Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull

  "My dear duke, the KingEmperor would much prefer you alive. Surely you know that? My own interest is at stake. Killing you now would only earn me a baronetcy at most—delivering you alive for the KingEmperor's pleasure would almost certainly gain me a princedom. Have you not heard of me, Duke Dorian? I am the ambitious Huillam d'Averc."

  D'Averc's argument was convincing, but Hawkmoon could not forget the Frenchman's reputation for deviousness. Although it was true that he was worth more to D'Averc alive, the renegade might well decide it expedient not to risk his gains and might therefore kill Hawkmoon as soon as he came into Certain range of the flamelance.

  Hawkmoon deliberated for a moment, then sighed.

  "I will do as you suggest, Sir Huillam." He poised himself to leap across the narrow street separating him from the rooftops below.

  Then Oladahn cried, "No, Duke Dorian! Let them kill me! My life is worthless!"

  Hawkmoon acted as if he had not heard his friend and sprang out and down, to land on the balls of his feet on the roof. The old masonry shuddered at the impact, and for a moment Hawkmoon thought he would fall as the roof threatened to crack. But it held, and he began to walk gingerly toward the tower.

  Again Oladahn called out and began to struggle in the hands of his captors.

  Hawkmoon ignored him, walking steadily on, sword still in one hand but held loosely, virtually forgotten.

  Now Oladahn broke free altogether and darted across the tower, pursued by two cursing warriors.

  Hawkmoon saw him dash to the far edge, pause for a moment, and then fling himself over the parapet.

  For a moment Hawkmoon stood frozen in horror, hardly understanding the nature of his friend's sacrifice.

  Then he tightened his grip on his sword and raised his head to glare at D'Averc and his men. Bending low, he made for the edge of the roof as the flame cannon began to turn in his direction. There was a great whoosh of heat over his head as they sought his range; then he had swung himself over the edge and hung by his hands, peering down into the street far below.

  There was a series of stone carvings quite close to him on his left. He inched along until he could grasp the nearest. They ran down the side of the house at an angle, almost to street level. But the stone was plainly rotten. Would the carvings support his weight?

  Hawkmoon did not pause. He swung himself down on the first carving. It began to creak and crumble, like a bad tooth. Quickly Hawkmoon dropped to the next and then the next, bits of stone clattering down the sides of the building, to crash in the distant street.

  Then at last Hawkmoon was able to leap to the cobbles and land easily in the soft dust that covered them. Now he began to run, not away from the tower—but toward it. He had nothing in his mind now but vengeance on D'Averc for driving Oladahn to suicide.

  He found the entrance to the tower and entered in time to hear the clatter of metalshod feet as D'Averc and his warriors descended. He chose a spot on the staircase (which was enclosed) where he would be able to take the Granbretanians one at a time. D'Averc was the first to appear, stopping suddenly as he saw the glowering Hawkmoon, then reaching with gauntleted hand for his long blade.

  "You were foolish not to take the chance of escape your friend's silly sacrifice gave you," said the boarmasked mercenary contemptuously. "Now, like it or not, I suppose we shall have to kill you...." He began to cough, doubling up in apparent agony, leaning weakly against the wall. He signed limply to the squat man behind him—one of those Hawkmoon had seen helping D'Averc across the battlements. "Oh, my dear Duke Dorian, I must apologize ... my infirmity is liable to seize me at the most inconvenient moments.

  Ecardo—would you...?"'

  The powerfully built Ecardo sprang forward grunting and pulling a shorthafted battleaxe from his belt. He tugged out his sword with his free hand and chuckled with pleasure. "Thanks, master. Now let's see how the nomask prances." He moved like a cat to the attack.

  Hawkmoon poised himself, ready to meet Ecardo's first blow.

  Then the man sprang with a great feral howl, the battleax splashing the air to clang against Hawkmoon's blade. Then Ecardo's short sword ripped upward, and Hawkmoon, already weak from exposure and hunger, barely managed to turn his body in time.

  Even so, the sword slashed through the cotton of his britches and he felt its cold edge against his flesh.

  Hawkmoon's own blade slid from beneath the ax and crashed down on Ecardo's grinning boarmask, wrenching one tusk loose and badly denting the snout.

