“I will steal the bell for you. I know where it is.”
Ram said smugly, “I already have.” He drew the bell out from beneath his blankets. “I got it this morning before anyone was awake. That old chest—Dlos has everything in there.” He felt comforted, very sure, having the wolf bell near.
“Why didn’t you take it before? Wouldn’t it have helped against HarThass?”
“I expect so. But HarThass wanted me to have the bell, wanted to make me do his bidding with the bell.”
“Ram, I don’t understand. Why hasn’t HarThass sent soldiers to capture you and take you to Pelli. Wouldn’t he—”
“He thinks—he thinks to train me so well I will come to him on my own,” Ram said, smiling. “It has become a game with him. Oh, he will send soldiers if . . . when he finds he can’t train me so. But not yet. He is like a hunting cat with a small creature, teasing it.” He grinned, winked at her. “Well, that small creature can turn around and bite. Only he doesn’t believe that will happen.”
They left Burgdeeth in late afternoon, thinking they would not be missed so quickly if all Skeelie’s chores were finished so no one would look for her.
“Dlos wouldn’t care,” Ram said.
“No, but your mother would. She doesn’t want you on the mountain. But she won’t follow us though. I—I didn’t bring a waterskin,” she said hastily. “There’s water on the mountain and in the caves, Dlos told me.”
“How does Dlos know about the mountain? No one goes there.”
“Dlos’s husband was a Seer. He told her.”
“A Seer? But he . . .” Ram stared at Skeelie. “I never—I’ve never seen that in her mind. How come he was here? A slave?”
“No, he was Venniver’s spy. He was the man who taught Venniver to shield his thoughts and helped him come unseen on Jerthon and Drudd and our other Seers and capture us. I was only small, but later Jerthon showed me how it was. You didn’t . . . Dlos blocks very well. I suppose she learned it from him.”
“But he—I can’t believe that Dlos—she wouldn’t have “
“She knew what he did.” Skeelie pulled her cloak closer against the sharp breeze. “Dlos loved him in spite of his treachery. She couldn’t stop what he did. I think she—she was almost relieved when Venniver killed him. They had disagreed about something, and Venniver grew angry and killed him. She felt—it’s awful to say, but she felt he was better dead than a traitor, selling his own people into slavery.”
“Still she loved him though,” Ram said.
“Yes.”
Ram frowned. “That is why Dlos has such sadness. Her humor is all on top, hiding the sadness.”
The shadows spread out from the boulders in dark misshapen pools. It was a game to slip from one shadow to the next and keep boulders between them and Burgdeeth. Ram said, “What do you mean, Mamen won’t follow us? If she finds me gone, she. . . .”
“She won’t come this night.”
“Why not? Oh yes, she will. You don’t know how she hates the wolves. What are you grinning about?”
“She won’t come tonight, Ram.”
“You’re shielding. Why are you shielding? What. . . .”
She was grinning fit to kill and wouldn’t let him in. At last she said, her face reddening, “She won’t come this night. She’ll be busy with Venniver. He is planning a supper for two, in his chambers.”
He frowned, turned away, and was painfully embarrassed. “I see.” At last he turned to look at Skeelie. “How do you know? You can’t—Venniver is nearly impossible to See! His mind is—he blocks. You can’t. . . .”
She seemed to find it all very funny. “I didn’t See. I overheard him in the corridor. I was—borrowing—some linens from the cupboard. They don’t give the slaves anything! And I heard him telling old Poncie what to make for supper and how to serve it and . . .” she fell into a fit of laughter, “. . . and to bring new, scented candles. Oh my, how elegant. She won’t follow us tonight, Ram.”
He didn’t think the thing so funny. “How do you know it’s for her! Maybe a slave—”
“He doesn’t have special supper for slaves,” she said. “You have to admit, he has looked at her. You told me yourself you caught his thought once and. . . .”
“Yes. All right.”
“And she—”
“All right!” He was really angry. “She must have been busy these last three nights. Parading herself.”
“Yes. And he was busy looking.”
