The Return of the Sword tcoh-5

by Roger Taylor

  ‘Which prompts the question, who – or what – did make the noise?’ Hawklan said.

  ‘And where did it come from?’ Andawyr added.

  ‘Which brings us back to the need to talk to them,’ Hawklan concluded.

  Gulda laid an unexpectedly gentle hand on his arm. ‘In time,’ she said softly. ‘But there’s something else you need to know about what you heard.’ She paused. The sound of the children drifted up to them again, silvery in the sunlit air. Gulda waited until it passed before she continued, as if she were afraid of marring it.

  ‘It was more than just a noise,’ she said. ‘It was a language.’

  The words emerged as though against her will. Even more disturbed by her manner than intrigued by what she had said, both men looked at her keenly, but neither spoke. She answered their unasked questions.

  ‘It is His language. And the sounds that filled that room were voices – three distinct voices. The voices of His Uhriel.’

  Involuntarily, Andawyr circled his hand over his heart in the ancient Sign of the Iron Ring. It was a gesture that represented the Fyordyn High Guards who had surrounded and protected Ethriss at the Last Battle of the First Coming, and making it, in these more enlightened times, was generally regarded as being rather foolish. Embarrassed at this betrayal by his hand, Andawyr coughed uncomfortably and transformed the movement into an unconvincing straightening of his robe.

  ‘The Uhriel are dead,’ Hawklan said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. ‘You…’ He stopped sharply. ‘You know that. The bodies of Creost and Dar-Hastuin were burned and their ashes scattered to the winds. And both Andawyr and I saw Oklar die. They’re gone, utterly. However Sumeral restored them, it can’t be done again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gulda said, still seemingly having to force out her words. ‘As you say, they were killed. But the sounds that came with Vredech and Pinnatte were the voices of the Uhriel, nevertheless.’ She tapped her stick sharply on the floor and, as if at a signal, was abruptly her normal self again. She did not give Hawklan and Andawyr an opportunity to speak. ‘Gentlemen,’ she announced. ‘I’m afraid we must accept that the Uhriel have been…’ She curled her lip. ‘Born again. Somewhere His will is whole and He has found new vessels for His old evil, vessels doubtless willing to be as well versed in His ways as their predecessors.’ She sniffed. ‘Worse, from what we just heard, I’d surmise that while their corruption is as ancient as Sumeral Himself, their hearts are strong and green, and full of the surging zeal and righteousness that’s the invariable hallmark of the newly enlightened.’

  Both men turned away from the unusual passion and anger in her voice. Despite what she had said, however, they both knew that nothing was to be gained by asking her how she came by such knowledge. Gulda was a deeper enigma even than Hawklan. Certain questions were never asked of her and even those who speculated about them tended to do so in hushed tones. Those who knew her knew too that they must take what she offered and confine themselves to matters earthbound and practical. Andawyr spoke first.

  ‘I’ve no serious qualms about accepting what you say at first face, Memsa,’ he said, with a crisp frankness in his voice that was quite belied by his posture and his expression. ‘But, grim prospect though it is, there’s nothing in what you’ve said that needs to be kept away from the testing of open debate, is there? Why are we discussing it out here like conspirators?’

  ‘Because of the language, Andawyr, the language,’ Gulda replied. ‘Not His… renewed… existence, nor even the rebirth of the Uhriel. Your people will come to that soon enough. The one has always been a probability, though, I’d thought, a far lower one than seems to be the case, and I suppose the other’s an inevitable consequence of it. But they know nothing of the language. That was His, and His alone. It’s the true language of the Power – His closest-held secret. He gave only the merest hint of it to His first Uhriel. Sufficient for their needs. Or, rather, sufficient for His needs. And such as He allowed them to know He constrained them to using only rarely.’ She paused, uneasy again. ‘The voices that we just heard were steeped in it.’

  ‘Which means?’ Andawyr asked.

  ‘Which means that whoever they are, wherever they are, He’s chosen to give them knowledge of the Power far greater than he allowed the original Uhriel. Far greater.’

