“Don’t go, Maewen,” said Wend. “I’ll be with you in a moment. Right. Everything in place here. Over and out.”
What excuse could she possibly give for rushing away? Maewen wondered. So sorry, I need to swim this second. Forgive me, but I have to go and depress myself at once by seeing Amil’s tomb. Excuse me, I must go and look at the Duke of Kernsburgh – urgently. Or she could just run away. But Wend was already turning towards her, and the only thing she could think of was to let him explain why he had been sent to meet her as if she were ten years old and get it over with.
“You must have wondered,” Wend said to her.
“No, no!” Maewen said. It seemed as if she did not want to get it over after all. “No, no, I never wonder—”
“Who that old man on the train was,” said Wend. “The one I sent away.”
This was so entirely unexpected that Maewen said, “Oh!” Then because she could feel her face was as red as it could be, she said, “He wasn’t there. I dreamt him.”
“No,” said Wend. “He was – well – there, even if he wasn’t what you’d call quite real. I’m afraid he’s about to become a very big threat to you unless you let me help you. Will you let me help – or at least let me explain?”
“I – er—” Maewen was even more flustered. She was suddenly sure that Wend was mad. This was the only explanation for his grave, polite, sane look and the way it made her squirm every time she was near him. “Who was the old man?”
“A piece of Kankredin,” said Wend. “A pocket of evil. And –” he smiled – “I promise you I am not mad.”
This was worse than ever. “Yes, you are! You must be!” Maewen cried out, and she knew she would squirm even harder about this when she had time to think about it. “Kankredin’s just a legend from the days of King Hern – and Hern killed him, anyway, when he conquered the Heathens.”
Wend looked his most serious, and there was a sympathy about him as if he understood precisely how she was feeling – which, if possible, made Maewen feel worse. “Yes, I know how the story goes,” he said. “People tell it like that because it’s more comforting, but it wasn’t the way of it, I assure you. Hern helped defeat Kankredin, that is true, but Kankredin couldn’t die because he was dead already. The only way he could be conquered was for someone to unbind the One himself. You’ve heard of the witch Cennoreth. She unbound the One, and Kankredin was broken and scattered into a million pieces. But he wasn’t dead. He came together over the centuries – concentrated, if you like, into larger and larger pockets – and eventually he was strong enough to take over the South and divide it from the North. Amil the Great found a way to destroy quite a bit of Kankredin, but even that didn’t really defeat him. He was just scattered, and some parts of him came forwards in time to these days. Other parts simply stayed around and arrived here and now by keeping secret and outlasting anyone who believed he was there. I’m not sure which kind of pocket you met, but I think from the way it behaved, it was one of the parts sent forwards in time.”
“I don’t believe you,” Maewen said. “How do you know?”
Wend shrugged. “I was there for nearly all of it. Hern was my brother.”
Maewen stared at him. “But that’s –” She was going to say “nonsense!” but she stopped herself, because you had to be careful with mad people – “not possible, Mr Orilson. You see, that would make you so old you’d almost be one of the Undying.” And no one believes in the Undying any more, anyway, she thought, but I’d better not tell him that.
Wend nodded. There was a sad, priggish sort of sanity to him that Maewen found deeply suspect. “I found it hard to believe too, when two of my brothers died and I didn’t even age. It is hard to admit that you are anything but mortal. But the Undying exist whether people believe in them or not. I am one. You have probably heard of me. I was known as Tanamoril for a while. Then I was called Osfameron.”
Osfameron! The Adon’s friend who raised the Adon from the dead! He’s further round the twist than I thought a person could be! Maewen stared at Wend, all alone in the long empty museum room. Do all lunatics look this sane? I wish I knew. He’d look quite normal if he wasn’t so good-looking. Keep humouring him until he gets called away to his duties. “What do you think this piece of Kankredin wanted with me?” Maewen asked gently.
“I think,” said Wend, “that he was trying to get control of you.”
Maewen’s spine felt as if cold fingers were being trailed down it. She backed into the nearest glass case in order to feel safer. “Why – why would he want to do that?”
“Because you are the image of a young woman who lived just over two hundred years ago,” Wend told her.
“That makes no sense!” said Maewen.
But Wend continued talking as if he had not heard her. “A very important young lady,” he said. Looking at his constrained and serious face, Maewen thought that this was the heart of his mental disorder, whatever it was. She leant on the glass cupboard and let him go on talking. “Noreth,” Wend said. “Born to rule all Dalemark. My grandfather the One was her father, and she knew from her childhood up that she was to take the crown and rule both North and South. When she had it, people would have risen to her all over the country, whatever the earls had to say.”
“What happened? Wouldn’t she do it?” Maewen asked.
“I don’t know what happened. She was willing enough.” Just for an instant Wend seemed to feel wretched about this. Then his face smoothed over. “I was guarding Noreth on the royal road,” he said. “The Midsummer after her eighteenth birthday, as was right, she set off from Adenmouth to ride to Kernsburgh for the crown. Nothing should have gone wrong. I was as watchful as I could be. But somewhere along the way Kankredin got to her as he was trying to get to you, and she … simply disappeared.” Wend swallowed a little. Then, with his face all cold and smooth, he said, “That was how Amil, so-called the Great, was able to claim the crown.”
Maewen stayed pressed against the glass. “And,” she said, gently and humouringly, “you’re telling me this because I look like this lady.”
“No,” said Wend. “I’m telling you because I’m fated to send you back in time to take Noreth’s place.”
“Fated?” said Maewen. “That’s a strong word. You need me to agree first, and I haven’t.”
Wend came nearer to laughing than she had ever seen him. “You forget,” he said. “I was there. So were you. So I know I did send you.” He had a funny light-hearted air to him, now that he had arrived at this point. “As I see it now,” he said, “I must have asked the One to send you to the moment on the royal road when Noreth disappeared, so that you could find out what happened and tell me when you came back here.”
“Oh.” Maewen looked down at her two somewhat scruffy sandals planted on the glossy floor. Then I must have been – I will be – as mad as he is! Though of course, if he really was there, he is over two hundred years old, and that means he can’t be mad. It all hung together. And she knew mad people’s fantasies did often hang together. That was why they found it so difficult to get out of them. Perhaps the best way to deal with Wend was to show him it was nonsense by daring him to send her into the past. No. He could turn violent then. Best just to go. She slid carefully away along the glass cupboard and braced her sandals to run.
Wend smiled his polite smile. “Thanks. I was needing to get at this showcase. Your father wants some of the things moved.”
He fetched up his bunch of keys and advanced on the lock of the sliding door. He was far too near. Maewen could feel her stomach squirming and those queer pins and needles in her back that she always got when she was about