by Roger Taylor
‘That I doubt, Key Bearer. That I doubt. Ethriss’s sword couldn’t be found because it was never hidden. It found you. Have no illusions about that. It found you.’ Then the hilt disappeared into the hood, as if she were listening to it. ‘And it’s killed Mandrocs recently. I knew it!’ There was triumph in the voice. ‘I knew it. I’ve not lost all my wits yet.’
Hawklan’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘How could you know that?’ he asked.
Her voice was distant. ‘Gulda knows Mandrocs. Could smell them. That’s why I came back. Couldn’t believe my nose after all this time. They’ve been killing again. Taken life here in Orthlund, haven’t they? That’s what’s upsetting all the Orthlundyn, although they’re too sleepy to know it. Running about like ants under a stone instead of feeling what’s happened.’
Hawklan shook his head. ‘Gulda, I don’t understand you. How do you know these things?’ Then partly to himself, ‘I don’t understand any of this. All these strange and awful happenings. What do you know about them?’
The dark hood turned towards him, and there was a long deep watchful silence. Then suddenly, ‘Here, catch.’ And with a flick of her wrist she sent the sword spinning towards him. Without thinking, his hand went out and caught it solidly. A strange humming vibration came from the blade.
Gulda chuckled. ‘You understand more than you know, healer. I wonder who you are? We’ll have to talk later.’
Unsteadily, Hawklan put the sword back in its scabbard. He wanted to talk now. He had an accumulation of questions that more than accounted for twenty years of indifference, but she was off, clumping along the road towards the village.
He sighed resignedly. Patience, Hawklan, he thought. Patience. There’ll be plenty of time when we reach the Castle. But, as that very thought came to him, he sensed that time was becoming more scarce, and that the meeting of the elders, and whoever else would be there, would be the last chance he would have to draw on the collected wisdom of Orthlund. After that, he could see only vague images of dispersion and scattering; even breaking.
Chapter 15
As at all the other villages, the people of Pedhavin came out to meet them in straggling groups before they reached the village proper. Greetings were genuine and warm, but concern lined almost every face, and Hawklan noted again that everyone gravitated first to Isloman to hear his brief account of what had happened.
Gulda, too, created quite a stir, being obviously acquainted with many of Isloman’s generation, and Hawklan was amused to see so many grown men looking sheepish after some encounter with her. Her cross voice echoed through the village and she did a great deal of poking and prodding with her stick, both at carvings and people. A clumping, black, stooped figure stalking around the village, she looked like part of their shadow lore come to life, thought Hawklan.
Tirilen almost charmed her. Hawklan detected a more pervasive quiet in Tirilen’s manner, and felt both glad and sorry. The responsibility of being the village’s healer in his absence had subtly altered the villagers’ attitude towards her, but the new, deeper quietness came mainly from within Tirilen herself. It was like a flower starting a summer-long blooming after the turbulence of spring. Though bewildered and hurt by the news of what had happened, Tirilen also showed the strange relieved acceptance that the other Orthlundyn had shown and she faced Gulda’s scowling inspection with a manner that was at once both pleasant and unyielding and which provoked an entirely new range of grunts from the old woman. Some, to Hawklan’s ear, seemed quite complimentary.
Loman, however, fared less well; he appeared considerably less than enthusiastic about Gulda’s return. Hawklan gained the distinct impression that the great barrel-chested man was hiding behind his daughter’s skirts, but Gulda winkled him out and transfixed him against a wall with both stick and blue-eyed gaze, while her face reflected a memory’s journeying through the years. Then her eyes narrowed as a destination was reached.
‘Young Loman, isn’t it?’ she proclaimed. Loman coughed slightly, nodded, and went red. Gulda pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes further. The stick tapped him twice on the chest. ‘I’ll be watching you more carefully this time, young man,’ she said.
That was all. Loman cleared his throat and looked vaguely into the distance. Gulda cast another look at Tirilen who was trying not to smile at her father’s discomfiture.
