Adren put a gently restraining hand on Nals’ neck and the dog sat down quietly, though he was still obviously disturbed about something.
Eyes narrowed, Adren leaned forward as if being that little nearer would enable her to see more. ‘I can’t make out any details clearly against the sky.’ She was puzzled. ‘Thyrn doesn’t normally sit like that. He’s very straight.’
‘It’s not likely to be anyone else, is it?’ Endryk said. ‘He’s probably sat down for a rest and fallen asleep.’
Adren frowned. ‘It’s difficult to tell from here, but it looks as if where he’s sitting might be a dangerous place to be sleeping.’ She became instructive. ‘We must approach him quietly and calmly, almost as if we were out for a casual walk. We don’t want him waking with a start. And if he happens to be awake, given that something’s the matter with him anyway, we don’t want to startle him.’ She paused for a moment then said, ‘Stay by me, dog,’ to Nals. Endryk could not forbear a look of surprise as the dog fell in behind her dutifully. He did the same.
Following Adren’s advice, the three of them began walking towards the motionless figure. Adren forced a casual pace on Endryk, and twice she had to put a hand on his sleeve to restrain him.
‘I’ve seen people sitting quietly in high places like that before,’ she said. ‘Believe me, both charging in and skulking in can have disastrous consequences.’ She did not elaborate but she did not have to restrain him again.
At one point they lost sight of the motionless figure as they dropped into a rocky cleft gashed across the ridge. Momentarily disorientated, they paused, unclear which way to go when Nals’ ears shot up again as if he had heard something. He made a low uncertain sound, part whine, part growl.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Adren asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Endryk looked puzzled. ‘Maybe he’s still a bit excited from the climb. He normally does that when someone’s about and he hasn’t made his mind up whether they’re friendly or not.’
Nals fell silent but, seemingly still listening to something, he abandoned Adren to trot ahead of them. Then he was jumping and scrambling his way up the far side of the cleft. In the absence of better guidance, Adren and Endryk followed him. As they reached the top, Nals was waiting for them, tail wagging. The figure on the skyline was directly ahead of them. Adren was about to set off towards it when Endryk turned sharply.
‘First the dog, now you,’ Adren said with exaggerated irritation. ‘Have you heard something as well?’
Endryk ignored her tone. He was pointing hesitantly towards the looming face of the mountain. He took a few steps forward then stopped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I thought I saw someone moving over there – someone small.’ He shrugged. ‘Couldn’t be, I suppose. I certainly can’t see anyone now. Probably a bird.’
As though in confirmation, a throaty ‘Rrrk’ floated down to them from a large black bird circling high above them.
Adren shook her head. ‘Do they have anything called mountain madness in your country?’ she asked acidly, setting off again.
‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ Endryk replied. ‘I’ll tell you about it one day. But this isn’t it.’
Adren stopped and looked at him knowingly. ‘You’d realize if you were mad, of course?’ she inquired.
Endryk slithered away from her taunt. ‘Let’s look to our charge,’ he said, pointing to the still unmoving figure.
As they drew nearer they were able to distinguish first Thyrn’s clothes and then his face. They were reluctant to feel relieved however. Though he did not appear to be injured, the ledge on which he was sitting was dangerous, albeit not immediately perilous. An injudicious movement would send him rolling down a long rocky slope.
‘He is asleep,’ Adren whispered.
‘Silly young man,’ Endryk said, shaking his head. ‘He should have more sense by now than to doze off in a place like that.’
‘Come on.’
They succeeded in positioning themselves silently on either side of him. While Endryk braced himself to cope with any sudden flurry of waking anxiety, Adren shook Thyrn’s arm gently. Somewhat to their surprise, he did not start violently, but opened his eyes slowly and then turned to each of them in turn with a smile – a guilty smile.
‘Hello. Nodded off, did I? Sorry. I was waiting for you.’
Both Adren and Endryk stared at him blankly. Having spent an anxious and testing day presuming that Thyrn had been taken ill in some way, this was not the reaction they had expected. Thyrn rolled his shoulders and then his head. ‘Mistake, that. I should’ve known better. My neck’s stiff now.’
He winced. ‘And my behind.’ He looked around. ‘Still, isn’t it splendid up here? So quiet, so majestic. I’d never have imagined such a place.’
Adren, still braced for a more fraught meeting, and unsettled by Thyrn’s assumption of normality, scowled. ‘Thyrn, what the devil have you been up to?’
