Roger Taylor - Whistler

‘I don’t know whether I’m more or less frightened after hearing that,’ she confessed. ‘You really did go into his dream, didn’t you?’

‘I’ll answer your question for you,’ Vredech said. ‘You’re less frightened, because now you don’t have to be quite so fearful for my sanity. You’re also more frightened, because you’ve never known or heard the like before, and you don’t know what’s happening or how.’

‘All I need is your Whistler to come through the door,’ Nertha said, self-mocking.

Vredech smiled and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘You’d be wondering then whether you, too, had gone insane.’

Nertha reflected his smile then gently admonished him. ‘Enough,’ she whispered. ‘We shouldn’t be talking like this after what we’ve just heard.’

Vredech turned towards Iryn and Yan-Elter. Just as he and Nertha were engaged in a subdued conversation, so were the two brothers.

‘An idle street lout,’ he said. ‘The family misfit. Slipped through caring hands – or jumped, perhaps. Destined for some twilight life at the fringes of our society, and probably prison in the end. But now a murderer under Cassraw’s tutelage. As clear a measure of Cassraw’s corruption as my telling of his dream was of my own strange… ability.’ He looked back to Nertha. ‘You prefer things to be hard-edged, don’t you?’ he said.

Nertha met his gaze. ‘I’d prefer some things never to be,’ she said. ‘But yes, given that they are, the more signs point the way, the happier I feel about the direction I’m travelling.’

Vredech took up the analogy. ‘Have you thought about what direction Canol Madreth’s travelling in?’ he asked.

‘Towards war and horror,’ Nertha replied simply. ‘It’ll take the Felden some time to gather their army together, but when they do they’ll come for revenge, I’m sure. And if Cassraw can fire the militia as he fired these Knights of his, then whatever the outcome, there’ll be blood spilt and hatred ignited that’ll go down through the ages even when the original cause has been long forgotten. Children unborn are already dying of it.’

Vredech shivered at this cruel analysis.

‘And where does that leave us?’ he asked. ‘You and me? The people who know.’

Nertha looked at him for a long time. ‘Other than being desperately afraid of what’s going to happen and the speed of what’s actually happening, I don’t know.’ She did not carry helplessness well.

‘Yes,’ Vredech whispered very softly. Then he stood up and walked over to a sideboard. He opened a drawer and after a clumsy search in the comparative darkness, found what he was looking for. He returned to Nertha and gave it to her.

‘I’ve a small medical problem I’d like your help with,’ he said.

‘It’s Father’s militia knife,’ she said, smiling as she recognized it. She took the knife from its sheath and tested the edge. ‘Good as ever. He’d shave with this sometimes just to show off and give us all a fright, do you remember?’ Her smile faded and she looked at Vredech anxiously. ‘What do you mean, a small medical problem? And what have you got this out for?’

Vredech glanced at Yan-Elter and Iryn, then took the knife from Nertha’s unresisting hand. He spoke softly but very deliberately. ‘I’m as responsible for those deaths at Bredill as that lad over there. I’m going to take some advice I was given a little time ago but which in my priestly wisdom I chose to ignore. I’ll listen to yours, however, and follow it carefully.’

He looked down at the knife, its blade glinting in the firelight. ‘I need to know, Physician, the quickest and most effective way of using this to kill Cassraw.’

It was raining again the following day, a fine vertical drizzle that soaked only a little more slowly than a summer downpour. Grey clouds descended to obscure the mountain tops and to sustain the soft mists that were greying everything else.

But for all the dampness in the air, Troidmallos was alive with activity. Privv’s Sheets were everywhere, proclaiming the Chosen One, waxing rapturously about the miracle that had been shown to the assembled throng on the Ervrin Mallos, announcing the call for the levying of the militia, and eulogizing both Mueran and Marash as martyrs to the new Canol Madreth that was imminent, and that was to be the heart of a united Gyronlandt. They even risked suggesting that, in the wake of the Chosen One, there might be the Second Coming of Ishryth himself.

‘I don’t think there’s anything even in the wilder reaches of the Santyth about that,’ Leck offered tentatively when Privv, riding high on creative hyperbole, had mooted this. She stretched herself. Privv pondered long and hard about her observation, this being so serious a matter, but by the time Leck had finished stretching, he had decided to include it. It was, after all, quite consistent with his normal policy of never allowing facts to stand in the way of his deathless prose.

Needless to say, Privv himself had not actually been present at Cassraw’s service – there were limits even to his sense of duty towards seeking out the truth, and climbing the Ervrin Mallos was one. Besides, the mounting burdens of his vocation were leaving him ever more exhausted.

In addition to his rhetoric about Cassraw, he also inveighed against the weakness and confusion in the Heindral, and made strident demands for strong and resolute leadership. Untypically, he had allowed Toom Drommel to assist him with that. Drommel had an excellent range of determined adjectives.

The whole, of course, had passed Cassraw’s scrutiny and been found good.

The Sheets fed acid into the streams of gossip that were corroding the town. Where there had been indifference, the Sheets turned it into concern, where concern, fear – and where fear, near panic.

Not that everyone was in agreement with the way in which developing events should be handled, but following the Felden invasion and the Battle of Bredill, none could gainsay the need to levy the militia, and under this unanimity there developed an insidious reluctance to raise any voice in dissent.

Throughout Troidmallos and its immediate neighbours, such individuals who had not already been galvanized by the mounting tension were now drawn in. Few darkened corners escaped scrutiny in the search for long-forgotten weaponry and equipment. Fletchers and bowyers were suddenly inundated with work, as were blacksmiths and all other tradesmen whose goods were to be found listed in the Annex to the Militia Statute.

Not that these activities carried any frisson of excitement or celebration. As the dark clouds had infected Cassraw, so now his actions spread a subtler darkness. The atmosphere pervading the town was one of fear. And growing out of the fear, vigorous and strong, came unreason and mindless anger. Skynner was obliged to redeploy many of his men to guard the premises of companies who traded with Tirfelden, as the dregs of Madren society began to cling together and rise to the surface, their ignorance and general ineptitude re-forged into raucous self-righteousness. Such Keepers as were not involved in the consequences of this sudden awakening of social conscience were occupied in dealing with innumerable domestic squabbles and public altercations – not least in the premises of the tradesmen who found themselves so suddenly in demand.

Though harassed, however, Skynner was almost relieved at this activity as it kept his mind from dwelling on the implications of his meeting with the Chief and Toom Drommel. He was uncertain which boded the worst: their assumption that they could use Cassraw to play some game of their own, or their actually believing in him. Not that he could keep such thoughts at bay all the time, and whenever they returned to him, he found himself glancing up towards the summit of the Ervrin Mallos. It was shrouded in mist, but he sensed that had he been able to see it, the strange haze that had grown there and then had briefly faded, would be present again, probably more pronounced than ever. For the first time in many years he began to get stomach-ache.