by Roger Taylor
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.
They must not stop. To seek rest here would be to die.
And to die here, a mortal, chosen as Ar-Hyrdyn's messenger and allowed to this most sacred of places, would not only be to die away from the battlefield, it would be the foulest sacrilege. His days for all eternity would be filled with the terrible sound of Ar-Hyrdyn's hunting horn and the howling of his beasts as they pursued and tore at him forever.
He sank now almost up to his knees, but still he moved, wrenching his legs free from the clinging dust. And still the golden light drew him on.
Faintly, on the stinging breeze, he thought he heard the sound of Ar-Hyrdyn's warriors. Were they encouraging him or were they just singing and laughing, unaware of his fate, his presence even? It made no difference. This time he would be among them; one of them. He would not yield. No pain, no fatigue could keep him from such fulfilment; could keep him from his destiny.
Abruptly, and not knowing how he came there, he was on all fours, his hands sinking into the dust. Anger welled up inside him at his body's silent treachery. He must not crawl, like some craven slave! He must stand, and walk.
Somewhere in the dark forest beyond the columns, something howled in anticipation.
Antyr felt Tarrian's and Grayle's wolf spirits responding to the call, but his will helped them to keep silent and still.
Somehow, Grygyr came to his feet, goading himself forward with the memories of ordeals he had survived before. He opened his mouth to cry out, ‘I will come there, Lord, I will come there, though it take a myriad lifetimes for each step.’ But the dust blew into his mouth, acrid, gritty, choking.
Then the whole world shook.
He closed his eyes in a mixture of fear and expectation.
When he opened them, it was to see the terrible figure of Ar-Hyrdyn himself before him. The great god of the Bethlarii towered high into the night sky, black against the huge glaring moon which, drawn by the god's presence, had swollen even further and swung silently behind him to form a ghastly backdrop.
As it always did, a fascinated terror filled Grygyr at the sight of this apparition.
'Did you think that the journey to the Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn would be so light a journey?’ the figure said, echoing Grygyr's own thoughts, in a voice that sounded like rolling thunder and that shook Grygyr to his very soul.
The god extended his hand and the distant light rose into the air until it passed in front of the moon and Grygyr could no longer look at it, so bright was the moonlight.
'Lord, I will do whatever is your wish, to gain your favour,’ he said, trembling and lowering his eyes.
'You will do whatever is my wish,’ the figure announced definitively.
Face still set and resolute, Grygyr came to attention. The ground was now hard under his feet.
>
There was a long, timeless pause, then the voice rumbled, ‘Still you live.'
Grygyr's eye widened. ‘The Duke is a cunning and devious foe, Lord,’ he said hastily. ‘He fights like a poisoning woman, not a man. He has ignored my insults and issued loud public promises for my safety, so that only by attempting his life can I make the Serens end my own. And to act thus now would be to broadcast my treachery across the land and turn the wavering cities against us…'
'This I know!’ the voice thundered savagely. ‘This I ordained so that in living when you strove to die, you would learn the subtle ways of your enemy.'
The black form became alive with a billowing thundercloud movement, shot through with flickering lightning.
'Forgive me, Lord,’ Grygyr said hoarsely, looking down again.
The thunder subsided. ‘Your loyalty is known and will be rewarded, my priest,’ the figure said, almost conciliatory. ‘And you have done in Serenstad all that was required of you. Whendrak now will be the lure. Return home now and note what you would note as a soldier as you pass through their land for when you pass through it again with a victorious army at your back.'
'I shall, Lord,’ Grygyr replied fervently. ‘I have already learned much. I…'
'Go now,’ the voice said.
Grygyr hesitated. Was he to be denied tonight? He ventured, ‘Lord, may I not look again upon your domain so that I may better describe its wonders to your followers?’ There was a strange silence, an unexpected hesitation. Then the huge figure seemed to grow in size until it filled the entire sky. Grygyr quailed before it.
'You presume,’ came the terrible reply. ‘Go now before you anger us further with your mortal folly. You are put in the balance again. We shall return at some other time and consider your worth then. Be faithful and true, priest.'
'Your justice is boundless, Lord, I…'
Before he could finish, a great horn call rang out and the air was suddenly filled with the cries of countless hunting animals. Grygyr looked in terror from side to side. All around, dark shapes were running out of the dark shadow of the forests. He looked up at the figure, but it was gone. Only the monstrous moon remained, and it was slowly turning red.
'Go now,’ said an echoing voice out of the emptiness.
Grygyr screamed.
'No! Lord!'
He raised his hands to protect his head as the shadows closed in on him. He felt their hot, fetid breath. He screamed again.
Then the ground under his feet became dust again, sucking him down, down, down. He thrashed his arms in flailing panic, but still he sank. And still the black creatures neared. The dust rose up past his chest, his throat. It poured into the edges of his closed mouth, forced itself into his nose, his eyes, his ears, and finally closed over his head.
He felt the cold breeze blowing through his clutching fingers, then savage jaws closed about them …
Antyr opened his eyes. There was a bumping sound from the adjacent room, as if the envoy were drumming against the wall.
Antyr grimaced as indignation and horror swept over him. It was partly his own, partly that of Tarrian and Grayle. The power, the terrible skills of the men that had murdered Nyriall, that had been at the heart of all the events of the past days, stood clear in the envoy's dream.
Scarcely one jot of it had been of his own making. They had taken his most primitive fears and desires and woven them into the images of their will, to use him like some grotesque puppet. To the Dream Finder and his Companions, it was obscene beyond belief.
'Mankind unfettered is beyond all understanding,’ Tarrian said, scratching at the floor in bitter frustration.
'What's the matter?’ Estaan asked, yawning.
