She woke to noon sun flooding her room. A girl stood with her back to her, placing a tray by the bed.
“Clytey?”
Clytey turned. “Tra. Hoppa said you were sick. Too sick for company? I brought enough for two, but . . .” The younger girl hesitated.
Meatha was muzzy from sleep. She tried to smile. The scent of tammi tea and of broiled scallops brought her more fully awake. She found suddenly that she was ravenous. She sat up, tried to clear her mind, to clear away shadows. A sense of excitement lingered, a sense of power she did not want Clytey to see. Blocking, smiling at last, she gestured for Clytey to sit down.
Clytey shook her sandy hair away from her cheek and pulled up a stool. “You are pale, you . . .” Her blue eyes showed concern, then changed to unease, and she bent hastily to serve the plates. What did she sense? “You need some food, some tea. The scallops were dug this morning on Fentress.” When she looked up again, she was more in control and smiled quietly. Both were blocking, a gentle, polite wall placed between them.
Meatha sat admiring Clytey’s healthy good looks, remembering too vividly how she had looked when first they escaped the Kubalese caves, thin and ashen, sick from the long weeks drugged by MadogWerg. She supposed she had looked the same. Now Clytey was rosy and lithe—and fast becoming a young lady. Clytey had been only twelve when they came to Carriol. Now at fourteen she was nearly grown.
“Not grown enough,” Clytey said, touching her thoughts delicately. “Not grown enough so Alardded will let me dive.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to.”
“I do. Oh, I do, Meatha. He won’t let me go even to the bay of Vexin; he says I’m too young and frail. He got so angry. I’ve never seen Alardded so angry. Meatha, I’m not frail at all. You’ve seen me work the fields!”
Meatha stared at her. “That’s not like Alardded.”
“What could the real reason be? I couldn’t touch his thoughts. I’m as strong as Roth, or nearly. I’m as strong as Nicoli, even if she does train the horses. What is it about me? Oh—I’m sorry. I’m rattling on and you’re ill. I—”
“I’m all right, it’s . . . I don’t understand, either, why he won’t let you. Maybe I can talk to him, ask . . .”
Clytey’s eyes brightened, then dulled. “It won’t do any good, he’s like a rock.”
*
Meatha puzzled over Alardded’s attitude and knew she would speak to him about Clytey. Something about Alardded’s anger alarmed her sharply, though she could not imagine why. She wanted passionately now to know everything about diving, as if Clytey’s very distress had unleashed a heated flood of interest in every detail, in Alardded’s every purpose and intention.
She yearned to talk with Alardded, yet found no opportunity before he left for the bay of Vexin; she stood watching from the tower early one morning as he and Roth and Nicoli rode out, leading a dozen trained young horses and followed by Hux’s wagon. The well-trained horses led easily. It would be a different matter when the band returned leading young, untrained colts to be broken to the ways of saddle and sword and sectbow. Why was Alardded not taking Clytey, when she wanted so much to go? Meatha would have no chance, now, to ask until he returned in five days’ time.
It was mid-afternoon of the fifth day when she knew that Alardded’s party was returning home. On impulse, she saddled a horse and rode out to meet them, came upon them just at the mouth of the river Somat Cul where it emptied between marshy banks into the sea. They had stopped to mend a broken harness; and while Hux repaired the leather lines, Alardded and Nicoli and young Roth waded knee-deep in the surf, their trousers rolled up like children, laughing. The diving had gone well; they were in high spirits and anxious to be off to Pelli soon for the real dive, filled with eagerness to seek out the drowned runestone at last. She watched the three, concealing her own covetous interest in the drowned stone. They sensed nothing of her thoughts, grinned and waved at her and beckoned her to join them. Nicoli, with her legs bare and her short red hair blowing in the wind, looked no older than Roth. All three were sunburned. Roth deeply burned across his freckled nose.
A dozen young horses were tethered around the marsh on ground stakes, grazing the lush grass. Hux’s two older cart horses stood tied on long lines to the back of the wagon, grazing, too. Meatha looked with interest at the diving suit hanging to dry on the side of the wagon. It was like a big fat body, for the leather had been stuffed with cloth to keep the wax from cracking—a headless body, for the monster metal head was hanging alongside.
