“It is intended to be a place of safety, yes. The one whose body you have stolen thought it so.”
Aeglyss threw down the hunk of bread angrily. “I stole nothing! Are your ears all blocked up with dust? I told you, he had abandoned this shell. Gone. He was almost gone.”
“And what is he now? Does he still live?”
Aeglyss leered at her. “Do you want him back? Is that what you want?”
Cerys gasped as sudden pressure encircled her head, like bands of steel or hard hands seizing her skull. Diffuse spots of light danced across her vision. Behind her she heard a thump. She looked round to find that Alian had collapsed, and lay unconscious on the floor. She was capable of no more than that quick glance, for the pain redoubled itself. Her knees trembled and she had to lean on the table to prevent herself from falling. Then, just as abruptly, it was gone. Light-headed, she blinked and breathed deeply.
“Yes,” Aeglyss murmured. “It’s what you want. Of course it is. You should be glad for him, to have sloughed off this carcass. But no. You’d have him back here. Very well, Elect. Should I call you Cerys? I have your name, you see. I pluck it out of the air, out of the Shared.”
When she made no reply, he shrugged Tyn’s bony shoulders. He took a step — slightly unsteady, frail — away from the table.
“I did not mean to come here, anyway. I was seeking someone else entirely. She… well, no matter. There’s time. But it wasn’t sanctuary I sought, not here or anywhere. Not any more. There’s to be no sanctuary for me. And I need none. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” She saw no point in trying to conceal the obvious from this creature. His presence filled the kitchen, echoed from the blank stone walls, gazed out from behind her own eyes just as she did herself.
“Yes. I’ll make this bargain with you, Elect. Cerys. You can have this sickly thing back. I’ll take myself away and leave it empty for him to reclaim, if he has the strength or the desire to do so. But first, but first… you’ll show me what you have here behind these famous walls, and you’ll tell me what it is you think I am. You’re supposed to be wise here, the wisest in all the world, when it comes to the Shared. If you can prove that to me, you can have your precious Dreamer back.”
A sudden commotion made them all turn towards the doorway. Bannain rushed in, and behind him came Herraic, the Captain of Highfast, and half a dozen of his warriors. Herraic already looked alarmed. Cerys wondered what Bannain had told him; whatever it was, she feared how the Captain would react. She held up her hands to the warriors as they arrayed themselves on either side of Herraic.
“I think there’s no need for this,” she said.
Every human eye was on Aeglyss. They stared at this ghastly apparition in horrified fascination. None of them would have seen Tyn before. Only na’kyrim ever entered the Dreamer’s chamber. The figure now before them must appear to be a corpse, dead and on the verge of decay yet still, impossibly, moving.
“I am sorry for the disturbance, Captain,” Cerys said, with an apologetic nod of the head. “We need not trouble you or your men, I think. This is a problem we can deal with ourselves.”
Herraic looked both suspicious and relieved. He was as transfixed by the sight of Aeglyss as any of his warriors, but managed to tear his gaze away to concentrate on Cerys for at least a moment or two.
“Bannain said-”
“Yes,” Cerys interrupted him. “We thought we might need your assistance, but it seems… perhaps we were mistaken. It would be best if we took ourselves back to our own chambers. I will speak to you later, if I may.”
Herraic did not seem convinced, but he and his men withdrew.
“Feeble little allies you have here to protect you,” Aeglyss scoffed as the sound of footsteps receded down the corridor. “Should you ever meet them, you’d find mine rather more impressive.”
“No doubt,” Cerys muttered. Alian, still prostrate, was waking. Amonyn crouched over her, hands cradling her head. Faint though it was, Cerys could feel the shifting pattern in the Shared as he wove what comfort he could for Alian out of it. To her consternation, Aeglyss clearly caught the same scent, for he stared at Amonyn.
“I’ll make no bargains with you,” she said hurriedly, eager to distract his attention. “But I’ll speak with you further, if that’s what you wish. Our rooms, our libraries, are not in this part of Highfast. Will you come with us?”
“Very well.”
