Farnor

by Roger Taylor

  Marna almost snarled a denunciation of this notion. ‘King's men, my behind!’ she said, angrily. ‘Are all you men completely blind?’ She raised her clawed hands in front of her, her arms quivering with tension. It was an oddly male gesture. ‘Can't you ... feel ... what they're like? Can't you sense what they're up to? Do you have to wait for them to kick in your door and take your goods before you realize something's wrong?'

  Despite himself, Gryss found his own temper beginning to flare in response to Marna's rebukes. ‘I can feel lots of things I'm not happy about, Marna,’ he said heatedly. ‘And there's plenty of things been happening of late that I can't begin to understand. But unhappiness and not understanding don't tell me what's wrong, or what I should do.'

  Caught between Gryss's logic and her own passions, Marna clenched her teeth and banged her heels on the floor. Almost as soon as it appeared, however, this childish outburst faded and Gryss found himself looking into the concerned and determined eyes of an adult.

  'I'm sorry,’ she said. ‘I feel so helpless. It's as if I'm the only one who can see what's happening, and it's all so ... dangerous, so frightening. Couldn't you see it, feel it, when they were at the green, walking slowly past you, with Jeorg hanging between Yakob and my father?'

  Just as her previous angry tone had stirred Gryss's anger, so now her quieter and more compelling manner calmed him.

  'Perhaps I was too close to it,’ he said.

  There was a silence between them for a long moment, then Gryss said, ‘They'd have killed me, Marna. Killed me with no more thought than treading on an ant. I looked into their eyes and I could tell that.’ He paused. ‘And I fear you're right about both them and their intentions, though I don't know how someone so young could have arrived at such a grim conclusion so quickly. They're never King's men, and the longer we do nothing about them the more they'll gain power over us.'

  Marna looked at him, unblinking. Questions were bubbling through her head, but central to them was the one she knew she must have answered.

  'What did he say to you, Gryss?’ she asked again, very quietly.

  Gryss answered without hesitation. ‘He said that Rannick was in charge of Nilsson's men.'

  Marna's eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Rannick?’ she exclaimed. But she did not cry out, ‘Impossible!’ as he had half expected. Instead she said, ‘How?'

  'I don't know. That's all he said. “Rannick's leading Nilsson's men.” His voice was weak, but he was quite clear. I didn't mishear him.'

  Marna stared at him. ‘You've been afraid of this all the time, haven't you?’ she said.

  It seemed to Gryss that with this simple statement Marna had picked him up and shaken him violently. He felt his breathing become shallow and frequent, and his heart begin to thump.

  'Yes,’ he heard himself saying breathlessly. He stood up. ‘Yes. But how in Murral's name did you know when I didn't even know myself?'

  Marna, alarmed at this almost explosive change in her involuntary host, shrugged helplessly. ‘Patterns, shapes, bits and pieces ...’ she said, wriggling awkwardly in her chair.

  But Gryss was not listening. He found himself teetering between waking nightmare and reality. He sat down again, abruptly, and put his head in his hands as he struggled to bring his rioting thoughts into some semblance of order.

  'Rannick's tainted line is at the heart of this,’ he said, mainly to himself. ‘It wasn't someone that Nilsson brought with him. It was someone here. It makes sense.’ Images came and went—Rannick and Farnor meeting by the slaughtered sheep—Rannick disappearing and then reappearing. Still the memory of his meeting with him refused to become clear. And the creature. What part did it play in all this? And the terrible fate of the men who had tried to go through the northern part of the valley, the fate that Farnor had indirectly witnessed?

  Questions teemed through his efforts to clarify his thoughts. What was the creature? Where had it come from? Were the stories about the caves true? Who and what were Nilsson and his men, and from what distant land did they come? And why? And what was the true nature of the power that ran through Rannick's ancestry like a diseased tap root? And had some part of it branched off to infect Farnor? If infection was the right word for the lad's strange, seemingly harmless ability.

  For an instant he had a vision of uncountable tiny causes and effects stretching back through time, each linked and interlinked, each affecting the other. He shook his head in rejection; it was too complex and, more to the point, it was of no value. Then, like a low rumbling deep beneath the earth, the thought occurred to him that he, and all the others in the valley, were but minor pieces in a game played by some greater, unknowable power. This, too, he rejected because it was of no value, but rejection proved much harder than he would have thought. There were many unknown powers in the world, why not one such? He remembered reproaching Farnor for his ignorance of the simple yellow flowers that grew outside his cottage, but then how much did he know about them? Or, by implication, about the power that lay within all living things?

