by Roger Taylor
Antyr cast a brief, irritated, glance at the well-scratched door, then, wincing at its screech, slowly closed it and walked down the passageway after the wolf. He felt much easier now that Tarrian was back; there was always the risk of his being killed by hunters or farmers outside the city.
The thought was pushed aside by a spasm of disgust from his Companion. ‘I’d rather take my chance with the farmers and hunters,’ Tarrian declaimed. ‘At least they wouldn’t either try to starve or poison me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Antyr said in some indignation, recognizing the complaint.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ Tarrian replied. ‘When was the last time you ate dried-up, two-day-old food?’
‘You ate well enough last night,’ Antyr replied unsympathetically. ‘And I’ve no doubt you found something fresher outside.’ The image of a desperately fleeing rabbit flashed suddenly through Antyr’s mind but was cut off sharply.
‘Ah-hah,’ he said significantly.
‘Shut up,’ came the swift reply. ‘You can get me some fresh water at least. And give me a brush, I’m a mess. And do something about the stink in here, it’s appalling.’
On that point, Antyr had to agree. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, picking up the bucket he had vomited into the previous night and carrying it to the door.
‘It seems a long time ago,’ he said, wrinkling his nose as he threw the evil-smelling contents down the drain and vigorously worked the pump handle to send a cold, glittering spray of water after them.
There was a short silence, then Tarrian spoke again, ‘Come back in and brush me, Antyr.’ His voice was unexpectedly gentle. Antyr looked up in surprise. Tarrian was standing at the open door, gazing at him earnestly. Antyr stroked his damp head as he stepped inside and Tarrian leaned against him briefly.
They did not speak for some time after that. Antyr found a dry cloth and wiped Tarrian down before rekindling the fire. Then he dried and changed himself and set about brushing his Companion.
Grooming the wolf was a strange, satisfying experience. Antyr knew he was touching on some quality that came from deep within the wolf’s being, somewhere far below where Tarrian could take him, or indeed where he would wish to go.
‘A pack thing,’ Tarrian would say when he chose to speak of such matters at all. It was sufficient and they both understood. Tarrian knew himself for a wolf, just as Antyr knew himself for a man, and though they also knew themselves to be strange amongst their kind, they were still just that, wolf and man. Where they touched and talked to one another more or less as equals was little more than an uncertain tide-swept causeway that joined two great and alien lands.
After a while, Antyr felt Tarrian’s mind rising to the surface again, relaxed and quiet.
‘I told them at the Norstseren Gate that you’d be back on your own,’ Antyr said casually as the spell dispersed.
‘Yes. Thank you,’ Tarrian replied lazily. ‘I caught the thought as I came in, but I sneaked through out of habit.’
There was an element of amusement in the answer, but Antyr did not ask.
‘I came in with a flock of sheep,’ Tarrian volunteered, chuckling and rolling over to have his stomach brushed. ‘What a dozy shepherd. And as for those dogs. They’ve no idea. I’m surprised you’re not up to your ears in my kin, the living must be so easy out there.’
‘Dozy or not, the poor beggar’s probably had to pay Gate Tax on you, you know,’ Antyr said, trying to sound reproachful, but laughing in spite of himself.
Tarrian pondered. ‘Yes,’ he concluded. ‘Now I think about it, the shepherd was arguing quite heatedly with the Exactor when I left.’
He rolled over again and, clambering to his feet, shook himself massively. ‘Very pleasant,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed that.’
‘But . . .?’ Antyr said, catching the doubt in the thought as he hoisted himself on to his chair.
‘But we must talk,’ Tarrian said soberly.
Antyr found himself looking into the wolf’s grey eyes. ‘Do you want to go out for a drink?’ Tarrian asked.
The question was unexpected, indeed unique in their relationship.
‘I don’t know,’ Antyr said after a long hesitation. ‘The day’s been . . . so long . . . so full of change. Being marched through the fog by the Duke’s guards, Ciarll Feranc, Aaken Uhr Candessa, searching the Duke’s dreams . . .’ He paused as the unease about the Duke’s dream returned to him, followed on the instant by the memory of the sinister dark figure that he had woken to find examining him, and, worst of all, the terrifying absence of his Companion, his Earth Holder. Tarrian let out a slight whine.
