Roger Taylor - The call of the sword

One such was an old torch-maker. He looked long-ingly at a stone he had caught with his foot, and then up at the globes, with an expression of distaste that verged on hatred. Past experience had taught him however, that the globes were too high and too hard to be damaged by such a missile.

His whole craft had been destroyed almost over-night by Dan-Tor’s globes and he and his Guild, though provided for after a fashion, were left without any purpose. They knew, more than anyone, that the globes were an abomination, though few would listen to them. Their skills were ancient and yet they would die out totally within a few years. Their torches had filled the night streets of Vakloss with yellow, clear light, with softened shadows that blended with the moon and the starlight, and in which people could walk and talk in the reflective quiet of the night. He looked vainly for the moon and stars tonight, blasted out of existence by Dan-Tor’s lights. And people skulked and talked in whispers these days.

And the waste! He shuddered. The torches held and used the very sunlight itself. But these things! What horrors fed them? He kicked the stone bitterly and turned towards his home. The word abomination did not seem strong enough for what he felt. With their very brilliance, the torches oppressed the city. It seemed to be full of foreboding these days.

From a window high above, Eldric watched the man fade into the gloom. The four Lords had finished their discussion and were taking leave of one another when the lone figure had caught Eldric’s eye.

Scarcely had the man disappeared when a group of liveried men marched in a tight formation across the square.

‘Who are they?’ he asked. ‘I don’t recognize that livery.

The others joined him in the curved window alcove.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Arinndier. ‘But I’d like to know why they’re marching in formation at this time of night.’

The others expressed their ignorance also. A ser-vant, who was adjusting the torches, glanced out of another window.

‘Lords,’ he said, ‘they’re the King’s High Guard.’ He raised his eyebrows significantly.

The four men turned as one.

‘The King has no High Guard,’ said Darek. ‘You know that. He has a palace retinue drawn by rote from the High Guards of the Lords. They wear the Regal Sash over their own livery.’ His tone was a mixture of admonishment and inquiry underlain by alarm.

The servant shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Lord Darek. They’re the King’s High Guard. They appeared a few days after the Geadrol was suspended. The proclamation said they were needed because of increasing disorder in the city.’

‘Proclamation? Disorder?’ exclaimed Hreldar.

The servant nodded. The four men were silent.

‘The rote Guards were stood down as usual for the Grand Festival so that they could return to their Lords. Then these people suddenly appeared,’ the servant continued.

Eldric let out a noisy breath. ‘Thank you, Alar,’ he said, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Leave these few things; we’ll attend to them. Get to your bed.’

The man bowed and left the room.

Darek drove his fist into the table in an uncharacter-istic display of passion. When he spoke, he could not keep the anger out of his voice. ‘The suspending of the Geadrol is without precedent, but it’s an arguable matter. It may or may not be acceptable depending on the circumstances. But the King is expressly forbidden his own High Guard. It’s the exclusive right and duty of the Lords to maintain them. This is an illegal act beyond all doubt, beyond all argument.’

With his shoulders hunched high he levered his weight on to his two fists on the table. Then he dropped back and brought the flat of his hand down onto the table again with a resounding slap accompanied by an oath.

The others watched him. It was their habit to tease him and call him Lawyer Darek because of his scholarly ways and interest in the Law. They all knew that the formation of a King’s High Guard was directly contrary to the Law. A grave and serious offence. But no single act since they had heard of the suspension of the Geadrol had chilled them as much as this passionate outburst from their staid friend.

Eldric gazed out into the darkness in the direction the men had marched. He could not avoid the thought that he too would soon be walking into the shadow, and possibly many others with him.

Gavor was suddenly wide awake. Something was wrong. Looking round in the dim light of the dying fire he could see no sign of anything that might have disturbed him, until his gleaming eye fell on the place where Hawklan had lain. It was empty. He blinked and shook his head, but no image of a sleeping Hawklan formed in the empty place to indicate he might have been dreaming. Flapping his wings anxiously he began to hop round and round on the pack where he had been perching, peering intently out into the night.

Through the high hedge that surrounded the sleep-ing area he could see that the Gretmearc seemed to be as busy as it had been during the day, if not busier; all manner of lights flickering and shining as traders vied for the attention of the passing crowds. The harsh shadows and the many strange colours that formed as these lights mingled and washed across the crowded pathways gave the scene a slightly sinister, unreal appearance in Gavor’s eyes.

But no familiar silhouette etched itself against this background. All was still around the sleeping area, in contrast to Gavor’s mind, which was beginning to whirl at the behest of some unseen and growing alarm that reason could not allay.

A nearby figure mumbled something and turned over.

The proximity of the sound overlying the muffled hubbub of the Gretmearc made Gavor start.

‘Shush, dear boy,’ he whispered unthinkingly, and then his body chose action as a response to his mount-ing fears.

Had the fretful sleeper opened his eyes to examine the owner of the soothing voice that exhorted him to rest, he would have seen a silent shadow flying swiftly out of the shelter as Gavor took to the air in search of his friend; wings, blacker than the night, sweeping the air aside purposefully.

Gavor’s fears took him up up up desperately, through and into the darkness, until he found himself resting on a cool breeze and high above the glittering turmoil. Gliding slowly in wide, wind-swishing circles he began to grow at once calmer and more concerned. Concerned that his friend had left the shelter without wakening him, and concerned about the panorama below him.

From his lofty vantage he saw that the Gretmearc was much bigger than it had seemed during the day, as all the tree walkways around the western edge were lit and their twinkling lights penetrated deep into the forest. Also, many of the larger buildings, dull and still during the day, were now teeming with activity. Most even had rooms below ground from which light and sounds cascaded up into the air through open windows and stairwells. Worse, not all the sounds were those of merrymaking. Angry voices floated up to him occasion-ally, and the sounds of fighting also. It did little to ease Gavor’s concern to realize that the Gretmearc of the night was not the same as that of the day.

He flew a little higher.

‘Where’ve you gone, dear boy?’ he said, as if the sound of his own voice would keep at bay the realization that his chances of finding Hawklan were remote.

Where to start in those two great pools of light, joined by the slender glow-worm thread of the bridge, its lights edged by turbulent reflections from the water below? He closed his eyes and rolled over and over, tumbling as he did so. When he opened them he flew straight towards the first lights that caught his eye, in a wind-whistling dive that arched the tips of his feathers upwards.