by Roger Taylor
'Hawklan, Sumeral and Ethriss fought on planes and in ways we can't begin to understand. But amongst us, each led mortal armies in human form.’ She put her hand to her head. ‘Dismiss from your mind all the rhetoric you've read about war—glittering arrays of armoured men, spear points shining in the sun, bronzed helmets, plumes nodding, brave fluttering flags and on and on. Fine poetry, but not truth. Such small good as comes from war is no more than a solitary star shining through the fog to a man lost in a barren wilderness. Heroism, honour, dignity—they happen only because Ethriss's children are infinitely adaptable and will strive eternally to survive, the wiser among them having regard for the needs of others. In the total sum these offerings are outweighed tenfold by the horrors that war works.
'Instead you should feel terror to loosen your bowels, know steel hacking beloved flesh, hooves trampling skulls into the blood-soaked mud. Years of creation gone in seconds. Know great areas of land blighted for generations, rivers choked with mutilated bodies, men suffocating under mounds of their dead and dying friends, men dying of disease and unspeakable wounds, dying without solace or comfort, far away from everything they love. Old people slaughtered, children maimed and wandering. That's war, Hawklan. No glory. No splendour.'
Hawklan bowed his head under this onslaught.
'But the real horror is worse,’ Gulda continued. ‘Not for nothing did I say war was Sumeral's most cunning and evil device. When Ethriss realized the truth, he wept.'
Hawklan looked at her uncertainly. ‘What could be worse than what you've just described?’ he asked.
Gulda seized his wrists. Again Hawklan wondered at the overwhelming strength of her grip.
'In any combat, be it between men or nations, only the strongest and most ruthless can win, and they can win only by inflicting appalling losses on their opponents.’ Tears ran down Gulda's face. Not petulant sobbing, but an overflow from some well deep within.
'When Sumeral launched war against His enemies, they scattered and fell in dismay and confusion, like chaff in the wind, totally ignorant of the nature of the terrible thing that was afflicting them. They'd have been swept out of existence had not Ethriss...'
'Taught them war,’ said Hawklan almost inaudibly. Andawyr's words at the Gretmearc returned to him: the Guardians had to teach Sumeral's evil to overcome it. Then Isloman's voice in the soft grey rain: you have to be worse than your enemy. Don't think otherwise or you'll die. And his own inexorable conclusion: we act to preserve ourselves. It's the most ancient of laws. Written deep into all living things.
Gulda nodded and released Hawklan's wrists. ‘That's why Ethriss wept. He had to complete Sumeral's own work to defeat Him. He had to become a greater teacher of corruption than even Sumeral.'
Hawklan put his face in his hands as if to shut out his own thoughts as the logic of Gulda's tale swept all before it.
'Ethriss's self-reproach at his own sloth and tardiness is a burden none of us can imagine,’ continued Gulda. ‘The only leavening he could add to the horror of what he had to teach was that men should fight only to preserve what was theirs and not to impose their will on others. And that in victory they...'
'Should stay their hands from excess.’ Hawklan finished the sentence.
Gulda looked at him, her head tilted slightly as if she had heard a distant sound. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They should embrace compassion and eschew vengeance. Lonely and delicate flowers to grow amid such a harrowing. Nor did they always survive.'
The wind outside had dropped and the grey storm clouds hung solid and menacing overhead—like an army awaiting the order to advance, Hawklan thought. He sat up and looked around. Gavor was gazing transfixed at the lowering grey sky, occupied by who knew what thoughts. Gulda, pale and distressed from her long tale, but peculiarly triumphant, was wiping her eyes.
But Tirilen was sitting motionless, with her arms wrapped around herself and her head bowed low. Hawklan felt the fear radiating from her. She was trapped, like a child in a nightmare who, on waking, finds it is no dream.
Hawklan put out his arms and cradled her to him as he had done so many times when she had been a child. Though whether it was to console her or himself, he could not have said.
* * *
Chapter 22
'Why are we listening to this, Hawklan?’ Tirilen said, looking reproachfully at Gulda. ‘It's horrible. I don't believe it. People don't do things like that, nor ever did. It's just an old tale like those on the Gate. A horrible tale.'
Hawklan made no reply, but held her close, until the woman in Tirilen could reassert herself over the young girl.
