Ibryen

Chapter 14-2

‘Let them come,’ Ibryen replied off-handedly. ‘We watch and wait, as always, but that’s all. Obviously if they look like coming too far we’ll intervene. But we’ll fight them defensively. Like a token force, left behind to guard a camp. Let them do the attacking. They’ll not like that in this terrain.’

Defeated for the moment, Rachyl picked up a piece of bread and began slowly breaking it up. ‘But...’

‘But how are we going to overthrow the Gevethen if we do less than we’re already doing?’ Ibryen finished her question. Feeding herself with small pieces of bread, Rachyl gave a soft grunt of agreement.

Ibryen’s mood darkened. He spoke carefully. ‘While you were away, we travelled this same ground many times.’ He indicated Marris and the Traveller. ‘No logical conclusion is to be found. So we are faced with two choices — despair and die — or pursue a course of action that has no apparently logical basis.’

Rachyl’s eyes were fixed on him, thumb and forefinger slowly rotating an almost non-existent piece of bread into her steadily grinding front teeth. Hynard was sitting very still, his head craning forward intently as though to miss some tiny detail of what was being said would plunge him into darkness. Neither spoke.

Ibryen continued. ‘This has been a desperately long day. We’re all such a distance from where we were when we woke this morning. An assassin brought change to the Gevethen, the Traveller has brought it to us. And what’s been unmade can’t be remade.’ He forced himself back to the subject that he was evading and tumbled into it. ‘I intend to go with the Traveller up into the peaks to try to find the source of the sound that drew him here and the source of the strange call that’s been disturbing me these last few days.’

‘What!’ Rachyl spat crumbs. Hynard gaped.

Ibryen hung on to the reins of his tale with grim determination. ‘Marris will take command in my absence and you will pursue the tactics that I’ve just outlined. Company commanders will be...’

‘Are you crazy, Ibryen?’ Rachyl spluttered standing up. She filled the small room like a thunder cloud. Her earlier softening towards the Traveller vanished instantly. ‘You can’t go wandering about the mountains with a complete stranger, looking for some vague... noise.’ She gesticulated violently. ‘What are you going to do if you find it? Shout the Gevethen out of the country?’ She swore and threw down the crust that she was waving incongruously at the Traveller. ‘He’s probably heard some rutting animal, and you’ve probably got indigestion,’ she diagnosed. ‘And we’ve still no idea who he is. He might well have come from the south, but that leaves us none the wiser about why he’s here.’

‘Sit down, Rachyl.’ Ibryen’s quiet tone brought her to a blustering halt but she did not sit. Ibryen turned to Hynard expectantly.

‘I think Rachyl’s raising some valid questions,’ Hynard said unsteadily after a momentary hesitation. His attempt at diplomacy warmed Ibryen.

‘I understand your concern, Rachyl,’ he said. ‘Marris has already been over the same ground with me at length... great length.’ He had hoped to be conciliatory, but her looming presence made him frown. ‘Will you sit down, please. This room’s too small for you to flail about in.’

Replying with a scowl of her own, Rachyl sat down but perched herself bolt upright on the edge of her chair so that she was only marginally less intimidating than she had been standing. ‘Whose idea was this?’ she demanded, loath to concede anything further.

‘Mine.’ It was the Traveller who spoke. His tone was unexpectedly serious. Rachyl’s hand shot out, its extended forefinger moving between Ibryen and the Traveller while she struggled to find words to express the realization of her worst fears.

Ibryen took the initiative. ‘What’s he going to do, luring me up into the mountains, Rachyl? Murder me? I told you, he could have done that already when he first spoke to me.’

Rachyl moved effortlessly to her next thrust. ‘The way he can climb he could just abandon you and be off to the Gevethen with everything there is to know about us here.’

‘He could have left any time he wanted to.’ This time it was Marris who spoke. He gestured to the Traveller as Rachyl faltered again. ‘Show them.’

The Traveller pulled a sour face.

‘Show them,’ Marris insisted. ‘Rachyl and Hynard are nothing if not realists. Cut through all this blather, we’re wasting time.’

‘What do you mean, he could have left?’ Rachyl asked indignantly of no one in particular.

The Traveller looked at Ibryen for support but found none.

‘Marris is right,’ the Count said to him resignedly. ‘I know you don’t like doing it, but they’ll grasp the significance of what it means at least as fast as we did and then we’ll be able to get on. Do it.’

Hynard’s eyes narrowed suspiciously during this exchange, but Rachyl was becoming increasingly agitated. Half-standing, she levelled her finger at the Traveller again but spoke to Ibryen. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if he...’

The Traveller opened his mouth slightly. Ibryen was vaguely aware only of a faint humming but Rachyl stopped abruptly and sat down with a thud, her eyes glazed and fixed. Hynard started turning towards her then he too became still.

‘What have you done?’ Ibryen said, suddenly concerned. ‘That’s not what happened to me.’

‘Nor me,’ Marris added.

