Then, scarcely pausing for breath, he spilled out the details of his meeting with Rannick and the strange behaviour of the flies.
‘And, yesterday, I touched the… thing… that’s out there.’ He waved his hands vaguely. ‘When I held that fur I seemed to go into… some other place. And I touched it. And it’s more than just savage, it’s bad… evil. It’ll kill people without a doubt. It might even prefer people to sheep.’
He stopped and looked intently at his interrogator.
Gryss had received Farnor’s outburst like a man trying to catch several things falling simultaneously from a shelf; only with an effort did he prevent his mouth from dropping open. He wanted to dismiss this young man’s nonsense out of hand, but he could not deny what he himself had felt, however fleeting it had been. And there was the strange trance that Farnor had fallen into.
He met Farnor’s gaze. The lad was imaginative. He knew that, having watched him many times sitting spellbound as Yonas the Teller had spun his sonorous tales of wonder. Yet, too, he was solid and practical, with his feet well on the ground. His father had seen to that. Farnor would be a fitting heir to the Yarrance land when the time came.
Despite their clamour, he set the how and the why of it all firmly to one side.
‘I believe you,’ he said quietly. ‘Though what it all means and how it’s all come about, I can’t say.’ He went on, anticipating Farnor’s next question, ‘And we have to accept that we can’t tell this tale to the others as you’ve told it to me.’ He smiled weakly. ‘They’ll think we’ve both gone down with brain fever.’ He made his face become thoughtful lest Farnor misconstrue his levity, and when he spoke again his manner was bluntly practical. ‘What we must concern ourselves with is the danger that this creature offers. Nothing else. Perhaps what you and I felt was…’ He shrugged. ‘Something like the tension we feel when a thunderstorm is about to break, or that quality in the air that tells us winter is coming… who can say?’
‘But why now?’ Farnor’s question burst through. ‘I’ve never had anything like that happen before, have you?’
‘No, not really,’ Gryss admitted. ‘But we’ve never known a sheep-worrier like this before, and we mustn’t fret about it. Not yet, anyway. We must stick to practical matters. We must protect ourselves when we go hunting and, above all, we must protect our herds – our winter food and our future. If we catch this thing, or kill it or drive it away, then perhaps we can give some thought to what’s happened and why, but for the moment it’s not important.’
Although Farnor would have preferred answers from the elder, he found that the acceptance of his tale had lifted a burden from him that he had scarcely realized he had been carrying. And the practicality of Gryss’s response heartened him.
Gryss reached out and took from the table the sheet of paper on which Garren had written the arrangements for the night watches. He nodded slowly as he studied it. ‘I think we can do it without causing too much stir,’ he said. ‘I’ll attend to it when you’ve gone.’
Yet something lingered between the two men. Lin-gered like foul air over a stagnant pond.
‘Rannick,’ Gryss said, like a cold, dispelling breeze.
Farnor looked at him but did not speak.
‘It’s just occurred to me that you heard me talking about the taint of Rannick’s family yesterday, didn’t you?’ Gryss said.
Farnor nodded.
Gryss paused for a moment. Farnor’s concern had become clearer. He voiced it.
‘Looking back, you think that when Rannick snapped his fingers he moved that cloud of flies away, controlled them in some way, don’t you? Then, within days, you found yourself mysteriously drawn out beyond the place you were in and touching a strange animal presence. It occurs to you, therefore, that you might be like Rannick. And Rannick is tainted, you heard me say.
Farnor nodded again, his face pained.
Gryss held a brief debate with himself. Better the truth, he decided. Or at least such truth as he knew, and an honest admission of his uncertainties.
He held out his hands. ‘When people come to me with their ailments and their aches, I use what knowl-edge I’ve gathered over the years to try to help them. Some of it I was taught by another healer when I was younger, some I’ve learned from books, most I’ve probably learned by experience. But sometimes…’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Only sometimes, sadly, and far from often, these hands seem to heal things on their own. They sense things. They go straight to a hurt and put it right almost as if I wasn’t there.’ He gave a disclaiming shrug. ‘I get the credit for it, but I don’t begin to know how it happens. It’s just some attribute that I seem to have been born with.’ He looked at Farnor squarely. ‘For all I know, now you’ve made me think about it, such a trait could be some remnant of the strangeness that runs in Rannick’s family. The strangeness that yesterday I referred to as a taint. So also might be the brief awareness of… the creature… that I sensed yester-day.’
Farnor shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ he said. ‘Are you saying that you’re related to Rannick in some way, and because of what happened yesterday you think I might be too?’ Fear came back into his eyes, mixed with anger. ‘I don’t want to be related to Rannick,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anything to do with him. I can’t stand him.’
‘It’s not something you’ve got any choice about,’ Gryss replied starkly. ‘This is a small community and very few here have either the inclination or the oppor-tunity to marry outsiders. It’s always been that way and if you go back a few generations and think what it means, you’ll soon realize that by now everyone’s related to everyone else. We’re all cousins at some degree and at one remove or other. The blood of Rannick’s family is in all of us, just as all of ours is in his.’
Farnor knew enough about the breeding of animals to understand this, though it did nothing to make him feel any easier.
‘But it’s diluted, Farnor,’ Gryss went on reassuringly. ‘Spread thin. And mixed with the blood of many other good solid folk before it came to you from your mother and father.’
‘I’ve heard of traits coming out in sheep after five generations and more,’ Farnor said in rebuttal.
‘And what traits do you have in common with Ran-nick, Farnor?’ Gryss said. ‘His surly, self-destructive disposition? His sour idleness? You’ve certainly none of his looks.’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Just consider what’s happened. You think you’ve seen him exert some mysterious control over animals, or flies anyway.’ He allowed a hint of scorn to colour this last remark. ‘Then you think that you’ve… touched… one particular animal. How can you draw any profound conclusions from such vagueness? It might all be no more than coincidence.’ He jabbed an emphatic finger at the young man. ‘And in any case, Farnor, while you’re half your mother and half your father, you’re wholly yourself. Whatever traits you were born with, bad or good, and whoever they might have derived from, they’re yours now and how you use them is up to you! Whether they become masters or servants is your choice.’
Farnor grimaced. ‘I suppose so,’ he conceded reluc-tantly, though the thought of being related to Rannick, however distantly, made him feel as though he were wearing a shirt full of hay chaff. He fidgeted uncom-fortably in the wicker chair.
‘Don’t suppose so, know so,’ Gryss insisted. ‘It truly doesn’t bother me if part of my healing skill is some-thing inherited from Rannick’s line.’ His face darkened as the memory of tragic failures he had known rose to overshadow his many successes. ‘I only wish I had more of it,’ he added softly. ‘And you yourself. How has this ability shown itself?’ He leaned forward, his voice compelling. ‘It warned you about something, Farnor. And you warned us. Perhaps because of it some of our friends and neighbours will be alive next week instead of being dead. It was your choice, Farnor, and you made it correctly. How can that be bad? Be grateful to whatever fate gave you such an opportunity to help others.’