They left the plain and began to climb between steep black cliffs, a narrow way that would lead to the heart of the mountain. Ram could feel the sense of the wolves, knew they were waiting.
And he could feel another power well beyond this mountain, somewhere in the sea of wild peaks that spread out into the unknown lands. A power that made him stare off toward those lands, wondering and eager.
*
They had been scrubbing down the sculler and kitchen, Tayba and two old women. The other three had taken sick and, she thought crossly, were probably lying in luxury in their beds listening smugly to the clank of buckets. She was sweating from the hot water. Tendrils of damp hair hung in her face. She had slipped out twice to look for Ram, wanting him and Skeelie both to help, and had found neither. The kitchen smelled of lye soap. They must start supper soon. Where had Ram gotten to? He wouldn’t hide from work. Nor would Skeelie. She couldn’t understand her unease, like a voice whispering. As if she knew something, but did not know it. It is nothing. They are all right. What makes me so edgy? It’s nerves. Stupidity. But when Dlos came with clean rags and she had not seen them either, Tayba began to listen to the voice.
“Not anywhere, Dlos? Not near the pit?”
“I was just there. They’re all right. What could happen to them?”
“They could go to the mountain,” Tayba breathed softly, staring across at the two old women. “They could—Dlos, I know he has!”
Dlos studied her. “And what if he did, child?”
“They—the wolves made the sickness in him. I am going after Ram! I am going up the mountain!”
“You cannot go alone, you wouldn’t know where to search,” Dlos said scornfully.
“Yes. I . . .” She saw Dlos looking past her, and turned.
Venniver was standing in the doorway. He came into the kitchen. “You will clean yourself up,” he said quietly. “Dress yourself in something besides that coarsespun. I don’t want to dine with a kitchen drudge. Poncie will prepare our supper.” He glanced toward Poncie, who smirked. “Well, get moving woman, dress yourself in something pleasant to look at, you know you’re to take supper with me! What are you doing scrubbing the kitchen!”
“No one told me—Poncie said—”
“I don’t care what Poncie said. I’ll deal with her! Now . . .”
She tried to speak calmly and could hear the tremor in her voice. “Please.” She drew herself taller. Of all nights for Ram to wander off. “Please—my child is lost. I must find him. I will take supper with you tomorrow night. Willingly.” The two old women, who had scuttled into a corner, began to giggle.
“Lost child! What do I care for a lost child!”
“Just—just for tonight. I would rather be with you. He’s out there alone in the night. I can’t . . .”
Scowling, he pulled her close, hurting her, stared at her with fury. She looked back at him directly. “I will not be pleasant company tonight, Venniver.” She held his eyes, willing him to listen. Why tonight of all nights? Why had Ram . . . just when Venniver had finally noticed her. “Let me go to find my child,” she breathed, “and tomorrow night I will come to you, Venniver.”
“I care nothing for any child. I care nothing for your problems.” His fury terrified her. But then suddenly he seemed really to see her. A cold smile touched his lips. “But I care for a woman with enough spirit to say no to me. I’m sick to death of silly, terrified females,” he said, glancing in the direction of the slave cell. “All right, go on, woman! Get yours
elf out of here!” He spun toward the door, leaving her free.
“Wait!” she said evenly.
He turned back, his eyes burning through her.
She swallowed, then said boldly, “I want a horse. I want a horse to use, to search for Ram.”
“You want—what?”
“I want a horse to search for my child. I will need a horse to cover any ground, to find Ram, to keep from getting lost in the night.”
“Great fires of Urdd!” He turned back toward the hall. She stared after him, her courage sinking. He would leave her there unanswered, defeated. Behind her old Poncie laughed quietly and cruelly. Tayba stood clenching her fists, then heard him bellow suddenly, “Mardwil! Mardwil! Get this wench a pack animal. Be quick about it! Put a saddle on it and bring it around to the sculler!”
She went weakly out of the kitchen, the taste of bile coming in her mouth. She hurried through the sculler into the storeroom, searching for Dlos.
