by Terry Brooks
The murmur grew to a low rumble punctuated by shouts of affirmation. The Seraphic’s arms lifted anew, a gesture that brought the crowd instantly to silence.
“Hear me! I am Seraphic to the Children of the Hawk, but I am also to all of you as a shepherd is to his flock. I am caretaker and caregiver. I am the link between the now and the yet to come—between what has been and what will be. I am that, but more than that, I am an instrument of service for the one who brought us here and made us safe. I did not seek this role; it was given to me. It was given, and I accepted that gift because I knew the source and could do no less. I am humbled by what that means, no more so than now, as I stand before you.
“I have called you to me to speak words that will change your lives. Not just the lives of some, but of all—believers and nonbelievers, men and women and children, the descendants of those who came first to this valley. I am overwhelmed by what I must tell you and by what I have been asked to do on your behalf. I am a simple man who has been given an awesome responsibility. I do not think I can do it alone. I will need you to help me. But before you can help, I will need you to listen closely to what I have to say and to find a way to believe that it is so.”
Again, the arms lowered, and this time the head bowed. “I have had a vision.” His voice was a deep rumble in the stillness. “In my dreams, in my sleep, the Hawk came to me.”
A fresh murmur rose from the assembled. The demon spoke right over it. “He came to me as a boy—the boy he must have been when he brought our ancestors here. He was as real as you and I. He was flesh and blood and yet he was something more. He was brilliant with light and fiery of purpose. He told me the time had come to leave the valley. He told me I was to lead you on your journey to a new place he has found for you.”
He paused. “He told me he waits for you just without the walls of this valley home, and you are to go to him.”
Now the murmurs turned to shouts, and not all of them were favorable. There were catcalls thrown out and vile names hurled, cries of “Madness!” and “The man’s insane!” and much worse. But there were shouts of support, as well, and the demon was heartened.
“He told me this!” he roared, his voice becoming like thunder. “He gave me power I did not ask for, but which he said I would need if I was to make believers of you! Watch!”
One hand lifted and pointed toward a torch. The torch flared with new life. He found another, and again the torch flame gained strength. He found another and another. The crowd roared with fresh emotion, people turning this way and that to watch the torches burn higher and brighter. They screamed his name—“Skeal Eile, Skeal Eile!”—though that was not who he was and only who he appeared to be. But they shouted in wonder and awe, and they kept shouting as he dimmed the torches with the pointing of a finger and then brought them to life renewed.
It was a dramatic moment, but it wasn’t nearly enough for what was needed. The demon gave them just enough, and then turned to face those who sat on the benches behind him. Pogue Kray was already on his feet, his face dark, his big fists clenched.
“What sorcery is this?” he demanded, his own voice loud and challenging. “What is its purpose, Seraphic? What is it you are asking of these people?”
“Only what I was told to ask,” the demon replied at once. “That they should follow me out of the valley to their new home! That I should bring them to where the Hawk waits.”
Pogue Kray exploded. “Are you mad? Take the people of Glensk Wood from this valley where they are safe and secure out into a country filled with monsters? Where the Drouj are waiting for us, an entire army of them? This is what you claim you were told to do?”
“I claim it, and I stand behind it! All are free to do as they choose, but those who believe will come with me!”
“No one will go with you while I am council leader!” Pogue Kray was incensed. “You claim to have spoken to the Hawk? Where is your proof of this? Where is the evidence of this bestowal of leadership? Why should you expect anyone to believe that you are chosen for this mission? Because you say it is so? Because you are the Seraphic? You expect people to risk their lives on nothing more than your word?”
The demon turned away from him and pointed again at the torches. This time they exploded instantly into ash and were gone, plunging the assemblage into darkness lit only by the faint light of moon and stars. Murmurs and shouts turned to screams.
The demon turned back to Pogue Kray. “Do you doubt me still?” He turned to the frightened people around him, to the vast crowd that had begun to shrink away from him. “Do any of you doubt me? Would you test me further?”
He saw doubt flicker in the big man’s eyes as he turned back, but then Pogue Kray took another step toward him. “It will take more than fire tricks and charlatan magic to make anyone follow you, Skeal Eile. I should have put an end to your games a long time ago. But it is never too late to correct an obvious mistake. Stand down from this platform!”
“It is you who should stand down,” the demon hissed at him.
Pogue Kray reached for the Seraphic, but the other caught his wrists and held them fast. The members of the village council backed away in fear as they saw their leader rendered helpless in a grip Skeal Eile should not have been capable of maintaining against a man who was ten times his better in any test of strength.
The demon bent close to his captive and let him look into his eyes. Pogue Kray thrashed helplessly, his face twisting with frustration. “You are a fool,” the demon whispered. “But you will serve as an example of what happens to those who doubt my calling!”
The eyes burned into those of the village leader, and suddenly Pogue Kray could not make even the tiniest sound. Even though he tried to scream aloud his rage, he was rendered silent.