‘Where’s the little old man?’
The question, asked wide-eyed and frankly, left her gaping.
‘Old man? What old man?’ she spluttered.
‘The one who said I should wait for you. He was going to fetch you. I say he was old but it was difficult to tell, really. But he was little.’ Adren looked to Endryk for help but though he was obviously concerned, he could only shrug. Thyrn began to lever himself to his feet. He flexed his legs carefully as he stood up and nodded gratefully to Endryk who gave him a supporting hand. Adren composed herself and there was a conscious note of gentle humouring in her voice when she spoke to him again.
‘We haven’t seen anyone else, Thyrn,’ she said, motioning him along the ledge and towards safer ground. ‘Are you sure you weren’t just dreaming?’
Thyrn’s expression became thoughtful. As always when he was treating with anything that touched near his profession his expression changed from that of a young, often bewildered or lonely young man, to that of a mature and experienced adult. ‘There was something odd about him,’ he admitted. ‘Something I can’t put my finger on at the moment, but it wasn’t a dream, no.’
‘You’ve had a long and strange day, Thyrn, and very little to eat. The mountains can play peculiar tricks on you when you’re not used to them.’ Endryk took his tentative tone from Adren.
Thyrn shook his head and met his gaze quite straightforwardly. ‘Yes. A stranger day than you can know.’ He looked guilty again. ‘And you have too, I imagine. I’m sorry, I owe you all an apology. I’ll explain as best I can when we join the others – if I can. But the little man was here. He was neither dream nor hallucination. I mightn’t be much of a fighter or a mountain dweller, but I know my mind and all the tricks it can play…’ Then he was looking around, puzzled. ‘I’ve no idea where he is now though, if he’s not with you. He did say he was going to fetch you.’
‘No one came for us, Thyrn,’ Adren said, almost apologetically. ‘And we’ve seen no one.’ She cast a quick look at Endryk.
Thyrn frowned. ‘Odd, that. He was quite insistent I wait. Still, you’re here, aren’t you? That’s all that matters.’
Adren could not prevent her Warden’s interrogatory nature from coming to the fore. ‘What was he like? What was he wearing?’
‘I didn’t really notice, I’m afraid. He was little.’ He held out a hand level with Adren’s shoulder by way of demonstration. Then he smiled. ‘Bright eyes, he had. And he was full of life. With a sing-song voice – very calming, reassuring. Went right through me, like sunlight. He’d a pack on his back, I think, and he seemed… to belong here somehow.’ His smile faded. ‘It is odd though, now I think about it, meeting someone like that, up here of all places. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me at the time. Everything just seemed to be quite natural, standing here, talking. We might have been in the middle of Arvenshelm.’ He frowned. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
Adren was about to question him further but Endryk caught her eye and shook his head.
‘Let’s get down to the others,’ he said. ‘They’ll be getting anxious and I don’t really want to tackle that rock fall in the dark.’ He turned to Thyrn. ‘Think about it when we’re back at camp. For now, just think where you’re putting your feet.’
Before they began the descent, both Adren and Thyrn stood for a while looking round at the mountains in their frozen march to the horizon. Endryk joined them when he saw what they were doing. No one spoke.
Nor did they speak much on the way down into the growing darkness of the valley. Hyrald and the others had set up camp a little way from the foot of the fall and a fire was burning, casting an odd light in the bright-skyed gloaming. They were not sat around it however, but had ascended part way up the lower reaches of the fall to greet the returning rescuers. They had been there since Endryk had called down to let them know that Thyrn was safe and unhurt.
When he had reassured himself of this personally, Nordath erupted in anger. The others stood back as his outburst swept their own clamouring questions aside.
‘What the devil did you think you were doing, wandering off like that? No indication of where you’d gone – taking no food with you, no clothes – your guard duty abandoned.’ This was an afterthought. ‘What if the weather had changed, or if you’d had an accident? If it hadn’t been for the damned dog we wouldn’t have had the faintest idea where you’d gone.’
The anger faded almost as suddenly as it had flared up, as Thyrn visibly wilted under the onslaught. Uncle and nephew were left staring at one another in a pained and helpless silence. Adren broke it.
Taking Thyrn’s arm, she said briskly, as to a child who had been on a special outing, ‘Let’s get something to eat, then you can sit down and tell us everything that’s happened.’ An unexpected motherliness in her manner coupled with an unequivocal and protective menace dispatched the men to their tasks and further postponed the squall of questions that had been brewing all day.
