Bowgentle made a movement to speak but then cocked his head to one side. Now they all felt a slight tremor run through the floor.
"It's damned cold," Count Brass grumbled and went to the fire to fling on another log. Sparks flew and the log caught quickly, the flames sending red shadows skipping through the hall. Count Brass had wrapped his bull-like body in a simple woollen robe and now he tugged at this as if regretting he had not worn something more substantial. He glanced at the rack at the far end of the hall. The rack contained spears, bows, ar rows, maces, swordsand his own broadsword, and his armour of brass. His great, bronzed face was clouded.
Again a tremor shook the building and the arms decorating the walls rattled.
Hawkmoon glanced at Bowgentle, noticing in the philosopher's eyes the same sense of inexplicable doom he felt. "A mild earthquake, perhaps?"
"Perhaps," murmured Bowgentle, plainly unconvinced.
Now they heard a sounda distant sound like the booming of a gong, so low as to be almost inaudible. They rushed to the doors of the hall and Count Brass hesitated for a moment before flinging them open and looking up at the night.
They sky was black, but the clouds seemed dark blue, swirling in considerable agitation as if the dome of the sky were about to crack.
The reverberation came again, this time plainly audible. The voice of a huge, low bell or a gong. It hummed in their ears.
"It is like being in the bell-tower of the castle as the clock strikes," Bowgentle said, his eyes full of alarm.
Every face was paleevery face tense. Hawkmoon began to stride back into the hall, walking with arm outstretched towards the Sword of the Dawn. D'Averc called to him. "What do you suspect, Hawkmoon? Some kind of attack by the Dark Empire?"
"By the Dark Empireor by something supernatural," Hawkmoon answered.
A third stroke sounded filling the night, echoing over the flat marshes of the Kamarg, over the lagoons and the reeds. Flamingoes, disturbed by the noise, began to squawk from the darkness.
A fourth followed, louder stilla great booming bell of doom.
A fifth. And Count Brass went to the rack and took up his broadsword.
A sixth. D'Averc covered his ears as the sound increased. "This is sure to bring on at least a mild migraine," he complained languidly.
A seventh. Yisselda ran down the stairs in her nightclothes. "What is it, Dorian? Fatherwhat's the sound? It is like the striking of a clock. It threatens to burst my eardrums…"
Oladahn looked up gloomily. "It seems to me that it threatens our very existence," he said. "Though I do not know why I think that…" A seventh stroke sounded and plaster fell from the ceiling as the castle shook to its foundations.
"We had better close the doors," Count Brass said as the echo died sufficiently for him to make himself heard. Slowly they moved inside and Hawkmoon helped Count Brass push the doors together and replace the heavy iron bar.
An eighth stroke filled the hall and made them all press their palms to their ears. A huge shield, there since time immemorial, clattered from the wall, fell to the flagstones and rolled about noisily until it crashed to rest near the table.
In panic, the servants came running into the hall.
A ninth stroke and windows cracked, the glass splintering. This time Hawkmoon felt as if he were on a ship at sea that had struck suddenly a hidden reef, for the whole Castle shuddered and they were flung about. Yisselda began to fall, but Hawkmoon managed to save her, hanging on to a pillar to stop himself from toppling. The sound made him feel sick and his vision was blurred.
For the tenth time the great gong reverberated, as if the whole world shook, as if the universe itself were filled with the sound signalling the end of everything.
Bowgentle keeled over and fell upon the flagstones in a faint. Oladahn reeled about, his palms pressing at his head. He collapsed to the floor. Hawkmoon clung to Yisselda grimly, barely able to retain his grip. He was filled with nausea and his head pounded. Count Brass and D'Averc had staggered across the room to the table and were hanging on to it as it shook. The stroke died. Hawkmoon heard D'Averc calclass="underline" "Hawkmoonlook at this!"
Supporting Yisselda, Hawkmoon managed to reach the table and stared down at the Rings of Mygan. He gasped. Every one of the crystals had shattered.
"So much for our scheme of guerilla raids," D'Averc said hoarsely. "So much, perhaps, for all our schemes…"
The eleventh stroke sounded. It was deeper and louder than the one before and the whole castle shuddered and flung them to the floor. Hawkmoon screamed in pain as the sound roared in his skull and seemed to sear his brain, but he could not hear his scream above the noise. Everything, was shaking and he rolled about on the floor at the mercy of whatever force it was making the castle quake.
As it faded, he crawled on his hands and knees towards Yisselda, desperately trying to reach her. Tears of pain streamed down his face and he knew by the warmth that his ears were bleeding. Dimly he saw Count Brass trying to rise by clutching at the table. The count's ears gouted gore that matched his hair. "We are destroyed," he heard the old man say: "Destroyed by some cowardly enemy we cannot even see! Destroyed by a force against which our swords are useless!"
Hawkmoon continued to crawl towards Yisselda who lay prone on the floor.
Now the twelfth stroke sounded, louder and more terrible than the rest. The stones of the castle threatened to crack. The wood of the table split and the thing collapsed with a crash. Flagstones suddenly broke in twain or shattered to fragments. The castle was tossed like a cork in a gale and Hawkmoon roared with pain as the tears in his eyes were now replaced with blood, as the veins in his body threatened to burst.
Then the deep note was counterpointed by anothera high-pitched screamand colours began to flood the hall. First came violet, then purple, then black. A million tiny bells seemed to ring in unison and this time it was possible to locate the sound as it came from below them, from the dungeons.
Weakly, Hawkmoon attempted to rise and then fell face down on the stones. The note boomed gradually away, the colours began to fade, the ringing sound subsided quite suddenly. So there was silence.
Chapter Two
The Blackened Marsh
"THE CRYSTAL is destroyed…"
Hawkmoon shook his head and blinked his eyes. "Eh?"
"The crystal is destroyed, "D'Averc knelt beside him trying to help him to his feet.
"Yisselda?" Hawkmoon said. "How is she?"
"No worse than you. We have put her to bed. The crystal is destroyed."
Hawkmoon dug dried blood from ears and nostrils. "You mean the Rings of Mygan?"
"D'Averctell him more clearly." It was Bowgentle's voice. "Tell him that the machine of the wraith folk is broken."
"Broken?" Hawkmoon heaved himself to his feet. "Was that the final shattering sound I heard?"
"That was it." Now Count Brass stood nearby, leaning wearily on a table and mopping at his face. "The vibrations destroyed the crystals."
"Then?" Hawkmoon glanced questioningly at Count Brass who nodded.
"Ayewe're back in our own dimension."
"And not under attack?"
"It does not seem so."
Hawkmoon took a deep breath and began to walk slowly to the main doors of the hall. Painfully he drew back the iron bar and tugged the doors open.
It was still night. The stars in the sky remained the same but the swirling blue clouds had vanished and there was an uncanny silence hanging over the area, a strange smell in the air. But no flamingoes squawked, no wind sighed through the reeds.
Slowly, thoughtfully, Hawkmoon closed the doors again.
"Where are the legions?" D'Averc asked. "One would have thought they were waiting for usat least a few!"