Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

He gave a smile, very brief, no more than a stretching of his blue lips. ‘You’re here now,’ he murmured.

Then, as I watched, his face fell. He was grieving; I knew it. There is no emotion that wrenches and stabs at you like grief, both your own and that of someone you love.

‘What is it?’ I asked softly.

He raised his dark, deeply troubled eyes to mine. ‘My horse is gone,’ he said, his voice breaking on the words. ‘She went into the quicksand, and I couldn’t get her out.’

Oh, no ! I wanted to cry out aloud, send my protest shrieking up into the sky. I knew about death in the sands. I knew how the pressure builds up and makes the eyes and tongue stand out stark in the head. I knew how the mouth stretches open for the last desperate breath, how it fills not with life-giving air but with deadly, cloying, heavy, wet, muddy sand.

And this beloved man of mine had been forced to watch, powerless, as his horse had gone under.

He gave one sob, a harsh bark of sound that seemed to epitomize his loss, his longing and his pain. I closed my arms around him and pressed him against me. After a while I laid my cheek down on the top of his head. And there we stayed.

I don’t know how long we would have remained like that. Although I was deeply affected by his grief for his horse, at the same time I was filled with joy because I had found him, he was alive, and now we were together.

Perhaps it was this potent mix of emotions that made me careless. Perhaps the force curled up ready to strike against me was too powerful and made sure I did not perceive its presence until it was too late. Either way, I did not sense the approaching danger.

There was a sudden sound, right above us, so startlingly loud that my ears rang. It could have been thunder, but if it was, it cracked at the command of something other than the forces of nature. The lowering sky went totally black, and I could see nothing, not even the comforting glow of the safe path. Whatever was out there, it had power even over that. Rain lashed down, vicious as a whip, forming itself into icy droplets. I saw small cuts open up on Rollo’s and my exposed flesh. The wind wound up to a screaming crescendo, in which I thought I could detect a terrible voice.

I tried to raise my head to look up, but I could not move.

What was assailing us out on that lonely shore was the most powerful force I had ever felt.

And it did not like us at all. .

Hrype, too, had managed to find an early-rising boatman, in his case to ferry him over the short stretch of water between Chatteris island and the mainland to the south. The ferryman was inclined to talk, but Hrype was deep inside his own thoughts and did not respond. With a shrug, the boatman bent to his oars, muttering under his breath about miserable sods who wouldn’t brighten up a cold, dark morning with a bit of a chat.

Once on the far side, Hrype drew up his hood against the moist morning air and trudged on as fast as he could. There were few other people about. Presently, the path met the major road that swept round to the south-west of the fens. The traffic increased, and quite soon Hrype got a ride with a man heading into Cambridge with a load of mushrooms. The final ten miles of his journey passed swiftly, for the farmer’s horse was fresh and kept up a lively pace.

It was late in the morning when Hrype hurried along the maze of passages leading off the market square. He mounted the steps up to the familiar wooden door and rapped his knuckles against it. For quite a long time nothing happened, so he knocked harder. Finally, the door creaked open, and Gurdyman’s bright-blue eyes looked out at him.

‘Come in, Hrype.’ He stood aside to usher his guest inside. Neither his voice nor his manner displayed the least surprise. ‘I am sorry to have kept you waiting,’ he added as he led the way along the passage. ‘I was in the crypt and could not leave my workbench until a critical stage in my experiment was complete.’

‘I hope I did not disturb you,’ Hrype said politely.

‘No, no.’ Gurdyman waved a hand, indicating the little courtyard, sheltered from the cool breeze and warm from the sunshine spilling in and reflecting off the stone walls. ‘I was expecting you. Will you have some refreshment?’

Hrype realized he was ravenous. ‘I will, thank you.’

He watched as the sage fetched a tray of bread and cold, spiced meats, accompanied by mugs of ale, wondering how Gurdyman had known he was coming.

As if the wizard read the thought — he probably did — he chuckled and said, ‘There was nothing magical about it, my friend. Lassair’s sister is sick — how is she, by the way? I am sorry, I should have asked you that straight away. Only, I would guess by your demeanour that she is better?’

‘She is, thank you. Still very ill, but no longer on the point of death.’

‘I am very glad to hear it. As I was saying, I know that Lassair’s sister is sick, and Lassair had told me that her sister’s best friend was dead and had been poisoned. Given that in addition we have the case of the man in the fen, who was also poisoned, it was not particularly clever or astute to work out that, sooner or later, you would come to me.’ He paused, eyeing Hrype closely. ‘Once you had established the question, Lassair was not, I presume, available to provide the answer?’

Despite everything, Hrype began to laugh. ‘She has gone on a mission of her own,’ he said. He explained about the dream.

‘What can have taken her there?’ Gurdyman mused. ‘Have you any idea?’

‘There is a place of power off the north coast,’ Hrype replied. ‘It could be that the spirits have a quest for her. The summons was urgent, I understand.’

Gurdyman nodded. ‘Then she had, of course, no option but to obey it,’ he murmured. He met Hrype’s eyes. ‘We shall just have to manage without her.’ There was only light irony in his tone; he too, Hrype realized, had recognized Lassair’s worth.

‘She has a long way to go,’ Hrype said, ‘for she is still too subject to the influence of her emotions. Until she can govern her heart, she will always be unreliable.’

‘You are too hard on her, Hrype,’ Gurdyman countered. ‘She is yet young, and the power in her is strong.’

‘You are satisfied with her as a pupil?’ Hrype had first introduced Lassair to her mentor, and he hoped Gurdyman did not feel he was wasting his time.

‘Entirely,’ Gurdyman said firmly. ‘Now, have some more of this ale.’

‘I guessed,’ Gurdyman said as they finished the food, ‘that, having seen Lassair’s sister and learned what you could there, and in the absence of any opportunity to view the body of the dead nun, you would wish to hear all that you could concerning the body of the man found in the fen. Lassair has gone off on a purpose of her own, and so here you are, talking to me. Am I right?’

Hrype smiled. ‘You are,’ he agreed. ‘Please, tell me all that you can of the dead man.’

‘He was tethered on the fen margins,’ Gurdyman began, ‘somewhere over on the eastern edge of the wet lands, south of Lynn. The boatmen could not be more specific. They lost their way in the fog and had to make a turn in a narrow channel, and their guess is that it was there they picked up their extra cargo. The ropes that had bound the man became entangled somehow in the boat; perhaps in the steer board. Anyway, they unwittingly towed the corpse behind them all the way to the quay here at Cambridge, where someone spotted it bobbing along in their wake and raised the alarm.’

The eastern edge of the fen, south of Lynn. Hrype recalled how Lassair had seen such significance in that, believing it must be relevant because the little nun who had died was also from that region. He was not so sure; it could be no more than coincidence. ‘He had suffered the Threefold Death, I believe?’ he asked.