by Roger Taylor
No one, not even EmRan, seemed inclined to pursue the matter further, so Derwyn placed his idea formally before the group: that a lodge hunting party be sent south, along such tracks as Farnor had left, to see if they could either find the valley from which he claimed to have fled, or find whatever it was that had driven him into the Forest. Somewhat to his surprise, the group agreed to vote on it immediately.
* * * *
'EmRan had that log half sawn before you started,’ Marken said sympathetically as he and Derwyn walked through the pouring rain after the meeting.
Derwyn snarled and then swore.
Marken looked at him askance. ‘It's not the first time he's beaten you in a shrub Congress,’ he said. ‘You know how he is. He has to do something now and then, to show how capable he is. Don't take it to heart. It's nothing serious. He'd never be able to sway the full Congress in advance.'
'Nine to three, Marken,’ Derwyn said, in angry exasperation. ‘Me, you and Melarn. And those other old stumps just trotted along behind him like message squirrels.'
Marken unsuccessfully tried to smother a laugh.
Derwyn bowed his head and shook it. ‘No, Marken,’ he said. ‘I'm not in the mood.'
Marken took his arm, his face becoming more serious. ‘It is only a shrub Congress, Derwyn. It's not that important.'
Derwyn stopped and hitched the hood of his cloak back a little. He glanced upwards into the falling rain. ‘Marken, you're still up there, somewhere. Still buoyed up by what happened to you when you were with Farnor.’ He looked at his friend. ‘Don't misunderstand me. I celebrate your ... excitement ... or whatever it is; truly. But something's touched me, too. I look around here and see everything that I've known all my life, and I know it's going to change, and change for the worse if we don't do anything.'
Marken watched him unhappily. ‘I respect your concerns, Derwyn,’ he said. ‘But nothing's really happened that can lead you to such a conclusion. It's ...'
'No!’ Derwyn's tone was unequivocal. ‘I know what you're going to say. We've no facts. Angwen teases me for my hunter's intuition, but that's all it is, teasing. She accepts its reality. It's fed us often enough.’ He patted his stomach noisily. ‘But it's here, Marken,’ he said. ‘Just as sure as this rain's dripping down my neck. I sense things with more than my ears and my eyes and my nose. As do we all, if we but care to listen. Every part of me takes in something and pays heed to it. And it builds up, until ...’ He tapped his stomach with a solitary finger this time. ‘... I know. I know where a deer has passed, and how long ago. I know there's a boar in that bush, and a pheasant in that one. And when the weather's going to break. I know, Marken.’ He tapped his head. ‘I use this too, you know that, but in some things it's a poor laggard. It has to stumble on behind. And I know that bad things are hovering in the air, and that what we do will make a difference to them.'
Marken shrugged in a gesture of resignation. ‘I can't argue with you. I do things that you don't understand, and I've seen you do things that I don't understand, many times. We just trust one another. But where does that leave us? And why the anger about EmRan's little piece of political trickery.’ He offered Derwyn a reproachful look. ‘It's not the first time he's done it. To be honest, I'd have thought you'd have seen it coming.'
Derwyn grimaced. ‘You're right,’ he replied. ‘I was a bit naive. I just presumed that because I'd felt the events moving around Farnor, everyone else would have.'
'EmRan wouldn't feel a log rolling over him,’ Marken retorted caustically.
Derwyn smiled and gave a brief chuckle, but his face became grim again almost immediately. A gust of wind and a sudden splattering of heavy raindrops released from the leaves above sent the two men scurrying forward.
'Be that as it may,’ Derwyn said, as they walked on, ‘I can't let this decision stand. It's too serious. We must take Farnor's advice.'
