The Keep

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 40After Josyff had left the Gatehouse, the others drifted in his wake without debate, Nyk summarizing their thoughts with a weary, “The surveyor’s right. It’s been a long and bizarre day and there’s nothing any of us can do right now. I’m off to bed as well. Can’t see me sleeping much, but...” He shrugged.

They had walked across the snow-covered courtyard in silence and parted with nothing more than a few cursory ‘Good night’s before each lighting their own ways along the Keep’s corridors.

Esyal bolted her door then caught sight of herself in the night-blackened windows. For some reason the image staring back at her was unsettling, as was the thought of the mountains beyond — beautiful and majestic in the sunlight, but ominous when hidden in the darkness. She drew the curtains then lay back on the bed and gazed at the ceiling. She was there for some time before finally forcing herself to change and get into the bed. Then she continued gazing at the ceiling. She was tired but could not get to sleep — did not want to go to sleep.

What the devil is this place? And what the devil is going on?

Though she knew the questions were unanswerable she could do nothing to stop herself asking them.

So much had happened in so short a time. She had gone from being lost, alone and beaten, and from facing a lonely and cold death, to being warm and safe and in a position to destroy a member of the Ordrans — for member of the Ordrans she was increasingly sure that Adroyan was. And not only that, but destroying him at the cusp of some important New Order project — something that might perhaps do them real harm!

Yet she remained unsettled. Life in the Rhanen had schooled her to violence, but it had come neither easily nor happily and her abrupt, cold-blooded even, decision that Adroyan should die, when she reflected on it, was like nothing she had experienced before — like the silent mountains beyond the windows, it was a dark, forbidding presence.

Killing Adroyan was the right thing to do, of course. She knew that. Whatever the outcome, she doubted she could bear the self-reproach that would surely follow later if she missed such an opportunity. And time was not on her side. Although they were all locked in this place at the moment, they would be free sooner or later. Worse, if the men who had scattered her party out in the mountains were still about, caught by this snow, they might arrive at any time and begin asking questions she would find difficult to answer convincingly. Already her “loss of memory” story was proving awkward, especially in the absence of any form on injury to sustain it. She would have to consider how she could discreetly abandon it before some slip brought it crashing down on her.

“Just think — think,” she murmured to herself fretfully. It was, after all, only going to be a choice of deceits. She just needed to take a little time to work them out in detail, then she could choose the best.

She turned on to her side with a grunt. This could all be dealt with later — it was only a matter ofdetails — important ones, admittedly, but details nevertheless — she must not be distracted by that part of her that did not want to look too closely at her sudden decision to kill Adroyan. It had not been simply the logic of the situation, though that was sound enough. It had been visceral — completely unexpected — almost like a revelation. But even as she reluctantly returned to it, the exertions of the day began to make themselves felt — drowsiness seeping through her, clouding her thinking and urging her to forget the problem. She resisted the lure — now was an ideal time for this — alone and quiet — safe...

Twice she jerked back into partial wakefulness...

“...almost as if someone had put the idea of killing him into my mind,” she was murmuring the second time, apparently continuing a conversation with someone.

Stay awake, she commanded herself. Sort this out, it’s important...

But someone was speaking somewhere — there were voices, vague and distant, like a buzzing in her head. For a moment she thought it might be outside her door and although this was not quite enough to bring her fully awake, her hand slithered from beneath the blankets towards her belt knife, strategically placed on a chair by the bed. It fell limp before it reached its goal. The door was locked and bolted. There was no risk of surprise attack. Still, she should get up and find out where the noise was coming from, but...

She listened.

The voices rose and fell, now distinct, now nearly inaudible.

There were two. One was familiar — very familiar — though the name of the speaker frustratingly refused to declare itself. The other was deeply strange — now like one person, now like several, even a crowd, speaking at once. And it was no idle chit-chat — they were debating something.

Am I dreaming? she thought...

Then images were forming around the words, dancing with them as though caught in their buffeting backwash.

And she was part of it... riding the words... to and fro... echoing about the complex, winding corridors of the Keep, now bright and shimmering with colours she had never seen before. Beautiful sweeping shapes arced into places that could not be. Cascading lights fell down and down giddyingly through twisting perspectives until, quite seamlessly, quite naturally, they were at their own beginning — round and round impossibly.

But there was something hovering beneath the beauty, something about the Keep, something dangerous — a sense of intrusion — distortion — a fabric strained beyond its tolerance — a knife-edged equilibrium...

“There is another with us...”

The words folded around this revelation were clear and sure.

Esyal found herself holding her breath, as if the least movement might set in train the irrevocable shattering of this illusion... or draw some danger down on her.

“Do not be afraid... listener...”

As the words touched her they stopped sharply. Everything became silent and still save for a faint and high pitched trembling at the edge of her awareness.

“Warrior...?”

The word was filled with many emotions, but dominant amongst them was fear — not fear of Esyal but the fear of daring suddenly to hope. Esyal winced away from the pain she sensed and it faded, gradually being replaced by curiosity... and excitement.

“You do not see us as the measurer sees us. You are the same yet different — different aspects (views? facets?) of the same. Wait... wait... I see...”

