Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

‘I’ll get it,’ Andawyr volunteered.

The man closed his eyes, then slowly opened them as if to reassure himself that what he was seeing was actually there. ‘I’m all right,’ he said after a while, slowly pushing himself upright. ‘At least, I think I am.’

Andawyr returned with a glass of water which the man drank greedily before handing the glass back with a guilty, almost fearful look.

‘There’s plenty more,’ Andawyr reassured him with a laugh.

The man was running his hands over himself as if testing the reality of what he was seeing. ‘Has it all just been a dream?’ he said to no one in particular. ‘A nightmare?’ He looked at the window, then hesitantly swung off the bed and walked over to it. ‘The sun,’ he said softly as he gazed out. ‘It’s back.’ For a moment it seemed as though he were about to break down in tears. ‘I never thought I’d see it again. This is a dream, isn’t it?’

Hawklan and Nertha both frowned in response to his obvious pain but Andawyr’s expression was one of bewilderment at what he was saying. The man turned sharply. ‘Or am I dead? Did they catch me – kill me? They were close – very close. I felt them, right behind me. Is this some kind of afterlife?’ He put his hand to his head.

‘You’re not dreaming and you’re certainly not dead,’ Hawklan said. ‘I think you’ll find you’ve got as many cuts and bruises now as when you left wherever it was you left. And we’ve got as many questions to ask of you as you have of us. Nertha told you our names; what’s yours?’

The man hesitated before replying, still very uncertain.

‘I’m Gentren, Gentren Marson,’ he said eventually. ‘My father’s Andeeren Marsyn. He’s… he was … the Protector of the Land of…’ He faltered, then gave a short bitter laugh. ‘Of nowhere now, not now there’s nothing but desert, tortured land and tainted skies.’ He turned back to the window. ‘Where is this place?’

‘Anderras Darion. The land you see out there is Orthlund. And you came here by some means that we’d dearly like to know about. Can you tell us about it? And who they are, the people who were pursuing you?’

‘The Riders, who else? The three Riders.’ Gentren’s voice was a mixture of surprise and irritation, as if he were dealing with foolish children, though it softened almost immediately as he continued looking through the window. ‘I’ve never heard of Orthlund and I’d no idea there was anywhere like this still left. I thought we were the last.’ He turned back to Hawklan. ‘And I don’t know how I came here. None of this makes any sense.’

Andawyr gave a wry shrug. ‘That’s becoming a very familiar remark,’ he said, dropping into a chair and swinging his legs up on to the end of the bed. It was a deliberately casual movement that had the effect of easing much of the tension in the room. He motioned Gentren towards the bed. ‘Sit down and relax. I think it would be a good idea if you told us about yourself. So far, we’re as mystified by you as you are by us. Tell us about these Riders.’

Gentren looked at him suspiciously. ‘How can you not have heard of them?’ he said, his voice suddenly full of both anger and despair. ‘They’ve swept across the entire world, destroyed almost every living thing, transformed land and sea into vast, dead obscenities, blotted out the sun, fouled the air itself. Hardly any of us are left – people, animals, birds – all dead – or dying.’

The power in his voice seemed to darken the room and it was a few moments before Hawklan said, very gently, ‘There was a war here several years ago but nothing such as you describe. Nor has any remotely like it happened. Wherever you come from…’ He hesitated. ‘Doesn’t seem to be any part of this world.’

Gentren looked at each of them in turn, then seemed to wilt. He took Andawyr’s advice and sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Not part of this world,’ he echoed to himself. He ran his hand idly over the embroidered sheets. ‘Is it really possible?’

‘We believe so.’

‘Believe so,’ Gentren echoed softly to himself as he looked at Hawklan. He leaned forward. ‘Before the Riders came, some of my father’s advisers – his savants, his sages, his learned men – believed so. Or rather, conjectured so – that other worlds might exist at the same time and in the same place as our own.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘It was an interesting notion with apparently much to commend it in the way both of reasoned argument and observation, I believe, though it was all beyond me. And it wasn’t particularly important, was it? An academic matter – sufficient in itself. An elegant idea, apparently – exciting, even – a newer understanding.’ A haunted look came into his face and he became agitated. ‘Then some of them were suddenly concerned. They began telling a tale that might’ve come from times when blind superstition had to suffice for knowledge. A disaster was coming – the end of the world, no less. A deep flaw had somehow been made in the heart of things long ago – an imbalance. The least of things in itself, at the very limits of what could be measured. But it had grown for generations and was growing ever faster. Now the consequences of it were no longer small. A terrible alignment was about to happen – these many separate worlds would come together.’ He threw up his hands. ‘Or something like that. I couldn’t make anything of it – and it was all theoretical enough to be dismissed as a bookish storm in a wine glass, wasn’t it? Until it became real, that is.’ His searching hands patted his midriff urgently. ‘Where’s my sword?’

Hawklan reached out and took the belt and sword that were leaning against the wall. ‘Here,’ he said, putting them on the bed beside him. ‘Though I doubt you’ll be needing a sword here. Or this.’ He handed him the bloodstained knife.

Gentren took it and stared at it. His face was unreadable. ‘I attacked one of them with this,’ he said, his voice full of vicious self-mockery. ‘A dismal piece of iron. Against the power that they had. I suppose if I was insane enough to do that then I could still be mad, couldn’t I?’

‘You could be,’ Hawklan agreed. ‘But you neither look nor sound mad to me, and, in my experience, mad people rarely ask that question. Besides, it seems from what you’ve said so far that, figments of your imagination or not, we’re preferable to the company you’ve just left. Finish your story before you ponder your sanity. What did your father do about this advice he was receiving?’

Gentren gave a slight shrug. ‘What could he do? He was concerned. These men were capable and highly respected. But they offered him no advice about what he should do. Their researches told them nothing except that this… alignment… was coming, and coming soon and that it would bring great destruction – possibly the destruction of the entire world. Concerned or not, he was a practical man. How could he prepare for a disaster whose nature was completely unknown to him? There was nothing he could do but politely ignore them – hope that it was just an error in their theories… their measurements. It wasn’t an unreasonable hope, they weren’t unanimous in their thinking. And it was all so improbable, so fantastic – the end of the world – I ask you – it had to be nonsense, didn’t it? Despite the credentials of his advisers it wasn’t something a busy Protector could pay serious attention to, was it?’ He fell silent.

‘Then?’ Hawklan prompted.

Gentren began trembling. He wrapped his arms about himself in an unsuccessful attempt to stop it. ‘Then, suddenly, they were there. No one knew how or when they came, still less from where. They were just there. Three Riders. No great armies – no worlds crashing into us, tearing the sky open, splitting the earth apart. Just three people on horseback! But what they could do – what they did! – was beyond belief. They rode effortlessly about our world, destroying all they came near to with seemingly nothing more than a wave of the hand. Towns fell, cities fell – literally fell – flattened – razed. There were no sieges, no battles, no parleying, no demands, nothing. No one knew what they wanted. They just swept places and people aside with no more thought than a man might give to scalding out an ants’ nest. Some people tried to fight, some sent heralds to speak to them, most just fled – the country, the sea, everywhere was alive with panic-stricken people. But all to no avail. Those that they saw, they slaughtered out of hand with the same ease and indifference that they used on buildings and city walls.’