Roger Taylor: The fall of Fyorlund

‘Sphaeera?’ queried Hawklan.

The man looked at him and smiled knowingly. ‘It’s a quiet place isn’t it, Orthlund?’

Hawklan returned the smile and nodded.

‘Sphaeera’s our name for the Guardian of the Air,’ said the man. ‘You’ve probably got a different one. She’s actually supposed to have created the Viladrien. But why one’s come now, Ethriss only knows.’

He gave Hawklan a sideways look. ‘You’ve heard of Ethriss, I suppose?’ he asked humorously.

‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of Ethriss,’ said Hawklan, uncon-sciously resting his hand on his sword.

The man noted the gesture and laughed again. ‘I see you wear a black sword like Ethriss used to. Maybe it’s you who attracted the Viladrien.’

It was nearly sunset before an exhausted Gavor returned to Hawklan. The bird sat heavily and silently on his shoulder for a long time before speaking and, when he did speak, his voice was unusually subdued.

‘It was much further away and far higher than it looked,’ he said. ‘And it was large. Very large. I didn’t really get anywhere near it at all, I’m afraid, though I thought I caught a glimpse of people flying over it.’

‘You seem to have been very impressed,’ said Hawk-lan light-heartedly.

To his surprise, Gavor was almost angry. ‘Andawyr was right,’ he said crossly. ‘You need to study more lore. The Viladrien were Sphaeera’s greatest creation. I haven’t the words to describe what I felt when that great vision floated into sight. I doubt I’ll ever be the same again. I must land on one. I must .’

‘I’m sorry, Gavor,’ Hawklan said softly. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

Gavor repented a little. ‘It’s not your fault, Hawklan. You understand living creatures more than anyone I’ve ever met, but you’re earthbound. You can no more understand what it feels like to be an air creature than I can understand your healing skills or what it’s like to have hands.’

Two days later they were deep into the mountains, Hawklan still maintaining a vigorous pace, fuelled by a restless anxiety. He had the feeling that only at Anderras Darion would he be truly safe, and only there could he begin to start learning about what had happened and perhaps what was about to happen. He might refuse to fret about what had been, but he knew now that he needed knowledge and would have to search, and learn and learn. Sitting on the grass and leaning against a tree he watched the distant sky changing through reds and oranges and purples as the sun sank further below the horizon, and the deep hazy blue of the night encroached from the east. Overhead, the odd pink cloud drifted aimlessly, while others, lower, were already turning black and grey. One or two bright points of light hung in the sky, vanguards of the night.

He had chosen a sheltered spot for the night’s camp because tomorrow he would be much higher and would need to pitch his small shelter for the night. This would be his last night in the open for some days.

Although it was not late and he was not particularly comfortable, his hard pace through the day had left him pleasantly weary, and he found himself drifting into sleep, then jerking suddenly awake as his body slid into some improbable position. After the third such awakening he relinquished his viewing of the night sky and, wrapping his cloak around himself, lay down on the soft grass.

Whether it was a quality of the cloak, or whether it was some ancient instinct he was unaware of, he became just another shadow in the rising moonlight, indistin-guishable from all the others, as he pulled his face under the hood.

He fell asleep almost immediately but, as the re-mains of the evening light faded away, he began to be plagued by restless, flitting dreams. Images of the recent past came and went arbitrarily with an insane logic all their own: a horse that could not speak to him; a squat creature that tore off his arm and turned into a group of his friends when he stabbed it; a rushing cheering crowd of horsemen galloping across the sky and a cloud that sang to him a song he understood but did not under-stand; Dar-volci’s stentorian voice roaring profanities in a dark place full of noise and gleaming blades… A terrible place. No! he cried out. No! But he could not awaken. He sat up, sweating, but he knew he was still asleep.

A strange expectant silence fell on his mind. Some-where he sensed a faint, indistinct and shifting light, and a sibilant whisper reached him, like someone shouting very loudly at a great distance.

‘Sssss, awaken, awaken… ssss… ’

He tried to find the image of the light. He must see it. But it eluded him.

‘Ssss, awaken… ’

Then, abruptly, three figures were standing in front of him pleading, and a great chorus of sound roared in his ears.

‘Awaken!’

But before he could react, they were gone, vanished, and he was truly awake, eyes staring up into the moonlit sky and his heart racing.

A noise nearby blew away the remaining memory of the dream like smoke in the wind, and drew his eyes downwards. There, not three, but two hulking figures stood before him dark against the night sky, one with a strange, sinister helm on his head.

On the morning following the dance, those villagers who had to be were up at dawn as usual and away to their fields; some light-hearted, others lead-footed with reluctance. The remainder, however, were more than content to lie luxuriously abed.

It was thus a quiet Pedhavin, tranquil in the spring sunshine, that Isloman eventually woke to. For a little while he prowled casually around the house in search of Tirilen to offer her good morning but, finding her room empty and her bed in its usual state of monumental disarray, he presumed she had left quietly to avoid waking him. He smiled at the sight, reflecting that Tirilen still had some of the attributes of her more boisterous youth. He left the room with a resigned shrug and set about his day’s tasks.

Some hours later, however, Loman called to see him to borrow a sharpening stone and, imperceptibly, Tirilen’s absence began to dominate their conversation, an uneasy shade crying distantly but persistently for attention.

Their concern aroused, it took but a few inquiries around the village for them to learn that no one had seen her all that day. The uneasy shade became a chilling spectre, cold in the heart of each man.

Years before, the two brothers had quarrelled over the favours of the woman who was to become Tirilen’s mother. When she had chosen Loman, Isloman had gone to fight against the Morlider in Riddin, taking wounds and pain with him, and leaving pain and wounds behind him. Later, at his pregnant wife’s behest, an unwilling Loman had sought Isloman out on the battlefield and the horror of their personal distress had dwindled into insignificance against the horrors of the latter stages of the war. Sharing discomforts, dangers and indignities, the two brothers were reconciled, the bond reformed between them, stronger even than it had been before their quarrel.

The joy of their return after a bitter winter journey was completed by the birth of Tirilen and, in this small creature, the two brothers buried the last remnants of their animosity. Now the bond between them encom-passed her also and she held them like planets round a sun. Captured, too, like a quiet mysterious comet from the distant stars, was Hawklan. Hawklan, who, within a few weeks of Tirilen’s birth, had come out of the snow-clogged mountains with the raven Gavor sheltered under his cloak to open the Great Gate of Anderras Darion; the ancient Castle that had been sealed and inaccessible since times of legend. Hawklan, who asked for nothing and imposed on none but who drew all to him with his gentle presence. Hawklan, whose quality the Orthlundyn knew was beyond their fathoming and could only be accepted like the other mysterious forces of nature.