Vredech had no measure of the time he remained at the summit of the Ervrin Mallos, save that it was dark and a bright moon was high in the sky when he finally came to his senses. He was leaning over the rock that had been the focus of all that had happened, gazing into the stain, black now in the moonlight, as if he could see through into wherever Nertha had been transported.
Physical exhaustion racked him, his robe was soiled and torn, as too were his hands. They confirmed the frantic, confused memories that he had of dashing about the summit, desperately searching for Nertha, ridiculously turning over rocks, peering into impossibly small crannies, going repeatedly to the edge of the precipitous face that dropped away from one side of the summit and staring over it, despite the fact that he could see no sign of her on the rocks below. Calling out her name as though for some reason she might be playing one of their childish hiding games. Calling and calling, now angrily, now fearfully, now pathetically. All to keep him from turning to the truth that she was gone.
Then, for a hideous, timeless time, he had curled into the lee of an overhanging rock and sobbed hysterically, gnawing on his fists and driving them into the unyielding rock. Sobbing not only for the loss of Nertha, but for fear that there had been no loss, save that of his sanity. Fear that Nertha had never really been there, that all the mysteries and horrors of the past weeks had never occurred, that he was still on the mountain, searching for a demented Cassraw, separated somehow from Horld and the others and lost himself now. Lost and utterly crazed.
He straightened up painfully. Now, though none of these questions were answered, he was too spent to sustain such agitation. And into this strangely enforced calmness, thoughts began to emerge that grimly demanded order from the churning chaos of his mind. There was little else he could do now, but he was trembling with the effort as he exerted all his will to determine that order.
He spoke out loud through gritted teeth. ‘If this is the day of our search for Cassraw, then I’ve simply become separated from the others – suffered a seizure of some kind. Dreamt all this, for some reason. I don’t dream, so perhaps my first would affect me thus.’
The sound of his own voice was unreal and jarring but he forced the words out.
‘If it isn’t, then all that has happened is true. And Nertha has gone.’
The words tore open his burgeoning inner quiet. He slammed his hands down on to the rock and lifted his face to the moonlit sky. ‘Where could she go?’ he roared at it. ‘Where? She was there, then she was gone.It isn’t possible! ’ His voice faded. ‘It isn’t possible.’
‘What isn’t?’
Vredech spun round with a cry. A tall figure stood a few paces away from him.
‘Who was there and then gone?’ the figure asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, ‘You’ve not had a young woman up here, have you my man?’ The stern righteousness in the voice combined with the tall, thin stature to identify the speaker.
‘Horld,’ Vredech gasped, his voice awash with relief. ‘Horld, thank Ishryth it’s you. I thought – I don’t know. I…’ He stumbled into silence.
‘Is that Brother Vredech?’ Horld said incredulously. ‘Allyn, what in pity’s name are you doing here? And what was all that noise? I came up to meditate in the silence only to find someone bawling like a market-trader. What…?’ But Vredech was staggering across the rocks towards him, a single question dominating him. Horld caught him as he staggered and almost fell.
‘Where is Cassraw?’ Vredech demanded urgently.
Horld looked at him, the moonlight deepening the lines on his worried face. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘Calm yourself, Allyn, please. He’s probably down at the Haven Meeting House, haranguing whoever’s there – the more gullible members of his flock. Sad to say, some of our own Preaching Brothers.’ He curled his lip in distaste. ‘And doubtless his precious Knights of Ishryth.’
Vredech tore free from Horld’s grip and turned away to hide his face, fearful of what might be read there. Relief and awful shock filled him equally. Relief that the past weeks had not been some bizarre nightmare, yet shock at this confirmation that they, and thus the last few hours, had actually happened. Where then was Nertha? His insides tightened into a unbearably painful knot.
‘I heard you were at Cassraw’s circus today. Passed out with the heat, I believe,’ Horld said. His bluntness helped Vredech to recover himself a little.
‘It was bad,’ he said, forcing himself to straighten up and maintain some semblance of a normal conversation. ‘I came here to think about it, like you. Were you there?’
Horld shook his head. ‘No, I’ve better things to do on Service Day. Sent a novice, though. Came back babbling and wide-eyed. Had to give him a rare roasting to bring his feet back to earth again. I can’t imagine what Cassraw’s up to, Allyn. It’s almost as if he’s…’ He stopped.
