Gulda stood on a rocky outcrop and gazed down into a broad, sweeping valley. She had spoken a simple message in a clear and ringing voice when she arrived.
‘Alphraan, the Labyrinth awakes again. Help us.’
Now she waited, as motionless as the crags around her and seemingly as endlessly patient. High above her, Gavor swooped and dived and tumbled through the unseen cascading pathways of the mountain air. Below her, the shadow of a small cloud slid silently along the valley floor.
‘You use the Power with great subtlety, my lady.’
The voice was behind her. There was surprise and admiration in it that touched on awe. As Gulda turned, it spoke again, no louder, but with a quality that sent the words spiralling up towards Gavor.
‘Your wings make a rare music, Sky Prince. Join us if you would.’
Gavor dropped a little way like an untidy bundle before stretching his wings and arcing into a wide, rushing spiral.
‘Aah!’ said the voice appreciatively.
Gulda found herself looking at a small, slightly built man sitting on a rock a little above her. Dressed in what appeared to be practical travelling clothes, simple in design though of an unusual cut, he was studying Gulda intently. She returned the compliment. He had the immediate look of a frail old man, though, on examination, neither his face nor his manner gave any indication of his age. Gulda’s piercing, blue-eyed gaze was not one that many could meet comfortably, but the man’s eyes twinkled in the sunlight and a white smile cracked his face. It was definitely not the smile of an old man.
‘Great subtlety,’ he emphasized. His voice was high-pitched and musical. Abruptly he was apologetic. ‘Do forgive me for staring,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve always been drawn to taller women.’
Gulda’s eyes narrowed.
The man frowned in self-reproach. ‘I’m not doing this terribly well, am I?’ he said, scrambling nimbly down from the rock. ‘Life’s been more crowded for me than usual lately but I’m still not all that used to dealing with people. Especially remarkable people like yourself.’ He looked her up and down. ‘I was told about you, but I found it difficult to believe. Even now I find it hard. Gauche or not, I have to ask. Why do you choose to be the way you are?’
‘I am what I am.’
‘Oh, come now. A bland truism? Indulge me with an open answer. After all, we’re both old in the ways of the world, aren’t we?’
‘I don’t know. Are you?’
The man smiled. ‘You’re teasing me, my lady. Which I probably deserve. But while I may not be a true Sound Carver, and your skill with the Power may be considerable, I can do no other than hear what you are beneath the fiction you adopt.’
Gulda raised a warning finger. ‘Don’t listen. Nothing is to be shaped from what you hear there. And it is my fiction, my wish. Just as yours is yours.’ She added the last sternly.
The man bowed. Then, after some rooting through his pockets, he produced two small pieces of cloth which he proceeded to knead into rolls and insert in his ears. At the same time he affected a look of great contrition. His manner made Gulda laugh. Eyes widening in wonder, the man gazed around as though he was following the sound as it rose to join the wind-carried murmuring rising from the valley below. Suddenly, he was very close to her, looking up into her face.
‘Rare music, your laughter, my lady. Rare indeed,’ he said, his voice deeper and richer. ‘And youare a very beautiful woman.’ He was two paces away from her by the time her warning finger levelled itself at him again.
‘Enough,’ she said, though her voice lacked the edge that such a command from her would normally have had. Gavor landed on her shoulder, ending the exchange. He looked at the man, his head cocked first on one side then the other. The man bowed to him. ‘It’s an honour to meet you also, Sky Prince,’ he said.
Gavor tapped Gulda’s shoulder with his wooden leg. ‘I don’t wish to seem churlish, dear boy,’ he said. ‘But who are you?’
‘Just a traveller recently come home,’ the man replied.
Gavor clucked wearily. ‘One of the problems with dealing with humans is that they’re so often not what they seem. I’ve never felt the need for it myself. It can make life so difficult. Let’s just be our plain ordinary selves, I say.’
The man chuckled, a dancing joyous sound. ‘I’d heard you had a fine sense of irony, Sky Prince. Someone who carried the spirit of Ethriss through the ages and became the friend of the man who opened Anderras Darion can hardly be said to be an ordinary bird, can he?’
‘That’s as may be, dear boy,’ Gavor said with the air of someone rapidly changing the subject. ‘It’s a complicated tale. More to the point, you still haven’t told us who you are. You’re not Alphraan, that’s for sure…’
‘And I’m not human either,’ the man interrupted in a mockingly injured tone. ‘Not wholly, anyway. You were a tad free with your insults before.’
