Dream Finder cohs-1

by Roger Taylor

  The training hall was small and deserted, though, dutiful ever, the Guild of Lamplighters had done their work and it was brightly lit. Countless feet had worn the wooden floor smooth and shiny in places and the characteristic smell of years of heated endeavour pervaded the place. Tarrian muttered something uncomplimentary but Antyr did not catch it.

  The walls were without ornamentation and exuded a dusty, no-nonsense utilitarianism indicative of too long without decoration. Completing the exclusively functional appearance and aura of the place were racks of worn and battered training weapons at one end, a series of fading mirrors along one side, and several items of mysterious, but equally worn equipment crowded carelessly into a corner.

  'Oh, I brought you these as well,’ Estaan said as he inspected his pupil. He produced two daggers; one, to Antyr's eyes, very large, and one of a more conventional size. Antyr looked at them, unsure of what response he should make apart from a vague, ‘Thank you.'

  Estaan clipped the large one on to Antyr's belt and then disappeared behind him to fit the other one horizontally into a sheath at the back of the belt. Then he led Antyr to a chair by the wall.

  'Sit down,’ he said.

  Antyr did as he was bidden. Estaan watched the awkward performance critically, then beckoning Antyr to rise, made further adjustments to the various sheaths.

  After two or three attempts, Antyr protested mildly that, ‘They're all right now, I'll get used to them.’ But Estaan had survived because he knew the importance of small things.

  'Riding, walking, running, sitting, standing, lying, you must be comfortable,’ he said, gently brushing the remark aside as he continued adjusting straps and loops on Antyr's sword belt.

  And when he had finished, some considerable time later, Antyr was just that. He had run, jumped, walked, sat, lain, and-thanks to some of the equipment in the corner, which, despite its aged appearance proved distressingly effective-demonstrated that he could climb and also sit a saddle without losing his new weapons or tangling himself in them.

  'Good, we'll begin,’ Estaan said eventually, just as Antyr was hoping he would say, ‘We'll finish for now.'

  His dismay showed, and Estaan chuckled softly. ‘Just a little practice to give you something to think about,’ he said, walking over to the weapons rack and selecting a stout wooden sword.

  'Draw your sword,’ he said, as he returned. Self-consciously, Antyr obeyed.

  'Now attack me,’ Estaan went on. Antyr frowned and looked at the gleaming edge of the sword in his hand. He was no expert in such matters, but he could see that it had recently been ground and sharpened and he had seen enough on the battlefield to know what appalling injuries a sword could inflict.

  'Not with this,’ he replied, making to sheath it. ‘I might make a mistake. I might hurt you.'

  Estaan nodded. ‘That's true,’ he agreed. ‘But training is mutual learning. This is for our benefit, not just yours. If you hurt me, the fault is mine.'

  Antyr shook his head and did not move.

  'Don't worry,’ Estaan said, smiling. ‘I didn't survive so long by taking risks with novices. As soon as you're anything like proficient, you'll be using the wooden sword, and I'll be using the real one.'

  Despite this reassurance, Antyr still hesitated.

  'A straight lunge is invariably the best attack,’ Estaan offered, encouragingly. ‘Do it slowly if you're worried.'

  With an effort, Antyr brought the sword up and lunged weakly towards his mentor. Estaan did not move, and the point stopped half a pace in front of him. He looked down at it wryly, ‘Hardly fatal I think,’ he said. ‘Try again.'

  Embarrassment and nervousness vying with one another, Antyr lunged again, a little more purposefully. As the point approached, Estaan walked quietly around it and tapped the extended blade with his wooden training sword. His movement alone took him out of any danger, but the blow further deflected Antyr's lunge and, lightly but definitely, Estaan drew the edge of the training sword along Antyr's throat.

  'Don't stop, lunge again,’ he said as Antyr was about to lower his sword and wait for criticism.

  After a few minutes of similar futile effort, Antyr, despite himself, began to grow angry at this elusive figure casually avoiding his lunges and poking him with the training sword or drawing its rounded edge across his throat, his wrists, the back of his knees and ankles, and various other places.

