Farnor

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4Rannick looked down at the tiny figures below. He took a long grass stem from his mouth and threw it away, spitting after it.

Ants, he thought, with scornful elation. Ants. Scurrying about in the valley all their lives and not even realizing they were trapped there just as generations before them had been trapped. The idea drew his eyes upwards toward the enclosing mountains, and his lip curled. It would not be so for him. Not for him, that blind captivity. He saw and knew the bars of his cage and knew too that he would break free of them.

Undimmed for as long as he could remember was the knowledge that he was destined for greater things than could conceivably be offered or attained here. At some time he would know a life beyond the valley and its people, with their suffocating ways: a life that would be full of power over such lesser creatures.

This certainty sustained him daily, yet, too, though he had not the perception to realize it, it burdened him; for the expectation it bred twisted and turned within him endlessly, and constantly drew his heart away from matters of the moment. Rannick lived ever in his own future, his joys marred, his miseries heightened.

Abruptly his elation vanished and his mood lurched into darkness. He clenched his fists in familiar frustration as the reality of his circumstances impinged on him with its usual relentless inevitability.

Where was this greatness to come from? And, above all, when?

Soon it would be Dalmas again. Like the other annual festivals celebrated in the valley, Dalmas had meant little to him for most of his life, except as an excuse to do even less work than he normally did and an opportunity to eat and drink not only more than usual, but at the expense of others. Over the last few years, however, it had also begun to serve as a reminder that he was yet another year older. Its imminence invariably served to sour his manner even further.

A year older and still bound to this place, his life remaining resolutely unchanged while his ambition burgeoned with time. Indeed the reality of his life was probably becoming worse, so increasingly at odds with the people of the valley was he growing.

He looked back down the valley again. This place where his family had always been mistrusted — feared, even; as near outcast as could be without actually being so. Only his grandfather had escaped this treatment.

He gazed at his hands. Part of him wanted to be like his grandfather — a healer — a person thought highly of; someone at whom people smiled whenever they met him strolling through the village. With Rannick they would turn surreptitiously away rather than risk catching his eye and be obliged to acknowledge him.

It was a small and diminishing part, though. What the greater part of him wanted was to increase the power that had come down to him from the darker reaches of his ancestry. But here his grandfather’s presence intruded more forcefully. The old man’s words, spoken to him long ago when he was very young, had burned into him like fire and were as fresh now as they had been then.

Eyes had looked deep into him, dominating him, pinioning him. He had never known such total helplessness before, even when his father had beaten him, seemingly endlessly, with his thick leather belt. Yet, and to his bewilderment, the eyes were also full of affection and concern.

‘You have it, Rannick. You have our family’s taint.’ He remembered something inside him struggling, as if it wanted to avoid discovery, but it seemed that nothing could escape the searching eyes. The words went on. ‘It is no blessing, Rannick, and never think it so. However it shows itself, set it aside, ignore it, bury it, let it wither and die. It is master, not servant. It will deceive. And it will enslave you utterly.’

But even as his grandfather had spoken Rannick had sensed another presence within, far beyond his grandfather’s searching. A presence shining clear and bright like a single silver star in a golden evening sky. And with it came a voice; distant, too, but still sharp and certain. A voice that gave his grandfather’s words the lie; that showed Rannick the fear in the old man’s voice.

‘I am the light,’ it said. ‘The One True Light. Follow me.’

And still it shone, guiding him forward. A lodestone lure drawing him inexorably into the dark knowledge beyond knowing that his grandfather had declared tainted.

Rannick turned away from the mountains and the valley and slid down to the ground, his back solid against the rock he had been peering over. With the thought of his power came the desire to use it; to test himself again.

He extended his left hand.

Birds and insects nearby fell silent, though Rannick was oblivious to the change. The air around him began to stir and, slowly, small pebbles some way in front of him began to tumble over as if caught in a sudden breeze. Then larger stones began to move. And larger ones still. Rannick smiled and his narrow eyes widened. His mouth worked noiselessly.

He withdrew his hand. It would not be needed now. He felt the power rising from wherever it lay within him and moving through him to do his will.

‘It is no blessing, Rannick, and never think it so.’ His grandfather’s words returned to him as they always did at this point.

‘I am the One True Light,’ said his deeper guide.

I hear you. I see you. I will follow you. Rannick paid silent homage to his chosen mentor.

‘Set it aside, ignore it, bury it, let it wither and die. It is master, not servant. It will deceive. And it will enslave you utterly.’

‘No,’ Rannick whispered in defiance of the shade of his father’s father. ‘No. I smell your desperation now, old man. You feared me. Feared my power. As will others. This gift is mine. Given to me to use. And I will use it. I will use it!’

