The Chronicles of Castle Brass

by Michael Moorcock

  Jhary ignored her and turned instead to Ilian who was leaning dazedly against the wall of the cave. 'Give me the jewel," he said. 'The black jewel, Ilian. Give it to me.'

  And when Ilian felt for the gem in her purse she found something that was warm, that vibrated.

  'It is alive!' she said. 'Alive!'

  'Aye.' He spoke urgently in a low, thin voice. 'Hurry. Kneel beside him ...'

  'The corpse?' Ilian drew back distastefully.

  'Do as I say!' Jhary weakly dragged Yisselda back from Hawkmoon's body and made Ilian kneel. She did so reluctantly. 'Now, place the jewel upon his forehead - place it where you see the scar.'

  Trembling, she did as he ordered.

  'Place your own forehead against the gem.'

  She bent and her forehead touched the pulsing jewel and suddenly she was falling into the jewel and through the jewel, and as she fell, someone else fell towards her - as if she fell towards a mirror image of herself. She cried out...

  She heard Jhary's weak 'Farewell!' and she tried to answer, but she could not. On and on she fell, through corridors of sensations, of memories, of guilt and of redemption ...

  And she was Asquiol and she was Arflane and she was Alaric. She was John Daker, Erekose and Urlik. She was Corum and Elric and she was Hawkmoon ...

  'Hawkmoon!' she cried the name with her own lips and it was a battle-cry. She fought Baron Meliadus and Asrovaak Mikosevaar at the Battle of the Kamarg. She fought Meliadus again at Londra and Yisselda was beside her. And she and Yisselda looked upon the battlefield when it was all over and they saw that of their comrades only they survived ...

  'Yisselda!'

  'I am here, Dorian. I am here!'

  He opened his eyes and he said: 'So Katinka van Bak did not betray me! But what a devious ruse to bring me to you. Why should she concoct so complicated a scheme?'

  Katinka whispered from her litter. 'Perhaps you will find out one day, but not from me, for I save my breath. I need you two to take me out of these mountains, to Ukrainia where I wish to die.'

  Hawkmoon got up. He was horribly stiff, as if he had lain in the same spot for months. He saw the blood on the bandages. 'You are wounded! I did not strike out. At least, I cannot recall ..." He put his hand to his forehead. There was something warm there, like blood, but when he drew his fingers away there was only a faint, dark radiance which flickered for a moment before it vanished. 'Then how - Jhary? Surely not...'

  Katinka van Bak smiled. 'No. Yisselda will tell you how I got this.'

  Another woman said in a soft and vibrant voice from behind Hawkmoon. 'She sustained her wound helping to save a country that was not her own.'

  'Not for the first time has she been wounded thus,' said Hawkmoon turning. He stared at a face of extraordinary beauty and yet it was a face that had a sadness in it. A sadness that he felt he might define if he thought for a moment. 'We have met before?'

  'You have met before,' said Katinka, 'but now you must part swiftly, for there will be other disruptions if you occupy the same plane for much longer. Believe my warning, Ilian of Garathorm. Go back now. Go back to Mysenal and Lyfeth. They will help you restore your country."

  'But...' Ilian hesitated. 'I would speak longer with Yisselda and this Hawkmoon.'

  'You have not the right. You are two aspects of the same thing. Only on certain occasions can you meet. Jhary told me that. Go back. Hurry!'

  Reluctantly the beautiful girl turned, her golden hair swinging, her chain-mail clinking. She began to walk into the darkness and soon she had vanished from sight.

  'Where does the tunnel lead, Katinka van Bak,' Hawkmoon asked, 'to Ukrainia?'

  'Not to Ukrainia. And soon it will lead to nowhere at all. I hope she fares well, that maid. She has much to do. And I have a feeling that she will meet Ymryl again.'

  'Ymryl?'

  Katinka van Bak sighed. 'I told you I would not waste my breath. I need it to keep me alive until we reach Ukrainia. Let us hope the sleigh still waits for us below.'

  And Hawkmoon shrugged. He turned to look tenderly upon Yisselda. ‘I knew you lived,' he said. 'They called me mad. But I knew you lived.'

  They embraced. 'Oh, Dorian, such adventures I have had,' said Yisselda.