Gulda, woman to woman, was less gentle. ‘It was no old tale that cut down your friends from Fyorlund and has brought half the countryside down on us for help, young lady,’ she said harshly.
Hawklan winced at the tone, and Tirilen shivered then bridled. She pulled free from Hawklan and thrust her face forward angrily at Gulda. ‘No,’ she cried out, but her voice cracked with doubt. ‘No. I won't believe it. I won't believe in fairy-tale monsters coming to life, and such nonsense. And how could you possibly know such things, you silly old...’ She dropped her head abruptly, ashamed at her outburst. Fumbling with her hands in her lap she muttered an apology.
There was a flicker of impatience in Gulda's face, but Hawklan caught her eye and sent a plea for compassion.
'Tirilen,’ Gulda said. ‘This is hard for you, I know. But you're a healer of sorts, and you know there are times when reason fails. When you have to trust your intuition. To let yourself go. You have to enter into the truth of your charge's pain and accept it. Look at Hawklan and know the truth.'
Tirilen looked up as she was bidden and stared into Hawklan's face. It bore an expression of sad implacability. He had no words for her. She had a step into blackness before her and none could help her take it. She hesitated.
Gulda's voice spoke again. ‘Hear the truth, Tirilen. Long ago, the world was once ravaged by a terrible evil. It may be that that same evil has risen again and if it has then it will ravage the world once more unless we who see it act.'
Tirilen did not move, but continued to stare at Hawklan.
Gulda's tone became sterner. ‘As for what I know and how I know it, suffice it that I'm here now because of my folly. With good fortune, the Cadwanol may be here now because of their wisdom. More to the point are these two.’ Her eyes passed over Hawklan and Gavor. ‘Who can say who they are or why they're here now?'
'Hawklan,’ said Tirilen softly, desperately, a faint pleading smile imploring him to say it was not true, that all would be as it was.
Still Hawklan had no words for her, though he felt the smile would break his heart.
'Mandrocs killed the High Guards, Tirilen. Then we in our turn killed Mandrocs.'
It was Gavor's voice, simple and clear, like his own black shadow. It broke the last thread restraining the girl and too-long-held tears burst out like a flood. Her hands flew to her face to cover its contortions and her body shook convulsively.
Hawklan knew that Tirilen's tears were not for the massive horrors of a long-dead past, nor the fear of its recurrence. They were for a more immediate loss, that of her erstwhile captors: young men, full of life, who had been so apologetic and courteous even while holding her prisoner and who had been so cruelly destroyed.
Both he and Gulda breathed out softly. Each had feared that her grief might be restrained too long. Her tears were essential, as had been Hawklan's and Fel-Astian's in the forest. They must run their course freely now, so that Tirilen's natural strength and courage could carry her safely forward.
Hawklan turned towards the window image. Outside, as if in imitation of Tirilen's release, great raindrops were starting to fall out of the leaden sky.
There was silence in the room until Tirilen's sobbing eventually stopped and she sat up and began to wipe her eyes with her sleeve in a most unladylike manner. Gavor fluttered up on to her shoulder.
Gulda took up her tale again.
> Past its awful heart, she spoke long and easily into the darkening day. Telling of the generations of conflict that surged to and fro across the world as Ethriss and the Guardians sought to stay Sumeral's advance. Telling of Sumeral's continued corruption of men to form His great armies; and of His enslavement of others as workers; of His corruption of the gentle mountain-dwelling Mandreci into the barbarous Mandroc hordes; of Ethriss's formation of the Cadwanol, drawing the wisest men from all nations into a Great Order and giving them such of his wisdom and power as they could use to wage the battle on its many levels; and of the Great Alliance of Kings and Peoples that eventually swept Sumeral and the Uhriel up to their last stronghold in Derras Ustramel, the terrible fortress that rose out of Lake Kedrieth in the bleak fastness of Narsindal; and of the final fall of Sumeral and Derras Ustramel.
'For final they thought it was,’ said Gulda. ‘Sumeral's spirit was overcome by Ethriss, and His body was slain by Ethriss's guards. And with the fall of their Master, the Uhriel fell lifeless before the might of the Guardians.'
She sat pensive and unmoved by the victory she had just described.
'But the seeds of the Second Coming were sown,’ said Hawklan, echoing Andawyr's words.
