He stood up and levelled a baleful gaze at Urssain. ‘There are reasons why the man Hawklan must not be assailed. We’ll lay a lure to draw back the Lords, and if perchance they’re discovered they can be taken, but… ’ Dan-Tor’s cold eyes flickered suddenly red and it seemed to Urssain that they filled his entire soul. He caught his breath as if fearful what his least movement might unleash. ‘Understand,’ said a voice through Urssain’s terror. ‘And make sure that every last one of your men understands. If found, Hawklan is to be offered courtesy and respect. If he is offered violence or even threat of violence, the perpetrator can look to a death longer and more awful than his wildest night-mares-as can those with him.’
When a shaking and fearful Urssain had left, Dan-Tor sat down and closed his eyes leisurely. Now he was satisfied. Now began the real fall of Fyorlund. Now it passed the point beyond which it could not recover by its own resource. Years of careful corrosion had done their work. As he tightened his web of fear over the country, the weak, the craven, the appeasers, all those in whom the darker side of humanity dominated, would be squeezed to the surface as out of some weeping sore, to spread the infection even further. Soon Fyorlund would crash down like a great tree, leaving a carcass as host and home for the scavengers who would overrun it. The death knell of Fyorlund would be the birth cry of the new order. And all sooner than had been planned.
Although the presence of Hawklan disturbed this flow, there was an irony in the balance of events. A longer delay, and Fyorlund would have been weaker, but Ethriss, wherever he lay, might have been nearer waking.
Dan-Tor nodded to himself. There was always a price to be paid. It would differ from one time to another, but paid it would have to be. And when all was finished it would be measured in time only. A mere blinking of the eye to the eternities that were to come.
Beyond the houses from which Hawklan and the others had escaped lay a rambling patchwork roofscape of plains, peaks and valleys as elaborate and varied as any ice-broken mountain range. The group scurried and scrambled across this strange terrain, invisible to the street watchers and overlooked only by a black dot circling high in the summer sky above them. Eventually they were able to drop down into the disused upper storey of one of the many public buildings that littered Vakloss.
The presence of so many Mathidrin on the streets and the shock of the previous days’ events kept many people to their homes, but daily needs and the innate and massive momentum of normal commercial activity had brought more than a few out automatically and, moving cautiously down through the building, Hawklan and Yatsu found themselves looking down from an internal balcony on to a busy trading hall that by its very activity seemed to be trying to scour away the recent horrors.
Hawklan shook his head as he looked down. ‘I don’t know whether to be happy or sad to see such a sight so soon after what’s happened,’ he said.
‘Think about it later,’ Yatsu said sharply. ‘We’ve still got to find a way out of the City.’ He cast his mind over his charges. The Lords were sufficiently unkempt to pass perhaps for labourers or craftsmen, although Arinndier and Dacu were wilting noticeably. However, the Mathidrin uniforms that he and the other Goraidin were wearing were soiled and scuffed and would inevitably attract attention, as would the foreign clothes worn by Hawklan and Isloman. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ he said. ‘We’re too conspicuous. We can’t risk the Lords being recognized in the streets, or running into any patrols. We’ll have to wait for darkness. There are plenty of empty rooms upstairs.’ Hawklan made no argument with this conclusion.
‘Twilight will be the time to move. Before the globes come on.’ For the few remaining hours of daylight, they rested in an empty storeroom high in the building.
‘Not too palatial, Lords, I’m afraid,’ said Yatsu apologetically. ‘Nor too fitting for an Envoy from Orthlund.’
Hreldar flopped on to a pile of sacks. ‘It has a door that opens, Commander Yatsu. That’s all the palace we need.’ Darek and Eldric signalled their agreement with this sentiment, but Arinndier was asleep. He was lying on the wooden floor next to Dacu, both of them resting on makeshift sackcloth pillows. Hawklan was sitting by them, leaning on a rough wooden pillar. He looked pensive.
‘Are they all right?’ asked Yatsu.
Hawklan nodded, then smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Dacu’s body has a resilience that would be the envy of many a man half his age, and the Lord Arinndier’s strong and fit for his years. But they’ll need rest and careful attention to recover quickly.’ Yatsu looked up at the faded and cracked ceiling. ‘There’ll be precious little rest, and only such attention as you can give them, healer,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry, Yatsu,’ Hawklan replied. ‘I understand. I didn’t mean to burden you further.’
They lapsed into an easy silence and Hawklan looked round at the others.
Once they had decided to wait, the urgency that had been driving them evaporated. Routinely, the Goraidin had examined the escape routes from the building, agreed watches, and then settled themselves down in various places about the storeroom. To a man they were now asleep.
Yatsu caught the look on Hawklan’s face and smiled. ‘Goraidin see clearly and accept what they see for what it is, Hawklan. They cling to nothing. Not place, object, person nor time. That way lies turmoil, and in turmoil lies fruitless death. Death of the spirit, death of the body, death of love. Only by letting go of what we value can we retain it. I’m sure you understand that, whoever you are.’
Hawklan laid his hand on Yatsu’s arm by way of reply. The man’s words seemed like a timeless thread of hope and wisdom stretching back through countless generations.
The sinking sun shone in through a small, high window. Looking at the sleeping figures around him, misty in the half light, Hawklan felt he might be in some Orthlund barn, tired and satisfied after a hard day’s harvesting. He focused on the silent motes hovering in the sun’s yellow beam and allowed himself to sink into the deep calm pervading the room. The countless tiny lights reminded him of the stars deep in the handle of his sword.
He did not sleep. Instead he seemed to float among the myriad lights, just another speck amongst the uncountable. Strange images and sounds floated by him. Calm at first, a forgotten memory of a time when all was radiance and song, an eternity of time, an endless unfolding into richer and more beautiful patterns. Then a wave of unease, slight and distant, rippled the patterns. A faint clarion call sounded and, with an appalling suddenness, horror and darkness engulfed him as he battled, weary in every fibre of his soul and body, against the endless waves of an unseen enemy that must inevitably triumph. He was choking on his despair and guilt.
Hawklan jerked upright, his eyes wide and sweat slicking his forehead. The sudden movement caused a flurry of eddies in the watching motes and they twisted and darted in the now-reddening light as if trying to escape. Through their dance, Hawklan saw the figure of Andawyr, transparent yet strangely solid in the softly swirling air, and radiating that same embattled weariness and despair. His head was bowed but, as if hearing an unexpected sound, he looked up suddenly and gazed directly at Hawklan. For a moment he stared in disbelief, then a faint hope flickered in his eyes.
‘How did you come here, Hawklan?’ he said, his voice strained and distant. ‘Help me.’ His hands reached out in supplication. Unhesitatingly, Hawklan leaned forward and took them. He felt the healing spirit flow through into the figure as if into some terrible wound.
‘Ah,’ came Andawyr’s voice again. ‘You’re here and not here, just as I’m bound and not bound. We’ve hope yet… Seek out the Cadwanol and the Guardians… His power holds me in thrall… Waken Eth… ’ The figure vanished abruptly and for an instant Hawklan felt a terrible chill seize his hands.