The Hawk Eternal (39 page)

'We will find a way to open the Gates,' he said, surprised at the confidence in his voice. 'And more than that. I don't intend to merely lash out like a dying bear. I want to win. By the gods, we're all clansmen here. Brothers and cousins. Together we will destroy Asbidag and his rag-tag band of killers.'

'A pretty speech, Maggrig,' said Dunild softly. 'But how - and where - will this be achieved?'

That is for us to decide at this meeting,' answered Maggrig. 'Who will begin?'

An hour of discussion followed as the clan leaders suggested various possible battle sites, mostly occupying high ground. None of the sites offered even the possibility of a victory. Then Intosh suggested a mountain pass some twenty miles east. It was known as Icairn's Folly, following a battle there hundreds of years ago when a young chieftain had followed his enemy into the pass and been destroyed.

'We could man the pass walls with archers and lure the Aenir in upon us,' said Intosh. 'The mountain walls narrow in to two hundred and fifty paces apart at the centre, and a small force could hold a larger.'

'And what when we are pushed back? The pass is blocked and we would be like cattle in a slaughter pen,' said Maggrig.

'Let's not be pushed back,' said Intosh.

'But can we win there?' asked Grigor. 'I don't like the idea of hurling my clan to doom on one battle.'

'Can we win anywhere?' asked Leofas.

The Folly does have one advantage,' offered Maggrig. 'Our archers will wreak a terrible slaughter among the enemy. The Aenir could break and run. They've done it before - when the Pallides crushed them.'

'Even so, is it wise,' asked Dunild, 'to choose a battle site with no avenue of retreat?'

'All other areas are ruled out,' said Intosh. 'Although we cannot retreat, they cannot encircle us.'

'We could continue to hit and run,' suggested Lennox, who had remained silent for much of the planning.

'But we can't win that way,' said his father. 'I hate to admit it, but it seems we have run out of choices. I vote for Icairn's Folly.'

The other leaders nodded, then Grigor spoke. This is your war, Maggrig, not mine. I have come because we are all clan. But I'll not watch my men cut to pieces. My archers will man the left-hand slope of the pass. If you are crushed, we can still escape.'

'What more could be expected from the Grigors?' snapped Dunild.

Patris Grigor started to rise, reaching for his sword, but Maggrig stopped him with a raised hand.

'Enough!' he said. 'Patris is entirely correct. Dunild, you and your Loda warriors will hold the right-hand slopes, Patris the left. The Pallides and the Farlain will stand together at the centre. If we are pushed back or scattered, the rest of you must get away with as many men as you can. Take to your own lands. But for the sake of all clansmen, do not go back to war with one another. For your lands will be next, I think.'

'We are decided then?' asked Leofas.

'It seems so,' said Maggrig.

Caswallon's first realisation that anything was wrong came early on the fourth morning of his stay in Citadel. Borrowing a horse, he rode into the hills seeking Taliesen and the Gate. He was anxious to hear of the Aenir advance.

When he arrived at the slope he found no entrance. At first he was unconcerned and returned to the city, spending the day with Sigarni, listening as she talked warmly of her youth and the early days of her rule - days of bloody war and treachery, and close encounters with disaster. Through the conversations Caswallon's appreciation of the Queen grew. She was a natural tactician but, more than this, knew men, their strengths and weaknesses and what drove them.

She had a close-knit band of followers, fanatically loyal, led by the powerful Obrin, the Queen's Captain, a man of iron strength and innate cunning. Sigarni talked of a black general called Asmidir, who had died holding the rearguard against the Earl of Jastey and his army, and of a dwarf named Ballistar who had journeyed through a Gateway in the company of Ironhand's ghost. But of the Redhawk she had known she said little, save that he had appeared following the death of Asmidir and had helped her to train her men, leading the left wing against Jastey and his thousands.

'Do I have friends here?' he asked.

