“Untrained. Unskilled, Ram. Just—just those with some power, but not master Seers.”
Ram looked down at her, unsettled. “Was I meant to stay here, Skeelie? To use the stones, in his place, to protect Zandour? Or if I can follow Telien, was I meant to leave Hermeth’s shard of the runestone behind, to keep only that one taken from the wraith?”
“I don’t think you are meant to do anything, Ram. Do you think it is all planned out? What do you know you must do?”
He looked at her a long time, a deep look, searching his own soul through what he saw reflected in her eyes. “I will hold these shards of the runestone and keep them, Skeelie. Against the day when the stone will again be whole. And I—I will follow Telien.”
That night in the hall, Ram brought together a council of the five young Seers who had ridden as scouts for Hermeth, seeking to understand what skills they had, and to train them.
This five, then, must rule Zandour, for in them lay the needed power. A council of the entire city sat with them, planning; men taking over, as smoothly as they could, the work that had been Hermeth’s. Late in the night Skeelie dozed in a chair beside the hall fire, waking only now and then to the men’s raised voices. Then suddenly she woke to Ram’s hand on her arm, saw that the night had waned and dawn had begun to touch the shuttered windows with gray. Ram stood staring down at her, tired, drawn tight with too much talking. “Get your pack, Skeelie. Put on your boots, your leathers. Take off those silly sandals. I want . . .” He turned to stare northward as if he could look through the very walls of the hall. “I want to climb Scar Mountain. I want . . .” The sense of unrest about him, of need, was powerful.
She rose, forcing herself awake, hurried through the hall, and returned shortly dressed in leathers, with her pack and weapons, to find him in the courtyard pacing and restless as a river cat, his own pack and bow slung over his shoulder, eager to be moving. What Was drawing Ram so? Simply restlessness? The sudden need to return to his childhood place? A hope of finding Gredillon for some reason? He was strung taut as a bowstring. Surely something spoke to him, something was pulling at him, but she could make no sense of it. She was only grateful that he wanted her to go, too. They started off at once into the faint touch of dawn, north up the first hill of the sheep pastures, Ram striding out impatiently and Skeelie hurrying to keep up. As they climbed, wolves began to come to them out of the darkness, one here, and then two, all in silence, until soon a dozen wolves paced beside them, Fawdref pressing close to Ram, Torc and Rhymannie nuzzling sometimes at Skeelie’s arm.
As they climbed, the sense of promise, of beckoning grew strong indeed. On the crest of the hill Ram stopped and turned to watch the dawn sky lighten. Down in the town they could see the dark shapes of wagons and of horses and riders moving in over the hills and roads, as folk from the farther reaches of Zandour began to arrive in Zandour’s city to pay their last respects to Hermeth. Ram stood staring down, then silently he drew from his tunic the little pouch he had made of soft white goathide and spilled the two runestones and the starfires out into his palm. He seemed puzzled. Skeelie watched, still and expectant, not knowing what was to happen, but filled with growing excitement. Something was building around them, something of power. She began to feel Ram’s curiosity, his questions rising, felt him begin to reach out hesitantly. They stood looking down upon the slowly lighting land, and then, alarmed suddenly, she turned to look back up the mountain, saw the wolves turn too; Ram turned as if someone had spoken his name. He took her shoulder in a sharp grip.
Above them the mountain had become unclear, as fast winds moved down across it sweeping toward them, blurring their vision. Fingers of wind snatched at them, blurring the dawn sky. Then the great body of wind itself was sweeping and pummeling them, ripping at their tunics, laying the wolves’ coats and ears flat. Fawdref crouched and snarled; the wind pounded, tore the very grass from the hill, and a rider came racing out of it leading two wild, rearing horses, shouting, “Mount! Mount you, Ramad!” The hooded rider, his cowl bound tight against the bite of the wind, his tall, thin figure leaning from the saddle, urged Ram; and Ram did not pause or question, but grabbed the reins and was in the saddle. Skeelie’s fear for him rose like a tide. “No, Ram! Wait!” She leaped for his reins, tried to stop his plunging horse. “Don’t follow! You don’t know . . .” Terror of his being swept away, terror of the cowled rider made her scream into the wind as Ram kicked the horse, jerked the reins from her hand and sent his mount into the turmoil alongside the dark rider.
“Oh, don’t, Ram. You don’t know . . .” All hint of dawn had disappeared; the wind was dark as midnight. The wolves stood frozen, then suddenly leaped to follow Ram. “Ram . . .” Skeelie’s voice was empty, a whisper blown back in her face. “You don’t know where he leads you. . . .” But Ram had disappeared in the storm of wind.
She jerked the reins of the riderless horse until it stood still, then leaped to the saddle and was swept into the dark wind herself. The flanks of the dark mounts were ahead; then the wolves were running beside her leaping through wind. She stared ahead at the hooded rider. Who was this man, racing out of Time’s winds to snatch them up like this? She felt his attention, though he had not changed his crouching position over the withers of his stallion. Then suddenly he straightened in the saddle, brushed back his hood as if annoyed, and turned to look at her, wind whipping his white hair across his face.
Anchorstar?
Was it Anchorstar? Yes, she recognized him now, that long, thin face. He nodded to her and she stared back through the wild wind, cross and suspicious. But she settled down to ride, watching Anchorstar warily, watching Ram’s back ahead of her. The tearing speed of the horses increased as the wind increased, and the wolves sped with them across winds that threatened to fling the riders from their saddles into timeless space, washing Skeelie with cold fear, and exciting her to madness. Never was there land, but faces looked out of darkness, and the moons were full, then gone, then new again.
Then the wind died. The night became dense and still. The moons hung like two half coins, casting silver light across the quiet horses where they stood on an open hill beside a wood. The white-haired rider dismounted as casually as if he had just trotted across a farm meadow. He unsaddled his stallion, then turned it loose to graze, ignoring Skeelie and Ram. Picking up sticks from the edge of the wood, he began to lay a fire on the bare slope.
The wolves turned, grinned, then leaped away into the wood. Torc flung back, To hunt! To hunt for meat, sister! Skeelie could feel the passionate curiosity among the wolves at being in a new place, could taste for a moment the new smells as Torc did; and she held for a brief moment Torc’s wild excitement at the newness, the land virgin to be traveled and tasted and known intimately. Then she dismounted, only slowly recovering from the drunkenness of that wild ride.
Ahead rose immense mountains, washed in moonlight. To her right, the wood was a velvet patch of dark. And to her left, the land dropped down steeply to what seemed, in the moonlight, a very deep chasm or valley. The space around her seemed greater than she had ever known. She felt exposed, threatened by such space; and felt again a cold twinge of unease because Ram had followed so easily. But she was being foolish; Ram knew Anchorstar. She turned to unsaddling her mount. What else did she think Ram would do but follow whatever way might lead to Telien? She reached out to Ram in her mind, but he was oblivious to her in his sudden hope that this wild ride had set him on a course that would bring him soon to Telien.
“Unsaddle your horse, Ramad,” Anchorstar said. “He cannot graze with the bit in his mouth. He will come to me when I call. They are Carriol-bred horses, bred from your own stock, Ramad, in years past.” He tipped his chin toward the tall dun stallion he had ridden. “Do you not remember him? You tried to buy him once.”