"Nothing," said the warrior. "I have come to deliver something." He reached behind him and produced Hawkmoon's battered saddlebags.
Hawkmoon's spirits rose, and he leaned forward to take the saddlebags, opening one to look inside.
There, wrapped in a cloak, was the object he had been given so long ago by Rinal. It was safe. He pulled back the cloak and saw the crystal unshattered.
"But why did you take it in the first place?" he asked.
"Let us go to Castle Brass, and there I will explain all to you," said the warrior.
In the hall the warrior stood up by the fireplace while the others sat in various positions around him, listening.
"At the Mad God's castle," began the warrior, "I left you because I knew that with the aid of the Mad God's beasts you could soon be safely away from there. But I knew other hazards lay ahead for you and suspected that you might be captured. Therefore, I decided to take the object Rinal gave you and keep it safe until you should return to the Kamarg."
"And I had thought you a thief!" Hawkmoon said.
"I am sorry, Warrior."
"But what is the object?" Count Brass asked.
"An ancient machine," the Warrior said, "produced by one of the most sophisticated sciences ever to emerge on this earth."
"A weapon?" Count Brass asked.
"No. It is a device which can warp whole areas of time and space and shift them into other dimensions. While the machine exists, it can exert this power, but should it, by mischance, be destroyed, then the area it has warped falls immediately back into the time and space original to it."
"And how is it operated?" Hawkmoon asked, remembering suddenly that he had no such knowledge.
"It is difficult to explain, since you would recognize none of the words I would use," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold. "But Rinal has taught me its use, among other things, and I can work it."
"But for what purpose?" D'Averc asked. "To shift the troublesome Baron and his men to some limbo where they will not trouble us again?"
"No," said the Warrior. "I will explain"
The doors burst open, and a battered soldier rushed into the hall. "Master," he cried to Count Brass, "it is Baron Meliadus under a flag of truce. He would parley with you at the town walls."
"I have nothing to say to him," Count Brass said.
"He says that he intends to attack at night. That he can have the walls down within an hour, for he has fresh troops held back for the purpose. He says that if you deliver your daughter, Hawkmoon, D'Averc, and yourself into his hands, he will be lenient with the rest."
Count Brass thought for a moment, but Hawkmoon broke in, "It is useless to consider such a bargain, Count Brass. We both know of Meliadus's penchant for treachery. He seeks only to demoralize the folks to make his victory easier."
Count Brass sighed. "But if what he says is true, and I cannot doubt that it is, he will have the walls down shortly and we all perish."
"With honor, at least," said D'Averc.
"Aye," said Count Brass with a somewhat sardonic smile. "With honor, at least." He turned to the courier. "Tell Baron Meliadus that we still do not wish to speak with him."
The warrior bowed. "I will, my lord." He left the hall.
"We had best return to the walls," said Count Brass, rising wearily just as Yisselda entered the room.
"Ah, Father, Dorian—you are both safe."
Hawkmoon embraced her. "But now we must go back," he said softly. "Meliadus is about to launch another attack."
"Wait," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold. "I have yet to describe my plan to you."
Chapter Twelve - ESCAPE TO LIMBO
BARON MELIADUS SMILED when he heard the courier's message.
"Very well," he said to his stewards, "let the whole town be destroyed and as many of its inhabitants taken alive to give us sport on our victory day." He turned his horse back to where his fresh troops awaited him.
"Move forward," he said, and watched as they began to flow towards the doomed town and the castle beyond.
He saw the fires on the town walls, the few soldiers waiting, knowing with certainty that they would die now. He saw the graceful outlines of the castle that had once protected the town so well, and he chuckled. There was a warmth inside him, for he had longed for this victory ever since he had been ejected from the castle some two years earlier.
Now his troops had nearly reached the walls, and he kicked his horse's flanks to make it move down so that he could see the battle better.
Then he frowned. There seemed something wrong with the light, for the outline of town and castle had apparently wavered in a most alarming fashion.
He opened his mask and rubbed at his eyes, then looked again.