Gulda nodded. ‘It would appear so,’ she said. ‘Though none had the sight, or perhaps the desire, to see it then. Except perhaps Ethriss. And he was gone.'
'Gone?’ said Tirilen.
Gulda nodded again. Her storyteller's lilt returned. ‘Ethriss was a great warrior. None could stand against him in combat, save perhaps Sumeral Himself. But he came unarmed to the Last Battle lest the preoccupation with the safety of his body should distract him from his true battle with Sumeral. An Iron Ring of Fyordyn High Guard protected him and Sumeral's hordes beat against them like waves against a cliff while he stood motionless, battling with Sumeral in ways we cannot understand. Then Sumeral, glorious and shining like the sun in His splendid armour, faltered at some unseen assault...'
She stopped abruptly as if an old memory had suddenly burst upon her, and her eyes filled with tears and ran freely down her face. For a moment she seemed to be struggling to speak, then she was free again. ‘And missiles that had fallen from Him through all that terrible day now found their mark.
'He crashed from His steed pierced by a score of good Fyordyn arrows. But even as He fell, He loosed one final cast of His spear and struck down the defenceless Ethriss, who fell in the melee, unseen, save by one in that ring of defenders.'
Gulda fell silent again for a while and sat motionless.
'When the battle was over, his body was nowhere to be found,’ she said eventually. ‘There was no sign of him—nor of Sumeral and the Uhriel. There were rumours that the Mandrocs had hidden the bodies of the Uhriel deep in their caves and that the body of Sumeral was lost in Lake Kedrieth when the Guardians exerted their last strength and tumbled Derras Ustramel into ruins, but...’ She shrugged. ‘There was a peace to be made. A terrible price had been paid in the death of Ethriss, but the evil was destroyed, it was believed, and much was to be done. The world was a sorry place.'
Her face softened. ‘The Great Alliance became a Great Congress, and pronounced wisely. They remembered Ethriss's injunction to stay their hands from excess in victory. Those nations of men that had been bound or misled by Sumeral were freed and no acts of vengeance were taken, or few, at any rate. Only the poor Mandrocs proved irredeemable. They were sentenced to remain forever in Narsindal. The Fyordyn were given the land you now call Fyorlund, and swore a sacred oath to maintain an eternal vigil over Narsindal and to protect the blessed land of Orthlund to the south. The members of the Cadwanol retired to their caves at the southern end of the Pass of Elewart to study and increase their knowledge, and also to protect the only other exit from Narsindal. And all the other armies returned whence they'd come, to gather up the threads of their old lives.'
Gulda slapped her knees gently and, sitting up straight, smiled. ‘It was the start of the Golden Age, Hawklan. Ethriss was gone and the Guardians slept, exhausted from their own dreadful toils against the Uhriel, but the Cadwanol and Ethriss's Kings did due honour to them in their deeds. Fine happy times.'
'But?’ Hawklan anticipated.
Gulda smiled ruefully. ‘It faded,’ she said simply. ‘No race on earth had escaped the corruption, taught either by Sumeral or by Ethriss. Slowly it bred ignorance and delight in ignorance, then discontent, until the world is as it is today. Peaceful enough, but a shadow of its former state, and heading steadily towards the darkness. We've all fallen into slothful habits, Hawklan. Telling this old tale again today has made me remember...’ She stopped and her blue eyes locked Hawklan's gaze again. ‘I can see now that Sumeral could well rise a second time. So many “ifs” again. If Ethriss had not been slain; if Sumeral's body hadn't been lost ... or taken.’ She shrugged and fell silent.
Gulda's tale finished, Hawklan stood up quietly and stretched. Taking a piece of bread from the tray he sat on the edge of the table next to her.
'All of which leaves us where?’ he asked.
She looked up at him. ‘It leaves you a little nearer the truth, which is where you needed to be. It'll help in whatever decisions we have to make.'
'But I still don't know who I am,’ said Hawklan. ‘Or who I was, or why this Dan-Tor thinks I'm so important. Come to that, who is Dan-Tor?'
Gulda looked at him enigmatically. ‘Andawyr said he thought you were Ethriss himself; didn't he?'
Hawklan waved a dismissive hand. ‘Andawyr was very disturbed. What happened in that pavilion had shaken him badly.'
