by Roger Taylor
Iscar glanced quickly at the Traveller and then at Marris, but the Traveller was gazing idly around the Hall, apparently indifferent to the conversation, and Marris’s face was unreadable.
‘You must rest now,’ Ibryen said, ignoring the mute appeal. ‘Leave me your messages to study and I’ll reply to them before you go.’
It was an end to the brief conference. Iscar struggled for a moment with the questions that Ibryen’s announcement had loosed in him, but left them unasked.
A little later, Iscar was resting in one of the rooms off the Hall, while Marris and the Traveller were sitting with nothing to do other than watch Ibryen as he read through the papers that Iscar had brought. Marris was restless, several times catching his muscular fingers on the verge of beating out a devil’s tattoo on the table. As Ibryen turned over yet another page, Marris’s patience ended abruptly.
‘What did you tell him that for?’ he hissed.
Only Ibryen’s eyes moved as he looked over the page at his questioner. ‘I’m reading,’ he said.
‘What did you tell him that for?’ Marris repeated.
‘Let me finish,’ Ibryen replied, with an edge to his voice which stopped Marris pressing his question further, but made him even more restless than before. Finally Ibryen laid down the papers and pushed them across to Marris, his face grim. ‘Morale’s better than we deserve,’ he said before Marris could speak. ‘It’s not easy living here, but it doesn’t compare with what our people in Dirynhald are having to tolerate. Living in squalid daily hardship and helpless in the face of a terror that can arbitrarily snatch them from their firesides at any time without even the vaguest pretence of lawful authority. We forget too easily that for some of them each passing moment is a nightmare, each passing footstep, each knock on the door the possible harbinger of untold horror.’
‘But why did you tell Iscar we had some great plan in hand?’ Marris blurted out, though less forcefully than before.
‘Because we have,’ Ibryen replied.
‘What!’ Marris exclaimed.
‘Because we have,’ Ibryen confirmed. Marris’s face showed surprise and alarm in equal proportions. ‘It’s all right,’ Ibryen said. ‘I’ve not taken leave of my senses.’ He cast an uncertain glance at the Traveller. ‘In fact, it may be that I’ve just come to them. Hear me out, then you can say whatever you want.’
He became both urgent and purposeful. ‘There’s nothing in what I’m going to say that you haven’t foreshadowed countless times yourself, Corel. Whenever I’ve said “if”, you’ve always replaced it with “when”, haven’t you? A dark joke between us – mentor and pupil. Now, after what’s happened over the last few hours, I think – no – Iknow, we must accept that you were right.’ Without turning from Marris, he indicated the Traveller. ‘Whoever this man is, from wherever he’s come, his assessment of our position is beyond reproach. I suspect we’ve accepted that already, at heart. Accepted that we’re doomed here unless we do something radically different from what’s been our strategy since we escaped the city.’
‘A successful strategy,’ Marris interposed dutifully.
‘Yes, I know, I know,’ Ibryen hurried on. ‘But doomed for all that. Attrition will finish us, even if luck stays with us. There’s no other outcome possible. We must grasp that at any cost. Our strategy’s served its time. Now we must change it.’
Marris managed not to demand, ‘To what?’ though it lit his face.
Ibryen turned to the Traveller. ‘I’m far from clear in my mind why I’ve allowed you to be privy to all this but that’s by the by, now. Today should have been as any other day when winter’s almost gone and spring’s almost here. Everyone in this valley knew what was expected of them, and why. Nothing was purposeless. And tomorrow would have been much the same. And the day after. Only a gentle and steady change like the season itself with occasional storms and showers as we laid plans to draw our enemy’s forces out and harry them or returned to some victory celebration. On and on. But instead, the cycle’s been broken. Where there should have been silence has come the din of two messages. One from you, strange and enigmatic, from a direction unknown to us, and one from our own kind, blunt and stark, telling us of the greatest blow against our enemy that we could ever have expected short of their actual death.’ He paused for a moment, staring fixedly ahead. ‘Whatever else these messages have told us, they’ve blown the mist from our eyes and left us gazing unblinking at the truth.’
