Tyler's Dream

by Matthew Butler

  “As I crashed over, a wolf upon my chest, you will forgive me for thinking that all was lost. But then its weight was lifted from me. I looked up to see Hargill, who with his bare hands had hoisted the creature above his head …” old Trandle raised his arms, splaying his bony fingers. “With a long heave, Hargill hurled the wolf back into the darkness.” Trandle threw his arms towards the children, who mostly gasped or sat back with surprise. “He then turned to me then and said one word. He said—”

  “Terris!” Mrs Trandle’s high voice pierced the flow of her husband’s tale. “What did I say about stories at this hour?” She tightened her small mouth with disapproval so that her lips disappeared behind her cheeks. “I won’t have any more parents complaining to me their children can’t get any sleep after an episode with you!”

  Old Trandle, quite clearly put off, still looked as though he was half considering ignoring his wife and plunging on regardless. “But dear,” he managed.

  “Don’t ‘but dear’ me, Terris! Come back to your seat immediately. Hargill is about to give his speech.”

  Old Trandle clearly cheered at the thought of this. He grudgingly rose to his feet in true dramatic style. “Didn’t mean nothin’,” he mumbled.

  “For goodness sake, Terris – look at them!” Mrs Trandle thrust an accusing finger towards the group of children. “You’ve frightened them half to death.”

  Sure enough, many of the children looked very scared indeed, their innocent faces scrunched into complex, adult-like frowns. As old Trandle muttered apologies to his audience and stumbled off in tow behind his wife, Tyler forced away a smile and casually leant his elbows on the table ahead of him.

  The great hall was shaped like half an eggshell flipped onto its edge, so that the ceiling curved deeply into the sky before gently arching downwards at each of its four corners. Grand oak beams shouldered the weight of the thatch. Many long windows reached generously towards the ceiling and as a result seemed narrow at their width. In the daytime light striped across the hall quite spectacularly. Tonight torches had been set wherever there was space to light the room with warm colours, never mind the toxic vapour gusting about the guests. In the middle of the room a long table had been laden with a great weight of roast deer, smoked rabbit, peppered stew, sweet red melons, buttered golden chips, whipped cream, cheese cake, great orbs of sugar-crusted apples, honeyed apricots, and flasks of spiced wine and bitter beer. The only dish that Tyler scowled at distastefully was the occasional bowl of toasted crickets.

  A tapping shrilled out on one side of the hall. Slowly it gathered until it became a roar as some stopped clicking their spoons and began to smash cups, glasses, and fists against anything that would make a sound while hoots and cheers dotted the din. Tyler took advantage of the madness by grabbing the salad fork and playing drums with the serving dishes.

  Suddenly Sanual Eror, the village grocer, scraped back his chair and loudly called into the sudden lull in volume. “Hargill!” Then he paused and blinked his blunt eyes strangely, as though he had completely forgotten what he was about to say. There was a short silence before the whole gathering burst into rapturous laughter. Sanual was pulled back into his chair and given another drink to help answer his questions.

  By this time Hargill had risen and lifted his arms as though in welcoming embrace.

  “Friends!” he called. The talking slowly died to a chatter. “Friends,” he said again, more softly. The company sat poised, waiting on his every word. Excepting the odd click of glass or clattered spoon, the hall was now completely silent. “Let us hope that I do not forget my lines like poor Sanual here,” he said, shifting his gazed bemusedly towards the poor grocer, who to his credit gave a smile of acknowledgement. “It has been a long year since I gave my last speech, and I was hoping for much more time to recover until I had to give another.” Hargill chuckled. “I’m not in the mood for another round of heckling.”

  “How about a round of applause? That will be the day!” someone yelled.

