'I understand,' he said. 'I know I could be of service to you. But I see other things as well. Besides, I can offer little more than you yourself. You, the Goraidin and, if I'm any judge of Eldric and Varak, a tough crowd of High Guards, together form a powerful nucleus. Many armies have started with much less.'

Arinndier made to protest, but Hawklan raised a hand and fixed him again with a piercing gaze.

'Sumeral's a force beyond human understanding, Arinndier, for all His human form. He needs sway over all mortal peoples and their lands to corrupt the Great Harmony beyond recovery, and He could achieve this with His Will alone if He so chose. Only one thing restrains Him, if He and His Uhriel are awake, then could not the Guardians also be awake, or awakening? The Guardians. His equals in the older, greater, Power. If He expends His Power on controlling humanity then He'll not be able to face the Power of the Guardians. And even if they're not yet awake, the exertion of His will in such a deed would surely awaken them. So He must raise mortal agents and mortal armies to achieve this.'

A sudden chilling knowledge swept over him. Sumeral would be more cunning, more patient than before, and the Guardians must surely be weaker. But less innocent, he thought, in reb.u.t.tal, less innocent, and goaded by a terrible guilt.

Arinndier stared at him almost fearfully.

Hawklan's gaze was unrelenting. 'We must draw on our every ally, and use them where they are most strong. In the end the balance may lie in the thickness of a hair.' He held up his hand, thumb and finger lightly touching. 'So finely balanced,' he said distantly.

'Hawklan, you speak so strangely at times,' Arinndier said, his face anxious. 'What do you know of these things? I don't understand you. You make us sound as if we'll be mere skirmishers in someone else's battle.'

Hawklan's look softened into a smile. 'We are skirmishers,' he said. 'But the mortal battle is ours in its entirety, and if we lose everything will be lost.'

Arinndier still looked fretful.

Hawklan slapped his arm. 'Gather all your forces, Arin. Look to your own estates and those of such other Lords as you can reach. Then send to Orthlund. To Loman at Anderras Darion.' A brief look of sadness pa.s.sed over his face. 'I fear you may have powerful allies there soon.' 'You fear?' Arinndier said. Hawklan waved a dismissive hand, and did not pursue the question in Arinndier's voice. 'Take heart,' he said. 'While you face mortal armies, however foul, however numerous, the war can be won. Gather every resource together and use them well.'

Arinndier seized the straw and reverted back to his concern of the moment. 'But you won't stay and help us,' he said.

Hawklan laughed. 'Remind me in future never to engage a Fyordyn in debate will you?' Then, more seriously, 'I don't have the words for this, Arin, but I'm drawn elsewhere drawn more powerfully than ever. I have to go to the source of this ill. My heart leads me. It brought me here to see the ma.s.sacre of Evison's men and for Isloman to show me the desecration of the mountains. Now it leads me back to Vakloss. Back to my original path. I must find your Lord Dan-Tor . . .'

Arinndier bridled a little. 'He's no Lord of mine, Hawklan,' he said.

Hawklan gestured an apology.

'Could your heart not be leading you into a trap?' tried Arinndier.

'Possibly,' Hawklan said thoughtfully after a brief silence. 'Possibly. But it may be a trap to yield to my inclination and remain here to help you with your army. Dan-Tor holds the answers to my needs. I've no alternative but to seek him out.' Then his face brightened. 'Besides, I've got Isloman and Gavor to watch my back. Take this solace, Arin he'll find me no easy game to hold, no matter what his trap. And time spent pursuing me can't be spent working against you. I may be of greater service in gaining time for you than in helping to organize and train your army. I've told you, you've plenty of good men for that, but none can distract Dan-Tor as I can.'

Arinndier lifted his hands in submission.

'One thing though,' Hawklan continued. Arinndier leaned forward, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes.

'Let me have two Goraidin to go back to Vakloss with. I'd value their skills and they can report back to you whatever happens there.'

Both Hreldar and Darek a.s.saulted Hawklan's resolution, following Arinndier's capitulation, but with as much success. Darek was prompted to a wry smile. 'See how easily we fall without your leadership,' he said.

Hawklan smiled broadly and placed an arm around his shoulder. 'Come now, Lord,' he said. 'Would you make me an oath-breaker? Lord Arinndier is witness that I've forsworn debating with Fyordyn. And besides I can tell a fall from a feint.'