Marken stopped and turned towards him. ‘That would mean taking this to a full Congress meeting,’ he said. ‘And they'd be very reluctant to overturn a nine-to-three decision.’ He stepped closer. ‘You were right before when you said I was still floating in the air after that Hearing I had with Farnor. I can't help it. But I do know that the joy of experiencing the Hearing and the actual message it contained are two different things. I'm with you. I agree with your concerns ...’ He tapped his head and his stomach. ‘... however you've come by them. But the whole feeling of the lodge is as EmRan said. Let's all have a good gossip about this strange outsider, but let's get back to our comfortable, familiar ways while we're doing it. Head in a hollow tree it might be, but people prefer that to even considering that there might be a very unpleasant reality underlying it all. You couple that with the nine to three vote, and you having nothing ... tangible ... to offer, and EmRan will almost certainly win. And you can rest assured that he'll make the most of the fact that it was you who brought Farnor here. You could find your position as Second in jeopardy. And that would be serious.'
Derwyn's face was unreadable. ‘Maybe EmRan should have the job,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I don't seem to be reading affairs particularly well at the moment.'
Marken made a disparaging noise. ‘You're reading them too well,’ he said. ‘And you're reading them faster than everyone else, that's all. Don't reproach yourself.’ He reached out and, taking Derwyn's arms, shook him. ‘Come on,’ he said earnestly. ‘You know you can't defy the Congress. It's far too risky. Besides, the Congress is too slow to cope with what's happening now. And you need to know what's happening now. Just think of another way to get what you want.'
Derwyn looked at him solemnly for some time, then nodded slowly. ‘I suppose you want me to thank you for telling me the obvious, don't you?’ he said, tapping his foot in a grassy puddle and watching the ripples flow from it.
'Of course,’ Marken said, smiling.
The two set off again, Derwyn with his head lowered pensively. After a little while he straightened up. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘if you've no pressing business at the moment, I'd like to invite you to a small, private hunting trip I was thinking of making in the near future. I'll probably ask Melarn, too. He's a personable enough young man, and he'll come in handy if there's any heavy work to be done.'
'Sounds interesting,’ Marken replied casually. ‘It's a long time since I've been hunting, and I could do with a change after all this activity. Sharpen up my Forest lore. Where were you thinking of going?'
Derwyn affected a small debate with himself. ‘Nowhere special,’ he decided. ‘South, probably.'
* * *
Chapter 12
Farnor was glad that he had chosen to ride on alone; it allowed him to give full rein to the dark and bloody thoughts that festered deep within him. For the most part these manifested themselves as a burning resentment at being compelled to head north instead of being allowed to return to his home, though his resolve to learn the secrets of his power from the trees held them in check to some degree. His senses drew in the sights and sounds of the Forest around him, and the rich and varied woodland odours, but his inner vision, focused as it was, almost totally, on his ultimate goal, forbade him any indulgence, and he saw none of the profound beauty of the place nor felt any of its great peacefulness.
Only when the demands of his body or of circumstances drove him to such simple practical tasks as eating and sleeping and tending the horses, did he become the son of Garren and Katrin Yarrance once again. Not that he was aware of any such transition. Indeed, he approached such tasks with the same ill grace that he pursued his entire journey. But during their execution—making a small sunstone fire to cook his food, washing himself in a noisy stream, making and unmaking his camp, feeding the horses and checking their hooves and harness—a calmness came over him, and an occasional glimmer of light reached through to him. Just as the awful momentum of recent events carried him along relentlessly, so the quieter, but far greater, momentum of his entire life and upbringing could not help but assert itself from tim
e to time. The touch of the familiar objects that he brought with him reached deep down into him, as too, did the unconditional kindness that he had received from the Valderen. Such strange people, he pondered in his quieter moments, yet with so much in common with his own kind, with their care and concern for one another.
Not that he suffered many such quiet moments. Indeed, the unexpected similarities between the Valderen and his own people would often be the goad to the memory that prodded into wakefulness his grim vision of his future.
He was aware that the trees were ‘keeping their distance’ from him. There was none of the constant low murmur that Marken had referred to. Instead there was a deep, wilful silence. Were they watching him? Listening to him? Or were they simply afraid of him? He suspected that it was all three, and that, too, did little to improve his disposition.
