'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.

Gradually the clattering thoughts faded and went their way unhindered. He sat for a long time in silence and stillness until he became aware of the cold mountain air blowing around him.

Opening his eyes, he held out the hilt of the Black Sword and looked at it. The stars inside it glittered and twinkled like reflections of the sky above him, and the intertwined strands pursued their journey into an endless distance. He felt a lightness again that he had not realized he had lost.

They reached Eldric's stronghold late the following day. Yatsu took one look at the four travellers and immediately postponed the questions that had been building in his mind since the return of Ordan with the Mandroc armour and his tale of horror. 'We'll hold an Officers' Council tomorrow,' he said simply.

'Now you must eat and rest properly.'

Hawklan sat pensively in a high-winged chair. It was ornately carved, though its arms and rails had been worn smooth by countless years of use. It was also extremely comfortable. Just above his left shoulder, Gavor slumbered, his claw closed around the top of the chair. He was muttering incomprehensibly in his sleep. Opposite Hawklan, in an identical chair, was Isloman. He was sitting upright, but his eyes were half shut and it needed no healer's touch to tell he was oblivious to everything around him.

Hawklan gazed at him, as he had been doing for the past hour. Wilfully he avoided fretting about his friend's condition, hoping that some inspiration would drift into his mind.

What came, however, was not what he had either expected or hoped for. This man's a liability in this condition, it said. He's too good a soldier to lose, he must be brought back into fighting fettle. The thought was so cold and callous that Hawklan slammed the palms of his hands into the arms of his chair as if the noise and pain would prevent his hearing it, or as if to punish himself for it.

'd.a.m.n it, Isloman,' he said fiercely. 'Don't leave me like this. Other people depend on us. Speak, man.'

The outburst woke Gavor, who fell off the chair and only just managed to regain his balance before hitting the floor. He glided up on to the mantelshelf that topped the large open fireplace separating the two men and, ruffled, looked down at Hawklan indignantly.

Before he could speak, however, Isloman stirred. He opened his mouth as if to speak but no sound came. Then his great hands tightened around the arms of his chair and he swayed back and forth, racked by some inner conflict.

Hawklan leaned forward intently. Faintly he heard, 'The words don't exist, Hawklan . . .' He caught thephrase and held it; a precious jewel glinting in the barren earth. It was a phrase common among the Orthlundyn whenever he asked about their crafts, and he himself used it when asked about his healing.

'The words don't exist.' He repeated them to himself.

Around their sharp focus formed the realization that Isloman's illness was a.s.sociated with his craft. It was obvious, he saw now, and he should have seen it from the start. But he refused to be lured astray by self-reproach. Isloman was still struggling. Hawklan knelt down in front of him and, taking his hands, looked into his eyes. The blankness had gone, but it had been replaced by pain.

'I understand,' he said. 'I understand. It's the song, isn't it? The rock song.'

A low distant note sounded in Isloman's throat and swelled rapidly into an almost inhuman roar. 'There was no song,' he cried. 'No song. Only a great cry of horror and pain.' He clasped his arms about himself and rocked to and fro again, as if nursing some terrible internal wound.

'Why?' persisted Hawklan. 'What's happened?'

'No words, no words,' muttered Isloman. Then his powerful hands broke free from Hawklan's grip and shot out to seize his arms. 'Worse than all those bodies, Hawklan. Far worse,' he whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

'So deep. Deep beyond any reaching. It's infected me, Hawklan, I can't hold on. Even to think about an obscenity like that would . . . But to feel it . . .' His voice tailed away and, releasing Hawklan, he rapped his hands around his bowed head and curled up like an unborn child.

Hawklan reeled back under the impact of his friend's distress. He had hoped that the trickle of words might presage a deluge and with its pa.s.sing so would pa.s.s Isloman's pain. But it had not. Instead, his friend was slipping further away as if his brief contact with the present had loosed his weakened grip.

Guilt and doubt swept into Hawklan's mind and his head jerked desperately from side to side as if looking for help from the pictures and statues that decorated the room. A jabbering crowd of voices seemed to fill his head, raucous and clamouring.

'Let go, Hawklan,' said one. It was Gavor. Hawklan looked at him, perched on the mantelshelf. 'I felt the taint, but I haven't Isloman's vision and I can fly high above and soar in the clear air which knows the truth and can purify all. Let go. Have no fear. Your mind can go no further. Your healing draws from deeper wells than any evil can know.'

Hawklan met the enigmatic black eyes for a long moment. Gavor nodded slowly. Then, closing his eyes and turning away from the voices, Hawklan felt them vanish like smoke in the wind. He reached out and laid his hand on Isloman's head. For an instant he heard the rock song and felt its appalling defilement.

'I'm here, Isloman,' he said quietly. 'I hear your song, rock-blind though I am. Listen to me. Can any defilement be beyond the aid of the maker of this, old friend?' And, unclipping the scabbard of the Black Sword, he lifted it in his left hand and held the hilt out towards Isloman.

As he did so, a nearby torch flared gently and its light caught the hilt's inner pattern making the stars there shimmer and dance like a myriad tiny universes.

Isloman stared at the hilt distantly for what seemed an interminable time then, as if returning from a long journey, recognition came into his eyes, and his right hand slowly reached out and took hold of it. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as if moving some ma.s.sive weight, then his left hand joined his right in clutching the black stone hilt. Tears began to run down his face, but he was not sobbing. 'How could I have forgotten?' he said, very softly. 'How could I?' His eyes opened. Hawklan reached back unsteadily and regained his chair. Holding out his hands he found they were trembling. Isloman's recovery had been as sudden and startling as his deterioration had been slow.

A faint smile appeared on Isloman's face. He shifted in the chair, then, looking at the worn carving under his hands, nodded admiringly. 'These Fyordyn have a way with wood,' he said irrelevantly. Then he looked at the sword intently and, apparently satisfied, held it out to Hawklan. Hawklan laid it on a nearby table. The cold thought returned to him this recovery is fortuitous, Isloman's too good a fighter to lose but he pushed it lightly to one side, realizing that his own violent reaction to it before was because Isloman's pain had become his own as the healer in him had reached out to help. Such thoughts had their place, he knew, for all their harshness. Only when they dominated did they destroy.

'I feel as if I've been dropped over a cliff,' Isloman said.

Gavor floated down and landed on his shoulder.

'Can you tell me what happened?' Hawklan asked.

'There are no words, Hawklan. You understand that.' Isloman said. 'Those valleys ring with a great groaning scream that pervades the whole area. The rocks are being tortured, defiled. Deep, deep down.

It's unbelievable. There's no way I can describe it. I've never heard the like before and I didn't even believe it at first. Then, when I did, I was trapped. I couldn't ignore its plea and I couldn't do anything about it. Nothing. Except stand there and listen. I've no control over my rock knowledge, Hawklan. I can't shut it out. The sound tore into me and clung like a terrified animal. Imagine you'd been at that castle and seen those men being killed infinitely slowly, and known you could do nothing about it nothing.'

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 honest, 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 propensityfor 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 hypocritically.

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, Varak 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 Vakloss 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.