Count Brass

  'I fell off a rock.'

  'A high one?'

  'No—about ten feet.'

  'And it killed you?'

  'No, it was the bear that killed me. It was waiting below.'

  Again Oladahn laughed.

  And again Hawkmoon felt a pang of pain.

  'I died of the Scandian plague,' said Bowgentle. 'Or am to die of it.'

  'And I in battle against King Orson's elephants in Tarkia,' put in the one who believed himself to be Count Brass.

  And Hawkmoon was reminded most strongly of actors preparing themselves for their parts. He would have believed they were actors, too, had it not been for their speech inflections, their gestures, their ways of expressing themselves. There were slight differences, but none to make Hawkmoon suspect these were not his friends. Yet, just as Count Brass had not known him, so these did not know each other.

  Some idea of the possible truth was beginning to dawn on Hawkmoon as he emerged from hiding and confronted them.

  'Good evening, gentlemen.' He bowed. 'I am Dorian Hawkmoon von Koln. I know you Oladahn—and you Bowgentle—and you D'Averc—and we've met already Count Brass. Are you here to slay me?'

  'To discuss if we should,' said Count Brass, seating himself upon a flat rock. 'Now I regard myself as a reasonable judge of men. In fact I'm an exceptionally good judge, or I should not have survived this long. And I do not believe, Dorian Hawkmoon, that you have much treachery in you. Even in a situation which might justify such treachery—or which you would consider as justifying treachery—I doubt if you would be a traitor. And that is what disturbs me about this situation. Secondly, all four of us are known to you but we do not know you. Thirdly we appear to be the only four sent to this particular netherworld and that is a coincidence I mistrust. Fourthly we were each told a similar story—that you would betray us at some future date. Now, assuming that this, itself, is a future date where all five of us have met and become friends, what does that suggest to you?'

  'That you are all from my past!' said Hawkmoon. 'That is why you look younger to me, Count Brass— and you, Bowgentle—and you, Oladahn—and you, too, D'Averc . . .'

  'Thank you,' said D'Averc sardonically.

  'Which means that none of us died in the way we think we died—in battle at Tarkia, in my case—of sickness in the castle of Bowgentle and D'Averc—attacked by a bear in the case of Oladahn, here . ..'

  'Exactly,' said Hawkmoon, 'for I met you all later and you were all very much alive. But I remember you telling me, Oladahn, how once you were nearly killed by a bear—and you told me how close you came to death in Tarkia, Count Brass—and, Bowgentle, I remember some mention of the Scandian plague.'

  'And I?' asked D'Averc with interest.

  'I forget, D'Averc—for your illnesses tended to run into each other and I never saw you anything but in the best of health . ..'

  'Ah! Am I to be cured, then?'

  Hawkmoon ignored D'Averc and continued. 'So this means you are not going to die—though you, yourselves, think that you might. Whoever is deceiving us wants you to think that it is by their efforts that you'll survive.'

  'Much what I worked out.' Count Brass nodded.

  'But that's as far as my logic leads me,' said Hawkmoon, 'for a paradox is involved here—why, when we did (or do) meet, did we not remember this particular meeting?'

  'We must find our villains and ask them that question, I think,' said Bowgentle. 'Of course, I have studied something of the nature of time. Such paradoxes, according to one school of thought, would necessarily resolve themselves—memories would be wiped clean of anything which contradicted the normal experience of time. The brain, in short, would sponge out anything which was apparently inconsistent. However, there are certain aspects of that line of reasoning with which I am not wholly happy . . .'

  'Perhaps we could discuss the philosophical implications at some other time, Sir Bowgentle,' said Count Brass gruffly.

  'Time and philosophy are but one subject, Count Brass. And only philosophy may easily discuss the nature of time.'

  'Perhaps. But there is the other matter—the possibility that we are being manipulated by malicious men who are somehow able to control time. How do we reach them and what do we do when we do reach them?'

  'I remember something concerning crystals,' mused Hawkmoon, 'which transported men through alternate dimensions of the Earth. I wonder if these crystals, or something like them, are being used again?'

  'I know nothing of crystals,' said Count Brass, and the other three agreed that they knew nothing, either.

