by Roger Taylor
He swore to himself to dash aside such indulgence and began walking back to his cottage. It was time to move on to his next folly.
But he would do this on his own. With the vision of Jeorg’s retreating figure etched into his mind, he knew that he did not have it in him to risk any more of his friends, for whatever cause.
The searching of the castle had been hastily ar-ranged for the following day and involved Gryss, Yakob and Garren visiting the castle while Harlen, Farnor and Marna kept look-out along the valley. He squinted up at the sun to judge the time. If he set off now and rode, there would be time enough to be there and back before the light failed.
He would go to the castle now, and if he found it empty he would search it on his own.
* * * *
He had reckoned without Farnor, however. More excited than he chose to admit by the prospect of the venture planned for the morrow, he had spent the afternoon watching the castle closely. He had selected a vantage point on a grassy hillock which gave him a good view and from which he could also see much of the village. Aware of his duties for the next day, he kept glancing back down the valley to the place from where it had been agreed that Marna would signal if Nilsson’s troop unexpectedly reappeared. So it happened that he saw Gryss riding along the road when he was only a few minutes out of the village.
Presuming that Gryss was intending to visit Garren, perhaps to make further arrangements for the next day, he paid little heed to him until he saw him pass by the end of the path that led to the farm. Farnor frowned. Where was he going?
Without pondering the question further, and anx-ious to impart his own new information, Farnor began a cautious descent of the steep knoll. At the bottom the slope eased and he finished the last part at some speed, startling Gryss’s horse as he burst out of the bushes in front of it.
Gryss leaned forward and seized its neck anxiously.
‘I’m sorry,’ Farnor blurted out as the look in Gryss’s eyes heralded a particularly fulminating reproach. He took the horse’s head and patted it gently.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
Caught between concern for the fright he had re-ceived, the loss of dignity he had suffered and Farnor’s swift apology, Gryss was only able to splutter.
‘It is empty,’ Farnor said, capitalizing on this hiatus.
‘What?’ Gryss managed as the statement cut through his confused indignation.
‘It is empty,’ Farnor repeated. ‘The castle. I’ve been watching it all afternoon and I haven’t seen a sign of anyone. Nilsson was telling the truth. They’ve all gone.’
‘Oh,’ said Gryss flatly.
‘Where are you going?’ Farnor asked, abruptly.
Still unsettled by Farnor’s sudden appearance, Gryss blurted out the truth. ‘To the castle,’ he said.
Farnor’s eyes widened. ‘Why? I thought you were going tomorrow.’ He looked around. ‘Where are the others?’
Gryss stayed with the truth. ‘I decided I didn’t want anyone else involved,’ he replied.
Farnor frowned. How could anyone not be involved in discovering the truth about these people? he thought.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Gryss began, but Farnor was already leading the horse forward. Gryss reined it to a halt.
‘No, Farnor. This is my responsibility, and I’ll carry it by myself. You stay here and keep watch for me.’
Farnor stared at him blankly. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said after a moment. ‘But why…?’
‘That’s what I want,’ Gryss said.
Uncertain, Farnor remained standing in the middle of the road as Gryss rode off. Then he began walking after him.
A little later Gryss approached the castle gate and found a red-faced and panting Farnor waiting for him.
‘It’s much quicker over the fields,’ Farnor explained before he was asked.
Gryss looked at him pensively, surprised at the mix-ture of emotions he was experiencing. He was concerned that the boy – young man, he reminded himself yet again – was about to involve himself in something the significance of which he could not begin to appreciate. He was a little angry, too, that his categorical instruction to Farnor had been so blatantly disregarded. And yet he was glad to see him there, young, strong and fit, free of the bodily reluctance and emotional hesitancy with which old age had hemmed in his own true self. It was strange, he thought, how he found Farnor to be such a powerful support, for he had no illusions that he would be of any value against such as Nilsson in any form of combat, mental or physical.
‘For your legs, maybe,’ he replied, sourly, setting aside his musings. ‘But I thought I told you to stay behind,’ he said.
‘You did,’ Farnor admitted. ‘But there’s no point me keeping watch if you can’t hear me shouting, is there?’
Gryss raised his eyebrows significantly at this at-tempt to hold what he regarded as an indefensible position.
‘Anyway, I’m here now,’ Farnor went on. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘I’ll go inside, young man,’ Gryss said firmly. ‘You can do as you’re told for once, and wait out here with the horse.’ He gave Farnor a look that forbade any defiance then swung down gracelessly from the horse, which skittered slightly as he jostled against it to recover his balance. Farnor took the bridle and murmured softly to the horse.
Gryss gave a terse grunt of thanks and marched over to the wicket door.
The damage that had been done to the lock when Nilsson and his men had first arrived had been crudely repaired. Gryss smiled to himself. Unused to locked doors, it occurred to him only now that all the heart-searching about coming here might well have been pointless. Was it likely, after all, he reflected, that such people as these would have left the place unlocked?
Tentatively he pushed it. To his surprise, it swung open easily.
