Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

He paused, and the silence of the mountains above seemed to fill the hall.

‘Soon, many of us must leave to start again the end-less search for knowledge that Ethriss charged our forebears with,’ he continued. ‘But for all our vaunted knowledge and our new-found strength, we’re as nothing against the power of Sumeral and His Uhriel, and while we’re all here together, we must attempt the task that we’ve charged ourselves with amp;mdasha task for which we have no guidance, but one which only we can undertake.’ He paused again, as if reluctant to take the final step into the beginning of what must be a new age.

‘Here, today, we must seek out the Guardians and waken them.’

The step taken, his voice became more matter of fact. ‘We know nothing of the fate of any of them after the Last Battle. Theowart, Sphaeera and Enartion were rarely seen by men throughout the entire War of the First Coming, and it’s not recorded where they were during that battle. However, it is recorded that, like Ethriss, they were human in their form on the few occasions they were seen.’

He began to walk up and down, pausing occasion-ally to emphasize points with a jabbing finger. ‘Nor do we know anything of the fate of Ethriss. After the melee that followed the fall of Sumeral, he was gone. Some say he was struck down by Sumeral’s last spear cast, but… ’ He shrugged.

‘And of course, we know nothing of the bodies of Sumeral and the Uhriel. They too could not be found after the battle. And so, my brothers. We have… nothing.’

He opened his arms wide as if to encompass the entire hall.

His voice fell. ‘Nothing that is, until I found myself pitched into conflict with an evil so ancient that hitherto I’d only read about it. Nothing, until I found myself aiding a hunted man who could be Ethriss himself, dormant. Nothing, until I found myself held in Narsin-dal, touched and bound by a power that could only be Sumeral.’

He looked slowly round his audience. ‘Brothers. If Sumeral and His Uhriel are among us, and are seeking the still sleeping form of Ethriss, then the Guardians will lie somewhere, waiting our call.’

Then his voice rose. ‘Who doubts this?’

Interminable discussions over the weeks had laid low all possible doubts, and the Hall remained silent.

‘Who doubts our will?’ he continued, his voice still loud.

Again, there was silence.

Then finally, ‘Who doubts our strength and our skill?’

Yet again no voices were raised, but the Hall filled with a murmuring rustle as all present raised their hands.

Andawyr laughed, and cut through the silence with a clap of his hands.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Our new knowledge has taught us an old lesson and given us a small measure of our ignorance. However, I don’t share quite all your doubts.’ The words he had spoken to Oslang earlier returned to him. ‘I told you I’ve taught you all I can. And that more, much more, you’ll learn for yourselves as time passes and circumstances change. But trust me… ’ He turned round again, gazing intently at his listeners. ‘Whatever frailty you may feel within yourself, remember that as individuals each of you is stronger by far than you’ve ever been, and as an Order we’re stronger by far than we’ve been for generations.’

He relaxed and smiled. ‘Brothers, let me be prosaic. Amongst other things, we’re farmers. In our answer to the need for food lies all our answers. We must till the fields we have, with the tools we’ve made. To do otherwise would be to starve.’

There was a ripple of movement around the audi-ence.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘Who here feels himself so frail that he will not give his best endeavour to this task?’

The movement stopped and no hands were raised.

Andawyr closed his eyes. ‘Then the time is now, brothers,’ he said softly. ‘All words must cease.’

There were no precedents for what they were trying to do, nor any guidance to be found anywhere. Their main hope lay in the certain knowledge that Sumeral and the Uhriel had been wakened, and that therefore such an awakening was possible. Through the weeks of debate they had decided eventually that a raucous display of the Old Power was not the way. Had such a display been used to rouse Sumeral, then surely they would have felt it. And who could have done it? Also, to use the power to such an extent now would be to announce their presence to Him beyond all doubt, and risk bringing Him down upon them.

Someone, Andawyr could not remember who, had said, ‘Perhaps it was some act of faith that wakened them,’ and from that chance remark had developed the idea they were now about to attempt.

Let there be a great silence. A man may sleep soundly through hubbub and uproar, yet wake suddenly at the lightest footfall. So might that not be the same for the Guardians, who had slept so long in the intermina-ble clatter of the world they had formed?

As Andawyr fell silent each of the Cadwanol in his turn closed his eyes and entered into his own stillness, as if preparing for some great trial with the Old Power. Each took with him such knowledge as he had of the four Guardians and their domains.

Then, very slowly, each reached out to the other.

A joining of the minds of two or three individuals was not uncommon for certain uses of the Old Power, but it was no easy feat, being easily disturbed by the normal urgencies of daily life and the natural self-centred imperfections of the human personality. For virtually the whole Order to be joined thus would verge on the miraculous. Yet, under Andawyr’s new-found strength and calm, it began, imperceptibly, to happen, until soon it was far beyond anything that had ever been achieved in the past. As each doubt came to Andawyr, he acknowledged it and let it pass unhindered.

There had been little difficulty in dealing with the problem of the cluttering pressure of daily routine, but when questioned about the possible effects of individual weakness, he had simply said: ‘You know the gravity of our need. You know some of your imperfections. Let them, and such others as you find, fall away amp;mdashsink from sight in the stillness we shall make. Trust me. You have both the strength and the courage to do it.’

At one point however, doubts and fears began to accumulate and cloud his clear stillness. He felt his own doubts begin to cling about him. Would they fail? Would he fail? Would he, who had had the arrogance to attempt to bring this about, destroy it with his own weakness? If that happened, such a joining could never be achieved again, and who then would even attempt to waken the Guardians? The stillness wavered.

Then, apparently irrelevantly, the thought came to him that if any force had, over the years, subtly dulled their wish to travel and seek new knowledge, it may not necessarily have been malign. How else could so many of the Order have been here, and been so rested, so introverted, to attempt this extraordinary deed? And if no external force had induced their seemingly inexcus-able lethargy, was not this now a fitting atonement?

Andawyr’s reproach about their neglect had struck cruelly at every member of the Order, including himself and, not being fully debated, had grumbled uneasily beneath the surface of their normal activities over the past weeks. Now, the unexpected appearance of this alternative interpretation of their seeming inaction spread through the merging minds like an absolving flux, trailing a great lightness in its wake and carrying all his doubts with it.

An act of faith, Andawyr recalled, and the lightness spread.

Then, without a perceptible change, the one mind became freely his and he allowed it to enter into the deepest stillness he had ever known.

But there was still an unease; the faintest ripple on the surface of this deep and silent lake.