Gavor drew in a reproachful breath and was suddenly fulsome. ‘My dear boy, Ido apologize,’ he exclaimed. ‘That was quite unforgivable. Thinking about it, I suppose I should have realized. But it was an understandable mistake, I hope you’ll agree. The two legs you see…’
‘Who are you?’ Gulda asked before Gavor could plunge into what was promising to be a lengthy justification for his gaffe.
‘I’m… kin… to the Alphraan,’ the man replied. ‘But I’ve been away for a long time – listening to the world.’
Gulda raised an inquiring eyebrow. ‘How long?’
‘When I left, the Great Gate was still closed,’ came the explanation.
‘And what have you heard?’
‘So many questions, my lady. I…’
‘He is the Traveller.’
The voices rolled over his answer. They were all around, at once one and many, at once shouting from afar and whispering nearby. The word ‘Traveller’ was filled with many meanings. ‘You honour us with your presence, my lady, Sky Prince. Since the opening of the Ways and the Heartplace, the Song has grown and it has become ever more difficult for us to touch on human affairs. But we are always yours and as he speaks, so is our will.’
Gavor spread his wings, and Gulda said, very softly, ‘It is good to hear you again, Alphraan. May your Song sound through the ages.’
The voices rose in a wordless paean of gratitude that faded imperceptibly to become part of the sounds of the mountains.
The Traveller spoke. ‘We heard the voice of the Labyrinth, and when we listened we heard you seeking our help.’ Just as the voices of the Alphraan had filled the Traveller’s name with many meanings, so now, as he spoke the word ‘Labyrinth’ it carried with it complex resonances, dark and mysterious. Gulda and Gavor both found themselves shying away from the sound.
‘And can you help us?’
‘No.’ The Traveller’s voice was full of regret. ‘Not as you wish. The Labyrinth…’ Again the word was disturbing. ‘Is as great a mystery to us as it is to you. If not greater.’
‘Your kin controlled it at one point during the war – kept us from the Armoury at a time of need,’ Gulda challenged.
‘So I’ve heard. A mistake duly admitted and amends made for, I believe. But it was a deed that required no deep understanding or great skill on our part. We merely splashed water in your eyes but we knew – we know – little of the great tides that move the sea from whence it came. What has just happened is quite beyond us. Just as we have shaped the sounds of the world for longer than humanity has walked it, so the Labyrinth has stood from far before our own time. It is deeply strange. The many paths through it lead to many places… and many times.’ He looked at Gavor. ‘Paths that shift and change unseen like the paths you follow in the air, Sky Prince.’
‘Many paths?’ Gulda queried.
‘Many,’ the Traveller confirmed. ‘Though for the most part they cannot be mapped and measured. It is in their nature that to touch them is to change them.’
‘The path to the Armoury doesn’t change, and that’s been travelled often enough.’
‘The path to the Armoury merely changes slowly, my lady. Like these mountains – mote by mote.’ The Traveller scuffed his boot across the ground, raising a small cloud of dust and leaving a dark scar. ‘Others change like the seasons, others like the weather, but most change like the trembling of a leaf in the wind.’
‘How can we find these paths, then? How can we travel them?’
The Traveller gave Gulda a regretful look such as a teacher might give an intelligent child who has asked, ‘Why is this flower?’
‘No part of the Song tells that, my lady. And if the Song doesn’t tell it, mere words could never span it.’
Gulda’s brow furrowed and she tapped her stick on the rock. ‘I value your honesty, Traveller, but we need less mystery and more cold-edged knowledge. We need to know where this stranger has come from, and how. I’ve yet to hear who he is but I’d be more than surprised if whatever drove him here was something other than the cause of our present concerns.’
‘Where we can help, we will,’ the Traveller said, his manner anxious. ‘We will be with you in the trials that you fear are coming. Anderras Darion is second only to our Heartplace for us and our debt to you for the Opening of the Ways cannot be measured. But the Labyrinth is the Labyrinth. It is a thing made by men, and only men will fathom it.’
‘You just said it was older than any of us,’ Gulda retorted, not without a hint of irritation.
The Traveller flinched away from her tone. ‘Yes. It is. But I also told you it was deeply strange – a great mystery – and it is a thing made by men, for all that it’s older than men. It rings with their ways. No other creature could have made it.’ He reflected some of Gulda’s manner back to her. ‘No other creature would have wanted to.’
Gulda let out a noisy sigh. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know we have both your heart and your will. It’s just…’
‘Difficult.’
‘Difficult indeed.’
The brief tension between them was gone.
‘And frightening,’ Gulda said. ‘Sumeral is whole once more, Traveller, and His Uhriel are born again. Stronger by far than they ever were and seemingly roaming unfettered in their own desolate world as they struggle to come here.’
