The bronze god-statue would stand in the square of the town, dominating all. She stared at the drawings, hardly believing the magnificence he dreamed. His plans were as opulent, as rich, as the apartment was. A rich taste for luxury, he had. A rich taste for women, too, so he wanted her powdered and perfumed, draped her in gowns of the softest Sangurian silk. She had not been so pampered since her father’s wives had groomed and dressed her, preparing her to be sold.
And he gave her the duty of taking food to the slaves, a privilege Dlos had enjoyed, though Tayba couldn’t understand why it was a privilege. “You will take the supper from now on,” he said. “It is part of the ritual I plan for Burgdeeth.” The idea of being chosen pleased her. The actual duty did not. She did not like marching behind guards the length of Burgdeeth with the supper basket like some Moramian chattel. Well, but if Venniver wanted it . . .
“It is an honor to carry food to the slaves,” Dlos said. “But do not speak to them. The guards will report everything.”
She set off several nights behind the two guards, feeling stupid and conspicuous, was glad when they entered the plum grove away from the stares of the other guards on the street, there by the brewhouse.
The ancient grove stood just beside the pit and mound. The twisted trees had been there long before Burgdeeth. How they could have escaped the ravages of the volcanoes was hard to see—unless the gods had so provided. Beyond the low cell building, the tall guard tower thrust up. Three guards lounged in its open loft, looking down. To her right was an outhouse and a washing shed with some tattered garments hung to dry.
At the door to the cell the taller guard took her basket from her, pulled back the cloth, and lifted each item to inspect it, the five loaves, the three boiled chidrack, some kind of pudding in a crock, then jumbled them carelessly back. On the third night he stripped the meat from the leg of a chidrack with his teeth as if he enjoyed defiling the slaves’ food. He stared at her insolently, a lump of meat clinging to his pale mustache, and motioned her forward as the other guard unlocked and swung open the iron door. As she passed him, he caressed her shoulder. She stepped farther into the dark cell than she had gone before, to hide her anger; and at once was caught up with curiosity.
The room was only dimly lit by the open door, and by the one tiny window at the far end. It smelled of too many people. She could see a mass of huddled figures, could pick no one out. She moved deeper into the room, wanting to see, and was stopped by the guard’s clipped words. “Far enough! Hand the basket out.”
She did as she was told and felt a hand brush hers as the basket was taken from her. Felt something touch her mind so she startled, caught her breath with shock. The guard pulled her away, and the door was slammed and locked. Only an instant had passed, she had heard no voice in the cell. But something had laid bare her mind in that moment, completely opened her most private self in an inspection that shocked and infuriated her.
She made her way back to the sculler unable to quell the helpless feeling of exposure. And in the sculler she dropped a plate, then stood staring at it stupidly where it lay in pieces on the stone floor.
In the past, Ram had touched her mind. The Seer of Pelli had touched it and nearly driven her mad. But nothing like this had ever invaded her. She felt betrayed; nothing, nothing had ever touched the skill in her that she feared so violently and did not want.
She dressed carefully for Venniver that night, wanting gaiety, needing to wipe away that powerful assessment of herself there in the slave cell. With Venniver, in the opulence of his presence and his attentions, she could, forget the slave cell. Nothing bad could happen to her as long as she was with Venniver.
Their splendid, rich nights were broken only occasionally by the sudden chilling voices of wolves on the mountain, or wolves crying close by on the plain. Chilling howls that would goad Venniver into irritability so that he became cruel with her, frightening and angering her.
And then one night when Ere’s two moons rose round and golden over the eastern hills, making all the plain shine with a pale, black-etched glow, the wolves came into Burgdeeth.
They came directly into the town and stood in the shadows, raising eerie howls that echoed between the stone walls. Doors were flung open, men shouted, candles and tapers were lit. Lanterns swung wildly in the streets, and the guards pulled bows taut; but the wolves moved so fast, were nearly invisible in the shadows. She could not believe Fawdref would come here, endangering his pack. And she was terrified for Ram, for surely Ram would rush to help them and could be shot. Cold with panic, she watched Venniver fling on his cloak and rush out; then she ran to the storeroom, terror-stricken—and found Ram gone. She returned to the front of the hall and stood shivering in the doorway trying to see, wanting to run into the night shouting for Ram and not daring.
Men were running in the street, moon-bleached then invisible as they passed through shadow.
There was squawking from the chidrack pens. But these wolves would not come into Burgdeeth to steal chidrack. A wolf howled close by, chilling her; sending a hush upon the town as men tried to locate its position; wolves were everywhere—and nowhere.
Terrified for Ram, she slipped away from the building into shadow as wolves howled from several directions: one then another as if they played games with the men. Arrows plunked against buildings as guards shot on the run, pursuing shadows. “Ram!” she whispered, wanting to scream out to him. Two wolves howled from opposite directions, drawing the men out; drawing them away from the town.
She heard a commotion above the gardens then, heard screaming as if a horse had been brought down. Wherever the wolves were, surely Ram was there. She began to run, stumbling, pulling up her skirt to keep it from her flying feet, dodging guards, hoping Venniver did not see her, keeping to shadow when she could.
She came at last around the hall to the gardens and saw black shapes of guards against the moons with bows drawn, and beyond them the leaping silhouettes of wolves. Arrows were loosed, the wolves began to run and leap in the moonlight, doubling back and forth. A second round was loosed, silver streaks—and not a wolf fell. Again the arrows sought them and missed.
Cries of disbelief rose among the men. She heard Venniver shouting and ducked back. Mounted guards thundered around the hall, and more wolves were streaming out now from the town pursued by mounted men.
Then the wolves began to retreat: those that leaped against the moons, and those that fled to join them. No wolf lay dead. Arrows silvered the ground. Venniver’s men thrust forward running, bows taut, the riders overtaking the wolves and passing them.
Near to Tayba, standing in shadow, someone—Ram was there. Silent, intent—yet when finally she had moved to join him he had disappeared.
Something drew her eyes to the white guard tower beyond the south gardens. It rose like a shaft of ice in the moonlight, well above the grove. Was that Ram running toward the grove? She ran too, in plain sight now, unsheltered from the moonlight.
*
Ram had stood in the shadows, held nearly mesmerized with the strength of the force he created as he brought the vision of wolves out from within himself, as he conjured running wolves leaping before arrows that could not touch them—a dozen wolves, twenty, twice that, until Venniver and his guards were nearly mad with impotent rage, firing and firing, shouting. Then at last Ram let his phantoms retreat, watched delighted as Venniver’s guards thundered after them. He felt Fawdref’s cool, silent wolf laugh from somewhere the other side of town.