‘Carver’s Song. I heard the Carver’s Song.’
Rachyl jumped backwards with a cry of alarm which became an oath as she tumbled over to land gracelessly on her behind.
The voice, deep and with an unfamiliar accent, was that of the Dryenwr. It was weak, but there were clear notes of authority in it. Dark, unfocused eyes moved around the trio of watchers as he levered himself up into a sitting position.
‘Through the mists I heard it. In a dream? It seems so long since I heard such, yet it can scarcely be a moon since I heard of their coming together again.’ The Dryenwr frowned and put a hand to his head. ‘Then I was walking in the darkness over land, hard and without life, Culmaren cape about my shoulders and Svara’s will all about me, cold and angry, tearing at me. I answered the Song.’ He whistled faintly and smiled. ‘Never had the true skill – warrior caste is warrior caste – but the Culmaren fired me. I sounded a measure or two such as I couldn’t begin to do if I were awake. Then…’ He frowned again. ‘I was so weak. I was drawn back again, I think. Drawn into the waiting, into the mists…’
His eyes were clearing. ‘Is this a dream, too? Is this the fate of the dead? An eternity of dreams?’
‘You ask questions that none can answer, Dryenwr,’ the Traveller said. ‘But this is no dream, as far as I know, nor are we shadows in your imagining. This is Rachyl, this is Ibryen, Count of Nesdiryn, and I’m just a traveller, each of us as real as yourself. How you came here I can’t say, nor how long you’ve been here, but you’re in the middle depths, and I suspect your Culmaren has sustained you for some considerable time.’
The Dryenwr looked at him intently, then at the Culmaren draped over him. As he fingered the material, his eyes opened in horror and cried out, ‘Nightmare! Not a dream. Nightmare.’ He brought the Culmaren close to his face. ‘No, this cannot be.’
Ibryen eased Rachyl and the Traveller to one side and knelt down by the suddenly distraught figure. ‘Neither dream nor nightmare, warrior,’ he said. ‘But perhaps something stranger than you’d find in either. I doubt we can answer many of the questions you must be asking, but you’re truly awake and in the real world, albeit perhaps in a place that’s as profoundly alien to you as one of your high-flying cloud lands would be to us.’
The Dryenwr stared at him, his hands rolling the Culmaren, and his face full of confusion. Unsteadily he ran a hand over his tunic then over the rocky ground. He turned from Ibryen to look at Rachyl and then at the Traveller. ‘The middle depths?’ he said. The Traveller nodded.
‘Here.’ Rachyl offered the cap of her water bottle. The Dryenwr reached out then hesitated. Rachyl smiled then drank a little of the water and offered it again. The Dryenwr took it. ‘Careful, it’s cold,’ Rachyl said as he took a first cautious sip. ‘And I’m afraid we’ve no food with us. It’s all down with the tent.’ The Dryenwr closed his eyes as he drank the contents of the small cap then he held it out for more. Rachyl filled it again. ‘That’s enough,’ she said.
‘The middle depths,’ the Dryenwr said softly to himself. ‘The middle depths. I am here. Svara protect me.’ His hand circled over his heart. He took hold of the Culmaren again and his face became pained. ‘But how could such a thing happen? How could the Culmaren die? This must be a fearful place.’
Ibryen’s own face reflected the man’s distress. ‘We know nothing of your ways, Dryenwr. In fact, only a few days ago I’d have laughed to scorn even the idea that cloud lands existed. But change is the way of things and I’m learning to bend to it or break as never before. So, I suspect, must you, now.’ He paused, uncertain how to continue. ‘This land of ours may be strange to you and, indeed, it can be a fearful place, but we mean you no harm and will not wittingly hurt or even offend you. Here, as a token of this…’ He took the Dryenwr’s sword from Rachyl and held it out to him, hilt first. Ibryen heard Rachyl shifting behind him as the Dryenwr took the sword and he held out a hand to restrain her. ‘I see from this hacked edge that there are terrors in your own lands also,’ he said.