  “Yes, yes,” answered Hargill good-naturedly into the resulting laughter. “Let me say that I think this year has been truly amazing. I could not ask to spend my life, my time, amongst a finer group.” The clapping and cheering took a long while to fade. “Thank you to everyone for your help putting this together. Isn’t it grand? On a personal note, after living off roots and bread-rusks for a whole year, the raspberry chocolate truffle certainly hits the spot!” As the laughter trailed off, Hargill lifted his arms for silence. “Friends, I—”

  The front doors smashed inwards. A sheet of billowing snow sucked into the warmth of the hall, causing the oiled torches to spit and crackle. One lone man was silhouetted against the doorframe, half bent from what Tyler thought must be either exhaustion or pain. Behind him loomed a battered cart with but a single horse to pull it. A rider was draped across its narrow seat.

  Hargill didn’t hesitate. “Who are you?” he challenged in a booming voice as he strode forward. “Why do you disturb us at this time?”

  For an answer the stranger swayed unsteadily, his cracked lips slowly moving as though he was attempting to speak. The seated gathering waited. “Ghatu,” he breathed, and then he collapsed. Hargill stooped and caught him.

  The hall erupted into chaos. Woman cried for their children, and men rose determinedly from their places to help. All of a sudden Tyler found Derek by his side. “Ghatu?” Derek quizzed. Tyler could only shake his head.

  “Back!” called Hargill to the pushing throng, with little effect. “Back!” he roared, and people hurried to obey. Then Hargill strode to the stage, barking instructions. “Push the benches and tables against the walls. Bring the cart into the hall and help the other man off it – carefully. Then go to your homes and gather your children, as well as supplies to last a couple of days. Meet back here as soon as you can. Luke and Agatha, fetch me water and medical gear. Go as fast as you can,” Hargill laid the crippled stranger on the stage. “Most important, everyone must try to stay calm.” He dragged in a slow breath before speaking again, but he spoke so quietly that Tyler wondered whether he was the only one who heard. “The feast is over.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  MY LITTLE EYE

  “Let’s get out of here!” said Derek, and he began fighting to the door with the others.

  The man straddled over the seat of the cart was lifted to the ground as they passed. His face was raw with frostbite, and ice had caked his hair into bunched, spaghetti-like clumps.

  At the very moment that Tyler was closest to him, the man slid up his glassed eyes, and for the briefest instant Tyler saw his reflection in them, as though he were peering back at himself from a window to the afterlife.

  Derek hustled him along.

  Who were these strangers? What was a ghatu? Then a third question came to him, and it was suddenly the most perplexing: was he more afraid, or curious? For instance, he could not help but notice how battered the cart was. The wood was split and buckled as though it had been smashed by some great force – but from the inside.

  While others rushed by heedlessly, Tyler paused to look between the bars of the cage, deep into the blackness of the cart. Something breathed. Something huge and hidden by the dark. He pulled back but was met by a wall of pushing people behind him. All of a sudden his desperation to get away bred panic, and he found himself shoving forward towards the fresh air with Derek by his side.

  He was out. The snow lashed down at him.

  “Derek! Derek, there was something in the cart!”

  “Huh?”

  Curiosity pulled. There was only one way to solve this mystery. “Go back to the house with Uncle Jar, I’ll meet you there.”

  “Tyler, no—”

  “Go! I’ll be there soon.” He slipped away before Derek could stop him. He shoved through the crowd, elbowing, weaving, and ploughing forward. Then he vanished around one corner of the hall like a loo
se shadow and hurried down the empty alley beside it, ducking low whenever he passed any of the ruddy, warm windows. Giddy pangs of excitement shivered through him, only barely restrained, while fear sharpened his footfall. The patter of falling flakes, the crisp air – it all seemed so distinct and real to him. A cobbled wall marked the end of the alley, and then Tyler was on his knees, digging like a frantic badger at the snow. His efforts were soon rewarded as they revealed a tiny window, the copper-framed windowpanes cracked with lines of frost. The wine cellar had once been a secret meeting place in his childhood, and now it was about to serve another purpose.

  The window was locked. It had never been locked before. A moment’s scramble for a latch earned him eight lightly bruised fingertips and little else. He pressed his forehead to the wall and breathed an icy sheet of indecision down the windowpane. This was the crossroads, the point of no return.

  “I have to find out what this is all about,” he muttered aloud, as though his mind had become overwhelmed and now his lips had taken over the thinking process. He sat back and then smashed the window inwards with his boot. After kicking away the glass, he shoved through to land in an uncoordinated heap on the floor beyond.

