Ibryen

by Roger Taylor

  Ibryen’s own face reflected the man’s distress. ‘We know nothing of your ways, Dryenwr. In fact, only a few days ago I’d have laughed to scorn even the idea that cloud lands existed. But change is the way of things and I’m learning to bend to it or break as never before. So, I suspect, must you, now.’ He paused, uncertain how to continue. ‘This land of ours may be strange to you and, indeed, it can be a fearful place, but we mean you no harm and will not wittingly hurt or even offend you. Here, as a token of this…’ He took the Dryenwr’s sword from Rachyl and held it out to him, hilt first. Ibryen heard Rachyl shifting behind him as the Dryenwr took the sword and he held out a hand to restrain her. ‘I see from this hacked edge that there are terrors in your own lands also,’ he said.

  The Dryenwr did not reply, but stared fixedly at the sword. Then there was a long and painful silence as the three spectators could do nothing other than watch the manifest return of awful memories – at first slowly and then, like water through a shattered dam, in a single engulfing flood. The sword began to tremble and, for a moment, it seemed that the Dryenwr was going to unleash a great howl of anguish. No such sound emerged, however. Instead, the sword wilted and his head dropped forward.

  ‘My people, where are you? What happened?’ He looked at Ibryen and began a desperate plea. ‘We debated, agonized, even at the heart of the battle. Then the Carvers’ messenger – the sword-bearer – pressed in battle himself, spoke to me in my extremity. We’d sought no conflict, he said. We’d the right to be. All creatures have that. He and his corrupted flights had to be defeated or, with his foul brothers assailing the middle depths, sky, land and sea would have fallen to the Great Corrupter. We could do no other, could we?’ Ibryen made no reply. The Dryenwr looked up to the shadowed roof of the cave. ‘So I sent the word and we did as he did.’ He was almost whispering. ‘Moved the land against the will of Svara, hiding it high within the clouds. Then my Soarers re-doubled their attack, flight upon flight of us, a desperate venture now, to draw his attention away. Such a sight we were. The sky alive with glittering wings. Such discipline, such courage.’ He gripped Ibryen’s arm, full of warrior pride. ‘And we held them. Despite their numbers.We held them. His corruption had taken more from them than it had given and their will was weak.’ He bared his teeth and both hands took the sword. ‘Then he was among us. He could not resist the victory he saw falling to him, so blood-crazed was he. At the height of the conflict he came forth. On his dreadful screaming mount. Cutting through our ranks as though we were mere fledglings. But I faced him.’ He shuddered. ‘Stopped his bloody progress. Stared into those dead, white eyes. Fear racking every part of me but freeing me of all restraints and burdens save one: that he must die even as he slew me. His creature shrieked in my face, but I saw only him.’ Ibryen could feel the Dryenwr trembling, his eyes focused on something far beyond the confines of the cave. ‘He raised his sword. Then he faltered. And I looked up. There was my land, emerging from the clouds, descending on to the land that this abomination had made his own.’

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘A blasphemy, yet magnificent… and who would judge us?’ He fell silent. No one spoke, there had been such intensity in his telling. When he began again, his voice was distant. ‘I remember him turning with a fearsome cry. I remember feeling the great power of his true self being exerted. Then… such a noise… and the sky was torn apart, ablaze with a terrible fire. And I was being hurled downwards, ripped from my wings, helpless amid the forces that had been unleashed. Then there was only darkness, and dreams… strange dreams.’ He put a hand to his eyes. ‘My people, my people. What became of you? What could have withstood that burning?’

  Grief rose up to fill Ibryen. He had understood little of what the man had said, but his pain was all too familiar. Was this to be his own destiny? Lost and despairing in a strange land, all loved ones gone, their fate unknown?

  ‘You must rest,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’re weak and shouldn’t tax yourself thus. In the morning we can go down to our camp and eat, and perhaps talk a little more. Then you can come back to our village. It’s only a couple of days away and you’ll be welcome to stay there for as long as you wish.’

