Roger Taylor - Ibryen

Harik indicated a door. ‘He’s in there, with your Guards. I only had time for a cursory examination when he arrived. I’m going to have a proper look at him now. He seems to have had a severe blow to the head. He may not regain consciousness, and if he does there’s no guarantee he’ll remember what happened.’

‘You must do whatever’s…’

Helsarn’s words froze as Harik’s gaze fixed him again. There was no mistaking the anger in it, for all that it was gone almost immediately. He left the sentence unfinished. The driver was in secure hands and he could be dealt with any time. All that mattered now was being ready for the Gevethen’s response to what had happened.

When Helsarn had left, Harik began cleaning the examination table. Part way through he stopped and his impassive face became briefly both tragic and triumphant. ‘Still there,’ he said, very softly. ‘Strength lying unseen. Still there. Waiting for the right key.’ Then he was himself again, cleaning up the debris left by the Lord Counsellor Hagen.

Helsarn was not unrelieved to be leaving Harik’s rooms. The atmosphere of the place still tugged him back to times long gone and he did not like it. As he and the men carrying the stretcher returned to the inner courtyard, he felt the old associations drop away from him. In their place came a renewed unease. It took him only a moment to realize what it was. Silence. Normally the Citadel was alive with activity as officials, Guards, servants went about their business. In addition, he felt as though he were being watched. That, however, was no great mystery. He was being watched. As he glanced around at the buildings lining the courtyard, faces quickly vanished from almost every window.

It occurred to him then, that the silence was wrong. Gidlon must have informed the Gevethen about what had happened by now. There should have been a massive response. Why wasn’t the Citadel alive with the sound of clattering feet and rattling weapons as the Guards prepared to set out on a major purge?

A deep, echoing boom scattered his thoughts and made him jump violently. Though he had not heard it for many years, he recognized it immediately. It was the great Dohrum Bell, a growling, unbalanced and ill-tuned monster that hung from the rafters of the Citadel’s main tower. It had not been rung for so long because the vibrations it caused shook the very fabric of the tower itself. Now however, its rumbling tones seemed appropriate to the event.

Nine times it tolled, and when it fell silent its fading resonances seemed to draw time after them, stretching each measuring heartbeat out into an eternity.

Helsarn and the stretcher-bearers had slowly come to a halt as the bell rang, and now stood motionless in the middle of the courtyard. He was about to order them to move off again when a high-pitched voice, cold, gratingly soft and quite unmistakable, folded itself around him. It merged with and was followed by another.

‘Carry him on your shoulders, my children…’

‘… my children.’

‘Such as he should not ride so near the dusty earth…’

‘… the dusty earth.’

Helsarn stiffened as he turned towards the voices, then slowly dropped down on to one knee and lowered his head in submission. Standing at the top of a broad flight of steps leading to an ornately canopied doorway, their mirror-bearers about them, stood the Gevethen.

Ibryen found the crowd in the same mood as Hynard and Rachyl when he reached it. A bubbling mixture of anger and guilt and no small amount of fear that a stranger should have apparently breached their careful defences.

He did not dismount, but beat down their many questions with a forceful gesture.

‘I don’t know who this man is or how he came here,’ he shouted. ‘But he’s come down off the ridge of his own free will when he could easily have fled, and for what it’s worth, my feeling is that he’s no enemy.’

His words addressed their fears, but did not allay them, and the questions surged up again. He became sterner. ‘What I learn, you’ll learn, in so far as it’s safe for many to know, as with everything we do,’ he said. ‘But I’ll need to question him carefully and at length. For the time being he thinks he’s a guest and he’ll be treated as such…’ There were cries of disbelief and some scornful laughter. Ibryen scowled. ‘That he’s here at all tells you he’s someone unusual,’ he said forcefully. ‘Perhaps our defences are not what we thought. Perhaps some of us may have earned a reproach for carelessness. I don’t know. I’d have sworn not, only a few hours ago, but I’ll find out more and quicker if this man is treated as a would-be ally than as a definite foe.’

It was not a popular conclusion, but the questioning faded into an uneasy silence.

Ibryen moved his horse to start shepherding the crowd back down the hill.

‘Go back to your normal duties now, there’s nothing to be done here.’ There was still some hesitancy. He paused, and looked at the crowd intently. His voice was kinder, more resigned, when he spoke. ‘Besides, guest or no, enemy or no, he’s confined to the valley now, like the rest of us. He’ll not leave until we all leave.’ He twisted round in his saddle and pointed back to the approaching trio. ‘Unless you think he’s capable of escaping from Rachyl’s care,’ he added, grinning. All eyes turned towards the approaching Traveller and his escort. Rachyl was taller than Ibryen and powerful as only a woman so inclined can be. Few of the men in the valley would have aspired to match her combination of strength, mobile athleticism and sheer brutality in unarmed combat. Even fewer would have been inclined to match her armed. The sight of the Traveller’s slight frame between Rachyl and Hynard – himself not a small man – together with Ibryen’s abrupt change of manner broke what tension there was left in the crowd and it began to disperse.

Ibryen rode on down towards the village, motioning the growing number of new arrivals to turn about. Just before he reached the village he saw the form he had been expecting from the beginning. He reined his horse to a halt and dismounted.

‘Someone woke you,’ he grinned.

‘How can a man sleep when his Lord prowls about the night, climbs alone to the ridge and then returns with a stranger?’ Marris replied. ‘Not to mention the din of the entire village talking about it. I’d be surprised if they don’t hear it in Dirynhald.’

Ibryen’s lightness vanished and he laid a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. Gently he turned him round and began walking with him towards the village, leading his horse. ‘I prowled the camp last night because something was troubling me. While I was thinking about it, I took the opportunity to test some of the sentries. They were awake and alert. Then I went up on to the ridge because I was still troubled.’ He made his voice reassuring. ‘It was no foolish act. I was careful and I knew that even if I didn’t solve my… problem… I’d at least be able to see the state of the passes. Incidentally, they’re clearing rapidly, we must extend the posts again.’ Marris’s face began to wrinkle irritably at what he took to be a distracting ploy. Ibryen made a gesture which asked him to be patient, then told him quickly and without embellishment, of his encounter with the Traveller.

Marris’s eyes opened wide. ‘From the south? ’ he said. ‘Ye gods, it’s not possible. He must be some kind of spy. Some foreign mercenary the Gevethen have found. An assassin.’

Ibryen shrugged slightly. ‘Except for the fact that he could have killed me while I was half-dozing in the sun, and he didn’t.’

‘He was that close?’ There was both concern and reproach in the question.