by Roger Taylor
Ivaroth splashed his horse through the shallow stream and, bending low from his saddle, swept up the pitcher. With a grim smile he drained the small amount of water that remained in it, then threw it on to the rocks nearby where it smashed. He did not offer any to the figure behind him.
The child's shrill cries roused the camp more effectively than any amount of clamouring bells, and Ivaroth soon found himself walking his horse along an alleyway of hostile, shouting people. Whether intimidated by his arrogant manner or just curious to see his fate at the hands of others, however, none tried to lay hands on him.
When he reached the heart of the camp, the elders of the tribe were already gathering to meet him.
He did not wait to be addressed, however. ‘I come as your chieftain to take your obeisance, and to lead you and all my people to our greater destiny,’ he said before any of them could speak. Then, swinging his leg over his horse's neck so as not to disturb his companion, he dropped down on to the ground solidly and stared about him.
After a momentary, shocked silence, shouts of abuse and scornful denial began to rise from the crowd.
'Be silent,’ Ivaroth shouted immediately. His voice was unexpectedly powerful and seemed to echo across the whole camp. The cries faded as rapidly as they had arisen.
The elders were less intimidated. ‘Your right to be chieftain in your brother's stead is forfeit, as is your life, Ivaroth Ungwyl,’ one of them said, stepping forward. ‘Not only for defying the sentence of exile given to you for the slaying of your brother, but for the murder of Ketsath.'
'That's not for the likes of you to determine,’ Ivaroth said, unabashed by this opposition. ‘Ketsath was sent to provide me mount and sustenance, for that alone his name will be honoured by future generations.’ He glanced round the crowd until he saw some of Ketsath's kin. ‘And he died well,’ he said to them. ‘A true man. No yielder. He should have been buried thus.'
This comment and the dignified manner of its delivery caused a faint murmur of approval from parts of the crowd.
'No!’ shouted the elder, his voice shocked. ‘You add a blasphemy to your crimes, Ivaroth. You speak as though Ketsath were a sacrifice from the gods. He was a green youth that chance brought across your path in your moment of need. And he was no match for your cruel skills…'
Ivaroth pointed at him. ‘Do not purport to tell me the ways of the gods, old man,’ he said. ‘They guide my steps while they toss you hither and thither like seeds in the wind.'
The elder stepped forward furiously, but stopped abruptly as he met Ivaroth's gaze.
'I didn't return to bandy words with old men,’ Ivaroth said, waving his hand dismissively. ‘I returned to fulfil my destiny.’ Then, without losing any of his commanding presence, he became conciliatory. ‘But I shall not disregard the ways of my people,’ he shouted. ‘Set out the gauntlet. And make haste. I weary of this needless chatter.'
The remark was greeted first with silence and then uproar. His brief sojourn in the wilds had softened his brain and a death madness was now upon him, was the immediate opinion of most.
No one could survive the gauntlet! Most accused men willingly accepted banishment or slavery rather than run it.
Within minutes, the two lines of men had formed, facing one another and swinging their weighted staves. Ivaroth watched with a look of amusement on his face. Then, as the crowd fell silent, he turned to the hooded figure still waiting quietly on the horse, and held out his hand to him.
The figure moved its head in an unsettling, unnatural manner, then its hand came out, its fingers curling and uncurling expectantly. At once hesitantly and deliberately they wrapped themselves around Ivaroth's extended hand.
Then, abruptly, they released him, and waved him sharply towards the waiting lines as if they too were weary of waiting.
Ivaroth approached the two lines. Twenty men in each. By tradition they were the forty fighting men nearest to the challenger at the moment of his challenge, but he noticed that they were without exception drawn from his fiercest opponents.
A figure stepped out of the crowd. ‘This is unjust,’ he cried out to the elders. ‘These are all his enemies, to a man. Men who would benefit from his death. Why am I not there with him, I was within ten paces of him when…'
'Be silent,’ the chief elder said, rounding on him. ‘Ivaroth has no entitlement to trial by gauntlet at this stage. His life is already forfeit. This is merely to be his execution.'
