Ibryen [A sequel to the Chronicles of Hawklan] Read online

  Isgyrn chuckled softly. ‘I'm afraid my instinct down here seems to be always to move upwards. But I'll accept your judgement in such a decision.'

  Ibryen leaned back over the bank and looked down into the water, now smooth again after the disturbance the two of them had made.

  'Well, I suppose ...’ He stopped abruptly. Behind his reflection in the water was a great agitation, as though storm clouds had suddenly appeared in the sky. He cast a quick glance upwards for reassurance, but there was only the cloudless blue that there had been since they arrived. As he turned back, a sharp intake of breath from Isgyrn drew his attention. The Dryenwr was staring, wide-eyed, into the water.

  Ibryen followed his gaze. Though the surface of the water was still smooth and untroubled, the turmoil in the reflected sky was growing, moving faster and faster. He started back in alarm, but his silhouetted reflection did not move. Disconcerted, he reached out a tentative hand to stir the water. A powerful grip seized his arm. It was Isgyrn.

  'It's Him,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I can feel His presence. We must get away from here.’ He made to stand but Ibryen resisted, staring fixedly into the water.

  'For Svara's sake, Ibryen ...'

  Isgyrn's oath faded as the turbulence suddenly stopped and the reflection cleared. Except that where he and Ibryen had been staring up out of the gently rippling water, there were now the faces of the two Gevethen. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came. His gaping mouth was mimicked by the two moon faces.

  Ibryen's face was suddenly a mask of fear and rage. He reached for his sword but had scarcely begun to draw it when, like ghastly leaping fish, glittering and sparkling with what should have been cascading drops of water but which seemed more like a myriad shards of broken glass, four arms burst up through the water. The summer air filled with a terrible screeching. Ibryen's head jerked back violently to avoid them, but one of the clawing hands caught the loose front of his tunic. Unbalanced, and arms flailing, he lurched forward as it dragged him down. Only one hand just catching the edge of the bank prevented him from plunging immediately into the water. His other hand thrashed wildly at the remaining three, still clawing out to reach him, but balanced as he was, he could not resist the pull of even the single hand for more than a moment. The screeching intensified.

  Then, Isgyrn had wrapped determined arms around him and, with a great cry, was hurling himself backwards. For an eternal moment, it seemed that this effort was going to drag the Gevethen themselves across the worlds, as a cracked, crazed and glittering dome swelled up out of the water. Isgyrn had a fleeting vision of the two faces, distorted and awful, at once frantic and triumphant. Then the grip on Ibryen was gone and he and Ibryen were tumbling backwards on the grass. On the instant their roles were reversed and it was Ibryen who was on his feet and dragging a stumbling and shocked Isgyrn along. ‘This way! This way!’ he was crying.

  And they were gone.

  As were the Gevethen.

  * * * *

  Both the Traveller and Rachyl cried out in alarm as the two motionless figures of Ibryen and Isgyrn burst suddenly into life and lurched forward, arms flailing.

  The Traveller held out a hand to restrain Rachyl as she made to move forward to help. He spoke powerfully to the two gasping men. ‘You're safe now. You're back with us on the mountain.’ He had to say it several times before recognition came into their eyes.

  Isgyrn reached out and took hold of Ibryen, turning him so that he could peer into his face. ‘It was a dream,’ he said. ‘A nightmare?'

  Ibryen clutched the front of his tunic convulsively. ‘A nightmare, yes,’ he shuddered. ‘But real. The Culmaren's world, the place of lights between, and the forest. All real.'

  'And those creatures?'

  'Real too. The Gevethen.'

  Isgyrn tightened his grip on Ibryen's arm. ‘His creatures, Ibryen. They were His creatures. The war continues. I must find my land—any land.'

  * * * *

  Arms raised to protect her head and eyes screwed tight shut, Jeyan spun round and offered her cowering back to the scene she had been watching as it shattered into a blizzard of brilliant, jagged edges. But these, like the awful noise that accompanied them, raked through even the darkness behind her eyes.

