The Song Guardian

Sil Artenór: In From The Cold

Somewhere on another continent the black bird that was the raven crowned the tower and the tower crowned the castle. The castle stood on the mount, itself a crown on the hill that raised itself above the flats of the green lands below. The wind ruffled the birds feathers, and with just a blink of the eye it flapped its wings and was gone.

'Try and remember, as you look out around you, that our life here is but a drop, compared to the sea of time in which we stand and of which we have no knowledge...'

Halder was a boy who imagined himself King of the Castle. But the old man always saw him as a lost little bird, to be nurtured to strength ready for his flight into the big world beyond. This little bird was nearly old enough to fly, and before it flew he wished to fill it with wonder.

'Now. It seems to me, looking across this landscape, that our life is like the swift flight of a bird. Now imagine it flying through some great house on a winters day, drawn to the light and heat of a great fireplace.'

The boy thought about that, as he stood atop the tallest of the towers, the sails of the windmill built on top of the lonely rock out into the plain far, far below him. He took hold of the cold wet stone of the parapet as another gust of wind blew in from the wide flat valley of the Damlfas Plains looking West, to where the sun had broken from behind the cover of clouds, turning the faint winding line of the river Cimbren into a thin golden snake.

'Outside a storm is raging,' the old man was saying. He was pointing in the opposite direction, to the Northeast. 'Over there the wind is howling and the rains ravage the earth. This bird flies swiftly through one door of the hall and out the other. While he is inside, he is safe and feels the comfort. But after that, he is soon outside again.'

It was a long time since Halder had ever felt the comfort of something like that. He turned his back on the memory of warmth and looked into the mountains, past the frozen rivers that laced the vales of Sardakál to the mighty shadows of the inhospitable lands of the Tamtungar on the horizon. On a clear today each one of the peaks were outlined as clear as the teeth of the world, today lost to a blanket of cold. Somewhere out there a storm was raging.

'Can you see it?'

He didn't really know what the old man was saying, but he nodded anyway. He nodded anyway.

'Then come!' The old man guided Halder by the arm and turned him towards the door.

Halder felt a rush of recognition. He was talking about his first assignment. That meant his training was finally about to begin.

'We must leave Sil Artenór for another day.'

It was a long time since he had heard that name. This was Tarn Sûn, the tower of the sun, the first tower of the Range to catch the rays of the nee day. To the North, the might of the mountain they called Hóborg. To the South, the Ichinian Basin and the bustling port of Pharomis. To the East, Tamberlayne that had he had once been called Ichinion by the river Cimbren and to the North...

to the North the storm was coming.