Roger Taylor: Into Narsindal

Slowly but perceptibly the noises from outside changed in character, becoming more intense and purposeful, like a distant wind gathering energy.

Then, abruptly, Hawklan was there.

The large doors of the room flew open and a clatter of laughter and noise cascaded over the four Fyordyn, swirling the warmth around them, and lifting them out of their reveries. They all stood up expectantly.

For a moment Hawklan stood motionless, framed in the doorway and gazing around the room. It seemed to Arinndier that the dancing music that had flooded through the land earlier that day was still washing around the feet of this strange, powerful man. Then the lean face split into a broad smile and Hawklan strode forward to greet his guests affectionately. Behind him came Loman and Isloman, followed in turn by Tirke and Dacu and several others, including Athyr and Yrain. Following them all, like a dour and watchful shepherd-ess herding her sheep, came Gulda.

There was a great flurry of introductions and greet-ings including an alarming bear-hug of forgiveness and welcome for Jaldaric from Loman. Then the questions that both parties had been quietly fretting over for the past hours began to burst out, and very soon there was uproar, with everyone talking at once.

Arinndier looked plaintively at Hawklan, who smiled and brought his hands together in a resounding clap. ‘Friends,’ he said loudly into the surprised silence. ‘We all have too much to tell for us to learn anything like this.’ He affected a great sternness. ‘We must therefore comport ourselves in the Fyordyn manner, so I shall put our meeting in the hands of the Lord Arinndier. No one may now speak without his permis-sion.’

There was a little spatter of ironic applause, but the clamour did not return and as the company settled itself about the room, some on chairs and settles, some on the floor by the flickering fire, Arinndier rather self-consciously began relating the events that had occurred in Fyorlund since Rgoric had suspended the Geadrol.

As if listening themselves, the torches dimmed a little, and the yellow glow of the radiant stones became tinged with red and orange.

Despite Arinndier’s succinctness, it proved to be a long telling, and the bringing of food and drink for the latest arrivals proved a timely interruption.

At the end there was a murmur of general satisfac-tion at the news of the defeat and flight of Dan-Tor, but it was Tirke who yielded to temptation.

‘He’s really gone?’ he exclaimed, unable to restrain himself. ‘We’re free of him? That’s… ’ He clenched his fists and looked upwards for inspiration. ‘Incredible… marvellous,’ he produced, rather inadequately. ‘I’m only sorry I missed the battle.’

Arinndier gave him a stern look for this breach of etiquette. ‘Don’t be, Fyordyn,’ he said grimly, pulling his rebuke into the last word. ‘There was no joy in it, and there’ll be others that you won’t miss, I fear. That’s why we’re here. We’re not truly free of him. He’s alive and unhurt and ensconced in Narsindalvak with a large part of his Mathidrin intact. I doubt he intends to stay there long, and I doubt it’s in our interests to leave him there unhindered too long, though what we should do remains to be decided.’

Hawklan lifted his hand to speak. Arinndier ac-knowledged him.

‘We must talk further about these blazing wagons that Dan-Tor used,’ Hawklan said thoughtfully. ‘And the materials that were in the warehouse that Yatsu fired.’

‘Indeed we must,’ Arinndier said. ‘They were terrify-ing. With a little more thought, he could have destroyed us.’ He frowned as he tried to set the thought aside. ‘Still, there are many things we need to discuss in due time, but tell us of your journey now, Hawklan, and your illness and your apparently miraculous recovery.’

Hawklan shrugged apologetically. ‘What happened to me after I struck Oklar and until I was awakened, I haven’t the words to tell. I’m sorry,’ he said, holding out his hands towards Dacu.

It was thus the Goraidin who told the tale of their journey from Eldric’s stronghold and of their strange encounter with the Alphraan and the mysterious awakening of Hawklan. His spare, unadorned, Fyordyn telling forbade interruption, but a deep, almost fearful, silence fell over his audience as he described Hawklan’s brief but terrible battle with the monstrous remnant of Sumeral’s First Coming.

Then he was concluding his tale. Telling how, after leaving the Alphraan’s strange caverns, they had found the gully that had led them safely across the shoulder of the mountain, and how their journey thereafter, though slow, had become gradually easier as they moved south and away from the premature snowfalls.

‘We have the route well mapped now,’ he said casu-ally to Arinndier. ‘But it’ll need a lot of work-roads, bridges and so on-to make it suitable for use by a force of any size.’

He finished his telling with the mysterious and sud-den disappearance of the Alphraan in the last part of the journey-if, as he wondered, disappearance were the correct word for the sudden absence of beings they had never actually seen.

‘They used to join in our conversations, just as if they were with us,’ he said. ‘Then’-he snapped his fingers-‘they were gone. Silent. It was very strange. We’d grown used to this disembodied voice talking to us, but there was nothing until we walked into your… army and that… whatever it was… that great clamour.’

‘It was an ousting of the old, the inflexible, by the new.’ Unbidden, Gulda interrupted the proceedings, though she threw an apologetic glance at Arinndier. ‘Or perhaps, more correctly, it was the ousting of the old by the very ancient.’ She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re a people… a race… almost beyond our understanding. We’ll probably never know what happened. In fact I doubt they’d even be able to explain it to us. Suffice it that in some way they’re now whole again and our friends, or at least our allies. Something that hasn’t happened since the beginning of the First Coming.’

‘Hence the singing, the… celebrations… we heard, several hours ride away?’ Arinndier said.

Gulda nodded and Arinndier motioned her to con-tinue. ‘Geadrol protocol demands that the first shall be last, Memsa,’ he said wryly, twitting her gently for her own remark earlier.

Gulda looked at him sideways and the Orthlundyn waited expectantly. But no barb was launched at the Fyordyn lord. Instead, it was launched at them as, very graciously, Gulda said, ‘Thank you, Lord. It’s a refresh-ing change to be amongst people who know how to discourse in an orderly and rational manner.’

Her own telling however, was almost breathtakingly brief: the Orthlundyn had been made ready for war; the Alphraan had interfered, first by causing accidents and then by stealing the labyrinth that guarded the Ar-moury. They had been contacted and confronted.

‘The rest you know,’ she concluded. ‘And the details we can discuss later.’

She ended abruptly and there was a long silence in the room. ‘They sealed the labyrinth?’ Hawklan asked eventually, almost in disbelief.

Gulda nodded. ‘It’s open again now,’ she said almost off-handedly. ‘First thing I checked when I got back. To be honest I’m surprised they’re not here, but… ’ She shrugged, reluctant to speculate on the behaviour of these strange people. ‘The whole thing was very worrying, but it’s been a useful exercise and we’ve learned… ’ She pulled a rueful face. ‘ Re-learned , a great deal about our command structures and the logistics involved in moving so many people about.’

‘And your verdict?’ Hawklan asked.

Gulda paused thoughtfully. Loman found his eyes narrowing in anticipation of some caustic reply, but Gulda just nodded and said, ‘Not bad. There’s plenty of room for improvement, but I think they’ve got the wit to see that for themselves now. Not bad at all.’