‘Look at this, Hawklan.’
The tinker’s voice startled him and he turned round suddenly to find himself with his face only inches away from Derimot’s twinkling eyes.
‘Hold out your hand,’ said the creaking voice, with odd seductiveness.
Without thinking, Hawklan proffered his right hand and Derimot took it from underneath in his left, holding it like a tiny bridge between their two faces. Then he snapped the fingers of his right hand and placed his clenched fist on Hawklan’s extended palm.
‘Ha-ha,’ he cried, and releasing Hawklan he brought his hands together with a loud crack.
Hawklan found himself gazing at a small doll. It was a tiny soldier, and it was marching up and down his hand. Apart from its rather stiff-legged walk, it was remarkably lifelike. Every detail was perfect. Even its tiny eyes moved, and Hawklan noticed that a button on the tunic had come undone, revealing an ornately decorated shirt underneath. By its side hung a tiny sword, which it proceeded to draw and use in an intricate drill, cutting glittering silver arcs in the bright sunlight.
Hawklan stared, spellbound. The Orthlundyn made ingenious toys for their children, but this was far beyond anything they could do.
Suddenly and without anything apparently happen-ing, he found he was both cold and sweating. The tiny creature just inches from his face moved hauntingly, hypnotically, but its eyes…
Hawklan felt an overwhelming urge to tighten his grip around it to stop its obscene, tortured performance. An urge to hurl it onto the ground where he could stamp it out of all existence. He felt a great pit open at his feet.
The tinker seized the tiny figure with a swift move-ment, and Hawklan staggered forward with a gasp.
‘Hawklan?’
He heard Tirilen’s voice, concerned, in the distance.
‘What’s the matter? You’re white as a sheet.’ The voice was closer now.
‘Wasn’t that a remarkable toy, then,’ said the tinker, looking at him intently. For the briefest of moments, Hawklan looked straight into the tinker’s eyes. They were lit with a sinister red glow; a red like the heart of a volcano. And there was a doubting recognition in them. For that moment, Derimot Findeel Dan-Tor looked as if he was standing straight and terrible. Hawklan seemed to feel the earth rumble under his feet and he felt his left hand clutching for a sword scabbard that was not there.
Tirilen laid a hand on his arm, and he looked around, surprised. The chattering crowd had suddenly fallen silent and all were looking at one another awkwardly. The tinker clapped his hands and laughed. ‘Ah. A goose has walked over my grave,’ he cried, and everyone laughed and applauded, the old saw cutting through the embarrassment. The crowd became louder than ever.
‘Hawklan?’ Tirilen’s voice was full of concern. He smiled rather foolishly.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just felt a little dizzy. Standing up too quickly probably.’
He moved between her and the tinker, who was holding a wooden box containing the tiny doll, now innocuous.
‘Isn’t it a most incredible doll, sir? Most skilfully crafted,’ he said.
Hawklan felt tiny ripples of unreasoned anger still flowing somewhere deep within him but his natural courtesy and an unexpected caution kept them under control.
‘It is indeed,’ he replied. ‘A most unusual toy. I’ve never seen anything like it, and the locals here are not without skill in making such things. Where did you get it from?’
The tinker looked sideways at Hawklan, long-forgotten doubts and fears starting to bubble deep within him. What had possessed him to break his journey and stop here? Here of all places? And in this, the most ludicrous of his guises, noisy and clamorous like some frightened child clattering and shouting to keep night-bred terrors at bay. And what power had prompted him to test the sight of this… this healer with the mannequin?
Abruptly his doubts and fears faded as another, greater, spectre came to him and filled him with a terrible paralysing chill. Could this be Ethriss? Lying watchful in this green-eyed, mortal frame? Ethriss the Terrible One, who had thrown down the Master and His Uhriel into millennia of silent and impotent darkness? His very presence radiated a profound healing knowl-edge. He had seen instantly the corruption in the mannequin. But most damning of all, he had the key to that sinkhole, Anderras Darion. Anderras Darion stood open. Open! And had for twenty years according to these village oafs. Orthlund was a dreadful place. His chilling fear deepened and froze both his mind and his body.
‘Are you all right?’ Hawklan’s gentle voice pene-trated into the tinker’s darkness like a sunlit dagger, making him start. He disguised the movement with an angular twitch.
‘Just trying to recall, sir,’ he said thoughtfully, clear-ing his throat. ‘So many places I’ve travelled to.’
No. Ethriss awake would have felt his presence and swept him out of existence like dust in the wind. But still, Ethriss he might be-dormant, as He had been, waiting only the sign to rise again.
Then the black favour of his Master loomed sud-denly in his mind. Was this not perhaps the true purpose of his journey? Was it not He who had said he must go south through the darkness of Orthlund rather than through Riddin as was his wont? Riddin could be seen. Riddin was known. But the Harmony of Orthlund blinded and deceived all the eyes he sent into it.
A treacherous shaft of ambition entered his swirling fears. Bind him, it said. This is His will. Bind him while he still sleeps. Bind him in a deeper sleep for His delectation. But gently, very gently. It could not be here-he shuddered inwardly-nor could he be drawn too near Narsindal too soon. There His presence pervaded the very air, and would beyond doubt waken the dormant Guardian, if Guardian he be. Then…
‘The Gretmearc, sir,’ he said. ‘That’s where it was. The Gretmearc at Altfarran. They have many such toys there. Many.’
Chapter 4
Something had changed. The image of the tiny marching doll wavered in Hawklan’s mind and troubled him greatly, as did the fleeting glimpse he had had of the tinker, tall and menacing. Something seemed to be shifting deep inside him, like moving pebbles presaging a landslide. And like those pebbles, it seemed to be beyond control. He felt a need to do something, but nothing had happened that warranted any action. And yet, things were different. The dark clouds on his horizon were unequivocal.
He left Tirilen at the green and wandered slowly back through the village. Behind him he could hear friendly cries of dismay as the tinker started to load his wares into his pack, and the tinker’s protestations as he reluctantly made yet another last sale.
The sun was now quite low in the sky and beginning to cast long shadows, etching out the patterns of the spring evening on walls and quiet streets. Hawklan nodded acknowledgements to the few people he met who had come out to look at the shadows. There was always someone, somewhere in Pedhavin, looking at the shadows, for the carvers worked their stone not only to represent animals and people and ideas, but so that they could tell other tales when the light of the sun, or the moon, or the stars, fell on them and painted strangely solid shapes in their tenuous wake.
Some shadows would be large and grandiose, spill-ing out over the streets and houses, while others were changes within the carvings themselves. Hawklan found himself looking at a small frieze on which was carved a group of people gathered at the green he had just left. He knew the figures were arranged in such a way that at a certain time of day they would apparently turn to look at the sun, while at another they seemed to be looking at one another and to be engaged in deep conversation.
‘Not a bad piece of rock spoiling,’ came a deep voice from behind him. He recognized it and turned with a smile. Isloman was Loman’s elder brother and he was standing in the middle of the street looking critically at the frieze. In his arms he cradled a huge rock effort-lessly. Although Hawklan was as tall as Isloman, he always felt dwarfed by the man’s massive frame and enormous strength.