‘Live well, and light be with you all, my friends,’ Eldric said, raising his glass. ‘Let it shine in our hearts brighter than ever this year to see us through the darkness that threatens us.’
The hall was lit only by a few subdued torches and by the great mound of radiant stones crackling and singing in the large fireplace. They threw dancing shadows of the motionless people on to the decorated walls and ceiling.
‘Light be with you, Lord,’ echoed Eldric’s guests.
There was a brief, expectant silence as all eyes turned towards the large fir tree which had been chosen as the centre-piece of the Festival decoration.
Then, in gold and silver, and glittering reds and oranges, wound about with blues, greens, yellows, and all manner of other colours, the countless tiny torches that bedecked the tree burst into life, starting slowly at the lower branches and rising teasingly upwards, mingling and changing as they did so. Some danced around and through the boughs, others swirled hither and thither, until with a sudden rush they came together at the top in a dazzling circle of white light.
There was a gasp from the children and happy ap-plause from the adults. Even the paternal condescension affected by the younger High Guards, struggling with genuine surprise, faltered into open pleasure as Commander Varak beamed broadly.
‘Splendid, splendid,’ Eldric shouted, clapping his hands and then extending an arm to direct his guests’ appreciation towards a group of servants and retainers standing nearby. ‘I haven’t seen a display like that since I was a boy. Well done. It’s heartening to see that such skills have been kept alive all this time.’ He paused and looked again at the sparkling tree.
‘Our marred Grand Festival seems to have been almost a generation ago, rather than a matter of months. Let’s make amends for that by celebrating this Winter Festival as it should be celebrated, and… ’
Impulsively, he took up his glass again. ‘I give you another toast,’ he said. ‘To the next Winter Festival. And the one after that, and the one after that, and… ’
His voice disappeared under a great cheering, which faded only when he sat down and waved his hand over the burdened table. Following their lord’s example, and mindful of his order, Eldric’s guests sat down and began the daunting task of eating their way through the extensive Festival fare that his kitchens had laid, or more correctly, constructed before them.
For a moment however, Eldric sat back, one hand toying idly with the carved animal head that decorated the end of the chair arm, the other equally idly tilting his glass to and fro. He looked at the lights of the tree reflected in the bowl of the glass.
Then, silently, and almost imperceptibly, he nodded a small salute towards a group of figurines standing on a raised dais in the middle of the table. They were not likenesses, but they represented absent friends. The tallest was meant to be Isloman. Against his legs, like a discarded shield, rested the circular disc that he had given to Eldric as a parting gift. On it was carved the picture of Hawklan riding Serian. The Queen was there too and, more sombrely, a miniature of the Warrior, the ancient statue of the exhausted soldier that stood in Vakloss to commemorate those who had fallen in battle. Here he served the same purpose.
Eldric glanced around the table. He had just com-pleted an extensive tour of the troops guarding the approaches to Narsindalvak and found their morale excellent but, he reminded himself, there were morale problems for him here also and he must remember to keep a special watch for the tears that would surely come to some of his guests during the evening as their minds turned inevitably to loved ones who were lost forever in the battle for Vakloss.
Darek caught the movement and laid a hand on his arm. Eldric started gently out of his reverie and turned to him.
Darek’s eyes flicked to the figurines and his eye-brows arched significantly.
Puzzled, Eldric followed the gaze and after a brief search, chuckled to himself. Someone had unearthed a tiny model of a hen and painted it black. It stood next to Isloman in solemn representation of Gavor.
‘Light be with you, dear boy,’ Darek mimicked.
‘Light be with you,’ said the young High Guard as the duty Sirshiant loomed up out of the shadows.
The Sirshiant came to an ominous halt in front of him, and looked down at him with exaggerated sternness.
‘And with you, trooper,’ he said slowly, his breath fogging the air between them. ‘But let’s have the correct challenge in future. Suppose I’d been a Mandroc.’
The trooper stamped his feet in the well-trodden snow. ‘Well, I’d have wished him The Light, and then whacked him with my pike, Sirsh,’ he replied.
The Sirshiant’s mouth curled slightly at the edges and one eyebrow went up.
‘Very festive of you, trooper,’ he said. ‘Very festive. I like my troopers to be thoughtful in their ways.’
‘Thank you, Sirsh,’ the trooper replied, executing another small dance and turning his gaze back to his duty, northwards. The snow-covered landscape was radiant in the brilliant moonlight but, in the distance, dark clouds shadowed the mountains and hid them from its touch. It seemed as though they were waiting, brooding, darker even than the black, moon-washed sky.