The Dryenwr did not reply, but stared fixedly at the sword. Then there was a long and painful silence as the three spectators could do nothing other than watch the manifest return of awful memories – at first slowly and then, like water through a shattered dam, in a single engulfing flood. The sword began to tremble and, for a moment, it seemed that the Dryenwr was going to unleash a great howl of anguish. No such sound emerged, however. Instead, the sword wilted and his head dropped forward.
‘My people, where are you? What happened?’ He looked at Ibryen and began a desperate plea. ‘We debated, agonized, even at the heart of the battle. Then the Carvers’ messenger – the sword-bearer – pressed in battle himself, spoke to me in my extremity. We’d sought no conflict, he said. We’d the right to be. All creatures have that. He and his corrupted flights had to be defeated or, with his foul brothers assailing the middle depths, sky, land and sea would have fallen to the Great Corrupter. We could do no other, could we?’ Ibryen made no reply. The Dryenwr looked up to the shadowed roof of the cave. ‘So I sent the word and we did as he did.’ He was almost whispering. ‘Moved the land against the will of Svara, hiding it high within the clouds. Then my Soarers re-doubled their attack, flight upon flight of us, a desperate venture now, to draw his attention away. Such a sight we were. The sky alive with glittering wings. Such discipline, such courage.’ He gripped Ibryen’s arm, full of warrior pride. ‘And we held them. Despite their numbers.We held them. His corruption had taken more from them than it had given and their will was weak.’ He bared his teeth and both hands took the sword. ‘Then he was among us. He could not resist the victory he saw falling to him, so blood-crazed was he. At the height of the conflict he came forth. On his dreadful screaming mount. Cutting through our ranks as though we were mere fledglings. But I faced him.’ He shuddered. ‘Stopped his bloody progress. Stared into those dead, white eyes. Fear racking every part of me but freeing me of all restraints and burdens save one: that he must die even as he slew me. His creature shrieked in my face, but I saw only him.’ Ibryen could feel the Dryenwr trembling, his eyes focused on something far beyond the confines of the cave. ‘He raised his sword. Then he faltered. And I looked up. There was my land, emerging from the clouds, descending on to the land that this abomination had made his own.’
He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘A blasphemy, yet magnificent… and who would judge us?’ He fell silent. No one spoke, there had been such intensity in his telling. When he began again, his voice was distant. ‘I remember him turning with a fearsome cry. I remember feeling the great power of his true self being exerted. Then… such a noise… and the sky was torn apart, ablaze with a terrible fire. And I was being hurled downwards, ripped from my wings, helpless amid the forces that had been unleashed. Then there was only darkness, and dreams… strange dreams.’ He put a hand to his eyes. ‘My people, my people. What became of you? What could have withstood that burning?’
Grief rose up to fill Ibryen. He had understood little of what the man had said, but his pain was all too familiar. Was this to be his own destiny? Lost and despairing in a strange land, all loved ones gone, their fate unknown?
‘You must rest,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’re weak and shouldn’t tax yourself thus. In the morning we can go down to our camp and eat, and perhaps talk a little more. Then you can come back to our village. It’s only a couple of days away and you’ll be welcome to stay there for as long as you wish.’
But the Dryenwr did not seem to be listening. ‘The middle depths,’ he said again, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief, as he gazed about the cave. Many emotions were obviously struggling for primacy within him, but even as Ibryen watched, he saw a powerful will taking control of the man’s features. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, grasping Ibryen’s arm and looking at Rachyl and the Traveller in turn. ‘I burden you with my concerns, matters about which perhaps nothing can be done. As you say, change is the way of things, and at least I am alive, however mysteriously.’ He became suddenly agitated. ‘What of your own battle? I feel none of His taint about you. Is it over? Are you part of the sword-bearer’s army? Can you use another blade?’ He shook his head and his expression became grim. ‘What bond brought us together in that way I don’t know, but it grieves me deeply that there were mighty forces ranged against him on that snow-covered shore, and he was sorely taxed when it happened. I hope it did him no hurt.’
