by Roger Taylor
Amhir had sealed his own fate. Ivaroth's question was now simply one of deciding the most expedient way for his disposal.
A figure behind Ivaroth stirred, and a bony, unclean hand emerged to close about his arm. It squeezed it longingly several times as though its owner were overcome by some great desire that only Ivaroth could satisfy. It was a repellent gesture, but Ivaroth merely inclined his head slightly towards the figure as if he were listening to something.
Slowly he nodded and the hand slid away very gradually, its long fingers trailing over Ivaroth's arm with a lingering reluctance to leave him. Again Ivaroth ignored the intimacy of the gesture.
Amhir levelled a hand towards the figure, his eyes wide with what was now obviously an uncontrollable passion.
'Silence!’ Ivaroth thundered, before Amhir could speak. ‘You have the temerity to tell me that you know the will of the gods? I am the will of the gods. How else could I have become Mareth Hai and brought together the tribes as I have?'
'I have seen what I have seen, Ivaroth,’ Amhir said, seemingly impervious to Ivaroth's anger. ‘I feel the power of the land growing as we near the mountains and the gods have spoken to me. They have shown me the future. They have shown me the demon on your back. They have…'
'What future did they show you, Amhir?’ Ivaroth said, smiling; suddenly intrigued, conciliatory even.
At the sight of the smile, several of the chieftains began quietly to ease away from their leader and the shaman. The circle grew perceptibly wider.
But still Amhir seemed unaware of the danger. ‘In a dream, I stood on a high place and saw there remnants of our army returning from the mountains, broken and destroyed. I heard the plains filled with the weeping of countless widows, and the cries of children, starving because the hunters were all gone.'
'You heard all this? You saw it? In a dream?’ Ivaroth said, his voice softening and his smile broadening.
The tension around the group became unbearable. Ivaroth's temper was explosive and swift, and invariably fatal for someone. He had once run a sleeping sentry through with his own sword, declaring to the shocked officers with him, ‘I left him as I found him.'
Now, despite the tremors that Amhir's voice was sending through their dark and bloody souls, most of the watchers expected a similar fate to befall him and were watching Ivaroth's sword closely, ready to dive for cover when it swept suddenly into action.
But instead, Ivaroth sheathed it with a grim laugh. ‘I'd thought to strike you down for bringing your religious ranting to this assembly, Amhir,’ he said. ‘But I see the gods are merely toying with you.’ He shrugged casually. ‘A fate which you have justly brought on yourself by your endless meddling in their affairs, seeking to interpret this omen and that portent in your arrogance.'
Amhir opened his mouth to speak but Ivaroth raised his hand. ‘They've doubtless sent you such dreams knowing that your folly would lead you inexorably to death at my hand just to show that any future you had seen yourself in could only be a delusion. However, when you are yourself, you're too fine a warrior to lose, and I'll be no party to their antics. If they wish an end to you, then they must attend to it. Leave us now. Come to me in the morning and tell me what other visions you've had.'
Amhir's mouth worked agitatedly.
'Go, before I recant,’ Ivaroth said menacingly. ‘I'll do their work if I have to.'
As if being pulled by unseen hands, Amhir stood up unsteadily and, without any leave-taking, staggered from the tent. In the ensuing silence, only a low, ecstatic breathing from the figure behind Ivaroth could be heard. Endryn looked alarmed. ‘Mareth Hai, fine warrior or no, he must be silenced,’ he said urgently. ‘If he goes wandering the camp talking like that he could cause havoc.'
Ivaroth shook his head. ‘Let him speak to whomever he wishes. The more who hear him, the more will know of his folly,’ he said. Then, with almost fatherly regret, ‘He meddled where he shouldn't have, my friends, and now there's a price to be paid. We must keep away from him if we don't want to share it. Frankly, I doubt he'll see the night through.'
Then, addressing the unspoken conclusion which came immediately to the minds of his listeners, he said, ‘Arrange an honour guard about him tonight. He's to be protected. I want no assassin's blade entering this affair.'
