by Roger Taylor
The oppressiveness in the hall grew still further as though it were actually flowing out of Cassraw. It seemed to crush the congregation into silence.
‘The time of proving is upon us.’ Cassraw’s powerful voice roiled sonorously over the silence. ‘Let those who doubt that Ahmral’s hand is in our midst, turn to their neighbours and ask what befell but two days ago in the PlasHein Square. Let them ask who sapped the moral fibre of our leaders so that the people would be drawn forth in such numbers to make their voices heard in the cause of simple justice.’
Slowly, Cassraw reached up and drew back his hood. As he did so he moved forward and leaned on the edge of the pulpit. The movement itself seemed to crackle through the quivering air. Even at the rear of the hall, Vredech could feel the power of his presence as those gleaming black eyes scanned his audience. ‘It is ever the way of Ahmral to use the weak for His ends.’
Silence.
‘But so it is ever the way of the Lord to give strength to true believers – to those who are proven – that they might rise up and overthrow those who would lead them astray.’
‘Praise Him! Praise Him!’
‘And let those who doubt that but look around them, at the numbers that have come here today.’
‘Praise Him! Praise Him!’
‘And as we are gathered here in witness to His will, so shall all Canol Madreth be brought back to the One True Light, and thence all Gyronlandt, and beyond.’
There was such a roar of approval at this that Cassraw eventually had to silence it by raising his hands.
‘But this will be no light task. Ahmral’s taint is spread both wide and deep, enmeshing us all. There is no deceit that He will not practice, no lies He will not tell, no treachery to which He will not stoop.’ Cassraw leaned further forward. ‘Vigilance must be our watchword, my children. Only through vigilance shall we find those who would betray us with their weakness.’ His voice became thin and penetrating. ‘Seek always for those signs that will show you where Ahmral’s taint has been left. Seek even in your loved ones. Even in yourselves. For wherever it is found, we must root it out if we are not all to be doomed.’
‘Thus let it be!’
‘And where the taint is found, however slight, let those who bear it come forward and be purged. Let them show that their faith in the Lord has been proven again. Let them come to me, here. Let them have that awful burden lifted from them. ForI have been charged with the carrying of that burden unto the place of His coming, unto the place where His new temple shall be built.’ Cassraw lifted his hand towards the Ervrin Mallos.
This time there was uproar. Despite the crush of the crowd, people were waving their arms, clapping their hands and crying out, ‘Praise Him. Praise Him. Thus let it be.’
This is madness, Vredech wanted to shout, but it was as though an iron band was tightening about his throat.
Cassraw’s voice cut through the din. ‘But beware, my children. Beware those who would lure you astray with soft words of so-called reason, of compromise with wrongdoers, of doubt about the eternal truths, for their words are as corrosive as Ahmral’s spittle. Here is the way. The only way.’ He held up the Santyth, and a monstrous passion filled his voice. ‘Here are written all things. Go unto those who would seek to rule you and tell them to seek first within these blessed pages for guidance. Let them hear His words before they speak their own. Go unto them and do His work, I command you.’
It seemed to Vredech that Cassraw’s voice came no longer from the front of the hall but had become a great solid mass that was pressing down upon him from all directions, pounding itself into him. A blackness started to flow over him. Somewhere in the distance he heard his name being called. The words twinkled through the darkness like stars, but he could not reach out and take them.
The blackness closed over him.
Chapter 26
Darke and Tirec stared up at the Ervrin Mallos. Both seemed distressed, but it was Tirec who spoke first.
‘As we’ve moved further from home, communities seem to have grown more primitive, more ignorant, superstitious,’ he said, though his voice contained no judgement. ‘I thought this just more of the same, but it isn’t, is it?’
Darke did not reply for some time. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m finding it hard to accept what I’m feeling.’
‘You think it’s Him, don’t you?’ Tirec forced the words out.
Darke closed his eyes and tightened his mouth, then he nodded slowly. ‘I fear it’s something to do with Him, certainly.’