  Ecardo cursed, his sword stabbing again, but Hawkmoon leaned against the man's sword arm, trapping it beneath his body and the wall. Then he let go of his own sword so that it hung by its wrist thong, grasped Ecardo's arm, and tried to twist the ax from his hand.

  Ecardo's armored knee drove into Hawkmoon's groin, but Hawkmoon held his position in spite of the pain, tugged Ecardo down the stairs, pushed, and let him fall to the floor under his own momentum.

  Ecardo hit the paving stones with a thud that shook the whole tower. He did not move.

  Hawkmoon looked up at D'Averc. "Well, sir, are you recovered?"

  D'Averc pushed back his ornate mask, to reveal the pale face and pale eyes of an invalid. His mouth twisted in a little smile. "I will do my best," he said.

  And when he advanced it was swiftly, with the movements of a man more than ordinarily fit.

  This time Hawkmoon took the initiative, darting a thrust at his enemy that almost took him by surprise but that he parried with amazing speed. His languid tone belied his reflexes.

  Hawkmoon realized that D'Averc was quite as dangerous, in his own way, as the powerful Ecardo.

  He realized, too, that if Ecardo were merely stunned, he himself might soon be trapped between two opponents.

  The swordplay was so swift that the two blades seemed a single blur of metal as both men held their ground. With his great mask flung back, D'Averc was smiling, with an expression of quiet pleasure in his eyes. He looked for all the world like a man enjoying a musical performance or some other passive pastime.

  Wearied by his journey through the desert, needing food, Hawkmoon knew that he could not long sustain the fight in this way. Desperately he sought an opening in D'Averc's splendid defense. Once, his opponent stumbled slightly on a broken stair. Hawkmoon thrust swiftly but was parried and had his forearm nicked into the bargain.

  Behind D'Averc the warriors of the Boar waited eagerly with swords ready to finish Hawkmoon off once the opportunity was presented to them.

  Hawkmoon was tiring rapidly until he was fighting a purely defensive style, barely managing to turn the thrusting steel that drove for his eye, his throat, his heart, or his belly. He took one step backward, then another.

  As he took the second step, he heard a groan behind him and knew that Ecardo's senses were returning.

  Now it would not be long before the boars butchered him.

  Yet he scarcely cared, now that Oladahn was dead. Hawkmoon's swordplay became wilder, and D'Averc's smile grew broader as he sensed his victory coming closer.

  Rather than have Ecardo at his back, Hawkmoon sprang suddenly down the steps without turning around. His shoulder bumped against another, and he whirled, prepared to face the brutish Ecardo. Then his sword almost dropped from his hand in astonishment.

  "Oladahn!"

  The little beastman was in the act of raising a sword—the boar warrior's own sword—over the stirring Ecardo's head.

  "Aye—I live. But do not ask me how. It's a mystery to me." And he brought the flat of the blade down on Ecardo's helmet with a great clang. Ecardo collapsed again.

  There was no more time for talk. Hawkmoon barely managed to block D'Averc's next thrust. There was a look of astonishment in D'Averc's eyes too as he saw the living Oladahn.

  Hawkmoon manager to break through the Frenchman's guard, piercing his shoulder armor, but again D'Averc swept the blade aside and resumed the attack.

  But now Hawkmoon had lost the advantage of his position. The s
avage boar mask grinned at him as warriors poured down the stairs.

  Hawkmoon and Oladahn backed toward the door, hoping to regain the advantage, but there was little chance of that. For another ten minutes they held their own against the overwhelming odds, killing two Granbretanians, wounding three more. But they were wearying rapidly. Hawkmoon could barely hold his sword.

  His glazed eyes could hardly see his opponents as they closed in like brutes for the kill He heard D'Averc's triumphant 'Take them alive!' and then he went down beneath a tide of metal.

  Chapter Three - THE WRAITHFOLK

  WRAPPED IN CHAINS so that they could barely breathe, Hawkmoon and Oladahn were borne down innumerable flights of stairs into the depths of the great tower, which seemed to stretch as far belowground as it did above.

  At length the boar warriors reached a chamber that had evidently been a storeroom but that now served as an effective dungeon.

