Wearily the King stood up and walked down the steps to face Eldric. The noise of Dan-Tor’s leaving was echoing round and round the hall like a tormented spirit and it weighed heavily on him.
‘Eldric,’ he said. ‘My old friend and comrade-in-arms. Today, I’ve been either very wise or very foolish.’
Eldric barely heard the remark. ‘Majesty,’ he said in a mixture of awe and disbelief. ‘Rgoric. You’re your old self again?’ He gazed into the King’s face and nodded. ‘Recovered. It’s a miracle.’
‘No miracle, Eldric,’ the King replied. ‘Only some strange fate and the single-minded devotion of my Queen. But she’ll tell you all in due course. Right now we must consider your next course of action.’
Eldric frowned. ‘Consider, Majesty? Consider? There’s nothing to consider. We’ll remain by your side and begin the undoing of all these ills.’
The King shook his head. ‘You weren’t usually so rash, Eldric. You must realize that’s not possible. We’re effectively alone in the Palace. Certainly we’ve no armed friends to aid us. We could be slain within the next few minutes.’
Eldric’s eyes opened in disbelief. ‘Majesty, this can’t be. You’re the King. No one would dare… ’ His words faded, strangled by his own knowledge. Then came a little flare of optimism. ‘But you held Dan-Tor here, in thrall, at your feet.’
The King shook his head again. ‘The only chains that bound Dan-Tor was surprise and caution.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘We were both playing the same game. He was waiting to see what I intended and I was waiting for some measure of him. Now I fear we both have the measure of one another, and I’m the loser by it.’
‘I don’t understand, Majesty,’ said Eldric, waving his arms vaguely.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ retorted the King. ‘Suffice it that I’ve managed to have you released. You must flee the City and head for your stronghold. Horses have been arranged for you.’ He silenced an impending interrup-tion with a wave of his hand. ‘On my express command, you’ll levy the High Guards of all the Lords, and drive Dan-Tor and his Mathidrin from Vakloss and all Fyorlund.’
‘Majesty.’ Eldric’s voice was almost desperate as he attempted to stem the King’s flow. The King fumbled with a ring on his finger.
‘Eldric, as you care for me, be silent and listen. Take this.’ He thrust the Iron Ring of the Kings forcibly into Eldric’s hand. ‘We haven’t the time for courtesies and explanations. That ring is my authority for what you must do.’ He paused. ‘You’re aware of Dilrap’s part in this affair?’ he asked softly.
Eldric looked at the Secretary. ‘The Queen told the Goraidin Yatsu he’s to be trusted,’ he said.
The King nodded. ‘When circumstances permit, he’s to be greatly honoured for the courage he’s shown and the aid he’s rendered our country. You must see to that. But now, go with him. Horses have been prepared for you but all relies on speed and surprise. Go now.’
Eldric swung from side to side in indecision. ‘But, Majesty,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do…? And the Queen?’
The King straightened up. ‘The Queen has gone already,’ he said. ‘I prevailed upon her when I realized what our position was here.’
‘Alone, Majesty?’ Eldric said softly.
A twinge of doubt showed on the King’s face. ‘You forget who and what she is, Eldric,’ he replied. ‘She’s a Muster woman on a Muster horse. She’ll reach your estates long before you and warn them of your coming. Besides, she’s much loved by the people. There are many reasons why no one will stand in her way.’
Eldric’s shoulders lifted then dropped in angry res-ignation. ‘Well, if she’s gone, she’s gone. We’ll never catch her, that’s certain. But why are you here?’
Rgoric stared into the old Lord’s face. Truth, he thought. Truth was what had kept Fyorlund whole for so long, and truth alone could restore it now. He took Eldric’s arm and led him to one side. ‘Eldric. I’ve no plan this day. No scheme. Nothing. To plan implies to know, and I know nothing of Dan-Tor. What he is… or,’ he looked significantly at Eldric, ‘the force that moves him.’ The two men looked at one another in silence for a long moment, then the King continued. ‘I knew only that I’d have one chance to learn and act. It was my hope, no more, that I could effect your release and escape, but beyond that, nothing.’
‘I understand, Majesty,’ Eldric said urgently. ‘But you can flee now.’
