Whistler

by Roger Taylor

  ‘Or the future?’ Vredech risked a taunt.

  The Whistler waved the remark aside. ‘Anyway, I’ve done far more lavish creations, some of them quite wildly ostentatious.’ He curled his nose in distaste. ‘Then, I suppose ostentation is rather silly in the servant of the Great Creator, isn’t it?’ There was venom in the words ‘Great Creator’. ‘It’s not as if we could do anything that would impress him, is it? While, on the other hand, we could well irritate him beyond measure, couldn’t we? With our strutting arrogance.’

  Vredech, in his turn, waved the subject aside. ‘Who is it you’ve seen?’ he asked simply.

  A finger was raised for emphasis. ‘You hold me to the point. That’s good. I’m apt to ramble,’ the Whistler said. Then his face contorted. ‘Him,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen Him. The one who always comes when there’s going to be blood-letting and horror. The one who brings the worlds together.’ A high keening whine suddenly came from his throat. ‘I won’t have it,’ he said, bringing his face so close to Vredech’s that it was almost touching. ‘I won’t have it. Enough’s enough. I have a measure of the darkness within me. I need no more lessons.’ His expression became at once vicious and triumphant. ‘I threw Him out.’ His arms flailed wildly and his fingers snapped, like breaking twigs in an autumn evening. ‘Threw Him out. Never managed that before.’

  Abruptly, he was standing, and the end of the black flute was being poked against Vredech’s breast like a sword. ‘But I think He might come back. Can you stop Him? Can you keep Him away? I don’t want to do it again. All that pain. All that suffering. It’s so real.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vredech replied.

  ‘Then what use are you to me?’ the Whistler bellowed, suddenly in a rage.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vredech said again, wilfully calm. ‘That’s for you to judge. But where will you be if you dismiss me again? Any nearer to an answer?’

  The Whistler looked at him for a moment and then walked away. Vredech watched him dwindle against the grey background. No sky, no ground, nothing. What is he standing on? he thought. Or, for that matter, what am I sitting on?

  Looking down, he could see nothing. Tentatively and rather self-consciously, he pushed his hand under his behind. There appeared to be nothing there. Yet he must be sitting on something! He dismissed the problem. It was hardly one of any significance. But still…

  The Whistler was returning, swelling against the perspectiveless background. ‘What am I to do with you then?’ he asked.

  Vredech chose to ignore the question. ‘Where is this place?’ he asked.

  The Whistler grimaced. ‘All places are my dream, I’ve told you once. Why don’t you pay…’

  ‘No,’ Vredech interrupted. ‘I mean, where is this place? Here. It’s not where we were before. That was all darkness, and full of strange shadows. This is…’ He gesticulated vaguely. ‘This is… nowhere.’

  The Whistler looked around, idly tapping the flute against his pursed lips. ‘It certainly looks like nowhere ought to look, I’ll grant you,’ he said after a moment. ‘Rather unimaginative. Perhaps I’m going through a dull phase. What with this and your rather humdrum robes, maybe…’

  Vredech suddenly reached up and seized his wrist. It was thin and stiff, but it was undeniably human flesh and bone. And very strong. The Whistler’s eyes opened in a mixture of surprise and anger, though he made no effort to free himself. ‘Don’t…’ he began.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Vredech said, shaking the wrist. ‘Tell me about this place, and you, and the one you saw who was like me, and the pain he brings. Tell me everything.’ He released his grip. For all that he had offered no resistance, the Whistler snatched his arm back like a child retrieving a withheld toy. Very gently, he ran his other hand down the wrist and, bringing it close to his face, examined it in great detail, from time to time looking over it at Vredech.

  ‘You must tell me,’ Vredech insisted.

  ‘Perhaps not as dull as I thought,’ the Whistler said.

  Vredech made a broad gesture to indicate the greyness about them and raised an expectant eyebrow. The Whistler chuckled, took a few paces back and then played a series of repeated notes followed by an upward scale which he seemed to be playing long after Vredech had stopped hearing it.

  ‘I think this place is… between. Yes. Between.’

  ‘Between what?’ Vredech demanded.

