Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

From deeper even than his fears came a defiance, savage and cruel.

‘No!’

Andawyr started violently and Oslang echoed Antyr’s cry as the Dream Finder’s eyes opened abruptly and his clawed hands reached out as if to seize something. At the same time the two wolves sprang up and, tails wagging, began licking his face. There was an interlude of spluttering confusion as he both fended off and embraced them.

‘Is it safe for us to move?’ Andawyr asked, already half out of his chair, adding, before Antyr could reply, ‘What happened?’

Oslang too did not wait for an answer, but moved to the Beacon and began examining it closely.

‘It was to find an answer to that question that I came here,’ Antyr said as he finally managed to quieten the two excited animals. ‘I was in another place.’ He levered himself shakily back into his chair.

There was an awkward silence.

‘You were here, lying on the floor, with your Companions guarding you,’ Andawyr said carefully.

Antyr leaned forward, his head lowered and his hand extended in an appeal for a brief respite.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said, sitting up after a moment. ‘At one point you bent forward to look at me and Oslang restrained you, didn’t he? It was sound advice.’

In spite of himself, Andawyr’s eyes became suspicious and uncertain.

‘I don’t resent your doubts,’ Antyr said quietly. ‘But I can do no other than tell you the truth as I know it. I was both here and somewhere else. Somewhere dark – very dark. And silent – at first. Then…’ He told Andawyr what had happened.

The Cadwanwr listened intently but asked no question. His face was unreadable.

‘It was as real as this place,’ Antyr concluded. ‘Though where it was, why I was there, or how I came to be there, as ever, I don’t know.’

To dispel the images that had returned with this telling he turned to Oslang who was still earnestly studying the Beacon. ‘Does that tell you anything?’

Oslang made a peculiar noise. ‘Only that Andawyr’s comment about something being at right angles to all known directions seems to be singularly appropriate.’ Petulantly he touched one of the symbols and the entire array vanished, leaving only the original panel. ‘Later,’ he said, turning away from it with a scowl and shaking his head. ‘I’ll think about it later when my wits are either less scattered, or scattered far enough for me to be able to make sense of it.’

‘Was there any intrusion?’ Andawyr asked him unsympathetically.

‘No. That I’m sure about,’ Oslang replied confidently. ‘But what else there was…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you can see for yourself whenever you feel like it.’

The three men looked at one another silently.

‘He was gone.’ Tarrian’s voice sounded in Andawyr’s mind. ‘As has happened before. Through one of the Gateways. Grayle and I can do no more than hunt and call out for him. The ways become… very strange. They are…’ Images, full of visceral need and frantic, driving urgency washed through Andawyr, filling not merely his mind, but his entire body. Though they were so fleeting that they were gone almost before he felt them, their power, at once primitive and immeasurably subtle, made him gasp.

‘You’ve no words for that, human, any more than I have for that part of you which lies beyond the narrow span of this strange sharing we have. But that’s all I can give you.’

‘Are you all right?’ Oslang was asking, his concern now transferred to his momentarily transfixed and gaping friend. Andawyr nodded and indicated Tarrian as he recovered his breath.

‘Any chance of me joining in these conversations?’ Oslang asked acidly.

‘No,’ Tarrian said starkly to Andawyr.

‘It seems not,’ Andawyr told his friend. ‘But don’t ask me about it, I can’t do anything. It’s very peculiar.’

‘Well, what did he say, then?’

Andawyr told him but it added nothing to their thoughts about what had happened to Antyr.

‘Where in the name of sanity can we start on all this?’ Oslang asked after a long pause.

‘We’ll need to think about what Antyr’s just told us, then…’ Andawyr nodded towards the Beacon. ‘Tomorrow we can analyse whatever’s been registered in that and the one in my bedroom and all the others that were joined to them at the time. We’ll work on it with Usche and Ar-Billan, they’ll…’

‘Ar-Billan? You’re not serious. He’s…’

‘He’s a very talented young man,’ Andawyr said in a tone that was more an instruction than a comment. ‘All he needs is more confidence and he’ll get that if he’s given the right guidance and responsibility.’ Oslang looked set to pursue his objection but Andawyr became insincerely avuncular. ‘And I’ve every confidence in you that he’ll gain it under your experienced tutelage.’

Oslang’s eyes narrowed and his chin came out, but Andawyr’s raised eyebrow reminded him of the presence of Antyr, a guest who should not have family disputes inflicted on him, and he abandoned his protest, albeit with some reluctance.

‘Whatever you say,’ he said tersely, leaving a loud but unspoken ‘but…’ hanging in the air.

Andawyr left it there but then it was he who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He held out both hands in a gesture that encompassed both Antyr and the wolves. ‘I believe absolutely that you believe what you’re saying, and I can see for myself you’ve been badly frightened. Without a doubt, something very disconcerting, perhaps dangerous, is happening. I’m not sure how to put this but will you accept it as a measure of the way we are here that I have to be sceptical – open-minded – about your interpretation of what’s actually happening?’ He hurried on, skidding over his awkwardness. ‘It could be exactly as you say, of course. Some of us have considered certain aspects of such a phenomenon theoretically possible for a long time, though we’ve no idea how it could come about.’ Faintly he thought he caught a disparaging, ‘Man’s a fool!’ from the normally silent Grayle, though it vanished immediately under the sound of Antyr coughing. ‘But none of that’s important at the moment,’ he went on quickly. ‘What is important is your personal well-being, and that concerns me greatly. Is this kind of thing liable to happen to you any time, any place? Because if so, perhaps it might be better… if you stayed…’

Tarrian’s lip wrinkled menacingly, as did Grayle’s. ‘He needs no guards,’ came two voices, fierce and categorical. The statement was hung about with feelings of near-uncontrollable anger at the prospect of restraint.

Involuntarily, Andawyr edged back in his chair. Antyr reached down to stroke the two wolves and they became quiet, but he too was frowning. ‘It would seem it can happen at any time,’ he said. ‘Though it hasn’t since I entered the Great Dream and the three of us have worked normally with several clients since then. Once or twice I’ve had the feeling that something strange was nearby – perhaps a Gateway – and that if I exerted myself in some way I’d be able to pass through it. I’ve even had the feeling that I could create one, but I’ve had neither the desire nor the insight into how to do such a thing. In any case, at the moment, whatever happens to me there’s no one here who can help me – no one. I’ll leave if I’m likely to be a burden, but I’d rather stay and work with you towards explaining all this. For myself, I’ve no desire to be constrained other than by the limits of your hospitality, but Tarrian and Grayle will not be constrained by anyone. That’s the way they are. I think it will be sufficient if everyone here knows that should I be found… unconscious… with my Companions by me, then I am simply not to be approached.’