  'There are other dimensions, you see,' Hawkmoon went on. 'And it could be that there are dimensions where live men almost identical to men living in this dimension. We found a Kamarg that was not dissimilar to this. I wonder if that is the answer. Yet, still not quite the answer.'

  'I barely follow you,' growled Count Brass. 'You begin to sound like this sorcerer fellow . . .'

  'Philosopher,' corrected Bowgentle, 'and poet.'

  'Aye, it's complicated thinking that's involved if we're to get closer to the truth,' said Hawkmoon. He told them the story of Elvereza Tozer and the Crystal Rings of Mygan—how they had been used to transport himself and D'Averc through the dimensions, across seas—perhaps through time itself. And since they all had played parts in this drama, Hawkmoon felt the strangeness of the situation—for he spoke familiarly of them as his friends—and he referred to events which were to take place in their future. And when he was finished they seemed convinced that he had produced a likely explanation for their present situation. Hawkmoon remembered, too, the Wraith-folk, those gentle people who had given him a machine which had helped lift Castle Brass from its own space-time into another, safer space-time when Baron Meliadus attacked them. Perhaps if he were to travel to Soryandum in the Syranian Desert he might again enlist the help of the Wraith-folk. He put this to his friends.

  'Aye, an idea worth trying,' said Count Brass. 'But in the meantime we're still in the grip of whomever put us here in the first place—and we've no explanation of how they've accomplished that or, for that matter, exactly why they have done it.'

  'This oracle you spoke of,' said Hawkmoon. 'Where is it? Can you tell me exactly what happened to you— after you "died"?'

  'I found myself in this land, with all my wounds healed and my armour repaired . . .'

  The others agreed that this was what happened to them.

  'With a horse and with food to last me for a good while—though unpalatable stuff it is.'

  'And the oracle?'

  'A sort of speaking pyramid about the height of a man—glowing—diamond-like—hovering above the ground. It appears and vanishes at will, it seems. It told me all that I told you when we first met. I assumed it to be supernatural in origin—though it went against all my previous beliefs . . .'

  'It is probably of mortal origin,' said Hawkmoon. 'Either the word of some sorcerer-scientist such as those who once worked for the Dark Empire—or else something which our ancestors invented before the Tragic Millennium.'

  'I've heard of such,' agreed Count Brass. 'And I prefer that explanation. It suits my temperament more, I must admit.'

  'Did it offer to restore you to life once I was slain?'Hawkmoon asked.

  'Aye—that's it, in short.'

  'That's what it told me,' said D'Averc, and the others nodded.

  'Well, perhaps we should confront this machine, if machine it be, and see what happens?' Bowgentle suggested.

  'There is another mystery, however,' Hawkmoon said. 'Why is it that you are in perpetual night in the Kamarg, whereas, for me, the days pass normally?'

  'A splendid conundrum,' said D'Averc in some delight. 'Perhaps we should ask it. After all, if this is Dark Empire work, they could hardly seek to harm me—I am a friend of Granbretan!'

  And Hawkmoon smiled a private smile.

  'You are at present, Huillam D'Averc.'

  'Let's make a plan,' said Count Brass practically. 'Shall we set off now
to see if we can find the diamond pyramid?'

  'Wait for me here,' said Hawkmoon. 'I must return home first. I will be back before dawn—this is, in a few hours. Will you trust me?'

  'I'd rather trust a man than a crystal pyramid,' smiled Count Brass.

  Hawkmoon walked to where his horse grazed. He lifted himself into his saddle.

  As he rode away from the little hill, leaving the four men behind him, he forced himself to think as clearly as was possible, trying to avoid considering the paradoxical implications of what he had learned this night and to concentrate on what was likely to have created the situation. There were two possibilities, in his experience, as to what was at work here—the Runestaff on the one hand and the Dark Empire on the other. But it could be neither—some other force. Yet the only other people with great scientific resources were the Wraith-folk of Soryandum and it seemed unlikely that they would concern themselves with the affairs of others. Besides, only the Dark Empire would want him destroyed—by one or all of his now-dead friends. It was an irony which would have suited their perverse minds. Yet—the fact came back to him—all the great leaders of the old Dark Empire were dead. But then so were Count Brass, Oladahn, Bowgentle and D'Averc dead.

