Roger Taylor - Into Narsindal

‘Moves the stone, the rock, the boulder, etc., etc., and down comes the mountain.’ Hawklan finished the child’s lay impatiently, though as he did so, the memory returned to him of colourful wings stretching luxuri-ously on the toe of his boot as he had sat shocked and bewildered in the spring sunshine after he and Isloman had fled from Jaldaric’s doomed patrol. He recalled that the butterfly too had fled at the approach of a shadow.

Gulda’s voice returned him to the present again. ‘I went as far as my reason and my intuition could go, Hawklan,’ she was saying. ‘After that all I had was faith and hope.’

‘Faith and hope in what?’ Hawklan asked.

Gulda shook her head and, after a moment, began to smile broadly. ‘Just faith and hope that my reason and my intuition were right.’ Her smile abruptly turned into a ringing laugh that rose to fill the room. ‘Have you finished my trial, judge?’ she said, turning to Hawklan, still laughing. ‘Me, who gave you Ethriss’s bow and made Loman forge those splendid arrows for it? Me, who you would have brushed aside if I’d fallen weeping at your knees imploring you not to go. Me who, above all, told you to be careful .’

She drew out her last words and, despite himself, Hawklan fell victim to her mirth.

Yet even as he began to smile, the thought came to him that he had done right to make Gulda release her doubts and fears; she would be less impaired now. It was a cold and sudden thought, and as such thoughts had done before, it repelled him, for all its truth. I had the same need, for the same reason, he thought in hasty mitigation of this unwonted harshness.

Gulda’s laughter gradually subsided and she took out a kerchief and began to wipe her eyes. ‘Who knows what butterfly blew us all here, Hawklan?’ she said, still chuckling. ‘And who knows where it’ll blow us next. Let’s take some joy in the fact that what happened, happened as it did and that Oklar’s hand is stayed for the moment. And that you and Isloman and all the others are alive, and unhurt, and wiser, and here.’

Abruptly she jerked her chair nearer to Hawklan and, reaching forward, seized his wrists affectionately. Once again Hawklan was surprised by her grip. It did not crush or hurt, but he knew that it was more powerful even than Loman’s or Isloman’s.

‘Now I must interrogate you ,’ she said, releasing him, but still staring at him intently. ‘What has Oklar’s touch taught you, key-bearer?’

Hawklan turned away from her gaze. ‘His touch on Fyorlund and its people taught me that there’s no end to his corruption; it’s unfettered, without restraint of any kind,’ he said. ‘It taught me that I must seek him out again, and his Master, and… destroy… them both, and the others, wherever they be.’

‘Has Hawklan the warrior slain Hawklan the healer then?’ Gulda demanded.

Hawklan looked at her, unsure of her tone.

‘There’s no warrior in this room, unless it’s you, swordswoman,’ he said after a moment.

Gulda looked at him enigmatically and, sitting back in her chair, placed her stick across her knees.

Confused by his own strange remark, Hawklan glanced awkwardly round the darkened room, his huge shadow seeming to turn to listen to him.

‘I doubt there’s any real difference between warrior and healer here anyway,’ he said diffidently. ‘Oklar is a disease beyond help; his Master, more so. Excision is probably the only treatment.’

‘You already knew that,’ Gulda retorted, leaning forward. ‘Any half-baked stitcher of gashes could have told you that. Now answer the question you know I was asking. What has Oklar’s touch taught you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hawklan replied after a brief silence.

Gulda’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go back to the source, Hawklan,’ she said purposefully, leaning back in her chair again.

Hawklan looked into the fire and welcomed its warmth on his face. The terrible confrontation at the Palace Gate came to him again as it did every day, as did all his doubts and questions.

‘I was frozen with terror after my arrow hit him,’ he began. ‘I felt his malevolence overwhelming me before I could even reach for a second one. Then Andawyr’s voice came from somewhere, very weak and distant. "The sword," he said. "Ethriss’s sword."’ Hawklan’s eyes widened as the scene unfolded before him inexorably, their green eerie in the red firelight. ‘But I didn’t know how to use it against such a foe-no part of me knew how to use it-no dormant Guardian rose up from within to protect me when his power struck me-nothing. I did what I could. I tried to heal. I felt the sword severing his dreadful destruction but still it came on, pushing me deeper into… darkness.’

He stopped and looked at Gulda. ‘Perhaps if I’d not used the sword… not cleaved his power… those two great swathes of destruction wouldn’t have been cut across Vakloss. Perhaps all those people would have been spared.’

Gulda shrugged, though in helplessness, not cal-lousness. ‘They would have been spared had you kept to your bed that day,’ she said relentlessly. ‘But a thousand times their number would have died the sooner if you hadn’t defied him.’

‘It’s a bitter consolation,’ Hawklan said.

‘There’s none other,’ Gulda replied gently. ‘Finish your tale.’

His doubt not eased, Hawklan hesitated, then his face darkened. ‘As I fell, I felt His presence… icy… terrible.’

Gulda leaned forward, her face urgent and intent. ‘ He came there?’ Her voice was the merest whisper. ‘He reached out from Narsindal?’

Abruptly her face was alive with pain and uncer-tainty. Hawklan reached out and took her hands. She was trembling and her pulse was racing as if with passion. For a moment she did not respond, then with a casual gesture she freed herself from his grip and motioned him back to his chair.

‘How did you know it was Him?’ she said stonily.

‘How could I not,’ Hawklan replied. ‘And He spoke.’

Gulda sank back into the shade of her chair. ‘He called me… the Keeper of Ethriss’s Lair.’

Hawklan wrapped his arms about himself and shuddered. As if in response, the radiant stones flared up brightly, throwing up a brilliant cascade of sparks and sending a myriad subtle shadows dancing through all the ancient carvings.

For a long time, the two sat silent, and the fire sub-sided, clucking and spluttering to itself unheeded.

‘Only the pain and terror of His Uhriel could have lured His spirit from Narsindal,’ Gulda said eventually, her voice low as if fearful that her very words could bring Him forth again. ‘Only that could have enabled it to happen. I think Loman’s arrow was truer than even I thought. And perhaps you too, wielded the sword better than you knew. Perhaps you did not divide Oklar’s power, but cut the heart out of it and returned it whence it came, as Ethriss himself might have done.’

Hawklan looked at her. ‘I am not Ethriss,’ he said.

‘Perhaps,’ Gulda said, ‘perhaps not. You’re certainly Hawklan the healer, as you ever were, though more knowledgeable, as I fancy you’ll tell me in a moment. But you’re something else as well.’ Hawklan scowled, but Gulda dismissed his denial. ‘Sumeral’s Will reached out to His Uhriel, but He didn’t destroy you, as He could have done, protected though you were by Ethriss’s sword. He let you be.’

Hawklan shook his head and wrapped his arms about himself again. ‘I felt Him,’ he said.

Gulda shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t touch you. His voice alone would have shrivelled you. You caught the edge of His merest whisper. He let you be, and He bound His Uhriel to ensure that he too would not assail you further.’