Farnor, holding the horse and strolling slowly after him, watched his cautious approach. As the door opened and a small part of the courtyard, beyond the dark shade under the archway, came into view it seemed to him that there was something unreal about it; unnatural, even. Without knowing why, he stepped forward urgently.
‘Gryss, don’t go in!’ he shouted.
But it was too late. Gryss, after leaning in and look-ing round for any signs of life, had, almost incongruously, tiptoed in.
Immediately, the door slammed shut. The sound filled Farnor’s head like the tolling of a great bell. He clapped his hands to his ears.
The horse whinnied and reared, tearing itself free from Farnor’s loose grip. It galloped away, but Farnor did not notice. He was running towards the wicket door, drawn on desperately by the sounds which were beginning to emanate from behind it.
Then the sound of a roaring wind began to fill the air, rising and falling like some demented creature. And through it came the sound of powerful blows being struck: echoing, booming sounds, as if a giant smith were forging a huge shield. And, threading through the whole, a high-pitched shrieking.
Farnor felt his legs – his whole being – become leaden as he forced himself forward. It seemed as though the gate were at the end of a long tunnel and that it retreated from him as fast as he ran towards it.
‘No!’ he heard himself shouting distantly, partly in fear, partly in denial.
Faint though it was, the cry shattered the strange, disorientating illusion and he found himself standing before the wicket. He hammered on it frantically. The sound of his blows swelled and rose to mingle with the pounding din coming from within. Farnor felt as though he was trapped in the middle of a grotesque quarrel between two demented drummers. And still the sound of the roaring wind overtopped all with the shrill shrieking weaving in and out of the tumult.
Farnor struck three double-handed blows on the gate shouting, ‘Gryss, Gryss!’
Then, a spark of reason shone through his frenzy. He mustn’t panic, he must think. He ran his hands over the smooth, planed surface of the wicket. He tried
to remember what kind of a lock it had. Surely it couldn’t have locked itself? But he could not remember clearly; too many thoughts were cascading through his mind. What was happening to Gryss? What would his father say about his neglect in allowing the old man to enter the castle alone? What would Nilsson do if he returned to find Gryss locked in there? What was that fearful noise…?
He stepped back from the gate with a view to charg-ing it.
As he did so, however, it seemed to him that the wicket was different from the gate which surrounded it. Just as the courtyard had seemed to be in another place when he had briefly glimpsed it before, so too, now, did the wicket.
It was itself, here and now, but it was also something else. Or something had been added to it. Some strange influence pouring through from elsewhere.
And it was no benign influence. It was a terrible harm. A terrible rending of reality. A terrible wound.
Farnor’s whole body shivered with fear at this un-wanted awareness. And, as if the shivering were a birth tremor, he felt something inside him awaken and cry out against this horror; something that he knew nothing of except that it could somehow staunch the wound, stem the flow that was bringing this harm.
No! this inner resolve cried.
No!
Farnor felt as though he had been suddenly jerked wide awake from a twilight doze.
He ran forward and hurled his shoulder against the door.
The wicket door burst open as he struck it and he tumbled headlong out of the sunlight and into the shade of the archway.
He rolled over and clambered frantically to his feet as if expecting to be assailed.
Still he could feel the mysterious resolve inside him setting itself against the harm that was now flowing all around.
He paid it no heed however, for, turning towards the gate, he saw Gryss staggering backwards as if he had been suddenly released from some great pressure. He seized the old man’s arm.
At the same time he realized that the noise… the harm… had weakened…
No, not weakened…
It had… moved away, as if no longer able to reach through…
Farnor turned again and looked across the court-yard. There was nothing untoward to be seen, but the sense that he had had of the yard being both there and yet, at the same time, somewhere else, was still with him though now this duality had a quality of hesitancy about it; a quality of uncertainty – like something unexpect-edly abandoned by a hitherto faithful ally.
Yet it was still there. And it was recovering from whatever had happened to it – gathering momentum. Whirls of dust were beginning to rise and scurry across the finely jointed stone slabs of the yard.
A breath of wind blew in Farnor’s face. He drew back involuntarily. It had a repellent quality to it, full of inquiry like the touch of a probing hand. Then, as if a signal had been received, the noise began to gather again. Abruptly, the dancing dust devils were scattered into a fine, stinging cloud by a powerful gust. It swirled low and shifted around the courtyard then hurled itself directly at Farnor.
He staggered under the impact. A hastily raised hand protected his eyes, but grit blew into his partly open mouth.
As he turned his face from the impact, he saw that the wicket door was starting to close.
The noise grew louder, triumphant.
Farnor tightened his grip on Gryss and unceremo-niously dragged him towards the closing wicket.
He was too slow, however. Gryss staggered, and as Farnor yanked him upright with one hand the wind gusted behind the wicket and slammed it shut, trapping Farnor’s upper arm as he lunged forward.
He cried out in pain at the impact, and then in fear as the wind began to pound into him, pressing him cruelly against the gate and pressing the wicket tighter and tighter against his arm.
Tears filled his eyes, so intense was the pain.