The man's face twisted in rage, but to have opposed the elder's word further would have brought Ivaroth's fate down upon himself as well. Nevertheless, he snatched a staff roughly from a man nearby and threw it to Ivaroth.
Catching it, Ivaroth looked at it, and then at his would-be ally. ‘I'm indebted to you, Endryn,’ he said. ‘You shall ride by my side when this is over.'
'In the same burial cart,’ someone shouted, transforming the crowd's tension into jeering laughter.
Ivaroth, however, kept his eyes on Endryn. Then he threw the staff back to him and, with a last look at his hooded companion, walked towards the waiting lines.
'Remember this day,’ he said as he strode forward purposefully. ‘I shall not be so merciful to my enemies in the future.'
The hooded figure swayed from side to side as if moving to some rhythm that only it could hear, and as it did so, Ivaroth's voice rose above the din of the crowd like a great rolling thunderclap.
Then that was all that was left. Ivaroth the storm. His roaring voice like thunder, his movements as swift as the wind, and his terrible power, that of the lightning itself. Men, bigger and stronger than he by far, seemed paralyzed by his scything progress as with fists, feet, and murderous hurling grip, he dodged and smashed his way through the mass of flailing staves and jostling bodies with the unstoppable ease of a mountain boulder crashing through a forest.
And throughout, the hooded figure swayed steadily, revelling in its own, obscene, music.
Abruptly, it was over. The lines had broken and fled before this whirling, elemental force could complete its work, and Ivaroth stood triumphant amid the groaning, dying wreckage of his short journey.
The sound of the conflict seemed to roll away into the distance, like messengers carrying the news across the plains, then there was silence.
Ivaroth turned and looked at the watching elders. ‘Thus I abide by the ways of our people,’ he said. ‘And thus shall I lead them ever. This is my vow. No longer will we quarrel among ourselves like bickering children. All the tribes shall become as one under my hand.'
'To what end, Ivaroth Ungwyl?’ one of the elders managed to say, his voice faint with shock at the sight of what had just passed, but still defiant.
Ivaroth looked at him and then round at the stunned crowd. ‘To vengeance and our destiny,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘We go to the land where there are fields and pastures and slaves for all. Where the wind doesn't strip faces and hands raw. Where the snow doesn't cover the earth for half the year and the sun doesn't hang low in the sky like a weeping maid's face…’ The elder stepped forward as if to oppose him, but Ivaroth's words were bludgeoning their way into the hearts of the crowd. ‘…We go to the rich land beyond the mountains that the sea people so foully tore from our forefathers in times long forgotten.'
He crouched low and picked up a fallen staff, then stood up suddenly, holding it high. ‘Now!’ he demanded. ‘Who rides with me? Your chieftain by blood and by ordeal? Who rides with Ivaroth Ungwyl?'
As the crowd's roar of acclamation rose up into the cold morning air, the hooded figure's swaying became faster and faster, until it was almost an ecstatic trembling.
'Ivaroth Ungwyl!’ the crowd roared. ‘Ivaroth Ungwyl!'
'Ivaroth, Mareth Hai! Ivaroth, Mareth Hai!'
The echo of the memory merged with the present as Ivaroth started out of his reverie, and found himself leading his caravan into Carthak amid excited milling crowds. Repeating the gesture of that distant day, he drew his spear from its scabbard and
standing high in his stirrups, lifted it triumphantly over his head.
Now, we are ready, he thought. The last threat to his own power was gone. Now the people could be told the truth about the imminence of the assault on the south. Except for his closest aides, none knew how advanced were the preparations. And no one, save he and the blind man, knew of the strange, unwitting, allies that they had.
Chapter 20
Estaan sat down. He had positioned his chair so that he was in the shade, and, with a turn of his head, could look through the grimy window, or at the broken door, which he had wedged shut with another chair, or at Antyr and the two wolves sitting and lying by the dead Nyriall.
He drew his knife and slipped it under the folds of his cloak. Then he steadied his breathing. A silence filled the room which seemed to act as a focus for the random noises that reverberated through the tired fabric of the old building. A distant door slammed; a dog barked; voices, unclear, came and went, some conversational, some angry, some laughing; the thin sound of the children in the street filtered through occasionally; footsteps too, came and went, pattering, pounding, running. And boards creaked treacherously. But Estaan remained still; watching, listening, guarding.