Dlos was in her little room kneeling before the painted chest that stood at the foot of the cot, her short hair askew, her square, wrinkled hands hastily replacing folds of linen and wool—she seemed not to be thinking of Ram at all. She looked up at Tayba. “It is not here.”
“What is not? This is no time to—”
“The wolf bell,” Dlos said. “Ram has taken the wolf bell.”
There was a long silence while Tayba stared at her. The wolf bell? But he could not have taken it from here. It had been lost on the plain—or EnDwyl had . . . And then she understood. “Oh! It was you! You took the wolf bell from Ram. You—”
“I took it from the child where he lay beside the river. I hid it in this chest, but Ram—Ram is a Seeing child.”
“The wolves . . . Ram could be dead by now.”
“The wolves will not harm Ramad. They will not harm one who holds the power of the bell.”
“What do you know about the bell? You can’t be certain. Ram’s only a child. And look how sick he’s been. The wolves caused his illness, they . . . maybe they made him come to them.”
“The wolves caused no illness. And they will not harm Ramad. Ram is more than a child, young woman. There are things you cannot deny such a one as Ram.”
“Perhaps,” Tayba said, unable to cope with her. The guilt Dlos made her feel was ridiculous, she had no reason to feel guilt. “I must go after him,” she said shortly, turning away toward the door.
“I will go with you.”
“There is only one horse.”
Dlos stared at her angrily. “How would you know where to search, alone up there! Not that search is necessary. However, perhaps it will do you good to face those wolves, young woman. Now if you can get one horse, however you managed, you can get another.”
So when Mardwil brought the pack pony, Tayba went back with him and helped him saddle another, against his will. “Venniver said only one,” the man grumbled.
But she defied him, got the horse at last and led it back to the sculler, where Dlos had the first animal’s pack tied on and was already mounted. She tied on her own pack, and soon they were above the town. Dlos said, “How did you manage to get horses, young woman?”
“I asked Venniver for them,” Tayba said quietly.
Dlos stared at her, then looked away.
They could hear the river far on their left. The horses wanted to move slowly in the dark and shied at the looming boulders. Dlos slapped her mount and dug in her heels, and the animal settled into a pulling trot. Dlos handled her horse well, seemed to know what she was about. It was like the old times with Gredillon, when the older woman had taken charge and Tayba had only to follow. Gredillon had said once, with fury, “You must learn to do for yourself, girl. You can’t expect to follow someone else ail your life.” Tayba had been tempted to reply, I did for myself to get away from my father, to keep from being sold like a prime ewe, didn’t I? But she had thought better of that remark.
Now she eased herself up off the jarring trot, with one hand on the horse’s withers, and looked ahead to where Ere’s moons threw a wash of light across the peaks above them. They were making good time on the rough ground, would be among the peaks soon. The air grew colder, the wind cut down at them. Fissures on the mountain shone black as the moons rose higher. She pulled her cloak tighter around her. Where was Ram in this black night, in the immensity of those mountains?
Dlos kicked her mount into a gallop across a flat, unbroken stretch, and they pulled the animals up at the far edge to rest among boulders. The jagged peaks rose directly above them, dark with shadow. Wolves could be watching from anywhere. Tayba watched Dlos dismount and hobble her horse, then did the same, for the horses could go no farther up the steep, narrow ways. Tayba thought of climbing into that mountain on foot and shivered. “Who’s to say the wolves won’t kill the horses while we’re gone?”
“No one is to say that. We must simply pray the wolves—that they will leave them unharmed.”
They began to climb in among the cliffs in shadow black as death. “There are caves above,” Dlos said. “Do you have your lantern?”
“I have it.” Tayba followed the sound of Dlos’s footsteps until the old woman struck flint to tinder, illuminating the stone walls and low ceiling of the first cave.
Part Two: The Wolves
FIVE
Ram and Skeelie groped through black clefts deep inside the mountain. “We are going clear through it,” Ram said. “We will come out into caves like an underground world. Fawdref is there.”
“Couldn’t the wolves have come and led us?”