Gradually the valley darkened and bright stars began to appear in the purpling sky. Endryk struck his lantern to complement the firelight. Under Adren’s stern writ however, the only sounds to be heard were those of the fire and the cooking food.
As they were all settling around the fire and beginning to eat, a signal from her prompted Thyrn.
‘This is difficult,’ he began, avoiding looking directly at anyone. ‘I really don’t know where to start. I know what I did was unbelievably stupid – caused you a lot of distress and difficulty and risked getting me lost or killed, but I won’t apologize to you because a simple “sorry” isn’t enough. I’m appalled at what I’ve done and all I can do is try to tell you what happened as honestly as possible.’ He raised a hand to touch his temple. His face was serious when he looked up and met the gaze of each of his listeners in turn. ‘I’m not certain why or how any of it happened, but in so far as it touches on my skill as a Caddoran, I am certain that I’ll get to the bottom of it before I’ve finished. You’ll have to trust me about that.’ There was a note of determination in his voice that none of them had heard before and no one spoke.
‘I was on guard duty, walking about to prevent myself from dozing off – Rhavvan had woken me from a very deep sleep and I was quite groggy. It was very quiet – the mountains aren’t like the forest, are they, with all manner of things wandering about killing one another. And none of you were snoring for the moment.’ This provoked some indignant looks but he continued before anyone could interrupt. ‘Suddenly, I felt some… pulling at me.’ He paused and, closing his eyes, took a slow breath.
‘Pulling?’ Hyrald queried cautiously.
Thyrn released the breath and opened his eyes. ‘When a Caddoran Joins with a client,’ he began to explain, ‘he has to let go of whatever’s going on in his own mind. Make a blank space, as it were, so that the client’s intentions can be recorded accurately. The blanker the space, the more accurate the receiving of the message will be.’ He smiled unexpectedly but there was an edge to his voice as he continued. ‘It’s not an easy thing to do by any means but, being “gifted”, I can be very blank when need arises – that’s what makes me so valuable.’ He shrugged the observation aside. ‘Anyway, this letting go is as much a physical thing as a mental one and it has physical effects. These tend to be different for each individual Caddoran. Some feel they’re floating in water, some flying, some just diffusing into nothingness – all sorts of things. For me it’s a sensation of being drawn – pulled – towards a client, or more correctly, towards his message and his intentions.’
‘And this… pulling… is what you felt?’ Adren prompted.
‘Yes.’ Thyrn was shaking his head as if reluctant to confirm his own answer. ‘Very strongly. Stronger than I’ve ever felt it with any client – even Vashnar.’
Nordath waved his hands vaguely. ‘But I thought you had to prepare yourself before this could happen – that it was something absolutely in your control.’
‘So it is,’ Thyrn replied, staring into the fire. Shadows danced about his face and he looked much older than his real age. ‘So it has to be. Without control, what would there be? Just madness. A mind helpless – completely exposed – filling with everything around it.’ He shuddered. ‘Like a sewer.’
Few Wardens passed through their careers without having to go down into Arvenshelm’s ancient and labyrinthine sewers in search of one of the many criminals who used them as a convenient underground road system and hiding place; Hyrald, Rhavvan and Adren were no exceptions. Thyrn’s image disturbed them but they did not speak.
‘But it was there,’ Thyrn went on. ‘Quite unmistakable. And, as I said, stronger than I’ve ever known.’
‘Stronger – what do you mean?’ Hyrald asked.
‘The intensity is different for each client,’ Thyrn replied offhandedly.
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Rhavvan said. He spat a piece of gristle into his hand and threw it into the fire.
‘Youdon’t understand it?’ Thyrn said bluntly. ‘Idon’t understand it. I wouldn’t have thought such a thing possible. In fact, I’m still having difficulty realizing it actually happened. But it did, and that’s what it was. A pulling stronger than I’ve ever known that came on without any preparation by myself and without a client – or anyone that it could be related to.’
He fell silent, staring into the fire again. Adren looked at him carefully. There was some fear in his eyes, but mainly there was anger. He had been affronted. He was feeling as she had when Endryk had casually overwhelmed her vaunted swordwork. Except that then Endryk had been there to rebuild and improve upon what he had nearly destroyed. For Thyrn there was no one.
‘Is it possible that somehow one of us might accidentally have… contacted… you while we were sleeping?’ she asked.
