SEVEN

 

 

THEY WALKED ALL day at a pace that was punishing for Riven, and he began to feel like a hounded prisoner. He was glad to see the approach of dusk, but with it came the sight of a dark line across the horizon ahead.

‘Scarall Wood,’ said Bicker. ‘We have made good time. We will camp there tonight and be in Ralarth Rorim by evening tomorrow.’ He looked at Murtach. ‘What of the Myrcans?’

‘They rejoin us at dusk. If we camp on the southern edge of the wood, they should find us easily enough.’

They reached the eaves of the wood an hour later, and Ratagan immediately hefted his axe and stood guard whilst the others set up camp. Fife and Drum threw themselves on to the ground, panting like dogs. Their yellow eyes seemed to glow in the gloom.

Soon after they had the fire lit, there was a rustle of dead leaves, and two men stood in their midst as if they had sprung out of the ground. Riven bit back an exclamation of surprise and took a good look at his first Myrcans.

In his books they had been taciturn mercenaries who took service under the Dale lords. From what Bicker had told him, however, it seemed their role was more subtle than that. It was strange watching the characters of his imagination alive, walking and talking with him; almost like being on a vast film set. Both terrifying and exhilarating. Perhaps the weirdest thing was that these characters of his had a life of their own, sides to them that he had never imagined in his stories. They were, he supposed, necessarily more complex, as life was more complex than any man’s art. Two questions gnawed at him, however: first, had he brought Minginish to life, somehow, or was he merely tapping into it for his stories? And second, how?

The Myrcans who stood there were somehow more brutal in appearance than he had ever envisaged. Riven had never seen men who looked more solid, more part of the earth. They were short, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, and they seemed to crouch as though ready to spring. Their hair was black and cropped almost to the scalp, and they were clean-shaven. They wore close-fitting leather breeches, stout knee-high boots, and heavy jerkins of hide which seemed to be reinforced with glinting mesh at the shoulders, the chest and the groin. Around their waists were blue sashes like Ratagan’s. They bore in their blunt hands five-foot staves of dark wood which were bound all along their length with metal rings that glinted in the firelight.

Their faces were dark, their eyes like black stones. Both of them wore a stripe of white paint on their faces from ear to ear, running across the bridge of the nose. They might have been twins. No one spoke as they took their places by the fire. Eventually Ratagan broke the silence with a rumble from where he stood at the edge of the light.

‘What news, my friends?’

The metal-bound staff flashed as the Myrcan responded. ‘Naught to the rear of us. The land is empty. We saw winter wolves, but they are far off now. The melting of the snows has sent the beasts retreating to the High Ground.’

The Myrcan was staring at Riven with uncomfortable intensity. He shifted uneasily, and whispered to Bicker: ‘Tell him I’m friendly, will you?’

Bicker smiled. ‘Ord, this is Michael Riven, the Teller of Tales. He is the one Murtach has spoken to you about, who comes from the Isle beyond the sea to help us.’ Then Bicker turned to Riven. ‘These are Ord and Unish. They are of the Myrcans.’

‘I’m honoured,’ said Riven, partly because he felt he should say something, and partly because he wished to allay any suspicions these formidable natives might harbour about him.

The Myrcans regarded him unsmilingly, and then their gaze left him. He was tired and irritated, and no one would tell him anything. He pulled out his sleeping bag—which made the Myrcans stare again—and wrapped himself in it whilst the others prepared food.

The ground under him quivered for a moment, then was still. He frowned and sat up, felt the place with his hands.

‘What is it?’ Bicker asked.

‘Nothing. I thought I felt... something.’

‘In the ground?’

‘It was my imagination,’ said Riven, feeling a fool.

But Bicker and Murtach were exchanging glances. ‘Scarall is all right, isn’t it?’ Bicker was saying.

Murtach looked worried. ‘I thought so.’

Then the ground underneath Riven gave a heave, and sagged. He jumped to his feet. ‘Shit. There’s something under there. Something moved.’

The company stood up, weapons hissing out of sheaths. Fife and Drum began growling low in their throats, eyes luminous in the firelight.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Riven demanded angrily.

And the ground erupted beside him.

A great clay-black shape sprang from the soil and launched itself at him. Stone-hard paws smashed him to the ground, and outlined above him by the fire was the head of a huge dog or hound, eyeless, black-mawed. Then the Myrcan staves crashed into its back, and it leapt at them with a howl. Riven crawled backwards, mind white with shock, and saw a black hound six feet long throwing the Myrcans about as though they were dolls, whilst the two wolves snapped uselessly at its heels. Bicker’s sword came whistling down on its flank with a crack, and bounced off, taking only a few chips out of the creature.

