Roger Taylor - Caddoran

‘A Joining? Yes. No. I don’t know! It was certainly no dream, and like nothing I’ve ever experienced with Vashnar. Though…’

‘Is everything all right? I saw the light – heard you talking.’

It was Rhavvan, discreetly peering into the tent. He answered his own question with a knowing, ‘Oh,’ as he looked at Thyrn. ‘Something’s happened again, has it?’ he said, more statement than question and unexpectedly concerned. ‘I can soon build the fire up if you want to sit and talk about it. The night’s mild.’

Thyrn hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I… I need to think. Clear my thoughts.’

‘Whatever you want,’ Rhavvan said understandingly. ‘I’ll build the fire up anyway.’

After he had gone, Thyrn looked about the tent, almost as though he expected to find himself somewhere else. The faint sounds of Rhavvan stirring the fire impinged on the two men in the heightened silence.

‘I will go outside, I feel trapped in here,’ Thyrn said eventually, his voice steadier. He pulled on his jacket and crawled out of the tent. Nordath followed him.

Rhavvan emerged out of the darkness beyond the firelight. Though he did not speak, his manner reflected both curiosity and anxiety and he gave Nordath an inquiring look. Nordath silently counselled patience. Thyrn gazed around into the night as he had in the tent. He seemed to be reassuring himself about something. Then he sat down by the fire and dropped his head into his hands. Nordath joined him, his manner anxious. Rhavvan stepped forward and then crouched down to lessen his own intimidating presence. Thyrn’s posture, however, was one of resignation rather than despair, as was confirmed by his expression when he looked up again and stared into the fire. Disturbed by Rhavvan’s recent coaxing, a smouldering branch suddenly flared up, sending a flurry of sparks cascading up into the darkness, like frantic messengers from a battle catastrophe. Thyrn watched them.

‘I wish all this would go away,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘All I ever wanted was just to…’ He stopped and his expression changed. ‘Was just to…’ He turned to Nordath, his face a mixture of surprise and mounting alarm. ‘I don’t know what I wanted.’ He stood up. ‘I don’t know what I ever wanted. I thought… do as you’re told – do what my parents want – please them. Then the money… prestige… youngest White Master… Caddoran to the Senior Warden, but…’ His voice faded then suddenly he gave a great wordless cry of anger and frustration. ‘Now all this! What am I doing here, Uncle? Chased across the country like a wild animal. For what? I’ve done nothing wrong. I never did anything wrong. But here I am, in the middle of nowhere, living in a tent, hunting for food, washing in freezing streams or out of a cup, tending horses. Just because Vashnar…’ He stopped abruptly. By now the impromptu gathering had been joined by Hyrald, Adren and Endryk in various states of alarm and undress. He looked round at them, motionless figures in the flickering firelight. ‘Someone tell me I’m not going mad.’

‘Mad is the last thing you are.’ It was Endryk. ‘Troubled, frightened, yes. Like the rest of us. But mad, no.’

‘Then why’s this happening to me? Why me?’ He blasted the question at all of them.

‘Why not?’ Nordath’s reply was as brutal as it was unexpected. Thyrn gaped at him. ‘Why did that particular deer have to die the other day? Why are some people born crooked and bent? Why do some get sick and die, scarcely your age? Why does someone get killed by a bolting horse while another standing next to him lives? And good fortune’s no different. Why is Endryk – a stranger, a foreigner – here to help us? Beyond a certain point we just have to accept that there’s no reason that we can hope to find, just an endless chain of tiny “if onlys”, reaching back for ever, each link splitting into its own endless chains, and so on. Once you’re at that point, all that matters is not “why?” but what you do. Are you going to pick your way down those endless chains or are you going to forge your own links?’ Despite the harshness of what he was saying, his voice was full of compassion. ‘The difference between young and old usually lies in when and how they realize this and how they cope with it, Thyrn. I learned it slowly, gently, drip by drip. Endryk, I suspect, learned it the hard way – brutally, in battle. Rhavvan, Adren, Hyrald…’ He shrugged. ‘… Who knows? Some people never learn it. Never have even the slightest grasp of the worth of their lives. You’re learning it right now, like Endryk – brutally. But at least you’re not on your own.’

Thyrn was still gaping at him when he finished. He made several attempts to speak before managing, ‘Damn you, Uncle. That’s not what I want.’

‘It’s all I’ve got to give,’ Nordath replied starkly. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you? It’s not the first time you’ve asked that question. You mightn’t be able to answer it, but you’ve decided what to do about it. You’re going forward, aren’t you? Why else would you have learned more from Endryk than the rest of us put together?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Just tell us what’s upset you so much, then we can all move on. You said it was a kind of Joining with Vashnar.’

Thyrn looked at each of his companions in turn as if some answer to his original plaint might be lingering there, but found nothing.

‘Sit down, Thyrn,’ Hyrald said. ‘You know by now that we’re your friends and that we’ll help you as far as we’re able. But your uncle also loves you, and you can know beyond any doubt that anything he does for you is in your best interests.’

Slowly Thyrn sat down. Rhavvan put some more wood on the fire.

Thyrn closed his eyes. ‘I understand what you mean, Uncle,’ he said, after a long silence. ‘But like almost everything else, I simply don’t understand any of what’s just happened – except that it was awful. And I don’t think I can do anything about it. I think I’m the one who’s going to fall under the horse’s hooves.’

‘Fortunately, none of us can know the future,’ Nordath said. ‘Tell us as well as you can. However it comes, dragging it into the open certainly won’t make it any worse.’

Thyrn nodded reluctantly and paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘I was very tired. I remember listening to you all talking for a few minutes – I couldn’t hear anything, of course, but it was a comforting sound. I was thinking about what I owed you all. How I should help more.’ He cleared his throat self-consciously, then smiled. ‘And I thought I heard the little old man again. “Light be with you,” he said.’ Endryk glanced at him sharply but did not speak. ‘That was very odd. Not unpleasant, just odd. As if he was there with me and a long way away at the same time. Then, I must have gone to sleep. I don’t remember you coming to bed, Uncle.’

‘You were fast asleep,’ Nordath confirmed.

Thyrn gritted his teeth and took a deep breath.

‘The next thing I remember is Vashnar – his presence all around me. Just as vividly as he was when all this started.’ Thyrn looked at his listeners, easier now that he had embarked on his tale proper. ‘But I didn’t get swept up this time. I centred myself correctly. Took control. Watched, waited. I mightn’t know what’s happening, but this is my territory, I thought. I’m master here and whoever intrudes will be subject to my will.’ At another time this might have sounded like an empty youthful boast, but Thyrn’s manner transformed it into a determined resolution. ‘But it wasn’t like any of the Joinings I’d had with Vashnar – or like any Joining I’ve ever had. It was as though I was there by accident – an inadvertent eavesdropper. Something else – someone else – was Joining with him. I was both there and not there.’