Such thoughts had not occurred to him in his twenty years in Orthlund and with them came other, darker thoughts. Could he himself contain the seeds of such a creature? Could the strange plateau that Andawyr had shown him imprison an evil that had rightly been locked away by wise hands? However, would Dan-Tor resort to such subterfuge to waken an ally? He felt reassured. But then, evil allies would not lightly trust one another, would they?
A vista of conflicting possibilities opened before him which defied his reason to reach a conclusion. And could he trust his intuition as it cried out, ‘No. There is no evil in you’?
He had no choice. He must trust it. Both intuition and reason found no evil in Andawyr, and there had been patently much evil in that corner of the Gretmearc and in the wares offered by Dan-Tor.
Then his own words came back to him. Ignorance is a voracious, destructive, shadow-dwelling creature that must always be destroyed. Destroyed by the light of truth, no matter what horrors it exposed.
So be it, he concluded.
A light touch on his arm brought him out of his reverie. It was Tirilen.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
He smiled and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just thinking about what to do next.’ He looked at Jaldaric’s concerned face.
‘It would seem that neither of us knows what’s hap-pening and that both of us, and my friends, are being used in some way. I’ll ride with you to meet this Lord Dan-Tor and seek an explanation from him personally. That way you’ll have fulfilled at least part of his instructions, which may lessen your punishment, and I’ll find out the truth of what’s been happening.’
This pronouncement silenced the onlookers for a moment, then there was a babble of voices. Isloman stepped forward and took him by the arm, his craggy face alive with alarm.
‘Hawklan, you can’t,’ he said in disbelief. ‘You might be imprisoned, or even killed.’
Hawklan shook his head. ‘Imprisoned? Why? I’ve offended no law that I know of. And I doubt I’ll be killed. I’m sure that could easily have been done many times over by now. This man wants to see me alive. And I’m increasingly anxious to see him. I’m sure these young men will protect me.’
Isloman gazed skywards as if for guidance and then slapped his hands on the sides of his thighs. ‘These young men, as you call them, are soldiers, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘They’ll do as their superior officers tell them. They may argue a little, but ultimately they’ll do as they’re ordered. And if they don’t, then more soldiers will be found who will.’
‘That’s true, Hawklan,’ said Jaldaric. ‘If it’s your choice, then you may ride under our protection but, once we’re in Fyorlund, I can’t guarantee your safety. I’m only a humble captain… probably less, very shortly.’
Hawklan looked doubtful. He turned to Loman enquiringly. Without moving, Loman looked at his brother and then at his daughter. When he spoke, his voice was strained.
‘You’ll have to go, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘You’re the centre of all this change, if not its cause. You’ve been chosen in some way, by some power we can’t begin to understand. Jaldaric’s right. Wherever you go, this Lord… tinker… will pursue you, and the next time he’ll use less scrupulous soldiers.’
Isloman turned angrily on his brother but stopped as he met Loman’s desperately sad gaze. Uncharacteris-tically he swore and struck the table violently with his fist as if such an outburst might assuage his doubts and pain.
‘Thank you, Loman,’ said Hawklan. ‘Go with Tirilen back to the village. When you meet Ireck, tell him what’s happened. Whatever happens, Gavor will bring you news.’
There were tears of bewilderment in Tirilen’s eyes as she watched and listened. Hawklan took her face between his hands.
‘You and I are healers, Tirilen. We have to enter into other people’s pain. We have above all to see the truth no matter how painful it is. Your father spoke the truth and you know it. I have to seek out this Dan-Tor for all our sakes.’
Child and woman conflicted in Tirilen’s face.
Hawklan continued. ‘You’ve tended your uncle’s hand very well. And you did good work on that tortured heap outside the village. You’ll be the village healer until I return. Don’t be afraid.’
He reached into a pocket for something to dry her eyes with, and drew out the cloth that Andawyr had wrapped around his arm. It was some days now since it had fallen from his arm to reveal it sound and whole again.
‘Take this,’ he said. ‘It has healing powers of some kind. Powers of weave and voice. You might be able to find out more about it in some of the books at the Castle.’
Tirilen took the cloth with a watery sniff then wiped her eyes boyishly with the back of her hand.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said, half statement, half question.
Hawklan nodded. ‘Tend to the village,’ he said. Jal-daric reached out and, with a slight gesture, gently extinguished the torch that had been illuminating the tent. The change in the lighting was barely perceptible. Fyorlund torches adjusted themselves to the natural light.
‘Dawn,’ he said.
‘You’ll find our horses nearby now,’ Hawklan said to Loman and Isloman. ‘Serian will have led them here as I asked him. Time for you to go.’
He looked at the brooding Isloman and intercepted a brief exchange of looks between the Carver and his brother.
‘What are you two up to?’ he asked suspiciously. Isloman’s dark look cracked into a smile, increasing Hawklan’s suspicion. ‘Hawklan,’ he said. ‘You’re too naive to be let out on your own, as is this young man here.’ He jerked a thumb towards Jaldaric. ‘You’re both going into nothing but trouble, and someone’s got to look after you. Fortunately I don’t have a castle to attend to, and I don’t have to take orders from anyone, so I’ll come with you. I could do with a change.’ He rubbed his damaged hand. ‘Besides, I’ve one or two questions of my own for this Dan-Tor.’
The dawn was flooding the clearing, pink and misty, as the Guards broke camp. Loman and Tirilen turned and gave a final wave before their horse carried them out of sight into the morning haze.
Hawklan and Isloman walked slowly through the dewy grass towards their horses. Gavor, sitting on Hawklan’s wrist, flapped his wings restlessly.
Chapter 7
Two days later the patrol was moving briskly and steadily northwards. The sky was pregnant with great swollen clouds waiting to shed their watery burdens and send them cascading down on to the cowering land below. A boisterous west wind shouldered them into towering indignant mounds as it strove to push them eastwards over the mountains.
Jaldaric wrapped his cloak around himself and looked upwards. ‘Quite a conflict,’ he said. ‘I think we’re due for a wetting soon.’
Hawklan was gazing into the grey mass accumulat-ing overhead. Since he had seen the Viladrien sailing over Riddin some inner need had constantly drawn his eyes upwards in search of another, and his mind had been filled with a tumbling host of questions. What kind of people could live in such a place? And how? What must it be like to be at the mercy of the winds and to float through great turbulent clouds like those now broiling overhead? How must the world below seem? He had looked down from the tops of high mountains to see patchwork fields and forests, but from the height of these cloud lands…
His imagination foundered. But the darker note that had come to taint so many of his thoughts of late would sound. ‘Enemy dispositions,’ it tolled, ‘you would see enemy dispositions.’ It saddened him, so at odds was it with the haunting beauty of the Viladrien and its barely audible, singing wake.
Jaldaric’s comment brought Hawklan’s mind back to earth. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think some of that water up there is about to start its long journey back to the sea.’