Both Pinnatte and Vredech looked around, but flight still did not seem possible across this vicious terrain. Vredech became aware of Pinnatte slowly reaching into his pocket.
‘Talk first,’ he reminded him, quietly but urgently.
Pinnatte stopped moving but his hand remained in his pocket.
Not that Vredech had much confidence that talking would make any impression on the new arrivals. Though they were motionless, the three figures had a powerful and menacing presence and there was an aura about them which more than confirmed Pinnatte’s remark that this wastheir place.
Then they were moving, and a further fearful quality was added to the scene. For though their mounts appeared to be horses, there were differences that transformed them into obscene caricatures; a subtle harshness to their lines; malevolent, almost glowing eyes; hooves that looked like claws; too-long heads on too-long necks that swayed unpleasantly as if to some sound only they could hear. It brought back to Vredech, with chilling vividness, the impression he had formed as he had watched their futile assault on the strange light that they had conjured up. Serpentine. And the way they stepped over the jagged rocks further marked their strangeness, for they moved with the silent, untroubled sureness of great cats.
The riders halted, side by side. The heads of the mounts continued to sway hypnotically while their cruel, hunting eyes remained fixed on Vredech and Pinnatte. Their rasping breath filled the silence. Vredech forced himself to stand straight. With an effort he tore his gaze from the watching mounts and looked at their riders.
Not that his inspection told him a great deal, for, like so much in this place, they were difficult to see – an unsettling patchwork of blueness and shadows that should not be shadows shifted in and out of focus. Yet they were all too real. There was no doubting that. And a frightening sight. Was that armour they were wearing? Black and glistening? Spiked and protected like the whole of this landscape? And what lay behind those visored helms? Vredech tried to still his imagination as he struggled to retain some semblance of calm under the silent scrutiny of the three figures and their mounts. He was about to speak when the central rider leaned forward suddenly. Vredech felt the intensity of its inspection increase almost to the point of tangibility. It was all he could do not to step backwards under its force.
It did not lessen as the rider sat upright again. Rather it increased, though Vredech thought he could sense surprise and doubt in the rider’s posture. These were unexpectedly human traits. As, too, was an excitement that was beginning to emerge through them, though this was so febrile that it snatched away the solace that the previous doubt had momentarily offered.
Then there was an exchange between the riders. A complex melange of eerie sounds reminiscent of, but quite different from, the shrieks they had announced themselves with. Awaiting its outcome, Pinnatte glanced over his shoulder, again searching for some means of escape. One of the mounts craned forward and hissed at him. It bared its teeth, predatory and feral. Pinnatte froze.
The exchange faded away, whistling echoes of it drifting into the distance.
‘Welcome,’ the rider said.
The voice was jarring and repellent and the word seemed to be not so much spoken as wrung out of one of their awful shrieks. It was surrounded by quivering overtones and dissonant harmonies that set Vredech’s teeth on edge.
As grotesque and unnatural as everything else in this benighted place, he thought. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came.
‘You are not as we thought.’
‘You are not of this place.’
Vredech could not make out which one of them was speaking.
‘We are strangers,’ he managed to say, his own voice sounding alien to him.
There was dark amusement in the reply.
‘Yes. There are few indeed left here who have not received our blessing since this world became His.’
‘Blessed be His name. Great are His works.’
The words were intoned by all three riders. The sound struck Vredech like icy water dashed in his face. Vivid memories washed over him of the mechanical responses he had heard so many times from his own congregations.
‘Take us to the Opening of the Ways.’
Vredech and Pinnatte stood silent in the face of this abrupt command for a moment, then they exchanged an awkward glance.
‘Take us to the Opening of the Ways,’ the voice came again, this time impatient.
‘I… we… don’t know what you mean,’ Vredech replied hesitantly. ‘We know of no such things. We don’t even know how we came here. We…’
A gesture silenced him. ‘Take us to the Opening of the Ways!’ The speaker’s mount took a soft, menacing step forward, its neck extended and its head no longer swaying. Vredech quailed. One of the others reached out and touched the advancing rider who, with some reluctance, retreated.
‘You must forgive us,’ said the interceding rider. ‘The purification of this place since we were drawn here is both our duty and our delight and we honour Him in the joy we bring to it. As we do to the Search. Now you have been sent to guide us. Mysterious are His ways, Allyn Vredech.’
Vredech’s eyes widened in shock. ‘How do you know my name?’ he asked.
There was a sound that might have been laughter except that no laughter could have been so depraved.
