by Roger Taylor
‘What do you mean?’ Estaan said defensively.
‘I mean that there are times when I hear people without intending to. As I am with you now,’ Tarrian replied.
The group was broken up momentarily by a boisterous crowd of apprentices emerging from a building. They ran off down the street, laughing and shouting.
‘What do you mean?’ Estaan repeated as the noise of the apprentices receded, at the same time lifting his hand to shield it from the suddenly brilliant sunlight flooding the street.
‘I can hear you when you shout,’ Tarrian replied. ‘It’s a common problem with humans, they’re invariably shouting. They seem to have little or no control over their minds. We spend most of our time trying not to listen.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Estaan said, becoming almost agitated in his manner.
‘The answer to the question you’re shouting is, no, I know nothing of your history before you and the other Mantynnai came to this land,’ Tarrian said firmly. ‘If it’s any consolation to you, it’s in some dark, closed portion of your mind which, believe me, nothing would possess me to enter. And such bits as I sense leaking out, I refuse utterly to heed. Does that answer your question?’
Estaan stopped walking and put his hand to his mouth pensively. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I think it does. I’m sorry I doubted you. But what did . . .’
‘Ask him yourself. That was nothing to do with me,’ Tarrian interrupted brusquely.
As if compelled against his will, Estaan turned to Antyr.
‘What did you mean when you said I was tortured?’ he asked. Antyr met his gaze. The sun struck the faces of the two men and threw half of them into deep shadow. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I spoke as I felt. I meant you no insult or pain. I said also that you have strange deep strengths within you. All of this I still feel. What do you want me to say?’
Estaan let out a deep breath. ‘Nothing,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘Forgive me. So many strange things are happening. Old memories, old feelings, are rising to the surface that we . . . I . . . had thought long buried. It’s as though some great force is beginning to shake the whole world and, do what we may, we’ll not be able to avoid the consequences.’
Antyr offered no reply. Estaan’s thoughts chimed too much with his own.
Abruptly Estaan straightened up, as if the simple speaking of his concerns had released him from them. ‘Still, we can do no more than fight the fight we find ourselves in, can we? And stay alert and aware if we want to survive. Nothing worse can happen to us than has already happened. And this time we’ll be ready.’
Antyr let this enigmatic remark pass. He had not relished this inadvertent excursion into the dark reaches of the Mantynnai’s mind, brief though it had been.
‘Talking about survival,’ he said, snatching at the word. ‘When I was in the Threshold I had everything with me that I had had in Nyriall’s room.’ He rattled the contents of his pockets to demonstrate. ‘The traditional formal dress for a Dream Finder includes a sword and two daggers and that must be why, so that they’d be armed if they entered the Threshold. In future I intend to wear a sword and carry at least two daggers, so that I can defend myself if need arises. Will you help me choose some weapons and give me some advice about using them?’
Estaan looked uncertain whether to be concerned or amused. ‘Tut tut,’ he said, opting for the latter and turning to the regulations governing the military responsibilities of Serenstad’s citizens. ‘Every adult male Serens is supposed to keep and maintain . . .’ He began to count on his fingers. ‘. .. A pike, a bow and three score arrows, carry at all times a serviceable sword, and . . .’
Antyr raised a pleading hand. ‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘I need your help. That was a real world I found myself in and apart from the storm, that was a real sword that someone drew against me. And Nyriall said that he found himself on the edge of a great battle at one stage.’ He became earnest. ‘I’ve done basic swordwork and I’ve had to use one once or twice in combat. I didn’t kill anyone, I don’t think, but I just need . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ Estaan said, recanting his light-heartedness. ‘I’ll help you in any way I can.’ Antyr looked relieved, but Estaan looked at him solemnly. He took his arm, fatherly almost. ‘You must understand, Antyr. Fighting alone, man to man, is different from fighting in the line. A weapon doesn’t make a warrior. That comes from inside. Reliance on a weapon can literally prove fatal. Without the true knowledge of your worth to yourself, carrying a sword may only mean that you’re carrying it for your enemy to take and use against you. It may be that you’re stronger and better protected unarmed.’