Bannain and Mon Dyvain escorted him out, keeping him at more than an arm’s length of distance. Cerys followed, but paused to kneel at Amonyn’s side and whisper to him:
“How is Alian?”
“She will recover soon enough. His strength — his weight — took us all by surprise.”
“I will talk to him; do what I can to persuade him to leave.”
“Whatever happens, we cannot offer him any aid,” Amonyn murmured. “His presence is as dark, as deranged, as anything I’ve ever felt.”
“I know. He could… this might end badly. Once Alian is on her feet, go to Herraic. Tell him as much, or as little, as you see fit, but make sure he understands that there is something very dangerous inside Highfast now. And that, despite anything I might have said, we might need his swords.”
Cerys had descended into the rock of Highfast many times, over many years. It was the only place that had ever felt like a home to her, the only place to which she had ever belonged. Its sounds, the cool stability of its stone, the deep, old quality of its air: all these things had, for as long as she could remember, been comforting companions. Now, following Aeglyss and the others down, everything seemed to be imbued with foreboding. The distant hum of the mountain breezes sounded threatening; the air stirred with uneasy eddies. Her home had been rendered inhospitable to her by this uninvited guest.
She felt strangely empty, though. Powerless, as if she was standing in the path of a great rockfall and could do nothing but remain, staring up at the boulders rushing towards her. It seemed very cruel to her, that she should have the misfortune to be the Elect of Highfast in such times.
They put Aeglyss into a small antechamber adjoining one of the disused dormitories. It was dank and cobwebbed, but he did not seem to notice. He sat at the old, split table there and waited. Cerys sent the others away. She was afraid of what might happen, even though she had no clear idea of it.
“Do you know this man whose body you have stolen?” she asked Aeglyss once they were alone. “His name is Tyn. He was born near the Kyresource Lakes. His mother took him to Kilvale when he was only a few weeks old. She protected him for a time, but she died when he was young, and he…”
“Enough!” The anger — and pain, perhaps — in that word shook Cerys.
“Enough,” Aeglyss said again, quietly this time. He rested his elbows on the table, lowered his head to his hands. “Talk, talk. You think you can solve everything, trick anyone, with talk. Is that all you do here? I was told you had books here, and learning; that you were great na’kyrim, with great understanding of the Shared. Inurian came from here, did he not?”
“He did,” breathed Cerys. She felt as if she stood upon fragile ice that cracked under her feet, a torrent roaring beneath it. She wanted to retreat, but did not know which way to turn. Aeglyss lifted his head once more. There was a vicious, contemptuous smirk on his haggard face.
“You want to ask me about Inurian,” he growled.
She shook her head, just once, in denial. She did not trust herself to speak.
“Oh, but you do. I can see it in you. You loved him. Why? What was so deserving about him? He was not remarkable. Just another poor halfbreed like you. Like me. Tell me what he did to earn such affection.”
Again Cerys shook her head and bit her lip. But she could feel his will upon her now, prising open her mouth, breaking down whatever wall she might try to raise in her mind.
“Tell me!” he insisted.
“He had a good heart,” she gasped. “His instinct was always to listen, to understand, to be patient. He
knew more than most of us ever can about other people, and yet still he liked them. Loved them. That is what he did to earn affection.”
Tyn’s face twisted, distorted by whatever powerful emotions tormented Aeglyss. Cerys could hear his confusion, his hurt, ringing in her ears. There’s a child in there somewhere, she thought.
“A good heart,” Aeglyss mimicked her. “A good heart. I didn’t find it so. Not at all. I didn’t find it so. He’d have nothing to do with me, fool that he was. And yes, I killed him. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? I killed him. I put a spear through him.”
To her numb astonishment, Cerys saw that he was weeping. Tiny tears tracked down Tyn’s pale, sunken cheeks. His lips trembled. His hands were clenched into fists.
“I killed him.” His grief was such a potent thing, so limitless and invasive, that Cerys found her own eyes moistening, her own throat tightening. The borders of her sense of self were overrun.
“I still hear his voice, though, sometimes,” Aeglyss groaned. “I feel him, at my shoulder, watching. How can that be? Tell me that.”