Chips?

It did not bleed, and where the sword had struck it was a shallow white scar the colour of new wood.

Wood? Something from a far memory hammered at the back of his mind. A subterranean, wooden hound—but there was no time to speculate.

Ratagan entered the fray with a roar, and his axe hissed down to thud into the creature’s neck. It sank inches, and he wrenched it out again whilst the Myrcans belaboured it with their staves. Murtach called off Fife and Drum, and they retreated from the fight, snarling. The beast seemed unharmed, and the staves bounced off it ineffectually. The huge mouth clamped over Ratagan’s lower leg, and he cried out, falling to the ground and thumping the head uselessly with his fists.

At once, the Myrcans dropped their weapons, and fell on the beast with their bare hands. They wrestled with it, prising it free of Ratagan and manhandling it towards the fire. The hound struggled madly, and succeeded in crushing one of its attackers against a tree. The Myrcan released his hold. The hound was too much for his comrade, and it bit and buffeted its way free of his grip. Then, to his horror, Riven saw that it was coming back towards him.

But Bicker and Murtach sprang on it with burning sticks from the fire. They shoved them into the beast’s face, and for the first time it howled with pain and thrashed blindly away. The two Myrcans grabbed torches also, though one of them had an arm that hung useless at his side, and the four surrounded the hound, jabbing it with the flaming brands. It writhed and snapped at them, but recoiled from the fire. Finally it howled in anger, and Riven saw its rear end sink into the soil. It corkscrewed backwards into the ground, their last sight of it being its black, revolving muzzle. Then it had disappeared, and there was no mark in the grass to indicate its passing.

The company stood still, the flickering torches throwing their shadows among the trees. The only sounds were the flames, Ratagan’s hard breathing and the sniffing of the wolves as they padded round Murtach, verifying he was unhurt.

‘It is gone,’ Bicker said at last, and returned his torch to the fire. The others did the same. He went over to Ratagan, who lay with pain written on his face at the edge of the firelight, and bent to examine his leg. The unhurt Myrcan was tending to his injured comrade. Riven joined Murtach, who was watching over them with Ratagan’s axe in his hand.

‘That was a gogwolf,’ he stated, shaking. Murtach’s pets eyed him with suspicion.

Their master stared at him grimly. ‘Indeed. Another of your pet monsters. It is a creature of the trees and the earth, and it moves through the ground as easily as we move on top of it, following the roots of the trees.’

‘It really looked as though it were made of wood.’

Murtach seemed slightly impatient. ‘It is, and its hide is as hard as the bark of the toughest oak.’ Then he shrugged. ‘We should have remembered that sooner; but it is a long time since any of us here has encountered a gogwolf, and we never thought they would have come this far south out of the high forests. This is ill news indeed.’

‘What about Ratagan?’

Murtach’s troubled expression eased. ‘Him? He is as tough as tree roots himself. A bite on his leg will not hamper him much.’

They were silent. Bicker heated water in a copper pot and ripped up clothing to bind wounds.

‘Will it come back?’ Riven asked. He was still marvelling a little. I’ve seen a gogwolf.

Murtach shook his head. ‘We hurt it, and it attacked on its own. If it had possessed comrades, then we would have had to leave the wood; but we will be all right here now, I think. Which is just as well, since I don’t think these two had better be moved, for tonight, at least.’

‘It was after me,’ Riven realised, unable to get the picture of that black maw out of his mind.

‘Maybe,’ Murtach replied. ‘That is something we can discuss in Ralarth Rorim, along with other things.’ He did not seem disposed to say more, and played with Fife’s ears absently.

Bicker called them over, wanting more water heated. Ratagan’s wound was full of clay, and needed careful washing. It was ragged and bloody, making a mess out of his calf. The big man cursed furiously as he watched Bicker treat it.

‘Whoreson animal. This’ll lay me up for days, once we get home.’

‘But the women will love you for it,’ Bicker replied, grinning. Ratagan laughed, then looked about him. ‘Mole, you evil-smelling midget, where’s my fine weapon?’

‘In equally fine hands, clumsy one. She’s wondering if her master was drunk when he made that swing at the beast.’

