Roger Taylor - Ibryen

Eventually however, Ibryen’s darker concerns about what was to be done on their return to the village began to surface and he could do no other than voice them. Isgyrn tried to reassure him as he had when they were preparing to leave the ridge the previous day. He had touched his enemy, change had been set in motion, who could say what would ensue? But practicalities were closing about Ibryen, binding him.

‘Each step from now takes me nearer to my people,’ he said. ‘They’ll need to hear how we intend to attack and defeat the Gevethen. As Rachyl said – dispositions, logistics. My people fight well because we not only have a common purpose, we think alike. Each is as much a leader as follower. If we here have come to accept the inevitability of our decline if we continue as we are, then it’s only a matter of time before the entire village reaches the same conclusion. I can’t allow that to happen; we’ll all perish for sure.’

But Isgyrn persisted. ‘You mustn’t encumber yourself thus,’ he urged. ‘Many changes will have happened and you can only deal with them as you find them. You can foresee none of them.’

‘Go blindly and with faith?’ Ibryen said ironically.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Isgyrn replied.

‘It’s no comfort.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be, but it’s all you’ll get. It’s simply a statement of the reality of your position. The warrior’s way, the warrior’s burden. Dealing with the now, whatever it is, because others cannot.’

That night, Ibryen slipped silently from the tent. The rain had stopped and the darkness was alive with rich, fresh-washed forest perfumes. A chorus of tiny insect sounds and dripping water seemed like an earthly echo of the brilliant array of stars that covered the sharp, clear sky and peered down through the forest canopy.

He was uncertain why he had left the tent, other than that his circling thoughts and the idle day had left him unable to sleep; the tossing and turning that threatened to take him over would be too much for the others in such narrow confines.

Yet it was more than that, surely, and more even than the leaden foreboding that had been weighing on him all day. It wasn’t the awful tension of pending battle – that, he was familiar with. It wasn’t even guilt at the deception he had left behind as an excuse for this strange journey, although this would have to be accounted for soon, and he did not relish the prospect. It occurred to him that in fact he had told no lie. The very abandoning of the old procedures within the village could only lead to a new destiny, a way which none could have imagined. Perhaps what was disturbing him was no more than as Isgyrn had said, a reluctance to accept that all ahead was unknowable.

But none of these carefully crafted arguments could bring him any peace, and he stood for a long time in the cool darkness, leaning against a tree, pondering the unease that tugged at him. He could not believe the story that Isgyrn had told, yet neither could he casually discount it. Isgyrn clearly believed it and even during the short time he had known him he judged the Dryenwr to be clear-thinking, lucid and logical. And his conclusion had been open and honest – base your actions on the assumption that I’m correct. He couldn’t argue with that. And it was as though his concerns came from beyond himself, as though he were the unknowing focus of events which were moving in ways beyond his control. And too, he was vastly different from the man who had been the Count of Nesdiryn scarcely a week ago. But what value was this change that had come over him?

He had no answer.

He had answers for nothing.

Weary, he let all questions slip away.

At the edges of his consciousness he could sense the Ways that would lead him into the worlds beyond. For a moment it came to him that he could simply slip from here and search out a place where horrors such as the Gevethen did not exist, where men might look at a sword and think it a farm implement. Was there such a place? He found it hard to imagine. Perhaps that sunlit forest had been one such? But it might simply have been somewhere else in this world. Nothing there had been disturbingly different, not the trees and the vegetation, not even the unusual carvings, and certainly not the fine bridge. And even there, the Gevethen had come. Or worse, he had drawn them there. That brought a coldly awful thought – that he should be the herald of the evil in some untrammelled new world. It laid a dead hand on his brief flight of fancy and carried him to the conclusion that he had known was always there; how could he live any kind of a life elsewhere, knowing what he had left behind?

There was no escape. There never had been. Whatever was afoot, and whatever his part in it, it could not be resolved by flight. Sooner or later – he corrected the thought – soon, he would have to confront and destroy the Gevethen or die in the attempt.

Knowing he could not leave, he closed his eyes and slipped into the place of lights and sounds where only his awareness existed. The confusion about him was beyond any describing, but it no longer disturbed him. He could feel Ways all about him that would leave his sleeping form here and carry him to places far beyond this rain-scented forest. And too, he suddenly sensed, there were still other worlds. Worlds that were ill-formed and vague. Ephemera that did not truly exist yet were there for him to enter. Are these dreams? he thought. Other people’s dreams? He had never dreamed.

A cry stirred within him. He did not want to hear it, but it could not be stilled.

I should be free to roam these worlds.

I should not have to die in battle, in fear and pain.

I should not have this burden to carry.

The cry echoed into an unknown distance, tailing off slowly into a sigh which became the stirring of the trees about him.

‘Are you all right?’

Briefly he was once more at the door of his quarters in the village, being startled by Marris’s inquiry out of the chilly night. Then he was in the forest, identifying the voice as that of the Traveller.

‘Are you all right?’ The question came again, and a slight movement showed him the deeper shadow within shadow that was the inquirer.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he replied, keeping his voice low to avoid disturbing Rachyl and Isgyrn.

‘I thought I heard you calling out,’ the Traveller said. ‘But it was far away.’ He sounded puzzled.

Ibryen smiled, a faint whiteness greying the gloom. ‘Your hearing goes further than you realize.’ He did not elaborate. ‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’

‘I don’t sleep much,’ the Traveller replied. ‘I’ve just been playing with the sounds of the forest. There’s such a richness about us.’

There were resonances in his last sentence that brought Ibryen almost to tears. ‘Indeed there is,’ he said. Though he did not know why, his mind was clearer. Slowly he drew his sword. Resting it on the palms of his two hands he held it out at arm’s length, as if offering it to the darkness. Stars were reflected faintly in the blade. ‘I pledge myself again to my people,’ he said quietly. The Traveller remained silent.

Jeyan leaned on the parapet of the balcony. In the distance, stark against the evening sky, like the fingers of a dead, warning hand, she could see the towers in the Ennerhald from which she had spied on the city to see the effects of her murder of Hagen. The train of events that had led her from there to where she now was, passed through her mind many times. There was a grim irony in them which she savoured, together with rich veins of self-justification. She had been right to stay in the Ennerhald for all those years. Had she fled to the Count, she would not now have been in a position to strike such a blow for him. She pressed a hand against the knife beneath her tunic. Or for her slaughtered parents. She pressed the knife harder until the pommel dug into her painfully. Or for herself. Yet, too, another irony was dogging her that day, for she had been unable to find the Gevethen. It did not help that she was quite unfamiliar with the rambling intricacies of the ancient and much added-to Citadel, and that the cold exterior she felt the need to maintain prevented her from flitting quickly about the place and, still less, from asking help of anyone. All she had been able to do was watch and listen. She had however, relished the effect that her presence had wherever she went. Any questioning glances directed her way had been inadvertent and had, without exception, been rapidly lowered as knees had hastily buckled. She had moved through crowds like a scythe through a field of tall corn. It was good. It was fitting that these people who sustained the Gevethen should bend before her.