But it was Yatsu who struck home, sitting silent in an evening alcove. 'I want none of this, Hawklan,' he said, his face pa.s.sive but pained. 'All the action recently has kept my mind busy, but there are quiet places in this old castle that bring thoughts crashing down on top of me. Old, long-forgotten memories, Hawklan. Terrible memories. I want none of it.' He looked up, and Hawklan saw his eyes were glistening tears in the soft torchlight.

He sat down by the man and leaned back against the cool stone wall. The air was very still and a low bright moon dominated the sky, silvering the surrounding peaks. It was an evening for celebrating life inquiet joy, but the aura around Yatsu forbade any such ease. Hawklan thought back to the return of Olvric.

When Varak's patrol had reached Olvric, they had expected to find him dead or at least sorely pressed.

As it was, it was the Mathidrin who were in difficulties. Of the six, two had died moving to outflank Olvric, one was unconscious with a serious head injury and another had a broken arm.

Olvric himself had moved to ensure that the patrol could neither advance nor retreat without coming under the lethal fire of his sling, and he was waiting silent and unmoving when Varak's men arrived.

'They'll provide useful information,' Yatsu had said, apparently satisfied after Olvric had reported, but Hawklan had caught the subtle, almost unconscious signs that had flickered between some of the Goraidin.

'You mistrust Olvric,' Hawklan said into the cool evening. Yatsu did not seem surprised at this remark, but just nodded slightly.

'Olvric knows his trade better than average,' he said non-committally.

'But?' said Hawklan.

Yatsu breathed out a long breath. 'It's complicated, Hawklan,' he said. 'I'd trust Olvric's loyalty without question. I'd trust him with my life without a moment's qualm . . .'

'But?' Hawklan repeated.

There was a long silence.

'Our training was harsh brutal, even. It was intended to make us self reliant under almost any conditions, and to weld us into a single fighting unit bound by loyalty and by common suffering.'

Yatsu smiled ironically, though the smile faded almost immediately. 'But what really binds us, binds us beyond any release, isn't our training even though that runs deep. What binds us is a shared horror of the things we saw . . .' His voice faltered. 'And the things we did had to do,' he added softly in reluctant self-justification. 'We're a unit now because only we understand one another. Only we know what it's like to hunt without mercy, and the terror of being hunted the same way. Know what it's like to choose between killing and abandoning your own.'

Hawklan watched the man intensely, remembering vividly his conversation with Isloman as they had ridden north through Orthlund with Jaldaric.

'But Olvric and some of the others relished the life too much,' Yatsu continued. 'When we came back from Riddin, it took most of us months to adjust to peacetime living. For some it took years. Some wandered off into the mountains to find themselves . . . or just disappeared. Some killed themselves. But Olvric . . . he just carried on waiting. Peacetime was just a long wait, a long interval, until the next time.

Somehow, he only lived when he was fighting. Stalking a prey killing it. Did you see those Mathidrin when they came in?'

Hawklan nodded.

'Terrified,' Yatsu continued. 'Not nervous or apprehensive terrified. That's what Olvric and his kind do to people enemies. And he didn't have to kill three of them.' 'Two,' corrected Hawklan.

Yatsu shook his head. 'Come now, Hawklan. I don't need to be a healer to know that that head injury's fatal. It's three dead, without a doubt.'

'What else could he have done?' asked Hawklan. 'He was heavily outnumbered.'

'He knows that wounded men present a greater problem than dead ones,' said Yatsu. 'He had the initiative. They wouldn't have been expecting an ambush. He's a first-rate slinger. He could have immobilized almost all of them and scattered their horses. The killings were superfluous.'

'But you'll use the terror that Olvric's induced to obtain more information than you would otherwise, won't you?' Hawklan said searchingly.

Yatsu's eyes glinted and he grimaced. 'Yes,' he said bitterly. 'I told you I wanted none of it. I'm too old, seen too much.' He took Hawklan's arm. 'That spirit, that worm that wriggles inside Olvric, wriggles in us all. It's in me, I know. I want it far away away in the shadows away from the treacherous old skills for killing and betraying that it feeds on.'

Yatsu's voice was calm and steady. It held no emotional tremor, and its very control chilled Hawklan.

The truth is to be faced, however terrible, he thought again, and here was a man facing it at its worst.

