by Roger Taylor
His authority prevailed and the crowd started to break up immediately, though the Synehal filled with the muffled rumble of the still-repeated questions as neighbour turned to neighbour. Derwyn watched them, his smile gone. The relief at the return of the Hearer was almost palpable, but so too was the uncertainty that the arrival of Farnor and the departure of Marken had provoked. He had tried to seize on the first and dismiss the second light-heartedly, but he knew that he had not been totally successful.
As he looked round for Marken, several of the people who had been sitting on the tiered seats began to head towards him.
Marken in the meantime had been standing by Farnor, having taken his elbow in the powerful grip that Farnor was beginning to recognize as normal amongst these people. He looked at the old Hearer, though even as he did so, he realized that he could not have guessed how old he actually was. For although Marken had the demeanour of an old man, and greying brown hair, there was, nonetheless, an oddly youthful cast about his features and, particularly, his eyes, which managed to shine through even his manifest tiredness.
Marken guided him down the slope of the platform. ‘The Synehal isn't the place for the conversation that we must have,’ he said very softly. ‘We'll go to Derwyn's.'
'Shouldn't we wait for him?’ Farnor asked, somewhat bewildered by Marken's urgency. Marken glanced back. Derwyn was engaged in what appeared to be a heated conversation with several men and women. Marken chuckled softly. ‘Derwyn's a good Second,’ he said. ‘But he never could finish a meeting properly. A brisk manner and swift legs is what you need, and Derwyn's always been too polite.'
Before Farnor could offer any protest, he was being propelled through the dispersing crowd. Unlike their behaviour at his entrance however, the crowd did not open before Marken, but tended rather to close around him as greetings were shouted to him, and hands came out to grasp his arms and pat him on the back. Somewhat to his surprise, Farnor, too, now found himself subjected to similar treatment, though he noticed that most of the people who took his arms tended to be looking at his hair. It was thus some time before they were able to walk on unhindered. ‘Can we slow down a little?’ Farnor asked. My legs have done more walking and climbing these last two days than in a month at home.'
Distressingly, he felt a frisson of bitter anger following in the wake of his casual reference to home, but Marken dispelled it with an immediate, if rather absent-minded, reply. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Forgive me, I wasn't thinking. There's such a lot I need to talk about with you.'
Farnor stopped abruptly. Marken continued for a few paces before he realized that he was alone. He turned round, his face questioning.
'I don't mind talking with you,’ Farnor said defensively. ‘But I'm leaving tomorrow morning at dawn, come what may. Now you're back, there's even less reason for me to stay.'
Marken looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want, Farnor. Whatever you want.'
Farnor looked at him suspiciously. The old man's acquiescence had been a little too easy for comfort. But it also left him nothing to argue about.
'Just so that you understand,’ he said, awkwardly.
Marken pursed his lips and nodded sagely. ‘Of course,’ he said again. ‘Of course.'
Derwyn caught up with them eventually. He had been running and was panting a little. Marken chuckled. ‘Trouble getting away again?’ he said, maliciously.
'Shut up,’ Derwyn replied testily. Marken's chuckle became a laugh.
They walked along in silence for a while, Marken continuing to acknowledge the hails of passers-by but resolutely declining to slow down, Derwyn and Farnor following like sheep.
For the first time that night Farnor looked round at the trees festooned with glittering sunstone lights, their great leafy canopies magically lit from within, long dust-laden shadows of people moving about the walkways flitting through the branches like silent night birds. As he gazed upwards he began to walk more and more slowly until finally he stopped. ‘This is beautiful,’ he said simply.
Marken and Derwyn stopped abruptly and turned to stare at him. Then his gaze drew theirs inexorably upwards to peer into their familiar domain. They stood in silence for a long time, then both of them said simultaneously, ‘Yes, it is.'
'We should look at it more often,’ Derwyn added, setting off again. ‘Much more often.'
They completed their journey at a much slower pace.
