necessary.'
He paused in the doorway. ‘Is there any danger in this … procedure?’ he asked.
Antyr shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It's very common. Usually it's done when someone's been having serious nightmares. You can either wake them up, or, preferably, talk them through it to remind them it is only a dream and make them feel in control. Besides, with Estaan guarding the door, two Companions guiding me, and this sword by my side, I've never been so well protected.'
Feranc glanced at the sword dubiously. ‘Will that actually be … there … with you? In the dream?’ he asked.
Antyr shook his head. ‘Not in the dream,’ he said. ‘But if somehow I'm drawn into the Threshold again, then it'll be with me there, I'm sure.'
'I won't pretend to understand,’ Feranc said. ‘Just…’ he shrugged. ‘Take care.’ He seemed to dismiss his concerns and became practical. ‘That's a Mantynnai sword, you realize. Longer and differently balanced to the standard infantry issue. Can you use it?'
Antyr shook his head again. ‘Not well, I should imagine,’ he replied. ‘But I'd rather have it than not. Estaan has lent it to me.'
Feranc nodded doubtfully then looked intently into Antyr's darkening eyes. ‘If you find yourself in danger, you must follow the
He spoke very quietly and without any dramatic emphasis, but the words seemed to break over Antyr like a great wave, imparting meanings to him that were far beyond their apparent content.
'Thank you,’ he stammered, resting his hand awkwardly on the hilt of his sword. ‘I'll remember.'
'And if you have to draw that thing, keep it simple,’ Feranc went on. ‘Straight lunge, straight cut, basic parries. And fly as soon as you can.'
He was gone before Antyr could speak again.
Estaan, standing nearby, blew out a long breath. ‘I could have said the same words but I couldn't have taught you that much in a year,’ he said. ‘What a man. I told you that being a warrior came from inside.’ He turned to Antyr. ‘How did you feel when he spoke?’ he asked.
Antyr dithered. ‘Ineffective,’ he said after an unhappy search for the right word.
Estaan patted his stomach. ‘So did I. And I understand what he's talking about. Remember how he was when he did that to you, and be the same,’ he said. ‘I know I will.'
Feranc's influence seemed still to fill the room, and the two men spoke very little as they waited for the envoy to be brought to his room.
'Let go of him now,’ Tarrian said softly to both of them after a while. ‘Or we'll carry his presence into the dream and be detected for sure. He's only done what any good teacher does: shown you what you already knew.'
'Yes,’ Antyr said simply, swinging his legs up on to the bed and self-consciously adjusting his sword.
'What do you want me to do?’ Estaan asked.
'Nothing.’ The two wolves and Antyr replied simultaneously, making Estaan jump.
Antyr laughed. ‘Just guard the door and don't allow anyone in, except Pandra,’ he said.
The sound of voices coming along the passage outside ended the exchange.
'It's Menedrion and the envoy,’ Estaan whispered.
Antyr nodded then looked down at Tarrian and Grayle. The eyes of both the wolves were bright yellow. Briefly he was looking up at himself, his eyes black and cavernous. It happened twice as each of the wolves exchanged with him. Grayle's body felt different from Tarrian's but the exchange was too rapid for him to search out where the differences lay.
He lay back and motioned Estaan to silence.
The Mantynnai relaxed back into a large chair from which he could see both the bed and the door. The two wolves both circled a little before spiralling down gently to lie by the bed.
Menedrion's forced heartiness could be heard even through the closed door, as could its failure to impinge upon the envoy, whose harsh voice spoke only once, briefly, before the door to his room closed.
It was followed by the sound of further muffled speech and footsteps which Antyr identified as Menedrion leaving and the guards taking position outside the envoy's room.
He reached out to Tarrian and Grayle. ‘Very gently,’ he said. ‘Be very aware-very still.'
They waited in silence for a long time. All four listening and still. No sound came from the adjacent room except the occasional anonymous bump, until eventually a low murmuring began to seep through to them.
'He's praying,’ Antyr said. Somehow the sound hardened his heart. He knew a little of the Bethlarii religion and its simplistic demands for mindless obedience that sent its more zealous followers into murderous fighting frenzies on the battlefield, as careless of their own lives as of their enemies'. He had lost friends and come near to dying himself at the insane hands of such people.
He carried too, he knew, a portion of his father's moderately intolerant attitude to religions in general. ‘Religions illuminate no truth, it's truth that illuminates religion,’ he would say, adding forcefully when he began to get heated, ‘and we're all responsible for our own actions. Looking to blame some invisible deity for what we do is neither logical nor acceptable in a civilized people.'
The murmuring ceased as if at the command of Petran's long-dead voice.
Within minutes, Antyr felt the enveloping blackness that told him that the envoy was asleep. Tarrian and Grayle carried him silently into it.
For a long time nothing happened as the envoy passed back and forth through different levels of sleep. Images and random thoughts came and went. Coherent arguments and plans began to form, only to disappear into rambling nonsense. Violence against a sycophantic image of Menedrion was predominant. Antyr smiled slightly; doubtless Pandra would experience the converse of these thoughts when he came to guard Menedrion later.
They waited. Here there would be no search for the Nexus, no hunt for the dream. Here they would merely observe.
It's coming.
Antyr felt the whispering approach of the dream almost as soon as did the two wolves. The sensitivity and speed of his response gave him, for the first time, a measure of the changes that had happened to him over the past days. It was truly startling. But his control too, was growing equally and no ripple of surprise reached up from within him to reveal his silent presence in the envoy's mind.
Then they were there. Dream Finder and the Dreamselves of his two Companions at one with the Bethlarii envoy, Grygyr Ast-Darvad, walking slowly down a long avenue of columns. Tall and ghostly in the brilliant moonlight, the columns soared up dizzily into the night sky until, somewhere far beyond his sight, great arches would join them together to support the star-loaded heavens. On these arches and winding, snakelike, down the columns were carved the epic tales of the battles that Ar-Hyrdyn had fought on his way first from man to hero, then to god and, finally, to the conquest of the ancient gods themselves, to learn that he himself had been the original creator of all things, treacherously tricked and bound in the world of men by his jealous offspring.
Now, all bowed their heads before him, obedient to his every whim.
Beyond the columns, dark trees stood, solid, black, and eternally patient. In the depths of these forests waited the myriad red-eyed hunting beasts of Ar-Hyrdyn. These he used to hunt down the spirits of those who had died fleeing the battlefield, or who had betrayed their companions. Terrible and long was the rending fate of such souls.
Grygyr could feel the relentless stares of Ar-Hyrdyn's creatures, but he was safe. No such fate awaited him. Was he not true to the faith in its every particular? Was he not, even now, in the midst of his enemies, stern, aloof, fearless of death, and unyielding to their effete and decadent lures?
The envoy's self-righteous anger and corrosive hatred was repellent to Antyr, but he made no stir.
Turning to his left Grygyr looked up at the moon. It was the moon of this world. Larger and brighter by far than the moon of the waking world, it dominated the sky so oppressively that he felt he could reach up and touch it.
Its face was scarred and pocked, giving it a diseased and bloated appearance.
Even the heavens had felt the touch of Ar-Hyrdyn's wrath.
Grygyr returned his gaze to the journey before him. He had travelled it many times.
