‘You ran amok, Mover. There was no choice. You brought great turmoil. You… frightened us. We had to stop you somehow.’
An apology formed in Farnor’s mind, but he knew that he was not being listened to. The voice went on. ‘The judgement of the Mover, Mar-ken, is that you are a sapling and no more tainted than any other Mover.’
Farnor opened his eyes. Marken was leaning for-ward, watching him intently. ‘Do you Hear them?’ the old Hearer asked. His voice was soft, but it sounded laboured, coarse, and inadequate in Farnor’s ears. He nodded and, without thinking, reached out a branch to take Marken’s hand.
A branch?
No, no. It was a hand.
And Marken’s hand closed about it, firm and sup-portive, before Farnor had time to consider this eerie illusion. He shut his eyes again.
A sigh returned to fill his mind once more, though this time it was one of realization. And behind it, many voices debated.
‘He is powerful…’
‘He is strange…
‘He is dangerous…’
‘And the seed of the Evil came in his wake…’
‘He Hears, he Hears…’
A wilful silence descended.
The voice returned. ‘But you are not as Mar-ken. He…’ Farnor strained. Was the word sees? knows? understands? It was all three, and much more. ‘… that part of you which lies in his world. Yet we… see… you in our worlds, where he cannot reach. And you are not as he. Nor any Mover. You pass through our worlds without constraint. It has not been known before.’
The debate broke out again, loudly, but stopped almost immediately. ‘It has not been known in many ages,’ came the correction, with a faint tinge of injured dignity.
‘I don’t understand,’ Farnor said silently. He clung to his oft-voiced vision of himself. ‘I’m a person. A farmer. I know nothing about you, or your worlds, or why I can Hear you, and speak to you like this.’
There was a long pause, as if the reply were being considered. When the voice spoke, the caution that had pervaded it hitherto was a little less. ‘This too, Mar-ken has told us. And we have Heard ourselves. Perhaps he is deceived, though he is many-ringed and not foolish – for a Mover. And perhaps we are deceived.’
Silence.
‘But it was evil that came in your wake. The floating seed of the Great Evil that we had thought long passed away. Until…’
The silence came again, though it was full of a sense of unwanted change, and doubts and fears. Terrible images that Farnor could not begin to interpret hung about the words Great Evil. He remembered Marken’s words earlier: ‘as if something had happened some-where that had unsettled the entire Forest.’
The voice did not pursue its reservation. ‘And great was the… pain… of turning It from you.’ It faltered.
Farnor waited, unexpectedly patient now. Though he made no conscious effort, he felt the strains and tensions in his body slipping away. As they did so, the sounds of the debate reached him again, or rather, he had the impression that he was reaching them. The hubbub stopped abruptly amid a leaf-rustling hiss of alarm and surprise. ‘He is here. He is here.’
‘Perhaps you are as you seem,’ the voice said, much clearer now. ‘A sapling. And thus ignorant. Or perhaps indeed you deceive us all. Perhaps you do not flee from the Evil, but come as Its vanguard, as in the…’ Ancient days? For the second time Farnor had a fleeting but giddying sensation of looking at aeons of time stretch-ing back through shifting light and darkness, into… brightness? heat?…
It was gone.
‘I deceive no one knowingly,’ he replied. ‘I want only to return to my home. The… evil… that pursued me here has done me great hurt and I must return to destroy It.’
Consternation broke around him. Around the word, home, images formed of well-rooted security and safety. But following them came great waves of fear; unmistak-able fear.
And denial!
Farnor felt anger stirring within him. ‘I must go back,’ he said,’ determinedly. ‘I shall go back.’
‘No!’ The voice was nervous, but definite.
Farnor felt both of Marken’s hands now gripping his, willing both strength and support to him.
‘There is darkness within you, Far-nor. Darkness hidden from us and from Mar-ken. Perhaps hidden from you, too. Darkness that the Evil could possess, if It does not do so already. We cannot let you return until light has come to that darkness.’
‘You cannot stop me,’ Farnor said angrily.
There was a nervous pause. Farnor sensed the de-bate being renewed.
‘We can. We will,’ the voice replied. It was quiet and undemonstrative and it bore both grim determination and fear in equal parts.
Farnor felt his will begin to yield before the naked openness of this revelation.
‘I do not belong here,’ he said, more quietly. ‘Please let me go.’
‘You belong in many places,’ came the unhesitant reply. ‘Many places. Until you learn, you are too dangerous.’
There was another long silence.
‘What do you want of me?’ Farnor asked eventually.
‘Go to the mountains at our heart. Speak to us where we are most ancient,’ the voice replied.
‘And will you be able to see into this darkness – this ignorance you fancy you see within me, at this place?’ Farnor asked sarcastically.
‘Perhaps. It is our best hope. But the darkness is the darkness. It may well be beyond us. We do not know.’ The voice seemed reluctant to pursue the matter. Its tone changed. ‘The ignorance is something else entirely. It is the ignorance of the sapling. Unlike stupidity, it is a curable condition.’
Was there a hint of humour in that answer? Distant parental laughter? Farnor frowned. ‘And if I defy you?’
No humour now. Just reluctant, fearful determina-tion. ‘We have told you. We will oppose you, strong though you be. No matter what the cost. We have harmony with the Movers. It is not our way to touch their strange, brief lives, except where they touch ours. But you are more than a Mover.’ There was another long silence, then Farnor sensed a decision being made. ‘We…’ Once again the word evaded Farnor. Was it feel? fear? know? Or all three, and more? ‘… that within perhaps a mere Mover’s span past, there has been a stirring of the Great Evil once more, somewhere in this, His home world, and also, as ever, in the worlds between the worlds. It is seemingly ended, but, too, there is doubt.’ Farnor had a momentary impression of consequence upon consequence flowing ever outwards, like ripples from a casually thrown stone spreading inexorably to lap at the farthest shores of a great, silent lake. ‘We are afraid. And while the spawn of the Great Evil prowls at the boundary, and you, with your power, bear the darkness at your heart, you must remain here.’
‘You have no right…’
‘We have the right to be, Far-nor. All knowing things have the right to be. And your darkness, and the Evil beyond, threaten that right. If you oppose us then you leave us no alternative but to stand against you.’
Farnor opened his eyes. The voice slipped away from him, and Marken’s spartan room closed about him, half welcomingly, half menacingly.
Marken was staring at him, wide-eyed. ‘I Heard. I Heard,’ he said, almost wildly. ‘Such clarity. Such freedom…’ He waved his hands excitedly then, catching Farnor’s expression, clenched them guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, Farnor,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to – I wasn’t excited about your problems – but a lifetime, you see, listening, but never truly Hearing.’
Several times, he put his hands to his chest, and then to his head, made to stand up, then sat down again. Eventually he forced himself back into his chair, though he was still full of a restless excitement.