As he had looked down at the motionless figure, Farnor had seemed simply to be asleep. But Gryss had known that he was beyond any normal waking. All he could do was sustain the powerful will to heal that permeated the hearts of Garren and Katrin, and which, perhaps alone, could reach into those unknown regions to where Farnor’s spirit might have wandered. By his manner and with his every fibre, Gryss had striven to impart to them his faith in the ancient ability of the young man’s body to dispatch its enemies, to right itself, to call back his spirit to its true home.
And it had happened so, though whether or not he had helped in this, Gryss could not guess. It was irrelevant anyway. He could not have done otherwise.
He stopped and looked around the sunlit fields. So full of life and vigour. He shivered. Fear, he diagnosed starkly. How could it be otherwise now? His body was shaking itself loose, telling him to be ready to run.
Or to fight.
He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sun, as if its life-giving warmth would soak into him as it did into the sunstones, bestowing on him an inner light that would dispel the awful chill that had settled over his heart.
And to some extent it did as, for a little while, he revelled in its warm caress and followed the dancing and flickering of the lighted shapes behind his eyelids.
When he opened his eyes again, the shapes, though changed in colour, remained, jumping and dancing to their own spasmodic rhythm, and it was some time before he could see clearly. When he could, he found his gaze turning towards the castle. He looked at it pensively. It was no different from what it had been since he was a child. But now it seemed to him to be like a great predatory animal crouching in the lee of the mountains and waiting to spring forward and devour the village.
The analogy brought to him the thought of the crea-ture. And in the wake of this came the village lore about the caves beyond the castle where lay ancient evil creatures from another time, waiting only to be awakened to ravage the world again.
He could not believe such tales, but he could no longer dismiss them as airily as once he would have done.
And Farnor’s contact with it had been prior to the arrival of Nilsson and his men…
It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps what was happening was the result of some grim coincidence. After all, Nilsson had not ridden into the valley like a man carrying in his train a powerful mover of the elements. He had ridden in at the head of a motley assortment of dispirited, even broken men. Nor had they been any different when he had visited the castle to examine their sick.
Only after they had started to explore the north of the valley had these changes come about.
Could it be the creature using Nilsson in some way? But Farnor’s answer had been unequivocaclass="underline" ‘It was a man who set that trap, not an animal.’ And there had been a human quality in the malice that he had felt attacking him yesterday.
There were certain trees that needed an apparently parasitic fungus in their roots in order to be able to survive. Each fed and sustained the other and both prospered, where each alone would wither and die. So perhaps it was now. Perhaps creature and man had encountered one another during Nilsson’s foray to the north, and from thence they had grown in strength together.
Gryss nodded to himself. His reasoning had some merit to it, though quite what action he could take as a result of it he did not know.
None, other than watch and wait, he decided yet again. Be aware.
He straightened himself up, taking a deep breath as he did so. For a moment he was twenty years old again. Strong, wilful and determined. It was a good feeling.
He smiled. It was good. But not as good as being here now. He would not be that callow youth again for all the life and vigour it put back into his limbs. He had enough life and vigour to get himself around without too much discomfort, and his deeper senses and knowledge were superior beyond measure.
‘Take care of us all in your dealings with the Captain and his men,’ Katrin had said to him. He would keep her incisive insights into the true needs of the moment at the forefront of his mind, and he would fulfil her demands of him to the fullest extent of his ability.
He felt a faint stirring within him. It was excitement. He crushed it ruthlessly. This was not something to be enjoyed. This was something in which stern discipline and an awareness that others looked to him for their safety must order his deeds.
Nevertheless, as he started back off towards the village there was a spring in his step that had not been there for many a year.
Chapter 27
The only certainty in life is uncertainty, Gryss had decided for himself many years ago, but occasionally one had to conjure out of the confusion a place, a foundation as it were, on which one might stand apparently securely, for a while, just to look around, and make at least some attempt to assess the degrees of probability and improbability of possible events.
In forming his conclusions about what was happen-ing, though knowing that they might well prove incorrect, Gryss had done this. Thus, despite the physical ordeal he had suffered at the castle and the subsequent journey back to the village followed by a night of broken and uneven sleep and a day of heart-searching, he woke the next morning feeling refreshed and with his mind alert and clear, even though his worries about the future were, if anything, greater than before.
He performed his routine stretchings and scratch-ings as he rose from his bed, and then, yawning noisily, he drew back the curtains.
‘Oops,’ he said softly to himself as the morning light flooded in. It was a grey, rainy day that greeted him, but he needed no timepiece to tell him that it was much later than he normally rose. Mentally the previous day’s earnest reflections may have left him more at ease with himself, but physically he had been sorely tried and obviously his body had insisted on having the rest that it felt it needed regardless of such trivialities as his regular morning activities.
It was of no great consequence. Today he would further order his thoughts and then decide to what extent he should share them with his confidants.
He opened the window and leaned on the sill. A soft freshness greeted him, laden with the moist scents of grasses and flowers. It should be a day for perhaps sitting in the porch and watching the rain, and listening to it, and thinking. Thinking about something… anything… nothing.
But the prospect of such wholly innocuous self-indulgence did not lure him as once, but a few weeks ago, it would have. Now, despite his determination to watch and wait and to act only as circumstances dictated, there was a dark edge to all his thinking, a constant nagging wish that all this would be over and forgotten, that all would be as it was. It filled him with a sense of urgency, which told him that he should be doing something even though his mind had told him, beyond dispute, that he could not. And worst of all it left him with a leaden uneasiness in the pit of his stomach.
He breathed in the cool air.
The shades eased a little. Not to savour such mo-ments was some kind of a desecration. But…
He shook his head vigorously and closed the win-dow. He would have to learn to live with this new uncertainty. Katrin’s words could no more be torn from his thoughts than a barbed arrow from a wound.
‘… take care of us all in your dealings with that Captain…’
She had meant, he knew, ‘Do not be reckless as you have been today, you speak for us all.’ But he had heard the plea within the command. ‘Take care of us all, we depend on you.’
And he would strive to do that, no matter what it cost him in restless nights, burdened with worry and fear. He had done so all his life and he could do no other now.
He turned away from facing what might be the ulti-mate cost. Matters could not come to that. Somewhere, reasoned words would prevail. They always did. Deals could be struck, bargains made, mutual interests agreed and satisfied…