  Andawyr closed his eyes and leaned back, turning his face to the sun.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he said, more a plea than a statement. ‘Oklar alone cut a swathe of destruction through Vakloss with a mere gesture. And when Oslang and the others faced the Uhriel on the battlefield it taxed them to limits they could scarcely have imagined. Even though we’ve learned more since then than in who can say how many generations previously, I’d be loath to face them again as they were, let alone stronger.’

  Gulda was pitiless. ‘You’re less than dust in the face of the power they have now.’

  There was a stark silence. Even the children below seemed to be waiting for something, their play now hushed and whispered. Gavor’s wooden leg clunked softly as he paced up and down the parapet. He stopped.

  ‘You’re certain about what you heard?’ Andawyr asked cautiously.

  ‘Oh yes, very certain,’ Gulda confirmed, without a vestige of the irritation that could normally be expected of her at such a question. Hawklan leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands, and the silence folded around them again.

  ‘It’s a frightening picture you’re drawing for us, Memsa,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t know where to begin making sense of it all.’ He grimaced and drew his hands down his face. ‘I’ve never been truly at ease since the war. Now this. It can’t happen again. It can’t be allowed to. But all I can think of is why would He give such knowledge to these new Uhriel if He denied it to those who’d served Him so long and so faithfully before?’

  Gulda looked at him and then at Andawyr.

  ‘It was always said that He took on human form. Took it on because it was the best suited to His needs. But no one truly knows what He is.’ She paused. ‘We can be sure however, that whatever He is, following His destruction – or perhaps I should say, His dispatch from this world – He’ll be even further removed from whatever humanity He had. And like you, Andawyr, and the rest of the Cadwanwr, like all of us, He’ll be wiser by far, now.’

  ‘Wiser?’

  Gulda’s mouth tightened into a grim smile. ‘You’re begging the question, sage, assuming that all wisdom is for our greater good! Let’s say He’ll be more knowledgeable.’

  ‘And how will He use this knowledge?’ Hawklan asked.

  Gulda gripped his arm. It was a grip he was familiar with, not remotely that of an old woman, but powerful and determined, the grip of a swordsman. It was also both reassuring and appealing. It told him she needed both his help and his trust.

  ‘The Uhriel were always mere weapons,’ she said. ‘Devices honed and sharpened for the execution of His will. We’ve no reason to presume they’re not still so. But where once they were weapons of stealth and silent insinuation, at least initially, perhaps now they’re weapons of sheer, brutal force: lions to be set amongst the sheep.’

  Despite his protestation about the frailty of the Cadwanwr before the Uhriel, Andawyr shifted uneasily at the comparison and risked giving her a resentful look.

  ‘Sheep you are,’ Gulda said firmly, though not without a hint of dark humour. ‘The Guardians are long gone and now He knows that for certain. He knows too that He foundered the last time only because He didn’t know that. He knows that He could have swept out of Narsindal and carried all before Him when Oklar’s folly betrayed His return.’

  There was no denying that conclusion. In the agonizing that had followed the war, it had been reluctantly accepted by most of those involved that good fortune had contributed at least as much as courage and determination to the victory.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Hawklan asked.

  Gulda’s grip tightened and her piercing eyes blazed through him. ‘Fight
. What else can you do?’

  ‘But…’

  ‘But what? Do you expect to reason with Him? He was ever a breaker of promises and treaties, but given that He didn’t even offer to negotiate last time, I doubt He will when He returns. As He surely will. Your choice then will be as before: fight or die – or, at best, perhaps be allowed some dismal span in cruel bondage.’ She slapped his arm. ‘These are dark and awful thoughts indeed, Hawklan, but many strange tides are moving and we’re caught in them whether we wish it or not. If we don’t seize them, ride them, they’ll sweep us where they will and only destruction and misery will ensue. You’re stronger and wiser than you’ve ever been, as are all of us. All that’s gone before has merely been to bring us to this point, to prepare us.’ She stood up. ‘Now we must talk to our guests – see what threats and promises these tides have washed to our feet.’ She waved an admonishing finger at both of them, and at Gavor.