  The window-light illuminated the mouldy walls and caught the bulbous edges of the wine bottles stacked into separate honeycomb holes about the room. Tyler sped past them and up the tight stone steps that led to a door, to the voices. He pressed his eye to a crack where the door did not quite meet the wall.

  “Sir, can you hear me? This is important. You can rest. You can have as much food and water as you wish. Just tell us who you are,” the calming voice of Agatha Taylor pronounced in distinctive, mellow tones. Tyler could see only a narrow strip of the proceedings. The door he was crouching behind was below the stage at the front of the hall. His view was partially obscured by a bench, but above this he could see Agatha tending to the mysterious stranger. Roy Adams, one of the dignitaries of the village, was standing close behind her.

  “Sit him up Agatha.” It was Hargill’s voice, and it came from somewhere to the left. Obediently Agatha pulled up her patient so that he was sitting upright on the edge of the stage.

  “What in …?” Tyler slapped a hand over his rebellious mouth and pulled away from the door. The stranger had been clothed in a fresh fur coat and blankets, but his face, which was beginning to warm after its exposure to the cold, had turned a bright scarlet and was horribly swollen.

  “Sir, what is your name?” Hargill asked. The stranger’s head lolled uselessly to the side. Hargill’s hands steadied it. The stranger remained characteristically silent. “Agatha, do something, or we will lose him.”

  “What can I possibly …?” her face drew a sudden shade of white. “Hargill, I haven’t for years. I don’t know if I still—”

  “I’m asking you to try.”

  Agatha paused in a brief display of internal torment before nodding stiffly. She then touched her fingers across the stranger’s forehead and closed her eyes. Slowly at first, so that Tyler thought at first he was imagining it, but then with ever-increasing intensity, the impossible happened: the air around Agatha’s fingers began to blur, as though a heat wave had set about it. Shapes lost their sense of balance and proportion in an ever-expanding circle around her delicate hand. Then suddenly there was a blinding flash.

  Tyler winced and toppled over backwards onto his bottom, luckily catching himself before he fell down the flight of stairs. He sat on his haunches and panted fiercely, hot with sweat, his mind spinning with confusion.

  “Thank you, Agatha,” said Hargill.

  Agatha nodded weakly, apparently exhausted.

  “Please, sir, listen to me,” Hargill worded carefully. “Your companion is dead. I need to know, what is your name?”

  “Inn …” the stranger said. He licked his cracked lips and tried again. “Innor,” he rasped.

  There was a collective gasp from the hall.

  “Innor Fisher? From the quarry? Dear God, I didn’t recognise your face!” cried someone out of sight.

  Tyler shuddered from his vantage point. He had met Innor before: he was a quiet, thin man. The person in front of him bore little resemblance to this memory.

  “Found him in the woods. Attacked us … A ghatu”

  A voice said, “It cannot be. No ghatu has ever—” Hargill raised a hand to silence whoever had been speaking.

  “He k-killed …” Innor’s face contorted with emotion. Agatha tenderly wiped his brow.

  “What happened to the ghatu?” asked a female voice.

  Through his grief, Innor smiled, or at least he tried to. “Cage,” he said softly, lifting a shaking finger to the back of the hall. “Cage.” With that he sighed so deeply that he must have emptied all the air from his lungs. Agatha felt for a pulse and shook her head.

  Tyler heard a heavy set of footsteps coming towards him. Tyler held his breath and withdrew so that the thin line of light from the hall slipped from his face to be replaced by darkness. The footsteps drew closer. It was Hargill; Tyler could see the lower part of his body, his brown and copper robes.

  Hargill stopped so close by that his fox-skin hide must have tickled the door handle. There was a scrape of an object being drawn from its hold, and then Hargill turned away. Tyler let out a gentle sigh of relief. Hargill had only been fetching a torch from the wall.

  The footsteps stopped. Had he breathed too loudly?

