‘Easy, easy,’ he whispered.
It had no effect; the sound of the creature was grow-ing louder. Farnor’s instincts overwhelmed his reason.
‘Run, horse. Run!’
Then for the briefest of moments, but with appalling horror, he saw himself, with keen night-eyed vision, draped over the neck of the horse scarcely a hundred paces away, galloping through the trees. As he became himself again he felt an acid, lustful taste in his mouth, and a chilling hint of the ancient and awful emotions now dominating the creature.
He managed to turn his head to peer into the dark-ness behind, to search for his pursuer, but he could see nothing. He had not the vision of this dweller in the darkness.
He closed his eyes and buried his head in the throb-bing neck of the horse.
And waited.
Somewhere in the heart of his terror he knew that he was beyond Rannick’s will. But it was of no conse-quence; his terrible envoy was here to do his bidding, and within a count of heartbeats its dreadful crushing jaws would be upon him.
His whole being filled suddenly and totally with the comforting musty scent of the horse and the rich night perfumes of the trees and crushed forest turf.
But the creature’s presence penetrated this flimsy shield and reached right into him. From deep in the darkness of his inner self, Farnor felt a scream forming. And a knowledge that it was what was needed, it was what the creature wanted. It would appease its dreadful lust; turn its rage away.
Yet the scream would not come. Some other inner resource demanded resistance against this pursuing torturer. It reached out and denied the scream, then ensnared and strangled it. But Farnor was scarcely aware of this dispute. Verging on unconsciousness, his dominant thought was to hold on to the horse and to will it forward still faster.
‘Run, horse. Run,’ he mouthed, but no sound came now.
Behind him, the creature drew nearer with each breathless pace.
Rannick waited, alone in the darkness. Waited for the return of the creature and the knowledge that Farnor was no more. It disturbed him a little to have the creature beyond his influence, but he consoled himself with the thought that it needed no guidance from him to hunt down the fleeing youth, especially after he had given it his scent. And of course, it would return to him. It would never leave him. Brought once again to the world of men by who knew what great upheaval in its deep and ancient lair, it had waited for too long for such as he to abandon him now.
He had not realized it at the time, but the creature had been desperately weak when he had first ventured into the darkness to find it. Perhaps, he mused in his increasingly rare reflective moments, had it not been so, then he might have perished for his temerity in striving to master it. But master it he had. Once again his destiny had guided him truly.
He had kept it silent in its lair as the villagers had first searched for it and then stood guard, waiting for it to blunder into their feeble traps. Then he had nurtured it on sheep he had stolen in the confusion. And, throughout, he had grown with it as its terrible power had burgeoned, their two ambitions feeding one from the other.
But it had only been after the killing of Nilsson’s men that he had come nearer to learning of its true nature. For it drew qualities from the killing of men that it could draw from no other prey – not even the horse it had taken. Qualities other than mere sustenance. Qualities that fed its dark soul.
From wherever it had come, it had not simply been trained to kill men, nor had it accidentally acquired a taste for them. To hunt, destroy and kill men was engrained in the distorted spiralling weave of its very nature. It had been bred for that purpose and seemingly no other, and nothing, save death, could divert it. Yet a deeper purpose had been written into the making of the creature and all its kind, and those with the gift could reach into its depths and unleash that purpose; could be drawn into the places beyond, where the power lay; could bring it here, where its use was unfettered.
And such a gift was Rannick’s.
He closed his eyes ecstatically at the prospect of the creature’s return.
It seemed to him that with each journey beyond, his enslavement of the creature increased. The vision to see that it enslaved him also was denied him.
Hitherto, since his meeting with the creature, Ran-nick’s knowledge and skill in the use of the power had grown apace, unhindered by anything other than his own ignorance and inexperience. Then there had appeared that strange marring, that sealing of the ways that had thwarted his demonstration to Gryss and the others. Not that they had noticed it, he presumed, but it had struck him like a physical blow, an icy blast of retribution, and his rapturous vision of his future had faltered and trembled.
But now that he had identified the cause, and found it wanting, all would be well. Nothing further could stand in his path. Soon all would kneel before his might.
It was good.
So he waited in the darkness. Waited for the faint gossamer touch that would tell him that the creature was coming near again. For when it came near, it would not merely have fed on its most desired fare, it would have destroyed the only person who could have defied him.
‘Didn’t you talk to him?’ Gryss said, his voice a mixture of anger and hopelessness.
Marna answered the question yet again. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ she said, heatedly. ‘Of course I talked to him, but me talking and him listening are two different things.’ Her mouth tightened into a thin line and tears of frustration shone in her eyes.
Gryss finally gave up and sat down heavily. He rested his head on his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Marna,’ he said, quietly. ‘I shouldn’t rant at you. You couldn’t have done other than you did.’ He looked at Harlen, who had returned with him from the meeting along with Jeorg’s wife. ‘And there’s nothing we can do either except wait and see what news comes down from the castle tomorrow.
Marna’s voice shook as she said, ‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’
Gryss wanted to say, ‘Of course he will. He’s a sensi-ble lad, and who’d want to hurt him? Farnor, of all people. He’s not got a hurtful bone in his body.’ But he knew that he could not. This was not some child late home for his meal on a sunny evening, or smitten with spots and belly ache. And Marna was no fretful parent.
‘No,’ he said. ‘If he goes back to the castle they’ll probably kill him out of hand.’
He heard Marna take in a sharp breath, but he did not relent his words. She did not speak for some time, and the voices of Jeorg and his wife drifted into the room; or, more correctly, the voice of the wife and the occasional submissive grunt from Jeorg.
‘Go home and rest,’ Gryss said more gently. ‘Get what sleep you can. You’ve done more than enough today.’ Then, despite himself, ‘I’m sure everything will come right in the end.’ He could not meet Marna’s gaze as he spoke, however, and she laid a compassionate hand on his arm as she stood up.
Gryss did not notice her unconsciously patting her belt bag as she and Harlen set off towards their home.
Chapter 38
There was turmoil. Fears that had hitherto hovered at the edges of awareness like uneasy dreams rolled inexorably forward, proclaiming themselves beyond any denial. The rumbling doubts of years were focusing themselves into an indisputable and immediate certainty.
‘It is the spawn of the Great Evil.’
‘And it hunts the strange mover.’
Yet as many doubts swirled about this enigmatic figure as fears about the manifest evil.
‘His power is unknown.’
‘He carries a darkness of his own that is beyond us.’
But the speed of the events now unfolding de-manded action.
What was to be done?
‘To stay one darkness will be to admit another, and who can say what consequences might flow from that?’