Ivaroth struck the messenger a vicious backhanded blow that knocked him from his horse.
'Endryn, Greynyr, to me,’ he shouted, and pausing only to sweep the blind man up behind him, he spurred his horse forward.
His two lieutenants caught up with him as he ploughed recklessly through the crowd of riders, striking out and swearing profusely at anyone who was slow in moving out of his way.
His face was a mask of fury and it was some time before Endryn dared risk a question.
'What's happened?’ he asked eventually.
Ivaroth waved a clenched fist forward. ‘Those donkeys and asses in the vanguard have got themselves ambushed,’ he shouted angrily. ‘Thirty dead before they knew what was happening according to that whingeing messenger!'
'We must be careful, Mareth Hai,’ Endryn said tentatively. ‘We saw at Rendd what damage these people can do…'
'Careful? Careful!’ Ivaroth's fury spilled over. ‘They've stopped the advance.’ He drove his spurs savagely into his horse's flanks, making it leap forward. ‘I'll not have my way barred further by anything. We'll make an example of whoever's caused this. If any survive I'll have them flayed alive for a month and then feed their remains to the people of Viernce.'
Endryn looked at Ivaroth strangely. The savagery of his response was nothing unusual, but there was a quality about his speech and his manner that alarmed him: a lack of control, a rage; the word came unasked for; a madness. It was something that he had seen growing ever since that fearful confrontation with the blind man.
He looked surreptitiously at the old man sitting behind Ivaroth, his face hidden by the hood of his ragged gown. One day soon, I'll rid us of you, you monstrosity, he thought. Ivaroth may dismiss the gods as he chooses, but I know a demon when I see one. Whatever bargain he's struck with you, the price is too high.
Slowly the hooded head turned towards him, and Endryn felt himself unable to tear his eyes from the darkness that faced him.
His throat began to tighten as if a great hand were squeezing it. And he could do nothing! Not even cry out.
He was going to die.
'You will show these creatures what power truly is,’ Ivaroth shouted over his shoulder.
The grip vanished from Endryn's throat and he took in great draughts of the cold winter air.
Ivaroth glanced at him, his face suddenly curious. ‘What's the matter?’ he asked abruptly.
Endryn shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he gasped. Then, mustering a grin from somewhere, ‘Just battle bellyache.'
Ivaroth let out a great laugh, though, Endryn noted, that too was laced with madness.
For the remainder of the journey he kept his mind well away from any further such considerations.
Then a group of riders came towards them.
'Where?’ Ivaroth said grimly, before any of them could speak.
A shaking hand directed him towards a nearby hill. ‘They can be seen from up there, Mareth Hai.'
Ivaroth crashed past the speaker and urged his horse brutally up the hill. Endryn and Greynyr followed.
As they reached the crest, the small farmhouse below came into sight. In front of it lay the dead and dying bodies of horses and men. Behind a small wall surrounding the farmhouse stood the defenders who had halted his advance on Viernce.
'A handful,’ he said, his voice hoarse with disbelief. ‘A mere handful.'
He looked back at the blind man. ‘Destroy them,’ he said. ‘Bring that house down, tear up those trees, rend them as you rent that messenger's horse, sink them into the hard earth as you did that boy-for our later sport.'
The blind man, however, seemed distracted. He dismounted and moved forward, his head turning from side to side like a predator sniffing for prey. His hands reached out, claw-like.
Crouching silent beside Estaan, Antyr looked up at the figures that had appeared at the top of the hill. Adding to the fear that already pervaded his entire being, an ominous tremor began to develop. It was as though some dark and terrible eye were searching for him.
He reached out and took hold of Estaan's arm, childlike almost.
But Estaan himself was staring up at the figures, his face wrinkled as though he were trying to remember something. As were Haster and Jadric and the rest of the Mantynnai.
Then the figure standing at the top of the hill reached out both arms as if to embrace the entire land.
'Aaah!'
Ivaroth heard the end of his world in the blind man's sigh.
No! He would not allow it. Not now. Not after so much.
'Destroy them all!’ he screamed to his waiting army below. ‘Crush them utterly!'