‘Am I so changed that you don’t recognize me? You whose loving touch set me on this glorious way?’
The rider reached up and removed his helm…
Her helm.
For Vredech found himself looking not into the face of some grim and cruel warrior but into that of a monster worse by far. Leaner and harsher than it had been, with glistening black eyes, it was nevertheless unmistakably the face of Dowinne, the wife of his erstwhile friend, Cassraw.
Vredech drew in a sharp breath and took an unsteady step backwards. His foot caught on a rock and he would have stumbled had not Pinnatte caught him.
‘But you’re dead,’ he burst out, his face alive with horror. ‘I… I killed you myself… plunged you into that awful abyss.’
‘How could you kill such as me, Allyn? All things are to His design. You were but an instrument of His will, as are we all. Your role then was to free me from the cringing flesh of that world so that a greater destiny could be fulfilled.’
‘You’re dead,’ Vredech repeated feebly, though the words jangled meaninglessly in him.
Dowinne inclined her head slightly in the manner of a teacher dealing with a capable but headstrong pupil. Her arm swept over the plain and the mountains but her dead gaze remained on Vredech. ‘You are not so blind, surely? Through the perfection, the purity that we have made here and are making yet, His will has reached out and brought us together again, touched on your great gift so that you can lead us back to that place which is the heartworld of His need.’
Vredech was leaning heavily on Pinnatte. His mind was whirling. Though Dowinne had brought her own death on herself, his part in it had been a source of distress to him ever since. His only solace was the knowledge that he had had no alternative, that he had done what he had done not out of hate but to prevent a greater evil, that he had been justified. But still it troubled him.
‘It always will,’ Dacu had told him. ‘Be truly afraid when it doesn’t.’
But now Dowinne was standing before him like a judgement.
He felt Pinnatte’s arm tightening about him strongly, fingers pinching into his arm.
‘Stand up, damn you!’ came a whispered but snarling reproach. ‘We’ll never get out of this if you collapse. You’re the one who said we should talk first, remember?’
The three riders seemed to be disputing with one another. This time, Vredech could make out Dowinne’s voice vying with the impatience in the others, though the excitement that he had noted before pervaded all of them. It was a grasping, clawing thing. And it was growing.
Talk.
Vredech clung to the word. And more of Dacu’s words came to help him. However frightening, however improbable, whatever was happening here was happening. He must see it as it was and accept its reality. All else would lead to futility or worse. This was Dowinne, beyond any dispute. The Dowinne he thought he had killed. The Dowinne who had killed his friend. The Dowinne who even then had possessed strange and dangerous powers and a murderous willingness to use them. How she had come here, resurrected, was irrelevant. What was important was that, whatever she had become, he had known her. A link existed, however tenuous.
He drew in a breath of the tainted air and gently prised away Pinnatte’s supporting arm.
‘I understand none of this, Dowinne,’ he said, trying to prevent his voice from trembling. ‘I don’t know how we came to be here and we want only to leave. We…’
‘Your understanding is not needed. Only your obedience.’
The tone was dismissive and the attention of the riders was turned suddenly to Pinnatte. They were silent for a long time. Vredech, gradually overcoming his initial shock, moved now to protect his former protector. He edged a little way in front of him.
‘Who are you?’ Dowinne asked Pinnatte.
‘Jedred, your honour,’ Pinnatte replied immediately, bowing slightly and lying freely, as was his habit under such circumstances. ‘Apprentice saddler to the Faldine Guild. This man and I are strangers. One moment we were sharing an evening’s camp in the mountains, then suddenly we were here. It’s all very alarming. Personally, and no disrespect to yourself and your good friends, but I can’t help thinking I’m dreaming, and…’
An angry wave from Dowinne silenced him. He gave another curt bow and began rubbing his hands submissively.
‘You are strange indeed,’ Dowinne said slowly, thoughtfully. ‘There are signs about you that… should not be. One such was promised. One that would be His vessel. But you are flawed and imperfect. He would not use so poor a thing. Yet…’
‘Perhaps if you asked Him…’ Pinnatte began.
Abruptly, the three mounts were rearing, their eyes glaring and their claw-like hooves flailing wildly.
‘Blasphemer!’
Dowinne’s voice, barbed and awful, hissed towards Pinnatte like a burning arrow, drawing in its wake a tangled skein of sound torn from the rasping cries of the other riders.
Vredech stepped in front of him, a hand raised protectively even as he winced away from this ferocious rebuke.
