Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  She tried again to make Michennann turn, but felt only a dull, blank fixedness of mind quite unlike the mare, unlike any winged one. She slapped Michennann’s neck, jerked her mane; all uselessly. Michennann kept on, caught in a web, now, beyond her will, beyond her ability to destroy.

  It was then Anchorstar gave her the vision. It seemed to have nothing to do with her plight, with the dilemma engulfing her. She saw five people, all white-haired, one of them a child. One was Anchorstar. One was Tra. Hoppa. Another woman. A young man. They stood in a meadow greener than the jade itself. Behind them rose a strange, clear dome. It looked as if it were made of glass, though that would be impossible; glass was made only in very small pieces. It might have been formed of crystal out of the mountains, so strange it was. There was a sense of power and warmth, of lightness; a sense of other things gone too quickly to grasp.

  When the vision left her, her mind seemed to clear from a confusion she had hardly been aware of. The warmth and tightness of that place, the sense of power, remained with her; but part of the vision escaped too quickly, was gone. Now she felt clear-headed, as if she had awakened from a nightmare where all her senses had been awry. She knew suddenly and completely, with a shock that chilled her, that she had never been meant to reach the Kubalese troops. That she had never been meant to destroy those troops. She knew, as sharply as if her face had been slapped, that she and Michennann were being led toward a different destination. Toward a destination filled with terror. She turned to stare back at Anchorstar, crying out to him now for help, knowing he meant only to show her the truth. . . .

  And he was gone from the sky. Gone as if he had never been there.

  She was alone with a truth she did not want, fighting Michennann to turn aside—fighting too late to alter her own dark course; and Michennann caught and held utterly now, to some stronger will. Michennann, left too long to battle alone, had lost that battle. Meatha’s fear turned to terror. She clung, stricken, to the silent, fast-flying mare. She saw now that the very stealing of the runestones had been willed by the dark she had meant to defeat. Now she saw, and now it was too late. Now she battled a mare caught herself in forces beyond her will. Meatha tried, but could not reach the mare’s spirit. She strained to bring power through the stones and seemed weak and inept. She tried to make the mare end their flight in a fast spiraling downward, but Michennann did not heed her, was led on like a bird snared in flight. Why had Anchorstar turned away? Why hadn’t he helped her? She was sick and trembling. She could smell the mare’s nervous sweat. Something urged them to greater speed still, and neither she nor Michennann could resist.

  And Lobon woke shouting into empty blackness, “Fight him! Fight Dracvadrig! The power of the bell is with you!” He turned and saw the wolves sitting erect in their chains and felt their power steadily rising with his own to strengthen the girl and drive the firemaster back. He tried with all his power to give her the strength she sought. Dracvadrig must not have the runestones she carried. He did not think about why he cared, why this was important to him.

  And his power was not enough, the mare was buffeted until she faltered in the sky; and then suddenly the dragon launched himself from the peak of Scar Mountain and swept toward them, black against the stars, driving winds aside. He came at them, slashed at the mare and pale rider forcing them on not only with mind-power but with teeth like steel, with claws that were knives, with a frenzy of beating wings. The mare fought to keep airborne. Meatha lashed out with her sword again and again, but the mare was forced down at last toward the abyss by the dragon’s leathery wings beating across her wings. Lobon Saw blood smeared across the dragon’s face, and he did not know he was shouting again, sending power like a tide from the wolf bell. He tore in rage at the bolt that held Feldyn, and the wolf leaped and leaped in frustration, then suddenly came free, the bolt clanging to the floor as the mare and girl were swept down the side of the abyss. The dragon dove, snatched the girl up in its claws, and beat skyward carrying her like a cloth doll. Lobon felt her quick decision to drop the stones and cried out to her. He made her pause and close her fist over them, perplexed.

