Part 28 (2/2)

'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 makes.h.i.+ft 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'msorry, 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, mistyin 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.

'What are you doing?' a voice hissed in his ear. Turning, he saw Yatsu's alarmed face staring at him. It seemed to be at once very close and very distant. 'What are you doing?' Yatsu repeated.

Hawklan turned to indicate Andawyr, puzzled by Yatsu's question. But the figure was no longer there, although he could still feel the healing flowing from his hands. He blinked in surprise and, as he did so, his head suddenly cleared and he was alone with Yatsu in the storeroom again.

He was half inclined to ask Yatsu if he had seen Andawyr, but he knew it would be to no avail. Whether it was dream or vision, he did not know but, whatever it was, it was for him only to see. He lowered his outstretched arms.

'Just dreaming,' he said apologetically, with a faint smile. 'Just dreaming.'

Yatsu's face, however, indicated that something more urgent than his strange companion's eccentricities was troubling him. 'What's the matter?' Hawklan asked.

'I've been out,' Yatsu replied. 'The Mathidrin are posting Dan-Tor's response to our escapade everywhere.'

'Well?' said Hawklan.

Yatsu looked quickly at the others still lying asleep, then he whispered in Hawklan's ear. Hawklan's eyes opened wide in horror. 'That's beyond me to advise,' he said after a moment. 'You know your own country and the value of these people to it. What will you do?'

Yatsu, however, had clearly made up his mind. 'The Lords mustn't know. Especially Eldric. I'll take the consequences. We must get them out of the City immediately and away to their estates to start raising some real opposition to this man.'

Hawklan looked at him, unable to ease his burden. It had been no error on Eldric's part to accept this man as Commander.

'It's a choice of evils,' Yatsu said. 'No choice really.'

'What about Dacu and Lord Arinndier?' said Hawklan.

Yatsu looked at the two figures on the floor. 'Also no choice,' he said. 'They can't stay here. I can't leave them with any of our friends here, it's too dangerous. They'll have to travel with us. It'll be easier, the further we get from the City. Will you come with us?'

'How long's the journey?' Hawklan asked.

Yatsu shrugged unhappily. 'Anything from one to two weeks, it just depends. Conditions are changing so quickly.'

Hawklan was torn. He was loath to leave the two sick men to face such a journey, but he was loath also to become involved in what was surely to be a protracted and b.l.o.o.d.y dispute between Dan-Tor and the Lords. He had come here to confront Dan-Tor for his own reasons, which, though still ill-defined, seemed more urgent than ever now. Then, there was the renewed urgency of Andawyr's appeal. Go to the Cadwanol. Waken Ethriss.

A cold calculation came into his head. Let the Fyordyn fight. What better protection for Orthlund than their neighbours torn with civil strife? He crushed it angrily. Orthlund would not be served well by neighbours who had fallen into corruption and he sensed that Fyorlund now stood precariously balanced.

The least movement could have consequences that would spread forever.

'I'll come with you, Yatsu,' he said simply. 'Isloman and I must face Dan-Tor at some other time, when he is weaker, or we stronger. I need to know more about you and your people. Fyorlund is perhaps Orthlund's only defence against Dan-Tor's corruption and, at the moment, you are Fyorlund's. I'll help you all I can.'

There was open, honest relief on Yatsu's face. Hawklan's heart went out to him. Here indeed was a man who would be more cruel than his enemy, but who would seek no violence and would stay his hand in victory.

Chapter 40.

Dan-Tor pursued his leisurely walk around the Palace grounds. It was a rare moment for him. A pivotal moment. It had the stillness of a pendulum at the height of its sweep. For a little while there was nothing he could do. For a little while he must sit and wait on the actions, the responses, of others.

It was not a circ.u.mstance he relished. To sit too long was to release thoughts that should be foreverbound. Constrained as he was against the use of the Old Power, the True Power, it was better by far to be scheming, manipulating, subtly betraying, weaving his own patterns into the Great Design that was His, each tiny st.i.tch imperceptibly bringing nearer the whole, as a wind carves its will into a rock over the centuries.

Dan-Tor consoled himself with the knowledge that masks and cunning could soon be dispensed with, at least in part, and knives could be sharpened and used. Now was a time of harsh and sudden reality.

As if echoing his thoughts, the setting sun emerged from behind a cloud and glared across the expansive gardens, dazzling the eyes and throwing long dark shadows which melted down the solidity of the trees and ornaments and cast a strange new landscape of their own.

But mine will be more permanent, he thought. Neither pa.s.sing cloud nor turn of the planet will change it.

A towering figure loomed ahead of him in the yellow-white glare, and he had to move into its shadow to see more clearly. It was the Queen, sitting motionless on her favourite horse and staring into the distance.

Even in stillness she had a harmony with the animal that irked him.

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