Roger Taylor - Ibryen

‘What?’ Marris exclaimed incredulously. ‘The Gevethen causing problems on the other side of the mountains?’

Ibryen’s brow furrowed. ‘No, obviously not. But perhaps the same… moving force, behind them. The same spirit. Am I right, Traveller?’

The Traveller did not reply.

‘I am right,’ Ibryen concluded. He put his hands to his temples. ‘Tell me the truth, Traveller, and tell me now. What did you just do to me? What did you do that gave me all these thoughts that are swirling round up here?’

The Traveller cast the briefest of glances up towards the mountains – a final parting, Ibryen thought – then met his gaze squarely. ‘I defended myself against you, that’s all. I’m sorry. It was a reflex.’

‘You never touched him,’ Marris burst out with a violent gesture of denial.

The Traveller ignored Marris’s anger, but spoke directly to him. ‘I told you – I’m from the line of the Sound Carvers, Corel Marris,’ he said. ‘The Song alone knows, I’ve few and poor skills as a Carver myself, but such as I have are beyond your attaining or even understanding. I’m not a warrior – I am what you see – small and weak, though I’m older than you might think – but when I’m threatened I use such tools as I have to defend myself.’

Marris turned to Ibryen for help.

‘Let him finish,’ Ibryen said.

The Traveller thought for a moment. ‘Just as a stone carver might defend himself with his mallet and chisel if he were suddenly attacked, so did I.’

‘You never touched him!’ Marris protested again, even louder than before.

Frowning, the Traveller reached up to touch the rolls of cloth in his ears, then he looked at Marris and opened his mouth. Marris immediately clamped his hands over his own ears and, with an oath, leapt to his feet and began looking round urgently at the mountains.

After a moment he cautiously lowered his hands.

‘What was that?’

‘What was what?’ Ibryen asked, looking up at him in some alarm.

‘That noise. Like a… rockfall… thunder. I’ve never heard anything like it!’

‘What noise? I heard nothing.’

‘But you must have!’

Ibryen shook his head.

The Traveller took Marris’s arm. ‘Only you heard it, Corel. Just as before only your Count heard something similar. It was me. My carver’s mallet and chisel,’ he said softly and with regret. ‘Not intended to be used as a weapon, but effective enough when need arises. All things can be used as weapons – you, above all, know that, warrior. The essence of a weapon lies in the intention of the user, not its maker.’

Curiously childlike, Marris allowed the little man to sit him back on the grassy bank. He clung to his litany. ‘You didn’t touch me. You didn’t touch Ibryen. I don’t understand.’

Ibryen watched them both, wide-eyed, struggling himself with what he had just seen and heard.

‘And I couldn’t explain,’ the Traveller went on. ‘It’d be easier for you to learn to speak to the birds and have one tell you how it flies than for me to tell you about the Carving. Easier by far. All you can do is accept me as I am. What you heard, you heard. And you alone. Just as before, only the Count heard.’ He picked a blade of grass and held it up. ‘Does it concern you that you don’t truly know how even this inconsequential thing has come to be? Why it is what it is? Why this shape, why this colour, why this place? No. You accept. This is all you can do with my poor skills.’

Marris looked from the Traveller to Ibryen and back again, then put his head in his hands. There was a long uncertain silence. ‘Perhaps there’s a sickness come into the place,’ he said eventually, half to himself. ‘A sickness to confuse our minds. I’ve heard it said that some can carry an illness without suffering it themselves. Is that what you are, Traveller, a plague bearer? A new horror sent by the Gevethen to drive us all into insanity?’

But there was none of the fear in his voice that should have accompanied such a question and, despite his own confusion, Ibryen frowned at his old friend’s pain. He turned to the Traveller. ‘Help him,’ he said.

‘I can’t,’ the Traveller replied. ‘Besides, he needs no help, any more than you do. He’s suffered change not hurt. He’s old in his body, not his heart – or his head. What I am and what I can do is a strain for most people to accept if they’re unfortunate enough to find out about it. That’s one of the reasons why I keep myself to myself. But if I’m any judge, you’re both too well-centred to avoid the reality of what you’ve experienced for too long, however strange it might be.’ His voice was unexpectedly resolute.

Marris neither moved nor replied. The Traveller sat down again. ‘Still, it’s better you know than not. Especially as it seems I must stay here.’

Ibryen tried to collect his thoughts. ‘I told you, you’re free to go,’ he said, still watching Marris, concerned.

‘You also told me why I have to stay,’ the Traveller replied. ‘You were right. There is a feeling about this place that’s very like what I found in Girnlant. A feeling that I’ve been finding increasingly, almost everywhere I go, now I think about it.’

Glad of something to focus on, Ibryen reiterated Marris’s comment. ‘The Gevethen couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with whatever happened in some country on the far side of the mountains. Apart from the fact that few here have even heard of Girnlant, the Gevethen have been here for twenty odd years and they rarely leave the Citadel, let alone the country.’

‘I know that,’ the Traveller said impatiently. ‘What did you say? The same moving force – the same spirit. Didn’t I tell you, back in your Council Hall, I’ve had a feeling of an unease creeping into the world. A feeling of something awful returning. Something that was described on the Great Gate. Marris and you aren’t the only ones struggling with change – that’s why I was travelling with a destination in mind for once.’ He tilted his head back, as if scenting the air. ‘You were right. It’s here too. I feel it in every word you speak. The resonances of these Gevethen of yours cling to you and stink of it. How couldn’t I have heard it before?’

‘I was talking without thinking,’ Ibryen retorted, increasingly disconcerted by the Traveller’s words and concerned about Marris’s stillness.

‘You were speaking your thoughts as they came to you,’ the Traveller announced.

Ibryen ignored the remark. ‘Marris, for pity’s sake, what’s the matter?’

‘Give him a minute, and he’ll be…’ the Traveller interrupted.

Ibryen rounded on him. ‘Damn you, shut up… ’

Marris suddenly straightened up, then leaned back on the grass, taking his weight on his elbows.

‘Are you all right?’ Ibryen asked.

Marris looked up at the clouds drifting slowly overhead, and then down at his hands, resting on the grass. Idly he pushed a solitary blade from side to side with his forefinger. ‘Yes, I think I am,’ he said. ‘Bewildered and confused. And with more questions than answers, but yes, I’m all right.’ He looked at Ibryen. ‘And you, Count,’ he said. ‘Are you all right after what you’ve just heard?’

Ibryen did not reply.

Marris plucked the blade of grass then sat up and rested his chin in his hand. ‘That noise you made – or made me hear, Traveller – the rockfall. Brought back memories. Thoughts I haven’t had in years.’ He smiled to himself. ‘When I was a child, I used to think what could be the smallest thing that would start an avalanche. What could it possibly be that would send boulders the size of a house crashing down a mountainside? I remember I decided in the end that it might be nothing more than dust blown by the wind.’ He held his thumb and forefinger slightly apart. ‘One tiny speck rolls into its neighbours, which roll into their neighbours, and so on and so on until down comes everything. Then I thought, but what could cause the breeze?’ He pursed his lips and blew the blade of grass from his extended palm. It twisted and turned erratically as it floated to the ground to meet its approaching shadow. ‘Then I gave up. So many tiny things, each smaller than the last, where could it possibly end?’