Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

‘Yes. So Dacu’s told me,’ Hawklan replied. He saw her eyes testing his doubt. ‘I’m a healer, like you,’ he said. ‘There are a great many things I don’t understand, but I’ve learned to accept what is, however odd or frightening. It’s a strange tale, I’ll admit, but I’ve heard stranger.’ He gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh that seemed to warm the tent. ‘In fact, I’ve been in stranger.’

His brow furrowed, then, on an impulse, he knelt down between the two bodies and placed his hands on their foreheads. ‘You are safe and watched over here,’ he said. ‘Do not be afraid. All is well. All will be well.’

Then he stood up. ‘There’s nothing we can do now that you haven’t already done. There’s a cart following behind us. We’ll get them to Anderras Darion as quickly as we can. There’re more facilities, more knowledge, more everything there. In the meantime, you should sleep.’

Nertha shook her head. ‘I belong here.’

‘You’ve done all you can, you know that,’ Hawklan said. ‘I’ll be here and I’ll wake you if anything happens.’ Nertha’s face became uncertain.

‘If you’re needed you’ll be needed rested and strong,’ Hawklan insisted.

Nertha looked at him earnestly, then came a little nearer to the point of capitulation. ‘You’re probably right,’ she admitted. ‘But I may as well stay with you. Needing sleep and being able to are two different matters.’

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Allow me.’

Without waiting for permission and with a movement that was as swift as it was easy, he passed his hand slowly over Nertha’s face, then caught her as she fell.

‘You always did have a way with women, didn’t you?’

It was Dar-volci, greeting Hawklan as he carried Nertha out of the tent, her head cradled on his shoulder.

‘Good to see you, rock eater,’ Hawklan acknowledged. ‘Though it seems I can’t let you wander off on your own for more than a few days without you turning the world upside down. Which is her tent?’

Settling Nertha and checking that everyone else in the camp was asleep, Hawklan placed a signal lantern to guide Isloman and Andawyr, then sat down by the fire. He threw a handful of small branches onto it and watched the sparks scurrying up into the night sky. Dar-volci curled up opposite him.

‘What do you make of this?’ Hawklan asked the felci.

‘Nothing good. Sumeral’s taking shape again, somewhere, and He’s struggling to return.’

Hawklan felt as though he had been suddenly plunged into icy water. For an instant he could hear nothing but his own heartbeat, and his vision was filled with Dar-volci’s triangular head. The felci’s mouth was moving. ‘Arash-Felloren stinks of His presence.’ A matter-of-fact tone helped draw Hawklan out of his shock and back from the memories of the war that were suddenly threatening to overwhelm him. ‘It must have been one of His citadels once – ancient, corrupted roots. And those damned Kyrosdyn nearly brought Him back, using Pinnatte.’ He chattered his teeth angrily, then scratched himself. He was silent for a moment. ‘You know, I’m not so sure that mightn’t have been a bad thing, now I look back on it.’ The expression in Hawklan’s eyes turned from shock to incredulity, but he said nothing. ‘Whatever the Kyrosdyn had turned Pinnatte into, it was unstable. Very unstable. It couldn’t have lasted. How it ever came to be defeats me.’ Dar-volci’s tone became briefly ironic. ‘Andawyr would probably be able to show you a calculation proving it these days, but all you needed to feel it was to be there. Ask Atelon. I think if He’d taken Pinnatte’s body it might have doomed Him utterly. Still, ever impetuous, we went and leapt to the rescue, didn’t we? And Pinnatte’s a nice enough lad in his way.’

Hawklan was hoping he would be able to accuse the felci of playing some dark, mocking fantasy for him, but it was patently not so. Even Dar-volci’s sense of humour was not so dark. Hawklan dropped his head into his hands and shook it slowly. It was some time before he could speak.

‘You talk about it very casually. I can hardly bear even to think it.’ He looked up into the night sky, after the fleeing sparks. His face was pained. ‘It can’t be true, surely, Dar? You’ve made a mistake. How can He return?’ He knew the questions were futile. Dar-volci would not have spoken as he had without being certain. Nevertheless Hawklan had to ask them. They were part of his way towards acceptance. ‘At least, so soon after He was… destroyed. There were countless generations between the First and the Second Comings.’

Dar-volci allowed no relief. ‘We don’t know how long He’d been in Narsindal before we learned about Him, do we? It was Oklar’s folly that exposed Him, not our vigilance. Nor do we know what brought Him back or in what form He came. But Derras Ustramel wasn’t built and the Uhriel weren’t resurrected and sent out to infest the world in any short span.’ The felci’s summary was coldly accurate. It was not new. The manner and moment of Sumeral’s return had been the subject of much debate amongst the Fyordyn and their allies after the war. It could not be otherwise for, however and whenever it had happened, it was a devastating measure of their failure to meet their ancient responsibilities.

Hawklan stared silently into the fire.

‘It can’t be, it can’t be,’ he said, more a plea than a statement. ‘All those people killed. Every kind of suffering. Suffering that’s still with us – endless consequences. I doubt there’s anyone who was involved who doesn’t have some memory of the war return to them every day. We couldn’t fight Him again, not like that. It was supposed to be over. He was destroyed before He gained His full strength. He destroyed Himself. Scattered Himself who knows where?’

‘Precisely,’ Dar-volci said. ‘Who knows where? From the very beginning no one ever knew what He was, where He came from, or why He was the way He was. All that even Ethriss knew was that, like himself, He had come from the beginning – the Great Searing. That, and the fact that He would return, though he never said how he knew that. I suspect he just guessed. But return He did. And He’s coming yet again if we don’t find a way to stop Him.’

Hawklan’s thoughts flailed. ‘Perhaps you and Atelon defeating Him in Arash-Felloren may have destroyed Him.’

Dar-volci shook his head. ‘We thwarted Him, that’s all. I sensed no destruction. And the destruction of such a thing I’d have felt, I know. Now, in addition to what happened to us, we have Vredech’s experience. Dacu’s told you, I presume?’

Hawklan nodded. ‘His friend – Cassraw, was it? – was possessed by something and tried to possess others through some kind of demented religion…’

Dar-volci interrupted him, his manner emphatic. ‘Always His favourite way, religion, you know that. The easy way. Ignorance masquerading as certainty. Endless opportunities for all manner of horrors when that kind of claptrap’s poured into the minds of the weak and the gullible.’ He uttered a low whistle. ‘You’re easily led, you creatures. Then there’s what happened to Thyrn. These things aren’t coincidences.’

‘You think Thyrn has been touched by Him also?’ Hawklan said warily. ‘That it was Sumeral who took possession of this man who employed him?’ He searched for the name.

Dar-volci found it for him. ‘Vashnar. Some kind of high-ranking government official.’ He stretched, then curled up again. The tension in his voice was replaced by thoughtfulness. ‘I don’t know about Thyrn. What happened to him feels similar but very different at the same time. Whatever it was that possessed this Vashnar character used the Power, if Thyrn’s description is to be trusted – and it is, as you’ll learn when you get to know him. But there’s something in the way he talks about it. It’s because he’s a Caddoran, I suppose. He reproduces what he’s heard with great subtlety. It’s remarkable. You must have him tell his own tale to you personally, you’ll understand what I mean then. When I listen to him talk about Vashnar and the power… the entity… whatever it was that was driving him, I get the feeling of something… truly ancient… something that perhaps comes from a time before the Great Searing. It’s very odd. Very disturbing. I can’t put my claw on what it is but I can’t shake it off.’