Later, Ivaroth sat alone in the tent. He had dismissed the assembly shortly after the departure of Amhir, telling the chieftains to meet with him again the following day. ‘When we'll discuss the detailed plans for our passage through the mountains and our assault on the southlands.'
They were both confused and subdued as they left, not least as Ivaroth's final words had been to confirm his earlier order. ‘See that Amhir is well guarded this night. Put your finest men around him.'
Now, Ivaroth stared into the flame of a solitary lamp; the whites of his eyes turned as black as the moonless night outside in preparation for his entry into the dream world. The flame flickered occasionally, or bent slightly this way and that, following the promptings of some unseen force.
How different am I from you? Ivaroth thought. Moving here, moving there. Whose plaything am I?
He was not normally given to such introspection. He was a warrior. Destiny was for those who saw it and seized it; by word or by sword, by truth or by treachery, it mattered not. The gods, if gods there be, favoured the bold.
And yet …?
There were things that were hidden from him. Why should he be able to visit the dreams of others, to watch, to listen, to revel and, lately, to learn? Wrenyk had spoken of it, but he had never known of others. He rubbed the cheek that Wrenyk had spat on.
And how could it be that he could move into the strange worlds beyond the dreams? Real worlds, filled with real lands and real people … and real danger! Worlds where he had soon learned to carry a sharp sword and walk softly, and into which he never strayed too far.
And who was the blind man, with his mysterious and terrifying powers who had been drawn to him in the deserted wastes of the north?
More than ever this question taxed him now. Amhir's words returned to him, ‘They have shown me the demon on your back.’ It was a long time since anyone had dared refer even obliquely to the strange hooded figure that had come out of exile with him to become like his shadow, frequently at his side and even present in some eerie way when he was absent.
Only Ivaroth knew of his strange, dangerous powers: that he could sometimes see into minds, and even speak into them without sound; that he could, as he had when Ivaroth had faced the gauntlet, fill others with great power and strength, making them invincible against all opposition; that he could make objects move, conjure fire from the air, and even make the earth shake; a deed which seemed to excite him beyond all reason.
And he was patently insane, muttering and gloating to himself in a soft, repellent whisper. A blind drivelling old man, with eyes as sickly milk-white as Ivaroth's were now black; yet who could see into the spirits of men? A man who never seemed to eat or sleep, but who seemed to be kept alive by some strange power that he drew from who knew where? And a man who seemed to possess no fleshly appetites at all, not even for the occasional woman.
But he could lust, and lust more than any man could for a woman. Indeed, his every action seemed to radiate gross and unholy desire. He lusted to use his power. Though not so much in this world. It was in the worlds beyond that he wanted to use it, for there it was multiplied a hundredfold.
And he had known of these worlds from the first moment he had stared into Ivaroth's eyes!
Mutual need had bound the two men together. ‘Take me through the dreams and into the worlds beyond, Ivaroth,’ he had said, at the same time filling Ivaroth's body with burning fingers of pain. ‘And all you desire here shall be yours.'
At first, Ivaroth had taken him out of mortal fear of his strange powers, regarding the promise as a mere taunt. But his natural opportunism had soon shown him that the blind man's craving to visit the worlds beyond and use his power th
ere was almost uncontrollable, and as such was a weakness that could be used to control and manipulate him.
And as he began to get some measure of the blind man's powers, his own ambitions began to grow with an equal lack of restraint. With such powers at his behest, nothing could stand in his way. This grotesque old man was indeed his destiny.
Thus one day, out in the cold, bleak wastes where they had met and were then subsisting, Ivaroth had refused to take him into the worlds beyond.
For a brief, but seemingly eternal moment, the blind man's fury had been beyond belief and Ivaroth found himself the centre of pain that he could not have thought imaginable. But he was no coward and was truly willing to sacrifice his life for the ambitions he saw opening before him with the blind man's powers at his command.
