Beneath their feet was an immense slab of stone hollowed underneath by the river, the river flowed beneath them into a triangular pool reflecting perfectly the high noon sun.
The cave walls were carved into wavelike shapes by long past action of the river, and the river’s flow now cast the sun’s flicking light back upon these, so the whole cave seemed to be moving underwater. A memory came sharp to Ram, of another cave filled with light, and he was nine years old; he and Skeelie stripped naked were swimming in just such a light-struck pool, in a cave in the old city of Owdneet. Pender turned to look at him.
“The Luff’Eresi await you, Ramad. They would hear you plead your mission.” Then he turned, led Ram in silence toward the back of the cave and through a high opening into a second, larger cave more brightly sun-washed still, and Ram saw far mountains beyond the portal and went forward to the brink of the drop, stared out upon a valley immense and green, so far below that it took his breath.
Below him, perhaps half a mile, the valley floor rolled in green fields and gentle hills and small copses of feathery trees. A river wound through, and across the valley in the cliffs that formed the opposite wall were caves, a city of caves one above the other in clusters, with balconies and windows, and some with steps leading one to another; though no steps led down to the valley so far below.
And then he saw the light shifting and changing in the valley as if something were there. Yes, winged figures barely visible in slanting light among the valleys and hills, shifting and indistinct as light on running water, iridescent shapes moving in and out of his vision, ephemeral as dreams, ever moving, ever flashing against the solid background of hills and cliffs. The Luff’Eresi were there, their images as elusive and compelling as music.
And suddenly near to him, filling the air before him, came the horses of Eresu, not light-washed like the gods, but solid, familiar animals crowding out of the sky to land around Ram and Pender, warm, familiar animals dropping their feathered wings across their backs as they entered the cave, pushing around Ram and Pender with great good humor, nickering, nudging them with velvet muzzles. A gray stallion knelt in the accustomed invitation to mount and took Ram on his back, stood at the brink of the cave, his wings flaring around Ram, catching wind; and they were airborne suddenly, sweeping down toward the valley so the rush of air took Ram’s breath. He turned to see Pender close behind; they swept low over the valley, and Ram could see the light-washed Luff’Eresi now, see a few clusters of white-robed men and women, too, and understood from Pender that, all through time, some few Seers had come into Eresu for sanctuary from the harsher world of Ere.
Horses of Eresu were grazing on the hills. Some leaped skyward now and again in bucking play. Ram watched a dozen colts run across a hill to launch themselves clumsily into the wind, flapping and fighting for height. Some dropped down in defeat, but two lifted onto the wind at last, kicking and bucking.
The silver stallion descended, and below, the Luff’Eresi were gathered and waiting. Ram looked with surprise, for there were females among the Luff’Eresi, women’s shapely forms rising from the softer curves of mare’s bodies. He felt the ripple of amusement stir among the Luff’Eresi at his amazement, felt Pender’s silent laughter. Had he thought the Luff’Eresi were of one sex and did not reproduce themselves?
Yes, he realized, he had thought just that, had believed the Luff’Eresi immortal in spite of his childhood reasoning that they were not. In his most private self he must have believed the Luff’Eresi immortal—or have wanted to believe this—for reproduction and birth, and thus dying, had never been a part of how he pictured them.
Their voices rang like a shout in his mind. Yes, we are mortal, Ramad of wolves! Their laughter rocked him. Mortal just as you! Not gods! Never gods!
The gray stallion landed on the grassy turf in a rush of wind and bid Ram remain on his back. Ram saw that even mounted he had to look up to the Luff’Eresi. From the ground he would have been a tiny creature indeed, staring upward to face the two dozen winged gods. No, not gods! But it would take him a while to get used to that idea. And, if they were not gods, what made them shimmer and seem to shift in space so they could not be clearly seen?
We dwell on a different plane, Ramad of Zandour. We live among the valleys and mountains of your dimension, but our dimension is different. So you do not see us clearly. You perceive us as we perceive you, as through a changing curtain of light-struck air. It is because of this, in part, that we have been thought gods. But we are not gods, we are mortal just as you.
