Valderen ft-2

by Roger Taylor

  EmRan scowled.

  Derwyn flicked his thumb towards Marken. ‘You heard Marken tell you what he’d Heard,’ he went on. ‘An evil pursued Farnor here, they said. Spawn of the Great Evil, they called it. It means nothing to us, but those of you who were watching might have noticed that Marken went pale even as he spoke the words. Whatever he Heard, it had resonances about it that while he can’t find the words to describe them, he can fear them here.’ He struck his stomach forcefully, and his voice became stern.

  ‘Now, unless we all decide that Marken’s advice is no longer worth listening to, I suggest we pay heed to what he said, and to what Farnor said to me, and start preparing ourselves for the fact that our “normal” lives are perhaps not going to be quite the same in the future. And for the fact that change is on us whether we like it or not.’

  EmRan slapped his knees noisily. ‘No one’s doubt-ing what Marken’s told us,’ he said. ‘Or that he had some profound experience as a result of helping this Farnor. All I’m saying is, whatever the truth of events, it’s nothing to do with us. Nothing at all. We’ve got enough to do just tending our own. We can’t go wandering about the southern fringe interfering with the affairs of outsiders, looking for whatever it was that chased him here and perhaps bringing it down on our own heads.’ He lifted a cautionary finger. ‘They’ll not thank us for that, if they’ve had such problems turning it away themselves.’ He sat back again, smugly secure in the rightness of this last point.

  Derwyn made no effort to assail this fortress, opting instead to move around it.

  ‘I too, would like nothing more than to “get back to normal”,’ he said. ‘But my every instinct tells me that change is coming.’ Again he raised his hand to forestall an interruption from EmRan. ‘Every so often, once every generation or so, a wind comes that shakes the Forest to its roots. A wind that brings down trees that have stood for tens of generations. A wind so strong that it splits open the walls of our lodges, sometimes even brings them down. I smell something like that brooding in the distance, as does Marken, though perhaps for different reasons. EmRan says that they’ll be less than pleased if we interfere with whatever it was they turned away from Farnor with such difficulty, but I’d put it the other way. I’d say that if they had such difficulty then we should look to help them, not just stand idly by. For two reasons. Firstly because it’s simply the action of a good neighbour to help our friends – our hosts, I might add – if they’re in trouble. We’re all of us old enough to know there’s no moral case for being a bystander in such circumstances. Secondly, because if this thing returns, and this time they’re unable to stop it, does EmRan think that we alone will be able to stand against it?’

  An uncomfortable silence greeted this conclusion. Derwyn watched, and spoke just as he saw EmRan about to break it. He, too, now became affable. ‘And as for disturbing anything, bringing it down upon us, simply by going to search the southern fringe – what are we? Drummers and players? Going in like climbfest dancers? We’re hunters, for Forest’s sake. We need no lessons in silence and stealth and caution. And with Marken helping us we’ll soon know if we’re going somewhere our presence isn’t welcome.’

  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 exas-peration. ‘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 seri-ous. ‘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 tha
t 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. ‘No-where 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 resent-ment 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 circum-stances 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 time to time. The touch of the familiar objects that he brought with him reached deep down into him, as too, did the uncondi-tional 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 igno-rance 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 defi-nitely 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 intona-tions 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.