Ibryen looked at the Traveller, who shrugged.
‘Weare at war,’ Ibryen said hesitantly, ‘but there’ve been no great battles here in many generations, nor in any of the lands hereabouts. And we’re far from any shoreline.’
The Dryenwr frowned in bewilderment. ‘But… the return of the Great Corrupter must surely have sounded about the whole of the middle depths?’ he said. He pointed upwards and his voice cracked. ‘And the destruction of His lieutenant’s land – and perhaps my own – could hardly have gone unnoticed. It tore open the very fabric of the heavens.’
Ibryen did not reply immediately, there was regret in his voice when he did. ‘There’s been nothing such as you describe,’ he said. ‘No uproar in the heavens, nor even rumour of a… Great Corrupter.’ He hesitated. ‘The name itself has only the ring of something out of myth and legend.’
The Traveller laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, unexpectedly sombre. ‘It’s a name that I heard in the carvings on the Great Gate. And there were rumours in Girnlant of an evil having arisen in the north.’ He spoke to the Dryenwr. ‘When was this battle that you fought?’
The Dryenwr looked surprised. ‘A few…’ He faltered. ‘I don’t know exactly. A few hours ago, I suppose. Perhaps a day or so. How long have I been here? It’s still the second moon, isn’t it?’
‘I never had cause to learn the ordering of your months,’ the Traveller said.
‘It’s the second moon measured from the solstice,’ the Dryenwr said, with a hint of impatience. ‘The second moon of Ravenyarr.’
The Traveller pulled a wry face. ‘The year of the Raven. That leaves us none the wiser, I’m afraid, for the same reason.’ The Dryenwr seemed about to lose his temper. The Traveller took the edge of the white Culmaren thoughtfully. ‘How long would it take for this to die?’ he asked forcefully, looking squarely at the Dryenwr.
The Dryenwr started slightly then grimaced. ‘Culmaren doesn’t die,’ he said. ‘It’s not possible…’ His voice faded.
‘How long?’ the Traveller insisted.
‘Perhaps it was hurt thus in the destruction of the land.’
The Traveller shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking since I found you. Isn’t it possible that as you were thrown from the battle, this sought you out – as would be its way? Sought you out and protected you. Carried you to the only safe place it could find – your own land having moved on. Then couldn’t it have sustained you? Kept you alive with its own life essence. That is its nature, isn’t it?’
The Dryenwr lay back on one elbow and looked down at the Culmaren without replying.
‘It mended your injuries, even mended your soiled and bloody uniform – mended everything, save the damage done to your sword, which is not Culmaren, is it?’ The Traveller paused. ‘Perhaps even changed you so that you could live here more easily – the middle depths are no comfortable place for the Dryenvolk as I remember. It kept you alive until it could do no more. That would be the way of Culmaren, wouldn’t it?’
‘That’s the lore,’ the Dryenwr replied uncomfortably.
‘That’s the fact, warrior,’ the Traveller said. ‘That’s what would have happened; that’s what did happen, I’ll wager.’ He lifted up the white fabric. ‘Just as the whole sustains your entire people, so this fragment sustained you alone. Until it was utterly spent. Then it cried out. Both here and in its other home beyond.’ He paused again, watching the Dryenwr carefully. ‘I heard the one.’ He indicated Ibryen. ‘He, the other.’
The Dryenwr looked up sharply. ‘No!’ he said, though the denial was strained.
‘Yes,’ the Traveller said categorically. ‘This is a lonely place, Dryenwr, as you’ll see when morning comes. We haven’t stumbled upon you by chance. We were drawn here by its calls. I, thanks to my ancestry. He…’ He shrugged. ‘Who can say?’
‘It can’t be,’ the Dryenwr said weakly.
‘Why not?’