  The Whistler shrugged. ‘Between my dreams, of course. Or perhaps at the edge. Or perhaps both. Maybe we’re at the edge of between.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Vredech said. ‘Why won’t you answer me properly? If this place is yours, where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ the Whistler shouted, suddenly angry. ‘I’ve never been here before. I told you what I thought. We’re between. Stuck between the dreams. Look!’ He brought face and flute close to Vredech’s again and blew a rippling cascade of notes. ‘See?’ he said, more quietly, placing his arm around Vredech’s shoulder and making a broad sweeping gesture with his flute across the surrounding greyness. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. I play my flute and the ways open or the ways close. But here, nothing.’ His grip about Vredech’s shoulders tightened. ‘You’ve locked me in limbo, Priest. You or Him. I threw Him out. Hurled Him from me. Black-eyed abomination. Then I was here.’ He stood up suddenly. ‘Or perhaps I’m dead.’ He cocked his head first to one side then the other, like a great bird. ‘Is that it, Priest? I’m dead? No one ever woke me – I just died?’

  ‘I don’t think either of us is dead,’ Vredech said, as if he were a disinterested spectator. ‘I wasn’t well before I came here, but I certainly wasn’t dying.’

  The Whistler burst out laughing. ‘Before you came here,’ he echoed, shaking his head. ‘A nice touch.’ He held the flute against his ear. ‘And there’s a deal of life in the old bone here, for sure. I suppose if we feel alive, we’ll have to assume we are alive. Failing that, then if I’m dead, you must be my guide to the world beyond. And I don’t think you’re that, are you?’

  Vredech shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘But I don’t like this place, Priest,’ the Whistler continued, sober again. ‘Not while He’s around. I want to be away. I won’t have Him come again. I must be able to move… to escape to my other dreams.’

  ‘Tell me about Him,’ Vredech said.

  ‘What’s to tell?’ the Whistler replied. ‘You’re mine – you must know.’

  Vredech found himself peculiarly patient. ‘If, as you say, I’m yours, then presumably you must have brought me here to ask you that question,’ he replied. ‘If I’m not yours, but in fact you are mine, then I too, need to know the answer that’s wrapped in you.’

  The two men looked at one another.

  ‘Tell me about Him,’ Vredech said again, forcefully.

  Slowly the Whistler lifted the flute to his mouth and blew out the three haunting notes that Vredech had heard before their first encounter. Several times he repeated them, each time a little differently. When he spoke, he uttered some of the words across the mouth-hole, adding an eerie echoing quality to his voice.

  ‘Many times I’ve met Him,’ he said, though more to himself than to Vredech, ‘in many different guises. But He’s always the same. He used to fool me, but I recognize the scent of him now – the stink. Corruption, pestilence and death.’ He raised his head and tested the air like a hunting animal. ‘Then I look into the eyes – and through them. And there He is, looking back. Ancient, malevolent. Always the same. Always waiting. Never tiring. Waiting for the events to unfold that will give Him what He wants.’

  Despite his continuing feeling of ease and well-being, Vredech winced inwardly at the deep pain that was coming from this mysterious figure. Deliberately he reminded himself not to question the reality of what was happening. Whatever was to be revealed now would be important no matter what the apparent source.

  ‘What does He want?’ he asked.

  The Whistler crouched down on to
his haunches again and, one eye closed, squinted at Vredech along the length of his flute. ‘Everything,’ he replied. ‘He wants everything. And He wants to destroy it. He would see the whole world a charred cinder wandering lost through the stars. He would see all the worlds thus.’

  Vredech found that he was unable to speak for a moment, so awful was the desolation in the Whistler’s voice.

  Then he said, ‘Why?’

  The Whistler’s head jerked up sharply. It seemed as though he was going to make an angry rejoinder, but apparently changed his mind. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied with genuine puzzlement in his voice. ‘I’ve never asked.’

  ‘Do so next time you meet Him,’ Vredech said.

  Fury lit the Whistler’s face. ‘There isn’t going to be a next time!’ he shouted. ‘I won’t allow it. Not again.’

  Vredech’s voice was calm. ‘I doubt you’d shout so loud if you thought that was true.’

