And self-reproach at a vigilance long-neglected; at an age-spanning complacency.
And such ignorance; such appalling lack of knowl-edge.
And all the time, Farnor ran and ran.
‘We must trust.’ A resonant, persistent declamation.
Doubt.
‘What can be said that has not been said? The Hearer Mar-ken judged him sound…’
Scorn. ‘He has not this one’s power. He is only a…’
‘A Mover. And many-ringed by their lights. Skilled in their ways. However dimly, he sees where we cannot. We must trust.’
There was a sudden silence.
‘And she too bade us trust.’
Realization.
Resignation.
Farnor burst through into sunlight. A rocky slope lay in front of him. With scarcely a pause he began to scramble up it.
Silence now, save for the sound of his rasping breath and his scrabbling feet as he clambered higher and higher.
‘We will trust.’
‘But his darkness is terrifying.’
‘We can do no other. We shall watch him still. Do not despair.’
And the debate faded, dwindling fainter and fainter into an unknowable distance.
But the conclusion was unnoted by Farnor. His only need was escape. Escape from the great soaring temple of trees where their ancient spirit tried to bind him. Upwards, upwards he went, over the thinly grassed turf until it was no more and, knees and hands bruised and skinned, he was clambering over rocks.
Then he could go no further. Through his sweat-blurred vision, he saw a sheer rock face ahead of him. He fell against it. His hands came up to beat a brief and futile tattoo, then exhaustion, physical, emotional, total, seeped up through him like a black cloud, and with a plaintive, almost animal whimper, he slithered to the ground.
Silence.
Time, now, was nothing. Nor place. Nor how he had come here, nor how he would leave. Some instinct had drawn him into the lee of a long-tumbled slab that leaned against the rock face, and in this narrow lair the world had become a tight drawn, nameless knot of aching limbs and tortured thoughts, the one indistin-guishable from the other.
And in the darkness dreadful things stirred. Fearful, crushed and oppressed things that had long been prowling in the shadows and which should not be shown the light, nor heard, nor felt, for fear of what would come in their wake.
Things that disturbed and distorted the sustaining, pain-branded images of the dying and dead Rannick; blurred their edges; questioned them…
Memories, simultaneous and separate, ordered and random, came and went. Sustaining hands and voices. Scents – of flowers, of cooking, of cattle and hay and grass, of soft embracing, and comforting clothes. And hands that tended, and mended; made whole that which was broken, made new from that which was old; repaired and healed, and nursed with tender sorrow where they could not do either; strove endlessly and without question to weave order from disorder, because that was how it should be.
Memories that ripped open and probed deep into his pain.
And through all, threading unbreakable, that which no words could encompass. That which showed, ‘This is wrong, because…’ and, ‘This is right, because…’ And too, ‘This is both right and wrong, because… and there will be pain in the judging, but it is not to be shunned.’
Kindness and gentleness. And love; love that was not afraid to be stern and to reproach and restrain.
But mingled with this remembering came also the darkness; the anger, the hatred, the desires. They too tore and wracked, treading these gentle memories, these deep and gentle learnings, under iron-shod feet, lest they rise up and bring the light, the truth, with them.
Knees pulled tight against his chest, arms wrapped about his head, Farnor wedged himself harder and harder against the ancient rock, as if this painful immobility would halt what seemed to be rolling inexorably towards him. Yet though his body was motionless, his inner self tossed and turned, swayed hither and thither, tormented by the boiling mixture that his conflicting emotions both fanned and stirred.
Faster and faster his thoughts began to whirl, a terrifying, churning conflict beyond any possibility of reconciliation or control.
Then, with a momentum like that of a tumbling boulder, the release crashed through the remains of his fading resistance, a great cry, filling his mind, filling his whole body. A great wordless cry of agony at the cruel, untimely death of his parents.
And through the breach, like vomit, poured all that had been dammed there; the guilt that he had not been by their side when they died, but tending to his own trivial concerns; guilt that he had not died with them, and guilt that he was glad that he had not died, but lived and breathed still, and did not want to die, ever. Then anger at his guilt; and familiar well-worn anger at Rannick and Nilsson and the creature, and the blind chance that had brought about their fateful alignment; and unfamiliar anger at Gryss and Marna and all his friends for not being there to save his parents, or to help him in his pain.
Then, an awful climax in this fearful torrent; bitter, choking reproach for his parents for having died and abandoned him, and shown him the wretched frailty of his own mortality. And, in its wake, yet more guilt at this treacherous betrayal of everything his parents had ever been to him.
Farnor’s hands clawed at the cold, unyielding rock, his body racked with sobs, his eyes blinded, his face sodden.
The flood ebbed and flowed, but it could not be stemmed. Not one part of it took form but it came back a score of times.
But weaker…
And weaker…
Until there was only a husk, filled with a cold, black emptiness, and surrounded by a cold, black, empty night. A husk that waited and waited for it knew not what, until an older wisdom within it gave it sleep; dreamless, restful sleep, far below the wreckage of the turmoil on which such indulgence would surely have foundered.
A trembling penetrated the darkness, and with it, a greyness.
Slowly, very slowly, it came to Farnor who he was, and where he was. Cold struck through to the core of him, and wretched, dragging pain filled his joints and muscles. It focused what little consciousness he had and, with painstaking slowness, he eased each limb into life and crawled from the narrow cleft that had been his shelter for the night. As his awareness grew, so did his discomfort.
But something had changed.
He did not pursue this vague realization. Instead he concentrated on gradually, painfully bringing himself upright and attempting to rub some of the juddering cold out of his bones. His every movement felt alien, inappropriate.
He looked around at his surroundings. The sky was grey with the light of the coming dawn, and in front of him was the rock face that had barred his reckless upward progress an eternity ago. It was not as large as it had been and to one side it fell away to reveal a gentler slope. For no reason that he could clearly form, except perhaps to distance himself further from the trees, though even these now seemed to be of little import to him, Farnor turned and began slowly walking up the slope.
As he walked he gave no thought to where he was going, though vaguely he began to feel that he needed to be on a high place, where he could just…
He needed to be on a high place.
The journey passed unheeded, but had it been ten times the length, Farnor would not have noticed. All was a grey emptiness. Time, distance, effort, were naught.
He reached the jagged summit.
Neighbouring mountains, hidden by their fellow from its foot, now looked down upon it, bleakly indifferent.
Farnor stared out over the Great Forest, though little was to be seen except for the tops of some of the trees reaching up above a thin, damp, summer morning mist.
He sat down and dropped his head into his hands.
And waited.
Faint echoes of the dreadful turmoil of the previous night still sounded through him, reverberating to and fro. But they were distant now, no longer such a part of him. All feeling seemed to have gone from him.