Dream Finder

by Roger Taylor

  And abruptly, he was free. Free and running through the greyness.

  Yet not free. For somewhere, he knew the blind man was pursuing him.

  Antyr ran and ran. All was greyness, but about him he sensed many different ways.

  And then, though all was still greyness, he knew that the blind man was close upon him. Pursuing. Or just following? He felt his terrible menace reaching out to seize and bind him again.

  He turned suddenly. There, ahead of him, was his escape. Hope swept over him. He dashed forward towards it.

  As he passed through the inner portal, the blind man’s triumphant hand closed about his shoulder.

  * * * *

  Carried on high, distant winds, the dark storm-clouds swept in front of the sun, bringing sudden and premature night to the battleground.

  The battle faltered momentarily.

  Then, as if emulating the clouds themselves, Ivaroth’s hordes pressed forward again. Ibris’s bodyguard fought now over a terrible redoubt of dead and dying men and horses, but still the tribesmen came, an endless black tide beating at this tiny resolute rock.

  Two crawled from the heap and threw themselves towards Antyr’s motionless body. Estaan, bloodied and exhausted, pinned one to the ground with a spear he had wrested from someone. Grayle tore the throat out of the other in a killing frenzy.

  Hackles raised like armoured spikes, teeth bared in all their bone-crushing power, eyes brighter than the noon sun, Tarrian turned to Estaan.

  ‘Take no more of our prey, human, friend though you be.’

  Estaan returned to the fray with his own kind. It was the lesser terror in that circle.

  * * * *

  ‘He is here . . . He is here . . . He is here. The voices echoed through Antyr.

  ‘The Adept . . . The Adept . . .’

  Antyr was whole. He stood beside the blind man on some strange vantage.

  But he looked about him with eyes that were not eyes, and saw with a sight that was not sight. Around him he knew a myriad worlds in their entirety; shifting, changing, merging. All the planes of existence that were, that could be, that would be.

  And the countless worlds of the Threshold, necklaced and joined about the hurt that was his birth world.

  He could reach and touch and know. Know everything. From the least to the most.

  This was the Great Dream.

  Wonder and terror overwhelmed him.

  He felt his mind unhinging.

  ‘Where is the power?’

  The blind man’s words were jagged and querulous, like shattering crystals amid this wonder, but they gave Antyr his centre again in this place of infinities.

  ‘We have the power,’ said the voices. ‘The Adept is our way. You, our instrument, faithful one.’

  Antyr’s soul froze at the touch of the will behind the voices. ‘Through the long ages we have waited since we were chained here. Now we shall be free. Now, in you, we shall return to that desecration you dwell in and right its vile wrongness.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Antyr managed.

  There was dark amusement in the answer.

  ‘We are the spirits of those who occupied the land and were driven from it. Those who learned of the true power and used it against our enemies. Those who lingered in the mountains before our people deserted us and fled to the plains, and before they came to pinion us here, beyond all things.’

  The voices stopped.

  ‘But now we are wiser. For there are others here. Now we see our travail was but part of a greater ill. Now we shall avenge ourselves and be also the vanguard for the remaking of all things.’

  ‘I shall oppose you,’ Antyr said, the words coming unbidden.

  ‘It is not within your power,’ the voices replied, their words full of malevolence.

  A memory rose in Antyr’s mind. ‘Adept you called me, and Adept I am,’ he said. ‘And Adepts of the White Way it was who bound you here, beyond the reach of all save for the gravest mischance.’

  ‘You have not that skill, blunderer. They were great and powerful beyond your imagining. You are scarce an apprentice. You are a thing of clay and dross with the merest mote of past greatness trapped within you.’

  For a timeless, fleeting instant, even as he stood in the Great Dream, Antyr was on the darkened battlefield again. He felt the fearful onslaught of Ivaroth’s horde and the furious courage of his defenders, and, deep inside him, the spirits of Tarrian and Grayle holding him firm, their quiet stillness belying utterly their slavering, wild-eyed stance about his body.