Antyr looked at him uncertainly. ‘I think I understand,’ he said cautiously. ‘And the reason I haven’t got a sword is because I’ve had to use one in the past; I left it on the field – and gladly. But now I’d like one about me again, and such advice as you can offer about how I should use it.’
Estaan smiled the sad smile of the professional warrior for the reluctant amateur. ‘You shall have both,’ he said. ‘And the best I can find.’
The sinking sun began to turn red, turning Ibris’s dazzling city into one of glittering ruby and garnet. A few delicate pink clouds drifted idly overhead, but on the horizon they were lowering black. Antyr twisted the ring on his finger again and then turned back towards the palace.
Later, he prepared himself for the clandestine observation of the Bethlarii envoy. Feranc showed him the envoy’s quarters. The man’s bed was in a corner. ‘I’ve had the rooms behind and to the side emptied,’ Feranc said. ‘Choose whichever you feel will be the best for your vigil.’
Tarrian and Grayle sniffed around the room curiously. Antyr looked at the bed. Its sheets and covers were obviously of the finest quality and delicately decorated with embroidered patterns. But they had been pulled back and meticulously folded in a manner that could only have been done by a soldier.
The sight brought memories back to him of his own time in barracks and the strange mixture of loneliness and close companionship that the disciplined communal living had inspired. For the first time since he had accepted the Duke’s order, he felt a twinge of remorse at the ‘ambushing’ of this man, virtually alone among his enemies. It did not deflect him from his intention to fulfil the order, nor set aside the reasons for it, but, ironically, it made him feel a little easier.
‘It’ll make no difference,’ he said. ‘Choose the one which will be the least disturbed during the night.’
Feranc placed him in the side room. It was furnished identically to that of the envoy, but Tarrian and Grayle nevertheless examined it just as thoroughly.
‘What time will he retire?’ Antyr asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Feranc smiled slightly. ‘Fairly soon, I think. He’s responded to Lord Menedrion in largely the same way that the lord has responded to him. There’s certainly no anxiety by either to be longer in one another’s presence than necessary.’
He paused in the doorway. ‘Is there any danger in this . . . procedure?’ he asked.
Antyr shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s very common. Usually it’s done when someone’s been having serious nightmares. You can either wake them up, or, preferably, talk them through it to remind them it is only a dream and make them feel in control. Besides, with Estaan guarding the door, two Companions guiding me, and this sword by my side, I’ve never been so well protected.’
Feranc glanced at the sword dubiously. ‘Will that actually be . . . there . . . with you? In the dream?’ he asked.
Antyr shook his head. ‘Not in the dream,’ he said. ‘But if somehow I’m drawn into the Threshold again, then it’ll be with me there, I’m sure.’
‘I won’t pretend to understand,’ Feranc said. ‘Just . . .’ he shrugged. ‘Take care.’ He seemed to dismiss his concerns and became practical. ‘That’s a Mantynnai sword, you realize. Longer and differently balanced to the standard infantry issue. Can you use it?’
> Antyr shook his head again. ‘Not well, I should imagine,’ he replied. ‘But I’d rather have it than not. Estaan has lent it to me.’
Feranc nodded doubtfully then looked intently into Antyr’s darkening eyes. ‘If you find yourself in danger, you must follow the true warrior’s way. Listen, avoid, fly if you can, fight only if you must.’
He spoke very quietly and without any dramatic emphasis, but the words seemed to break over Antyr like a great wave, imparting meanings to him that were far beyond their apparent content.
‘Thank you,’ he stammered, resting his hand awkwardly on the hilt of his sword. ‘I’ll remember.’
‘And if you have to draw that thing, keep it simple,’ Feranc went on. ‘Straight lunge, straight cut, basic parries. And fly as soon as you can.’
He was gone before Antyr could speak again.