“If you are not gods, then those of Carriol who pray to you . . .” he broke off. The beauty of the Luff’Eresi stirred a wonder in him so he wanted only to stare, to memorize every line, the lean, smooth equine bodies so much more beautifully made than horses, the clean lines of the humanlike torsos more perfect than the bodies of his own kind. Their expressions, their whole demeanor was of such joy, it was as if they found in life the very essence of joy, found pleasure and meaning that humans had not yet learned to perceive. As if they had no time for the small, trivial unpleasantnesses of humans, no time or patience for evil and its ways.
“If you are not gods,” he repeated, “then those who pray are praying to—a lie.” His words shocked him. He felt the wrongness of this and the discomfort it caused them. But he needed to know, he needed to sort it out.
We are not gods, Ramad, but there is a power beyond ours; prayers are heard not by gods as humans imagine them but by a higher level of power. There was distant thunder then, but the Luff’Eresi seemed not to heed it. Dark formless clouds—or was it smoke?—lay above the western peaks.
There are lives on many planes, Ramad of wolves, and powers in many degrees, power above power; but all depends on the freedom of each spirit to make its own choices. And Ram understood within himself quite suddenly the force that linked all life, touched each living being. Those who pray can touch it, Ramad, just as we touch it now as we speak to you. A Seer touches that power each time he reaches out. Ram saw, more clearly then than he ever would afterward, layers of life stretched out through all space and time, understood the wonder of being born again, and again, into new lives, each one reaching toward an ultimate brightness.
Born again, Ramad, provided one has not nurtured evil nor sucked upon the misery and pain of others. Such a one knows, through all eternity, crippling fear and pain. This is the choice of each. But that, Ramad, is not why you come to us. Now that you know that the children who burn in Venniver’s fire will likely be born anew to a higher plane, do you still wish to pursue your quest?
Ram stared at the tall winged being who had come forward and stood close to him, his color like light over gold, his torso bronzed, his eyes deep and seeing, compelling. He thought about children dying by fire and could feel their pain. He understood too clearly that what he desired was against all the Luff’Eresi believed. That to change the lives of humans was to destroy that which humankind had woven of the web of survival and of learning. To take away one evil from that web was to act as gods in altering human lives. He understood that this would weaken humankind, that people could be strengthened only by altering their own fate. But again he felt the pain and fear of children dying by fire, and he could not let that rest. “Yes,” he said at last. “I wish to pursue my quest. I wish to beg your help for the children, to beg you once to touch the lives of my people and change them. Will turning aside one evil destroy all of Ere? Venniver will not be destroyed, only discouraged from killing. The Seeing children, the Children of Ynell, can then survive to destroy him as they should. If those children do not survive, the power that fights against Venniver will be crippled perhaps beyond all hope.
“Without your help in turning Venniver aside from this destruction, the only other course is for Carriol to march into Burgdeeth and destroy her,” Ram said quietly. “And I do not know, with the dark so strong, with the powers against us at this moment so great, whether Carriol can destroy both Burgdeeth and Pelli. And we must, at all
costs, destroy Pelli. Destroy the Hape, before it places all of Ere under its will. Burgdeeth—the Seers of Burgdeeth can survive if only a measure of fear is laid down upon Venniver. Something to prevent his senseless killing. We need you now, we need this one thing of you—in the name of freedom. In the name of kindness and love for those who are imprisoned.”
Do you ask it, then?
“I ask it. In the name of the innocent who suffer. In the name of the Children, those skilled above all others, who might bring great glory upon Ere if they are but given this one chance, this one small shift in Ere’s path of dark, I ask that you help us.”
The Luff’Eresi smiled, shifted; light flashed around them so Ram could not be sure they were still there. Then he could see them once more, iridescent, leaping skyward so quickly he could only stare. They were leaving him, they would not help; then suddenly the gray stallion leaped to join them, wings shattering wind, nearly unseating Ram. He was airborne suddenly, flying up over Eresu among the Luff’Eresi in one swift climb, and the Luff’Eresi said in his mind with one voice, So be it, Ramad of the wolves. You have had the courage to come to us, to ask of us when you doubted we would help you. So it is the doing of one man, of a man’s, caring, that turns the scale. One man, Ramad, has thus laid his change upon Ere.
