Roger Taylor - The call of the sword

He left Tirilen at the green and wandered slowly back through the village. Behind him he could hear friendly cries of dismay as the tinker started to load his wares into his pack, and the tinker’s protestations as he reluctantly made yet another last sale.

The sun was now quite low in the sky and beginning to cast long shadows, etching out the patterns of the spring evening on walls and quiet streets. Hawklan nodded acknowledgements to the few people he met who had come out to look at the shadows. There was always someone, somewhere in Pedhavin, looking at the shadows, for the carvers worked their stone not only to represent animals and people and ideas, but so that they could tell other tales when the light of the sun, or the moon, or the stars, fell on them and painted strangely solid shapes in their tenuous wake.

Some shadows would be large and grandiose, spill-ing out over the streets and houses, while others were changes within the carvings themselves. Hawklan found himself looking at a small frieze on which was carved a group of people gathered at the green he had just left. He knew the figures were arranged in such a way that at a certain time of day they would apparently turn to look at the sun, while at another they seemed to be looking at one another and to be engaged in deep conversation.

‘Not a bad piece of rock spoiling,’ came a deep voice from behind him. He recognized it and turned with a smile. Isloman was Loman’s elder brother and he was standing in the middle of the street looking critically at the frieze. In his arms he cradled a huge rock effort-lessly. Although Hawklan was as tall as Isloman, he always felt dwarfed by the man’s massive frame and enormous strength.

‘Do you want any help with that?’ Hawklan asked, knowing the answer. The grime on Isloman’s face cracked as he grinned.

‘No thank you, Hawklan. It’s only a pebble for a lady’s bracelet,’ he said, swinging the rock up onto his shoulder, and supporting it lightly with one hand.

‘Then I should prefer not to meet her,’ retorted Hawklan. Isloman bellowed his great laugh.

‘Are you sure it wasn’t a woman who lured you out of your castle today?’

Hawklan nodded an acknowledgement. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Much more of a woman than she was but twelve months ago, and even more of a match for both of us than she used to be.’

Isloman was the third member of the triumvirate that looked after and doted on Tirilen. The women of the village had little doubt why she used to behave the way she did, with no mother and three fathers.

The two men walked slowly up the street together, Isloman pausing every now and then to examine some grotesque shadow he was making with the huge rock on his shoulder.

Hawklan liked the bluff openness of Isloman. He had a presence like the mountains themselves, honest and direct; and as they walked, Hawklan welcomed his company, the companionable silence dispelling a little the effects of the strange tinker and his tiny, sinister doll.

By common consent, Isloman had been for a long time the Guild’s First Carver and, as such, he was the only villager who earned his bread by carving alone. No stranger, however, would have associated the delicate and sensitive work he did with the rocklike figure he himself presented.

Reaching his workshop, Isloman dropped the rock back into his two hands and, with a grunt, bent his knees to lower it to the ground. He gave it an affection-ate pat as he stood up.

‘It’s taken me weeks to find that. I could hear it calling, but could I find it?’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘Just look at it. Isn’t it magnificent?’

Hawklan looked blankly from him to the rock and back again, and Isloman growled and clapped a huge hand on his shoulder.

‘Ah. I forgot. You’re rock-blind aren’t you? Not be-ing a local.’ Then, with a great wink, ‘Still, you’re useful enough when someone needs to be put together.’

‘That’s a great relief,’ said Hawklan, rubbing his shoulder. It was an exchange they had had many times before.

Isloman stripped off his leather apron and stained shirt, and then plunged his great torso into a nearby water butt. When he emerged he was blowing like a granite leviathan and he completed his toilet by rubbing himself with a handful of small sharp pebbles from a box next to the butt. It was the dexterity with which his huge hands manipulated these pebbles that offset for Hawklan the physical distress he felt whenever he watched this ritual. Even so, he usually had the feeling he was being skinned. He knew too that Isloman enjoyed his discomfiture and would very soon start to laugh. And he did. He leaned back, boomed his hands on his great chest and roared with laughter.

‘I’m sorry, Hawklan. I can’t help it. I’d be the great-est carver in the history of all Orthlund if I could capture the look on your face when I dry off.’ He raised a finger significantly. ‘In fact, I may well make it my life’s work.’

‘Not if I have to keep watching you do that, you won’t,’ said Hawklan in mock alarm.

‘Ah. It’s only a knack,’ said Isloman with a chuckle as he rolled the pebbles in his hand. He looked wistful for a moment as he stared down at them. ‘I’ve used pebbles like these on a baby before now. Many a time, when Tirilen was little.’

Hawklan nodded and smiled.

‘Come on,’ said Isloman, pulling on a clean shirt. ‘I’ll show you what I’m going to coax out of that piece we just brought up.’

Inside the workshop there was the chaos that only an artist could create. Isloman shuffled through sketches and sheets of writing and figures, talking earnestly and enthusiastically as he did. Hawklan however, was lost, as usual. The sketches were inordi-nately complicated and were works of art in themselves. The scripts were in the ancient carver’s tongue, and Isloman’s explanation was full of technical nuances which were utterly beyond him. Still, he enjoyed Isloman’s enthusiasm. It was like being bathed in sunlight.

He found himself absently handling a chisel while Isloman was talking.

‘I see you made a purchase from our visitor,’ he said during a lull.

‘Yes,’ said Isloman, with a slight frown, gently taking the chisel from Hawklan’s hand.

‘Hm,’ he muttered doubtfully.

‘Is anything wrong?’ Hawklan asked. Isloman shrugged slightly.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘There’s something peculiar about it that I didn’t notice when I bought it, but I don’t know what it is.’ He shrugged again and laid the chisel back on the table. ‘I think that tinker could sell any-thing. I’ve never seen the like of him before, have you? And we’ve had some characters come through here on their way to the market from time to time.’

‘The Gretmearc?’ said Hawklan.

‘Yes.’

A tiny doll walked jerkily through Hawklan’s mem-ory and made an invitation.

‘I’ve never been to the Gretmearc,’ said Hawklan, pushing the chisel with the end of his finger.

‘I’ve only been a couple of times,’ said Isloman. He smiled at the recollection.

‘It’s a long way and not too easy through the moun-tains. But… ’ He sat up and smacked his hands on his knees. ‘Everyone should go to the Gretmearc at least once in his life. Tirilen’s always pestering to go. I suppose Loman or I will have to take her one day.’

Then he looked at Hawklan in some surprise. ‘It’s a strange place for you to mention, Hawklan. You, who’ve never been more than two days’ walk from the village. Are you getting itchy feet?’

A small black certainty floated into Hawklan’s mind. He returned Isloman’s gaze.

‘It seems I have to go, Isloman. I don’t know why, and I’ve only just realized it; but yes, I have to go.’ Hawklan’s tone was suddenly serious. Isloman’s great square head tilted a little to one side, his brown eyes full of concern and puzzlement. The sun shone in through the window and lit up grey flecks, like stone, in his short-cropped hair. He could see into the heart of any rock, and into the hearts of many men, but that of Hawklan was ever closed. And yet he trusted him completely. Rockblind the man might be, but his inner sight was beyond that of any other Isloman had ever known. Without hesitation or further questions he said, ‘Shall I go with you?’