The ease with which Hawklan had donned the strange sword did not move Loman as it might have done but minutes earlier. The onset of impending change crystallized in Loman’s heart as soon as he saw the black sword sliding down the great mound of weapons to land at Hawklan’s feet. The very movement in that huge, familiar and infinitely still room had unnerved him more than he cared to admit, but the brief touch of the black metal had dwarfed his first reaction by plunging him into another world: a world of perfection and singing voices, of wisdom that spread through every particle of his smith’s soul and told him tales and epic sagas of times and worlds long gone. Of evil victorious, of evil conquered, of terrible prices paid and great rewards reaped, of courage and cowardice, fidelity and treachery.
He could scarcely bear to touch it again. It made everything around him insubstantial and inadequate. Even the mountains became dreamlike. Only Hawklan still seemed solid. More solid indeed than the sword itself.
It was the same too for Isloman when he first held the sword. Loman took it to his workshop to seek his opinion on the strange black stone hilt. He handed it to him with a brief warning.
‘Take care, brother,’ he said, looking into Isloman’s eyes. Isloman returned the gaze, and felt the word "brother" reaching through the encrusted layers of affectionate chafing that separated them in their daily lives like a shield protecting a vulnerable breast.
He took the sword gingerly and, holding the scab-bard in his left hand, gently laid the hilt in the open palm of his right. As soon as the black stone touched his hand, his eyes widened and he drew a breath that seemed to last forever.
Concerned, Loman took his arm and whispered his name urgently.
Eventually, Isloman lifted the hilt from his hand and stared at it intently. Then he looked at Loman, his eyes almost closed as if he were having difficulty in seeing him. Laying the sword on a table, he put both his hands to his temples.
‘Where did this come from?’ he asked.
Loman told him.
Isloman sat down on his favourite stool and stared out into the spring sunshine.
‘What did you… learn, from the hilt?’ Loman asked after a long silence.
Isloman opened his mouth but made no sound, then he shook his head.
‘So it is with the blade,’ said Loman hoarsely. ‘Where has it come from, Isloman? Who could have made such a thing? How could it have lain so close to us for so many years and we not feel it?’
Isloman shook his head again. ‘And it sought out Hawklan?’ he said.
Loman nodded. ‘Rattled and clattered down that mound like any old piece of tin, to fall right at his feet. And he felt something when he took hold of it I’m sure, but he wouldn’t… or couldn’t say what.’
Isloman nodded. ‘This sword is beyond our words, Loman, and he sees deeper than you or I ever will.’
‘He just said, "my sword". Very quietly.’
The two brothers sat for a long time in silence, with the black sword lying on the table between them. Slowly a sense of normality returned as the sound of children playing outside wafted into the room.
‘What’s the device embedded in the hilt?’ Loman asked eventually. Isloman picked up the sword again, and lifted the hilt into the dust-laden sunlight streaming through the window. Twinkling in the inner depths of the black stone were two intertwined strands which seemed to stretch into an eternal void filled with countless stars. Briefly he felt the urge of float forward into that great harmony, but a sense of unfulfilled need came over him and kept him earthbound.
He laid the sword down and stared at it. Then some-thing occurred to him and he raised his hand as if to halt the memory before it moved on.
‘Just a moment,’ he said, and he walked over to the end of the workshop where he kept his collection of books; all manner of dissertations and commentaries and lore about carving. Strictly speaking the collection was not his, it was the Guild’s, he being its trustee as First Carver until one more worthy came along.
His craggy block of a head nodded up and down slightly as his finger tapped its way along the old spines, and he put out his tongue like a ‘do not disturb’ sign.
‘Aha.’
He reached down an ancient tome and, after blow-ing the dust from it, began gently turning the pages. Without looking up from the book he motioned to Loman.
‘I thought I remembered,’ he said. ‘Look.’ Loman gazed at the book blankly.
‘This is a very old book, Loman,’ Isloman explained needlessly. ‘And it’s written in a tongue and a style which I can barely understand. But look… ’ His heavy finger tapped a diagram lightly. Loman squinted at it and frowned.
‘It means nothing to me, Isloman,’ he said. ‘It’s one of your carvers’ drawings.’
‘Uh-uh,’ muttered Isloman to himself, engrossed in the page and not hearing his brother. ‘As far as I can make out, it says that following the Rise of Six… someone or other, before the Age of the Great Alliance, I think, and long before the Golden Age, certain weapons were forged… or re-forged by Theowart… Sph… Sphaeera, and… Enartion, with earth, water and air taken from the Places of Great… that might be, or Old, Power. And they were blessed by Ethriss… and consecrated to life.’
He nodded his head in satisfaction.
‘So?’ queried Loman.
‘So,’ said Isloman. ‘This diagram… ’ He prodded the picture in the book. ‘This diagram shows a sword like that.’ He pointed to the sword on the table.
