Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  “The lady of the wolves, Seer,” he said at last. “The lady who traveled with wolves by her side, who came to our city the first time with the prince of wolves himself.” Fithern sighed. “But when she came to the city of cones the second time, with her child, then the prince of the wolves was not with her. Then the prince of the wolves was dead.” There was a great sadness in his voice, as if he mourned a wonderful and inexplicable glory. Still no Seer stirred.

  “What prince of wolves?” Alardded asked softly. “What lady? Of what time do you speak, Fithern? Of your own time? Did you see such people?”

  “Oh, yes, in my time, Seer. Though I was very young. The lord and lady of the wolves released our people from a possession, where men moved mindlessly. From possession by a goddess that the lady of the wolves called Wraith—though sometimes she spoke of the creature as Telien. The lady and the prince of the wolves took the goddess away with them and drove its spirit out. They carried the green stones, and when the lady returned, she had them still—four stones, she said, though one was the golden starfires, and one was hidden inside a strange bell that she used to hold when she held the stones, and that would make the wolves cry out. She told us a green stone was inside.”

  Alardded sat silent. Surely this man spoke of Ramad, but in their own time? How was that possible? And who was the woman? Then one fact startled them all, the knowledge of it flying among them: They could not read Fithern’s thoughts.

  Was that, then, why they had not known of the city of cones, never guessed that these people existed? Surely so.

  Tra. Hoppa had come to sit among the Seers, drawn to this man. Her voice was quick and eager, her eyes bright. “How do you know that when the lady of the wolves returned without . . . returned alone, that the lord of the wolves was dead?”

  “She mourned for him. She wept in her dwelling alone. She told my people he was dead.”

  “And what happened to her?” Tra. Hoppa whispered.

  “One day she went away with the wolves and her child and no one saw them go. Everything was left behind, hides, bedding, extra clothes, the pieces of pale parchment she liked to write upon.”

  “Parchment, Fithern? And where is it now?” Tra. Hoppa’s voice rose, could hardly contain her excitement. “And what does the parchment tell?”

  “It lies in her dwelling just as she left it, lady, ten years gone. But I don’t know what it tells. None of us can read writing.”

  He had fled the city of cones when a wandering band of Kubalese had come upon it and murdered many. He had been taken captive by another such band somewhere in the Urobb hills. “They held me for a while in the camp of the leader, Kearb-Mattus,” he said. “I know who he is. And I know the Seer RilkenDal. I learned much from the other captives. I saw Kearb-Mattus and RilkenDal myself once, walking among the captive horses. The Seer RilkenDal was tall and dark and twisted in his walk, and he was choosing horses and causing a strangeness to come over them so they followed him unfettered like dogs.”

  Meatha shuddered and huddled into herself. The darkness was moving in around them, moving on Carriol ever more powerfully, dark forces closing them in, forces that must be destroyed.

  Only the runestone, the whole runestone, could ever defeat such darkness.

  She looked up at the jade at last, so rich a green, suspended alone. It turned in the breeze, catching the sea light. The stone would mark her way. The stone would save Ere, and she would be its servant, to carry it.

  It was then she Saw Lobon in sharp vision, Saw that he slept; Saw the dragon slipping close to him and felt his peril sharply. Hardly aware of the Seers around her, blocking without thinking, she brought power in the stone, fierce and sudden—so tense, so lost in vision was she that she was unaware of anything around her as she drove her forces against the advancing dragon. Her blocking was a mindless power born of her lifelong need. The creature she challenged was stalking Lobon like a cat stalking a shrew. It must not kill this Seer. It must not have the stones, she knew no other emotion but this.

  SIX

  Even in his sleep Lobon was pursued. His dreams never let him free. In dreams he stalked the dragon and turned to find it ready to spring; and then in his dreams the earth trembled, and he thought that, too, was Dracvadrig’s spell.

