Roger Taylor - Whistler

He leaned back against the closed door and surveyed the room. Desk, books, furniture, pictures. All so familiar, resonating back into the past. Changed yet unchanged. And, by the window, a large copy of the Santyth on a lectern. He walked over and laid his hand gently on it. It seemed smaller somehow, yet the wisdom that it held and which had guided him for so long, remained. When this was over, he must read it again, with his new vision.

His fingers clawed up into a fist, scraping over the carved leather cover, as the thought came to him.

‘You must look to survive,’ Darke had said. ‘Don’t be afraid to look to tomorrow.’

He was right, of course. Slaying Cassraw was essential, but he must seek to survive so that afterwards he could explain – or great harm could still come to pass. Yet, try as he might, Vredech could not see beyond the deed. All roads led him to that point and ended there.

‘There are no endings or beginnings, only change.’

That, too, was true, but of no value to him right now.

He was so afraid.

Gripping the edges of the book, he closed his eyes and bowed his head. ‘Ishryth, if this cannot be taken from me, give me the strength to do it.’

Silence.

No revelations came. No guiding quotation from the Santyth. No Whistler. Nothing. Just a black, all-enveloping cloud of fear, fringed about with swirls of bitter anger and resentment that he should be thus burdened.

He moved to his desk and spent a few minutes writing a letter. He laid it first on top of the desk, then changed his mind and placed it conspicuously in the central drawer. It would be found there eventually, and he certainly did not want Nertha to find it too soon. For a moment, thoughts of her almost overwhelmed him. Like so much else, his feelings for her had changed with a totality and suddenness that he could scarcely believe. Why should he not succumb to them? The two of them could flee now, ride away from Canol Madreth before Cassraw’s insanity possessed it completely. She was a skilled physician, he was… not beyond changing. They could find a quiet and useful life together in one of the other states of Gyronlandt. Nertha above all, would understand.

But even as the thoughts swept about him, racking him, tempting him, he remembered Darke and Tirec, figures in the mist, drawn here from a country far away. Their presence told him that neither time nor distance offered protection against the power that he called Ahmral, and that Gyronlandt itself was but a small part of a greater world. And, too, he knew that Ahmral existed even in those mysterious worlds Beyond – the worlds that were both here and not here, the worlds that should perhaps be inaccessible to mere mortals such as he.

There was no place where he could hide and not expect this evil to reach him eventually. And there was no place he could find quiet, knowing that he had turned away from the task that had fallen to him.

He closed the drawer gently and stood up. Then, with a final look around his room, he left.

Debate in the Heindral was nominally controlled by the leader of the majority party, though he was heavily constrained by precedent to ensure that each party was allowed time or speakers roughly in proportion to the number of seats they held. It was a system that worked adequately enough, though not infrequently a great deal of noise and acrimony was generated by it. On occasions such as this, however, when a respected member of the community was to address the Heindral on some formal or ceremonial matter, the Heinders could be quite impressively orderly. They would fall silent as the leader rose to his feet, and would listen attentively – or at least quietly – to the honoured speaker. Then they would generously applaud him and there would be fulsome speeches of appreciation from representatives of each party. It was the smug self-satisfaction of these occasions that the Heinders used to convince themselves that their normal behaviour was acceptable, its raucous fatuity invariably being attributable to the Heinders of ‘other parties’.

Vredech arrived quite early at the PlasHein. As Cassraw’s haste had wrought havoc with the protocol of the proceedings and thrown the PlasHein officers responsible for organizing such affairs into disarray, Vredech needed only the authority of his cloth to gain access. The chairs which lined the walls of the Debating Hall at the Witness House had been brought down during the night and placed in front of, but with their backs to, the podium from which Cassraw was to speak. This, at least, the officers had remembered, but only when carts began to appear bearing the chairs. The chairs were arranged thus so that the Covenant Member’s words, passing over the heads of the Chapter Members, were deemed to be those of the whole church.

Vredech took a seat to one side of the podium so that he would be able to stand up and move to the lectern where Cassraw would be standing, in a straight, unhindered line. He went through his proposed intention over and over. There were three steps up to the podium. From where he was sitting it was perhaps four paces to the lectern.

One, two, three, four…

One, two, three, four…

Over and over.

Darke’s advice stuck horribly in his mind.

Clear your mind of all doubts before you come close…

Come close before you draw the weapon…

Don’t hesitate – not for the blink of an eye…

It’s the only way – for both of you…

Over and over.

Could he do it?

How could he not do it? Cassraw was not Cassraw any more. He was a creature of Ahmral’s – a vessel, a harbinger, come to prepare the way for His coming. This was not a matter where he had any choice.

But…?

The word hung about him like a pleading child, clawing at him, bringing back to him long-forgotten memories – of growing up, of his time as a novice, of the time when he had supported Cassraw’s promotion. And, most cruelly, came thoughts of Nertha, his sister who was not a sister. Who was now…

Somehow he put the longing aside. It was not easy.

Don’t be afraid to look to tomorrow .

But…

He looked around at the people arriving. The public galleries were filling, rumbling footsteps echoing along the wooden floors overhead and mixing with the confused babble of voices. Heinders were drifting in and manoeuvring with practised familiarity for places on the long tiered benches. And Preaching Brothers were arriving also. Many of them Vredech knew, but he gave only the most cursory acknowledgement of such greetings as he received. The merest glance at their faces told him of the church already riven. There were smiles, frowns, looks of distress, of anxiety, of ambition, of conspiratorial neutrality. Studying them would serve no useful purpose. Very soon all these concerns would be changed.

One, two, three, four…

He did not know whether to be surprised or not that he could see no sign of Horld or Morem and others whom he would have expected to stand against Cassraw. Perhaps they had not heard of what was happening. After all, he had only heard by chance, and there had been no time for formal notification. It was appropriate, he mused. When ignorance and bigotry superseded reason, then gossip was as accurate a medium for its transmission as anything else. He gave their absence no serious thought. On the whole he was quite relieved when the seats beside and in front of him were filled with people he either did not know, or knew only casually. He wanted no debate with close colleagues now. He wanted Cassraw to arrive so that this horror could be ended. But more than that he wanted to be through to the other side of the awful fear that was consuming him. Through the darkness and into the light, whatever it revealed.