The Whistler approached cautiously and crouched down in front of him. ‘Tell me,’ he said again, very softly.
Vredech slumped, and without looking up told all that had happened since they had last met. It did not take long. Throughout, the Whistler blew gently across the mouth-hole of his flute, with a sound like the wind blowing over a bleak and distant plain.
There was a long silence after Vredech had finished.
‘You frighten me, Allyn Vredech, with your monstrous Cassraw,’ the Whistler said eventually. ‘But it’s Him that brings the changes, not you. I’m sorry. He distorts the fabric of everything with His lust!’ His final word drifted away into the soft sigh of the wind.
When Vredech looked up, he was staring at Nertha sitting on the edge of the couch by her patient, her head bowed sl