Unexpectedly, he smiled. The smile was strained, however. ‘But where’s it left us, apart from dazzled? We can do nothing about Iscar’s message other than at once celebrate and grieve, though I can try to encourage and hearten my people with a few words.’ He tapped the papers that lay spread on the table in front of Marris, untouched. ‘But while we must conduct ourselves as before, for our safety’s sake, wedo need a completely new strategy… one which cannot be attained by continuing as before. A paradox. So we must look for the way that can’t exist, mustn’t we?’ The Traveller looked uneasy. Ibryen did not release him. ‘How should I attend to the message thatyou’ve brought, Traveller?’
The little man hesitated. ‘I doubt I’m the one to advise you in such matters, Count,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m not…’
‘… used to people.’ Ibryen finished his plea for him. ‘Yes, I know. You’ve mentioned that once or twice already. Nor are you a soldier. But most of the people in these mountains who are fighting for me weren’t soldiers when they arrived, so that’s of little consequence. The fact is, the wind that brought you here, left you. Tell me again the message you heard, and tell me what I must do.’
Marris looked at him anxiously, increasingly concerned about the direction of the conversation. For a moment, the Traveller looked as if he was considering fleeing the Hall, but it passed. ‘I don’t know what you must do, Count, but the message, more and more clear to me now as I look back, was, “Help me. I am nearly spent.”’
Ibryen leaned forward intently. ‘You said that what you heard was hung about with the aura of the Culmadryen.’ He laid a hand on the papers. ‘I have to read between the lines of these letters to see into the hearts of my people and discover the truth. Now, tell me everything about what you heard so that out of the plethora of change that’s swept over us today I can perhaps find one small thing that will point me towards a right action.’
Marris’s gaze flickered between the two men.
The Traveller sniffed and shook his head. ‘I don’t think I can,’ he said weakly.
Ibryen was unyielding. ‘You’ve no choice. You must tell me what you know for sure, and what you think, however unsure, and any speculation that comes to mind. You must tell me everything whether you think I’ll understand or not.’
The Traveller did what Marris had assiduously been avoiding doing, he drummed a flurrying tattoo on the table with his fingers. It ended with a resounding slap. Ibryen waited, his gaze allowing the Traveller no escape.
‘What I know for sure I’ve told you,’ he said eventually. ‘The call was faint and distant, rising and falling on the wind and echoing and re-echoing off the crags and pinnacles, but it was plain and simple, and it was crying for help.’
‘A sound?’ Ibryen asked.
The Traveller frowned. ‘Of course it was a sound, what else could I hear?’ He relented abruptly with a moue of self-reproach. ‘But not such as you could hear, I think, nor in a language that you could understand.’
‘What language was it in?’
The Traveller gave a chuckle like a parent being asked an honest but impossibly taxing question by a child. ‘I’m not as my forebears were, Count, but like them, and unlike you, I’m not separated from my own, or, for that matter, from many other things, by the limitations of language as you know it. What I heard was spoken in what you would call the language of the Culmaren.’ Strange resonances filled the word ‘spoken’, bringing together song and rhythm and dance and joining and many other images into a totality of meanings which made both Ib
ryen and Marris catch their breaths.
Ibryen closed his eyes and lowered his head, moved by what he had just felt and floundering for words that would carry him forward. When he looked up he spoke slowly, carefully, for fear that such clarity as he had would stumble over some facile phrase and slip away from him.
‘The Culmaren are the… clouds… on which the Dryenvolk build their cities?’ he laboured.
The Traveller nodded. He too was listening intently, partner in Ibryen’s caution. ‘They look like clouds, but…’ He abandoned the explanation. ‘The Dryenvolk don’t build,’ he said. ‘They shape, they form, they tend and – you would perhaps use the word, grow – their cities – their lands – from the Culmaren.’