The silhouette of Castle Brass and AiguesMortes seemed to glow, first pink, then pale red, then scarlet, and Baron Meliadus felt lightheaded. He licked his dry lips and feared for his sanity.
The troops had paused in their attack and muttering to themselves and backing away from the place.
The entire town and the hillside and castle it surrounded were now a flaming blue. The blue began to fade, and fading with it went Castle Brass and AiguesMortes. A wild wind blew, knocking Baron Meliadus back in his saddle.
He cried out, "Guards! What has happened?"
"The place has—has vanished, my lord," came a nervous voice.
"Vanished! Impossible. How can a whole town and a hill vanish? It is still there. They have erected some kind of screen around the place."
Baron Meliadus rode wildly down to where the town walls had been, expecting to meet a barrier, but none blocked him, and his horse trampled over only mud that looked as if it had been recently plowed.
"They have escaped me!" he howled. "But how?
What science aids them? What power can they have that is greater than mine?"
The troops had begun to turn back. Some were running. But Baron Meliadus dismounted from his horse, hands outstretched, trying to feel for the vanished town. He screamed with fury and wept with impotent rage, falling at last to his knees in the mud and shaking his fist at where Castle Brass had been.
"I will find you, Hawkmoon—and your friends. I will bring all the scientific knowledge of Granbretan to bear on this search. And I will follow you, if needs be, to whatever place you have escaped to, whether it be on this earth or beyond it, and you will know my vengeance. By the Runestaff, I swear this!"
And then he looked up as he heard the thump of a horse's hooves riding past him, thought he saw a figure flash by in armor of jet and gold, thought he heard ghostly ironic laughter, and then the rider, too had vanished.
Baron Meliadus rose up from his knees and looked around him for his horse.
"Oh, Hawkmoon," he said through clenched teeth.
"Oh, Hawkmoon, I will catch thee!"
Again he had sworn by the Runestaff, as on that fateful morning two years before. And his action had set in motion a new pattern of history. His second oath strengthened that pattern, whether it favored Meliadus or Hawkmoon, and hardened all their destinies a little more strongly.
Baron Meliadus found his horse and returned to his camp. Tomorrow he would leave for Granbretan and the labyrinth laboratories of the Order of the Snake.
Sooner or later he would be bound to find a way through to the vanished Castle Brass, he told himself.
Yisselda looked through the window in wonderment, her face alight with joy; Hawkmoon smiled down at her and hugged her to him.
Behind them, Count Brass coughed and said, "To tell you the truth, my children, I'm a little disturbed by all this—this science. Where did that fellow say we were?"
"In some other Kamarg, father," said Yisselda.
The view from the window was misty. Though the town and the hillside were solid enough, the rest was not. Beyond it they could see, as if through a blue radiance, shining lagoons and waving reeds, but they were of transformed colors, no longer of simple greens and yellows, but of all the colors of the rainb
ow and without the substance of the castle and its surrounds.
"He said we might explore it," said Hawkmoon.
"So it must be more tangible than it looks."
D'Averc cleared his throat. "I'll stay here and in the town, I think. What say you, Oladahn?"
Oladahn grinned. "I think so—until I'm more used to it, at least."
"Well, I'm with you," said Count Brass. He laughed. Still, we're safe, eh? And all the folk, too. We've that to be grateful for."
"Aye," said Bowgentle thoughtfully. "But we must not underestimate the scientific prowess of Granbretan. If there is a way of following us here, they will find it—be sure of that."
Hawkmoon nodded. "You are right, Bowgentle."
He pointed to Rinal's gift, which lay now in the center of the empty dining table, outlined in the strange, pale blue light that flooded through the windows.
"We must keep that in our safest vault. Remember what the warrior said—if it is destroyed, we find ourselves back again in our own space and time."
Bowgentle went over to the machine and gently picked it up. "I will see that it is safe," he said.
When he had left, Hawkmoon turned again to look through the window, fingering the Red Amulet.
