Into Narsindal

by Roger Taylor

  Hawklan looked at her, unsure of her tone.

  ‘There’s no warrior in this room, unless it’s you, swordswoman,’ he said after a moment.

  Gulda looked at him enigmatically and, sitting back in her chair, placed her stick across her knees.

  Confused by his own strange remark, Hawklan glanced awkwardly round the darkened room, his huge shadow seeming to turn to listen to him.

  ‘I doubt there’s any real difference between warrior and healer here anyway,’ he said diffidently. ‘Oklar is a disease beyond help; his Master, more so. Excision is probably the only treatment.’

  ‘You already knew that,’ Gulda retorted, leaning forward. ‘Any half-baked stitcher of gashes could have told you that. Now answer the question you know I was asking. What has Oklar’s touch taught you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan replied after a brief silence.

  Gulda’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go back to the source, Hawklan,’ she said purposefully, leaning back in her chair again.

  Hawklan looked into the fire and welcomed its warmth on his face. The terrible confrontation at the Palace Gate came to him again as it did every day, as did all his doubts and questions.

  ‘I was frozen with terror after my arrow hit him,’ he began. ‘I felt his malevolence overwhelming me before I could even reach for a second one. Then Andawyr’s voice came from somewhere, very weak and distant. “The sword,” he said. “Ethriss’s sword.”’ Hawklan’s eyes widened as the scene unfolded before him inexorably, their green eerie in the red firelight. ‘But I didn’t know how to use it against such a foe – no part of me knew how to use it – no dormant Guardian rose up from within to protect me when his power struck me – nothing. I did what I could. I tried to heal. I felt the sword severing his dreadful destruction but still it came on, pushing me deeper into . . . darkness.’

  He stopped and looked at Gulda. ‘Perhaps if I’d not used the sword . . . not cleaved his power . . . those two great swathes of destruction wouldn’t have been cut across Vakloss. Perhaps all those people would have been spared.’

  Gulda shrugged, though in helplessness, not callousness. ‘They would have been spared had you kept to your bed that day,’ she said relentlessly. ‘But a thousand times their number would have died the sooner if you hadn’t defied him.’

  ‘It’s a bitter consolation,’ Hawklan said.

  ‘There’s none other,’ Gulda replied gently. ‘Finish your tale.’

  His doubt not eased, Hawklan hesitated, then his face darkened. ‘As I fell, I felt His presence . . . icy . . . terrible.’

  Gulda leaned forward, her face urgent and intent. ‘He came there?’ Her voice was the merest whisper. ‘He reached out from Narsindal?’

  Abruptly her face was alive with pain and uncertainty. Hawklan reached out and took her hands. She was trembling and her pulse was racing as if with passion. For a moment she did not respond, then with a casual gesture she freed herself from his grip and motioned him back to his chair.

  ‘How did you know it was Him?’ she said stonily.

  ‘How could I not,’ Hawklan replied. ‘And He spoke.’

  Gulda sank back into the shade of her chair. ‘He called me . . . the Keeper of Ethriss’s Lair.’

  Hawklan wrapped his arms about himself and shuddered. As if in response, the radiant stones flared up brightly, throwing up a brilliant cascade of sparks and sending a myriad subtle shadows dancing through all the ancient carvings.

  For a long time, the two sat silent, and the fire subsided, clucking and spluttering to itself unheeded.

  ‘Only the pain and terror of His Uhriel could have lured His spirit from Narsindal,’ Gulda said eventually, her voice low as if fearful that her very words could bring Him forth again. ‘Only that could have enabled it to happen. I think Loman’s arrow was truer than even I thought. And perhaps you too, wielded the sword better than you knew. Perhaps you did not divide Oklar’s power, but cut the heart out of it and returned it whence it came, as Ethriss himself might have done.’

  Hawklan looked at her. ‘I am not Ethriss,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gulda said, ‘perhaps not. You’re certainly Hawklan the healer, as you ever were, though more knowledgeable, as I fancy you’ll tell me in a moment. But you’re something else as well.’ Hawklan scowled, but Gulda dismissed his denial. ‘Sumeral’s Will reached out to His Uhriel, but He didn’t destroy you, as He could have done, protected though you were by Ethriss’s sword. He let you be.’