Estaan, standing nearby, blew out a long breath. ‘I could have said the same words but I couldn’t have taught you that much in a year,’ he said. ‘What a man. I told you that being a warrior came from inside.’ He turned to Antyr. ‘How did you feel when he spoke?’ he asked.
Antyr dithered. ‘Ineffective,’ he said after an unhappy search for the right word.
Estaan patted his stomach. ‘So did I. And I understand what he’s talking about. Remember how he was when he did that to you, and be the same,’ he said. ‘I know I will.’
Feranc’s influence seemed still to fill the room, and the two men spoke very little as they waited for the envoy to be brought to his room.
‘Let go of him now,’ Tarrian said softly to both of them after a while. ‘Or we’ll carry his presence into the dream and be detected for sure. He’s only done what any good teacher does: shown you what you already knew.’
‘Yes,’ Antyr said simply, swinging his legs up on to the bed and self-consciously adjusting his sword.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Estaan asked.
‘Nothing.’ The two wolves and Antyr replied simultaneously, making Estaan jump.
Antyr laughed. ‘Just guard the door and don’t allow anyone in, except Pandra,’ he said.
The sound of voices coming along the passage outside ended the exchange.
‘It’s Menedrion and the envoy,’ Estaan whispered.
Antyr nodded then looked down at Tarrian and Grayle. The eyes of both the wolves were bright yellow. Briefly he was looking up at himself, his eyes black and cavernous. It happened twice as each of the wolves exchanged with him. Grayle’s body felt different from Tarrian’s but the exchange was too rapid for him to search out where the differences lay.
He lay back and motioned Estaan to silence.
The Mantynnai relaxed back into a large chair from which he could see both the bed and the door. The two wolves both circled a little before spiralling down gently to lie by the bed.
Menedrion’s forced heartiness could be heard even through the closed door, as could its failure to impinge upon the envoy, whose harsh voice spoke only once, briefly, before the door to his room closed.
It was followed by the sound of further muffled speech and footsteps which Antyr identified as Menedrion leaving and the guards taking position outside the envoy’s room.
He reached out to Tarrian and Grayle. ‘Very gently,’ he said. ‘Be very aware – very still.’
They waited in silence for a long time. All four listening and still. No sound came from the adjacent room except the occasional anonymous bump, until eventually a low murmuring began to seep through to them.
‘He’s praying,’ Antyr said. Somehow the sound hardened his heart. He knew a little of the Bethlarii religion and its simplistic demands for mindless obedience that sent its more zealous followers into murderous fighting frenzies on the battlefield, as careless of their own lives as of their enemies’. He had lost friends and come near to dying himself at the insane hands of such people.
He carried too, he knew, a portion of his father’s moderately intolerant attitude to religions in general. ‘Religions illuminate no truth, it’s truth that illuminates religion,’ he would say, adding forcefully when he began to get heated, ‘and we’re all responsible for our own actions. Looking to blame some invisible deity for what we do is neither logical nor acceptable in a civilized people.’
The murmuring ceased as if at the command of Petran’s long-dead voice.
Within minutes, Antyr felt the enveloping blackness that told him that the envoy was asleep. Tarrian and Grayle carried him silently into it.
For a long time nothing happened as the envoy passed back and forth through different levels of sleep. Images and random thoughts came and went. Coherent arguments and plans began to form, only to disappear into rambling nonsense. Violence against a sycophantic image of Menedrion was predominant. Antyr smiled slightly; doubtless Pandra would experience the converse of these thoughts when he came to guard Menedrion later.
They waited. Here there would be no search for the Nexus, no hunt for the dream. Here they would merely observe.
It’s coming.
Antyr felt the whispering approach of the dream almost as soon as did the two wolves. The sensitivity and speed of his response gave him, for the first time, a measure of the changes that had happened to him over the past days. It was truly startling. But his control too, was growing equally and no ripple of surprise reached up from within him to reveal his silent presence in the envoy’s mind.
