Roger Taylor - Farnor

For some time they tested this phenomenon with a relish that was more befitting young people considera-bly their junior.

‘It’s so high,’ Marna said in some awe when the game had begun to pall a little. ‘It must be three or four times the height of the inn.’

‘Even more than that,’ Farnor said, shading his eyes and squinting up at the battlements. The noise of battle rose around him. Overlain with the ringing tones of Yonas, men surged up unsteady ladders propped giddily against the walls only to be felled or overturned by the castle’s valiant defenders. Swaying wooden siege towers were laboured forward under lethal cascades of arrows.

‘Let’s look at the gate,’ Marna said, cutting the thread of Farnor’s burgeoning saga.

As they walked towards it, Farnor felt other impres-sions making their way through the dramatic clutter of the siege. The stones from which the walls had been built were old and weathered but they were also finely worked and very tightly jointed. He had heard a tale once of a general who had become separated from his army in the heat of battle to find himself trapped inside a walled city by a hastily closed gate. His men, on the outside, had been so enraged and distraught that they had driven spears into the joints of the wall and mounted these impromptu ladders to fall upon the enemy from above and rescue their leader.

Farnor ran his fingers along one of the fine masonry joints and peered again at the towering height above. The idea of such a feat made him shiver.

They moved to the gate. Over it was an arch held solid by an enormous keystone on which was carved an ancient coat of arms. Practicalities began to intrude into his imaginings.

How could they have lifted that? he wondered. Memories came back to him of the stone door lintels that he and his father and no small number of helpers had struggled to lift into position on a simple store-house for a neighbour. There had been sweat, effort and bad language enough in that to last for a long time. Not to mention a narrow escape for someone’s finger on at least one occasion and a crashing collapse on another. At times it had been for him a frightening and desperate affair with the lumbering weight of the stone seeming to have a relentless will of its own.

And as for the towers now soaring above them; they were so high. How could they have been built?

His attention turned to the huge double-leaved gate itself and he ran his hand over the long-seasoned wood. He imagined them crashing open to release a charging column of riders grimly intent on breaking a siege, but at the same time he marvelled at the size of the timbers and the skill with which they had been joined together. Where could trees be found that could provide such timbers? And where the men to hew and shape them? He thought of the rough beams that formed the ceilings and roofs of most of the village houses.

He came to a wicket door. What must this place be like on the inside?

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’

His father’s voice intruded on his thoughts, though not harshly. Farnor turned and smiled. ‘I’d no idea it was so big,’ he said. ‘Whoever built this could have built all our houses and barns, even the inn, in an afternoon.’

Garren laughed. ‘A little longer than that, I suspect. This place probably took many years in the building, maybe several lifetimes, and doubtless it cost more than a few lives.’ He gazed at the battlements and the towers rising beyond them. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

Farnor affected to be looking at the wicket door. ‘I’m fine,’ he replied casually. ‘Does this open?’ He pushed at a brass cover plate behind which was presumably a keyhole.

A hand reached out and restrained him. It was Gryss. ‘Quite possibly,’ he said. ‘But the keyholder, whoever he was, is long gone and entering this place without permission would be treated as an offence against the King’s person. Best leave be.’

‘Why is it so big?’ Marna asked.

‘Time was when it held a garrison of several hun-dred men, so my grandfather used to say,’ Gryss replied.

Marna wrinkled her nose in dissatisfaction at this reply. ‘But why so many? In a place like this. At the end of a valley at the end of the Kingdom?’

Gryss waved a schoolmasterly hand. ‘Enough ques-tions. Who am I to question the ways of kings? I shouldn’t imagine for one moment that things have always been as quiet and peaceful as they are now. Certainly Yonas is never short of warlike tales to tell.’ The notion seemed to disturb him and he became almost brusque. ‘Anyway, from what I’ve seen of soldiers and their ilk, consider yourself more than fortunate that the castle is empty and locked.’ He glanced at the sun. ‘Come on. Time we were heading back.’

Marna seemed to be considering pursuing her ques-tions, but Gryss’s manner forbade it.

For a while they followed the old castle road back to the village, but it was overgrown with brambles in places and uniformly hard and uneven underfoot. Further, being intended for carts and wagons, it wound too leisurely a way round the contours of the route for the pleasure of the quartet, and very soon they cut off it and began walking across the steep grassland directly towards the village. They spoke little, each pondering the events that had occurred to make the present so radically different from what they might have expected at the outset of the day.

Rannick moved cautiously forward. Following the lure of the creature, he had gradually dropped down from his high vantage and now found himself passing through increasingly dense woodland.

The eerie, tenuous contact he had made had been maintained constantly, a mutual anxiety keeping it whole. What part of it was guiding his feet he could not have said, but he knew that he was moving steadily towards his goal.

Occasionally, flutterings of doubt arose, urging caution. What was this creature he was so blithely breaking new ground to find? Judging from the sheep it had taken it was large and powerful, and hadn’t he himself lured many animals into his traps with suitably tempting bait? And, should some ill fate befall him, then even assuming that the villagers would notice he was missing and be concerned enough to send out search parties, they would not even think to look for him out here.

But he dismissed such thoughts out of hand. The need of the creature for him was beyond doubt, as was his certainty that he could master it when finally they met. And, too, he conceded that there was a desperate recklessness in his behaviour. This creature knew and used the power that he possessed; something he had never known before. True, he had sensed occasional, flickering sparks of contact at times, even when he had been in the village, but these were rare and fleetingly elusive, and could have been nothing more than imagination. But this was not. This was as real and solid as the mountains themselves. This, he knew, was the key to his future greatness and it was better to die contend-ing for that than to shrivel and die like an autumn leaf within the stultifying confines of the valley.

He glanced around. There was little to be seen; the trees obscured almost everything save the sky. But he knew that he was well beyond the castle, and he felt a brief frisson of alarm as childhood memories rose to the surface. He had long grown used to wandering in parts of the valley that were not commonly used by the villagers, such as the far downland where he had met travellers from over the hill, or upland, around the castle, where most of the villagers were almost too afraid to tread.

But here was beyond where even he had trodden before. Here was the region where the caves were said to lie, with their deep, winding tunnels and, so the tales had it, the chambers where lay ancient, evil creatures. Creatures from a time long dead. Creatures that were sleeping until… until when?