Ibryen

by Roger Taylor

  Understanding suddenly washed over Ibryen. ‘I remember,’ Isgyrn gasped out. ‘I came here to call the Culmaren. To see if I could touch them and learn about my kin, my land.’

  There was such an aching loneliness in his voice that Ibryen could do no other than reach out to him again. ‘This is the place where the Culmaren dwell, but it’s also a place where you do not belong,’ he said. ‘That you’re still sane is perhaps a tribute to the Hearer’s blood you carry within you.’

  There was a brief stab of sharp and fierce resentment that he, a Dryenvolk Warrior, should be addressed thus by this dweller in the middle depths, but it was gone almost before Ibryen could respond to it, though he felt a flicker of resentment of his own that he should be drawn into this predicament when his people were placing their trust in him to find a way of bringing down their own enemy. And, whatever else was happening on this strange journey, that prospect was as far from him as ever. He felt suddenly burdened.

  Though both remained silent, Ibryen sensed their combined anger coiling and twisting and shifting something fundamental in this world. No, he realized suddenly, not in this world, which was beyond disturbance by such trivia, but in his grip upon it…

  And in his grip upon his form that sat on the mountainside.

  He seized Isgyrn protectively, uttering again the injunction, ‘Hold to me.’

  A soft, haunting call echoed through the vast emptiness that was Ibryen’s perception of the world of the Culmaren. Another followed it.

  But neither of the flickering consciousnesses that were Ibryen and Isgyrn heard it.

  They were gone.

  Chapter 26

  Jeyan’s second passage through the mirrors was no less frightening than her first, though this time it was quicker. The Gevethen moved to either side of her and led her forward as before. Despite the pressure of their grip, she could do no other than close her eyes and flinch away as her reflection strode towards her. The wash of bitter coldness passing through her made her gasp, then she opened her eyes to find herself once more in darkness. Vague reflections of the dimly lit room she had just left hung about her.

  There was little time for pondering these matters however, for the Gevethen’s grip about her shoulders was urgent. Once or twice she felt them hesitate, and she caught the faint whisper, ‘Gateways’, passing between the two unseen figures.

  Fearful that the Gevethen might learn that Hagen had in some way failed to perform whatever task it was they had set him, Jeyan searched frantically for some means of postponing what was presumably an imminent meeting. Escape was impossible. Even if she could break away from the Gevethen’s grip – which felt very unlikely – where could she go in this place? She was not even sure that she would exist here without the presence of the Gevethen.

  Wisps of light began to appear. And hints of sounds.

  ‘What is this place, Excellencies?’ she asked, snatching at the first coherent idea to form.

  There was a short stillness as though everything about her was holding its breath.

  ‘This is the place between the worlds, Jeyan Dyalith.’

  ‘The place of the Gateways.’

  Jeyan risked again. ‘Forgive my foolishness, Excellencies, but I don’t understand. What worlds? How can there be…?’

  The grip about her shoulders tightened painfully.

  ‘Seek not to understand.’

  ‘Obey.’

  Jeyan gritted her teeth against the pain. ‘If I understand, will I not be better able to serve you, Excellencies?’

  There was another stillness. Longer this time, and tense. There was a strange quality in the Gevethen’s voice when they replied, as if they were reluctant to discuss the matter.

  ‘Obedience to His will is all, Jeyan Dyalith.’

  ‘What is needed, you will be shown.’

  ‘Understanding is His and His alone.’

  Jeyan bit back her inquiry about who He might be. Instinct told her that pain, even death or worse, lay down that road if she persisted.

  Though the vague reflections of her room were unchanged, the shifting patterns of light and the eerie chorus of sounds had been growing in intensity. And something was hovering in her mind, something small, but important.

  Suddenly, she knew what it was. It was the Gevethen’s voices; there was fear in them! There had been a hint of it when she had been brought here before, but she had been too shocked and afraid to think about what it meant. It was taking the edge off that cold harshness in their tone. It was making them into ordinary men. Brothers. Wretched twins. Loving and hating one another at the same time, inextricably bound together.