He felt himself amid the tumbling, rolling rocks. Touching each one, from the least grain to the largest boulder, effortlessly guiding, directing. They were his, utterly. His to lead to whatever destiny he chose.

He laughed breathlessly as he felt exhilaration rising within him. Then his rumbling charges began to move faster and faster, round and round, and he fell silent.

His face became ecstatic.

Abruptly, the circling movement ended and the captive stones and boulders hurtled straight into a nearby rock face. They struck with such force that several of them shattered. Rannick drove his fingernails into his palms.

Slowly, stillness returned to his eyrie and the breeze caught the dust rising from the commotion he had made and carried it gently away. It was like a soft healing hand, but it passed unnoticed. Rannick slumped forward. Sweat was forming on his forehead and he was weak and drained. It was ever thus. If only he could use the power without this awful weakness, then...

Vistas of a glorious future opened in front of him, but he ignored them. They were all too familiar and they had nothing to offer him other than to distract him and drag him down. He must follow his chosen discipline. He must look for what he had gained from this day’s work.

His skill was growing, he knew, as was the range and strength of the power he could exert. And, he confirmed to himself with growing satisfaction, although he felt battered and empty, his weakness was less than it would have been but a few months ago.

Something was happening. Something was in the air. Something new.

And even as the thought occurred to him, a strangeness touched his still-raw awareness.

Instantly, he became motionless and silent, like a hunter who has just seen his prey. Then, tentatively, he reached out and touched the strangeness again.

It was alive!

Hastily he withdrew the power. Had some oaf blundered up this way as part of the hunt and seen his display with the rocks? He struggled to his feet and gazed around fearfully. But there was no one in sight save the distant figures below.

No, he reassured himself after a moment. They might perhaps wander as far as the castle, but none of them would dare go beyond it, no matter how many sheep had been worried.

What was it he had touched then?

He reached out again; gently, carefully. This time the power felt different, as if that slight touch of a living thing and his response to it had transmuted it — or him — in some way. His exhaustion slipped from him, and he probed more confidently.

It was still there.

He sensed a vision through tangled, swaying branches. Felt an unconscious shifting of balance in the gently buffeting breeze.

It was a bird, he realized. Then, in confirmation, he felt alarm calls strangled in his throat. Felt the wings that would not move. Felt the fevered tremor of a tiny heart.

It was terrified.

Yet it did not fly away. Could not fly away. It sensed his touch, but it could not fly away!

It was in his thrall! Bound to and by him as totally as any of the lifeless rocks he had just sent hurtling to their destruction.

Come to me, he willed, drawing the bird towards him.

There was some kind of resistance that he could not identify, then he felt it yield. Wings fluttered and the balance shifted again. Come to me. He set forth his power more urgently.

Then, abruptly, there was nothing.

He held his breath. What had happened?

His eyes narrowed as he realized that the frantic tattoo of the tiny heart had stopped. Startled, he let his control slip.

The faint sound of something falling through the leaves in the trees nearby reached him, but Rannick would not have heard the roar of an avalanche, so loud was the exultation ringing in his head.

Throughout his life, following the voice beyond his grandfather’s, Rannick had applied himself to the development of his gift with an assiduity that would have made him a master of any craft had he studied it with the same intensity. Hitherto his progress had been marked by the movement of increasingly large objects at increasingly greater distances. Exhaustion had been the price paid for each use of the power, but even had this not begun to diminish with practice he would have tolerated it for the exhilaration that the use of the power gave him.

But now his progress had taken an entirely unexpected leap forward. He had touched a living creature. Touched it from within. Controlled it. Killed it!

For a long time, Rannick sat leaning against the rock, breathing heavily, his mind incoherent with the welter of feelings and ideas and schemes that were cascading through it. The rational part of him knew that he must retreat and rest; think. Above all he must think. The destiny that but minutes before had been quite certain, yet infinitely beyond him, was flittering tantalizingly amid this chaos. He had but to grasp it.

The turmoil, however, showed little inclination to diminish. With an effort he forced himself to stand up and to walk. It was no easy task; he was trembling from head to foot.

He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, but to no avail. The excitement burning through him seemed to be drawing its energy from some unquenchable source.

He must try again. Try immediately. Try to reach some other living creature. Learn. Learn now, while the power was so alive in him. He must not let this slip away.

He lurched forward in the direction of the nearby trees. Pebbles and stones jumped and bounced out of his path as he neared them, branches rustled away from him as if he were the heart of a great wind.

Though aware of this turmoil, Rannick ignored it, letting his power flit to and fro indiscriminately. He felt a myriad tiny scrabblings and burrowings, panic-stricken, terrified. Insects, worms, ants, all the inconsequential creatures of the woodland, he divined. But nothing larger. And yet there must be birds about, perhaps squirrels, even a fox...