  Eventually he lowered his sword in frustration. ‘This is a waste of time,’ he said irritably, thrusting the weapon back into its sheath.

  'No it's not,’ Estaan said quietly. ‘I need to see where you're strong and where you're weak if I'm to help you.'

  'What do you keep running away and hitting me with that damned thing for, then?’ Antyr burst out, gesturing towards the training sword and involuntarily denouncing the Mantynnai's calm with his own agitation. ‘Show me something!'

  Estaan looked straight at him, his gaze penetrating. ‘First rule when training and practicing is to remember that there's no such thing as training and practicing.'

  Antyr's forehead furrowed.

  'There is no trying, only doing,’ Estaan went on before Antyr could protest. ‘There's not one way of fighting in here and another out there. If I just drop my guard and debate with you after I've avoided each of your attacks, because this isn't … real … then I'm teaching my mind and my body to do just that, and that's what they might do against a more serious attack.’ He stepped close to Antyr. ‘As it is, I teach my mind and body only how to kill or immobilize you after every one of your attacks. And you will learn to do the same.'

  Antyr looked uncertain.

  Estaan's manner became unexpectedly stern. ‘No,’ he said, taking Antyr's arm firmly. ‘Have no doubts about this. Grasp it if you grasp nothing else that I tell you, and it'll help you towards the knowledge that might save your life one day.'

  'I have used a sword in combat, you know,’ Antyr protested defensively.

  Estaan nodded, but there was denial in his expression. ‘You told me you left your sword on the field because of what you'd done with it,’ he said. ‘Injured someone badly, I suppose.'

  Despite his sternness, his voice was sympathetic. ‘Saw your flailing, panic-stricken efforts to tear him open and heard him scream. Saw a wild enemy suddenly become an ordinary man who never wanted to be there and who wanted nothing more than to flee. Saw wife, mother, children.'

  Antyr closed his eyes in a vain attempt to shut out long-dormant memories suddenly re-awakened. ‘Damn you. It was a battle, man,’ he said, grimacing. ‘We'd no choice. They were through the pikes and splitting the ranks. We had to draw swords and fight or…’ He stopped.

  'They'd have killed you.’ Estaan finished the sentence. ‘And many more.'

  Antyr turned away from the Mantynnai's gaze. ‘You don't have to justify yourself,’ Estaan said. ‘Least of all to me.'

  There was such pain in his voice that Antyr's anger faded.

  'Your salve for your memories is that you did what you did to save yourself or your comrades,’ Estaan went on. ‘That's all you're ever going to have. That's all you can possibly have. And if that's insufficient for your pain, then take the sword off now. You'll be safer unarmed.'

  His manner was unequivocal.

  Antyr gazed at him helplessly. ‘I can't go unarmed,’ he said eventually. ‘But I can't face…’ He grimaced. ‘I can't face that horror again.'

  Estaan nodded again and, looking at Antyr very intently, said simply, ‘You can.’ He brought his face close to Antyr's. ‘Because some part of you enjoyed the butchery…'

  There was a brief, agonizing silence in the old hall. Antyr tried to denounce the accusation, but the words he wanted refused to be spoken.

  'It's in all our natures, Antyr,’ Estaan pressed on, softly relentless. ‘And your only salve for that is that having seen it, you learn to accept it for what it is, and know that when need arises, it is right that it be given rein.'

  Antyr gazed from side to si
de, like a trapped animal looking for escape. But Estaan's brutal honesty permitted no flight. Antyr felt tears filling his eyes.

  'You've no right to speak like that,’ he managed hoarsely and pathetically.

  'I've no right not to,’ Estaan replied softly. ‘If I'm to give you such a weapon and show you how to use it. If I'm to let you go to face unknown enemies, while you're not aware of the realities of your own nature … of combat…'

  With a desperate effort, Antyr found his voice. He tore away from Estaan. ‘I need no lectures from anyone about the realities of fighting,’ he shouted angrily. ‘I may not be any great soldier, but I've stood in the line and held, with arrows and missiles falling all around. And people and horses screaming and dying.’ He shook his head as if to dispel the sound. ‘I've seen … comrades, enemies … who cares … whimpering and howling, with limbs half hacked off … bodies trampled under countless hooves … brains and guts leaking into the mashed earth, great feathered arrows sticking out of gaping faces and barbed heads sticking out through backs…'

  He fell suddenly silent. The pain of the old memories made him want to lash out, to strike someone down. He raised his hand towards Estaan. ‘Why do you pursue such a calling?’ he asked, his face almost scornful.