  Then he saw, not in vision but against the night sky beyond the cell, the dragon’s dark shape come out of the wind swooping down past the cell dangling the girl. He saw her face for an instant, pale with fear, her cheek torn and bloody. She lashed out again with the sword, then the dragon was gone with her. Lobon sensed it entering a red-washed cave, Saw fire ogres moving inside. One snatched a cloth bag from the girl and pushed her against the wall; she screamed with the pain of the burns it left on her wrist and shoulder; Lobon could feel that pain. The cloth sack where she had carried the two runestones was aflame. The fire ogre picked the two stones out and laid them on top a flat boulder. Lobon saw then that his own two shards, and the starfires, lay there gleaming red with reflected fire. He watched the dragon inspect the stones, then watched as a fire ogre swept them up in its thick, flaming hand and tumbled them into the golden casket that dangled at the dragon’s throat.

  The dragon left the cave carrying six shards of the milestone of Eresu. Lobon could hear it scraping across loose stone, then heard boulders dislodged, and was engulfed in the sense of it close by. The night turned red as ogres approached. They fumbled with the lock, and the dragon’s heavy blackness covered the stars beyond the cell. The gate was pulled open.

  The dragon pushed through the cell door. Its claws reached for him. He lashed out with the bell down the side of its head, and it hissed and pulled back, coughing flame at him.

  Again it reached. Again. As it turned, he saw the left eye swollen closed and covered with dried blood. Each time he struck with Seer’s powers and the bell, it retreated, then attacked anew. He could feel the wolves’ powers with him, strong. Its jaws opened above him, flame belching to burn him. Its teeth grazed his shoulder. He pressed deeper into the cave; it pushed in after him, pressed so close—but then it drew back. He tried to find a way clear of its coils and was trapped by it.

  But it did not attack. It was only toying with him.

  Why? Surely it wanted the wolf bell. He stood facing it. It was utterly still, watching him, and the sense of the man Dracvadrig was there, alert and evil. It did not move. It had only to kill him and take the wolf bell, but it did not move. Did it want him alive? But why would it? It seemed to draw back to keep from killing him. Why? It wanted the wolf bell, though. It stared at it greedily. He reached out desperately to any power that could help him. The creature remained utterly still. He felt the wolves with him, felt more than these three wolves; knew suddenly that wolves in a great band pushed their power like a heavy tide to buoy him; and he felt the girl where she stood captive, fighting beside him. Then suddenly Feldyn and Shorren leaped and slashed at it, their chains dragging, Shorren on one side, Feldyn on the other, ducking flame; the dragon moved now, swept this way and that trying to see them, to get at them. Its eye seemed to pain it. Its coils lashed the walls, the golden pouch at its throat swung and gleamed. Lobon tried to turn the power of the stones it carried against it. Could such a thing be done? Did the dark hold that power utterly? He felt the wolves’ power strong, so strong. He brought his skills, his knowledge to bear as perhaps he never had before; the sense of those other wolves somewhere, somewhere, reaching out to give him strength twisted something in Lobon, brought the sense of Ramad around him sharply. He forced and drove down on the dragon with the power that rose in him married to those other powers. The dragon took a step back, slowed in its battling, and swung its head. Lobon exalted in his power and in the fellowship of wolves. He leaped suddenly with the wolf bell at the dragon’s head, slashed the bell across its cheek, then leaped and struck the damaged eye; the dragon bellowed out with pain, with fury. It writhed, blood gushed from the eye; and then, writhing, its body began to grow unclear.

  Twisting and bellowing, it diminished in size as if the pain were too great to let it hold the dragon form. He felt it reaching to strengthen its power in the stones
it carried, felt it falter as those powers that buoyed Lobon confused and rattled its mind. Powers stood beside Lobon now—Skeelie’s, the wolves’—that awed and humbled him. The dragon diminished further. It had begun to change into the form of a man. The two forms overlapped and wavered. The bones seemed to shrink, to draw in.

  At last the man Dracvadrig stood before him, tall and bent and sallow, his lined face filled with hate. The gold casket dangled across his waist. One eye gushed blood. The other was a dragon’s eye, predatory and cold.

  Part Three: The Joining

  From the journal of Skeelie of Carriol. (Undated. Marked only, The Villa of Canoldir.)

  I have not moved out of the realm of Canoldir’s house and out of this Timeless place to help Lobon. I am uncertain what to do. Perhaps Canoldir is right, perhaps I must wait. Must Lobon fight his battles unfettered? Would my interference unbalance the scales of what is, turn away the delicate balance of powers, and perhaps destroy that balance?

