‘You know this?’ Gulda asked.
Hawklan leaned back and looked up at the ornate ceiling, red in the firelight like towering storm clouds at sunset.
‘We were the last,’ he said softly. ‘The rest of the army had been… destroyed. Destroyed by sheer numbers… savagery… ’ He looked back at Gulda. ‘Perhaps treachery. I don’t know,’ he added uncertainly. ‘We stood alone, back to back, a shrinking circle… ’
He stopped. ‘And I know nothing other than that. That and a terrible grief and despair.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Something… touched my shoulder… I think.’ Hawklan’s face was riven with concentration, but to no avail.
‘It’s a vivid memory?’ Gulda asked.
‘It’s the clearest memory I have. It comes to me every day. Without the pain of the despair and grief-that’s only a faint, distant echo now. But the images are intense.’ His hands separated. ‘What does it all mean, Gulda?’
The old woman shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘You’re beyond my reach and beyond my vision, and always have been. All we know is that Sumeral fears you sufficiently both to spare you when He could have destroyed you, and to bind His Uhriel to ensure he would not use the Old Power against you again. But why He should fear you?’ She shrugged. ‘You’re as profound an enigma as ever, Hawklan.’
‘Could it be that He wishes me spared for some more devious reason than just fear?’ Hawklan suggested hesitantly.
‘It’s a risk,’ Gulda said. ‘Always has been. But there’s nothing we can do about that. We must play the parts we see and keep our wits about us for ambushes.’ She leaned forward and looked intently at Hawklan again. When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. ‘You’re someone who might be turned to His way, Hawklan. Someone even who could become one of His Uhriel. Perhaps that’s what He had in mind for you.’
Hawklan shrank back in his chair, his eyes horrified. ‘No,’ he said hoarsely, his voice both fearful and savage. ‘Never!’
‘All the Uhriel were great men once,’ Gulda said grimly. ‘They weren’t made the way they are at a flick of His hand. They were led to Him step by patient step, until they found they could not retreat.’
Still shaken, Hawklan caught an unexpected note in her voice. ‘You sound almost sorry for them,’ he said.
Gulda was silent for a moment, then, with a slow shake of her head, she said, ‘We all choose our own way.’
Before Hawklan could speak again, she waved a dismissive hand. Whatever doubts she might have, they were not to be pursued further here.
‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked, relaxing.
‘Stay here for a few days to rest,’ Hawklan replied after an uncertain pause. ‘And talk, and think, and walk around the castle, and just sit. I’ve travelled so far since I left for the Gretmearc, I need a little stillness for a time.’
Gulda eyed him. ‘And when you’ve finished this comprehensive list of chores, what then?’ she asked.
Hawklan chuckled and retaliated immediately. ‘You’re relentless, Gulda,’ he said. ‘But when I’ve satisfied myself about everything you’ve all done so far, I intend to accept your original advice-and Andawyr’s.’ His face became anxious. ‘That strange little man saved my life at the Gretmearc and has woven himself into it in some unfathomable fashion. He sought my help twice and I couldn’t-wouldn’t-give it. Then in my darkest moment he reached out, just as Sumeral reached out, and aided me.’ He looked up at the red clouds overhead. ‘We will need this Old Power to face Sumeral, just as surely as we will need men. None here can use it, but Andawyr could. I must seek out the Cadwanol.’
Chapter 4
Hawklan stood on the battlements of Anderras Darion and looked out over the Orthlund countryside.
It was subdued and dull and the horizon merged uncertainly with the grey sky in a vague mistiness. Coupled with the cold, raw weather, it was the very opposite of the rich, vigorous landscape he had left in the spring. Yet there was still a calmness about it: a calmness that said that all was as it should be, that this was the preparation for the long winter resting that would see the land renewed again in its due time. And even as he looked at it, Hawklan realized that this was where some part of him had been aching to be ever since he had left; this was where he belonged, for all his strange knowledge of other places and for all the strange compulsions that had drawn him to the Gretmearc and thence to and fro across Fyorlund. This was his home.
He wrapped his warm cloak about himself and slowly drew in a long, cold breath. Then, equally slowly, he released it again, relaxing as he did so into the deep truth of his surroundings, into the Great Harmony of Orthlund.
Isloman, standing next to him, watched the slight movement silently. He laid his hand on the finely crafted stone of the wall.
‘If we don’t destroy Him, He will strike to our very heart,’ he said.
The remark bore no relation to anything they had been discussing, but it chimed with Hawklan’s mood, and he nodded in acknowledgement.
Why? he asked himself briefly. Why could not he and the Orthlundyn and the Fyordyn be left in peace? Why should Sumeral so seek to dominate them? What was to be gained by it? What creation could Sumeral offer that would match the harmonies of these lands and these peoples? And what others would He assail should these obstacles to His Will be swept aside?
Ethriss had given the joy of being. What would Sumeral give? Not being? A great barren stillness in which He alone was?
Hawklan did not pursue the questions. They had come before and he had failed to find answers to them. Perhaps, he thought, such questions could not be answered, any more than could, ‘Why the mountains? Why the sea?’ They were. Sumeral was. They should be accepted. That was sufficient answer for the needs of the times.
Hawklan smiled gently to himself. Whether a ques-tion could be answered or not was irrelevant. While there were minds to inquire, there would always be more questions and always further striving for answers; those same needs of the times would always set aside too idle a speculation.
It came to him suddenly that, whatever His motiva-tion, Sumeral would not merely dominate the peoples He conquered, He would destroy them, and their lands, and everything else that the Guardians had created.
It was a chilling revelation, but Hawklan knew that it was true beyond all doubting. What he had learned from his studies at Anderras Darion had told him of a foe who had left a trail of every form of treachery, deceit and savagery; treaties broken, people enslaved, lands ravaged. Yet these were the words of men; men long dead and beyond questioning; men who too could lie and deceive; men who could make honest mistakes as time stretched between the deeds and the writing of them. The inner knowledge that welded these words into the truth which now stood before him, stark and clear, he had gained from the horror around Lord Evison’s castle, from the downing of Isloman near the mines, from the countless tiny cries of all the living things around Vakloss that had reached out to him as he neared his goal, but, above all, from the naked fury of Oklar and the icy whispered touch of his Master.
Hawklan knew that he could not have such knowl-edge and turn away from it. He must become a greater healer yet, and a greater warrior, and each must accept the other without rancour or confusion.
A movement caught his eye.
‘Who’s that?’ he said, pointing to a small group of riders far below.
Isloman peered forward intently. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I think it’s that group that Loman packed off into the mountains on an exercise when the rest of us were leaving the main camp.’
Hawklan recalled the incident. ‘Tybek and Jenna were in charge, weren’t they?’ he said.
‘There’s no point trailing back to the Castle and then trailing out again, is there?’ Loman had replied to Tybek’s injured protest. ‘We’re far enough behind with our training as it is, thanks to our new friends. Take your winter gear. Cut a broad circuit round those peaks and come down on to the Riddin path. I’ll send Jenna out in an hour or so with a hunting group. It’ll be excellent practice for you both.’