‘Leave him alone,’ he shouted into the din. ‘He’s only a boy. If you want something of me, Dowinne, ask, but let him go; he’s here by chance.’
‘There is no chance. There is only His will.’
‘Blessed be His name. Great are His works.’
‘He wishes only to leave,’ Vredech said.
‘His wishes are of no concern. He is here to serve, as are we. As all will serve when He returns. You have been sent to guide us, he…’ She pointed at Pinnatte, then paused. ‘We shall determine. Somewhere in him His purpose will be written. We shall find it. Come.’
She held out a hand and beckoned Pinnatte.
Vredech stretched out both arms sideways to prevent Pinnatte from passing. Not that such a gesture was needed, for Pinnatte had decided that there had been more than enough talk to fulfil the bargain he had made.
‘They’re Kyrosdyn,’ he breathed into Vredech’s ear. ‘All of them. They stink of it. This whole place does. I’m not going with them.’ The desperation in his voice made Vredech turn sharply. Pinnatte was reaching into his pocket again.
Vredech seized his arm. ‘No! We must…’
‘Must what?’ Pinnatte’s eyes were wide with a mixture of terror and an almost manic rage. ‘Go with them? Never. I know what the Kyrosdyn can do.’ He snatched his arm free. ‘We’ve a simple rule on the streets for dealing with situations like this. They’re not going to take us anywhere for our good, so whatever else we do, we don’t go with them.’
Vredech faltered in the face of Pinnatte’s certainty. There was a dreadful truth in it that chimed with the fear knotting his stomach. He looked round at the jagged terrain and then at the three riders. Dowinne had replaced her helm, hiding her face. Her hand was still slowly calling them forward.
Don’t go with them!
‘Last chance,’ Pinnatte said.
Vredech took a deep breath.
‘Let’s try to keep together,’ he said.
Then they were running down the slope, jumping from rock to blue-sheened rock, reflexes alone keeping them upright. And, without either sound or signal, the three riders were moving after them, their mounts striding out easily and unhurriedly but with deceptive speed.
For the briefest of moments, Vredech was a child again, wilfully disobedient, running recklessly down a rocky hillside. He had only done it once and it had ended in bruised ribs, a twisted ankle and a response from his father that was at once thunderously furious and frantic with relief.
As the memory flitted by he felt a hint of, ‘What will this end in?’ threatening, but it was swept aside by the desperate needs of the moment. He was vaguely aware of Pinnatte just ahead of him, but he could neither help him nor seek help from him. Everything now was filled with the sound of his gasping breath and the pounding of his heart, and only instinct was guiding his feet.
Then that same instinct was intruding into his mind.
He must slow down.
The slope was becoming steeper and steeper. Soon they would not be running but falling and that must surely mean terrible injury or death in this place.
Yet his legs would not respond. Could not respond. He was already going too quickly. He could do nothing. Nothing except plunge towards the outcome of this catastrophic flight. Panic began to coil inside him.
The screeching cries of the three riders reached him but he dared not look over his shoulder to see how close his pursuers were. Yet there was a peculiar urgency in them – a concern, almost.
Then something was touching him, twining itself about his body, holding him, slowing him, promising to stop his tumbling descent. But all that he could feel for this restraint was revulsion. It clung to him like the viscous discharge of an infected wound.
He could see that Pinnatte too was being affected by something. The young man was moving as through strongly flowing water, though Vredech could see no apparent cause. Both of them had been brought to a halt.
Pinnatte was turning to face the oncoming riders, his whole posture alive with rage and fear. As Vredech too turned to face them, he became aware of Pinnatte’s arm moving and a stone arcing its way through the stinging air. An angry shout rode with it and the rider it was aimed at flinched and hastily raised a defensive arm. The stone struck him ineffectively on the shoulder but his gesture had been peculiarly human and it stirred something inside Vredech – a distant, flickering hope that he could not properly identify. He could identify a faltering in the mysterious force that was holding him, however. As apparently could Pinnatte, for another stone and another oath passed by Vredech on its way to the same target.
This one, though, struck nothing. With a sound almost like that of an animal in pain, it shattered into dust and fragments in mid-air as the intended target casually raised towards it the hand that previously had betrayed him.
But, at the same time, Pinnatte and Vredech found themselves free. The faint hope in Vredech flared suddenly, like a fire caught by a gusting breeze and, scarcely realizing what he was doing, he seized his companion in a powerful embrace. As he did so, the hope became a blinding light and the two of them were falling through it. All around them, clamouring and tearing at the fabric of the brightness itself, came the frenzied cries of their pursuers.
