The Return of the Sword tcoh-5

by Roger Taylor

  Andawyr leaned forward and held up a warning finger.

  ‘One crystal, and a little misused knowledge, will do this. Two, suitably aligned, could do four times the hurt. Three could do eight times. And so on. The more we think about what they are and what they can do, the more we think about them scattered and buried in the Thlosgaral, the more we believe they played some part in what Thyrn just reminded us of – something we take to be a memory of the beginning of the Great Searing. As for a society that would make such a weapon, sadly, unlike Usche, I find that all too easy to imagine.’ He gave her a mentor’s reproachful look. ‘She’s young yet and history isn’t one of her favourite subjects. When it becomes so she’ll learn that it’s full of tales of communities racking and destroying each other with that absolute lack of restraint that only righteousness can give. Antyr’s told us of the recent war in his own land. Vredech’s told us of his religion degenerating into darkness almost overnight. We’ve heard of Arvenstaat’s corrupt and self-serving senators, and of the bleak hatred and cruelty of the Kyrosdyn. Even Fyorlund itself fell into civil war under Oklar’s influence. All examples of the festering legacy of Sumeral’s First Coming. All telling us that there are no depths to which we’re not capable of descending.’ He patted the pocket containing the crystals. ‘I don’t know exactly how these could’ve been used to make such a weapon, but that’s simply because I’ve not thought about it enough.’ Andawyr spoke the last words with a savage emphasis. ‘I’m more than prepared to believe that they were used thus and that, as a result, the damage they did became magnified beyond any controlling, and overwhelmed not only the warring parties but far beyond, until no part of the world was untouched.’

  A tremulous moaning came from the Labyrinth.

  Chapter 31

  Dar-volci, Tarrian and Grayle had stationed themselves in front of the Labyrinth as they had the previous day. All three were suddenly alert as the moaning filled the hall, then, without any discernible signal passing between them, they were on their feet and running into the darkness. Gavor launched himself after them from Hawklan’s shoulder but, as the animals disappeared, a stern command filled the mind of everyone present.

  ‘Stay where you are, all of you.’

  Gavor flapped urgently, then turned away from the Labyrinth and circled hesitantly a couple of times before returning to his familiar perch. Hawklan reached up and touched his beak but said nothing.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Antyr was shouting above the confusion of startled cries and clattering chairs. ‘It’s all right. It’s Tarrian. We must do as he says. He wouldn’t have spoken to all of you like that unless it was important.’

  ‘What’s happened? Where’ve they gone?’ Andawyr asked, grasping his arm urgently.

  Antyr’s authoritative manner vanished with a helpless shrug. ‘I’ve no idea.’ He touched his forehead. ‘They’re somewhere far away already – I can barely reach them.’ He closed his eyes in concentration, only to open them wide almost immediately. ‘And I’m hindering by trying. Wherever they all are, it’s beyond anywhere I can go.’

  Andawyr looked at him for a moment. Then, after a further anxious glance at the Labyrinth, he began ushering everyone back to their seats. The sound that had caused the animals’ hasty departure had been overtopped by the commotion that Tarrian’s unexpected instruction had caused but, as the hall grew quieter, it returned, though softer now, like the echo of a winter wind, felt as much as heard as it roams the echoing corridors deep inside a long-deserted mansion. Some of the listeners shivered.

  ‘We’d better carry on with what we were doing,’ Andawyr said unhappily, obviously unsettled by what had happened.

  ‘Which was what?’ Yrain demanded, though less belligerently than before. ‘Listening to stories about a time before the beginning of time, about weapons powerful enough to do…’ She threw up both arms in a flamboyant gesture. ‘Something… to the entire world. Weapons whose remains are still lying about the place for anyone to pick up and use.’

  She slapped the table in frustration, then held out an unsteady and apologetic hand as if to defend herself from Gulda, though the old woman had not moved.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know. My impatience. But none of this still makes any sense – or any sense that’ll enable us to do something. Whatever may or may not have happened in the past, we’ve present problems that need to be dealt with.’

  Andawyr noted the demeanour of the other Goraidin. Although they were uncomfortable with Yrain’s forthright manner, he could tell they sympathized with what she was saying. As did he.