  Hawkmoon drew a deep breath of cold air into his lungs as the town of Aigues-Mortes came in sight. The thought had already come to him that perhaps even this was a complicated trap and that soon he, too, might be dead.

  And that was why he rode back to Castle Brass, to take his leave of his wife, to kiss his children and to write a letter which should be opened if he did not return.

  Book Two

  Old Enemies

  Chapter One

  A Speaking Pyramid

  Hawkmoon's heart was heavy as he rode away from Castle Brass for the third time. The pleasure he felt at seeing his old friends again was mixed with the painful knowledge that, in one sense, they were ghosts. He had seen them dead, all of them. Also these men were strangers. Whereas he recalled conversations, adventures and events they had shared, they knew nothing of these things; they did not know each other, even. Hanging over everything was the knowledge that they would die, in their own futures, and that his being reunited with them might last only a few more hours, whereupon they might be snatched away again by whomever or whatever was manipulating them. It was even possible that when he returned to the ruin on the hill they would already be gone.

  That was why he had told Yisselda as little of the night's occurrences as possible, merely letting her know that he must go away, to seek the source of whatever it was that threatened him. The rest he had put in the letter so that, if he did not return, she would learn all of the truth that he knew at this stage. He had not mentioned Bowgentle, D'Averc and Oladahn and had made it plain to her that he considered Count Brass an impostor. He did not want her to share the burden which now lay upon his shoulders.

  There were still several hours to go before dawn when he at last reached the hill and saw that four men and four horses waited for him there. He reached the ruin and dismounted. The four came towards him out of the shadows and for an instant he believed that he was really in a netherworld, in the company of the dead, but he dismissed this morbid thought and said, instead:

  'Count Brass, something puzzles me.'

  The Count all clad in brass inclined his brazen head. 'And what is that?'

  'When we parted—at our first meeting—I told you that the Dark Empire was destroyed. You told me that it was not. This puzzled me so much that I attempted to follow you but, instead, stumbled into the marsh. What did you mean? Do you know more than you have told me?'

  'I spoke only the simple truth. The Dark Empire grows in strength. It extends its boundaries.'

  And then something became clear to Hawkmoon and he laughed. 'In what year was the battle of which you spoke—in Tarkia?'

  'Why, this year. The sixty-seventh Year of the Bull.'

  'No, you are wrong,' said Bowgentle. 'This is the eighty-first Year of the Rat . . .'

  'The ninetieth Year of the Frog,' said D'Averc.

  'The seventy-fifth Year of the Goat,' Oladahn contradicted.

  'You are all wrong,' said Hawkmoon. 'This year— the year in which we are now as we stand upon this hillock—is the eighty-ninth Year of the Rat. Therefore, to you all the Dark Empire still thrives, has not even begun to show her full strength. But to me, the Empire is over—pulled down primarily by we four. Now do you see why I suspect that we are the objects of Dark Empire vengeance? Either some Dark Empire sorcerer has looked into the future and seen what we did, or else some sorcerer has escaped the doom we brought to the Beast Lords and is now trying to repay us for the injury we did to them. The five of us came together some six years ago, to serve the Runestaff, of which you have all doubtless heard, against the Dark Empire. We were successful in our mission, but four died to achieve that success—you four. Save for the Wraith-folk of Soryandum, who take no interest in human affairs, the only ones capable of manipulating Time are the Dark Empire sorcerers.'

  'I have often thought that I should like to know how I was to die,' said Count Brass, 'but now I am not so sure.'

  'We have only your word, friend Hawkmoon,' said D'Averc. 'There are still many mysteries unsolved— among them the fact that if all this is taking place in our future, why did we not recall having met you before when we did meet?' He raised his eyebrows and then began to cough into his handkerchief.

  Bowgentle smiled. 'I have already explained the theory concerning this seeming paradox. Time does not necessarily flow in a linear motion. It is our minds which perceive it flowing in this way. Pure Time might even have a random nature . . .'

