Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

It was no pleasant zephyr, however. There was a harshness in it that made Hawklan turn his face away. Nor was the sound kinder. Shattering glass, wind-torn roots and yielding timbers, the screams of midnight prey and battle-wounded, all were there, and more.

Hawklan looked up.

Above him was a foaming vortex, dark and ominous, like the mingling of countless broken worlds. As he stared at it, he could not tell whether the columns of the Labyrinth reached up to it, or hung down from it like searching, twisting tentacles.

Then they were out of the Labyrinth. In front of them, the ground ended abruptly. Hawklan stepped forward carefully, to find himself at the edge of a plunging height. It dropped sheer, into a depth he dared not see. He took in a throat-closing breath and stepped back unsteadily.

Normally Dar-volci and Gavor relished taunting him for his fear of heights, but they were silent.

Looking about him, Hawklan saw that he was at the edge of a great pit.

At its centre was a vast tapering column and, to his right, was a slender bridge spanning across to it. At the end of the bridge stood a familiar figure.

He ran towards it.

Gulda pushed her hood back when he reached her. She held up a finger before he could speak.

‘I’ve no answers, Hawklan,’ she said, her bright eyes pained and her hand opening and closing about her stick. ‘Many threads are coming together and I am drawn here by one of His weaving.’ She looked at him significantly. ‘As you know. I dare not trust myself to act, but you must. Trust yourself.’

‘But…’

She stepped to one side and pointed her stick along what Hawklan had taken for a bridge. It was scarcely a pace wide. The breeze had become a wind and it was growing stronger.

‘You have done well. Your transformation of the world where the Sword fell, imperfect though it was, has opened the Great Way and brought you to Me.’

‘Our hurts are made whole by Your Praise, Great Lord. With our Power and Your wisdom we will release You and sweep Ethriss’s folly away.’

Gory heads bowed and gashes leaking, the Uhriel were kneeling. Without looking up, the blind man held out his hands. Resting on them was the black sword.

A hand closed about its hilt.

‘Your Power will indeed cleanse this place. I accept it. Accept now My wisdom.’

A single stroke severed all three heads.

‘I can’t walk along that,’ Hawklan said, his eyes wide with fear.

Gulda did not answer but lowered her stick and resumed her silent vigil. There was neither reproach nor encouragement in her manner.

‘Out of words, dear boy,’ Gavor said. ‘But I’ll stay with you.’

‘And me,’ Dar-volci said.

It was difficult to hear them; the wind was growing stronger and the noise from above louder. Hawklan looked up again.

The vortex was lower. It was a fearful sight, grim and vast. He glanced once more at the motionless figure of Gulda, head bowed now, then at the narrow pathway ahead of him.

At the far end, suffusing the top of the isolated column, was a bright light.

‘Great mercy, I’m afraid,’ he said, his voice trembling.

Then, with a deep breath, he walked onto the narrow span, the wind tugging and buffeting him. Gavor spread his wings and floated off Hawklan’s shoulder as the healer pressed on uncertainly, shoulders high with tension. Hawklan struggled to keep his gaze fixed resolutely in the distance, but it was drawn inexorably downwards. His legs were shaking so violently that he could scarcely control them, but he was a long way from the beginning when he stopped.

The depths on either side tempted him.

‘One step at a time,’ Dar-volci said.

‘I need to rest a moment,’ Hawklan said, breathing heavily. ‘This wind, this noise…’

He crouched to make himself less vulnerable to the tugging of the wind.

Then he was on all fours, scarcely able to move.

‘I don’t think you have a moment,’ Dar-volci said, shaking him gently.

Hawklan looked up. A light was moving towards him along the bridge. For a moment his fear threatened to become outright panic but as it surged to a peak, so it was transformed into cold anger and battle-readiness. His legs were still trembling – his whole body was trembling – but the movement was familiar and he knew it for what it was: ancient reflexes releasing him to fight.

He stood up.

The light drew nearer.

Hawklan began walking towards it as steadily as he could. The wind was continuing to grow stronger and the noise from the turbulent sky louder. Violent, roiling and shot with lightning and endlessly shifting colours, it was still descending. Whatever it was, there could be little doubt that nothing would survive its touch.

Wings reaching into the ways of the wind to keep his flight steady, Gavor suddenly soared above him, a black and sharp-edged silhouette stark and clear against the confusion.

Hawklan looked back along the bridge. Gulda was still there, though he could see her only indistinctly. He turned back to the approaching light.

It was nearer now.

And he felt again the presence he had felt as he had trekked across Narsindal to stand before the mist-shrouded castle of Derras Ustramel.

Sumeral had been given form again.

Hawklan moved forward. He was alone, unarmed, racked by the tearing wind and menaced by the siren call of the abyss beneath him, but he knew he must stand against this abomination. Futile it might seem but even as the thought came to him he could hear Andawyr proclaiming, ‘Never underestimate the effects of the smallest action.’

‘You are smiling.’

The cold words formed within him as they had when he had heard them on the causeway across Lake Kedrieth.

Hawklan straightened and gazed into the light. It was barely five paces away from him. There was the hint of a figure at its heart. He did not reply.

‘Ethriss’s creations were ever flawed. Smiling in the face of their destruction.’

Still Hawklan did not speak.

‘You have no questions? No plea to make – for his sorry world – for yourself? You, who could have been the greatest of My Uhriel – My chosen.’

Silence.

Hawklan opened his arms in a gesture that might have been acceptance or welcome. He looked up at the vortex.

‘This is the dance of My new creation – the wiping away of all things so that perfection can be made.’

Hawklan shook his head. ‘This will indeed sweep all things away – but it is not Your creation. The folly that brought it about created You also – the essence of all that is foul in humanity, unfettered and given form by cruel chance. This You must know, as Ethriss did. Prepare yourself for oblivion.’

He turned.

The bridge behind him was fading into greyness, but he felt no fear at the sight.

‘There is nowhere for You in this time. Whatever bound You here – sustained You – is passing on, free now. The Guardians too passed on when they realized the truth of their nature; so now will You.’

The brightness faltered momentarily, and though the howling of the wind and the rumbling of the vortex filled everywhere, Hawklan felt only a long silence.

‘You would have been a fine servant, Hawklan. Your treachery and guile are worthy of My favour. But I have been bound here too long. I will honour you as I honoured My Uhriel. With the key that will unlock Ethriss’s cursed Labyrinth.’

Hawklan stepped back instinctively and the point of the black sword passed in front of him, cutting a singing horizontal arc out of the brightness.

‘That is my sword,’ he said. ‘It comes from the heart of whatever brought this upon us. Made by Ethriss when his doubts began, in the faith that it would protect us.’ He opened his arms again. ‘If You would be free, give it to me and perhaps I will have the knowledge that can truly end this.’