Then he brought his sword down on the old man's head.
'It's him!’ Antyr gasped, rising to his feet and staggering backwards, his arms raised as if to protect himself from some unseen assault.
Ivaroth's horde poured out from between the hills in a vast, black, screaming tide.
The blind man turned and brushed aside Ivaroth's descending blow as if it were no more than a falling leaf.
'Come, Ivaroth Ungwyl,’ he said, his voice ecstatic with triumph. ‘Come and know your destiny. You are my way to the power that is the power of my master's master. His mantle shall be mine. He shall bow before me and I shall be all. Earth-shaker, weaver of the winds, and mover of the great tides. I shall rebuild his Great Places of Power. His enemies shall be mine, and I shall destroy all their works so completely that their memory will not linger even in the least grain of dust. Then I shall build the world anew in my image.'
Ivaroth slid from his saddle and crashed to the floor. His eyes were black, like shafts down into mines of unknowable, stygian depth.
As too were Antyr's, as he fell back and lay motionless on the winter-chilled grass.
Estaan knelt down by his side, his face desperate, but he was pushed to one side by a charging blow from Tarrian. When he recovered his balance, Tarrian and Grayle, eyes blazing yellow and feral, were pacing a watch about the Dream Finder's body.
Ivaroth's men fell like corn before the scythe as the arrows of Ibris's bodyguard relentlessly found their marks. Wounded horses stumbled, throwing their riders and bringing down the horses pressing close behind them. The air was filled with the screaming of men and horses: in pain, in fear, in battle frenzy, in death.
But the black tide was vast and as men and horses fell, others replaced them. And those who were only unhorsed, charged forward on foot. Soon sections of the wall were alive with cruel hand-to-hand combat.
* * * *
Endryn and Greynyr stared at the downed body of their leader, then, as one, reached for their swords. Both were skilled and hardened warriors, and, for all they were not young, mercilessly swift at killing when need arose.
But they knew they were defeated even as they formed their intent.
The blind man held out his hands to them. Endryn was lifted from his saddle and hurled some twenty paces away. His body bounced twice then rolled down the hill and under the hooves of the frenzied army below. Greynyr clutched at his throat, then, eyes bulging, crashed face-down on to the ground by his erstwhile master.
Arwain swung his sword down on the skull of one of the tribesmen who had reached the wall. The man tumbled forward and Arwain wrenched his blade free with an effort. With an even greater effort he wrenched his gaze from the dying man's face.
He looked around. A dozen small birds flew across the sky intent on their own needs, and bright sunlight lit the surrounding countryside with winter clarity and mocked the bleak, struggling, pageant being enacted around the old deserted farmhouse. The storm clouds drew nearer.
Despair welled up inside him. So far few of his force had been hurt, while the enemy had suffered severely. But the odds were overwhelming and these invaders fought as if death meant nothing to them.
And it was only a matter of time before all their arrows were spent. Then …
'Lord.’ It was Haster. He pushed a bundle of arrows into his hand. ‘These are the last,’ he said simply.
Arwain's order passed along the hard-pressed line. ‘Prepare to fall back!'
It was a world of whirling darkness and noise, lit only by lightning from a tormented, lowering sky. Lightning that forked from cloud to cloud. Lightning that vented its terrible spleen on the trembling ground below. Lightning that flared silent and ominous within the clouds themselves, like the gas from some long-decayed marsh. Lightning that was searing white and fevered yellow and red like the fires of a vast sword-forging furnace.
Antyr gazed around. His terror seemed to resonate with the very air about him.
In all the dreams he had walked, he had never seen such a fearful place as this. And he was alone! There was no sign, no hint of the presence of Tarrian or Grayle.
A dark, luminous mist hung over the shaking ground, obscuring it completely.
Shadows flitted around him, now clear and vivid, now vague, like wind-caught smoke.
Yet they were familiar.
As was the sound that mingled with the rolling thunder.
Then sound and images came together in Antyr's mind to form a ghastly whole. It was the battle! Wherever he had been thrown, it was no Threshold world. It was near the heart of that terrible conflict in his birth world; some tortured realm created as nightmare and reality began to merge.
