The Waking of Orthlund

by Roger Taylor

  She shook her head to clear the impression as Loman’s voice brought her back to the room. He was talking to Gulda.

  ‘You’ve no doubts about what caused this, Memsa?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘None,’ she replied. ‘We know everybody involved far too well for there to be any other explanation.’

  Loman rested his head on his hands. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Two men badly hurt, and who knows what kind of a morale problem. And all because of what?’ He waved his hands in frustration. ‘A troop of . . . of . . . singing midgets!’

  A faint flicker of amusement lit Gulda’s eyes at this outburst, but travelled no further.

  ‘There must be something we can do, Memsa,’ Loman continued, more quietly. ‘We need the mountains for our advanced training.’

  Gulda curled her hands over the top of her stick and rested her chin on them. ‘We may need them for access to Riddin before we’ve finished,’ she said absently.

  Loman looked at her irritably. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But I’ll settle for access within a two day march for now, and worry about Riddin later. That at least will enable us to keep working.’

  Gulda took the rebuke with uncharacteristic calm.

  Loman looked at her again. ‘How did you break free from them when we went out with the boys?’ he asked.

  Gulda’s long nose twitched and she did not respond at first. ‘I’ve got skills and knowledge I can’t teach to you, Loman,’ she said eventually. ‘Believe me, if I could, I would.’

  Loman had little choice but to take this comment at face value, but his mind went back again to their encounter with the Alphraan. ‘You said if we went out in force we might be able to overwhelm them in some way.’ He tried to sound hopeful.

  Gulda nodded tentatively. ‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘But I could have been wrong. They had precious little trouble with Athyr’s group, although we don’t know what that display has cost them.’ She fell silent again for some time, then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said decisively. ‘It would be too dangerous. We simply don’t know enough about them. We can’t find them, surround them, attack their food supplies, menace them in any way. And they’ve shown quite clearly that they can control individuals very effectively. If we went in force we could suffer appalling self-inflicted casualties before we even made contact with them.’ She shook her head again.

  The room fell silent. It seemed that such few avenues as existed had been explored as thoroughly as they could be, and that nothing now was left.

  Loman wanted to say, ‘We can’t just sit here, doing nothing,’ but he bit back the words. This was no time for stating the obvious.

  He looked down at his hand resting on the arm of his chair. Gently it was tapping out a rhythm. Consciously he stopped it, but the jigging impulse remained, teasing his palm. Slightly irritated at this nervous tic he clenched his fist.

  As he did so he became aware of its cause. Very faintly the sound of the snowman’s song seeped into the room. Despite his concern, he smiled and turned to Gulda. ‘The boys are still . . .’

  Gulda raised her hand to silence him. She was craning forward and listening. Abruptly she stood up and walked over to the window. Throwing it open, she peered outside. The singing became slightly louder, but it was still faint and distant, although it seemed to echo around the mountains and the towers and spires of the Castle. Suddenly, it stopped, and after a moment Gulda quietly closed the window and returned to her seat.

  ‘They are divided amongst themselves,’ she said. ‘Balanced like a sword standing on its point. The least misstep and all will be lost.’ She looked significantly at Yrain.

  ‘They said we’d been misled,’ she continued. ‘But misled by what? And why should they bother with us at all? Our crawling over the mountains, for whatever reason, wouldn’t have affected them. Why did they watch? Why did they come to listen?’ She answered her own questions. ‘Because they know something’s amiss. They’ve had signs of their own, and they – some of them anyway, perhaps most of them – don’t want to face the truth. They don’t want to face the truth that is represented by the Orthlundyn training for war.’

  Loman thought he felt a faint rumbling vibration but, glancing round, he saw that no one else seemed to have noticed it.

  Gulda snapped her fingers. ‘For their own reasons, they doubt us – faithless and treacherous they called us,’ she said. ‘But they accepted our gift, poor thing though it was by their lights. Now we must give them another.’

  She turned to Loman. ‘Have the remains of that . . . tinker’s . . . wares collected from the leaving stone. We’ll take them into the mountains for their consideration. Tirilen can come too, she . . .’