  'Tell him about them later,' said the dying Katinka van Bak pettishly from her litter. 'Now pick up this stretcher and get me to that sleigh!'

  As she stooped to take one end of the litter, Yisselda said: 'And how do the children fare, Dorian?"

  And she wondered why Hawkmoon continued the rest of the journey through the tunnel in silence.

  This Ends

  The Second Of The

  Chronicles Of Castle Brass

  The Seventh Book of Hawkmoon

  The Quest for Tanelorn

  MICHAEL MOORCOCK

  Edited by John Davey

  www.sfgateway.com

  Book One

  The World Insane: A Champion of Dreams

  Chapter One

  An Old Friend At Castle Brass

  'Lost?'

  'Aye.'

  'But only dreams, Hawkmoon. Lost dreams?' The tone was nearly pathetic.

  'I think not.'

  Count Brass moved his great body away from the window so that light fell suddenly on Hawkmoon's gaunt face. 'Would that I had two grandchildren. Would that I had. Perhaps one day ...'

  It was a conversation which had been repeated so many times that it had become almost a ritual. Count Brass did not like mysteries; he did not respect them.

  'There was a boy and a girl.' Hawkmoon was still tired, but there was no longer any madness in him. 'Manfred and Yarmila. The boy much resembled you.'

  We have told you this, father.' Yisselda, hands folded under her breasts, moved from the shade near the fireplace. She wore a green gown, cuffs and collar ermine-trimmed. Her hair was drawn back from her face. She was pale. She had been pale since her return, with Hawkmoon, to Castle Brass, more than a month ago. "We told you - and we must find them.'

  Count Brass ran heavy fingers through his greying red hair, his red brows furrowed. 'I did not believe Hawkmoon - but I believe you both now, though I do not wish to.'

  'It is why you argue so, father.' Yisselda placed a hand upon his brocaded arm.

  'Bowgentle could explain these paradoxes, possibly,' Count Brass continued, 'but there is no other who could find the kind of words which a plain-thinking soldier like myself could easily understand. You are of the belief that I have been brought back from the dead, yet I've no memory of dying. And Yisselda has been rescued from Limbo, when I, myself, thought her slain at the Battle of Londra. Now you speak of children, also somewhere in Limbo. A horrifying thought. Children experiencing such terrors! Ah! No! I will not consider it.'

  'We have had to, Count Brass.' Hawkmoon spoke with the authority of a man who had faced many hours alone with his darkest thoughts. 'It is why we are determined to do everything we can to find them. It is why, today, we leave for Londra where we hope Queen Flana and her scientists can help us.'

  Count Brass fingered his thick red moustaches. The mention of Londra had aroused other thoughts in his mind. There was a slight expression of embarrassment on his face. He cleared his throat.

  There was kindly humour in Yisselda's eyes as she said, 'Is there a message we can give Queen Flana?'

  Her father shrugged. "The usual courtesies, of course. I intend to write. Perhaps I will have time to give you a letter before you leave.'

  'She would be glad to see you in person again.' Yisselda glanced meaningly at Hawkmoon, who rubbed at the back of his neck. 'In her last letter she told me how much she had enjoyed your visit, father. She remarked on the wisdom of your counsel, the practical common sense of your advice in matters of State. There was a hint that she could offer you an official position at the Court of Londra.'

  Count Brass's ruddy features seemed to take on a deeper shade of colour, a blush. 'She mentioned something of that. But she does not need me in Londra.'

  'Not fo
r your advice, certainly,' said Yisselda. 'Your support… ? She was fond of men, once. But with D'Averc's terrible death - I have heard that she has had no thoughts of marrying. I have heard that she has considered the question of an heir, but that there is only one man who could, in her opinion, compare with Huillam D'Averc. I speak clumsily...'

  'Indeed you do, daughter. It is understandable, for your mind is full of other thoughts. I am touched, however, by your willingness to concern yourself with my very minor affairs.' Count Brass smiled and put his arm out to Yisselda. The brocade sleeve fell away to reveal his bronzed, heavily muscled forearm, 'But I am too old to marry. If I planned marriage, certainly I could think of no better wife than Flana. But the decision I made many years ago to live in virtual retirement in the Kamarg remains. Besides, I have my duty to the folk of the Kamarg. Would I abandon that?'