Vredech turned back to him sharply. ‘Possessed?’ he said.
Horld seemed reluctant to accept the word now that it had been spoken, but he could not reject it either. Vredech seized his own courage and risked touching near his concerns. ‘When we came out that day, looking for Cassraw, I stumbled, had a brief fainting fit, do you remember?’ Horld paused for a moment, then nodded but did not speak. Vredech peered into the dark shadows of his eyes. ‘Tell me what you felt as you saw me fall,’ he said softly, but with great insistence.
Horld attempted a dismissive shrug, but his manner was uneasy. Vredech pushed. ‘Please, Horld,’ he insisted. ‘It’s important.’
Horld coughed awkwardly. Vredech gripped his arms earnestly and abandoned caution. ‘You’ve been troubled ever since that day, haven’t you? Or you wouldn’t have sent out your novice to listen to Cassraw, nor come trailing up here to meditate. I’m offering you no insult when I say that of the many kinds of Preaching Brother you are, contemplative is not one. Tell me what you felt.’
Horld looked away from him then seemed to reach a decision. ‘I thought I saw something, heard something. It’s hard to explain. There were shadows moving about, voices clamouring, and something unpleasant seemed to pass by me. I don’t know. It was all very fleeting, like blue flames dancing over the coals. In so far as I thought about it at all, I imagined it was just the darkness, concern for Cassraw… and for you.’ He straightened up and cleared his throat. ‘It’s all foolishness,’ he muttered.
Relief was flooding through Vredech. ‘No!’ he said urgently. ‘Foolishness is the last thing it is. I saw those shadows, too, Horld. Heard those awful voices. Something evil came with those black clouds, something that took possession of Cassraw.’
Once, Horld would have dismissed such a notion out of hand, giving whoever had suggested it the benefit of a memorably caustic rebuttal. That he did not speak at once, and that his posture reflected his uncertainty told Vredech much. Frantic for allies now, he gave the older man no opportunity to be brought back to comforting normality by the momentum of his everyday thinking.
‘After you survived that fire at your forge, you were touched by something, weren’t you?’ he said. ‘Something you couldn’t put into words but which was strong enough to make you leave everything you’d ever known and turn to another life. Well something’s touched Cassraw also, and is turning him to another life. You felt… you knew… that it was Ishryth touching you after that fire, and I’m more than inclined to call whatever’s touched Cassraw, Ahmral. But the name doesn’t matter. What does matter is that both you and I felt it, and Cassraw seems to have gone almost insane since he went to the heart of it.’ He shook Horld’s arm before too many doubts could form around the name Ahmral. ‘Think back. Remember what Cassraw was like when he came out of the darkness and took hold of us both. And his strange, arrogant manner until I opposed him at the door of the Debating Hall and he collapsed. Remember! Remember it all!’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Horld said eventually, his manner agitated. ‘Almost every part of me says you’re talking nonsense, but the tiny part that doesn’t is shouting louder than all the rest put together.’ Abruptly, he began walking away. ‘I need time to think.’
‘You’ll reach no conclusions,’ Vredech said starkly. ‘Ishryth knows, I haven’t, and I’ve been wrestling with it for months now. Just remember Cassraw on that day and since, remember what you felt and, in the name of pity, remember this conversation.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘And perhaps ask yourself what prompted you to climb the mountain so that we could meet thus.’
Horld turned back and looked at him. Vredech sensed a debate about to start, but he could not afford it. Not only would it be fruitless, for despite Horld’s partial acceptance of what he had said, he still could not tell him everything that had happened. Worse, the inner frenzy about what had happened to Nertha, contained so far only by his need to seem calm in front of his colleague, was threatening to take complete possession of him at any moment.
‘I’ve no answers to all this,’ he said, barely managing to keep his voice steady. ‘But, in any case, what Cassraw’s doing is wrong by a score of the church’s tenets, you know that. The least we can do is watch him and see that Mueran and the Chapter censure him properly, take steps to stop him.’
Horld relaxed visibly at this simple practical suggestion.
