Whistler

by Roger Taylor

  ‘Vred, Vred,’ Cassraw remonstrated, his voice at once intimate and powerful. ‘You were there. You heard my sermon, but did you listen? Everything was as I said it was, the vision that came to me out of the darkness on the mountain.’ The intensity of his gaze seemed to redouble. Vredech felt as though his very soul was being searched. ‘You, too, were touched by His presence in the cloud, I know,’ Cassraw went on. ‘I can feel it in you.’ He struck his chest. ‘It’s been your inability to accept the new truth, your clinging to the old ways, that’s given you such pain ever since.

  Vredech suddenly found himself wanting to embrace his old friend and pour out the tale of all that had happened to him since that fateful day. He wanted to stand by him and move into this future that Cassraw had been shown, wanted to share this great clarity, this great certainty that had been granted him.

  Cassraw’s eyes widened in expectation. His arms came out again, beckoning. Vredech’s desire grew. Here was the road that he must follow. He put his hands on the arms of his chair.

  Yet even as he did so, the memory returned of the darkness that had enveloped him on the mountain, a darkness full of rejoicing for a hope reborn, a fate avoided. An awful, primitive rejoicing that had chilled him horribly. And the Whistler’s words returned to him also, overlapping and echoing.

  ‘He was weak… holding on like a failing climber, clinging desperately.

  ‘He’s one of you… a priest… plotting, thinking, deceiving… sowing disorder and discontent…’

  The first remarks might well be nothing more than an inner re-telling of what he had felt on the mountain, but whatever the Whistler was, the latter remarks had been spoken before Cassraw’s sermon. Vredech’s whole agonizing debate about the true reality of the Whistler threatened to overwhelm him again.

  The hands that had been levering him up relaxed and he dropped back into the chair. ‘The only thing that touched me that day was concern for you,’ he said, opting without hesitation for a lie.

  Cassraw’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not telling me the truth,’ he said bluntly. ‘You are some part of all this, I know. You have a role to play.’

  Vredech was suddenly very nervous. ‘Perhaps I’m playing it now,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. To his relief, Dowinne returned at that moment carrying a tray of glasses. She offered him one, gave one to Cassraw and then, taking the last one herself, sat down opposite Vredech where she had sat before. Vredech felt the scrutiny of the two observers pinioning him.

  Cassraw relaxed and smiled. ‘Perhaps indeed,’ he said. ‘Well, all will be revealed in due course. Events are in train which nothing will stop, or even deflect.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Vredech asked.

  ‘I told you in my sermon,’ Cassraw replied.

  Intimidated by the two watchers, Vredech could find no alternative than to speak out. ‘We’re going in circles, Cassraw,’ he said. ‘I don’t doubt your sincerity, and I don’t doubt that something happened to you on the mountain, but you can’t seriously expect me, or anyone else, to believe that Ishryth himself spoke to you, manifested himself, and chose you for some holy crusade. Theological arguments aside, can’t you hear how it sounds when I say it? You escaped Mueran’s anger yesterday like you did before, by good luck and judicious contrition.’ He shook his head in dismay and looked at Dowinne. ‘I’m sorry to talk like this in front of you, Dowinne, but this is serious. All that Cassraw and you have achieved.’ He waved a hand around the room. ‘This place, his position in the Chapter – all this could be lost if he carries on like this. Surely you must see that?’

  Dowinne cast a glance at her husband, and smiled. ‘I understand what you’re saying, Allyn,’ she said, ‘but your concern’s misplaced. The problem is that you don’t understand what Enryc’s saying. You don’t understand what’s happened to him. He saw what he saw. Heard what he heard. The Lord in His greatness touched him.’

  ‘A great evil has arisen in the lands far to the north. Beyond the mountains.’

  Vredech started at the sound of Cassraw’s voice, so full of passion and anger, but as he turned towards him he saw that his face and manner were calm. ‘If it is not opposed then the whole world will fall under its shadow. This land, Canol Madreth, has been chosen to become the heart of this opposition, a great citadel from which armies will march forth to spread His word.’

  Even as he was registering this pronouncement, Vredech’s mind was echoing again with the Whistler’s words, full of revelation and hope. ‘He has met a terrible foe. He is weak. He is weak.’ Then his final terrifying command. ‘Find Him. Kill Him.’