Then, set in a confusion of shifting and changing patterns, there was a figure. Part of Esyal noted distantly that her eyes were closed but it held little sway against the patent reality of what she was seeing. Yet, what was she seeing? It was a figure, surely? But where it was, or even what it looked like, she could not truly have said. At times it stood distinct and sharp, while at others it seemed to be just part of the frenzied background, being scattered and re-formed in bright, scurrying colours or submerged in a foaming tide of grim shadows.

“Who are you?” she asked, almost shouting, as though a great wind were blowing. “What’s happening? Am I dreaming?”

There was wide-eyed realization in the words when they came again, but they did not answer her questions.

“You can reach into the darkness and the light!”

“What? Answer me! Who are you? What’s happening?”

The lights buzzed and whirled about her, more frenziedly than ever, but the figure at their heart became clearer, more solid. Another formed by its side, fainter and less certain.

“That is the measurer,” came an answer before she had asked the question. “Through you, many joinings (junctions? paths? ways?) are possible. You are truly unique (alone?) in your strangeness. Truly a warrior. A rare find...” The hesitant sense of hope returned briefly.

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about,” Esyal burst out. “Answer my question, damn you! Who are you? And who’s the measurer?”

There was a pause.

“We have no name you would know us by, warrior. We are before (beyond? above?) you. We are the... First Comers... Because of us, you are.”

“Because of us, you are?” Esyal echoed quizzically. “What does that mean? You made us?” The rebel in her began to bridle. “Gods, are you?” she sneered, safe in her locked room and her dream, despite what she was seeing and hearing.

“Gods?” There was another pause. “Creators. No. We are just the First Comers — born, it is said, when the Great Silence was sundered. You are, because we are. You, the measurer, the Destroyer, are a part of us — shadows (echoes? reflections?) — lesser aspects of ourselves.”

“The Great Silence was sundered” sounded familiar to Esyal, but before she could pursue it the word “lesser” made her bridle again, only to be deflected by immediate curiosity when, “...and full of strangeness,” followed.

“Strangeness?”

“Dark depths of... confusion... where we cannot (dare not?) go, save only sufficiently to draw this so that we can reach you.”

The figure made a slow sweeping gesture. Colours swirled turbulently about his hands and Esyal was swept up in a kaleidoscopic vision of innumerable tumbling scenes — all manner of people, places, incidents — every one of which, she realized abruptly, was from her own memory. And not only actual events but events from her imagination — childhood dreams, adult aspirations, fantasies.

“They’re mine! My thoughts.”

“They are from the very edges of your strangeness, warrior. It is a fearful place for us — beyond all control (calculation?).”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you cannot. It lies at the very limits of what we know and it is beyond you, just by virtue of what you are. But still you are more than you know.”

Then the words were impatient, anxious to move on.

“We need your help. And the measurer’s. You must make the Destroyer no more.”

Esyal wilfully ignored the urgency. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, or who you are. And what are you doing meddling with my thoughts? And who’s this... measurer... hovering in the background? Come to that, what am I doing talking to you. You’re a figment of my imagination — old bits and pieces of my life mixed in with what’s happened the last few days.”

“No, Esyal.”

The voice was different. It came from the second figure and she recognized it as Josyff’s straight away.

“The imagination is mine.” There was a hint of uncertain amusement in it. “And I think enough is enough. I didn’t like the direction this was going in moments ago. Now I’m imagining you imagining me — time to wake up, I think.”

“Yes,” Esyal agreed.

“No! Do not leave! Such a joining may not come again.”

Although the “No!” had been authoritative and commanding, the remainder was a plea, full of desperation. Esyal hesitated and the words hurried on. Behind and within them Esyal could feel some kind of urgent activity. Even as she noted this, the figure became clearer, as did that of the measurer.

“Warrior, measurer, we hear (see? feel?) your doubt. You are not where you normally are — we understand... we think. You have come again to the fringes of your strangeness, as is your way, and you think us a product of it. But we are not. We have been reaching (hoping? searching?) for you since the nexus was formed — since the Destroyer — in great doubt (pain? confusion?). Now you are found — the measurer drawing after him the warrior. Such alignments are almost beyond calculation. We need your help.”

Esyal felt it easier to continue talking than to seek some way of waking herself. “You’ve said that before,” she said, continuing acidly, “You want me and the measurer to make the Destroyer no more. Can you rephrase that so that it makes sense?”

“He — they — whatever, wants us to kill Adroyan.”

It was Josyff’s voice again but before Esyal could reply she heard a sharply drawn breath.

“Ye gods! You were going to do it anyway! Your memory’s fine. You’re... you’re one of the Rhanen...”

Esyal started violently and she could feel her whole body trembling as much as if this revelation had been shouted through all the corridors of the Keep. She saw the figure of the measurer twitch and fade. Josyff’s voice was continuing.

“No, no, no, this is insane. I must wake up — get away from this. I...”

“There is little time, measurer.” The voice was tense now, as though restraining panic or despair. “You are drifting away from the strangeness. We cannot hold you. You and the warrior must make the Destroyer no more. The Enemy has found him and touched him and he is seeking the Heart. Great harm will come to everyone — everything — should he find it. You...”

And like a candle flame caught in the wintry gust from a suddenly opened window, the voice was gone.

Esyal jerked upright, wide awake, heart racing. The light came on. It took her a moment to realize that someone was banging on her bedroom door.