The sky was bright with moonlight and hardly any stars could be seen. Looking up she could see the Great Gate of Anderras Darion gleaming silver, like a star fallen to earth, while looking down she could see the streets and rooftops of Pedhavin, glistening in the moonlight.
There were still a few people wandering about, talk-ing and laughing, and she acknowledged several friendly calls with a wave. For a few minutes she stood and watched as the moonlight moved across a small carving on the edge of the balcony. The shadows within it made it look like a bud slowly opening into flower. So realistic did it seem that she had an urge to lean forward and sniff its night scent.
‘Oh! Too much dancing, girl,’ she said to herself, catching the strange thought and, spinning on her heel, she went back inside, continuing her dance across to the bed.
She lay very still for a long time, allowing warm, tired limbs to sink into the bed’s sustaining softness as she watched the moonlight’s slow march across the room.
Normally she would fall asleep immediately, but the dancing and the pleasant, strange familiarity of the room left her drifting gently in and out of sleep. Each time she opened her eyes, the shadow patterns on the ceiling had changed as the moon continued its journey through the sky. Not for the first time, she wondered why the Orthlundyn were not content simply to make beautiful carvings, but had to fill every carving and every cranny in the village with endlessly shifting shapes in which different scenes appeared with each change of moonlight or sunlight. Sometimes she felt overwhelmed by the massive history that seemed to be wrapped hidden in these carvings, even though it never made a coherent whole. She often felt an ancestral presence reaching far behind her into a strange distant past.
Drifting back into consciousness, with half-opened eyes and a half-closed mind, she noted the shadow of a man’s profile on the wall. It was vaguely familiar, but she could not identify it, and it was already looping in and out of her incipient dreams.
When she opened her eyes again, it was gone.
Instead there was a darker, much more solid shadow there, not lightened by reflected moonlight but cutting it out. It was the figure of a man, standing in the room.
Suddenly she was awake, eyes wide, at first in bewil-derment and then in mounting terror as a powerful hand was clamped over her mouth, and a soft hissing voice exhorted silence.
Chapter 2
In contrast to his leisurely journey from Pedhavin, Hawklan strode away from the Gretmearc as vigorously as he dared without making his progress seem too conspicuous. His long legs carried him easily through the throngs crowding the roads near that bustling, hectic market, but he was troubled and, while he tried to use the steady rhythm of his walking to quieten his thoughts, it was of little avail.
He had journeyed to the Gretmearc seeking answers to a question he had scarcely formulated. Now he came away beset by countless questions that were all too clear. He was a healer, not a warrior and yet, almost effortlessly, he had overcome four of the men who had attacked Andawyr’s tent. Then he found himself angry because he had fled, despite his flight being at An-dawyr’s express command. Fleeing-leaving others to do his fighting. He felt degraded, dishonoured in some way that he could not understand.
Where had these strange fighting skills come from, and from where this feeling of disloyalty at his desertion of the field? And, perhaps even worse, from where the deeper voice within, coldly telling him that this desertion was necessary for a greater good?
Then there was Andawyr himself. The strange little man who had undoubtedly saved his life. Andawyr who had referred to him as Ethriss. ‘First among the Guardians,’ he had said. Some strange god-like creature from the mythical past. Hawklan wanted to dismiss the idea as a foolish old man’s rambling, but Andawyr had radiated a sincerity and demonstrated skills that precluded such an easy escape.
But it must surely be nonsense? For all his ignorance of his own past, Hawklan certainly did not feel he was anything other than a very frail mortal. Yet Andawyr had seen that too. ‘You may be our greatest hope,’ he had said. ‘But at the moment I’m your greatest hope, and you, along with everyone else, are in great danger.’ Then, ‘Great forces have already been set against you. You need protection until you can be taught to know yourself.’ And finally, ‘Watch the shadows, your days of peace are ended.’ The words were chilling. There was solace in none of them.
And, unbidden, a new awareness had grown in him, making him seek for enmity as well as friendship in strange faces, danger as well as quiet calm where trees threw the road into dappled shade, treachery as well as hospitality when they passed through some village.
But for all his sombre preoccupations, the journey down through Riddin was uneventful. There seemed to be no pursuit from the Gretmearc and neither he nor Gavor saw any of the sinister little brown birds follow-ing them. None the less, the further they moved from the Gretmearc the easier Hawklan began to feel. It seemed that just as some compulsion had drawn him to the Gretmearc, now something was drawing him back to Anderras Darion. He longed to hear familiar voices talking of mundane matters, and to see familiar faces and surroundings, and he found himself almost elated when they turned from the road and began moving westward along the lesser roads and pathways through the grassy foothills that would lead them back into the mountains and towards Orthlund. Gavor, too, rose high and joyous into the spring sky.
The following day was windy and sunny, with white billowing clouds flying busily across a blue sky. Hawklan had been continuing a relentless pace uphill and had stopped for a brief rest and a meal. He was lying on a grassy bank at the side of the road, staring idly over the Riddin countryside spread out beneath him and half-listening to the happy babble of a family who were picnicking nearby. The sun was warm on his face and he felt very relaxed, in spite of his dark anxieties.
He had made a small truce with himself-whoever I am, or have been, and whatever I did or have yet to do, and whatever has happened or will happen to me, there is nothing to be gained in endlessly fretting over it, other than confusion and dismay. All will become clear in time… probably. Just watch and wait and learn.
Looking up at the moving clouds, he realized that the image of dark and distant clouds lingering persis-tently at the edges of his mind seemed to have gone. Now, like the real ones above him, they were overhead. But they contained no spring lightness; they were dour and menacing. He knew that what he had been fearing had arrived, but he could not yet see what it was.
Suddenly he noticed that the noise of the picnicking family had stopped and he turned to see what had happened. Apparently the father of the group had called for silence and he was slowly rising to his feet and staring up into the sky intently. As he rose, he lifted two of the children to their feet and, with an extended finger, directed their gaze out across the countryside to where he himself was staring. The whole family looking in one direction, Hawklan found his own gaze drawn inexora-bly the same way.
At first he could see nothing unusual, then a famil-iar black dot came into view. Surely the group couldn’t be staring at Gavor? he thought, resting his cheek on the cool sweet-smelling grass and looking at them again. Then Gavor landed clumsily and hastily by his side in a state of some considerable excitement.
‘Look, Hawklan,’ he said breathlessly, thrusting his beak forward, pointing in the same direction.
‘Where?’ said Hawklan.
‘There,’ replied Gavor impatiently. ‘There. Where I’m pointing.’
‘I can’t see anything,’ began Hawklan. ‘Only clouds and sk-’
He broke off as his gaze, working through the mov-ing tufts of white, fell on the cause of all the attention. The sight dispelled his sun-warmed lethargy and drew him first into a sitting position, and then to his feet, though slowly, as if fearful of disturbing the wonder he was looking at. For a moment he felt disorientated and he glanced down briefly at Gavor. The gleaming black iridescence of his friend against the soft green grass reassured him and he looked up again at the large white cloud in the distance.