  But the earth did stir. The wakeful wolves felt it, five quick shocks. They leaped to the mouth of the cave and stood watching the abyss. Pebbles rolled down from above. A lizard slithered to gain purchase on the shelf where it had fallen, and Crieba snatched it up. The ground shook under their feet. Behind them, Lobon rolled over in his sleep, but he did not wake. Shorren began to move out along the cliff, then she drew back snarling as another, harsher shock caught them. A wind hit them suddenly, and Dracvadrig was above them sweeping down out of nowhere. How long had the dragon been watching and waiting there? He twisted in midair before the cave and began to coil around boulders, towering over the opening, dwarfing the abyss. Lobon came awake then, as the dragon struck at the wolves; they leaped at its scaly throat; Lobon snatched up his sword and lunged, slashed across its neck. It lurched away screaming with anger, left blood at their feet. Its roar joined with the roar of the earth as the abyss rocked and shuddered. The dragon twisted on the wind and dove again, its great head seeking Lobon, flame gushing between yellowed teeth; he dodged, and it caught him by the shoulder, lifted him—and he felt another power with him fiercely driving at the dragon as h shook him. Dizzy, hurting, he found his knife. The dragon reared on the narrow shelf, he felt the earth beneath it heave, heard the shelf crack beneath the dragon’s weight, felt the creature falling, as it still gripped him between its jaws. He slashed, was grazed by a rock, fell with the dragon in the shower of stones. He felt the other power with him swelling, battling. Skeelie? No, not Skeelie. He caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, of the swinging runestone. He felt the force of power she poured into that stone for him.

  He landed across the dragon’s coils beside its gaping jaw, lay facing one huge, watchful eye. He was sick with pain and knew that in a moment Dracvadrig would reach, open that great jaw, and destroy him. Driven by urgency, he leaped and plunged the sword deep into the eye. A cry of rage shattered around him. Blood spurted from the eye. The dragon twisted away, flailing and whipping across the chasm. Then suddenly it rose upward, screaming, its wings dragging its body up toward the rim.

  It disappeared, half flying, half flailing, over the lip of the abyss.

  The earth stilled. Lobon let out his breath, felt his reprieve, was sharply aware of the one instant, the one lucky blow. Was Dracvadrig dying? Elated, he began to climb up toward the mouth of the cave. Pain tore through his shoulder and arm. The wolves pushed around him. He leaned on Feldyn, forgetting elation then, in pain, and let the wolf pull him upward.

  *

  Above the abyss in the black cliff, a pale figure moved to the portal. She watched Dracvadrig approaching in slow, awkward flight as if at any minute he would fall back to the rocks below. She saw without emotion the dragon’s face covered with blood and the ruined eye.

  At last she heard him come into the cave entrance behind her. He was losing control, beginning to change into the form of a man. She watched the change intently, until at last he lay sprawled across the stone bench, his lined face gray with pain, the gouged eye running blood.

  She tended him coldly, mopping away the blood. She gave him a small portion of eppenroot for the pain.

  “Haven’t you got MadogWerg! This is putrid stuff!”

  “No, Drac. None.” Then, with disgust, “Your eye will not mend. You must use your Seeing senses to replace it.”

  He stared at her in fury. His thin, lined face was distorted with pain—and then as the drug took effect, distorted with its hold on him. “You needn’t be so pleased.”

  “You let it happen! You play with your quarry too much. Why didn’t you—”

  “Why didn’t I what? Kill him and take the stones? Where would our plan be then?”

  “You could hav
e taken them without killing him. You didn’t have to get yourself made half useless!”

  He did not answer her. Whatever hatred flared between them at the moment, both knew they needed Lobon. Presently he said, “The Seer will be in the cells soon. He is already nearly on top of the gates.”

  “How can you be sure he will keep on toward the cells?”

  “I laid a false sense of my presence. Do you think me an imbecile?”

  “All right, Drac. All right.”

  “Where is RilkenDal?”

  “Gone. To fight beside Kearb-Mattus. Gone to deliver mounts from the cells.” She spat against the wall. “His pets! Hateful animals. All that screaming. The disgusting whimpers of brute creatures.”

  “They are useful, my dear. RilkenDal’s troops cannot move across Ere on dragon wings as you are fortunate enough to do.”

  “Nasty beasts all the same. Talking like men, pretending to the wisdom of Seers—such as it is. He would be better off with flying lizards. They are more natural.”

  “And stubborn and stupid and bad-tempered.” He eased back on the stone bench. “The countries are beginning to panic, Kish. RilkenDal must move ahead now. Now is the time to attack.”