‘I’ve been here longer than I intended,’ Vredech said hastily. ‘I’ve a lot to do. I’ll leave you to your privacy.’ He paused and looked back at the flat-topped rock. The stain dominated his vision, darker by far than all the shadows that lay across the summit. ‘Could I ask a favour of you?’
‘Of course,’ Horld said.
Vredech was about to ask him to say a prayer over the rock, when he remembered the painful futility of his own words as they had rebounded upon him, mocking his shattered faith. ‘While you’re here, do as I asked you. Think again about what brought you into the church. Set aside your training and your studies, and all the words. Remember that touch which showed you the way.’
Horld looked uncertain.
‘Please, Horld. Stay here and do this for me. It’s important.’ Vredech felt his remaining control slipping. He had to get away. ‘You said you came here to meditate. You said you needed to think. I don’t know what you’re going to find, but where you found Ishryth is the only place to look.’
There was a brief, agonizing silence, then Horld said, ‘I’ll do as you ask, because you ask, Allyn. It’ll do me no harm, for sure. But we must talk again, and soon. This is all very…’
‘Mid-morn tomorrow at my Meeting House,’ Vredech interrupted, nodding purposefully. ‘We can talk the day into evening if we want.’ Then, with a cursory farewell, he began clambering down the rocks, fearful that Horld might attempt to prolong the conversation.
As he looked back he saw that Horld, a shadow amongst the shadows now, was sitting on the rock, one foot pulled up on to it to support his arm and his head; an oddly youthful posture. He was gazing out across the moonlit valley.
As Vredech paused to watch him, some small night-hunting animal scuttled across the rocks nearby, making him start violently. He set off down the mountain again.
Once away from the summit and his friend, his anxieties returned in full suffocating force, this time laden pitilessly with guilt. He had known that great forces were in play, so why had he let Nertha go up to the place where they were actually producing a physical manifestation? Why had he so rashly challenged it with his poor prayers? Why had he pushed Nertha into using her own unsure healing skills to that same end? What had been that terrible noise? And, overriding all, incessant and unyielding in its grip on him, where had Nertha gone?
Such a thing as had happened was not possible!
Yet he had been transported bodily to some other world. And even to worlds within that world.
Hadn’t he?
Fabric’s torn, ‘fore all was born…
For a timeless interval as his body carried him down the mountain towards the Witness House, Vredech’s mind teetered at the edge of disintegration. The only thing that prevented it from shattering and scattering into the void in wretched imitation of the stars domed over him, and struggling with the moonlight for supremacy of the heavens, was the knowledge that Horld, too, had been touched by the presence that had invaded the mountain and taken possession of Cassraw.
But even in this, barbed thoughts tore at him. Perhaps his meeting with Horld had been no more than another illusion generated in his failing mind.
And for the span of an eternal heartbeat, darkness closed over him and he was falling.
Lost…
‘There’s nothing wrong with your sanity.’
‘Nothing can stand that kind of scrutiny.’
‘Not answerable. Don’t ask.’
‘No alternative but to accept what you see – here, now.’
‘No alternative…’
‘No alternative…’
Nertha’s words wrapped themselves about him, soothing even though they could not heal, holding together what was striving to break, holding him to here, to now.
Holding him…
And Horld, heat-scarred and solid, furnace-bronzed and anvil-weighted. He could be nothing but here, now.
Mid-morn tomorrow…
A fixed point.
Cold night air rushed through him, like an icy mountain stream, and with it came clear night vision, showing him familiar mountains etched sharp in the moonlight, and the silver-damp roof of the Witness House below him.
It was beautiful.
All about him was beautiful. In the least and the greatest of Ishryth’s work there lay beauty. All that was needed was the vision to see it.
Then came an inner knowledge, a realization that whatever had happened at the summit had not been the doing of that invading presence;it had been his! Some part of him had moved to protect Nertha. Somewhere, Nertha was safe.
Vredech gazed at the moonlight bouncing brightly off the roof of the Witness House. A calmness came over him. He tried to resist it. Nertha transported to Ishryth alone knew what limbo by some unknowing act of his, and he was feeling euphoric! It was obscene. He should be frantic, he should be thinking where he could turn to search for her, what books he could consult, what learned scholars, what ancient manuscripts…
But still he was calm.