  Hawklan shook his head and wrapped his arms about himself again. ‘I felt Him,’ he said.

  Gulda shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t touch you. His voice alone would have shrivelled you. You caught the edge of His merest whisper. He let you be, and He bound His Uhriel to ensure that he too would not assail you further.’

  ‘He bound His own?’ Hawklan repeated surprised.

  ‘None other could,’ Gulda replied.

  ‘But . . . that would have left Oklar defenceless,’ Hawklan said.

  ‘We have no inkling of Sumeral’s intent,’ Gulda said. ‘And the binding would be subtle. Oklar would not be defenceless, have no fear.’

  ‘It cost him Fyorlund,’ said Hawklan emphatically.

  ‘We have no inkling,’ Gulda repeated deliberately, to end the conjecture. ‘Tell me of the darkness.’

  Unexpectedly, Hawklan smiled. ‘Have you any words to describe sleep?’ he asked. Gulda did not reply. ‘I remember nothing,’ he went on. ‘Nothing until a dancing spark of life reached out and touched me.’

  ‘Sylvriss’s baby?’ Gulda asked.

  Hawklan nodded. ‘From then on, it was like a strange dream. I was awake, but not awake. There but not there. Resting yet striving. Listening, learning, understanding, but not fraught, anxious, concerned – not even at the pain I knew my condition was causing to Isloman and the others. It wasn’t good, but . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain. I don’t know how long I would have stayed like that. Nothing seemed to change until . . . the silence.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gulda said. ‘Dacu spoke to me of that almost within minutes of our meeting. It seems to have had a profound effect on him.’

  ‘It had a profound effect on us all,’ Hawklan said. ‘It wasn’t just a silence, it was a great deep . . . stillness . . . but not the stillness of emptiness. Whatever it was, there was a powerful will at work. Benign I’m sure, but powerful. It reached out and . . . brought me together . . . woke me, if you like; and it stunned the Alphraan utterly.’

  A thought came to him suddenly. ‘It was searching for something,’ he said. ‘Or someone.’

  Gulda nodded. ‘Other forces are moving with us, Hawklan,’ she said. ‘We need our every ally, we must find the source of this will. I’ll speak to the Alphraan about it. Perhaps they understand it better now.’

  Hawklan smiled. ‘They might,’ he said. ‘But even if they do, there’s every chance they won’t be able to explain to you in our “crude” language.’

  ‘Nonetheless . . .’ Gulda said, leaving her intention quite clear and refusing to be deflected by Hawklan’s levity.

  She leaned forward and, folding her hands over the top of her stick, rested her chin on them again. ‘And your own new knowledge, healer?’ she asked, reverting to her original question.

  ‘New and not new, Gulda,’ Hawklan replied flatly. ‘No great blinding revelations. It was like a wind slowly blowing sand away and exposing a familiar rock. What I know now, I also know was there all the time.’

  He paused. Gulda waited silently.

  ‘I’ve knowledge of the governing of a great people, of the leading of a great army, of a life of learning and effort to make my body and mind what they are now.’ He smiled sadly. ‘No magical gift from some ancient Guardian made me what I am. Just effort and fine teachers. But . . .’ He entwined his fingers and brought his hands together tightly as if trying to wring the truth out of something. ‘. . . no names, no faces, no . . . small
memories to tell me who or what I truly am . . . or was.’

  He paused again, his face pained.

  ‘Also I have the memory of a terrible battle . . . or part of it,’ he said. ‘The last part. The air full of awful noises, the sky flickering black, the ground uncertain under our feet, and hordes upon hordes of . . . them . . . coming eternally against us, regardless of their own losses.’

  He closed his eyes as if to dismiss the thought forever.

  ‘What else?’ Gulda prompted.

  Hawklan did not answer immediately. Instead he looked down at his still clenched hands. ‘I led them there, Gulda,’ he said reluctantly. ‘In my arrogance, I led my army, my whole people, to annihilation.’

  ‘You know this?’ Gulda asked.

  Hawklan leaned back and looked up at the ornate ceiling, red in the firelight like towering storm clouds at sunset.