‘Why are we making such a fuss about the Winter Festival this year, Sirsh?’ the trooper asked. ‘Lord Eldric and all coming round ordering us to enjoy ourselves.’
The Sirshiant did not answer immediately, but put his hands behind his back and blew out a long steaming breath to the north.
‘Because the Lord Eldric’s got a lot of sense, lad,’ he said eventually. ‘As you’d have heard, if you’d listened to him. Him and the others are doing their best to bring the country together again. Sooner or later we’re going to have to go up there’-he nodded towards the mountains-‘and winkle those beggars out of Narsin-dalvak. Then, if I’m any judge, we’re going to have to go into Narsindal itself and find Him, if we’re not going to be looking over our shoulders forever. We can’t do any of that unless the country’s ready and with us, and the Winter Festival’s part of that.’
The trooper nodded dutifully. ‘Would it help if I went back to camp and did my bit for steadying the country right now?’ he suggested. ‘I can’t see any hordes teeming out of the mountains tonight.’
The Sirshiant turned and eyed him. ‘You’re not here to look for teeming hordes, lad,’ he advised. ‘You’re here to look out for me, in case, bewildered beyond repair by having to deal with incorrigible jesters such as your good self, I wander off into the night, howling, and, falling down, do myself a hurt.’
‘Ah,’ said the trooper, nodding sagely and dancing again.
The Sirshiant continued. ‘Bearing Lord Eldric’s injunction in mind, however, I will allow you to sing a Festival Carol to yourself, as you march conscientiously up and down. But not too loud. People are trying to enjoy themselves back at camp and I don’t want them thinking we’re being attacked.’
The trooper contented himself with a reproachful look and, hugging his pike to him, slapped his gloved hands together.
‘On the other hand,’ the Sirshiant continued. ‘It is the Festival, and a certain member of a certain group has just come back to say that the pass is still well-blocked, and all our neighbours… are busy celebrating themselves after their own fashion, so… ’ He nodded towards the camp.
The trooper grinned and set off without any further comment, but he had scarcely gone five paces when he stopped. Turning back to the Sirshiant, his face was serious. ‘I’ve been watching, Sirsh,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t see anyone coming back.’
The Sirshiant nodded. ‘Don’t worry, trooper, neither did I. That’s why he’s Goraidin, and we’re not. Enjoy your party. Light be with you.’
‘Light be with you.’ Oslang held his hands out in front of himself and then snapped his fingers.
A small star of light appeared just above his out-stretched palms. It hung motionless in the soft, subdued torchlight that filled Urthryn’s private chamber.
‘Take it,’ he said.
Sylvriss cast an uncharacteristic ‘should I?’ smile at her father, who shrugged a mighty disclaimer.
‘Is it hot?’ she asked.
Oslang laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Go on. Take it.’
Sylvriss’s tongue protruded between her teeth and, hesitantly, she reached out to take the glittering star.
As her hand closed about it, it slipped between her fingers at the very last moment. She gave a little cry of surprise and drew her hand back.
‘Try again,’ Oslang said, encouragingly.
Sylvriss, her face glowing in the torchlight, and her eyes sparkling in this newly made starlight, looked at Oslang in friendly suspicion, then reached again for the twinkling light.
As before, it floated quietly and smoothly away from her curling fingers and then from the second hand which was lying in ambush. There followed a brief flurry of increasingly frantic arm waving by the Queen, but the light moved through it all with unhurried calm.
Urthryn laughed at his daughter’s frustration, as her hands eventually fell back into her lap.
‘No,’ Oslang said, his eyes teasing. ‘Like this.’ And his hand came out and gently wrapped itself about the waiting light. As he held out his gently clenched fist, the light shone out from between his fingers with seemingly increased brilliance.
When he opened his hand, the star rose into the air and floated towards Sylvriss.
She looked from her laughing father to the smiling Cadwanwr, then abruptly, her hand shot out and seized the light.
However, she was so surprised at catching it that with another cry of surprise she immediately opened her hand and released it again.
Urthryn roared, provoking a look of indignation from his daughter.
Oslang smiled, then taking hold of the hovering star he placed it gently on Sylvriss’s still outstretched palm, closing her fingers around it gently as he did so.
‘Now clap your hands,’ he said.
After a slight hesitation, Sylvriss did as she was bidden.