‘Then walking mile after weary mile through the rain and the cold greyness, something changed,’ Antyr went on. ‘Something in me is different. A part of me is crying out to run away, to run while I can. Run anywhere, into a bottle, down to Farlan and on to some foreign boat, anywhere, just get away. But it’s a distant wailing infant. I can’t pay it any real heed. The rest of me is saying, remember your drills, keep your pike held firm, hold your ground for everyone’s sake. Ever seen a horse run on to a pike? Ever seen what cavalry does to fleeing infantry?’ He fell silent.
‘Fleeing infantry,’ he muttered softly after a long silence. ‘Easier than a rabbit to a wolf. And they keep on coming . . . no matter how fast you run . . . hacking people down . . . spear and sword. Don’t break whatever you do.’
‘Do you want to go out for a drink?’ Tarrian repeated his question softly, penetratingly, as a lull came into this almost whispered catalogue of memories.
Antyr’s eyes widened and he shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m frightened. I don’t know what I want. Except for the fear to go away.’
He looked at Tarrian. The wolf was lying very low on the floor, his ears flattened back along his head. ‘You too?’ he asked.
‘Me too,’ Tarrian admitted. ‘But by your battle memories not by what’s happened today. At least that might be understandable if we think about it. Humans never will be.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Antyr said.
‘Don’t be, it’s my fault,’ Tarrian replied, his manner easing. ‘I should be used to people by now.’
There was a brief silence and Antyr felt Tarrian trying to clear his mind of the alien horror of the battlefield in order to return to the fears of the moment.
‘Come away, Tarrian,’ Antyr said, offering his Companion the words like a small signpost to a sanity. ‘It’s not your world. And in answer to your question, no, I don’t want a drink, I think. And anyway I’m too weary to go to the inn.’
Antyr made the remark as if it were an intellectual decision, but to his surprise, he felt a wave of disgust pass through him as the memory of the sounds and smells of the inn came to him. Yet even as he noted this unexpected response, the urge to be away . . . anywhere . . . returned to him. He frowned uneasily, then somehow turned and faced the darkness.
‘What’s happening, Tarrian?’ he said. ‘Is it me? Has my neglect of my craft, myself, unleashed something?’
‘No,’ Tarrian replied simply. ‘That I’m sure of now. Neglect makes it harder to reach the nexus and dims the perception of the dream being searched. It just makes you less of a Dream Finder. You certainly deserve to be totally incompetent by now, but your natural ability has protected you from your best efforts.’
There was a familiar element of reproach in Tarrian’s voice, but he himself set it aside quickly and apologetically before the two of them locked into the futility of one of their old quarrels.
Antyr noted the gesture with thanks, but he frowned. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What’s all this about my natural ability you’re suddenly talking about. My father used to say I’d be far better than he was if I worked, but . . . I thought that was just father’s talk . . . something to encourage me. Then he died . . . and my training ended . . .’
His voice tailed off as the emptiness that his father’s death had left came back to him.
Antyr looked at him, his frown becoming pained.
‘You had skills from the outset that your father didn’t understand,’ Tarrian went on. ‘That I didn’t understand – still don’t. He couldn’t teach you, Antyr. He could only learn from you. And his pain, like mine for a long time, was that he didn’t truly see that. He felt constantly that he was failing you.’ The eerie certainty that Tarrian had shown as they stood at the edge of the Aphron Dennai returned. ‘You’re no ordinary Dream Finder, Antyr. You move to the nexus as if you were walking from one room to another and you release me utterly. I’ve known none who moved with such ease, nor gave me such freedom. You let me soar through all places as though I were some great bird. And yet you’re flawed.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know what you are, Antyr, but you’re different. And whatever, whoever, we felt in the Duke’s dream, knew . . . or sensed . . . it too. That’s why it came looking for you afterwards.’