  All the doubts about his sanity that Vredech had so carefully ordered and balanced over the past weeks came crashing down upon him and his hands began to shake. For a time that he could not measure, he was at once with the Whistler, lying on an unknown hillside in the dying evening light, and sitting in Cassraw’s private quarters in the Haven Meeting House. Then he was deep inside the maelstrom of his own whirling thoughts. Beyond, he could see a tiny storm beginning to stir the contents of his glass. The liquid swayed and jiggled and then began to ride recklessly up the side of the glass as if trying to escape a fearful confinement. He was aware, too, somewhere at the end of a rushing, roaring tunnel, of Cassraw and Dowinne watching him. Such movements as they were making were slow and laboured, in stark contrast to his own inner world which was mirroring the growing frenzy in his glass, as thoughts careened back and forth with an uncontrollable momentum. Like a drowning man clutching at driftwood, he snatched at random fragments of normality as they hurtled past him.

  His hand.

  He must stop his hand from shaking. Banal social consequences suddenly obsessed him. The fruit juice would stain his clothes, the chair, the carpet. Excuses for the mess he was about to make ran ahead of him, leaving him embarrassed and awkward before his old friends. He would be like a boy who, a little too old for such things now, had wet the bed. All would be understood and ‘forgotten’, but the deed would linger for ever.

  He must not give way.

  Whatever it cost him, he must cling on to some semblance of sanity until he could get away from this place, these people, and… and what?

  And think.

  And breathe.

  He was suffocating!

  The needs of his body asserted themselves, marshalling his rational mind as it was unable to do for itself. His free hand wrapped itself around his shaking wrist and tightened pitilessly, pressing it into his knee to still it absolutely. His chest expanded to draw in a cold, tight and massive breath through his nose.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He heard his voice echoing and hollow. The reality that was Cassraw’s room solidified a little. Vredech drove his thumbnail into his wrist, using the pain to anchor the change before it could slither away again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Both Cassraw and Dowinne were speaking.

  Vredech twisted his thumbnail harder. The dementia receded further, leaving him at the centre of a small pool of stillness. He felt like a solitary soldier, separated from his comrades but being ignored for the moment by the enemy. The two-voiced question arced towards him like falling spears. He had not now the resources to lie.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, forcing his tight face into an uncertain smile, but unable to keep a mixture of anger and disdain from his voice. ‘I’m not sure I’m hearing correctly. What are you talking about? A great evil to the north – Canol Madreth a citadel! Armies!’

  Each word fastened him more securely into the present. But everything was changed. It was indeed as though he had slipped from a sane world into an insane one peopled with identical figures.

  Cassraw blinked as though he had been struck. ‘Take care, Vred,’ he said, with some menace. ‘Events are happening here which will not be opposed.’

  Vredech released his wrist and put his hand to his forehead. ‘I’m opposing nothing, Cassraw,’ he said. ‘I just don’t understand what you’re saying
. What’s happened to you? Can’t you hear how such words will sound to your flock, to the Chapter?’

  Cassraw seemed to lose patience. ‘My flock will follow,’ he said starkly. ‘Indeed, as it follows, so will it grow. And the church, too, will follow.’ He stood up.

  Vredech was too uncertain of his legs to try standing, but he finally found his voice. ‘Cassraw, I came here to talk to you about your sermon, to find out what was troubling you so that I could be your true friend, should need arise. But this is beyond me.’ He forced himself to stand. ‘I shall say nothing about this meeting, but you must know that if you speak like this in public, then no one will be able to do anything for you.’

  Cassraw glanced down for a moment. When he looked up, he was smiling. It was a warm, understanding expression, quite free from the glinting self-aware certainty of the deranged. Vredech looked at him unhappily, his doubts about himself seeping back. Cassraw took his arm. ‘You’re quite right, Vred,’ he said. ‘I see that my new knowledge is too heady even for you, who knows me. I would not, in any event, have expressed myself so freely in public. But you are my old friend. You were on the mountain with me, and, despite your protestations, I feel that you, too, were touched, albeit less so than me. Like me, you have been chosen.’

