The Hawk Eternal (29 page)

'How are you faring?' he asked as they sat together under the bright stars.

Taliesen's eyes gleamed and he smiled. 'I will not die on you, Caswallon.'

'That does not answer my question.'

'I am exhausted. But then I am old.' He looked at the young warrior beside him, his eyes full of guile. 'Do you know how old?'

'Seventy? Eighty?'

'If I told you my age, would you believe me?'

'Yes. Why would you lie?'

'I will not lie, Caswallon. I am over a thousand years old.'

'I was wrong,' said Caswallon, grinning. 'I do not believe you.'

'And yet I speak the truth. It was I who brought Earis here so many centuries ago. On this very hill, he and I looked down on the Farlain and knew joy.'

'Stop this jest, Taliesen ...'

'It is no jest, Caswallon, and I am not speaking to impress you. Of all the clansmen, you alone have the capacity to understand what I am going to tell you. You have an open, enquiring mind and a rare intelligence. You are not prey to superstitions. You make your own judgements. I am more than one thousand years old. I was born out there!' The old man's bony hand flashed out, pointing to the stars. 'You've heard tales of the elder race, the vanished people. I am the last of those elders; the last true-blooded anyway. We made the Gates, Caswallon, and we journeyed across distances so great I could not impress on you the scale of it. Think of an ant crossing the Farlain and multiply it a thousand times, and you would have but the first step of my journeys.

'We came here, and from here we spread across the Universe. We were the Star Walkers. We birthed religions and created mythologies wherever man saw us. But then came catastrophe.' The druid bowed his head, staring at his hands.

'What happened?' asked Caswallon.

'The Great Gates closed. Suddenly, without warning. Our links with home and distant empires were severed, gone without trace. All that remained were the Lesser Gates: playthings created for students like myself who wished to study the evolution of primitive societies in a controlled environment.'

'I do not understand any of this,' said Caswallon. 'But I read men well, and I believe what you say. Why are you telling me now?'

'Because I need you. Because you are the catalyst. Because the future of the Farlain — my chosen people - rests with you. And because you will see great wonders in the days to come and your mind must be prepared. I cannot explain to you the nature of the skills that created the Gates. So think of it as magic, impossibility made reality. You know that I have a hiding-place for the clan. I am going to tell you now where that hiding-place is: Golfallin, the first valley of the Farlain.'

'What nonsense is this? You will take us back where we have come from?'

'Yes. But there will be no Aenir, no crofts and homes, only virgin land.'

'How so?'

'As I did with Earis," said the old man. The Gates do not merely link different lands, Caswallon. I shall take you all through time itself. We are going back ten thousand years, to a time before the clan, before the Aenir.'

That would be magic indeed.'

'You, however, will not be going back. There is a task you must perform.'

'Name it.'

'You must find the Queen who died and bring her to the Farlain with her army. Only then can you hope to crush the Aenir.'

'You want me to find a dead woman?'

'Time, Caswallon. Where I will send you she is still young.'

'Why should she aid us?'

The old druid shrugged. 'There are some questions I will not answer. But let me say this: The chaos we are enduring was caused -in part- by one selfish man. I am doing all in my power to reverse it.'

'Oracle?'

'Yes.'

'He told me of his journey," said Caswallon, 'and that is why I believe you. He said he took his men through the Gate and came to a realm torn by war. He chose to serve the Queen and gained prominence. He told he fought many battles until at last he crossed the Gateway once more and became a king in a far land, with an army of thousands at his back. But then he suffered betrayal and fled back to the Gate.'

'He did not tell you all, Caswallon. Men rarely do when speaking of their mistakes. He became a king, even as he said, but to do so he made alliances with evil men. One such was Agrist, a rare brute. In return for Agrist's services Oracle gave him the secret of the Gate, and Agrist led his people through in search of riches and plunder. They thrived in their new world and grew strong. They became the Aenir, who now pillage the Farlain. For the Gate Oracle gave them brought them to the recent past of our world."

