by Roger Taylor
‘Do not ask how this can be,’ it said, forestalling the question that Vashnar was just forming. ‘It is beyond anything you could understand. Suffice it that it is, and that it is mine to command as I wish – or as you wish.’
Vashnar caught the faint hint of dissatisfaction in the voice. ‘Why then do you offer it to me? No one relinquishes power voluntarily.’
The figure bowed slightly, like a teacher acknowledging the work of a gifted pupil. ‘Circumstance constrains me to this half-place to which you have brought me, but, that changed, the nature of the power itself will still constrain me to your new-formed world. While you, with the will and the key to move in the worlds beyond, will find yourself constrained from using the power yourself. Only together can we achieve what must be achieved.’
The memory of the turbulent vision that the figure had drawn him from returned to Vashnar. ‘What are these places? Why would you wish to travel to them?’
‘Because chaos reigns there and chaos threatens all things. Only through order can perfection be attained and only such as we can bring order to these places. It is our destiny.’ The fierce passion in both the figure’s words and its demeanour swept through Vashnar. The voices returned, clamouring noisily.
Abruptly, they were silent and the figure was watching him again. ‘But these plans are for the future. We must start where we find ourselves – nurture into a great tree the seeds that you have planted and tended here.’ It held out a hand. ‘Accept my help. Not the wildest of your ambitions can be denied you if you do.’
Vashnar reached out to take it, but then hesitated. ‘You spoke before of another – someone beyond your touching, you said. A powerful enemy.’
The figure withdrew its hand. ‘There is. I sense him both inside you and beyond – dark and menacing. He bears a remnant of our old enemy. It is dormant or weak, or both, but I cannot destroy it without destroying you too.’ The figure looked around. ‘This place is a shadow, Vashnar. Somewhere in your world is its true form or a lingering part of it. Find it and seek me out again when you are there. Follow the call I will leave you with. Our strength will be greater by far there.’
‘But this enemy, is it Thyrn?’
‘Names have no meaning for me. You know who it is. Follow the call of this place and he will come too. He can do no other. Then you can kill him.’ The voice became commanding again. ‘A word of warning, keyholder. Do not assail him anywhere other than in that place you think of as your world.’ The hand was extended again, urgently. Vashnar grasped it without hesitation. For the briefest of moments he felt a warm muscular grip, then the figure was gone and the surrounding greyness was sweeping him away.
He rolled on to his back and looked up at the black-beamed ceiling.
‘Are you all right?’ Vellain said softly, as if afraid of wakening him. ‘Has anything happened?’
Vashnar held up his hand. ‘Give me a moment,’ he said. He closed his eyes and went through all that had just happened.
Everything was quite clear. Wherever he had been, it was no less real than the bedroom he was now lying in. He had a choice now. He could fret and fume and denounce the folly of his senses for so vividly misleading him, or he could embrace without question the mysterious opportunity that had been given to him and listen to the faint call of the voices he could now hear within him.
He opened his eyes and, smiling, beckoned his wife.
* * * *
Nordath started upright, wide awake. There was a little light in the tent from the remains of the camp fire and he could just see that Thyrn was also sitting up. He needed no light to know that something was wrong; he could hear Thyrn shaking.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked urgently.
‘Vashnar,’ came the trembling reply after he asked again.
Nordath struggled in the darkness to find the small lantern that Endryk had given them. When he found and struck it, he drew a shocked breath. The mellow light of the lantern etched deep shadows in Thyrn’s face, making him look haggard and old. His eyes were wide with fear.
‘Vashnar?’ Nordath stammered, instinctively reaching out to his nephew, at the same time glancing round the tent half expecting to find that the architect of all their troubles had suddenly manifested himself.
Thyrn grasped the outstretched hand desperately, making Nordath wince. ‘Gently,’ he pleaded. Thyrn not responding, Nordath wrenched his hand free and turned up the light of the lantern. In the increased brightness, Thyrn’s eyes were still wide with fear and Nordath could see that his brow was slick with sweat.