He did however, reach out to them from time to time. As the dominant reason for his undertaking this journey was to discover more about the power that he apparently possessed, and as they were the ones who seemed to understand it, it was essential that he learn about them. His first approach was naively simple. Lying in the dry, warm darkness of the small tent that he had erected, he closed his eyes and shouted into the silence of his mind. ‘Hello!'
Silence.
'Hello! I'm Farnor Yarrance. I'm here because the trees around Derwyn's lodge sent me. I'm to go north to the central mountains, to meet your most ancient.’ Then, inspirationally, he told the truth. ‘I need to know about you, and them, if I'm to understand what's happening.'
The quality of the silence shifted.
'I'm not Valderen,’ he went on, probing. ‘They call me an outsider. I know nothing of you. Nothing at all. Or of the power I'm supposed to possess. Speak to me, please.'
'This is not easy, Far-nor.’ The reply formed in his mind. ‘Your ignorance is profound.'
'Whoever spoke to me at the lodge said that ignorance is a curable condition,’ Farnor replied. ‘But I can't be cured if no one will speak to me.'
'We are afraid of you, Far-nor. You are indeed an outsider.’ The word was loaded with many shades of meaning. ‘And you do indeed possess great power. Much more is hidden about you than is seen.'
Farnor winced away from the stark honesty in the voice, then he snatched at a chance. ‘You sound—feel—like the one who spoke to me at the lodge. How are you here? And why do you say, we, all the time?'
Bewilderment flowed into his mind.
'We don't understand,’ came the reply, eventually. ‘What is, we?'
Farnor put his hand to his forehead. ‘We ... all of us ...’ he managed, after some thought. ‘As opposed to, I ... me, on my own.'
More bewilderment followed this revelation. He sensed ‘I’ and ‘we’ tossing back and forth, in a distant debate.
'We can say I, if we causes offence,’ the voice said, with a hint of apology about it.
Farnor frowned. ‘There's no offence,’ he said. ‘I'm just puzzled. You say “we” when there's only you actually talking to me. Whoever you are.’ He thought about the trees surrounding his tent and corrected himself. ‘Whichever you are. Just you on your own. I presume you're speaking on behalf of the others. A spokestree, I suppose. Why don't you say, I?'
It occurred to him abruptly, that perhaps he was being rude. The trees were, after all, presumably speaking a foreign language. He reverted to his other question.
'And why do you sound like the one who spoke to me at Derwyn's lodge?’ he asked. ‘That's a long way away now.'
'We ... I ... don't understand,’ the voice replied, patently confused.
Farnor grimaced. Foreign was foreign, but this was verging on stupidity.
He formed his words very slowly and, still with his eyes closed, made pointing gestures in the darkness of his tent. ‘You—were—there.’ Point. ‘Now—you—are—here.’ Point. ‘But—you—cannot—move. How—is—this?'
'You don't have to be patronizing,’ a rush of injured voices swept into Farnor's mind. ‘I'm doing our best.'
'We! We!’ corrected an anxious chorus of voices that made Farnor start.
'We're doing my best,’ the lone voice conceded.
Just as bewilderment had flowed into his mind, so now came a headache and his thoughts began to fill with images of dry, cracking, dead wood. Then he was drawn—or he drew himself—from one place to another, and the images became sap-filled and vibrant.
And as he moved, so his headache passed.
The bewilderment that followed this was quite definitely his own now!
'What's happening?’ he demanded. ‘What was that?'
The voice seemed to have recovered its composure. ‘You are not as we are, Far-nor,’ it said. ‘But you move in our worlds. You touch us, and I touch you, without knowing. And there is much confusion and difficulty.'
'What are your worlds? Where are they? And how are you here when you are there, several days to the south?’ Farnor persisted, pointing into the darkness again.
