by Roger Taylor
Isloman gave a nod of ironic agreement. ‘Would you like some help with that belt?’ he offered.
Within the hour, the three men had left the village and were heading up into the mountains following the Alphraan’s guiding sound. Daylight was easing its way through a uniformly grey sky and, as it became brighter, so the snow-covered mountains came increasingly into view. They were magnificent, spreading into the misty distance like a jagged frozen ocean, though all three travellers knew that for all their beauty the winter mountains held dangers far greater than those to be encountered in summer.
The sound pulled them forward relentlessly, but Hawklan reproached their unseen guide. ‘We’re travelling as quickly as we can,’ he said. ‘The going’s difficult. Too fast and we’ll be exhausted very quickly, and if one of us falls and is injured then we’ll never reach wherever it is you want to go. We’re trusting your guidance; you must trust our pace.’
There was no reply, though the guiding note seemed to become a little more patient.
Some while later they were joined by Gavor, who landed clumsily on Hawklan’s head.
‘I hope someone’s got a reason for all this,’ he said in the manner of a strict schoolteacher roused from a clandestine slumber.
‘Ask your little friends,’ Loman said.
Gavor studied the grey sky. ‘We’re not speaking at the moment,’ he replied with haughty indifference. ‘Their intrusion was most . . . inopportune.’
All three men laughed. ‘They can’t be all bad, then,’ Loman said.
Gavor glowered at him indignantly and then gave a martyred sigh. ‘It’s very difficult coping with people so lacking in delicate sensibilities,’ he said. Then, thrusting a wing in Hawklan’s face, he said in an injured tone, ‘Look, dear boy. All my stars have gone.’
‘Thus passes the glory of the world,’ Hawklan commiserated insincerely. ‘But I’m sure all your friends love you for what you are, not your vulnerable exterior.’
Loman gave a snorting chuckle but Gavor ignored him. ‘Thank you, dear boy,’ he said to Hawklan. ‘I see there’s some hope for humanity yet.’ Then, he leaned forward towards Loman. ‘You might take some solace in that yourself, smith,’ he said. ‘Coming into the mountains looking like a bear, with your fur coat and all.’ He paused and peered intently downwards. ‘And what in the world have you all got on your feet?’
‘Snowshoes,’ Loman said, warily.
Nearly falling off Hawklan’s head in his anxiety to examine the footwear, Gavor flapped his wings to regain his balance and then laughed loudly. ‘You do cheer up a deprived soul, dear boys,’ he said. ‘I really don’t know why you don’t practice a little harder and learn to fly. It’s not difficult. I’ve done it since I was barely an egg. Walking does seem to present an awful lot of strange problems, and some very strange solutions.’
Hawklan interrupted Gavor’s merriment. ‘Walking presents even more problems when there’s a large overfed bird standing on your head,’ he said. ‘Would you like to fly on and see if there’s anything unusual ahead?’
‘Delighted, dear boy,’ Gavor said, still laughing, and he glided down to land on a small stretch of exposed rock some way in front of the party. There he took three or four painstaking high-stepping strides in cruel imitation of his friends, prompting Loman to bend down to gather up a large snowball. Before the smith could implement his intent however, Gavor’s great black wings stretched out and he flapped up into the cold winter air, laughing raucously
‘Game to the bird, I think,’ Isloman said, banging his snowshoe against a rock to clear it of clogged snow.
No one disagreed.
Gavor’s arrival seemed to have lessened the unease that had been pervading the three travellers but, on his departure, the urgent note of the guiding sound returned to dominate their thoughts.
Abruptly it changed direction and led them from the Riddin path they had been following and up a narrow gulley that could only lead them higher and higher.
Hawklan looked at his friends questioningly. ‘Alphraan,’ he said. ‘You’ll make our journey easier if you’ll tell us where we’re going.’
The note faltered and became full of apology. ‘None may know, yet,’ said a voice suddenly, very softly. Then it was gone and the guiding sound returned.
‘That’s all we’re going to be told,’ Isloman said, adjusting his pack. ‘Let’s just watch where we’re going and keep putting one foot in front of the other.’
This they did, for the remainder of that day. Gavor returned, but with no news, and their steady walking took them further and further from the normal track and progressively higher.
