Part 34 (1/2)

'Stay with me, you'll be all right.'

Hawklan still sensed the great turmoil in his friend, but no sickness. He gave a resigned sigh and, stepping aside, signalled the others to follow. The peak, however, was no easy walk, especially in the meagre light offered by the stars and a thin moon. Isloman seemed to have little trouble, but several times the others had to call out softly to him to slow down a little as they carefully negotiated areas of shattered rock and steep rubble-strewn slopes. At last, after several hours of leg-aching trudging they reached the summit.

Unusually it was not the rounded gra.s.s dome that characterized most of the smaller mountains, but a jumbled ma.s.s of jagged rock. This, however, did not deter Hawklan and the two Goraidin from flopping down gratefully when they reached it.

Isloman had not seemed to be hurrying, but he had set a relentless pace. As they rested, he wandered fitfully over the summit, turning round and round repeatedly, like a weather vane in a gusting breeze.

Finally he stopped and stared straight ahead. Then slowly he raised his hand and pointed out into the night. 'There,' he whispered, as if fearful of being overheard.

Hawklan stood up and carefully walked over to him across the uneven rocks. 'What?' he asked, following Isloman's gaze. 'What is it?'

But Isloman did not reply. Instead, he wrapped his arms around himself and slowly sat down.

Hawklan bent down to him. 'Isloman, what's the matter?' he said. 'What's happened? What's out there?'

'Leave me alone,' came the faint reply through the darkness. 'Leave me alone.'

Instinctively Hawklan reached out to his friend, but he felt the man's agony before he touched him.

Abruptly, Isloman 's powerful arms swept up as if to dash Hawklan aside but, just as suddenly, they slowed and gently pushed him away. Hawklan stood up and looked down at him, puzzled and uncertain.

'Is he sick?' It was Lorac at his elbow. 'He could have picked something up around those bodies.

They'd been there some time . . .' His inquiry tailed off.

Hawklan shook his head. 'No. It's nothing like that. It's something deeper. Don't worry. I'll stay with him.' He turned round and looked out into the night in the direction Isloman was staring. 'You rest. We'll see what the daylight shows us.'

Isloman did not move all night but, long before Hawklan noticed a change in the light, he said, 'Dawn,'

and stood up. The slow softening of the darkness that followed this announcement reminded Hawklan of the many times he had stood on one of the high towers of Anderras Darion and watched the dawn break over the mountains. It was like a reaffirmation, and he felt an inner ease which he realized he had not known for some time. For a while his mind left the bewildering cascade of events that had occurred since the day Tirilen had led him down the steep road from the Castle to look at the strange tinker on the village green.

He stood up and joined Isloman. 'Show me now, shadow sage,' he said, hoping that a touch of humour might help his friend, but Isloman just pointed. 'There,' he said.

As the light grew, Hawklan found he was looking between two mountains into a far-distant valley. He could make out what looked like white scars and gashes running down the sides of the valley, and a longer, more even line that twisted and turned sinuously before it disappeared from sight. 'A road?' he said, after a moment. 'And quarries?' The scene meant nothing to him. Before he could question Isloman, Gavor fluttered down to join them. His manner was agitated. 'You've seen it, then?' he said.

'The road? Yes. And are those quarries?' Hawklan asked. 'But I don't understand what I'm looking at, Gavor.'

Gavor's tone was strained. 'You're looking at a new, very large road, heading north into . . . there. And yes, they are quarries. And there are more on the other side. And mines. The road's for taking . . . I don't know . . . whatever's coming out of them.'

No one spoke. Gavor continued. 'Those streaks that you can see are great mounds of waste that have been spewed down into the valley. It's unbelievably foul. And there's worse.' He paused. 'The work's being done by slaves.' All three men turned and looked at him. 'Men, women, even children . . . and Mandrocs,' he said slowly. 'And all under the none-too-tender supervision of those c.o.c.kroaches.'

There was an uneasy silence.

'That's not possible,' Lorac burst out suddenly. 'You've made a mistake, bird.' His voice was vicious and angry, but layered with fear and uncertainty.

Gavor's eyes blazed and he spread his wings menacingly. 'Don't doubt me, human,' he hissed, his black mouth gaping wide. 'I tell what I see. Your brothers are torturing your brothers over there. They've poisoned the land with their filth. And the rivers. Even the air I flew through was tainted.' He craned forward and beat his wings savagely. 'It's not for nothing that above all the other creatures in this world, He's a.s.sumed your shape for His work here.'

Lorac quailed under Gavor's appalling a.s.sault and lifted his hands as if expecting to be physically attacked as well.

