Revealed then, and made manifest by the destruc-tion of the Yarrance farmhouse and revealed further in the darkness into which he had entered afterwards. The darkness of the strange and secret journey that the spirit of the creature had carried him on, taking him to the places between and beyond the worlds where the power was to be found.
Such knowledge!
His hands tightened about the reins of his horse as he recaptured the ecstasy of his discovery; of the vistas opening before him.
And now…
His rapture became a hollow, ringing mockery.
Now, when the golden road of his destiny was grow-ing ever wider and easier he was opposed.
He opened his mouth and shouted a cry of fury and hatred at the silent will that had come from nowhere and laid its dead hand across the way through which the power came; had unmade that which he had made and taken the great power from him, leaving him only the power of this world.
Birds rose noisily into the air and his horse pranced its forelegs. Rannick reached out and silenced it. The power of this world was sufficient for most things. But…
He reined the horse to a halt. The memory of that other presence loomed dark and ominous in his mind, dominating his every thought, an unexpected shadow across his future. And yet, for all its effectiveness in denying him the power, it had been hesitant, unsure; fearful, almost.
In fact fearful, definitely, he decided.
He clenched his fists. He would not be defied thus! Least of all by some craven interferer. Excuses began to pour into his thoughts. The opposition had taken him unawares, he had been unprepared. It would not happen again, he would be ready for it; he would destroy it if it came again.
But the doubt that permeated his inner ranting enraged him further. Could he risk such another confrontation? Who could say what this other power could do, or from whence it came? He needed to know much more about it.
He knew that the creature, too, had felt it, and felt it powerfully. Yet the very howling of its anger and defiance across the valley heightened the wavering uncertainty that, for the first time, he had sensed in his savage companion.
And it had recognized that which had opposed them! It had known such a power before and feared it. The memory of the creature’s doubt mingled with his own to bring his thoughts to their inexorable conclu-sion; the source of this opposition must be found and destroyed.
He slipped down from his horse and released it. It moved away from him, but it needed no tether to prevent it from wandering for it had been schooled in the consequences of any form of disobedience to its new master. Rannick nodded to himself. He knew now why he had ridden out from the castle after Gryss and the others had left. He had to commune with his dark ally. Had to be close to it. Somewhere silent and away from the oppressive presence of Nilsson and his wretched band.
Together he and the creature must travel the ways between the worlds until the creature scented the source of the power and he, Rannick, identified the will behind it. For it was someone he knew, he was sure. There had been a familiarity about it that kept returning to him, dancing tantalizingly in and out of his awareness.
But who?
He motioned the horse further away. He needed to be free from its swamping animal fears, needed to touch the ground, to be aware of everything about him so that he could be aware of himself and bring a quietness to his thinking.
He began to walk through the trees. His horse fol-lowed him reluctantly, keeping a considerable distance behind him.
Was it one of Nilsson’s men? It could have been, Rannick supposed. His acceptance by them was not as complete as they pretended. Some were wholeheartedly his, their lustful greed leaking from them like a rich incense. But others paid only a dutiful obeisance, shot through with fear and doubt.
But these were of no import; lesser spirits, dispen-sable should need arise.
The familiarity that he had sensed in the power that had thwarted him returned briefly, flitting nervously at the edge of his consciousness. But it defied examination, vanishing when he turned to confront it.
Frustration and anger rose to cloud his mind for some time. As it gradually waned, he dismissed Nilsson’s men. The familiarity had stirred vague images of times long before the arrival of the troop, and, apart from that, any difficulties with Nilsson’s men would have shown themselves by now.
No, it was someone in the village.
But who?
The anger bubbled up again, but he forced it down ruthlessly, forging it into an icy hatred.
Gryss? Yakob? Harlen? Farnor? Surely not. Three old men and a battered, broken youth who could scarcely stand. There could be no opposition there. The merest touch would scatter their pathetic spirits like dried leaves in autumn.
But who?
He snarled as the question pressed in on him. It did not matter who. He could not answer the question here and now, so he would not allow it to be asked again.
He walked on steadily, following the warm lure of the creature’s will. As he passed through a small clearing he found himself moving to its shaded edge, instinctively avoiding the sunshine. He permitted himself a bitter smile at this response to the creature’s dark nature, which increasingly mingled with his own; it had little love for the daylight, and none at all for such brightness.
Soon, my pet, he thought. Soon I’ll be with you. We can rest together in the darkness of your lair and ready ourselves for the hunt tonight.
A lustful anticipation flooded through him.
In the absence of any inspiration on the weary journey back from the castle, Gryss broke the news of the murder of Garren and Katrin and the seizure of the valley simply and bluntly to a hastily gathered meeting of the Council.
There were as many reactions as there were Council-lors present, ranging from the fatalistic to the massively belligerent. Unlike the last meeting, Gryss did not let the uproar continue too long. Then it had seemed that time was ahead of them and that they could patiently await events. Now those events had happened and, they being more desperate in character than anything he could have possibly imagined, Gryss saw no benefit to be gained by allowing a gentle proceeding.
‘We have no choice but to accept the reality of this,’ he shouted above the din, going straight to the conclu-sion that the previous meeting had reached. He repeated it as the noise fell. ‘We have no choice, my friends. We’re trapped in our own valley. Trapped by armed and ruthless men who themselves have been subdued by one of our own.’
The mood of the meeting tumbled between stunned shock at the untimely and brutal deaths of Garren and Katrin – some wept openly – and, initially, open disbelief of the news of Rannick’s transformation. However, being valley dwellers, the Councillors had that profound pragmatism that comes as a consequence of living close to the mysteries of the land, and none would fly in the face of the combined testimony of Gryss, Harlen and Yakob, however much they would have wished to. Further, Rannick was known by all and, eventually, both shock and disbelief turned into anger. Gryss allowed some time to be spent in the general telling and retelling of old tales about the ill-natured labourer and his forebears, and in declamations of how none of this would have happened if he had been treated this way, or that way, or forbidden to do this, or allowed to do that, and so on.
But he was stark in his description of the probable fate of anyone who chose to consider Rannick as the man they all imagined they knew.
‘You’ll die for your pains, and none too pleasantly either. He regarded it as an honour for Garren and Katrin that they died by his hand.’