A brilliant cascade of twinkling lights burst out from between her fingers and rose up to dance in front of her face. As she reached out to them, they swirled and danced around her searching hand.
‘Beautiful,’ she said.
Oslang bowed, then waved his hand. The hovering sparks scattered and spread themselves through the cellin boughs that traditionally decorated the walls of the Riddinvolk homes during the Winter Festival.
There they glittered and shone, amongst the prickly dark green leaves and bright red berries.
‘A fine trick, Oslang,’ Urthryn said. ‘It’s a pity the Old Power can’t be confined to such uses.’
‘Indeed,’ Oslang replied, relaxing into his chair and closing his eyes. ‘But who would confine the confiner?’
Urthryn nodded and let the debate die.
For a while, the three sat in companionable silence. Sylvriss, large now with Rgoric’s child, exuding a gentle, enigmatic calm which seemed to fill the room; Urthryn, content that the shores of Riddin were guarded as well as they could be, was as pleased to be spending the Festival with his daughter as he would have been celebrating with his line; and lastly Oslang, luxuriating in the lavish hospitality he had received from his hosts. He patted his straining stomach. Such over-indulgence, he thought. But there was barely a whiff of true contrition to mar his satisfaction. He must have a word with Andawyr when he got back about the Cadwanol being a little more enthusiastic about the Winter Festival in future.
Gradually Oslang felt himself falling into a doze. He was vaguely aware of distant revelry seeping into the room and Urthryn and Sylvriss bestirring themselves to go and join it.
‘Will you join us, Oslang?’ said a voice, also some-where in the distance.
‘Later,’ he managed to reply, but he heard his an-swer being greeted with laughter, and a reassuring hand was laid on his shoulder.
Roused a little, he felt Sylvriss moving past him on the way to the door. Turning, he made a gesture that would have sent stars shimmering through her hair for the rest of that evening, but as he looked, the radiant stones flared up and the sheen of her black hair made him lower his hand.
Best confined, he thought. You’d paint a rose, you donkey.
‘Light be with you truly, lady,’ he mumbled as he slipped deep into a happy slumber.
‘Light be with you, Girvan Girvasson.’
The Line Leader turned and peered into the dark-ness at the approaching rider. The figure increased the light of his torch a little to illuminate his face as he came alongside.
Girvan smiled. ‘Brother,’ he said in some consider-able surprise. Then he leaned across to embrace him.
‘What’s drawn you from your relentless pursuit of idle leisure down at Westryn,’ he said, still holding him.
Girven laughed. ‘Our Festival Helangai, brother,’ he said. ‘I saw your Line had volunteered for coast watch duty to avoid being soundly beaten again so I decided to seek you out and offer you yet more instruction in the subtler arts of the game.’
Girvan smiled and shook his head. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘Avoiding your Line in the Helangai is always uppermost in my mind, as it is with anyone else who’s survived so far in life without being kicked in the head by a horse.’
Girven beamed, and his brother ploughed on.
‘However, I’d happily have my people trounce them, were it not for two facts. Firstly, we’re on duty, and secondly, as you may have noticed, it’s pitch dark. Though I appreciate that most of your Line can’t tell night from day.’
Girven grinned broadly and then peered intently out across the shore towards the lights of the distant look-out boats extending to the horizon and beyond.
‘Ah,’ he said, after a moment, in mock surprise. ‘You’re right. I suppose that means we’ll just have to share your watch and our meagre supplies with you.’
Girvan bowed graciously, partly to hide his face; it was a generous gesture on his brother’s part. ‘How meagre are your supplies?’ he asked.
Girven looked at him significantly. ‘As meagre as usual,’ he replied.
Girvan cleared his throat. ‘Have you got any of grandfather’s… liniment… with you,’ he said, affecting casualness.
‘A little,’ Girven answered, in the same vein.
Girvan smiled expectantly. ‘Then welcome to the coast watch brother,’ he said. ‘And Light be with you and your wondrous Line too.’
‘And grandfather,’ Girven added reproachfully.
‘Oh yes,’ Girvan chuckled. ‘Light be with Grandfa-ther especially.’
‘Light be with you, Ffyrshht,’ burbled the drunken Mathidrin as Dan-Tor appeared unexpectedly around the corner.
The trooper’s two supporters, marginally the better for drink, sobered abruptly and closed ranks quickly, if unsteadily, to support him; a griping fear returning control of their minds to them for the moment. Their suddenly pale faces heightened the flush of the wine in their cheeks and made them look like ghastly mario-nettes. Wide-eyed, they managed to salute their Master.