'He did tell me,' said Caswallon.

The druid gave a thin smile. 'Did he also tell you of the night after Sigarni's great battle when he found the enemy general's widow and her daughter hiding in a cave? Did he describe how he raped the mother in front of the daughter, and of how the noble lady slew herself?'

'No,' replied the clansman.

'No,' echoed Taliesen. 'Nor did he say how he stole the legendary Sword of Ironhand from the Queen, and used its power to build his own kingdom from the blood of innocence. As I said men rarely tell the whole truth of their iniquities. I have spent years, Caswallon, trying to repair the damage his pride and ambition caused.'

Caswallon turned away to gaze out over the silhouetted mountains, black against a grey sky. 'I feel like a child taught to scrawl his name, who is given a book and told to read it. I can make out some of the letters, but the words are lost to me. Gateways, journeys through time.' He glanced at the old man, holding his gaze. 'If we can make such journeys, why can we not merely go back a few days and save all the people? We could hit the Aenir before they invade.'

Taliesen nodded. 'What if I told you that we did ? And that it failed and the Farlain were destroyed?"

'Now you have lost me utterly.'

'That is what makes the chaos so terrible,' said Taliesen. 'There are so many alternative realities. If I told you now how many times I have tried to prevent an Aenir victory you would think me mad. The complexities and paradoxes created are legion. Armies out of their time, dead men who were destined to live and achieve greatness, women who should have borne proud sons murdered in their childhood. Destiny thwarted, changed - the Gateways themselves trembling under the weight of the chaos.' Taliesen sighed. 'Do you know how many times you and I have had this conversation? Of course you don't, but it runs into scores, Caswallon. And how many times have I seen the clans destroyed, the Aenir triumphant? Hundreds. Now I grow older and more frail, and the task is as great as ever it was.'

Caswallon smiled grimly. 'I doubt that I can learn what you have to teach, old man. You are taking the clan back to before they were born, and then I shall seek help from a Queen already dead. Do you hold more surprises for me, Taliesen?'

The Druid Lord did not answer. He leaned back, gazing at the stars, naming them in his mind until he fastened on the furthest, its light flickering like a guttering candle.

Taliesen pushed himself to his feet, his heart heavy, his mind tired. 'Aye, I have more surprises, War Lord,' he said. 'If we are to win, Caswallon, which is not likely, then you will change and suffer as no Farlain has before you.' Taliesen sighed. 'I do not yet know how all this will come to pass, but I know that it will, for I have seen the Hawk Eternal.'

Caswallon was about to speak, but Taliesen raised his hand for silence. 'No more words tonight, War Lord. For I am weary unto death.'

Oracle watched the Aenir in the valley below. They had slaughtered three prime steers and were preparing a feast. Since the invasion three days before not one enemy warrior had approached the cave. Heavy of heart, Oracle walked back to the entrance and on into the small room at the rear of the cave. He had seen the death of Durk, and now from beneath his narrow cot bed he pulled an oak chest, brass-edged and finely-worked. From it he took a rusting mail-shirt and helm and an old broadsword wrapped in oiled cloth. He donned the mail-shirt noting, with a wry grin, that it no longer hung well on his bony frame. Man aged less well than iron. Pushing back his white hair, he placed the helm firmly on his head. Looping sword and scabbard about his waist, he moved back into the sunlight and began the long walk into the valley.

Many were the thoughts as he strode down towards the feast. He remembered his childhood, and the first Hunt, his glory at the Games when he carried the Whorl Stone farther than any man before him. He remembered his love, Astel, a spirited lass from among the Haesten, and how she had sickened and died during their first winter together. The sense of loss crippled him still, though she remained young in his memory while he withered in reality.

The trees thinned out and he walked on.

Then had come the day when he approached the Council following his success in the war against the lowland raiders. Great days, when his name was sung throughout the Farlain. He believed they would make him King. Instead they had rejected him, and in his fury he had sworn never to return to the clan.

