12
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. 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 Aigues-Mortes 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, 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 Aigues-Mortes. 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 ploughed.
'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 armour 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 favoured 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 labyrinthine 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 colours, no longer of simple greens and yellows, but of all the colours of the rainbow 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 our people, 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 centre 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 Runestalf, 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.
Table of Contents
The Mad God's Amulet
BOOK 1
Soryandum
Huillam D'Averc
The Wraith-Folk
The Mechanical Beast
The Machine
Mad Gods Ship
The Ring on the Finger
Mad Gods Man
BOOK 2
The Waiting Warrior
The Mad Gods Castle
Hawkmoon's Dilemma
The Power of the Amulet
The Slaughter in the Hall
The Mad God's Beasts
Encounter in a Tavern
The Dark Empire Camp
The Journey South
The Fall of the Kamarg
Return of the Warrior
Escape to Limbo
Michael Moorcock, The Mad God's Amulet
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