  ‘Mention nothing of the Uhriel’s language and what it means,’ she said. ‘My judgement is that it’s too fearful a revelation at the moment. I told you about it so that you can guide the debate that we’re about to have.’ She turned to Andawyr. ‘Conduct the debate well. We need to listen, both to what’s said and what’s not said. Somewhere amid the tangle of it all, there’ll be the knowledge to come to the heart of this – perhaps even a chance of putting an end to it once and for all.’

  * * * *

  The following days did indeed require a great deal of listening by the Cadwanwr and travelling scholars whom Andawyr discreetly chose from those currently visiting the castle. There were many questions and much discussion as the returned Goraidin gave formal Accountings of their travels and the newcomers were asked to explain in their own fashion what had driven them to leave their homelands and make the long journey to Anderras Darion.

  Though Antyr and the other outlanders, by virtue of travelling with the Goraidin, had had some experience of the painstaking ways of the Orthlundyn and their allies in such matters, it was nevertheless strange for them at first. It was particularly bewildering for Vredech and Thyrn, who were more familiar with the institutions that governed Canol Madreth and Arvenstaat. Both these worthy bodies affected to be centres of ordered and reasoned debate where the wishes of the people could be given true voice. In reality, however, they were predominantly theatres for the ambitious, the vainglorious, the vacuously loquacious who were incapable of earning a similar stipend in an honest trade and, not least, those who lusted for power while shunning the responsibility that it carried. The quality of the debate they offered generally differed from that which could be heard daily in any children’s playground only in its superior vocabulary, its greater pettiness, and the deeper depths of its hypocrisy. By contrast, Antyr, coming as he did from the city-state of Serenstad, was used to government largely by Ducal Edict and thus accepted the idea of the Orthlundyn’s rational congress quite easily. Farnor and Marna simply took it for granted, being both young and from a small, isolated village and thus completely unused to the collective follies that larger societies can manufacture for their governance.

  Andawyr, with a silent Gulda sitting in the background, handled the proceedings as he would any meeting with his colleagues at the Cadwanen, that is to say along the lines that the Lords of Fyorlund conducted the business of serving their Queen and the people in their own formal assembly of government, the Geadrol. Individuals spoke for the most part without interruption, although occasionally Andawyr would prompt gently to elucidate a particular point or direct them from some rambling byway back to the main thrust of their account. Only when each speaker had finished were questions allowed. Finally, if it was possible, such facts as had been gleaned were ranged in an order of their probable reliability. At Andawyr’s urging, discussion about what was being revealed was to be left until the end. The whole was taxing and stern, but its relentless, truth-seeking thoroughness invariably enthralled even the most indifferent of observers.

  Andawyr chose, as a venue for this exposition, not one of Anderras Darion’s many great halls but a comparatively small room high in one of the towers. Circular in shape, one half of its circumference was occupied by windows that rose up from the floor and swept across the ceiling. They overlooked the castle’s great wall and, beyond it, the rolling farmlands and forests of Orthlund. The other half was carved with a representation of that same view, giving the impression that the room was without walls.

  Despite the discipline of the majority of the participants, the unfolding of the various tales proved to be no quiet or simple affair. Questions and ideas abounded.

  Tarrian and Grayle were reluctantly impressed.

  ‘These are civilized people,’ Tarrian conceded. ‘For humans. People who take joy in learning and from whom much can be learned. They’re the least tainted by His past deeds and the most knowledgeable about them. They’re the ones who both see the need and have the will to face and oppose Him.’

  ‘Praise indeed,’ Antyr said, not without some irony. ‘But you sound rather pessimistic about it.’

  ‘No. I’m just frightened. I’d be pessimistic if they didn’t see the need or didn’t have the will,’ Tarrian concluded tersely.

  Gulda took charge of the newcomers, guiding them around the castle whenever Andawyr deemed a break necessary in the proceedings. In common with most new arrivals to Anderras Darion, they were rendered almost speechless by the wealth of strange and beautiful things they met.

  ‘Why was it built?’ Farnor asked, as Gulda led them into a small cobbled courtyard.