  Move on. Just walk away! Tyler willed, but the footsteps returned, and this time the lock to the door was lifted with a bang. The bench leaning against it was tossed to one side. Panicked, Tyler took to his feet. He should run back into the cellar, hide behind a keg. Too late. The door to the hall was already edging open. The crack of light widened and then lanced revealingly through the spinning cellar dust. Tyler stood frozen, frightened out of his wits.

  “We have a vermin problem.”

  Hargill was calm, but there was an anger in his eyes that Tyler had not seen before. The man grabbed Tyler by the jacket and pulled him out of the cellar like a weed.

  The hall was a mess. This most splendid venue for the winter feast had been transformed into a dump. Great dishes of cake, meat, cream, and wine had churned together into an unhealthy-looking puddle and squelched like mud as Tyler passed.

  Quite a company was present: Weaver, the village baker; Glivin and Annie, who were in charge of maintenance around town; old Trandle; Roy, the maintainer of law and order; Agatha; and of course Hargill himself. They were the most important seniors of Elliun, and none of them looked pleased.

  “Tyler?” queried Glivin. His open face set grey with disappointment. “I would have expected more from you.”

  “How much did he see?” asked Weaver.

  “Everything, I would imagine,” answered Hargill flatly on Tyler’s behalf.

  Tyler’s eyes caught a crack in the wooden panels below him. He stared at it, transfixed.

  Agatha gasped. “He must have seen me with Innor.”

  A hand slid under Tyler’s jaw and pulled his head up quickly so that his dark hair swept from his brow.

  Glivin said, “Do you realise the enormity of what you have done, Tyler? Why? What possessed you, boy?”

  For a moment Tyler looked into Glivin’s eyes. “I’m not sure,” he said uncertainly, which was the truth. He opened his mouth to say something else, but words failed him. He remained silent.

  Glivin withdrew his hand with an angry flick and turned his back. “All we have worked for over these many years …” His two heavy eyebrows snapped together to form a single, dark line. “At any rate, the boy cannot hear any more. Where should we keep him until we know what to do? The cellar? A fitting place for a weasel.”

  “The damage has been done, Glivin,” mused Hargill, stroking the curls in his beard. “We will be forced to explain everything later, so I see no reason to hide him away. Now, w
e have spent too long on this already. Let us have a look at this cage. Tyler, come.”

  The cage seemed to breathe. Hargill stepped forward and then thrust his torch towards it, so that both light and hot drops of oil flickered between the bars. Tyler drew in a thin breath.

  A beast lurked within the shadows of the cage, and its terrible face, its large and frightening eyes, now leered towards them with deadly menace. The cage, although about seven feet high, was much too small, and so the creature was forced to hunch over like a wild animal perpetually stalking its prey. Tyler stared at the braided hair, the necklaces and ornaments of twisted iron, the tattoos … most especially the tattoos. Almost every inch of the creature’s murky skin was covered with them: lavish black designs that curled across its chest, legs, and arms so that only its right cheek remained relatively untouched, with only a small crescent moon drawn across it. This thing had missed Mother Nature’s attention entirely – or worse, it must have slipped from her loving embrace when the world was made and had lain ugly and cold on dirt.

  “I don’t believe it,” whispered old Trandle, who had been unusually reserved up to this point. “They’ve captured a ghatu.”

  Glivin laughed. “I have not seen one of these since my journey to Rithvaren. Their ugliness never fails to astound!”

  “I would not be so light-hearted, Glivin,” reminded Annie quietly. “The smell of death still hangs about this cage. This creature must have murdered Innor and probably everyone with whom he was travelling.”

  As if suddenly angered by this thought, Glivin drew his sword. He let the light play on it for a moment for the ghatu to see, and then he struck its blade across the bars. “I will kill this one myself,” he snarled. “Innor’s death will be avenged.”

  Until now the ghatu had been motionless in its leering pose, but at this sign of aggression, it withdrew from the bars and began to pace menacingly. The stripes of light that lanced into the cage slipped across its body as it moved. “Varrak uzun-Vi,” it said in a voice so harsh that Tyler could not help but cringe at its inhuman tones. “Ukarvana Vunuza.”