The Waking of Orthlund by Roger Taylor

Author:Roger Taylor
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, epic fantasy, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Fiction
ISBN: 1843192756
Publisher: Mushroom eBooks
Published: 2002-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Clutching the black sword protectively to his chest, Isloman stared up blankly. Then he screwed up his eyes as if to penetrate some particularly obscure shadow. A torch moved, and Hawklan’s face came clearly into focus. He was flanked on the left by Dacu, tense and concerned, and on the right by Tirke, shocked and obviously struggling to keep control.

Briefly it occurred to Isloman that they were all dead and in some mysterious afterworld, but before he could fully register the scene, a familiar voice sounded gleefully by his ear. ‘Get up, dear boy, get up. You’re not hurt. He’s back. He just woke up and chased them all away.’

‘Hawklan?’ Isloman whispered, his voice sounding odd in his own ears after the noise of the Alphraan and the deep silence he had woken to. ‘You’re awake. How do you feel?’ The remark seemed incongruous, but nothing else seemed to be able to get past the welter of emotions suddenly filling him.

‘Fine. And you?’ came an equally incongruous response. Without replying, Isloman took an offered hand and struggled shakily to his feet.

For a moment he simply stared at Hawklan in the torchlight, then, with an action that had become almost a reflex over the past weeks, he reached out and placed his hand on Hawklan’s brow.

‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked, still struggling to quieten his mind at this seemingly miraculous development.

Hawklan smiled slightly at the gesture and then shrugged. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘All the time. But other places as well . . . I think . . . involved and not involved.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t really explain. It was like a strange fragmented dream. Not unpleasant . . . but not good.’

Isloman nodded, in the absence of anything more significant to do. Each word that Hawklan spoke, and each movement he made, seemed to push the recent dark and fretful weeks further and further from Isloman’s mind. As he looked into Hawklan’s green eyes, however, he thought he saw a glimmer of great sadness, but it was gone so quickly that he could not be sure it was not some trick of the torchlight.

Then Hawklan’s smile cut through all his uncertainties. ‘Still,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m here now, without a doubt, and very glad to be so. We’ll talk more later. Right now, we’ve other matters to attend to.’

Gently, he took his sword from Isloman’s hand and fastened it deftly to his belt. Looking down at his hands he flexed his fingers, then his wrists and arms. ‘How strange,’ he said. ‘After all that stillness. No stiffness. No stiffness anywhere.’

‘Did the . . . noise wake you?’ Isloman said, still searching for some point of stability.

Hawklan turned to look down the tunnels facing them.

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It was a silence, not a noise. Something . . . someone reached out, and . . .’ He hesitated. ‘. . . brought me together again, here, now.’

‘Silence?’ said Isloman disbelievingly, remembering vividly the crushing sounds that had borne him to the ground and sent him into oblivion.

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