“This man has blasphemed against the Hawk!” the demon screamed to the assembled, who were milling like frightened cattle and trying to find somewhere to go but were packed so tightly together they could barely move. “This man would pretend to be your leader, but he is weak and helpless in the face of the power given to me. Which would you rather have to protect you against the things that wait without the walls of this valley? Upon which would you rather depend? Speak, now! Say it quickly and clearly! Which path will you follow when this is done?”
Then he picked up Pogue Kray as if he were a child and held him aloft, dangling over his head. The feat seemed effortless, and suddenly everyone was staring at him, standing there with the village leader hoisted like a doll stuffed with straw.
“I am the right hand of the Hawk!” the demon screamed. “I am charged with the responsibility of saving you, and unbelievers will not be allowed to obstruct my efforts!”
Then, letting out a terrifying roar, he threw Pogue Kray from the platform and across the clearing, over the heads of the people assembled, into an oak tree’s massive trunk. The council leader struck with an audible crunching of bones and dropped in a heap to the ground. Blood leaked from his ears, nose, and mouth and from a dozen other places where his body had been torn open.
He lay still, his eyes open and his gaze fixed, and he did not move.
“Pogue Kray failed to believe in the power of the Hawk and in my duty to save you, his people. So he died for his sin. If there are others who choose to follow his path, they will die, too. Not by my hand, but by those heathen who wait without and seek to come in. They will die by tooth and claw and hunger and disease because they failed to heed. Death comes calling, my brethren. It comes to consume us.”
He straightened, completely at ease. “But I will not let it touch you. I will not let it even get close. Do you believe me? Shout it out, if you do! Make your belief in the Hawk a clarion call to action!”
Scattered shouts rang out amid a larger number of uncertain murmurs and cries.
“Louder!” the demon screamed at them. “If I can’t hear you, I can’t help you! Tell me you believe!”
Then, suddenly, everyone was shouting and howling their support, all of them jo
ined in the wild rawness of the moment, caught up in the demon’s demonstration of strength and their need to be reassured that there was someone who could help them. Their shouts rose to wails and screams, and at the demon’s beckoning they pressed forward toward the platform, begging him to help them, to stand with them, to give them the benefit of his protection.
Of the Hawk’s protection.
Even the council members were with him now, coming close enough that they could be heard above the crowd’s roar, but not close enough that he could touch them. He smiled benevolently and nodded his approval. They were his now, all of them.
They were his to do with as he chose.
Except for one, who quickly melted away into the darkness.
AISLINNE KRAY SAT QUIETLY in the near-darkness of her prison, listening to the sounds echoing without. Even from underground in the basement storeroom and from behind thick walls and the heavy wooden door, she could hear the tumult. She had become aware of something happening earlier, perhaps as long as several hours ago, voices drifting down to where she sat, growing steadily stronger as time passed, both in numbers and in volume. Some sort of gathering was taking place right outside the building in which she was locked away. She wondered if it had anything to do with her imprisonment. Had Pogue called for her release? Were people gathering to hear his decision and to make a judgment of their own on her fate?
It was impossible to tell. Because the sounds did not come from overhead—there was no creaking of floorboards or thudding of boots—she knew that everything was taking place outside the building. Time passed as the sounds rose and fell in regular cadence until just a little while ago they had erupted in a series of sharp bursts.
Something unexpected and wild had happened, for all at once the collective voice of the crowd exploded with such a roar that she came to her feet in response. She hurried to the door and tried to listen through the cracks in the jamb. She pounded on the door and called the guards to tell her what was happening, but no one came. She shouted a long time, but to no avail. Defeated, she walked back across the room and resumed her seat. She was at the mercy of her captors, and she was not sure that even her husband could save her.
Pogue, please help me, she whispered silently. Do not abandon me.
As if in answer to her prayer, she heard movement on the other side of the door. The scrape of a boot, a fumbling at the door, the release of the lock, and a soft squeal of wood and metal as the door swung open.
She moved back quickly, suddenly uncertain who it was. “Pogue?” she asked softly.
“Aislinne?” a voice whispered.
“Brickey!”
She felt a surge of relief. He had departed several days ago for Hold-Fast-Crossing, not long after her encounter with the ragpicker, to find out what had become of Hadrian Esselline, and many were the times since—especially after they had locked her away in this storeroom—that she had wished she had never let him go.
The little man stepped quickly through the door and closed it behind him. He was dust-covered and his black hair was sticking up like the quills on a porcupine. “Shhh, softly now. I gave the guard something to make him fall asleep, but he might have friends nearby. Are you all right?”
“Now that you’re here, I am. When did you get back?”
“Not more than two hours ago. Soon enough to see the villagers charging about like headless chickens and to hear of the madness that’s taken hold. What are they thinking, shutting you away like this, blaming you for the Troll’s escape?”
She shook her head. “If I knew, I would tell you. I was asleep in my bed one minute and thrown into this room and charged with all sorts of things the next. I only just last night met with Pogue. He waited until then to come to me, telling me I had betrayed him. But he’s not himself. Wasn’t until we talked, anyway. He might be more so now. He’s promised to see to it that I have a chance to face my accusers.”