Thyrn pursed his lips then turned to look at her. The look told her she was talking nonsense, but that he was grateful for the effort she had made. ‘No,’ he said. ‘A Caddoran’s art is really only mimicry. It’s not mind reading. It’s strange – mysterious, intuitive, but there’s nothing mystical or magical about it. The client doesn’t really have to do anything except give the message he wants delivered. Everything else is up to the Caddoran and his discipline.’
‘But you say this came from nowhere, without you doing anything?’ Nordath’s statement was a question.
‘Yes,’ Thyrn replied simply. ‘I told you, I don’t understand.’
‘Go on,’ Adren urged gently, sensing the beginning of a futile debate. ‘Just tell us what happened. We can discuss the whys and wherefores after.’
Thyrn nodded. ‘I’m not totally sure what happened next,’ he said. ‘I remember also feeling a great need in the pulling. Although I could see no one, everything else told me that I’d a client who needed a difficult and important message delivered urgently. I could do no other than move towards it.’
Suddenly he wrapped his arms about himself. ‘I’m sorry. I was all right when I woke up, but the more I think about all this, the more it’s bothering me – frightening me.’ The last words came out reluctantly. As he looked round the listening circle he was a bewildered young man again. ‘I do know the tricks my mind can play; I can always end them even if I can’t prevent them from starting.’ His distress grew. ‘But looking back, I can’t think why I did any of what I did. How could I have felt the pull of a client without preparation, without seeing him? Why should I have thought that I could find the message-sender by looking for him when everything that was happening could only have come from inside myself? Why had I no control over my mind, my actions?’
Hyrald intervened quickly, leaning towards him and holding his gaze. ‘Thyrn. Listen to me. None of us has control over everything all the time. Look at us, senior officers of the Warding, experienced in dealing with and controlling all manner of situations – frightening, horrific, chaotic, tragic situations. And where are we now? Sitting round a campfire in the middle of the Karpas Mountains, as far from our old homes and lives as if they’d never existed. Why? Because frightening, inexplicable things quite beyond our control have happened to us. You’re forgetting that somehow, without you doing anything, you and Vashnar touched one another when you were more than half the country apart. I can understand you being afraid, but understand too -you’ve survived.’ He gripped Thyrn’s arm powerfully. ‘And you’ve found skills and abilities in yourself over just these past days you’d never have thought possible. Everything’s changed for all of us. Maybe your Caddoran skills are changing too. Developing in some way. Just trust yourself.’ He drew the others into his plea. ‘We trust you. And we’ll support you if you slip. Just tell us what happened as well as you can then it won’t catch us unawares again.’
Thyrn placed his hand over Hyrald’s and nodded.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m not used to relying on other people like this.’ He cast an anguished glance at Nordath.
‘It’s all right,’ his uncle said, smiling. ‘I understand what you mean.’ He motioned him to continue. It took Thyrn a few moments to compose himself again.
‘There’s not much more to tell, really. The pull was so strong that I just had to keep following it.’
‘Did you realize what you were doing?’ Endryk asked.
Thyrn gave a feeble shrug. ‘Yes and no. I knew I was walking away from the camp. I remember being careful how I walked in the half light. But I didn’t realize how long I’d been walking. As I said, the pull was so strong. I just kept thinking, a little further and I’ll find out what all this is about – who needs this urgent message sending – a little further, over and over. I remember scrambling up there.’ He pointed to the ridge, now only a suggestion of deeper shadow against the starry sky. ‘And I remember walking along the ridge. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t even see that marvellous view of the mountains – I just walked on. The pull was getting stronger. Then there was this little figure coming towards me. I think he was whistling, or singing, to himself.’
Hyrald, Rhavvan and Nordath all craned forward.
‘Then therewas a message-sender actually causing this?’ Hyrald voiced the general anticipation.
Thyrn shook his head. ‘He wasn’t the message-sender. I don’t know who he was. I got the impression he was just a traveller – someone passing by.’
‘What?’ Rhavvan’s protestation made everyone jump. ‘Passing by? Just like that – halfway up a mountainside, in a part of the country that most of the people don’t even know exists?’
‘Let him finish.’
Adren reached out for silence. ‘You’re still sure you met this man, Thyrn? That you weren’t dreaming? Because we saw no one and we certainly didn’t get any message about where you were.’
‘He was there.’ Thyrn was as definite as when he had been on the ridge. He described the man again – little, bright-eyed, lively, infectious voice, though he could still remember little of what the man had been wearing, and he was hesitant about his age – old and not old. Rhavvan was patently sceptical but Adren’s glower and taut jaw kept him silent.