  As the din faded she straightened up and turned round slowly, shaking as she examined herself in the terrifying expectation of seeing great gaping wounds all over her body. But she had suffered no hurt. She gazed down at herself and, still shocked, her mind relived the last few moments for her—the sudden appearance of the Count and a companion staring down at her and the Gevethen—the Gevethen's frantic lunge and the brief, frenzied struggle ... Ibryen's rescue by his companion and the startling vanishing of both of them as they turned and fled. Then there was the terrible noise and the shaking which had seemed to rack the entire world that was held in the mirrors. A noise and a shaking that were continuing, she realized, as senses long-developed in the Ennerhald gathered her wits together for her and roused her with urgent warning signals. Whatever had happened, had happened. Questions would have to wait. All that mattered was that she had survived, and survived uninjured. Now she must turn to the next danger. And danger there was, for much of the continuing noise was that of the Gevethen shouting and screaming a tirade of unbridled obscenity.

  Though she was no delicate bloom, she nonetheless shied away from the horrific intensity of abuse that was pouring from them, addressed to each other and to Ibryen and to fate in general. Slowly, Jeyan sank to her knees and lowered her head.

  'He has the gift! Our enemy has the gift!' was the dominant gist, though it was heavily larded with reproaches in the form of 'You let him escape!' and 'You were too slow!'

  As before, a childish quality in the exchanges served only to heighten the horror of what she was hearing. And it seemed that they might continue thus for ever, each spiralling off the other into greater excess. She began to feel more afraid than at any time since she had been captured. If even the slightest portion of this mounting odium were directed to herself she would be snuffed out with less thought than a guttering candle.

  Then, as if the thought itself had been sufficient, it happened. She was suddenly the focus of their attention.

  'Ah. Lord Counsellor.'

  Jeyan quailed. There was such hatred in the voice that it seemed as though the continuing buffeting shaking everything around them were merely a reflection of it. Death was heartbeats away, she knew. Gone was any pretence at subtle torment. Now there was only bloodlust, and though she was less than dust to them, she was nearby and would serve as a beginning.

  In response, a choking knot of her own hatred formed within her and, almost unaware of what she was doing, she braced herself to make a final spring at her enemies with the intention of seriously harming, if not killing, one of them.

  Yet she did not. Instead, without thinking, she prostrated herself and began shouting passionately, her inspiration scarcely two words ahead of her speech. ‘Beyond our imagining are His ways, Excellencies. His hounds have led you here so that you might both know the secret of your enemy and find your guide to the Way.'

  There was a long pause. Jeyan held her breath, bracing herself for a blow. Then she felt the fury about her alter. A whispered exchange began which she could not hear at first. It rose in intensity very quickly however.

  'He has led us here. Ibryen is to be our guide through the Ways. Our enemy shall be our salvation and our slave. We shall come to Him once again. And in triumph.'

  The manic fervour that had fired their anger returned, though now it was sustaining an excited and frantic elation. 'He must be found and brought to our service.' Over and over. 'He must be found.'

  No praise came down to the still-prostrated Jeyan, but she knew that she was safe for the time being.

  Yet, despite this change in the mood of the Gevethen, the shocks and vibrations that were continuing to shake their strange world were undiminished. In fact, just as they had seemingly resonated to th
eir anger, so now they resonated to their excitement.

  And they grew worse, though the Gevethen seemed to be oblivious to them.

  Then, there was a sudden, jarring jolt and, for the briefest of moments, there was terrifying chaos. Jeyan felt as though she was being torn in half. She could hear herself screaming—screaming with two voices. And she could hear the Gevethen screaming too, though with countless numbers of voices. She had a fleeting vision of a line of Gevethen figures, arms thrashing frantically, disappearing into a distance that seemed to outreach the stars. Then the vision was gone, almost before she could register it, and at the same instant, she was whole again.

  Slowly, the world within the mirrors reformed. The moving, intangible shapes and lights returned to pursue their own mysterious, bewildering paths, the sounds became again the rising and falling of a senseless chorus. And finally, she noted the faint reflected images of her room hovering about her.

  For a moment she thought she was going to be violently sick. Then the hands of the Gevethen closed about her shoulders.