"The warrior said that he would come again with a message and a mission for me," he said. "I am in no doubt now that I serve the Runestaff, and when the warrior comes, I shall have to leave Castle Brass, leave this sanctuary, and return again to the world. You must be prepared for that, Yisselda."
"Let us not speak of it now," she said, "but celebrate, instead, our marriage."
"Aye, let us do that," he said with a smile. But he could not shut entirely from his mind the knowledge that somewhere, separated from him by subtle barriers, the world still existed and was still in danger from the Dark Empire. Though he appreciated the respite, the time to spend with the woman he loved, he knew that soon he must return to that world and do battle once more with the forces of Granbretan.
But for the moment, he would be happy.
This ends the second volume in the High History of the Runestaff
The Sword of the Dawn
Book One
WHEN THAT ASPECT of the Eternal Champion called Dorian Hawkmoon, last Duke of Koln, ripped the Red Amulet from the throat of the Mad God and made that powerful thing his own, he returned with Huillam D'Averc and Oladahn of the Mountains to the Kamarg where Count Brass, his daughter Yisselda, his friend Bowgentle the philosopher and all their people underwent siege from the hordes of the Dark Empire led by Hawkmoon's old enemy Baron Meliadus of Kroiden.
So powerful had the Dark Empire grown that it threatened to destroy even the well-protected province of the Kamarg. If that happened, it would mean that Meliadus would take Yisselda for his own and slay slowly all the rest, turning the Kamarg to a waste of ash. Only by the mighty force released by the ancient machine of the wraith-folk which could warp whole areas of time and space were they saved by shifting into another dimension of the Earth.
And so they found sanctuary. Sanctuary in some other Kamarg, where the evil and horror of Granbretan did not exist; but they knew that if ever the crystal machine were destroyed, they would be plunged back into the chaos of their own time and space.
For a while they lived in joyful relief at their escape, but gradually Hawkmoon began to finger his sword and wonder at the fate of his own world . . .
—The High History of the Runestaff
Chapter One - THE LAST CITY
THE GRIM RIDERS spurred their battle-steeds up the muddy slopes of the hill, coughing as their lungs took in the thick black smoke rising from the valley.
It was evening, the sun was setting, and their grotesque shadows were long. In the twilight, it seemed that gigantic beast-headed creatures rode the horses.
Each rider bore a banner, stained by war, each wore a huge beast-mask of jewelled metal and heavy armour of steel, brass and silver, emblazoned with its wearer's device, battered and bloodied, and each gauntleted right hand gripped a weapon on which was encrusted the remains of a hundred innocents.
The six horsemen reached the top of the hill and dragged their snorting mounts to a halt, stabbing their banners into the earth where they flapped like the wings of birds of prey in the hot wind from the valley.
Wolf-mask turned to stare at Fly-mask, Ape glanced at Goat, Rat seemed to grin at Hound—a grin of triumph. The Beasts of the Dark Empire, each a Warlord of thousands, looked beyond the valley and beyond the hills to the sea, looked back at the blazing city below them where, faintly, they could hear the wails of the slaughtered and the tormented.
The sun set, night fell arid the flames burned brighter, reflected in the dark metal of the masks of the Lords of Granbretan.
"Well, my lords," said Baron Meliadus, Grand Constable of the Order of, the Wolf, Commander of the Army of Conquest, his deep, vibrant voice booming from within his great mask, "well, we have conquered all Europe now."
Mygel Hoist, skeletal Archduke of Londra, head of which he had barely escaped with his life, laughed, the Order of the Goat, veteran of the Kamarg, from
"Aye—all Europe. Not an inch of it is not ours. And now great parts of the East belong to us also." The Goat helm nodded as if in satisfaction, the ruby eyes catching the firelight, flashing malignantly.
"Soon," merrily growled Adaz Promp, Master of the Order of the Hound, "all the world will be ours. All."
The Barons of Granbretan, masters of a continent, tacticians and warriors of ferocious courage and skill, careless of their own lives, corrupt of soul and mad of brain, haters of all that was not in decay, wielders of power without morality, force without justice, chuckled with gloomy pleasure as they watched the last European city to withstand them crumble and die. It had been an old city. It had been called Athena.