  A frantic knocking on the door interrupted her. Grimacing, Loman strode over to the door and threw it open.

  ‘What?’ he demanded crossly.

  The recipient of this greeting was a red-faced and very flustered junior apprentice. Loman repented his temper. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, more gently.

  The apprentice had obviously been running hard and, unable to speak at first, he gesticulated desperately to his interrogator.

  ‘Slow down,’ Loman said, crouching down, and smiling genuinely now. ‘Slow down.’

  ‘Master Loman,’ the boy managed eventually, reaching out and taking hold of Loman’s jacket urgently. ‘You’re to come now. Right away . . . please.’

  Loman put his hand against the door jamb, to steady himself from this unexpected invitation. His smile faded slightly. The young boy was very distressed.

  ‘Where am I to go, son?’ he said. ‘And who sent you?’

  ‘Master Ireck, sir,’ the boy replied. ‘You’re to come downstairs. To the labyrinth. Something’s happened to it.’

  Chapter 19

  Isloman lay very still. There was another slight movement to his left. His first thought was to leap up and seize whoever or whatever it was, but this was followed immediately by others, more cautious. Tirke, he could see, was sound asleep, but so also was Dacu, and Isloman had learned both many years ago and very recently that Goraidin were sensitive sleepers. Furthermore, the horses seemed unconcerned.

  Perhaps it was some small mountain creature curious about these strange intruders? But it didn’t feel like that. It was too still; no snuffling, no scuffling scurrying.

  Tirke snorted and turned over noisily. There was another small flutter of movement near Isloman.

  Taking the cue, he breathed out heavily and turned on his left side.

  Through his flickering eyelashes, in the subdued light of the lowered torches, he could see a pair of booted feet. While his mind registered this observation, his eyes squinted momentarily to accommodate some visual oddity. They were near, yet they seemed to be some distance away. They’re small! he realized. Like a child’s.

  Oddly reassured, Isloman opened his eyes and, not wishing to startle the visitor, said softly, ‘Hello.’

  Abruptly, the word seemed to swell inside his head until it became a bellowing roar that made him screw up his eyes and clamp his hands to his ears. But this merely seemed to trap the sound inside him. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the noise was gone, and the cave was silent again.

  Opening his eyes cautiously he found himself being scrutinized by Dacu. The Goraidin was not moving, but his eyes were wide open and watchful, and Isloman knew his body would be relaxed and alert.

  ‘What’s the matter, Isloman?’ he whispered.

  Isloman sat up slowly. ‘That noise,’ he said, surprised at the question.

  Dacu’s brow furrowed. ‘Noise?’ he said. ‘What noise?’

  Isloman’s brow mimicked Dacu’s. ‘The noise that just woke you up, presumably,’ he said.

  ‘You woke me up,’ Dacu retorted, defensively. ‘Thrashing about.’ He glanced around the cave. Then, satisfied, ‘You must’ve been dreaming.’

  Isloman followed his gaze. Everything did indeed seem to be normal. Tirke was still sound asleep. Hawklan was s
ilent and motionless though, at his head, Gavor was striving to open a bleary eye, and the horses were beginning to take an interest in the whispered conversation.

  Gavor cleared his throat. ‘What’s the matter, dear boys?’ he managed.

  Dacu rolled over and settled himself down again. ‘Nothing,’ he said, his voice sleepy. ‘Isloman was dreaming.’ Gavor grunted understandingly; his struggling eye gave up and fell shut again.

  ‘No,’ Isloman protested softly. ‘There was a child here, then a noise . . .’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ said Gavor and Dacu simultaneously. Isloman shook his head. He was certain he had not been dreaming, though the disorienting memory of the tiny feet immediately in front of his face, and the deafening sound that had rung in his head, were beginning to assume an unreal quality.