Ram frowned, puzzling. “But that would mean—that anyone could come to you. With any kind of . . .”
No! They thundered. It is a matter of commitment, Ramad, a matter of truth, of the true right to ask. But Ramad . . . and their voices were as one in his mind . . . the deception upon Venniver must be done our way. And you may not like that way. You will be our decoy, Ramad. It will be you, Ramad of Zandour, Venniver’s old enemy, who will stand tied to the stake in Venniver’s temple waiting to die by fire.
Ram swallowed, felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach as if the stallion had dropped sharply in the sky.
Have you faith enough in our word to do as we direct you, Ramad of wolves?
He looked around him at the glinting, light-filled figures, huge, filling the sky around him so their wings overlapped in a torrent of shattering light. He felt the immensity of their minds, of their spirits, an immensity beyond any petty human concerns. He swallowed again, said without question, “Yes. I have faith. I will do as you direct. I would . . .” and he paused, wanting to be very sure he spoke truly. “I would, if it were needed, die to free those who are captive of Venniver.” And a sense of death filled him suddenly and utterly, and with it the sense of Telien, of her face, her cool green eyes; a sudden longing for her twisted and held him as nothing in his life ever had.
They moved fast over jagged peaks. Below, a gray stain of smoke rose to tear apart on the wind. A faint rumble stirred the air. The mountains were speaking; and again, with their voices, Ram’s fear for Telien came cold and sharp.
Could the dark be making the mountains stir? Did the dark have power enough, now, to draw fire from the very mountains? He was clutching the stallion’s mane, his palms sweating. Well, but the red stallion was with Telien, he could fly with her clear of sudden disaster—if he would fly clear, if he would leave his mare to perish. Or would the red stallion prefer to die with Meheegan, and so let Telien die?
SEVEN
Telien knelt beside the mare, rubbing dolba salve into the poor, swollen legs. The passage up the mountain had been hard on Meheegan, the weight of the unborn foal slowing her. The winged ones’ legs were not made for hard treks over stone and uneven ways, for climbing rocky cliffs. The mare watched her, head down, her breath warm on Telien’s neck, the relief she felt at Telien’s attention very clear.
Telien had followed blindly after the mare and stallion, could only guess where they might go, had come to the valley near dawn and found it empty, had stared uncertainly out over the emerging black ridges against the dawn-streaked sky, wondering if she had been a fool to think she could find them in these vast, wild mountains. She had scanned the bare peaks not knowing which way to take or what to do, wondering if she should turn back, when suddenly she had seen them high on a ridge, making their way slowly up along the side of a mountain. She had galloped after them eagerly, had come upon them at last to find the mare so spent she could not go farther, unable to get down into the sharp ravine where the stallion had found water for her. Telien had carried water in her waterskin, tipping it out into her cupped hand so the mare could drink; then she had doctored Meheegan’s wings where the tender skin had rubbed against stone until it bled. Now she rubbed in the cooling salve, smoothed it into the mare’s swollen legs, then watched as the mare went off slowly to find a patch of grass between boulders.
The stallion came to nudge Meheegan softly, caress her; then at last he, too, began to graze. Telien’s own mount ate hungrily where she had hobbled him. He stared at the mare and stallion sometimes with a look of terrible curiosity, but he did not like to be near them.
Telien made camp simply by spreading her blanket beneath an outcrop of stone. She drank some water, chewed absently on a bit of mountain meat as the afternoon light dimmed into evening. The immensity of the mountains was a wonder to her. She had lived all her life at their feet and never once climbed up into them. AgWurt would not have allowed such a thing. To slip away to the hill meadows was one thing, but to go as far as the mountains, that long journey, and not be found out had been impossible. But these dark peaks stirred her, she wanted to share this with Ram; she imagined his voice, close, so she shivered. You do not remember the thunder and the shaking earth? Then, If you do not remember, then that which I remember has not yet happened to you. Not yet happened? She lay in her blanket puzzling, but it made no sense to her. She wanted to remember, she wanted—her caring made her tremble with its intensity. They had been meant always for each other, the separation of their early lives had been a mistake of fate only now made right.