  The Whistler stood up and his hand shot forward, clawed and menacing. ‘Enough, Priest. Remember what you are,’ he snarled.

  ‘I know what I am,’ Vredech replied, waving the gesture away. ‘And where I come from. I’m Allyn Vredech, Chapter Member of the Church of Ishryth. Even now, I’m lying in the Meeting House, in Troidmallos, chief town of Canol Madreth. The question is, what are you, hovering alone in this grey twilight, proud possessor of a great insight that enables you to see into the heart of some world-destroyer? What world, Whistler? What worlds? And who is this great warmonger?’

  The Whistler twitched violently and backed away from this onslaught, dwindling in the greyness. He began to play the flute loudly in a manic jig. Vredech stood up to follow him. The playing stopped.

  ‘Who do you think it could be, Priest?’ the Whistler shouted. ‘All things here are mine. All things here are me. You are me. This greyness is me. The great warmonger is me. ME! I create these things to torment myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Stop asking that question.’

  ‘According to you, it’s you who’s asking it.’

  The Whistler’s face became angry again. ‘Don’t get clever with me, Priest. Or…’

  ‘Or what?’ Vredech almost sneered. ‘You’ll dismiss me? I doubt it. Blow your flute, make your faces, rant and shout. But I won’t go.’

  The Whistler’s eyes widened insanely and the flute came to his mouth. But he made no sound. Instead he just stared at Vredech. Then, very softly, he said:

  ‘Darkling gaze,

  Travel the ways,

  Find the heart,

  That’s your part.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve made so many people,’ he said. ‘So vivid. So real. And they all pretend they are real, especially when I make a world for them as well. But you’re strange. Why would I make anything like you, with your frightening eyes? Why would I lock us here, in this endless grey nothing? Of all the things I’ve made, I’ve never…’ He put his hands to his head. ‘I sometimes think I’ve forgotten the memories of a million lifetimes, Priest. It’s not easy, never waking. Not even knowing which way time runs.’ He began to fiddle with his straggling beard. ‘Darkling gaze, travel the ways. I wonder if youare real.’ Then he grinned and waved a finger at Vredech. ‘No, no. That way lies madness – and I don’t want to be raving when I wake, do I? But you’re interesting, there’s no denying that. I wonder what you’re here to make me learn.’

  ‘About Him?’ Vredech suggested. ‘You’ve still told me nothing, like who He is, why He is, or what He looks like. You ramble. You avoid. You get angry. Why don’t you just tell me about Him?’

  The Whistler abandoned his beard with a flourish. ‘Why not?’ he said with sudden decisiveness. ‘Just give me a moment.’

  And he was gone.

  Chapter 17

  Cassraw stared up at the looming figure, his mouth suddenly dry and his insides hideously mobile. It did not matter that for the moment he had lost the wits to decide whether to remain silent, or to speak, or to call out for help, as his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  One old habit did not desert him, however, and instinctively his hand groped towards his pocket to pat the copy of the Santyth there. The figure’s head inclined slightly, then there was a violent oath, a flurry of movement, and Cassraw found himself blinking into an unbearably bright light.

  He raised a hand to shield his eyes, but something knocked it aside painfully.

  ‘Stay still,’ a powerful voice commanded. ‘And keep your hands where I can see them, unless you want your skull cracked.’

  Cassraw could do no other, his fear having been supplemented by the pain in his hand. He screwed up his eyes and made to turn his face from the light.

  ‘Stay still!’

  Something then struck his leg violently, numbing it, and something – a stick? – was preventing his head from turning. Then it was gone, but a hand was gripping his chin and forcing his face into the light. It was not a hand to be argued with.

  ‘Ye gods,’ came the voice again, now full of surprise and concern. ‘Brother Cassraw. What the dev… I mean… what are you doing here? Have you been attacked? Don’t move.’

  The light was taken away from his eyes, and the hand that had been clamped on his chin was joined by its partner in urgently testing his limbs for signs of injury.

  ‘It’s Serjeant Skynner, Brother. Do you recognize me? Are you all right? Tell me what’s happened.’