Rgoric shook his head. ‘No, Eldric, I can’t,’ he said. ‘Dan-Tor’s poisons have injured me irreparably, despite the efforts of Sylvriss and my appearance of well-being. It’s only a matter of time before I succumb to illness again, and I see no fixture other than as a whingeing dotard.’
Eldric winced at the force of the King’s momentary bitterness. ‘Rgoric, how can you be sure of this?’ he said anxiously. ‘There’s a great healer in the land, from Orthlund… ’
The King’s look stopped him. ‘I’m sure, Eldric,’ he said. ‘An inner sight has come with my recovery. I can’t turn my feet from the path it has shown me. Be assured, what you see now is an unseasonable flowering before a cruel frost.’
Eldric was silent, head bowed.
‘It’s not what I’d wished for, Eldric,’ the King con-tinued. ‘But it is the truth. Time works against us on all fronts of the battle. If you escape then I’ll have re-deemed some of the failures of my poor reign. Next, I’ll kill His servant here or perish in the attempt.’
Eldric stared at him. The words rang in his head-His servant-but before he could speak, Rgoric led him further from Jaldaric and Dilrap. ‘Eldric. Sylvriss thinks I’m following on with you,’ he said, very softly. ‘When you meet, ask her to forgive me this last small deceit.’ He hesitated and looked down at his hands. ‘Tell her… tell her… we’ve had two lives together, one at the beginning and one at the end… tell her, greater joy could never have been.’ Then a little more heartily, though his eyes were shining damp in the torchlight, ‘As you love me, Eldric, do as I’ve asked-for all our sakes. Leave me to… to attend to my Royal duties.’
Impulsively, Eldric reached out and embraced the King. As they parted, wordlessly, the King nodded towards the door and Eldric, signalling to Dilrap and Jaldaric, marched quickly from the hall without looking back.
Rgoric listened to their receding footsteps, then slowly climbed back up on to the ancient throne of the Kings of Fyorlund.
Dan-Tor strode through the corridors of the Palace, his mind in a turmoil. That the King was opposing him and perhaps even now might be wreaking havoc with his plans dwindled into insignificance against the awesome force that was drawing him inexorably towards its heart. His thoughts whirled in imitation of this maelstrom but as he neared it, words of caution floated increasingly to the surface.
Then came the memory of his Master’s terrible cold anger and gradually his pace eased and his mind became clearer, even though the alien power was ringing like a mocking challenge through his entire body.
A warrior. An Orthlundyn. That green-eyed demon had come to confront him in his own lair! He shuddered at the memory of Orthlund and Anderras Darion and briefly his old reproaches returned. Why had he done what he had done there? What had so marred his judgement? He brushed them aside, but the fear that came in their wake halted him as he reached the main entrance hall.
For a moment he stood motionless, feeling the pow-erful presence waiting for him. It was a power such as he had not met since his return from the darkness-but it was not the Power of Ethriss awakened. Slowly, hope began to mingle with fear. With soft words and cunning, he might yet lure Hawklan into subtle captivity. It wouldn’t be easy. Hawklan’s distrust would be deep and profound. Nonetheless, it was possible. The man might yet be bound and delivered to His care in Derras Ustramel.
He moved forward and the group of people gathered around the main doorway parted silently to allow him through. A harassed Urssain met him.
‘Commander,’ Dan-Tor said coldly. ‘I’m called away from an audience with the King like some scullery-maid… ’ The look on Urssain’s face stopped him.
‘Ffyrst, I don’t know what’s happened. There’s been unrest since Eldric was taken from Oremson’s, and that business with the Queen didn’t help, but we’ve had no indication of anything like this.’ Urssain’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘The crowd’s enormous. I daren’t set the men on them.’
‘Daren’t, Commander?’ said Dan-Tor, his voice heavy with contempt. ‘The Mathidrin, who were prepared to face the High Guards in open battle? Daren’t deal with a rabble led by a bumpkin of a healer?’
Urssain made no answer.
Hawklan had found the latter part of his journey torturously difficult. The chorus of tiny cries that emanated from all the living things around the City had grown appallingly as he had drawn nearer. A myriad spirits sensed him for a healer and reached out to him. Their pleas hung about him like a damp cloth, impeding his movements and distracting his thoughts.