‘Drunk or sober, she made a bigger impression than that pig-sticker of yours.’

Riven turned his attention to the Myrcans. They were sitting quietly by the fire, the injured one—he could still not tell them apart—with his arm splinted and bound. He shook his head. Unreal, those two.

Bicker stood up, wiping his hands. ‘It would be better to leave the wood, but we’d best stay here until morning, with the hurts we have suffered.’ He cut off Ratagan’s protest with a curt gesture. ‘We will set watches and keep the fire high. We cannot afford to be caught like that again. If there are gogwolves in Scarall, there may be all sorts of other things as well.’ He bent down and fumbled with his pack, grunting as he found what he was looking for. His hand flicked, and a flash spun through the air to become a dagger embedded in the grass at Riven’s feet.

‘That is for the Teller of Tales,’ he said, meeting Riven’s eye with a wry smile. ‘So that his tales may not get the better of him.’

Riven pulled the weapon out of the ground. It was heavy, a broad double-edged knife with a twelve-inch blade. He whistled softly as he thumbed the edge. ‘You people don’t muck about.’

‘We can’t afford to,’ Bicker responded shortly. ‘Now you know why.’ He retied his bag. ‘You and I will take first watch. There will be little sleep tonight, but this time tomorrow we will be in the Rorim.’

‘Ralarth Rorim.’

‘Yes. That much at least you will be familiar with. But there is more to Minginish than in your stories.’

‘That I believe.’

 

 

THE OTHERS WERE asleep, and Riven was nodding, the knife cold in his hands. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Bicker?’

‘Yes?’

‘Talk to me. I’m falling asleep.’

Bicker was cleaning his sword with a scrap of hard leather. ‘Another story? You will make a Teller of me yet.’

‘What about telling me how Murtach found me. He was at Beechfield, but he was an old man. How was that done? How many of your people know about me?’

Bicker clicked his tongue. ‘We are a conspiracy, we are—’ He gestured towards the others who lay asleep. ‘We wanted to stop what was happening to Minginish. Murtach and Ratagan are my foster brothers, just as you imagined. Ord and Unish are two of the Myrcan Hearthwares of Ralarth Rorim. I am the Warbutt’s heir, though hardly a prince.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘The Warbutt does not take kindly to my... wanderings.’

‘Does he know what is going on here?’

‘Of course. Myrcan Hearthwares do not wander off without their lord’s permission.’

‘Tell me of Ralarth Rorim. Tell me of your family.’ Riven was biting back some of the questions he most wanted to ask, especially those concerning Jenny. They gave him a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Bicker scratched his beard. ‘There is not much to tell that you do not know already. The Rorim is old, as much is in Minginish. It was built long before the first beasts ventured out of the mountains; but it was built at a time when the Dales were at odds with one another, and there was more raiding—for cattle and weapons, mostly. Sometimes for women. So it is truly a fort as well as a dwelling place, and though many live there many more can gather there in time of need. Its walls are not high; but they are long, and there is grazing within them and a spring that never fails.’

Riven digested this for a moment. ‘And your family?’ he asked.

‘My mother is dead,’ Bicker answered succinctly. ‘The Warbutt—my father—you will meet. Murtach and Ratagan are sons of my father’s captains. There are no more.’

‘What about the people? What are they like? Are they... as I drew them?’

Bicker smiled. ‘For the most part. There are just over two dozen Hearthwares, trained fighters who have been taught by the Myrcans. Their captain is Udaim, Ratagan’s father. Murtach’s father, Guillamon, is the wisest man in Minginish—or so Murtach likes to say. He is Warden of Ralarth. Some say he is a wizard of sorts.’ Bicker shot a quick glance at Riven. ‘Your story has a wizard.’ Riven nodded impatiently.

‘No one counts our people, but there are many of them. Shepherds, most of them, and farmers who till the earth around the Rorim. Now they and the sheep herders are at odds, for the flocks have been forced out of the hills by the beasts and there is competition for space. There has been trouble, and the Hearthwares have never been so busy.’

‘What are these beasts like, that come out of the mountains?’

Bicker ran a finger down his sword blade. ‘You know now the gogwolf—though that is the first one we have seen this far south. A bad omen. There are normal wolves also, but bolder than we have ever seen them before. And then there are things such as the grypesh, the rat-boars, and the Rime Giants and the ice worms. All these we have known to have existed for a long time, but they stayed in their highland haunts and only hunters and wanderers encountered them, making for a good tale in the winter. But now they terrorise the very folk of the Dales and stalk the hills in between at will, cutting one village off from another; only the hardiest travel far these days, and then only at great need.’

