David Gemmel - The Hawk Eternal

“I’m not in love. And if I was, there would be no point. Cambil cannot stand me.”

“Do not let that worry you, Gaelen. Cambil is afraid of many things, but if young Deva wants you he will agree. But then it’s a little early to think of marriage. Another year.”

“I know that. And I was not talking about marriage… or love. A man can like a girl, you know.”

“Very true,” admitted Caswallon. “I liked Maeg the first moment I saw her.”

“It is not the same thing at all.”

“You’ll make a fine couple.”

“Will you stop this? I’m going to sleep,” said Gaelen, curling his blanket around him. After a few moments he opened his eyes to see Caswallon was still sitting by the fire looking down at him.

Gaelen grinned. “She’s very tall-for a girl, I mean.”

“She certainly is,” agreed Caswallon, “and pretty.”

“Yes. Do you really think we’d make a good couple?”

“No doubt of it.”

“Why is it that whenever I talk to her the words all tumble out as if they’ve been poured from a sack?”

“Witchcraft,” said Caswallon.

“A pox on you,” snorted Gaelen. “I’m definitely going to sleep.”

The winter passed like a painful memory. Losses had been high among the sheep and calves, but spring was warm and dry, promising good harvests in summer.

Cambil accepted an invitation from Asbidag, leader of the Northern Aenir, to visit Ateris, now called Aesgard. Cambil took with him twenty clansmen. He was treated royally and responded by inviting Asbidag and twenty of his followers to the Summer Games.

Caswallon’s fury stunned Maeg, who had never seem him lose control. His face had turned chalk-white, his hands sweeping across the pine tabletop and smashing pottery to shards.

“The fool!” he hissed. “How could he do such a thing?”

“You think the danger is that great from twenty men?” Maeg asked softly, ignoring the ruined jugs and goblets.

Caswallon said nothing. Taking his cloak and staff, he left the house and set off in a loping run toward the hills and the cave of Oracle.

Taliesen sealed shut the door to his private chambers and opened a small, hidden recess in the wall. Reaching in he touched a sensor and light bathed the small room, radiating from panels set in the four walls. With another touch he activated the viewer. The oak veneer of his crudely carved desktop slid back and revealed a dark screen, which rose into a vertical position. Taliesen moved to the rear wall. Scores of paper sheets were pinned to the paneling here, each covered in lines and scrawled with symbols. To the unskilled eye the drawings would appear to be of winter trees, with hundreds of tiny, leafless branches. Taliesen stared at them, remembering the perilous journeys through the Gateways that each represented. Here and there, on every sheet a branch would end with a single stroke drawn through it. By each was a hastily drawn star. Taliesen counted them. Forty-eight. On the desktop, beside the dark screen, was a newly drawn tree that showed no stars. Taliesen pinned it to the wall.

This was the tree of the Hawk Eternal.

The tree where Sigarni regained her sword that was stolen. Where she did not die in some last despairing battle, but survived to reach the Farlain and save the children. Taliesen gazed at the drawing. “Simple to see,” he said, “but where are you? Which of the Time Lines will bring me to you?”

Seating himself before the screen, he opened the right-hand desk drawer and removed a round earring with a spring clip. It was in the shape of a star. Clipping it to his ear, he closed his eyes. The screen flickered, then brightened. Taliesen took a deep, calming breath and opened his eyes.

“Be careful,” he warned himself. “Do not seek to see too much. Concentrate on the minutiae.” The screen darkened, and with a soft curse Taliesen reached up and touched the star upon his ear, pressing it firmly. The screen leaped to life, and the old druid stared hard at the scene that appeared there.

For more than an hour he watched, occasionally scribbling short notes to aid his memory. Then he removed the earring, touched a button below the desktop, and stood. The screen folded down; the oak veneer covered it once more.

Taliesen studied the notes, adding a line here and there. Rising, he moved to the wall, pinning the notes alongside the tree of the Hawk Eternal. He shook his head. “Somewhere there is a rogue element,” he said, “and it has not yet shown its face. What, where, and when?” A thought struck him and his mouth tightened. “Or perhaps I should be asking: Who?” he mused.

“Pah! Do not be so foolish,” he told himself. “There is no one. You are the Master of the Gates, and the rogue element is a figment of your paranoia. If there was someone you would have found him by now. Or seen greater evidence to point toward him. You are an old fool! The secret lies with the Hawk Eternal-and you will teach him.”

His eyes were drawn to the stars scrawled on the sheets. Focusing on each, he dragged the painful memories from the depths of his mind. The most galling of them was the last. Having defeated Earl Jastey, Sigarni contracted a fever and died in the night. By Heaven, that was hard to take. Taliesen had all but given up then.

For several months he had made no attempt to scan the Lines, in order to find a new Sigarni. The quest felt hopeless. Yet as he gazed down on the valleys of the Farlain, and at the butchery taking place in the Lowlands, he knew he had to struggle on.

Intending to make more notes now, Taliesen returned to his desk. Weariness swamped him as he sat, and he laid his head on his arms. Sleep took him instantly.

What had once been the gleaming marble hall of the Ateris Council was now strewn with straw and misty with the smoke from the blazing log fire set in a crudely built hearth by the western wall. A massive pine table was set across the hall, around which sat the new Aenir nobility. At their feet, rolling in the straw and scratching at fleas, were the war hounds of Asbidag-seven sleek, black, fierce-eyed dogs, trained in the hunt.

Asbidag himself sat at the center of the table facing the double doors of bronze-studded oak. Around him were his seven sons, their wives, and a score of war councillors. Beside the huge Aenir lord sat a woman dressed in black. Slim she was, and the gown of velvet seemed more of a pelt than a garment. Her jet-black hair hung to her pale shoulders and gleamed as if oiled; her eyes were slanted and, against the somber garb, seemed to glitter like blue jewels, bright and gold; her mouth was full-lipped and wide, and only the mocking half smile robbed it of beauty.

Asbidag casually laid his hand on her thigh, watching her closely, a gap-toothed grin showing above his bloodred beard.

“Are you anxious for the entertainment to begin?” he asked her.

“When it pleases you, my lord,” she said, her voice husky and deep.

Asbidag heaved himself to his feet. “Bring in the prisoner,” he bellowed.

“By Vatan, I’ve waited a long time for this,” whispered Ongist, swinging around on his stool to face the door.

Drada said nothing. He had never cared much for torture, though it would have been sheer stupidity to mention it. The way of the Grey God was the way of the Aenir, and no one questioned either.

Drada’s eyes flickered to his other brothers as they waited for the prisoner to be dragged forth. Tostig, large and cruel, a man well known for his bestial appetites. Ongist, the second youngest, a clever lad with the morals of a timber wolf. Aeslang, Barsa, and Jostig, sons of Asbidag’s long-time mistress Swangild. They remained in favor despite Asbidag’s murder of their mother-in fact they seemed unmoved by the tragedy-but then Swangild had been a ruthless woman as devoid of emotion as the black-garbed bitch who had replaced her. Lastly there was Orsa the Baresark, dim-witted and dull, but in battle a terrible opponent who screeched with laughter as he slew.