Caddoran

by Roger Taylor

  Thyrn’s manner and voice had changed completely. He was no longer a confused and inadequate young man. He was a commanding presence. And so vivid was his telling that Hyrald could almost feel the vision taking shape inside him.

  ‘He was there? Vashnar? You saw him?’ he asked.

  ‘He was everywhere. The vision wasn’t his, something he was thinking – itwas him. The essence of him. There was no mistaking that. Blood, destruction, horror. Something out of control. He’ll make it happen. He’ll not stop until it’s everywhere. It’s what he is.Even if he doesn’t know it. ’

  Despite himself, Rhavvan was as held by Thyrn’s transformation as the others. To steady himself, he searched for the ordinary. ‘Perhaps it was just your imagination – a dream – drowsing in the sunshine. Vashnar can frighten hardened criminals. It’d be easy for you to misunderstand him.’

  A slow gesture from Thyrn dismissed the suggestion. ‘I know my inner ways, Rhavvan. I mightn’t be able to wield a sword, but I can focus my mind as sharp as any blade. I told you, I’m good at my job. I don’t nod off, drift away, least of all when I’m working, any more than you do. And if I dream, I know I’m dreaming, and I control what’s happening.’ His voice was unequivocal.

  ‘How long did this go on?’ Hyrald asked, though the inadequacy of the question rang through the words even as he spoke them.

  Thyrn ignored it. ‘Then it was over. I was in his office again, in the sunlight. Vashnar was staring at me. His face was demented; I’ve never seen anything like it. Every line of it shone with what I’d just seen. As if it were just a mask – like a piece of paper thrown on a fire – alive and charring before bursting into flames. And he was going to kill me. I was still Joined with him enough to feel myself dying at his hands.’ He became increasingly agitated. Both Hyrald and Nordath reached out to support him. ‘He had the excuse already – a knife put in my hand – he was just thinking how to do it, analysing the quickest, the cleanest way. I don’t know why he didn’t do it. I couldn’t move. But he just sat there, as if he was paralysed – or something was holding him there.’ He stopped, then looked at Nordath, realization in his eyes. ‘Heis part Caddoran! He was experiencing my fear at the same time as I could feel him working out how to kill me. That’s why he couldn’t move.’ The thought seemed to calm him and he nodded to himself as if to confirm it. ‘And suddenly I was free. I remember a great clattering – my chair falling over, I think – and Vashnar’s voice, slow and echoing. Then nothing but running, running, confusion – until I was at your house, Uncle.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Which leaves us where?’ Adren said eventually.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hyrald replied. ‘That’s everything?’ he asked Thyrn.

  ‘That’s everything,’ Nordath replied on his nephew’s behalf. He seemed to be the most disturbed of the group.

  ‘What do you think it means?’ Hyrald asked him.

  Nordath grimaced. ‘It means what it means, Hyrald. You’ll have to excuse me a moment. I don’t know what Vashnar is, but I know I’m part Caddoran, and being so close to Thyrn when he told us that has…’ He turned away hurriedly, bent forward and vomited. Endryk’s dog backed away, ears flattened against its head.

  Adren moved to help Nordath, but was waved aside for her pains.

  ‘Sorry,’ Nordath said simply, when he had recovered. ‘I didn’t realize how involved I was getting. I should’ve been more careful.’

  ‘This is all beyond me,’ Rhavvan said, torn between his impatience and concern for the patent distress of Thyrn and Nordath.

  ‘It’s beyond all of us,’ Hyrald said.

  ‘But it’s what happened,’ Nordath said. ‘Make of it what you will. Thyrn’s answered the question you asked him, and answered it honestly, I can vouch for that. It’s not his fault it makes no sense. But I’ll tell you this much, there’s certainly something seriously wrong with Vashnar.’

  ‘Or Thyrn,’ Rhavvan suggested.

