“It’s not your fault, Allazar. I don’t know what came over me. I thought I was master of myself again, and could cope with… It’s just this, everything…” and he waved a hand that would encompass the entire world.
“I’m sorry. Excitement, you see, the runes… it got the better of me.”
Gawain nodded. They shared the silence and each other’s company for a long while, staring into the middle distance. Then a sudden breeze blew in through a gash in the wall behind them, and rustled the paper packaging of Allazar’s sandwich.
“I can’t believe you brought half a cow wedged between two loaves of bread with you.” Gawain muttered. “And you let me sit here eating frak, in the hall of my fathers.”
Allazar shrugged, and picked up his sandwich, and looked from it to the younger man’s red-rimmed but humour-filled eyes. “What can I say, Longsword. They had no rabbit at the outpost kitchens.” And with that, he took another bite.
Gawain snorted with laughter again, and this time there were no tears. What manner of mighty inner portals the young man kept tightly shuttered against his ineffable sorrow, one could only guess, but they had been closed again, and he was master of himself once more.
“So,” he sighed. “Do you think I was right to bring you here, Allazar? And right to suffer the ire of my lady?”
The wizard gazed at the floor, and carefully packed away the remains of his sandwich, chewing frantically. “Yes,” he said at length, “Yes I do. Though I know not what these markings mean, I am sure with careful study I can decipher their meaning. The key must be in the relationship between the three rings of runes, see…”
Again, Gawain laughed, and again Allazar felt a sudden alarm. But this time, there was sadness in the young king’s expression, muting the humour. “We had wizards too, Allazar, and they say that for many years, centuries ago, other wizards tried to decipher the meaning of the inscriptions. They gave up, declaring it beyond their ability.”
Allazar sniffed, indignant. “Times have advanced since then. We have all the knowledge of the modern age at our disposal,” he declared.
Gawain shook his head sadly. “Stand up here,” he said, rising and leading the wizard up to the topmost level upon with the thrones sat. “You get a better view of them from here.”
Standing in front of his father’s throne, Gawain looked down upon the circle, a confused wizard beside him.
“They change,” Gawain said softly, sadly. “Every time someone steps into the circle, they change.” And leaving Allazar on the top step gazing down at the circle on a floor glistening like a pool of obsidian, Gawain descended the steps, and strode into the circle. Though there was no commotion, no sound save the fading echo of Gawain’s footsteps, sure enough the runes shifted within the floor, like living beings, dull silver-gold amoebas, changing shape, and then freezing.
Allazar gasped in astonishment and wonder, and hurried down the steps to join Gawain. Again, as soon as he stepped into the circle, again the runes changed. Remembering his notebook, Allazar rushed back to collect it and again, the moment he set foot in the circle, the runes changed once more.
“It is hopeless.” Gawain sighed.
But Allazar ignored him, scurrying here and there within the circle, checking for patterns, looking for a key, some kind of commonality.
“Allazar.” Gawain said softly.
“Longsword?”
“It is hopeless. I had hoped… I had thought you might see this and know something, perhaps some intuition, I don’t know….”
The wizard drew himself upright from gazing at the runes in the centre of the circle. “It is most certainly not hopeless, Longsword, and you were right to bring me here.” Allazar affirmed, his face stern, but his eyes excited and filled with conviction. “This is beyond common meaning. Just because we do not know its meaning yet does not mean it is not important.”
Gawain folded his arms and eyed the wizard, seeking reassurance. “So when my lady asks if it was worth the journey, you’ll be happy to bear the brunt of her ire if we leave here empty handed?”
Allazar was about to answer and then thought better of it.
“I think we’ll sleep in here with the horses tonight.” Gawain said quietly, and left the circle, leaving a silent wizard staring at the floor as the runes changed once again.
Several hours later, as the shadows lengthened from one side of the Keep to the other, Gawain finished laying out his bed-roll. While Allazar had spent the hours moving in and out of the circle, muttering and scribbling notes, Gawain had unsaddled the horses, and tended to his duties to them. Even the Callodon pack-horse seemed to have no desire to venture outside into the bleached desolation beyond.
Gawain adjusted the sword on his back, then as an afterthought removed the belt from which his shortsword hung and laid it across his saddle. He looked up, and found himself wishing the upper floors of the Keep had survived the blast, but he saw nothing but the sky and the remains of the stone corbels on which had once rested the great oak beams of floors and ceilings. He would have liked to have stood on the roof again, just once more, up where the old one-eyed soldier had raised the flag and remembered The Fallen every morning of Gawain’s life in Raheen.
With a sharp sigh, Gawain crushed the memory, and remembering the darkening skies to the east and hearing the distant rumble of thunder, he packed his bedroll away again, and moved all the packs and their belongings across the Keep into the relative shelter of the vaulted sentry’s post cut deep into the east wall at the northeast corner of the Keep. The post once guarded the spiral stairs leading up to the floors above, and Gawain remembered the faces of the guards who once stood quiet duty there, or sat on the uncomfortable misericords set into the wall when no-one was about. Gwyn and the other horses followed him, to stand quietly, looking as downcast as any horses could.
“I’m going outside, Allazar.” Gawain called softly, suddenly in need of space and fresh air to drive the ghosts from his mind’s eye.
“Hmm? Ah, yes, yes I’ll think I’ll join you, clear the head. My eyes could do with a rest too.”
Together, they walked quietly out of the Hall and into the sunlight beyond.
“Evening already?” Allazar muttered, stepping over the wreckage of the gates into the courtyard beyond.
“Yes, though made darker by the gathering storm. I never thought I’d see another here. I certainly never imagined I’d spend a night here.”
“Nor I,” Allazar admitted. “But take heart, Longsword, I certainly believe as you do that our journey was worth the effort. As for the haste of it, I cannot say, but we are here now, and that’s all that matters.”
Gawain nodded, and shielded his eyes, looking first to the far north, then to the west.
“What is it?” Allazar asked.
“I thought I saw something.” Gawain muttered. Then he shrugged. “Trick of the light probably, after being in the shade so long.”
“Ah,” Allazar agreed, stretching with a sigh. “Or perhaps the lightning from the east? Tell me, Longsword, do you remember anything else of the wizards of the past, of their attempts to understand the circle?”
“Alas no,” Gawain looked sheepish. “I’m afraid I didn’t pay very much attention to the affairs of wizards. Like most young men in Raheen, I was more concerned with my training, and as Elayeen put it, spending great tracts of my life charging aimlessly about the place on horseback.”
“Ah.”
“Why? Has the knowledge of this modern age revealed something to you?” Gawain again looked north, frowning, and then west again.
“I’m not certain. But I have an inkling. Only the vaguest idea, of course, and one so simple it can’t possibly be relevant nor I’m sure would it have been overlooked, though it might…”