Roger Taylor - Ibryen

‘Ye gods.’ Marris’s stern expression cracked into amazement in spite of himself, and Ibryen’s eyebrows rose.

‘The Hummock! You’re sure?’ he asked, wilfully keeping his voice low.

‘We’re sure,’ Rachyl replied on Hynard’s behalf. ‘We had Seeing stones with us and everyone made damned certain about what they were looking at.’

The Traveller shuffled his feet uncomfortably. ‘I did tell you where I’d come from,’ he said weakly, adding again, ‘and I am used to mountains. Can we get on now?’

‘You did indeed tell us,’ Ibryen conceded, ignoring the request. ‘But you’ll understand our doubts, I’m sure. Had anyone asked me, I’d have said that in so far as any approach was even expected from the south, the Hummock was the best possible defence we could have had.’

Ibryen looked at his two cousins, Rachyl with her flushed and dirt-streaked face and Hynard, also only now cooling down after what must have been a rapid climb and descent. There was an unfamiliar uncertainty about them both. It was not difficult to surmise its cause. Sceptical and suspicious, at times almost to the point of obsession, they would have led their team up on to the South ridge largely convinced that nothing was going to be found and that the Traveller was beyond doubt some kind of spy. It would have been unsettling for them to find the first small indications that someone had been up there recently. And then to see the footprints still surviving in the snow on the Hummock! That must have been profoundly unnerving. He could see the members of the team on the ridge, looking and looking again across the Hummock in the hope that some other explanation might come to them before they accepted the reality of what they were seeing.

He must be careful with them. Rigid things shatter, he thought. It was an old memory. As a child he had had a formal training in arms as befitted his station and, for a little while, he had been taught by an old man who, though much respected by his peers, used techniques which were frighteningly effective yet strangely soft and subtle. He had never seen the like since and none of his subsequent instructors had made such an impression on him. ‘Relax. Let go. Only dead things are rigid,’ the old man used to say. ‘And rigid things shatter. Shatter suddenly.’ He would clap his hands explosively and laugh. He laughed a lot. Ibryen had enjoyed his training but had never understood what he was being taught, always throwing himself massively into either attack or defence, invariably to crushing defeat and always much to the old man’s amusement. ‘Don’t be upset,’ he would say. ‘What little I’ve truly taught you, you’ll understand when you need it. There’s no hurry. Some things can come only with time.’ Then he would always add, ‘But you’ve learned more than you realize.’ There had been a great affection between them and Ibryen had been deeply distressed when the old man had died. Even now, he often thought about him, always remembering his kindly ways but always too, with the feeling that an opportunity had slipped away from him which would not come again.

Yes, he must be careful with Rachyl and Hynard. Circumstances for his followers demanded a meticulous attention to the procedures that had grown up over the years. To veer away from them was to jeopardize the whole community. That was an article of faith. But had it become mere blind ritual? Had Rachyl and Hynard become strong, supple and well-founded like great trees, or had they become dead stumps, stiff and useless, mere obstructions to be walked around? Would they crumble and disintegrate into ineffectiveness at the wrong touch?

Patience, he counselled himself. Let them ease fully into the present. Put time between the now and the frightening discovery that there had been silent footsteps at their back.

‘Iscar’s been,’ he said abruptly. When the first rush of surprised exclamations petered out he motioned Marris to recount the reason for the premature visit.

Both reacted to the news of Hagen’s death with unfeigned and noisy delight, the only regret being from Rachyl who, like Marris, mourned the fact that she had not been able to kill him herself. Their mood sobered a little as Marris went on to tell them about the purging that had been set in train as a consequence, but still they were uplifted. This was a worthwhile blow, well struck.

‘What a pity they didn’t toll the Dohrum Bell a little more,’ Hynard exclaimed at one point, his face alight. ‘It might have brought the whole tower down on their wretched heads and solved all our problems at once.’ His dark humour was as infectious as it was inappropriate, the more so because the same idea had occurred to both Ibryen and Marris when Iscar had told them of the bell, though neither had voiced it.

Released in some way, Rachyl and Hynard simultaneously downed more water and then began to eat. Ibryen smiled. The footsteps along the Hummock were a little further away already.

‘What are we going to do with him, then?’ Ibryen asked into a lull that followed Marris’s telling and the subsequent questions. His cousins stop chewing and frowned at him. He flicked a hand towards the Traveller. Their four eyes followed his direction, then became uncertain again.

Hynard swallowed. ‘It takes some accepting, but he’s at least telling the truth about the direction he came from. I can’t say I trust him, but that’s no insult the way we are here. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ll even guard his back if he needs it.’

Ibryen looked expectantly at Rachyl.

‘And me,’ she said after a pause. Then she spoke to the Traveller directly, as if anxious to make amends for her earlier manner. ‘But you can’t leave.’ She waved the words aside apologetically. ‘I mean, you mustn’t leave. If you’re captured by the Gevethen’s men, they’ll torture you until you tell them everything.’

The Traveller smiled and, leaning across to her, took her extended hand. ‘Don’t fret,’ he said quietly. ‘When I go, it’ll be through the mountains. There’ll be no one there.’ Rachyl looked at him strangely then, with a slight start, withdrew her hand sharply and put it awkwardly in her lap. She cleared her throat.

‘What are you going to tell everyone about him?’ she asked Ibryen, hastily reverting to her usual forthright manner.

Ibryen glanced at Marris. One of the lanterns hissed and flickered briefly, trembling the edges of the shadows in the room. When he spoke, Ibryen’s voice was steady and careful. ‘I told you when the Traveller first arrived that things had happened of late that you weren’t privy to and that I needed your help and courage. That’s still the case.’ He outlined the assessment of their future in the valley as it had revealed itself to him through the day. Both of them protested at length, but the logic that had swayed Ibryen and Marris, eventually swayed them also. Time and attrition would destroy them as surely as an attack by overwhelming odds. It was a cold, frightening realization that dashed utterly their exhilaration at the news of Hagen’s death, and it left them in the same predicament as their leader. If their current strategy was destined inexorably to failure, what else could be done?

Ibryen did not let them languish. ‘Everything that’s happened to date has been necessary for us to reach this point. Have no doubts about that. We could have done nothing else. Now we’re ready for change, and we will do the following. Raids against the Gevethen’s troops will stop. We’ll simply continue to observe their…’

A protest from Rachyl stopped him but he held up a hand to silence her. ‘Listen! I don’t know what the next few weeks are going to bring, but we continue only with what is valuable from the past. We can’t afford to lower our guard, to slip into carelessness, but what is merely habit or convenience must be abandoned, and all minds must turn towards looking at events afresh.’