  He spoke. ‘I am indeed a weak vessel, but my making is beyond your knowledge by far, formed as I was in the world whose chance creation gave even MaraVestriss a measure of his wisdom. I am tainted by your works and the works of your kind, as are we all. But I am of the line of the Dream Warriors, and I see the taint, and know it for what it is. And I will not allow it to turn me from the truth and the light.’

  There was a terrible silence. It seemed to Antyr that the worlds hovering about him waited.

  Then, ‘Mynedarion. Let him know our power,’ the voices commanded.

  Antyr turned and faced the blind man.

  ‘You have followed many false paths, old man,’ he said. ‘And wrought great harm. But you are of my world. Know your frailty now, before it is too late.’

  ‘You will obey me, slave,’ the blind man hissed. ‘Or you will know torment such as you could not have thought possible. And though you will cry for death, yet you will live forever. Obey, for this will be your last defiance no matter what your will.’

  His long hands reached out towards Antyr.

  Antyr met his gaze then reached out and took the menacing hands.

  And he was the blind man. Saw through his sightless eyes. Knew his terrible secrets, his foul apprenticeship, the fearful loss that had taken his sight and his mind, the countless desires that held him thrall.

  A great pity filled him.

  But he could do no other than what he had to do.

  For he knew, too, the power. Knew its heart. Knew that its use or misuse was, as ever, in the hands of the user.

  And he was himself again.

  The blind man staggered, bewildered by having found himself in the body of another, and staring at himself through sighted eyes. But unlike Antyr, he had not truly seen for that timeless moment whom he had become: had not learned.

  He tore his hands free and, in his fury, unleashed the power that would bind Antyr forever.

  Antyr opened his arms to receive it.

  Pain and horror beyond description swept through his very soul, but at his centre he held his true self.

  Then, with his new knowledge, he returned the blind man’s power, cleansed of its malice and hatred, and all its other corruptions.

  Darkness, swirling and turbulent, overwhelmed the vantage, and a terrible cry of despair and rage rose from the blind man as he saw and knew his own, dark folly, and felt the impotence of his long garnered skill against this, his own onslaught.

  And, too, a terrible cry rose from the long-bound spirits as their own malevolence returned upon them to re-forge their ancient bonds.

  Antyr reached again for the blind man, swaying frenziedly against the tortured darkness, his arms flailing, his mouth agape and raging. But he touched nothing.

  And he was lying, wide-eyed, at the centre of the bloody circle before the farmhouse, his whole being ringing with the last cry of the Mynedarion as he had been swept into oblivion.

  Then the sounds about him were the sounds of battle. Though now they were different.

  Words more terrible than any Mantynnai’s sword were cutting through the close-packed ranks of the invaders: ‘The Mareth Hai is dead! The Mareth Hai is dead!’

  And soon the defenders were motionless. Watching, through battle-weary eyes, the ebbing of the great tide that had been Ivaroth’s mighty army.

  Chapter 42

  On the other battlefield, the two great hosts were moving apart. The Serens moving from li
ne to column and marching eastward back towards Whendrak, the Bethlarii dispersing and scattering to their various homes. The battle unfought.

  As Menedrion had raised his lance to give the signal to advance, Feranc had laid a hand on his arm, untypically excited.

  ‘No,’ he had said. ‘Not yet. Their line’s going to break. If we attack they’ll unite again, for sure.’

  And even as he spoke, the Bethlarii line began to disintegrate.

  Within the hour, ghalers, under flags of truce, had brought the news to Menedrion.

  ‘There has been growing discontent at the increasing power of the priests,’ was their gist. ‘Few of us wanted this conflict, and fewer still applauded the manner of its making. Now we have received word that Navra, Endir, indeed the whole north-east, have been taken by a horde from across the mountains and that even now they may be moving against your own territories. It seems that the priests meddled in the affairs of the gods, and our whole land is now to pay for their folly.’

  ‘I’d not have you linger further in superstition and ignorance,’ Menedrion told them. ‘No gods brought you that word, only my father’s Dream Finders. It was they who discovered the reality of the deception that had been wrought on you and they visited you last night both to tell you the truth and to undermine your will to fight.’

  It was a crucial admission.