‘You’re not a Carver, nor he…’
The tune that the Traveller had been whistling at the camp suddenly filled the cave with rich, elaborate sound. It stopped abruptly. ‘That was what you heard. My Song. You’re right, true Carver I’m not, but their line is strong in me. As for him…’ He pointed to Ibryen. ‘What is he not? Not Hearer caste, is he? How could he be? He isn’t Dryenvolk. But even amongst yourselves, your castes are hardly clearly marked, are they? Don’t you all have some aptitude for Hearing, for Shaping, for the poetry and music of the Versers? Don’t you sometimes move from one caste to the other as you grow older? And would you presume that such gifts are confined only to the Dryenvolk?’
The Dryenwr looked from side to side as though he were being trapped. Then he held out his hand to silence the Traveller, and turned to Ibryen. ‘I am Arnar Isgyrn, leader of the Soarers Tahren of Endra Hornath. I’m fresh from a battle and far adrift in every sense. Perhaps now without a land or people.’ He nodded towards the Traveller. ‘That he has the gift of the Carvers is beyond doubt, but do you truly have the gift of Hearing the voice of the Culmaren?’ The question was blunt but not discourteous, and his voice shook with the control he was exerting.
Ibryen replied in similar vein. ‘I am Ibryen, Count of Nesdiryn, as the Traveller told you. My land still exists, but I too am adrift, dispossessed by usurpers, my own people divided, one against the other. I have a gift that I do not understand.’ He reached out and touched the Culmaren. ‘A gift that leaves me both here and elsewhere, in a place full of strange longing. It was I who let the spirit of this go free. I commended it for a duty well done, and asked that it seek out your kin.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I hear it now. Faint and very distant, across the void, singing, calling.’ He opened his eyes and met the Dryenwr’s gaze. ‘It drew me here when perhaps my wiser judgement would have left me with my followers to continue the fight for my people.’
Isgyrn looked at him earnestly for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. He glanced round at all three. ‘A Carver who is not a Carver. A Hearer who is not a Hearer.’ He finished his examination with Rachyl.
She shrugged. ‘Warrior Caste, I suppose,’ she said, with acid knowingness. ‘I certainly wouldn’t have given you your sword back so quickly.’
Isgyrn smiled ruefully and gave an appreciative nod. ‘Very wise. Rooted well in the lowest depths like all women. Though, in fact, I doubt I could stand, let alone wield this,’ he said, laying a hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘And your doubts about us?’ the Traveller asked.
‘You’ll allow me a little bewilderment, Carver?’ Isgyrn replied. ‘A little time to gather my wits fully?’
‘I’m sorry.’
Isgyrn fell silent. He fingered the Culmaren pensively. ‘It’s true we all have a touch of each other’s gifts, but I’ve precious little of the Shaper in me to judge the fate of this.’ He closed his eyes and continued manipulating the Culmaren. Then his face became hard and when he opened his eyes he looked at no one. ‘Thisis a nightmare,’ he said softly, rubbing his hands over the white blanket in a peculiarly childlike gesture. ‘But my head must agree with such meagre talent as I have. This was part of the wing that bore me, only days ago it seems. Young and strong. Full of the love of Svara’s will, responding to my least touch. How we flew.’ He looked again at the three watchers and almost whispered. ‘To become as it is now, may have taken…’ he forced the words out ‘… ten, perhaps twenty years.’ He held up his hand and looked at it, turning it over slowly. ‘But this is the hand I had only hours ago in my mind as I faced the abomination.’
There was a long silence. Isgyrn stared bleakly ahead. Ibryen looked at the Traveller who gave a helpless shrug.
‘Is such a thing possible?’ he asked hesitantly.
Isgyrn turned to him and smiled sadly. ‘In myth and legend,’ he said, echoing Ibryen’s own words though without any mockery. ‘But also now. The Seekers understand the Culmaren enough in this age to know it could be so. Though we would not treat it thus.’
Ibryen could not meet his gaze. ‘I’ve no words to comfort you, Arnar Isgyrn,’ he said, after an awkward silence. ‘Other than to say that we’ve gone to some pains to find you and will give you what help we can. I think now you should rest. We’re all tired and little’s to be gained fretting the night away. Let’s talk again when there’s daylight around us.’
Isgyrn grasped his arm purposefully. ‘Ten, twenty years ago. Was there a battle then?’
