out between the shutters. A band of children raced by on their way to some lesson or perhaps to weapons practice. Their small waiter hastily filled the tea mugs, then removed his apron and vanished, following his peers. More wagons rumbled in. Smoke from chimneys rose then was snatched away by the wind.

  A band of soldiers rode by toward the upper practice grounds, then the sense of skyward motion gripped them all, and every Seer looked up into the western sky, their gazes copied at once by every common man; and soon out of the sky came winging a battalion of returning riders, sunlight slanting across their armor. The sense of them said plainly they had been victorious—but that they carried two dead. All the town turned at once to preparing the simple ritual that would precede the burial of the dead. Alardded and Hux and Meatha began to clear away the tables, so the green could be more easily used for the parting ceremony; then Alardded went alone to the citadel, where his powers would be stronger, to tell, across the length of Carriol, of the deaths.

  Meatha watched the bodies lifted gently from the backs of the winged ones and laid out in the simple pine caskets kept always ready for such deaths. She shivered and felt sick
and turned away.

  But why should these deaths upset her? She had seen dead soldiers. These were boys from the north of Carriol, farm boys, one as freckled as an otero egg, with tumbled sandy hair. She had danced with him once at a festival. Death, and the fear of death, filled and sickened her.

  She did not sleep well that night, and the next morning was tired and irritable and filled with formless fears. And with that presence, cold and foreboding, that she could not escape nor name, and to which her spirit seemed to cling in spite of fear.

  THREE

  Shorren paused on a narrow ledge well down in the abyss, then her coat blazed white as she leaped deeper still, to join Lobon. Something more than Dracvadrig stirs in this pit, Lobon. Something I cannot yet name or put form to.

  “I sense it, Shorren! Don’t you think I sense it!”

  The two dog wolves followed Shorren, to press around Lobon as he descended between jagged boulders.

  They had been four days in the abyss, yet seemed hardly to have broken away from its rim, so twisting and slow was the route, so deep the chasm. And Lobon had begun to swing from anger to a deep depression that would grip him for hours as Dracvadrig sought to control his mind.

  Why didn’t Dracvadrig simply come out of the abyss and battle him for the four stones he carried, for the added power they would bring? Why didn’t the dragon attack him, show itself, instead of waiting unseen, reaching up only with mind-powers to haze and confuse him! To enervate his will with darkness and with tricks. Twice the wolves had driven back fire ogres before he even knew they were there, so dulled had he become, and once a huge, coiling macadach, whose poisonous bite would have killed him. Sometimes he was aware of little else but the creeping darkness freezing his thoughts; he knew he must find Dracvadrig soon, before he was weakened further. And now the sense of other beings assailed them, too, of an evil creature as cold-blooded as the macadach, though he could not make out what it was.