  But the Dryenwr did not seem to be listening. ‘The middle depths,’ he said again, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief, as he gazed about the cave. Many emotions were obviously struggling for primacy within him, but even as Ibryen watched, he saw a powerful will taking control of the man’s features. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, grasping Ibryen’s arm and looking at Rachyl and the Traveller in turn. ‘I burden you with my concerns, matters about which perhaps nothing can be done. As you say, change is the way of things, and at least I am alive, however mysteriously.’ He became suddenly agitated. ‘What of your own battle? I feel none of His taint about you. Is it over? Are you part of the sword-bearer’s army? Can you use another blade?’ He shook his head and his expression became grim. ‘What bond brought us together in that way I don’t know, but it grieves me deeply that there were mighty forces ranged against him on that snow-covered shore, and he was sorely taxed when it happened. I hope it did him no hurt.’

  Ibryen looked at the Traveller, who shrugged.

  ‘Weare at war,’ Ibryen said hesitantly, ‘but there’ve been no great battles here in many generations, nor in any of the lands hereabouts. And we’re far from any shoreline.’

  The Dryenwr frowned in bewilderment. ‘But… the return of the Great Corrupter must surely have sounded about the whole of the middle depths?’ he said. He pointed upwards and his voice cracked. ‘And the destruction of His lieutenant’s land – and perhaps my own – could hardly have gone unnoticed. It tore open the very fabric of the heavens.’

  Ibryen did not reply immediately, there was regret in his voice when he did. ‘There’s been nothing such as you describe,’ he said. ‘No uproar in the heavens, nor even rumour of a… Great Corrupter.’ He hesitated. ‘The name itself has only the ring of something out of myth and legend.’

  The Traveller laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, unexpectedly sombre. ‘It’s a name that I heard in the carvings on the Great Gate. And there were rumours in Girnlant of an evil having arisen in the north.’ He spoke to the Dryenwr. ‘When was this battle that you fought?’

  The Dryenwr looked surprised. ‘A few…’ He faltered. ‘I don’t know exactly. A few hours ago, I suppose. Perhaps a day or so. How long have I been here? It’s still the second moon, isn’t it?’

  ‘I never had cause to learn the ordering of your months,’ the Traveller said.

  ‘It’s the second moon measured from the solstice,’ the Dryenwr said, with a hint of impatience. ‘The second moon of Ravenyarr.’

  The Traveller pulled a wry face. ‘The year of the Raven. That leaves us none the wiser, I’m afraid, for the same reason.’ The Dryenwr seemed about to lose his temper. The Traveller took the edge of the white Culmaren thoughtfully. ‘How long would it take for this to die?’ he asked forcefully, looking squarely at the Dryenwr.

  The Dryenwr started slightly then grimaced. ‘Culmaren doesn’t die,’ he said. ‘It’s not possible…’ His voice faded.

  ‘How long?’ the Traveller insisted.

  ‘Perhaps it was hurt thus in the destruction of the land.’

  The Traveller shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking since I found you. Isn’t it possible that as you were thrown from the battle, this sought you out – as would be its way? Sought you out and protected you. Carried you to the only safe place it could find – your own land having moved on. Then couldn’t it have sustained you? Kept you alive with its own life essence. That is its nature, isn’t it?’

  The Dryenwr lay back on one elbow and looked down at the Culmaren without replying.

  ‘It mended your injuries, even mended your soiled and bloody uniform – mended everything, save the damage done to your sword, which is not Culmaren, is it?’ The Traveller paused. ‘Perhaps even changed you so that you could live here more easily
– the middle depths are no comfortable place for the Dryenvolk as I remember. It kept you alive until it could do no more. That would be the way of Culmaren, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘That’s the lore,’ the Dryenwr replied uncomfortably.

  ‘That’s the fact, warrior,’ the Traveller said. ‘That’s what would have happened; that’s what did happen, I’ll wager.’ He lifted up the white fabric. ‘Just as the whole sustains your entire people, so this fragment sustained you alone. Until it was utterly spent. Then it cried out. Both here and in its other home beyond.’ He paused again, watching the Dryenwr carefully. ‘I heard the one.’ He indicated Ibryen. ‘He, the other.’

  The Dryenwr looked up sharply. ‘No!’ he said, though the denial was strained.

  ‘Yes,’ the Traveller said categorically. ‘This is a lonely place, Dryenwr, as you’ll see when morning comes. We haven’t stumbled upon you by chance. We were drawn here by its calls. I, thanks to my ancestry. He…’ He shrugged. ‘Who can say?’