  ‘One of the problems with young people is that they always ask such lethal questions,’ she said conspicuously to Vredech and Nertha. ‘It was built as a castle, oddly enough, young man. A place of strength, a place of refuge for the people against Sumeral’s marauding armies. And it served that purpose well for a long time. But what Ethriss turned it into later…?’ She shrugged. ‘He alone knows. Though I have some doubts even about that, to be honest, when I look around.’

  ‘It’s a wonder in its own right, just like a fine painting or a piece of music,’ Nertha said.

  ‘Once, perhaps, yes,’ Gulda mused. ‘When the world was young and Sumeral hadn’t yet tainted it. But not when much of this work was done. Beautiful it is, and wondrous, beyond argument. But I suspect – I’ve always suspected – there’s a deep purpose to it somewhere.’

  ‘Don’t let Him build anything,’ Vredech said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Gulda looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Don’t let Him build anything,’ Vredech repeated, as though to himself. ‘The Whistler said that to me. He was adamant about it.’

  ‘The Whistler? Ah, the man, the creature, the strange flute-player you encountered in your dreams,’ Gulda said.

  ‘I don’t dream,’ Vredech said firmly. ‘Never have. And whatever, whoever, the Whistler was, he was no more a figment of my imagination than you are.’ Gulda grunted but said nothing. ‘He sounded a solitary note,’ Vredech went on, his face thoughtful as he recalled the encounter. ‘It echoed. “There’s a quality in the rock that responds to the touch of the note,” he said. “So it is with Him. Who responds to His Song builds a way for Him. And there are many ways He can come. Ways of the mind, the spirit, the heart, the flesh. Don’t let this friend of yours build anything.” He meant Cassraw. “No monuments, palaces, nothing. Such a place could draw Him down on you like lightning down a tree.”’

  Gulda was watching him narrowly. ‘Tell this to the others when you speak again,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it some thought myself.’

  She ran her forefinger idly over an intricate and finely detailed scroll that was part of a carving on a nearby wall. There were many similar features in Anderras Darion and they were the envy of Orthlund’s finest carvers. For when inspected with a glass they revealed finer and finer detail. So much so that it was conjectured by some that, contrary to reason though it was, they dwindled beyond any possibility of sight.

  ‘All infinity in less
than the width of an eyelash,’ she muttered, then her gaze followed the scrolling into the greater whole of the carving and thence to the shapes made by the windows and balconies and all the shadowed nooks and crannies of the three- and four-storey buildings that surrounded the courtyard. Upwards it went, beyond the line of the jostling rooftops, to towers and spires, each one different from its neighbour, and beyond again, to the mountains, still and patient.

  ‘Patterns within patterns forever,’ Gulda said to herself, softly. ‘And resonances, resonances. Echoing who knows where?’

  Then her stick was tapping the visitors on their way again.

  * * * *

  The Goraidin’s Accounting had been given, and the tales of Antyr, Farnor, Vredech, Pinnatte and Thyrn all told. It had taken a long time.

  Andawyr addressed the gathering.

  Chapter 24

  ‘Now we begin,’ Andawyr said, looking round at the watching faces of the small assembly.

  A sense of wilful control over tumbling questions filled the hall. It was underlain by a deep unease. Andawyr addressed it directly.

  ‘Now we begin to make a coherent picture of what we’ve learned over these past days – if we can. I can’t see that it will be easy. I can’t see that it will be comforting. Indeed, I fear it will be the very opposite. The listening alone has been taxing, and some grim shadows have been cast. I’ll not ask you not to be afraid; I think we’ve learned enough already to know that that would be asking too much, but I will ask you not to allow your fear to cloud your vision, and to bring your every faculty to bear until we can say we have at least a semblance of the truth about what all of this means. I know I’m stating the obvious.’ A quick glance took in the faces of Farnor, Marna and Thyrn. ‘Something most of us have learned already. But “obvious” is a treacherous word and I’d rather repeat a thing a dozen times than have it go by default. However bad it is, the truth is always preferable to ignorance. When the fears and the doubts become too much, hold firm to that. You’re all people of proven ability and resolve. Remember who you’re with and where you are.’ An airy wave encompassed the view beyond the hall, though much of the Orthlundyn countryside was hidden in a fine drizzling rain.