'Tarrian! Grayle!’ he shouted, but though his words rang through his head, he made no sound. The shadow-filled air gibbered at him in reply.
He turned around to search for something that might help him focus his swirling, panic-stricken thoughts.
Then, scarcely a dozen paces away, he saw a figure, silhouetted dark and ominous against a frenzied, lightning-lit background.
Yet it was another person, another human, in this demented place. Antyr reached out to it in appeal.
The figure inclined its head inquiringly, then stepped forward. The sky flared red and lit the blade of the sword he was carrying. Then, Antyr felt his menace.
He stepped back. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ he asked wordlessly.
But the figure did not reply, it moved relentlessly forward through the flickering shadows of the battle in the other world.
Trembling, Antyr drew his own sword and, holding it with two hands, offered an uncertain guard. The figure stopped and a voice full of scorn and grim humour passed through Antyr.
'And I thought you were a demon,’ Ivaroth's voice said. ‘You're just a man, as I am. It seems your guardian is as lost as mine.’ He gave a low, sinister laugh. ‘I don't know where that old fiend has plunged us with his vaunted power, but he's lost himself somewhere, for ever, I hope. While you, his lusted-after prize, the cause of all this, are here, defenceless, for me to spit like a pig.'
Antyr tried to remember Estaan's teaching but all his knowledge seemed to have evaporated. Fear dominated him.
'Tarrian! Grayle!’ He tried again, but there was no response.
Ivaroth paused for an instant at the cry, then with a roar he swung his sword at Antyr's head.
Antyr jumped back desperately, thrusting his own sword forward to parry the blow. Ivaroth's powerful cut, however, simply swept his blade aside, sending him staggering.
The shadows of the battle swirled and flitted between the two men as Ivaroth cut again and again at the elusive Dream Finder.
Antyr's every instinct was to flee. But to where? Could there be any shelter in this place? This fearful half world that seemed to have been created just for the two of them.
Ivaroth came again, his anger mounting at this scuttling, pathetic opponent from whom he had once fled. Abruptly, Antyr's terror overwhelmed him and swinging his sword furiously from side to side he charged, screaming, at Ivaroth.
Ivaroth retreated before the onslaught, though in cold caution, not fear. His moment of triumph was near now, he knew. Many a terrified creature had swung at him thus in the past. He revelled in the stink of Antyr's fear.
And there it was!
With a whirling twist of his blade, he entangled Antyr's and sent it soaring high into the dark air. The screech of metal against metal overtopped the noise of the thunder and the battle, and the blade flickered red and white and yellow as it turned and spun under the rumbling sky.
Antyr staggered back under the impact of Ivaroth's sudden counter-attack, and tumbled incongruously on to the ground. The clinging mist billowed around him.
Ivaroth levelled his sword at him, then set it to one side and bent forward, bringing his face close to Antyr's.
'Know, Dream Finder, that it is an honour to die on the sword of Ivaroth Ungwyl, Lord of all the tribes, Mareth Hai. Know.'
Antyr quailed before the night-black eyes and the night-black void that was Ivaroth's mouth. Then, scarcely aware of what he was doing, he spat into the dreadful mask of his impending death.
For an instant it seemed that all noise and movement had ceased.
Then, through the silence, Antyr saw his left hand seize Ivaroth's sword arm.
And the tumult was alive again.
Antyr's right hand drove Captain Larnss’ knife brutally up under Ivaroth's ribcage.
The blackness vanished from Ivaroth's eyes and Antyr hesitated at the bewilderment and pain he now read there.
But even as he did so he felt a response from his victim and saw their message change, to frenzied murderous rage. And, too, he heard the cry of Ryllans in the training hall.
'Don't stop! Finish him! Finish him!'
Then, Estaan's true training came forth as Antyr's whole being accepted the reality of his needs and did what was necessary for his survival.
Tightening his grip on both Ivaroth's sword arm and Larnss’ knife, he swept through his hesitation and doubts, and, levering himself up from the misty ground, he charged forward into his enemy, pushing, pushing, pushing, though his voice screamed and screamed as if that could erase forever the memory of the deed.