Antyr's instructions had been unequivocal and he had repeated them more than once. Do not interfere. If anything goes amiss, seal the room and seek out the Dream Finder Pandra. Do not interfere.
Then, his eyes black and frightening, he had taken Nyriall's hands, while the two wolves had lain at his feet and seemingly gone to sleep.
Estaan waited; watching, listening, guarding, learning.
At once motionless and mobile in the darkness of Nyriall's mind, Antyr was hurtling forward recklessly.
He could not afford the luxury of thinking too closely about the folly of what he was doing. His father had died searching for the dreams of a dying man. Nyriall was dead. It was as if some inner force had taken control of him and was propelling him onward under the urging of a desperate need that he could not begin to fathom.
Tarrian was by him, nervous and unsettled, but faithful and trusting; and grimly determined, the hunter in him wild and hungry. And with him too was Grayle, quiet and strange, barely perceptible, running by the side and in the shadow of his newly found brother; his older, more powerful brother. Yet though Grayle was not the dominant Companion, he was, ironically, foremost in this precipitate chase; his slight, silent presence disturbing-eerie even.
Then how could it be otherwise? Antyr thought. Prepared by Nyriall for a search of a dreamer who was not there. Then torn from his Dream Finder by death under who knew what circumstances.
And, more prosaically, searching with a new Companion was always a strange, unsettling experience, so intimately linked were their thoughts and emotions.
'Don't fret, I'm with you, and whole.’ The voice startled Antyr. So much of its tone and aura was Tarrian's, yet it was very different. And it was hung about with grief and the dreadful turmoil of emotions that follow in its wake.
'I will grieve when my duties are done.’ Grayle answered the unspoken question, though Antyr could sense all too human traits of vengeance fringing the wolf's words.
'We'll all grieve, Grayle,’ Antyr replied. ‘But now we must hurry. Run with your brother to wherever your instincts take you. My faith in you is total…'
'Yes,’ Grayle said, interrupting him. Antyr sensed Tarrian's surprise. ‘Your faith is total, and it strengthens mine and sharpens my every sense. You're stronger and more skilled even than Nyriall, and I'd have judged him almost a Master. You above all can search out what has happened, and what has been happening. My brother and I will guard you where we can, and will watch and call for you when you go from us. Have no fear, you are guarded in all places by a great and ancient strength.'
'What do you mean, go from you?’ Antyr asked.
But Grayle did not reply.
On through the blackness they sped. Antyr alone and motionless yet drawn along by the surging, hunting wolves; a nothingness in the darkness save for his bright, sharp awareness, intangible yet as purposeful as a flying arrow.
On they plunged.
No familiar flickering wisps of light and sound came to greet them, to dance and shimmer and whisper. For this was the inner realm of a Dream Finder and there were no dreams to leak into the darkness of his hidden nature and form the bright and shimmering nexus to draw the Companions forward.
Yet Antyr had set off in pursuit of the dream that could not be. Fear began to buffet him, a stinging, dust-laden wind in his face.
'No,’ he cried out, denouncing it. Each step we take through life is into the darkness, he knew. It cannot be otherwise. And fear of the darkness was fear of life.
Knowledge alone could light the way and we must not fear to enter the darkness to seek it. And where knowledge stopped while need yet existed, then we must follow the deeper reasoning that our prattling minds make us deaf to, until we reach the light again.
His thoughts seemed to be part of a huge chorus of other voices, coming from both within and without.
Then he was alone!
The wolves were gone. Gone utterly. No sound. No faint, lingering hints of their presence. Just silence. And darkness.
They had been gone forever. Indeed, they had never been. And he was in a bright sunlit field, strewn with swathes of white flowers like the stars on a clear summer's night. Above him a scattered flotilla of small white clouds drifted leisurely across a blue sky at the indifferent behest of some scarcely felt wind.
A few paces in front of him and facing away from him, a figure was crouching. He was looking at the flowers; touching them gently. Antyr coughed. The figure started violently and, turning, stood up, almost tumbling over in the process.