‘Hrmph. You take after your mother, child,’ said the old woman, turning and walking away.
It was Gulda who led the procession up the steep winding road to the Castle. This time Hawklan did offer her the saddle, although her pace had not slackened. The stick twitched menacingly.
‘Are you trying to make a fool of me, young man?’ came the unhesitating reply. Hawklan declined to answer, knowing by now when his foot was on quicksand and when a further step would leave him in inextricable distress. He walked quietly by her side, discreetly listening to her mutterings and snorts.
Many of the others continued to ride, but none felt inclined to pass Gulda.
Gavor gazed groggily down at the approaching group from far above in a cosy cranny high in the eaves of one of the towers. The front tip of the distant, shuffling snake gave him trouble. Closing one eye, and concentrating hard, he still failed to make the two black images merge into one. He looked reproachfully at his ‘friend’ snoring contentedly in the dusty sunlight and muttered something about abstinence, then he wriggled cautiously to try to straighten out some troublesome feathers. His companion’s eye opened.
‘Gavor,’ said a soft voice, carrying a quite unmistakable implication.
Gavor affected to ignore the request and squinted gamely down the dizzying perspective of the tower.
‘Gavor.’ More urgently.
Gavor debated with himself. Should he fly down and greet Hawklan or should he . . .?
‘Gavor . . .
Then again, in his present condition he’d probably not remember how to fly before he hit the ground. He looked round.
‘You really care for these spurs, do you . . .?
* * * *
There were many halls in Anderras Darion that could have accommodated the group which Gulda and Hawklan led in through the Great Gate, but Hawklan chose one of the courtyards. Ostensibly it was because the day was too fine to sit talking inside, even in the airy chambers of Anderras Darion, but in his heart he wanted an open sky and bright daylight to witness what was to be said. Time enough later for confinement and flickering shadows. This matter would not be resolved at one sitting.
Loman used his office as Castellan to make some semblance of a dignified escape from Gulda’s scrutiny and soon apprentices were walking among the visitors with food and drink, galvanized as much by curiosity as by the unusual zealousness of their master.
Gulda dropped herself unceremoniously on to a large stone slab in the middle of the courtyard and, leaning forward until it looked as if she were going to tumble off, dropped her chin on to her two long hands which were folded over the top of her stick.
‘I’ll be listening,’ she said to Hawklan, then her eyes closed. The Orthlundyn were a patient people, and Hawklan and Isloman had not been plied with questions after they had announced that all would be discussed fully in due course. But now, fed and a little rested, their concern and curiosity started to bubble out like water from a spring. Twice Hawklan raised his arms to try to quell the mounting hubbub, but to no avail. Then he noticed one of Gulda’s long fingers start tapping the back of her other hand impatiently. Better I chastise them than you, he thought.
‘Enough,’ he shouted, his voice ringing round the courtyard and soaring up to the rooftops from where it bounced up into the sky.
High above, a scruffy black bundle tumbled out of a niche in the eaves of one of the taller towers.
‘Enough,’ shouted Hawklan again, jumping on to the stone slab beside Gulda. ‘Sit down, everyone, please, sit down. Isloman and I will tell you what’s happened, then we can all decide what to do.’
There was a note i
n his voice that forbade any remonstrance and the crowd fell silent.
‘Sit down, my friends,’ he repeated more gently. ‘We’ve bad things to talk about as you know, and I suspect I’ve as many questions as you.’
A few minutes later, everyone seemed to have found somewhere to sit or lie, either on the chairs and benches that the apprentices had brought out, or on the soft lawns around the courtyard. Hawklan jumped to the ground and sat down next to the hunched black form of Gulda. He looked over the waiting faces.
Quietly and simply he told them everything that had happened to himself and the others since the visit of the tinker, omitting only the more unbelievable details of his experiences at the Gretmearc. He concluded with their parting from Idrace and Fel-Astian.