Antyr’s eyes widened in horror at the implications that reverberated in Tarrian’s word. He glimpsed again the image of the hapless, fleeing rabbit.
‘This is nonsense,’ he protested, but hearing the futility in his own voice. ‘How can anyone from the outside enter a dream?’
‘We do.’
Tarrian’s simple statement of the obvious struck Antyr like a hammer blow and he fell silent. The reply formed in his mind, ‘That’s different, we’re there with the dreamer, we have the contact, we have the consent, the trust.’ But it had a hollow ring and he could not speak it.
‘Even the Duke sensed the presence of another will in his dream, that’s why he opposed it,’ Tarrian said. ‘Then we felt it with him. And it felt us.’
Antyr sought solace in an irrelevance. ‘He must be a sensitive, then,’ he said.
‘Dream Finding’s an ancient skill,’ Tarrian said brusquely. ‘And its practitioners hardly constitute a celibate order, do they? He’s probably got a damn sight more than one Dream Finder back in his ancestry somewhere.’
Tarrian’s curt dismissal of this diversion left Antyr nowhere to go but forward again.
‘What shall we do then?’ he said reluctantly and with a feeling of unreality. ‘If someone can invade the Duke’s dream, then find me when I’m asleep, for whatever purpose . . .’ The memory of the shadow’s parting hiss of hatred passed over him and he shivered. ‘What can I do? Am I to stay awake forever? And if they can reach out and snatch me from your protection in some way, what can you do?’
Tarrian was silent. Both stared into the black pit of ignorance, helpless.
‘What about the Guild?’ Antyr offered, after a moment. ‘There must be someone there who can help us.’
‘Name one,’ Tarrian said tersely.
Antyr looked at him pleadingly. ‘Come on, think, Tarrian. You pay more heed to Guild affairs than I do. They’re not all concerned with wringing tax concessions from the Exactors and arguing about fees, surely. There’s got to be someone left who’s still interested in the craft.’
Antyr sensed Tarrian about to make the same reply and he held up a warning finger. Even when Petran had been alive, Tarrian had been ill-disposed towards what he called the futility of this particular manifestation of the human pack instinct. Since his death, however, the wolf’s feelings had grown to cynical and growling disdain.
Tarrian made the effort. ‘I can’t think of anyone at the moment,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’m out of touch myself.’
Antyr put his head in his hands. ‘We should go to the Guild House, all the same,’ he said. ‘We could inquire. Someone else might have run into this problem. We might be fretting about something that’s already well known.’
Tarrian stood up. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘You’re right. I’d forgotten about that.’
‘Forgotten about what?’ Antyr asked
‘The Guild House,’ Tarrian replied. ‘The library. There could well be something there. Come on, stir yourself.’
* * * *
Like some predatory but short-sighted bird, the old porter looked narrowly over his eye glasses as Antyr pushed open the stately door of the Guild House. It was covered with elaborate carvings and richly tinted glass panels showing past dignitaries posing solemnly in their formal robes of office.
Tarrian padded in behind him and, as Antyr closed the door, the grey winter light passed through the glass panels to throw a brief kingfisher flash of summer colour across the patterned floor.
The porter adjusted his tunic with a hint of annoyance at this interruption to his meditations. ‘Yes, sir?’ he inquired authoritatively of this potential trespasser. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Nothing, thank you,’ Antyr replied. ‘We’ve just come to use the library.’
‘I’m sorry. The library’s for Guild members only,’ the porter said in an injured tone, hobbling out from behind his counter and placing his ancient frame unflinchingly between Antyr and further intrusion into the building. ‘And we don’t allow dogs, sir,’ he added, eyeing Tarrian.
‘Tell him,’ Tarrian said menacingly. ‘Quickly.’
‘I am a member,’ Antyr replied politely, pointing to his black-irised eyes and producing a battered card after a brief struggle with his cloak. ‘I don’t come here very often.’
The porter scrutinized the soiled card with some distaste, and then hobbled back behind his counter with a, ‘Just a moment, sir,’ which obviously meant, ‘We’ll seeabout that, sir.’