Ibryen shook his head and repeated his earlier answer. ‘Not in generations, Isgyrn. Not in generations.’
The Dryenwr looked at the Traveller. ‘This evil that arose in the north. How far was it? How long ago?’
‘I don’t know. And it was only a rumour. It could even have been a lie invented by those who were seeking to gain power, for their own ends.’
‘But it had the feel of truth about it, Carver?’
The Traveller nodded.
Isgyrn ran his hands over the Culmaren again. ‘Everything is so vivid in my mind. Yet too, there’s a sense of a long and fitful sleep also. Of stumbling wakings that I can’t fully recall. It’s possible that my confrontation with that demon has plunged me into madness – into a crazed dream, though everything about me seems real enough for all its strangeness. For the time, I suppose I must accept things as being what they appear to be, and, given that, my reason tells me beyond doubt that my memories of a few hours ago are indeed ten or more years old.’
Despite himself, Ibryen repeated his earlier remark. ‘There’ve been no great battles in this land…’
‘… in generations.’ Isgyrn finished the sentence, laying a hand on Ibryen’s arm again, though this time almost as if to comfort him. ‘I understand. If I’m to accept that I’ve been sustained by the Culmaren… asleep… for so long, then I can readily accept that the battle I fought in was far from here. Simple logic brings me to that. My wing wouldn’t lightly have come down to the middle depths. It’s possible that I’ve been in this place only a short time. And who can say how far Svara’s will has carried us before we came here?’
For a moment, a spasm of rage and frustration distorted his face and he laid a hand on his sword again. Rachyl’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but the anger was gone as quickly as it had arrived and he merely moved the sword to one side. ‘If you have it to spare, may I have some more water?’ he asked.
Rachyl’s hand moved from her knife to her water bottle and she handed it to him. ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘It’s no warmer than it was a few minutes since and you’ll find stomach cramps just as pleasant now as they were ten years ago.’
The Dryenwr smiled weakly and took only a small drink before handing the bottle back. His stomach rumbled. He apologized.
‘Think nothing of it,’ the Traveller said, his head cocked attentively on one side. ‘I can do great things with that.’
Isgyrn looked at him blankly. Ibryen repeated his earlier advice. ‘Rest, Isgyrn,’ he said. ‘He who sleeps, dines, they say. At least, the well-fed say it to the hungry. We’ll go down to our camp in the morning. We’ve not got a great deal to offer, but we won’t die of starvation between here and home.’
‘I cannot burden you,’ Isgyrn said.
Ibryen waved the comment away airily. ‘Sleep,’ he ordered, paternally.
Rachyl frowned and glanced around the cave. Then she leaned forward. ‘All debts are paid in full if you share your blanket with us. It’s big enough,’ she said. ‘We might be out of the wind but it’s none too warm in here.’
Isgyrn looked a little taken aback. ‘Yes… yes, of course. I’ll… I’ll put my sword between us,’ he stammered.
Rachyl’s frown became puzzled for a moment, then her eyebrows rose. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll put my cousin between us,’ she said. ‘And this.’ She offered him a clenched fist.
Both Ibryen and Rachyl woke at the same time the next morning. There was a hint of greyness about them, and their breaths misted the air. They rose stoically, carefully stretching stiffened joints and massaging where the rocky floor of the cave had made its mark.
‘Well, at least we weren’t cold,’ Rachyl said. She examined the Culmaren closely. ‘It’s a very strange material, like animal fur and the finest of weaves, and yet like neither. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ She was holding it against her cheek with conspicuous pleasure. Then, clearing her throat self-consciously, she looked round. Isgyrn was still asleep. She cast a glance at Ibryen, who shook his head.
‘Let him sleep until we’re ready to leave. The sooner he wakes the longer he’s going to have to wait to eat.’
She clamped a hand to her stomach. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘Thinking about him not eating for ten years had me dreaming about food half the night and I’d swear I could smell cooking even now.’