She wanted Alardded to tell her about the diving; but when he began to show her the journey, it was not the diving he brought in vision, but the three new waterwheels along the Somat Cul, the new grain huts nearby, the weaving sheds, the new breeding stock on the farms. Nothing at all of the diving. When they had saddled up once more, she rode alone with Alardded behind the wagon, for Nicoli and Roth had their hands full leading the strings of colts, tied head and tail to one another. At last she clenched her fist on the reins, took a deep breath, and looked across at Alardded. “Did the diving go well?”
“Oh, yes, very well.” No vision, no sense of what it had been like. His mind as closed as a clamshell.
“Alardded?”
He looked at her, his mind wary. Fear touched her for no reason, and she blocked with all her power, steeled herself to speak. “You did not take Clytey. Why not? She wanted badly to go. To dive with you. She—she is the same size as Nicoli or Roth. The suit would fit her, she—”
Alardded’s dark eyes flashed with warning. “Do not ask me, Meatha. I do not wish to discuss that.”
“But—” She plunged on despite his annoyance. “Why can’t you let her dive? What—?”
“Whether Clytey dives is not your affair. I do not like your speaking of it. This is my business, Meatha, and mine alone.”
She had never seen him like this, never seen him so unreasonable. His anger was like a tide. The sense of his mind was utterly closed. He gave her a stormy look, turned his horse, and rode away from her. She stared after him, dismayed and afraid. The fear that touched her spread, and a suspicion began to chill her. She tried to call after him and could not.
At last she kicked her horse into a gallop, caught up with him, and forced herself to speak, blurting it out before she could lose her nerve. “Would you let me dive, Alardded?”
He did not speak. His mind was like thunder.
“Would you let me dive?” She stared at him, willing him to speak.
“I will not let Clytey dive. I will not let you dive. I do not wish to speak of it. The diving is my business, not yours. You are behaving like an insolent child.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice, “oh, but this is my business.” For now she knew that she had every right to an answer; and the knowledge terrified her. She tried to breach his shielding, pushing her power at him until his dark eyes turned on her flashing, the muscles of his jaw working as if he bit on steel.
“You take liberties, Meatha. You show the grossest discourtesy to try to breach my mind so! I am the master Seer!” He had never talked down to her before. Her face went hot-but beyond her shame, her uneasy suspicion would not let her turn away. She faced him boldly, her face flaming. “Would you . . .” Her voice came out like a croak. “Would you let Shoppa dive? Would you let Tocca, if he were old enough? Would you let—any one of us who was drugged in the Kubalese caves?”
Alardded’s silence was so complete it was as if they paused in the eye of a storm. Not a breath of air moved between them. He looked suddenly older. His eyes were filled with pain. He gave her one long look, then turned his horse away from her and did not speak nor answer her in his mind.
She sat her horse woodenly, her mind awash with the truth—with the horror of the Kubalese caves, as raw as if it had been yesterday, the feel of the cold stone where she had lain wanting only the drug, more of the drug, the cold terror when the drug was withheld from her, the sense of suffocation, of being crushed by cave
walls as if they closed in on her, the terrible panic as she withdrew from the drug, wanting to lash out at the walls and run blindly, her terror of being crushed inside the cave, unable to bear the dark confinement of the cave.
Unable to stand the confinement of the cave. Driven to terror and to madness by confinement.
This was what Alardded knew. That the effects of the drug were not gone. That, given the right circumstances, panic would return. To Clytey; to herself. Given the dark, confining diving suit, given the confinement deep beneath the sea, a victim of the MadogWerg might go mad.
It was with them still, the effects of the drug, would always be with them, unseen and crippling.
She turned her horse away from die others and node back to the tower alone.
Part Two: Heritage of the Dark
From the journal of Skeelie of Carriol.
I must try to write of that earlier time before Ram died, before ever we lived as husband and wife. Perhaps if I write of our lives together, I can ease the pain of remembering. And perhaps not, perhaps the pain will only be worse. But I know that I must try.