‘This is less distressing to me, if you don’t mind,’ the Traveller said haughtily, his voice echoing oddly. ‘And also kinder to them. Besides, the circumstances are different. And the materials I have to work with. Go and stand behind them.’ This instruction was given to Marris in a tone that brought him immediately to his feet and carried him across the room. As he moved behind the two cousins, they were themselves again. Hynard finished turning towards Rachyl while she completed her declaration, ‘...tries any fancy tricks on me, don’t think either his age or your protection will...’ She stopped and blinked. ‘What the...! Where’s...?’

‘I’m here.’

Both jumped up and spun round at the sound of Marris’s voice. Rachyl’s chair clattered over. Marris stepped back hastily, arms extended as Rachyl’s hand moved instinctively to the knife in her belt.

‘Sit down.’ The Traveller’s voice, though not loud, filled the room and halted this sudden flurry. His two subjects obeyed the command without hesitating, but seeing the shock in their eyes Ibryen did not wait for any questions. ‘Marris just walked behind you, that’s all. For the last few seconds you’ve been...’ he struggled. ‘...asleep, for want of a better word.’ He lifted his hands in denial. ‘Don’t ask me what was done, or how, but that’s what happened.’ Pausing, he looked at them both shrewdly. Rigid things shatter. Had the Traveller’s demonstration been too sudden, too severe? ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

Hynard blinked several times and then opened his eyes very wide. ‘Apart from seeing someone vanish, yes, I think so,’ he said.

‘Rachyl?’

‘Yes, fine, fine,’ she said, though her voice was unsteady. ‘Just a little shaky at finding someone suddenly behind me, that’s all.’ She shuddered noisily and put a hand on her knife again. It was obvious to Ibryen that both of them had been more badly affected than they were admitting, but their straightforward responses eased his concerns. He repeated his previous remark. ‘I don’t know what he did or how he did it, and I suspect he couldn’t explain it to us even if he wanted to. But you’ve felt it now. I’ve no doubt at all that he could have slipped through the entire camp unnoticed at any time if he’d wished. And I know for a fact that his strange gift can be used to far more destructive ends than sending people to sleep for a few seconds. He gave me and Marris a much more violent demonstration of what he can do earlier.’

Rachyl, who had been glaring at the Traveller, and receiving only a smile in return, looked sharply at Ibryen at this. Understanding made its way through the angry confusion in her eyes and her voice became excited and earnest. ‘We could use it to...’

‘No, we couldn’t,’ Ibryen interrupted quickly, anticipating Rachyl’s conclusion and fully reassured now, seeing her turning so readily to tactical matters. ‘We’ve discussed this at length already. Apart from the fact that this isn’t the Traveller’s war, and using his gift as a weapon carries a special toll for him, it would merely be an extension of what we’re already doing and wouldn’t change the ultimate conclusion. We go the way I’ve said. I go into the mountains with the Traveller in search of whatever’s brought him here, and you and the others remain here, to watch, defend and think.’ He held out both hands in a gesture of openness. ‘I’ll not bandy words,’ he said. ‘This is an act of faith. There’s no apparent logic to it except the logic of defeat if we continue as we are. Nothing may come of it, but we all know the value of our instincts out here, and I’m following mine now. They reason too finely for my thinking wits to follow and I must simply trust them.’

There was a brief silence, then Rachyl said, ‘You were right, it has been a long day. I feel as if the last five years were in another lifetime.’

Hynard nodded. ‘Nothing will turn you from this?’ he asked with finality.

‘Nothing that I’ve heard or thought of so far,’ Ibryen replied. ‘But if you can think of anything, I’m listening.’ He became matter-of-fact. ‘When you came back you were prepared to give the Traveller the benefit of any doubt you had. I respect your caution but, when you’ve got over the shock you’ve just had, I think you might find yourselves on the way to trusting him. However, that’s not important. Consider this: what’s to be lost by my following this... fancy? Spending a few days, perhaps a few weeks, in the mountains? Nothing. And what’s to be gained? Who can say? But no harm can possibly come of our re-ordering our thoughts; of making ourselves more ready to respond to change, can it?’

Hynard looked doubtful. ‘Put like that it all seems innocuous enough. But I’m not happy about you wandering the mountains on your own. It’s been a long time since you did any serious mountain work. With all due respect to our... guest... good climber he might be, but can he carry you on his back for any distance if need arises?’

Marris’s nodding did nothing to prevent Ibryen’s indignation mounting at this slur, but Rachyl intervened before he could give it voice.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said to Hynard. ‘I’ll be going with them.’

Ibryen’s mouth dropped. ‘I think not,’ he said with massive authority. Rachyl’s gaze fixed him. There was a strength in it that he had never known before.

Change reforges. The thought came to him unbidden.

‘This isn’t a matter for debate, Cousin,’ she said. She waved an arm around the small gathering. ‘This is as it was when we were in the Shippen this morning. This is family. It’s imperative that we all agree. But it’s also got to be accepted by the Company Commanders — by every one of our people here, if it’s not going to do anything other than shatter morale.’ She looked at Marris then Ibryen. ‘I presume you’ve given some thought to what you’ll be telling them?’

