Roger Taylor: Farnor

This was the last rolling hummock before the moun-tains began to assert their presence on the terrain, closing in darkly and rising steep and rugged out of the lush greenery. But it was more than that: it was, to Farnor, the boundary of the known land. Just as beyond the valley and the village lay a strange and alien world best kept at bay, so beyond this point lay a forbidden world, a world of unspoken dangers and strange menace.

As ever when he was here Farnor imagined how easy it would be to walk down the grassy slope in front of him and begin the climb up towards the head of the valley. The thought gave him a not unpleasant shiver of fear, but he could no more take that first step than he could fly.

Such a journey would take him first to the old castle.

The King’s castle stood stark and desolate, keeping a blank-eyed watch over the valley and, though long abandoned, it was still spoken of only with lowered voices by the villagers. Then beyond that were the caves. Caves that were said to wind down through steep, intricate tunnels into the bowels of the mountains to dark and secret vaults where lay unheard-of terrors; terrors from the ancient times that slept as the world had become civilized but which might be awakened again by the blundering of the unwary. And beyond that yet, never spoken of save by the children in their world of whispering and wonder, was the eerie, silent tree-filled gorge that led to the land of the Great Forest to the north. The land where even the people were different, and where who knew what other creatures dwelt?

For a moment Farnor suddenly felt himself to be constrained, bound by unseen ties. He sensed a part of him struggling, crying out inarticulately.

He drew in a sharp breath, as if someone had dashed cold water in his face, so unexpected and vivid was this sensation. Briefly the mountains became mountains and the castle a castle, then, once again, they were the mountains, the castle, and the images he saw were those of his upbringing.

Yet… not quite so. Something was different. Some-thing seemed to have changed.

He shook his head. You’re hungry, he thought.

Swinging his pack off his shoulder he turned to-wards his favourite seat: a small rocky outcrop which hid him from the ominous region to the north and on which he could sit and lean back and look down the valley.

He settled down with relish and fumbled with the straps on his pack without looking at them. Ahead of him, green fields, white-dotted with sheep and outcrop-ping rocks, lay vivid in the spring sunshine. The shadows of the few small clouds passing overhead marched slowly but resolutely across all obstacles, and the air was filled with the susurrant whispering of distant rustling trees, tumbling streams and the soft shifting of countless wind-stirred grasses and shrubs. Occasionally an isolated sound rose above this har-mony: a sheep, a hoarse croak from one of the great black birds that circled high above, the buzz of some passing insect.

Don’t go to sleep again, Farnor cautioned himself, as he felt the valley’s peace seeping into him.

He sat up and began to concentrate on his food.

After a mere mouthful, however, another matter forced itself upon him, setting aside both appetite and any chance of slipping into sleep. Only a few paces ahead of him the grass was streaked with blood.

What had a little earlier been an exciting daydream was a more sober, not to say frightening, reality. With almost incongruous care he laid the piece of bread he had been eating back in his pack, stood up and walked hesitantly over to the stained grass.

As he neared it he saw more blood. And the grass was crushed. Something had been dragged across it recently. A faint sense of excitement began to return, but it was mingled unevenly with alarm. Then duty and his native common sense took command. He had been sent out to check on the sheep. It was one of the responsibilities that his father had entrusted to him. This was probably no more than a rabbit killed by a fox, but he must have a look around just to be sure, and then he could return to his father and tell him what he had seen and what he had done about it.

He found himself walking along quite a distinctive trail.

It was a lot of blood for a rabbit.

He bent down and pulled something that had snagged on a gorse bush.

And that wasn’t rabbit’s fur…

His face wrinkled in distress. He was going to find a sheep. One that might perhaps have injured itself. But that was his head talking; his stomach was beginning to tell him something else.

And it was correct. He was at the end of his search: the remains of a sheep, its body rent open and its exposed entrails scattered recklessly about. In obscene contrast to the stark stillness of the animal, the gaping wound was crawlingly alive with flies, a shifting shroud glittering iridescent blue-black in the bright sunlight.

As Farnor approached, the writhing mass disinte-grated and rose up in front of him in a noisy black cloud. He flailed his arms angrily and pointlessly.

Then, as if released by the departure of the flies, the smell struck him and he took an involuntary step backwards. He swore at his reaction. He’d seen enough dead animals and encountered enough smells in his days.

Except this was peculiarly awful.

And the damage to the sheep…

It was – had been – a good-sized animal, certainly no weak and ailing stray. And there was a lot of it missing. He had seen worried sheep before, although he had been much younger, but this seemed to be different. Whatever had killed it must indeed have been large and powerful.

Farnor looked around to see if there was any other sign the creature had left that would help his father and the villagers in the hunt they must surely now mount.

But there was nothing. Not even an indication as to which way the creature had gone, no footprints on the short grass, no damage to the nearby shrubbery, nothing.

Farnor was not unduly disappointed. His earlier, dramatic flight of fancy about the animal was now far from his mind. Dreamer he might be from time to time, but the hard-headed farm helper within him knew enough about the reality of wild animals not to wish to meet such a one as this alone, and so far from help. He must get back and tell his father what he had seen.

A sudden sound made him start. He turned round quickly, his heart racing.

The sound came again.

Something was coming through the shrubbery to-wards him. Something large.

Wide-eyed and fearful, Farnor stepped back and swung his staff up to point at the rustling shrubbery.

The noise came nearer. Farnor stepped back further to give himself more space in which to manoeuvre. Whatever might be coming towards him, he knew that to attempt to flee from a predator would be to draw it after him inexorably.

The shrubbery parted.

‘Rannick!’ Farnor exclaimed in a mixture of anger and relief as he lowered his staff. ‘You frightened me to death.’

The newcomer’s lip curled peevishly. It was his characteristic expression. He ignored Farnor’s outburst.

‘What’re you doing up here, young Yarrance?’ he said, twisting Farnor’s family name into a sneer.

Despite his relief at encountering a person instead of some blood-crazed animal, Farnor took no delight in Rannick’s arrival. Few in the community liked the man but, for reasons he could not identify, Farnor felt a particular, and deep, antipathy to him. It was not without some irony, however, that while on the whole Rannick reciprocated the community’s opinion of him he seemed to have a special regard for Farnor – in so far as he had regard for anyone. For although life had not presented Rannick with any special disadvantages, his general demeanour exuded the bitterness and envy of a man unjustly dispossessed of some great fortune. When he spoke, it was as if to praise or admire something would be to risk choking himself to death. And when he undertook a task it was as if to create something willingly, or for its own sake, might wither his hands.