Dan-Tor strode past, and the two men, almost un-able to believe their good fortune, desperately dragged their oblivious colleague away with much fearful hissing for silence.
Dan-Tor’s face was unreadable, but the old and unexpected greeting had struck him as powerfully as Hawklan’s arrow, and he found himself unable to deal out the punishing response that such insolent familiar-ity would normally have earned. The scuffling sibilance of the departing drunkards mingled in his ears with his own tightly drawn breath.
Strangely uncertain and disorientated, he turned off the broad curving corridor and ascended the long stairway that would take him to his private quarters. No Mathidrin trooper guarded this part of the tower fortress, nor even any invisible snare woven from the Old Power. Both precautions were unnecessary; the aura of an Uhriel was protection enough.
With an angry wave of his hand he doused the globe that dutifully attempted to light as he entered. As its brief glimmer faded sulkily, an ancient, dreadful memory bubbled up from the dark and awful depths of the well of his history.
‘Light be with you, daddy,’ piped the childish voice. Dancing in its wake came other memories; a cherished face, glistening dark hair, opened arms, trusting eyes and, worst of all, the touch of a trusting heart.
His eyes opened wide in horror as this tiny flame rose from the grey ashes of his long crushed humanity to shed its cruel, penetrating light. Instinctively his every resource leapt to defend him with a ferocity that would have served to protect him from an assault by Ethriss himself.
For a moment he swayed, his whole being tense with the centuries of guilt and remorse that this small light threatened to illuminate. Wilfully he extended his Power into the arrow in his side until a physical agony so possessed his body that all else dwindled into signifi-cance.
Then it was over. As he withdrew the Power, his pain faded, and all that remained of the desperate memory was a livid afterglow. He sat down awkwardly.
Light be with you! The greeting raked across him. Damn the man, he thought. He should have consigned him to darkness where he stood, but…
He breathed out irritably. His natural inclination had been to forbid all celebration of the Winter Festival, but Urssain and Aelang had prevailed upon him.
‘Morale is low enough, Ffyrst. It would be a needless provocation unless it served some clearly visible purpose.’
Now, a quieter part of him mused, his response to this small incident had been a salutary demonstration of his vulnerability, and a reminder that his armours could not be too many.
Vulnerability. To have been brought so low by the mindless ramblings of some drunken oaf after surviving the giving of the news of the loss of Fyorlund to Him was a disconcerting irony.
For at Derras Ustramel, there had been no mighty outburst; no sudden black extinction. Only a brief, slow glance from those eyes, and a briefer touch of that chilling will. You are my Uhriel, it said. You must ever learn. Then, a silent, icy, dismissal.
Looking up, Dan-Tor peered out into the darkness over the mist-shrouded land to the north, doubly hidden now by the heavy snow-burdened clouds.
Learned? What was to be learned? That these incon-sequential humans were poor material for His work; always dangerously flawed and unreliable? The face of Rgoric came to him. He needed no lessons there. And how could he protect himself from the vagaries of random chance? Then, blasphemously, and we would have held Fyorlund if You would have unbound me.
Dan-Tor looked round, as if this treacherous thought alone might have brought Him there to deliver a belated retribution.
When he turned back again to the window, the darkness outside was at one with the darkness inside, and for a moment his extraordinary loneliness felt overwhelming.
As if responding, a dim, hesitant glow came from the globe.
As the images of the room began to form under its cautious touch, Dan-Tor found something blurring his vision, some cold, unfamiliar irritation in his eye.
Then, sustaining this time, came, ‘Light be with you, daddy.’
‘Light be with you all,’ Loman half-shouted, with a dismissive wave of his hand as the last few sentences of his speech disappeared under a mounting roar of cheers and applause.
‘Bravo, bravo,’ cried Hawklan and Isloman, ap-plauding ironically as the red-faced smith flopped down on to his chair between them, laughing. ‘A most moving final toast to our feast,’ Isloman added with heavy graciousness.
Loman had no time to reply to his false praise, how-ever, as, slapping him on the shoulder, Isloman said, ‘Duty calls,’ and stood up and wandered off, threading his way through the many guests who were now bustling around clearing the long rows of tables and pushing them to the sides of the hall.
‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute.’ Gavor’s agitated voice nearby rose above the mounting din. He was hopping along pecking desperately at a plate that Tirilen was dragging across the table in an attempt to remove it.
‘You’ll never fly again, you feathered barrel,’ she said.
