by Roger Taylor
A violent gust of wind swept out of the night and buffeted the tiny group. At its height, Ibryen gave a slight cry. His hands jerked up to touch his face, shaking off the Traveller, who stepped back a few paces.
‘It’s gone,’ he said, his face clearing. Then, ‘Most of it, anyway.’ He looked at the Traveller. ‘A small part is still there, lingering. What the devil’s happening, Traveller? What was that?’
Untypically, the Traveller looked anxious and lost for an answer. ‘I think it was what I said. A grieving companion.’ He became urgent. ‘No more questions, not now. We must move on, quickly.’
‘Now, wait a minute…’ Rachyl began, seizing his arm.
‘No!’ the Traveller said with a force that made Rachyl start away from him. ‘Come now, or I go alone.’
‘You can’t…’
‘We’ve no choice now. Move.’ The Traveller hesitated. ‘If I go too fast, follow the sound I’ll leave you. Do you understand?’ He was clambering over the rocks before either Rachyl or Ibryen could reply. Rachyl started after him then stopped in angry frustration and turned back to Ibryen. ‘Are you all right?’
Ibryen motioned her forward after the retreating figure. ‘Yes,’ he said, as convincingly as he could manage. ‘It seems to have gone, truly. My head’s clearer than it’s been for days. Come on. Quickly. We mustn’t let him get too far ahead.’
They had gone scarcely twenty paces however before the Traveller had disappeared from view. Rachyl swore and promised him a violent end under her breath.
‘He wouldn’t have left us for any slight reason,’ Ibryen said. ‘Listen.’
From all around them, twisting and echoing in the wind, came more whistling. ‘We’re supposed to follow that?’ Rachyl snarled.
‘No,’ Ibryen replied. ‘I think that’s for whoever’s out there. At least we can follow his footsteps now.’
They pressed on, moving carefully over the snow-covered rocks, following the Traveller’s footprints. ‘Ye gods, he’s running,’ Rachyl said after a little way. ‘This isn’t a walking stride.’
Ibryen could do no other than agree. ‘I’ve not seen him breathless since we left the village and you can see it’s a strain for him to move at our speed. And he came across the Hummock, don’t forget. There’s far more to him than meets the eye.’
‘Oh yes,’ Rachyl replied quietly, in a tone that made Ibryen look at her strangely.
They continued in silence, following the lightly impressed footprints. ‘Well, at least we’ll have no difficulty in following our own footsteps back,’ Ibryen growled angrily as he slithered for the second time down a short rocky slope, throwing up a spray of snow.
Then, the faint bell-like tone that had been hovering about them since they left the camp, changed suddenly, becoming louder and more resolute. And it was ahead of them now, inviting them to follow it. They stopped and looked at one another uncertainly. Rachyl’s response was unexpected. ‘Under other circumstances, I could be very afraid of such a person,’ she said.
‘Under other circumstances, one can fear anything,’ Ibryen said tersely. ‘I think all we have to fear here is our own carelessness.’
They moved on again, heads bowed against the increasing wind, the Traveller’s strange beacon guiding them and Rachyl’s faint lantern bobbing in the stormy darkness to show the way. They did not speak.
Then they were at the entrance to a narrow cleft in the rock. The sound came from it with the purposefulness of an arrow. ‘Traveller!’ Ibryen called. There was no reply, but the sound quivered impatiently. Cautiously they moved forward into the cleft. It was scarcely wide enough for them to walk side by side.
Almost immediately, the noise of the wind faded and as they made their way carefully over the uneven ground, it became an echoing moan, a resonant summation of the clattering din outside, rising and falling to a rhythm of its own, now a soft whistling, now an ominous tolling, sometimes an angry clamour. Disconcerting as the change was, the comparative stillness in the cleft was a marked improvement on the battering they had been struggling against since they left the camp, and both of them straightened up with some relief. The absence of the wind also made them feel much warmer.
