Dream Finder Read online

  They must not stop. To seek rest here would be to die.

  And to die here, a mortal, chosen as Ar-Hyrdyn’s messenger and allowed to this most sacred of places, would not only be to die away from the battlefield, it would be the foulest sacrilege. His days for all eternity would be filled with the terrible sound of Ar-Hyrdyn’s hunting horn and the howling of his beasts as they pursued and tore at him forever.

  He sank now almost up to his knees, but still he moved, wrenching his legs free from the clinging dust. And still the golden light drew him on.

  Faintly, on the stinging breeze, he thought he heard the sound of Ar-Hyrdyn’s warriors. Were they encouraging him or were they just singing and laughing, unaware of his fate, his presence even? It made no difference. This time he would be among them; one of them. He would not yield. No pain, no fatigue could keep him from such fulfilment; could keep him from his destiny.

  Abruptly, and not knowing how he came there, he was on all fours, his hands sinking into the dust. Anger welled up inside him at his body’s silent treachery. He must not crawl, like some craven slave! He must stand, and walk.

  Somewhere in the dark forest beyond the columns, something howled in anticipation.

  Antyr felt Tarrian’s and Grayle’s wolf spirits responding to the call, but his will helped them to keep silent and still.

  Somehow, Grygyr came to his feet, goading himself forward with the memories of ordeals he had survived before. He opened his mouth to cry out, ‘I will come there, Lord, I will come there, though it take a myriad lifetimes for each step.’ But the dust blew into his mouth, acrid, gritty, choking.

  Then the whole world shook.

  He closed his eyes in a mixture of fear and expectation.

  When he opened them, it was to see the terrible figure of Ar-Hyrdyn himself before him. The great god of the Bethlarii towered high into the night sky, black against the huge glaring moon which, drawn by the god’s presence, had swollen even further and swung silently behind him to form a ghastly backdrop.

  As it always did, a fascinated terror filled Grygyr at the sight of this apparition.

  ‘Did you think that the journey to the Golden Hall of Ar-Hyrdyn would be so light a journey?’ the figure said, echoing Grygyr’s own thoughts, in a voice that sounded like rolling thunder and that shook Grygyr to his very soul.

  The god extended his hand and the distant light rose into the air until it passed in front of the moon and Grygyr could no longer look at it, so bright was the moonlight.

  ‘Lord, I will do whatever is your wish, to gain your favour,’ he said, trembling and lowering his eyes.

  ‘You will do whatever is my wish,’ the figure announced definitively.

  Face still set and resolute, Grygyr came to attention. The ground was now hard under his feet.

  There was a long, timeless pause, then the voice rumbled, ‘Still you live.’

  Grygyr’s eye widened. ‘The Duke is a cunning and devious foe, Lord,’ he said hastily. ‘He fights like a poisoning woman, not a man. He has ignored my insults and issued loud public promises for my safety, so that only by attempting his life can I make the Serens end my own. And to act thus now would be to broadcast my treachery across the land and turn the wavering cities against us . . .’

  ‘This I know!’ the voice thundered savagely. ‘This I ordained so that in living when you strove to die, you would learn the subtle ways of your enemy.’

  The black form became alive with a billowing thundercloud movement, shot through with flickering lightning.

  ‘Forgive me, Lord,’ Grygyr said hoarsely, looking down again.

  The thunder subsided. ‘Your loyalty is known and will be rewarded, my priest,’ the figure said, almost conciliatory. ‘And you have done in Serenstad all that was required of you. Whendrak now will be the lure. Return home now and note what you would note as a soldier as you pass through their land for when you pass through it again with a victorious army at your back.’

  ‘I shall, Lord,’ Grygyr replied fervently. ‘I have already learned much. I . . .’

  ‘Go now,’ the voice said.

  Grygyr hesitated. Was he to be denied tonight? He ventured, ‘Lord, may I not look again upon your domain so that I may better describe its wonders to your followers?’ There was a strange silence, an unexpected hesitation. Then the huge figure seemed to grow in size until it filled the entire sky. Grygyr quailed before it.