  'We are served by flawed creatures, Lord Counsellor ...'

  '... Lord Counsellor.'

  'The offenders must be punished for their weakness and folly ...'

  '... weakness and folly.'

  Jeyan did not know what they meant, though she suspected, from their tone and their returning control, that it was associated with what had just happened rather than anything previously.

  Then they were moving. Very quickly. Though not in flight, as before, but in furious excitement. It filled their voices when they spoke again. 'He shall be ours, Lord Counsellor. He shall be our guide. The traitor Ibryen shall bring us again to His feet.'

  'He must be found. He must be found.'

  * * *

  Chapter 28

  It was a considerable time before the clamour of voices in the wind and rain-battered tent began to reach any semblance of order. Rachyl's dogged insistence that, ‘You never left here, you must have been dreaming,’ proved to be not the least of the difficulties to be overcome. Ibryen knew better than to attempt to force her to silence by use of his authority and, in the end, it was only Isgyrn's description of the Gevethen that made her reluctantly concede that something more substantial than a dream had affected the two men.

  But a more worrying plaint than the voicing of Rachyl's doubts was that of Isgyrn and his fretting that he must somehow contact his land. Ironically, where Ibryen had declined to use the authority he held over Rachyl to silence her, he used an authority that he did not possess to silence Isgyrn.

  'You can't contact any of the Culmadryen, Isgyrn,’ he said forcefully as the Dryenwr seemed set to circle through his concerns again. ‘If only for the simple reason that none have been known over Nesdiryn in recorded memory. And I require your word, Warrior, that you'll not try to enter the world of the Culmaren again.'

  'But ...'

  'Your word, Isgyrn,’ Ibryen's tone was unequivocal. ‘You said yourself you had no knowledge of how to survive in that place and, as far as I know, it was the purest chance that took me to you and brought us both safely away. There's no guarantee that I'll be able to do it again. For all I know, we could easily have died there.'

  'I'm of no value to you here,’ Isgyrn protested. He pointed upwards. ‘I belong among the clouds where I'm a leader and can truly serve.'

  'I'll determine your value here, Isgyrn,’ Ibryen said. ‘And as you've already saved me from the Gevethen, I'll start it high. As for service, you must decide that for yourself. I think you'll provide far more than just another sword against the Gevethen, but in any case it'll also be a sword against this enemy of yours.'

  'Of ours, Count,’ Isgyrn corrected. ‘The Great Corrupter is the enemy of all living things. He's an evil from the very Heat of the Beginning, not some petty prince or warlord.'

  The Traveller spoke before Ibryen could reply. ‘I don't pretend to understand fully what you're talking about, Isgyrn,’ he said. ‘But I've seen enough strange things not to dispute with you too heatedly. Yet if this Great Corrupter is as you say, He must have been defeated. You said that others were fighting Him, down here, and you yourself saw His lieutenant's land destroyed even as you were thrown down into the middle depths. And although I heard some odd rumours in Girnlant, there's been no news of wars spreading out into the world as surely there must have been over the last fifteen years if He'd won.'

  'It's fifteen years or so since those creepy little birds disappeared and since the Gevethen began to grow conspicuously strange.’ It was Rachyl. She offered no conclusion.

  For the first time Isgyrn faltered.

  Ibryen laid a hand on Isgyrn's arm. ‘None of us can say what strange forces are moving events, Isgyrn,’ he said softly. ‘Or what part each of us has to play.’ He indicated the others. ‘I'm not usually given to talking in such portentous terms, but we've not been from the village a week, and yet the world—my world, at least—is vastly different from what it was. I haven't begun to get a measure of what's happened and still less what it all means. I can't command you to do anything, but if you enter the world of the Culmaren again, I doubt I'll be able to abandon you, so I ask you not to try for both our sakes.’ He straightened up. ‘Let's you and me confine ourselves to simple practicalities. I will go into Culmaren's world for you and ...’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘... call out, or send some kind of a message, whatever seems fitting. You, if you wish, can return with us and turn your fighting skills to helping us defeat the Gevethen. Whether this terrible leader you fear so much has been defeated or not—and it seems that He might have been—other of His lieutenants are perhaps still doing His work. You faced one in the air and defeated him, and we apparently have to face two of them down here in the middle depths.'