Whether he spoke the words, or merely formed the thoughts, he never knew, but even as he fell to his knees, he shouted defiantly into the pain. ‘I am Ivaroth Ungwyl, a son of the sons of warriors since time began. Death holds no fear for me, old fool. Slay me and you will lose all, for there are no others like me throughout all the tribes of the plains.'
The pain had stopped almost immediately but, roaring with hatred and fury, Ivaroth had lurched to his feet and struck the blind man a ferocious blow in the face that sent him sprawling on his back in the rough grass. He had scarcely struck the ground when Ivaroth's sword was pressing into his throat.
'Slay me and you lose all,’ the old man had said, cringing away from the purposeful point, fearfully.
Thus was their bargain struck.
Now, however, like the guttering flame before him, it was faltering again. The blind man had used his power surreptitiously to protect and strengthen Ivaroth in battle, making him the invincible leader of his own tribe, and subsequently of all the tribes as he pursued his relentless ambition to become Mareth Hai and form an army that could carry him through the mountains to seize the southlands. In return Ivaroth had taken the blind man into the worlds beyond to run amok for a while with his greater power.
But Ivaroth had always been deeply suspicious of the blind man. Often, like a cunning child, he would turn to Ivaroth and say, ‘Take me to the other place, the place beyond here, where the true power can be found.’ He used no threats, but he was endlessly persistent, his blind eyes watching Ivaroth carefully each time he spoke thus. Ivaroth, however, did not understand him. He would take him from world to world, but always there was the same peevish shaking of the head, and the plaintive squeezing of his arm. ‘This is not the place. Please look again, search inside yourself, it is there. I feel it.'
The tone sickened Ivaroth, but he learned silence. A little disgust was a small price for the benefits that the blind man's cooperation brought him.
And in more conciliatory moments, he would say, quite sincerely, ‘I would find this place for you if I could.'
'But you must search, you must, you must.'
Then had come the great discovery.
They had left one of the worlds beyond and, seemingly accidentally, entered the dream of one of the Bethlarii Handiran. It was a dream full of images of perpetual, ritualized warfare, of dying and being reborn to fight again. And over all hovered the image of some tedious deity, Ar-Hyrdyn. The blind man took little or no interest in dreams and, himself indifferent, Ivaroth had been about to withdraw from it when the blind man's Dreamself had touched him with repellent glee.
And he had changed the dream! Twisted it somehow to his own fancy, and sent the dreamer hurtling towards a screaming wakefulness.
The blind man could use his power to change dreams!
Even now, Ivaroth still felt the emotion of that realization. To the blind man the torment of the Bethlarii had been no more than a passing and gratuitous spite; the slow, pointless crushing of a harmless insect. To Ivaroth, the manner in which it was done and the person to whom it was done, revealed his road to the south and the fulfilment of his wildest ambitions.
And their bargain had been made anew. Ivaroth promised that he would carry the blind man further into the other worlds in search of this ‘other place', while the blind man would bend and shape the dreams of the Bethlarii leaders to Ivaroth's will.
It was work that the blind man grew to relish, for the Bethlarii were a people who worshipped pain and suffering and their minds were a rich storehouse for his cruel humour. Soon, one man actually died from sheer terror as a result of his handiwork. Ivaroth noted the incident well, and, as he learned more about the Bethlarii, used it on several carefully arranged occasions to remove opposition from their hierarchy and also to consolidate the power of those he could best manipulate by giving them the sight to prophesy such deaths.
So it had gone for many months. Ivaroth ruthlessly forging his federation and the blind man gleefully tormenting the Bethlarii through their dreams to prepare the way for Ivaroth's coming. On occasions they took some of the Bethlarii into one of the worlds beyond where the blind man's power could weave a magic quite different in its conviction from that within the dreams.
But now, a strange opposition had arisen. First, the strange old man who appeared from nowhere in one of the worlds, to challenge them and then flee from world to world, through the doorways that Ivaroth thought only he could find.