  ‘You presume,’ came the terrible reply. ‘Go now before you anger us further with your mortal folly. You are put in the balance again. We shall return at some other time and consider your worth then. Be faithful and true, priest.’

  ‘Your justice is boundless, Lord, I . . .’

  Before he could finish, a great horn call rang out and the air was suddenly filled with the cries of countless hunting animals. Grygyr looked in terror from side to side. All around, dark shapes were running out of the dark shadow of the forests. He looked up at the figure, but it was gone. Only the monstrous moon remained, and it was slowly turning red.

  ‘Go now,’ said an echoing voice out of the emptiness.

  Grygyr screamed.

  ‘No! Lord!’

  He raised his hands to protect his head as the shadows closed in on him. He felt their hot, fetid breath. He screamed again.

  Then the ground under his feet became dust again, sucking him down, down, down. He thrashed his arms in flailing panic, but still he sank. And still the black creatures neared. The dust rose up past his chest, his throat. It poured into the edges of his closed mouth, forced itself into his nose, his eyes, his ears, and finally closed over his head.

  He felt the cold breeze blowing through his clutching fingers, then savage jaws closed about them . . .

  Antyr opened his eyes. There was a bumping sound from the adjacent room, as if the envoy were drumming against the wall.

  Antyr grimaced as indignation and horror swept over him. It was partly his own, partly that of Tarrian and Grayle. The power, the terrible skills of the men that had murdered Nyriall, that had been at the heart of all the events of the past days, stood clear in the envoy’s dream.

  Scarcely one jot of it had been of his own making. They had taken his most primitive fears and desires and woven them into the images of their will, to use him like some grotesque puppet. To the Dream Finder and his Companions, it was obscene beyond belief.

  ‘Mankind unfettered is beyond all understanding,’ Tarrian said, scratching at the floor in bitter frustration.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Estaan asked, yawning.

  ‘The envoy’s had his dream,’ Antyr replied quietly, wiping his forehead. ‘Poor devil.’ He sat up and swung his legs on to the floor. The two wolves stood up and came close to him. He stroked them both.

  ‘You seemed quiet enough,’ Estaan said, wide awake now. ‘Not like at Nyriall’s. Did anything interesting happen?’

  Antyr, however, was still in quiet communion with his Companions. ‘If I had the power that these creatures have, I’d shine a great light into the souls of these benighted people,’ he said, voicing his thoughts. ‘Turn them away from their grim beliefs, turn them to knowledge and beauty. Not use it to deepen and darken their ignorance still further.’

  He took the two wolves by the scruffs of their necks and shook them both gently. ‘What say you, dogs?’ he said.

  ‘Whoever they are, they’re powerful and skilful,’ Tarrian replied. ‘Who knows what devilment they intend. We must hunt them down and destroy them.’

  ‘And you, Grayle?’ Antyr asked.

  ‘They took Nyriall from me at a whim,’ Grayle replied. ‘I need nothing other than that to kill them.’

  The wolf’s single-mindedness was chilling. Antyr patted him.

  ‘Please, tell me what’s happened,’ Estaan said plaintively.

  ‘We must waken the Duke,’ Antyr said, ignoring the plea.

  ‘At this time of night!’ Estaan exclaimed. ‘Is it essential? I doubt he’s had much sleep these past
two nights. What’s going on?’

  Antyr looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You’re right,’ he said, then he looked at the two wolves, their eyes yellow, their postures expectant.

  He nodded, and lay back on the bed. Tarrian and Grayle lay down also and, with a grateful nod, Estaan relaxed back into his chair.

  ‘Find the Duke,’ Antyr said to his Companions.

  The Dreamselves of the two wolves hurtled into the darkness.

  Chapter 25

  Darkness. Twittering wisps of fading dreams.

  ‘Sire?’

  Recognition.

  ‘Antyr? How. . .? I’m not dreaming. Am I?’

  ‘No, sire. But you are asleep. I’ve sought you thus to tell you that the men who slew Nyriall and who have troubled us these past nights, have visited the envoy.’

  ‘Visited?’ Alarm. Guards! ‘How?’