  ‘The dreams were but a test by Ar-Hyrdyn,’ the priests had claimed in both bewilderment and desperation, as years of resentment at their oppression had begun to flicker into life amid the battle-ready Bethlarii following Antyr and Pandra’s strange sending. Then, exhausted stragglers had arrived from Endir to confirm the news in graphic detail, and all further priestly persuasions and threats had been swept aside.

  Now Menedrion’s revelation dispelled the last, lingering doubts in the minds of the Bethlarii that they had been both brought to the field and dismissed from it at the whim of some god.

  The leader of the ghalers stepped forward and took Menedrion’s hand. ‘You and I would have fought a more honourable war than this, Duke to be, had true cause arisen. When all this is concluded, we shall debate an honourable peace.’

  ‘You and I might well, soldier,’ Menedrion replied. ‘But you have your Hanestra and your Council of Five . . .’

  The Bethlarii looked at him resolutely.

  ‘When all this is concluded, we shall debate an honourable peace,’ he said again, slowly and deliberately.

  Ibris, standing to one side, smiled as he felt a will the equal of his own and knew that the words needed no qualification.

  The ghaler spoke again. ‘But now we march for the north-east to relieve our cities and punish these invaders. That done, we shall send proper envoys to both Whendrak and Serenstad to discuss due reparation and the drawing up of a further treaty between us. The rule of the priests is over.’

  ‘May the speed of your march ring down in legend, Bethlarii,’ Menedrion replied. ‘We go, too, though another way. Even now, I fear I may be losing my father’s son and his finest warriors against this foe.’

  * * * *

  When Menedrion and Feranc and the remainder of Ibris’s regiment of bodyguards came to the farmhouse, however, it was to witness the stomach-turning horror of the cleansing of the battlefield.

  The task had fallen to a reserve battalion from Viernce who had come in response to one of the many messengers that Ibris had sent following Antyr’s revelation about Ivaroth.

  The torn and mangled bodies of horses and men were being dragged across the churned earth to be thrown on to great bonfires. Birds and small animals were scurrying about the field and, despite the cold, clouds of flies were appearing. Those injured men abandoned by their fleeing companions and whose injuries could be treated, were duly tended, but many could only be given ease by the physicians’ long knives.

  No count of Ivaroth’s dead was made, though it numbered many hundreds. Of Arwain’s force, some fifteen had died; six of the Mantynnai, nine Serens.

  * * * *

  When the Bethlarii reached Navra and Endir, it was to find the cities abandoned by the tribesmen. They followed the trail of their reckless retreat for some way, but, exhausted from their own prodigious forced march across country, they made no attempt to pursue them into the mountains.

  The tale of the return of the tribes to the plains is for another time.

  * * * *

  Ivaroth’s body was found on top of the hill, but there was no sign of the blind man.

  ‘Where is he?’ Ibris asked Antyr, concerned that this terrible individual might return in avenging fury, but the Dream Finder just shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know, sire. But he’s gone from this world. And he’s twice blinded now.’

  * * * *

  Ciarll Feranc and the Mantynnai talked long to Haster and Jadric as they rode back from the battle, but that, too, is a tale for another time.

  * * * *

  In Ibris’s dominions, much was changed and much remained the same.

  The massacre of Larnss’ reservists invoked shock and dismay throughout the land, while the stand of Arwain’s force at Kirstfeorrd threatened to become legendary.

  Antyr’s role in the darker battle that had been fought that day was known only to a few, and even he laid no claim to understanding what he had truly done.

  The Sened and the Gythrin-Dy talked and debated at endless length. The Guilds and the great trading houses protested at the disruption of the full voluntary mobilization, though none railed too loudly. The realization that their land could be threatened by powerful forces from beyond their borders did more to ease the more excessive internecine political squabbling and feuding than any amount of Ibris’s urgings.

  Even Nefron was strangely subdued, and erstwhile opponents of Ibris found they no longer had her covert support. Indeed, it was whispered that from the cold and bitter ashes of their long-spent passion, green shoots of friendship were appearing . . .

