Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

Loman saw in his daughter’s eyes that she under-stood this, for all the pain that such understanding brought. He nodded. ‘Hawklan merely told us what we already knew in our hearts. No one can answer the final "why?", but we know that evil’s abroad, and not to oppose it is to aid it.’

Tirilen stood up and straightened her green robe. ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘But I find no joy in what we’re doing, and I’m frightened by what might happen if we have to use all our new-found "skills".’

Loman nodded again. ‘You’re right to be,’ he said gently. ‘But we still have no choice. To remain wilfully weak and defenceless in the face of a known evil when we have the means to protect ourselves would be… ’ He searched for a word. ‘… a betrayal. A betrayal of past and future generations. A betrayal of ourselves… of those here and now who can’t defend themselves: the old, the young, the sick.’

He found his gaze locked with his daughter’s again: that clear-eyed healer’s vision that allowed no escape. There was pain, open on her face now. ‘I know, father,’ she said. ‘And I know we’ll threaten no one who doesn’t threaten us. But how clear is our vision going to be?’ She pointed to the scar on her throat. ‘We didn’t see Dan-Tor’s corruption when it was waved in our faces.’

Loman scowled and turned away to look out at the village below. Hidden from his sight at the far edge of the village was the leaving stone and the still moulder-ing pile of Dan-Tor’s wares left there as a constant reminder to them all that not all evils come armed and armoured; that the worst might come with a smile and a jest, and a secret promise to the darker shadows in each of them.

‘I can’t answer you, Tirilen,’ he said almost angrily, looking at her. This time it was she who turned from his pain. ‘When all talk with a foe has failed, you find yourself trapped on the finest edge.’ His voice rose as if he were justifying some old mistake. ‘If you wait until you’re attacked, how do you answer to your own people, dead and maimed through your inaction? Yet how can you justify attacking first? That’s why violence is a bad thing, Tirilen. It has no point of true balance. It’s a demented flux in the order of things, the antithesis of harmony. It destroys in moments things that have taken years to build. People, buildings, things… trust, faith… everything.’

As suddenly as it had come, his brief passion waned, but a remnant of it swirled around inside him irritably as if waiting an opportunity to burst into life again. ‘All I know, Tirilen, is that the finer a tool is honed, the more precisely it can be used. I just hope that in the honing comes the wisdom to see when to use it. You can accept that, can’t you? It’s all I know.’

A silence fell between the two and there was no movement in the room for a long time except the creeping progress of the yellow light from the setting sun. Their talk could go no further.

Eventually Tirilen raised her eyes and looked at her father.

‘We’ll need more people trained in healing,’ she said, simply.

Loman closed his eyes and nodded. Into his mind came a memory of the aftermath of the last battle of the Morlider War. Sights and sounds were there in night-marish clarity, in a picture that he could neither watch nor ignore.

‘Yes,’ he said.

The following day found Loman busying himself in the Armoury. His conversation with Tirilen had lingered persistently in his mind and, combined with the old memories it had stirred, it had given him a restless night. Furthermore, he felt that something was eluding him, something that could be important. Something in his anger.

On waking, the unease persisted and he reorganized his amp;mdashGulda’s amp;mdashroutine so that he could decamp to the Armoury. There he could find the peace that he needed on the rare occasions that the Morlider War returned to trouble him.

That the Armoury was a profound paradox in itself, eased rather than worsened his concerns. It lay at the very heart of the Castle, deep below ground. It housed rack upon rack of terrible weapons. It was guarded by a labyrinth of columns whose gloomy murmuring stillness would swell to a screaming tumult to destroy anyone who stepped from the safe path. And yet, mirror stones carried daylight into its every corner; no darkness lurked there. Openings in the walls of the antechamber were like windows placed high in the castle, overlooking more of the countryside than could be seen from on top of the main wall. And each of the countless weapons was crafted with a deep wisdom and skill that awed and inspired the smith. Here was a place where finer than he had made their answer to the same dilemmas that troubled him. Their honest acknowl-edgement of their pain and their struggles would always quieten him.

Only the labyrinth seemed to be unrelenting and certain in its purpose, a terrible darkness whose price must be paid before even the uncertain solace repre-sented by the Armoury could be achieved.

Stepping out of the Armoury, Loman closed the wicket door behind him, and looked around the antechamber. Bright sunlight shone through the window openings and he could see clouds scudding overhead. Adjusting the makeshift bundle of weapons he was carrying he walked to one of the openings and paused to look out over the rolling fields and woods. Slowly he realized that his spirits were lighter. The knowledge of the makers of Anderras Darion had eased his undefined distress yet again. When he had finished here, he would go out on to an open balcony on one of the high towers and feel the wind that was buffeting the countryside, cool and summer-scented on his face.

A cloud passed in front of the sun, turning grey and ominous as it did, and the room became darker. Ah, you reproach me for blurring the present with the unknow-able future, Loman thought, smiling, and, adjusting his bundle again, he turned towards the labyrinth.

Its dusty gloom contrasted starkly with the sunlit antechamber and Loman’s face became pensive. He had little fear of missing his way for although he had passed through it many times, he had never done so carelessly or even casually; here indeed the present must be sharp and clear. But of late the labyrinth had revealed other strange attributes that made him uneasy.

Gulda’s curt instruction to him to ‘Tidy that lot up, they’re no good in here,’ had presented Loman with no small problem. The mound of weapons that filled the far end of the Armoury, and to which she was referring, was massive, and he would obviously need a great deal of help. He did not relish the task of teaching anyone the pathway. His own learning had been hard enough, and that had been with the guiding hand of Hawklan to calm the terrifying consequences of error. The path would thus have to be marked in some way.

Then the labyrinth had shown him its subtler de-fences. No guiding signs could be cut into its columns or floor. Of those few carvers who managed for a little while to withstand the mocking and growing echoes of their chiselling that piled up around them like a pending avalanche, all found that the stone turned their finest edges. Worse, they found their sleep haunted for many nights afterwards, and their creative inspiration stunted and grim.

Paints and stains too would not adhere to the stone; but most eerily of all, any ropes and marking blocks he laid moved once out of sight. In the end, he had had to lead small groups through personally. It had been tiring and tedious work, and none had tackled it with a good heart, so intimidating was the watching presence of the labyrinth.

Now, although the mound seemed barely changed, the bulk of the weapons they needed immediately had been removed, but Loman would bring out a few more each time he entered the Armoury for any reason.