  ‘No apologies are needed, Yrain,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder at the dark columns of the Labyrinth. ‘Conditions are far from ideal.’

  When he turned back he looked round the whole group.

  The Goraidin: Yatsu, Dacu, Yengar, Olvric, veterans from the Morlider War with their younger companions Jaldaric and Tirke and the two Orthlundyn Helyadin, Jenna and Yrain. All had either accompanied Hawklan on his grim trek to Derras Ustramel or faced the Uhriel and Sumeral’s army. All were gentle and self-effacing, all were cruel and tested fighters. All deserved better than what they were now being asked to face.

  The Cadwanwr: Oslang from his own generation and Atelon, both of whom had helped to hold the Uhriel at bay as Loman had led the army into battle. Atelon had been little more than a novice then, rather as Usche and Ar-Billan were now. As he looked in turn at them, Andawyr reminded himself not to be either surprised or intimidated by their youth. The one brash, the other endearingly clumsy, it was nevertheless they and their like who were pushing forward the limits of the Cadwanol’s knowledge – endlessly thirsty for and fearless of new ideas. It grieved Andawyr that they might soon be facing the very forces whose earlier defeat had rekindled the Cadwanol’s search for knowledge.

  Then there were the newcomers. Antyr and Vredech, Dream Finders with their deeply strange ability to span the worlds. Farnor and Thyrn. What were they? Healers of some kind, Hawklan said. They couldn’t use the Power, they weren’t Dream Finders, yet…? Pinnatte, victim of the Kyrosdyn’s foul experiment, patently intelligent and worldly-wise but almost inarticulate – at least in this world. Gentren, full of anger and confusion as he struggled to come to terms with the destruction of everything he had ever known. Nertha and Marna, brave and capable women; Nertha, anchoring and steadying Vredech as he searched into the nature of what he was, and generally keeping a watchful physician’s eye on Pinnatte and Gentren; Marna pursuing some inner need of her own.

  Isloman was there, too. Andawyr always found the carver’s hulking presence a comfort though he knew that the big man’s acute sensitivity to what the Orthlundyn called the Song of the Rock had always made the Labyrinth a particularly disturbing place for him. Like Oslang and Atelon, Isloman listened more than he spoke.

  And, of course, there were Gulda and Hawklan. Both enigmatic, but surely pivotal in what was happening.

  ‘Such a wealth of experience and ability drawn together,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Yet so much mystery, too. Perhaps we won’t be able to make any clear decisions about what to do until something does happen.’ He turned to the Goraidin, affecting a lighter manner. ‘But that’s the essence of surviving combat, isn’t it? Being unclouded by what’s past and what’s coming.’

  Yatsu doused him brutally. ‘Being unclouded in the violent moment is one thing. Approaching it in blind ignorance is another.’ He relented a little. ‘I suppose if we don’t know what’s going to be useful and what’s not, we’ll just have to learn everything we can. Personally, I’d still like to know how people can be both here and elsewhere. Not to mention the small problem of where Sumeral Himself is.’

  The soughing coming from the Labyrinth filled the silence that followed. It brought an unease to the group. Andawyr signalled to Usche to continue.

  She scowled at him, then looked at Yatsu and took on an air of unhappy resignation. She cleared her throat noisily. ‘Bear with me, please,’
she began. ‘This isn’t going to be easy.’ She thought for a moment before continuing. Her manner became didactic. ‘If we look deeply enough into… these walls, these tables, everything, even ourselves… we come eventually to a region of unimaginable smallness where all the common-sense rules we take for granted in our ordinary lives cease to apply. Doubt and uncertainty reign. Cause and effect, even time and distance themselves, begin to have little or no meaning. It’s a disturbing place but itis and it has to be accepted. Its nature is open to debate – considerable debate – but its existence isn’t. It’s at this level that the Great Searing did its harm. It’s where what we call the Power has its origins. It’s also the place we share in common with the worlds that Antyr and his kind are able to visit. We think…’ She laid a heavy emphasis on the word. ‘That Antyr and his kind can apparently be in two places at once rather in the way that a musical instrument sounds on its own when other instruments are played nearby – a sympathy, a resonance of some kind – but…’ She shrugged.