  'We could take up that duty, as we did once when you were ...' She paused.

  'Dead?' Count Brass frowned. 'I am grateful that I do not have such memories of you, Yisselda. When I returned from Londra and found you here I was full of joy. I asked for no explanation. It was enough that you lived. But then, I had seen you die at Londra some years before. It was a memory I was happy to doubt. A memory of children, though - to be haunted by such ghosts, by the knowledge that they are alive somewhere and afraid - Oh, that is terrifying!'

  'It is a familiar terror,' said Hawkmoon. 'Hopefully we shall find them. Hopefully they know nothing of all this. Hopefully, in whatever other plane they now inhabit, they are happy.'

  There came a knock on the door of Count Brass's study. He answered it in his gruff voice: 'Enter.'

  Captain Josef Vedla opened the door, closed it behind him and stood in silence for a moment. The old soldier was clad in what he chose to call his civilian clothing - doeskin shirt, buckskin jerkin and breeks, boots of old, black leather. At his belt was a long dirk, apparently there not for any particular usefulness save to act as a familiar rest for his left hand. 'The ornithopter is almost ready,' he said. 'It will take you to Karlye. The Silver Bridge is completed, rebuilt in all its old beauty, and by means of it you may cross, Duke Dorian, as you wished, to deau-vere.'

  'Thank you, Captain Vedla. It will please me to make this journey from the Kamarg by the route I used when I first came to Castle Brass.'

  Her hand still in that of her father, Yisselda stretched her other hand out and took Hawkmoon's. Her steady eyes regarded his face and her grip tightened for a second on his fingers. He drew a deep breath. "Then we must go,' he said.

  ‘There was other news...' Josef Vedla hesitated.

  'Other news?'

  'Of a rider, sir. He has been seen by our guardians. We received a heliograph message a few minutes ago. He comes towards the town..."

  'Has he announced himself at our borders?' Count Brass asked.

  'That is what is strange, Count Brass. He was not seen at the borders. He was half-way into the Kamarg before he was sighted.'

  That is unusual. Our guardians are normally vigilant...'

  "They are quite as vigilant today. He did not enter by any of the known roads.'

  "Well, doubtless we'll have the opportunity of asking hint how he avoided being seen,' said Yisselda calmly. 'After all, it is one rider, not an army.'

  Hawkmoon laughed. For a moment they had all been over-worried. 'Have him met, Captain Vedla. Invite him to the castle.'

  Vedla saluted and left.

  Hawkmoon went to the window and looked over the roofs of Aigues-Mortes to the fields and lagoons beyond the old town. The sky was a clear, pale blue and the distant water reflected it. A light, winter wind was blowing at the reed beds. He saw a movement on the wide, white road that came through the marshes to the town. He saw the rider. He was coming swiftly, at a steady canter, sitting upright in his saddle, sitting proudly, it seemed to Hawkmoon. And the rider's outline was familiar. Rather than peer at the distant figure, Hawkmoon turned away from the window, prepared to wait until it was closer and could be identified easily.

  'An old friend - or an old enemy,' he said. 'I recognize something about his stance.'

  'We have had no announcement,' said Count Brass. He shrugged. 'But these are not the old days. These are calmer times.'

  'For some,' said Hawkmoon, then he regretted the self-pity in his tone. He had had too much of such emotions. Now that he was rid of them he was, perhaps, overly sensitive to any traces of their return he detected in himself. From an over-indulgence in such feelings, he had now gone to a mood of intense stoicism which was a relief to all save those who knew him best and had the greatest affection for him. Sensitive to his thoughts, Yisselda reached to place delicate fingers upon his lips and then his cheek. Gratefully, he smiled at her, drawing her to him and kissing her lightly upon the forehead.

  'Now I must prepare for our journey,' she said.

  Hawkmoon was already dressed in the clothes in which he intended to travel.

  'Will you and father wait here to receive our visitor?' she asked Hawkmoon.

  He nodded. 'I think so. There is always hope that...'

  'Do not expect it, my dear. There is little chance that he will bring news of Manfred and Yarmila.'

  ‘True.'

  With another smile at her father, Yisselda left the room.

  Count Brass strode to a table of polished oak on which a tray had been set. He lifted a pewter jug. 'Would you share a glass of wine with me, Hawkmoon, before you go?'