  Nordath shook his head. ‘Ifelt Vashnar here just now,’ he said. ‘The only thing that’s wrong with Thyrn is he’s frightened witless. And so am I now – and by more than having the Death Cry called on me. That’s why I threw up.’

  ‘Which leaves us where?’ Adren repeated her question.

  ‘Still at the back end of nowhere and not knowing where to go,’ Hyrald replied sourly. Thyrn’s explanation had disturbed him. At one time even he thought he had felt Vashnar’s presence. He was satisfied that, at the very least, Thyrn believed what he was saying and he had known Nordath long enough to know that he too was telling the truth as he saw it. Yet he could make little of this fevered vision of Vashnar. He knew the man to be intense and obsessive and even in the ordinary contacts he had with him in the line of duty, there was always an aura of restrained violence about him. But that was not uncommon amongst senior officers. Most of them, himself included, had risen to where they were by virtue of their effectiveness in keeping the peace on the street, and that invariably meant both proficiency with fist and baton and perhaps even sword, and a ready willingness to use all three. But this explanation was not enough. Thyrn’s extraordinarily vivid telling seemed to have stripped layers of his own vision of Vashnar, exposing him as…

  As what?

  A madman?

  A madman filled with dreams of wanton destruction?

  That still did not sit easily with even his grimmest view of Vashnar. If he was filled with anything, Hyrald would have judged it to be the bringing of order to everything, not the chaos that Thyrn had described.

  He veered away from the topic.

  ‘Did you see Oudrence safely on his way?’ he asked Endryk.

  ‘Yes,’ the shoreman replied. ‘Got him some food from the village and set him on the right road. I don’t think he’s going to enjoy himself walking and sleeping rough, especially with that bad shoulder, but he’s got a better chance than if he’d started from here. He’s young and tough enough, he should be all right.’

  ‘And the villagers? What did they have to say?’

  ‘Nothing. They never saw him. I took him around the village.’ Hyrald’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why? You weren’t concerned about what the villagers might think yesterday.’

  Endryk shrugged. ‘Went with my instinct. Your tale – Wardens all the way up here – killings. Something serious has obviously happened. Perhaps best the villagers didn’t know anything about you being here. That way, if any more Wardens come, they can tell the truth. They’ve seen nothing.’

  Hyrald’s scrutiny of the shoreman intensified. ‘Why are you helping us?’

  Endryk smiled broadly. ‘I saved your lives, I’m responsible for you now.’

  ‘Or, some would say, we belong to you.’

  ‘Whichever – I want neither burden.’ Endryk gave a clipped, military bow. ‘You’re all free to go.’

  ‘You’re avoiding my question.’

  Endryk’s expression became serious. ‘If I’d needed a reason for helping you I’d have left you on the shore. But I’m entitled to look at what I’ve dragged ashore, aren’t I? Three law-keepers of sorts, a city dweller and a…’ He looked at Thyrn. ‘And him. All of you lost, floundering.’ Rhavvan scowled at the expression, ‘of sorts,’ but did not speak. The dog moved to Endryk’s side. ‘There’s harshness in you three, for sure, if needs be, but I can see no deep malice in any of you. I told you, I use my instinct. There’s a stench of injustice about you – perhaps something worse after what I’ve just heard.’

  ‘Your instinct could be wrong.’

  Endryk laughed softly. ‘Indeed it could. But I use my head as well.’

  Hyrald’s brow furrowed.

  ‘If you’d been fugitives from justice you’d have killed Oudrence on the beach and me as soon as you were safe ashore.’

  Hyrald started slightly, disturbed as much by Endryk’s simple, matter-of-fact tone as by what he said. He did not know what to say next.

  Not so Thyrn. ‘You’re not Arvens, are you?�
�� he announced abruptly. ‘Where are you from?’

  Endryk looked at him enigmatically. ‘Far, far away,’ he said quietly.

  Thyrn pointed at him. ‘You’re from up there, aren’t you? From the north,’ he said triumphantly, looking round at the others.