Ibryen frowned and struggled on. ‘Why would such… a thing… such a huge thing… be crying out in distress in our mountains?’ He gestured towards Marris though he kept his gaze on the Traveller. ‘Marris has seen one of these cloud lands, but only once, and I’ve never even heard of one passing over Nesdiryn, or over any of our neighbours for that matter. How can it be that one of them is now so near to us and apparently suffering in some way, with none of us having seen any sign of it?’
Now it was the Traveller who was struggling. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve met and spoken with Dryenvolk on occasions, but I know very little about them. As to the Culmaren, they themselves admit that their own understanding is marked more by ignorance than knowledge, and I’ve only the merest fraction of the knowledge thatthey have. However, such as it is, I’ll tell you, but expect no great revelation.’ He gave Ibryen a schoolmasterly look. ‘The Culmaren is both a whole and many parts just like… a tree… or a person. But unlike a tree… or us… each part is also a whole in itself, sentient after its way, and quite entire. It can take many forms seemingly at its own will, and in the hands of those who know how to use it. Many forms. But it’s deeply mysterious and, I suspect, its true nature’s far beyond the understanding of anyone of this world. And the bond, the affinity, between the Culmaren and the Dryenvolk is scarcely less strange. I’d call it a caring, but the word is inadequate. And perhaps it’s more a need, a mutual need.’ He gave a shrug and waved his hands dismissively. ‘I don’t know. I’m weaving a tale now, speculating not instructing. I’m sorry.’
He was abruptly silent, but as Ibryen made to speak, he began again. ‘Now, you tell me what it was that you heard – that took you up on to the ridge to the alarm of your adviser here?’
Ibryen started a little at this sudden counter-thrust. ‘I…’ he began, with a stammer. ‘I don’t think I can.’
‘No,’ the Traveller declared, schoolmasterly again and refusing the answer. ‘You must. You must.’
Marris, still watching in silent concern and forcing himself to listen with as open a mind as he could, felt himself torn between indignation and amusement at this insistent harrying of his Lord.
The Traveller’s words pinioned Ibryen, wilfully burdening him with a duty to explain as the Traveller had explained. ‘But I heard nothing… plain and simple,’ he said, pleading mitigation in advance and using the Traveller’s own words. A flick of the Traveller’s hands hurried him on relentlessly. ‘Indeed, I heard nothing. I was just disturbed – made uneasy.’ He was almost spluttering. ‘It was as though something inside of me was demanding attention. Sometimes it was clear and sharp, at others, vague and elusive.’ He threw up his hands. ‘This is impossible!’ he exclaimed.
‘I’ll decide what’s impossible,’ the Traveller said powerfully, almost menacing now. ‘There’s more in your words than you know. Finish them.’
The two men stared at one another.
‘Finish!’ the Traveller snapped, ending and winning the duel.
Ibryen turned his head away for a moment, then went on as if he had never stopped. ‘When it was clear, there seemed to be a need in it – an urgency. It wanted something. When it was vague, it was as though I could… sense… without hearing, many voices crying out.’ He fell silent.
The Traveller hummed to himself, his brow furrowed. ‘Is it with you now?’ he asked eventually.
Ibryen gave a rueful grunt. ‘It was at the limit of my perception when I lay alone in the darkest part of the night, and when I was surrounded by the stillness of the mountains. Now, there’s too much turmoil, too much upheaval.’
‘I could still it for you,’ the Traveller said. ‘Quieten the turmoil. Let you listen in peace.’
‘No!’
It was Marris. His elbow resting on the table, he levelled a finger at the little man, though his words were for the benefit of Ibryen. ‘You’ll get courtesy and honourable treatment from me until the Count says otherwise, but you’ll get no trust – few do. You’re getting further and further into our ways, but we’ve still got to find out whether you’re who you say you are, or at least, whether you’ve come here from the south as you claim. And as for this… gift… of yours, that’s beyond me utterly and you’ll do nothing until I’ve got the measure of what deceits you can practise with it.’
Ibryen’s face was impassive. Marris’s warning was timely.
‘It was only a suggestion,’ the Traveller protested in an injured tone. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s going on?’