'The envoy's had his dream,’ Antyr replied quietly, wiping his forehead. ‘Poor devil.’ He sat up and swung his legs on to the floor. The two wolves stood up and came close to him. He stroked them both.
'You seemed quiet enough,’ Estaan said, wide awake now. ‘Not like at Nyriall's. Did anything interesting happen?'
Antyr, however, was still in quiet communion with his Companions. ‘If I had the power that these creatures have, I'd shine a great light into the souls of these benighted people,’ he said, voicing his thoughts. ‘Turn them away from their grim beliefs, turn them to knowledge and beauty. Not use it to deepen and darken their ignorance still further.'
He took the two wolves by the scruffs of their necks and shook them both gently. ‘What say you, dogs?’ he said.
'Whoever they are, they're powerful and skilful,’ Tarrian replied. ‘Who knows what devilment they intend. We must hunt them down and destroy them.'
'And you, Grayle?’ Antyr asked.
'They took Nyriall from me at a whim,’ Grayle replied. ‘I need nothing other than that to kill them.'
The wolf's single-mindedness was chilling. Antyr patted him.
'Please, tell me what's happened,’ Estaan said plaintively.
'We must waken the Duke,’ Antyr said, ignoring the plea.
'At this time of night!’ Estaan exclaimed. ‘Is it essential? I doubt he's had much sleep these past two nights. What's going on?'
Antyr looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You're right,’ he said, then he looked at the two wolves, their eyes yellow, their postures expectant.
He nodded, and lay back on the bed. Tarrian and Grayle lay down also and, with a grateful nod, Estaan relaxed back into his chair.
'Find the Duke,’ Antyr said to his Companions.
The Dreamselves of the two wolves hurtled into the darkness.
Chapter 25
Darkness. Twittering wisps of fading dreams.
'Sire?'
Recognition.
'Antyr? How…? I'm not dreaming. Am I?'
'No, sire. But you are asleep. I've sought you thus to tell you that the men who slew Nyriall and who have troubled us these past nights, have visited the envoy.'
'Visited?’ Alarm. Guards! ‘How?'
'Rest easy, sire. They came through his dreams. They conjured the form of the Bethlarii god Ar-Hyrdyn from him, and tormented him cruelly. He is Ar-Hyrdyn's priest.'
'I feel your pain and anger, Dream Finder. Are you certain it was they?'
'Beyond doubt, sire. Their presence is unmistakable. And they faltered and then punished him when he asked to see their domain again.'
'I don't understand.'
'They have perhaps tempted him before with some joy in the Threshold, but since my arrival there to protect Nyriall, they are uncertain about their mastery there.'
Appreciation. ‘To what end was this visitation?'
'I cannot say, but it was no good one. He was to have died here, at our hands, seemingly, but your will prevailed. Now, he is to live and return home.'
'Why?'
'They say his task is finished … or changed. He's been spying, and he'll spy further.
Indifference.
'He's a soldier.'
Silence.
'What did you learn of these … men … who can enter and change dreams thus?'
'They are powerful, skilful, and malevolent.'
'What is their intention?'
'I don't know. But it's evil beyond anything I care to think about. They said that Whendrak is now the lure.'
The lure …?
'To what?'
'I don't know.'
Anger.
'I know only that they must be sought out and destroyed.'
Surprise. ‘There is the law yet, Dream Finder.’ A reproof.
'They are demented in their evil, and beyond all law, save kill or be killed, Ibris.'
'I hear you, wolf, and shall weigh your judgement in due time.'
'I am not of your pack or your kind, Ibris, and thus am beyond your judgement, just as they are beyond your reach. They are also beyond all reason and too dangerous to live. When we meet, they or we shall die. Their deeds dictate their sentence.'
Silence.
'I hear you still, wolf. And trust you. What shall I do?'
'Lead your people, pack leader. War is coming.'
'And what shall you do, Antyr?'
'Find them.'
'How? Where?'
Silence.
'And when you find them?'
'I am changed.'
'Indeed. I feel your power. But …?'
'Lead your people, sire. I shall tell you what I can, when I can, if I can. Guard our bodies as need arises.'
'But…'
'Do this, sire.'
Silence.
Doubt.
Resignation.
'Rest now, sire.'
Snuffling, searching, finding, wolfish chuckling.
'A gift, Ibris. An old and joyous dream. Sleep in peace. You are guarded in all places by a great and ancient strength.'
Darkness.
Chapter 26
Arwain looked along the broad valley towards Whendrak. Rooftops, towers and pinnacles floated on a light morning mist which was turning yellow in the rising sun. The air was cold and damp, but fresh and clean.
Whendrak was no Serenstad, but it was a fine, lively city. Its architecture mingled the spartan Bethlarii style with that of the ebullient, adventurous, Serens, and showed an equal irreverence for both. It was distinct and unmistakably characteristic. As were the Whendreachi; honed by the generations of warfare that had passed over them.
Rising out of the mist, the city was a beautiful sight, but for those who knew it, the valley carried too many memories for the scene to be observed untainted. Throughout the long history of the land, bitter battle after bitter battle had been fought there over Whendrak, and where the birds were now rising in song with the burgeoning day, the awful screaming song of battle had many times held sway. And the dew-soaked grasses now darkening under the horses’ hooves had as many times been prodigally drenched in blood.
Arwain had a great sympathy, and no small affection, for the Whendreachi, though it was not to be denied that they were a hard, obdurate and abrasive people. They seemed to possess an uncanny knack for self-destruction which was matched only by their seemingly relentless will to survive. And these two attributes they bound together with an acidic, graveyard humour. They tended to be both the delight and the despair of thinking people.