The terrible noise was still tangled about them as, wide-eyed and gaping, they both jerked violently upright. The room they found themselves in was shaking with the shrieking frustration of the three riders.
As it faded, Nertha was the first to recover. Emotion broke free from the control she had been exerting ever since Pinnatte and her husband had been found comatose, and with a wordless cry of her own she dropped down by Vredech’s bed and wrapped her arms around him.
Andawyr, though visibly shaken, dashed to Pinnatte. Echoing Nertha he repeated, ‘You’re safe, you’re safe,’ over and over, until eventually he began to gain the young man’s attention. Not that Pinnatte seemed too sure about the message he was being given so fervently as his eyes gradually focused and he found himself staring into Andawyr’s battered face. He jerked away from him with a cry and gazed wildly about the dimly lit room. Catching sight of a tall figure standing in the shade near the foot of the bed he pushed himself backwards, his hand grasping for more stones with which to defend himself.
The figure did not move, however.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ it said, its voice calm and reassuring. ‘Wherever you’ve been, you’re safely returned, and nothing can harm you here. I’m going to let a little more light in; will that be all right?’
‘Yes,’ Vredech said hesitantly on behalf of his companion. Hawklan touched something by the window and an intricate weave of shutters slowly began to disentangle itself, folding back silently layer upon layer to become part of the window surrounds. Bright sunlight unfurled into the room to reveal elaborate traceries carved across the walls and ceiling.
Vredech and Pinnatte, still shocked as they were by their sudden return, stared in wonder, for at the touch of the sunlight the carvings seemed to ripple and turn towards it in welcome. Vredech drew in a deep breath and felt the light washing away the last remnants of the sour blue air that scarcely heartbeats ago had been pervading him.
Pinnatte did the same. He gesticulated vaguely and said, ‘Where?’
‘Anderras Darion, young man,’ came a stern voice. ‘More to the point, where have you been to come back bearing such a gift?’ He turned to see an old woman sitting nearby. At least, he thought it was an old woman, though there was an ageless quality about her face that made it difficult for him to tell. Bright blue eyes held him fixed, however, preventing him from either replying to her question or asking his own.
Hawklan turned to her sharply. ‘Gently, Memsa,’ he said with both reproach and surprise. Gulda tapped her stick on the floor impatiently and seemed set to dispute with him for a moment. Then, with a curt nod, she released her captive.
Pinnatte and Vredech had been brought back to Anderras Darion as quickly as the night and the road would allow. Both Hawklan and Andawyr had examined them again as soon as they reached the castle, but neither had been able to reach any conclusion as to what had happened. In the end, there being no danger to the two men immediately apparent, and bearing in mind Nertha’s strange but unequivocal pronouncement that they could well be in some other place, they had reluctantly had to settle for making them comfortable and watching them, pending fresher thoughts the following day.
They had been joined shortly after dawn by a grim-faced Nertha, well rested but less than grateful for the sleep that Hawklan had given her. Gulda had been with them throughout. She had confined her own examination of the two men to laying her hand on their foreheads but otherwise she had said nothing. For what was left of the night she had sat motionless in her characteristic pose; hands clamped over the top of her stick and her chin resting on them.
When the two men suddenly woke and the room filled with the piercing screams of the riders, Andawyr, Hawklan and Nertha all cried out and covered their ears. Gulda, however, straightened up sharply and gazed about her, as if following every echoing nuance of the sounds as they clamoured about the room like trapped and demented animals.
Hawklan knelt down between the two beds. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked both of them.
‘I think so,’ Vredech said, though he was pale and visibly confused. ‘This is really Anderras Darion?’
‘Yes,’ Hawklan replied. ‘Welcome to my home.’
Vredech levered himself upright. The movement made him feel light-headed and he took his wife’s arm for support. He realized that his legs were shaking, a reminder of his reckless dash down the mountainside. He looked at his host and managed to smile.
‘So you’re the man we’ve journeyed all this way to meet.’ He held out his hand. ‘I don’t know how we came here, but I think we owe you a debt of thanks…’ He stopped abruptly and turned to Pinnatte guiltily. Swinging off the bed he leaned forward and looked at his companion anxiously. He echoed Hawklan’s question earnestly. ‘Are you all right?’
Pinnatte nodded, then shook his head.
‘Cobwebs back?’ Vredech asked, his face pained.