  Kish smiled coldly. “Soon all of Ere will be ours.”

  “It is not ours yet,” he said testily. “We must watch the girl. Make sure she is successful. I cannot lose my hold on her. Ah, Kish, once we possess the two runestones she will bring us, and the four the boy carries . . .” He shook the stone in the golden casket that dangled at his waist. “Seven stones, Kish. Seven shards of the runestone.”

  “You don’t have his four yet.”

  “I have them. I simply let him carry them. It makes the chase more exciting.” He did not mention his ruined eye. He was close to euphoria with the drug, dulled and rested and inane. “Think, Kish, when the stone is joined . . .” She smiled and nodded and stared at him appraisingly.

  “With the power of all the stones . . .” He laughed drunkenly. “Oh, I will have the nine stones, and soon. And then the son of Ramad will be useful!” His long face warped into an evil smile, twisted with the drug and maimed into a mask of horror by the gory eye.

  “Will you have them, Drac?” she said cruelly. “You let him defeat you just now. The whelp and the powers that joined him defeated you. Are you too drugged to remember that the girl helped him!” She rose and began to pace. “You had best keep better control, Drac. You had best move that girl quickly! And that band of Seers moving among my cults—I have groomed those cults too carefully to allow . . .”

  His laugh became a giggle. He lounged drunkenly on the bench, as if he had forgotten the injured eye, perhaps the socket was as numb now as if no eye had ever existed. “The cults will not dare turn from you, my dear. Though perhaps you are right, perhaps it is time you appeared among them. Perhaps their goddess has been absent too long. I should like to play with some foe besides that puny young Seer for a change. He will follow the trail I laid. The ogres will see to his capture.” He made an effort to rise. “Shall we journey to the battles, my dear? Witness the fun, speak to your multitudes? Ah, then I will be close to the young woman as she brings the stones out of Pelli.”

  Kish scowled. “Can you change back to dragon and hold that form with the drug on you? I don’t want . . . Are you in condition to carry us?”

  He felt the neck wound with long, exploring fingers, did not touch his eye, moved restlessly, stared at her glassily for some moments with the one good eye. He was trying to change. After some moments, when he remained in the form of a man, he rose unsteadily, took the runestone from its casket, spoke to it, trying to draw power from it.

  Nothing happened, he was impotent with the effects of the drug, remained humiliatingly trapped in the human body. Kish watched him with disgust.

  At last she drew close to him; scowling at his weakness but unwilling to be deprived of his usefulness. Her voice fell into a soft chant, smooth as honey. “I feel the dark Seers waking, Drac,” she crooned. “I have felt all day their voices calling up out of infinite darkness.” Her voice flowed as compelling and hypnotizing as the spell of a snake luring its prey. “Dark Seers, Drac, dark Seers waking in darkness, keening to the call of the runestones, their spirits rising to draw together and join us, to join the power of the stones. The spirits of the dead Seers, Drac, the spirits of those in whom the spark has lain as dead—too long idle, they will join us now; they will be one with us now, I feel the power of the Hape, of dark beings beyond the Ring of Fire rising—never dead, never really dead.” Her pale hands lifted and caressed him. The firemaster stared at her, bound to her caressing voice. “Now our time is coming, Drac, now our strength gathers, now we will quell the light-struck rule of Carriol.” She wet her lips with a pale tongue. “Too long have they held the stone, Drac, too long their cloying light washed that which should couch itself in darkness, too long spoken of love, and of honor. I feel the dark Seers, Dracvadrig, I feel their spirits waking from times long past, NiMarn who fashioned the wolf bell, NilokEm and his get, HarThass, who failed so miserably to win the soul of Ramad—I feel the dark core of each rising now, I feel powers huge and pulsing, breathing life into those who have slept. Their spirits rise, Drac, they will join us. Feel it, Dracvadrig. Feel them touching you.”

  Her mesmerization gripped and immersed him, transported him until, at long last his body began to change into the dragon form, his legs to swell and shape into a coil that writhed and swelled, his wrinkled fingers to lengthen into heavy claws, his long nose and sharp chin to elongate further into dragon face. The wounded eye was larger, a dragon’s ruined eye, and blood flowed from it anew. His coils filled the cave and pressed Kish back against the stone wall. She caressed the cold dragon flesh with pale hands, stroked the creature’s leathery wings that pushed against the roof trying to break free.