‘Ah. you’re back.’ It was the Traveller, silhouetted in the greying entrance. ‘I thought you were all going to try for a ten year sleep the way you were snoring.’ Rachyl glowered but he pressed on. ‘Sun’ll be up soon. Come on, there’s food here.’
‘Food?’ Ibryen queried. Rachyl sniffed noisily.
‘It’s only your supplies, I’m afraid. Nothing lavish,’ the Traveller said. ‘There’s nothing up here that you’d want to eat unless you were really hungry. I went down for it. Didn’t feel like sleeping and I thought perhaps it was a little churlish of me to make free with the poor man’s stomach rumblings, even though they were interesting.’
‘You’re a man of rare sensibility,’ Ibryen conceded.
‘It’s been noticed before,’ the Traveller said blandly. He motioned them outside. The smell of cooking was stronger here but, looking round, they saw no sign of a fire. The Traveller lifted a flat slab to reveal slices of meat crackling on a softly glowing bed in a hollow between two boulders. He flicked them over gingerly and, after blowing on his fingers, dropped the slab back. ‘Wake our guest,’ he said.
Ibryen went back into the cave.
‘That’s a peculiar fire,’ Rachyl said. ‘Where did you get the firewood from?’
The Traveller gave her a long look. ‘I wasn’t going to go that far down the mountain,’ he said, mildly indignant. He eased the slab up again and peered under it. ‘These are just a couple of my sunstones. I don’t normally use them for cooking, but I thought it was a bit unkind to ask our guest to trek back to the camp before…’
‘Sunstones?’
He smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘They won’t lose much with this slab over them.’
‘But what…’
Ibryen emerged with Isgyrn before she could pursue her inquiry. The Dryenwr had folded the Culmaren in an elaborate fashion and it was draped about his shoulders like a cape. He was about the same height as Ibryen but, in so far as could be judged under the Culmaren, bulkier, although he seemed to be very light on his feet.
He looked up at the steep walls of the cleft uneasily. ‘This is a disturbing place,’ he said.
The Traveller followed his gaze. ‘We’ll be away in a moment,’ he said sympathetically. ‘You’ll soon have open sky above you. Do you have a knife to go with that sword?’ He held out his hand. Isgyrn checked about himself uncertainly then produced a long knife that he handed, hilt first, to the Traveller. Like his sword, the edge was hacked.
Nimbly, the Traveller skewered three pieces of the meat and handed the knife back to him. ‘Your first meal in the middle depths, Arnar Isgyrn. Simple, I’m afraid, but sufficient to carry you as far as your next one. Take care, it’s hot.’
The Dryenwr seized the knife hastily then, with a conspicuous effort, paused. ‘Thank you,’ he said apologetically, glancing significantly at Rachyl and Ibryen.
‘Eat,’ the Traveller said briskly, handing the others the rest of the meat. ‘There’s plenty for everyone.’ As Rachyl and Ibryen were struggling to control the hot food, he produced a cloth and, reaching down between the two boulders with it, picked up the four glowing rocks that formed the bed on which the meat had been cooking. Unhurriedly, but with practised deftness he wrapped them in the cloth and put them in his pack. Rachyl, her mouth full, waved her arms in alarm.
‘Don’t concern yourself, my dear,’ the Traveller said, catching the gesture. ‘They’re good stones. Cooking these bits and pieces used hardly anything. They’ve got days left in them.’
‘You could’ve burned yourself. And you’ll burn your pack,’ she spluttered.
The Traveller looked at her uncertainly then turned to Ibryen with a look of mildly surprised realization. ‘You don’t use sunstones round here, do you?’ he said. ‘I thought you were just being thrifty with your oil lantern and the firewood – perhaps a bit low at the end of winter… having to eke out your resources.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have realized, they didn’t use them in Girnlant either. Sorry to be so obtuse – I misunderstood. Anyway, we can talk about that later. Come on, there’s no point delaying, this place is upsetting Isgyrn more than he’s prepared to say. Let’s get back to your tent and below the snow before we decide what to do next.’
He was moving away before anyone could question him further.