‘I know the Rime Giants,’ Riven said. He stabbed his new knife into the turf. ‘I dreamt of you and Ratagan while I was in hospital. We were fighting a giant.’ He did not say that it had spoken with Jenny’s voice. That part of this world still frightened him too much. The thought of Jenny, here, frightened him, when it was not breaking his heart.

‘Guillamon—Murtach’s father—has seen you in dreams also,’ Bicker said soberly. ‘It was he who urged me to return to the Staer, though my father was against it. Murtach came for an adventure, and because his abilities made him useful.’

‘In the book he is a... shapeshifter,’ Riven said, choosing the word with care.

The dark man nodded. ‘There is no magic in your world, but we have a brand of it here in Minginish.’

‘He was a werewolf,’ Riven said, his gaze flickering to the two wolves who lay dozing just outside the firelight. He felt a chill scale his backbone.

‘Murtach can take many guises,’ Bicker conceded. ‘He is a man with a gift, as is his father. He is a boon to us all.’

But Riven was remembering a scene he had written once, where a transformed Murtach had roamed the high moors under the moon with his two fellow wolves for company. He shook his head. ‘Unreal,’ he muttered. And he suddenly recalled getting drunk with Doody, and glimpsing through the haze the prick-eared shape at the window, looking in at them from the darkness outside.

What sort of people are these?

‘All this—all these troubles. This winter which you say has come and gone here, the monsters from the mountains. All this has happened in the past year since—since Sgurr Dearg?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think that, somehow, I’m responsible for it, don’t you?’

Bicker did not reply.

 

 

THEY CONTINUED ON their way the next morning without incident. Murtach and the wolves took the lead, and after them came Bicker, supporting an evil-tempered Ratagan, who leaned heavily on the haft of his axe. Riven came next, his new knife thrust through his belt, and then the two Myrcans, one with his arm slung.

The land changed as they walked. They had been travelling across undulating hills that were almost moor; but now the folds of the hills dipped and more and more downward slopes began appearing, whilst before them bloomed a long view of flatter land that glittered with rivers and was scattered with small woods. It stretched off into blue distance, becoming a guess of more highland in the north. Riven stared at it. Valleys within valleys. Minginish was vaster than his glimpse of it on the hill of the door had allowed him to estimate. There were skylarks here, and corncrakes. The grass was less yellow, and the heather petered out. Just like the book. He did not know if that was disturbing or comforting.

He could make out fields now, tawny with sun, and the grey dots of houses with their wisps of woodsmoke. Ponds of what seemed to be meltwater had gathered in hollows and there were ragged remnants of snow in the shadows of the steeper slopes.

‘Ralarth,’ said Bicker with gladness in his voice. ‘A long time, it seems, since last my eyes were on it.’

‘It’s still there,’ Ratagan growled, ‘though the Warbutt may have a word or two for your ear when we get to the Rorim.’

‘Hasn’t he always?’

There was a low rumble on the air, and then two horsemen burst into view on the rise ahead, the turfs flying from their mounts’ hoofs like startled birds. They were in full armour, the steel plate glinting in the sun, the light shining off their helms and their harnesses jingling. To Riven, it seemed one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. They cantered over to the company and reined in their steeds ten feet away, throwing up their hands in salute.

‘Well met, Bicker! Has Ratagan stumbled and hurt himself?’

Bicker grinned back. ‘Indeed! And this time he was sober.’

‘You whelp, Dunan!’ Ratagan roared. ‘While your backside has been warming a chair, we’ve been battling the beasts of the hills and brought a Teller from the Isle of Mists.’

The Hearthware’s eyes widened. ‘That is news. Do you need help to the Rorim?’

Bicker shook his head. ‘Our feet will serve us, even Ratagan here. But tell the household of our arrival.’

Dunan threw up his hand again. ‘That I will. My sister Mira will be more than a little glad to see your face again, I’m thinking, Bicker.’ Then the pair were off, thundering away across the hillside.

They had their first sight of the Rorim almost an hour later, when they made their way over the last rise before the Dale of Ralarth and the valley spread like a cloak under their eyes.

A seven-foot drystone wall ran like a snake across the undulating floor of the Dale. There were several gates set in its length, each guarded by a tall tower and an accompanying longhouse. It must have enclosed nearly three square miles, Riven reckoned. He could see herds of cattle grazing within, and scattered clumps of houses.