Gulda nodded understandingly, but persisted. ‘Just as Sumeral slept and has seemingly been wakened, so Ethriss may sleep somewhere in human form. And he too can be wakened. If I judge Sumeral truly, I fear He may have been awake a long time, spreading His corruption silently while His agents searched for Ethriss's sleeping form so that it could be destroyed or bound.'
Hawklan felt momentarily disorientated. ‘This is nonsense, Gulda,’ he said, his voice suddenly harsh and angry. ‘Surely I'd know if I were Ethriss? An all-powerful ... Guardian ... from the beginning of Creation.'
Gulda flinched a little, but offered him no resistance. ‘Consider, Hawklan. You arrive mysteriously in Orthlund bearing the Key and the Word to open Anderras Darion, Ethriss's greatest fortress. You know the Castle. You have great skill in healing and you know the speech of animals, Ethriss's own sword seeks you out.’ She paused, still looking at him penetratingly. ‘Once the Orthlundyn were a great and noble people. Their sacrifice was appalling, but it sounded the beginning of Sumeral's doom. It's said that as the last of their Princes fell before His army, Ethriss swept him from the field of battle and locked him in a deep sleep, to waken only when the need of Orthlund cried out again.'
Hawklan's eyes narrowed. ‘Are you telling me now that I might be such a man?’ he said.
Gulda pursed her lips. ‘Possibly,’ she replied, laying a hand on his arm. ‘But that Dan-Tor is an agent of Sumeral is beyond doubt, and maybe even ... well, no matter. But had he thought you just an ancient Prince awakened in some way by the arising of Sumeral, he'd have destroyed you with barely a thought, and precious little effort. But he didn't. He lured you hither and thither with great caution. He used the Old Power very carefully when he tried to bind you at the Gretmearc, and when that failed he didn't risk using it again. Instead he lured you northwards using your simple human affection for Tirilen.'
Hawklan held her gaze.
'Dan-Tor thinks you're Ethriss,’ she said quietly.
'But who do you think I am?’ Hawklan ventured after a moment.
Gulda eyed him narrowly. ‘Ethriss alone knows, my lad.’ she said abruptly. ‘And it doesn't matter. Whoever you are, I've no power to stir you. You must go to the Cadwanol as Andawyr said. Give them his message and let them decide who you are. He's in great danger.'
She leaned forward. ‘In the meantime. You're Hawklan. Hawklan the healer. An ordinary man, heir to al
l the ills of mortal flesh, and one chosen by the Orthlundyn to advise them.’ Then, more urgently, ‘From now on you must search for ever more knowledge and you must be forever on your guard. You've already found that your body has resources of which you were unaware. Don't be afraid of them. You'll need them and more. It's a terrible and relentless predator that's hunting you, Hawklan.'
She hesitated. ‘In the end, you'll have to face him in his lair to free yourself.'
* * *
Chapter 23
Hawklan was uncertain how the gathered Orthlundyn would respond to the tale that he now had to tell them. He knew they were not a people overly given to studying history and lore, except as it pertained to their particular crafts, and he feared they would laugh him to scorn in their gentle way.
Gulda however, had no such qualms. ‘Don't be a jackass,’ she snapped impatiently. ‘Have you learned nothing about them in your twenty years here? Look at their carvings ... or any of their other work. Look at the way they live, the way they tend the soil, everything. They'll accept anything once they feel its truth.'
Hawklan still hesitated and Gulda softened a little.
'Hawklan,’ she said resignedly, ‘they're an exceptional people. Believe me. I've been amongst many races. No amount of fear of me or respect for you would make them accept even the lightest falsehood, but they'll accept any truth, however bleak. Tell them. You'll see.'
So, the next day, Hawklan told them, omitting only the conjectures about his own history. Sitting around on the tiered seats of a spacious circular hall, the Orthlundyn listened silently and respectfully. Small torches hidden in the sweeping ceiling brightened the gloom that a leaden-clouded sky brought in through the colonnaded windows, but Hawklan felt another lightening in the atmosphere as his tale unfolded, just as he had when Isloman had told the villagers about the battle with the Mandrocs.
They feel the ill, but it's their ignorance of its cause that disturbs them, he thought. They not only accept the truth, they need it. Twenty years is a long time to be so blind.