Ibryen took Isgyrn’s arm. ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘Rachyl will follow you. I can’t imagine what this place is like for you, and I’ve no knowledge of the ways of your people, but the only danger we face here is injury caused by our own carelessness. If you want to rest or feel the need for support, speak. If you don’t, you may endanger us all.’
‘I understand,’ Isgyrn said. ‘There are wild places in my lands also. I’ll do as you say.’
The journey back to the tent took them some time. Isgyrn did not seem to be disturbed by the wind, which was still blowing strongly, but he found the snow-covered terrain very difficult, frequently slipping and having to be caught by Rachyl. On two occasions he called the party to a halt while he recovered his breath. When they stopped for the second time, Rachyl looked at him then voiced his complaint for him. ‘You may curse and swear, if you wish,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing more frustrating for a fighter than to be made dependent on others because of physical weakness.’
Isgyrn, leaning back against a rock, smiled grimly. ‘I don’t think it would be a wise idea,’ he said, addressing them all. ‘Your kindness and patience remind me constantly that, for all we come from such different worlds, we’ve many things in common. But my mind’s awash with such confusion and questioning I don’t know what I might plunge into if I gave it free flight.’ He patted his chest. ‘That I can even breathe comfortably down here raises questions that I suspect would tax our finest Seekers. Perhaps indeed the Culmaren…’ He waved his arm dismissively then frowned. ‘Not the time or the place,’ he declared, adding with a nod of acknowledgement to Rachyl, ‘though I’ll concede I’m finding it difficult to stay calm when simply lifting my arm requires a deliberate effort.’
He looked up. Light mist filled the valley below them but the sun was rising in a sky which was clear of clouds save for a few trailing wisps drawn out by the wind from some of the higher peaks. It needed little sensitivity on the part of his companions to understand his thoughts as he gazed around the empty sky.
‘First thing in the morning’s not my strongest time either, Isgyrn,’ Rachyl said, good-humouredly. ‘How I’d feel after a ten-year sleep I can’t imagine.’ She held out her arm. ‘Warrior’s way,’ she said. ‘All we need concern ourselves with is putting one foot in front of the other.’ Isgyrn took it gratefully to pull himself upright and they set off again.
When they eventually reached the tent they rested for some time and ate again before breaking camp and beginning the descent back down to the forest. Away from the snow, Isgyrn became more sure-footed and, following the meal and the rest, he seemed a little stronger. Ibryen nonetheless made the Traveller maintain a leisurely pace and it was early evening by the time they reached the upper reaches of the forest and made camp.
They spoke very little as they sat around the fire. Isgyrn kept dozing off until, at the prompting of the others, he made his excuses and, wrapping the Culmaren about him, lay down. ‘Is that going to be warm enough?’ Rachyl asked.
‘More than enough,’ Isgyrn said. There was a suggestion of both surprise and sadness in his voice. ‘Even dead, it would seem that the Culmaren has many… worthwhile attributes. Do you wish to share again?’ She smiled and shook her head. Isgyrn fell silent. Then, unexpectedly, as the others were turning back to the fire, ‘I did a little calculating on our way down, to keep my mind focused. It wasn’t easy, I haven’t the flair that makes a good Seeker but my head serves well enough.’ He was drifting in and out of sleep. ‘Perhaps fifteen years since… fifteen years… my family… people…’
He was asleep. Ibryen watched him for a little while then turned to gaze into the fire.
‘Are you easier with yourself now?’ It was the Traveller. Ibryen understood the question.
‘Yes and no,’ he replied. ‘I’ve no doubts about my sanity now. Though I’d be lying if I said I was anything other than bewildered by what’s happening.’ His voice fell. ‘And something’s happened to me.’ Both Rachyl and the Traveller watched him intently. He was almost talking to himself. ‘It’s nothing bad,’ he went on. ‘Just strange – very strange. Almost as if I’d just discovered I could hear like you do, or see things vast distances away. But it’s neither of those, nor anything like them.’ He frowned as he struggled to find the words. ‘A talent’s been awakened in me – a gift. But I don’t know what it is, or what it’s for.’ He was silent for a moment then shrugged and became prosaic. ‘But I’m no easier about the future. Now that the lure that pulled me out here has gone, my thoughts are turning back to the Gevethen and the problems we face back in the village. Part of me is sorely tempted to uproot everything and take our people further south. There must be other valleys where we can live in peace.’