  ‘We were the last,’ he said softly. ‘The rest of the army had been . . . destroyed. Destroyed by sheer numbers . . . savagery . . .’ He looked back at Gulda. ‘Perhaps treachery. I don’t know,’ he added uncertainly. ‘We stood alone, back to back, a shrinking circle . . .’

  He stopped. ‘And I know nothing other than that. That and a terrible grief and despair.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Something . . . touched my shoulder . . . I think.’ Hawklan’s face was riven with concentration, but to no avail.

  ‘It’s a vivid memory?’ Gulda asked.

  ‘It’s the clearest memory I have. It comes to me every day. Without the pain of the despair and grief – that’s only a faint, distant echo now. But the images are intense.’ His hands separated. ‘What does it all mean, Gulda?’

  The old woman shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘You’re beyond my reach and beyond my vision, and always have been. All we know is that Sumeral fears you sufficiently both to spare you when He could have destroyed you, and to bind His Uhriel to ensure he would not use the Old Power against you again. But why He should fear you?’ She shrugged. ‘You’re as profound an enigma as ever, Hawklan.’

  ‘Could it be that He wishes me spared for some more devious reason than just fear?’ Hawklan suggested hesitantly.

  ‘It’s a risk,’ Gulda said. ‘Always has been. But there’s nothing we can do about that. We must play the parts we see and keep our wits about us for ambushes.’ She leaned forward and looked intently at Hawklan again. When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. ‘You’re someone who might be turned to His way, Hawklan. Someone even who could become one of His Uhriel. Perhaps that’s what He had in mind for you.’

  Hawklan shrank back in his chair, his eyes horrified. ‘No,’ he said hoarsely, his voice both fearful and savage. ‘Never!’

  ‘All the Uhriel were great men once,’ Gulda said grimly. ‘They weren’t made the way they are at a flick of His hand. They were led to Him step by patient step, until they found they could not retreat.’

  Still shaken, Hawklan caught an unexpected note in her voice. ‘You sound almost sorry for them,’ he said.

  Gulda was silent for a moment, then, with a slow shake of her head, she said, ‘We all choose our own way.’

  Before Hawklan could speak again, she waved a dismissive hand. Whatever doubts she might have, they were not to be pursued further here.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked, relaxing.

  ‘Stay here for a few days to rest,’ Hawklan replied after an uncertain pause. ‘And talk, and think, and walk around the castle, and just sit. I’ve travelled so far since I left for the Gretmearc, I need a little stillness for a time.’

  Gulda eyed him. ‘And when you’ve finished this comprehensive list of chores, what then?’ she asked.

  Hawklan chuckled and retaliated immediately. ‘You’re relentless, Gulda,’ he said. ‘But when I’ve satisfied myself about everything you’ve all done so far, I intend to accept your original advice – and Andawyr’s.’ His face became anxious. ‘That strange little man saved my life at the Gretmearc and has woven himself into it in some unfathomable fashion. He sought my help twice and I couldn’t – wouldn’t – give it. Then in my darkest moment he reached out, just as Sumeral reached out, and aided me.’ He looked up at the red clouds overhead. ‘We will need this Old Power to face Sumeral, just as surely as we will need men. None here can use it, but Andawyr could. I must seek out the Cadwanol.’

  Chapter 4

  Hawklan stood on the battlements of Anderras Darion and looked out over the Orthlund countryside.

  It was subdued and dull and the horizon merged uncertainly with the grey sky in a vague mistiness. Coupled with the cold, raw weather, it was the very opposite of the rich, vigorous landscape he had left in the spring. Yet there was still a calmness about it: a calmness that said that all was as it should be, that this was the preparation for the long winter resting that would see the land renewed again in its due time. And even as he looked at it, Hawklan realized that this was where some part of him had been aching to be ever since he had left; this was where he belonged, for all his strange knowledge of other places and for all the strange compulsions that had drawn him to the Gretmearc and thence to and fro across Fyorlund. This was his home.

  He wrapped his warm cloak about himself and slowly drew in a long, cold breath. Then, equally slowly, he released it again, relaxing as he did so into the deep truth of his surroundings, into the Great Harmony of Orthlund.