  Reluctantly, he accepted the verdict of his companions and prepared to lie down again. As he did so, however, he looked once more at the place where he had seen the feet standing. It was immediately in front of the small carving sketch he had done before going to sleep. He himself had disturbed the dust that covered almost all of the cave floor, but running from the disturbed patch was a line of small footprints.

  ‘Dacu,’ he whispered urgently.

  The Goraidin was awake immediately. Isloman pointed to the footprints. Dacu sat up and looked at them narrowly, without speaking. They were not particularly easy to see, but they were sufficient to confirm Isloman’s observation. They formed a clear path to the rear of the cave where they disappeared past the horses and into the blackness beyond.

  Dacu pushed back his blanket and moved forward to examine the footprints more carefully.

  ‘Coming and going,’ he said. Lighting a torch, he moved carefully along the little pathway. Isloman joined him. ‘There are more here,’ Dacu said as the torch illuminated the darkness at the rear of the cave. ‘Three or four,’ he concluded.

  Crouching down, the two men looked at one another. The footprints, though faint, were quite distinct, and in places passed over the disturbance that had been caused by the horses. There was no disputing either their existence or their recent origin.

  ‘But there can’t be any children around here,’ Dacu said, answering the unspoken question. ‘We’re well past the last of the hill farms.’

  ‘Hawklan said Yatsu told him about Morlider War veterans who went to live in the mountains,’ Isloman said tentatively. Dacu grimaced as if in pain.

  ‘Men, Isloman,’ he said briefly and dismissively. ‘Men our age. And men alone. Above all, alone.’

  Isloman felt the need to apologize for some awkwardness on his part but could not find the words. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Neither men nor children could have made the sound I heard.’ Abruptly, Gavor’s head came between the two men. He peered curiously at the little cluster of footprints. ‘A sound, you say?’ he asked Isloman. The carver nodded and Gavor returned to his scrutiny of the footprints.

  Then, excitedly, ‘Alphraan, dear boys,’ he said. ‘I knew I’d seen them when they brought down that feathered brown lump on our way to the Gretmearc, but Hawklan would have none of it.’

  The two men stared at him. ‘What are you talking about, Gavor?’ Isloman asked.

  Gavor ignored the question. His excitement had been replaced almost immediately by an air of concern. He looked across at Hawklan’s silent form.

  ‘I think we’d better leave,’ he said anxiously. ‘I don’t know much about the Alphraan, but I know they’re not keen on humans – and they can be very dangerous.’

  Isloman looked sceptical. ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Gavor, but from what I could see of whatever stood next to me, it was only the size of a child. How could that be dangerous?’

  But Gavor was half-flying, half-stumping back to Hawklan. Unceremoniously he bounced heavily on Tirke’s chest on the way, pausing only to bellow, ‘Get up, Tirke, you lazy sod,’ in the young man’s face, before passing on.

  Tirke woke in a flurry of flailing arms and legs.

  ‘What about the noise you heard, dear boy?’ Gavor continued, ignoring the small eruption he had just caused.

  ‘What about it?’ Isloman replied, trying not to laugh at Tirke’s bewildered awakening.

  Gavor began tugging the blankets that were covering Hawklan. ‘Well, what could you do except cover your ears?’ he said. ‘Could you fight? And how long could you have withstood such a noise?’

  Isloman looked at him vacantly.

  ‘Will you please help me?’ Gavor asked in some exasperation, still struggling with the blankets.

  Isloman stepped forward. ‘But . . .’ he began.

  ‘But nothing,’ Gavor said, his voice suddenly very serious. He thrust his head towards the rear of the cave. ‘Those things killed that . . . bird . . . creature when we were on our way to the Gretmearc. Or nearly killed it anyway. They did it with a noise. A noise, Isloman. And it was no hatchling, believe me. I was on just the edge of their song and it was frightful.’ He flapped his wings anxiously. ‘And I’ve read enough about them to know they don’t like people. Let’s go. Now. While we can. It’s not safe for Hawklan.’