  Estaan started slightly.

  Antyr felt a gasp in his head and then the word, ‘Gently', followed in its wake. Tarrian and Grayle spoke simultaneously, and with such feeling that, despite his own pain, the judgement he had offered Estaan for his cruel honesty seemed to fly in his own face.

  'I'm sorry…’ he began, but Estaan waved his apology aside sadly.

  'I do it because it's the right thing for me to do,’ he said simply. ‘How that came to be, I won't discuss with you. But I learned long ago that such skills and self-knowledge as I have I must place between those who are possessed by their destructive natures and those who cannot adequately protect themselves.'

  Antyr made to speak again, but Estaan continued. ‘I look at Ibris and his great city, so full of beautiful things, and I watch him strive endlessly to make it more beautiful, and to tear the whole land away from its obscene and bloody history into a future where war becomes a sick and distant memory.’ Passion seeped into his voice. ‘Creation is the work of lifetimes, Dream Finder, destruction the work of moments; a knife, a hammer, a flame. I take pride that I can use my own dark skills in the ways of destruction to protect creation from destruction.'

  Antyr looked at the Mantynnai and, for a brief moment, felt the man's wholeness, his inner balance. Felt his understanding of the terrible deeds that lie within the depths of all men, and felt the will that had accepted them and that strove to use them as servants not masters. Here indeed, he realized, was a man from whom he could, and should, learn much.

  'I'm sorry,’ he said again, after a long silence. His demeanour added content to the inadequate words. ‘I was wrong to reproach you. I'll do as you say. I'm ready to learn whatever you're prepared to teach.'

  Estaan smiled slightly and bowed.

  The brief outburst had been in some way cathartic and Antyr seemed to feel that both his mind and his body were moving more easily now.

  Without speaking, they resumed their practice, Antyr gradually gathering the courage to attack more purposefully, and Estaan continuing to avoid the attacks effortlessly and deliver his painless but lethal counters.

  After a little while, Estaan called a halt and they sat down on the floor.

  'I'm not telling you anything you don't know when I tell you that you're no sword master, am I?’ he said.

  Antyr, breathing heavily and wiping his forehead with a kerchief, shook his head.

  'Still,’ Estaan went on. ‘I've seen worse, by far, and there are one or two little things-simple straightforward things-that we can work on, that you'll find helpful, as well as…’ He tapped his forehead with a smile. ‘Also you need more exercise. You're not in the best of condition.’ His smile broadened as Antyr looked at his sweat-soiled kerchief. ‘The heart of your personal combat strategy is going to be flight; you understand that, I know, and you'll need to be as fit for that as for fighting.'

  Antyr lay back on the hard, wooden floor and nodded again, ‘I'd forgotten how hard all this business was. Can't I be excused effort, on compassionate grounds?’ he pleaded faintly.

  'I have no compassion,’ Estaan replied, grinning.

  Antyr groaned softly.

  'Don't worry, I've not lost a trainee yet,’ Estaan went on unsympathetically. He stood up. ‘But I've seen enough, and you've done enough for now. What I want you to do now is think.'

  With a remarkable lack of both grace and dignity, Antyr managed to struggle to his feet. ‘I understand,’ he replied. Estaan took his arm and began leading him towards the door. Tarrian and Grayle padded after them.

  'Think about the question you asked me,’ Estaan replied. ‘And apply it to yourself. Why do you wish to carry a sword? Turn it round and round, and don't turn away from your darker nature.'

  Later, washed and rested, Antyr lay back in his bed and did as he had been told. A single lamp on a nearby table threw comforting shadows about the room.

  It took him a little thought, however, to reach a conclusion and see the implications. In his anger he had demanded that Estaan justify himself for being what he was, and, to his distress, he had received an answer. This must now be his own, though the motivation was more selfish than the Mantynnai's.