  ‘Rest easy, sire. They came through his dreams. They conjured the form of the Bethlarii god Ar-Hyrdyn from him, and tormented him cruelly. He is Ar-Hyrdyn’s priest.’

  ‘I feel your pain and anger, Dream Finder. Are you certain it was they?’

  ‘Beyond doubt, sire. Their presence is unmistakable. And they faltered and then punished him when he asked to see their domain again.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They have perhaps tempted him before with some joy in the Threshold, but since my arrival there to protect Nyriall, they are uncertain about their mastery there.’

  Appreciation. ‘To what end was this visitation?’

  ‘I cannot say, but it was no good one. He was to have died here, at our hands, seemingly, but your will prevailed. Now, he is to live and return home.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They say his task is finished . . .or changed. He’s been spying, and he’ll spy further.

  Indifference.

  ‘He’s a soldier.’

  Silence.

  ‘What did you learn of these . . . men . . . who can enter and change dreams thus?’

  ‘They are powerful, skilful, and malevolent.’

  ‘What is their intention?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s evil beyond anything I care to think about. They said that Whendrak is now the lure.’

  The lure . . .?

  ‘To what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Anger.

  ‘I know only that they must be sought out and destroyed.’

  Surprise. ‘There is the law yet, Dream Finder.’ A reproof.

  ‘They are demented in their evil, and beyond all law, save kill or be killed, Ibris.’

  ‘I hear you, wolf, and shall weigh your judgement in due time.’

  ‘I am not of your pack or your kind, Ibris, and thus am beyond your judgement, just as they are beyond your reach. They are also beyond all reason and too dangerous to live. When we meet, they or we shall die. Their deeds dictate their sentence.’

  Silence.

  ‘I hear you still, wolf. And trust you. What shall I do?’

  ‘Lead your people, pack leader. War is coming.’

  ‘And what shall you do, Antyr?’

  ‘Find them.’

  ‘How? Where?’

  Silence.

  ‘And when you find them?’

  ‘I am changed.’

  ‘Indeed. I feel your power. But . . .?’

  ‘Lead your people, sire. I shall tell you what I can, when I can, if I can. Guard our bodies as need arises.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Do this, sire.’

  Silence.

  Doubt.

  Resignation.

  ‘Rest now, sire.’

  Snuffling, searching, finding, wolfish chuckling.

  ‘A gift, Ibris. An old and joyous dream. Sleep in peace. You are guarded in all places by a great and ancient strength.’

  Darkness.

  Chapter 26

  Arwain looked along the broad valley towards Whendrak. Rooftops, towers and pinnacles floated on a light morning mist which was turning yellow in the rising sun. The air was cold and damp, but fresh and clean.

  Whendrak was no Serenstad, but it was a fine, lively city. Its architecture mingled the spartan Bethlarii style with that of the ebullient, adventurous, Serens, and showed an equal irreverence for both. It was distinct and unmistakably characteristic. As were the Whendreachi; honed by the generations of warfare that had passed over them.

  Rising out of the mist, the city was a beautiful sight, but for those who knew it, the valley carried too many memories for the scene to be observed untainted. Throughout the long history of the land, bitter battle after bitter battle had been fought there over Whendrak, and where the birds were now rising in song with the burgeoning day, the awful screaming song of battle had many times held sway. And the dew-soaked grasses now darkening under the horses’ hooves had as many times been prodigally drenched in blood.

  Arwain had a great sympathy, and no small affection, for the Whendreachi, though it was not to be denied that they were a hard, obdurate and abrasive people. They seemed to possess an uncanny knack for self-destruction which was matched only by their seemingly relentless will to survive. And these two attributes they bound together with an acidic, graveyard humour. They tended to be both the delight and the despair of thinking people.

  Arwain shook his head as he looked at the city. What the devil was going on there now? Would it prove to be no more than a little local political intriguing? Or would it be some ugly burst of tribal anger threatening to bring riot and terror to the streets and striking the sparks that could lead to war? Or . . .?

  He dismissed his conjectures. He would find out soon enough when he reached the city and he would have to think on his feet then, unclouded by too many prior judgements.

