Graynelore (10 page)

‘More to the point, we now see you, as you were intended, Rogrig Wishard,’ said Lowly Crows. ‘Now that you have removed your veil and taken off your disguise…’

‘But…but I was not wearing a disguise,’ I said, truthfully enough. ‘I cannot…I am not…I have never—’

There was renewed laughter.

‘Rogrig, we were all of us wearing a disguise…some of us more than one, I think,’ said Lowly Crows.

‘She means your Glamour,’ added Wily Cockatrice. ‘See, you have let it fall.’

I was confused. I was not mindful of having done anything at all. In front of me were these astounding, most wondrous of creatures, and yet it was they who were staring at me! I tried to take a look at myself, though there was no mirrored pool to reveal a change. There was nothing unusual about me that I could see.

‘But I am what I am…It is just…just, I, Rogrig…Nothing more, nothing else…’

‘Of course it is just you. It always was
just
you.’

Did I feel any different? No. Was I more powerful or stronger for this supposed feral transformation? No. I can tell you only this – and for want of a much better explanation – in that moment, whatever I had become, I knew myself a man complete; no longer a blundering lost fool standing with his feet in two places. (Take it or leave it, my friend.)

When the very last disguising veil of Glamour fell away, I swear, I heard a sharp intake of breath, a mark of awe perhaps, come out of the shade.

It did not last.

There was to be a most dreadful end to this uncommon event.

For then, I felt the pain of it. Come suddenly and unrelenting. All consuming and absolute…Alike a crushing death blow, yet nothing so mundane. It took away all hope from the world. It left only despair.

I fell into an utter darkness.

Life stopped. The very earth collapsed upon itself. And there was nothing more to it.

Nothing at all…

I woke with a start, out of the depths of a night-torment, only to find myself caught within another; and the worst of foul dreams.

Windblown grass was tickling my face. I could smell the cold earth. I could hear the movement of trees, the creaking of their branches, and the discordant chatter of distant birdsong. There was no daylight as yet, nothing to see…an uncertain pattern of shapeless shadows. I think someone was talking, if indistinctly.

I tried to sit up, only my arms – suddenly too feeble – would not support me; and my body was too heavy, and too numb, to move of its own accord. I remembered my infancy, and a broken iron war sword I had not the body strength to more than drag across a cold stone floor.

A sudden stab of uncommon pain racked my head. I fell once more into utter darkness where, in my torment, a cruelly smiling sun rose quickly across a pitch-black sky only to set again. Still smiling…

When next my eyes opened it was into a kind of sullen, grey daylight.

A huddle of people sat over me. I was certain I had known them once. Among them there was a fat youth, and an ancient grotesque. Only what they had been before – something magnificent – was no more than a vague allusion, much less a memory. I have seen death on the faces of men. I have never seen living faces so drained of life and yet still living. If these were not ghosts, mere apparitions, then they should have been. They were a pitiful remnant, and failing still, I feared, by the moment.

There came again the lull of discordant birdsong.

I spoke a name I seemed to have upon my tongue. ‘Lowly Crows, is it you? Tell me, what has become of us?’

The crow was sitting in a tree close by, I think among a number of her kin. As I spoke, the birds stopped their chatter and fell silent.

Then Lowly Crows answered me. She spoke for what seemed a long time, and without interruption, trying to explain, never quite explaining. Her speech was soothing and yet without real worth. Only words washing over me, over us. The best of it was this:

‘…The enchantment has broken…Our ancient refuge has fallen…is done with. We thought together we might be strong enough…Only, it was all too much…too much and the magic too old and feeble…’

In all my life I have never felt so weary. I thought perhaps it was the time for all of us to die. Can you die inside a dream?

Only we did not die, not then; at least, not those of us who had managed to come this far…who were a party to this torment.

I had thought I was the ignorant one, the foolish infant among the ever knowing adults. The lone simpleton who, stumbled about trying to make patterns in the dark, could make no sense out of a disturbing world.

Not so, it seems. I was not alone. Whatever the so-called fey talent of my present company, it had been come upon by accident: trial and error. It was not certain knowledge but simple good fortune. We were
all
of us the same here. All fools. And my waking dream was not a dream at all.

What a sorry looking company we were. I let my eyes pass discretely across each of them in turn. The ancient crone, who was nothing more than that…she had taken to pacing in small circles, in an agitated, distracted fashion; her dry pipe, passed endlessly between her hand and her mouth. The fat, irritating youth, his skin so pale it was stark white, and his eyes distant, withdrawn into himself. The pair of coquettes…mock now…their beauty sorely withered. There too, a failing elder-man (I hardly recognized). He was tousle-haired, tall but bent in the extreme; stiff of limb. And the flock of birds…rather, a bloody murder of crows! Just birds then, among a handful of ailing and decrepit men – neither gods nor graces, nor fabulous beasts! Though it was not their general form, it was not their physical age, or even their weariness that most concerned me. Rather, they all looked diminished, and fragile, as if much of what they had been had fallen away and was lost.

