Three old women bustled into the sculler with baskets of tervil and roots. Tayba and Skeelie stilled their talk, became absorbed in their vegetables.
Old Poncie pushed back her sparse white hair and glared at Skeelie, handed out a pail in her thin clawlike hand. “Here, child, take this pail and get us some water! Oh my, you’ve used this other bucket for scraps! Can’t you . . .”
Skeelie grinned at Tayba and went out swinging the two buckets. Tayba looked through the open window and saw Ram run to join her as if he’d been waiting. He looked fine and healthy now, as if he had never been sick. Behind her the old women began to whisper; she heard her name, could feel them looking at her, caught words that angered her. Well, she’d rather work at serving table in the dining hall than with this whispering handful of biddies.
*
They were at supper in the storeroom, Ram and Skeelie and Tayba, when Venniver came to look them over like some kind of new livestock. Ram knew he was coming and bristled, stopped eating and felt almost sick, the food nauseating him. Skeelie disappeared at once behind some barrels. Ram sat stiff and apprehensive as Venniver pushed open the outside door to stand silent, blocking out the moons, a dark blotch. They could not see his face, and when he did not move or speak, Tayba began to fidget. Ram wished she would hold still; her nervousness both annoyed and amused Venniver.
Still, the sense of him was so powerful Ram could understand her feelings. She could not continue to eat casually under the man’s steady, hidden gaze. She received the sense of him very surely, and Ram wondered, not for the first time, why she could not bear to accept, even in her private thoughts, that she had Seer’s skill. She hid from the idea utterly, turned from it in terror, and he could not understand that in her.
When Venniver stepped into the room at last, so the candlelight touched his face, Ram saw Tayba’s surprise. The man’s cold blue eyes and curling black hair and beard seemed strange against the clear, pink-cheeked complexion, rosy as a girl’s. He seemed too big for the room. Ram felt Tayba’s thoughts careening like a shrew in a cage, awed by him and frightened—yet drawn to him. She began to fiddle with her plate, and Venniver looked at her coolly, gave a snort of disgust that dismissed her entirely, and turned his attention to Ram.
He stared at Ram piercingly. He was a frightening man. Ram looked back at him steadily, unflinching, with a calmness that took a good deal of concentration.
“Ram—Ram has not been well,” Tayba said nervously. Ram wished she would keep still. “He is strong, he will be a strong worker. He was sick because he fell, you can see the lump, but he. . . .” Ram stared at her, trying to make her be still. “We—we came to Burgdeeth,” she said more calmly, “to be away from Seers. Perhaps Theel told you that. I—I am a good worker. We both are.” She looked back at him steadily now.
“What can the boy do?” Venniver said mockingly.
“He—he can learn to lay stone. He will grow to be a man well-trained to the work of the town.”
Venniver snorted.
Tayba looked down, keeping her hands still with great effort; when she looked up, she quailed anew before Venniver’s piercing gaze. “We have nowhere else to go,” she said softly. “We—we are at your mercy here.”
Ram was sickened at her submissiveness. She had nearly dissolved before Venniver.
When Venniver turned to leave, he looked back at her unexpectedly and spoke much as Theel had spoken.
“You may stay here if you work as you are directed. We have no food for idlers or for women and children who do not know their places. That means that you will keep our sanctions, both of you. There will be no favors because your brother is my lieutenant. You will hate the evils of Ynell, you will hate the Children of Ynell as I hate them. You will, if you value your life, young woman—and his life,” he added, jabbing a careless thumb toward Ram. “If I am displeased with you, I will send you to die on the plain. I have no qualms about doing so.” His look chilled Ram utterly. In one motion, then, he was gone into the night. The moons shone coldly through the empty doorway.
They stared after him in silence. “He means,” Ram said at last, “that you must hate the Seers, Mamen. That is what the Children of Ynell are. That is what I am.”
“Yes.” She drew him to her, and he let her hold him. He could feel her discomfort at the man’s cruel coldness. When she parted his hair to be sure the roots had not shown before Venniver, Ram turned his head away. And he stared up toward the mountain with a terrible need suddenly, a longing to go there, to be among the silent, pure strength of the wolves and away from the emotions that flooded and twisted around him like shouting voices.