The lamp flame spluttered momentarily as the memory returned to him. His black eyes narrowed uncertainly. He and the blind man had nearly been killed in that battle the old man had led them to.
And then he had led them to the other one. The one who had arisen to protect him like some avenging demon. It had looked like a man, but it had walked towards Ivaroth's sword and into the blind man's insane storm apparently unafraid, calling and challenging them …
Ivaroth turned away from the memory of the savage rending power that had suddenly surged out of the howling darkness, like some great predatory animal. Terrible eyes … teeth …
And the blind man had stood there, his blank eyes gleaming with lust, and his arms extended as if to embrace the terror. Only by main force had Ivaroth torn them both back to this world.
Had it all been a trap? he thought. And if so, by whom? He did not dwell on the idea. He remembered only the blind man's wild clamouring as they had crashed into the consciousness of this world.
'He can take me there. He can take me there,’ he kept saying, alternately fawning and raging, one moment grovelling at Ivaroth's feet, the next wildly seizing and pummelling him. Used to physical combat, and himself full of battle anger following the unexpected and terrifying assault in the world beyond, Ivaroth was unaffected by the blind man's futile attacks and after a little while he ended the matter with a savage blow to the jaw.
Crouching down by the crumpled form, he was sorely tempted, for a moment, to end the cloying mutual reliance that bound them together, by crushing him underfoot. But calmer counsels prevailed and he waited for the blind man to stir.
When he did, Ivaroth held a knife against his throat.
'The worlds beyond are dangerous, old man,’ he said. ‘When we are there, you obey me absolutely, or I shall abandon you there and return to slay your form here. Do you understand?'
'He can take me there…’ The litany began again, but stopped abruptly as Ivaroth's knife pressed harder.
He clutched at Ivaroth's sleeve and Ivaroth felt a spasm of pain forming inside him. His eyes widened in fury and seizing the blind man's wild matted hair he yanked his head back violently forcing the knife up under his chin.
'No more,’ Ivaroth said through clenched teeth. ‘Or I'll drive this blade through your brain before you can blink.'
The blind man became rigid, and the pain faded, but Ivaroth did not release him. Instead he drew his face closer. ‘That apparition you're blubbering after wanted only our deaths. You can't be so blind that you didn't see that. I don't know who or what it was, or why it came for us. I've never met the like of it before. Perhaps it's always been there, perhaps your power drew it there … I don't know. But I've no intention of returning to the worlds beyon
d for some time, so school yourself to that. We continue with the conquest of the south first. Then and then only, will I take you back to seek your “other place". Do you understand me?'
The blind man had seemingly accepted this ultimatum and since then had fawned about Ivaroth more than ever, like some child seeking favour. But Ivaroth had made and slain too many enemies and allies in his time not to understand what was happening.
Just as in the blind man's ability to change dreams, Ivaroth had seen his ambitions unfold before him, so, in that demon that had attacked them, the blind man had seen the spirit that could take him to this elusive ‘other place’ that he was eternally fretting for. Nothing now would quench his desire.
And, Ivaroth realized starkly as the flame in front of him finally flickered out, he would indeed fulfil his promise and one day carry the blind man into the worlds beyond again, to seek this ‘other place', because he would need the blind man not only to conquer the south but to rule it, and to maintain his rule over the tribes.
The blind man was power, and power must be a close-watched ally not a captive, or it would bloom in secret and then turn on its captor.
Their mutual needs and desires bound Ivaroth and the blind man more completely than any lovers, and, in the end, only death would separate them.
That night Ivaroth led the blind man into Amhir's dreams. The shaman's screams could be heard around the camp, but he could not be wakened.
In the end, he died.
None could look on his face.
Chapter 28
Ryllans seized Arwain to stop him falling from the saddle, at the same time searching through the milling crowd to see who had thrown the rock and whether more were likely to follow.