  What am I to do? Do the Luff’Eresi watch Lobon and the warring upon Ere? Surely they care. From what Ram told me, they care more than we can know. But they put their feelings aside in deference to our free-choosing.

  Must I continue to wait, then? Is this what they, all wise, would tell me? Yet I suffer for Lobon. And I fear for Ere.

  In my fearing, should I not move to help? Must I not tip the balance? Am I not a part of that balance anymore, since I move outside of Time? Yet if I do not go to him, will I shatter all hope?

  If I could have a vision of the Luff’Eresi as I had once long ago, if a word from their greater wisdom could guide me . . .

  But they will not tamper with human affairs. It is up to me to decide.

  And I do not know what to do.

  EIGHT

  Beyond Esh-nen, beyond Time, in the villa of Canoldir, Skeelie stood staring into the dying fire, but Seeing only Lobon facing the firemaster. The dragon had changed to the form of a man. The wolf bell was bloodied, and Lobon’s dark eyes were blazing with hatred. She remembered sharply how Ramad had faced the master of Urdd, twelve years gone, felt again Ram’s anger. Her hand clutched convulsively at her sword as she felt again the pain of Ram’s death. “I must go to Lobon now. I must.”

  “You cannot help him, Skeelie. Not any more than he can help himself.” Canoldir stood tall in darkened leathers before the stone mantel, taut with the visions and with her fierce need. His dark eyes caressed her, were filled with forces and wonders no woman could turn away from.

  She drew a breath, watching him. “I must go to him. I can help him. I must be beside him to try.”

  “Part of the force that drives you, Skeelie, is guilt. Because you were not beside Ramad to help him.”

  She stared at him defiantly, knowing he was right.

  “You think your Seer’s powers were not enough alone to save Ram, and now too late you would battle with your sword.” His look was uncompromising. “The sword alone will never be sufficient to destroy such as Dracvadrig. Try your Seer’s powers now, Skeelie. You have more than you know.”

  “My power is not enough without the sword. You must let me go to him.”

  “Perhaps I will not be able to bring you back. My own powers . . .” Their shared look was long and expressed their shared needs. I cannot let you go without tearing my soul from me.

  “You must let me go. I cannot see him die as Ram died. Nor can I see the stones remain with the dark Seers. Nor—nor can you.”

  “The fates will have their way regardless of what we do.”

  “You do not believe that. You know you do not. Let me go. I will come back to you. I must come back to you. The Luff’Eresi—”

  “The Luff’Eresi care nothing for this. They would not lift a finger to help.

  “They helped Ram once. To save the Children of Ynell. You do not believe what you say! You can’t run away from the stones—from Ere—uncaring.”

  I care only for you. He took her by the shoulders, pulled her to him. But she held the vision of Lobon facing the master of Urdd and would not yield to the gentleness of his touch or to his lonely need.

  *

  Dracvadrig’s voice was dry as wind. His form, diminished from dragon to man, seemed only the more horrifying in its sparsity and sepulchral stance. He took a sword from a fire ogre’s hand, and it reflected the flame of the ogre’s face red as blood. “Now I will have the bell, son of a bastard!” The firemaster’s power was the power of all darkness. Crieba leaped at his chain. Feldyn and Shorren crouched snarling, then lurched forward dragging their chains to stand beside Lobon, tensed to spring. Dracvadrig stood hunched as a bird of prey, sword poised, then moved forward. Lobon did not step back, was wild with the power in him, the power of that great pack of wolves, the power of the girl in a strange, warm closeness; he raised the wolf bell and felt another power and exalted, felt Skeelie there with him; he knew he could kill Dracvadrig now, at this instant. . . .

