The Wolf Bell
At a crossing in time when good and evil balance
On the burned land where they balance
A nation will be wrought.
Freedom and slavery crosswise on a tilted sword.
The bell will mark the Seer
Whose lifted hand decides it.
And the bell’s shadow cast over all
With the wolves looking
From the mountain.
Conceived in vengeance to buy a life,
The Seer will come into the mountain.
But the woman will turn at the crossroads
And the bell’s shadow cast over all
With the wolves looking
From the mountain:
She will be the vessel,
The bell’s shadow cast tall across her,
The lives of men betrayed.
Part One: The Bell
ONE
In the early days of Ere wolves came down from the high deserts to raid the Zandourian sheep, slaughtering them or driving the animals up a sheer cliff to climb in terror or fall to their deaths. The Zandourian herders thought the wolves devils from the fires of Urdd itself and, helpless in their fear, turned to the Seers of Zandour. So the Seer NiMarn fashioned a bell of bronze held by a rearing bitch-wolf; with it, a man gifted in Seeing could call the wolves as a mother calls her babe, and they would come grovelling. After that wolves left the herds untouched and became slaves to the Seers of Zandour.
But with the bell and its dark powers, NiMarn ruled more than wolves. He ruled the cities of Zandour as well. The wolf cult held reign for five generations, until the volcanoes spewed fire and devastation across the lands of Ere. In the panic of sweeping rivers of fire, smoke-darkened skies and starvation, the wolf cult could not hold men. The cult crumbled, the wolves returned to the wind, and the bell was lost.
As the last leader of the wolf cult lay dying deep in the cave that would be his grave, he whispered a prediction that lived in that cave long after his bones had crumbled:
“A bastard child will be born, and he will rule the wolves as no Seer before him has done.” His words were rasping and hate-filled, his sunken eyes cold with seeing his own betrayal. “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 great wolves of the high mountains, where the lakes are made of fire. Wolves,” he whispered, shivering, “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.” Bile came into the Seer’s mouth. He died with a look of cold fury on his thin face, and his bones rotted there in the cave of the wolf cult and he was forgotten for seven generations.
The volcanoes came once again. The lands were swept by fire. Men died and women became barren, and the few children born, it was said, were touched with evil. As the fires subsided, a girl-child was born in Zandour. She who would be mother to the bastard.
In those days a maid was chattel like the beasts, purchased at puberty for wifely work and breeding. When Tayba was thirteen her father took bids for her. She was tall and dark with teasing eyes and a beauty men watched with fine lust and bid high for. The bidders were wealthy young men whose fathers’ herds blanketed the hills of Zandour and whose mounts and jewels were envied. Seven bidders, then twelve, each going higher until Elgend chose the most generous, chose jewels and gold worth a kingdom. So young Blerdlo was given the promise of Tayba; and if he was gross and fat-gutted and smelled bad, that was not considered, was of no consequence in these dealings. Elgend had done well enough with his other daughters; now Tayba would double his fortunes. And if she bore a healthy child, Blerdlo promised a bonus of such splendor that Elgend found the customary long wait for the wedding celebration nearly as difficult as did Blerdlo.
Tayba allowed her father’s wives to give her the final training for marriage. She was silent and yielding to the prenuptial rituals and the Worshippings. She knelt docilely before the gods—and burned inside at gods who would allow her sale to that pig, Blerdlo, seethed hot with fury at the promising and vowed she would never honor it. Alone in her chambers, standing before her silver mirror, she mourned the betrayal of her own cool beauty, mourned the handsome young men who had wanted, and lost, her. Well she would not be wasted on Blerdlo; she might prepare for her wedding bed, but she would not lie in it with him.
There was a fair young man in Zandour then, an unlanded drifter from Pelli lounging in the ale houses and gaming places. The servants said he was clever at bones and brittles and that he must be wealthy indeed, the way he used silver to satisfy his wants. Tayba managed many a trip to the marketplace, to the herb woman and the prayer fountain in preparation for her marriage. The young man began to watch her. He was sun-browned with pale gold hair, his eyes so compelling she found it hard to look away. When first he spoke to her, she looked down, letting her lashes brush her cheeks. She could feel his interest like a tide. She turned away, smiling a little. Soon they were meeting in the public places, then later in places where prying eyes would not follow. In Tayba’s father’s farthest sheepfold shelter, in the ogre’s wood where few from Zandour ventured. Then at last in the blackened caves of Scar Mountain that rose between Zandour and Aybil.
He made love to her greedily. But when she tried to ease him into promises, EnDwyl did not commit himself. He let her imagine what she might. He watched her passion for him grow and was satisfied.
Soon Tayba was with child. The illness of it made her pale and so queasy she could not sit at table, but the wives put it down to nerves. She stayed to herself in her room until the early sickness was past. Her tall, lithe frame carried the secret well. After the first weeks of sickness she felt strong again and continued to slip away to EnDwyl. The gowns she chose were flowing, they showed nothing.
