Part Three: The Stone
NINE
The Seer of Pelli turned from the window to stare at EnDwyl. Below him along the bay, where a handful of wharves fanned out, the boats were bringing in a catch of sherpin. Farther down, some farm wagons had set up to trade grain and vegetables, ignoring the more conventional vender’s stalls. He was scowling. His faded red beard, cut into two points in the style of the Pellian Seers, made him look like a goat. His eyes, blue when he was young, were nearly colorless. He threw his cape over a chair as he spoke.
“It does not pay, my dear EnDwyl, to be too certain. You do not understand the skills—or the limits—of Seers. You think we can do more than we are able.”
“Common Seers have limits, perhaps. But you are the Seer of Pelli.” EnDwyl, having come directly from the sea baths, seemed the cooler of the two, his yellow hair brushed smooth and his white tunic immaculate. “Pellian Seers are not limited, surely. The descendants of the wolf cult—”
“We, my dear EnDwyl, are not descendents of the wolf cult. That is the problem. Urdd knows, if we were we’d not have to go to all this flaming trouble for the boy and his cursed bell.”
“Cursed? You’d give the entire fortune of Pelli for the blasted bell—and for the boy. What kind of business is that for the ruler of Pelli, all this fuss over a toy to turn wolves into pets.”
“Not pets, EnDwyl. Do you forget the wolves that greeted you outside Burgdeeth? Accomplices, EnDwyl! Powerful accomplices! Do you forget the forces the boy and wolves called forth, the skill with which they battled us? And you,” he added, “you are the descendant of the bell. You should have some feeling for it, even if the blood in you is latent. It is your blood that created Ramad—yours, and the Seer’s blood in your—in Tayba. That boy—that boy holds a power out of the ancient past that even I do not fully understand. The bell has served only to focus his force. And the boy’s power, and the power of the bell, are powers I mean to control. Though if we do not wrest it from the pup soon, he will command a far greater power. And I will not have that, EnDwyl! The stone on Tala-charen is a force that boy must never possess.”
EnDwyl said insolently, “You have tried to subdue the boy and failed. And there are these slaves—they shield their plans too well, HarThass. You don’t know—”
“I know their plans. I could easily use those plans against them, if it weren’t for that boy scrambling up Tala-charen. But if the boy reaches Tala-charen’s peak first, and so controls the stone . . .”
“And so we ride to Burgdeeth,” EnDwyl said irritably. “With twelve fighting men to battle Jerthon and the slaves while the Pellian Seers use their forces on the boy. I don’t think—”
“You don’t think, EnDwyl. That is your problem. Do you have a better plan? Are you more skilled than Seers? Can you bring the horrors of those mountains against Ramad as I can?”
“Do you really believe, HarThass, that even without the stone’s power against you, you can defeat the boy and Jerthon and that lot? I—”
HarThass’s gaze burned into him. “Yes EnDwyl? You what?”
EnDwyl swallowed. “I don’t know. I—maybe the slaves’ power even without the stone is too great. And now—and now, with this thing you say is awakened in Tayba . . .”
HarThass selected a cicaba fruit from the silver tray beside him. “That hasn’t lasted. Already the girl has nearly hidden it from herself. She is terrified of having such power. She may . . .” He smiled coldly. “She may help us more than you can imagine. She is afraid of this power of hers, she is afraid of Jerthon because he sees it. If we can turn her against him—she has the fine instincts of a traitor. Jerthon represents a challenge to her she cannot bear to face. She might well be persuaded to destroy that challenge under certain circumstances.”
“But Venniver has treated her shabbily, maybe she won’t—”
“She likes his treatment, don’t you see that? She will come crawling back to him with very little encouragement.” He turned away, then turned back to stare at EnDwyl. “You leave the girl to me. And you, EnDwyl—you be ready to ride as soon as those cursed soldiers get here with the mounts from Sangur. Why you let them—”
“They art better horses. You traded for them yourself. How was I to know . . .”
“You could have sent down for them a month ago. Well,” HarThass raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you relish riding back into that plains country, EnDwyl.” He stared pointedly at the jagged scar across EnDwyl’s jaw, and the mass of welts that crippled his legs. “I don’t suppose you relish meeting wolves again.”
EnDwyl’s hand was drawn to his cheek, but he did not respond to HarThass’s rudeness. “I don’t understand why the slaves wait. Why did they not leave Burgdeeth as soon as they had that tunnel open? What keeps the fools there? If they want to capture and rule Burgdeeth as you say, they would not even need a tunnel. If their power is so great they have simply to warp Venniver’s thoughts until he sets them free and gives them the cursed town.”
“There is something in Venniver that makes his mind unreliable. He can be moved for a few moments, then he is impervious to most skills. You cannot keep him controlled, you can only direct him on occasion. Some latent Seer’s blood, like you, EnDwyl.
“But beyond that, those Seers are an odd lot. They remain quite willingly, with some wild idea about completing the tunnel.” HarThass snorted. “Something to do with visions of the future. What rubbish. The future is to be manipulated regardless of visions—to be bent to the strongest will in spite of all the wild visions you can name. This Jerthon and his slaves are dreamers, they have no real sense of value. Visions! They only show you what might be, not what will!
“At any rate, we will have Burgdeeth for ourselves soon enough.
“But I tell you this, EnDwyl. I will not allow that boy to scale Tala-charen. I will ride up Tala-charen to retrieve that stone!” He smiled. “How fortunate that the boy discovered where it lay. Once we have the stone,” he said lightly, “once we have subjugated Burgdeeth, that town will become our first outpost. From it we can work southward at our leisure. We will ease Zandour and Aybil and Farr into positions that will destroy them so slowly they will never know they have been taken. We will use Venniver’s own plan, his books, the religion he has invented, his statute—and we will use the stone. No one will resist that combination. But we will do it slowly. I like to do things slowly and see men twist in the coils of the stricturing I put on them.” He leaned back, crossing his legs and flicking some lint from his sandals.
“Is that why you did not march into Burgdeeth long ago? Because you want to do it slowly?” EnDwyl asked sarcastically. “Not because you failed in manipulating the boy into coming to you willingly, HarThass?”
“You had best watch your tongue, EnDwyl. I didn’t see you and that cursed Seer who died on the plain having any great success with the boy—or with the wolves he commands.” HarThass smiled and leaned back. “Well, the wolves will soon be ours. And I like the idea of the boy walking before us down Tala-charen with his wrists bound and those wolves grovelling around him. We will walk with wolves then, EnDwyl. And we will use their powers at our pleasure.
“But that boy won’t be easy to—”
“When I finish with the boy, he will have no choice in the matter.”
*
No trail was visible save, sometimes, a vague cupping or turning that might mark an ancient path. Ram traveled by instinct, by the pull of power that so beckoned to him, and by Fawdref’s sure guidance. They crossed meadows where dead sablevine was frozen into ice and the ice itself torn up and tumbled as if something huge had spent its fury here, ripping with claws like knives at the frozen ground. They were cold, always cold. The wraps Dlos had so stubbornly bundled them into were never quite enough to keep out the freezing wind. They climbed between monster shapes of twisted black stone, between clusters of columns like headless trees, formed by some wild excess of the volcanoes. They passed deep through narrow sunless canyons flanked with walls like black glass, so smooth they could see themselves. “We look,” Skeelie said, bending and dancing about so her reflection was thick then thin and long, “like—like die souls of the dead.”