FOUR
Skeelie was stealing iron spikes from the forgeman. Ram watched her in his mind, saw her slip behind the man as he worked at the forge, slip out of the forgeshop to pile the spikes in the alley. Ram kept his mind closed from her, sneaked up behind her, surprising her so she nearly cried out, his hand quick over her mouth to silence her. She was clever as a house rat at stealing. They grinned at each other, froze as a guard went by the end of the alley, then together they carried the spikes around behind the town to the pit and down into it when the guard was turned away.
Nightmarish objects peopled the pit, parts of horses cast in bronze: heads, bodies, wings. But not nightmarish when you looked. They were beautiful, the wings sweeping and graceful, the horses’ faces filled with a wonder and exaltation that made Ram stare.
Jerthon turned the forge fire, his tunic and red hair dark with sweat. His eyes roved above the pit. He watched the guard walk away, assessed the one guard in the pit who slept against a pile of timbers, then gestured toward a heap of stone. The children slipped the spikes into a space between the stones, then Skeelie clung to Jerthon. Jerthon gave Ram a quick wink and hugged his little sister close. Ram could feel their warmth and closeness. It made disturbing feelings in him. Jerthon said, “The visions are not so bad now? You are learning to control them, Ram?”
“Thanks to you. I didn’t—I didn’t know how much I hadn’t learned, until—until you showed me. The deep blocking, the turning away from the Pellian Seer’s force. He is strong, Gredillon could not show me how strong—maybe even she didn’t know. It has helped to learn to turn away, and yet not seem to turn. . . . He looked at his teacher quietly. They had come very close, and quickly, when Ram lay so ill—possessed by the Pellian Seer. It had seemed a miracle the first time he had felt the touch of Jerthon’s mind helping him, supporting him, when he had thought he was all alone against the Pellian.
Jerthon said, “I can only help to teach you, it is you who does the hard work.” His green eyes searched deep into Ram’s. “Be careful, Ramad of Zandour. Be careful of the Pellian Seer, of how you deal with him. He would kill you—he can kill you with that power if you waver. . . .
“Yes. But I must learn from him—you know I must. I will be careful, Jerthon.” Ram searched Jerthon’s face. “Only by letting him try to mold me can I . . . can I learn to better him. There is something hidden. Something I cannot touch. The Seer quests after something, even besides controlling the power of the wolf bell. He has a great need for it and has no idea where to look. It—it has nothing to do with me, but if I could—if I knew what it was, and where. . . .” The sleeping guard stirred suddenly, and at Jerthon’s silent command the children scrambled up out of the pit and disappeared into the alley, were away quickly from that warm touch with him. He took her small, bony hand. Could feel Jerthon’s satisfaction in their silent, hasty retreat. When the guard slept again, they came out to walk innocently along the edge of the pit, just to be near Jerthon. They could see part of the wooden model of the statue, a full-sized carving Jerthon had made from which he now cast the bronze pieces. It rose behind piles of stone and timbers, its lifting wings catching at the wind as if the god and the two horses would lift suddenly and fly. It thrilled Ram, that statue, gave him a sense of wonder and space that held and excited him. He gazed down at it, standing there among the rubble o
f the pit, “Why must Jerthon work in a pit? It’s so—well, he is private and sheltered I guess, but—oh, I see. To block the forge fire from the north wind.”
“That, but mostly to hide the work from any chance travelers. Beyond the mound, you can’t see into the pit. Venniver is secretive about the statue, about the religion he plans for Burgdeeth. He doesn’t want questions asked. He just wants to do things his way with no one outside knowing. He—he says that when the stone and timbers are all moved out one day, the pit will be a root garden for winter food. Maybe it will. . . .” she said doubtfully. “That is a Moramian custom and not a Herebian’s way.”
“Where did he come from?”
“Venniver? From the hills along the Urobb, I heard. Down near to Pelli. He—” She turned to stare at Ram. “He has Seer’s blood, Ramad. He cannot use it, except to block. But it makes—it makes a fear and a hatred in him. Something—something twisted in him. He’s afraid; he’s afraid of the dark mountains and what lies in them. He’s afraid of the wolves. There is evil in him, and he thinks the wolves there on the mountain know and would stop him from building this town if he angered them. He thinks they prowl here at night to watch him.”