She was growing heavy the evening she put on a smooth, revealing gown at last and stood before her father’s table to stare at him in cold defiance, the evidence of her betrayal mocking him. All up and down the length of the room there was silence, then a faint gasp from the wives who would be blamed for this: five days before the wedding and Tayba pregnant as a prize ewe.
Her father stared at her, the blood draining from his face. He rose, white as loess dust, and stepped toward her. “Is it Blerdlo’s?”
She gave him a cold smile and shook her head. His hand went to his skinning knife, and someone muffled a cry. She did not back away.
“You cursed . . . you worthless. . . . You’ve squandered a fortune with your willful ways! You’d have been bred soon enough to Blerdlo, but you couldn’t wait. You—”
Her eyes flashed. “You sold me to that pig, to the ugliest, the smelliest among them! Well he’ll never have me, and I’m as worthless to you now as a rotting sheep’s carcass. You could get a better price from a servant’s whelp!” Her smile was ruthless with the success of her revenge.
“Get out! Go with your unlanded lover and see how well he keeps you! You’re no longer welcome in this house!” He slammed out of the room, and she looked after him with triumph, stared slowly around the table then, keeping her face hard, and went away with the cold looks of the household at her back.
She snatched up a few clothes, took a handful of silver from her father’s stores before he thought to lock them, and ran barefoot through the night to the house where EnDwyl hired a sleeping room. She was drunk with her own freedom, giddy with her revenge. They would go to Pelli now, they would . . . But EnDwyl was gone, his room quite empty of anything that had ever belonged to him.
She stood staring at the bare room, sick with shock. All his clothes, his boots, everything. When she went to rouse the innsman to find out where, he stood in his doorway swearing. “I know he’s gone! And taken his horse and two roast ducks and a cask of ale as well and left nothing for the rent he
owes!” He eyed Tayba speculatively, seeing her silk gown, the fur lining of her cloak.
She turned and left in haste, losing herself in shadow. The man wouldn’t get EnDwyl’s rent out of her.
She stood for a long while in the night-shuttered marketplace, near the fountain, swept by rage—and by a sudden cold fear. Her time was not far off. She had no desire to drop the babe on the open hills like a dumb ewe. She had counted on EnDwyl to take her to Pelli to bear his child. He had said he would. Well, at least he had said—what had he said? In the heat of temper she could not exactly remember. Tears of self-pity came, she did not try to quench them, stood tasting the salt on her lips in terrible rage, then bent, shaken with a hard bout of sobs that seemed to ease the anger.
When she looked up from crying at last, she saw an old woman standing in the starlit square near the fountain, watching her. A short, dumpy figure, a woman such as was seen rummaging in the gutters of Zandour. The woman’s voice was hollow as the night She said cruelly, “EnDwyl has ridden toward Pelli, wanting to be free of you.”
Tayba looked her over. “How would you know such a thing?”
“It is my business to know. And I have a message for you. You must go to the bell woman on Scar Mountain. She will help you. She says to bring honey and sow’s milk. You take the fourth path at the turning by the water cave and keep on until the sun has set.”
“The sun has not even risen,” Tayba said irritably. “And why should I go to Scar Mountain?”
‘To bear your child in safety. He was conceived on Scar Mountain, and on Scar Mountain he will be born.” The old woman turned away, then cast back softly, “It will be light soon. You’d better hurry. And don’t forget the sow’s milk and honey.” She was lost at once in the city’s depths. Tayba stared after her outraged. She wished she’d been born a man; she looked down at her swollen belly and wished she were lithe enough to ride hard and strong enough to kill EnDwyl. She wished for the first, but not the last, time that this creature she carried was gone, even wished the baby dead and herself free of the whole matter.
The morning dawned foggy and cold. Shivering, she pulled her cloak around her and stared up at the craggy mountain. She did not know where else to go or what to do. She left town at last, angry at everything, at EnDwyl, the old woman, the gods—and very hungry. She purchased sow’s milk and honey from a hillside farm wondering why she bothered, and some dry mawzee cakes to eat as she made her way up the rough path that cleaved around Scar Mountain.
The way up the mountain had been exciting when she rode behind EnDwyl. Now it was hostile and rough and seemed a good deal longer. When at last the morning mist blew away, the day became hot, the air heavy, and the path very steep indeed. She hadn’t remembered how steep. She put on sandals, but the thin soles were little help against the sharp rocks. Her bundles grew heavier, and the sow’s milk began to smell. She thought of her last ride here with EnDwyl, and she hoped a warring Herebian tribe would chop him into buzzard bait.
But when she passed the cave where they had lain, she mourned EnDwyl’s golden hair and knowing ways. Why had the gods let this happen? Why had they let him leave her? She stared up at the sky. If she had seen gods then, flying on the wind, she would have cursed them roundly.
How had that old woman in the square known about her and EnDwyl? And how had this bell woman known? She had never even heard of a bell woman—bells? What did she do with bells? And what made her think the baby would be a boy? I don’t want a boy! I don’t want any baby! What am I to do with a baby!
