Roger Taylor: The fall of Fyorlund

For a moment he stood motionless, feeling the pow-erful presence waiting for him. It was a power such as he had not met since his return from the darkness-but it was not the Power of Ethriss awakened. Slowly, hope began to mingle with fear. With soft words and cunning, he might yet lure Hawklan into subtle captivity. It wouldn’t be easy. Hawklan’s distrust would be deep and profound. Nonetheless, it was possible. The man might yet be bound and delivered to His care in Derras Ustramel.

He moved forward and the group of people gathered around the main doorway parted silently to allow him through. A harassed Urssain met him.

‘Commander,’ Dan-Tor said coldly. ‘I’m called away from an audience with the King like some scullery-maid… ’ The look on Urssain’s face stopped him.

‘Ffyrst, I don’t know what’s happened. There’s been unrest since Eldric was taken from Oremson’s, and that business with the Queen didn’t help, but we’ve had no indication of anything like this.’ Urssain’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘The crowd’s enormous. I daren’t set the men on them.’

‘Daren’t, Commander?’ said Dan-Tor, his voice heavy with contempt. ‘The Mathidrin, who were prepared to face the High Guards in open battle? Daren’t deal with a rabble led by a bumpkin of a healer?’

Urssain made no answer.

Hawklan had found the latter part of his journey torturously difficult. The chorus of tiny cries that emanated from all the living things around the City had grown appallingly as he had drawn nearer. A myriad spirits sensed him for a healer and reached out to him. Their pleas hung about him like a damp cloth, impeding his movements and distracting his thoughts.

‘I can’t help you,’ he cried out finally. ‘I must find the heart of the ill that afflicts you all.’

And it’s here, he thought, as the lank figure of Dan-Tor appeared at the head of the steps leading to the main doors of the Palace. It seemed to Hawklan, however, that the figure in front of him was only part of a whole, a projection into this time and place of something unbelievably wrong. So wrong that Dan-Tor’s very frame seemed to tear its way through the very daylight.

It came to Hawklan suddenly that he had been pre-posterously foolish in searching so diligently for this confrontation. Perhaps indeed all his journeyings had been but the following of a carefully laid bait. Perhaps he was destined to be caught and bound by this creature. But then another voice spoke to him: told him he had had no alternative. Other things were waking than Sumeral’s creatures and he must play the part he saw before him, no matter what the cost. Less would be a betrayal.

The figure rent its way further through the daylight as it moved down the steps towards him, but it stopped part way as if it had walked into some unseen barrier. A white scimitar smile split its face, but illuminated nothing.

‘My Lord Hawklan,’ a kindly voice floated across the courtyard. ‘I can understand that you might wish to twit me for my unusual visit to your fair village, but this… ’ A long arm swept over the crowd at Hawklan’s back, now watchful and silent.

The voice was amused, but nothing in Hawklan’s sight radiated humour. The crowd had grown rapidly and spontaneously around him, as if his single act of defiance had crystallized the City’s brooding tensions.

Before he could reply, Dan-Tor spoke again. ‘I fancy we’ve much to talk over, you and I. Mistakes and misunderstandings to be rectified.’

Hawklan neither moved or replied, Dan-Tor’s words and his awful presence belied each other so starkly.

Dan-Tor’s smile broadened reassuringly. ‘I’m unfa-miliar with the ways of Orthlund, but if you’ve been any time in Fyorlund, then you must know by now that it’s our way to talk. To talk endlessly, in fact. It’s an old and trusted way.’

Hawklan’s uncertainty grew. To stand there silent would serve no purpose. To bandy words with the man in public would be hazardous. But to enter his lair…?

There was a slight disturbance behind him. ‘It’s only the horses,’ whispered Isloman, and Hawklan turned as Serian and Isloman’s horse walked through the surprised crowd. Dan-Tor quailed as he saw the sword and bow hanging from Serian’s saddle. Casually, Hawklan lifted down the sword and fastened it about his waist.

Dan-Tor’s smile did not fade, but the aura around him shifted restlessly. ‘Lord Hawklan,’ he said, ‘I offer you speech, in the manner of the Fyordyn, and you arm for violence.’

Hawklan was about to speak when Serian breathed softly to him. ‘Take care. The people don’t have your sight. They see only his smile and your sword and stony face.’

With difficulty, Hawklan bent his mouth into a smile. ‘Isn’t it the way of the Fyordyn to be armed for battle when speaking in the Geadrol?’

Dan-Tor bowed slightly but did not answer.

The smile on Hawklan’s face faded. It was no use. He couldn’t maintain any pretence in the presence of this abomination. He felt himself being overwhelmed by forces he did not understand, and it was taking all his conscious will to restrain them. Like distant thunder, drums and trumpets sounded in his mind, as if presaging a terrible battle.

Dan-Tor felt himself similarly assailed, though he knew too well the nature of the forces he was dealing with. Around Hawklan was an aura such as he had not seen since the time of the First Coming. Every fibre of him strained to leap out and destroy this obscenity; this distortion and obstacle to His plans. But the danger…

Two great and opposite forces lowered over one another like black storm clouds, held back by who knew what restraints until some tiny stirring would unleash their lightning. Each grew with the other.

Serian whinnied nervously and stepped back.

Hawklan watched, impotent, as the vague ill-formed hopes he had carried with him died at the sight of the pitiless reality he was facing. Visions of ills cured, problems solved, wrongs righted through debate and reason, laughed at him distantly for his naivety, scorned him for a fool.

The few words that he and Dan-Tor had exchanged lay between them like dead leaves: a pitiful rustling futility echoing in the awesome silence. Both pondered the featureless terrain of doubt. Neither could leave the object of his long search. Neither could seize it. The people watched, silent and uncomprehending.

Then from high above came a raucous cry. A cry that had sounded over the Mandrocs as they marched on the High Guards in Orthlund. Dan-Tor started violently. His smile vanished and he looked up at the circling Gavor. Hawklan felt the spirit around the man darken and writhe. Then abruptly he was gazing into Dan-Tor’s hate-filled eyes.

‘I’ll not be mocked by your death bird, Orthlundyn,’ came a grim and terrible voice, that seemed to fill the very sky, and Hawklan felt a great blow being gathered for the destruction of his friend.

His vision cleared. He had been drawn from Orthlund on a search for the source of a great evil. Now it lay before him, strong, vigorous and purposeful. The world would crumble before it if it were not struck down.

The healer in him urged, ‘Excise this diseased tis-sue.’ The warrior roared, ‘Kill it before it kills you.’ And all the living things about Vakloss cried out for release and vengeance. Words would avail nothing here. The first stroke must now be his, no matter how it seemed in the eyes of the watchers.

With a movement as natural as the swaying of rushes in the wind, Hawklan swung round and lifted the Black Bow and a single arrow from his waiting horse. Dan-Tor’s blow for Gavor gathered in strength then faltered, distracted by this sinister harmony at the edge of his vision. As he turned, Hawklan nocked the arrow and drew back Ethriss’s Black Bow. It creaked like the mast of a tall ship then, without pause, Hawklan released Loman’s arrow towards the very heart of the terrible creation that stood before him.