In the centre of the enclosed pastures there was a circle, a rampart of turf with an accompanying ditch, and on the rampart another circular wall higher than the outer. Inside its confines was a cluster of large buildings: longhouses and smaller structures, built out of wood and stone, some roofed with turf. They were built so close together that their walls touched, and indeed Riven could make out connecting corridors and annexes. The biggest structure was a stone building with three storeys, and glass shining in its windows. Even it had only slits for windows on the ground floor, however, and a stout double door. At its rear was a square tower with larger windows that overlooked the whole Rorim, and from whose pinnacle a blue pennant flew. Smoke drifted up from half a dozen smoke holes and chimneys. The place seemed sleepy, though someone was leading horses across the open yard before the biggest building.

‘The Warbutt will no doubt be watching our approach,’ Bicker said, and waved at the Rorim with his free hand.

‘As long as they have some beer foaming in the Manse, he could be sucking his toes, for all I care,’ said Ratagan, too tired now to keep the pain out of his voice. He was leaning heavily on Bicker, a scowl biting his brow.

‘It gets worse?’ Bicker asked him, concerned.

‘It gets no better, dark one, but I’d not have me carried into our Circle like a woman in labour, so save your breath and let’s be on our merry way.’

Dunan awaited them at a gate in the outer wall. He wore his shining metal armour, and there was a sash the twin of Ratagan’s around his waist. The big man finally consented to ride a horse, and they made better time as they marched on through the Circle to the Rorim itself.

They forded a stream that had its source in the ramparted fort, the water clear as dew, and drew up to the Rorim’s gates. The heavy portals were open, though other armoured and blue-sashed figures watched them from the catwalk, and there was the glitter of spear points in the sun. Their weapons were surrendered at the barbican, two squat stone towers and their accompanying longhouses, though Riven noticed that the Myrcans kept their staves. He handed over the knife that Bicker had given him to the Hearthware, and looked around.

They were in the courtyard before the biggest of the Rorim’s buildings—the one Ratagan had named the Manse. It was cobbled, and there was a well near the middle. A group of women in dun clothes were drawing water from it in wooden buckets, but they stopped their work to stare at the company—and especially at Riven. He felt out of place in his hiking clothes and with his rucksack on one shoulder. He was also, to his immense surprise and chagrin, absurdly conscious of the scars on his face, and he turned away from the inquiring eyes with a silent curse.

The doors of the Manse opened soundlessly and two men came out together, closely followed by two Myrcans. One was armoured and sashed like the Hearthwares and was broad as a door, with a golden beard spilling down his chest. The other was slighter, with grey hair, beardless, and with electric blue eyes. He wore a nondescript robe and breeches, but there was a torc of gold about his neck. The Myrcans, unsurprisingly, were Ord and Unish’s twins.

Ratagan dismounted with a grunt of pain and steadied himself on Murtach’s shoulder. ‘Greetings, my father,’ he said.

The gold-bearded man gripped his sash with both large hands.

‘Trouble, eh? Your mother has been worrying as always, Ratagan. With good cause, this time, it seems.’ He smiled almost apologetically, but Ratagan only grimaced in reply.

The company moved towards the Manse, and the newcomers walked with them. Riven seemed to pass unnoticed, but then he caught the keen eyes of the greyer man upon him, and had to look away.

‘The Warbutt is awaiting you all,’ the grey man said, in a voice dry as an autumn leaf. ‘I can ease your hurts as you talk to him, for he is impatient for news. Especially from you, Bicker.’

Bicker sighed. ‘I guessed that, Guillamon. I have been overlong away.’

‘But you have accomplished what you set out to do.’ It was a statement.

‘Yes.’ Bicker jerked his head towards Riven, and again those sea-blue eyes were on him for a moment before flickering away.

They entered a small hall that was all dark wood and flagged floor. Here the Myrcans left them. Then they followed Guillamon and Ratagan’s father through a double door, and found themselves in a vast hall whose massive roof beams crossed high above their heads. Light dropped in broad yellow shafts from high windows set in the walls. Dust danced in the sunbeams, which shone off old weapons hung near the ceiling and glinted on the gilt thread of tapestries along the walls. The firepit was empty, but a solitary brazier glowed at the end of the hall near a pair of high-backed chairs that were not unlike thrones. There was a figure seated quietly on the right-hand chair. He stood up as they approached, their footsteps raising echoes around them.