  ‘The strange passageway you showed me when you brought me here before, Excellencies. Was that one of the Gateways to the other worlds?’

  ‘No, that is…’

  ‘Hush!’

  The word, with its urgent sibilance, echoed into the movement about her, and arrowed off into some unknowable distance, all shapes and sounds drawn after it, twisting and dancing in its wake.

  Conflict! Her question had caused a conflict between the Gevethen! Even the hint of such a thing had never manifested itself in the time she had been with them. Had she thought about creating such, she would have deemed it impossible. Yet Jeyan allowed herself no triumph; there was no saying what she might have released. She braced herself for whatever might follow, becoming suddenly desperately fearful, and resolving to break away from the Gevethen if opportunity presented itself, regardless of the consequences. Better to wander lost in this mysterious place than to suffer what might come to pass at their hands.

  Then she became aware of a whispered dispute being carried on behind her. It was reflected in a quivering of the arms about her shoulders. For a fleeting instant she had the impression that the two men were pummelling one another, like spoilt children, but she wilfully tore her attention away by focusing intensely on what appeared to be a pale yellow mist that had floated into her view. Like everything else about her, the mist shifted and changed, both in shape and colour. And, she noted, the sounds that were hovering about it changed also.

  ‘We must try.’

  The soft voice floated into her awareness. She tried not to listen.

  ‘It will fail again.’

  ‘We must try. He tests us ever. We must open the Way to come to His presence again.’

  ‘I am afraid of His anger. We have been so long.’

  ‘But the merest moment in His endless patience. We have much to tell Him. His will is being done in this place.’

  Then, very softly, and so full of fear that despite her own cruel hatred of the Gevethen, Jeyan felt stirrings of pity:

  ‘What if He is no more.’

  All about Jeyan froze. The endless moving stopped as if it had never been. She was alone in a frozen landscape. The voice continued and the landscape moved again.

  ‘The birds – our eyes – went. Vanished overnight. No warning, no message. Then the Way to His fastness closed against us and could not be opened.’

  Jeyan waited, terrified lest her heart beat again and reveal her as an eavesdropper.

  ‘You blaspheme, brother.’There was naked terror in the answer.‘He is the One True Light. He is eternal. He will come again to right that which was flawed in the Beginning.’ Then there was venomous fury.‘It is your lack of faith that has brought this about.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. Have you forgotten so soon the great powers He gave us?’

  ‘No. I…’

  ‘Curse you.’

  The voice began to cringe and plead. It lost all semblance of the cold, grating harshness that marked the Gevethen voice.‘No. I was just… He is testing us, as you say. Many Citadels He was building to prepare the world for His coming, and ours was to be the finest and strongest. Remember? I use the power better than you – you’ve always said that. It’s not my fault, truly. We’ll discover how to open the Way eventually. I’ll try harder. See, see!’

  ‘Wait!’

&nbs
p; But the injunction came too late and Jeyan could feel something reaching out into the disorder. Almost immediately, another power joined it. The Gevethen were one again, she sensed. As had happened before, she felt herself briefly touching a myriad other worlds, each one vivid and real, but gone almost before she could register it. Then she was standing before the long tunnel again. Its walls glowed and shimmered uneasily, and in the far distance, it seemed to waver as if searching for something.

  ‘It is done.’There was triumph in the voice.‘Further than ever before. My power grows yet.’

  ‘Our power.’

  ‘Our power.’

  ‘Soon we shall come to His presence again.’

  But as well as the triumph, there was strain also, and the distant unsteadiness began to move nearer.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Hold firm!’

  Jeyan felt the trembling of their effort pass through her. But the wavering grew wilder and closer, gathering speed as it drew nearer. Then the walls of the tunnel immediately before her began to grow diffuse and to twist and turn until finally they were spinning giddily. An ear-rending screech began to grow out of the collapsing confusion.

