“I know. So does everybody here. Hence the mighty cheering earlier, and all the tales of the Longsword DarkSlayer our friends from Goria are tonight learning from the guards of Callodon.”
“And the news from Callodon?” Gawain muttered, desperate to change the subject. He felt strangely tired and blamed it on the day and the captain’s Jurian brandy as he settled down on the blankets once more.
“It is confirmation of rumours and speculation, mostly. The D’ith Hallencloister is indeed sealed, every gate closed. There have been attacks by wizards almost everywhere except Arrun and Mornland. And one piece of fresh news from here in Callodon, a contingent of volunteer guards, some two hundred in all, have been raised and ordered north to Ferdan with all haste. Probably a ragtag mix of farm-boys and old men, but they’ve answered the call and are riding for Juria nevertheless.”
“The message from Brock?”
“Must wait until morning. It is in cipher, and I shall need good light to work with in order to reveal the message.”
“Will torchlight not suffice? It may be urgent.”
“As a precaution against interception the message is usually always written on paper which burns in a flash at the merest touch of a flame. To bring it near a candle would be a grave mistake, and near a sputtering torch a disaster. Besides, unless the message is ‘do not go to Jarn’ there is nothing we can do between now and the end of this road no matter what the cipher holds.”
“Hmm.” Gawain mumbled, resting his hand upon the hilt of the longsword, “I do have one more question.”
“Longsword?”
“On the road, on the second day out from the Pass, you and Elayeen spent a great deal of time speaking to each other, in Elvish. It was almost the last time she seemed herself, and I would like to know what it was you spoke of.”
Allazar let out a long, sad sigh. “She was excited, with her new sight and all the life around her, and excited at the prospect seeing her homeland again, her family and friends, and Shiyanath. You… you must understand, Longsword, not since leaving Threlland has she been able to converse with anyone in her own tongue, and speaking with me thus from time to time helped to keep her who she is.”
Gawain nodded in the darkness. He knew what it meant to be alone, and not to hear the familiar language and turns of phrase of home.
“Is that all?”
Allazar sighed again. “She asked me to describe everything around us along the way, so that she could associate what she saw with what we see. It seemed to mean so much to her, to be able to use the sight of the Eldenelves to aid us, not to be a sightless burden. The more we spoke, the more determined she seemed to become. I think even then, my friend, I could feel her slipping away from us. But I thought… I thought perhaps the prospect of returning home and the excitement of her new vision would hold her here with us… I am sorry. You cannot know how sorry I am to have seen you both as I did, you laying bleeding upon the road before that evil creature’s remains, and she, standing cold and aloof gazing down upon you. And seeing you both as I do now, you in need of comfort, and she standing apart.”
“I shall have her back.”
“I don’t think she has truly gone, Longsword. I think she is so afraid of losing you, now that the throth is broken and her sight was taken by the circle, I think she is so afraid of losing you she has lost herself to the sight of the Eldenelves and become this Eldengaze. We can only hope her normal vision returns soon, for when it does, so too shall the Elayeen we both love.”
Gawain felt for the hilt of the longsword beneath the blankets, and another wave of tiredness washed over him.
“You frightened me, Allazar, before the Graken on the road. You seemed not yourself, as though you had become some warrior-wizard of elder times.”
Allazar nodded. “I frightened myself too. I am not worthy of such power, and I am far from accustomed to wielding even a fraction of it. I am sorry for that too. When the knowledge of eldentimes comes to me, it breaks into my mind as a flood from a dam, and I cannot control it.”
“Don’t leave us, wizard, my queen and I. Don’t become something or someone else.”
Sleep then washed over Gawain, leaving Allazar, misty-eyed, to wander back to his bedding a few yards from where even now, Elayeen stood, casting her chilling gaze towards the west.
26. The Sight
The sun woke Gawain from a deep and restful sleep, and he opened his eyes with a start to find Gwyn’s flaring nostrils inches from his face. He reached up to rub her nose and then groaned as aches in muscles and sharper stabbing pains from his elbow brought keen reminders of his fall flooding back.
“Good morning, Ugly,” he said softly, “At least I can count on you to wake me at a reasonable hour. Or not.”
Gwyn grunted, and nudged him in the head before whinnying happily and trotting off up the road.
Everything ached when he moved, but he pushed himself up on the blankets until he was sitting with his back against the water butts. He glanced around the wagon, and seeing everyone busying themselves with the morning and obviously preparing to travel made him feel guilty and a trifle vexed at the same time. There was simply no way he was going to ride along the Jarn road in a wagon while refugees walked and his saddle sat empty upon Gwyn’s back.
In spite of the aches and pains, and his knees and elbows were, he admitted, in fairly rough shape, he clambered out of the wagon, and buckled on his shortsword. He bent at the waist to slip his boot knife into its rightful place, not daring to raise his knee as he normally did lest the fresh scabs break and the blood from the heavy grazing start to flow once more. On examination it appeared that someone, presumably Allazar, had cleaned the black blood of the Kraal from the longsword and its scabbard, and he slung over his shoulder before strapping the quiver of arrows into place.
Elayeen stood in almost exactly same spot he’d left her the day before, and seemed content just to sweep the area with her eldengaze from time to time. It was clear from the space around her that everyone else was finding her blank stare uncomfortable now, except perhaps, he noted, for the Gorian refugees, and especially the ladies in their number. Gawain sighed, admiring her beauty but at the same knowing it was no longer his love standing there quietly in the middle of the passing-place.
Allazar sat on a mound of gravel some twelve feet from Elayeen, the Dymendin staff leaning on his right shoulder as he studied the open notebook in his hands. From time to time, he angled the book to catch the early morning sun and get a better look at something he held in it with his thumb, before scribbling on the page with a pencil. Doubtless, Gawain thought, the message from Brock.
“Good morning, my lord.”
“Good morning, Captain. You let me sleep far too long.”
“Hero’s privilege, my lord. Almost a tradition in the King’s Own.”
“Dwarfspit.”
Tyrane smiled. “The area set aside for gentlemen is yonder, my lord. I’m afraid the stew didn’t stretch too far last night so it’s back to rations for breakfast.”
“Thank you, I have plenty of frak. That must be the wizard Arramin?” Gawain nodded towards an old man standing alone, further up the north road, leaning on a staff made from a simple sapling stripped of branches but not of bark. He had his short, pointed nose buried in a book, the wisps of his straggly beard blowing from under it in the swirling morning breezes. Bushy white eyebrows, and a light dusting of snow-white hair around the sides of an otherwise bald pate.
“Yes, that is he. I know he doesn’t look much, my lord, and in truth he probably isn’t, but he’s a good teacher, and there’s none in Callodon knows our history better than he. And he stood to the fore, my lord.”