Roger Taylor - Ibryen

Isgyrn chuckled softly. ‘I’m afraid my instinct down here seems to be always to move upwards. But I’ll accept your judgement in such a decision.’

Ibryen leaned back over the bank and looked down into the water, now smooth again after the disturbance the two of them had made.

‘Well, I suppose…’ He stopped abruptly. Behind his reflection in the water was a great agitation, as though storm clouds had suddenly appeared in the sky. He cast a quick glance upwards for reassurance, but there was only the cloudless blue that there had been since they arrived. As he turned back, a sharp intake of breath from Isgyrn drew his attention. The Dryenwr was staring, wide-eyed, into the water.

Ibryen followed his gaze. Though the surface of the water was still smooth and untroubled, the turmoil in the reflected sky was growing, moving faster and faster. He started back in alarm, but his silhouetted reflection did not move. Disconcerted, he reached out a tentative hand to stir the water. A powerful grip seized his arm. It was Isgyrn.

‘It’s Him,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I can feel His presence. We must get away from here.’ He made to stand but Ibryen resisted, staring fixedly into the water.

‘For Svara’s sake, Ibryen…’

Isgyrn’s oath faded as the turbulence suddenly stopped and the reflection cleared. Except that where he and Ibryen had been staring up out of the gently rippling water, there were now the faces of the two Gevethen. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came. His gaping mouth was mimicked by the two moon faces.

Ibryen’s face was suddenly a mask of fear and rage. He reached for his sword but had scarcely begun to draw it when, like ghastly leaping fish, glittering and sparkling with what should have been cascading drops of water but which seemed more like a myriad shards of broken glass, four arms burst up through the water. The summer air filled with a terrible screeching. Ibryen’s head jerked back violently to avoid them, but one of the clawing hands caught the loose front of his tunic. Unbalanced, and arms flailing, he lurched forward as it dragged him down. Only one hand just catching the edge of the bank prevented him from plunging immediately into the water. His other hand thrashed wildly at the remaining three, still clawing out to reach him, but balanced as he was, he could not resist the pull of even the single hand for more than a moment. The screeching intensified.

Then, Isgyrn had wrapped determined arms around him and, with a great cry, was hurling himself backwards. For an eternal moment, it seemed that this effort was going to drag the Gevethen themselves across the worlds, as a cracked, crazed and glittering dome swelled up out of the water. Isgyrn had a fleeting vision of the two faces, distorted and awful, at once frantic and triumphant. Then the grip on Ibryen was gone and he and Ibryen were tumbling backwards on the grass. On the instant their roles were reversed and it was Ibryen who was on his feet and dragging a stumbling and shocked Isgyrn along. ‘This way! This way!’ he was crying.

And they were gone.

As were the Gevethen.

Both the Traveller and Rachyl cried out in alarm as the two motionless figures of Ibryen and Isgyrn burst suddenly into life and lurched forward, arms flailing.

The Traveller held out a hand to restrain Rachyl as she made to move forward to help. He spoke powerfully to the two gasping men. ‘You’re safe now. You’re back with us on the mountain.’ He had to say it several times before recognition came into their eyes.

Isgyrn reached out and took hold of Ibryen, turning him so that he could peer into his face. ‘It was a dream,’ he said. ‘A nightmare?’

Ibryen clutched the front of his tunic convulsively. ‘A nightmare, yes,’ he shuddered. ‘But real. The Culmaren’s world, the place of lights between, and the forest. All real.’

‘And those creatures?’

‘Real too. The Gevethen.’

Isgyrn tightened his grip on Ibryen’s arm. ‘ His creatures, Ibryen. They were His creatures. The war continues. I must find my land – any land.’

Arms raised to protect her head and eyes screwed tight shut, Jeyan spun round and offered her cowering back to the scene she had been watching as it shattered into a blizzard of brilliant, jagged edges. But these, like the awful noise that accompanied them, raked through even the darkness behind her eyes.

As the din faded she straightened up and turned round slowly, shaking as she examined herself in the terrifying expectation of seeing great gaping wounds all over her body. But she had suffered no hurt. She gazed down at herself and, still shocked, her mind relived the last few moments for her – the sudden appearance of the Count and a companion staring down at her and the Gevethen – the Gevethen’s frantic lunge and the brief, frenzied struggle… Ibryen’s rescue by his companion and the startling vanishing of both of them as they turned and fled. Then there was the terrible noise and the shaking which had seemed to rack the entire world that was held in the mirrors. A noise and a shaking that were continuing, she realized, as senses long-developed in the Ennerhald gathered her wits together for her and roused her with urgent warning signals. Whatever had happened, had happened. Questions would have to wait. All that mattered was that she had survived, and survived uninjured. Now she must turn to the next danger. And danger there was, for much of the continuing noise was that of the Gevethen shouting and screaming a tirade of unbridled obscenity.

Though she was no delicate bloom, she nonetheless shied away from the horrific intensity of abuse that was pouring from them, addressed to each other and to Ibryen and to fate in general. Slowly, Jeyan sank to her knees and lowered her head.

‘He has the gift! Our enemy has the gift!’ was the dominant gist, though it was heavily larded with reproaches in the form of ‘You let him escape!’ and ‘You were too slow!’

As before, a childish quality in the exchanges served only to heighten the horror of what she was hearing. And it seemed that they might continue thus for ever, each spiralling off the other into greater excess. She began to feel more afraid than at any time since she had been captured. If even the slightest portion of this mounting odium were directed to herself she would be snuffed out with less thought than a guttering candle.

Then, as if the thought itself had been sufficient, it happened. She was suddenly the focus of their attention.

‘Ah. Lord Counsellor.’

Jeyan quailed. There was such hatred in the voice that it seemed as though the continuing buffeting shaking everything around them were merely a reflection of it. Death was heartbeats away, she knew. Gone was any pretence at subtle torment. Now there was only bloodlust, and though she was less than dust to them, she was nearby and would serve as a beginning.

In response, a choking knot of her own hatred formed within her and, almost unaware of what she was doing, she braced herself to make a final spring at her enemies with the intention of seriously harming, if not killing, one of them.

Yet she did not. Instead, without thinking, she prostrated herself and began shouting passionately, her inspiration scarcely two words ahead of her speech. ‘Beyond our imagining are His ways, Excellencies. His hounds have led you here so that you might both know the secret of your enemy and find your guide to the Way.’

There was a long pause. Jeyan held her breath, bracing herself for a blow. Then she felt the fury about her alter. A whispered exchange began which she could not hear at first. It rose in intensity very quickly however.