  There was an awkward and dissatisfied pause.

  A hesitant voice intruded.

  ‘In our minds.’

  It was Antyr. ‘In our minds,’ he said again, more strongly. ‘This is where the Dream Ways are, this is where we reach the Gateways.’ He turned sharply to Andawyr. ‘You control the Power with your mind, don’t you? Consciously, deliberately?’

  Andawyr blinked at the unexpected question before answering quizzically. ‘Yes?’

  ‘So your thoughts reach down into this place Usche’s talking about?’

  Andawyr’s brow furrowed and he touched his temple. ‘The highways and byways of our minds branch and divide endlessly, becoming smaller and smaller. They certainly reach down to where the strange effects of this region can be felt. But, to be honest, we don’t really know how thoughts come into being, and we certainly don’t use the Power directly at this level, any more than we instruct our arms to move from there. It’s done much… higher up… in our thinking. And it’s something that requires an ability that’s inborn – a physical attribute written somewhere in the tangled threads that measure the making of us. Like eye colour, only more subtle – perhaps like the skill with horses that the Riddinwr have, or a gift for music or carving.’

  ‘And my own ability – Dream Finding,’ Antyr pressed on. ‘This too would require a physical attribute?’

  ‘Almost certainly, from what you’ve told us,’ Andawyr replied after a brief hesitation.

  Antyr voiced his conclusion slowly. ‘It seems to me that to address the Goraidin’s concerns…’ He tapped his temple as Andawyr had. ‘This is where we should look. If, by virtue of what you are, your thoughts – your will – can reach down – however indirectly – and use the Power from this mysterious place, then we…’ He indicated Vredech and himself. ‘By virtue of what we are, should be able to reach it ourselves. I can’t imagine that Dream Finders would have survived so long if they hadn’t had some kind of control over this dangerous ability – if we’d been prone to tumble recklessly into other worlds.’

  Andawyr breathed out noisily and ran his hands through his tousled hair. ‘You could be right,’ he said eventually. ‘Of course, any such control might be no more than a reflex, just as your hand would snatch back from a flame.’ He became practical. ‘But it’s worth pursuing. We can study more carefully your basic Dream Finding disciplines and compare them with our own meditation techniques. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. If we can bring your ability to move between worlds within the control of your thinking, then…’

  Pinnatte was shaking Vredech’s arm and whispering to him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Andawyr asked.

  Vredech nodded to Pinnatte. ‘He’s pointing out that he for one didn’t think himself into that nightmare world. And neither did I, come to that. Still less did I conjure up that appalling caricature of Dowinne and those… others?’

  Andawyr looked at them both thoughtfully.

  ‘Since leaving your home you’d had no Dream Finding “incidents” until you met Pinnatte, had you?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘No. I didn’t even know what Dream Finding was.’

  ‘And now you know much more?’

  ‘He’s a good grasp of what’s needed,’ Antyr intruded. ‘Especially considering how little time we’ve had.’

  Andawyr nodded. ‘Pinnatte’s very unusual,’ he said. ‘The Kyrosdyn somehow made him capable of using the Power and travelling between the worlds – something we think shouldn’t be possible any more than a lantern can be lit and not lit at the same time – it did him terrible harm, as we know. But though the ability seems to be gone now, there may be a faint residue of it left. Perhaps, as you slept, your uncontrolled Dream Finding ability touched Pinnatte’s mind, and some strangeness in him drew you both through a Gateway.’

  ‘But why to that awful place?’ Vredech pressed.

  Andawyr looked pained. ‘Why indeed? Perhaps a more important question might be, what drew the Uhriel there in the first place?’

  ‘Maybe, but could such a thing happen to us again?’ Vredech’s black-eyed gaze held Andawyr’s. Nertha laid her hand on her husband’s.

  ‘Yes, but if it happens, it happens.’ It was Antyr who delivered this unexpectedly brutal reply, though his voice was calm and steady. ‘I think it’s time for you and me to face something.’ He paused. ‘Like you, I came here in the hope that someone, somehow, would help me – explain what had happened to me – explain the changes we’ve all found in ourselves. Rather slowly, I’ll admit, it’s dawning on me that no one can really help me except myself. Laughable though it may seem,we are an elite here – the only ones with the ability to find the Uhriel and perhaps carry others to them who might be able to kill them. We’ve no alternative but to find out how to use it properly.’