‘You’re all right, Thyrn,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You’re safe. You’re in the camp in the mountains, remember? Rhavvan and Nals are on guard duty.’
Thyrn made no acknowledgement other than to nod his head vaguely. Then he turned to his uncle. Nordath could not respond to the pain he saw reflected there other than to wrap his arms around the young man. They remained thus for some time. Thyrn’s trembling gradually lessened, but it was a slithering interruption by Nals, curious about this unexpected night-time activity, which finally prised them gently apart.
‘What’s happened?’ Nordath asked, as soon as he felt that Thyrn had composed himself sufficiently. ‘Have you been Joined with Vashnar again? Or was it just a nightmare?’
Thyrn’s hands were still shaking and he brought them towards his face. For a moment, Nordath thought that his inquiry had been too soon and that his nephew was going to drop back into the immobilizing terror out of which he had just clambered, but determination vied with fear in Thyrn’s face and after a moment he forced his hands down. They massaged his thighs while he spoke.
‘A Joining? Yes. No. I don’t know! It was certainly no dream, and like nothing I’ve ever experienced with Vashnar. Though…’
‘Is everything all right? I saw the light – heard you talking.’
It was Rhavvan, discreetly peering into the tent. He answered his own question with a knowing, ‘Oh,’ as he looked at Thyrn. ‘Something’s happened again, has it?’ he said, more statement than question and unexpectedly concerned. ‘I can soon build the fire up if you want to sit and talk about it. The night’s mild.’
Thyrn hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I… I need to think. Clear my thoughts.’
‘Whatever you want,’ Rhavvan said understandingly. ‘I’ll build the fire up anyway.’
After he had gone, Thyrn looked about the tent, almost as though he expected to find himself somewhere else. The faint sounds of Rhavvan stirring the fire impinged on the two men in the heightened silence.
‘I will go outside, I feel trapped in here,’ Thyrn said eventually, his voice steadier. He pulled on his jacket and crawled out of the tent. Nordath followed him.
Rhavvan emerged out of the darkness beyond the firelight. Though he did not speak, his manner reflected both curiosity and anxiety and he gave Nordath an inquiring look. Nordath silently counselled patience. Thyrn gazed around into the night as he had in the tent. He seemed to be reassuring himself about something. Then he sat down by the fire and dropped his head into his hands. Nordath joined him, his manner anxious. Rhavvan stepped forward and then crouched down to lessen his own intimidating presence. Thyrn’s posture, however, was one of resignation rather than despair, as was confirmed by his expression when he looked up again and stared into the fire. Disturbed by Rhavvan’s recent coaxing, a smouldering branch suddenly flared up, sending a flurry of sparks cascading up into the darkness, like frantic messengers from a battle catastrophe. Thyrn watched them.
‘I wish all this would go away,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘All I ever wanted was just to…’ He stopped and his expression changed. ‘Was just to…’ He turned to Nordath, his face a mixture of surprise and mounting alarm. ‘I don’t know what I wanted.’ He stood up. ‘I don’t know what I ever wanted. I thought… do as you’re told – do what my parents want – please them. Then the money… prestige… youngest White Master… Caddoran to the Senior Warden, but…’ His voice fa
ded then suddenly he gave a great wordless cry of anger and frustration. ‘Now all this! What am I doing here, Uncle? Chased across the country like a wild animal. For what? I’ve done nothing wrong. I never did anything wrong. But here I am, in the middle of nowhere, living in a tent, hunting for food, washing in freezing streams or out of a cup, tending horses. Just because Vashnar…’ He stopped abruptly. By now the impromptu gathering had been joined by Hyrald, Adren and Endryk in various states of alarm and undress. He looked round at them, motionless figures in the flickering firelight. ‘Someone tell me I’m not going mad.’
‘Mad is the last thing you are.’ It was Endryk. ‘Troubled, frightened, yes. Like the rest of us. But mad, no.’
‘Then why’s this happening to me? Why me?’ He blasted the question at all of them.