‘I enjoy walking,’ Gavor replied without looking up, as he placed his wooden leg resolutely on the plate to impede its further progress.
Tirilen conceded defeat and relinquished the plate. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You can join in the dancing then.’ And with that she began clearing various other dishes from around the raven, though not without some anxious sidelong glances from him, and a great deal of fretful wing flapping.
‘Gavor must have eaten three times his own weight,’ Andawyr said, leaning over to Hawklan.
‘Gavor has many and capacious appetites,’ Hawklan replied caustically.
Andawyr frowned. ‘I think cavernous might be a better word,’ he said.
Further comment about Gavor was curtailed, how-ever, as the entire table on which he was sitting was pushed aside by a crowd of enthusiastic guests.
With the same abandon, the crowd shooed Hawklan and the others back until the middle of the hall was clear. Then a clapping, foot-stamping, chant began.
‘Is-lo-man. Is-lo-man.’
Just as it began to involve virtually everyone in the hall, Isloman appeared through a wide arched doorway.
‘Good grief,’ Arinndier exclaimed. ‘What’s he carry-ing?’
Isloman was carrying a large circular stone held high above his head, while behind him a small proces-sion of apprentices carried other stones of various sizes.
‘It’s a traditional hearthstone,’ Hawklan replied to the Lord, smiling. ‘Watch.’
At the centre of the hall, Isloman cautiously bent down and lowered his burden to the floor. Despite his gentleness, the floor shook as he released the hearth-stone. Then the apprentices filed forward and laid their own burdens on it. As they did so, the torches in the hall gradually dimmed, and the babble of the onlookers died away almost completely.
When the last stone had been placed, there was a considerable pile, and after making one or two adjust-ments, Isloman took something from a pouch at his belt and struck one of the largest stones with it.
Immediately, the stone glowed white and, as Islo-man stepped back, the whole pile burst into a brilliant incandescence, sending a great shower of white, orange and yellow sparks of long-held sunlight cascading upwards into the high vaulted ceiling, where they swirled and fluttered like wind-blown stars.
The light from the stones sent the shadows of the watchers dancing all across the walls, and a great cheer went up, not least from Agreth, Andawyr and the Fyordyn.
‘Magnificent,’ Arinndier shouted to Hawklan above the noise as he clapped his hands high.
Hawklan took the Lord’s arm and pointed towards the large fir tree that stood at the far end of the hall. That was a symbol the Fyordyn were familiar with and, as Hawklan pointed, the countless tiny torches that decorated it burst into life, as at that same moment similar torches flared up in Eldric’s castle far to the north.
Arinndier’s noisy approval faded into a broad but slightly sad smile.
‘I haven’t seen anything like that since I was a boy,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I don’t know how we’ve come to celebrate the Winter Festival in such a half-hearted manner over the years, but I’ll do my best to see we bring it back to its old splendour when all this is over.’
Hawklan nodded and urged his friends forward as the rest of the guests in the hall made their way to the blazing stones or to the glittering trees as fancy took them.
Andawyr looked up through the ornate streamers that had been hung across the high ceiling like a great, colourful spider’s web.
‘May I?’ he asked, looking at Loman and casting another glance upwards.
Loman smiled and held out his hands in a silent invitation to his guest to do his will. Gleefully, Andawyr clapped his hands, then taking the cord from around his waist he flicked it out and upwards. As the cord straightened, a cloud of brilliant white sparks appeared around it. Unlike those that had burst out of the radiant stones, however, these rose slowly up into the darkness, spreading out gracefully as they did, until they covered the vaulted ceiling like the stars on a sharp frost-clear night.
The sight was greeted with an awed silence.
Even Andawyr’s glee faded, as he looked at his hands and then up at his handiwork. ‘Anderras Darion is a holy and wonderful place, Hawklan,’ he said, very softly. ‘More wonderful than I could ever have imag-ined.’
Then applause and shouts of approval rose up from the guests and, fastening his cord about himself again, the Cadwanwr beamed. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve done a party trick,’ he said. ‘But they should see the night out.’ Then placing his tongue between his teeth as an earnest of his concentration, he squinted narrowly upwards again, and snapped his fingers. Immediately, one of the stars streaked a bright white line across the ceiling.
A gasp came from the watchers and Andawyr laughed and clapped his hands again.
‘Show-off,’ came a deep voice from by his feet.
