“But he can’t just . . . where will it lead him? Why must he go! He’s only a child, he . . . Ram has the wolf bell. He has all the power anyone . . .”
He looked at her steadily. The others watched. The cell was very still. Drudd scowled. Derin took Tayba’s hand in her small one. Jerthon said, “It is not for himself that he wants power. You don’t think . . . it is a power that could help many, could change the lives of everyone in Ere for generations to come. Could stop what Venniver and those like him, what HarThass wants. Or could, in the hands of HarThass, bring havoc over Ere. It is so great a force . . .” The light from the candle marked the clean lines of his face, the high Cherban cheekbones. She remembered her awe of him last night as the dark vastness twisted around her.
“If Ram does not seek that power, the Seer of Pelli will take it, now that he knows where it lies. He will climb Tala-charen for it. And if HarThass should hold that power . . .” He took her hands. “I will show you what HarThass could do.”
His grip was warm. He willed her to close her eyes. She fought him for a moment, then began to feel weightless. Her pain vanished. She drifted out of herself to move above Ere as if—as if she flew. She saw Ere stretching below her, saw rivers flowing out from the black peaks to find their way to the sea.
She saw small bands of men, primitive tribes with precarious holds on their little patches of land, saw warring Herebian bands killing them and driving them out. She saw the activity of hundreds of years, saw countries begin to form. She saw the volcanoes boil down across the land bringing terror and death, destroying all that men had built. Jerthon held her mind in his until she had seen the huge pageant of Ere’s young history, seen Seers beheaded, seen them flee to the cities of the gods. She saw Seers ride out over Ere on the backs of the Horses of Eresu, filling men with hatred though they intended none of this. She saw evil Seers rise across the land to rule the little settlements, terrifying men into doing their bidding, and protecting men so they clung to them for leadership. Jerthon’s eyes held her. He lifted her chin to look deep at her. He showed her the Herebian tribes raiding the nations; changes in borders and inner ride as powers struggled one against the other. She was seeing into the future now. She saw Carriol become a nation, and Burgdeeth as part of a new country. She saw that, as a river could split into many streams, Ere’s future could take many ways. In one, the Pellian Seers ate up one country after another as HarThass and his successors, with the power of the Runestone of Eresu, enslaved peoples of Ere into one vast hierarchy of rule where men were as nothing.
In other streams of the future, men ruled themselves in a variety of activities, each as suited his own nature. The tangle of possible futures, of possible balances of power, dizzied her. And in all Ere’s future, the Runestone was the key. And Ram, who vowed to bring that stone out of Tala-charen, was the one who held the balance now. On Ramad of Zandour lay the future of the countries of Ere.
“You,” Jerthon said, beginning to pull her back from that infinite expanse, “you could not have seen all this, Tayba, were it not for the power you deny in yourself. When will you admit to it? When will you face the truth of yourself?” And she was too caught up in wonder to flare at him.
She woke from the vision quickly, was gripped by sudden pain from her wounds, watched Jerthon in silence as he drew her thoughts back from that terrible abyss of space and time. And one question burned in her mind. She groped at it, puzzled. If HarThass could change all of Ere’s history with the Runestone, why had he waited so long to seek it? She looked at Jerthon deeply. “The Runestone must have been in Tala-charen for generations. Why . . . ?” And then, suddenly, she understood. “HarThass—HarThass didn’t know before! He didn’t See it until—until Ram went there to the grotto.” She was twisting her hands; she scowled at them and put them in her lap. She could see by his face that she was right “HarThass didn’t see the Runestone until Ram—until he could see through Ram’s mind that something was there! Until Ram had gone to the cave!”
“Yes,” Jerthon said softly. “That is so.”
“And if Ram—if he hadn’t gone to the grotto. If he had never had the wolf bell, gone among the wolves, HarThass would have no idea . . .”
“Yes, that is true. And if,” Jerthon said softly, “if you had never lain with EnDwyl, Ram would not be here at all.”
*
Ram was dressed in such a bundle of clothes, forced on him by Dlos, he thought he could not move. He tried to keep the lantern from clinking against stone as he crouched beneath Venniver’s window, next to Skeelie. They could hear the men at supper, had seen Venniver quaffing ale at the long table as they slipped by. “I still say I’m the one to go in,” Skeelie said, “you—”
“I want,” Ram whispered as he pried the shutter loose, “I want to do it myself, Skeelie. Now be still—only, hiss if anyone comes.” He climbed over the sill, took the lantern from her, lit it, and shone the light around, catching his breath at the grand furnishings, the rich colors. He went quickly to the chest at the foot of the bed.
He lifted the lid, found the key stuck down between side and bottom. He took the key to the fireplace, pushed away a strip of molding, found the lock. When Venniver’s safe was open, he stared with wonder at the jewels there, the fine goblets and golden bowls. The wolf bell stood on the center shelf.
“Hurry!” Skeelie hissed. “Someone—hurry!”
He grabbed the bell, stuffed it in his tunic, replaced the key and was just over the sill when he heard voices. He dropped down on top of Skeelie, and they lay in a heap, not daring to move.
Two guards strode past arguing. One said something about a donkey that made them stiffen. But the guards went on, unheeding, passing their donkey right by where he stood hobbled in the shadows.
They sorted themselves out, unhitched Pulyo, and hastened through shadow up toward the plain. They had already said good-bye to Dlos, were loaded with mawzee cakes and bread the old woman had slipped out of the sculler, with smoked meat and some chidrack eggs carefully wrapped. Skeelie led the donkey, taking a proprietary air with him after her sore trial getting him out of the herd. “He’s mine now,” she said, hugging the gray scruffy neck. “I stole him, and he’s mine.”
“Will Venniver come after us, do you think, if he finds we’re gone?” Ram said.
“Why should he?”
“The donkey, for one thing. I still say, Skeelie . . .”
“Would you want to carry all of the pack, blankets and food?”
“I still say we didn’t need—”
“Yes we do. You don’t know anything. Besides, Venniver won’t come into the mountains. He’s terrified of them.”
They heard the wolves, then.
The wolves had begun to come out of the caves, crying out at the night, showing themselves for an instant then slipping away down the mountain toward the children, their eyes like ice as they paced and stared down across the shadows. Ram heard their cries and thrilled to them, remembering Gredillon’s words, read so long ago from an ancient book she had kept wrapped in silk in her cupboard.
For NiMarn shaped a bell of bronze that would call the wolves out of the wild night or send them cringing down among the shallow rock-caves where they denned; a magic of power concentrated in the metal and the fashioning. He stared up the mountain, heard Fawdref’s wild call, and quickened his pace up the plain, the little donkey trotting along as if he went every day to join wolves.
*
In the morning the slaves were taken out to work, and Tayba left alone in the cell. A guard, herding the others out, said, “You will be given a few days to mend. But hurry up about it, Venniver does not like to feed idlers. You will be expected to work like the rest.” When they all had gone, she felt the darkness of the cell close in around her, her wrists prickling oddly at the thought that she was locked in, trapped here like some wild thing caught in a furrier’s cage.