“The Shared remembers many things. All things. It is not Inurian you sense, but the memory of him. The memories of him that all those who still live carry with them; the echo of the pattern he himself made in the Shared before he… before you killed him.”
Cerys could not tell how much of what she felt was her own grief, her own anger, and how much belonged to Aeglyss. She — all of them here in Highfast — had concluded some time ago that this man had played a part in Inurian’s death. For that, she despised him. Yet she pitied him too. Or perhaps she was participating in his own corrosive self-pity.
“There’s so much I don’t know,” he said. “He could have helped me, guided me. I think… sometimes I feel like I am losing myself. Do you understand?” He flicked a needful glance at her. “Even now, I am here, in this shell, and I do not fully understand how I came to be here. My body lies somewhere back in Glasbridge, and I can see it, sometimes, through her eyes. Through Wain. I… Oh, I have done a terrible thing to her. Terrible, but beautiful.
“I can’t hold on to myself. It’s all too much. And the Anain. I hear them, feel them, circling about: great beasts in the darkness. I know they’re there, but I can’t see them, can’t drive them off. They tried to kill me, you know. To silence my thoughts, tear me apart. But I turned them back. I am stronger than they knew. But, please… please help me. You must.”
“They tried to kill you?” Cerys murmured. She struggled to focus her thoughts. The effort needed to concentrate was painful, draining. But if the Anain had risen against this man it confirmed many of her worst fears. That they should have done so and failed in their intent
… terrified her. For a single na’kyrim to have such innate, raw strength in the Shared that he could withstand the Anain was, to the best of her knowledge, unprecedented. And if the contest of wills between two such immense forces continued, any and all caught between them or around them faced ruin. Disaster.
Aeglyss laughed again. All his sorrow and fear and regret were snuffed out, like a covered candle flame.
“Now you see a little of what I am. What I am capable of. Don’t you, Elect? You glimpse the faintest outline of what I am becoming. What I have been made. And now you’re afraid of me.”
“What… what happened? Something happened to you, some change was worked upon you.”
His face — Tyn’s face — stilled. He stared at her, and looked in that moment empty of any life or thought or feeling.
“I was beaten, and broken, and left on a stone to die. By my own people. Betrayed. It will not happen again. I shall put my will upon them, upon all of them. I am beset by enemies, Elect. Always. Always. Therefore, I must gather true friends about me, and I will make them fear me and love me and there will be nowhere that closes its doors against me. The world has ever been a cold and heartless place. I will teach it to be more forgiving.”
“You must release Tyn,” Cerys said faintly. She had never felt such despair, and that feeling was, she was certain, entirely her own.
“I will. When you have shown me your libraries, when you have told me all you know of the Anain, and armed me against them. When you have helped me control the fires that burn in me, or convinced me that there is no one here capable of helping me in that. I will release him, and leave this place, when you have proved yourselves my friends, Elect. Only then.”
VI
“If we do not feed her she will die,” Cynyn observed.
The three Heron Kyrinin were crouched atop a steep earth bank, staring down at the na’kyrim who lay on the path below. K’rina was awake, but her eyes had lost their focus and her breathing was shallow, flighty. She lay on her back, her arms spread out. She had not moved, other than to make one failed attempt to rise, since before midday; evening was close now.
“It cannot be just hunger,” said Mar’athoin, not bothering to conceal his puzzlement. “It has only been three days since she ate. Long for a Huanin, perhaps, but one of the na’kyrim should not succumb so quickly.” He glanced at Sithvyr in search of confirmation.
She looked away. She had lost interest in this adventure, and took every opportunity to make clear her desire to turn for home. They had been gone from the secure, familiar marshes of the Heron homelands for fifteen days now, had passed even beyond the borders of Snake lands: enough to fatten their reputation amongst the clan’s warriors a little. Enough, Mar’athoin hoped, to show Sithvyr that he might be worthy of her affections.
“No,” he mused. “Not just hunger. It is her mind, her spirit, that is coming loose.”