  Arwain returned to his wife, while half-heartedly, Menedrion returned to his various conquests. Soon, however, he married a beautiful, sloe-eyed woman. A childhood companion who had been ever by him, watching, waiting, silently tending to his foolish needs until the time when he would more truly know both himself and her.

  Ibris noted with some irony that it was his peace-loving son who had fought the terrible battles and his warrior son who had sealed the peace. He noted too that they were both the wiser now, and he was well pleased.

  His other son, Goran, returned to his painting and architectural studies, having been placed by his father, for want of anything more suitable, in charge of the building of temporary barracks for the many volunteers and reservists gathered in by the mobilization. ‘You like studying buildings, don’t you?’ Ibris had told him.

  Pandra returned to his retirement, though not for long. Within a month of his return he was proving to be a considerable thorn in the side of the Council of the Guild of Dream Finders. Several members resigned – in protest at his lack of respect, they said – as did their Companions: cats, for the most part.

  Haster and Jadric made to leave the land as quietly as they had arrived, but Ibris, beginning to understand them, intercepted them personally.

  ‘What of your duty to your king?’ he said, appearing in front of them as they prepared to ride from the palace. ‘Aren’t you to take the Mantynnai back for an accounting and judgement?’

  Haster smiled at the ambush. ‘Our duty to our queen, and our people, Lord, is to seek out our erstwhile countrymen and let them know that an accounting is required of them. We know what your Mantynnai have done since they came here and we shall carry their accounting for them.’

  ‘You have that authority, soldier?’ Ibris pressed.

  Haster’s smile widened. ‘I shall account for it,’ he replied.

  Ibris nodded. ‘As you wish,’ he said. ‘But, your intentions notwithstanding, I must tell you that you may not now leave here.’

  Haster’s eyes narrowed slightly, bu
t Ibris cast a glance upwards by way of explanation. Drifting lazily down from the dull grey sky were the black silhouettes of the first winter snowflakes.

  ‘The mountains will be impassable, the seas bad. Stay with us until the spring,’ Ibris said.

  Haster cast a reproachful eye at the snow, now beginning to fall more rapidly. ‘We have some skill in such travelling, Lord,’ he said. ‘And there are far worse who followed as the Mantynnai did. They were weak and foolish, and lured into evil as many of us could have been. They have long atoned. But there are others who did deeds for which they must be found and returned home for accounting and judgement, no matter where they hide, no matter how long it takes.’

  Ibris frowned with concern at the grim resolution in the man’s voice, but he persisted. ‘Nevertheless, stay with us until the spring,’ he said again. ‘Tell us about your people and their ways, and about your own terrible war that’s cast its shadow this far. Bring your light to dispel it.’

  * * * *

  Only Antyr seemed ill at ease. Politely declining the honours that Ibris would have thrust upon him, he returned to his own home and occupied himself with such matters as repairing the gutters and decorating, and oiling the screeching door. At Tarrian’s urging – ‘Don’t be so blistering stupid, man!’ – he did not decline Ibris’s offer of a generous pension for life.

  His new-found friends, however, visited him frequently and gossiped about palace affairs and occasionally tried to urge him to move into the greater comfort of the palace. But always he declined.

  ‘I have to think,’ he said. ‘I have to understand what I saw, what I did. But I’m well,’ he would conclude with a sad smile.

  Then to Haster and Jadric one day, he said, ‘I fear my ignorance. I feel I have a great . . . gift . . . but I’ve no measure of it. And struggle as I may, I become no wiser about it.’ He was silent for some time. His two listeners waited. ‘It burdens me fearfully. They said I was scarce an apprentice,’ he said, eventually. ‘I need to learn, but no one here can help me.’

  Haster and Jadric looked at one another, and spoke briefly in their own language. Then they spoke to Antyr.

  The city was alive with the Winterfest, the celebrations for the winter solstice. Snow covered the rooftops and piled up on sills and walls, and when swept aside by diligent householders left icy strips of treachery for the unwary. At night, the Guild of Torchlighters, chilly-fingered but diligent, ensured that the city glowed with a brilliance and beauty which, in all conscience, belied its true nature. Such is the way with snow.