He put a hand to his eyes, for the moonlight was becoming unbearable.
‘Too bright,’ he said.
‘Oh!’
The soft cry, laden with relief, was followed by arms wrapping themselves about him, holding him chokingly tight. ‘You’re back, you’re back. Thank Ishryth.’ The voice became reproachful. ‘You frightened me half to death. What do you think you were…’ The question remained unfinished, and the embrace tightened further.
Vredech gently eased the clenching arms apart and, eyes blinking in the sunlight, reached up.
‘Nertha,’ he said, touching her face. ‘You’re all right?’
‘Of course I’m all right,’ came the reply. Nertha released him and bent forward to look into his face. Her expression was a mixture of deep concern and shrewd penetration. ‘And so are you, it seems,’ she declared. But the concern dominated. ‘What happened? What did you do?’
Vredech reached out and touched her face again. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said.
Nertha took his hand, kissed it, then pressed it back against her cheek. It was not a sister’s kiss. ‘And I you,’ she said simply, meeting his gaze.
Then the moment was gone, pushed aside by the torrent of questions demanding answers. Vredech clambered to his feet. He was still at the summit, a little way from the stained boulder. And he had with him the calmness that had come to him when he had looked out over the moonlit valley and the glistening roof of the Witness House… only moments ago?
‘What did you do?’ Nertha asked again.
‘Do?’
‘Yes – do!’ Nertha said, a tension in her voice that he had never heard before. ‘I was trying to heal that thing,’ she waved towards the rock, ‘and feeling more than a little foolish, I might add, when something just swept me up. Took possession of me.’ Her face twitched and she shuddered violently. ‘It was awful. I haven’t the words for it. Cold, inhuman – I was nothing to it. A barely adequate tool – a channel. And yet it was viciously cruel at the same time. Delighting in pain, in terror. I could do nothing. Even while it was happening, I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. It isn’t…’
Vredech brought his finger to his lips for silence. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I, above all, understand. You know that, don’t you? Just tell me what happened. What did I do?’
Nertha looked surprised. ‘You called out to me. I heard your voice or… felt it… full of anger, goading it. Then there was a terrible noise – for want of a better word – and whatever it was that held me was torn away. Torn away completely. When I opened my eyes you were lying there sprawled across the rock, unconscious.’
‘And?’
‘I didn’t know what to do. I was trembling all over – still am. Shock, I suppose.’ She shook herself as if sloughing a cumbersome coat. ‘You didn’t seem to be hurt. It was more as though you were asleep – dreaming. Except I couldn’t wake you. I managed to drag you over here, out of the sun. Checked you again. Paced up and down, like an apprentice nurse on her first night duty.’ Her voice was full of self-reproach. Vredech took her hands. ‘I should’ve gone for help right away, but… I didn’t want to leave you… in case you recovered and had lost your memory, or something.’ Her voice faded away weakly.
Vredech wanted to ease her pain, but could find no words that would reach through their deep knowledge of one another. He squeezed her hands gently. ‘How long was I unconscious?’ he asked.
‘Half an hour or so, I think. I was just plucking up courage to leave you and go for help, when you just woke up.’ She closed her eyes and grimaced.
‘Are you all right?’
Nertha suddenly pulled her hands free with an oath. ‘No, I’m not,’ she shouted. ‘Ye gods, I’m not. I’ve just spent the most wretched half hour of my life.’ She struck her chest with her fist. ‘Me, a more than adequate physician, even if I shouldn’t say it, fretting around, helpless and hopeless, as much use as a nun in a brothel.’ Vredech’s eyebrows shot up and he raised a tentative priestly hand to stay the onslaught, but Nertha was gathering momentum. ‘And I’m a rational being, Allyn. What am I doing up a mountain trying to heal a rock?’ She kicked the stained boulder. ‘And battling with mythical demons that I don’t believe in?’
The questions were rhetorical, but he found himself answering them anyway.
‘You’re doing what rational people do in such circumstances,’ he said. ‘You’re accepting change, new boundaries to your thinking. And you’re shouting because, like me, you’re scared witless. Remember, nothing is to be feared, it is only to be understood.’
‘Don’t you quote my quotations back at me, Allyn Vredech.’