When they reached Derwyn's lodge, Farnor slumped heavily into a chair and blew out a rueful breath as he massaged his legs.
'I need to speak to Farnor alone,’ Marken said to Derwyn just as he too was about to sit down. Derwyn cast a longing look at his chair and then a reproachful one at Marken.
'And I need to talk to you alone before you leave,’ he said, purposefully. He glanced upwards. ‘I'll be skyside with Angwen if you want me.'
As Derwyn closed the door, Marken drew up a chair and sat down opposite Farnor. He leaned towards him earnestly. ‘I heard your tale to the Congress, Farnor,’ he said. ‘And I heard the lies in it.’ His eyes widened determinedly before Farnor could begin to mouth any denial. ‘I can understand why, but tell me none.’ He brought his face close to Farnor's. ‘Tell me nothing but the truth as you know it. It may be that your life hangs by the finest of threads.'
* * *
Chapter 9
Farnor tried to tear himself away from Marken's brown-eyed gaze, but found that he could not. For a moment he felt as though the walls of the room were closing in to bind him to this place forever. He took a deep breath to still the panic he could begin to feel rising within him.
Marken leaned back in his chair and watched him carefully, as though trying to gauge the effect of his words. After a moment, he seemed satisfied. He held up his hand to forbid any speech. ‘I'm sorry to be so brutal, Farnor,’ he said. ‘But my problem is that I sit here looking at you and I see an ordinary young man. A little unusual looking by our lights, but an ordinary young man nevertheless. And, to be honest, someone who's not a little lost and alone, at that. Yet I know that, in some way, you're the centre of an upheaval the like of which I've never known. I can hardly describe to you the turmoil I was in when we found you.’ He put his hands to his temples. ‘So much going on. So many Hearings. Such vividness. Such intensity. I felt battered and numbed.’ He looked intently into Farnor's eyes. ‘You must realize, Farnor, that a Hearer's a poor vessel for the tasks he has to undertake. Most ordinary people imagine that we literally hear voices in our heads saying, “Do this. Don't do that. This will be all right, that won't,” and so on. But it isn't so. We Hear voices true enough, but they're vague and distant and garbled. And also they're much more than voices. Such words as can be made out are laden with countless layers of subtle meaning. You understand what I mean, don't you?'
Despite himself, Farnor nodded.
Marken continued. ‘And we often find ourselves on the fringes of what appears to be some ... debate ... argument ... what you will, so that it's difficult to know what we're supposed to be Hearing, and for whose benefit. And even when we receive the answer to a question we've asked, it frequently has an almost casual, offhand quality about it, and its interpretation is invariably debatable.’ His manner became more resolute. ‘But the call to seek you out had no such vagueness. It was as clear as a frosty winter sky. It actually came into my dreams and woke me. Never, never, in all my years, have I known such a thing.’ He drove his fist into his open palm. ‘And the shock of it seems to have given me—a new insight, a clarity of vision. It's made me see clearly for the first time things that have been under my nose for years.’ He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
'I see now, Farnor, that there's been an unease in the Hearings for a long time,’ he went on. ‘Several years, in fact. As if something had happened somewhere that had unsettled the entire Forest. It was slight, and subtle, but it was there nevertheless, except that I didn't have the wit to see it unt
il yesterday. And even then I couldn't truly believe it at first. That's what drove me out to try to find somewhere where I could perhaps order my thoughts, see some kind of a pattern in events. But I wasn't allowed to. As I walked, there was a hubbub all about me, washing to and fro. Then, for the second time, I was spoken to directly.’ He looked away from Farnor and shook his head, as if in disbelief. ‘It was more unnerving awake than when I was asleep. This voice—or perhaps several voices, I couldn't really tell—coming to me from a great distance. As though someone was shouting from the far end of a great echoing cave, or through a blustering wind ...'
He paused, and Farnor intruded anxiously, making to stand up. ‘I don't know what all this is about,’ he said. ‘All this nonsense about ...'