‘Why not?’ Nordath’s reply was as brutal as it was unexpected. Thyrn gaped at him. ‘Why did that particular deer have to die the other day? Why are some people born crooked and bent? Why do some get sick and die, scarcely your age? Why does someone get killed by a bolting horse while another standing next to him lives? And good fortune’s no different. Why is Endryk – a stranger, a foreigner – here to help us? Beyond a certain point we just have to accept that there’s no reason that we can hope to find, just an endless chain of tiny “if onlys”, reaching back for ever, each link splitting into its own endless chains, and so on. Once you’re at that point, all that matters is not “why?” but what you do. Are you going to pick your way down those endless chains or are you going to forge your own links?’ Despite the harshness of what he was saying, his voice was full of compassion. ‘The difference between young and old usually lies in when and how they realize this and how they cope with it, Thyrn. I learned it slowly, gently, drip by drip. Endryk, I suspect, learned it the hard way – brutally, in battle. Rhavvan, Adren, Hyrald…’ He shrugged. ‘… Who knows? Some people never learn it. Never have even the slightest grasp of the worth of their lives. You’re learning it right now, like Endryk – brutally. But at least you’re not on your own.’
Thyrn was still gaping at him when he finished. He made several attempts to speak before managing, ‘Damn you, Uncle. That’s not what I want.’
‘It’s all I’ve got to give,’ Nordath replied starkly. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you? It’s not the first time you’ve asked that question. You mightn’t be able to answer it, but you’ve decided what to do about it. You’re going forward, aren’t you? Why else would you have learned more from Endryk than the rest of us put together?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Just tell us what’s upset you so much, then we can all move on. You said it was a kind of Joining with Vashnar.’
Thyrn looked at each of his companions in turn as if some answer to his original plaint might be lingering there, but found nothing.
‘Sit down, Thyrn,’ Hyrald said. ‘You know by now that we’re your friends and that we’ll help you as far as we’re able. But your uncle also loves you, and you can know beyond any doubt that anything he does for you is in your best interests.’
Slowly Thyrn sat down. Rhavvan put some more wood on the fire.
Thyrn closed his eyes. ‘I understand what you mean, Uncle,’ he said, after a long silence. ‘But like almost everything else, I simply don’t understand any of what’s just happened – except that it was awful. And I don’t think I can do anything about it. I think I’m the one who’s going to fall under the horse’s hooves.’
‘Fortunately, none of us can know the future,’ Nordath said. ‘Tell us as well as you can. However it comes, dragging it into the open certainly won’t make it any worse.’
Thyrn nodded reluctantly and paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘I was very tired. I remember listening to you all talking for a few minutes – I couldn’t hear anything, of course, but it was a comforting sound. I was thinking about what I owed you all. How I should help more.’ He cleared his throat self-consciously, then smiled. ‘And I thought I heard the little old man again. “Light be with you,” he said.’ Endryk glanced at him sharply but did not speak. ‘That was very odd. Not unpleasant, just odd. As if he was there with me and a long way away at the same time. Then, I must have gone to sleep. I don’t remember you coming to bed, Uncle.’
‘You were fast asleep,’ Nordath confirmed.
Thyrn gritted his teeth and took a deep breath.
Chapter 23
‘The next thing I remember is Vashnar – his presence all around me. Just as vividly as he was when all this started.’ Thyrn looked at his listeners, easier now that he had embarked on his tale proper. ‘But I didn’t get swept up this time. I centred myself correctly. Took control. Watched, waited. I mightn’t know what’s happening, but this is my territory, I thought. I’m master here and whoever intrudes will be subject to my will.’ At another time this might have sounded like an empty youthful boast, but Thyrn’s manner transformed it into a determined resolution. ‘But it wasn’t like any of the Joinings I’d had with Vashnar – or like any Joining I’ve ever had. It was as though I was there by accident – an inadvertent eavesdropper. Something else – someone else – was Joining with him. I was both there and not there.’