He tried to pull himself free, but then something struck him and he heard, ‘Push, Farnor!’ through the pain. ‘Push! Or you’ll lose your hand, and it’ll have us.
Vaguely he became aware of Gryss’s old hands grip-ping the edge of the wicket and trying to pull it open.
‘Push, Farnor!’
His vision cleared momentarily and he thrust his free hand into the gap and hooked it around the edge of the gate. Then, roaring in an attempt to take himself beyond the pain, he pushed.
The noise mounting around him seemed to exult in his cry, picking it up and returning it to him tenfold. But the awful grip on his arm eased slightly, and suddenly his shoulder was in the gap.
And then his whole body.
For an instant it seemed that the wicket would crush him utterly as the pressure behind it was redoubled. But Farnor had both arms firmly against the edge of the gate, his good one pushing with a strength he had never thought he possessed and his injured one pushing, perhaps less powerfully, but with the pain transmuted now into a fury more ancient and terrible than that which was feeding the roaring wind.
The gap widened.
‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ he shouted, his voice hoarse with desperation.
From somewhere Gryss appeared to scramble un-derneath Farnor’s straining arms and tumble out through the gap.
No sooner was he through, than Farnor snatched his hands free and jumped. The wicket slammed behind him, giving him a final vicious buffet which sent him flailing wildly out into the sunlight. His legs made a valiant effort to keep him upright, but almost immedi-ately they tangled and he was rolling over and over on the hard-packed ground.
In his ears rang the final, deafening boom of the closing wicket.
As he came to a halt, Farnor became aware of the sound of the roaring wind fading away interminably into a distant nothingness. He became aware, too, that the strange resolve inside him was gone, leaving only a fleeting after-image. He felt oddly empty.
With the dwindling of the terrible noise, sounds of normality began to return.
But they were no solace, for the pain in his arm returned with them and it was fearful. And too, the devil’s brew of fear and anger that had given him the strength he needed was not yet fully spent. Clutching his injured arm and wincing at the pain, he twisted himself round and screamed every obscenity he had ever heard at the now silent gate. Eyes wide, mouth gaping, he screamed his defiance and rage, spewing forth not only the horrors of the moment but all the doubts and fears and resentment of the past weeks.
Then he slumped to the ground, hugging his arm miserably.
Only for a moment, though, for no sooner did he begin to become aware of the blue sky overhead than he remembered Gryss. Incongruously he felt himself colouring as he recalled the language he had just been using in front of the village elder. The embarrassment did not last long, however, as an agonizing spasm in his arm made him cry out.
Where the devil was Gryss? Couldn’t he see he was injured? Stupid old man!
Propping himself on his good arm he pushed him-self up into a kneeling position and looked around. For a moment, his vision still streaky with the tears of pain, he thought that Gryss had abandoned him. Then a nearby blur that he had thought was a rock came into focus. It was the old man, lying on the ground.
He was lying very still.
Chapter 25
Jeorg rode steadily along the winding stone road that led down the valley. Already almost completely overgrown it would soon peter out into little more than a cart track before disappearing completely. Beyond that, all would be strange though Jeorg knew from what Gryss had described to him that, after a while, the mountains would gradually become less steep and turn eventually into rolling, grassy hills.
‘Look back at the mountains,’ Gryss had said, in passing. ‘We live in the middle of a sight of rare splendour.’
But splendid sights were far from Jeorg’s mind. He was nervous and at times regretting his impulsive volunteering for this journey.
Still, he reassured himself when his chest began to tighten with alarm, it had to be done. And it might be the only c
hance they would have to find out who these new arrivals truly were. And too, he had prepared for the journey diligently under Gryss’s reluctantly given tuition.
The thought helped.
But not much.
He kept his eyes fast on the far distance for any sign that he might be catching up with Nilsson and his troop. Ironically, he felt that he would feel safer when he was in the completely strange country beyond the valley. At least there he would not be hedged in by the mountains on either side. And it was quite possible that Nilsson would go in a completely different direction to the one that he would be taking.
Thinking about which, he must keep his wits about him lest he miss any of the many landmarks that Gryss had told him about, and which he had so carefully memorized. At least the weather was fine today; he would have been even more nervous had he been attempting this journey on a misty winter’s day.
The road ended, and the scenery about him became unfamiliar. He began to feel tense again.
Come on, you’re no child, he told himself. You’ve survived being benighted high in the hills, and being trapped by sudden snows. There’s nothing out here that can harm you; even Nilsson and his crowd, providing you can talk fast enough.
His unease passed and he turned his mind to the details of the journey ahead. It was a long way to the capital, and he would have to pass through several villages and towns.
Towns! He had always had difficulty in imagining what such places would be like. Were they wondrous, magical places such as Yonas might describe, or were they just big villages?
The notion taxed him. There was an aura of futility about the idea of so many people living so close together, relying on others to grow and catch their food while they pursued the kinds of tasks that were only necessary because they chose to live so close together. He shook his head as, once again, he failed to break this circle of reasoning.