  *

  Kish’s sword was poised against the throat of a peasant, crouching among his dead companions, when the vision of Dracvadrig and Lobon struck her. Somehow, Dracvadrig seemed so small there in the form of a man, dwarfed by the abyss out behind him as if his human form had shrunk. She watched his expression coldly, watched the young Seer; and she knew suddenly and surely that Dracvadrig could die there in the next instant, die in the rising power the young Seer had found. Who was helping him? Curse Carriol and her Seers! She gored the peasant and turned from his fallen body, saw that RilkenDal had already snatched the bridles of two fettered mares of Eresu. She ran, snatched the reins, was mounted. No matter that she hated Dracvadrig, Lobon must not have the stones! They beat and spurred the reluctant animals until the creatures could only leap skyward, were soon pounding the wind in a frenzy of speed under the sharp sting of the whips.

  The setting sun sent a streak of crimson along the underside of the clouds, and beneath that bloody sky the dark Seers held steady the vision of Lobon and the firemaster. They must not allow Dracvadrig’s defeat, must not allow the stones to be taken. What powers buoyed the Seer? They sensed a force from the captive girl helping him, and then Lobon had cornered Dracvadrig.

  The bastard’s son must not have the stones! RilkenDal pressed his mount until the mare began to slaver, her eyes white with terror. Her wings did not want to hold her, she faltered, seemed ready to fall; he beat her until she strained harder, drove her on toward the abyss.

  At last they were over Urdd, the heaving animals staggering against the wind, then dropping from the sky like stones.

  The mares stumbled to the earth and fell on their knees, their wings splaying along the ground like injured birds. The riders leaped free and ran. They were too late, they felt Dracvadrig’s exhaustion, felt him take a mortal blow and stagger from the cell, trying in a final bid for power to take the dragon form, and too weak to muster that power.

  “The Seer will have the stones!” Kish hissed, running hard. She was light on her feet and fast. “Those useless mares dropped us too far from the cells. Run! For the love of Urdd, he must not have the stones! Use your power! Help him change to dragon!”

  *

  Lobon followed the retreating firemaster into the twilight of the abyss, Shorren pushing close. Feldyn tried to follow, but fell, his injured leg and shoulder striking a painful dizziness to sap his conscious will. Shorren’s dragging chain made a harsh din in the silence; her spirit was predatory, thirsting for blood.

  They found the master of Urdd lying among boulders in a form half-dragon, half-man, the long tail twisted around jagged rocks, the human legs half formed. They could feel his waning powers as he attempted to complete the change. His breathing was shallow and quick, his face gone in a horrifying mixture of shapes. The runestones lay scattered beside him, the broken gold casket smashed beneath the bulk of dragon shoulder from which protruded a man’s puny arm, its clawlike fingers clutching at his fallen sword.

  Lobon jerked the sword from Dracvadrig’s hand and pressed the tip
into the firemaster’s chest. Then he paused. He could pierce the firemaster’s heart now, he had lived twelve years for this moment. And suddenly he was numb with confusion and uncertainty.

  Shorren growled; her voice filled his mind. Kill him! What do you wait for! She crouched, ready to spring, to tear out Dracvadrig’s throat. Do you lose your nerve, Lobon, after all your bragging talk of how you would destroy the master of Urdd?

  He steadied his hand. Something lost and empty had stirred in him. He fought it back and plunged the sword home deep through dragon’s chest and man’s. Blood spurted like a river. The bloodied eye stared up at him blindly as the pierced heart ceased to beat.

  He knelt beside the creature, half-man half-dragon, mutilated and dead, and picked up a shard of the runestone and wiped the blood from it, retrieved another and another until he held all five and the starfires. Then he turned and stared at Shorren, filled with emotions he dared not examine. She knew. She saw it in him. She looked back at him steadily.

  The hatred of a lifetime was satisfied. And the emptiness it left laid a terror on his heart that he did not understand.

  Your quest is ended, Lobon. Dracvadrig is dead. Is your reason for being ended, too?

  He stared at her, puzzled. He did not know how to answer such a question.

  Finally he stirred himself, looked again at the tangled body, stiffening now to cleave around boulders in coils and twisted human limbs. Then he began to examine the stones and to read one by one the runes carven into them. But the runes were only scattered words. None, alone, made sense. He started to fit stone to stone, but something made him cease abruptly. He stared down at the stones, puzzling. “What do these words mean, Shorren? What does the whole rune say?”