There was a long silence when he had finished as if the mountains themselves were listening. He felt he could almost hear the white clouds moving overhead and he resisted a temptation to look up and search for a Viladrien.
A small black disturbance, Gavor landed uncertainly on the stone by Hawklan’s side and staggered slightly.
‘Have they taken their dead with them?’ asked one of the elders eventually, his voice sounding strange after the long silence.
‘Yes,’ replied Hawklan, slightly puzzled. ‘And the bodies of the Fyordyn.’
There was a great deal of what seemed to be relieved head nodding from the crowd.
‘I doubt they’ll be tending their dead well,’ said Hawklan, in a slightly injured tone. ‘They’ve probably only taken them to hide them. To cover their tracks.’
This caused some tolerant amusement.
‘Hawklan,’ said one man kindly. ‘You’ve been with us for twenty years or so, but in some ways you’re still blind. No outlander can hide his passing in Orthlund.’
Hawklan gestured vaguely. ‘Even so, that’s probably why they’ve removed the dead. To avoid discovery rather than for respectful burial.’
‘The dead return to the earth wherever they fall,’ said another elder with a shrug. It seemed to Hawklan to be a peculiarly harsh remark, but it brought no response from the others except some more head nodding.
‘But it’s better that the murdered lie away from Orthlund,’ concluded the man, to further agreement.
Hawklan felt alone again; separated from the deeper lives of these people.
Another spoke. ‘The dead sing their new song now. We must look to the living.’ The speaker was a frail old man from Wosod Heath. ‘There can be no shadows without light.’ Then, unexpectedly, ‘Hawklan, what shall we do?’
Hawklan started. He had expected to tell his tale and then stand aside while the elders decided what to do – if anything.
‘I don’t know,’ he said after an uncertain delay. ‘I’m a healer. I know little of your history and lore, less about Fyorlund, and nothing at all about Mandrocs. Just going to the Gretmearc was an adventure for me. I can’t advise you.’
The man from Wosod Heath spoke again. ‘No, Hawklan. You’re more than a healer. It’s a long time since you’ve been to Wosod and I can see the changes in you. And if the truth’s told, you yourself must feel them. You’ll pursue this Dan-Tor no matter what we decide, won’t you?’
Hawklan remained silent, his head bowed.
The old man continued, ‘A horror has been wrought on our land. There’s a disease in Fyorlund which will spread ever outwards if it’s not checked. You’re our healer. Your time has come. Your inner sense of purpose will guide you truly. Tell us what to do. It will be right.’
Hawklan put his hand to his head and swayed slightly. For an instant he was back in the darkness again. A terrible roaring filling his head, darkness everywhere, even the sky flickering black. And under his feet . . .? More than that . . . it was all his fault.
He felt unreasonably angry. He wanted no burden. He wanted the peace and tranquillity of the last twenty years. These people asked too much. They should not put their hopes in one man.
‘No, no, no,’ he burst out. ‘I can’t do it. I’m not a leader, you can’t ask it of me. Whatever I am, I’m an outlander. I don’t have your wisdom. I can heal most of your ills and hurts, but I don’t understand you, not deep inside. I can’t advise you. I . . .’ His voice faded. ‘I can’t take this burden. Sometime, somewhere I’ve betrayed the trust of others.’
The remark brought no response from the quiet crowd. The old man rose shakily to his feet and, leaning on the arm of a young apprentice, he walked slowly forward. Shaking his head, he laid a compassionate hand on Hawklan’s arm.
‘No, Hawklan. It’s not in you to betray. Perhaps, once, you failed. Stumbled under too heavy a load. Maybe you, and others, paid some terrible price. Who can say? But no betrayal. Don’t be afraid.’
Hawklan looked from side to side as if for an escape. ‘Perhaps nothing else will happen,’ he said faintly, but the old man shook his head and smiled sadly.
‘Even I can hear this illness crying out, Hawklan,’ he said.