‘We feared so. An echo of His ancient tongue, brief and distant, rent the Great Song but days ago,’ the Traveller replied, clenching his teeth as though he were in pain. ‘Foul beyond any imagining. There is no true light without darkness, nor true harmony without dissonance, but…’ He faltered, apparently unable to continue. Soft sounds rose up around the three figures. The Traveller seemed to draw sustenance from them. As he recovered, he shook his head slowly. ‘I have seen signs of His will, still active, on my journeying. That’s why I came home – or was drawn back. To think, to be with my kin, to see again the Great Gate and hear its song, to learn. I fear that many Ways are opening that should not. There is a great turbulence in the Labyrinth.’
Gulda did not press him. ‘I’ll confess, I’d hoped for more,’ she said gently. ‘I think we’re going to need our every resource to deal with what’s coming. But it’s good to know all’s well with you.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘Speak to us as the spirit moves you, Traveller – wait on no asking – Anderras Darion is yours, as you know.’
The Traveller smiled sadly, then touched the rolls of cloth in his ears. ‘Unfortunately, the castle’s a little too noisy for me at times, but I understand. My kin still go there from time to time.’ He waggled his fingers teasingly. ‘Flickering shadows at the edge of your vision. We’ll be with you more than ever now. Listening where you cannot hear.’
There was a finality in his tone. There was nothing more he could say.
Gavor launched himself from Gulda’s shoulder, dropping down into the valley, then sweeping up again. ‘Jolly good, dear boy,’ he called out. ‘Much appreciated. We’ll keep an eye out for you.’
‘Thank you, Traveller, Alphraan,’ Gulda said as she too turned away. ‘We’ll carry your words to the others. It’ll be a reassurance, at least, to know you’re with us still, and your vigilance will be valued. Light be with you, Traveller.’
‘And with you, my lady. And you, Sky Prince.’
As Gulda walked away, the Traveller clambered back on to the rock where he had been sitting. Coming eventually to a sharp turn in the path, Gulda turned to look back at him. He had not moved. She flicked her stick at the distant figure by way of a parting salute.
‘Tell Thyrn you spoke to me.’ The Traveller’s voice sounded as though he were standing next to her. There was a regretful if not guilty note in it. ‘I didn’t like leaving him the way I did, but I… I was preoccupied. I needed to be back here. I made him safe, and I made sure his friends would find him.’
‘I will,’ Gulda replied.
The Traveller made to leave, then he paused. ‘It was an ancient place,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Where Thyrn was heading. Ancient like the Labyrinth. But corrupt. An evil place.’ Then he let out a soft sigh, as though a thought had just come to him.
‘The pups,’ he said.
‘The pups?’ Gulda echoed, taken aback a little by this abrupt change of subject.
‘Tarrian, Grayle – the pups. They transcend many things. They travel the ways between the worlds – touching and not touching. And the paths of the Labyrinth are no less, I’d think. Speak to them. Speak to them. Their knowledge is great – and deep.’
He was gone.
His last words reverberated around Gulda as she stared at the place where he had been.
Gavor dropped down on to Gulda’s shoulder. ‘Well, well, what an unusual… person,’ he said. ‘Very pleasant. Nearly put my claw in it, though, didn’t I? Calling him human. Still, he took it in good part – no harm done. And remarkably clear-sighted, wasn’t he?’ Gulda eyed him suspiciously as he paused significantly and craned round to look at her. ‘Saw right through you, for example, didn’t he -my lady?’
Gulda pursued her lips grimly, then set off at her usual stumping pace, causing Gavor to tumble off her shoulder with a squawk.
‘Shut your beak, crow,’ she snapped.
Gavor chuckled and flew off.
It was night when Gulda returned to Anderras Darion. She told Andawyr of her encounter with the Traveller and in turn was told what Gentren had related. She did not react when the ravagers of Gentren’s world were described to her, other than to close her eyes momentarily and give the slightest of nods.
‘Everyone knows of this?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘All of which leaves us where?’
‘I don’t know,’ Andawyr admitted. ‘I’m beginning to feel like a one-armed juggler on a tightrope.’ He ran a hand through his disordered hair. ‘For one thing, we’ll have to tell everyone about the Uhriel now – and how powerful you believe they’ve become.’
‘Been made,’ Gulda corrected. ‘Though it’s interesting that this Gentren was able to stab one of them.’
Andawyr shrugged. ‘Probably caught him by surprise. The old Uhriel lived amongst men for generations. They were well aware of the risks of assassination and protected themselves all the time. But these new… creations… having the power to do what they’d done, would have precious little cause to fear for their own safety. I’d be loath to risk any venture that relied on their susceptibility to an arrow or a knife thrust.’