  Nonetheless, he was still uneasy. It was true that, of the travellers they had passed on the road, more than usual seemed to be entire families moving wholesale, and many bore a harassed, if not fearful, look about them. But that, though ominous, was not the main cause of his present concern. That came from the conduct of the Mantynnai among his guard.

  In the night he had half woken from a fitful sleep to hear the low murmur of voices nearby. Turning, he saw that it was a group sitting around the campfire. They were talking softly but earnestly – agitatedly even – from their gestures. His eyes closing of their own volition, Arwain had made no effort to listen to what they were saying, but words had floated over to him. Strange foreign words, resonant and strong, that in some way made him feel a poor, inadequate creature. The men were the Mantynnai, he realized as he drifted into sleep again. And they were holding this soft, anxious debate in their own language.

  Now, in the cold morning, he saw the incident as yet another in the strange chain of events that had started with their chance meeting with Estaan in the crowded Moras street, and gone on to the equally chance encounter with the two riders on the bridge. Seemingly trivial incidents which had left the unshakable Mantynnai uncertain and even defensive.

  On an impulse, he signalled the platoon to halt, then motioned Ryllans forward, out of earshot of the others.

  ‘You disturbed me with your debate last night,’ he said, looking intently at him.

  Ryllans did not reply immediately. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said flatly after a moment.

  ‘Ryllans, it’s not enough,’ Arwain went on, fighting down a twist of anger at this offhand reply. ‘In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you use your own language, even in private when you were alone with your compatriots. And I’ve never seen you so . . . uncontrolled . . . so unsettled. We may be riding into great danger here, as you yourself pointed out. I must know what’s happened that could so unman my father’s finest guards before I risk entering Whendrak.’

  Ryllans met his gaze unflinchingly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Arwain spoke first.

  ‘Elder to younger, Ryllans,’ he said. ‘No deceit, no equivocation.’

  Ryllans’ expression softened and he almost smil
ed. ‘An excellent throw, sir,’ he said. ‘A finely judged lack of opposition to overwhelm me. You’re an apt pupil.’

  ‘And none of that either,’ Arwain said sternly. ‘I want the truth. Now!’

  Ryllans turned towards the city and shook his head regretfully. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I told you yesterday, it is truly not my story to tell.’

  Arwain’s eyes narrowed, but Ryllans reached out and took his arms, almost fatherly.

  ‘You’re correct,’ he said. ‘We are . . . disturbed.’ He hesitated. ‘Echoes from our past have reached us. Rolling out of nowhere like thunder out of a cloudless summer sky.’ Pain came into his face but he crushed it. ‘Echoes of a past of guilt and shame for which we try ever to atone. Two great blows came yesterday. Separate. But coming together like hammer and anvil. The evil we . . . followed . . .’ He forced the word out. ‘. . . and thought dead, is perhaps with us again. And those we wronged are come to seek us out.’

  ‘The two riders?’ Arwain exclaimed, his face disbelieving. ‘Two men! How could two men exact retribution from you? Besides, you have the protection of all of Serenstad if you need it, you know that. And whatever you may have done, it’s long atoned for by your service here.’

  ‘They have the law of our homeland with them. And right,’ Ryllans said simply. ‘And they will seek an accounting, not retribution. Punishment will lie in the hands of others.’

  His voice and his whole manner were oddly fatalistic. Arwain put his hand to his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘We have our own law here. And no one can . . .’

  Ryllans’ hand tightened about his arm. ‘I told you this, because our shock had infected you and was likely to mar your judgement,’ he said. ‘What I told you yesterday about Whendrak is still also true.’ He pointed towards the city. ‘There is what must occupy your full attention now.’ There was a hint of anger in his voice. ‘We are not unmanned. We are warriors. We move as an attack demands, when it demands. Where there is no foreknowledge, there can be no forethought. And there is never true foreknowledge. That you should know already. We are your Mantynnai, you have our hearts, spirits, and sword arms unimpaired, here and now. Serve us and Serenstad similarly in Whendrak, Ibris’s son. All other things in their due time.’