Tirke looked at the proffered object suspiciously. It was a spade.
‘You do the digging and I’ll do the hard work amp;mdashthe thinking.’ Dacu smiled broadly and pulled a small book and pen from his pocket. ‘Later on, we’ll change round and… Isloman and Hawklan can do the digging.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll take here as base amp;mdashbuild a big one.’
For the rest of the day, the group wandered me-thodically to and fro through the silence of the steadily falling snow, building cairns of snow under Dacu’s instruction to mark their passage. Dacu compacted a portion on each cairn and made a mark on it which he duly recorded in his book.
‘It’s just a simple grid,’ he explained to Tirke. ‘It’ll suffice in this light, and these cairns should survive a day or so, with luck. At least we won’t wander too aimlessly. The rest depends on good luck.’
Good luck, however, seemed to desert them, and although they came upon several rock faces and clefts through the day, none seemed to lead anywhere. As the light began to fade, the search became one for shelter.
‘This’ll have to do,’ Dacu said wearily, lifting up his torch and peering around a cluster of large boulders lying at the foot of a rock face. ‘It should be out of the wind if it picks up, and there’ll be space enough for the horses behind the shelter.’
When the shelter was erected, Dacu permitted the issue of extra rations. ‘It’s been a hard day,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think they’ll be getting any easier. Time for a little self indulgence, I think.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Gavor.
But it was difficult for the group to maintain any feeling of light-heartedness. All were tired and dispirited from the rigours of the day and the gentle tapping of the still falling snow did little to reassure them about the morrow.
‘What are we going to do?’ Tirke asked drowsily when they had all doused their torches and were drifting into sleep.
‘Search, or wait and search,’ Dacu said simply. ‘It depends on the weather.’
‘But if… ’ Tirke began.
‘No ifs, it’s too long a word,’ Dacu interrupted. ‘To-morrow we search, or we wait and search,’ he repeated. ‘Now, we’re well fed, and we’re warm. All we can do is rest. We know the decisions we’ll face in the morning and there’ll be time enough to debate them then. For now, go to sleep.’
Tirke muttered some vague protest, but his body had anticipated Dacu’s command, and the muffled comment was only in response to some random shape floating in the pattern of his dreams.
Despite his tiredness however, Hawklan lay awake in the darkness, listening to the breathing of his friends and the occasional whistle or snort from Gavor. How long had he lain, and in what unknown darkness? he thought. How long before he had found himself wandering in the snow-filled mountains on his way to Anderras Darion?
But as ever, no answers came. Why should they? He would wake here in the morning and have no memory of either going to sleep or being asleep. For all the awareness he would have of the passage of time, it could have been a single night or ten thousand years. At least here I’ll remember the previous day, he thought. The deep silence within him did not stir.
Knowledge had come to him while he lay immobile in Isloman’s care after Oklar’s assault, though he had no recollection of its coming. He found he had knowledge of the ruling and commanding of people, and of the many arts of war. And there was a knowledge that he had striven through his life to acquire these arts. Yet the knowledge was like a dying echo. The true sound was denied him still, and the names and the faces, the deeds, all the memories that should have been central to this life, were missing.
His mind told him that this new knowledge was perhaps no more than a coming together of all his recent experiences and the studying he had done before he left Anderras Darion, but his heart and his body showed him it was too deeply rooted for that. He refused to search for the missing memories, however, sensing that such a search could lead him nowhere but into fruitless winding spirals.
But a darker image did concern him. An image of betrayal? Guilt? His betrayal. His guilt. Somewhere in his long and hidden journey to this time, he had shed a great and terrible burden. Or had it been taken from him? A burden of appalling suffering and thousands of lives lost through his folly.
Yet he was at ease here. How could such a burden have been shed? How could it not be carried forever, just as its consequences would spread ever outwards? Why was it lying somewhere, mouldering by the wayside of his life just as Dan-Tor’s wares rotted outside Pedhavin? But above all, what was it?
What had he done? Who had he betrayed, or failed?
He seemed to hear faint clarion calls. The haunting vision of swirling blackness returned to him. Battling against endless undefeatable waves of unseen foes, under a dark flickering sky, with the air pulsating to sinister chanting and the ground moving unsteadily under his feet. He shuddered. Despair and guilt sapped him as much as they fired him. Then as he sank, something touched…
Hawklan opened his eyes, solidly in the present again, if present it was. Noises! Faint noises. Just outside the shelter? Familiar yet strange. He held his breath and listened intently. He could hear the snow still falling, though it had changed in tone indicating that the wind was beginning to rise. And one of the horses was a little uneasy, but not as though some prowler were in their midst. Yet the sounds seemed to be quite close amp;mdashor were they? Hawklan became aware of another presence, listening.
‘What’s happening?’ Dacu’s whisper in the darkness startled Hawklan by its apparent nearness.
‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan whispered back. ‘Listen.’
The noises rose and fell, coherent yet unintelligible, and still both familiar and unfamiliar.
‘It’s the Alphraan,’ Hawklan said, suddenly identify-ing the strange unfocussed quality in the sound.
‘I can’t understand what they’re saying,’ Dacu said.
Hawklan frowned slightly as the sound drifted into some echoing distance and almost vanished under the hissing snow.
‘I don’t think they’re talking to us,’ Hawklan said. ‘I think we’re eavesdropping.’
A great yawn filled the shelter. ‘Dacu, dear boy,’ came a reluctant voice. ‘It’s surely not time to get up yet.’
The two men shushed the bird, only to waken Islo-man. Then there was a brief confusion of incoherent but very recognizable sounds which drowned out the faint noise of the Alphraan until eventually all four men were lying awake and silent in the darkness.
Slowly the sounds emerged again.
‘What do they want?’ Isloman whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan said. ‘Just listen. There are images in the sounds.’
And images there were. Images of great determina-tion. But also, images of defeat? And fear? Terror, even?
Hawklan’s eyes opened wide in horror. Had another people followed him, only to be led to their doom?
The shelter felt suddenly suffocating. Without speaking, Hawklan struck his torch and, seizing his sword, threw himself headlong out through the entrance.
Blinking in the sudden light, Gavor flapped after him. As he stood up, Hawklan found himself calf-deep in fresh snow, surrounded by whirling eddies of snowflakes, twisting and spiralling around the little torch-lit enclave. A strong wind shaped their dance and Hawklan felt the cold strike through to him immedi-ately. Chilled air rushed into his anxious lungs and woke him utterly. Fumbling with the torch, he fastened his sword belt awkwardly.
Gavor flapped up on to the top of the shelter, but before he could speak, Dacu crawled out of the entrance, followed immediately by Isloman and Tirke. Their torches brightened and broadened the small snow-laced sphere that they centred.
Dacu threw Hawklan’s cloak about his shoulders.
‘Be calmer, Hawklan,’ he said quietly, though his voice and eyes were as chill as his steaming breath. ‘Six paces here might mean your death.’
Hawklan made no response but offered him no resistance. The cloak was warm, and Dacu was only speaking the truth. But all around now were the sounds of the Alphraan and their fear was almost tangible.