  ‘It can’t be,’ the Dryenwr said weakly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re not a Carver, nor he…’

  The tune that the Traveller had been whistling at the camp suddenly filled the cave with rich, elaborate sound. It stopped abruptly. ‘That was what you heard. My Song. You’re right, true Carver I’m not, but their line is strong in me. As for him…’ He pointed to Ibryen. ‘What is he not? Not Hearer caste, is he? How could he be? He isn’t Dryenvolk. But even amongst yourselves, your castes are hardly clearly marked, are they? Don’t you all have some aptitude for Hearing, for Shaping, for the poetry and music of the Versers? Don’t you sometimes move from one caste to the other as you grow older? And would you presume that such gifts are confined only to the Dryenvolk?’

  The Dryenwr looked from side to side as though he were being trapped. Then he held out his hand to silence the Traveller, and turned to Ibryen. ‘I am Arnar Isgyrn, leader of the Soarers Tahren of Endra Hornath. I’m fresh from a battle and far adrift in every sense. Perhaps now without a land or people.’ He nodded towards the Traveller. ‘That he has the gift of the Carvers is beyond doubt, but do you truly have the gift of Hearing the voice of the Culmaren?’ The question was blunt but not discourteous, and his voice shook with the control he was exerting.

  Ibryen replied in similar vein. ‘I am Ibryen, Count of Nesdiryn, as the Traveller told you. My land still exists, but I too am adrift, dispossessed by usurpers, my own people divided, one against the other. I have a gift that I do not understand.’ He reached out and touched the Culmaren. ‘A gift that leaves me both here and elsewhere, in a place full of strange longing. It was I who let the spirit of this go free. I commended it for a duty well done, and asked that it seek out your kin.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I hear it now. Faint and very distant, across the void, singing, calling.’ He opened his eyes and met the Dryenwr’s gaze. ‘It drew me here when perhaps my wiser judgement would have left me with my followers to continue the fight for my people.’

  Isgyrn looked at him earnestly for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. He glanced round at all three. ‘A Carver who is not a Carver. A Hearer who is not a Hearer.’ He finished his examination with Rachyl.

  She shrugged. ‘Warrior Caste, I suppose,’ she said, with acid knowingness. ‘I certainly wouldn’t have given you your sword back so quickly.’

  Isgyrn smiled ruefully and gave an appreciative nod. ‘Very wise. Rooted well in the lowest depths like all women. Though, in fact, I doubt I could stand, let alone wield this,’ he said, laying a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  ‘And your doubts about us?’ the Traveller asked.

  ‘You’ll allow me a little bewilderment, Carver?’ Isgyrn replied. ‘A little time to gather my wits fully?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Isgyrn fell silent. He fingered the Culmaren pensively. ‘It’s true we all have a touch of each other’s gifts, but I’ve precious little of the Shaper in me to judge the fate of this.’ He closed his eyes and continued manipulating the Culmaren. Then his face became hard and when he opened his eyes he looked at no one. ‘Thisis a nightmare,’ he said softly, rubbing his hands over the white blanket in a peculiarly childlike gesture. ‘But my head must agree with such meagre talent as I have. This was part of the wing that bore me, only days ago it seems. Young and strong. Full of the love of Svara’s will, responding to my least touch. How we flew.’ He looked again at the three watchers and almost whispered. ‘To become as it is now, may have taken…’ he forced the words out ‘… ten, perhaps twenty years.’ He held up his hand and looked at it, turning it over slowly. ‘But this is the hand I had only hours ago in my mind as I faced the abomination.’

  There was a long silence. Isgyrn stared bleakly ahead. Ibryen looked at the Traveller who gave a helpless shrug.

  ‘Is such a thing possible?’ he asked hesitantly.

  Isgyrn turned to him and smiled sadly. ‘In myth and legend,’ he said, echoing Ibryen’s own words though without any mockery. ‘But also now. The Seekers understand the Culmaren enough in this age to know it could be so. Though we would not treat it thus.’

  Ibryen could not meet his gaze. ‘I’ve no words to comfort you, Arnar Isgyrn,’ he said, after an awkward silence. ‘Other than to say that we’ve gone to some pains to find you and will give you what help we can. I think now you should rest. We’re all tired and little’s to be gained fretting the night away. Let’s talk again when there’s daylight around us.’