We came away from that first visit to the city of cones across the mountains carrying Telien. She was so pale, so very close to death. The spirit that had possessed her, the wraith that Ram had driven out, had left little more than a shell, only a small spark of life. We nursed her as best we could, but by morning Telien was dead.
We buried her on an unknown mountainside in the unknown lands. Ram turned from the grave of his lost love in silence, and we headed south at once, where the known countries must lie. Ram walked as if he were alone, wrapped in darkness. But he looked up when we heard the high, keening wolf cry on the mountain, and his eyes darkened with a bitter triumph, for we knew then that Torc had destroyed the wraith that had possessed Telien. Too late—too late destroyed. Soon the bitch wolf joined us, filled with her dark vindication.
Our way was slow. We met jagged walls of stone and gashes in the land far too wide and deep to cross. We retraced our steps many times. When at last we found a way over the mountains, we were heading north away from the known countries of Ere. Ram grew impatient then, for which I was grateful, for his armor of mourning seemed less severe. Soon he began to think once more of the four shards of the runestone he carried—and of the shards still to be sought. Slowly and with pain he began to mend from Telien’s death, as much as ever he could mend.
We meant to find our way south, back to our own lands, but now Ram seemed pulled northward. We traveled among creatures and plants new and strange to us. Soon we were in high, jagged country, and cold, for a glacier rose to our left beyond a black cliff. It was here we were attacked by huge winged lizards with teeth like knives. We took shelter in an abandoned dwelling place, little more than a few bed-holes carved into the cliff, with narrow steps from one hole to the next, and the bones of game animals littering the floors. But the holes were deep enough so the flying lizards could not reach into them, though they forced clawed talons in, incredibly ugly beasts with wrinkled, scaly hides and breath that stunk of decay. The creatures gave way at last, either from boredom or discouragement, and we went on still hoping to find a way south. But the cliff was a sheer wall on our left and rose even taller ahead of us. Soon we came to a deep chasm. We could hardly see the other side, and it stretched so far to our right that it ended in haze against distant peaks. Deep down we could see red molten rivers. The place excited Ram, but the wolves paced restlessly along its lip. Fawdref was as cross and edgy as I have ever seen him, all dark, fierce killer with blazing eyes. Even Torc was upset with the sense of the place, and moved as if she were stalking, head down, watching the abyss. Ram stood at the edge staring down to the fires that burned far below, and I felt his intention chill me long before he spoke. “I must go there, Skeelie. I must go down into that pit.”
I was sick with fear for him, but I could say nothing. He must follow his own way.
We were eight years in that valley, living on wild plants and rock hare and deer. Ram studied the abyss and traveled again and again down into it, convinced that somewhere below, among the fires, lay a shard of the runestone of Eresu. He could feel its presence there, touching him. I knew he would never leave that place without it—and he did not leave it, not in body.
Our son was born in that valley.
We found a shelter of boulders that first day, to make a beginning dwelling, and piled stones to enlarge it. I thatched the roof to cover the cracks between the boulders, and Ram went to hunt with the wolves. As easily as that we established a home. Though it was a long time before we lived as husband and wife. The delay was not my doing. When Ram healed at last from the worst of his mourning, I was able to ease his pain somewhat, to give him of warmth and gentleness, someone to cling to. I hid my joy from him. I was afraid to let him know how much I cared.
From the entrance to our rock home, gazing southwest, we could see in the far distance beyond the cliff and beyond the white apron of the glacier, a peak rising so high and alone that Ram felt sure it was Tala-charen. He could feel a power from that peak that seemed to reach toward our desolate valley, a power he felt was linked to the runestone. He was more and more certain that a shard of the runestone lay down in the burning chasm, and sometimes he felt a presence down there, too, as if a living thing were watching us. I could not speak my fears to him, nor would I turn him aside. I knew I might see him die, but I would not hinder what he must surely do. We went again and again into the pit. It was a place of mystery, of shifting smoke, the changing lava flows and the falling stones tearing away the land so our way was never the same. We saw fire ogres there with flame playing across their thick, wrinkled hides, ogres only the heaviest arrows could kill. And something larger and infinitely more evil lay in that abyss, a creature formed perhaps from the heart of the abyss itself. Something that watched us at first only half-alive, that followed the sense of our movements, followed the sense of power from the runestones Ram carried with ever growing interest, as if it were slowly acquiring life, slowly becoming more powerful.