Loman looked intently and disbelievingly at the diagram. ‘Does it say anything else?’ he asked.
Isloman scanned the page again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But, as I said, it’s a very old book, and it talks about times that were ancient when it was written.’
Neither spoke for a long time and the sound of chil-dren playing in the distance filled the room again. Very softly, Loman began to speak about things they had not discussed for many years. There were no records of Anderras Darion ever having been open, other than in children’s tales. In the past, the skills of generations had failed so totally to open its Great Gate or gain access in any way, that all attempts had long since been aban-doned, and public wonder at the castle had been confined solely to the Gate. Then Hawklan had come out of the mountains one bleak winter when all paths were impassable, and opened it with a key and a word. A man with no memory, who knew the castle as if he had lived there all his life. A man who was a healer, not a prince or a warrior as might be expected. And now this mysterious sword had sought him out.
‘Who is he, Isloman? And what does all this mean? Your book doesn’t tell us much. We know that this sword is far beyond our understanding. But it seems to presage danger. Danger for Hawklan, danger perhaps for us all. What shall we do?’
Isloman answered without hesitation. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We can’t do anything but wait. If Hawklan needs help and we can give it then we will, won’t we? Some-thing’s happening which we can’t begin to judge. But I know this, and so do you-there’s no evil in that sword, and no evil in Hawklan. And I trust Hawklan’s sight without question.’
Returning to the castle, the two brothers found that Hawklan had taken Isloman’s advice to find clothes more appropriate for the long journey to the Gretmearc than his long loose habit and soft shoes.
As they entered his room with the sword, Tirilen was eyeing him critically and making small, pecking adjustments to his unfamiliar garments.
‘Isn’t he lovely?’ she said, a cryptic expression on her face. She took him by the elbow and turned him round to face them. Hawklan looked faintly embarrassed. Loman and Isloman exchanged brief glances although neither spoke, nor made any other outward sign of what they had seen. Each knew the other had noted Hawk-lan’s remarkably changed appearance.
Loman covered their awkwardness by stepping forward and looping the sword belt around Hawklan’s waist. For a moment he looked like a faithful squire attending on his lord.
‘What did you find out about it?’ Hawklan asked.
‘Nothing definite,’ said Loman. ‘Isloman thinks as I do. It’s very old and it’s done some rare deeds in its time. It was made by craftsmen of… ’ He paused, at a loss. ‘I doubt a finer weapon exists in the whole Armoury… or anywhere for that matter.’
Hawklan turned directly to Isloman, trying to ignore Tirilen still moving around him making final adjust-ments to his clothes. ‘And the hilt?’ he asked.
‘It has the qualities that Loman tells me are in the metal. They’re quite… overwhelming. I certainly don’t understand them fully and I doubt I could explain them to you even if you weren’t rock-blind,’ said Isloman.
Hawklan nodded. ‘What about the device in the hilt? Did you recognize it?’ he asked.
Isloman told him of the old book and its obscure references to times long gone. At the names Theowart, Sphaeera, Enartion and Ethriss, Hawklan seemed to hear again the distant note he had heard when he first handled the sword, but it slipped from him just as before.
He looked at his two friends, dominating the room with their massive presence. They were looking at him strangely although patently trying not to. Tirilen too, had an uncertainty about her as she stood back to examine her handiwork.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. Both the men seemed to start a little at the question.
‘Oh nothing. You just look different in your travel-ling clothes,’ said Loman with a slightly nervous smile. Hawklan knew they were keeping something from him, but he did not press them. They would not deceive him in any serious matter. He probably looked rather foolish in the clothes that Tirilen had found for him and they were too embarrassed to tell him. That would be typical of them.
But it was not that. Quite the contrary. Hawklan wore the clothes and the sword as if they were a natural part of him. The brothers saw before them the man they knew as a healer: a gentle, slightly innocent man, full of stillness and light. But his healer’s cowled robe had been laid aside and, standing armed, breeched, and booted, in a metal-buckled jerkin and with a long hooded cloak over his shoulders, the whole in black, his bearing was purely that of a warrior and leader. A warrior and a leader the like of which could be seen in the thick of battle in many of the carvings that filled the Castle.
Before he left, Hawklan asked Loman and Isloman to teach him some basic sword skills, but, strangely, they both refused.
‘If I try to use it I’ll probably cut my foot off… or worse,’ he protested jokingly. ‘I’ve never handled a sword in my life.’
But the two men did not respond to his levity. They shook their heads. ‘That sword’s far beyond our understanding, Hawklan,’ said Isloman soberly, almost reverently. ‘We can only learn from it, not teach.’ Then, as if reluctant to deny a friend such help, ‘But I doubt you’ll be able to draw it in an ill cause. You must do as we must. Learn from it. Trust its judgement. It sought you out, not you it. Have faith in it.’