Ram stared at her. Did the wolves know about Venniver? Did they care? He could not tell. He could reach out to them, but the touch was often faint and unclear. Only his terrible stress in running from EnDwyl and the Pellian Seer had made a force that drew them so strongly. “I must go there,” he said quietly. “The power of the bell, of what is in me is stronger close to them. I want to be there on the mountain with Fawdref. He—he comes when I am afraid. But I want just to be near him.”
“He was there helping—in your mind—when the gantroed almost killed you.”
“Yes. And so was Jerthon.”
The gantroed had risen dark in Ram’s night visions to twist writhing around him, its coarse hair patched and scurvy; had coiled thick as five men, tall as a hill, its curdling cry shaking the air in waves around it. In his vision Ram had fled without volition, heedlessly trampling the living bones of men beneath his feet, careless of their screams as ribs and fingers were torn apart; and the gantroed pursued him so close its fetid breath sickened him. But then at last he could trample those dead-living bodies no longer, could not tolerate their pain, and had turned to face the gantroed; and had felt the Seer’s wrath when he chose to challenge the monster. He had brought every power within him against the looming worm, knowing this was not a dream, that he could die at the Seer’s hands, suffocated in his own bed from HarThass’s dark powers. One tendril snaked along his face cold as death. Jerthon and the wolves had been with him, pushing the gantroed back, forcing the worm until at last it recoiled. But Ram knew that he must become strong enough to defend himself alone.
Yes, Jerthon whispered in his mind. But be patient, Ramad of Zandour. The learning takes patience.
Skeelie looked at him, puzzling. “What is it you must do? That you know in your dreams you must do?” Her eyes held his as she pushed back a thin wisp of hair. “Where must you go, Ram?” She was only a little taller than he; he would catch up to her soon. “It is the mountain. But it is more than the wolves calling you.”
“I—I must go to the mountain. Yes, more than the wolves. I don’t know what. . . .” He felt it in him like a voice, something pulling from the mountain, something there in the Ring of Fire, heavy with urgency.
*
Tayba’s first night serving table in the dining hall left her frustrated and confused. She had worn the amber gown. The light apron hid very little of its clinging ways. She had bound her hair on top her head, had, Dlos said, overdressed herself. But she’d paid no attention to Dlos. “You are there to put food on the table, not to advertise your charms. He’ll know right away what you’re after.”
She wished afterward she had worn the coarsespun. Venniver’s eyes had shown cold amusement, and she’d known that Dlos was right. Her anger made her so clumsy she had spilled a tray of brimming ale mugs over three guards, drenching them, and had felt Venniver laughing at her; had been too ashamed to look in his direction.
She had gotten through the night at last, embarrassed and chagrined, to return thankfully to the storeroom. She wriggled out of the amber wool and tried to sponge the stains from it, then stood staring out the window until the wind became too cold to bear. She crawled into bed cross and uncomfortable and lay hearing the guards again, shouting as the ale spilled over them.
Unable to sleep, she flung on her cloak and began to pace. She glanced at the sleeping children and was glad they were not to awake to see her helpless rage. She stared out at the night and the empty plain, watched clouds scud coldly across the moons. What stupidity had brought her to this forsaken place? She and Ram were only strangers here, no one cared how they felt or what happened to them.
I was a stranger to EnDwyl, too, she thought suddenly. He never cared for me. I was only some virgin he could ruin in a huge joke and laugh about in the drinking halls later. And I am nothing more in this place. Nothing. I mean nothing to anyone.
Well, Ram and I have each other, she thought with defiance.
But even that thought was uncomfortable, for there were things Ram needed more than he had ever needed Tayba. I don’t need anyone! We are born alone and we are always alone and we don’t need anyone else!
She stiffened as Ram cried out, thrashing wildly and tangling his covers; she heard the wolves then, high on the mountain. Skeelie rose to go to him, calmed him, felt his face and gave him water; knelt there uncertainly then slipped back to bed at last. Tayba pulled her cloak closer and went to sit beside his cot. His face was warm; he was worse again, and so suddenly. She sat puzzling. The wolves howled again, chilling her. Ram stirred, then struck out at something in his dreams, his hand grazing her.