Andawyr laughed again. ‘Nonsense, Dar,’ he said. ‘This is showing off.’ And he shook his extended hand over the felci. A small cascade of sparks fell from it and spread themselves over the felci’s fur.
‘They’re not hot,’ he said, by way of reassurance to the spectators. ‘They’re quite harmless.’
And certainly, Dar-volci seemed unperturbed by the event.
‘Ratty, dear boy, you look splendid,’ Gavor said, flapping down to land in front of the felci. ‘They go with your eyes.’
Dar-volci looked at him steadily for a moment and then inclined his head slowly to look up at his benefac-tor. ‘Very droll, Andawyr,’ he said. ‘Very droll. But you should know better by now.’ Then, returning his attention to Gavor, his mouth bent into a sinister smile. ‘Light be with you, crow,’ he said, and, like a wet dog, he shook himself vigorously from nose to tail. The sparks flew off in all directions, showering most of the people standing nearby.
The main recipient, however, was Gavor, and as Dar-volci ended his impromptu display with a vigorous scratching to dislodge a few more sparks from behind his ear, he looked at the raven critically.
‘Very fetching, Gavor,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll keep a few after all.’ And he rolled over in the sparks that were scattered over the floor.
Gavor extended a wing and peered along it. Its blackness shimmered now not only with its natural iridescence but with brilliant silver lights, that shone and glinted in the flickering glow of the radiant stones.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘They’re most attractive.’ And spreading his wings he rose boisterously into the air with a raucous cry.
Hawklan watched his friend swooping and diving about the hall in great silver streaked arcs, then he looked down at Andawyr. There was a slight frown on the Cadwanwr’s face.
‘What’s the matter?’ Hawklan asked.
Andawyr shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ’Noth-ing important. It’s just… ’
He stopped and Hawklan raised his eyebrows by way of encouragement.
‘It’s just that I wonder how he can do that,’ Andawyr finished.
‘Do what?’ Hawklan asked.
‘Shake off the lights,’ Andawyr replied.
Before Hawklan could speak, Andawyr turned to him. ‘You try it,’ he said, indicating the lights that were now decorating Hawklan’s trousers. Hawklan looked down and then, balancing on one leg, began dusting the tiny lights away. But they did not move. Instead, they seemed to pass through his hand. Carefully he tried to pick one up between his finger and thumb, but again, without success.
‘I can see them but I can’t feel them,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand. They just fell off Dar-volci.’
Andawyr grinned. ‘You don’t understand?’ he said. ‘I don’t understand. He’s always doing things like that. Things he shouldn’t be able to.’
Dar-volci looked up at him and blew a slow gurgling raspberry. ‘You mean like this?’ he said, and reaching out, he picked up one of the lights from the floor and placed it fastidiously in the centre of one of his incisors.
‘How’s that for an infectious smile?’ he said, stand-ing on his hind legs and beaming malevolently. The star twinkled mockingly at Andawyr whose face crumpled in frustration.
‘How do you do that?’ he demanded desperately, offering Dar-volci his two clenched fists.
Dar-volci ignored the plea and dropped back on to all fours again. ‘Do excuse me,’ he said, smiling again. ‘I must mingle.’ And, with a sinuous wriggle, he was gone.
Hawklan could not help but laugh at Andawyr’s discomfiture.
‘I should know better than to play tricks on him by now,’ the little man said, unsuccessfully trying to brush the splashed lights from his own robe. ‘I always come off worst.’
Suddenly, above the hubbub of the milling guests, a drum beat sounded; a single steady beat. The noise in the hall fell and the guests began to move away from the centre of the floor expectantly. Hawklan took Andawyr’s arm and led him aside.
From the same doorway through which Isloman had entered, came a solitary drummer, clad in a traditional carver’s smock, simply decorated with designs of the cellin plant with its spiky green leaves and its red berries. He was stepping out a leisured march to his own slow beat.
Several paces behind him, moving at the same stately pace and similarly dressed, came a man and a woman playing a low, nasal, droning ground bass on long pipes.
As the little procession moved into the hall, two more pipers emerged, playing a slow, jerking melody that bobbed and jigged over the drum beat and ground bass like the flames that danced from the radiant stones. Higher pitched than the other pipes and also double-reeded, their sound was strangely harsh, but far from unpleasant, and drivingly powerful in its rhythm and intensity.
Some of the audience began a soft clapping to the drum’s beat.
Then came two more drummers. With drums clamped under their left arms, their short, double-headed drumsticks flickered rippling embellishments to the pulse of the first drummer.