  He swore inwardly. These notions were but distractions. Whatever the ultimate cause, if any, of these events, the effect was with him and the rest of the valley now, and that was the problem that had to be dealt with.

  'It's a coincidence,’ he said to the now-bewildered Marna.

  'I don't understand,’ she said as this single, detached statement appeared in front of her like part of a monologue. ‘What's a coincidence? What're you talking about?'

  Gryss stared at her. ‘Nilsson's being here,’ he said, his voice matter of fact. And, as if he had been explaining all the time, he went on, his tone becoming increasingly revelatory, ‘Rannick touched the creature, perhaps like Farnor did, but differently.’ He curled his lip almost into a sneer. ‘Probably because of his naturally curdled instincts. And now he's controlling it in some way. Or it him. Then along comes Nilsson and his men, just by chance, by coincidence, and Rannick sees an opportunity.’ His face became thoughtful. ‘His powers ... whatever they are ... must have grown tremendously if he's now apparently controlling not only the creature but also Nilsson's men.'

  Only fleetingly did it occur to Marna that the old man was rambling. What dominated her response was the fact that, whatever the truth of Gryss's conjectures, the sense of evil that pervaded them chimed with her own feelings.

  Thus, instead of debating or disputing, when he had finished, she merely asked, ‘What would Rannick want? And what can we do about it?'

  Gryss had arrived at the same questions, though he too had no answers. ‘What did Rannick ever want?’ he asked. ‘Always something he didn't have. And he compounded his folly by despising whatever he did have. If the family's trait has been writ large in a personality like that I shudder to think where it'll end.'

  Marna did not seem inclined to disagree. ‘What shall we do?’ she asked.

  'I don't know,’ Gryss said.

  He pulled a wry face. ‘Perhaps I've got it all wrong,’ he said, with an airy wave of his arms. ‘It's been a bad few days: the business at the castle, Farnor, Jeorg. I'm tired. Perhaps I did mishear him, or misunderstood him. It's all very ... wild.'

  Marna shook her head. ‘You heard clearly enough,’ she said, starkly. ‘And he repeated himself. I saw that much myself. And however wild your ideas, they're no wilder than what's been happening to Farnor, and what happened to you and him at the castle, are they?'

  Gryss's attempted escape into elderly folly collapsed.

  'We must do something,’ Marna insisted.

  Gryss remembered again the ring of swords that had suddenly appeared as he tried to release Jeorg, and once again Katrin's words returned to him, though this time they were like a taunt. ‘Fighting men ... stabbing and killing ... none could stand against them and hope to live.'

  'We can't do anything,’ he said. ‘Not against those swords ... those men. And not against Rannick if he truly has the power he seems to have.'

  'We must do something,’ Marna repeated, an
grily. ‘We know what's happening. We can't sit idly by and let them slowly take command of the whole valley.'

  Gryss felt old again. He wanted to lash out and drive this damned girl away. He wasn't stupid. Whatever happened, he had wit enough to survive. All he needed to do was avoid offending anyone, keep himself inconspicuous, do as he was told. That would be easy enough. And who would want anything from an old man with nothing other than a crooked cottage and a small plot of land? No matter what comings and goings there were through the village, he could live out his life safely and quietly. After all, what more could he ask for? Besides, how much longer did he have?

  Then he felt a hand laid softly on his arm. He raised his head.

  'Please,’ Marna said simply.

  Once again, Marna destroyed his escape as, with this light and delicate touch, she shattered the taut and brittle structure of his thinking. The old may send the young to war, he recalled, but this one was girding herself to go on her own. This one not only had a longer life ahead of her, she had a keen measure of the value of what she already had and, seeing the threat to it, she would fight to protect it. This young one was dragging an old one to war. No, that was unfair. This one was asking for the only thing he could give her: his advice and experience. In return she would give him her strength and courage.

  Perhaps together they might indeed...

  And yet they were none of them fighters. And fighters would be needed, surely?