When the sun had set she stood before a house made of stone slabs set against the side of the mountain. The afternoon had grown chill. She could see firelight through the cracks around the shuttered window. The door stood ajar. Tayba entered.
The stone ceiling rose high. The house was large inside, carven deep into the mountain itself; and the pale stone walls were sculptured into shelves on which stood bells, hundreds and hundred of bells catching the firelight, bells of amethyst and brass and painted clay, of jasper and of precious glass stained in deep tones. A thin white-haired woman sat folded onto a stool before the hearth. She watched Tayba silently. It was impossible to tell her age. Her eyes were too wise, too full of knowledge. She didn’t need to speak to make Tayba feel so uncomfortable she turned away to stare with confusion around the stone room. Why had she come here? Why in Urdd had she come?
The evening light fell softly through the window to catch at the bells. Did they carry enchantments? There was nowhere else to look except at bells, or at the white-haired woman. Then she saw a bronze bell standing alone on the mantle, and a chill touched her. It was an ugly thing: a rearing bitch-wolf holding a bell in its mouth. She did not know why it terrified her, but she looked away from it, shuddering. She thought of the child she carried and stared at the woman sitting motionless against the stone mantle. Something dark in Tayba stirred then, some hint of things unspoken, things she did not want to touch or acknowledge, and she pushed them away from her mind in angry haste. The woman spoke.
“I am Gredillon.” Her voice was clear, precise. “I am called bell woman.” Her white hair seemed not to denote age so much as some strange condition of being. She looked long at Tayba, a detached, appraising look that did nothing at all to ease Tayba’s awe of her. Did the woman always have that piercing, unnerving gaze? “You will bear your child here.”
Tayba continued to stare.
“I will teach him what he needs to learn. I will teach you both, likely, for you are in desperate need of learning.”
Tayba scowled.
“And one day he will lead you, this child you carry. One day he will lead men.”
“No child will lead me! I do not even want this child!”
“Nonetheless, he will be born. And he will lead you into the Ring of Fire, and there you will find what you are made of. It is something you need badly to learn.”
“No one goes into the Ring of Fire. And how do you know what I need?”
“You will go there,” Gredillon said, ignoring Tayba’s question. “Your brother Theel went, as far as the foot of it. Is it not true he followed the raider Venniver to the foot of those mountains to build a new city?”
“I suppose so. It’s what he said. Who knows where Theel is.”
“If he followed the dark leader Venniver, he did as he said he would do.”
“If he followed Venniver to that place, he’s probably dead.” She laid her pack on the table. “Why did you bring me here?” Then, remembering the sow’s milk and honey that she had set down absently, “And why did you want those? Do you expect me to drink sow’s milk, old woman?”
Gredillon’s smile was unexpected. It softened her angled face. “The sow’s milk makes good cheese. The honey is to sweeten my tea.” Her mouth twitched with amusement, but her dark eyes flashed. “Honey will not be wasted on you, young woman! It would turn bitter as dolba root in your mouth!”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I did not bring you. I offered you sanctuary. Without me you would have had to return to your father’s house and beg a herder’s shack in which to bear your child.”
“You bid me here,” Tayba argued. “You told that gutter woman—what do you want of me?”
“I want nothing of you. I want only the safety of the child you carry. I want the safe birthing of your son.” Gredillon rose and turned to the mantle so the bronze bell was cloaked in her shadow. When she turned back to face Tayba, her eyes were so fierce Tayba could hardly look. “I want him born safely, and you know nothing of birthing a child. You could die birthing this child and he could die with you. You are too young, they breed them too young. That is why the young women die, it is not from the will of the gods.” She clasped her hands lightly. “This child must be born in safety, and you must live to care for him. But mark you this. If I must choose between you, one life to save, I will save the boy.” She motioned to a low couch on the other side of the hearth. “You are too weary to contain su
ch anger. Lie down now and sleep.”
Tayba felt the weariness then, like a tide. She did as she was bidden, though against her will, turned her face to the wall away from Gredillon and, against her will, slept at once. And in sleep the wolf bell burned darkly through the weft of her dreams, the bitch-wolf rearing tall, her mouth open in a toothy leer.
*
She birthed the child with Gredillon’s help as Ere’s two moons hung thin as knives low on the horizon, birthed painfully through the length of the night with the pains so white hot she thought she would die of them. She heard Gredillon’s words over and over, If I must choose between you, I will save the boy. Tayba hated the baby for this and for the pain he caused her, wanted only to be free of him, fought to be free of him. When she screamed with the pain, Gredillon stuffed a rag in her mouth to bite on.
Gredillon’s thin, long hands held an earthen cup to Tayba’s lips with potions, straightened her covers, or removed them when Tayba burned with the heat of her effort. The thin, patient woman was there as the pain came and went; the candlelight caught at her white hair and at the bells, and in delirium Tayba thought the bells were huge and saw Gredillon’s white hair flowing through them and Gredillon’s long hands reaching, reaching. . . .
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