  There they were flung face down on the coarse rock. They lay there until a booted foot turned them over to blink into the light of a guttering torch held by the squat Ecardo, whose battered mask seemed to snarl in glee. D'Averc, mask still pushed back to expose his face, stood between Ecardo and the huge, hairy warrior Hawkmoon had seen earlier. D'Averc had a brocade scarf to his lips, and he leaned heavily on the giant's arm.

  D'Averc coughed theatrically and smiled down at his prisoners. "I fear I must leave you soon, gentlemen.

  This subterranean air is not good for me. However, it should do little harm to two such robust young fellows as yourselves. You will not have to stay here more than a day, I assure you. I have sent a request for a larger ornithopter that will be able to bear the two of you back to Sicilia, where my main force is now encamped."

  "You have taken Sicilia already?" Hawkmoon asked tonelessly. "You have conquered the isle?"

  "Aye. The Dark Empire wastes little time. I, in fact"—D'Averc coughed with mock modesty into his scarf—"am the hero of Sicilia. It was my leadership that subjugated the island so swiftly. But that triumph was no special one, for the Dark Empire has many capable captains like myself. We have made many gains in Europe these past few months—and in the East, too."

  "But the Kamarg still stands," Hawkmoon said. "That must irritate the KingEmperor."

  "Oh, the Kamarg cannot last long besieged," said D'Averc airily. "We are concentrating our particular attention on that little province. Why, it may have fallen already...."

  "Not while Count Brass lives," Hawkmoon smiled.

  "Just so," D'Averc said. "I heard he was badly wounded and his lieutenant von Villach slain in a recent battle."

  Hawkmoon could not tell whether D'Averc was lying. He let no emotion show on his face, but the news had shocked him. Was the Kamarg ready to fall—and if so, what would become of Yisselda?

  "Plainly that news disturbs you," D'Averc murmured. "But fear not, Duke, for when the Kamarg falls it will be in my safekeeping if all goes well I plan to claim the province as my reward for capturing you.

  And these, my boon companions," he continued, indicating his brutish servants, "I will elevate to rule the Kamarg when I cannot. They share all aspects of my life—my secrets, my pleasures. It is only fair that they should share my triumph. Ecardo I will make steward of my estates, and I think I shall make Peter here a Count."

  From within the giant's mask came an animal grunt.

  D'Averc smiled. "Peter has few brains, but his strength and his loyalty are without question. Perhaps I'll replace Count Brass with him."

  Hawkmoon stirred angrily in his chains. "You are a wily beast, D'Averc, but I will not let you goad me to an outburst, if that's what you desire. I'll bide my time. Perhaps I'll escape you yet. And if I do—you may live in terror for the day when our roles are reversed and you are in my power."

  "I fear you are too optimistic, Duke. Rest here, enjoy the peace, for you'll know none when you get to Granbretan."

  With a mocking bow, D'Averc left, his men following. The torchlight faded, and Hawkmoon and Oladahn were left in darkness.

  "Ah," came Oladahn's voice after a while. "I find it difficult to take my position seriously after all that has happened today. I am still not even sure whether this be dream, death, or reality."

  "What did happen to you, Oladahn?" Hawkmoon asked. "How could you survive that great leap? I had imagined you dashed to death beneath the tower."

  "By rights I should have been," Oladahn agreed. "If I had not been arrested by ghosts in midfall."

  "Ghosts? You jest."

  "Nay. These things—like ghosts—appeared from windows in the tower and bore me gently to earth. They were the size and shape of men but barely tangible...."

  "You fell and knocked your head and dreamed this stuff!"

  "You could be right." Suddenly Oladahn paused. "But if so, I am dreaming still. Look to your left."

  Hawkmoon turned his head, gasping in astonishment at what he saw. There, quite plainly, he could see the figure of a man. Yet, as if through a pool of milk, he could see beyond the man and make out the wall behind him.

  "A ghost of a classic sort," Hawkmoon said. "Strange to share a dream...."

  Faint, musical laughter came from the figure standing over them. "You do not dream, strangers. We are men like you. The mass of our bodies is merely altered a little, that is all. We do not exist in quite the same dimensions as you. But we are real enough. We are the men of Soryandum."