'I've no answer for you, Yatsu,' he said eventually. 'You see the truth of what you say, and it's immutable. But just to see it is to be armoured against many things. Every step we take is a step into darkness, you know that, even for Dan-Tor. He knows the future no more than any of us. Travel with a good heart, Yatsu, don't cloud the present with the unknowable future, and don't be frightened of this worm inside you. Your conscience and your judgement will keep it in hand, have no fear.'

Yatsu did not reply.

Hawklan spoke again. 'We may be p.a.w.ns in some great game played by powers beyond us. But if we can't feel the strings that control us, then we're free. We must use what faculties we have to the full and celebrate the gift of life as best we can. To do otherwise is to do the enemy's work for him.'

'I know that,' said Yatsu quietly. 'I'm not a starry-eyed cadet.' He shrugged apologetically. 'I was just giving my thoughts to the evening, to get rid of them. I'll do what I have to do. Like you, I'm a right piece in the right place, and my real avenues of movement are heavily circ.u.mscribed.'

In spite of himself and his protestations to the Lords, Hawklan said, 'Do you need any help?'

Yatsu gazed up into the moonlight. 'Of course I do, Hawklan. But I'll manage without it. And you belong elsewhere I know that.' He smiled. 'You carry more weight on the playing board than I do, you're nearer the player. Dan-Tor's your quarry.'

Then, abruptly, his face became angry and gripping Hawklan's arm powerfully he spoke through clenched teeth. 'Bring him down, Hawklan. Destroy him as soon as you can and whatever's behind him. You're the healer cut out the root of the disease. We'll attend to the body's defences it's not that enfeebled yet.'

Then he stood up and, without any word of parting, moved off silently into the darkness. Hawklan looked up at the moon and wrapped his arms about himself. He remembered the sinister chair at the Gretmearc; the strange destruction of the pavilion by Andawyr; the bird that sprang hideously to life; and Andawyr's mysterious tent that disappeared into an eerie distance. Then Gulda, so knowledgeable and yet so enigmatic; the Mandrocs chanting and charging in close order; and the Viladrien dominating the singing sky over the Riddin. Powers and mysteries far beyond his understanding.

Nearer the player, he thought ruefully. No idea who I am, pushed and pulled by forces I know nothing of, a healer inside the body of a warrior that attracts the service and loyalty of others as if of right.

A great wave of fear broke over him, and he sat in the shade of the alcove for a long time.

So, like a sad echo of their departure from Anderras Darion, Hawklan and Isloman left the Lord Eldric's mountain stronghold, accompanied by Lorac and Tel-Odrel. There were few words spoken as they left, although everyone in the castle braved a squalling rainstorm to see them leave.

Some way down the road, Hawklan turned and looked back at the castle. It was almost totally hidden by the blowing rain and for a moment he could not distinguish it from the crags behind. Some of the watching people, cloaked and hooded against the weather, huddled round its base, while others on the walls broke the sharp lines of its crenellations. It looked like an old cliff face with boulders fringing its feet.

Hawklan raised his arm as a last salute, and a few voices floated down to him. His action opened his cloak and an indignant Gavor peered out. 'Steady on, dear boy,' he said. 'It's raining in here.'

Hawklan gave him a narrow look, then pulled his cloak about himself again. Slowly the four figures merged into the dull grey rain and disappeared from view.

Chapter 49.

Light filtered through to Eldric's brain slowly and vaguely, and his mind s.n.a.t.c.hed at it fitfully as it rambled past on its way from nightmare to nightmare. Nightmares of prisons and roof-tops and a smoke-shrouded City filled with shapeless horrors from some distant time; of an eternity in a saddle and an endless argument the threads of which slipped ever away from him each time he reached his clinching point. Occasionally a sound joined the light, and light and sound and pain rose and fell together in an unholy harmony. With infinite reluctance, the light slowly formed itself into a single image which his mind, with equal reluctance, strove to identify. It was a torch. An old torch. Very old, said something in the background.

He could not have said how long he stared at it, seeing it clearly, before he finally identified it. 'Torch,'

he said, and his voice sounded like a child's. He screwed his face up irritably. A figure came between him and the light, and he waved it aside crossly. He needed to explain. 'Torch,' he repeated. 'Old in a book when I was a child. A book of old legends with great big beautiful pictures. Full of colours.'

