Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

This time it was Andawyr who was startled. He fidgeted with the papers for a moment and threw a quick glance at the Beacon before replying. ‘You’re right. I was going to say that I was distracted, but I think that might be a lie – a conversational sop. The truth is, I’m not sure why I didn’t answer your question.’ He frowned. ‘There’s nothing about the way the Beacons work that needs to be hidden from common knowledge.’

‘Perhaps the other place to look for an unlikely event is under our noses,’ Oslang said.

Andawyr nodded. ‘Indeed, we should know that by now, shouldn’t we?’

He went over to the Beacon, motioning the others to follow him. Humming quietly to himself he touched the panel. Antyr let out an incongruous, ‘Oh!’ as the panel and a section of the wall around it became alive with symbols and numbers. Tarrian and Grayle wandered over to see what was happening.

For several minutes Andawyr and Oslang studied the panel intently. Occasionally one of them would touch one of the symbols, bringing about a cascade of change amongst the others. Finally Antyr could not restrain himself. ‘What does all that mean?’ he asked.

Andawyr puffed out his cheeks. ‘I’m not avoiding your question this time, Antyr, truly, but I can’t begin to explain this to you. You just don’t know enough.’

‘I think I’m in the same position,’ Oslang said, resting a finger on a long string of figures and shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘These seem to confirm our original conclusion.’

‘That what happened was impossible?’

Oslang muttered something under his breath that made Andawyr raise his eyebrows and click his tongue censoriously.

‘Oslang’s a student of some very interesting old languages,’ he said to Antyr by way of explanation. Oslang coloured and cleared his throat.

‘We’re just going to have to study these at leisure and in great detail,’ he said, ignoring Andawyr’s amusement. ‘There are anomalies – paradoxes – in these figures that simply shouldn’t be there. It’s almost as if…’

Andawyr caught his arm and turned quickly to Antyr. ‘Your question,’ he said. ‘What do the Beacons detect? Oslang touched on it before. They detect uses of the Power that are either from other than one of us, or directed to some divergent – destructive – end. They do nothing that we can’t do as individuals, but they do it better, continuously, thoroughly – without flagging and with great sensitivity and accuracy. Under our noses, Oslang. Under our noses. That’s where it is, I can smell it.’ He jabbed a finger towards the panel. ‘For an instant there must have been a source of the Power here. A considerable source.’

‘But you and I would have felt something that was strong enough to cause such a Warning.’

‘Not if that instant was very short.’

‘ Very short,’ Oslang confirmed.

‘Perhaps even between the moments,’ Andawyr said, looking at him significantly.

Oslang straightened up and returned his gaze with a challenging one of his own. He made two attempts at starting before he finally managed to speak. ‘That is highly conjectural, to say the least. But even if I allow it – which I don’t – it still leaves us with the problem of where such a manifestation could come from.’

‘It’s not that conjectural,’ Andawyr rebutted. ‘It’s just that you’re reluctant to accept the implications.’

‘Who wouldn’t be?’

‘Maybe, but that’s irrelevant, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be the first time everything we think we know has been upended.’

‘Just make your point.’

‘My point is that the only explanation or at least the best so far – is that Antyr, with his strange ability, which he admits he cannot control, reached out and brought into this world, for that moment between the moments, Hawklan’s sword.’

Oslang shook his head, not in denial, but as if to clear it. ‘Too fast, too fast. Too many unfounded leaps.’ He grimaced guiltily and gave Antyr an apologetic glance. ‘We don’t know what Antyr’s ability is. What he’s experienced isn’t necessarily what he thinks he’s experienced. We need to talk with him at length. We…’

‘We need to take it at face value for the moment,’ Andawyr interrupted. ‘We already have some interesting hard facts from Yatsu and Jaldaric, and even from this evening’s limited exercise I can tell you that Antyr has an ability that’s…’ He gesticulated wildly. ‘At right angles to every direction we know.’ He became excited. ‘Antyr, is it possible…’

He stopped.

Antyr, eyes closed, was swaying unsteadily.

Tarrian and Grayle moved menacingly to his side.

Andawyr stepped forward instinctively towards the swaying figure of Antyr but Oslang, remembering the urgency of Yatsu’s hand as it prevented him from leaving his seat when Andawyr and Antyr had burst so suddenly from their dream, seized his arm quickly. He remembered, too, the sight of the wolves, their eyes bright, yellow and baleful.

‘No, don’t go near him.’

Briefly Andawyr resisted Oslang’s restraint but, even as he made to pull his arm free, Tarrian’s hackles began to rise and his upper lip curled back to reveal glinting and powerful teeth. The sight was accompanied by a rumbling growl.

Oslang’s grip tightened, as much now to seek protection as to give it.

Andawyr stopped his struggle and froze as Grayle joined his brother by Antyr’s side.

‘What’s the matter?’ Andawyr said to all three of them, vainly trying to keep his voice casual. Antyr, still swaying, did not reply, but violent and disturbing images flooded into Andawyr’s mind that patently came from Tarrian. Among them was a faint and rapidly fading hint of regret, then Andawyr sensed the wolf withdrawing into his wilder self.

‘I understand,’ he said, slowly moving backwards in response to Oslang’s urging. ‘This is what you are. You have no choice. We will guard him also.’

There was no reply other than the continued growling.

Andawyr, his eyes fixed on the wolves, groped behind him for a chair. He motioned Oslang to sit down also.

‘We’ll seem to be less of a threat if we look smaller,’ he said.

Despite the fact that it was he who had pulled Andawyr back, Oslang hissed, ‘We can’t just sit here. Antyr’s ill.’

‘I don’t think we can do anything else under the circumstances,’ Andawyr replied.

Oslang grimaced. ‘Perhaps we could restrain them,’ he suggested, making a discreet gesture with his hand.

‘No, no.’ Andawyr seized it. ‘Not yet, at least. Not unless we’re actually threatened with harm or if he’s obviously in danger.’ He spoke his thoughts as they came to him, a hurried descant to the broken growling of the two wolves. ‘We don’t know enough about any of them except that they mix uneasily with the Power. There’s no saying what might happen if we use it directly against any of them.’

Oslang’s eyes flicked towards the Beacon, then back to the two wolves.

‘Don’t stare directly at them,’ Andawyr said urgently.

‘I know. But their eyes aren’t the same as when… oh.’

Even as he spoke, the eyes of the wolves became suddenly and unnaturally bright again. Andawyr drew in a sharp breath at the sight. The growling slowly faded and Antyr, his eyes still closed, sank to his knees and slowly lay down. It was the measured movement of a man still sufficiently in control to protect himself from a fall before he lost consciousness. The wolves lay down beside him. Their appearance now was even more frightening than it had been before and, though they had stopped growling, the ensuing silence increased rather than eased the tension in the room. It did not lessen even when they both closed their eyes.