Marken's hand seized his and prevented him from rising. ‘Stop that,’ the old man said powerfully. ‘I'm not Derwyn and the others to be fobbed off with your foolish protests. And I told you to tell me no lies.'
Farnor tried to speak again, but Marken's look forbade him. ‘Listen to me, young man,’ he said. ‘I'm not so old that I don't see a long, interesting and useful life ahead of me still. But I'm old enough to be very disinclined to waste any of that time dealing with the crass stupidity of the young. Now be quiet until I tell you to speak.'
Farnor wilted a little under the unexpected force of Marken's manner.
'They spoke to me, Farnor,’ Marken went on. ‘Spoke to me directly.’ A look of wonder came into his eyes. ‘For all the strangeness of it, it was magical. Such depth, such meaning, such clarity. It was like the fulfilment of my every dream.’ As suddenly as it had appeared however, the wonder faded and his face became grim and regretful. ‘But that was the experience, for me, as a Hearer. The content of what they told me, though, held no magic. It was simple and blunt. Although they helped you, they fear you. They fear some power that you have, and some darkness within you. They told me to tell you that you're to go to the central mountains to stand amongst the most ancient of them so that you can be questioned and a decision made about your fate.'
Farnor felt panic rising in him again. Wide-eyed, he looked towards the window. A carved wooden shutter sealed out the night and the great, twisted labyrinth of swaying branches that lay beyond, but it seemed to Farnor that even now those branches were stretching towards him; innumerable, many-fingered hands reaching for him. His head began to fill with the noise of his own breathing, shallow and raucous, but through it he felt that he could hear purposeful scratchings and tappings at the glass on the far side of the shutter.
Marken bent forward and took hold of his arms, urgently, shaking him roughly. Sustained by this powerful grip, Farnor gradually regained control. He was determined to speak. ‘I don't understand any of this,’ he managed to gasp, eventually. Once more, he was about to deny any belief in the sentient will of the trees, but he knew that he could not. He understood about the vague, distant voices, but when he had first heard them himself he had been far away and secure in all things, with a life to live and a future ahead, knowing nothing of the great tree-filled land that was supposed to lie beyond the mountains to the north. Now, here, he had heard voices as clear and distinct as Marken's. And, as Marken had described, he had heard words filled with a meaning far beyond their immediate sounding.
And he had felt the power and determination of a terrible will. Whatever had happened when he was in the stables, he knew that he had been unable to resist the force that had snatched back that mysterious part of him which, uncontrolled and unbidden, had been hurtling towards the valley with who could say what intent.
He set the memory aside with a slight inner shiver. He did not want to think about it.
The soft rumble of voices overhead percolated down into the silence around the two men.
Denial denied him. Farnor tried to plead his case. ‘I've no ... powers, Marken,’ he said, in some desperation. ‘Truly. I'm an ordinary person. A farmer. I know about sheep and cattle ... potatoes, and ... all sorts of things, but I'm no ...’ A vision of Rannick came into his mind. He, too, had been an ordinary person, until something had woken within him the tainted legacy of his ancestors. And what was he now?
Farnor had no name for what Rannick had now become.
And too, as Gryss had said, ominously, the valley being the valley, self-contained and self-sufficient for generations, the blood of Rannick's ancestors probably ran in the veins of everyone in the community. ‘I've no powers,’ he repeated, twisting his hands together. ‘At least none that I know of, or can use.'
Marken's face was troubled. He spoke again. ‘I Heard what I Heard. At least, I think—there was such confusion, and ...’ He stopped abruptly. ‘It's gone,’ he said, softly, though with a hint of alarm. He looked around the room as if he expected something unusual to happen suddenly. ‘I was so preoccupied with everything that I hadn't realized,’ he muttered, half to himself. Then, thoughtfully. ‘How long has it been...?’ He looked at Farnor and held up his hand for silence. Farnor found himself holding his breath. ‘There's not a vestige of a sound,’ Marken whispered after a long moment. He nodded, realization in his eyes. ‘Not a vestige. It's as if they're deliberately remaining silent around you.'
