She had stood beneath gathering storm clouds just before she came in to serve supper, led inexorably to the square to stare up at the complete statue, the rearing bronze god, the winged horses lifting against a last harsh slash of sun that died quickly. She had been touched with awe at its beauty, but had felt something else, too. Something imminent and secret and upsetting. The statue was completed. Something would happen now. Was happening. Ram’s danger was part of it—and a seething, terrible turmoil in the minds around her that she could not—would not—decipher. That was part of it. Forces looming, drawing in . . . the statue . . .
But her mind led her away from the statue in a morass of confusion, away from some knowledge. She could not settle, stood staring at the roast stag, the smell of it nauseating her. What force was all around her, pressing at her? She closed her eyes. What was it she should know? The statue—she felt Jerthon push into her mind suddenly, taking away that which she had almost seen, almost known. She stood scowling, her hands like ice.
Confused and frustrated, she left the dining hall at last to stand in the door to the street.
The damp rising wind changed direction, fitful as a cat. The clouds lay low, heavy as stone. Rain would come soon. The fading light was gray and dull. As she turned, she saw a figure slipping behind a building; a slave, she thought, a slave alone and free, hiding in shadow. Yes, the slave called Pol. Thin, freckled beneath a thatch of red hair. Hiding from the guards. Why was he . . . ? And suddenly and clearly, a vision flooded her mind. She stood hardly breathing; Seeing, knowing; knew the slaves had escaped; knew Jerthon’s plan, every detail in one terrifying instant.
They had come out of the statue’s hollow base through a little door. Even now while she stood staring at the empty street they were moving through the town unseen, attacking the guards in the tower, taking the weapons there, breaking the cell door from without to make it seem that was their way of escape; were sealing the hole in the cell floor with mortar, sealing the side tunnel into the pit they had left only a little hole up into the grove among boulders; that, and the entrance in the statue, its door so cleverly made that a man could stare right at it and never know it was there.
She knew where more weapons were cached. She knew where Dlos had hidden food in the storeroom. She turned, drawing in her breath. At that moment slaves were slipping down the corridors of the Hall behind her, stealing into rooms, snatching up weapons. She clutched at the wall, fear gripping her, and a terrible urgency.
They meant to take Burgdeeth. Her pulse was pounding. Venniver would die this night. She felt a terrible tenderness for him suddenly, a oneness with him that she had never felt for another—in spite of his cruelty. Because of his cruelty, perhaps. Because of his genius. Burgdeeth as he planned it would die this night. The Temple, the beautiful Set . . . Venniver’s dream.
She fled back into the hall. Venniver was laughing at some joke; she could not make him listen, shook his shoulder impatiently, driven by urgency and sickened by something that tried to silence her. Venniver turned, scowling, as she fought for breath.
“What is it? What?”
“The slaves, they . . . The battle within her was fierce, as if hands gripped her and twisted her away. She could hardly speak. “The slaves,” she choked at last, “the slaves are out—with weapons.”
The guards were on their feet snatching up swords and sectbows, Theel staring at her for a moment then hurrying away. Venniver held her wrist in a steel grip. “How? How did they get out?”
“I don’t know. I saw them in the street. I don’t know how, they—they will kill you!” She felt sick at what she was doing, could not control her trembling.
He loosed her wrist, rose, and swung away from her. She stood staring after him in turmoil; and she saw Ram suddenly in a vision against the boiling sky as if he stood on top the world, saw him thrown to the ground, falling, boulders pelting down, and felt immense forces battling there. Then she saw riders pounding fast up along the river toward Burgdeeth, their horses slick with rain, their wet capes whipping in the wind, their faces—EnDwyl. EnDwyl and the Pellian Seers approaching fast as Venniver’s guards battled slaves in the dark streets. She was Seeing, she thought, swallowing. Seeing—willing herself to See.
She saw Jerthon’s eyes then, demanding something of her, saw the danger she had wrought for him, his anger; didn’t know who was right or if there was a right. She saw men locked in battle, men fall in their own blood; she stood gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles white.
The slaves would die because of her. Would die. Jerthon would die. . . .
But the dark pulled at her and soothed her. She saw HarThass’s soldiers plunge across the river into the streets, saw Jerthon facing two guards in desperate battle. She heard Ram scream out in fury, fierce as death itself.
She ran out into the street, stood staring in panic at the bloody fighting, saw a slave lying dead beside the steps.
She knelt, opened the dead man’s fingers, and slipped his bloody sword from his hand.
*
The children ran up the spiraling flight past rooms open to the winds, and heard fire ogres screaming behind them; past bright rooms and saw only flashing colors as they ran, their breaths catching. The flight ended in a fall of water. They dove in, stood beneath the downpour as the red flame of fire ogres drew close outside, gibbering, unable to enter.
They came out soaking into a beautiful room, its window thick in the mountain wall, its curved benches deep with bright pillows. At one side a flight led up. They climbed. No one had breath to speak. In the next chamber, water fell again, and in the next twelve chambers led upward, and outside the windows the sky darkened, and rain came whipping to damp the thick sills. Lightning broke the night, and thunder; and that other dark rose with them, an incubus they could not shake. And as the wolves gazed upward, the lust of killing came into their eyes. Ram stopped on a stair and took Fawdref’s heavy head in his hands. The great wolf’s eyes were full of a need that chilled and excited him; and Fawdref’s mind gave back only silence.
“They want to kill,” Skeelie breathed, watching. She stared upward toward the unseen hollow peak of Tala-charen. “What is up there? They . . .”
“Whatever it is, HarThass—HarThass is there too. His forces are in Burgdeeth, are fighting Jerthon, bloody in the streets, in the dark rain.” He swallowed. “But he is there above us too—waiting.”
They hurried on, the wolves predatory and stalking. They came at last to the top of Tala-charen, into a cave lit softly by the glowing stone of the floor, as if they stood on a lake of bright water. Skeelie stared at it, hesitating to step, as if it would give way. “What is it?”
“Termagant. You know, in the myth of the sea god, the stone that catches daylight and holds it for the night.”
She stared, then stepped delicately. And as their eyes grew accustomed, the cave seemed to brighten even more. The walls undulated around the curved open space in the natural formation of the mountain, with a ceiling curving down, a smooth dome decorated all over with inlaid stone in the patterns of animals: the triebuck, mythical creatures, and stag and winged horses and birds, great golden lizards, flying snakes colored like jewels.
It was quite empty, a cool empty room; yet the wolves stood growling, heads lowered. And as the children watched, they became increasingly uneasy. A mist began to form. Only a darkness at first in the center of the cave. Then a deep shadow. Then a cloud, thick and growing heavy.