The Return of the Sword tcoh-5

by Roger Taylor

  But…

  His reassurances to himself had a wan and feeble air about them.

  The panic threatened to return but again he held it back. Above all, he must maintain control over whatever he could. In the absence of knowing what he should do, he could only await events.

  To me! To me!

  Nothing.

  Where was this place?

  The darkness and the silence were so total that surely he could not be outside. There, by now, his eyes must have searched out a hint of lightness in the sky, or his ears would have heard a faint sound – a night insect, a scuttling rodent, the rushing wings of a hunting bird. But there was nothing. Not even the hint of shifting night air on his face.

  A thought came to him, almost incongruous in its practicality. Yatsu had given him a small radiant stone lantern with the injunction that, along with many other small, innocuous items, he should always have it with him. Experience and the quiet, moment-by-moment discipline of journeying through the mountains had instilled the rightness of this advice into him, but older habits – a soft bed, a hasty awakening to serve the needs of a client – had taken command and the pouch that should have hung from his belt was, along with the belt itself, draped over a chair in his room.

  He denounced himself a fool, though not, somewhat to his surprise, without a degree of dark humour. Some Adept, you! Some Warrior of the White Way! To be suddenly carried into an alien place at least had the dignity of being profoundly mysterious. To forget to bring a light was bumbling incompetence of the first order.

  A sober resolution formed within him. As much through good fortune as any ability on his part he had survived a great ordeal and discovered within himself a strange, perhaps precious gift. He must bring to the questions that came from these events the utmost dedication and effort at all times. He must strive to become like Yatsu and Jaldaric; to attain that peculiar awareness of the nature and value of the moment, of the extraordinary in the ordinary, that they possessed. A warrior’s mind, they had called it, though they laughed at its portentous ring. But they laughed easily and at many things, these most serious of men. And they had the clarity of vision, a quietness of spirit, that he could only aspire to. It was in their every movement.

  The resolution was not a new one and he clenched his fists violently, driving his nails into his palms to punish himself for his folly in having to make it again.

  He let out a faint breath.

  The action was relaxing, the sound reassuring.

  But as it drifted away, the darkness around him was suddenly alive with a myriad of such sighs. So soft was it that he was scarcely aware of the sound. Then, with almost imperceptible slowness, it began to wash to and fro. At first it was no more than the sound of the sea lapping against a distant shoreline, but with each retreat and advance it grew louder and stranger.

  His concentration wrapped tight about it as he searched for some clue that might tell him where he was, Antyr began to feel the shifting sound reaching deep inside him. As it did so, he felt it touching ancient, unspoken fears – stirring them up to cloud his mind, to obscure his thoughts. They grew and resonated with the sound itself.

  Then, not knowing how it had come about, he could no longer tell which clamour was outside him and which within, so awful was the noise – if noise it was by now, for there was a malevolence in it, rising and falling, pounding him from every side.

  He felt a scream forming. A scream that the sound had been searching for. A scream that it would feed on. A scream that it would drown and smash him with, until he was at one with this choking darkness.

  Yet still a spark of his awareness flickered.

  He was who he was. He had faced cruel and powerful enemies before and prevailed.

  From deeper even than his fears came a defiance, savage and cruel.

  * * * *

  ‘No!’

  Andawyr started violently and Oslang echoed Antyr’s cry as the Dream Finder’s eyes opened abruptly and his clawed hands reached out as if to seize something. At the same time the two wolves sprang up and, tails wagging, began licking his face. There was an interlude of spluttering confusion as he both fended off and embraced them.

  ‘Is it safe for us to move?’ Andawyr asked, already half out of his chair, adding, before Antyr could reply, ‘What happened?’

  Oslang too did not wait for an answer, but moved to the Beacon and began examining it closely.

  ‘It was to find an answer to that question that I came here,’ Antyr said as he finally managed to quieten the two excited animals. ‘I was in another place.’ He levered himself shakily back into his chair.

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘You were here, lying on the floor, with your Companions guarding you,’ Andawyr said carefully.