  Isgyrn grasped his arm purposefully. ‘Ten, twenty years ago. Was there a battle then?’

  Ibryen shook his head and repeated his earlier answer. ‘Not in generations, Isgyrn. Not in generations.’

  The Dryenwr looked at the Traveller. ‘This evil that arose in the north. How far was it? How long ago?’

  ‘I don’t know. And it was only a rumour. It could even have been a lie invented by those who were seeking to gain power, for their own ends.’

  ‘But it had the feel of truth about it, Carver?’

  The Traveller nodded.

  Isgyrn ran his hands over the Culmaren again. ‘Everything is so vivid in my mind. Yet too, there’s a sense of a long and fitful sleep also. Of stumbling wakings that I can’t fully recall. It’s possible that my confrontation with that demon has plunged me into madness – into a crazed dream, though everything about me seems real enough for all its strangeness. For the time, I suppose I must accept things as being what they appear to be, and, given that, my reason tells me beyond doubt that my memories of a few hours ago are indeed ten or more years old.’

  Despite himself, Ibryen repeated his earlier remark. ‘There’ve been no great battles in this land…’

  ‘… in generations.’ Isgyrn finished the sentence, laying a hand on Ibryen’s arm again, though this time almost as if to comfort him. ‘I understand. If I’m to accept that I’ve been sustained by the Culmaren… asleep… for so long, then I can readily accept that the battle I fought in was far from here. Simple logic brings me to that. My wing wouldn’t lightly have come down to the middle depths. It’s possible that I’ve been in this place only a short time. And who can say how far Svara’s will has carried us before we came here?’

  For a moment, a spasm of rage and frustration distorted his face and he laid a hand on his sword again. Rachyl’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but the anger was gone as quickly as it had arrived and he merely moved the sword to one side. ‘If you have it to spare, may I have some more water?’ he asked.

  Rachyl’s hand moved from her knife to her water bottle and she handed it to him. ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘It’s no warmer than it was a few minutes since and you’ll find stomach cramps just as pleasant now as they were ten years ago.’

  The Dryenwr smiled weakly and took only a small drink before handing the bottle back. His stomach rumbled. He apologized.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ the Traveller said, his head cocked attentively on one side. ‘I can do great things with that.’

 
Isgyrn looked at him blankly. Ibryen repeated his earlier advice. ‘Rest, Isgyrn,’ he said. ‘He who sleeps, dines, they say. At least, the well-fed say it to the hungry. We’ll go down to our camp in the morning. We’ve not got a great deal to offer, but we won’t die of starvation between here and home.’

  ‘I cannot burden you,’ Isgyrn said.

  Ibryen waved the comment away airily. ‘Sleep,’ he ordered, paternally.

  Rachyl frowned and glanced around the cave. Then she leaned forward. ‘All debts are paid in full if you share your blanket with us. It’s big enough,’ she said. ‘We might be out of the wind but it’s none too warm in here.’

  Isgyrn looked a little taken aback. ‘Yes… yes, of course. I’ll… I’ll put my sword between us,’ he stammered.

  Rachyl’s frown became puzzled for a moment, then her eyebrows rose. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll put my cousin between us,’ she said. ‘And this.’ She offered him a clenched fist.

  * * * *

  Both Ibryen and Rachyl woke at the same time the next morning. There was a hint of greyness about them, and their breaths misted the air. They rose stoically, carefully stretching stiffened joints and massaging where the rocky floor of the cave had made its mark.

  ‘Well, at least we weren’t cold,’ Rachyl said. She examined the Culmaren closely. ‘It’s a very strange material, like animal fur and the finest of weaves, and yet like neither. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ She was holding it against her cheek with conspicuous pleasure. Then, clearing her throat self-consciously, she looked round. Isgyrn was still asleep. She cast a glance at Ibryen, who shook his head.

  ‘Let him sleep until we’re ready to leave. The sooner he wakes the longer he’s going to have to wait to eat.’

  She clamped a hand to her stomach. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘Thinking about him not eating for ten years had me dreaming about food half the night and I’d swear I could smell cooking even now.’