The clapping increased and the playing became louder.
Agreth, Arinndier and the other Fyordyn, captivated by the sight and sound of the players, began to join in with the clapping, and then found that the crowd around them was beginning to sway from side to side. Nods and smiles from their neighbours encouraged them to join in that also.
The music grew louder still, though without chang-ing tempo, and on every fourth beat the audience began to add a resounding foot stamp to their clapping. One or two shrill cries went up.
Arinndier felt his arms tingle with excitement at the sound, and into his mind came the thundering Emin Rithid that the Fyordyn had unexpectedly sung in acclamation of Sylvriss at Eldric’s mountain stronghold. It seemed to him that the two tunes were in some way the same.
Then, abruptly, it ended and he almost lurched forward into the sudden silence. Another great cheer went up.
‘What was that, Lord?’ Jaldaric asked Arinndier, his face also flushed with exhilaration.
‘I don’t… ’ began Arinndier, but the remainder of his admission was lost as the drummers began again, this time with a bouncing rhythm that would make any foot tap. More musicians ran into the hall and whoops and yells rose up from the guests, as couples began to run into the middle of the hall to line up for what was obviously to be a boisterous dance.
Arinndier tried to play the old man and turned discreetly to seek sanctuary with Rede Berryn who was seated at the edge of the hall, but a female form intercepted him.
‘I have no one to dance with, Lord,’ Tirilen lied, smiling and holding out her hands to him.
Jaldaric and Tirke too had little time to ponder the etiquette of selecting a partner as they were cut out from the melee by two girls moving like skilled sheepdogs.
Even Dacu and Tel-Mindor failed to merge into the background sufficiently to escape yet two more swift and sharp-eyed predators.
Dacu turned to a grinning Isloman and flickered a plaintive hand signal to him as he was led away. Isloman looked across at his brother earnestly. Loman examined the scene then furrowed his brow in concentration and, pursing his lips, shook his head like a death judge. Looking back to Dacu and clamping his fist to his heart, Isloman pronounced sentence. ‘Think of Fyorlund, soldier,’ he shouted.
And thus the celebration continued; under An-dawyr’s starlit night sky, faces, happy, mischievous, besotted, moved in and through the lights and shadows of the firelight and the glittering tree, bound in a swirling mosaic of music and dance and laughter. At the touch of the Spirit of the Winter Festival, rivalries and differences, fears and ambitions, all disappeared; the old became young as they swung through the dances, and the young became sage and sober as they viewed such transformations-though not for long. Anderras Darion was indeed a holy and wondrous place, but it was Ethriss’s greatest creation that was celebrating his greatest gift to its full.
Finally escaping the dance, Hawklan flopped down by Gulda. She was chuckling to herself about some splendid confusion that Tirke had caused by moving left when he should have moved right. In common with everyone else, her face was flushed and happy. It had a haunting quality.
How old are you? Hawklan wanted to ask. How beautiful were you once? But the questions laughed at him. She was as great an enigma as he, but like him, whatever she was, or had been, whatever strange mysteries lay beneath her relentless personality, she was here now; whole and unencumbered.
As if reading his thoughts, Gulda turned to him and smiled radiantly. ‘A happy thought this, healer,’ she said. ‘You have a sure touch.’
Hawklan acknowledged the rare praise. ‘No spectre would dare visit this feast,’ he said.
Gulda nodded and then looked around at the guests. Agreth was in earnest, hand-waving conversation with a rather large, well-hocked, lady. Arinndier, red-faced, and mopping his brow, had reached the sanctuary of Rede Berryn’s altar and was clinging to it for the time being, though he exuded some gameness still. Dacu and Tel-Mindor were back to back, facing overwhelming odds, and Jaldaric and Tirke had been taken captive somewhere.
Overhead, in the gold-tinted darkness, a star-bedecked Gavor glided hither and thither like a silver, moonlit kingfisher, swooping down incessantly to encourage or torment the dancers as the whim took him, or to offer trenchant observations to some of the many debates that were proceeding amongst the watchers. Mirroring him on the ground, Dar-volci rolled and scampered, occasionally standing on his hind legs and emitting hoots and whistles which seemed to betoken considerable approval.
All around, figures moved, shadows flitted, and the wall carvings danced and changed at the touch of the flickering firelight.
Gulda took Hawklan’s hand and squeezed it affec-tionately.
Later, Hawklan slipped quietly out of the hall. As he walked away down the long corridor, it seemed to him that the laughter and the music was ringing through the whole castle.