"All," said Jerek Nankenseen, Warlord of the Order of the Fly, "save the hidden Kamarg ..."
And Baron Meliadus lost his humor then, made almost as if he would strike his fellow warlord.
Jerek Nankenseen's bejewelled Fly-mask turned a little to regard Meliadus and the voice from within the mask was baiting. "Is it not enough that you have chased them away, my lord Baron?"
"No," snarled the Wolf of Wolves. "Not enough."
"They can offer us no menace," murmured Baron Brenal Farnu of the Rat helm. "From what our scientists divined, they exist in a dimension beyond Earth, in some other time or space. We cannot reach them and they cannot reach us. Let us enjoy our triumph, un-marred by thoughts of Hawkmoon and Count Brass..."
"I cannot!"
"Or is it another name that haunts thee, brother Baron?" Jerek Nankenseen mocked the man who had been his rival in more than one amorous encounter in Londra. "The name of the fair one, Yisselda? Is it love that moves you, my lord? Sweet love?"
For a moment the Wolf did not reply, but the hand that gripped the sword tightened as if in fury. Then the rich, musical voice spoke and it had recovered its composure, was almost light in tone.
"Vengeance, Baron Jerek Nankenseen, is what motivates me..."
"You are a most passionate man, Baron . . ." Jerek Nankenseen said dryly.
Meliadus sheathed his sword suddenly and reached out to grasp his banner, wrenching it from the earth.
"They have insulted our King-Emperor, our land—
and myself. I will have the girl for my pleasure, but in no soft spirit will I take her, no weak emotion will motivate me..."
"Of course not," murmured Jerek Nankenseen, a hint of patronage in his voice.
". . . And as for the others, I will have my pleasure with them, also—in the prison vaults of Londra. Dorian Hawkmoon, Count Brass, the philosopher Bowgentle, the unhuman one, Oladahn of the Bulgar Mountains, and the traitor Huillam D'Averc—all these shall suffer for many years. That I have sworn by the Runestaff!"
There was a sound behind them. They turned to peer through the flickering light and saw a canopied litter being borne up the hill by a dozen Athenan prisoners of
war who were chained to its poles. In the litter lounged the unconventional Shenegar Trott, Count of Sussex. Count Shenegar almost disdained the wearing of a mask at all, and as it was he wore a silver one scarcely larger than his head, fashioned to resemble, in caricature, his own visage. He belonged to no Order and was tolerated by the King-Emperor and his Court because of his immense richness and almost superhuman courage in battle—yet he gave the appearance, in his jeweled robes and lazy manner, of a besotted fool.
He, even more than Meliadus, had the confidence (such as it was) of the King-Emperor Huon, for his advice was almost always excellent. He had plainly heard the last part of the exchange and spoke banteringly.
"A dangerous oath to swear, my lord Baron," said he softly. "One that could, by all counts, have repercus-sions on he who swears it..."
"I swore the oath with that knowledge," replied Meliadus. "I shall find them, Count Shenegar, never fear."
"I came to remind you, my lords," said Shenegar Trott, "that our King-Emperor grows impatient to see us and hear our report that all Europe is now his property."
"I will ride for Londra instantly," Meliadus said.
"For there I may consult our sorcerer-scientists and discover a means of hunting out my foes. Farewell, my lords."
He dragged at his horse's reins, turning the beast and galloping back down the hill, watched by his peers.
The beast-masks moved together in the firelight. "His singular mentality could destroy us all," whispered one.
"What matter?" chuckled Shenegar Trott, "so long as all is destroyed with us ..."
The answering laughter was wild, ringing from the jeweled helms. It was insane laughter, tinged as much with self-hatred as with hatred of the world.
For this was the great power of the Lords of the Dark Empire, that they valued nothing on all the Earth, no human quality, nothing within or without themselves. The spreading of conquest and desolation, of terror and torment, was their staple entertainment, a means of employing their hours until their spans of life were ended. For them, warfare was merely the most satisfactory way of easing their ennui ...