‘Your quotation? I’d say it was more of a fundamental truth, wouldn’t you?’
He turned away before she could answer, and laid his hand on the rock. Nertha caught nervously at his elbow, but he shook his head reassuringly. ‘It’s not the same,’ he said. ‘It’s more distant.’ His expression became pained. ‘It’s still there, though. Waiting. I think we’ve done something to it.’ He put his arm around her shoulder and turned her so that they were both looking out over the valley.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said.
Nertha made to look at him. ‘Allyn, how can you…?’
He eased her back to the view. ‘Here, now, this is beautiful,’ he said. ‘The air in your lungs, the sun on your face, these hills ranged about us. All things change. If we value what we have while we have it, then any pain in the change is so much less.’
Nertha made no sign but he felt some of the tension leave her.
They stood for some time, motionless, watching the shadows of the clouds marching across the land. Then Nertha asked, ‘What happened to you when you were unconscious?’ adding uncertainly, ‘Did you meet your Whistler again?’
‘No,’ Vredech replied. ‘Someone else. Come on, let’s get back to our horses and go home. There’s nothing else we can do here.’
As they descended the mountain, Vredech told of his encounter with Horld, in a world that both was and was not this one. He told her, too, of his near plunge into complete insanity. Nertha, seemingly herself again, stopped and looked at him purposefully. ‘We have a test then?’ she said, sternly logical despite the unsteadiness creeping into her voice.
‘Perhaps,’ Vredech replied flatly. ‘And, perhaps, an ally.’
They completed the rest of their journey back to the Witness House in silence. As they were walking up the path towards the main door, it swung open and Horld emerged. He seemed unusually agitated, and started visibly when he saw Vredech.
Vredech walked to the foot of the steps and looked up at Horld. He took a deep breath. ‘Mid-morn tomorrow at my Meeting House?’ he said.
Horld unashamedly circled his hand about his heart. ‘Who are you?’ he said hoarsely, his eyes widening.
‘Who I seem to be, old friend,’ Vredech replied softly. ‘Don’t be afraid. I think we need to talk, don’t you? Were you about to leave?’
Horld nodded and abruptly began answering questions that had not been asked. ‘I fell asleep in the reading room. I don’t normally fall asleep in the day. I can’t think what… I wasn’t even tired. I just…’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Then it was night. And I needed to think. To be alone, and quiet.’
Vredech moved up the steps and took his arm. ‘Get your horse,’ he said, very gently. ‘We’ll talk as we ride.’
The journey down the mountain through the lengthening shadows of late afternoon was strained and awkward, with Horld struggling hard against what Vredech was saying, his common sense crying out continually that what he was hearing was patently impossible. But his dream, as he had considered it to be, had been too vivid, and lingered too clearly in his mind. And Vredech’s knowledge of it was too thorough for him to take refuge in denial. Gradually he found himself obliged to accept that what had seemed to happen, dream or no, had actually happened, and that he and Vredech had held that conversation and made that promise to talk again. Though how or where it could all have been, he could not even begin to conjecture.
‘Ishryth’s will,’ he concluded after a long silence as they reached the wider, less steep part of the path at the foot of the mountain. ‘This is hard for a simple iron and coals man like me, Vredech. I can’t bring myself to accept that Cassraw’s possessed in some way. It’s what Laffran said at the outset and he’s invariably wrong.’
Vredech leaned over and laid a hand on his arm.
‘Perhaps he wasn’t, this time,’ he said. ‘More has happened to me than I’ve told you or that I can tell you at the moment, my friend. But more than once these past months, I’ve thought myself going insane. Perhaps because you, too, were touched by something in that darkness you were drawn to me in your… dream… by your concern about what happened to Cassraw that day. Perhaps we’re simply tools in a greater scheme, I don’t know. But I could wish for no better ally than you with your simple iron and coals vision. And if you can provide me with an explanation full of reason and logic, I’ll embrace it heartily, and publicly announce myself as a fool.’