Was I the same? Was I…?

And what had become of
all
the others? The lesser creatures, who had meant only to witness the making of the Ring of Eight, not become its victims…? And the owners of the shadow-voices I had argued with…? Certainly, there had been more full-bodied fey within that fated cavern than stood among our company now.

Their absence told its own tragic tale.

Not for the last time I wondered what I, Rogrig Stone Heart, was doing among this strangest of companies. Was I truly for turning home then, towards Dingly Dell? Eh? After all that had been revealed? My friend, if I had so lately found myself a man complete, I was, yet again, a man sorely divided! Neither one thing nor the other! I see it now. It was that very division that kept me there.

We had begun to take a walk. Wily Cockatrice had started it, giving herself a reason for her agitated pacing. She did not lead us. We were wandering, an aimless huddle, simply moving together. Why? I could see little reason in this…this Faerie Road? I only supposed it kept us together; temporarily gave us a common purpose, without further invention. It was only much later I came to understand that such a thing is quite second nature to fey creatures; they prefer the ordeal of an endless road when there is no safe haven to be found.

We were already a mile or so outside of Wycken. We had found our way to the banks of the River Winding – if it was little more than the width of a broad stream at that point – and were following its course south and east, towards the Great Sea. In this way we stayed safely off the mire and walked away from the town. We had had our fill of winter festivals and false mockeries.

What we had hardly begun in that cavern – what we had attempted – should have been our deliverance. Instead it had almost proved to be our end.

Who were we really, if not merely ourselves? A man might know his own story. But no man can know everything. Do not expect anything different of me. I thought I had seen dragons, and wild unifauns, dryads, and elves…
I thought
.

There was nothing majestic about any of us now.

The ground beneath our feet was loose and dry, even close to the water’s edge; as we walked our steps were lifting dust that marked our passage, revealing our position to any curious eye that cared to take a look. It was then I noticed an extra trail of dust rising not far behind our own trail. It might have disturbed me, if I had not soon recognized Edbur-the-Widdle. The sight of his familiar figure even raised a smile. The whelp had not been lost upon the mire after all. He had come after me, found me out again; become my shadow. Only now there were two hobbs in his party. He was riding one, and leading the other. The audacity of the youth! There was
my
Dandy, and the beast was not best pleased with the constant restraint or the careless handling.

I wondered then…was Edbur holding her
for
me, or
from
me. What better lure to keep me constantly constrained? He knew that, given the opportunity, I would endeavour to take her back. I would not be long parted from my hobb.

I wondered again…was it perhaps the time to slit a young man’s throat? (Old instincts die hard, my friend.) Remember, a dead enemy is as good as any friend. I decided to trust in what I could see. The youth was riding in full view, making no attempt to hide himself from our company. I would rather think him an extra pair of eyes for Wolfrid, his father, than an assassin; better a constant sentinel and a reminder of my fealty than a threat. How much he understood, how much he gathered from what he could see of us, was unclear. Though I suspected – and hoped – it was little enough.

When we reached the edge of the Great Sea there was no further to go. Reason enough to stop walking.

I took myself aside to empty my bladder; and to watch a distant Edbur upon a lowly cliff top, leading the hobbs to pasture, until he passed from my view. When I returned to my company they were, all of them, sitting upon the sand, among the washed-up driftwood near the tide line; each one gazing out upon the endless waters of the Great Sea. If they were looking for answers there, evidence of a Faerie Isle, I could see none.

Did they really suppose it had ever been there? Had been…would be…could be…was…? The Faerie Realm, fixed for all time upon one single piece of earth. An island that, to escape the eyes of men, kept always on the move and ever out of sight. What can never be seen is so very easily invented.

And yet, perhaps our aimless walk had had more purpose to it after all.

‘What happened?’ I am not certain who asked the question, it had surely been on all of our lips, and for a long while. It was Wily Cockatrice who made an answer.

‘Do you think any of us truly know any more than any other?’ she asked. She was still looking out upon the Great Sea. The sunlight glistered upon the moving waters. There was no sign of a ship, no Isle, no timeless otherworld.

‘I hope so…’ I said.

The crone laughed dryly, shook her head. She spat upon the sand to clear her throat. Fetched out her wooden pipe and relit it, was soon puffing smoke contentedly. Aye and she looked the better for it.