Marris made no reply and, after considering improvising, Ibryen told the truth. ‘Not fully,’ he admitted. ‘We wanted to know what you thought first.’

‘You mean you wanted to see how we’d react,’ Rachyl translated.

This time Ibryen did not reply. Rachyl grunted significantly. ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘this is what we’ve all agreed here. You, the Traveller and myself go in search of this mysterious whatever it is that’s calling you into the mountains, while the valley contents itself with watching and waiting under Marris’s command.’ It was a summary, not an opening argument, but before Ibryen could say anything he was once again the focus of Rachyl’s attention. ‘All that remains is how long this business is supposed to continue, and what’s to be told to the others, because you can’t tell them what you’re really doing.’

Marris and Hynard turned to Ibryen expectantly.

Suddenly defensive, he said, ‘I can’t lie.’

‘You can’t tell the truth either,’ Rachyl said bluntly. ‘Not and hope to retain any sense of authority. Loyalty can go only so far. It’s been hard enough for us who’ve known you all our lives, and I’m trusting you rather than understanding. You can’t ask it of anyone else, it’s too much.’

Before Ibryen could reply, Hynard had taken up the challenge. ‘We’ll have no trouble in announcing that the Traveller’s from the south. In fact, we’ll have to. The others will have spread it all over the valley by now, so we haven’t got much longer before the Hall’s full to bursting.’

‘I asked you to say nothing about all this,’ Ibryen said angrily.

Hynard retorted in similar vein. ‘You asked us to say nothing about the discussion in the Shippen, and we didn’t, in spite of some considerable pressing. But there were six of us went up on the ridge — the duty stand-by team and us — and the sight of those footsteps across the Hummock couldn’t have been kept quiet for any length of time no matter what we, or for that matter, you said.’

For a moment the two men held one another’s gaze, then Ibryen broke the contact with an irritable wave. ‘Finish what you were going to say.’

Hynard pressed on. ‘I think all we can say is that the Traveller is what he says he is — a traveller, journeying from Girnlant in the south to...’ He shrugged. ‘...some place — his home perhaps — in the north. We can say he’s an expert mountaineer — also true, and witnessed by others. And we can say he’s offered to help us find a way through the mountains that’ll help us to come at the Gevethen from some unexpected direction. Again true, after a fashion.’ He looked at Ibryen for approval but received only a cautious nod. ‘Rachyl going with you will reassure everyone who might have doubts about the Traveller’s real intentions. As for a change in tactics, a policy of watch and wait following Hagen’s assassination and pending your return shouldn’t present any problems. In fact, using nothing as a means of further disturbing the Gevethen is quite brilliant.’ Ibryen tilted his head on one side and searched Hynard’s voice for any signs of irony but he found none, and Hynard did not seem to notice the scrutiny though he was a little hesitant about his next words. ‘All this you can say without lying. But I agree with Rachyl that you should make no mention whatsoever of the Traveller’s strange powers and this... call... you’ve heard. Nor should we mention anything about the Culmadryen. I’ll trust you...’ He glanced at Rachyl and received some form of assent. ‘We’ll trust you absolutely, but in the name of pity, take care — in every way. Keep your feet on the ground because it’ll all come to edges, points and physical courage in the end, and we need you here, clear-headed and clear-sighted, directing events from the centre.’

Ibryen’s residual anger at their confrontation faded before the unexpected power of Hynard’s exposition and he felt more than a little ashamed of his behaviour. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘It seems that change is truly in the air,’ he said, managing a smile to cover his awkwardness. ‘I’ve never heard you string so many words together before. Certainly not to such effect.’

‘I don’t think you’ll fault them either,’ Marris said.

‘I think you’re right,’ Ibryen agreed, then to Rachyl and Hynard he said simply, ‘Good. Very good. Thank you both,’ before turning to the Traveller. ‘Does any of this give you offence?’

The reply was unexpectedly sour. ‘The whole thing gives me offence, Count. I belong in the cold high peaks, alone with my thoughts and carving the sounds I find there. If you remember, I told you the tale from the Great Gate about the defeat of the Ancient Corrupter, and how even in the very moment of defeat He knew victory, for He saw that His lessons had been spread both wide and deep throughout humanity.’ He looked down into his hand which was curling first into a claw and then into a fist. ‘He’s here now, as if those arrows and spears had never brought Him down. He’s here, standing sweet-tongued at our shoulders, turning the rich skills of fine people towards a myriad forms of hurt and deceit when they should be celebrating just being — just being.’ He looked up from his hand and round at each person in turn. ‘But I’m as much one of you as I’m not, and I’ll help you as I’ve promised. At least you too are offended by what you do and you’ll turn from it as soon as you can.’

There was a discreet knocking at the door. Ibryen, the nearest, stood up and opened it. A man was standing there, his manner at once respectful and determined. Behind him, the Council Hall, its arched roof lit by dozens of lanterns, was full of silent people, also waiting.