  He looked directly at Vredech, his black eyes piercing, then nodded to himself before continuing. ‘I have much to do before I can speak thus to my flock and the church, but…’ His face became both serious and sad. ‘Those who oppose what is to happen will be swept aside… perhaps cruelly so. You must be with me, Vred, or you’ll be one such and I won’t be able to save you.’

  ‘Cassraw, for pity’s sake listen to yourself,’ Vredech said softly.

  Cassraw raised a finger gently to his lips for silence. ‘You must be shown more than has been shown to the others,’ he said, almost whispering.

  Vredech searched his face.

  ‘Your drink is good?’ Cassraw said abruptly, smiling again.

  ‘Yes, it… it is. Very good. As ever,’ Vredech stammered, caught unawares, but glad to grasp a simple commonplace again, not least because it was genuine praise. He nodded and smiled at Dowinne, who smiled back at him.

  ‘Look at it,’ Cassraw said. Vredech held up the glass, still half-full of Dowinne’s dark red fruit drink and reflecting the light from the window. Cassraw touched the glass lightly with his fingertips.

  There was no sound, but Vredech felt his skin crawl as though he had just drawn a fingernail down a window-pane. And though nothing was to be seen, he felt too, the presence of something foul moving around him, something that did not belong.

  The word ‘abomination’ formed in his mind, but he had no time to speak, for even as he watched it, the liquid in the glass seemed to boil and then it was no longer red, but clear.

  His hand began to shake again. Cassraw gripped his wrist.

  ‘Drink it,’ he said.

  Chapter 23

  ‘Party tricks!’ Nertha was almost spitting with rage. ‘The charlatan! And how could you be taken in like that?’

  ‘It was water!’ Vredech shouted, both embarrassed and indignant. ‘I don’t know what happened, but I’m not a child, for pity’s sake. I was taken in by nothing. I had the glass in my hand all the time. I’d drunk half the stuff. And don’t tell me I can’t recognize one of Dowinne’s drinks. He barely touched the outside of the glass and it changed as I was watching it.’ He held his hand near to his face. ‘It was this faraway.’

  ‘I’ve seen street clowns in Tirfelden do more mysterious things,’ Nertha sneered.

  Vredech rounded on her furiously. ‘Damn it, Nertha! Shut up if you’ve nothing to say.’ Nertha’s jaw came out and she clenched her fists menacingly, but Vredech pressed on. ‘You weren’t there. You didn’t see what happened. And you didn’t feel what was happening. And you didn’t see them. He’s carrying Dowinne with him, somehow.’

  At the mention of Dowinne, Nertha curled her lip. ‘I wish I had been,’ she said viciously. ‘He wouldn’t have tried anything like that with me there.’

  Vredech winced. ‘Nertha, please,’ he said, suddenly quiet. ‘I’m barely clinging on to my sanity, don’t fight me.’

  Nertha put her arm around his shoulder. Her face was still grim and angry but her manner was softer. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your sanity,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper. I can see the pain you’re in. It’s just difficult to stand by and listen to all this calmly. I’m not the physician I thought I was, it seems.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Vredech said, almost desperately. ‘Let’s just ride around the town… to… think. I don’t want to be confined by anything.’

  Within minutes they were mounted and walking their horses out into the bright sunshine. Vredech let out a great breath, as though he had been holding it since his return from Cassraw’s.

  ‘Do you feel any easier?’ Nertha asked after a while.

  ‘Freer, but no easier,’ Vredech answered.

  Nertha frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Vredech looked up into the bright blue sky. A few white clouds were floating leisurely by. ‘It’s barely two months since those clouds came out of the north,’ he reflected. ‘Two months since Cassraw – and me, too, I suppose – had our strange visitations, but I can hardly remember what life was like before. So much has happened.’ He looked at Nertha. ‘Am I going mad, Nertha? Have I gone mad? Are you really there? Or am I somewhere else, someone else, dreaming all this?’

  Nertha looked distressed. She reached over and took his hand. ‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you there’s nothing wrong with your mind, not while you’ve wit enough to know those questions can’t be answered. And they can’t, can they? I could put on my physician’s manner and reassure you that all will be well, that of course you’re you, and you’re here. But nothing can stand that kind of scrutiny. It’s like a child asking, “Why?” after everything you say.’ She smiled enticingly. ‘The question is not whether you exist, but whether such a question can exist if it can have no answer.