As the light began to fade, they found themselves on top of a wide ridge. Hawklan stopped and looked round. Everything was still and calm and beautiful. Unusually, there was not even the slightest breeze blowing. He remarked on it.
‘It’s a good job,’ Loman said prosaically. ‘This can be a cold place even in summertime when the wind’s blowing.’
‘You know where we are?’ Hawklan asked.
Both Loman and Isloman nodded. ‘It’s been a long time,’ Isloman said. ‘But we’ve both been up here when we were young, and the only place this ridge leads to, is there.’ He pointed ahead to a distant peak disappearing into the clouds.
Hawklan found he was looking upwards. ‘It looks high,’ he said.
‘It is high,’ Isloman said, looking concerned. ‘The highest local peak by far. And we can’t go a great deal further.’
‘Is it difficult to climb?’ Hawklan asked.
Isloman shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘At least I don’t think so. Though neither of us ever reached the top; the air’s too thin. What can they want of us here? Are you sure this is safe?’
‘I feel no danger,’ Hawklan replied. ‘All I feel is their urgency. But I don’t see that we’ve any alternative but to continue, do you?’
Both men shook their heads. ‘No,’ Loman said. ‘But we’ll have to camp soon, the . . .’
‘There’s no time for rest.’ The Alphraan’s voice interrupted him. ‘Hurry. We will guide you, have no fear.’
The three men looked at one another. There was a note in the voice that could not be denied. Loman looked up at the darkening sky and checked his torch.
‘Come on,’ he said resignedly. ‘I doubt any of us would be able to rest anyway.’
Hawklan glanced at Isloman, who nodded, and the three set off again. As they moved slowly forward, the ridge became progressively steeper and the cloud covering the mountain moved down to greet them.
Soon they were climbing through the mist, guided by the Alphraan’s urging note and stepping carefully by the light of their torches. Increasingly they had to stop and rest. It had been a long day and the way was becoming not only steeper but rougher, obliging them to relinquish their snowshoes to scramble over the rocks. The Alphraan allowed them little respite however, their guiding tone if anything becoming more urgent still.
‘Enough,’ Loman said eventually, flopping down on a rock and breathing heavily. ‘This is madness. We’re going too fast and we’re getting too tired. One of us is going to have an accident. Look, even Gavor’s looking seedy.’
Hawklan turned his torch on Gavor. The raven did indeed look subdued, standing in the snow with his head bent forward as if he were listening for something.
‘What’s the matter?’ Hawklan asked him.
Gavor did not reply. Concerned, Hawklan bent forward and picked him up, but still he made no response.
‘Alphraan,’ Hawklan said, an edge to his voice. ‘Is this your doing?’
But the question was ignored. ‘Come quickly,’ said the voice. ‘It is only a little further. They need you, but they doubt.’
Hawklan scowled. ‘Enough,’ he said, echoing Loman’s plaint, his voice grim. ‘I asked is this your doing?’
The guiding note stopped abruptly. Hawklan looked around. In the sudden silence, it seemed that the darkness beyond the torchlit dome
of mist was closing in upon them, as if some great weight were pressing down. Somewhere, he heard . . . sensed . . . a sound. A vaguely familiar sound.
Suddenly, Gavor stirred in his arms, then wriggled free violently. ‘This way,’ he said hoarsely, and flapped off into the darkness.
Hawklan swore, and all three turned up their torches. But Gavor was gone, swallowed up in the night and the mist.
‘Come on,’ Hawklan said, turning to the others. But Loman seized his arm.
‘Where, Hawklan?’ he asked. ‘We’ve nothing to guide us now. We’ve been walking steadily uphill since before sunrise.’
He slapped his chest with his hand and took a deep breath. ‘It’s already getting difficult . . .’
Abruptly, Hawklan held up his hand for silence. ‘Douse the torches,’ he said. Loman scowled at the interruption but after a brief hesitation did as he was bidden. The darkness closed around them like some ancient predator.
‘What is it?’ Loman whispered.
‘I thought I saw something,’ Hawklan said. ‘But . . .’
‘You did,’ Isloman interrupted. ‘Look.’