  "So you have not deserted your city," Oladahn said. "But how did you attain this . . . peculiar state of existence."

  The wraithman laughed again. "By control of the mind, by scientific experiment, by a certain mastery of time and space. I regret that it would be impossible to describe how we came to this condition, for we reached it, among other ways, by the creation of an entirely new vocabulary, and the language I would use would mean nothing to you. However, be assured of one thing—we are still able to judge human character well enough and recognize you as potential friends and those others as actual enemies."

  "Enemies of yours? How so?" Hawkmoon asked.

  "I will explain later." The wraithman glided forward until he was leaning over Hawkmoon. The young Duke of Koln felt a strange pressure on his body, and then he was lifted up. The man might have looked intangible, but he seemed far stronger than an ordinary mortal. From the shadows two more of the wraithpeople drifted, one to pick up Oladahn and the other to raise his hand and somehow produce a radiance in the dungeon that was mellow yet adequate to illuminate the whole place. Hawkmoon saw that the wraithmen were tall and slender, with thin, handsome faces and blindseeming eyes.

  Hawkmoon had supposed at first that the people of Soryandum were able to pass through solid walls, but now he saw that they had entered from above, for there was a large tunnel about halfway up the wall. Perhaps in the distant past this tunnel had been some land of chute down which sacks of stores had been rolled.

  Now the wraithpeople rose into the air toward the tunnel and entered it, drifting up it until light could be seen far ahead—the light of moon and stars.

  "Where are you taking us?" Hawkmoon whispered.

  "To a safer place where we shall be able to free you of your chains," the man who carried him answered.

  When they reached the top of the tunnel and felt the chill of the night air, they paused while the one who had no burden went ahead to make sure that there were no Granbretanian warriors about. He signed to the others to follow, and they drifted out into the ruined streets of the silent city until they came to a simple threestoried house that was in better condition than the rest but seemed to have no means of entrance at ground level.

  The wraithfolk bore Hawkmoon and Oladahn upward again, to the second level, and passed through a wide window into the house.

  In a room bare of any ornamentation they came to rest, setting the pair down gently.

  "What is this place?" Hawkmoon asked, still unable to trust his senses.

  "This is where we live," the wraithman replied.

>   "There are not many of us. Though we live for centuries, we are incapable of reproducing ourselves. That is what we lost when we became as we are."

  Now through the door came other figures, several of them female. All were of the same beautiful and graceful appearance, all had bodies of milky opaqueness; none wore clothes. The faces and bodies were ageless, scarcely human, but they radiated such a sense of tranquillity that Hawkmoon immediately felt relaxed and secure.

  One of the newcomers had brought with him a small instrument, scarcely larger than Hawkmoon's index finger, which he now applied to the several padlocks on the chains. One by one the locks sprang open, until at last Hawkmoon and then Oladahn were free.

  Hawkmoon sat up, rubbing at his aching muscles.

  "I thank you," he said. "You have saved me from an unpleasant fate."

  "We are happy to have been of use," replied one of their number, slightly shorter than the rest. "I am Rinal, once Chief Councilor of Soryandum." He came forward smiling. "And we wonder if it would interest you that you could be of help to us, also."

  "I would be glad to perform any service in repayment of what you have done for me," Hawkmoon said earnestly. "What is it?"

  "We, too, are in great danger from those strange warriors with their grotesque beastmasks," Rinal told him. "For they plan to raze Soryandum."

  "Raze it? But why? This city offers no threat to them—and it is too remote to be worth their annexing."

  "Not so," Rinal said. "For we have listened to their conversations and know that Soryandum is of value to them. They wish to build a great structure here that will house scores and hundreds of their flying machines. The machines can then be sent out to all the surrounding lands to threaten and defeat them."

  "I understand," Hawkmoon murmured. "It makes sense. And that is why D'Averc, the exarchitect, was chosen for this particular mission. Building materials already exist here and could be remodeled to form one of their ornithopter bases, and the spot is so remote that few, if any, would note the activity. The Dark Empire would have surprise on their side right up to the moment they wished to launch an attack. They must be stopped!"