Horld grunted self-consciously. ‘Well, be that as it may,’ he said gruffly, ‘I’ll admit that for all the strangeness of what’s just happened, I feel easier now than I’ve felt for some time. It’s been as if those black clouds were still hovering over my head. In fact, I’m still getting worrying tales from some of my flock about nightmares and the like which seem to stem from that day.’ He gave a dismissive shrug as his common sense drew in its stern rein. ‘But I think we’d best keep our own counsel, don’t you? There’s enough in the way of wild words flying about with Cassraw ranting like a mad thing, and all this business over Tirfelden in the Heindral. And our tale would strain the wits of even the calmest listeners.’
‘What are we to do then?’
Nertha had been silent for most of the journey. Now she brought a practical voice to the debate that was quite the equal of Horld’s.
‘We oppose him, my girl,’ Horld declaimed unhesitatingly. Nertha bristled and glowered at him, but Vredech discreetly signalled her to remain silent. ‘We’ve not been granted this insight to stand by and watch idly,’ Horld continued. ‘Ishryth helps those who help themselves.’
‘I’d be interested to know what you’ve got in mind,’ Nertha said acidly, though Horld was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice the tone.
‘Possession or no, we must put a stop to his nonsense before it gets completely out of hand,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘The church will have to act.’ He looked at Vredech. ‘Tonight, I want to think about today and… everything. Think about it very hard. But whatever the outcome of that, tomorrow we must see Mueran and have him call a special meeting of the Chapter to bring Cassraw to heel.’ He looked suddenly sad. ‘It’s a great shame,’ he said. ‘He’s a very capable man, but I always felt he’d been brought on too quickly. The Haven Parish is a big responsibility for even an experienced Brother.’ He sighed. ‘Still, if we can bring him to his senses, I’m sure there’ll still be a fine future for him in time.’
Vredech kept his doubts silent.
A little while later they parted.
Vredech looked at Nertha surreptitiously as they rode on.
‘I’m all right,’ she said defensively, catching the look. Vredech allowed his scepticism to show. ‘Well, I’ll confess to still being a little… bewildered,’ Nertha admitted. ‘Being calmly objective about your problems is one thing, being sucked up into them is another.’
‘Bewildered, eh?’ Vredech said. ‘The Whistler said that the response of most ostensibly civilized people when they are suddenly overwhelmed by barbaric, primitive forces, is astonishment. “You’ll be gaping in disbelief at the sword that kills you,” he said. An appropriate comment, do you think?’
Unexpectedly, Nertha’s face contorted and for an alarming moment Vredech thought she was going to burst into tears. The spasm passed. ‘He’s done something to me, Allyn,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘I’m so full of anger and hatred, it’s frightening. I don’t know where it’s coming from.’
‘It’s coming from inside you,’ Vredech said coldly. ‘The only thing He did to you was make you aware of your darker nature. Weren’t you the one who was telling me not to fret about my dark thoughts only a little while ago?’ He waved his hand towards the top of the mountain. ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s a good thing.’
‘What? How can this be good?’ Nertha made a jagged gesture of self-loathing. ‘I’ve not felt anything like this since…’
‘Since you were a child.’ Vredech completed the remark. ‘Before you became civilized.’
‘Damn you! Will you stop presuming to know what I think,’ Nertha shouted.
Vredech held up both hands in surrender, but pressed on. ‘It’s neither good nor bad,’ he said. ‘It simply is. Just like it’s always been, except now you’ve seen it again. Now you know. Now you’re wiser. You understand, so you’ll not be afraid. You’ll have another weapon in your armoury of defence if you choose to use it.’ He leaned across to her and added grimly, ‘You won’t be astonished the next time He tries to use you, will you?’
And where did you get this coldness in your soul from, to harrow the woman so, Priest? came a merciless thought. Vredech reined his horse to a halt and lowered his head, shocked by this new insight into his changing inner landscape. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve no right to talk to you like that. I’m hardly in control of affairs, am I?’
Nertha, girding herself for an argument, faltered. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Weare probably still shocked after all that’s happened to us.’ She smiled weakly. ‘In fact, I must be in shock, or I wouldn’t be trying to diagnose it in myself.’
