Roger Taylor - Ibryen

‘I go where you will, Excellencies, though I am no soldier,’ she managed to say, though she remained kneeling. The excitement filled with a repellent amusement.

‘You are a life-taker, it is sufficient.’

Jeyan felt naked, exposed and suddenly sick. For a moment she could neither speak nor move. Then relief swept over her – she had not been discovered! In its wake, her hatred returned to make her wholly herself again. Let them take the consequences of bringing a life-taker so close to their scrawny throats then, she blazed silently. But it could not be now, for all about her she could feel the force that was keeping her from moving closer, like a glutinous expression of their will.

As she was about to stand, Helsarn said, ‘May I speak, Excellencies?’

‘Commander.’

‘Excellencies, I’m concerned for your safety in the mountains,’ he began. ‘Several of your servants within the city have returned with the same rumour. It’s said that the outlaw Ibryen has left his secret camp and that he plans to come upon you from a direction that cannot be guarded against.’

The amusement grew. ‘Your concern is unnecessary, Commander. We are guarded in all Ways.’

Helsarn persisted. ‘I have never known so widespread a rumour before, Excellencies. It is most unusual. And there are many narrow and dangerous places in the mountains.’

Jeyan sensed the mood about her changing towards one of impatience, then abruptly there was stillness and silence.

‘Leave us, Commander.’

The command was like the snapping of dried twigs under a soft and long-feared footfall. Jeyan heard Helsarn leaving. The silence remained. Then a soft hissing filled it. The Gevethen were whispering – it was like the wind across a graveyard. She strained forward. The power that was holding her at bay had eased, but it was still there. She made no further effort. She was too far away, and besides, could do nothing from her knees. She remembered too well how quickly the mirror-bearers had moved when she was being escorted from the dungeons. She caught snatches of the conversation.

‘He is coming through the Ways.’ The wind rose and fell, punctuated by gusts of panic but gradually changing to an uneasy confidence.

‘He fled from us…’

‘But he was there. And with a strange companion.’

‘Could his army come thus?’

‘Let him come.’

‘We are guarded.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes.’

The whispering faded and she was the focus of their attention again. ‘Rise, Lord Counsellor. And follow. The hand of our law must be seen to reach into all places.’

Then there was confusion and movement, and while, the previous day, she had floated idle and neglected at the edge of the Gevethen’s great enterprise, now she stood near its centre, as they moved through the Citadel. She watched, fascinated and scornful, as senior army and Guards’ officers, and high-ranking officials, came and went seeking advice about this, bringing news about that, wanting to know ‘their Excellencies’ will’. And all were afraid. It was good.

Yet, though she was by the Gevethen’s side, still she could come no nearer to them; still their mysterious power held her away.

And always, the mirror-bearers were about them, moving relentlessly to their own unheard tune. There were more than there had been before, she decided, for she noticed several if not all of her own servants amongst them, including Meirah, the only one with whom she had spoken. Twice she deliberately caught her eye, but there was no response. The woman’s face was as blank and cold as all the other mirror-bearers. Somehow their behaviour was almost more frightening than any of the overt menace of the Gevethen. Was this what was in store for her? Was this what was in store for everyone? An eerie, pointless perfection? The question tugged at her incessantly even though she knew she would never know the answer. By one means or another she would be dead before such a thing could come about.

Then, at the front of a crowd of officials, she was witnessing the departure of the Gevethen. It was an event without formal ceremony, though there was a large escort of Citadel Guards, armoured and carrying short, axe-headed pikes which gleamed viciously even in the grey light. Apart from the group behind her, such onlookers as there were did not linger, for fear that their dawdling would be taken as a lack of enthusiasm for the Gevethen’s grand design. There were however, many discreet glances made from the safety of the Citadel’s curtained windows. For the most part these were to satisfy the watchers that their beloved masters were indeed leaving – it was a rare occurrence – but there was also great curiosity about the Gevethen’s strange carriage. Not that ‘carriage’ was a particularly fitting word for the contrivance that was to carry them to the mountains, except in so far as it resembled a funeral carriage. Black and huge, and in two articulated sections, it was pulled by six horses. Its sides flared up and out, curling over at the eaves into ornate carvings like a tangle of thorns from which wild-eyed faces gaped down at passers-by. There were apparently no windows in it though there was a platform at each end large enough to carry the Gevethen and several of the mirror-bearers had they so desired. Toiling figures decorated the rims of the wheels and the spokes and hubs were carved into angles and barbed spikes. The whole was covered in intricate carvings, though, being black on black they could be examined only by standing very closely. The only relief to the dark complexity was a single silver star set on each side. They were identical to that which adorned Jeyan’s judicial bench, though here there were no gold escutcheons nor broken rings. The effect was stark and frightening.

A row of more conventional carriages waited behind it. Jeyan watched as the Gevethen moved down the stone steps and into the back of their menacing vehicle which opened silently at their approach. The mirror-bearers moved round them as ever, only much closer than usual and in such a way that they could not be seen. Nor did any of their confusing images emerge into the dull daylight. Jeyan was reminded again of some soft-shelled creature scuttling for the darkness of its lair. Many of the enlarged contingent of mirror-bearers did not enter the carriage but moved alongside it, standing between it and the Guards. As the carriage moved off, the mirrors began to move again, making it seem that the carriage was being carried on many legs. It was an unsettling sight.

Jeyan turned away from it and looked back up the steps to the door through which the Gevethen had come. It occurred to her that before the mirror-bearers had closed about them they had seemed so much smaller, so much more fragile, so much more easy to kill. The recollection brought with it a sudden sense of incongruity about the Gevethen’s great black carriage. What use would that thing be in the mountains? she thought. There was many a street in Dirynhald that it couldn’t negotiate, let alone the terrain they would encounter once over the river. How were they going to cope then? She remembered Helsarn’s concern about the narrow passes. She shared it. The Gevethen were hers, they mustn’t fall to some nameless ambusher.

Then Helsarn was discreetly ushering her into a carriage of her own. As she was entering it she saw the Citadel officials who had been standing behind her dashing with unseemly haste for the other carriages. It was not until she had been inside it for some time and it was rattling out of the courtyard that she realized it was the one in which she had murdered Hagen. The thought amused her greatly and, leaning back, away from the window, she laughed silently to herself and laid her hand on her knife.