The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

In the early days of Ere wolves came down from the high deserts to raid the Zandourian sheep, slaughtering them or driving the animals up a sheer cliff to climb in terror or fall to their deaths. The Zandourian herders thought the wolves devils from the fires of Urdd itself and, helpless in their fear, turned to the Seers of Zandour. So the Seer NiMarn fashioned a bell of bronze held by a rearing bitch-wolf; with it, a man gifted in Seeing could call the wolves as a mother calls her babe, and they would come grovelling. After that wolves left the herds untouched and became slaves to the Seers of Zandour.

But with the bell and its dark powers, NiMarn ruled more than wolves. He ruled the cities of Zandour as well. The wolf cult held reign for five generations, until the volcanoes spewed fire and devastation across the lands of Ere. In the panic of sweeping rivers of fire, smoke-darkened skies and starvation, the wolf cult could not hold men. The cult crumbled, the wolves returned to the wind, and the bell was lost.

As the last leader of the wolf cult lay dying deep in the cave that would be his grave, he whispered a prediction that lived in that cave long after his bones had crumbled:

“A bastard child will be born, and he will rule the wolves as no Seer before him has done.” His words were rasping and hate-filled, his sunken eyes cold with seeing his own betrayal. “A bastard child fathered by a Pellian bearing the last blood of the wolf cult. My blood! My blood seeping down generations hence from some bastard I sired and do not even know exists!

“A child born of a girl with the blood of Seers in her veins. A child that will go among the great wolves of the high mountains, where the lakes are made of fire. Wolves,” he whispered, shivering, “that are more than wolves. And that boy will seek a power greater even than the wolf bell, a power that even I could not master.” Bile came into the Seer’s mouth. He died with a look of cold fury on his thin face, and his bones rotted there in the cave of the wolf cult and he was forgotten for seven generations.

The volcanoes came once again. The lands were swept by fire. Men died and women became barren, and the few children born, it was said, were touched with evil. As the fires subsided, a girl-child was born in Zandour. She who would be mother to the bastard.

In those days a maid was chattel like the beasts, purchased at puberty for wifely work and breeding. When Tayba was thirteen her father took bids for her. She was tall and dark with teasing eyes and a beauty men watched with fine lust and bid high for. The bidders were wealthy young men whose fathers’ herds blanketed the hills of Zandour and whose mounts and jewels were envied. Seven bidders, then twelve, each going higher until Elgend chose the most generous, chose jewels and gold worth a kingdom. So young Blerdlo was given the promise of Tayba; and if he was gross and fat-gutted and smelled bad, that was not considered, was of no consequence in these dealings. Elgend had done well enough with his other daughters; now Tayba would double his fortunes. And if she bore a healthy child, Blerdlo promised a bonus of such splendor that Elgend found the customary long wait for the wedding celebration nearly as difficult as did Blerdlo.

Tayba allowed her father’s wives to give her the final training for marriage. She was silent and yielding to the prenuptial rituals and the Worshippings. She knelt docilely before the gods—and burned inside at gods who would allow her sale to that pig, Blerdlo, seethed hot with fury at the promising and vowed she would never honor it. Alone in her chambers, standing before her silver mirror, she mourned the betrayal of her own cool beauty, mourned the handsome young men who had wanted, and lost, her. Well she would not be wasted on Blerdlo; she might prepare for her wedding bed, but she would not lie in it with him.

There was a fair young man in Zandour then, an unlanded drifter from Pelli lounging in the ale houses and gaming places. The servants said he was clever at bones and brittles and that he must be wealthy indeed, the way he used silver to satisfy his wants. Tayba managed many a trip to the marketplace, to the herb woman and the prayer fountain in preparation for her marriage. The young man began to watch her. He was sun-browned with pale gold hair, his eyes so compelling she found it hard to look away. When first he spoke to her, she looked down, letting her lashes brush her cheeks. She could feel his interest like a tide. She turned away, smiling a little. Soon they were meeting in the public places, then later in places where prying eyes would not follow. In Tayba’s father’s farthest sheepfold shelter, in the ogre’s wood where few from Zandour ventured. Then at last in the blackened caves of Scar Mountain that rose between Zandour and Aybil.