  'Somehow, we'll have to get help from over the hill,’ he said.

  Marna showed no surprise. In fact, the manner in which she nodded her agreement indicated that he had merely stated the obvious. ‘I'll do that,’ she said casually.

  The guilt he had felt about Jeorg's fate returned tenfold to Gryss on the instant, and, abruptly, he found himself having to explain to Harlen about the disappearance—or death or worse—of his only daughter.

  Before he could protest, however, Marna was continuing. ‘We'll have to talk to Farnor,’ she was saying. ‘He's the one nearest the heart of all this, and what he thinks will be important. Apart from getting the real King's men here, we'll need to convince everyone about what's happening, and I ...'

  Gryss had recovered from his trip into the future. ‘Whoa,’ he said firmly, holding up his hand. ‘You're going nowhere, miss,’ he said, very much elder to younger. ‘The journey to the capital would've been hard enough for Jeorg, if he'd been lucky enough to avoid getting captured. It'd be far too hazardous for you.'

  Marna's looks darkened. ‘You weren't much older than me when you went,’ she said. ‘And I've coped on my own out in the hills before now.'

  Unusually, Gryss held his ground against her. ‘No!’ he insisted, realizing the danger of becoming involved in a debate with this wilful and shrewd young woman.

  Marna faltered a little at this unexpected resistance. Gryss moved in. ‘I know you, Marna Harlenkint. I want your old-fashioned promise or die that you'll not do anything foolish like perhaps deciding to go to the capital on your own.’ Scarcely were the words out of his mouth however, than he frowned at the levity he had allowed to intrude into his manner. He became serious, pleading almost. ‘We'll have enough to worry about if we're right in what we're thinking, Marna, and we must be able to trust one another completely. You understand what I mean? Just think about the pain that's been caused already by Jeorg's venture. And there'll be more when I tell his wife or if he's more badly hurt than I think. And that journey was considered long and carefully.'

  Marna's scowl faded. ‘I do understand,’ she said. ‘But ...'

  'But nothing, Marna,’ Gryss said, gently. ‘We don't know what we're dealing with in Rannick and those men and we can't afford any act of foolishness antagonizing them.'

  He stopped speaking and cocked his head on one side as if he had heard an unexpected sound. His movement echoed one Marna had just made. Both of them frowned with concentration. In the silence, a strange mewling sound rose to prominence until it pervaded the whole room. The old dog, which had been lying asleep between them, awoke and let out a quizzical whine.

  'What...?'

  Gryss did not finish. The mewling suddenly increased in intensity and pitch, and climaxed in an unearthly and unceasing shriek. The dog barked shrilly in alarm and, without standing, wriggled backwards until it was under Gryss's chair.

  Marna leapt up, her face white and fearful. Gryss rose more slowly but with no less alarm as the awful din echoed around the room until it seemed to come from every possible direction.

  Then Gryss identified the sound. ‘It's Jeorg,’ he said, and was out of the door before Marna had time to realize fully what he had said.

  As Gryss entered the dimly lit bedroom where Jeorg lay, it seemed to him for a moment that his images of Rannick's power had been made solid and that the room was alive with battling demons. He hesitated in the doorway, a primitive fear crawling over his skin and robbing him of movement. Then his vision cleared, and he saw a lamp hanging by the bed swinging violently. At its behest, wild shadows were leaping frantically about the room, now skimming from wall to wall, now wall to beamed ceiling, as if performing some mocking dance at the fate of their shaper on the bed. For there Jeorg lay twisting and turning from side to side, his arms alternately flailing in the air and beating the bed. His eyes were wild and desperate, and his mouth was gaping wide.

  Gryss stared at the terrible frenzy helplessly for a moment, then moved quickly to the side of the bed. As he reached out to still the swaying lamp, the shadow of his hand grew to fill the room with an ominous darkness then, abruptly, it was light again and the shadows were quiet and ordinary. Marna, pale faced still, moved nervously behind Gryss.

  'He's choking,’ she said.

  Beating his way through the frantic arms, Gryss seized Jeorg's head and peered urgently into his mouth. Marna, unbidden, snatched up the lamp, lifted its dimming cowl and held it high so that it shone brightly on Jeorg's anguished face.

  The shadows fled.