Vredech looked at her, waiting a little way ahead, and half-turned towards him. Stained with the soil of their journey up the mountain and her face deep-shadowed by the sinking sun, the sight of her nevertheless lightened his heart. It occurred to him that only a few hours ago there had been some kind of a future ahead of him which, while it might have twisted here and turned there, like the past behind him, ran along a broad and reasonably knowable path. Now there was darkness, doubt, and confusion before his every step. And the changing character of his affection for Nertha was beginning to unsettle him also. Yet the calmness that had come to him in the mysterious world he had drifted into… been thrown into?… remained with him, though it gave him no easy peace. It was the calmness of a man who knew that he could do no other than turn to face whatever was about to happen, however fearful, and struggle to make right what was wrong.
The Whistler’s words echoed in his head. ‘There’s not a great deal of difference between a priest and a true warrior.’ Vredech shook his head. He was no warrior by any definition, he was sure. But he understood.
‘Let’s just say we’re tired,’ he said. ‘That’s simple enough, and probably true. Such a lot has happened over the last couple of days, and tomorrow’s going to be very busy. Let’s walk slowly home, and let House fuss over us. That’ll make three of us happy.’
Albor sat down on the flat-topped wall that fringed a basement stairway, and swore softly. These wretched night patrols around the warehouse district were as boring as they were time-wasting. It was an area that was quiet under normal circumstances after the businesses closed their doors each day, but it was quieter than ever following the two murders. Such few people as were here at night, mainly watchmen and caretakers, were confining their patrols to the insides of their particular properties, making doubly certain that all doors and windows were securely bolted.
He drew out a kerchief and wiped it across his forehead. The boredom he could tolerate; on the whole it had to be better than encountering the lunatic who was committing these crimes. But this heat!
The tall brick and stone walls, having soaked up the sun’s warmth throughout the day, were releasing it into the night, and where their presence did not actually still the night breeze that was soothing the rest of the town, it warmed it so that its touch was like that from a suddenly opened oven. Albor wriggled his damp shirt off his back again. Still, doing this duty was probably better than keeping an eye on the crowds that had been swarming all around the Haven Meeting House today, and it was certainly better than doing crowd control duty in the PlasHein Square tomorrow. He frowned. Memories of that crushing, panicking crowd and its aftermath still hung about him, subtly draining him and making him nervous and edgy. He and most of his colleagues had either panicked or simply floundered helplessly when the crowd had started to move. None of them had known what to do. There were no official procedures laid down for dealing with such eventualities. Why should there be? There had never been anything like it before. He shook his head to dismiss the thoughts that were beginning to circle again. He knew that they would only make him frustrated and angry and it was hot enough already. It was not as if he could do anything about it. The Chief and the High Captains and the Captains would doubtless hand down their collective wisdom in due course, without asking his advice, though, with a bit of luck Skynner and the other Serjeants might have the chance to colour it with a little practical experience before it became set in stone.
Dismissing the thoughts yet again, he growled, and laboured himself upright to continue on his patrol. He had scarcely gone ten paces, however, when a noise reached him. Thin, high-pitched and shrill, it bounced from wall to wall, until it surrounded and encased him. He could not begin to identify it, but its tone made the hairs on his neck rise up and he drew his baton as he looked around to try to identify the source.
It stopped.
And started again, coming now in short gasps which were all too recognizable. It was a human voice, and it was terror-stricken. Painfully, it twisted into a mewling, ‘Help,’ then disintegrated again. As it rose and fell, so it entered deep into Albor, mingling with the scream that he could feel forming within himself as he ran towards where it was loudest. But even as he ran, so the intensity of the scream shifted from place to place.
Over here…
Over there…
Albor turned round and round in the middle of the street, the sense of panic and failure that had possessed him two days earlier in the PlasHein Square, returning in full force to condemn him for his inability to go to the rescue of the tormented soul that was filling the street with its awful cry.
Then it fell abruptly into a long sobbing whimper and as it faded so did its many echoes until there was only a single thread. Grim-faced and full now of fighting rage, Albor ran through the clinging night warmth towards its source. As it died, so he gathered speed until he found himself tumbling into one of the dark alleyways between the warehouses. The sudden disappearance of even the faint street lighting brought him to a staggering halt. The sound, almost inhuman now in its desperate pleading, was directly ahead of him, but full of fury though he was, his years of experience on the streets exerted themselves. He snatched his lantern from his belt and struck it.
As it hissed gently into light, so another hissing rose to greet it, and something flashed towards him…