Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

Andawyr waited.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ Antyr replied after a moment. ‘But whatever it was, it came out of nowhere and without any warning.’ He put his hand to his head. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I dragged you out of there as much by pure reflex as anything else. I’m not thinking clearly yet.’ He allowed himself no time to recover, however. ‘Maybe it was something to do with your being able to use the Power.’ He looked at Andawyr intently. ‘Were you about to use it when you reached out for that sword?’

‘No, of course not, why should I? Besides, I don’t think I could. I know I can control my dreams but to use the Power you need control over every faculty.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Though I confess I’d never thought about it.’ He became pensive for a moment then frowned. ‘It must be impossible, surely,’ he said, though more to himself than for the information of the others. ‘There’s no saying what the consequences might be if it weren’t. Then again, it’s an intriguing problem. If I used the Power in a dream would it be the Power or just a dream of it? Fascinating. This will make an excellent project for someone.’

‘Before you become too enthralled we need to find out what just happened. Because it was dangerous, and there shouldn’t have been even a vestige of danger there.’ Antyr’s firm interruption ended Andawyr’s reverie abruptly. The Dream Finder waved towards the door. ‘What was that noise and that red light? And why did those people break in like that?’

Andawyr scratched his head vigorously, then held out his hand. It was shaking. ‘Yes, there was a danger, wasn’t there?’ he said. ‘As for the Beacons, that’s a good question.’

There was a discreet tapping on the door and Oslang entered. He was more relaxed but he was still obviously concerned. ‘It was just in here and immediately outside in the corridor,’ he said. ‘There’s no danger. Everything’s stilled now, though I doubt it will be tomorrow when the word gets around.’

Andawyr looked relieved but puzzled. ‘Well, it seems that it was confined, so that’s one problem the less but several more new ones. As for the gossip, we’ll just tell them what happened.’

‘What did happen?’ Oslang demanded.

‘One thing at a time,’ Andawyr replied. He pointed to the now quiescent symbol and turned to Antyr.

‘Something in that dream set off one of the devices you were asking about earlier – one of the Beacons. That did what it did because there’d been a use of the Power in here that didn’t come from any of us – any members of the Order, that is.’ He looked at Antyr curiously. ‘Are you sure you’ve no skill with the Power?’

‘I know nothing about it, except what I felt from the blind man and what I’ve learned from Yatsu and Jaldaric and yourself.’

Andawyr pursed his lips. ‘Well, that was my judgement, too. And it certainly should be the case. The ability of any individual to use the Power is tested automatically when they enter the place.’ He glanced at the symbols again. ‘Furthermore, if by some highly improbable chance you’d spontaneously acquired such an ability while you were actually here, then the Beacons would not only have detected it, but would’ve immobilized you, one way or another – up to and including killing you if your intention had been destructive.’

Antyr’s eyes widened. His mouth went dry.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Andawyr asked.

‘Yes,’ Antyr insisted, though his general demeanour gave the lie to this. ‘It’s just that your dream was dangerous enough without finding out I was in danger here as well.’

‘And that’s another problem. You weren’t. It had no effect on you. Which confirms what I already knew, namely that whatever activated it couldn’t have come from you.’

‘All of this makes no sense,’ Oslang said. ‘Beacons don’t just go off like that. Nor should it have been confined to such a small area. And at that level of intensity I’d have expected to see one of the Uhriel coming through the door, not a crowd of bewildered Brothers.’

‘You always were given to exaggeration,’ Andawyr snapped, adding lamely, ‘Maybe it’s faulty.’

Oslang gave him a look verging on disdain. ‘Faulty! How could it possibly be faulty? And I’m not exaggerating, you know that. For crying out…’

Andawyr raised his hand to accept the rebuff. He blew out a noisy breath. ‘Well, I couldn’t sleep now even if I wanted to. Let’s get started on this while everything’s fresh in our minds.’ He looked down at the wolves and clicked his tongue reproachfully. ‘Are they all right?’ he asked Antyr softly.

‘Yes, thank you.’ Tarrian’s voice filled Andawyr’s head. ‘And, for what it’s worth, you can thank Antyr for getting us all back safely. Whatever you did in there nearly lost us all.’

‘What I did?’ Andawyr exclaimed out loud, startling both Oslang and Yatsu. ‘What do you mean, what I did? I did nothing.’

‘Antyr didn’t, we didn’t, you were the only other one there.’

‘But…’

He received the canine equivalent of a dismissive shrug, which ended the matter as far as Tarrian was concerned. Faced with silence, Andawyr made a gesture that further brightened the lights, then he beat his pillow vigorously, swung his feet up on to the bed, and lay back, his hands behind his head.

‘Can’t we go somewhere a little more… congenial… if you want to talk about this now?’ Oslang asked with a pained glance about the disordered room.

‘I’m comfortable,’ Andawyr said with finality.

Oslang adopted a martyred expression and dragged his chair over to the bed. ‘You’d better go through it in detail, then,’ he said, flopping into the chair ungraciously.

Andawyr did not reply immediately. He was staring vaguely into the distance. ‘It was an odd dream from the start,’ he began eventually. ‘I felt Antyr there.’ He twisted round to look at the Dream Finder. ‘Fascinating. We really must go into how…’

Oslang cleared his throat noisily. Andawyr gave him a sidelong look and returned to his recollection.

‘An odd dream, as I said. I was looking at my reflection in a lake – and the mountains. Usche and Ar-Billan were there, though they didn’t say anything – or do anything. They just seemed to be… there… waiting. Then there were storm clouds, and I was walking through the corridors here, in the middle of a howling blizzard – snow everywhere. All the Beacons were signalling an assault but it didn’t matter – it was only a slight one – I knew that even though I didn’t know what it was. And Hawklan was there.’ He looked at Oslang. ‘With the Sword – Ethriss’s sword. For some reason I wasn’t surprised to see it again. I reached out to touch it, then…’ He threw his arms up explosively.

‘That’s what happened,’ Antyr confirmed. ‘It was a quite ordinary dream. I don’t know if the figure was Hawklan but Andawyr certainly thought it was. And, despite what happened, there was no element of nightmare in it; no underlying hint of real terror. The only thing unusual was that the control I suspect he normally has in his dreams wasn’t there. He was letting events take their own course.’

‘Or they were taking me,’ Andawyr said. ‘It is odd, that, I must admit. Normally, as you say, I’m fully in command of events, but not this time. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it certainly wasn’t usual. Perhaps it was just because you were there.’

‘Possibly, but you made no conscious decision about it.’

Andawyr pulled a wry face and fiddled with his nose.

‘And you weren’t being wholly truthful about the sword,’ Antyr went on. He was searching for words. ‘Something about it drew you. So many strange feelings. Feelings I’ve never known myself and couldn’t begin to explain. Tarrian?’