'Apart from me?' she countered, with a quick smile. 'Who would need more? But yes, there is Obrin. You and he became sword brothers. I think he is a little hurt that you have spent so little time with him."

The Queen had agreed to lead her warriors into the Farlain, but said she could gather only four thousand. The call went out, and the muster began.

At dawn Caswallon tried again to find the Gate. This time an edge of anger pricked him.

What was Taliesen doing, closing the Gate at such a time?

Taking supplies for three days, he rode north to the great Falls of Attafoss. Leaving the horse tethered on a grassy meadow he swam across to the isle of Vallon and entered the deep honeycomb of caves beneath the hill. Near the entrance he was met by an elderly druid he had seen with Taliesen.

'Why has the Gate been closed?' asked Caswallon. The man wrung his hands. His face was pinched and tight as if he had not slept for days.

'I don't know,' he wailed. 'Nothing works any more. Not one word of power.'

'What does this mean?'

'The Middle and Lesser Gates have vanished - just like the Great Gates of yesteryear. We are trapped here. For ever."

'I will not accept that!' said Caswallon, fighting down the panic threatening to overwhelm him. 'Now be calm and tell me about the words of power.'

The man nodded and sank back on his narrow cot-bed, staring at his hands. Caswallon's enforced calm soothed his own panic and he took a deep breath.

The words themselves are meaningless, it is the sound of the words. The sounds activate devices set within the hillside here. It is not dissimilar to whistling for a hunting-dog, which responds to sounds and reacts as it has been trained to do. Only here we are dealing with something vastly more complex, and infinitely beyond our comprehension.'

'Something is ... broken,' said Caswallon, lamely.

'Indeed it is. But we are talking about a device created aeons ago by a superior race, whose skills we can scarce guess at. I myself have seen devices no bigger than the palm of my hand, inside which are a thousand separate working parts. We do not even have the tools to work upon these devices, and if we did we would not know where to start."

'So we cannot contact Taliesen?' asked Caswallon.

'No. I just pray he is working towards a solution on the other side.'

'Are you one of the original druids?'

The man laughed. 'No, my grandfather was. I am Sestra of the Haesten.'

'Are there any of the elder race on this side of the Gate?'

'None that I know of.'

Caswallon thanked him and returned to the mare. Two days later, weary to the inner depths of his soul, he rode back into Citadel town. Not to see Maeg again, and feel the touch of her lips on his. Not to see Donal grow into a fine man. Never to know the fate of his people. Doomed to walk the rest of his life in a foreign land under strange stars.

He sought the Queen, finding her in her private rooms at the east wing of the hall. He told her nothing of the disappearance of the Gates, but questioned her about the priest who had first brought her to the forest as a babe.

'What of him?' asked Sigarni.

'Did he survive?'

'You know that he did.'

'I am tired, my Lady, and my brain is weary. Forgive me. Does he still live, is what I meant.'

'Only just, my love. He is the Abbot of the Dark Woods, a day's journey to the east. But the last I heard he was blind and losing his wits.'

'Can you spare a man to take me to him?'

'Of course. Is it important?'

'More important than I want to think about,' said Caswallon.

With two horses each, Caswallon and a rider named Bedwyr rode through the day, reaching the Dark Woods an hour after dark. Both men reeled from their saddles and Bedwyr hammered at the door of the monastery. It was opened by a sleepy monk, whose eyes filled with fear as he saw the armour worn by the riders.

'Be at peace, man,' said Bedwyr. 'We're not raiders, we ride for the Queen. Does the Abbot live?'

The man nodded and led them through narrow corridors of cold stone to a small cell facing west. He did not tap upon the door but opened it quietly, leading them inside. A lantern flickered upon the far wall, throwing shadows to a wide bed in which lay a man of great age, his eyes open, seeming to stare at the rough-cut ceiling.

