Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

His mind told him that this new knowledge was perhaps no more than a coming together of all his recent experiences and the studying he had done before he left Anderras Darion, but his heart and his body showed him it was too deeply rooted for that. He refused to search for the missing memories, however, sensing that such a search could lead him nowhere but into fruitless winding spirals.

But a darker image did concern him. An image of betrayal? Guilt? His betrayal. His guilt. Somewhere in his long and hidden journey to this time, he had shed a great and terrible burden. Or had it been taken from him? A burden of appalling suffering and thousands of lives lost through his folly.

Yet he was at ease here. How could such a burden have been shed? How could it not be carried forever, just as its consequences would spread ever outwards? Why was it lying somewhere, mouldering by the wayside of his life just as Dan-Tor’s wares rotted outside Pedhavin? But above all, what was it?

What had he done? Who had he betrayed, or failed?

He seemed to hear faint clarion calls. The haunting vision of swirling blackness returned to him. Battling against endless undefeatable waves of unseen foes, under a dark flickering sky, with the air pulsating to sinister chanting and the ground moving unsteadily under his feet. He shuddered. Despair and guilt sapped him as much as they fired him. Then as he sank, something touched…

Hawklan opened his eyes, solidly in the present again, if present it was. Noises! Faint noises. Just outside the shelter? Familiar yet strange. He held his breath and listened intently. He could hear the snow still falling, though it had changed in tone indicating that the wind was beginning to rise. And one of the horses was a little uneasy, but not as though some prowler were in their midst. Yet the sounds seemed to be quite close amp;mdashor were they? Hawklan became aware of another presence, listening.

‘What’s happening?’ Dacu’s whisper in the darkness startled Hawklan by its apparent nearness.

‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan whispered back. ‘Listen.’

The noises rose and fell, coherent yet unintelligible, and still both familiar and unfamiliar.

‘It’s the Alphraan,’ Hawklan said, suddenly identify-ing the strange unfocussed quality in the sound.

‘I can’t understand what they’re saying,’ Dacu said.

Hawklan frowned slightly as the sound drifted into some echoing distance and almost vanished under the hissing snow.

‘I don’t think they’re talking to us,’ Hawklan said. ‘I think we’re eavesdropping.’

A great yawn filled the shelter. ‘Dacu, dear boy,’ came a reluctant voice. ‘It’s surely not time to get up yet.’

The two men shushed the bird, only to waken Islo-man. Then there was a brief confusion of incoherent but very recognizable sounds which drowned out the faint noise of the Alphraan until eventually all four men were lying awake and silent in the darkness.

Slowly the sounds emerged again.

‘What do they want?’ Isloman whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan said. ‘Just listen. There are images in the sounds.’

And images there were. Images of great determina-tion. But also, images of defeat? And fear? Terror, even?

Hawklan’s eyes opened wide in horror. Had another people followed him, only to be led to their doom?

The shelter felt suddenly suffocating. Without speaking, Hawklan struck his torch and, seizing his sword, threw himself headlong out through the entrance.

Blinking in the sudden light, Gavor flapped after him. As he stood up, Hawklan found himself calf-deep in fresh snow, surrounded by whirling eddies of snowflakes, twisting and spiralling around the little torch-lit enclave. A strong wind shaped their dance and Hawklan felt the cold strike through to him immedi-ately. Chilled air rushed into his anxious lungs and woke him utterly. Fumbling with the torch, he fastened his sword belt awkwardly.

Gavor flapped up on to the top of the shelter, but before he could speak, Dacu crawled out of the entrance, followed immediately by Isloman and Tirke. Their torches brightened and broadened the small snow-laced sphere that they centred.

Dacu threw Hawklan’s cloak about his shoulders.

‘Be calmer, Hawklan,’ he said quietly, though his voice and eyes were as chill as his steaming breath. ‘Six paces here might mean your death.’

Hawklan made no response but offered him no resistance. The cloak was warm, and Dacu was only speaking the truth. But all around now were the sounds of the Alphraan and their fear was almost tangible.

‘Alphraan,’ Hawklan shouted suddenly. ‘Where are you? I hear you. I’ll help you.’

The sounds shifted. Hawklan called again.

‘Yes. Help us, Hawklan,’ said a voice around them hesitantly. It was set in a jabbering mosaic of anxieties and terrors. ‘Our means fail our will. We will be destroyed.’

‘What do you mean? Where are you?’ Hawklan asked.

‘Follow. Please, quickly. We will guide you.’ The voice dwindled suddenly into a single faltering tone. It led into the blackness beyond the shelter.

Hawklan moved forward but Dacu stepped in front of him. ‘What are you doing?’ he said in alarm. ‘Didn’t you hear me before? You can’t go wandering off in these conditions. Look around you, man.’ He brushed the already thickening snow off the front of his cloak.

‘They followed me,’ Hawklan said. ‘Now they’re dying. I must go to them.’

Dacu placed a restraining hand on his chest. He was about to tell Hawklan that he had a duty to his own kind first, but it died on his lips. ‘It could be a trap,’ he said desperately, turning to Isloman for support. As he did so however, Hawklan quietly side-stepped him and strode off towards the darkness.

‘Stay where you are,’ he said, without turning. So imperious was his voice, that for a moment Dacu faltered. Then he swore. ‘Get your swords,’ he said grimly to Isloman and Tirke, striking the beacon torch that topped the shelter. ‘Gavor… ’ He was about to tell Gavor to follow Hawklan, but the instruction was unnecessary, Gavor was gone. He turned to Isloman. The carver looked at him. ‘Be ready to hit your friend,’ he said. ‘Hard.’

Hawklan held his torch high and Gavor landed si-lently on his shoulder. The sound hung urgently in the air like a guiding rope, but his torch showed tumbled, snow-covered boulders ahead. Carefully, but quickly, he began to scramble over them and soon found himself dropping down into a wide cleft, which so far seemed to have been sheltered from the snow.

Hastily he began to make his way along it, occasion-ally slipping and stumbling on damp, lichen-covered rocks, Gavor fluttering ahead of him. The sound became more urgent.

‘It could be a trap.’ Dacu’s voice returned to him, but he ignored it. The plea in the Alphraan’s voice could not have been other than genuine. And even if it were false, he could do no other than follow such a call. People had already died simply because he existed. He could not risk more dying because of his actions.

That is a weakness, said the dark and cold part of his mind, but he thrust that aside too. As are you, in your blindness, he thought in rebuttal.

‘I’m coming,’ he said, in answer to some new un-spoken urging in the hovering thread of sound.

The floor of the cleft began to rise and the wind began to tug at his cloak, though it carried no snow. He glanced upward, but the torchlight revealed only a little of the ragged uneven rock walls rising above him. It must be narrow at the top, he thought, if no snow has ever fallen into it.

As he looked back down again, a shadow caught his attention. Moving towards it he found it was a cave entrance. And the sound was coming from it. He frowned a little. He was certain he had not noticed it before.