Then they crashed to the ground.
Antyr saw Ivaroth's life leave him as surely as he had seen his sword bounce from his hand.
And for an instant the shadows were whole and solid again. Around him the bodyguard, arrows spent, had formed a defensive ring, and images of flailing hooves, whitened eyes and hacking blades flooded into him. And with it, the terrible din.
Yet through the din came another sound. Reaching out to draw him back.
'No, Antyr, Dream Finder, my guide. That world will be no more. Your destiny lies elsewhere. You are to be my most favoured when the inner portal is found.'
Antyr hung in timeless, featureless greyness.
Before him, white, sightless eyes seeing all, was the blind man.
'Mynedarion,’ Antyr said hoarsely. ‘Abomination. I…'
The blind man reached out to him and Antyr's voice left him. ‘It was well you triumphed,’ he said. ‘Else I had been lost. Ivaroth was treacherous to the end. But the power knew of my coming, and preserved me.'
'Tarrian! Grayle!’ Antyr tried to scream, but a gesture of the long clawed hand seemed to silence even his thoughts.
'Nothing but my will prevails here, Dream Finder,’ the blind man said. ‘And my will is that you find the inner portal that will bring me to the power. It is near this place. For it has drawn you here. That I know. That I can feel. But you must guide me.’ His voice became seductive. ‘That done, then all will be yours.'
Antyr again found his mind filled with images of wealth and luxury and power. It seemed that every desire he had ever had was but a hair's breadth away from him. Some simple act away. Everything he had ever wanted.
But the mayhem of the battle and the death of Ivaroth were too close. No wealth, no luxury, no power could stand the bloody comparison with such truths.
And abruptly, he was free. Free and running through the greyness.
Yet not free. For somewhere, he knew the blind man was pursuing him.
Antyr ran and ran. All was greyness, but about him he sensed many different ways.
And then, though all was still greyness, he knew that the blind man was close upon him. Pursuing. Or just following? He felt his terrible menace reaching out to seize and bind him again.
He turned suddenly. There, ahead of him, was his escape. Hope swept over him. He dashed forward towards it.
As he passed through the inner portal, the blind man's triumphant hand closed about his shoulder.
Carried on high, distant winds, the dark storm-clouds swept in front of the sun, bringing sudden and premature night to the battleground.
The battle faltered momentarily.
Then, as if emulating the clouds themselves, Ivaroth's hordes pressed forward again. Ibris's bodyguard fought now over a terrible redoubt of dead and dying men and horses, but still the tribesmen came, an endless black tide beating at this tiny resolute rock.
Two crawled from the heap and threw themselves towards Antyr's motionless body. Estaan, bloodied and exhausted, pinned one to the ground with a spear he had wrested from someone. Grayle tore the throat out of the other in a killing frenzy.
Hackles raised like armoured spikes, teeth bared in all their bone-crushing power, eyes brighter than the noon sun, Tarrian turned to Estaan.
'Take no more of our prey, human, friend though you be.'
Estaan returned to the fray with his own kind. It was the lesser terror in that circle.
'He is here … He is here … He is here. The voices echoed through Antyr.
'The Adept … The Adept…'
Antyr was whole. He stood beside the blind man on some strange vantage.
But he looked about him with eyes that were not eyes, and saw with a sight that was not sight. Around him he knew a myriad worlds in their entirety; shifting, changing, merging. All the planes of existence that were, that could be, that would be.
And the countless worlds of the Threshold, necklaced and joined about the hurt that was his birth world.
He could reach and touch and know. Know everything. From the least to the most.
This was the Great Dream.
Wonder and terror overwhelmed him.
He felt his mind unhinging.
'Where is the power?'
The blind man's words were jagged and querulous, like shattering crystals amid this wonder, but they gave Antyr his centre again in this place of infinities.
'We have the power,’ said the voices. ‘The Adept is our way. You, our instrument, faithful one.'
Antyr's soul froze at the touch of the will behind the voices. ‘Through the long ages we have waited since we were chained here. Now we shall be free. Now, in you, we shall return to that desecration you dwell in and right its vile wrongness.'
'Who are you?’ Antyr managed.