  Isloman, standing next to him, watched the slight movement silently. He laid his hand on the finely crafted stone of the wall.

  ‘If we don’t destroy Him, He will strike to our very heart,’ he said.

  The remark bore no relation to anything they had been discussing, but it chimed with Hawklan’s mood, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

  Why? he asked himself briefly. Why could not he and the Orthlundyn and the Fyordyn be left in peace? Why should Sumeral so seek to dominate them? What was to be gained by it? What creation could Sumeral offer that would match the harmonies of these lands and these peoples? And what others would He assail should these obstacles to His Will be swept aside?

  Ethriss had given the joy of being. What would Sumeral give? Not being? A great barren stillness in which He alone was?

  Hawklan did not pursue the questions. They had come before and he had failed to find answers to them. Perhaps, he thought, such questions could not be answered, any more than could, ‘Why the mountains? Why the sea?’ They were. Sumeral was. They should be accepted. That was sufficient answer for the needs of the times.

  Hawklan smiled gently to himself. Whether a question could be answered or not was irrelevant. While there were minds to inquire, there would always be more questions and always further striving for answers; those same needs of the times would always set aside too idle a speculation.

  It came to him suddenly that, whatever His motivation, Sumeral would not merely dominate the peoples He conquered, He would destroy them, and their lands, and everything else that the Guardians had created.

  It was a chilling revelation, but Hawklan knew that it was true beyond all doubting. What he had learned from his studies at Anderras Darion had told him of a foe who had left a trail of every form of treachery, deceit and savagery; treaties broken, people enslaved, lands ravaged. Yet these were the words of men; men long dead and beyond questioning; men who too could lie and deceive; men who could make honest mistakes as time stretched between the deeds and the writing of them. The inner knowledge that welded these words into the truth which now stood before him, stark and clear, he had gained from the horror around Lord Evison’s castle, from the downing of Isloman near the mines, from the countless tiny cries of all the living things around Vakloss that had reached out to him as he neared his goal, but, above all, from the naked fury of Oklar and the icy whispered touch of his Master.

  Hawklan knew that he could not have such knowledge and turn away from it. He must become a greater healer yet, and a greater warrior, and each must accept the other without r
ancour or confusion.

  A movement caught his eye.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said, pointing to a small group of riders far below.

  Isloman peered forward intently. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I think it’s that group that Loman packed off into the mountains on an exercise when the rest of us were leaving the main camp.’

  Hawklan recalled the incident. ‘Tybek and Jenna were in charge, weren’t they?’ he said.

  ‘There’s no point trailing back to the Castle and then trailing out again, is there?’ Loman had replied to Tybek’s injured protest. ‘We’re far enough behind with our training as it is, thanks to our new friends. Take your winter gear. Cut a broad circuit round those peaks and come down on to the Riddin path. I’ll send Jenna out in an hour or so with a hunting group. It’ll be excellent practice for you both.’

  Subsequently Loman had become concerned when snowstorms were seen on the distant peaks.

  ‘Don’t worry about them until they’re overdue,’ Gulda had said, less than sympathetically. ‘They’re as good as you could have made them. An experience like that will make or mar them.’

  ‘And if they’re marred?’ Loman had queried angrily.

  ‘Then they’d have been no good as Helyadin, would they?’ Gulda replied sharply. ‘Better fail now than when others’ lives depend on them.’

  Hawklan smiled as he remembered Loman’s frustrated scowl.

  ‘They’ve got someone with them.’ Isloman broke into his reverie. ‘And it looks as if there are two riding the one horse.’ He screwed his eyes up. ‘Yes, there are,’ he added. ‘And it’s a fine horse too.’

  Hawklan leaned forward on the parapet wall and watched the approaching group patiently. After a few minutes he began to make out the details that Isloman had described. That horse had to be a Muster horse, and that tiny passenger . . .?

  He was familiar.

  He started, as a bedraggled Gavor bounced down on to the wall beside him, flapping excitedly and staggering alarmingly.

  ‘Come on, dear boy,’ the raven said, jumping up and down and at the same time trying to preen himself. ‘Shift yourself.’