Roger Taylor - Ibryen

The Traveller hummed to himself, his brow furrowed. ‘Is it with you now?’ he asked eventually.

Ibryen gave a rueful grunt. ‘It was at the limit of my perception when I lay alone in the darkest part of the night, and when I was surrounded by the stillness of the mountains. Now, there’s too much turmoil, too much upheaval.’

‘I could still it for you,’ the Traveller said. ‘Quieten the turmoil. Let you listen in peace.’

‘No!’

It was Marris. His elbow resting on the table, he levelled a finger at the little man, though his words were for the benefit of Ibryen. ‘You’ll get courtesy and honourable treatment from me until the Count says otherwise, but you’ll get no trust – few do. You’re getting further and further into our ways, but we’ve still got to find out whether you’re who you say you are, or at least, whether you’ve come here from the south as you claim. And as for this… gift… of yours, that’s beyond me utterly and you’ll do nothing until I’ve got the measure of what deceits you can practise with it.’

Ibryen’s face was impassive. Marris’s warning was timely.

‘It was only a suggestion,’ the Traveller protested in an injured tone. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s going on?’

‘Yes I do, very much,’ Marris retorted. ‘And I want to hear someone telling me about it, as you said, plain and simple, without any descant from you.’

‘It’s not going to be that simple.’

‘Make it so.’ Marris’s conclusion was of parade ground finality.

The Traveller conspicuously refrained from replying, but turned his attention again to Ibryen. ‘Is there anything else that comes to you when you think about the call you heard?’

Ibryen shook his head. ‘No.’ The Traveller’s head tilted at the equivocation in his voice, but he made no prompt. ‘Though there was a quality about it that was oddly beautiful at times.’ He frowned, patently reluctant to say what came next. ‘But it came and went so independently. It was so indisputably at once inside and beyond me, that more than once I had doubts about my sanity.’

Marris half reached out to lay a reassuring hand on his arm, but left the movement unfinished.

‘It’s odd,’ Ibryen went on. ‘What’s happened over the last few hours would give anyone cause to doubt their sanity, but I’m easier in my mind than I’ve been for days. More confused and bewildered and even alarmed, I’ll grant, but still easier. Rachyl, Hynard, you…’ He motioned to Marris, then extended his hand casually to embrace the whole Hall. ‘Everything about us and everything that’s brought us to this time, is so solid and sustaining. A single burrowing doubt nurtured in my own darkness might have brought me low, but all this isn’t so easily destroyed.’ He ended his declamation with an airy wave.

‘Anyway, I’ve done as you asked,’ he said to the Traveller. ‘Told you what I can, as best I can. Now…’ He leaned forward and his eyes were piercing. ‘… Whoever you are, you’ve clattered through my thoughts like a mad horse in a market place, and they’re far from recovered yet, though you’ve done me no harm that I can see, other than wind me. Now I’ve deliberately set words in stone by telling Iscar what I did. Done it in complete ignorance of what I was going to do, but in complete faith that something was imminent. My judgement, not yours. But now I have to find that something. Turn conjecture and speculation and airy phrases into hard-edged practical details that can be measured in fighters, resources, plans and counter-plans. Details which my people can see leading us to the Gevethen’s heart. You must help me in this.’

The Traveller had held his gaze throughout, although his eyes were unfocused, as though his entire concentration was elsewhere. As Ibryen finished, life returned to them. He shook his head unhappily. ‘I can’t help you further,’ he said. ‘I…’

Anger broke through on to Ibryen’s face and his fist thumped the table. ‘You can! You must! Despite all that’s happened since I met you, all I really have now that I didn’t have before is the soft silver thread of the call that reached into my sleeping hours and drew me up on to the ridge. And you’re the only…’

The Traveller stopped him with a sharp gesture, his face lighting with realization. ‘Silver thread,’ he echoed. The words flew up into the arched silence and shimmered around the Hall like tiny excited birds. They returned and hovered about him, waiting, breathless. ‘Soft silver thread,’ he repeated, looking at Ibryen as though he had never seen him before. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A way is there. Perhaps. I’ll help you find it.’ He glanced at Marris. ‘But I doubt you’ll like what I have to say. And as to where it will lead…’

He shrugged.

Everything was pain.

Jeyan stumbled and fell as the rope about her ankle suddenly tautened again. Harsh cords biting into her wrists prevented her from breaking her fall and only at the last moment did she manage to twist round and take the impact on her arm and side instead of her face. Exhausted from the chase, howling inside at the death of her companions, and throbbing from the blows she had received, the fall winded her and she made no effort to rise. Instead, she closed her eyes in the hope that she would never have to open them again.

The mood, however, was transitory and, as a tugging at her ankle brought her back to the bright day and the silent Ennerhald, it was replaced by a black and vengeful hate. She rolled over to face her tormentor. As previously, she had been brought down because he too, had stumbled. She tried to kick him as he struggled to rise, but her legs were leaden and would not respond.

Had she been able to deliver a blow of any power, the soldier could not have stopped her, for the gash that she had slashed in his arm was long and deep and was bleeding profusely despite his attempts to bind it. His strength was failing almost as fast as hers.

Seeing both his comrades and the two dogs slain in the narrow alley, and having managed to subdue the object of his pursuit, the soldier’s immediate intention had been to kill Jeyan. But the pursuit, the two dead bodies and the wound in his arm bore graphic witness to this individual’s ferocity and cunning; however improbable it seemed, this scrawny youth must indeed have been Hagen’s assassin. To kill such a person in battle anger would be to deprive the Gevethen of their prey – and that could bring untold consequences down upon him against which no plea would be heard. But to return with Hagen’s murderer bound and helpless; that was another matter. There would be reward for that indeed. And now, two less with whom to share it.

Whether it was fear or greed that motivated him, the intention to deliver his prisoner alive was now firmly locked into his mind and, despite his weakening condition, a determination, fully the match of Jeyan’s own, was keeping him moving forward.

He had fastened the rope around Jeyan’s ankle to his belt, as a precaution against dropping it, and as he scrambled painfully to his knees Jeyan managed to jerk it. He lurched forward, instinctively reaching out with both arms. The wounded arm collapsed as soon as it took his weight and he pitched forward with a cry as blood burst out of his crude bandage. Unfortunately, the effort had spent all Jeyan’s immediate resource and she could take no advantage of the situation. Instead, she rolled on to her back and gaped sightlessly at the blue sky fringed by the ragged canyon walls of the Ennerhald buildings.

A numbing blow struck her arm. The soldier had recovered and, lying on his back, he had been able to deliver a powerful kick. Somehow Jeyan did not cry out, but she arched up and made no effort to keep the pain from her face.