‘No,’ Tirec said. ‘Face it squarely, like you’ve always taught me. You think it’s Him, returned.’
‘Too hasty a judgement,’ Darke said, too quickly. ‘We were there when He was destroyed.’
‘We were there when His form in this world was destroyed,’ Tirec corrected.
‘Elders’ talk. I don’t know what that means,’ Darke said, his tone suddenly angry. ‘And nor do you.’ Then a look of self-reproach replaced the anger and he sagged a little and laid an apologetic hand on Tirec’s arm. ‘We should both have listened to them more, I suppose. Made an effort to learn.’ He straightened up. ‘Well, let’s do what we’re good at, what we were sent out to do: discover, learn.’
Tirec opened his mouth as if to reply, but made no sound.
‘It’s all we can do,’ Darke said. ‘Though my every instinct’s telling me that we’ve precious little time.’
Then he shivered violently.
* * * *
‘What do you mean, none of this is real?’ said a vaguely familiar voice. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to debate that any more.’
Vredech opened his eyes. The draining heat of the Meeting Hall was gone and in its place was a gentle evening coolness. In the distance he could see a sky reddened by the vanished sun. A figure moved to one side and, with a cry, Vredech struggled to his feet. The figure hopped away from him in some alarm.
‘I see that my instruction to kill our friend has offended your priestly sensibilities,’ it exclaimed affectedly.
The voice, or rather, the sound, was unmistakable this time. The Whistler was speaking across the mouth-hole of his flute. And they were on the hillside where he had last seen him before waking to the anxious ministrations of House and Skynner.
‘What am I doing here?’ Vredech shouted.
The Whistler arched his body backwards as though under the impact of the words. ‘Not again,’ he exclaimed. ‘Please. Play the game properly.’
Vredech clamped his hands to his head, his thoughts reeling. ‘No,’ he snarled. ‘I won’t have this. I’m in the Haven Meeting House, listening to Cassraw’s ranting sermon, not standing on some dark hillside with a… figment of my imagination. I’ve fainted with the heat, that’s all.’
He fell silent and screwed his eyes tight shut in the hope that when he opened them he would be back standing by Nertha, but he could still hear the Whistler humming thoughtfully in the darkness. There was a slight scuffling which prompted Vredech to open his eyes again. The lean face of the Whistler appeared, scarcely a hand’s span away. His wide, mobile eyes were searching intently. A light had blossomed from something in the palm of his upheld hand – a small lantern, Vredech presumed. Its light was gentle, but almost like daylight in its clarity, for he could see every detail of the Whistler’s face. He resisted the temptation to reach up and touch him to satisfy himself that he was indeed truly there.
‘You’re a strange one, Allyn Vredech,’ the Whistler said. ‘Here we are, talking like civilized people about matters of great import; about the souls of men, and the roots of things evil, even about the flawed fabric of all things, and you start screaming and blathering.’
Vredech’s hands shot out to seize the broad lapel of the Whistler’s tunic.
He heard a soft, ‘Don’t!’ then had a fleeting impression of the black flute appearing between his outstretched arms and, suddenly, though he felt no impact, he was briefly on his knees and then rolling on the
grass.
As he righted himself he saw that the Whistler was crouching some way away, watching him as though nothing had happened.
‘You’ve a deal of violence in you for a priest,’ he said. ‘I’m beginning to suspect you’ve chosen the wrong vocation.’
‘What do you mean?’ Vredech asked, adding hastily, ‘No, no! I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to get involved in another debate with myself. I’m not here. This isn’t happening. It’s at least two weeks since I left this place.’
‘Left?’ the Whistler said. He was sitting now, playing softly on his flute. The light was dangling from his hand and bobbing happily. ‘What do you mean, left?’
Vredech stood up and walked over to him. Whatever was happening he had to get away from this place, get back to the real world, to the Haven Meeting House, and Nertha, and Cassraw.