  Antyr leaned forward, his head lowered and his hand extended in an appeal for a brief respite.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said, sitting up after a moment. ‘At one point you bent forward to look at me and Oslang restrained you, didn’t he? It was sound advice.’

  In spite of himself, Andawyr’s eyes became suspicious and uncertain.

  ‘I don’t resent your doubts,’ Antyr said quietly. ‘But I can do no other than tell you the truth as I know it. I was both here and somewhere else. Somewhere dark – very dark. And silent – at first. Then…’ He told Andawyr what had happened.

  The Cadwanwr listened intently but asked no question. His face was unreadable.

  ‘It was as real as this place,’ Antyr concluded. ‘Though where it was, why I was there, or how I came to be there, as ever, I don’t know.’

  To dispel the images that had returned with this telling he turned to Oslang who was still earnestly studying the Beacon. ‘Does that tell you anything?’

  Oslang made a peculiar noise. ‘Only that Andawyr’s comment about something being at right angles to all known directions seems to be singularly appropriate.’ Petulantly he touched one of the symbols and the entire array vanished, leaving only the original panel. ‘Later,’ he said, turning away from it with a scowl and shaking his head. ‘I’ll think about it later when my wits are either less scattered, or scattered far enough for me to be able to make sense of it.’

  ‘Was there any intrusion?’ Andawyr asked him unsympathetically.

  ‘No. That I’m sure about,’ Oslang replied confidently. ‘But what else there was…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you can see for yourself whenever you feel like it.’

  The three men looked at one another silently.

  ‘He was gone.’ Tarrian’s voice sounded in Andawyr’s mind. ‘As has happened before. Through one of the Gateways. Grayle and I can do no more than hunt and call out for him. The ways become… very strange. They are…’ Images, full of visceral need and frantic, driving urgency washed through Andawyr, filling not merely his mind, but his entire body. Though they were so fleeting that they were gone almost before he felt them, their power, at once primitive and immeasurably subtle, made him gasp.

  ‘You’ve no words for that, human, any more than I have for that part of you which lies beyond the narrow span of this strange sharing we have. But that’s all I can give you.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Oslang was asking, his concern now transferred to his momentarily transfixed and gaping friend. Andawyr nodded and indicated Tarrian as he recovered his breath.

  ‘Any chance of me joining in these conversations?’ Oslang asked acidly.

  ‘No,’ Tarrian said starkly to Andawyr.

  ‘It seems not,’ Andawyr told his friend. ‘But don’t ask me about it, I can’t do anything. It’s very peculiar.’

  ‘Well, what did he say, then?’

  Andawyr told him but it added nothing to their thoughts about what had happened to Antyr.

  ‘Where in the name of sanity can we start on all this?’ Oslang asked after a long pause.

  ‘We’ll need to think about what Antyr’s just told us, then…’ Andawyr nodded towards the Beacon. ‘Tomorrow we can analyse whatever�
��s been registered in that and the one in my bedroom and all the others that were joined to them at the time. We’ll work on it with Usche and Ar-Billan, they’ll…’

  ‘Ar-Billan? You’re not serious. He’s…’

  ‘He’s a very talented young man,’ Andawyr said in a tone that was more an instruction than a comment. ‘All he needs is more confidence and he’ll get that if he’s given the right guidance and responsibility.’ Oslang looked set to pursue his objection but Andawyr became insincerely avuncular. ‘And I’ve every confidence in you that he’ll gain it under your experienced tutelage.’

  Oslang’s eyes narrowed and his chin came out, but Andawyr’s raised eyebrow reminded him of the presence of Antyr, a guest who should not have family disputes inflicted on him, and he abandoned his protest, albeit with some reluctance.

  ‘Whatever you say,’ he said tersely, leaving a loud but unspoken ‘but…’ hanging in the air.