'Leave us,' ordered Caswallon. Bedwyr escorted the monk from the room and Caswallon heard the rider asking for food, and the monk's promise that he would find bread and honey. Caswallon walked forward and sat beside the Abbot. He had changed much since Caswallon first saw him; his face was webbed with age and his sightless eyes seemed preternaturally bright.

'Can you hear me, Astole?' asked Caswallon.

The man stirred. 'I hear you, Redhawk, my friend. There is fear in your voice.'

'Yes. Great fear. I need your help now, as once you needed mine in the forest.'

The man chuckled weakly. 'There is no magic left, Redhawk. With all the wonders my mind encompassed I can now no longer lift this pitiful frame from the bed, nor see the brightest sunset. By tomorrow I shall have joined my Lord.'

The Gates have closed.'

'That is ancient history.'

The Middle Gates.'

'Again? That is not possible.'

'Believe me, Astole, they have closed. How may I re-open them?"

'Wait a moment,' said die old man. 'When last did you see me?'

'You were in the forest with the infant Queen."

'Ah, I understand,' said Astole. 'It is so long since I played with time, and my mind is growing addled.' His head sank back on the pillow and he closed his sightless eyes. 'Yes, it is becoming clear. The Farlain is still under threat, the Queen has not yet passed the Gate and you have yet to learn the mysteries. I have it now.'

Then help me,' urged Caswallon. Tell me how to re-open the Gate. I must lead the Queen through, or my people will perish.'

'I cannot tell you, my boy. I can only show you, teach you. It will take many years - eleven, if I remember correctly.'

'I don't have years,' said Caswallon, hope draining from him. The old man was senile and making no sense. As if reading his mind Astole reached out a hand and gripped Caswallon's arm, and when he spoke his voice was strong with authority.

'Do not despair, my friend. There is much that you cannot understand. I made the Gates in my youth and arrogance. I discovered the lines of power that link the myriad pasts, the parallel worlds, and I made the machines to track them and ride them. It was I who allowed the Great Gates to close. My race were using the universe as an enormous whorehouse. I re-routed the prime power source to feed the Lesser and Middle Gates. But all power sources are finite - even those that flow from collapsed stars and make up the Sipstrassi. It is - in the Now that you inhabit - running to its finish. There are other sources, and I will teach you to find and re-align them, and then the Gates will return. The man you see now is but the last fading spark of a bright fire. He will die tonight, and yet he will not be dead. We will meet again and he shall teach you.

There is a cave behind this abbey; a chalice is carved upon the entrance. Let the muster of the Queen's men continue, and on the appointed day walk into the Chalice Cave and approach the far wall. It will appear as solid rock, but you will pass through it, for this Gate has not vanished but only shifted. On the other side, I shall be waiting.'

'But you are dying!'

'We are speaking of events which have already happened, my boy. I was working upon a complex formula in my study when the Gateway flickered and you appeared. You told me that I had sent you, and you told me why. More I cannot say.' The old man sighed, then gave a weak smile. 'We are to be great friends, you and I. Closer than father and son. And yet I must say farewell to a stranger who is yet to be my friend. Ah, the tricks time plays .. .'

The old man fell silent and his eyes closed. Caswallon sat beside him, his mind tired, his burdens heavy. Was the Abbot to be trusted? How could he tell? The future of his people rested with the promise of a dying monk. He sat with Astole until dawn's first light seeped through the wooden shutters of the window, then he lifted the Abbot's hand from his arm.

Caswallon stood and gazed down at the old man. He was dead. The clansman lifted the blanket and pulled it over the Abbot's face, pausing to study the man's expression. A faint smile was on the lips and a great feeling of peace swept over Caswallon.

He walked to the window, pulling open the shutters. The woods beyond shone in the early morning light. Behind him the door opened and the lancer Bedwyr stepped into the room.

'Did you find what you hoped for, Redhawk?'

'Time will tell.'

The old man died then,' said the lancer, glancing at the bed.

'Yes. Peacefully.'