Roger Taylor - Ibryen

Unexpectedly, he smiled. The smile was strained, however. ‘But where’s it left us, apart from dazzled? We can do nothing about Iscar’s message other than at once celebrate and grieve, though I can try to encourage and hearten my people with a few words.’ He tapped the papers that lay spread on the table in front of Marris, untouched. ‘But while we must conduct ourselves as before, for our safety’s sake, we do need a completely new strategy… one which cannot be attained by continuing as before. A paradox. So we must look for the way that can’t exist, mustn’t we?’ The Traveller looked uneasy. Ibryen did not release him. ‘How should I attend to the message that you’ve brought, Traveller?’

The little man hesitated. ‘I doubt I’m the one to advise you in such matters, Count,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m not…’

‘… used to people.’ Ibryen finished his plea for him. ‘Yes, I know. You’ve mentioned that once or twice already. Nor are you a soldier. But most of the people in these mountains who are fighting for me weren’t soldiers when they arrived, so that’s of little consequence. The fact is, the wind that brought you here, left you. Tell me again the message you heard, and tell me what I must do.’

Marris looked at him anxiously, increasingly concerned about the direction of the conversation. For a moment, the Traveller looked as if he was considering fleeing the Hall, but it passed. ‘I don’t know what you must do, Count, but the message, more and more clear to me now as I look back, was, “Help me. I am nearly spent.”’

Ibryen leaned forward intently. ‘You said that what you heard was hung about with the aura of the Culmadryen.’ He laid a hand on the papers. ‘I have to read between the lines of these letters to see into the hearts of my people and discover the truth. Now, tell me everything about what you heard so that out of the plethora of change that’s swept over us today I can perhaps find one small thing that will point me towards a right action.’

Marris’s gaze flickered between the two men.

The Traveller sniffed and shook his head. ‘I don’t think I can,’ he said weakly.

Ibryen was unyielding. ‘You’ve no choice. You must tell me what you know for sure, and what you think, however unsure, and any speculation that comes to mind. You must tell me everything whether you think I’ll understand or not.’

The Traveller did what Marris had assiduously been avoiding doing, he drummed a flurrying tattoo on the table with his fingers. It ended with a resounding slap. Ibryen waited, his gaze allowing the Traveller no escape.

‘What I know for sure I’ve told you,’ he said eventually. ‘The call was faint and distant, rising and falling on the wind and echoing and re-echoing off the crags and pinnacles, but it was plain and simple, and it was crying for help.’

‘A sound?’ Ibryen asked.

The Traveller frowned. ‘Of course it was a sound, what else could I hear?’ He relented abruptly with a moue of self-reproach. ‘But not such as you could hear, I think, nor in a language that you could understand.’

‘What language was it in?’

The Traveller gave a chuckle like a parent being asked an honest but impossibly taxing question by a child. ‘I’m not as my forebears were, Count, but like them, and unlike you, I’m not separated from my own, or, for that matter, from many other things, by the limitations of language as you know it. What I heard was spoken in what you would call the language of the Culmaren.’ Strange resonances filled the word ‘spoken’, bringing together song and rhythm and dance and joining and many other images into a totality of meanings which made both Ibryen and Marris catch their breaths.

Ibryen closed his eyes and lowered his head, moved by what he had just felt and floundering for words that would carry him forward. When he looked up he spoke slowly, carefully, for fear that such clarity as he had would stumble over some facile phrase and slip away from him.

‘The Culmaren are the… clouds… on which the Dryenvolk build their cities?’ he laboured.

The Traveller nodded. He too was listening intently, partner in Ibryen’s caution. ‘They look like clouds, but…’ He abandoned the explanation. ‘The Dryenvolk don’t build,’ he said. ‘They shape, they form, they tend and – you would perhaps use the word, grow – their cities – their lands – from the Culmaren.’

Ibryen frowned and struggled on. ‘Why would such… a thing… such a huge thing… be crying out in distress in our mountains?’ He gestured towards Marris though he kept his gaze on the Traveller. ‘Marris has seen one of these cloud lands, but only once, and I’ve never even heard of one passing over Nesdiryn, or over any of our neighbours for that matter. How can it be that one of them is now so near to us and apparently suffering in some way, with none of us having seen any sign of it?’

Now it was the Traveller who was struggling. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve met and spoken with Dryenvolk on occasions, but I know very little about them. As to the Culmaren, they themselves admit that their own understanding is marked more by ignorance than knowledge, and I’ve only the merest fraction of the knowledge that they have. However, such as it is, I’ll tell you, but expect no great revelation.’ He gave Ibryen a schoolmasterly look. ‘The Culmaren is both a whole and many parts just like… a tree… or a person. But unlike a tree… or us… each part is also a whole in itself, sentient after its way, and quite entire. It can take many forms seemingly at its own will, and in the hands of those who know how to use it. Many forms. But it’s deeply mysterious and, I suspect, its true nature’s far beyond the understanding of anyone of this world. And the bond, the affinity, between the Culmaren and the Dryenvolk is scarcely less strange. I’d call it a caring, but the word is inadequate. And perhaps it’s more a need, a mutual need.’ He gave a shrug and waved his hands dismissively. ‘I don’t know. I’m weaving a tale now, speculating not instructing. I’m sorry.’

He was abruptly silent, but as Ibryen made to speak, he began again. ‘Now, you tell me what it was that you heard – that took you up on to the ridge to the alarm of your adviser here?’

Ibryen started a little at this sudden counter-thrust. ‘I…’ he began, with a stammer. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘No,’ the Traveller declared, schoolmasterly again and refusing the answer. ‘You must. You must.’

Marris, still watching in silent concern and forcing himself to listen with as open a mind as he could, felt himself torn between indignation and amusement at this insistent harrying of his Lord.

The Traveller’s words pinioned Ibryen, wilfully burdening him with a duty to explain as the Traveller had explained. ‘But I heard nothing… plain and simple,’ he said, pleading mitigation in advance and using the Traveller’s own words. A flick of the Traveller’s hands hurried him on relentlessly. ‘Indeed, I heard nothing. I was just disturbed – made uneasy.’ He was almost spluttering. ‘It was as though something inside of me was demanding attention. Sometimes it was clear and sharp, at others, vague and elusive.’ He threw up his hands. ‘This is impossible!’ he exclaimed.

‘I’ll decide what’s impossible,’ the Traveller said powerfully, almost menacing now. ‘There’s more in your words than you know. Finish them.’

The two men stared at one another.

‘Finish!’ the Traveller snapped, ending and winning the duel.

Ibryen turned his head away for a moment, then went on as if he had never stopped. ‘When it was clear, there seemed to be a need in it – an urgency. It wanted something. When it was vague, it was as though I could… sense… without hearing, many voices crying out.’ He fell silent.