“They lead us. It is all that is needed. The power gets . . . it grows stronger as we get closer.”
They moved through passages in the stone so narrow they must walk sideways, and when they came at last to light again, they shouted with surprise and pleasure at the sudden golden rays of the dropping sun and stood grinning at each other. Such an urgent thing, the need for light, when one has moved in darkness.
They were in a part of the mountains now where no men had been for generations—not since Seers dwelled there among the gods. Skeelie sat down on a ledge and stared out at the hundreds of peaks that rose beyond, considering the desolation and the strangeness of that wild land. Ram stood looking, feeling the power of something immense pulling at him, and facing Fawdref’s call. And he could sense forces meeting here in a conflict of which he knew he was suddenly the center. He could not settle, he was too eager to get on, was tight-strung and shaken.
When they did go on, they heard water falling and came into a tall cave lit by the sun’s golden light. A waterfall plunged down from the ceiling into a light-filled pool, casting rippling reflections on the cave walls. The pool’s breath was cool in their faces. Ram stripped off his clothes and swam, his body transformed in the lighted green depths into something pale and fishlike. Skeelie was drawn to that enticing world but was more modest. She turned her back to undress. They swam until they were numb with cold, then dressed and went on again through dark corridors and passages where only a dull gray light marked their way. In time they saw ahead dark shadows that seemed to move. Skeelie drew back, but Ram followed the silent shapes eagerly.
And suddenly the shadows were warm, huge bodies leaping all around them, wolves pouring around them, sweeping past each other to push close to them. Dark, rough-coated, huge. Their eyes glinted, they were as tall as the children’s chests, twice the children’s weight, their teeth like ivory swords. Fawdref pressed against Ram, and Ram clutched Fawdref in a wild hug. The great wolf grinned and licked his neck and cheek. His mate, Rhymannie, curved against Ram, her forelegs out, her head ducked, smiling up at him. He scratched her head and saw her yellow eyes laugh with pleasure.
Ram felt their power like a tide around him, and his own power seemed heightened so his pulse beat in a wild surge. Here, he was one with the wolves, linked in an ancient heritage of power and magic.
Yet something else stirred, too. Something dark in a different way from the wolves’ powe
rs. Something insidious and threatening. “The Seer of Pelli reaches out,” he breathed. He brought all of himself to shield against HarThass’s searching. Then he understood that the wolves had been shielding since he and Skeelie left Burgdeeth; linking with Ram’s own shielding to hide this quest from the Pellian Seer. So much more came clear when he was near to the wolves. And there was so much more for him to learn, so much yet to understand, so much skill yet to master.
Beyond the rough arch where they stood, a deep underground world opened out. A softly lighted, mysterious world into which the children moved now, to stare around them with wonder, their footsteps echoing, their voices hushed. The grotto’s high roof floated in mists. The farthest walls and arches were all but lost. For an instant they saw a time long past, saw gods and Horses of Eresu soaring on silent wings, saw that some of the horses carried men on their backs, saw a time of wonder when anything was possible to men. Ram felt, then, that the powers he sought had to do with this—with a time when all was open to humankind.
The vision vanished. The wolves led them through the grotto to another opening, through which they could see the setting sun and a grassy hill rising up steeply to meet sheer, black cliffs, which swept on up to a mountain peak. Against the mountain stood a building made by men, a black stone structure so well conceived it seemed to have grown from the mountain itself. They went out of the grotto and up the grassy bank and in between the black pillars to a great hall. The grass underfoot gave way to thick moss that carpeted the interior, running up over stone seats and creeping in fingers up the stone walls. The walls themselves were carved from the living stone of the mountain. Only the front wall, through which they had entered, was made of great blocks of black stone set by men.
The hall rose to an incredible height. The thin arches that floated high above might have been carved by men, or might not: pale stone bridges crossing back and forth thin as threads. Ram felt tremendous power here, felt the essence of all the ages of Ere gathered here and understood there were picture records of Ere’s past sealed away and bark manuscripts of runes, and treasures beyond his dreams; and that he would return here someday, in some time yet to come.
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