There was dark amusement in the answer.
'We are the spirits of those who occupied the land and were driven from it. Those who learned of the true power and used it against our enemies. Those who lingered in the mountains before our people deserted us and fled to the plains, and before they came to pinion us here, beyond all things.'
The voices stopped.
'But now we are wiser. For there are others here. Now we see our travail was but part of a greater ill. Now we shall avenge ourselves and be also the vanguard for the remaking of all things.'
'I shall oppose you,’ Antyr said, the words coming unbidden.
'It is not within your power,’ the voices replied, their words full of malevolence.
A memory rose in Antyr's mind. ‘Adept you called me, and Adept I am,’ he said. ‘And Adepts of the White Way it was who bound you here, beyond the reach of all save for the gravest mischance.'
'You have not that skill, blunderer. They were great and powerful beyond your imagining. You are scarce an apprentice. You are a thing of clay and dross with the merest mote of past greatness trapped within you.'
For a timeless, fleeting instant, even as he stood in the Great Dream, Antyr was on the darkened battlefield again. He felt the fearful onslaught of Ivaroth's horde and the furious courage of his defenders, and, deep inside him, the spirits of Tarrian and Grayle holding him firm, their quiet stillness belying utterly their slavering, wild-eyed stance about his body.
He spoke. ‘I am indeed a weak vessel, but my making is beyond your knowledge by far, formed as I was in the world whose chance creation gave even MaraVestriss a measure of his wisdom. I am tainted by your works and the works of your kind, as are we all. But I am of the line of the Dream Warriors, and I see the taint, and know it for what it is. And I will not allow it to turn me from the truth and the light.'
There was a terrible silence. It seemed to Antyr that the worlds hovering about him waited.
Then, ‘Mynedarion. Let him know our power,’ the voices commanded.
Antyr turned and faced the blind man.
'You have followed many false paths, old man,’ he said. ‘And wrought great harm. But you are of my world. Know your frailty now, before it is too late.'
'You will obey me, slave,’ the blind man hissed. ‘Or you will know torment such as you could not have thought possible. And though you will cry for death, yet you will live forever. Obey, for this will be your last defiance no matter what your will.'
His long hands reached out towards Antyr.
Antyr met his gaze then reached out and took the menacing hands.
And he was the blind man. Saw through his sightless eyes. Knew his terrible secrets, his foul apprenticeship, the fearful loss that had taken his sight and his mind, the countless desires that held him thrall.
A great pity filled him.
But he could do no other than what he had to do.
For he knew, too, the power. Knew its heart. Knew that its use or misuse was, as ever, in the hands of the user.
And he was himself again.
The blind man staggered, bewildered by having found himself in the body of another, and staring at himself through sighted eyes. But unlike Antyr, he had not truly seen for that timeless moment whom he had become: had not learned.
He tore his hands free and, in his fury, unleashed the power that would bind Antyr forever.
Antyr opened his arms to receive it.
Pain and horror beyond description swept through his very soul, but at his centre he held his true self.
Then, with his new knowledge, he returned the blind man's power, cleansed of its malice and hatred, and all its other corruptions.
Darkness, swirling and turbulent, overwhelmed the vantage, and a terrible cry of despair and rage rose from the blind man as he saw and knew his own, dark folly, and felt the impotence of his long garnered skill against this, his own onslaught.
And, too, a terrible cry rose from the long-bound spirits as their own malevolence returned upon them to re-forge their ancient bonds.
Antyr reached again for the blind man, swaying frenziedly against the tortured darkness, his arms flailing, his mouth agape and raging. But he touched nothing.
And he was lying, wide-eyed, at the centre of the bloody circle before the farmhouse, his whole being ringing with the last cry of the Mynedarion as he had been swept into oblivion.
Then the sounds about him were the sounds of battle. Though now they were different.
Words more terrible than any Mantynnai's sword were cutting through the close-packed ranks of the invaders: ‘The Mareth Hai is dead! The Mareth Hai is dead!'
And soon the defenders were motionless. Watching, through battle-weary eyes, the ebbing of the great tide that had been Ivaroth's mighty army.