  ‘Laughable it is,’ Vredech retorted caustically. ‘Elite is the last word I’d apply to myself.’

  Antyr indicated the Goraidin. ‘You misunderstand – we all misunderstand. I’ve had the privilege of riding with these people. They, above all, will tell you how inadequate they feel before combat – how anxious to avoid it. They don’t feel like elite soldiers – they feel like frightened men and women. Only their experience sustains them. So what experience do we have?’ He became earnest. ‘Despite my drunkenness, despite your and Pinnatte’s ignorance, as Hawklan said yesterday, we all faced death and survived. As did Farnor and Thyrn in their own trials. We may not understand the gifts we have, but equally we don’t understand the resources that come with them except that we were all stronger then than we knew. We’re even stronger now. We can do this.’

  ‘You’re making very free with my husband’s life,’ Nertha said angrily.

  Antyr winced away from her tone, then said quietly, ‘I don’t think any of us are free at the moment, Nertha.’

  The remark seemed to stir Gavor who abruptly glided into the middle of the circle. Hawklan eyed him suspiciously. Gavor did not often participate in such discussions and his acid manner was the last thing that was needed now. Nevertheless, he had everyone’s attention.

  ‘Do excuse my interrupting,’ he said. ‘But on the matter of unseen resources – and your freedom here, for that matter – may I tell you something I learned from Ethriss?’

  The hall was suddenly silent. Even the sound from the Labyrinth fell to a distant whisper. Gavor waited for no permission.

  ‘When Ethriss made himself known to me, it was quite a surprise, as you’ll imagine – wonderful, actually – he unfurled in my mind like a silver cloud…’ He looked upwards for a moment, then brusquely recollected himself. ‘Still, that’s by the by. More importantly, as I became aware of him, so many of my memories of how he’d come to be with me returned at the same time. I remembered me and my companions fighting Sumeral’s foul sky creatures at the Last Battle of the First Coming. I remembered seeing Ethriss fall to Sumeral’s final cast and I remembered sweeping down and seizing his spirit as it soared h
igh above the battlefield – I’d keener vision then. As I snatched him up, he said, “It’s finished.” “Where shall I take you?” I asked him – it’s difficult to know what to say in such circumstances – I was very upset. “I need to think,” he said. “I must go into the place that is no place – where Sumeral sent the Prince Hawklan and where I sent my black sword – between the worlds, between the moments, where all is chance.”’

  Gavor paused and tapped his wooden leg on the floor.

  ‘Do you mean that Sumeraldid send me here?’ Hawklan asked urgently.

  ‘Do let me finish, dear boy,’ Gavor replied reproachfully, still tapping his leg. ‘He gave me a gift even as he was speaking – you know what he was like. He made my leg whole again. I didn’t even have an opportunity to thank him, when I was suddenly in the mountains here – in a blizzard – no idea where I was – still less, when – and precious little idea even who I was. I couldn’t fly and, within minutes, I was caught in the trap that took my leg off again. The rest you all know, but…’ He flapped his wings as if to release a long-held tension. ‘After Sumeral had destroyed Himself and as Ethriss was fading from me, I caught his thoughts. He was full of confusion and doubt. Hawklan had come to this time, the black sword had, I had, bearing him, Sumeral had. Too much for chance, surely? But it was what happened to my leg that seemed to disturb him the most. What he had done for me – such a small thing for him – had been undone almost immediately. Was there an inevitability to everything? Was all effort in vain? Then, he thought, was this world not his creation after all? Had it, rather, created him? They were old, old, doubts reborn. Then he seemed to understand something – very suddenly. “Nothing’s inevitable, Sky Prince,” he said. “Life battles too strongly against such constraints – even the ones I imposed – it doesn’t know its own strength.” And he was laughing – at himself – as he finally slipped away. It was a good sound, full of hope. “Others will shape this world further,” he said – still laughing at his own foolishness. “Others stronger. And freer than I, the god.”’