Somewhere someone laughed at him. The sound wove into that of the storm, rising and falling, taunting him.
He was helpless; the merest autumn leaf, the frailest snowflake. He would be blown where the wind chose.
And in the tumult a dark presence moved. A pres-ence that was both here and… beyond…
And he must go beyond to still its awful power. It was important that he did it now, before it was too late.
He reached out.
A babble of inquisitive voices surrounded him, shattering the dark chaos into a myriad flickering lights. They were full of concern and disbelief. They questioned and argued…
And there was fear…
An old fear…
He spoke to reassure them, but he could not under-stand his own words.
Surprise shimmered through the disbelief, but still it lingered. And the curiosity and the concern grew stronger.
But the deep and ancient fear grew also.
He strained to speak again.
The laughter returned, though gentler this time. And the lights began to dance and float to its rhythm.
And there was coolness.
The voices faded, though he could feel them calling to him. They did not want him to leave. There were so many questions to be asked.
‘Don’t go… We…’
Farnor jerked towards wakefulness, his eyes open-ing grudgingly. But the coolness on his forehead did not allow him to rise. And there was gentle laughter again.
‘Are you feeling better now?’ came a familiar voice. He struggled, but even as he did so his mind began to understand what his eyes were focusing on.
The remains of his sleep washed away from him as if he were emerging into the daylight from the breathless depths of some great lake.
He was in his bedroom staring up at the old familiar beams that striped its ceiling.
And the coolness on his forehead was his mother’s hand.
‘Are you feeling better now?’ she asked again. ‘Mut-tering away to yourself.’
Farnor tried to sit up, but the pain in his right arm prevented him. His mother put her arms around him and, with an effort, pulled him upright and pushed a pillow behind him.
‘The size of you,’ she said, with a mixture of pride and reproach. ‘You’re too big for this kind of treatment these days.’
The pain in his arm and the buffeting practicality of his mother’s sickbed manner brought Farnor fully to his senses. And with his senses came the memory of the events at the castle which, in their turn, brought faint wisps of a need for caution.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘How did I get here?’
‘How, indeed!’ his mother replied. ‘Quite the saga, I can tell you.’ She did not seem disposed to relate it, however. Instead she walked over to the door and shouted down the stairs, ‘He’s awake!’
Farnor glanced round the room. There was some-thing unusual about it. Then he realized it was the light. It had been late afternoon when he and Gryss had gone to the castle. The light coming through the window now was the morning light, and none too early morning at that.
The heavy tread of feet coming up the stairs turned his attention back towards the door. There was some muffled speech then his father entered followed by Gryss.
Garren looked at him with exaggerated sternness. It was an expression Farnor knew well enough. There was humour and relief behind it; he’d been caught red-handed at something; something however that wasn’t particularly serious. It was a good sign. He gave a guilty smile and shrug in reply. Better play the child until he found out what had happened, and who knew what.
‘You’re a fine one, aren’t you?’ Garren said, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge of it.
But as Garren was speaking, Farnor caught Gryss’s eye. Standing behind both Garren and Katrin, Gryss, his hand casually massaging his chin, briefly touched his lips with his forefinger.
Keep quiet.
Farnor nodded as if in reply to his father.
‘They’re both fine ones,’ Katrin said, folding her arms and discarding her caring manner for a matriar-chal one. She cast a glance at Gryss that made him wilt as it struck. ‘Wandering off to see if they could get inside the castle. Like children sneaking into an orchard. I don’t know what…’
Garren lifted a hand gently to silence his wife.
‘You’ve made your point, Katrin,’ he said, mouthing softly for Farnor’s benefit. ‘Two hundred times.’
‘It needs making,’ she said, directing the errant elder towards her son with a sharp nod. ‘See if he’s all right,’ she demanded. ‘He was scowling as if he had the cares of the world on his shoulders, just before.’ Then, in high-pitched surprise, she added, ‘And he’s been talking to someone for the last ten minutes.’
Gryss stepped forward and displaced Garren from the bed rather as if he was seeking cover from a sudden and violent storm. He put on his healer’s manner and subjected Farnor to various proddings, pokings and twistings before announcing, ‘Fine. I told you he was just stunned. All he needed was a good night’s sleep. Let him rest that arm for a day or two and, apart from being every shade from yellow to black that you can imagine, it’ll be fine.’
Katrin gave a noncommittal grunt. ‘I’ll leave you… children… together,’ she said. ‘I’ll be downstairs, getting on with the work.’
‘I’ll not be long,’ Garren said, winking at his son.
When she had gone, however, his manner became more serious. ‘I’ve told you what I think about your little adventure, Gryss,’ he said. ‘But I’ll say it again, in front of Farnor, seeing as he’s party to all this, at your request.’
‘I know,’ Gryss said. ‘And I’ll apologize again, will-ingly. And in front of Farnor. He probably saved my life when he tried to catch me…’
Gryss had told the tale about the horse bolting then, Farnor deduced.
‘It was an error of judgement on my part,’ Gryss went on. ‘I wasn’t thinking properly. I was concerned about letting Jeorg go off on his own.’
But, once started, as a rock must reach the foot of a hill, so Garren’s conclusion had to be spoken. ‘We agreed we were going to work together,’ he said, with that special kind of insistence that made those who really knew him nod whether they agreed or not. ‘We must stick to that. Who knows what’ll happen if we each wander off doing what we fancy without telling each other?’ It reminded Gryss that, as Farnor had hinted the previous day, there were times when Garren was not a man to stand in front of.
Then, the reproach out, Garren seemed to become his old patient self. He laid a hand on Gryss’s shoulder. Gryss covered it with his own.
‘Katrin been giving you a bad time as well?’ he said.
Garren raised his eyebrows and blew out a long breath. ‘Yes, but I’m not surprised,’ he replied. ‘You frightened both of us out of five years’ growth when you staggered in telling us he’d had an accident.’ Garren made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘Still, no real harm done.’
‘Can I get up?’ Farnor asked, feeling the need to be a more active participant in this conversation.
Gryss nodded. ‘Yes. Just take it easy with that arm for a day or so. Keep it as relaxed as you can, and let me know if it gives you any trouble.’
Despite this permission, however, Farnor showed no particular inclination to leave his bed.
His father prompted him. ‘Any time you like,’ he said, looking significantly at his son’s clothes draped across a nearby chair. ‘It’s only a couple of hours short of noon.’
This declaration galvanized him more than it did his son, however, reminding him that, with Farnor incapacitated, he had a great many jobs that he should be attending to elsewhere. With a somewhat self-conscious leave-taking, larded with both relief and reproach, he left to get on with them.
As soon as he heard his father’s footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs, Farnor pushed back the blankets and swung himself out of bed. He put his hand to his head.
‘What’s the matter?’ Gryss asked.
‘Nothing. Just a little muzzy with lying in so long,’ Farnor replied, adding almost immediately, ‘Well, everything’s the matter, I suppose. What happened to me?’
‘You fainted, that’s all,’ Gryss said. ‘Shock from the injury to your arm.’