Hawklan held out his hand to Gavor. 'Gently, Gavor, gently,' he said. Then to the chastened Lorac, 'You can trust Gavor totally, Goraidin, totally. We mustn't take our pains out on one another. We've got real enemies to fight. Gavor, can we come any closer?'

'No,' said the bird, still eyeing Lorac. 'That valley's two days away for you, and half a day will bring you in sight of their look-outs. You won't even reach the remains of Lord Evison's troop.'

Hawklan nodded and thought for a moment. 'Well, if we've seen all we can see, then we must take the knowledge back to the others as quickly as we can.'

'Hawklan.' It was Isloman. 'Help me. Get me away from here . . .' His voice was hoa.r.s.e and distant, and it tailed off into a long failing breath as his knees bent and he fell to the ground.

Chapter 46.

Hawklan bent over his fallen friend and examined him urgently. But his hands and his healing told him nothing. Whatever had brought Isloman low was beyond his knowledge. All that remained was Isloman's own judgement: 'Get me away from here.'

The journey back to the horses, however, was a waking nightmare as the three of them struggled desperately with Isloman's limp bulk, while the brightening summer sun and the splendour of the emergingmountain scenery seemed to mock them.

Driven by his concern for his friend and his own feeling of impotence, Hawklan found the inevitable slowness of the descent unbearable. Twice he slipped in his haste. Once slithering incongruously down a damp gra.s.sy slope and, another time, more seriously, missing his footing on moss-slimed rock.

Tel-Odrel caught him and with a friendly grin supported him while he recovered his balance, but Lorac rounded on him furiously. 'In Ethriss's name, Hawklan, look what you're doing. You could have injured yourself and Tel-Odrel, and how long would it have taken us to get back to the others then?'

Part of Hawklan rose up in anger at this rebuke, but another quieted him. The Goraidin's right, healer.

Concern yourself with your friend. He deserves better than your self-indulgence.

It took them several hours to reach the horses, and they were exhausted when they did. Hawklan examined Isloman again but his condition was unchanged.

'Let me carry him,' said Serian and, with an effort, they lifted him into the great horse's saddle and tied him there firmly.

The journey back to Eldric's mountain stronghold was no less arduous and unpleasant, and Hawklan, unused to his new mount and unable fully to relax because of his concern for his friend, felt as if he had been in the saddle for his entire life.

However, he had repeated cause to be grateful for Yatsu's insistence that Lorac and Tel-Odrel accompany him. Their knowledge of the country and the mountains shortened the journey considerably and, amongst other things, spared them the need to pa.s.s by the carnage around Lord Evison's castle.

Isloman improved a little as they moved further away from the blighted valleys. He regained consciousness for increasingly longer periods but still did not speak, and Hawklan felt that the carver was fighting to hold something at bay rather than recovering from it.

On the night before they were due to reach their destination, Hawklan, as usual, spent some time in making Isloman comfortable and in easing the aches of Lorac and Tel-Odrel that Serian's unrelenting pace had brought about. But there was a restlessness in himself that he could not still and eventually he wandered away from the camp, sensing that, while sleep might restore his body, something else was needed to quieten his mind.

Alone in the dying light, he sat down on a gra.s.sy knoll that overlooked the long valley they had spent the day negotiating. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by a longing for Anderras Darion and the calm and harmony of its encompa.s.sing mountains and rolling countryside; for Pedhavin and the silver river that ran through it; and for all his many friends there.

Without thinking he drew his sword and, pressing its cold black hilt against his face, closed his eyes.

Thoughts suddenly burst in on him as if they had been penned by some great dam. Thoughts of a tiny mannequin full of corruption; of the huge, bustling Gretmearc and the sinister trap that was laid for him there; of the malign presence of Dan-Tor seeking him out, spreading corruption into his life and through him into the lives of all the Orthlundyn; of Andawyr, that strange scruffy little man filled with light, who searched into his mind and came to him mysteriously with terrible needs; of Mandrocs and of the slaughtered guards; of a fume-choked Vakloss and of the knife-wielding vengeance of a lone, lost woman against her persecutors; of appalling carnage fringing a blackened castle, and of mines and quarries, the very sight of which had brought down his friend. These and many others surged and tumbled through his head beyond all control, swirling like a frenzied maelstrom seeking a path down into a cold, dark stillness.

For a moment he floundered, then, abruptly, he let them go. They were beyond resolution. They were the myriad tiny ills that he had seen so often emanating from wounds and disease. Some could be eased for the comfort of the sufferer, but always the source should be sought and its influence a.s.suaged.

But wasthis healing inhis gift? Or was he only a humble part of a greater healer's work? Again, no resolution. Only a healer's faith. Whoever or whatever he was he would oppose this corruption where he found it and seek towards its centre when he could. He had no choice.