‘Two weeks,’ he said, looking down at the cross-legged figure, strangely mobile in the flitting light. ‘Two whole weeks since I was here. People have died in a terrible accident in Troidmallos. The government’s somehow managed to turn a small problem into one large enough to bring it down with who knows what consequences. Another young man’s been murdered. And Cassraw seems to be going quite mad. Will you stop playing that damn thing!’ He reached forward angrily to seize the flute. It hovered momentarily in front of his hand then slipped away before he could grasp it. Drawn inexorably after it, Vredech eventually staggered several paces sideways before he regained his balance. He almost swore.
‘Definitely the wrong vocation,’ the Whistler said over the mouth-hole. He stopped playing and, like an unfolding plant, stood straight up. He held the light out towards Vredech who stared at him uncertainly. ‘You’re a warrior, Allyn,’ he said. ‘Not a priest. Did you know that? You resort to violence very easily.’ His tone was mocking.
‘No, I don’t. Look… I’m not going to discuss it,’ Vredech said, unnerved by the Whistler’s observation.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the Whistler said. ‘You’re not the first. And there’s not a great deal of difference between a priest and a true warrior. You both care about people after your fashion. Come on.’ He threw the small lantern into the air and, twisting round and round, ran after it as it arced through the darkness. He blew an incongruous trill on the flute with one hand as he caught the lantern with the other.
‘Where?’ Vredech demanded, in spite of himself.
‘There’s a cave over here. Nice and dry. And warm when we get a fire going.’
‘But…’
‘Come on.’
Vredech looked towards the horizon, where a dull purple marked the resting place of the sun. His gaze moved upwards. The sky was full of stars, clear and brilliant, but the patterns they formed were unfamiliar. And there were so many. They were not the stars that shone over Troidmallos.
He stared, at once spellbound and deeply afraid.
‘Come on!’ The Whistler’s voice was distant now. Vredech tore his gaze from the sky and peered into the darkness. The only sign of the Whistler was a light in the distance, jigging to and fro and occasionally soaring into the air.
‘Wait!’ he shouted as he started running after it. The light paused and became brighter. As he ran towards it he recalled the old Madren tales of benighted travellers drawn into the marshes by malevolent sprites with their flaming lanterns.
He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the Whistler.
‘You’ll need to be fitter than that when you take up your new vocation,’ he said.
Vredech ignored the remark. He was fighting back panic and forcing himself to adjust to the reality of this mysterious place once again. It was no dream, of that he was certain. For now he knew that he had touched the dreams of others; had been both himself and the dreamer. And dreams had an insubstantial quality at their heart, like reflections in water. Their realities, however vivid, were shifting and ephemeral. They had no hold on him, no control, for he was not truly there. Here, on the contrary, everything was solid and true – the grass under his feet, the scented evening cool becoming the night’s coldness under the sharp clear sky, his panting breath as he strode out to keep up with the Whistler’s rangy gait.
Then they were walking amongst trees. The touch of the lantern-light turned the leaves and branches overhead into domed ceilings, and the trunks into solid columns. It was as though they were walking through a great cellar.
‘Here we are.’ The Whistler broke into his reverie. A slight slope had carried them up to the entrance to a cave in a rock face that rose sharply out of the ground to mark the end of the trees. He stepped inside and Vredech followed him. The rock walls had a reddish tint to them and, here and there, tiny polished facets bounced the lantern’s light back in greeting. The cave was dry and fresh smelling as if the warm day was still trapped there.
The Whistler took in a deep breath and smacked his stomach vigorously. ‘In such simple things lies true wealth,’ he said. Vredech looked at him sourly. The Whistler returned the gaze, his expression enigmatic. ‘Just a moment,’ he said, ‘and I’ll find some wood for a fire. I won’t be long. I’ll leave the lantern.’
‘I’m not some child, afraid of the dark,’ Vredech snapped.
‘You’re not?’ the Whistler said quietly. ‘I’ll leave it, anyway.’