Then they were there. Dream Finder and the Dreamselves of his two Companions at one with the Bethlarii envoy, Grygyr Ast-Darvad, walking slowly down a long avenue of columns. Tall and ghostly in the brilliant moonlight, the columns soared up dizzily into the night sky until, somewhere far beyond his sight, great arches would join them together to support the star-loaded heavens. On these arches and winding, snakelike, down the columns were carved the epic tales of the battles that Ar-Hyrdyn had fought on his way first from man to hero, then to god and, finally, to the conquest of the ancient gods themselves, to learn that he himself had been the original creator of all things, treacherously tricked and bound in the world of men by his jealous offspring.
Now, all bowed their heads before him, obedient to his every whim.
Beyond the columns, dark trees stood, solid, black, and eternally patient. In the depths of these forests waited the myriad red-eyed hunting beasts of Ar-Hyrdyn. These he used to hunt down the spirits of those who had died fleeing the battlefield, or who had betrayed their companions. Terrible and long was the rending fate of such souls.
Grygyr could feel the relentless stares of Ar-Hyrdyn’s creatures, but he was safe. No such fate awaited him. Was he not true to the faith in its every particular? Was he not, even now, in the midst of his enemies, stern, aloof, fearless of death, and unyielding to their effete and decadent lures?
The envoy’s self-righteous anger and corrosive hatred was repellent to Antyr, but he made no stir.
Turning to his left Grygyr looked up at the moon. It was the moon of this world. Larger and brighter by far than the moon of the waking world, it dominated the sky so oppressively that he felt he could reach up and touch it.
Its face was scarred and pocked, giving it a diseased and bloated appearance.
Even the heavens had felt the touch of Ar-Hyrdyn’s wrath.
Grygyr returned his gaze to the journey before him. He had travelled it many times.
Ahead, the roadway gleamed white in the moonlight. But it was not paved with marble as it might be in some temple. It was a continuous mass of bones; human bones. They were more numerous than the pebbles on a storm beach, and they sloped up on either side of him, forming a shallow valley. At the centre, where he walked, the bones were crushed and broken, and with each footfall, white dust rose to powder his booted feet.
Grygyr exulted. Thus ended all those who opposed the one and only true god; crushed utterly beneath the feet of his invincible army. The army that would one day open its ranks and greet him, Grygyr Ast-Darvad, as one of their own when finally he fell in battle. He stood
tall and proud at the prospect of such glory.
In the far distance was a light like a low, brilliant, star. This was his destination: the great Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn, where his army would be singing and carousing after their day’s fighting. This time he would come to it.
His stomach tightened with desire and determination and he started to stride out. Apart from his lust to come to the Golden Hall, Grygyr knew that the god had no welcome for the slow and tardy.
Despite his best efforts, however, the journey became as it always had before: the distant light seemed to come no nearer. Yet the road under his feet bore increasing evidence of the passage of Ar-Hyrdyn’s army. So vast must it be and so fierce its tread, that the bones which formed the road here had been crushed to a dust so fine and deep that his feet began to sink in it, making each step an ordeal.
Onward, relentlessly, he moved; his legs first protesting and then screaming with pain as he dragged each foot from the yielding yet clinging dust. His face, however, remained set and emotionless. The journey was ever thus, and to show distress would be to find himself rejected at the very threshold of the Golden Hall itself.
Thus, though his pace slowed, he held his posture tall and proud.
A breeze sprang up out of the night and began to blow the stinging dust into his face. Purposefully, mockingly, it stuck to his sweating face, caking his dried lips, clogging his nostrils, and sealing his eyelids.
He wiped his eyes. Still the golden beacon was ahead of him; blurred and streaked, but a little nearer, perhaps?
At the thought, his legs sank suddenly to their calves in the dust.
He looked up. The moon had grown larger, more oppressive, adding its mighty weight to his burden.
The sound of his gasping breath and pounding heart filled the universe. Then came the despair. Would there be no end to this?
‘Did you think that the journey to the Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn would be so light a journey?’ came a voice within him. It was his true self taunting his weakness. He accepted its rebuke.
Yet his legs slowed in their rhythm. Slower . . . and . . . slower.