  The changed tone, coupled with the familiar name, restored Cassraw’s senses as rapidly as the Keeper’s sudden appearance and violent assault had scattered them, though he still felt assailed, albeit not physically. His mind raced. He must have a plausible excuse for being found here in this both ridiculous and suspicious position, or much that he had gained of late could be lost.

  ‘I’m all right, Serjeant,’ he said, struggling inwardly to set aside the eerie experiences of the last few minutes so that he could concentrate on a simple, legitimate excuse. ‘Perhaps you’d help me up?’

  The request was scarcely made when he was hoisted to his feet as easily as if he had been a small child.

  ‘And can you look for my lantern for me, Serjeant?’ he asked authoritatively, looking to take charge of events before Skynner could recommence his questioning. ‘I dropped it when I tripped over something.’

  Skynner’s curiosity was not so easily deflected, however, and he was asking questions even as he opened up his own lantern fully and began searching about the alley. ‘What in the world are you doing out here, Brother? It’s hardly the most sensible of places to be wandering alone.’

  ‘He is always with me,’ Cassraw replied, gradually gaining control over his voice again.

  Skynner paused temporarily in his search then continued as if this had been a perfectly reasonable answer. ‘Thus let it be,’ he said solemnly, without looking up. ‘But, with respect, Brother, if you’re going to walk around here at this time of night, by all means put your faith in Ishryth…’

  ‘… but carry a big stick.’ Cassraw finished the saying for him.

  Skynner found the lantern. He straightened up to his full height and looked down at Cassraw as he returned it to him. ‘Indeed, Brother,’ he said. ‘Ishryth helps those who help themselves, but this is a foolish place to be tempting Providence.’

  ‘I stand theologically chastened,’ Cassraw replied with a smile and a slight bow. He was relaxed now; he had his tale. He must set aside all consideration of what had really happened to him until he had convinced this astute and suspicious officer. ‘I’m afraid I allowed my pastoral concerns to sweep aside my commonsense.’

  Skynner was genuinely curious but he could be nothing other than professional in his manner. ‘And what conceivable pastoral concerns would bring you to this alleyway, Brother?’ he asked sternly.

  Cassraw had struck his lantern and was affecting to check it, carefully testing the shutter and adjusting the intensity of the light. Seemingly satisfied, he put a hand on Skynner’s arm and began moving him to
wards the street.

  ‘I was visiting one of my flock earlier this evening when I met a colleague of yours, Albor. We talked for a few minutes about this and that, and amongst other things, the topic of the murder of that poor young man happened to come up.’ Cassraw paused and looked thoughtful. ‘It was really very strange. Some impulse told me that I must not stand back from this incident. I think the church stands a little too aloof at times, don’t you?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘So I told Albor that I would mention it at my next service.’ He became genial, aware of Skynner’s sudden startled glance. ‘I’m not quite sure who was the most surprised, he or I, but if there is someone amongst us who may be teetering on the edge of his sanity, then a voice from the church, by its very unexpectedness, may do at least as much as the posted notices and the reports in the Sheets.’ He waved his hand airily, indicating that this was, in any event, a trivial matter, not worthy of further discussion. ‘Anyway, after I’d visited my parishioner I set off towards home, having, I’m afraid, forgotten about my promise, when it all came back to me with terrible force. I was suddenly overcome by the horror and tragedy of what had happened.’

  They had reached the comparative brightness of the street now, and Cassraw felt easier with each step he took away from the intense gloom of the alley, although he had to resist the temptation to keep turning round in response to the feeling that something there was still watching him, calling out to him softly.

  He forced himself to continue. ‘I felt that in some way I had died a little with that youth – indeed, that the whole of Troidmallos had died a little. I knew that I would not be able to rest until I had done something. The Lord moves us in ways we can’t begin to understand, Serjeant. Sometimes we must simply follow. So, I followed my instincts and they led me here. I thought a prayer… a blessing on this awful place, maybe… to exorcise some of the terrible memories that must be lingering here. I don’t know… I was far from clear in my thinking. Unfortunately, I was also far from clear about where I was walking and I tripped over something and went headlong.’ He chuckled. ‘I seem to be doing that a lot lately. Lost my lantern, my dignity and my pious intentions all in one go.’