Then came the moment when she woke from a light sleep suddenly, startled, struck her flint hastily to the lamp. What had awakened her? There was a difference in the cave, she felt a new sense, a sense of something pulling at her.
Confused and yawning, trying to collect her wits, she rose, jumbled her scattered belongings into her pack, and began to make her way toward that beckoning hope, prodding her anew. Her dark hair, bundled into an untidy bun, had slipped down to her shoulder. Her bow and quiver hung crooked across her pack. Her leather tunic was wrinkled, her wrists protruding from her sleeves. Her dark eyes were intent and haunted. What had reached out so suddenly to wake her, to pull at her? She followed with growing urgency. Had her need to search out the secrets of Time at last awakened some magic deep within the mountain? But why? She had found no key, yet, to unlocking those secrets. Nor did she carry one of the starfires, such as Anchorstar had given to Ram, to quicken the magic of Time. What called to her, then, from deep within the mountain?
And if she found a way into Time’s reaches, where would that way lead her? To Ram, or a million years from Ram? Once she crossed Time’s barrier, would she have the skills to find Ram? Uncountable centuries swept away to a future unborn and backward to incredible violence and turmoil. How could one enter Time, enter a future unborn? Yet it had happened to Skeelie and Ram when they were children— Time rocking asunder, future and past coming together. That moment had changed the very history of Ere, that moment on Tala-charen when the runestone of Eresu split, when men and women came out of Time to receive the shards of that shattered jade.
She knew she should turn back to hunt and replenish the lamp oil, but could not deny the power that drew her. She followed the beckoning sense down a dark, narrowing tunnel, pushing always deeper inside the mountain. She had been so tired, but now she moved quickly, the chill gone, hunger unheeded. She remembered the quick vision she had had ten days before of Ram standing beside his supper fire, then suddenly Telien with him, her pale hair caught in moonlight as she reached out of Time itself to hold Ram. Then the sense of the night twisting in on itself, Ram swept out of Telien’s arms shouting her name over and over, uselessly. Ram alone, and the trees only saplings once more—and then the hill empty as Ram himself was swept away in Time’s invisible river.
The tunnel became so low she had to walk bent over, her hair catching in the stone of the roof, very aware suddenly of the weight of the mountain above her, tons of stone above her. She turned the lamp lower to save oil, knew she must save two fillings to return to the main grotto or be trapped in darkness. The press of stone against her shoulders made her want to strike out, want to drive the mountain back. She controlled herself with effort, pulled urgently forward by something insistent, something compelling. Something evil? Was that which beckoned to her evil?
At last the tunnel ended, and she stood in a cave that seemed not bounded by walls, seemed to warp and to hint of distant, terrifying reaches. Her guttering light caught at uncertain shadows and at dark so thick that light could not penetrate it. Nothing was clear, but the cave seemed to extend far beyond any area the mountain could possibly contain. A terror of infinite space yawned beyond her vision, and suddenly she could not bring herself to go forward, was terrified of the very thing she sought, terrified of falling into Time, of being lost in Time. All her determination disappeared, and the fear she had kept at bay so long overwhelmed her. She wanted to turn back, wanted to run blindly. She stood with clenched fists, trying to control herself. You’ve come this far, Skeelie. You can’t turn back. You can’t run away now. She was caught between her sudden horror of the unknown and her need to become a part of that dark emptiness in Time where Ram was. She moved on at last, shivering.
Soon she could make out something painted on the walls. She held the lamp up. Scenes of farms and villages, of battles, scenes shifting between shadows, then changing as she moved on. Who had painted such images so deep in the caves? Her lamp sputtered and grew dim.
Then the scenes came clearer and seemed larger suddenly, crowding toward her between the chasms of darkness. Scenes of war and violence leaped out at her; men opened their mouths in silent screams as swords flashed. She heard the din of war faintly, then it rose in volume until it deafened her. She smelled blood and death. Had she moved into Time suddenly? Clouds raced across dark skies. All was movement and shouting, a dozen places in a dozen times. She was caught like a fly at the center, suddenly mad with desire to thrust herself into those scenes. She searched for Ram’s face among infinite battles, searched for a flash of his red hair. Once she reached out her naked hand toward a battle, then snatched it back and pressed it to her mouth to stifle the cry that rose: for the shadows had changed to form themselves into a twisting tree. The battles faded. The tree filled the cave, huge and pulsing with life. It pushed gnarled branches against the cave walls, forcing up, bending against the dirt roof. Its bark was rough and dark, its roots humped like twisted, naked legs across the cave floor. Its trunk was wrinkled into seams and angles that formed the face of an old, old man. His eyes watched her from some terrible depth. Eyes cold and knowing, eyes like windows into Time. His voice was like the rasp of winter wind.
“I watched you come. I watched you search. I know what you seek here. You will find it, young woman. You will move through Time unending, and you will suffer for that. Time cares nothing for your suffering. And you care nothing for reason if you plunge into Time’s reaches”.
“I do what I must. I can do nothing else.” She held her shaking hands still with effort. “Who are you? What—sort of creature are you?”
“I am Cadach. 1 have dwelt in this tree since my death. Fear of him flickered in her eyes despite her bold stance. My soul dwells here. I have no strength to move toward what you call joy and fulfillment. I have no stomach for atonement. Traitor in my life, traitor to Ere and eager slave to evil, I am left filled only with the dark and twisted, I hunger only for the dark. I do not choose joy, I have no use for joy, it is too bright, I do not choose to be born anew.
“My children wander Time endlessly. My children atone for me. His sense of agony filled Skeelie. My children know not that I exist here. They know only that their need is to reach out, to hold a light to the darkness that comes again and again upon Ere. For they, each one, carry within them the higher spirit that I would have become, that I denied with my evil. They carry that spirit which I will never carry, my five white-haired children.”
His voice went silent. His face seemed carven once more, then collapsed as it began to recede back into the bark. Skeelie stood staring, shaken, wanting stupidly to cry out for him not to leave her. His eyes, dull and lifeless now, disappeared last. She backed away from the trunk. His fading voice breathed out once more, hollow now, hardly a whisper. “Follow through the maze of this cave as your mind bids you, Seer.” She strained to hear. “Follow you the path of the starfires. Find the Cutter of Stones who made them, for he will give you strength. Follow to the source of Ramad’s beginnings, touch the place of his childhood and his strength. And know you that Ramad must search through Time for more than his lost love, know you that he must search for the lost shards of the runestone of Eresu if he be true to himself.” She could hardly make out his words, leaned closer to the hoary bark; and one question burned in her.
“How do I know I can move into Time? I do not carry starfires. I do not touch Time’s secrets, nor have I found a rune.”