‘Yes,’ Gulda agreed. ‘But even so, it’s still interesting. We, above all, should know that lesser failings have brought the strong down at the hands of the weak before now.’ She became brisk, laying the notion aside. ‘Is any of this coming together yet? Is a pattern emerging that we can use? We can’t speculate for ever; we need to settle down to some serious planning very soon.’
Andawyr looked pained. ‘Many things are coming together, Memsa. Oslang’s been a tower as usual – quiet and inconspicuous, but ordering, organizing, making people recast old ideas, plunge into new ones, generally think as they’ve never thought before. Knowledge is coming to the fore that I’d hardly have dared speculate about scarcely ten days ago. It’s as if the arrival of Antyr and the others has acted like a catalyst – or the few grains of dust that can make a solution suddenly crystallize.’
‘But?’ Gulda queried, fixing on the uneasiness in his tone.
‘But we still don’t know what is going to happen, or when, or where, or how. We seem to be in the same position as Gentren’s father – forewarned but helpless, poor sod.’
‘Not quite the same,’ Gulda cautioned edgily.
‘Near enough to make no difference.’
Gulda banged her stick violently on a nearby table, making Andawyr jump.
‘Damn it, Andawyr,’ she burst out angrily. ‘You above all can’t afford the luxury of thinking like that. Your wits, your instincts, your…’ She gave a reluctantly conceding wave. ‘Your arcane symbols on bits of paper, all tell you of events coming together at many levels – of a moment pending when all things may be finely balanced – when perhaps the fall of the least of Gavor’s feathers might be enough to tilt us… everything… into destruction.’ She smacked her forehead ferociously, her anger mounting. Andawyr quailed. ‘There may be precious little difference between us and Andeeren Marsyn but such difference as there is is vital and we must cling to it.’
Andawyr stammered in the face of this unexpected onslaught. ‘I’m sorry, Memsa,’ he began. ‘I…’
Gulda waved him silent and growled. Then she was silent herself for some time, the only sound in the room the steady tapping of her stick on the floor.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said eventually, her voice subdued. ‘That was unwarranted, inexcusable. It’s just that…’ She dropped into a chair and slumped back, flicking the hood of her robe forward to hide her face. ‘It’s just that, like everyone else, I’d thought it was all over. After so long, wandering, learning, teaching, what I’d always feared – what Ethriss had feared – had come about. Somehow Sumeral had returned – the Second Coming was on us. But we defeated Him – or His own folly did – it doesn’t matter which. He was gone – His mortal form was shattered, His will scattered and broken. As much by good fortune as good management, I’ll admit, but He was gone nevertheless. The Fyordyn, the Riddinvolk, the Orthlundyn for mercy’s sake, farmers and carvers for generations now – they came together, formed an army from almost nothing. The great Fyordyn lords – the natural leaders of such an army – willingly accepted the generalship of Loman. A smith! A shoer of horses. Someone I taught to read and write when he was a snotty brat, miserable because he didn’t seem to understand carving like his friends did. And look how he rose to events…’
‘He did fight in the Morlider War,’ Andawyr intruded feebly.
Gulda ignored him. ‘All these… remarkable… things came about. Everyone rose to events – ability, heart, spirit, all determined not to bow before Him. Was it all for nothing? Did we completely misjudge the depths of His deviousness? Was it all just a step in some plan too vast for us to comprehend? A testing of our will, our strength? A testing of the worth of His old agents, His Uhriel? A mere exercise?’
Andawyr did not speak. Apart from the fact that Gulda’s remarks were rhetorical, he was shaken by the very fact that she was speaking the way she was. It was in every way as uncharacteristic as her previous outburst. Though he would not have admitted it, he had come to think of Gulda, like Hawklan – mysterious though they both were – as fixed points in his world, anchors that helped hold him secure amid his own whirling concerns.
Silence returned to the room, Gulda’s questions hanging in the air, Andawyr effectively dumbstruck.
‘Well, well, well,’ Gulda said eventually, tapping the arms of her chair. ‘It must have been a long day. I haven’t had thoughts like that…’ She ran her hand along her stick. ‘In a tree’s age.’ She sniffed and pushed her hood back. The sniff startled Andawyr and he was almost afraid to look at her for fear he would see tears shining in those searching eyes.
‘It’s understandable,’ he said lamely, completely at a loss to offer any real comfort to this enigmatic figure.
Gulda sniffed again, this time with stern purposefulness. ‘Keep your feet to the backside of your people, Andawyr,’ she said. ‘I sense time slipping away from us like water through cupped hands. It’s time for some serious work. Time to brace ourselves for war.’