  Andawyr left it there but then it was he who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He held out both hands in a gesture that encompassed both Antyr and the wolves. ‘I believe absolutely that you believe what you’re saying, and I can see for myself you’ve been badly frightened. Without a doubt, something very disconcerting, perhaps dangerous, is happening. I’m not sure how to put this but will you accept it as a measure of the way we are here that I have to be sceptical – open-minded – about your interpretation of what’s actually happening?’ He hurried on, skidding over his awkwardness. ‘It could be exactly as you say, of course. Some of us have considered certain aspects of such a phenomenon theoretically possible for a long time, though we’ve no idea how it could come about.’ Faintly he thought he caught a disparaging, ‘Man’s a fool!’ from the normally silent Grayle, though it vanished immediately under the sound of Antyr coughing. ‘But none of that’s important at the moment,’ he went on quickly. ‘What is important is your personal well-being, and that concerns me greatly. Is this kind of thing liable to happen to you any time, any place? Because if so, perhaps it might be better… if you stayed…’

  Tarrian’s lip wrinkled menacingly, as did Grayle’s. ‘He needs no guards,’ came two voices, fierce and categorical. The statement was hung about with feelings of near-uncontrollable anger at the prospect of restraint.

  Involuntarily, Andawyr edged back in his chair. Antyr reached down to stroke the two wolves and they became quiet, but he too was frowning. ‘It would seem it can happen at any time,’ he said. ‘Though it hasn’t since I entered the Great Dream and the three of us have worked normally with several clients since then. Once or twice I’ve had the feeling that something strange was nearby – perhaps a Gateway – and that if I exerted myself in some way I’d be able to pass through it. I’ve even had the feeling that I could create one, but I’ve had neither the desire nor the insight into how to do such a thing. In any case, at the moment, whatever happens to me there’s no one here who can help me – no one. I’ll leave if I’m likely to be a burden, but I’d rather stay and work with you towards explaining all this. For myself, I’ve no desire to be constrained other than by the limits of your hospitality, but Tarrian and Grayle will not be constrained by anyone. That’s the way they are. I think it will be sufficient if everyone here knows that should I be found… unconscious… with my Companions by me, then I am simply not to be approached.’

  Andawyr made a concerned gesture, but Antyr did not allow him to speak. ‘You know you can’t help me. Not yet, anyway.’ His voice became very soft. ‘It’s possible that no one anywhere can help me; that I and I alone have to discover what all this means; that my real journey shouldn’t have been over the seas and mountains, but into myself. I don’t know. But if that’s so, and I find myself suddenly both here and in another place, then apart from the hurt that Tarrian and Grayle will do to anyone who intrudes, and the hurt you’ll then have to do to them, their need to protect my body here may draw them away from helping me against greater danger.’

  Andawyr’s thumb and forefinger moved from massaging his nose to squeezing his eyes. His voice was strained when he spoke.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, equally softly. ‘We can’t help you. Not with what we know at the moment. And, too, you may be right – perhaps your journey’s going to be for you alone. That’s something that many of us here are all too familiar with.’

  He affected a heartiness he did not feel. ‘We’ll do whatever you wish. Everyone here is here freely. You’re welcome to stay or go as the whim takes you. If you choose to stay – which I should prefer – if only because I’ve taken quite a shine to your Companions – and to you,’ he added as a conspicuous afterthought. ‘Then we’ll do as you say. We’ll leave you wherever you fall.’

  * * * *

  The next day, Antyr slept late, much to the scorn of Yatsu and Jaldaric.

  ‘I’m sure you two have letters to write, or something,’ he growled as the two Goraidin finally rousted him from his bed, adding reproachfully to the two wolves, silent witnesses to this atrocity, ‘Fine guards you are.’

  ‘I thought we’d resolved to emulate our good friends here,’ Tarrian retorted, affecting injured surprise. ‘You know, spartan, self-denying, uncluttered by unattainable desires, firmly rooted in the present, looking always…’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Oh. I must have misunderstood. Then again, I usually do, whenever you make this particular resolution.’

  ‘We were up at a respectable hour,’ Yatsu said, correctly interpreting the half of the exchange he heard. He took on Tarrian’s righteous air. ‘We’ve done everything we need to for the time being. We thought you might like to eat.’

  ‘Did I ever tell you that your capacity for doing things with such cheery gusto first thing in the morning is one of your least endearing traits?’ Antyr said sourly.