He stopped and brought up his hands to cup his face tightly. They were shaking again. For a moment it seemed that he was going to slip into the fearful despair he had shown before. He looked at Endryk. ‘I’m not sure whether I’m frightened of this because I don’t understand what I felt, or because I do.’
‘You felt what you felt, Thyrn,’ Endryk replied. ‘Whatever it was, it’s not here now, and there’s no danger around this fire.’
‘I’m not too sure about that,’ Thyrn said softly, looking up at the enclosing mountains, hidden by the night and the glow of the fire. As he continued he seemed to be forcing his words out. ‘Vashnar I recognized.’
‘Recognized? You saw him?’ Hyrald exclaimed.
Thyrn frowned and waved the interruption aside. ‘I sensed him. Alone, defensive, hesitant. But though he was the brightest thing there… the centre, the source, of what was happening, there was something else there as well. Something drawn there by him or perhaps by me – I couldn’t tell.’ Suddenly his bared teeth were shining in the firelight and sweat was glistening on his forehead. ‘But it was awful – an abomination. All those visions I had – burning buildings, fleeing people, fighting and bloodshed – they came from deep within Vashnar, but they were nothing compared to this.’ With his foot he nudged a smouldering twig by the fire. ‘Less than this is to one of the big Solstice bonfires – far less. It felt like something that had come from, I don’t know – a different world almost. A different time… a time older than myths and legends, or beyond them.’ He shuddered. ‘Such black consuming hatred. Such lust for destruction and…’ He thought for a moment. ‘For power.’
His eyes widened as he spoke, reflecting the camp fire so that they seemed to be ablaze with the inner vision of what he had seen. He looked at Endryk again. ‘And I understood it. It was human – a person.’ He hesitated. ‘Or perhaps many people – I can’t tell now. It was like many people become one.’ He nodded to himself, unhappy, but satisfied with this conclusion. ‘But I felt the lure of it, like when we brought down that deer. But not so that we could eat – just the killing, the pain, the blood – for its own sake – and revelling in it, wild, completely without restraint.’ He grimaced. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Not here you’re not,’ Endryk said, stepping quickly across the fire and dragging him to his feet before the others could move. A few paces into the darkness, Thyrn bent forward and retched. He did not vomit however, and once the spasm had passed, Endryk returned him gently to his place. Adren had used the interval to fetch him a cup of water which he drank noisily.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It’s just… I feel so ashamed, to take pleasure in such things.’ He shuddered again.
Endryk laid a hand on his shoulder, his expression pained. ‘But you don’t, do you? Not really. E
ven the idea just made you sick.’
‘But I did. I felt it. It’s inside me.’
‘It’s inside all of us, Thyrn. All you felt was what youcan do… what your body is capable of. What we’re all capable of when need arises.’ He turned Thyrn around and looked at him intently. ‘But always there’s a choice. Nothing compels you. And there are times, which I hope you’ll never come to, when those feelings you describe – horrific though they are – give you that final choice; do you wish to live, or do you wish to die? Don’t confuse the ability to do something with your moral worth.’ He reached down and picked up a branch from the fire. The end was burning vigorously. ‘Fire can keep us warm and comfortable, cook our food, dry our sodden clothing.’ He pushed it back into the fire. ‘And it can burn down houses, fields of precious crops, destroy animals – people.
‘It’s not the same.’
‘It’s exactly the same. It just feels different, that’s all. Just because you’ve learned to make a fire doesn’t mean you’re going to become a fire-raiser, does it? And just because you’ve discovered a dark ability in yourself doesn’t mean you’re suddenly going to run amok slaughtering people for no reason. But maybe…’ He leaned closer to Thyrn. ‘Maybe because you’ve seen this, you might one day be able to kill someone to save your own life.’
Thyrn stared at him, his face riven with doubt and pain.
‘Or someone else’s,’ Endryk concluded significantly. He released Thyrn and sat back. ‘Finish your tale. Can you describe this presence that you felt?’