“I wouldn’t count on that happening, Aislinne.” The little man glanced back at the door as if expecting someone. “Things have gotten much worse since you spoke with him. Bad enough that I decided right away I had to get you out of here.”
“But I have to give Pogue a chance to see if—”
“Pogue Kray’s chances are all used up. He lies dead in the village square, his bones broken by something that looks like the Seraphic but very likely isn’t.”
“Skeal Eile killed him?”
“A Skeal Eile made over or just a creature that looks like Skeal Eile. I saw him pick up your husband as if he were made of straw and throw him twenty feet through the air into the trunk of a tree. The Seraphic might have use of some small magic, but nothing this powerful.”
“Who, then?”
“The ragpicker, I would guess.”
“That old man?”
“He’s more than an old man or even a simple ragpicker. I sensed something strange about him the moment we met. He’s something more than he seems and nothing good. He’s found a way to make Skeal Eile his own, a willing tool in his plans, whatever they are. Now Eile claims to have spoken to the ghost of the Hawk. He says the boy has returned and wants everyone to march out of the valley so they can be taken to some new, faraway place to live. Madness.”
“Out of the valley! We have to stop this!”
“A fine sentiment, but devoid of anything resembling common sense. What we have to do, Aislinne, is get away from here and find help somewhere else. I have news of another sort that suggests a further reason we can’t stay. Esselline isn’t coming. Apparently, he had second thoughts about the advisability of getting involved in our struggle. That’s the way he sees it, I am told—as our struggle. He’s a proud man with a modicum of courage, but he’s a fool for public opinion, as well. With Sider dead, he feels he is released from his promise. He thinks it best to stay home and defend his own ground rather than to rush to our aid. He doesn’t see us as worth saving, I guess. I had thought better of him once, as I suppose Sider had. We were both mistaken.”
Aislinne was stunned. “He’s just abandoning us? He’s not even sending some of his soldiers?”
Brickey shook his head. “Time to go. We need to get out of here before the new and improved Skeal Eile thinks to send someone to dispose of you. He has no reason to keep you alive now. The people are with him, howling at the moon like wild animals, infused with the spirit of their new leader’s words. With Pogue dead, he commands them all, and you haven’t much protection against whatever he might decide to do with you. Come.”
He took her arm and steered her toward the door. She did not speak against what he was doing or resist the pull in his hand. She could barely make herself think straight in the face of this latest news—Pogue dead, Esselline not coming, the people of her village—people she had known all her life—driven to a desperation and madness that could only end badly for everyone involved.
And Skeal Eile—that hateful, venomous snake, feeding the resultant frenzy with his poisonous words—was at the forefront of it all.
“Hurry, Aislinne,” Brickey urged, pulling open the door.
She was right behind him as he went through the opening and came face-to-face with Skeal Eile.
THE SUDDEN ENCOUNTER CAUGHT ALL THREE BY surprise. For one endless second they froze, locked in place as if they had turned to stone. Even the sounds of wildness and passion from without seemed to go silent.
Then Aislinne Kray, staring directly into Skeal Eile’s face, saw his eyes change from a soft brown to blood red, and she recoiled.
What are you?
The Seraphic’s features were unmistakable, but there was something else, too: something that peered through those red eyes and shadowed that twisted face.
“Going somewhere?” he whispered.
Brickey reacted instantly, launching himself at Skeal Eile and propelling the Seraphic backward into the hallway. Tough and tenacious, he attacked with the ferocity of a wild animal, driving into the other’s midsection until both were off their feet and tumb
ling onto the hard earthen floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
“Run, Aislinne!” the little man shouted.
She did as she was told, charging past the combatants as they thrashed, catching just a flash of Brickey’s knife as it rose and fell, burying itself over and over again in the Seraphic’s body. She could hear the latter’s grunts as the blade struck, could hear the sound of his breathing change. But his efforts to free himself did not cease, and she had a terrible, unshakable premonition that the knife wasn’t doing any damage.
By then she was past them and racing up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time until she reached the hallway, the entry, the door, and finally the world outside where the night was soft and velvet and welcoming. A crowd was still milling about in the aftermath of the earlier gathering, but she pushed through them without stopping, breaking clear of the hands that reached for her. She breathed deeply the forest air as she burst into the open, a sense of freedom filling her with hope for the possibility of escape. She never slowed. She kept running, down forest paths, down lesser byways, heading for her house. She might not have been thinking as clearly as she should, but at least she was thinking. She knew where she was going. She knew what she needed to find. She realized the importance of not being seen and recognized.
What she couldn’t seem to fix on was where she would go once she was clear of Glensk Wood.
She allowed herself a moment to think one last time of Brickey, whom she already knew she would never see again. Brave friend, she thought. He had given his life for hers.
Abruptly, she changed her mind. It had been her intention to go to her home, retrieve a travel cloak and weapons, and flee south to one of the other villages. But there was no time for the former and the latter was the obvious choice—and she could not afford to make a mistake. Instead, she veered north toward the deep woods and the high country. Sider’s country. She would go there. She knew it well enough to find her way. She would go to his childhood home, abandoned now, fallen into disrepair, and find what she needed.