‘Do not let my stubborn manner or my great age deceive you, Rogrig Wishard. I may have lived far longer than you…and you might think I fit the part, only…I fear I have merely played at the role.’ She pointedly tapped the end of her pipe against her own head. ‘There is nothing more in here. I am, sadly, none the wiser for it.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘But I thought…’

‘I see the things I see!’ she said. ‘Sometimes uncannily perhaps, but that is all of it; and little enough. There is nothing more substantial to me.’

‘Excepting, a wyrm, perhaps?’ I offered.

Wily Cockatrice gave no indication that she had even heard the remark. She merely continued to puff upon her pipe.

I tried a different question. ‘And what of the cavern?’

‘Sithien…’ said Lowly Crows, suddenly become the dark woman before me, and not the crow. She at least, among us, retained some of her former prowess.

‘Eh?’

‘It is Sithien…’ she repeated, ‘or rather, it was. A place of faerie…The remains of something from another age…And truly rare beyond easy measure…’

‘Magic, then…?’ I shrugged.

‘The last worn threads of an ancient spell…’ Wily Cockatrice interrupted, rubbing her thumbs against her fingers, as if she had somehow taken it up between them. ‘It was enough for us to find it out. Indeed, to hide behind, to shield us from prying eyes while we gathered together and prepared ourselves…’

‘Though not enough to protect us from ourselves it would seem,’ I said.

‘I am so sorry, Rogrig Wishard,’ she said. ‘I…apologize. We were conceited, and arrogant. We thought we understood the task. We thought we had the measure of its making.’

‘And foolish…’ I said.

‘Aye and that…We possess only our Glamour (which we must not underestimate). It is a strong enchantment. We have been using it to disguise our true selves all our lives. We are good at disguise. Hiding is what we do best. Some of us did not even know we were doing it, eh, Rogrig? But to finally let it fall, and to attempt to release our
other
selves was…too much, too difficult to command. The threads of the old spell might have born its weight in our stead. Only, it too was no longer strong enough – nor was it meant for it – came undone. It is simple good fortune so many of us survive yet.’

She drew slowly on her pipe. Let the trails of smoke find their own way out again, through her nose and part open mouth. It lingered in her wiry hair.

‘We are all of us like children; innocent babbies! But it is ignorance, not stupidity. We have listened to the old stories of the Beggar Bards for too long, and been taken in by them…’

I nodded my tacit agreement.

I thought I was beginning to understand what all of this meant. Whatever our…talents, we could not simply use them just because we believed we possessed them. There had been no true fey creatures upon Graynelore for a thousand years. None that, upon discovery, had not quickly found itself stretched upon the gibbet, or drowned within a murder hole, or burned. Truly, we did not know what we were about. What knowledge we had was self-possessed; and of our own invention. There was no wise old wych among us, nor any wizard to teach us. There was no book of practical magic, no rules to read, no instant knowledge or instruction. Only faerie tales, meant for the babbies.

‘Aye…We might all carry the blood of our ancestors within us; some of us might even wear their names,’ I said. ‘But tell me this, upon Graynelore: of all the men named Smith, how few could we trust to hammer us out a good iron war sword, eh?’ I did not expect an answer – talked on. ‘Only, there is more to this.
Something
has brought us together. A handful of days ago I was a common fighting man and nothing more. I was a reiver. I do not flatter myself. I always knew exactly who I was, and what I was. And I was certain of it. But now, now I do not seem to know anything at all, excepting…I did not choose to do this! (Nor, truly, do I want it yet!)’

‘Did any of us choose?’ said Wily Cockatrice brashly. ‘Indeed, was there really a choice?’

‘Can you choose to be your true self?’ added Lowly Crows. ‘Can we avoid it when it is revealed to us?’

‘We could have ignored it, and lived out our lives,’ I said, stubbornly.

‘Oh yes, we could have done that. We could have kept our little secrets to ourselves. Stayed hidden; dutiful and loyal subjects to our beloved Headmen…Lived a lie, and the world none the wiser for it,’ said Wily Cockatrice. ‘Damn it, Rogrig. Ignoring the truth does not make it any less real. We have to believe; and act upon our belief.’

‘Do you then?’ I asked, pointedly. ‘Do you still believe?’

At this, all eyes there, even among the silent onlookers, turned, if not accusingly, then certainly, inquisitively, upon the ancient crone.

‘If we cannot be true to ourselves, what is the point of life?’ Her eyes were fixed upon mine. ‘Only…Do you know something? I am not quite so certain that I do believe any more. But I still
want
to believe…Is that enough for you?’