‘Bicker. My son is back.’

He was old, very old, but with a shock of white hair and an aquiline profile. He looked like an eagle perching alone in moult.

‘Father.’ Bicker embraced the old man, and he sat down again.

‘I see Ratagan has had some misfortune. You must have much to tell me. Guillamon, would you see that basins of water and food and drink are brought in? I would call an attendant, but the fewer ears around here, the better.’

Guillamon nodded wordlessly and left via a small door to the left of the high seats.

There was a silence, during which Riven fidgeted uneasily and Bicker occupied himself with unbinding Ratagan’s leg. Murtach frowned at the stone floor, where his wolves stretched themselves with a sigh of contentment.

After a few minutes, attendants came in with laden trays, and left quickly, ushered out by Guillamon. He bowed deeply to the Warbutt and then took a seat on the platform beside the fire pit, next to the company. There was a basin of faintly steaming water, silver sand and a thick towel for each of them, as well as mugs of cold beer, cheese, apples, beef, honey and bread. They washed, scrubbing themselves with the silver sand, and ate as the Warbutt regarded them, his face expressionless. Fife and Drum cracked at marrow bones, loud in the quiet. Riven could hear voices outside, far laughter and the lowing of distant cattle. Ratagan put down his empty mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s better medicine than any the leeches hand out.’ Guillamon chuckled, but Udairn, Ratagan’s father, looked serious.

‘What did this?’ he asked, peering at his son’s lower leg.

Ratagan shrugged. ‘Gogwolf, in Scarall Wood.’ The two older men looked at one another, but the Warbutt raised his hands.

‘All in its proper place,’ he said, seemingly unperturbed, but his eyes flashed.

When Ratagan’s leg had been rebound, the Warbutt asked Bicker to begin with an account of his sojourn in the Isle of Mists. The dark man glanced at Riven, who felt much better for the wash and the beer, and began.

‘It seems a long time I have been away. Eight months, since Murtach and I set out on the road to the Staer, through the blizzards that were destroying the land in the middle of the summer. Eight long months—and most of it spent in a strange land, a strange world. And on my own, too, much of the time. There were occasions when I thought that the Warbutt’s son had been too clever for his own good.’

He grinned weakly. ‘Murtach will have told you of the events that chanced from when he left the south, to where he had tracked Michael Riven, until he went through the door after meeting me to tell me of what had befallen. All I knew was that I was still on the Isle, for good or ill, and there I was bound to remain until the Teller of Tales came back north. I knew where he lived—this, and much more, we had gleaned in many drinking sessions with the natives of the Isle. I stayed in a rough hut to the back of his house, and a long, tiresome time I had of it. I still had some of the gold Murtach and I had been pawning for the money of the other world, but for the most part I lived by hunting and stealing from gardens like a wild animal.’ Bicker paused and swigged at his beer thoughtfully.

‘I had first discovered this other door by following a dark girl whom I had seen wandering the Isle. I watched her disappear through it. She was not one of the folk of that world—of that I am sure. She was as wild as a seal, and would not let me approach. I thought perhaps she was one of our people who had stumbled into the world of the Isle by accident and had lost her wits, but there was something about her that left me undecided. She seemed to be seeking something—or someone, maybe. Her eyebrows met in the middle.

‘The strange thing is that I saw her again, soon after. Scant days after she had gone, she appeared once more. I glimpsed her hovering near an old, derelict dwelling place in a valley of the Isle the inhabitants call Glenbrittle. She could not have walked from the one door to the other in Minginish in that time, so either she knows of other doors or she can traverse them both ways—not just in the one direction, as we can. That was the last time I saw her.

‘From then, it was not in truth such a long wait until Michael Riven returned to his home, and when he did I lured him here by guile, and so he is as you see him now—not totally unwilling, I hope.’ Bicker stopped and looked at Riven, but Riven never saw him.

Glenbrittle. She was at her old home, where she first met me. But there’s no one there to recognise her any more.

Guillamon nodded. ‘You did right, Bicker, if half of what you and Murtach have hinted at concerning this man is true. But tell us: what happened on your return to Minginish? What of the wounds of Unish and Ratagan?’

