There was a brief silence and Antyr felt Tarrian trying to clear his mind of the alien horror of the battlefield in order to return to the fears of the moment.
'Come away, Tarrian,’ Antyr said, offering his Companion the words like a small signpost to a sanity. ‘It's not your world. And in answer to your question, no, I don't want a drink, I think. And anyway I'm too weary to go to the inn.'
Antyr made the remark as if it were an intellectual decision, but to his surprise, he felt a wave of disgust pass through him as the memory of the sounds and smells of the inn came to him. Yet even as he noted this unexpected response, the urge to be away … anywhere … returned to him. He frowned uneasily, then somehow turned and faced the darkness.
'What's happening, Tarrian?’ he said. ‘Is it me? Has my neglect of my craft, myself, unleashed something?'
'No,’ Tarrian replied simply. ‘That I'm sure of now. Neglect makes it harder to reach the nexus and dims the perception of the dream being searched. It just makes you less of a Dream Finder. You certainly deserve to be totally incompetent by now, but your natural ability has protected you from your best efforts.'
There was a familiar element of reproach in Tarrian's voice, but he himself set it aside quickly and apologetically before the two of them locked into the futility of one of their old quarrels.
Antyr noted the gesture with thanks, but he frowned. ‘I don't understand,’ he said. ‘What's all this about my natural ability you're suddenly talking about. My father used to say I'd be far better than he was if I worked, but … I thought that was just father's talk … something to encourage me. Then he died … and my training ended…'
His voice tailed off as the emptiness that his father's death had left came back to him.
Tarrian's voice intruded gently. ‘Antyr, in so far as it ever really began, your training was ended before your father died.'
Antyr looked at him, his frown becoming pained.
'You had skills from the outset that your father didn't understand,’ Tarrian went on. ‘That I didn't understand-still don't. He couldn't teach you, Antyr. He could only learn from you. And his pain, like mine for a long time, was that he didn't truly see that. He felt constantly that he was failing you.’ The eerie certainty that Tarrian had shown as they stood at the edge of the Aphron Dennai returned. ‘You're no ordinary Dream Finder, Antyr. You move to the nexus as if you were walking from one room to another and you release me utterly. I've known none who moved with such ease, nor gave me such freedom. You let me soar through all places as though I were some great bird. And yet you're flawed.’ He paused. ‘I don't know what you are, Antyr, but you're different. And whatever, whoever, we felt in the Duke's dream, knew … or sensed … it too. That's why it came looking for you afterwards.'
Antyr's eyes widened in horror at the implications that reverberated in Tarrian's word. He glimpsed again the image of the hapless, fleeing rabbit.
'This is nonsense,’ he protested, but hearing the futility in his own voice. ‘How can anyone from the outside enter a dream?'
'We do.'
Tarrian's simple statement of the obvious struck Antyr like a hammer blow and he fell silent. The reply formed in his mind, ‘That's different, we're there with the dreamer, we have the contact, we have the consent, the trust.’ But it had a hollow ring and he could not speak it.
'Even the Duke sensed the presence of another will in his dream, that's why he opposed it,’ Tarrian said. ‘Then we felt it with him. And it felt us.'
Antyr sought solace in an irrelevance. ‘He must be a sensitive, then,’ he said.
'Dream Finding's an ancient skill,’ Tarrian said brusquely. ‘And its practitioners hardly constitute a celibate order, do they? He's probably got a damn sight more than one Dream Finder back in his ancestry somewhere.'
Tarrian's curt dismissal of this diversion left Antyr nowhere to go but forward again.
'What shall we do then?’ he said reluctantly and with a feeling of unreality. ‘If someone can invade the Duke's dream, then find me when I'm asleep, for whatever purpose…’ The memory of the shadow's parting hiss of hatred passed over him and he shivered. ‘What can I do? Am I to stay awake forever? And if they can reach out and snatch me from your protection in some way, what can you do?'
Tarrian was silent. Both stared into the black pit of ignorance, helpless.
'What about the Guild?’ Antyr offered, after a moment. ‘There must be someone there who can help us.'
'Name one,’ Tarrian said tersely.
Antyr looked at him pleadingly. ‘Come on, think, Tarrian. You pay more heed to Guild affairs than I do. They're not all concerned with wringing tax concessions from the Exactors and arguing about fees, surely. There's got to be someone left who's still interested in the craft.'
Antyr sensed Tarrian about to make the same reply and he held up a warning finger. Even when Petran had been alive, Tarrian had been ill-disposed towards what he called the futility of this particular manifestation of the human pack instinct. Since his death, however, the wolf's feelings had grown to cynical and growling disdain.
Tarrian made the effort. ‘I can't think of anyone at the moment,’ he said apologetically. ‘I'm out of touch myself.'
Antyr put his head in his hands. ‘We should go to the Guild House, all the same,’ he said. ‘We could inquire. Someone else might have run into this problem. We might be fretting about something that's already well known.'
Tarrian stood up. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘You're right. I'd forgotten about that.'
'Forgotten about what?’ Antyr asked
'The Guild House,’ Tarrian replied. ‘The library. There could well be something there. Come on, stir yourself.'
Like some predatory but short-sighted bird, the old porter looked narrowly over his eye glasses as Antyr pushed open the stately door of the Guild House. It was covered with elaborate carvings and richly tinted glass panels showing past dignitaries posing solemnly in their formal robes of office.
Tarrian padded in behind him and, as Antyr closed the door, the grey winter light passed through the glass panels to throw a brief kingfisher flash of summer colour across the patterned floor.
The porter adjusted his tunic with a hint of annoyance at this interruption to his meditations. ‘Yes, sir?’ he inquired authoritatively of this potential trespasser. ‘What can I do for you?'
'Nothing, thank you,’ Antyr replied. ‘We've just come to use the library.'
'I'm sorry. The library's for Guild members only,’ the porter said in an injured tone, hobbling out from behind his counter and placing his ancient frame unflinchingly between Antyr and further intrusion into the building. ‘And we don't allow dogs, sir,’ he added, eyeing Tarrian.
'Tell him,’ Tarrian said menacingly. ‘Quickly.'
'I am a member,’ Antyr replied politely, pointing to his black-irised eyes and producing a battered card after a brief struggle with his cloak. ‘I don't come here very often.'
The porter scrutinized the soiled card with some distaste, and then hobbled back behind his counter with a, ‘Just a moment, sir,’ which obviously meant, ‘We'll seeabout that, sir.'
With an audible effort he unearthed a large book from a shelf somewhere underneath the counter. ‘Now sir,’ he said, opening the book with great dignity, but quite at random.
'Brilliant,’ Tarrian said acidly. ‘Opened it right at M for Antyr.'
Antyr shushed him discreetly. ‘He might be able to hear you,’ he said.
Tarrian snorted. ‘So might that door,’ he said. Then, in a thunderous bellow, ‘Hurry up, you dozy old sod!'
Antyr cringed as the shout echoed around his head, but, gritting his teeth, he managed to maintain an uneasy smile.
The porter, however, showed no sign of responding as he continued painstakingly turning the pages of the book.