  Vredech did not respond to her gentle provocation, so she shook him. ‘Not answerable, Allyn,’ she said forcefully. ‘So don’t ask. And don’t fret. You’ve no alternative but to accept what you see, here and now, as real, and to do what you’ve already decided to do: watch and listen. Something in that cloud affected both you and Cassraw. For the first time in your life you’re dreaming…’ She waved her extended hand in front of him as he turned to her sharply. ‘Or not, as the case may be,’ she added quickly. ‘Maybe you’re going into other people’s dreams, maybe visiting strange other realities. It’s not important. It’s all unanswerable. But whatever’s happened to Cassraw, he’s playing some wildly dangerous game that’s likely to cause a great deal of trouble as well as costing him his career.’

  Vredech looked straight ahead. ‘The Whistler said that this ancient enemy of his was a priest, sowing disorder and discontent. That wasbefore I heard Cassraw’s sermon. He also said that this man had met a terrible foe, who had weakened him. Cassraw said that a great evil had arisen.’ He turned to Nertha. ‘And that was no trick for children,’ he said. ‘One of Dowinne’s drinks was turned to water – but it wasn’t just that which affected me. I told you. It was what I felt – as if something foul had suddenly been released into the room.’

  Nertha held his gaze. ‘Don’t look to me for any answers, Allyn. All I can do is what I’ve just done: remind you of your own solution, to watch and listen. In a couple of days, Cassraw will be giving another sermon. I think perhaps the two of us should go and listen to him together, don’t you?’

  Vredech nodded then clicked his horse forward into a trot. Nertha responded and they rode in silence for some time. Then she asked again, ‘Do you feel any easier now?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vredech replied, almost reluctantly. He looked at her earnestly. ‘I don’t know what providence brought you here, Nertha, but I’d have been lost without you.’
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br />   Nertha’s brow furrowed and her mouth tightened into a prim line. ‘For pity’s sake, Allyn, don’t go solemn on me. I don’t think I could cope with that.’

  Vredech smiled at the sight. ‘No, I don’t suppose you could,’ he said. ‘But it’s true all the same.’

  ‘It was House’s letter that brought me,’ Nertha insisted tartly. ‘Nothing theological. That’s what’s got you in this mess.’ She pursed her lips and looked at him shrewdly. ‘I think I will play the physician for a moment. I don’t want to hear any more about this business, not until after Cassraw’s next sermon. I want to wander about the town with you, see what’s changed, what’s the same. Persecute one or two old friends with reminiscences. And if this weather lasts we can ride out into the country, get into the silence, right away from Privv’s hysteria and Cassraw’s dementia, right away from sterile debates and the smell of well-worn pews. Can we do that?’

  ‘How could I refuse such an alluring prospect?’ Vredech replied. He took her hand. ‘It’s really…’

  Nertha snatched her hand free and raised it warningly. ‘No solemnity, Allyn, I warn you, or I’ll be tempted to take my crop to you.’

  Before Vredech could reply, Nertha reined her horse to a halt. ‘What’s that?’ she said.

  Vredech stopped his own horse and, as soon as the clatter of hooves faded, another noise became apparent. It was faint, but quite definite.

  ‘Sounds like shouting,’ he said.

  ‘A lot of shouting,’ Nertha confirmed. ‘Come on.’ She turned her horse towards the sound and urged it into a trot.

  ‘This is taking us further into town,’ Vredech called out, as he caught up with her.

  ‘I do know where we’re going. I’ve not been away that long,’ she shouted in reply.

  ‘I meant it’ll be busy.’

  ‘I wonder what it is?’ Nertha said, waving him silent and craning forward as if that would help her make out the noise above the sound of the horses. Then she pulled her mount into a narrow, unevenly cobbled street. Tall terraced houses on either side threw the street into the shade and its steepness obliged the two riders to slow to a careful walk. Both were concentrating on their riding and neither spoke; the sole sound in the street was that of slithering, iron-shod hooves. The few people who were out and about paid them scant heed, although one or two of the older ones bowed respectfully when they saw that Vredech was a priest.