The Traveller’s guiding note wound through the uneasy soughing like a silver thread, drawing them steadily on, and their progress was helped by the fact that there was very little snow underfoot. They had been walking for some time when Rachyl took Ibryen’s arm and pointed. There was a faint light ahead of them. As they drew nearer they saw that it was coming from the mouth of a cave. No sooner had they reached it than the sound faded. Ibryen was about to step inside when Rachyl, sword drawn and lantern extended, moved in front of him.
‘I’m sorry I got so far ahead.’
The Traveller’s apology greeted them. He was kneeling some way from the entrance. Balanced on a rock nearby was what appeared to be a small lantern, giving off a light which caused both Rachyl and Ibryen to shield their eyes. The Traveller reached out and the light became dimmer. Lying on the ground beside him was a figure, wrapped in a white blanket.
‘Who is it?’ Rachyl asked, wide-eyed as she sheathed her sword and knelt by the Traveller. The blanket shrouding the figure was wrapped tightly, leaving only a lean, pale face exposed. A curved nose and prominent cheek-bones gave the face a birdlike, but stern appearance.
‘Is he dead?’ Ibryen asked.
The Traveller shook his head. ‘It’s who we’ve been looking for,’ he said. ‘And no, he’s not dead, but he’s very weak. He was mumbling a moment ago, then he drifted off.’
‘But who is he?’ Rachyl was testing the material wrapping the man between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I’ve never seen cloth like this,’ she digressed. ‘It’s very soft but it’s got an odd feel to it. And how’s it been wrapped around him like this? He couldn’t have done it himself.’
‘Did you hear what he said?’ The question came out arbitrarily from the bewildering flood that was swirling through Ibryen’s thoughts. At the same time, his hand was pursuing Rachyl’s inquiry. As he took hold of the fabric, the Traveller seized his wrist with great urgency.
‘No!’
But even as it was spoken, the word was distant and faint and all about him was whiteness and longing. Like old memories, faint images of panoramas flickered into his mind; images made strange by the vantage from which he could see them, though they did not linger long enough for him to be able to identify them. Yet they were not just like old memories, theywere old memories. But whose? And of what?
The whiteness trembled. From deep within, a knowledge told him he should not be here so totally, that to be here thus was to bring extinction to that part of him which was Ibryen. Familiar but forgotten, white woven threads drifted down to him, but he could not grasp them.
‘Let me go,’ he heard himself calling silently, then he spoke as the Traveller had told him to previously. ‘You’ve done all that you could do. You’ve neither failed nor betrayed. Go to your own now and rest as you deserve. Find his true kin. We will tend him here.’
Doubt filled him.
Then, with an authority he did not understand he commanded, ‘Go. Release him. And release me also so that we can help him.’
The doubt wavered and the elusive dancing threads twisted and turned about him. As he reached for them he found that they were sounds – voices.
‘Ibryen, Ibryen!’
He was kneeling by the strange figure again, the fabric slipping from his fingers and the Traveller’s unexpectedly powerful grip about his wrist. The Traveller’s voice was echoing around the cave, calling his name. What drew his attention however, was the stark fear in the little man’s face.
‘I was right,’ he said breathlessly. ‘You are…’ He did not finish the sentence. Instead, he released Ibryen and took hold of the material and spoke to both his companions. ‘This is Culmaren,’ he said, his voice soft and full of awe. ‘The material, the plant, the… creature… that’s the very substance of the cloudlands th
at the Dryenvolk dwell in. That lives both here and in the worlds beyond. That is many parts and a whole. And, if I’m any judge, this is dead, or almost so. I’ve never heard of such a thing.’ He stared at Ibryen. ‘How did you come back?’ he asked.
Ibryen stammered. ‘You… you… called me,’ he said.
The Traveller shook his head. The fear had been replaced by bewilderment. ‘Yes, but that wasn’t what brought…’
‘Be quiet!’ Rachyl’s command cut across the faltering reply, making the Traveller start. She was bending over the motionless figure, her hand raised for silence. ‘He’s trying to say something.’
The Traveller placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned forward, bringing his head next to hers. The figure muttered something then fell silent. Rachyl shook her head, but the Traveller sat back and leaned against the cave wall.
‘Well?’ Ibryen asked.