  ‘From memory, every day, I think,’ Yatsu replied blandly, looking at Jaldaric for corroboration.

  ‘Not every day,’ Jaldaric offered in Antyr’s defence. ‘I’d have to look in my journal but I’m sure he forgot at least twice. When he was seasick, if you remember.’ He ignored Antyr’s baleful look and touched the panel covering the mirror stone window. It unfurled silently and gracefully and light flooded into the room. It was accompanied by a cool breeze. The two wolves stretched luxuriously, then jumped up to put their forepaws on the sill so that they could examine the view.

  ‘Isn’t this place splendid?’ Yatsu said, banter replaced by openness. Then, concerned, ‘I hear you had a bad time last night.’

  Antyr was uncertain how to answer. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I was whisked into some other place without warning. An awful place. Dark, frightening, full of terrifying sounds.’

  ‘Andawyr told us.’

  ‘Good,’ Antyr replied, with genuine relief. ‘I don’t particularly want to go through it again.’

  Yatsu patted him on the shoulder, then gave a soldier’s shrug. The gesture told Antyr he had survived and that he had probably learned something, and that was all that mattered. He felt a twinge of injured indignation at this seemingly cavalier dismissal of his ordeal, though even as it came, he found he was able to set it aside. Itwas all that mattered. He had learned more than he had realized in the journey that had taken him to the Great Dream and thence brought him here. And he knew that Yatsu and Jaldaric were stalwart friends to him. Insofar as they could, they would guard and help him at all times, unbidden. They were quite deliberately helping him now, their presence anchoring him to the present so that he could cut away that part of the past which was valueless.

  ‘Everyone knows you’re to be left if it happens again unexpectedly,’ Yatsu said.

  ‘Everyone?’ Antyr echoed, incredulous. ‘Already?’

  ‘Everyone,’ Yatsu confirmed. ‘I told you this was a remarkable place. Get yourself cleaned up and decent, then we can eat.’

  They ate where Antyr and Andawyr had eaten the previous day, though it was much busier now. At first Antyr found it difficult to cope with the un
disguised attention he was attracting, though he soon learned to meet the looks he was receiving with an open greeting of his own.

  ‘I wondered how long it would take you to pick that up,’ Tarrian said patronizingly. ‘These aren’t the oafish inadequates that used to inhabit your old drinking haunts, you know. All of them are most intelligently curious. Indeed, they’re almost civilized.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll set great store by your approval,’ Antyr retorted.

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ Tarrian agreed.

  For much of the rest of the day, Yatsu and Jaldaric being occupied, Tarrian and Grayle chose to go their own way, leaving Antyr to do the same, alone. He set off with great confidence, wandering through busy halls and chambers, large and small, but despite his best efforts, he found the complex maze of twisting, interlinking corridors and divided and subdivided levels deeply bewildering. It did not help that no door he encountered bore any indication of what was behind it, and no junction bore any indication of what lay in what direction.

  With the unerring knack of a stranger in a strange place, he sought advice mainly from those who knew little more than he did.

  ‘How do you find your way around this place?’ he asked one red-faced individual he found himself walking alongside.

  ‘With great difficulty, Dream Finder, great difficulty,’ came the reply. That he was known to this stranger was by then no surprise. However Andawyr had spread the news about him through his domain it had been singularly effective. It was just one of a mounting list of questions that he had about the place. A brief conversation identified the man as a novice of barely a week and the two of them parted firm friends in adversity and still lost.

  Eventually his wanderings brought him through a suddenly widening corridor and into a spacious communal area of some kind. For a moment he thought he had stepped outside, as along much of one side was a vista of the mountains and the broad plains beyond. The sight brought him to an abrupt halt.

  There were many people there, talking, reading, dozing, though the place was so large that there was no feeling of its being crowded. An abrupt silence greeted him as he became the focus of a collective inspection but it lasted for only a moment as the looks became as many smiles and several hands were raised to attract his attention. A hand on his elbow spared him the difficulty of making a choice about which to accept.