Hawklan twined his fingers together. ‘It’s wrong that you should place such faith in one person,’ he said.
‘We know that,’ replied the old man. ‘And no one’s going to follow you blindly. But then others have followed something or someone blindly and brought death to our land, and we’ve no choice. We love you. We wouldn’t ask this of you if a choice existed.’
‘I may stumble and fall again.’
The old man shrugged. ‘If you fall, you fall. We share the guilt for having so burdened you.’
‘But . . .’
‘There is no one else, Hawklan.’
‘Why? Why me?’
‘You’ve answered that yourself by now I imagine.’ It was Gulda’s voice, cross and impatient still. ‘This Dan-Tor wants you. Why he should is unknown, but he obviously won’t rest until he has you, nor scruple to destroy your loved ones. You can’t flee – abandon them – you must face him. None of these can do that for you.’ Her stick swept the crowd in a broad purposeful arc.
‘That’s your immediate problem. But if you can’t feel deeper things stirring then you’re indeed a fool, and the Orthlundyn have been particularly ill-served by fate.’
Hawklan’s mouth tightened grimly at Gulda’s harsh and definitive delineation of his position.
‘Yes,’ he said angrily. ‘But why me?’ Banging his fist on his chest, he used the same words to ask a different question. Why should anyone go to such lengths to capture him?
Somewhere, high above, in one of the many towers, a bell rang out. A single chime. A deep and restful note. The many bells of Anderras Darion rang rarely and to a rhythm of their own choosing.
All eyes turned upwards as the sound echoed round the towers and spires, spilled over roofs and tiers of ramping walls, surged through empty halls and corridors, and overflowed down into the courtyard to submerge the watching crowd.
Gulda threw up both arms to encompass the whole Castle. ‘That answers all your questions, Hawklan – Key Bearer to Anderras Darion. The voice of the Castle itself.’
Chapter 16
As Urssain had remarked, the blatantly illegal appellation, King’s High Guard, had caused more adverse reaction from the ordinary people of Vakloss than the suspension of the Geadrol itself and, on his re-appearance at the Palace, Dan-Tor had rapidly declared this to be ‘an unfortunate bureaucratic error by a junior official’. The new Guards were a ‘temporary force’ answerable to himself and intended to ‘relieve the High Guards of the Lords from routine duties, to leave them better able to meet the difficulties which have led to the suspension of the Geadrol’. This announcement, though vague, was couched in bland apologetic terms and was sufficient to quieten most of the public unease. The new Guards, he said, were known as Mathidrin, from an old Fyordyn word meaning, ‘Those who walk’. One or two scholars noted that the word meant, ‘Those who trample underfoot’, but its misuse thus was attributed by them to the ‘general deterioration in the knowledge of our language these days’, and caused no general comment.
A double gate opened into the courtyard below and a small patrol marched in through the sunny gap.
. . . Nor had the High Guard marched through the streets except for ceremonial parades, while these Guards seemed to thrive on it: making people move out of their relentless way. Why? It was so unnecessary. But, she knew, Dan-Tor did nothing unnecessarily.
An answer came to her even as she watched the arriving patrol.
The narrow twisting streets that surrounded the Palace were invariably crowded and hectic, and the frequent patrols by the Mathidrin often provoked outbursts from citizens angry at their arrogant attitude. Outbursts that were always put down with some degree of violence. The Mathidrin were beginning to spread fear before them. Again, why?
And Dan-Tor had appointed her their Honorary Commander-in-Chief! She wrinkled her face in distaste at the memory of this unwanted and unrefusable honour.
The leader of the patrol below swung down from his horse. I’ve seen pigs ride better, Sylvriss thought, then she leaned forward and cast an expert eye over the animal. It was good enough. Certainly good enough for the graceless oaf who had been riding it, but it was no Muster horse; few could match the Muster horses for stamina, strength, speed or intelligence. The thought gave her a twinge of homesickness.