  The Gevethen’s effort grew increasingly frantic, but she could feel it worsening the disintegration. It became a hypnotic maelstrom. Only when the onrush was nearly upon her did Jeyan manage to tear her gaze from it. With a cry she pushed backwards. But the Gevethen held her still, their grip firmer than ever, despite the battle they were waging for control of the shrieking vortex the tunnel had now become.

  Then, with the noise so intense as to be almost tangible, the mysterious Way that the Gevethen had opened came to its crashing end, drawing into it all the shapes and patterns that were floating around Jeyan and crushing them at its heart into nothingness. Jeyan knew that her mouth was open and that she was screaming, but she could hear nothing above the awful din. For an instant it seemed that every part of her was being drawn into the terrible destruction and that soon she would be nothing more than a tiny glittering part of the whirling kaleidoscope.

  Then there was darkness, and silence, save for her own piercing shriek.

  And the grip of the Gevethen about her shoulders was no more.

  She was alone.

  * * * *

  Where there had been a vast echoing emptiness, there was now milling confusion and colour and a cacophony of many voices and sounds. And floating amid this was Ibryen. There and not there. An awareness that was diamond-hard in its clarity yet tenuous as an idle summer breeze.

  I should be afraid. The thought drifted through him. But he was not. He had had doubts about his sanity many times during these past few days, and this place, this state he was in, was so far beyond anything he could have imagined that those doubts should have become a screaming clamour. Yet they had not. For though he was not of this place, he knew that he was no intruder and that it was neither an unnatural rending of the fabric of reality nor the collapse of his mind that had carried him here. Strangely he felt less disturbed here than he had in the world of the Culmaren. That had been profoundly alien. It was as though he belonged here, albeit rather as he would belong as a guest in the domain of a neighbouring Lord.

  Though there was no scrabbling fear however, there was concern. He was not a guest, nor was there any host. Rather he had wandered here inadvertently… an aimless traveller, and one deeply ignorant of the ways of the land to which he had now come. And he was lost, though that seemed to be inherent in the nature of this place. But his real concern was for the other awareness that was with him, held at once free and bound, like a planet by a more massive neighbour. And Isgyrn indeed now seemed to be teetering on the edge of insanity.

  Ibryen reached out to him. ‘Hold firm to me, Warrior,’ he said, repeating the injunction he had given before they had found themselves transported here. ‘This has little more substance than our thoughts. Our bodies are safe, guarded by Rachyl and the Traveller on the mountain.’

  The authority in his manner surprised him in that it did not surprise him. For while he might perhaps belong here, he knew that Isgyrn definitely did not, and that he was responsible for bringing him here.

  Yearning images suddenly flooded into his mind: clouds, bright against a blue, all-encompassing sky; spires and domes glittering silver and gold, and lesser buildings, many-hued, nestling amongst them. And beyond, a strange undulating landscape, and vast cloudscapes. And everywhere, people. People walking broad highways that soared like rainbows from building to building, and people gliding beneath many-coloured wings like great birds…

  ‘Hold to me,’ Ibryen said again, powerfully, intruding with some regret into the vision. ‘You need no lessons from me, Warrior, to know that to survive you must see things as they are. Neither solace nor safety is to be found in such memories. They will sustain you in other ways. Hold to me. I will guide us from this place.’

  Fear and panic replaced the longing memories, but at their heart Ibryen could feel Isgyrn’s stern will struggling with them. He sought for something to say that would help the Dryenwr, but no inspiration came, only the knowledge that Isgyrn’s inner battle was his alone, and beyond any helping. Whether at the end he would be returned to his body whole and wiser, or a gibbering shadow, was now his choice. All that Ibryen could do was wait and be there.

  ‘Helplessness does not sit well with me either.’

