The castle gates were swinging open as he emerged into the torchlit courtyard. He noticed the gate guards standing well back as Rannick entered. He was mounted on the horse that he invariably used, and which was becoming increasingly like him in its vicious, erratic temperament. As Nilsson walked forward to greet him, it seemed to him that Rannick and his sinister mount were not simply moving towards him through the long, wavering shadows of the torchlight but were entering into this world from some other place, alien and frightful. He stopped, as if to go further forward would be to plunge himself into that world and be lost forever.
Rannick came slowly but relentlessly nearer. His horse stared at Nilsson, its eyes glittering red in the torchlight and its head and neck moving from side to side. It was an unnatural, serpentine movement, and it chilled Nilsson. He prepared to step to one side, but the horse halted without command, and Rannick dis-mounted. A nervous groom came forward and took the reins of the horse, which stared at him balefully as he hesitantly tugged at it. Rannick laid a hand on its neck, and it loped off after the groom, its head bowed close to the ground but still swaying, this way, that way, as if searching for something.
Rannick had the hood of his cloak pulled forward and Nilsson could see nothing of his face, while being all too aware that his own face was clearly visible in the torchlight. Slowly, however, Rannick pulled back the hood. Though he could not have identified any specific change, Nilsson knew that his master was not the same as he had been when he left the castle the previous evening. He risked the initiative. ‘Are you well, Lord?’ he asked, not without some genuine concern.
Rannick nodded slowly. ‘Yes, Captain,’ he replied. ‘I am well. Why do you ask?’
His voice was subtly different too; distant, more sonorous. Nilsson’s mind was drawn inexorably back to the Lord that he had followed in the past. Rannick was still but a pale shadow of what he had been, but he was beyond dispute, following in his steps. For no reason that he could immediately discern, Nilsson felt the balance of his concerns shift favourably. He reaffirmed his ambition. He must survive this coming danger, and then…?
‘You seem… different, Lord,’ he said, keeping from his voice any hint of either concern or criticism.
Rannick’s gaze seemed to pass straight through him. ‘You are a shrewd and ambitious man, Captain,’ he said, his voice leisurely, yet, like his eyes, penetrating. Nilsson felt as though every part of his body were being spoken to. ‘It makes you an attentive as well as a loyal servant. You, above all, have the vision to see… to know… that I change each day, that my skill in the use of the power grows each day. But you are right. This day has been a day beyond all others.’ Then, out of the shadows, like an assassin’s knife: ‘Where is the girl?’
Despite himself, Nilsson flinched a little at the sud-denness of the question. He steeled himself. ‘She is not here, Lord. She has fled.’
Rannick inclined his head slightly, as if he were listening to a voice speaking very softly, or at a great distance. Nilsson felt his own body’s defences marshal-ling themselves. He became aware of every movement, every sound, in the entire courtyard, yet it was as though he were alone in a silent, motionless world that existed only for him and for this moment. And from this world he saw his Lord’s face slowly change. His reactions, racing, followed the change, nuance within nuance, as they searched for the probable outcome of his message.
There was anger there. That he had expected, of course; and feared. Feared deeply. He had had enough experience of men thus stricken to know the murderous insanity that could follow such rejection. And with Rannick’s power…
In the blink of an eye he oversaw the alternatives before him. They ranged from prostrating himself and begging for mercy, to a sudden knife thrust that would slay at once both his lord and the future that his rekindled ambition had built for him.
And yet there was something else vying with the anger, something deeper, yet in a way pettier. Irritation? Annoyance at an unwelcome distraction?
Nilsson watched. And waited.
‘Fled?’ Rannick echoed, after an interminable inter-val.
‘Yes, Lord,’ Nilsson heard himself replying.
The subtle battle for control within Rannick was perceptible only to Nilsson’s heightened awareness. The anger came and went until, abruptly, it was transmuted, and when it eventually came to rest in Rannick’s eyes it was cold and malevolent but quite free from the wild dementia that Nilsson had expected. It was no less terrible for that.
‘That is not acceptable, is it, Captain?’ Rannick said, his voice eerily distant. ‘But I shall deal with it in due course.’ He closed his eyes and turned his face upwards. Slowly, his flame-shadowed expression became ecstatic, then he smiled slightly as he opened his eyes again and looked at Nilsson. He reached out and clasped his hand around Nilsson’s shoulder. ‘You seem abstracted, Captain,’ he said, the concern in his voice set at naught by the coldness in his eyes. ‘Doubtless you feared my return?’
Experience had taught Nilsson many years ago that at such times, telling the truth was invariably the wisest course. ‘I was concerned when I heard of the girl’s flight,’ he replied. He was about to begin describing the search that he had mounted, and the plans he had made for further, more thorough searches beyond the valley the next day, but Rannick was nodding and the grip was tightening about his shoulder. Rannick began walking across the courtyard, moving Nilsson ahead of him.
‘A wise concern,’ Rannick conceded. ‘And an under-standable one. But as I went in exultation to commune with… myself… in the silence of the woods – to prepare myself – it was revealed to me that this could not be. To squander myself on such transient pleasure – to spend my greatness on a single female – especially one who was, in truth, unsuitable – would be to jeopardize my greater destiny, and with it the true pleasures that lie ahead.’
Nilsson moved forward under the pressure of the guiding hand, still uncertain about the outcome of this unexpected turn of events. ‘A hard decision, Lord,’ he risked.
The hand tightened further about his shoulder until, his knees almost buckling, he was obliged to gasp in pain.
Rannick’s grip eased, though he did not remove his hand. ‘You can have no conception how hard, Captain,’ he replied. ‘For my appetites are great.’
They reached a door which a guard threw open for them. As Rannick’s hand left his shoulder, Nilsson felt suddenly so light and disorientated that for a moment he thought that the least breeze might have lifted him off his feet.
Rannick looked around the circular hallway that they had entered. He nodded to himself several times, and very slowly.
Then he straightened up. ‘I must meditate further on what has happened today, Captain,’ he said. ‘For it is much more than it seems. But the time is come. We begin the preparations for our conquest of this land in earnest.’ He paused. ‘Tomorrow. See that everyone is ready to move, as we planned.’
Even as he was speaking this last, terse order, he was walking away. Nilsson saluted. He stood motionless until his Lord was out of sight, and for some time after that. Elation filled him. He had flown close to the flame again, closer than ever before. And he had survived! Nothing, nothing, could stand in his way now.
Rannick’s dangerous aberration had passed. And he would turn to no other woman in the future; his obsession with his skills was total and all-consuming, now. Nilsson could not begin to surmise what unholy communion had passed between Rannick and his creature that day, but he knew intuitively that Rannick had felt a lessening of his power when he had turned his mind to someone other than himself. And it was the essence of the power that it could not see itself depleted; it could only lust to grow greater and greater. Rannick was trapped utterly.