‘I only caught a couple of words,’ the Traveller said. ‘They didn’t mean anything, but he is Dryenvolk. Give me a moment.’ He closed his eyes and turned his face away to compose himself. Ibryen watched him unhappily. It was some time before he spoke and then there was an undertow of agitation in his voice. ‘He couldn’t ever have been anything other than Dryenvolk. Everything pointed to it. But it’s still a shock to find him here. Conjecturing in your Council Hall is one thing. Even growing more certain as we drew nearer…’ He puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘But actually seeing him… how can it be? How can a Dryenwr be down here, in the middle depths? And wrapped in Culmaren.’
‘Whatever he is and however he came here, doesn’t really matter, does it?’ Rachyl said, impatiently practical. ‘We’d better decide what we’re going to do to help him.’ She looked at the Traveller. ‘My healing skill’s confined to stopping gashes from bleeding and strapping up damaged limbs well enough to get people safely back to the village. And Ibryen’s precious little better. Do you know what’s wrong with him? Can you help him?’
The Traveller grimaced. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t dare unwrap the Culmaren, it seems to be almost part of him. I could only check some of his pulses, and they’re weak.’
‘We can’t just stand by and do nothing if he’s ill,’ Rachyl insisted. ‘And we can’t take him back to the tent in the dark without some kind of a stretcher. Still less back to the village.’
‘There’d be no point taking him back to the tent, anyway,’ Ibryen said. ‘There’s scarcely room for us and he’s not small. At least he’s out of the wind here and it’s fairly dry.’ His hand hovered uncertainly over the white fabric, then pulled away. ‘Why didn’t you unwrap this… blanket?’
‘I told you,’ the Traveller replied. ‘The Dryenvolk have a strange bond with the Culmaren. And it has healing properties, I think. I’ve heard it said that the Dryenvolk use it with weave and voice to cure all manner of ailments.’
‘Well, we’re not Dryenvolk, are we?’ Ibryen said. ‘Nor are we likely to come across any. He’s the centre of all the strangeness that’s drawn us here. You said his pulses are weak. If you know anything about healing, you must do something. He might be dying. We can’t just sit around and watch.’
‘But…’
‘Traveller, we came on this journey for answers – each of us. But there are only questions here. We must…’ He stopped, and his hand hovered hesitantly over the fabric again. A pattern was beginning to form. ‘What you’ve been hearing has been growing weaker, what I’ve been… feeling… has been growing stronger – almost taking possession of me at times.’ He frowned as the pattern became a realization. ‘If this exists here and beyond – wherever beyond is – then its existence here must be finished. It’s just clinging on. Lost, bewildered.’
His jaw stiffened as if he were preparing for a clash of arms, and, eyes wide, he reached out and gripped a handful of the fabric resolutely. The whiteness and the longing closed about him again and he felt its seductive power trying to draw him to its heart. There was no malice in it but he knew that to succumb would be to lose himself for ever. With a grim effort he forced his eyes to stay open, focusing them on the lean face of the Dryenwr. Then he took hold of the fabric with his other hand also and spoke into the whiteness as he had before.
‘Release him. Your work is done. You hinder us in ours and he may die. We will tend him while you seek out his kin. Go now!’
The longing increased, but Ibryen kept his gaze fixed on the Dryenwr’s face. No more could be said, no more would be said. Then, abruptly, the longing and the whiteness and everything about it was gone. Ibryen was aware of something vast fading into an unknowable distance, a haunting cry tailing after it. For a long moment, though he knew himself to be in a mountain cave with his companions, feeling the coldness on his face and hands, and the rocky ground hard on his knees, with the moaning wind echoing around him, he was also alone in another place, alone in a ringing emptiness. The one he knew, the other was strange beyond anything he had ever imagined. Yet he belonged to both.
He released the fabric, then, though he could not have said how, brought himself to the world he knew, as simply and easily as if he were passing over a friend’s threshold. The Traveller took his arm anxiously.
‘I’m fine,’ he said anticipating the question. ‘We’ll talk later. Look after the Dryenwr.’ He stood up and moved away.
