Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

Andawyr stopped rubbing his hands and looked at him closely. ‘You find our concerns for our safety obsessive?’ he said shrewdly.

Antyr hesitated for some time before Andawyr’s manner again drew a frank, albeit reluctant response from him.

‘Intense, certainly. They feel somehow out of place in what I’d taken to be primarily a teaching Order. My admittedly limited dealings with the powerful in my own society showed me how such things can come about, and how they darken people’s lives; the constant looking over the shoulder, searching into shadows for fear of ambush. But that was in connection with gaining and keeping political power. People who for various reasons didn’t aspire to those heights – or depths – scholars, tradesmen, ordinary people – weren’t constantly worrying about enemies.’

Jaldaric caught Yatsu’s eye, then cleared his throat conspicuously.

‘Well, all right,’ Antyr added, flustered. ‘I did feel the need to take one or two lessons in swordwork, I’ll admit. But that was because…’

‘Because Serenstad was a violent place,’ Jaldaric said with an emphatic jab of his finger, though not without some humour. He addressed Andawyr authoritatively in the same vein. ‘It was frightening just walking the streets there. Not like Vakloss or…’

Andawyr rescued Antyr. ‘Leave him alone,’ he said sternly. ‘You survived, didn’t you? And I suspect he’s much further away from his home here than you ever were in his land. Get on with your letter.’ He pulled a chair up to the window and, resting his elbows on the broad sill, cupped his head in his hands and stared out at the view.

‘I understand what you mean, Antyr,’ he said. ‘But I think the key to your uncertainty about us lies in the word “worrying”. The point is, we don’t worry – well, not excessively, anyway. We think, we assess, we act. We adjust our ways of living as needs demand, changing things if we can, coping with them if we can’t. And once that’s done, there’s little else that can be done, save be aware. That’s what anyone should do if they don’t want their life to slip by unnoticed.’ He gave Antyr a significant sidelong look but, still seeing that his guest was uneasy, he turned back to the view and pressed on. ‘Our history – both ancient and all too recent – tells us quite clearly that there are dark forces in the world; forces that are actively malevolent, that delight in destruction. And, as a Teaching Order…’ He gave an amused grunt. ‘Or perhaps I should say, a Learning Order, we take an interest in the nature of such forces as we do in many other things. What are they, for example? Where do they come from? Are they something inherent in nature itself or just in our nature? Are they in some way necessary for us if we’re to move forward – whatever forward might mean? Have we created them, or are they something inflicted on us from outside, something that came from beyond the Great Searing when all things are said to have begun? Or are they some combination of all these?’ He shrugged. ‘We’ve plenty of ideas, as you might expect, but no indisputable answers. Indeed, it may well be that they’re questions that are unanswerable in principle, but even discovering that for sure will teach us a great deal.’ He turned to Antyr and smiled. ‘Still, knowing what we know, we’d be foolish souls indeed to ignore the dangers that are offered. And knowing that, the steps we take to protect ourselves no more dominate our lives than do any other simple everyday precautions. It’s hardly burdensome to take care walking around the back of a horse, to dowse a camp-fire properly, to put on a warm coat when the weather threatens, is it?’

‘I didn’t mean to cause offence,’ Antyr said almost plaintively.

Andawyr’s smile became a laugh and he slapped Antyr’s arm. ‘You caused no offence, Antyr,’ he said. He pushed his chair back alarmingly and swung his feet up on to the sill. ‘You spoke honestly and it pleases me more than I can say that you felt you could. We thrive on debate. Nothing is immune from question.’ Then he became unexpectedly earnest. ‘One thing we do know. Whatever they might be, wherever they might come from, the forces of destruction pervade everything and they fester unseen in the darkness of the unspoken thought like a house-rotting fungus.’ He opened his arms wide as if to embrace the entire view before him. ‘Light, Antyr. Light. Shine it into everything. Bring clarity and reason to everything. You mightn’t always like what you find but it’s infinitely safer than any other way. And you may even gain some understanding.’

‘One of the things you’ll soon understand is to be careful what you say to Andawyr, if you don’t want a protracted philosophical harangue or an interrogation.’ It was Jaldaric who spoke and the remark provoked some general amusement.

‘Have you finished that letter to your father yet, young Jaldaric?’ Andawyr retorted tartly.

Antyr, however, was intrigued by what Andawyr was saying. ‘But don’t you ever wish that all these precautions weren’t necessary? That this place didn’t have to be the… fortress… it appears to be? That you were free of these endless concerns?’

‘Have you ever been?’

The question made Antyr start. He stammered out, ‘Well…’ a couple of times and made a few vague gestures before ending with, ‘Yes… No… but…’

‘But nothing,’ Andawyr went on. ‘From what little you’ve already told us you’ve had many bad things happen to you. Some of them self-inflicted, seemingly, but all of them things against which you had to defend yourself eventually.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But nothing,’ Andawyr repeated. ‘Would you say you’re a man bowed down by burdens?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘No. You’re a man doing something about what he perceives to be his burdens. Searching. Far from your home. Looking for a light you can shine into their hearts.’ He pushed his chair back precariously near to its point of balance and putting his hands behind his head, cocked it on one side to look at Antyr.

‘Why did you choose to fight the blind man?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t choose,’ Antyr replied indignantly after a startled pause. ‘I was there through no fault of my own. And it was a matter of opposing him or being bound to his will for ever. And who could say what hurt would have come of that? Not least to me.’

Still balancing his chair dangerously, Andawyr turned his attention back to the view. The sky was darkening and the mountains were beginning to throw long shadows across the valley. A skein of birds fluttered urgently over the scene.

‘Aha,’ he said, with an air of someone reaching a conclusion. ‘There you are. You did what you did because you’re who you are and because you were where you were. That’s something that three of us here understand all too well. And even Usche understands it with her head if not yet with her stomach.’

Another skein of birds flew down into the valley.

Andawyr’s voice fell. ‘I don’t belittle your pain or your needs, Antyr. As I’ve said, what we can do to help you, we will. But mainly you’ll help yourself. And ponder this, for I’m sure you already know it. And I’m certain your two Companions know it. There’s only here, now. If we’re sensible we learn from what has been, and it’s in our nature to plan what is to be, even though we know that almost certainly reality will be different.’ He laughed softly. ‘What calculation could’ve told me this morning that you’d be here today, opening up so many fascinating avenues of search for us? What calculation before I met you could’ve told me I’d decide to go to Anderras Darion and that that would be what you’d need as well? But still there’s only here, now, and it’s only a failure to appreciate that that can truly burden us. If we cloud our minds, our hearts, with the shades of an immutable past and the looming clouds of unknowable futures then we miss the scents, the sounds, the colours of the valley and the flight of the birds heading home. And, too, because we’re elsewhere all the time, our enemies catch us unawares and unready. We bring on ourselves the very doom we most fear.’