‘I doubt there’s any real difference between warrior and healer here anyway,’ he said diffidently. ‘Oklar is a disease beyond help; his Master, more so. Excision is probably the only treatment.’
‘You already knew that,’ Gulda retorted, leaning forward. ‘Any half-baked stitcher of gashes could have told you that. Now answer the question you know I was asking. What has Oklar’s touch taught you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan replied after a brief silence.
Gulda’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go back to the source, Hawklan,’ she said purposefully, leaning back in her chair again.
Hawklan looked into the fire and welcomed its warmth on his face. The terrible confrontation at the Palace Gate came to him again as it did every day, as did all his doubts and questions.
‘I was frozen with terror after my arrow hit him,’ he began. ‘I felt his malevolence overwhelming me before I could even reach for a second one. Then Andawyr’s voice came from somewhere, very weak and distant. "The sword," he said. "Ethriss’s sword."’ Hawklan’s eyes widened as the scene unfolded before him inexorably, their green eerie in the red firelight. ‘But I didn’t know how to use it against such a foe-no part of me knew how to use it-no dormant Guardian rose up from within to protect me when his power struck me-nothing. I did what I could. I tried to heal. I felt the sword severing his dreadful destruction but still it came on, pushing me deeper into… darkness.’
He stopped and looked at Gulda. ‘Perhaps if I’d not used the sword… not cleaved his power… those two great swathes of destruction wouldn’t have been cut across Vakloss. Perhaps all those people would have been spared.’
Gulda shrugged, though in helplessness, not cal-lousness. ‘They would have been spared had you kept to your bed that day,’ she said relentlessly. ‘But a thousand times their number would have died the sooner if you hadn’t defied him.’
‘It’s a bitter consolation,’ Hawklan said.
‘There’s none other,’ Gulda replied gently. ‘Finish your tale.’
His doubt not eased, Hawklan hesitated, then his face darkened. ‘As I fell, I felt His presence… icy… terrible.’
Gulda leaned forward, her face urgent and intent. ‘He came there?’ Her voice was the merest whisper. ‘He reached out from Narsindal?’
Abruptly her face was alive with pain and uncer-tainty. Hawklan reached out and took her hands. She was trembling and her pulse was racing as if with passion. For a moment she did not respond, then with a casual gesture she freed herself from his grip and motioned him back to his chair.
‘How did you know it was Him?’ she said stonily.
‘How could I not,’ Hawklan replied. ‘And He spoke.’
Gulda sank back into the shade of her chair. ‘He called me… the Keeper of Ethriss’s Lair.’
Hawklan wrapped his arms about himself and shuddered. As if in response, the radiant stones flared up brightly, throwing up a brilliant cascade of sparks and sending a myriad subtle shadows dancing through all the ancient carvings.
For a long time, the two sat silent, and the fire sub-sided, clucking and spluttering to itself unheeded.
‘Only the pain and terror of His Uhriel could have lured His spirit from Narsindal,’ Gulda said eventually, her voice low as if fearful that her very words could bring Him forth again. ‘Only that could have enabled it to happen. I think Loman’s arrow was truer than even I thought. And perhaps you too, wielded the sword better than you knew. Perhaps you did not divide Oklar’s power, but cut the heart out of it and returned it whence it came, as Ethriss himself might have done.’
Hawklan looked at her. ‘I am not Ethriss,’ he said.
‘Perhaps,’ Gulda said, ‘perhaps not. You’re certainly Hawklan the healer, as you ever were, though more knowledgeable, as I fancy you’ll tell me in a moment. But you’re something else as well.’ Hawklan scowled, but Gulda dismissed his denial. ‘Sumeral’s Will reached out to His Uhriel, but He didn’t destroy you, as He could have done, protected though you were by Ethriss’s sword. He let you be.’
Hawklan shook his head and wrapped his arms about himself again. ‘I felt Him,’ he said.
Gulda shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t touch you. His voice alone would have shrivelled you. You caught the edge of His merest whisper. He let you be, and He bound His Uhriel to ensure that he too would not assail you further.’
‘He bound His own?’ Hawklan repeated surprised.
‘None other could,’ Gulda replied.
‘But… that would have left Oklar defenceless,’ Hawklan said.
‘We have no inkling of Sumeral’s intent,’ Gulda said. ‘And the binding would be subtle. Oklar would not be defenceless, have no fear.’
‘It cost him Fyorlund,’ said Hawklan emphatically.
‘We have no inkling,’ Gulda repeated deliberately, to end the conjecture. ‘Tell me of the darkness.’
Unexpectedly, Hawklan smiled. ‘Have you any words to describe sleep?’ he asked. Gulda did not reply. ‘I remember nothing,’ he went on. ‘Nothing until a dancing spark of life reached out and touched me.’
‘Sylvriss’s baby?’ Gulda asked.
Hawklan nodded. ‘From then on, it was like a strange dream. I was awake, but not awake. There but not there. Resting yet striving. Listening, learning, understanding, but not fraught, anxious, concerned-not even at the pain I knew my condition was causing to Isloman and the others. It wasn’t good, but… ’ His voice trailed off. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain. I don’t know how long I would have stayed like that. Nothing seemed to change until… the silence.’
‘Yes,’ Gulda said. ‘Dacu spoke to me of that almost within minutes of our meeting. It seems to have had a profound effect on him.’
‘It had a profound effect on us all,’ Hawklan said. ‘It wasn’t just a silence, it was a great deep… stillness… but not the stillness of emptiness. Whatever it was, there was a powerful will at work. Benign I’m sure, but powerful. It reached out and… brought me together… woke me, if you like; and it stunned the Alphraan utterly.’
A thought came to him suddenly. ‘It was searching for something,’ he said. ‘Or someone.’
Gulda nodded. ‘Other forces are moving with us, Hawklan,’ she said. ‘We need our every ally, we must find the source of this will. I’ll speak to the Alphraan about it. Perhaps they understand it better now.’
Hawklan smiled. ‘They might,’ he said. ‘But even if they do, there’s every chance they won’t be able to explain to you in our "crude" language.’
‘Nonetheless… ’ Gulda said, leaving her intention quite clear and refusing to be deflected by Hawklan’s levity.
She leaned forward and, folding her hands over the top of her stick, rested her chin on them again. ‘And your own new knowledge, healer?’ she asked, reverting to her original question.
‘New and not new, Gulda,’ Hawklan replied flatly. ‘No great blinding revelations. It was like a wind slowly blowing sand away and exposing a familiar rock. What I know now, I also know was there all the time.’
He paused. Gulda waited silently.
‘I’ve knowledge of the governing of a great people, of the leading of a great army, of a life of learning and effort to make my body and mind what they are now.’ He smiled sadly. ‘No magical gift from some ancient Guardian made me what I am. Just effort and fine teachers. But… ’ He entwined his fingers and brought his hands together tightly as if trying to wring the truth out of something. ‘… no names, no faces, no… small memories to tell me who or what I truly am… or was.’
He paused again, his face pained.
‘Also I have the memory of a terrible battle… or part of it,’ he said. ‘The last part. The air full of awful noises, the sky flickering black, the ground uncertain under our feet, and hordes upon hordes of… them… coming eternally against us, regardless of their own losses.’
He closed his eyes as if to dismiss the thought for-ever.
‘What else?’ Gulda prompted.
Hawklan did not answer immediately. Instead he looked down at his still clenched hands. ‘I led them there, Gulda,’ he said reluctantly. ‘In my arrogance, I led my army, my whole people, to annihilation.’