Antyr drew in a sharp breath. The figure was Nyriall, his face fearful and his eyes still like pools of night.
'Who are you, Dream Finder?’ Nyriall said, his voice shaking and his posture defensive despite his age. ‘And why do you pursue me?'
'I'm sorry I frightened you, Nyriall,’ Antyr replied hastily, concerned at this response from the old man. ‘Please don't be afraid. I mean you no harm. I'm Antyr, son of Petran. I'm not pursuing you. I came after you to find out what had happened.'
Nyriall looked at him narrowly for a moment then put his hand to his head as if trying to remember something. ‘You came to find…’ he muttered vaguely.
Antyr waited.
'I remember now, I think,’ Nyriall said slowly. ‘Grayle was suddenly no more. Not torn from me. Just no more.’ He took Antyr's hand anxiously. ‘Where is Grayle, how is he?'
'He's safe,’ Antyr said, as reassuringly as he could. ‘He's lying in your room with my own Companion, his brother, Tarrian, by his side. And I'm there too. And one of the Duke's own Mantynnai guards the door.'
Nyriall touched his head again. ‘Room?’ he said, puzzled, then, ‘Mantynnai? Mantynnai? Yes … The Viernce mercenaries … Serenstad … Ibris.’ His voice grew louder. ‘What are you doing here?’ he burst out suddenly.
'We found you…’ Antyr hesitated. ‘We found you, in your room, in the Moras. You were…’ He changed direction. ‘You were … unwell … but searching … and with no dreamer. I was anxious about you so I followed. With Grayle and Tarrian. I don't know how I came here. I was hoping you might be able to tell me.'
Nyriall seemed to be recovering from his confusion. ‘You found me?’ he said. ‘Unwell?’ Antyr nodded unhappily. Then, very calmly, Nyriall said, ‘I was dead, wasn't I? They killed me. Severed me from Grayle and from that reality.'
Antyr felt suddenly cold, but there was no comfort to be found for him. ‘Yes,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘I'm sorry. There was no sign of life in you … your body when we arrived. And Grayle was greatly disturbed.'
He retreated into the reassuringly practical. ‘Tarrian managed to calm him somehow. He didn't hurt anyone.'
Nyriall was silent for some time then his mouth dropped open and he looked at Antyr. ‘And you followed m
e?’ he said in disbelief. ‘I'm a Dream Finder, I don't dream. And you followed me? Into a dream that I couldn't have had? And a death dream at that? What possessed you?'
'I don't know,’ Antyr said, a little irritated at Nyriall's tone. ‘And I didn't question. I just followed an impulse. Tell me what happened to you, Nyriall. I don't know how much time I have. Where are we? How did you come here? Who … killed you? … and how? Your room was empty and Grayle uninjured.'
Nyriall looked around at the field. Sunlit meadows and forests rolled into the distance towards white-topped mountains. He breathed in deeply. Antyr copied his actions. The air was sweet and cool and laden with the scents of rich grasses and flowers. It was a beautiful place.
'I don't know where I am,’ Nyriall said softly. ‘Nor can I answer any of your questions. My mind is still … scattered … confused. Something to do with dying, I suppose,’ he added with an unexpected flash of humour.
It faded rapidly however. ‘And if I could answer, how would you return to … Serenstad … with the knowledge? This is no dream, man. I think this is … one of the dreams beyond dreams. A place that only the likes of us can reach, and then perhaps only by chance.’ He took Antyr's arm, unexpectedly excited. ‘I think this is part of the Threshold, the ante-chamber of the Great Dream itself.'
Antyr grimaced. ‘I want no children's tales,’ he began. ‘I want an explanation…'
Nyriall rounded on him before he could continue. ‘Children's tales!’ he said angrily. ‘Look around you, man. Do you doubt what you see? Ask yourself why I'm here, when you say I'm lying dead in Serenstad. And ask why you're here, real and solid, crushing the grass beneath your feet and feeling the sun on your face, when you're sitting next to my corpse.’ He reached out and slapped Antyr's face lightly as he spoke. ‘And if your Earth Holders rest in my room with you, where are their dreamselves, Dream Finder?'