‘I can’t help you,’ he cried out finally. ‘I must find the heart of the ill that afflicts you all.’
And it’s here, he thought, as the lank figure of Dan-Tor appeared at the head of the steps leading to the main doors of the Palace. It seemed to Hawklan, however, that the figure in front of him was only part of a whole, a projection into this time and place of something unbelievably wrong. So wrong that Dan-Tor’s very frame seemed to tear its way through the very daylight.
It came to Hawklan suddenly that he had been pre-posterously foolish in searching so diligently for this confrontation. Perhaps indeed all his journeyings had been but the following of a carefully laid bait. Perhaps he was destined to be caught and bound by this creature. But then another voice spoke to him: told him he had had no alternative. Other things were waking than Sumeral’s creatures and he must play the part he saw before him, no matter what the cost. Less would be a betrayal.
The figure rent its way further through the daylight as it moved down the steps towards him, but it stopped part way as if it had walked into some unseen barrier. A white scimitar smile split its face, but illuminated nothing.
‘My Lord Hawklan,’ a kindly voice floated across the courtyard. ‘I can understand that you might wish to twit me for my unusual visit to your fair village, but this… ’ A long arm swept over the crowd at Hawklan’s back, now watchful and silent.
The voice was amused, but nothing in Hawklan’s sight radiated humour. The crowd had grown rapidly and spontaneously around him, as if his single act of defiance had crystallized the City’s brooding tensions.
Before he could reply, Dan-Tor spoke again. ‘I fancy we’ve much to talk over, you and I. Mistakes and misunderstandings to be rectified.’
Hawklan neither moved or replied, Dan-Tor’s words and his awful presence belied each other so starkly.
Dan-Tor’s smile broadened reassuringly. ‘I’m unfa-miliar with the ways of Orthlund, but if you’ve been any time in Fyorlund, then you must know by now that it’s our way to talk. To talk endlessly, in fact. It’s an old and trusted way.’
Hawklan’s uncertainty grew. To stand there silent would serve no purpose. To bandy words with the man in public would be hazardous. But to enter his lair…?
There was a slight disturbance behind him. ‘It’s only the horses,’ whispered Isloman, and Hawklan turned as Serian and Isloman’s horse walked through the surprised crowd. Dan-Tor quailed as he saw the sword and bow hanging from Serian’s saddle. Casually, Hawklan lifted down the sword and fastened it about his waist.
Dan-Tor’s smile did not fade, but the aura around him shifted restlessly. ‘Lord Hawklan,’ he said, ‘I offer you speech, in the manner of the Fyordyn, and you arm for violence.’
Hawklan was about to speak when Serian breathed softly to him. ‘Take care. The people don’t have your sight. They see only his smile and your sword and stony face.’
With difficulty, Hawklan bent his mouth into a smile. ‘Isn’t it the way of the Fyordyn to be armed for battle when speaking in the Geadrol?’
Dan-Tor bowed slightly but did not answer.
The smile on Hawklan’s face faded. It was no use. He couldn’t maintain any pretence in the presence of this abomination. He felt himself being overwhelmed by forces he did not understand, and it was taking all his conscious will to restrain them. Like distant thunder, drums and trumpets sounded in his mind, as if presaging a terrible battle.
Dan-Tor felt himself similarly assailed, though he knew too well the nature of the forces he was dealing with. Around Hawklan was an aura such as he had not seen since the time of the First Coming. Every fibre of him strained to leap out and destroy this obscenity; this distortion and obstacle to His plans. But the danger…
Two great and opposite forces lowered over one another like black storm clouds, held back by who knew what restraints until some tiny stirring would unleash their lightning. Each grew with the other.
Serian whinnied nervously and stepped back.
Hawklan watched, impotent, as the vague ill-formed hopes he had carried with him died at the sight of the pitiless reality he was facing. Visions of ills cured, problems solved, wrongs righted through debate and reason, laughed at him distantly for his naivety, scorned him for a fool.
The few words that he and Dan-Tor had exchanged lay between them like dead leaves: a pitiful rustling futility echoing in the awesome silence. Both pondered the featureless terrain of doubt. Neither could leave the object of his long search. Neither could seize it. The people watched, silent and uncomprehending.