He felt his awareness returning, and the pain in his head diffused itself throughout his whole body in a general discomfort. The figure moved again, and was now by his side. He took its arm, and continued to explain. 'It's incredible,' he said. 'I've never seen one like it. It's strange how childhood memories impress themselves so deeply, isn't it? It was in a picture of a Prince in a dungeon during the Wars of the First Coming.' A chill struck him and dispelled the childlike aura protecting him. He struggled to sit up. The figure put an arm around his shoulders and helped him. 'Gently, Father,' it said. 'Gently. I don't think you've any bones broken, but you were badly knocked about when they threw you in here, and you cracked your head on the floor.'

The words disorientated Eldric for a moment and for a while he mouthed them to himself. Then he turned and looked at the figure for confirmation.

Fair hair matted, round flat face with its innocence scarred by lines of care and neglect, and fringed with an unfamiliar beard.

'Jaldaric,' he said. 'Jaldaric. Is it really you, or am I dreaming again?' He closed his eyes as if he expected to find the mirage gone when he opened them again.

'Yes, Father,' replied his son. 'It's me, and you're not dreaming. I wish you were. Rest a moment until you're fully awake.' Unexpectedly, Eldric's face crumpled and he dropped his head into his hands to hide his tears. Jaldaric looked at him awkwardly, uncertain what to do.

Then, wiping his eyes with his hands, Eldric took his son in an embrace and held him still and close like a small child. 'I thought you were dead,' he said after a while. 'When Hawklan told me about the Mandrocs I hardly dared to think about it, it was so horrible. I just . . . pushed the thoughts away. It was all I could do. I'm sorry.'

Jaldaric did not reply but returned his father's embrace and for a long time the two sat leaning against the cold dungeon wall taking solace from each other until the tide of euphoria ebbed a little and left them alone and lost on a strange sh.o.r.e.

Eldric found his memories of recent events returning sporadically, and he winced as a hesitant exploration of his skull discovered a large lump. He recalled being dragged with Lord Oremson from the house and through the City. He remembered the frightened faces of his followers, and did he remember bodies lying in Oremson's gardens, in the moon shadow?

Jaldaric spoke. 'What's happening, Father?' he asked. 'I remember being in Orthlund. And arguing with some . . . thug. And a patrol of Mandrocs . . . and a journey.' He shuddered. 'Then all of a sudden I'm here. The Lord Dan-Tor's asking me questions and telling me not to worry.' He shrugged bitterly. 'Now I don't know whether these are memories or whether I've gone mad. I feel as if I've been here all my life. Are you here, Father, or have I truly gone mad?'

Eldric held his son tighter. 'No, son, you're not mad, though the world seems to be. If you've a memory of two Orthlundyn called Hawklan and Isloman, then you're sane enough and so am I.'

Jaldaric started up. 'Yes,' he said. 'The Lord Dan-Tor asked me about him. Green-eyed and . . .' He stopped. 'My friends. What happened to my friends?'

Eldric looked down and then back up at his son. He saw the knowledge in his son's face before he spoke, and his voice seemed to echo through the years, back to the many times he had spoken such words to such faces in the Morlider War. They were always inadequate, but there were no others. His stomach turned over. 'I'm sorry, Jal, they're all dead. Hawklan said they took quite a toll of the Mandrocs, but . . .' Jaldaric clenched his teeth and standing up, turned away. But he did not weep. So long tormented by his isolation, the certainty gave him as much comfort as it did grief. When he turned round, his face was almost petulant. 'What's happening, Father?' he asked again. 'Why am I here? What crime have I committed? Where's the Law? And where were you?' His tone became reproachful. 'Every time there was a footstep outside, I'd think, here he is, come to set me free and tell me it's all been some terrible mistake. But you didn't come. Day after day you didn't come.'

Eldric struggled to his feet and faced his son. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't know at first, and when I did know, I couldn't do anything. I'm sorry.'

The two looked at one another in silence for some time, then Eldric laid his hand on his son's arm.

'Come,' he said. 'That bunk looks none too sweet, but it'll be more comfortable than the floor. Let's sit down and I'll tell you what's been happening.'

Jaldaric listened to his father intently and in silence. 'I can't believe this, Father,' he said when at last Eldric had finished. 'All these dreadful things.'

