Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

Consciousness.

Is this death? it thought. Is this the great bane and wonder that all life strives to avoid while in its frenzy rushing towards it?

There was no answer. The silence and the darkness were, and were not. To know of them was to hear and see them, and the silence and darkness that could be heard and seen were not the true silence and darkness.

Consciousness.

The silence and darkness shifted, like a great deep ocean touched by the distant moon.

Rock song was there; faint and distant. Rock song?

Am I dead?

The silence and darkness shifted again, and the consciousness knew itself.

It separated from the silence and darkness.

I am Isloman. A carver. From Pedhavin, in Orthlund. Slain by the Alphraan defending… Trying to defend…

Pain.

… failing…

More pain.

Something touched the pain and it was gone.

Rock song; faint, but close. And the smell and feel of rock. Against his face, under his hand.

His hand?

And the other hand?

It tightened around the scabbard of the black sword.

Hawklan’s sword! It must not be lost!

Isloman’s awareness rushed in upon him and, with a start, he rolled over and opened his eyes. A flood of images rushed in on him. Torchlight and moving shadows formed an unfocussed, ill-shaped background. But immediately in the foreground, a dark silhouette bent over him, hand extended.

Isloman raised his left arm to protect himself, but the figure caught it and laid it aside.

‘It’s all right, Isloman,’ Hawklan said. ‘It’s all right.’

Loman clattered down stairs and along corridors, struggling to keep up with the fleet-footed young apprentice who had brought him the message. At his side ran Athyr. Yrain, troubled by her foot, fell increas-ingly behind, accompanied by a reluctantly sympathetic Gulda.

It was a long journey, deep into the heart of the Castle, but each time they slowed down to a walk, the boy looked at them anxiously. ‘Master Ireck said I was to ask you to hurry,’ he would repeat after about a dozen more leisurely paces. Thus both men were breathing heavily when they came upon Ireck and a group of others waiting in the hall in which the weapons were being temporarily stored and which marked the entrance to the labyrinth.

Loman made straight for Ireck.

‘I hope this is as urgent as your little messenger here made out, Ireck,’ he began crossly. He was about to tell Ireck that the meeting he had interrupted was impor-tant, but immediately regretting his initial irritability, he reached for a threat at once more dire and less serious. ‘Gulda’s coming,’ he said, flicking his thumb over his shoulder.

But Ireck’s face was grim, and showed a mood im-pervious both to Loman’s anger and his levity.

Loman began again. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked seriously.

‘We can’t get near the labyrinth, to collect the weap-ons,’ Ireck said simply.

‘What do you mean?’ Loman said.

‘Just that,’ Ireck said, frowning abstractedly at this response. ‘We can’t get near it. Sounds are coming out of it… it’s spreading… reaching out.’

Loman looked at him and then across the hall. The neat stacks of weapons stood clear and glittering against the ominous gloom of the labyrinth’s columns at the far end, like a field of golden, sunlit sheaves waiting under summer thunder clouds looming darkly on a near horizon.

He scowled, disturbed by Ireck’s vagueness. How could they not reach the weapons? They were only paces away. But Ireck had received a severe shock by the look of his face, and anyway was not a man given to hasty comment.

Loman cut through his own conjectures and, with-out comment, strode off towards the weapons. He felt Ireck’s hand brush his sleeve briefly as if to stop him. ‘Be careful,’ came his anxious voice.

Halfway towards the weapons, however, Loman needed no warnings. Crawling around his feet he felt the whisperings that were characteristic of treading too near the edge of the pathway through the labyrinth.

He stopped, and the sound of his footsteps mingled with the whispering and rose up around him mockingly. He felt his chest tighten and his mouth go dry with fear.

Slowly, face contorted with expectation, he placed another foot forward. A watchful expectancy came into the sounds hissing around him, and he seemed to feel a myriad tiny fingers plucking him forward. Horrified, he withdrew his foot quickly. A strange moaning sigh filled the hall, and he heard the group behind him shuffling further away.

Very cautiously, Loman stepped back until the whispering faded away. Then he stood motionless, his flesh crawling and his hands and face clammy.

Behind him he heard the group respectfully greeting the arrival of Gulda.

Without turning round, he said, ‘Memsa,’ hoarsely. He heard the soft clump of her stick on the hall floor as she approached, then he felt her dark form appear by his side. But his eyes did not waver from the waiting columns.

‘What is it?’ he said, still without turning.

Gulda moved forward a little, tapping her stick thoughtfully on the floor, then she walked to and fro across the hall just in front of him, her head craning forward, listening intently.

After two such patrols she clicked her tongue, then, without comment, returned to Ireck and the others. Loman moved after her, walking backwards for a part of the way, loath to turn his back on this frightening new manifestation.

‘Are you all right?’ Gulda said to Ireck.

‘Yes, thank you, Memsa,’ he replied. ‘I think so. But it was a nasty shock. I just walked straight into it.’ He slapped his hands together to demonstrate the impact. ‘I can’t remember how I got out now. I must have staggered back.’

Gulda looked at him carefully and took his arm gently. ‘It’ll take you a little time to recover fully,’ she said. ‘Perhaps a day or so. But the effects will fade, believe me.’ Ireck nodded, almost reluctantly, Loman thought.

‘When were you here last?’ Gulda went on.

‘Two days ago,’ Ireck replied after a moment’s thought. ‘We moved those from over there.’ He pointed to a wide gap in the nearest row of weapons. ‘There was nothing wrong then that I noticed, though I didn’t go near the labyrinth.’

Gulda nodded. ‘Has anything strange happened here recently?’ she asked. ‘Anything at all.’

Ireck shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. Then, as an afterthought, ‘There were some children in here when I arrived. I’d forgotten that, but they… ’

Loman caught Gulda’s eye. ‘Children?’ he said, inter-rupting. ‘Whose?’

Ireck nodded and then shrugged. ‘I didn’t see them,’ he said, adding, slightly flustered, ‘Well I did and I didn’t. They were playing in here, then they hid when I came in, and scuttled off when I was distract… ’ He stopped suddenly and his eyes opened in realization. Slowly he pointed towards the centre of the stacked weapons.

‘They were over there,’ he said anxiously. ‘Right over there. Crouching down.’ He turned to Gulda. ‘How…?’

She squeezed his arm reassuringly. ‘What distracted you, Ireck?’ she asked.

Ireck told her of the voice, and Gulda questioned him gently. No, he’d no idea who it was, or where he’d gone, or what he’d wanted. But the position of the playing children dominated his concern. ‘It… this change… must have happened immediately after they left,’ he concluded. ‘They couldn’t possibly have been so far into the hall otherwise. But I didn’t hear or see anything.’

Gulda affected indifference. ‘Children are children,’ she said offhandedly. Then, briskly, ‘Re-order your day, Ireck. You’ll move nothing from here today.’