‘Yes I do, very much,’ Marris retorted. ‘And I want to hear someone telling me about it, as you said, plain and simple, without any descant from you.’
‘It’s not going to be that simple.’
‘Make it so.’ Marris’s conclusion was of parade ground finality.
The Traveller conspicuously refrained from replying, but turned his attention again to Ibryen. ‘Is there anything else that comes to you when you think about the call you heard?’
Ibryen shook his head. ‘No.’ The Traveller’s head tilted at the equivocation in his voice, but he made no prompt. ‘Though there was a quality about it that was oddly beautiful at times.’ He frowned, patently reluctant to say what came next. ‘But it came and went so independently. It was so indisputably at once inside and beyond me, that more than once I had doubts about my sanity.’
Marris half reached out to lay a reassuring hand on his arm, but left the movement unfinished.
‘It’s odd,’ Ibryen went on. ‘What’s happened over the last few hours would give anyone cause to doubt their sanity, but I’m easier in my mind than I’ve been for days. More confused and bewildered and even alarmed, I’ll grant, but still easier. Rachyl, Hynard, you…’ He motioned to Marris, then extended his hand casually to embrace the whole Hall. ‘Everything about us and everything that’s brought us to this time, is so solid and sustaining. A single burrowing doubt nurtured in my own darkness might have broughtme low, but all this isn’t so easily destroyed.’ He ended his declamation with an airy wave.
‘Anyway, I’ve done as you asked,’ he said to the Traveller. ‘Told you what I can, as best I can. Now…’ He leaned forward and his eyes were piercing. ‘… Whoever you are, you’ve clattered through my thoughts like a mad horse in a market place, and they’re far from recovered yet, though you’ve done me no harm that I can see, other than wind me. Now I’ve deliberately set words in stone by telling Iscar what I did. Done it in complete ignorance of what I was going to do, but in complete faith that something was imminent. My judgement, not yours. But now I have to find that something. Turn conjecture and speculation and airy phrases into hard-edged practical details that can be measured in fighters, resources, plans and counter-plans. Details which my people can see leading us to the Gevethen’s heart. You must help me in this.’
The Traveller had held his gaze throughout, although his eyes were unfocused, as though his entire concentration was elsewhere. As Ibryen finished, life returned to them. He shook his head unhappily. ‘I can’t help you further,’ he said. ‘I…’
Anger broke through on to Ibryen’s face and his fist thumped the table. ‘You can! You must! Despite all that’s happened since I met you, all I really have now that I didn’t have before is the soft silver thread of t
he call that reached into my sleeping hours and drew me up on to the ridge. And you’re the only…’
The Traveller stopped him with a sharp gesture, his face lighting with realization. ‘Silver thread,’ he echoed. The words flew up into the arched silence and shimmered around the Hall like tiny excited birds. They returned and hovered about him, waiting, breathless. ‘Soft silver thread,’ he repeated, looking at Ibryen as though he had never seen him before. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A way is there. Perhaps. I’ll help you find it.’ He glanced at Marris. ‘But I doubt you’ll like what I have to say. And as to where it will lead…’
He shrugged.
Chapter 13
Everything was pain.
Jeyan stumbled and fell as the rope about her ankle suddenly tautened again. Harsh cords biting into her wrists prevented her from breaking her fall and only at the last moment did she manage to twist round and take the impact on her arm and side instead of her face. Exhausted from the chase, howling inside at the death of her companions, and throbbing from the blows she had received, the fall winded her and she made no effort to rise. Instead, she closed her eyes in the hope that she would never have to open them again.
The mood, however, was transitory and, as a tugging at her ankle brought her back to the bright day and the silent Ennerhald, it was replaced by a black and vengeful hate. She rolled over to face her tormentor. As previously, she had been brought down because he too, had stumbled. She tried to kick him as he struggled to rise, but her legs were leaden and would not respond.
Had she been able to deliver a blow of any power, the soldier could not have stopped her, for the gash that she had slashed in his arm was long and deep and was bleeding profusely despite his attempts to bind it. His strength was failing almost as fast as hers.