Roger Taylor: Ibryen

As he looked up, he saw a solitary hand protruding from between the mirrors. And still he could feel the Gevethen’s malevolent power reaching out to him.

He cut off the hand.

Still clawing, it moved almost two paces towards him before it stopped.

There was a fearful, echoing scream, then the mirrors came together and, with a sound like a long sigh, they bent and twisted and folded, and were gone.

Faintly, Ibryen heard dogs barking and a woman’s triumphant laughter. Part of him reached briefly into the fading world where they were and touched them. It was a healing touch – a blessing.

Then they too were gone.

As was the darkness as the black fabric of the canopy floated to the ground. Ibryen needed to examine no bodies to know that the mirror-bearers and the Gevethen’s other servants had died with their masters. The morning light washed over their enslaved bodies, now finally free.

As Ibryen came fully to himself he instinctively braced himself for combat. The Gevethen might be gone, but danger was still around him. The collapse of the canopy and the disappearance of the Gevethen however, merely completed the disintegration of the army and few even noticed him as he walked towards his followers. None raised a hand against him.

None save Vintre.

Ibryen saw him approaching and knew that he was virtually defenceless. Even had he not been drained from his ordeal, he was no match for Vintre, a skilled and vicious fighter. He levelled his sword at him.

‘Put down your sword and surrender,’ he shouted. ‘You know you’ll get a fair trial from me.’

‘I’ll forego the pleasure of that, Count .’ Vintre spat the word. ‘There are always people who value the kind of skills I have. I just want the satisfaction of killing you then I’ll fade into the crowd here.’

‘No!’

Vintre looked casually over his shoulder. Rachyl, sword drawn, was walking down a slope towards him. ‘You said I might be needed later,’ she said.

Vintre waved a dismissive arm and, with a sneer, turned back to Ibryen.

‘Don’t turn away from me, you rat’s vomit,’ Rachyl blasted. ‘Or are you too afraid to face me?’

Vintre’s eyes narrowed and he turned again.

‘You first, then, girl. I’d rather have had some fun with you before I finished you off but this’ll be as good.’ He took his sword in both hands and waited with scornful patience. Suddenly, with an incongruous little cry, Rachyl tripped. Arms flailing wildly, she took two ungainly strides but failed to catch her balance. The third stride sent her headlong down the slope. Vintre’s lips curled in derision and he raised his sword to strike her when she had stopped. Rachyl’s fall however, proved to be a wilful dive, and before Vintre could react she had rolled up on to her feet and run her sword clean through him in a single movement.

Gripping his sword hilt, for fear of any dying stroke, Rachyl looked at his face, riven with both shock and rage. He was trying to say something.

‘Bitch, is the word you’re looking for, Captain,’ she said. Then she yanked her sword free and dropped him.

It was the last killing that day.

In the days immediately following the destruction of the Gevethen, there was much disorder as the largely conscripted army disintegrated together with a great deal of what passed for Nesdiryn’s civil administration. Many old scores were brutally settled. It was thus more than fortunate that Isgyrn’s Culmadryen arrived and came to rest over the mountains. Visible even from parts of the city, its glittering tower and spires slowly changed and shifted at the touch of the sun and the wind, while beneath it, like the white haze of a distant snowstorm, the Culmaren reached down to touch the highest peaks, drawing such that it needed from them, yet leaving them apparently unchanged. It was a sight to instil awe and silence in the most garrulous, though talk of it was to last for generations. Its massive and mysterious presence seemed to spread a strange balm over the Dirynvolk as they looked up in their pain to find themselves free again, and when eventually it was gone, the horror of the memory of the Gevethen’s rule was less.

Ibryen’s return to Dirynhald was deliberately unspectacular. He knew that after the years of the Gevethen’s domination it would be a long time before his country bore any resemblance to the one he had been ousted from, and that progress towards it would be best achieved slowly and quietly.

His first concern was that justice should forestall retribution and, to that end, only the more conspicuous of the Gevethen’s followers were immediately arrested. As is the way with such people however, several were not to be found, not least amongst them being Helsarn. Reading matters more shrewdly than his erstwhile ally, Vintre, and also being sorely shaken by what had happened to him in front of the Gevethen’s mirror, the Commander had shed his uniform and quietly slipped away with the rapidly dispersing army.

Those, such as Iscar who had worked to aid Ibryen from within, were duly honoured. Iscar not least for his assault on the virtually abandoned Citadel with a group of his followers even before news of the destruction of the Gevethen reached them. They tore down the shutters and sealed curtains and uncovered many of the mirrorways to flush the darkness from the place, it being their desperate intention to hold the place no matter what transpired in the mountains. It is said that it was the light that Iscar introduced into the Watching Chamber as much as the sunlight from Isgyrn’s sword that destroyed the Gevethen’s device, for all the mirrors there shattered on the instant.

Harik continued as the Citadel Physician and continued to affect an indifference to the changed regime, though his manner became noticeably easier.

Jeyan’s name too was honoured, and the memory of her dogs, though none knew their names.

Floating high above his village, Ibryen gazed down at it yet again.

‘Well hidden,’ he said. ‘It served its purpose well. We mustn’t forget it.’

To the north he could clearly see Dirynhald with the Citadel at its heart while to the south there hung the Culmadryen. He shook his head as he looked at it.

‘There are words for it, Ibryen,’ the Traveller said. ‘But silence is the best in your language.’

‘I’m sorry that you could not come to my land,’ Isgyrn said. ‘But it is too high. The lack of air would distress you. Perhaps when Svara’s will has carried us here again our Seekers will have found a way for you to come there.’ He leaned forward confidentially and patted his chest. ‘They’re doing a deal of thinking about me, I can tell you.’

Ibryen looked round at the cloud-island he was standing on. It was a bewildering place, with its strange terrain and unexpectedly angular buildings which constantly moved so that within the space of a few hours, one that had been at the top of a small hill, would be at the bottom of it. He could not make out how they had been built, but they were beautiful, shining silver and gold and white. Yet, for all their brightness, it was no strain to look at them, for there was an iridescence about the whiteness, and many subtle shadows about the whole that protected the eye. Amongst many other strange skills that they possessed, the Dryenvolk seemed to have a rare way with light, Ibryen mused.

He and his friends had been brought there by Isgyrn’s Soarers, hanging from their brilliantly coloured Culmaren wings, for all the world like great gliding birds, yet as agile in the air as ravens. The journey had been a nerve-wracking prospect, and all freely admitted to taking at least the first part of it with both eyes tightly closed, despite being securely held. Subsequent to that however, it had been difficult for Isgyrn to persuade them to call an end to their swooping flights about the peaks and the valleys and to join the celebration that had been prepared on the island. Their hard-learned discipline of silence vanished that day and their excitement was a source of great amusement to the Soarers.