The na’kyrim gave out a faint groan. She rattled out a few words in the Heron tongue: “My boy. Beloved boy.” Then more — incomprehensible to Mar’athoin and the others — in the Huanin language that some in Dyrkyrnon spoke.
“She is done,” Sithvyr said.
“No,” said Cynyn in surprise. “See, she rises.”
And rise K’rina did, coming feebly to her feet and staggering onwards.
“I say she is done,” Sithvyr insisted.
Mar’athoin watched as the na’kyrim stumbled off down the path, remorselessly following whatever mad call drew her. There must be a terrible need in her, he thought, to drive her weakened frame on thus.
“She must fail soon,” he said. “It would be fitting that we bear witness to it if she does. Then we can carry word back to Lacklaugh and he will know we did not turn aside at the end. He ran well with my father when they were young. They shed blood together. Let us see in the morning.”
The na’kyrim did not falter all through the night. Against all sense, she struggled on through the darkness. She strayed from the trail she had been following, though it was impossible to say if the straying was by choice or by blindness. She led them across high ground of rough grass and rushes, scattered trees twisted and stunted by the wind. They followed in silence.
And dawn showed them a thing none had ever thought to see in their lifetimes. Spread out below them was a vast bowl of land, two days wide: a sprawling forest cupped in a gigantic hill-circled hollow. Over and amongst its serried ranks of trees hung a tattered shroud of fog. Like clouds strewn over an inverted sky, strands of obscuring mist stretched far and wide across the hidden wilderness.
The three Kyrinin stood atop a crest of high ground, gazing at the immense landscape. Below them, K’rina was toiling down the rough slope, drawing ever nearer to the wisp-thin borders of the mist sea.
“Have we come so far?” Cynyn murmured.
“It seems so,” said Mar’athoin. “I did not know this was where her course would bring us.”
“She means to enter,” Sithvyr observed, staring at the fading back of the na’kyrim. “There is a decision we must make.”
Mar’athoin nodded. “I did not know…” he murmured.
“But we cannot turn away now,” said Cynyn. His excitement was close to the surface. “No matter what becomes of the madwoman, she has broug
ht us to a place of wonders. We must walk a little way at least beneath the mists. We must.”
“It is not only wonders that the tales of this place recount,” Sithvyr said.
“I know, I know. But to say we have breathed those airs… who else of our clan could claim that?” The youngest of them was smiling as he let his gaze roam across the half-obscured forest.
“I think Emmyr came here once,” Mar’athoin said. “He does not speak of what he saw.”
“And we need not. But I do not wish to say that I stood upon its very threshold and turned aside,” Cynyn insisted.
Mar’athoin glanced at Sithvyr. She answered his questioning look with a tiny shrug.
“I am curious,” she conceded.
“Very well,” said Mar’athoin. “We follow. But only a short distance. I will not let this woman draw us deep. Our promise to Lacklaugh is fulfilled; he could ask no more of us than this.”
They entered the Hymyr Ot’tryn. The mists that dwelled there, the lingering exhalation of The Goddess, closed about them. This had been her land since the beginning of the world. The Wildling never hunted here, the Walking God never trod its paths; but The Goddess had come here often and, though she was gone with all the others, her breath remained on the still air.
The three Kyrinin went with light feet and heavy hearts. Every mist-muffled sound gave them pause, every flitting shadow drew their eye. They did not speak, but flashed curt messages to one another with the hunting language of fingers. This was a place thick with otherness, wrapped not only in fogs but in ancient tales. It was known that in the Hymyr Ot’tryn the forest slept lightly. The smallest disturbance might rouse it.
They passed in and out of bands of mist, feeling its damp fingertips on their faces. Nothing was dry here. The ancient, wrinkled trees were dark with dew, the ground fat with moss and mud and grassy hummocks. Streams ran between weed-clothed boulders. Little ponds and marshes would appear out of the vapours and then disappear once more as they skirted round them. Autumn lingered here, long after the new winter had banished it elsewhere. The grass was still bright, the willows and alders and ash trees still held many leaves that were only now browning and curling. The soil was soft. The na’kyrim left a clumsy trail of deep footprints sunk down into the yielding ground.
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