Eldric nodded. 'I understand,' he said. 'My mind's done some scurrying over the past weeks, I can tell you. Waiting to wake up. But it's all true, believe me. It's all brutally true. It's as if some poison has leached into the people and corroded their spirits so that they just crumble helpless before Dan-Tor's will.'

There was a long silence.

'And you think this is the . . . Second Coming?' Jaldaric said awkwardly. 'That . . . Sumeral . . . has risen in Narsindal and that this is His first step out into the world?'

Eldric held his son's gaze, aware of his fearful uncertainty. 'Yes,' he said unequivocally. 'Beyond all doubt now. But our immediate problem is Dan-Tor. He's foe enough for us, and whether he's master or servant is irrelevant. Suffice it that he has all the advantages.' Looking at the doubt still written on Jaldaric's face, he smiled. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'I don't mind you thinking your old father's gone peculiar, I'm sure I would have in similar circ.u.mstances, but you'll be able to form your own conclusion when we're out of here.'

Despite himself Jaldaric smiled in response. Then he rubbed his face. 'How strange,' he said. 'I haven't smiled in months. It's made my face ache.'

Eldric put his arm around his son's shoulder. 'You've pa.s.sed your lowest point, son,' he said. 'From now on we go upwards and out of here. Dan-Tor's probably put us together because he thinks he has nothing to fear from us. Judging from the number of Mathidrin I saw when I was brought here I'd say he's taken the City by force. But he can't take the whole country by force, and I doubt he can hold even the City for long.'

Jaldaric's face clouded as he moved away from Eldric. 'I'm glad of your optimism, Father,' he said.

'But how can we get away from here? They open that door twice a day at least I think it's twice a day I haven't seen the sky since Orthlund. There's always two of them, and I don't even know where we are.'

Eldric, however, refused to be downed. He had found his son again. The son he had believed cruelly dead at the hands of Mandrocs. He had good and powerful friends outside, and surely the people weren't all beyond redemption? 'We're in the Westerclave,' he said enthusiastically. 'I watched where I was going this time, for all I was groggy.' Abruptly he clenched his fists. 'We've been no more than a flight of stairs apart all this time.' He pointed towards the door. 'Just out there are the stairs that I shouted down when we tricked our way out of our cell.' His face creased in distress. 'If only I'd known. The Goraidin could've. . .' His voice tailed off. 'Still. That's talk through the rafters now. No recalling it.' He looked thoughtfully round the cell, and his eyes lit on the torch that he had seen when he recovered consciousness. He stood up and walked over to examine it. Running his fingers around its ornate, fluted body, he said, 'This is old. Very old. I've never seen the like except in an old storybook.' Then his hand moved to the wall by it. 'And look at these.' He gestured to Jaldaric and pointed out some faint scratches in the wall by the torch. Taking hold of the torch he shook it violently. It did not move. 'You try,' he said brusquely. 'You're stronger than I am.' Jaldaric frowned but took hold of the torch and strained at it until his pale face became red. Still it did not move. 'It's well made,' he said offhandedly.

'It's more than well made,' said Eldric, examining the faint scratches again. 'This was made by craftsmen the like of which don't exist any more, nor have for generations.' He became excited. 'I'll wager they've tried to remove that to put in one of Dan-Tor's stinking globes to illuminate his treachery. But this wall's turned their best chisels. And this torch has withstood everything they've hit it with.' He began walking up and down. 'They say that the Westerclave was built during the Wars of the First Coming. Some kind of an outpost that changed hands repeatedly as the war swept to and fro.' He came to a conclusion. 'This room's held prisoners who could exert a power that's beyond us and it was built accordingly.'

Jaldaric could not share his father's enthusiasm. He sat down again and leaned back against the wall.

'I'm sorry, Father,' he said. 'I've seen nothing but these walls and that torch for months. Ancient it might be magic even but it holds little charm for me. I'll be glad when I don't have to see it again.'

Eldric nodded understandingly. 'Of course,' he said. 'But just think what that torch means, Jal.' He sat down beside his son. 'Outside that door there's a pa.s.sage, a long pa.s.sage, torchlit like this, and lined with exactly similar doors. Who knows how many cells there are down there? And I had no idea it even existed. This place probably hasn't been used in centuries, but what happens when someone opens it up?

That torch,' he pointed to it emphatically, 'that torch like any good old reliable torch would bursts into life. After all this time. An unimaginable span of years and darkness. It lit when it was needed. And they couldn't put it out or destroy it.'