  Though it made no sound, the dog slowly curled its upper lip to reveal a row of powerful teeth, bright in the sunlight.

  Chapter 8

  Vellain’s slender nose followed the line of her forehead, giving her a stern profile. She had a rather small mouth with lips that were so clearly defined they might have been shaped by a master carver. They were more voluptuous than they tended to seem at first glance. Her dark brown hair was short, immaculately groomed and unmoving. It never changed. She was not particularly tall for a woman, but the way she carried herself made others think of her so. Yet it was not just a straightness of posture or a carriage of the head; she had some other quality that sustained this illusion, perhaps aided by her brown, searching eyes. But whatever it was it remained with her even when she was in the presence of her husband, despite the fact that he was conspicuously taller than she was.

  As she came into the room, her glance dismissed a hovering servant. Neither she nor he made any concession to the deep silence pervading the room and the purposeful sound of their intersecting footsteps on the polished wooden floor echoed unashamedly through it as the servant left and she moved straight to a chair at the side of the wide fireplace. Though upholstered and comfortable, the chair nevertheless had a spartan, utilitarian look about it, as did almost everything in Vashnar’s house.

  On his appointment to the position of Senior Commander of the Arvenshelm Wardens – the highest position in the Service, Vashnar had declined the official residence that went with the post. As was his way, he had given no explanation, though Hyrald, who had been his aide on the day he had taken possession of the building, had noted a slight movement of his mouth which said everything.

  ‘Didn’t like it one bit,’ he told his colleagues authoritatively when he returned to his own district. ‘I didn’t think he would. All that luxury the old man used to go for. Plush chairs, carpets you have to part with your hands to get through, paintings, statues, tapestries, fancy furniture littering the place. Not for Vashnar at all. Mind you…’ He allowed himself a significant pause and a knowing expectation lit up his audience. ‘He seemed more interested in the mirrors in the master bedroom than I’d have thought.’ Applause and loud laughter greeted this revelation. Then, ‘“I shall remain in my present house. This place isn’t suited to my needs. It’ll serve for official functions, guest accommodation and the like.”’ Amongst his near equals and well away from his Commander, Hyrald could safely imitate Vashnar’s voice and the characteristically curt gesture that accompanied his pronouncement.

  Vashnar did not move as Vellain sat down and silence returned. He was sitting directly opposite the wide, empty grate, staring at the stark, heat-marred ironwork, unhidden by any decorative summer screen. He had been there since he returned home.

  Vellain did not speak. She was waiting for a sign which would tell her the reason for his unusual silence. Instinct told her that it was probably something to do with Thyrn and the Death Cry, though what it might be she could not hazard. There were many questions that she needed to have answered about that business, but it was no longer a major topic of the moment and she had already made her own resolution to wait patiently for an opportunity to ask them.

  Not that she was too concerned about this present silence. She had complete faith in her husband. Not blind faith by any means, for Vellain was not a woman to follow anyone. More correctly, her faith was in her husband and herself. She had assessed the rising young Warden from their first meeting as being one who could go far, with the right kind of guidance. At the same time she had determined that she was the only one who would provide that guidance. And she had. Moulding his stiff, ambitious character, discreetly sustaining him on the rare occasions when he had looked like faltering, and generally making good in her own image such faults as manifested themselves as they grew together.

  And too, she loved him. That part of herwas blind. The sight of him at that same first meeting had been like a physical blow. One which had redirected her life and from which, for all her clear eye and calculating nature, she had never fully recovered.

  Nevertheless, the past weeks had been more difficult than any other time she could remember. The proclaiming of the Death Cry had surprised and shocked many people, but it had disturbed Vellain badly. There was an arbitrariness about the act which was quite unlike her husband, but worse by far was the explanation she had eventually forced out of him on the night of the deed.

