Roger Taylor: Valderen

His fear saved him, for only at the very last moment did some reflex manage to twist him to one side. The movement however, did not prevent the creature crashing into him heavily and knocking him down. The lantern spun from his hand and, tumbling across the rocky floor, sent wild shadows dancing into the darkness. Marrin’s staff snapped as he fell on it. He barely had time to cry out before the creature was upon him, its saliva dropping on to his face and its powerful forelegs rigid on his chest. The light from the roiling lantern fell momentarily on its face, lighting its eyes a savage red and revealing its gaping maw and terrible teeth. Its head jerked back a little as the light struck it. Farnor’s hands came up frantically and seized its throat. The muscles and sinews that he grasped told him immediately that he could not hope to strangle it, nor best it in any kind of physical contest. He let out a great cry of fear and rage and, pushing upward desperately with his left hand, brought his clenched right fist up and struck the creature on the side of the head. It produced no noticeable effect except to make it hesitate again slightly.

I won’t die here, Farnor roared inwardly. I won’t die here. Countless images burst simultaneously into his mind: sunset watches, solstice festivals, his journey through the Great Forest, Bildar, Edrien, Gryss, Marna, his mother, his father, Uldaneth…

Uldaneth!

‘Why do you carry a kitchen knife with you, Farnor?’

The images vanished, and his right hand began to grope towards his belt.

The creature’s forelegs pounded painfully into his chest and he felt its back legs scrabbling for purchase on the rocky floor. He also felt his left arm, screaming with effort, beginning to buckle under the increasing pressure. The creature’s foul breath gusted over his face and saliva sprayed hotly into it as the savage jaws snapped shut the merest fraction in front of him.

‘How did you do that?’ he heard himself asking Uldaneth.

‘I didn’t, you did,’ came the reply.

With a final effort he reached the knife and drew it, then jerking his head desperately to one side to avoid the descending jaws, he closed his eyes.

‘I didn’t, you did.’

He let his left arm collapse.

The creature crashed on to the upturned blade.

It let out a strange cry and stiffened. Despite the crushing impact of the fall, Farnor felt his own blood fury grow as the creature’s faded, and with the last residue of his strength he thrust the creature to one side and dragged the knife up the length of its chest. He felt blood spilling hot over his arms.

Then he was rolling free, gasping with terror. To his horror however, he saw the shadow that was the creature struggling to regain its feet. He could not move. His mind told him to stab the creature again, quickly. Stab it over and over until it was still. But his trembling hands would not obey. And still it struggled, a great pool of blood spreading, black in the dim, reflected lantern light.

Then it turned to look at him, and, inclining its head on one side, it whimpered. The sound, unexpectedly poignant, seemed to fill Farnor’s head, until he realized that the sound he was hearing was no longer that of the creature. It was something else. And a flickering uneasy light was pervading the cave. The sound formed itself into words. Words as full of horror as they were of menace.

‘What have you done?’

And Rannick was kneeling by the creature, cradling its head tenderly. Farnor, barely conscious, shook his head. It seemed to him that flames were dancing about Rannick, and that part of him was elsewhere.

Slowly Rannick turned. His hand came out and took Farnor’s knife from him. Farnor could not resist. Rannick raised the bloodstained blade to his mouth and licked it.

Good …

Farnor felt the exhilaration and desire run through him. They turned into Rannick’s laughter. ‘Yes, cousin,’ he was saying. ‘You feel it, don’t you? All this time you’ve been the same as me and we never knew.’ Farnor tried to shake his head in denial but he could not.

Rannick spoke again. ‘I liked you, Farnor. Such things we could have achieved; you, me and…’ He looked down at the creature. His mouth curled vi-ciously. ‘But we will yet, cousin. She and I. You may have a gift of sorts, but it is perverse and twisted, and hers is beyond yours by far. And perhaps you would only have become a rival to me in time.’ He let the knife fall and held out a bloodstained hand. ‘Look at what you’ve done,’ he said, his voice suddenly rasping and full of hatred. Yet though his eyes were blazing, it seemed as if he were going to weep as he cradled the creature’s head. He turned sharply away from Farnor and bent low over the creature, speaking to it softly, comfortingly.

‘I can mend this hurt you’ve done to her,’ he said, looking up again. ‘And all the other hurts that have been wrought tonight. But you’ll see none of it. You, I’ll destroy as I destroyed your insolent father. Only more slowly. Far more slowly. I’ll squeeze all her pain and an eternity more into each wretched heartbeat that you have left. As you’ve sown, so must you reap, farmer. And I’ve skills now that I’d scarcely dreamed of when your father was sacrificed to my greater learning.’

‘No,’ Farnor whispered, struggling to lever himself up on to his elbows.

‘Oh yes, Farnor. Oh yes. Have no doubts about it. All is mine now.’

‘No,’ Farnor whispered again. ‘I shall destroy you. You abomination.’

Rannick sneered. ‘You weary me, Farnor. Weary me beyond measure,’ he said. Then, in a voice that seemed to penetrate every part of Farnor’s body, he cried, ‘Know my power, Farnor Yarrance. Know the power to which I have access. Look on it and weep, before I begin to kill you. For it could have been yours too.’

Farnor stared, wild eyed, as he became aware of a strange sound, so deep that it could scarcely be heard, permeating the cave. Permeating him. Permeating all things.

And then it was done, and he was looking into one of the worlds beyond. But it was no world of nightmare and terror. It was sunlit and wooded and, in the distance, over rolling countryside, snow-covered mountains rose sharp and clear.

It was beautiful.

And he saw yet more worlds. Worlds beyond num-ber. And the shifting, flickering spaces between them. The spaces that should not be entered other than by those who had the true knowledge, and where Rannick and the creature moved so freely; malevolent trespass-ers.

His every fibre protested at what he saw and felt as he looked at Rannick and his grotesque mentor. It seemed to him that they were both far and near, the focus of the fearful gash that had been wrought in this reality. For it was not the worlds beyond that wrought the harm. It was their nature to be where they were, just as it was the nature of this world to be where it was. It was only in the wild conjoining of the two that the imbalance, the chaos, could be made manifest.

Agonizingly, Farnor forced himself up into a sitting position.

As he did so, his hand fell on the jagged end of Mar-rin’s broken staff. Faintly, in the long dead wood, he felt again the presence of the most ancient. And with it came the memory of the Forest, awash with the dawn sun and the ringing sounds of the horns of the Valderen. And too the remembrance that whatever else, he must hold to his resolve to honour the lives and the love of his parents by being as they had been, and as they would have wished him to be: true to himself.

Human he was, and thus savage and cruel he could be, as need arose. But always he had choice. Always everyone had choice. His savagery and cruelty had saved him from the creature, but perhaps the creature itself had had no choice in its nature. Rannick however, did. And he could do no other than help him.