Rachyl’s head jerked up. He held out a reassuring hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It was just an idle thought. It’s probably because we’ve been so free to move these last few days. We forget the values of such simple things. I know well enough that enemies like the Gevethen always have to be faced in the end and the only thing that keeps us all together as a community is our opposition to them.’
‘But how’s he going to be able to help us?’ Rachyl flicked a thumb towards the sleeping Dryenwr. The question crystallized Ibryen’s concerns.
‘He offered us his blade,’ he said.
Rachyl pursed her lips. ‘One more’s better than nothing, I suppose. Even though he’s weak, he’s obviously been a commander of some kind and, judging from the state of his sword, he commands from the front. But tactically we’re still back where we started.’
‘Too premature a judgement,’ Ibryen said firmly, straightening up. ‘Who can say what kind of an avalanche might come of the dust that’s been stirred up these past few days?’
Rachyl gave him an arch look. ‘I’d prefer dispositions and logistics to Marris’s poetry,’ she said caustically.
‘What happened fifteen years ago?’ The Traveller’s voice cut through their dying debate.
Ibryen leaned back and yawned. ‘Nothing special, as far as I can recall,’ he said after a little thought. ‘The Gevethen were here. Very powerful already, though we didn’t realize it as they’d wormed their way into the workings of the court so quietly. They weren’t as openly crazed in their manner as they became later, with their mirror-bearers and everything, but they were beginning to become conspicuously odd.’
The Traveller turned to Rachyl. ‘Fifteen years,’ she said pensively. ‘Such a long time ago. Several lifetimes at least.’ She smiled at some long-forgotten memory. ‘I was a burgeoning woman,’ she announced with heavy irony.
‘You were a ruffian,’ Ibryen interjected. ‘The terror of the Citadel. You were always up to some devilment.’
‘Probably as well,’ Rachyl said, briefly more sober, though the weight of happy memories made her smile again, almost immediately. ‘Do you remember those wretched little brown birds?’ she said. ‘Creepy little things with yellow eyes. They used to be all over the city. And they were always buzzing about inside the Citadel. There seemed to be more and more every year.’ She nodded to the Traveller. ‘We could’ve used your stone-throwing in those days. We tried all sorts to catch one but never managed it. And they flew so fast! We never even found where they nested. What was it we called them?’ Her teeth glinted in the firelight as she bared them.
‘Gevethen’s eyes,’ Ibryen said coldly. For some reason, the memory of the birds made him feel uncomfortable.
Rachyl snapped her fingers. ‘They vanished suddenly, didn’t they? All of them.’
Ibryen nodded. ‘Some change in the wind brought them and some change in the wind probably took them away,’ he said off-handedly. Even as he spoke however, the memory came to him again that he had had as he lay in the sun on the ridge before his encounter with the Traveller. It seemed to drop into place as part of a pattern that he could not fully identify. He voiced it. ‘It was about then that the Gevethen became more… exposed… for what they truly were. More open, or more clumsy in their manipulations, less subtly knowledgeable of events than they had been.’ The memory brought him no enlightenment, however.
The Traveller rested his chin on his hands. ‘Birds, eh? Doesn’t seem to be of any great significance, does it?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I wish I’d read that Gate more carefully. There was something about birds on that, I’m sure.’
Their conversation faded and shortly afterwards Rachyl and Ibryen emulated the Dryenwr and lay down to sleep. The Traveller sat staring into the fire for some time, then stood up and walked off into the forest.
There was only the faintest hint of light in the eastern sky when an insistent hand shook Ibryen awake roughly. It was the Traveller.
‘Wake up,’ he was saying. ‘Isgyrn’s gone!’