Roger Taylor - Ibryen

He could feel the softness of the Culmaren in his hands. He allowed the sensation to permeate him and he spoke into it the essence of the words he had spoken before. Your charge is safe again. Your duties more than fulfilled. But he is as I am – in a place that is not truly his – and the pain diminishes him. Come to him if you are able. Bring him his true kin.’

Very faintly, he thought he heard a long sighing call, plaintive and beautiful, but it slipped from him even as he turned his attention to it.

He had done all that he could.

Isgyrn was crouching at the entrance to the tent. Rachyl was standing behind him and he was being gently restrained by the Traveller as Ibryen opened his eyes.

‘What have you done?’ he asked breathlessly.

‘The best I could,’ Ibryen replied, almost apologetically.

Isgyrn grimaced with self-reproach and shook his head. ‘No, I meant what risk have you taken for me?’

‘None.’ Ibryen smiled. He held out the Culmaren. Isgyrn took hold of it. As he did so, Ibryen held it for a moment.

‘This is he,’ he said silently into the world beyond.

Something touched him in the timeless moment that did not exist in the tent.

Isgyrn let go of the Culmaren with one hand and reached up as if to brush something from his face. ‘You put me under an obligation I can see no way of repaying,’ he said.

‘Nonsense,’ Ibryen said gently. ‘I saved you when you were lost. You tore me from the grip of my enemy. Obligations can’t exist between us. All I’ve just done for you is simple courtesy such as I hope I’d offer any stranger… an unusual one, I’ll grant… but nothing more, for all that. You’re a free man. You may come back to our village, our besieged camp, and fight against the Gevethen, if you wish, or you may go wherever your fancy takes you, with my blessing, and never to be forgotten.’ He looked at the Traveller. ‘Would you take him with you to find this Great Gate of yours?’

‘If he wants to come, yes,’ the Traveller replied without hesitation. ‘I’m getting quite used to company, and I’ve questions to ask him that should last us the entire journey and more.’

Isgyrn waved his hand impatiently and dropped on to one knee. ‘I pledge you my sword, Ibryen, Count of Nesdiryn. I have few fighting skills suitable to this place but they are yours if you would have them.’

Taken aback by this sudden formality, Ibryen did not reply at once.

‘I will lay down my life for you,’ Isgyrn pressed on.

Rachyl’s eyebrows rose in amusement and expectation. Ibryen recovered himself and looked at Isgyrn sharply. ‘If you fight for me you’ll fight by me, and you’ll lay other people’s lives down, Soarer, not your own. As many as are needed to end this business.’

Isgyrn gaped at him uncertainly. Rachyl laughed and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s get this tent down and make our way back to the village.’

A little later they were ready to leave. Rachyl, swinging her pack on to her back and hitching it to and fro until it was comfortable, looked at Ibryen.

‘What are we going to tell them when we get back?’ she asked unhappily. One man and his blanket and a plethora of strange tales, her manner said, though she spoke none of it.

‘Let’s see if we can get back down to the forest and make camp before the light goes,’ Ibryen said, avoiding the question, then, ‘What we always tell them,’ he said. ‘The truth, as far as we’re able. I set out on this journey on little more than a whim. Perhaps a desperate whim, I don’t know. I’d no clear expectations and if I’d had any I doubt very much whether they’d have matched the reality of what’s happened. We go back with an extra sword and changed from what we were. Perhaps that’ll show us the way.’

‘Lead us to the Gevethen from a direction they don’t even know exists?’ Rachyl said, echoing the reassurance they had left behind them.

Ibryen’s expression suddenly became pained and he put his hand to his head. ‘What is the greatest danger that winter offers us, Rachyl?’ he catechized.

‘It makes us forget,’ she responded, surprised but without pause. The exchange, and variations of it were common fare in the village during winter.

‘It does indeed. We stop thinking,’ Ibryen said. ‘And not least myself.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I had the Gevethen within dagger’s reach,’ Ibryen said angrily. ‘Not that I could’ve used it, but it’s only just occurred to me that this was the way to which I was being directed. The way to come upon them unseen and unheard. And not only does it take me half a day to grasp that, it’s only just come to me that it was they who attacked me! They who came unseen and unheard on me. They know of these strange worlds beyond. They too can travel between them.’ His voice was full of despair.

‘No!’ Isgyrn’s firm voice cut through Ibryen’s distress. ‘They were neither unseen, nor unheard, if you recall. In fact they made a fearful din. And I saw their faces more clearly than you. However they came there, they were shocked to see you. And afraid, for all they seized you.’ Ibryen looked at him, his eyes doubting. ‘Think, Ibryen. If they knew the secret of these other worlds so well that they could move where they wanted, when they wanted, why haven’t they discovered your secret village and sent their army against it? Or, for that matter, why haven’t they come to your room and killed you while you slept? It’s not only you who’s been changed by this journey. You touched them. Their enemy came upon them unexpectedly and touched them. Whatever they were, they’re different now. Whatever they thought, they’re thinking differently now. Change has been set in motion. Incalculable change. And where there’s change, there’s opportunity.’

Ibryen clenched his teeth. ‘You’re right, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. It was just a momentary…’

Rachyl slapped him on the back. ‘Come on,’ she said heartily. ‘Enough talk. Let’s get down the hill and make ourselves a decent camp. I’m starving.’

Jeyan hesitantly moved to the door of her room. It had been left slightly open. Cautiously she pulled it wide and peered out into the dimly lit corridor beyond. There was no one about. Almost to her own surprise she stepped backwards away from the door, then sat on a nearby chair and stared at this unexpected invitation to freedom.

What had happened? She had been asking the question continuously since, with a rush of piercing cold that had chilled her to the core, and which still lingered, she found herself staggering uncontrollably across her room. Two servants caught her and she held on to them as though they might offer her protection when she turned round.

As the Gevethen had screamed abuse at one another when Ibryen had escaped from them, so now, transformed into an arm-waving multitude, they were screaming abuse at the mirror-bearers. She could not see those who were supporting the two great mirrors that became one, but she could see the mirrors shaking. With each tremor, the Gevethen’s screaming became worse. The moon-faced multitude milled about wildly. Yet something was wrong. The endless dancing movements of the mirror-bearers were stilted and jerky, and some of the images of the Gevethen flickered unevenly, appearing and disappearing.

Jeyan could feel the two servants beside her trembling. Gradually the two mirrors became still. Then they parted. As a black shadow cut between them, Jeyan briefly felt again as though she were being torn in half. She gasped and shuddered. Is part of me still in there? she thought, without knowing what she meant.

As she recovered, she noticed the state of the room.