  ‘He was in my mind, Vellain. Inside it. And more. He seemed to take possession of me. I could feel thoughts being drawn out of me. Thoughts I didn’t even know I had. He must know everything. Everything!’

  As the words had stumbled out she had felt the foundations of her life shudder. This pillar of a man, her creation, the centre of her life, had gone insane. Kneeling beside him, she gripped the arm of his chair as though that might somehow hold back her rising panic. Condemnation of her husband’s unbelievable folly rose up inside her like vomit. Then, on the verge of voicing her disbelief and fury, a saving image formed amid the turmoil and stopped her. An image of Thyrn.

  The young Caddoran had routinely brought her personal messages from Vashnar and whenever she had listened to him, she had always had the feeling that it was her husband addressing her directly. That was the art and skill of the Caddoran, of course, a matter for applause and appreciation, though with Thyrn the sense of her husband’s presence was far more intense than anything she had ever experienced before. With most Caddoran there was always some element of studied mimicry; subtle inaccuracies in gesture, posture, facial expression that distanced the sender from his messenger, albeit only slightly. But not with Thyrn. She had always felt uneasy about the way he brought the totality of her husband to her. His youth served only to compound this disturbing impression.

  The recollection of Thyrn’s strangeness brought calmer thoughts in its wake, reminded her of the certainties in her life. Vashnar had the qualities of a great leader, but even in madness he would not have had the imagination to think of something like this. And his manner now was not, after all, hysterical, still less deranged. Then too, he had said what he had said, knowing what it must sound like, when he could equally well have fabricated some plausible lie to explain what had happened. He had turned to her with the truth, or with what he perceived to be the truth, knowing he could rely on her support absolutely. He needed her.

  Her anger vanished. She must be strong for him now. She must be strong for both of them. Looking at him as she reached this conclusion, it came to her, entwined around the image of Thyrn, that her husband was the way he was now not because of some sudden inner failing but because he must be struggling with something he had never known before.

  Something had happened which was not only frightening but which he did not begin to understand. His obsessive nature would not respond well to that.

  Threads of clarity began to form in the confusion. Obviously, they told her, whatever had occurred had been deeply strange, and Vashnar had misinterpreted it; grievously so, by the sound of it. Exactly what it had been she would have to discover, but that would need a quieter time. For now, it would probably be better for her to focus on the action he had taken, and its likely consequences, and determine how these could best be turned to advantage.

  Forcing herself to calmness, she spoke to him like a parent seeking clarification of a serious misdeed from a normally well-behaved child. ‘And you’ve proclaimed the Death Cry against Hyrald and the others as well?’ Vashnar seemed grateful for the tone of the question.

  ‘No choice, Vellain. No choice. It was a mistake to send them after him in the first place. I realized that almost as soon as I’d done it.’

  That was good. He had never been afraid to a
dmit an error to her; he was rational and at least trying to take command of himself.

  ‘The look on his face, Vellain…’ He shook his head. ‘No, not just the face. More than that. His thoughts. They swept over me in a great rush. I felt them, just as if they were my own, but I could tell they weren’t. Don’t ask me what was happening, but that’s what it was. And he’d seen something he shouldn’t have and he knew it. He even knew I was going to kill him – then and there – at the very instant I was thinking about it.’

  He fell silent.

  Vellain was staggered by this last revelation. She knew her husband was capable of extreme violence, it had been a necessary part of his job in the early years. Indeed, she found it not unattractive. But even to have contemplated so public an assassination was more startling than the proclamation of the Death Cry itself.

  ‘But?’ she prompted after a moment, controlling her voice with difficulty.

  Vashnar frowned. ‘Something stopped me. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t move! As though part of me were terrified.’

  Vellain waited.

  ‘Then he was gone.’ The events having been forced into words, Vashnar was slowly becoming his normal self. ‘Fortunately there was no one in the outer office, because I don’t think I could have moved if they’d come in. And I don’t know how long I sat there.’

  ‘So you sent Hyrald and the others after him?’