She was so tired. Dreaming of Ram, she turned her face to the mountain and slept, slept straight through the night and deep into the morning, woke with the sun full in her face and the thunder of the mountains harsh all around her. She stared across at the stallion, his wings lifted involuntarily as instinct made him yearn skyward, his nostrils distended, his ears sharp forward, his eyes white-edged. He blew softly toward the mare. Her head was up, staring wildly. Telien shivered, her mind filled suddenly with tales of burning lava flowing over the lands. And where was Ram, was he safe from the flow of fire? Ram—alone somewhere deep within the mountains. Ramad . . .
She did not see the winged ones passing high above her, did not see the glancing swirl of light made by the Luff’Eresi in motion, nor see the one winged stallion, silver gray, carrying a rider above her across Ere’s winds.
Suddenly she remembered, for no reason, her father’s face in death and was chilled, very alone. He had been a cold, unbending master who beat her, who tortured helpless creatures before her for the pleasure of seeing her distress. The powerful, mindless threat of the mountains was not like AgWurt’s purposeful threats; though the mountains could destroy her just as easily as ever AgWurt might have.
*
The winds swept and leaped around Ram, the gray stallion’s wings sang on the wind; on all sides the flying Luff’Eresi shone as if the stallion beat through a river of shattering light. Below, the jagged peaks lay brutal as death. Along a dark ridge Ram could see smoke rising in windborne gusts. He thought of Telien with sharp, sudden clarity, with a harsh longing, as above the wind came the rumble of shifting earth, speaking of fires deep within. Ram’s fear for her was terrible. But the Luff’Eresi laughed, a roaring, thundering mirth of great good will, and one swept so close to Ram his light-washed wings seemed to twine with the stallion’s feathered wings. He said his name to Ram, and it was not a word to be spoken but a handful of musical notes cutting across the wind. She will be hurt and afraid, Ramad. But there is likelihood she will live.
“Can’t you stop the fires!” Ram shouted. “Can’t you make a safe way for her! She . . .”
The
Luff’Eresi roared in his mind, Cannot! We cannot do such a thing! And it is not the right of any of us to ask Telien to abandon what she is about. You must abide, Ramad! And no creature of Ere can stop a tantrum of nature! People—simple people, Ramad—believe we make the fires. We do not do that, no more than are we gods! To think we are gods makes them feel safe, for that is easier to understand than to try to understand our differences. And they think we make the fires because that is the easiest thing to believe. But humans grow, Ramad. They believe, then they question that belief. They find a new truth, then question again. They come at last, by a long painful route, to real truth. And that truth, Ramad, is more shot with wonder than ever was the myth.
Ram looked around at the light-washed bodies moving on the wind, so alien to him yet so right. “How does . . .” he began, and felt very young and unsure. “How do we know the truth when at last we find it, then? How do we, when some think each belief is truth?”
The Luff’Eresi’s laugh was a windswept roar. You prove it, Ramad. At each belief humans find ways to think they prove that belief. At last one day they will understand how to find real proof, to look at the small, minute parts of a thing and understand its nature from that. Even then, Ramad, even when he is able to prove, humans will only see the beginning of proof and think that is everything.
Ram puzzled over this and stored it away to ponder at a later time, felt awed by the thoughts it began to awaken within him. He could see Kubal now, off to his left, lit by the dropping sun. He turned, stared back toward the eastern mountains and saw smoke rising there and a stream of red lava winding down toward the Voda Cul, for there in the east, too, a mountain had erupted. Twisting around, holding a handful of mane to steady himself, he stared out beneath Dalwyn’s lifting wings to see five peaks spaced around the rim of the Ring of Fire, spewing smoke: all along the ring, then, some great underground force was belching up. He turned back, looked toward Carriol. The ruins did not seem threatened, nor the loess plains in the north. Blackcob, farther west, was the only part of Carriol that lay directly below the fires, and even there the lava was well to the north of her. Carriol’s coast lay untouched, softened in mists that rose from the sea. He longed for the peace of his cave room, with the rippling sea light washing across its ceiling, the roar of the sea like a second heartbeat. He imagined Telien there, then turned away from that thought.
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