Pinnatte grimaced and nodded again.
Vredech squeezed his arm encouragingly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll remember. I’ll make sure everyone knows. You’ll not be left out. And thanks for whatever you just did.’
Pinnatte shrugged. ‘You,’ he said.
Vredech shrugged in his turn. ‘It’s not important,’ he said. ‘What’s important is that we’re safe here.’
‘No,’ Pinnatte said flatly. ‘No one’s safe.’ He looked around the room. ‘Tell.’
‘Yes,’ Gulda said, tapping her stick forcefully on the floor as she stood up. ‘Tell.’
‘No,’ Nertha intervened, placing herself resolutely between the two men and the advancing Memsa. ‘Talking can wait. These two need to wash, change their clothes and have something to eat before they do anything else.’
The two women stared at one another for a long moment, then Gulda gave a brief grunt. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I apologize.’
Hawklan and Andawyr exchanged a look of open surprise, though they ensured that Gulda did not see it.
The door opened and Atelon entered, his face flushed and concerned. ‘What was that noise? Oh!’
The exclamation came as he saw Vredech and Pinnatte awake. His concern became relief and then concern again. ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said to Pinnatte.
Nertha swore under her breath and with an angry look at Hawklan and Andawyr pushed them both aside as she moved to Pinnatte.
‘He wasn’t bleeding before,’ Andawyr protested plaintively as he was drawn into her wake.
‘Well, he’s bleeding now,’ Nertha retorted, untying Vredech’s already slack kerchief and looking closely at the cut. ‘It looks worse than it is, I think.’ She smiled at Pinnatte. ‘At least it’s clean. Get my bag, and some water.’
While Pinnatte was being attended to, Vredech looked at his own hands. Just as they had been in that strange blue world, they too were scratched. What else had he brought from there? he thought. And what had he left?
Andawyr took Atelon aside. ‘Take care of Pinnatte and Vredech.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And Nertha. Keep a close eye on them. And stay alert.’
As Atelon took his charges in hand, Gulda flicked her stick at Hawklan and Andawyr. ‘Come with me, you two, we need to talk.’
She led them along a bright corridor at the end of which was a door that opened on to a broad, circular balcony. It overlooked a small park and children’s voices rose up to greet them. Gulda leaned on the stone parapet and watched the children for some time before speaking. She seemed to be unusually uneasy.
‘What’s the matter, Memsa?’ Hawklan ventured.
‘What indeed?’ she replied, maintaining her vigil over the playing children. ‘What indeed?’
Hawklan and Andawyr looked at one another but found no enlightenment.
‘No slight thing, I’d deduce, from your manner,’ Hawklan said. ‘Indeed, I’d deduce that from the fact that you’ve come back to Anderras Darion. I’d thought never to see you again.’
Gulda looked round at the towers and spires of the great castle, then at her questioner. ‘I thought I’d never be back,’ she replied. ‘I thought that with the Uhriel slain at last and Sumeral destroyed so totally there’d be no more need for me.’ She turned back to the children. ‘Except as a wandering teacher.’
‘But?’
‘But… little signs everywhere. Little signs – and doubts deep within myself that, though chance and courage had conspired to give us victory, perhaps all was not truly over. That what was scattered might come together again, as it had before.’ She drummed a brief tattoo on the parapet with her long fingers. ‘Only vagueness, Hawklan. A strangeness in the wind that says that rain is coming, winter, spring, something. A call beneath the senses.’
‘It’s a deep call if it’s beneath your senses,’ Hawklan said, without irony.
‘Who can truly assess the effects of the least thing?’ she replied. ‘Who knows what things we truly know? Who knows how we guide ourselves?’
She abandoned the children and began walking around the balcony. ‘Suffice it that I sensed a coming together of some kind. It was a dark and ominous feeling. And my feet turned me towards here.’
Unusually, Andawyr showed a hint of impatience. ‘We’ll talk about that over the next few days, together with everything else.’ He put his hands to his temples. ‘So many things are happening so quickly we mustn’t confuse coincidence and cause. We’ll have the tales of our visitors – and, from what I’ve heard so far, these are mightily strange – and we’ll have the Accounting of the Goraidin. If there’s a pattern there, we’ll find it, you know that. We’re all of us wiser than we were.’ Following Gulda’s deceptively fast stride, they moved into the shade of the tower. The sound of the children was replaced by the clatter of horses’ hooves in the stone courtyard below. ‘But that’s not why you dragged us out here, is it?’