The impression did not leave him even as he stepped out into the cold night on top of the great wall. Myriad coloured torches all about the towers and spires lit the snow-covered roofs and transformed the castle into a strange and magical landscape. And though the silence was as deep as the night was black, the whole seemed to vibrate with some irrepressible inner energy.
Hawklan closed the door behind him gently and, pulling his tunic about him tightly, stepped forward through the crunching snow towards the edge of the wall.
Peering out into the darkness he could see lights in Pedhavin below where those villagers who had not come to the castle were celebrating the Festival.
Then, very softly, as if to greet him, but reluctant to disturb the night stillness, a mellow carillon of bells began to ring out somewhere in the darkness overhead. Hawklan turned and looking up, smiled. No one knew what power rang the bells of Anderras Darion.
A silvery giggle drew his attention down again, and something struck him lightly. Looking down, he saw it was a snowball. Children, he thought as he peered intently into the shadows to seek his assailant. But he could see nothing until a tiny figure came forward a little, a slight, indistinct silhouette.
‘Light be with you, Hawklan,’ said voices all around him.
Hawklan started and then smiled again. ‘And with you, Alphraan,’ he said. ‘Won’t you join our celebra-tion?’
More giggling surrounded him. ‘We have and we are,’ came the reply. ‘It is such a raucous and unholy din, we can hear it in our Heartplace. But it is joyous beyond measure. Thank you. We seem to be ever in your debt.’
Hawklan laughed. ‘I feel no debt and I waive such as you feel there might be,’ he said. ‘That is my Festival gift to you.’
‘You burden us further, Hawklan,’ the voices said, though full of laughter. ‘But as part repayment we shall bring the song from our Heartplace to your Round Dance.’
Hawklan bowed graciously and there was more giggling, but when he looked up, the tiny figure was gone.
Overhead, the bells were continuing their soft caril-lon.
Hawklan stepped back inside again, kicking the snow from his shoes and slapping his arms about himself as the winter cold began to make itself felt.
‘Ah. You’re there,’ said a voice as he closed the door. ‘I wondered where you’d sneaked off to.’
It was Isloman. ‘Come along,’ the carver went on. ‘They’re waiting for you to start the Round Dance.’
Hawklan’s entry into the hall was greeted by loud and ironic cheering which he received with wide open arms. As he strode forward the crowd parted and, reaching the glowing fire, he placed his outstretched hands on the shoulders of his neighbours. They did the same, and very quickly the inner ring of the dance was formed.
Then, like ripples from a pebble thrown into a still pond, further outer rings were formed until almost everyone in the hall was standing holding his neighbour, and waiting.
Hawklan nodded and the lone drummer began the steady beat with which he had begun the celebration. With each beat, the dancers took one step, to form a simple pattern of three in one direction and one back. Adjacent rings moved in opposite directions.
As the pipes and the other drums began to play, the steps became higher, and the foot stamping louder. Sturdily supported by their neighbours, Andawyr, Agreth and the Fyordyn were borne to and fro, though they eschewed the increasingly elaborate steps being executed by some of the Orthlundyn. Once again Arinndier felt the surging power of the Emin Rithid ringing through his mind over the jerking rhythmic tune of the pipes.
They are the same, he realized.
As the dance reached its final stage, the sound of the drums and pipes seemed to change, to swell out and rise up to ring round the vaults of the star-strewn ceiling. Without breaking the step of the dance, Hawklan looked up, and as he did so, a sonorous chorus of voices filled the hall, weaving around and enhancing the pulsing rhythm of the musicians.
And wordless though the chorus seemed to be, it was a great paean of thanksgiving and joy. Mingling somewhere in its depths, beyond simple hearing, Hawklan thought he heard the poignant happy calls of the wolf cubs he had orphaned.
‘Alphraan, Alphraan.’ The word whispered around the hall and rose up to be woven into the texture of the song.
Gulda leaned forward and twining her hands over the top of her stick, rested her chin on them.
She smiled at the happy, colourful spectacle circling the hall.
‘You do not dance, Memsa,’ said a soft voice close by.
‘My heart does, Alphraan,’ she said. ‘My heart does. And so does Anderras Darion’s. Thank you for the gift of your Heartplace.’
‘Ah… ’
‘And light be with you, Sound Carvers,’ she added softly. Then, looking again at the laughing, singing guests moving in concert around the hall, she said, ‘Live well, and light be with you all, my friends.’