  Rachyl looked anxiously at Ibryen. ‘I don't think it's a good idea, you going off into a trance again, if half of what you've just told us is true,’ she said.

  Isgyrn too, was concerned. ‘I can't ask you to do what I'm not prepared to do,’ he said.

  Ibryen smiled. ‘But you are prepared,’ he retorted. ‘You're just not capable.'

  Isgyrn lowered his head. ‘Let me think for a little while,’ he said. ‘I need to be alone. I'll go outside.'

  Ibryen looked at him uncertainly. ‘I'll do nothing foolish,’ Isgyrn promised sadly. ‘So many strange things have happened in these last few hours. I just need to have the sky above me and to feel Svara's will about me.'

  As he crawled out of the tent Ibryen offered him the Culmaren which had slipped from his shoulders. Isgyrn refused it. ‘It has too many powerful memories,’ he said. ‘I need to be free for a while.'

  He walked a little way from the tent and sat on a rock. The rain had stopped and the sky was less overcast, but the wind was still blowing strongly. Nearby mountains and valleys were beginning to appear.

  'Will he be all right?’ Rachyl asked.

  'He might be from up in the clouds,’ Ibryen said, idly fingering the Culmaren, ‘but his feet are on the ground. He's no real choices. He'll die for sure if he goes searching for the Culmaren in their world again, and I think he knows it.'

  'You didn't.'

  'Part of me belongs there,’ Ibryen replied. ‘Perhaps part of all of us does, but only a few can reach it, and still fewer know what to do with it.’ He held up a hand quickly as Rachyl made to speak again. ‘Until I meet someone a great deal wiser, I've just got to accept things as they are, and without explanation. I doubt a young bird could tell you how it knows that it's safe to launch itself from a high ledge for the first time.'

  Rachyl frowned. ‘I've seen squashed fledglings before now,’ she said.

  'Another bad analogy,’ Ibryen replied, laughter bursting out of him. ‘But you understand my meaning well enough.’ His laughter shook off much of the tension that had pervaded the group since he and Isgyrn had sprung so abruptly into consciousness.

  A few minutes later, Rachyl walked over to join Isgyrn. The Dryenwr was staring though
tfully out across a neighbouring valley.

  'This is a mysterious and beautiful place,’ he said. ‘Everything felt dead to my touch and my tread when I first woke, but now I feel many subtle things—in the rocks and the plants—even Svara's will. It's so elaborate and full of tales down here, twisting and turning over the crooked surface of this vast land.'

  'Your people don't come down here?’ Rachyl asked.

  'Culmaren has the need to touch the peaks at times, and the seas, to draw sustenance.’ His eyes became distant. ‘A splendid sight, that. The roots of the land reaching down into the depths, like a slow cascading mist, so that when it touches, the whole land seems to be precariously balanced on a mountain peak, or to be rising out of the ocean like a huge tree.’ With some reluctance he left the scene and returned to Rachyl's question. ‘But we ourselves rarely venture this low.’ He placed his hand on his chest. ‘I think my wing must indeed have changed me in some way to enable me to survive down here.'

  A thought occurred to Rachyl. ‘Does that mean you might not be able to go back even if you could contact one of your lands?’ she asked. It was kindly put, but it was a stark question. Yet Isgyrn did not seem to be disturbed by it.

  'I'm not sure,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I'm not even sure whether I've been changed or not. I feel no different. No one ever comes low without protection, but that could be no more than a tradition handed down through the years.'

  Rachyl gazed at him quizzically. Isgyrn, in his turn, looked apologetic. ‘There's very little interest in coming to the middle depths, so survival here's not a topic that's been studied extensively.'

  'Funny attitude,’ Rachyl said, mildly offended.

  Isgyrn smiled. ‘What do you know about the clouds?’ he asked.

  Rachyl gave a tight-lipped grunt to indicate an end to the debate...

  'Your Count is a remarkable man,’ Isgyrn said, moving both to the centre of his concerns and on to safer ground.