  He was entitled to carry a sword and, should need arise, protect himself from the strange, armed figures who stalked the Threshold. He would seek no confrontation, but if it were forced upon him-forced upon him-then the consequences, however horrific, were not his responsibility. He must harness the will of the darkness within him, keeping at bay its bloodlust if he could. He must strike; strike hard, strike fast; strike without pity; strike unencumbered by screaming bloodstained memories, past or future; strike from that most ancient need, the need to survive. Then and only then should he stay his hand.

  'Very complicated creatures, people, aren't they?'

  Tarrian's voice intruded into his conclusion. ‘Rambling round and round just to reach the blindingly obvious.'

  Antyr reached out and lowered the lamp's flame to a tiny point. ‘Go to sleep, dog,’ he said, and, much more quickly than he had for several nights, he drifted gently off to sleep.

  Chapter 31

  Apart from continuing to familiarize himself with the palace and receive instruction from Estaan and some of the other Mantynnai, little of any great import happened to Antyr over the next few days.

  They were far from quiet days, however. The palace was alive with activity, both frantic and ordered, while the Sened and the Gythrin-Dy were alive with rhetoric, both self-seeking and sincere.

  And looking to the spiritual needs of their flocks, Serenstad's many priests offered a similar variety of choices. Some sat in silent, mysterious meditation, some spoke with quiet, caring reasonableness, while yet others railed, with various degrees of coherence both for and against war against the Bethlarii. The citizens of Serenstad did not lack for opinions to discuss.

  And of course, there was the inevitable clamour of Guild officials besieging the mobilization offices pleading for this, that and the other special case. To no avail, however; the law permitted no exceptions for the able-bodied. Early in his reign, Ibris had abolished almost all forms of exemption from military service, not least the long-established practice of allowing individuals to purchase it. The proposal had met with a great deal of opposition from some of the powerful trading houses, but it had found much support from both the people and the ruling families and he had won the day. Such pleas by the Guilds were thus, in many ways, as ritualistic as any of the priests’ activities, but, their prayers passionately rendered and duly rejected, the Guild officials were able to depart with their civic consciences clear.

  'One of my better decisions,’ Ibris would remark from time to time. ‘Whatever a man is born to in this city he can stri
ve to change it and have my blessing, but arrow storms and cavalry charges are no respecters of either birth or worth and I'll have no one sheltering behind money bags while he expects others to shelter behind shields.'

  Following the orders for mobilization, there was a short but spectacular increase in the unlicensed markets that were a feature of Serenstad sweet life, as the shrewder traders began to sell old swords, pikes, bows and other military paraphernalia, to those who through the years of comparative peace had … forgotten … that they were required by law to possess and maintain such equipment. These suddenly blooming commercial toadstools were known as wagon marts, as the participants invariably chose not to set up the traditional decorated street stalls, but to trade directly from their wagons to which their horses also remained harnessed.

  In the spirit of the military thinking that begat this activity, the traders would post lookouts so that due warning of the approach of Liktors-or worse, the market Exactors-could be reported in sufficient time for them to institute an orderly retreat with a view to regrouping elsewhere. The particularly shrewd, however, held their ground and produced grinding and whetting stones so that they would be found, ‘Performing a public service, sir,’ when discovered. ‘No tax liable under mobilization.'

  Almost inconspicuously among this mounting hubbub, Menedrion returned. He was well pleased with himself for his treatment of the envoy, but angry and concerned about Whendrak and anxious to be ‘doing something'. With him returned Pandra and Kany to confirm to Antyr the details of Arwain and Menedrion's strange and shared dream, and the finding of the Gateway into the Threshold.

  Despite the fatigue of the journey, Pandra was in a state of some elation.

  'To come across such a thing,’ he waxed. ‘It's thrown a light across my entire life as a Dream Finder. I feel as if I were just starting again, like some excited apprentice. To know for certain that all those worlds truly exist.’ He waved his hands to prevent Antyr interrupting. ‘I know you told me about them … but to actually see one … to be on the edge of it.'