With a few valiant followers he had risked everything sailing to Vallon. There he overpowered the druids who manned the Gate, and journeyed to the world beyond. For two years he fought alongside the Battle Queen, Sigarni. Regret touched him as the long-suppressed memory of his shame rose to his mind. Sigarni had dismissed him, stripping him of rank. Oracle and his followers had then crossed the Gate once more to a distant land.

And what a land it was, green and fertile, with rolling hills and verdant valleys, broad plains and tall cities of glowing marble. It was a country riven by civil war, petty chieftains and robber princes vying with one another for control. Oracle had arrived in a world made for his talents. Within two years he was a general. Within five he led an army of three thousand men against Vashinu, the Prince of Foxes, and smashed him in a battle near Duncarnin. Five years later he crowned himself King and was acclaimed from northern mountains to southern seas as the undisputed Lord of the Isles, High King.

Had he been possessed of compassion, or even foresight, he might have changed that troubled land, bringing peace and prosperity to his subjects. But he had been a man of war, and had learned nothing of diplomacy, nor forgiveness. He persecuted his enemies, creating greater hatreds and thus more enemies. Two rebellions he crushed, but the third saw his army broken.

Wounded and alone, his few close friends dead or captured, he fled north and there vainly attempted to gather a force. For three years he fought minor campaigns, but always the great victories slipped away until at last he was betrayed by his lieutenants and turned over to his enemies. Sentenced to death, he had broken from his prison, killing two guards, stolen a horse and made his way south-east to the Gateway once more. Twice they almost caught him, an arrow piercing his back. But he had been strong then, and he carried the wound to the druid's cave - the cave he had stumbled from so many years before, when first he laid eyes on the Land of Isles.

There had been a druid there, who had gazed upon him, shocked and bewildered. He had been one of the men Oracle had overpowered long before on Vallon. Oracle, weak from loss of blood, asked the man to send him back home. He had done so without argument.

Now the old man gazed down on the fruits of his ambition, and bitter was the taste. The valley was scarred by the invasion, burnt-out homes black against the greenery, enemy soldiers trampling the wheat in the fields. By the long hall were the guards, and within were the captured women of three clans, kept in chains to endure the lusts of the conquerors.

Men looked up from their work as the old man came in sight, then began to gather and point at him. Laughter began and sped as warriors came running to watch him. The laughter touched Oracle's mind like acid. In his day men had quailed to see him thus attired.

Now he was a figure of fun. He drew his sword, and the laughter subsided.

Then someone called, 'Run, lads. It's the entire clan army!'

And they mocked him, spreading out in a circle about him.

'Where is your leader?' he asked.

'Hark, it speaks! You can talk to me, old man. Tell me your business.'

'I seek the dog, not its droppings,' said Oracle. The man's face reddened as he heard the laughter and felt the acid. He drew his sword and leaped forward. Oracle parried his thrust, reversing a cut that half-severed the man's neck.

The laughter died, replaced by the sharp, sliding hiss of swords being drawn.

'Leave him. He interests me,' said Asbidag, striding through the crowd - Drada to his right side, Tostig at his left. He halted some five paces from Oracle, grinning as he noticed the rusted mail-shirt.

'I am the leader. Say what you must.'

'I have nothing to say, spawn of Agrist. I came here to die. Will you join me?'

'You want to fight me, old man?"

'Have you the stomach for it?'

'Yes. But first tell me where your clan has gone. Where are they hiding, and what do they plan?'

Oracle grinned. 'They are hiding all around you, and they plan your destruction.'

'I think you can tell me more than that. Take him!'

The men surged forward. Oracle's sword flashed twice and men fell screaming. The old man reversed his blade, driving it deep into the belly of the nearest warrior. In his pain and rage the Aenir lashed back with his own sword, cleaving Oracle's ribs and piercing his lungs. He doubled over and fell, blood gushing from the wound.