  Isgyrn’s words startled Ibryen. The Dryenwr was suddenly in command of himself again. ‘I think I’d rather face that white-eyed demon and his shrieking mount than another such ordeal again,’ he went on. Then he answered Ibryen’s question before it was asked. ‘Of my various aptitudes the most modest is that of Verser – I haven’t the imagination to create a place like this. My friends…’ He faltered briefly. ‘… my friends often rebuke me for being stern – too logical. It causes… caused… great amusement. Maybe I’ve been driven mad, maybe I’ve perished and am in some hellish limbo, but for the time being I’ll consider myself and you, whatever we are, here, and all this around us, however strange, to be real simply because it seems to be so and because I remember setting off on this journey of my own free will knowing that places beyond our ordinary worlds existed and that I ventured thus without a guide at no small risk.’ There was a pause, then, ‘Though, warrior to warrior, and logic not withstanding, I confess I’m mightily afraid. You sit easier here than I do – do you know what this place is, or what’s happened to us?’

  ‘I’ve no answers, Isgyrn,’ Ibryen replied. ‘I think we must await events.’

  Even as he spoke however, Ibryen felt a pattern in the shifting shapes and sounds about him. A feeling of hopefulness rose inside him, like the sun over the mountain tops. He took Isgyrn and moved into it.

  And they were whole again.

  Though they were not cramped in a noisy tent on top of a rain-swept ridge. They were standing on a small grassy hummock in a forest. Sunlight danced through the swaying tree-tops, sending dappling shadows everywhere; birdsong filled the air, counterpointing the rustling of the trees, and forest scents pervaded everything.

  The two men stood for some time carefully testing hands and arms, then gazing at one another, before finally examining their new surroundings. Isgyrn’s eyes were wide with inquiry, but Ibryen shook his head.

  Tentatively he stepped forward, as though too sudden a movement might cause the whole scene to vanish. Soft woodland sward yielded under his foot. Isgyrn followed him. ‘This is a forest, isn’t it?’ he said as they walked slowly down the hummock. ‘It’s so beautiful. Such colours, such perfumes. How…?’

  Ibryen shook his head again. ‘This is a forest, yes,’ he said. ‘But I’ve no more answers now than I had a few moments ago, only a great many more questions.’

  Isgyrn rubbed a hand down his arm unhappily.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re still here,’ Ibryen said. ‘We’re both here, though where here is belongs to that list of questions.’

  ‘This is nowhere that you recognize
then?’ Isgyrn said. ‘No part of your land?’

  Ibryen chuckled softly. ‘I wouldn’t pretend to be familiar with every tree and field of Nesdiryn, but no, I don’t think it is. And it’s summer, judging by the state of the trees and the temperature.’

  Isgyrn nodded. ‘What shall we do?’ he asked simply.

  ‘Await events still, I fear,’ Ibryen replied. ‘But we might as well try to answer your other question – where are we? – while we’re waiting.’

  They selected a direction at random and set off. As they disappeared into the trees, a figure emerged moving in the opposite direction. It was a youth mounted on a well-groomed horse and leading a sturdy pack pony. His head was bowed and his face lowering, and unlike the two newcomers he seemed to be angrily oblivious to the beauty of his surroundings.

  * * * *

  The echoes of her scream faded, but a greater terror threatened to take possession of Jeyan as she stood blinking in the darkness. Carefully she extended her trembling arms forward. They touched nothing. Then, softly, she said, ‘Excellencies?’

  There was no answer. She repeated the call, but still there was no reply.

  And she could not feel their presence!

  What had happened? It occurred to her that all this had been an elaborate trick so that she would be left abandoned in this dark world within the mirrors as her final punishment. But even as the idea formed, she dismissed it. The hissed quarrel she had overheard had been no act, nor the effort she had felt being exerted as their strange creation had slipped from their control. The terrifying memory of that onrushing power was still vivid in her mind. It seemed inconceivable that anything could have survived it.

  Were they dead? Had that monstrous tunnel and its destruction destroyed them? Yet she was alive. But then, she had been a mere bystander – while they had been at the heart of it. And now there was not even a hint of their cloying presence about her. She felt a flicker of exhilaration. Maybe they were dead, maybe not, but they were gone from her. She was free!