“How are you faring?” he asked as they sat together under the bright stars.
Taliesen’s eyes gleamed and he smiled. “I will not die on you, Caswallon.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“I am exhausted. But then I am old.” He looked at the young warrior beside him, his eyes full of guile. “Do you know how old?”
“Seventy? Eighty?”
“If I told you my age, would you believe me?”
“Yes. Why would you lie?”
“I will not lie, Caswallon. I am over a thousand years old.”
“I was wrong,” said Caswallon, grinning. “I do not believe you.”
“And yet I speak the truth. It was I who brought Earis here so many centuries ago. On this very hill, he and I looked down on the Farlain and knew joy.”
“Stop this jest, Taliesen…”
“It is no jest, Caswallon, and I am not speaking to impress you. Of all the clansmen, you alone have the capacity to understand what I am going to tell you. You have an open, inquiring mind and a rare intelligence. You are not prey to superstitions. You make your own judgments. I am more than one thousand years old. I was born out there!” The old man’s bony hand flashed out, pointing to the stars. “You’ve heard tales of the elder race, the vanished people. I am the last of those elders; the last true-blooded anyway. We made the Gates, Caswallon, and we journeyed across distances so great I could not impress on you the scale of it. Think of an ant crossing the Farlain and multiply it a thousand times, and you would have but the first step of my journeys.
“We came here, and from here we spread across the Universe. We were the Star Walkers. We birthed religions and created mythologies wherever man saw us. But then came catastrophe.” The druid bowed his head, staring at his hands.
“What happened?” asked Caswallon.
“The Great Gates closed. Suddenly, without warning. Our links with home and distant empires were severed, gone without trace. All that remained were the Lesser Gates: playthings created for students like myself who wished to study the evolution of primitive societies in a controlled environment.”
“I do not understand any of this,” said Caswallon. “But I read men well, and I believe what you say. Why are you telling me now?”
“Because I need you. Because you are the catalyst. Because the future of the Farlain-my chosen people-rests with you. And because you will see great wonders in the days to come and your mind must be prepared. I cannot explain to you the nature of the skills that created the Gates. So think of it as magic, impossibility made reality. You know that I have a hiding place for the clan. I am going to tell you now where that hiding place is: Golfallin, the first valley of the Farlain.”
“What nonsense is this? You will take us back where we have come from?”
“Yes. But there will be no Aenir, no crofts and homes, only virgin land.”
“How so?”
“As I did with Earis,” said the old man. “The Gates do not merely link different lands, Caswallon. I shall take you all through time itself. We are going back ten thousand years, to a time before the clan, before the Aenir.”
“That would be magic indeed.”
“You, however, will not be going back. There is a task you must perform.”
“Name it.”
“You must find the Queen who died and bring her to the Farlain with her army. Only then can you hope to crush the Aenir.”
“You want me to find a dead woman?”
“Time, Caswallon. Where I will send you she is still young.”
“Why should she aid us?”
The old druid shrugged. “There are some questions I will not answer. But let me say this: The chaos we are enduring was caused-in part-by one selfish man. I am doing all in my power to reverse it.”
“Oracle?”
“Yes.”
“He told me of his journey,” said Caswallon, “and that is why I believe you. He said he took his men through the Gate and came to a realm torn by war. He chose to serve the Queen and gained prominence. He told me he fought many battles until at last he crossed the Gateway once more and became a king in a far land, with an army of thousands at his back. But then he suffered betrayal and fled back to the Gate.”
“He did not tell you all, Caswallon. Men rarely do when speaking of their mistakes. He became a king, even as he said, but to do so he made alliances with evil men. One such was Agrist, a rare brute. In return for Agrist’s services Oracle gave him the secret of the Gate, and Agrist led his people through in search of riches and plunder. They thrived in their new world and grew strong. They became the Aenir, who now pillage the Farlain. For the Gate Oracle gave them brought them to the recent past of our world.”
“He did tell me,” said Caswallon.
The druid gave a thin smile. “Did he also tell you of the night after Sigarni’s great battle when he found the enemy general’s widow and her daughter hiding in a cave? Did he describe how he raped the mother in front of the daughter, and of how the noble lady slew herself?”
“No,” replied the clansman.
“No,” echoed Taliesen. “Nor did he say how he stole the legendary Sword of Ironhand from the Queen, and used its power to build his own kingdom from the blood of innocents. As I said men rarely tell the whole truth of their iniquities. I have spent years, Caswallon, trying to repair the damage his pride and ambition caused.”
Caswallon turned away to gaze out over the silhouetted mountains, black against a grey sky. “I feel like a child taught to scrawl his name, who is given a book and told to read it. I can make out some of the letters, but the words are lost to me. Gateways, journeys through time.” He glanced at the old man, holding his gaze. “If we can make such journeys, why can we not merely go back a few days and save all the people? We could hit the Aenir before they invade.”
Taliesen nodded. “What if I told you that we did? And that it failed and the Farlain were destroyed?”
“Now you have lost me utterly.”
“That is what makes the chaos so terrible,” said Taliesen. “There are so many alternative realities. If I told you now how many times I have tried to prevent an Aenir victory you would think me mad. The complexities and paradoxes created are legion. Armies out of their time, dead men who were destined to live and achieve greatness, women who should have borne proud sons murdered in their childhood. Destiny thwarted, changed-the Gateways themselves trembling under the weight of the chaos.” Taliesen sighed. “Do you know how many times you and I have had this conversation? Of course you don’t, but it runs into scores, Caswallon. And how many times have I seen the clans destroyed, the Aenir triumphant? Hundreds. Now I grow older and more frail, and the task is as great as ever it was.”
Caswallon smiled grimly. “I doubt that I can learn what you have to teach, old man. You are taking the clan back to before they were born, and then I shall seek help from a queen already dead. Do you hold more surprises for me, Taliesen?”
The Druid Lord did not answer. He leaned back, gazing at the stars, naming them in his mind until he fastened on the farthest, its light flickering like a guttering candle.
Taliesen pushed himself to his feet, his heart heavy, his mind tired. “Aye, I have more surprises, War Lord,” he said. “If we are to win, Caswallon, which is not likely, then you will change and suffer as no Farlain has before you.” Taliesen sighed. “I do not yet know how all this will come to pass, but I know that it will, for I have seen the Hawk Eternal.”
Caswallon was about to speak, but Taliesen raised his hand for silence. “No more words tonight, War Lord. For I am weary unto death.”