  Isloman looked at Dacu. The Goraidin glanced at the cave entrance. A greying light there showed it would soon be dawn. He nodded. Gavor’s concern was almost palpable and even in their limited acquaintance he had found the bird to be a consistently reliable, if irreverent, witness. Whatever had visited them that night had been decidedly odd, and there would be ample time to discuss it later. Certainly, nothing was to be gained by plunging off into the darkness searching for strange, possibly dangerous visitors, who, finding them asleep, had at least left them unmolested.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Tirke said, staring at Gavor and then at the two men in turn.

  ‘We’ll tell you later,’ Isloman said. ‘When we’re away from here.’

  Tirke looked at Dacu, who nodded his confirmation. For a moment, he considered inquiring about breakfast, but the urgency in the two men’s calm but swift actions swept the idea aside. Whatever was making them break camp so urgently was not something he had any desire to stay and face.

  Within minutes, the group were ready to move out. Isloman bent down to pick up Hawklan.

  ‘Stay . . . carver.’

  The voice was soft and slightly hesitant, but quite clear. Despite its softness, however, there was an almost physical quality in it that made the simple request more compelling than any roared command. For a moment, Isloman felt unable to move, as though the voice had entered and spoken directly to his very limbs.

  ‘What?’ he said with a struggle, turning round and looking at the others. Both returned his look blankly.

  ‘What what?’ Dacu said incongruously.

  ‘What did you say?’ Isloman amplified.

  ‘Nothing,’ Dacu said, shaking his head. ‘Neither of us spoke.’

  Isloman gazed around the cave, puzzled. ‘Someone did,’ he said.

  Gavor flapped his wings noisily. ‘Let’s go, dear boy,’ he said anxiously.

  Isloman stood up and looked again around the cave. Somewhere, something was calling, like a myriad unheard whisperings. He looked down at Gavor, who was becoming increasingly restless. Impulsively he walked towards the darkness at the rear of the cave, and spoke into it.

  ‘I’m sorry I frightened you,’ he said. ‘But you frightened me too. We didn’t mean to disturb you and we mean no harm. We’re going now.’

  His voice seemed to echo strangely into some far distance, and then return to swirl agitatedly around him until it reshaped itself into, ‘Stay, carver.’

  He turned and looked at his companions. They were looking slightly surprised, but this was obviously at his conduct rather than at anything untoward they had just heard. He turned again to the darkness.

  ‘You must speak so that my friends can hear you also,’ he said.

  This time there was no echo. Just silence. He stood for some time watching and listening, but there was no response. Turning, he
walked back to the others, feeling rather foolish.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Something odd’s going on here, but I don’t think it’s going to serve any useful purpose to inquire into it.’ He bent down and picked up Hawklan. Gavor flew up onto his shoulder.

  ‘Please stay, carver.’

  This time the voice was clearly audible to everyone. Tirke gasped, and Dacu turned quickly, his eyes scanning the whole cave in one sweep and then peering intently into the far darkness; deeper now that the torches had been withdrawn.

  He glanced at Isloman and with a flick of his head, indicated the entrance. Then he started, his face pained and his hands reaching up involuntarily towards his head.

  ‘Stop it,’ roared Isloman furiously. ‘Whoever you are and whatever you want from me, you’ll gain nothing by assailing my friends.’

  Dacu straightened up and shook his head. His face was pale. ‘Isloman, let’s get out of here while we can,’ he said urgently.

  ‘No. Please stay,’ came the voice again. ‘We’re sorry. It won’t happen again.’

  Isloman hesitated; there was doubt in the voice. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘The bird knows us,’ the voice said. Or was it voices? Isloman thought. ‘We wish . . . to talk.’

  Isloman lowered Hawklan to the ground gently and rested him against the cave wall.

  ‘About what?’ he demanded.

  There was silence for a moment then from the distance came a sound like the passage of a long shallow wave over a pebbled beach. As it reached him, Isloman felt his mind awash with sounds full of complex images of Hawklan and Oklar and Anderras Darion. There were subtleties and nuances in the sounds that were like those that could be found in the finest carvings. He recognized the signs; there were no words for what they wanted to say.