  ‘Thank you.'

  Hawkmoon joined Count Brass at the table, accepting the carved wooden goblet the old warrior handed him. He sipped the wine and resisted the temptation to return to the window to see if he recognized the traveller.

  'More than ever, I regret that Bowgentle is not here to advise us,' said Count Brass. 'All this talk of other planes of existence, of other possibilities, of dead friends still alive - it smacks of the occult. All my life I have looked with a cold eye upon superstitions; I have scoffed at pseudo-philosophical speculation. But I have not the kind of mind which can easily distinguish between mumbo-jumbo and that which falls into the province of the genuinely metaphysical.'

  'Do not misinterpret what I say as morbid brooding,' Hawkmoon replied, 'but I have reason to hope that Bowgentle may, one day, be restored to us.'

  The difference between us, I suppose,' said Count Brass, 'is that you, for all your rediscovered toughness of mind, continue to allow yourself to entertain many forms of hope. Long ago, I dismissed Faith altogether - at least from my conscious thoughts. Yet you, Hawkmoon, discover it over and over again.'

  'Aye - through many lives.'

  'What?'

  'I refer to my dreams. To those strange dreams of myself in so many different incarnations. I had identified those dreams with my madness, but now I am not so sure. They still come to me, you know.'

  'You have not mentioned them since you returned here with Yisselda.'

  ‘They have not tormented me as they once did. But they are familiar, still.'

  'Every night?'

  'Aye. Every night. The names - Elric, Erekose, Corum -those are the chief ones. And there are others. And sometimes I see the Runestaff, and sometimes a black sword. All seem significant. And sometimes, when I am alone, particularly when I ride the marshlands, they come to me in my waking hours. Faces, familiar and unfamiliar, float before me. Snatches of words are heard. And most common is that frightening phrase "Champion Eternal" ... Formerly I would have thought that only a madman could think of himself as a demigod ...'

  'I, too,' said Count Brass, pouring more wine for Hawkmoon. "But it is others who make their heroes into demigods. Would that the world had no need for heroes.'

  'A sane world will not need them.’

  'But perhaps a sane world is a world without humankind.' Count Brass's smile was bleak. 'Perhaps it is we who make it what it is?'

  'If an individual can make himself whole, so can our race,' said Hawkmoon. 'If I have Faith, Count Brass, that is why I retain it.'


  'I wish that I shared such Faith. I see Man as destined, ultimately, to self-destruction. All that I hope for is that that destiny can be averted for as long as possible, that Man's most foolish actions can be restrained, that a little equilibrium can be maintained.'

  'Equilibrium. The idea symbolized by the Cosmic Balance, by the Runestaff. Have I told you that I have come to doubt that philosophy? Have I told you that I have come to the conclusion that equilibrium is not enough - not in the sense you mean? Equilibrium in an individual is a fine thing - a balance between the needs of the mind and the needs of the body – maintained without self-consciousness. Certainly, let us aim for that. But what of the world? Would we tame it too much?'

  'You have lost me, my friend.' Count Brass laughed. 'I was never a cautious man, in the ordinary sense of the word, but I became a weary one. Perhaps it is weariness which now informs your thoughts?'

  'It is anger,' said Hawkmoon. 'We served the Runestaff. It cost us dear to serve it. Many died. Many were tormented. We still know a terrible despair. And we were told that we could call on its help when we needed it. Do we not need it now?'

  'Perhaps we do not need it enough.'

  Hawkmoon's laugh was grim. 'If you are right, I do not look forward much to a future when we shall need it enough!'

  And then his head was filled by a revelation and he rushed to the window. But by now the figure had left the road and entered the town and could not be seen. 'I know that rider!'

  There came a knock at the door. Hawkmoon went to it and flung it open.

  And there he stood, tall and cocky and proud, with his hand on his hip and the heel of his other hand resting on the pommel of his plain sword, a folded cloak over his right shoulder, his bonnet at a tilt and a crooked grin on his red, raw face. It was the Orkneyman, the brother of the Warrior in Jet and Gold. It was Orland Fank, Servant of the Runestaff.

  'Good day to ye, Duke of Koln,' he said.

  Hawkmoon's brow was furrowed and his smile was bleak. 'Good day to you, Master Fank. Do you come asking favours?'