Could the stone that lay in that abyss have nurtured such a creature? Could a shard of the runestone, if it lay long enough immersed in that evil place, have bred evil? Bred a creature that, on sensing Ram’s four runestones, quickened to life further and thirsted for ultimate power? Or was there another explanation? And how did the runestone get into the abyss? And when?
The creature moved unseen, eventually tracking us and tracked by us. Over the years its power became stronger and the sense of its size seemed to increase. And then at last the sense of its name came to us. It called itself Dracvadrig. We sensed that sometimes it was like a man, sometimes like a great worm. And it had about it the essence of death. Had it risen from death or near death? Was it a creature like the wraith, perhaps? The wraith had once been a man, given over to the drug MadogWerg and to the evils that grew from it. Was this thing in the pit the same, a man unable to die, growing after his body’s death into another form? Had it lain in the pit long after its death, its moldering body couched around the runestone before life came seeping back sufficiently for it to rise and watch us, and to grow slowly into the monstrous dragon that we saw at last? I do not know. I only know that it was Dracvadrig who killed Ram.
I did not go with Ram into the pit that day, nor had for some days, for Lobon was ill with fever. Torc and Rhymannie were excellent nurses, but I could not leave Lobon when he was so sick. Ram gave into my hands the four runestones so that I could help him with their power, and I stood watching as the twelve wolves descended with him into the abyss. I had no premonition that Dracvadrig would rise that day to show itself, that it would at last challenge Ram. I sent my power with them, and later I stood reaching with all my force into the battle Ram waged against the creature. Even Lobon’s young, untrained power came strong then, to defend Ram, our powers focused through the runestones in a battle soon turned desperate, then terrifying, the wolves leaping and tearing at the dragon as it flailed and
twisted in battle, its screams of fury echoing across the pit and between the mountains. And the power of the stone it possessed struck against Ram and against the stones I wielded with a force that made me reel with its intensity. I used every power, every force I knew, felt Ram’s furious, angry battle, his powers linked with mine against the creature as if we stood side by side. Lobon, his face flushed with the fever, had come to stand beside me, his power raging against the dragon, more power in that moment than I had thought any child could contain.
But our powers were not enough. Ram’s strength was not enough, nor the wolves’ fierce and continued attacks. Perhaps other forces fought beside the dragon, forces of the dark. I felt that this was so, and wondered if they had watched us longer than we ever knew.
Ram was wounded. He lay dying. He was dead before I reached him. Climbing and running down into the pit, I could only think over and over, If only I had been with him battling with sword as well as with the stones.
But I cannot dwell on that. It likely would have made no difference. Yet I do dwell, am sick with it even yet. I wake sometimes seeing him die, and cry out into the night before I can stop myself.
I lashed together a sapling drag to bring Ram’s body out. Five wolves stood guard over him. Seven wolves lay dead. Fawdref lay dead, his dark coat smeared with blood, his body torn by the dragon’s claws. Torc and Rhymannie were badly hurt. They limped out slowly, not able even to keep pace with the drag. As I turned away from the scene of battle after my first climb, I saw the wounded dragon creeping toward me. I spun and raised my bow, but the creature was hurt and clawed at the cliff then slipped and fell deeper into the pit. Suddenly it stayed its fall, with leathery wings raised, and beat its way clumsily skyward, twisting as if at any minute it would fall again. It must have been near to death at that moment, not to have come after the stones I held close inside my tunic, yet it flew up out of the pit, scrambling and clawing at the stone walls, and disappeared over the farther lip of the abyss where lay the unknown lands. Whether it returned to the abyss or not, I do not know. But every creature returns to its nest.
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