  All across Ere from dim, deep caverns and dark fissures, the dark listened to Kish and strove and sought out for its kindred spirits, for presences beginning to wake after generations of sleep. These rose as a stench would rise from moldering bodies; and each, waking, joined the next: the spirit of the Hape, the worm gantroed, the ice cat, creatures shunned by animals of light. Now their essences sought to become one, joining with the spirits of dark Seers, joining with the darkness that rode within Kish and within Dracvadrig and RilkenDal, within all who moved in evil across Ere.

  Slowly Dracvadrig slid toward the mouth of the cave, until he filled the opening with swelling coils. Kish slipped onto his back. He slid out and down the cliffs side, then lifted his heavy wings and beat drunkenly skyward, into the heavy wind.

  They headed south, Kish’s icy hands caressing dragon mane, her thoughts leaping ahead to battles, to the disciplining of her cults, to the destruction of the young Seers who meddled with them. Her anticipation of that destruction was eager and keen.

  *

  Zephy looked up from poulticing the chest of a sick child, shivered, and didn’t know why. She could bring no vision, but was awash with unease suddenly. She shook back her hair, frowned, all her spirit filled with foreboding; kneeling there by the child, the steaming poultice forgotten, she sought Thorn in her thoughts.

  Thorn sensed what she sensed and hid his sudden fear from the men he was drilling; cultists, so slow to learn battle practices.

  But now suddenly these men stood confronting him with sharper attention. They seemed wider awake. He stopped his lesson and examined the change in them. Their expressions had become suddenly alert, their minds alert. Some looked no longer docile and obedient, but now looked defiant. And then they began to chant, a harsh whisper that carried across the camp.

  “She comes.”

  “The warrior queen comes.”

  “The warrior queen speaks to us.”

  “She moved across the winds to us.”

  Zephy’s thoughts touched his mind, cutting across the chant. What is it? What’s happening?

  I don’t— But the chants faded abruptly. The
scene before Thorn faded as if a sudden fog engulfed the campground. Another scene, of battle, took its place. They Saw the city of Zandour, Saw new troops attacking from the sky, dark warriors mounted on horses of Eresu. Winged ones harnessed and bitted and driven with whips—and driven by some strange compelling power that held them more captive than any harness could do. Then the winged ones were dwarfed in the sky by a monster dragon come out of cloud to dive with them down upon Zandour’s troops: The earth bound horses screamed and fell under its claws, under blows from the sky, their riders slashed by the swords of skyborne riders.

  The dragon swept low over the city, licking out flame so the city began to burn, a house here, a barn, wherever its fiery breath caught. And astride the dragon rode a pale, tall woman slashing and killing with a heavy sword. The dragon swept low against the walls of the ruling house of Zandour, once Hermeth’s home, and the walls fell as if eggshells had crumbled. On the hillside, the marker of Hermeth’s grave was ripped away with one glancing blow, and Hermeth’s moldering, frail bones ripped out and scattered and trampled into dust. And then, as suddenly as the vision came to Zephy and Thorn, it vanished, for Kish spun a blocking force around Zandour to confuse and terrify the Seers further.

  The horror of that destruction, then the sudden absence of any vision, was felt like a shock across Ere; was felt in the far, high deserts as a final challenge that started with the scattering of Hermeth’s bones. There on the desert a band of wolves paused with raised heads to listen, to watch, their lifted faces stern as they stared away past the brutal sands toward the countries below the rim, toward Zandour, whence the vision came.

  They were wolves come long ago to the high desert, come generations before out of Zandour, descendants of those who had not joined Ramad when he was swept away out of Time. They had come to the desert and lived generations here; and now suddenly they harked to the pillage in Zandour, to the world their ancestors had left. They felt the warring with a cold fury; and they felt the darkness rising. They Saw the dragon and his woman attacking Zandour’s troops. Their race-memory, and the tales handed down from their sires, knew the kindness in Zandour, knew the gentleness of Hermeth; and they recalled the way in which Hermeth died, possessed by darkness.