Gradually, as his eyes adjusted to the intense darkness, Hawklan noticed a hazy glow some way ahead of them. Cautiously he started to move forward.
‘Careful,’ Isloman said. ‘There are . . . figures . . . moving about.’
Hawklan screwed up his eyes, but his vision was not that of the Orthlundyn carver and he could distinguish nothing but the faint glow. He wondered for a moment if Isloman could be seeing the figures that he had seen gathered around Gulda at their first meeting. But there was no driving compulsion here as there had been in the cold, damp, glen.
‘Who are they?’ he asked softly.
He sensed Isloman shrugging. ‘I can’t see clearly enough,’ he said. ‘But I presume they’re whoever the Alphraan wanted us to meet. Let’s go and see.’
Carefully, using only a single dimmed torch to show them the ground, the three men moved slowly through the crunching snow towards the glow. As they neared it, Hawklan began to distinguish the figures to which Isloman had referred, though for some reason they seemed to become no clearer as he drew nearer. The effect was strangely disorientating, especially when he saw also that prowling up and down in front of them, stark and clear-cut, was Gavor.
Hawklan screwed up his eyes again to make some sense of what he was seeing and realized abruptly that the mist around the figures was denser by far than the mountain mist that surrounded him and his friends. It was as if it were contained in some way. Further, it was the source of the light. It seemed almost as though it was a vague doorway into some bright, private mansion.
‘This is he?’ said a voice. It was soft, gentle, and slightly muffled and it came from one of the figures.
‘This is he,’ replied the Alphraan, their voice, as ever, clear and disembodied and without any direction.
‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ Hawklan said, moving towards the figures.
‘Come no closer . . . Hawklan,’ said the voice. ‘The mist you see keeps our worlds apart. We have moved as deep as we dare and need it for our protection. If you pass through it you may perish, as would we if we came to you.’
Hawklan stopped. ‘Who are you?’ he repeated.
One of the figures stepped forward, and Hawklan could see the others reaching out nervously to restrain it.
‘I am Ynar Aesgin,’ it said. ‘One of the Soarers Tarran of Hendar Gornath, Margrave of this land. These are my companions in flight. ‘We are . . .’
‘Drienvolk,’ Hawklan completed the sentence. The memory of the great cloud land he had seen floating through the spring sky over Riddin returned to him vividly. Involuntarily, he glanced upwards as if expecting to see the huge bulk of the sky island towering above him, but all was darkness.
A flood of questions surged into his mind, but all that he could voice were, ‘How did you come here?’ and ‘What do you want?’
‘We came here because that was the will of Sphaeera,’ said the figure.
‘But . . . Viladrien have never come to Orthlund before,’ Hawklan said, still uncertain what he should be saying.
‘Not in countless generations,’ Ynar said. ‘But many things are not as they were. Not now that He is awake again, and His Uhriel are turning to their old devilment.’
Hawklan put his hand to his head. Were not even the citizens of the skies to be allowed peace? ‘Does He assail you also?’ he said.
Ynar nodded, but before Hawklan could ask any further questions, he said, ‘The Alphraan tell us you are a great prince, wearer of the black sword of Ethriss and key-bearer to Anderras Darion. They say you have made whole their shattered family and struck down Oklar himself with an arrow from Ethriss’s bow. Is this true?’
There was an unexpectedly plaintive, almost desperate note in his voice.
‘It may be that I was once a prince,’ Hawklan answered quietly. ‘The prince who led the Orthlundyn to their doom, if you know the tale. But now I am a healer and the Orthlundyn know no ruler, nor have since that time.’ There was no response from the Drienvolk but Ynar was leaning forward slightly as if listening intently. Hawklan continued. ‘It’s true that I carry Ethriss’s sword and hold the key to his castle, but how that has come to pass is beyond my knowledge. As for the Alphraan, it was they who brought their own family together, and while it was I who fired the arrow that wounded Oklar, this was the smith who made it.’ He indicated Loman, then Isloman. ‘And this the man who saved my life by bearing me on a Muster horse from the horror of Oklar’s wrath.’ And finally Gavor, still pacing fretfully up and down at his feet, ‘And this the friend who made Oklar show his true nature.’
The figures in the mist milled around, seemingly in some excitement. ‘What of Oklar now?’ asked one.
‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan replied. ‘He is pinioned in some way. It seems he could not free himself of the arrow, and he did not use his Power when the Fyordyn launched their army against him. Now he skulks in the tower fortress of Narsindalvak. The Fyordyn watch him, and we are preparing an army to ride into Narsindal and face Sumeral Himself.’
There was more agitation amongst the Drienvolk.
‘In our pain and distress we doubted you, Alphraan,’ said Ynar. ‘But this man – these men – are fired by Ethriss’s spirit beyond doubt and their telling seals the truth of your own words. Forgive us. How can we atone?’
‘The pain of our own ignorance is all too near for us to offer you any reproach, old friends,’ came the Alphraan’s voice. ‘And the music of your great land echoes now through our Ways to put us eternally in your debt.’
As Ynar turned back to him, Hawklan repeated his earlier question. ‘Who assails the Drienvolk, Ynar?’ he said.
‘Dar Hastuin assails us, Hawklan,’ the Drienwr replied simply. ‘He rides the Screamer Usgreckan again and has been amongst us for many years.’
‘Amongst you?’ Hawklan said, instinctively resting his hand on his sword hilt. He felt Loman and Isloman becoming suddenly alert behind him. Was this, after all, another subtle trap, with the Alphraan as innocent dupes?
‘Amongst some of our people,’ came the reply, hastily, as if noting the concern the remark had caused. ‘He has corrupted and possessed the minds of many of our kind on other lands, but not yet ours.’ Suddenly there was defiance in the voice. ‘Nor will he, though he hurl us to the depths of the ocean.’
Hawklan flinched from the passion in the voice; it betrayed the desperation of a man prepared to lose all in order to destroy his enemy. Yet it was uncertain. Childlike almost?
‘Your voice tells me you’re sorely pressed,’ Hawklan said. ‘I know nothing of your . . . lands or your people, but we are allies against a common foe; tell me how you will be attacked and how we can help.’
There was a mixture of gratitude and gentle amusement in the Drienwr’s reply. ‘We are both at some extremity here, Hawklan, and we cannot even touch, let alone help one another,’ he said. �
��But you help us more than you know by your very presence. And your news that Oklar is harmed and that the peoples of the middle depths are rising to oppose Sumeral will bolster us in our last days.’
Hawklan looked round at Loman and Isloman in concern, then he stepped forward towards the strange mist. ‘Your last days? Do you go to war looking only to your defeat?’ Suddenly, and somewhat to his own surprise, his voice became angry. ‘War is chance run riot. Where the merest gesture, the shifting of a pebble, the braying of a horse, may tilt the balance. You cannot wield your sword while your hearts and minds are so bound.’
Except for Ynar, the figures in the mist retreated a little. ‘Hawklan,’ he said. ‘You admit to knowing nothing of us or our lands. We will be attacked in ways you cannot begin to understand. It is . . .’
Hawklan cut across him. ‘I understand that if you are defeated, then Dar Hastuin will own the skies and will be free to add his power to that of Oklar and Creost which is already ranged against us.’
The Drienwr bridled. ‘You do not understand, Hawklan,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Like Creost with the Morlider Islands, Dar Hastuin has committed the ultimate blasphemy. He moves the lands to his own will. He can command the higher paths and destroy at his whim any land that opposes him. Either binding them with his legions or . . .’ He hesitated, as if having difficulty speaking. ‘. . . crushing them in the depths. So far chance has kept us from him, but he knows of us and even now is seeking us out. When he finds us . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished.
Hawklan hesitated. He did not indeed understand, he realized, but the word blasphemy hung in his mind. He recalled Agreth’s telling of the interrogation of the Morlider Drago by Oslang. To Drago, the moving of the islands had been a matter of mystery and awe; to these Drienvolk however, it was a blasphemy, and blasphemy implied choice.
‘Can you not move your own land?’ he said quietly.
There was no reply.
He repeated the question.
Still there was no reply. Gavor flapped his wings noisily in the cold air. At the sound, Hawklan suddenly felt as if he were one of the figures on the other side of the glowing mist, looking through at this strident black shadow of a man from the choking middle depths, who had had the effrontery to stand in judgement over them.
