Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

The blind man bent low towards him, his head thrust forward by his mount’s neck, his teeth bared in a fearful rictus and his blind eyes wide and staring. ‘How did you come here?’ he said again with a frightening softness, his bony hand reaching towards Andawyr, claw-like.

‘Ask Him,’ Andawyr replied scornfully, meeting the dead gaze unflinchingly. ‘Are not all things here arranged by His will?’

‘With each of your blasphemies, you draw out your future torments by aeons. You have no measure either of your insignificance or of what you bring upon yourself.’

‘You’re premature in imagining you have power over us, apprentice,’ Andawyr said, still scornful. An airy gesture indicated Oslang and Atelon, both of whom were struggling to maintain outward equanimity and to grasp their leader’s seemingly reckless intention in provoking this fearful creature. ‘They bound your erstwhile master’s companions to await their deaths. And I was there when he himself was killed. Taken down effortlessly by an inconsequential enemy more ancient than any of us. I see a similar fate awaiting you and, for all your seeming power, you are not the least shadow of him.’ He opened his arms as though to embrace the great building towering above them into the blue haze. ‘As for all this.’ He became scornful. ‘It may be that in His failing days He has cursed you with a knowledge of the Power far beyond anything your predecessors possessed but, corrupt though they were, they were shrewd and learned in the ways of men – subtle and cunning – keen judges of their enemy. You and your fellows are less than children beside them.’ He sneered.

‘What we have done to this world is scarcely the work of children, old man,’ the blind man snarled, very human now. ‘Such a garnering of the Power has never been known.’

‘It is precisely the work of children – unguided, uncontrolled children,’ Andawyr replied in like vein. ‘Vicious, crude, and futile – truly the work of lesser apprentices. And it is a measure of your insignificance and your folly that you hurried here so quickly at our call to face your own doom. Did you think we did not know your true worth?’

Andawyr looked up at the hovering star, sneered again, then swung his hands over his head in a wide arc and brought them together in front of him. As they met there was no sound, but a blinding white light flared between them. The Cadwanwr and Isloman instinctively turned away as it spread out in an expanding sphere, cutting through the blue air and dancing black shadows about the arching confines of the wide doorway and the passage beyond. As it struck the mirrored walls so a myriad other lights sprang into life, illuminating the infinite plain and recreating themselves endlessly into distances beyond knowing. A tumbling mass of rearing steeds unseated their riders and crashed over on top of them. A host of young women dodged the arms of their protectors and surged forward, knives in hands, to dispatch the animals as only those who loved them truly could.

‘Whatever it was, it used to be a horse and it’s better dead, believe me,’ Usche protested as Isloman frantically dragged her out of the melee. The air was ringing with a high-pitched shrieking that struck to the heart of its hearers. Isloman looked to Andawyr in anticipation of an order to flee but the Cadwanwr had dragged Oslang and Atelon together and was shouting something at them desperately. Usche and Ar-Billan joined him also.

Then, dark and awful against the lights still silently darting and dancing across the blue distance, the blind man was rising from the tangle of the dead creature. Isloman had been present when Oklar had revealed himself and unleashed the Power against Hawklan. The black sword had saved Hawklan but a great swathe of destruction had been cut across Vakloss. Nothing the Power touched could stand against it. And this one was even more powerful.

This is how it ends, came the thought.

And, for a time that could not be measured, he felt himself held at the finest of balances.

Resignation flowed over him, soothing, calming – a destination had been reached, a journey over time; time to lie down, to rest, to let all travails go.

Yet the scents and sounds of everything around him were washing through him, overwhelming in their intensity. At their heart was a glowing totality – a lifetime – his lifetime – leavened by many struggles and full of the joy of being. And though is was his and his alone, it was also part of a greater whole that would be diminished by its loss.

It must not end thus.

The resignation slipped from him like a soiled cloak. He prepared to face the monster who had made this awful place.

But even as this decision formed about him, the five Cadwanwr were in front of him, facing the risen Uhriel. Andawyr, Oslang and Atelon to the fore, Usche and Ar-Billan a pace behind. Isloman hesitated. He knew that what Andawyr had just done was little more than a party piece for entertaining children. It was the least of any novice’s tricks. For some reason, Andawyr had engineered this confrontation, knowing that neither he nor his companions could hope to oppose such a creature.

What was he doing?

The question paralysed Isloman. Would some reckless action on his part bring a subtler plan to grief?

There was a strange pause. Everywhere was silent and the blue air was full of the crackling tension of a pending storm.

It broke.

Though the Uhriel made no arcane gestures or incantations Isloman knew that he was assailing the Cadwanwr. His white eyes were manic in the blue gloom and the five figures seemed to shimmer as their hands came up as if to protect themselves from the heat of a suddenly opened furnace or the blast of a hail-loaded wind.

Isloman felt nothing. But he knew he was of no consequence in this conflict – an ant under the churning hooves of the cavalry, surviving through chance rather than intention.

Yet he could not stand idly by.

But he had to.

Then the Cadwanwr were failing. Unaware of the nature of the conflict Isloman might be, but it needed no great perception to read their postures and their expressions. And if they fell, he would be carried with them.

Every part of him cried out in denial.

He would not perish in this awful place or at the hands of this monster without doing hurt to both of them for as long as he was able.

His eye rose to the hovering star. Isloman was a gentle man, a creator of beautiful things, but circumstance had plunged him into many conflicts and he had ridden with the Goraidin as one of them. He had learned that though there were many ways to destroy an enemy, in the end it was always best to strike to his centre – swift, straight and with every resource committed. And Andawyr had declared this star to the centre of something – a terrible focus. Who knew what would happen if it were destroyed?

Isloman looked at the faltering Cadwanwr, locked in their silent conflict with the blind man, motionless amid the ruin of his slaughtered mount.

His hand closed around the chisel in his belt. A good piece of iron, tempered and hardened by the deep skills of his brother and worn to his own ways of working. It had unlocked many a fine carving from the waiting rock. He tossed it lightly and felt all the memories in its familiar shape and weight. Then, with a sure and unclouded confidence, like that of a child, his powerful frame hurled the chisel at the star.

Across the blue-mirrored plain, still flickering with the distant remnants of Andawyr’s sunburst, innumerable missiles twisted and glittered. As many Uhriel burst into black movement and reached up to catch them with both hand and will.

And failed.

The chisel made a sound more felt than heard as it struck the star, but the blind man let out a cry that sent Isloman and the Cadwanwr staggering backwards.