He looked at Hawklan who lowered his eyes at the thought of this comparison. Then Isloman held out his huge hand and slowly curled the fingers round into a powerful fist.
‘I’ve seen stone damaged by nature, Hawklan. Just as you’ve seen people laid low by accidents. It’s not pleasant, but it has its own strange harmony, its own rightness. But this had no rightness. This was wilful desecration, torture, blasphemy. It was the work of a consciously malevolent force. I learned that in the darkness. A force that feeds on such horror and will grow stronger and faster, the more it defiles.’
Momentarily he looked a little sheepish. ‘To be hon-est, I’ve taken all this talk about Sumeral and the Guardians with a large pinch of rock dust, for all Gulda and Eldric and the like have to say about it. It seemed too… unlikely.’ He fixed Hawklan with a grim stare. ‘But I know now, Hawklan. Whatever name you want to give it, there’s a monumental evil abroad. It’s powerful and it’s growing. A corruption beyond our imagining. I doubt there’s any place we could hide from it, and I know there’s no place I could hide from myself if I let it destroy the things I love unhindered. It may well destroy us if we turn to face it, but it will certainly destroy us if we don’t.’
A silence fell between the two men. Isloman nodded his craggy head towards the Black Sword. ‘Maybe one day, you’ll understand that sword of yours, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘But its perfection shone through to me like a beacon. It reminded me in my torment that harmony still existed and told me why it had to be.’
Hawklan nodded, but found no words to answer this affirmation except, ‘You’ll not be alone. There’ll always be two of us.’
‘Three, dear boy,’ came Gavor’s voice. ‘Three. The two of you on your own show a great propensity for solemnity. What you really need at a time like this are my bird impressions. They’ll chirp you up.’
Hawklan eyed his friend narrowly. ‘No, Gavor,’ he said. ‘Not now. Isloman needs rest, as do I. We have Yatsu’s Council tomorrow. It wouldn’t do for us to retire in too excited a state, would it?’ He smiled hypocriti-cally.
Gavor hissed at him.
Chapter 47
As a deliberate act of policy on arriving at Eldric’s stronghold, Yatsu asked Commander Varak to restrain all questions until Hawklan and his party returned. ‘It’s an imposition, I know, Commander. But much has to be said and, as some of it will take a great deal of accepting, I’d prefer it to be said in one place at one time. I want no half truths and gossip cluttering up the proceedings. Besides, we’re all very tired and in need of some rest, if you could oblige us.’
Faced with this elite corps and the three Lords, Va-rak had little choice, but he chewed on his curiosity with a restless grace. When a distressed Ordan appeared carrying a strange armour he managed to confine himself to merely giving Yatsu a significant look.
Thus the atmosphere in the Council of Officers was alive with inquiry. It was not lessened by the entrance of Hawklan with Gavor sitting on his shoulder and the powerful figure of Isloman walking beside him. Both Lorac and Tel-Odrel rose in surprise to see Isloman so suddenly recovered and they greeted him warmly.
The Council was held in a hall with large rectangular windows through which the summer sun flooded. It was obviously a hall designed for meetings, as the light was dispersed evenly all round the large circular wooden table that formed its centrepiece.
Apart from the Lords and the Goraidin, the senior officers of Eldric’s High Guard were present, together with Hrostir, Arinndier’s son, and various officers from the High Guards of the Lords Darek and Hreldar who had remained at Eldric’s castle after the quartet had set off on their ill-fated journey to Vakloss.
Darek spoke first, telling of the Lords’ trip to Vak-loss and their subsequent arrest and escape. Then Yatsu told of his plan to rescue the Lords with his erstwhile companions from the Goraidin, and of the dreadful use that had been made of the diversionary riots and fire they had started. He told also of the decision by Lord Eldric to return to the Palace to demand an Accounting of Dan-Tor in the hope of saving his son’s life, and of his orders that the High Guards be levied to oppose Dan-Tor.
The tension in the room grew markedly as these tellings proceeded but, true to the Fyordyn tradition, no one interrupted.
Next, Tel-Odrel told of the massacre of Lord Evison and his men, and of the journey into the mountains and the discovery of the mines and quarries there. At Yatsu’s prior request, he made no mention of the ominous character of Evison’s message, nor of the nature of the enemy that had so ruthlessly pursued and destroyed him.
Despite their discipline, the shock of this news showed itself all too clearly on the assembled officers, though Hawklan noted that among the older men, there was almost as much reaction to the mention of the mines as to that of the massacre. Unhindered by Fyordyn tradition, he spoke. ‘Tell me about the mines,’ he said.
There was an awkward silence, then Arinndier an-swered. ‘The mines are a rather… difficult matter for us, Hawklan,’ he began. ‘They’re old workings that were reopened three or four generations ago, but had to be sealed again within a few years.’
He hesitated and Hreldar cut through his patent embarrassment. ‘They were sealed because they were dangerous, Hawklan. The topic’s a sensitive one for us because the last use of the mines was as a prison colony.’
Hawklan nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said.
‘No, you don’t,’ said Hreldar. ‘The dangers were not just the normal dangers of mining-rock falls, dust, gas and the like. There was something in… the air… or the rock. Over the years it affected both prisoners and guards. Men just began to… waste away. And even when they were taken away from the mines, the wasting continued until… ’
‘They died.’ It was Isloman. ‘Some rocks sing a dire song,’ he said, his face lined with distress. ‘A song of warning. I understand your pain, Lords, albeit the blame was not yours.’
His face became thoughtful and anxious as the memory of his recent darkness returned briefly. ‘They’re so vast. And so deep,’ he said, half to himself. ‘And so old. Almost as old as the rock itself.’
Arinndier looked at him sharply.
‘Still,’ Isloman said. ‘That’s a deed and a tragedy of the past. We must look to the problems of the present. What does it mean now that the mines have been reopened, and their bounty goes north?’
‘North,’ said Arinndier softly. ‘Into Narsindal.’ He looked uncertainly at Darek and Hreldar, then turned to Hawklan. ‘There’s a legend that during the First Coming, Sumeral opened great mine workings to provide materials for His war machines. They were worked by slaves who are said to have died in their tens of thousands. They say the shafts ran so deep that they released things that were older and more evil than Sumeral Himself. Things that the Cadwanol spent generations hunting down and sealing back in the mountains after the Last Battle.’
Irritated by this seeming digression, some of the High Guards were becoming restless. One or two exchanged glances and discreetly pulled wry faces at one another at this example of whimsy by a Lord of the Geadrol.
Hawklan rounded on them. ‘Save your irony for another time, gentlemen,’ he said ferociously. ‘For a time when your own sanity has been well tested. Mock when you have your heel on your enemy’s throat, not while your companions are rotting in the mud but a few days’ ride away.’
No one spoke and the offending guards sat very still under the force of Hawklan’s onslaught. He looked at Yatsu, who nodded to him to continue.
Easing his chair back, he stood up and looked round at the faces of the High Guards. The power of his presence, together with the news they had received, precluded indifference, though their expressions were, for the most part, uncertain.