‘You are a Caddoran, Thyrn,’ she said with just a hint of reproach. ‘Youmust remember. Exactly what did he say to you?’
The question obviously unsettled Thyrn and he did not reply for some time. He was frowning when he did. ‘That’s very strange. Even when I’m not working I tend to recall conversations quite well – especially if they’re out of the ordinary. But I can only remember parts of this clearly.’ He stared into the fire, silent again for some time. ‘I remember the sound of his voice. It was strange – musical, seemed to pass right through me, but pleasant – reassuring, like everything about him.’
‘Go back to when you first saw him,’ Adren said.
‘I am,’ Thyrn replied, tapping his head. ‘I’m going through everything thoroughly.’ His hand came up as if enumerating items on a list. ‘As we drew nearer to each other – I could see him smiling from quite a distance away – he just offered his hand – I took it. He seemed to be concerned about me. “A long way from home,” was the first thing he said. Then he was asking me who I was, where I was going.’
‘And what did you tell him?’ Adren pressed, very gently.
‘I think I told him everything,’ Thyrn said doubtfully. His lack of recall was obviously troubling him. ‘I don’t think I could have done anything else, the way he asked.’
‘You told him you were following this… pull?’ Adren asked.
‘Yes, I did, definitely,’ Thyrn replied, certain now. ‘Bits are coming back to me. I told him who and what I was – a Caddoran – and why I was up there – not about the Death Cry and all that, but the pull of a message-sender, yes.’
‘And what did he say?’
Thyrn looked at Endryk, surprise lighting his face. ‘Same as you did when you rescued us, when I told him what I was, but not so sarcastic. “Battle messenger or storyteller?” he asked. How strange. Maybe he comes from your country, although he didn’t have your accent.’
‘That was all?’
‘Yes, though I can’t imagine what he thought about it. Odd enough for him to meet someone out here without suddenly finding out they might be a lunatic.’ He laughed. Despite the difficulty he was having remembering the details of his conversation, recalling even part of it seemed to put him remarkably at ease. His mood touched the others too. It was as though the sound of a distant and happy celebration was dancing in the firelight. Nals, on the fringes of the group, pricked up his ears and looked around intently before returning his head to his paws to continue his scrutiny of his companions.
‘You said he told you to wait?’ Adren said. ‘That he’d go and look for us?’
Thyrn became thoughtful again. ‘It’s really odd. Parts of what we talked about are as clear as if I’d just spoken them. Others are vague and blurred, like voices in the room below when you’re half asleep. But, yes, he did say that. He seemed a bit worried when I told him why I was there. He said there’s a bad place ahead – he’d come across it by accident, and it was very dangerous. I think he said something about a place of old power, or great power, I can’t remember. I have images of cracks and schisms – a terrible focus.’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘But it was that that was drawing me, because of what I was. I wasn’t to go any further, I was to sit and rest and…’ He snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it! He wasn’t going to go for you. He actually said, “I’ll call them to you,” and he pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle for you. It made me laugh. He said he couldn’t wait, he had to be on his way. And, besides, he’d had enough of crowds for the moment. I don’t seem to remember anything much after that. Just his voice filling my head – that and the fact that the pull had gone. I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I was very tired.’
He looked round at his audience. ‘I am sorry about all this,’ he said. ‘I know it’s a strange tale but it’s the truth. I’ve no idea why I can’t recall all of it.’ He looked at Endryk. ‘And for some reason I don’t seem to be as bothered about it as I did, although I suppose I should be. Perhaps, as you said, it was just fatigue and lack of food. I don’t work well when I’m tired, I know that. But that’s everything I can remember.’
‘It’s gone then, this pull – this sense of a distance message-sender?’ Nordath asked.
‘Was it ever there?’ Rhavvan’s sceptical query finally broke through Adren’s silent restraints.
Thyrn turned to him. ‘Oh yes, it was. I’m not that addled. It’s still there now.’
This created a small stir.
‘Don’t worry. It’s weaker, more distant – though I still don’t know what it is.’
‘Can you… resist it?’ Nordath asked.
‘Yes, Uncle. I’m curious about it, very curious, but when that traveller told me there was danger ahead, I could feel the truth of what he was saying and I’m not going searching for it again. It won’t catch me like it did before.’