The wolves did this to Ram. It had been the wolves that sickened him before. He had been well, and now they had begun to howl again in the night and again he was feverish. She hated them. Why didn’t they leave him alone?
She thought briefly that it might not be the wolves stirring him so, that it might be the Pellian Seer reaching out. But she didn’t believe that. What good would it do for a Seer to reach out and sicken him? If the Pellian wanted Ram, why didn’t he send a band of warriors for him? This made her shudder; if such happened, would Ram see them coming in time to escape?
Surely he would. Surely.
No, this thing that stirred him and made him reach toward the mountain even in sleep was the wolves; the wolves howled, and he stirred and became restless. And if he should go to them, she thought shuddering, he would be helpless without the wolf bell. They could kill him. She touched his face and straightened his covers, pulled away some straw that was tangled in his dark hair. Well, she would not let him go up to the mountain. She would keep him from the wolves somehow.
*
In sleep Ram felt her touch but was swept away into darkness; and something shone out from the dark. Paths of silver crossed in a giant web. In the center, a silver spot grew larger. He fell spinning toward it. The silver grew, was a robed figure; the Seer HarThass, his arms raised, his face hidden in darkness beneath the silver cowl. Ram tried to turn away and could not move. The silver skeins bound his feet, and began to grow into snakes.
The Seer grew taller. He threw back his cape and still his face was darkness. The web of snakes was crushing Ram. The Seer cried, “Save yourself if you will! Save . . .” Seven naked men stood in the blackness, each with a knife raised to the next, terrified and waiting for Ram to direct them. “Save yourself!” The Seer showed him blood and pain, and Ram knew what he must do. The silver snakes were so tight around his chest he could not breathe. He tore at them helplessly.
“Save yourself or die, Ramad of Zandour! Make them kill!”
“I won’t!”
But he struggled for breath, and then in utter terror he willed one man to slash the next. Blood flowed; and his bonds were loosed at once. Quickly they grew tight again, and agai
n Ram made one man cut the next. Again the bonds loosed.
“Make them kill, Ramad! Make them kill, if you would live.”
“No! No!” And he felt Fawdref then, the dark wolf grown immense to loom up before the Seer, felt Fawdref’s power lashing out with his own . . . and he woke.
Woke in the storeroom seeing Skeelie bent over him, seeing his mother, Dlos, their faces harsh with concern. Saw their relief as he reached to touch Mamen’s face. He tried to speak and could not, felt the Seer pulling at him still, felt the cold cloak of oblivion waiting so close. Felt Fawdref standing guard; then felt Fawdref waver, his power slacken as the Seer of Pelli brought the power of his apprentices too, down against Ram; felt Jerthon there standing with Fawdref, both locked against the Seer’s cold darkness.
*
Tayba touched his face; it was like fire. Dlos began to wrap him in cool, damp cloths. They were all touching him as if they could pour life into him from themselves. Skeelie whispered, “He is pulled so far away. He . . . I can’t . . .” She reached to take Tayba’s hand; and when their hands linked Tayba could see a dark vastness and see Ram spinning in its vortex as in a black river where time had no meaning. He was tumbled to a shore where the bones of dead men rose and walked.
Skeelie’s vision vanished. Tayba turned away shuddering. The little girl knelt there terrified for Ram. Even with Jerthon to help him, with Fawdref, the tides of power he touched were so dangerous. Skeelie put her arms around him, wept against him and could not stop.
But when Ram woke the next morning he was quite well, as if he had never been sick. He said to Skeelie, “I am going up into the mountain.” They were alone, she having brought him mawzee cakes and fruit.
“But—all right. But why are you?”
“There is something there, Skeelie. A wonder is there. Something—something of terrible importance. Fawdref knows. He would show me—but when he tries to, the Seer of Pelli sees, too. I will go up among the great wolves where the power of the bell will be strongest. Then—then I think I can block the Pellian’s Seeing.”
Shattered Stone Page 26