Vredech sat down and leaned back against the rock. I’m in the Haven Meeting House, he kept forcing himself to think, over and over, as if repetition would make it so. The hard rock against his head and back, the lantern-light etching out the lines of the cave, and the distant sound of the Whistler, now playing, now talking to himself, denied this assertion.
Then he was back and, very soon, smoke was crackling from a small heap of twigs at the mouth of the cave. Vredech watched indifferently as the Whistler’s long hands coaxed the smoke into flames and then began to build a fire.
As it flared up, he sat down, apparently satisfied, and motioned Vredech to sit opposite. Vredech did not move.
‘You’re suddenly troubled, night eyes,’ the Whistler said. ‘In the blink of an eye you changed. One moment you were assured and coherent, the next, wild and rambling, even resorting to violence. Markedly more primitive. Interesting, but quite startling.’ He stared into the fire and then up at the smoke rising from it. A solitary spark drifted skywards. He raised the flute to his eye and peered along it at the dwindling speck. ‘I’m intrigued to hear what’s happened. Do you know? Or am I talking to myself after all?’
Vredech looked at him intently. ‘You must tell me something I don’t know,’ he said. ‘So that I can test your reality when I return to… my own world.’
The Whistler’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, then he shook his head. ‘If you hesitate about your own world, how much more so must I?’ he said starkly. ‘I don’t know where it is – indeed, “where”, like “when”, means little to me now. And, of course, I don’t even know if it is, or even if you are, so how can I answer such a question?’
Vredech gritted his teeth. ‘Then, tell me what He will do. This spirit of evil of yours,’ he said, in some exasperation.
The Whistler’s fingers twitched along his flute and he lifted it slightly, then changed his mind. ‘Tell me first why you’re suddenly different,’ he said. ‘You frighten me.’
Vredech raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Ifrightenyou? That seems unlikely. You didn’t have any problem dealing with my violence, as you call it.’
The Whistler made a dismissive gesture. ‘A detail. I took your actions to a consequence different from the one you intended, that’s all. You frighten me because your strangeness, your unsettling complexity, makes me doubt my sanity.’ His eyes narrowed menacingly. ‘It’s occurred to me before that wherever I’m lying asleep, I’m mad. Maybe that’s why I’ve locked myself here, like a child cowering under the blankets. Because here I can be sane. Moving from world to world of my own making, able to reason and think. But since you came, my control of events seems to have slipped away from me. I
’m plunged into strange places… places that are between the worlds. And you, black-orbed, haunted and haunting, now rational, now demented, come probing into the very heart of my dream. Bringing your plausibility, your bewildering complexity to twist and bend my thoughts. And bringing Him with you, damn you. All control goes when He comes.’ He levelled a quivering finger at Vredech. ‘If you are real, then what am I? And if you’re not, then why should I have Him return and use such a creation as you to be His harbinger? Why should I test myself so? And if I stare into this boiling pit, if I judge myself mad here as well as mad wherever I truly am, then what is the point of all this?’ He waved an all-encompassing hand. ‘Will it crumble and fall? Will I wake to my true madness? Will I die?’
Vredech flinched away from the pain in the Whistler’s voice but he could do no other than reach out and help; the pastoral demand set his own concerns to one side. He snatched at Nertha’s words. ‘Nothing can withstand that kind of scrutiny, Whistler,’ he said. ‘It’s like a child asking “Why?” after everything you say.’ Then, half to himself, ‘Even healthy flesh becomes diseased if you pick at it long enough.’ He copied the Whistler’s own dismissive gesture. ‘Play your flute. I’ll tell you what happened to me.’
The Whistler moved as if to speak, then turned his gaze back to the fire. Slowly the flute came to his mouth and he began to play the three notes that Vredech had heard at their first meeting. Over and over, each time different, sometimes poignant, lingering, sometimes angry, sometimes full of menacing anticipation. As the Whistler’s music filled the cave, Vredech thought that he could hear other sounds, powerful and disturbing, weaving through the simple notes. He listened intently for a moment, then, quite undramatically, told the absorbed Whistler all that had happened since he had found himself back in his room in the Meeting House.
