Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

She shook her head to clear the impression as Lo-man’s voice brought her back to the room. He was talking to Gulda.

‘You’ve no doubts about what caused this, Memsa?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘None,’ she replied. ‘We know everybody involved far too well for there to be any other explanation.’

Loman rested his head on his hands. ‘This is ridicu-lous,’ he said. ‘Two men badly hurt, and who knows what kind of a morale problem. And all because of what?’ He waved his hands in frustration. ‘A troop of… of… singing midgets!’

A faint flicker of amusement lit Gulda’s eyes at this outburst, but travelled no further.

‘There must be something we can do, Memsa,’ Lo-man continued, more quietly. ‘We need the mountains for our advanced training.’

Gulda curled her hands over the top of her stick and rested her chin on them. ‘We may need them for access to Riddin before we’ve finished,’ she said absently.

Loman looked at her irritably. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But I’ll settle for access within a two day march for now, and worry about Riddin later. That at least will enable us to keep working.’

Gulda took the rebuke with uncharacteristic calm.

Loman looked at her again. ‘How did you break free from them when we went out with the boys?’ he asked.

Gulda’s long nose twitched and she did not respond at first. ‘I’ve got skills and knowledge I can’t teach to you, Loman,’ she said eventually. ‘Believe me, if I could, I would.’

Loman had little choice but to take this comment at face value, but his mind went back again to their encounter with the Alphraan. ‘You said if we went out in force we might be able to overwhelm them in some way.’ He tried to sound hopeful.

Gulda nodded tentatively. ‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘But I could have been wrong. They had precious little trouble with Athyr’s group, although we don’t know what that display has cost them.’ She fell silent again for some time, then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said decisively. ‘It would be too dangerous. We simply don’t know enough about them. We can’t find them, surround them, attack their food supplies, menace them in any way. And they’ve shown quite clearly that they can control individuals very effectively. If we went in force we could suffer appalling self-inflicted casualties before we even made contact with them.’ She shook her head again.

The room fell silent. It seemed that such few ave-nues as existed had been explored as thoroughly as they could be, and that nothing now was left.

Loman wanted to say, ‘We can’t just sit here, doing nothing,’ but he bit back the words. This was no time for stating the obvious.

He looked down at his hand resting on the arm of his chair. Gently it was tapping out a rhythm. Con-sciously he stopped it, but the jigging impulse remained, teasing his palm. Slightly irritated at this nervous tic he clenched his fist.

As he did so he became aware of its cause. Very faintly the sound of the snowman’s song seeped into the room. Despite his concern, he smiled and turned to Gulda. ‘The boys are still… ’

Gulda raised her hand to silence him. She was cran-ing forward and listening. Abruptly she stood up and walked over to the window. Throwing it open, she peered outside. The singing became slightly louder, but it was still faint and distant, although it seemed to echo around the mountains and the towers and spires of the Castle. Suddenly, it stopped, and after a moment Gulda quietly closed the window and returned to her seat.

‘They are divided amongst themselves,’ she said. ‘Balanced like a sword standing on its point. The least misstep and all will be lost.’ She looked significantly at Yrain.

‘They said we’d been misled,’ she continued. ‘But misled by what? And why should they bother with us at all? Our crawling over the mountains, for whatever reason, wouldn’t have affected them. Why did they watch? Why did they come to listen?’ She answered her own questions. ‘Because they know something’s amiss. They’ve had signs of their own, and they amp;mdashsome of them anyway, perhaps most of them amp;mdashdon’t want to face the truth. They don’t want to face the truth that is repre-sented by the Orthlundyn training for war.’

Loman thought he felt a faint rumbling vibration but, glancing round, he saw that no one else seemed to have noticed it.

Gulda snapped her fingers. ‘For their own reasons, they doubt us amp;mdashfaithless and treacherous they called us,’ she said. ‘But they accepted our gift, poor thing though it was by their lights. Now we must give them another.’

She turned to Loman. ‘Have the remains of that… tinker’s… wares collected from the leaving stone. We’ll take them into the mountains for their consideration. Tirilen can come too, she… ’

A frantic knocking on the door interrupted her. Grimacing, Loman strode over to the door and threw it open.

‘What?’ he demanded crossly.

The recipient of this greeting was a red-faced and very flustered junior apprentice. Loman repented his temper. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, more gently.

The apprentice had obviously been running hard and, unable to speak at first, he gesticulated desperately to his interrogator.

‘Slow down,’ Loman said, crouching down, and smiling genuinely now. ‘Slow down.’

‘Master Loman,’ the boy managed eventually, reach-ing out and taking hold of Loman’s jacket urgently. ‘You’re to come now. Right away… please.’

Loman put his hand against the door jamb, to steady himself from this unexpected invitation. His smile faded slightly. The young boy was very distressed.

‘Where am I to go, son?’ he said. ‘And who sent you?’

‘Master Ireck, sir,’ the boy replied. ‘You’re to come downstairs. To the labyrinth. Something’s happened to it.’

Isloman lay very still. There was another slight move-ment to his left. His first thought was to leap up and seize whoever or whatever it was, but this was followed immediately by others, more cautious. Tirke, he could see, was sound asleep, but so also was Dacu, and Isloman had learned both many years ago and very recently that Goraidin were sensitive sleepers. Further-more, the horses seemed unconcerned.

Perhaps it was some small mountain creature curi-ous about these strange intruders? But it didn’t feel like that. It was too still; no snuffling, no scuffling scurrying.

Tirke snorted and turned over noisily. There was another small flutter of movement near Isloman.

Taking the cue, he breathed out heavily and turned on his left side.

Through his flickering eyelashes, in the subdued light of the lowered torches, he could see a pair of booted feet. While his mind registered this observation, his eyes squinted momentarily to accommodate some visual oddity. They were near, yet they seemed to be some distance away. They’re small! he realized. Like a child’s.

Oddly reassured, Isloman opened his eyes and, not wishing to startle the visitor, said softly, ‘Hello.’

Abruptly, the word seemed to swell inside his head until it became a bellowing roar that made him screw up his eyes and clamp his hands to his ears. But this merely seemed to trap the sound inside him. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the noise was gone, and the cave was silent again.

Opening his eyes cautiously he found himself being scrutinized by Dacu. The Goraidin was not moving, but his eyes were wide open and watchful, and Isloman knew his body would be relaxed and alert.

‘What’s the matter, Isloman?’ he whispered.

Isloman sat up slowly. ‘That noise,’ he said, sur-prised at the question.

Dacu’s brow furrowed. ‘Noise?’ he said. ‘What noise?’