Then from high above came a raucous cry. A cry that had sounded over the Mandrocs as they marched on the High Guards in Orthlund. Dan-Tor started violently. His smile vanished and he looked up at the circling Gavor. Hawklan felt the spirit around the man darken and writhe. Then abruptly he was gazing into Dan-Tor’s hate-filled eyes.
‘I’ll not be mocked by your death bird, Orthlundyn,’ came a grim and terrible voice, that seemed to fill the very sky, and Hawklan felt a great blow being gathered for the destruction of his friend.
His vision cleared. He had been drawn from Orthlund on a search for the source of a great evil. Now it lay before him, strong, vigorous and purposeful. The world would crumble before it if it were not struck down.
The healer in him urged, ‘Excise this diseased tis-sue.’ The warrior roared, ‘Kill it before it kills you.’ And all the living things about Vakloss cried out for release and vengeance. Words would avail nothing here. The first stroke must now be his, no matter how it seemed in the eyes of the watchers.
With a movement as natural as the swaying of rushes in the wind, Hawklan swung round and lifted the Black Bow and a single arrow from his waiting horse. Dan-Tor’s blow for Gavor gathered in strength then faltered, distracted by this sinister harmony at the edge of his vision. As he turned, Hawklan nocked the arrow and drew back Ethriss’s Black Bow. It creaked like the mast of a tall ship then, without pause, Hawklan released Loman’s arrow towards the very heart of the terrible creation that stood before him.
Dan-Tor heard its ancient song but, for all he de-spised humanity, it was his human frame that saved him, not his vaunted Power. Reflexes that were ancient even before he was born turned him from the path of the approaching doom, and though the arrow tore through flesh and smashed bones before it tore out through flesh again, it struck no vital organ.
The impact drove him backwards and he stumbled on the steps. Both crowd and Mathidrin stood paralysed by the suddenness of the assault and, seeing its failure, Hawklan reached for a second arrow. But the wound to Dan-Tor was to more than his mortal form. Loman had not the skills of the craftsmen of the Great Alliance, but he was a fine apprentice to them, and the arrow was as perfect in its making as any could be in that time.
Delivered from the Black Bow of Ethriss by a great warrior-healer, it rent not only Dan-Tor’s flesh, but his black spirit also. His eyes widened and blazed a baleful red, and his mouth cracked open, his brown face like the crater of an angry volcano. From its depths, rising interminably from the faintest whisper was unleashed a sound that became so loud it seemed solid in the air, and so inhuman that all who heard it, save Hawklan, staggered and fell to the ground in terror.
Far to the north, a dark and brooding form heard the cry of His servant, and in cold anger reached out over the mountains and plains to deny its will.
Unnoticed, an enfeebled form slipped from His thrall.
Hawklan recognized now the creature that writhed on Loman’s arrow and stood paralysed with horror. He felt no stirring within him. No resurrection of the Guardian Ethriss or any other spirit to save him from the fate that was to be his-he who had released Oklar, the earth corrupter, First among the Uhriel of Sumeral.
Images of desolated, war-sacked lands, of Tirilen, Loman, Gulda and countless others rose up to reproach him for his failure. Then in the uttermost darkness of his fear a faint familiar voice spoke to him. ‘The sword, Hawklan. Ethriss’s sword.’ The voice was Andawyr’s-pained, weak, and distant.
Unthinking, Hawklan drew the sword and held it in front of himself with trembling hands as Oklar unleashed the Old Power at him.
The ground at his feet started to rage and heave as if it were a wind-lashed ocean. Great fissures opened and closed about him like the mouths of predatory animals. A terrible rumbling seemed to fill the very universe and a million tiny barbs entered his body as if to rend and tear his every cell. Somewhere in the distance was the faint noise of falling masonry and a screaming crowd crushing itself in panic.
Hawklan knew only the sword. He poured out his spirit into its perfection and strength, hoping in some way to save those around him. But even as he did so, he knew he could not use the sword as it should be used and he felt his own strength ebbing as the tumult grew louder and louder.
Slowly he sank to his knees and, as his mind slid into oblivion, he felt a cold presence passing near him. Sweetly spoken words, faint but filled with appalling malevolence formed like ice burns in his heart: ‘… Keeper… Ethriss’s lair… Mine… ’
Then it was gone, and darkness took him.