  'Yes, yes,' said Oladahn. 'Somehow, good Sir Bowgentle, you have a way of confusing me further with your explanations.'

  'Then let us just say that Time might not be what we think it to be,' said Count Brass. 'And we've some proof of that, after all, for we do not need to believe Duke Dorian—we have certain knowledge that we were all wrenched from different years and stand together now. Whether we're in the future or the past, its clear we are in different time-periods to those we left behind.

  And, of course, this does help to support Duke Dorian's suggestions and to contradict what the pyramid told us.'

  'I support that logic, Count Brass,' Bowgentle agreed. 'Both intellectually and emotionally I am inclined to throw in my lot, for the moment, with Duke Dorian. I am not sure what I would have done, anyway, had I planned to kill him, for it goes against all my beliefs to take the life of another being.'

  'Well, if you two are convinced,' said D'Averc yawning, 'I am prepared to be. I never was a judge of character. I rarely knew where my real interests lay. As an architect my work, grandly ambitious and minutely paid, was always done for some princeling who was promptly dethroned. His successor never seemed to favour my work—and I had usually insulted the fellow, anyway. As a painter I chose patrons who were inclined to die before they could begin seriously to support me. That is why I became a freelance diplomat— to learn more of the ways of politics before I returned to my old professions. As yet I do not feel I have learned anything like enough . . .'

  'Perhaps that is because you prefer to listen to your own voice,' said Oladahn gently. 'Had not we better set off to seek the pyramid, gentlemen?' He hefted his quiver of arrows on his back and unstrung his bow to loop it over his shoulder. 'After all, we do not know how much time we have left.'

  'You are right. When dawn comes I might see you all vanish,' Hawkmoon said. 'I should like to know how the days pass normally for me, in their proper cycle, while for you it is eternal night.' He returned to his horse and climbed into the saddle. He had saddlepanniers now, full of food. And there were two lances in a scabbard slung at the back of his saddle. The tall horned stallion he rode was the best horse in the stables of Castle Brass. It was called Brand because its eyes flashed like fire.

  The others went to their own horses and mounted. Count Brass pointed down the hillock to the south.
'There's a hellish sea yonder—uncrossable I was told. It is to its shore we must go and on that shore we shall see the oracle.'

  'The sea is only the sea into which flows the Rhone,' said Hawkmoon mildly. 'Called by some the Middle Sea.'

  Count Brass laughed. 'A sea I have crossed a hundred times. I hope you are right, friend Hawkmoon— and I suspect that you are. Oh, I look forward to matching swords with the ones who deceive us!'

  'Let us hope that they give us the opportunity,' drily said D'Averc. 'For I've a feeling—and, of course, I'm not the judge of men that you are, Count Brass—that we shall have little opportunity for swordplay when dealing with our foes. Their weapons are likely to be a little more sophisticated.'

  Hawkmoon indicated the tall lances protruding from the rear of his saddle. 'I have two flame-lances here, for I anticipated the same situation.'

  'Well, flame-lances are better than nothing,' agreed D'Averc, but he still looked sceptical.

  'I have never much favoured sorcerous weapons,' said Oladahn with a suspicious glance at the lances. 'They are inclined to bring stronger forces against those who wield them."

  'You are superstitious, Oladahn. Flame-lances are not the products of supernatural sorcery, but of the science which flourished before the coming of the Tragic Millennium.' Bowgentle spoke kindly.

  'Aye,' said Oladahn. 'I think that proves my point, Master Bowgentle.'

  Soon the dark sea could be seen glinting ahead.

  Hawkmoon felt his stomach muscles tighten as he anticipated the encounter with the mysterious pyramid which had tried to get his friends to kill him.

  But the shore, when they reached it, was empty save for a few clumps of seaweed, some tufts of grass growing on sandhills, the surf which lapped the beach. Count Brass took them to where he had erected an awning of his cloak behind a sandhill. Here was his food and some of the equipment he had left behind when he set out to meet Hawkmoon. On the way the four had told Hawkmoon how they had come to meet, each, at first, mistaking another for Hawkmoon and challenging him.