A little later, when Thyrn had retired to his tent, his tale was recounted and dissected around the fire.
‘There was no sign of anyone up there?’ Hyrald asked Endryk.
‘We didn’t see anyone although I thought I caught a glimpse of something – someone – moving at one point. And Nals kept hearing things. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be someone living out here, I suppose – someone who really knows the place – someone a bit eccentric.’ A thought made him smile. ‘I lived on my own in the middle of nowhere for long enough. And I just happened on you when you were heading into danger. Odd as the lad’s story is, I’ve got no reason to doubt it. He certainly believes it and he’s not a liar.’
‘He’s no liar, but Rhavvan’s still of the opinion he’s nuts,’ Adren said provokingly.
Rhavvan was unexpectedly candid. ‘It’s the easiest answer to everything that’s happened, but we’ve all dealt with deranged people before and Thyrn’s not like that. In fact, as you said, Hyrald, he’s changed a lot since we set off from Endryk’s cottage. He’s matured – made a real effort to learn things, to pull his weight.’
‘You don’t seem to be too happy about it.’
Rhavvan grimaced. ‘Well, if he’s not nuts, maybe we are! Either that or there are some very peculiar things in these mountains.’ He turned to Endryk. ‘What did you make of that remark about a place of old power, great power? I noticed you reacted.’
Endryk looked uncomfortable. ‘Nothing really. Thyrn might be right… maybe the man he met was from my country. According to our old histories, all things are no more than different aspects of the Old Power – the power that came from the Great Searing – or even created the Great Searing. You call it the Great Light, I think. It’s not as fanciful as it seems, believe me. I’ve seen the Old Power used, both benignly and otherwise. It’s very real.’ He waved a hand agitatedly. ‘There are said to be places where, for some reason, the Old Power is concentrated… focused.’
‘Could there be such a place about here?’ Rhavvan asked the question unhappily.
Endryk shrugged. ‘I’ve no skill in using the Old Power. Few people have, fortunately. I probably wouldn’t recognize such a place if I was in the middle of it.’
The conversation swayed back and forth until eventually it began to circle pointlessly.
Hyrald cut through it. ‘We’re not going to reach any great conclusions about this. I think we’d better get back to where we are. Today’s been bizarre, to say the least, but I think Thyrn’s told us the truth of it – as he sees it, anyway. And no harm’s been done except that we’ve caught no food – something we’ll have to concentrate on tomorrow. We’ll just have to put this behind us. At least we’ve been moving in the right direction to take us home.’
‘What about this little old man he met?’ Rhavvan queried. ‘What if he’s still wandering about?’
Hyrald shrugged. ‘Well, whoever he was – is – he doesn’t seem to have been particularly menacing. Thyrn seemed to like him – and he did warn him about some kind of danger. There’s no saying where Thyrn would be by now if he hadn’t stopped. At worst the fellow was negligent, abandoning Thyrn like that. But, thinking about it – a traveller, hermit, whatever, on his own, miles from anywhere, I imagine he’d be far more frightened of us than we are likely to be of him. Either he’s gone on his way, like he told Thyrn, or he’s hiding from us. And I can’t say I blame him. Look at us – ugly and armed to the teeth. He’s just another mystery to add to everything else.’
‘But what if Thyrn wanders off again?’ Rhavvan’s final question was met at first with silence. Then there was a brief, embarrassed discussion about how Thyrn might be discreetly restrained or at least observed, but this was abandoned after a brief swing into black humour.
‘He’s part of the group now,’ Endryk said. ‘We must trust him. Whatever he is, whatever strange skills he has, even Rhavvan concedes that he’s changing, learning, gradually becoming someone that any of us would be glad to be with in this position. We shouldn’t even be talking about him behind his back like this.’
No one disagreed with this final summary and the conversation moved away from the day’s events to discussing plans for the following day.
In his tent, Thyrn, drifting in and out of sleep against a background of faintly flickering firelight and the soft rumble of voices, punctuated by the occasional laugh, rehearsed again his unreasoned response to the strange pull he had felt. As he had admitted, it was still there, though its power over him had gone. He was determined to solve the problem somehow, but his duty now – a duty he was happy to accept – was to the companions who had brought him this far.
Just as he was slipping finally into sleep, he thought he heard the little old man’s sing-song voice again, oddly clear and still reassuring.
‘Light be with you, Caddoran,’ it said, carrying him gently into the darkness.
There was dreamless stillness.
Then Vashnar was all about him.