Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

‘This was where I came!’ Antyr repeated breathlessly as they emerged. ‘When I slipped away – passed through a Gateway – back at the Cadwanen.’ He jabbed a finger towards the columns. ‘There wasn’t even a vestige of light, but it was here!’

Andawyr was looking both smug and excited.

‘It came to me from nowhere, in the night.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I remember thinking at the time you described it that there was something vaguely familiar about it but I didn’t pursue it. And now…’ He clapped his hands. ‘We must find Gulda.’

‘What does it mean?’ Antyr asked as they left the hall and began the ascent out of the depths of the castle.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Andawyr replied. ‘But it’s important.’ He patted the pocket containing Usche’s papers. ‘It’s another facet of events showing itself. Something else to help us penetrate the mystery of your strange abilities, something to help us get to grips with what’s happening.’

‘It’s good, then?’ Antyr said.

‘It’s progress,’ Andawyr replied. ‘Whether where it leads us is good or bad remains to be seen.’

It took them some time to find Gulda but they were eventually directed towards a room opening on to one of the smaller parks. As they neared the door, the sound of a keyboard instrument reached them. One of the aspects of Anderras Darion that particularly appealed to Antyr was the music that was frequently to be heard there. It was rarely possible to walk far without encountering the sound of voices or instruments or both drifting through its hallways.

Andawyr was about to knock on the door when Antyr stopped him. Putting a finger to his lips for silence the Dream Finder gently opened the door and motioned his companion inside, still urging silence. Gulda was at the far end of the room and, for a moment, his eyes dazzled by sunlight streaming in through the high windows, Antyr thought he was looking at a tall, handsome figure seated at the instrument. As he blinked, the impression passed, and he dismissed it as he moved quietly to a nearby chair.

Gulda sat motionless as she played and the music she was making demonstrated both a power and a delicacy that held Antyr spellbound. The piece finished with a bubbling scurry up the keyboard, a momentary silence, then a soft chord. Gulda looked down at the keyboard for a few seconds, then nodded to herself and turned to examine her uninvited audience. Antyr extended his hands and clapped them, almost inaudibly.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Andawyr shuffled uncomfortably.

Gulda bowed, then looked straight into his eyes. ‘Thank you, Dream Finder,’ she replied, standing up and walking towards him. Her stick flicked towards Andawyr. ‘Unfortunately, Andawyr, despite his many undoubted talents, has little ear for music. Can’t tell a violin from a kicked cat. A strange deafness, really, music transcending so much, as it does.’

Andawyr contemplated a rebuttal of this charge but abandoned it.

‘Antyr came to the Labyrinth when he passed through a Gateway at the Cadwanen,’ he blurted out without any preamble.

Gulda’s gaze turned back to Antyr who nodded his confirmation.

Shortly afterwards Antyr found himself standing in the hall before the Labyrinth again. With him were Andawyr and Gulda, together with Hawklan and a rather irritable Loman, these two having been swept up along the way by a silent but commanding Memsa.

‘I’ve enough to do running the castle without messing about down here,’ Loman protested, not for the first time, as Gulda halted them all before the Labyrinth.

Gulda apparently ignored him and spoke to Antyr. ‘The Labyrinth is deeply strange,’ she said. ‘Strange even by the standards of the Cadwanen, Anderras Darion, the Pass of Elewart, the Thlosgaral. It’s a darkness at the heart of this castle every bit the equal of the light that it brings to the world. No one knows who built it, or when, or why. No one knows if the princes of Orthlund built Anderras Darion above it, or whether Ethriss brought it here in some way. The Alphraan understand better than many but even they admit to knowing little – when they can be persuaded to talk about it at all – which is rarely.’ She turned to Loman. ‘It scars people. Touches deep within them and leaves scarcely felt but lingering wounds. That’s why Loman doesn’t want to be here. He supervised the bringing of weapons out of the Armoury during the war. Guiding party after party through that winding pathway. Its whisperings seep into his dreams from time to time even yet.’

Loman returned her gaze, his burly frame oddly helpless. She gripped his arm supportively. ‘I know what this place means for you, Loman, and I wouldn’t ask you to come here for nothing, you know that. There are forces moving that are far beyond our understanding, endless connections being made, joinings, patterns. I have to follow my nose.’ She gave her nose a merciless tap with a long forefinger. ‘It may be precious little, but you and Hawklan understand this place better than anyone alive. I wanted you both to be here – in its presence – while Antyr tells us again about what happened to him at the Cadwanen, when he passed through a Gateway.’ She paused. ‘Because when he did so, he found himself here – in the Labyrinth.’

‘What!’ Loman exclaimed. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘Seemingly, it is,’ Gulda retorted.

‘I was here,’ Antyr interjected. ‘How I came here, I don’t know. But having entered it just now, felt it, heard it, I’ve no doubts about it, even though it was pitch dark when I came here before.’ He held out a small concession. ‘If I wasn’t here, then there’s another place identical to it somewhere.’

Loman grimaced and turned from side to side as though looking for a way to escape, but Antyr’s unassuming certainty held him there. ‘I’m not impugning anyone’s sincerity,’ he said eventually. ‘But this business of being in two places at once is giving me trouble. It makes no sense. I’m a simple smith. I bend and shape iron. The things I know are solid and here. They can’t be here and there. They…’

He threw up his arms in frustration.

Gulda tapped her stick on the floor. ‘You’re as simple a smith as Hawklan’s a simple healer,’ she said. ‘But your point’s taken. Little of this makes sense. The only thing that stops any of us dismissing all these tales out of hand is the presence of too many reliable witnesses – too much hard information. Sumeral is working to return, beyond any doubt, and, whether they make sense or not, these things both are, and are part of, His struggle. We can’t afford the luxury of not accepting them just because they offend our common sense.’

Loman turned to Andawyr and Hawklan but found no relief there.

‘In the very smallest and the very largest of things, what we call common sense vanishes, Loman,’ Andawyr said, almost apologetically. ‘Impossible things become possible.’ He fumbled unconsciously with the papers in his pocket and repeated softly, as though to himself, ‘Impossible things become possible.’

‘The Memsa leaves us no choice, Loman,’ Hawklan said. ‘She’s right. You and I probably know more than anyone else about the Labyrinth. I know this place disturbs you. I can’t say I enjoy it myself. But it holds no threat for us except what we choose to make of it. We can listen to what’s being said, can’t we?’

Loman growled and clutched at a final straw. ‘Anyway, there’s nowhere I know in the Labyrinth that’s completely dark. This hall is always lit, as is the Armoury. It’s dim in there, but there’s enough light to see where you’re going.’

‘On the path,’ Gulda said.

‘Yes, obviously, on the path.’

‘And off it?’