Roger Taylor - Dream Finder

Plunged abruptly into darkness, Antyr swore and threw down the hood angrily. It bounced at the end of its chain with a clatter and then grated sullenly against the wall as it swung from side to side a few times before coming to rest.

While his eyes adjusted to the dim light offered by the street torches, Antyr groped irritably through his cluttered pockets in search of his key. Then, eventually finding it, he groped, equally irritably, to find and open the lock. It took much earnest squinting and several unsuccessful attempts before he succeeded.

Slowly he pushed the door open and stepped inside. Despite his caution, however, the door gave its familiar screech to remind him that he neglected other things than his calling. Then, despite further caution, it repeated the complaint as he closed it.

With a small but weary sigh, Antyr drove home the large bolts then reached up in the darkness to a familiar shelf and took down a flint box and a cracked earthenware candle-holder. The flint box flared up boisterously as he struck it and the darkness in the hallway was suddenly fragmented into dancing and jostling shadows.

Antyr ignored the silent throng however, and concentrated on lighting the bent and reluctant candle. Then, gently extinguishing the flint box, he hung his damp cloak on a well-worn wooden peg and walked softly, if unsteadily, along the hallway towards a room at the back of the house.

'You needn't bother creeping in.'

A familiar voice filled his head. ‘I felt you coming three streets away. It's a wonder Avran didn't throw you into the Watch Pen as soon as he saw you, the state you're in.'

Antyr scowled. ‘I wish you wouldn't do that,’ he said angrily. ‘You wouldn't have pried into my father's thoughts like that.'

As he spoke, he reached the room and stood swaying in the doorway. The shadows from the hallway flooded past him to line the walls like waiting jurors, nodding purposefully to one another at the behest of the dancing candle flame. The remains of a fire glowed dimly in the grate.

Antyr entered and placed the solitary candle on a small shelf. The jury gradually became still and watchful.

As Antyr flopped down on to a nearby chair, the voice came again. ‘I don't pry, Antyr, you're perfectly well aware of that,’ it said, crossly. ‘You shout. I can't help but hear you. I've told you before. I don't expect you to have your father's control, but…'

'No, not now, Tarrian,’ Antyr intoned wearily, leaning back. ‘I'm in no mood…’ He released the comment he had prepared for Avran. ‘…for another of your lectures.'

There was a more purposeful movement among the swaying shadows as the candle flickered. In the far corner of the room a dark shape stirred and began to move across the floor towards the Dream Finder.

'Don't speak to me like that.’ Tarrian's voice was angry and the sound of it in Antyr's head mingled with a menacing growl from the approaching shadow. ‘I can't avoid your confusion, and it washes over me like a foul stench. You seem to forget that.'

'I'm sorry,’ Antyr said hastily, sitting up. ‘It's been a bad night. I…'

'It's been a bad decade,’ Tarrian replied pitilessly.

Antyr winced. He had had many quarrels with Tarrian, but they had been growing increasingly more unpleasant of late and there was a tone in his friend's voice that he had not heard before.

Briefly the eyes of the approaching shadow shone a brilliant green as if lit from some unfathomable depth. It was only a trick of the candlelight, but it chilled Antyr, reminding him not only of the true nature of his companion but also of the dark strangeness of his own calling.

Tarrian emerged relentlessly into the candlelight. The luminous green eyes were now their normal cold grey, though they were only marginally less menacing for that: Tarrian was a wolf. Old, but wild and full of the muscular vigour of youth.

'Ah,’ he said, catching Antyr's momentary fear. ‘You still have some perception left, I see. You should remember more often what I am and how we're bound to one another.'

Antyr turned away. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. Almost plaintively he reached out and stroked the wolf's sleek head.

Tarrian's voice filled his head again, though now full of compassion and concern. ‘Avran was right. More even than he understood himself. The path you're following will destroy you more terribly than it would an ordinary man. You must turn again to the disciplines of your calling or you'll doom us both.'

There was another note in the wolf's voice that Antyr had not heard before: fear.

'Yes, I am afraid,’ Tarrian said, even before Antyr could clearly form the thought. Then, impulsively, ‘Here's how afraid I am.'

'No!’ Antyr cried, pushing himself back in the chair as if to escape. But the wolf's powerful personality held him firm and suddenly his mind was filled with swirling terrors and the dark, flitting shapes of nightmare. He struggled to set them aside, but in vain, Tarrian's anger was too great. Then he felt the presence of an unseen menace seeking him out. Its power swept hither and thither, like a flailing arm. Despite himself, Antyr urged his legs to run but, as is the way in dreams, they would not respond to his desperation, they were beyond his control.

Abruptly he was free; and angry.

'Damn you, dog,’ he shouted. ‘Don't do your party tricks on me.'

Tarrian's mouth curled into a snarl and a deep growl rumbled in his throat. His voice burst into Antyr's head. ‘You're only fit for party tricks, Petran's son,’ it said, scornfully. ‘Do you think you could face my true fears? I, who stood by perhaps the edge of the Threshold to the Great Dream itself, and felt your father slip away from me? Do you want me to show you that?'

Antyr stood up clumsily and pushed past the wolf, his eyes wide. He snatched up an oil lamp and lifted it towards the candle.

'Enough,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Let's have some light.’ His hands, however, were trembling so violently that after several unsuccessful attempts to light it, he had to put the lamp down on the shelf for fear it would slip from his grasp. The waiting shadows danced and jigged expectantly.

Tarrian watched him, his grey eyes unblinking.

For a moment, Antyr leaned forward against the wall until he had recovered some composure. Then carefully, but still breathing heavily, he lit the lamp.

As the shadows dwindled and the familiar commonplace of the room asserted itself, Antyr sat down again, holding out a pleading hand to the wolf.

'No more, please, Tarrian,’ he said, withdrawing the hand and using it to support his head. ‘I need no demonstrations of your superior skill, nor reminders of my own failings.’ Then, angrily again, in spite of himself, ‘And I need no reminders of my father, nor your ramblings about his death.'

The wolf turned away from him and padded back to its corner of the room without replying. It flopped down heavily and, resting its head over its extended forelegs, stared at Antyr patiently.

A faint echo of the fog outside hovered yellow in the air between the two antagonists.

'My father's heart failed him,’ Antyr said defensively into the silence after a moment, returning the wolf's gaze. ‘It troubled him constantly after his fever.'

Tarrian still did not reply, but his denial filled Antyr's mind.

'No,’ Antyr protested. ‘I'll have none of it. The dream of a dying man is notoriously dangerous…’ His voice broke. ‘My father should never have attempted to search for it. And you … his Companion … his Earth Holder … You shouldn't have let him go.'

The reproach was unjust and Antyr knew it: Tarrian could not have defied the will of the Dream Finder in such a matter and Antyr found Tarrian's own reproach rising in reply. He raised his hand in apology.