With an audible effort he unearthed a large book from a shelf somewhere underneath the counter. ‘Now sir,’ he said, opening the book with great dignity, but quite at random.
‘Brilliant,’ Tarrian said acidly. ‘Opened it right at M for Antyr.’
Antyr shushed him discreetly. ‘He might be able to hear you,’ he said.
Tarrian snorted. ‘So might that door,’ he said. Then, in a thunderous bellow, ‘Hurry up, you dozy old sod!’
Antyr cringed as the shout echoed around his head, but, gritting his teeth, he managed to maintain an uneasy smile.
The porter, however, showed no sign of responding as he continued painstakingly turning the pages of the book.
Eventually he reached a page where, after much glancing from margin to margin, he decided that his search could be continued by means of a solitary forefinger.
‘Ah,’ he said finally after a further long study of Antyr’s card. ‘Here we are, sir. Antyr, Andor Endryth.’ His tone reluctantly mellowed. ‘And this will be your Companion, I presume. Tarrian, is it?’ He closed the book and peered beadily down at Tarrian. ‘Not common, wolves, not common it all,’ he said absently, then turning back to Antyr, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, sir, but one has to be so careful these days, there are so many ruffians about and your robe . . .’ He cleared his throat and changed direction quickly. ‘I presume you don’t come to many of the meetings, sir. Otherwise I’m sure I’d have known you straight away. I know most of the regulars and . . .’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Antyr interrupted the lecture and, taking his card back, set off after Tarrian who was already walking across the wide, circular entrance hall towards the staircase that led down to the library.
It occurred to Antyr as he strode after him that he had not been in the Guild House almost since his father died, and, despite the contempt which he shared with Tarrian for much of the Guild’s work these days, he felt an unexpected twinge of nostalgia as he looked up at the splendidly decorated entrance hall with its high-domed ceiling and stone-balustraded balconies.
The place, indeed the Guild, had meant a great deal to his father and he had always played an active part in its affairs, fighting diligently to maintain the integrity of the craft against an increasing tide of commercialism and downright quackery that was even then beginning to overwhelm it.
A pack thing, I suppose, he thought ironically as the memorie
s fluttered in the pit of his stomach.
‘Come on.’ Tarrian’s voice interrupted his reverie. The wolf had reached the central well and was clattering busily down the wide stairway somewhat to the consternation of two dignified souls in formal regalia who were coming up it. Both were carrying large cats which they embraced protectively as Tarrian passed.
Antyr uttered a brief prayer of thanks that Tarrian had not given the two men the benefit of his normal opinion of such ‘flatulent peacocks’ as he passed by them, and a much longer prayer that he had not started on their Companions. It was merely a postponement however.
‘Those two must have been lost,’ Tarrian said sarcastically as he reached the library door and stood waiting for Antyr to open it. ‘I doubt either of them could read anything except their fee notes. And did you see those disgusting moggies? Imagine having one of those crawling about your dreams. Peeing everywhere and coughing up fur balls.’ He concluded with a retching sound.
Antyr glanced round quickly, mortified by this unwarranted onslaught yet trying not to laugh. ‘Just remember where you are and keep your thoughts to yourself, dog, or one of the . . . moggies . . . will be calling you before the Council for unbecoming conduct.’ He managed some sternness, with an effort, but Tarrian just chuckled malevolently to himself.
‘Get in,’ Antyr said fiercely, pushing open the door to the library.
As if in confirmation of Tarrian’s brutal comments, however, the library was silent and deserted and it had a stale, neglected air about it. Faint haloes wavered about the few lamps that were lit as if the previous night’s fog had returned here to recover itself.
Both Antyr and Tarrian wrinkled their noses in dismay. ‘Your father used to spend hours here,’ Tarrian said, sober now. ‘Looking for things that might help his clients. Looking for things that might help him understand you. Looking for anything that would make him a better Dream Finder. And there was always someone else here as well. And it was bright. Not like this. It’s . . .’
‘Like a catacomb.’ Antyr finished Tarrian’s eulogy.
They stared round in silence.