‘That I can tell, and more besides,’ said Murtach suddenly, his blue eyes mirrors of his father’s. ‘Ratagan and I, along with Ord and Unish, set out two weeks ago to make our way to the door and be there ready to meet Bicker when he came through. I had thought to be at the site of the door itself, but Bicker had prevailed upon me before I left to meet him one day’s journey away, so that he might have some time to talk to Michael Riven and apprise him of what had happened to him before the Teller was introduced to us and his head made to swim with faces.’ Here he smiled crookedly, but Riven only scowled.

‘You see, to Riven I am both a stranger and known to him. He has met me in the south as an old man low on wits; such was the shape I took to allow me to linger around the place of healing where he dwelt. But Michael Riven knows me from another source also—as he knows of all of us, perhaps, and all of Minginish.’

‘Enough of that for now,’ Guillamon said, and his son gave a small bow.

‘The story of the rest of my sojourn in the Other Place you know,’ he said. ‘It was not pleasant. There the air is tainted and the water stale, and the very earth fettered with tar and moulded stone. Over the cities hang clouds of filth, and the rivers are choked with it. It is not a place I would visit again. Fife and Drum and I—’ The two wolves lifted their heads and regarded their master quizzically. ‘We had a hard time of it surviving, despite the gold I took with me. Even hospitality has a price in that world, and travellers are regarded with mistrust. Several times I was almost apprehended by what passes for that world’s Hearthwares. Each time I changed my looks and slipped away. There is no magic in the world beyond the door, it would seem. Only in the stories that are told there.

‘And that is my brief tale.’ He shrugged and gulped at his beer, nudging Ratagan, who seemed to be in a light doze.

The big man woke with a start. ‘I suppose it is on me to tell you of our latest adventures.’ He blinked and eyed his empty flagon with a moment’s regret. ‘There is little enough to tell, except that we were right to have the company of Ord and Unish. On our way into the hills, we saw many wolves, but were not approached. And there were grypesh also, though not in large numbers. We slew half of one small pack that trailed us through the snows from the first heights of the hills. The rest fled. With the thaw that then came, we made better progress. We could have used horses. We waited at the appointed place for Bicker, and for once in his idle life the wretch was more or less on time. We headed north again—easy travelling in fine weather—but encountered a gogwolf in Scarall; it gave me my limp and cracked Unish’s arm for him before we saw it off. The rest you know.’

Udairn shook his head. ‘Gogwolves so close to Ralarth! That’s new. I do not like it. The Hearthwares will have to be alerted.’

‘What has been happening while I have been away?’ Bicker asked. He looked at his father, but there was no response.

‘Nothing good,’ said Guillamon lightly. ‘As Ratagan has noted, there are grypesh in Ralarth; flocks are no longer safe on their own. The Hearthwares are under a tide of problems.’ He nodded to Udairn, who sighed heavily.

‘Twenty-six men and eight Myrcans, most of whom are stationed at the Rorim itself, cannot police the whole Dale and the hills beyond. This weird winter has destroyed every crop we have. The thaw came too late. The people are being trained in the use of weapons, since they have no fields to tend. Dunan sees to it. I intend to increase the numbers of the Hearthwares, and I have put both Luib and Druim of the Myrcans on to the training now, but we will not reap the results of that for another season at least. Trained fighters do not spring out of the ground, though these things that are closing in on the Dale seem to.’

Then the Warbutt spoke, addressing Bicker. ‘While you have been away, dozens of our people have lost their lives to the beasts, and their herds have been scattered. And shepherd has fought farmer within the Dale, bickering over the use of the land. Wolves have roamed up to the very walls of the Circle. We are becoming an island. We face famine in a few months. This place needs you more than any place beyond the door.’

Bicker flushed at once. ‘Do you doubt the importance of my errand?’

‘I have yet to see its value,’ the old man responded mildly, looking at Riven.

It was Riven’s turn to flush. He glared at the elderly figure on the high seat. Up to now, he had been transfixed by the narratives of Bicker, Murtach and Ratagan, lost in pondering imponderables, and with horror slowly dawning on him as he saw more clearly what kind of situation Bicker had brought him into—and what his own role in it might be. And gnawing under it was the knowledge that Jenny was alive, and more than likely here in Minginish. That knowledge made him want to run out of the hall, out of the Rorim and into the wolf-ridden hills to find his wife. And then he saw her eyes on him at the bothy again—empty and afraid. He could have howled with despair.

And now an elderly man whom he had created in his own book to be a pompous reactionary was regarding him with disdain.