  Gryss nodded gratefully and, struggling to restrain his thrashing charge, continued his examination. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can't see anything in his throat, and he couldn't make that amount of noise if his airpipe was blocked.'

  Jeorg began to claw at him, and the scream degenerated into a dreadful gasping.

  'He's choking,’ Marna insisted.

  Impulsively, Gryss wrapped his arms about his friend and held him tight. ‘You're safe, Jeorg,’ he said soothingly. ‘It's all over. It's Gryss. You're in my cottage. You're safe. You're safe. Nothing can hurt you here.'

  The gasping eased a little, as did the frantic struggling, but did not cease completely. Gryss began to rock him to and fro, as if he were a child who had awakened from a nightmare, all the time whispering gently to him, ‘It's over, Jeorg. It's over ...’ On and on.

  Gradually, Jeorg's breathing quietened until it became simply that of an exhausted man. Eventually, Gryss released him and laid him back.

  'Is he all right?’ Marna whispered, but Gryss held up his hand for silence. He was breathing heavily himself, and his face was flushed with effort, but he did not take his eyes from Jeorg.

  Then, he nodded slowly. ‘I think so,’ he said, bending over Jeorg and looking intently at him. ‘Jeorg,’ he said. ‘It's Gryss. Can you hear me?'

  Jeorg swallowed several times and, for a moment, it seemed that he was about to begin screaming again. Gryss laid a hand on his chest. ‘Gently,’ he said. ‘Don't distress yourself. You're safe now. There's no hurry.'

  The comment seemed to galvanize Jeorg however, as he became immediately agitated. His hand reached out to grab Gryss's arm.

  'Yes,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Hurry. There is a hurry. We mustn't wait. We must ...’ He gritted his teeth as his physical weakness mastered the intention of his will.

  'Gently,’ Gryss said again. ‘There's nothing any of us can do right now, it's the middle of the night. Please try to relax and talk more slowly.'

  Jeorg's eyelids began to close and
his face contorted with the effort of keeping them open.

  Gryss spoke softly over his shoulder to Marna. ‘I don't know why he's awake,’ he said. ‘I gave him enough sleeping draught to take him through to tomorrow afternoon. He must want to tell us something desperately.'

  Jeorg's hand on his arm drew him back.

  'Rannick,’ he mumbled.

  'Rannick beat you?’ Gryss suggested.

  Jeorg shook his head painfully. ‘He stopped them,’ he said, with a further agonizing effort. Gryss was pleasantly surprised by this, but only momentarily; there was no hint of gratitude in Jeorg's voice.

  He started to gasp again, his hands reaching out as if he were trying to hold captive all the air they could encompass.

  Gryss managed to quieten him. ‘Tell me slowly,’ he said. ‘What did Rannick do to make you like this if he stopped them beating you?'

  Jeorg's hand clawed at his chest, and he drew a long, painful, breath. ‘He ... stopped me breathing,’ he managed.

  Gryss frowned and lifted a careful hand to examine Jeorg's neck. There was no sign of any bruising. He looked puzzled. ‘I don't understand,’ he said. ‘What do you mean, he stopped you breathing? Did he try to strangle you? Or suffocate you?'

  Jeorg shook his head, a grimace of impatience creasing his battered features. ‘He stopped me breathing,’ he repeated weakly. ‘He ... took my breath ... the air in my chest ... and stopped it.’ He slumped back on the pillow.

  'What did he do?’ Gryss persisted, bewildered.

  Jeorg managed to raise himself on to his elbows. ‘He looked at me,’ he said. ‘Just looked at me. And I couldn't breathe.’ His face became fearful. ‘And when I thought my chest was going to burst, he nodded.’ Jeorg's eyes widened as the intensity of the event returned to parade its every detail before him. ‘Just a slight nod,’ he whispered, mimicking the movement with a nervous twitch of his head. ‘And I could breathe again. And he did it again ... and again.’ Gryss reached out to him, concerned that he would slip once again into a choking fit, but Jeorg waved him aside. ‘I don't know how many times he did it. Then he tore the breath out of me. I could feel him inside me, moving, working.’ His face contorted with pain and fear, but there was rage there also, and it was the rage that dominated in his words. ‘And they all laughed. They stood around and laughed. They'd already beaten me till ...'