'Our worlds are where you are now, Mover. I do not understand here and there. They are perhaps in the world of our ...’ The word sounded to Farnor like roots, but it could have been trunks, branches, leaves, almost anything to do with a tree, and around it were intonations that filled his mind with a myriad interwoven images of joining and bonding, of infinite dividing and coming together, of yearning to the light, and feeding in the warm, damp darkness; and of home; yes, there was no debating that image. And too, there was a feeling of both wholeness and separateness, simultaneously known, and linked to a strange sense of direction that was neither up nor down nor sideways, but which made Farnor feel dizzily insecure, as though he were looking down from some great height or over some great panorama.
But, above all, there was throughout, a celebration in the word that had been formed; a celebration that was at once sensuous, ascetic, reasoning, and intuitive. Farnor turned away from it. It was too complex. And there was a joy in it that tore at him profoundly.
The images vanished as swiftly as they had appeared.
'It isn't there then, this here and there?’ the voice said, almost incongruous after the breathtaking grandeur of the vision that it had just shown Farnor.
'Yes, I think it might be, actually,’ Farnor replied.
'Aah!’ Many voices formed the sigh of realization. Somewhere he Heard ‘here’ and ‘there’ being bandied about, as ‘I’ and ‘we’ had. And was that laughter he could Hear?
Despite the darkness, Farnor put his hands over his eyes as he pondered what he had just experienced. He was conscious of a discussion still going on at the edge of his awareness.
'We understand,’ the voice said, eventually. ‘I think. But it isn't easy. Movers have always presented us with a problem. It is difficult to talk to most Hearers.'
Farnor waited. And, seemingly from nowhere, a question came to him.
He asked it. ‘Are you one or are you many?'
There was a long silence. Then came the answer. ‘Yes.'
Farnor sighed. ‘Yes, what?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Are you one or are you many?'
'Yes,’ came the reply, immediately this time. ‘Of course we are one, and I am many.'
Farnor grimaced in frustration, then turned over and pushed his face into the rolled blanket that was serving as a pillow.
There was some disappointment in the voice when it spoke again. ‘I see that you must be one, now, wandering the by-ways of your own world until the light returns. It is our way to respect such things, I shall withdraw.'
Rather than responding, Farnor found himself clinging to the last word as it began to fade away. It grew softer and softer but never seemed to disappear completely. Around it were wrapped the farewells of many friends. Farnor thought that he was still listening to its distant, restful waning as it gradually began to transform itself into the din of the dawn chorus.
* * * *
The terrain was such that Farnor could not make the rapid progress that he would have wished. Ne
vertheless, he moved northwards steadily, using both the stars and his lodespur, sometimes riding, sometimes walking. He could not know it, but the step that carried him relentlessly towards his goal was that which had patiently carried his father, and generations of Yarrances before him, up and down the land at the head of the valley, moving sheep and cattle, sowing and harvesting crops, mending, tending, painstakingly measuring out a lifetime's endeavour; it was like a ringing, resonant echo through time.
He made no attempt to mark his trail for, despite the richness of the variety of the Forest, there were too many things that were too similar and too few places where he could scan a broad panorama and select some feature to serve as a beacon. Instead, he placed a dull faith in the knowledge that as he now moved northwards to an unknown destination at the behest of others, so, in due course, he would return southwards, and his own will would carry him inexorably back home.
Such obstacles as he encountered, therefore, he greeted predominantly with anger; anything that stood in the way of his ultimate destiny could expect nothing else. At first he tried to enlist the help of the trees in finding a suitable route, but though they made obvious efforts to help him they still seemed to have little or no understanding of such matters as place and distance, and even less understanding of the problems he was experiencing.
In the end, those obstacles that could not be walked over or hacked through, had simply to be walked around. Even a wide, tumbling river that crossed his path received little more than a curled lip and a fatalistic scowl as he wandered its bank looking for a suitable place to cross. Yet the bridge that he eventually found evoked no prayer of thanks, not even to good fortune. This was, after all, hardly an uninhabited land, was it? He had crossed many well-beaten tracks confirming that, and had even been able to follow some of them for part of the way. That a river should be well bridged thus brought no surprise.