‘Well that just fucking tears it,’ he barked. ‘Who the hell do you think you people are? You take me from my world, my own life, and you haul me into some kind of rural Disneyland, spinning tales of death and destruction—then you nearly get me killed by a dog made of wood, for Christ’s sake, and you sit down in front of me and talk about me as though I weren’t there. Well, I am here—here in your marvellous bloody world—and if I’m supposed to help you then that’s well and good, but before I do, by God, you’re going to stop treating me like a bloody child who can’t understand what’s going on. I created you people!’ He stopped.

‘I created you...’ he repeated hoarsely.

There was silence. Fife and Drum pricked up their ears attentively. Finally the Warbutt broke the silence.

‘So,’ he said, still in the same mild tone, ‘he has a tongue in his head, after all. I am glad to see it.’ The old, bright eyes met Riven’s. ‘If we have offended, you then we apologise, truly. Welcomes and courtesy are not what they used to be in Ralarth Rorim, I fear. I see you are a man, even if you are not of Minginish. Our counsels are open to you; our home is yours.’

Riven nodded, slightly.

‘But your words confirm what Bicker and Murtach have already told us.’

‘And what is that?’ Riven snapped, not yet appeased. The Warbutt inclined his head towards Bicker, and the dark man drained his flagon.

‘I’m going to talk about you as though you weren’t here again,’ Bicker said with a wry smile. Then he turned from Riven and stared at the floor, toying with his empty flagon.

‘As all here know, Riven is a Teller of Tales. In his world, he writes down stories that he has made up so that others can read them. There are so many people in his world that he cannot travel as our Tellers do, reciting their tales for a meal or a night’s lodging, or for the favour of the lord. He writes them on paper, and they travel about the land in that form—for paper is common and cheap over there—so that all can learn them whilst he stays where he would, making up more tales.’

Bicker looked up at his father. ‘Murtach and I have read these two volumes of tales, and they are about Minginish. He describes the land—the mountains and the Dales, the cities and the sea. He knows of Rime Giants and grypesh, Hearthwares and Myrcans. And he knows the people, also. We sitting here are in Riven’s stories. He tells of Murtach’s shapechanging, Ratagan’s drunken debauches—’ Here the big man bellowed with laughter and everyone smiled.

‘But Riven had never been to Minginish when he wrote these stories. They came out of his head.’ Bicker shook his own head, grave again. ‘And there is more. You know how the first door opened, and when; how it is connected with the events of the Teller’s life. And you know also of the fate that befell Minginish after—the snow and the mountain beasts.

‘Now think on this. There has been a thaw. When, Ratagan?’

The bearded giant raised his eyebrows. ‘It began two days before you met us south of Scarall. And uncommon swift it was, too. The snow fled as quickly as it had arrived—the space of an afternoon, almost.’

Bicker nodded grimly. ‘The same time we left Riven’s home on the Isle and began to make our way around the coast.’

‘What are you saying?’ Riven demanded.

‘Only this: that Minginish’s winter ended when you left the home you had shared with your wife—the first respite this land has had since she died eight months ago. It is you, Michael Riven; it is your mind, your emotions, that are directing the fate of our world.’

A blaze of argument broke out amongst them, with even the Warbutt pitching in. It was absurd, they protested. A coincidence. How could such a thing happen? It was Riven who cut through the talk.

‘What about my wife?’ he shouted.

The noise fell.

‘She’s dead. I watched her die. And now she’s walking around again. Explain that, Bicker!’

The dark man spread his hands. ‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Riven said savagely.

‘Do you believe in magic?’ Murtach asked in an odd voice, and when Riven looked at him he saw that the little man’s eyes were a lambent yellow, glowing in the last light of day that filtered down from the hall’s high windows.

‘Enough,’ Guillamon said. He seemed annoyed. ‘Talk goes around biting its own tail after a while.’

‘Indeed,’ the Warbutt assented. He looked tired, haggard. The shadows had begun to creep into the hollows of his face. Outside, the day was dying. Night was pouring down out of the eastern hills.

‘I want my captains and my son about me for a time,’ he said. ‘The rest may leave. The Steward will accommodate you. You will all sleep in the Manse tonight.’

They stood up in silence. Riven felt unwanted and out of place, Bicker’s words echoing in his head. Murtach took Ratagan’s arm and helped him out, whilst Riven trailed behind. He wanted to stay and talk some more, hammer out some logic from the madness; but he was an outsider here, without rights. And if Bicker was correct, then he was killing this world.