Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

‘No, it’s not,’ Gulda replied, tapping her stick on the mosaic floor as she strode around the balcony. Both men declined to press her. Experience had taught them that Gulda did what she wanted, when she wanted, and that even to try to force events was to risk a memorable rebuke. They were torn, however, for, very unusually, she seemed to be openly disturbed.

She stopped abruptly, then moved off again. As they came back into the sunlight she sat down on a long bench and motioned them to sit by her. She was about to speak when something caught her eye. It was Gavor, high above them, black and purposeful against the blue sky. Wings wide and still, save for pinions lightly testing the unseen pathways of the air, he began gliding down in a slow, graceful spiral. As was often the way, though, he landed less elegantly, with a great deal of flapping and a muttered oath as he bounced to a halt.

‘You sedentary souls really should make the effort and learn to fly,’ he said as he recovered. ‘It’s not at all difficult and it’s such a joy up there.’ He looked beadily at each in turn. ‘Ah, I see that a sparkling demeanour is inappropriate. Do tell.’

‘Just listen, bird,’ Gulda said. ‘And all of you, say nothing of this to anyone else.’ A curt movement of her hand silenced the pending protests. ‘Nothing,’ she insisted. ‘For the simple reason that I don’t know the significance of what I’ve just heard yet, and nothing’s to be gained by adding needless alarm to what’s already happening.’

‘Dar-volci’s already told me that Sumeral is whole again and struggling to return,’ Hawklan said bluntly. ‘And he was quite unequivocal about it. What could be more alarming than that?’

Gulda did not reply. ‘Just listen,’ she said.

A ringing burst of childish laughter rose up from the park below.

‘The sound that we heard when Vredech and Pinnatte awoke. What did you make of it?’ she asked.

‘It was peculiar, to put it mildly,’ Hawklan replied after a moment’s pause to assimilate the unexpected question. ‘In fact, it was extremely unpleasant. I wouldn’t have thought a human throat could make such a noise, but then, their whole condition was peculiar – to all intents and purposes, just sleeping, yet apparently unwakeable.’

‘It’s not unknown for people to wake up screaming from nightmares, you know,’ Andawyr contributed dismissively. ‘And from what I can gather, they’ve both been through a great deal in the not too distant past.’

‘They didn’t dream,’ Hawklan said, casually but categorically. Then he frowned as if taken unawares by his own remark.

Andawyr too looked puzzled. ‘Didn’t dream?’ he echoed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean they didn’t dream,’ Hawklan replied as though he were testing the answer.

Andawyr pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘You must be mistaken. Everyone dreams. It’s deep in the roots of the way our minds work. Stop someone dreaming for long enough and they’ll go mad.’

‘I know that,’ Hawklan said irritably, his frown deepening. ‘And I’m not mistaken. I’ve sat through enough night vigils to recognize different kinds of sleep. In fact, now I think back on it, the behaviour of both of them was unusual. I don’t know why it didn’t strike me sooner. They didn’t toss and turn like ordinary sleepers and they definitely didn’t dream.’ Andawyr looked set to protest again but Hawklan did not allow him. ‘No spells of deep relaxation or flickering eye movement. Not one.’

Andawyr was unpersuaded. ‘It isn’t possible,’ he said testily. ‘You probably missed them, that’s all. You were tired yourself. You probably dozed off from time to time without realizing it. It happens.’

‘I know. I heard you snoring.’

An impatient tap from Gulda’s stick ended the burgeoning argument and drew them both back to her question. ‘The noise,’ she demanded stonily.

‘I don’t understand what you want, Memsa,’ Hawklan said, still a little querulous at Andawyr’s off-hand rejection of his idea. ‘They woke up screaming, presumably after some frightening experience – dream or otherwise. But we won’t know anything about it until we can talk to them properly – that’s to say when Nertha lets them go.’

Gulda gave a menacing snort. ‘Think back to when they awoke. Both of you!’

Her tone forbade any dispute or return to their disagreement but Hawklan still protested. ‘I really don’t know what…’

‘Think!’

Gavor chuckled and, stepping to the edge of the parapet, peered precariously down at the playing children. Hawklan yielded and did as he was told, taking his mind back to the sudden awakening of Vredech and Pinnatte.

There had not been a vestige of a warning. At one moment the two men were lying motionless and asleep, the only sound in the softly lit room being the breathing of its occupants and the faint background buzz of the activity that pervaded the castle. Then, as though an ambush had been sprung, the room was full of the overpowering sound of the sleepers’ screaming as, suddenly, they were awake.

Even now, sitting in the sunlight with the friendly guardian towers of Anderras Darion about him, Hawklan shuddered as he recalled the scene. Despite Gulda’s stern injunction to reflect on what had happened, he found he was strangely reluctant to return to the event. And why was Gulda so interested in the noise the two waking men had made?

Because it wasn’t they who had made it!

The realization struck him almost like a blow.

The sound had had no focus, no single point of origin. Nor had it grown to a climax. It had suffused the entire room the instant that Vredech and Pinnatte woke. And it had died strangely; not collapsing back on to its creators in all too human sobs or choking gasps, but fading into the distance like dying echoes across a rocky valley. He had a fleeting image of Gulda’s eyes searching the room.

He voiced his discovery.

Andawyr shuffled uncomfortably. Part of him wanted to decry the idea but he had been coming to the same conclusion himself.

A breeze wafted over the balcony. Gavor’s shining wings fluttered as he steadied himself. Gulda turned her head into it and drew in a deep breath, her nose cutting the air like the sail of a tiny, tacking yacht.

‘Which prompts the question, who – or what – did make the noise?’ Hawklan said.

‘And where did it come from?’ Andawyr added.

‘Which brings us back to the need to talk to them,’ Hawklan concluded.

Gulda laid an unexpectedly gentle hand on his arm. ‘In time,’ she said softly. ‘But there’s something else you need to know about what you heard.’ She paused. The sound of the children drifted up to them again, silvery in the sunlit air. Gulda waited until it passed before she continued, as if she were afraid of marring it.

‘It was more than just a noise,’ she said. ‘It was a language.’

The words emerged as though against her will. Even more disturbed by her manner than intrigued by what she had said, both men looked at her keenly, but neither spoke. She answered their unasked questions.

‘It is His language. And the sounds that filled that room were voices – three distinct voices. The voices of His Uhriel.’

Involuntarily, Andawyr circled his hand over his heart in the ancient Sign of the Iron Ring. It was a gesture that represented the Fyordyn High Guards who had surrounded and protected Ethriss at the Last Battle of the First Coming, and making it, in these more enlightened times, was generally regarded as being rather foolish. Embarrassed at this betrayal by his hand, Andawyr coughed uncomfortably and transformed the movement into an unconvincing straightening of his robe.