Tentatively, the Traveller eased part of the fabric from the man’s face, then he nodded to Rachyl to help him. Carefully they began unwinding the blanket. As they removed it, a tall and muscular figure was revealed, clad in what was obviously a uniform, pale grey in colour with various ornate markings about the breast and on the arms. In his hand was a sword. Though the man’s uniform was immaculate and the sword polished and bright, its edge was hacked and scarred. The Traveller turned up his lantern. Its light flickered brilliantly from the sword to dance about the cave.
‘Warrior caste,’ he said, running a finger across one of the markings. ‘And a high-ranking officer at that, I’d say.’
Rachyl looked at the Dryenwr critically for a moment. ‘A fighter for sure,’ she said flatly, ‘if it was he who did the damage to the edge of that sword.’ Cautiously she took it from his hand and placed it on the ground, then she briskly folded the blanket and, kneeling down, laid it gently back over him with an oddly maternal gesture.
The Dryenwr’s eyes opened.
Chapter 23
‘Carver’s Song. I heard the Carver’s Song.’
Rachyl jumped backwards with a cry of alarm which became an oath as she tumbled over to land gracelessly on her behind.
The voice, deep and with an unfamiliar accent, was that of the Dryenwr. It was weak, but there were clear notes of authority in it. Dark, unfocused eyes moved around the trio of watchers as he levered himself up into a sitting position.
‘Through the mists I heard it. In a dream? It seems so long since I heard such, yet it can scarcely be a moon since I heard of their coming together again.’ The Dryenwr frowned and put a hand to his head. ‘Then I was walking in the darkness over land, hard and without life, Culmaren cape about my shoulders and Svara’s will all about me, cold and angry, tearing at me. I answered the Song.’ He whistled faintly and smiled. ‘Never had the true skill – warrior caste is warrior caste – but the Culmaren fired me. I sounded a measure or two such as I couldn’t begin to do if I were awake. Then…’ He frowned again. ‘I was so weak. I was drawn back again, I think. Drawn into the waiting, into the mists…’
His eyes were clearing. ‘Is this a dream, too? Is this the fate of the dead? An eternity of dreams?’
‘You ask questions that none can answer, Dryenwr,’ the Traveller said. ‘But this is no dream, as far as I know, nor are we shadows in your imagining. This is Rachyl, this is Ibryen, Count of Nesdiryn, and I’m just a traveller, each of us as real as yourself. How you came here I can’t say, nor how long you’ve been here, but you’re in the middle depths, and I suspect your Culmaren has sustained you for some considerable time.’
> The Dryenwr looked at him intently, then at the Culmaren draped over him. As he fingered the material, his eyes opened in horror and cried out, ‘Nightmare! Not a dream. Nightmare.’ He brought the Culmaren close to his face. ‘No, this cannot be.’
Ibryen eased Rachyl and the Traveller to one side and knelt down by the suddenly distraught figure. ‘Neither dream nor nightmare, warrior,’ he said. ‘But perhaps something stranger than you’d find in either. I doubt we can answer many of the questions you must be asking, but you’re truly awake and in the real world, albeit perhaps in a place that’s as profoundly alien to you as one of your high-flying cloud lands would be to us.’
The Dryenwr stared at him, his hands rolling the Culmaren, and his face full of confusion. Unsteadily he ran a hand over his tunic then over the rocky ground. He turned from Ibryen to look at Rachyl and then at the Traveller. ‘The middle depths?’ he said. The Traveller nodded.
‘Here.’ Rachyl offered the cap of her water bottle. The Dryenwr reached out then hesitated. Rachyl smiled then drank a little of the water and offered it again. The Dryenwr took it. ‘Careful, it’s cold,’ Rachyl said as he took a first cautious sip. ‘And I’m afraid we’ve no food with us. It’s all down with the tent.’ The Dryenwr closed his eyes as he drank the contents of the small cap then he held it out for more. Rachyl filled it again. ‘That’s enough,’ she said.
‘The middle depths,’ the Dryenwr said softly to himself. ‘The middle depths. I am here. Svara protect me.’ His hand circled over his heart. He took hold of the Culmaren again and his face became pained. ‘But how could such a thing happen? How could the Culmaren die? This must be a fearful place.’