When he spoke again it was in a low soft voice, as if fearful of disturbing someone, or something. ‘I think that I Heard a ... little ... about you that perhaps I wasn't meant to,’ he said. ‘Murmurs in the background, as it were, though, in truth, whether it was by chance or design that they reached me, I've no idea. But it was as I said; for some reason you frighten them.’ His hand came to his forehead as if to focus his thoughts. ‘I Heard them say that you moved in the worlds that they moved in. Moved with great power and ease. A Hearer like none before, I Heard that, definitely. And more. Perhaps you were one that moved even in the worlds ...’ He shook his head and frowned unhappily. ‘It's so difficult to describe.’ He paused. ‘You moved in the worlds ... between the worlds ... the times between times. I'm sorry. My head's full of the images I Heard, flickering and dancing ... whole worlds ... universes even ... shimmering in and out of existence. Now here, now there, in the instant ... nothing in between, yet everything in between ... and you, always you, moving between. Above, beyond, and through it all. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's so ...’ His voice tailed off and he slumped back in his chair. Marken's patent distress did little to ease Farnor's increasingly fraught mood. Mixing with his fear came anger, and disbelief. Not, this time, disbelief in the reality of the trees and their will, but simply disbelief in their power to restrain him. He refused to accept it. Had he not escaped a truly monstrous and powerful creature to reach this place? And could these things move to seize him as that had moved? Of course not. The idea was ludicrous. The incident in the stables fluttered into his mind again but he crushed it ruthlessly. He had had no conscious part in whatever that had been so it was nothing to do with him. And he had to do something—anything.
He jumped to his feet impulsively. ‘I'll go now,’ he said, his face tense and determined.
Marken looked at him, startled. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, standing up and reaching out to restrain him.
'I'll go now,’ Farnor repeated. ‘Right away. What can they do to stop me? They're plants, for pity's sake. Lumps of wood—stuck in the ground. How can they possibly prevent me from leaving?’ He stopped as a thought occurred to him. Then he looked at Marken and gave it voice as he shook the old man's grip free. ‘Except have you tell Derwyn and the others to hold me here by force,’ he said slowly.
Marken turned away from him angrily, then his shoulders sagged and he sat down as if suddenly burdened by his age.
Again, the soft drone of voices from the room above, gently filled the room.
'We come from different worlds, Farnor,’ Marken said. ‘And even though we're both human beings, we have difficulty in understanding one another's ways.’ He looked up at Farnor, who was still watching him, tense and suspicious. ‘I can't begin to tell you how foolish—insulting—such words are. I don'
t know what laws you have in your land, or how you enforce them, but such an act here would be unthinkable. We're a free people. Save for the respect we freely give to those whose land this is, and the respect which we offer each other, we accept no constraint on this freedom. Even when a crime is proven we try to look to the causes and ways of rectifying them. And to reparation and conciliation.'
Farnor's lip curled in disdain. He pointed towards the ceiling. ‘Derwyn himself told me that things were so confused that I might bring the hunt down on me if I fled unexpectedly. Then he wouldn't answer me when I asked what would happen if I couldn't make the Congress understand what had happened with EmRan. And you yourself just said that my life was hanging by a thread. How much conciliation is there in that kind of talk?'
Marken put his head in his hands. ‘I can't deny that not all causes can be put to rights, Farnor,’ he said with a mixture of regret and impatience. ‘Nor all misdeeds repaired. Sadly there are some individuals in our world, as doubtless in yours, who are just plain wicked, and who do wicked things seemingly for the joy of it. They're rare, thank the stars, very rare, but they appear from time to time and we have to deal with them. And, if need arises, they have to be sought out and brought back to face the consequences of their actions.'
