The Mad God's Amulet

  The pirate captain spat in his face and leaped to the rail, kicked out at Hawkmoon, who tried to stop him; then the captain leaped into space.

  The noose tightened, the yardarm bent, then straightened, and Captain Shagarov's body danced wildly up and down. His neck snapped, and he died.

  D'Averc dashed for the fallen brand, but it had already ignited the oil-soaked deck. He began stamping on the flames.

  Hawkmoon rushed to fling a rope to Oladahn, who, dripping, climbed up the side of the ship, looking none the worse for his swim.

  Now the crew of the other vessel began to mutter and move about, and Hawkmoon wondered why they did not cast off.

  'Shove off!' he called, as Oladahn regained the deck. 'You cannot save your captain now — and you're in danger from the fire!'

  But they did not move.

  'The fire, you fools!' Oladahn pointed to where D'Averc was retreating from the flames, which were now leaping high, touching the mast and superstructure.

  D'Averc laughed. 'Let's to our little boat.'

  Hawkmoon flung his own brand after D'Averc's and turned. 'But why don't they get away?'

  'The treasure,' said D'Averc as they lowered the skiff to the water, the frightened horses snorting as they sniffed the fire. 'They think the treasure's still aboard.'

  As soon as the skiff was afloat, they clambered down the lines into the boat and cut themselves adrift. Now the black ship was a mass of flame and oily smoke. Outlined against the fire, the body of Shagarov swung, twisting this way and that as if trying to avoid the hellish heat.

  They let loose the skiffs sail, and the breeze filled it, bearing them away from the blazing vessel. Now, beyond it, they could see the pirate's ship, a sail smouldering as sparks from the other ship caught it. Some of the crew were busy putting it out while others were reluctantly casting off the grappling lines. But now it was touch and go whether the fire would spread through their own ship.

  Soon the skiff was too far away for them to see whether the pirate ship was safe or not, and in the other direction, land was in sight. The land of Crimia and, beyond it, Ukrania.

  And somewhere in Ukrania they would find the Mad God, his followers, and possibly Yisselda . . .

  BOOK TWO

  Now, while Dorian Hawkmoon and his companions sailed for Crimia's mountainous shore, the armies of the Dark Empire pressed in upon the little land of the Kamarg, ordered by Huon, the King-Emperor, to spare no life, energy, and inspiration in the effort to crush and utterly destroy those upstarts who dared resist Gran-bretan. Across the Silver Bridge that spanned thirty miles of sea came the hordes of the Dark Empire, pigs and wolves, vultures and dogs, mantises and frogs, with armour of strange design and weapons of bright metal. And in his Throne Globe, curled foetuslike in the fluid that preserved his immortality, King Huon burned with hatred for Hawkmoon, Count Brass and the rest who, somehow, he could not contrive to manipulate as he manipulated the rest of the world. It was as if some counterforce aided them - perhaps controlling them as he could not - and this thought the King-Emperor refused to tolerate . . .

  But much depended on those few beyond the power of King Huon's influence, those few free souls - Hawkmoon, Oladahn, perhaps D Averc, the mysterious Warrior in Jet and Gold; Yisselda, Count Brass, and a handful of others. For on these the Runestaff relied to work its own pattern of destiny . . .

  — The High History of the Runestaff

  1

  The Waiting Warrior

  As they neared the bleak crags marking the shore, Hawkmoon glanced curiously at D'Averc, who had flung back his boar-masked helm and was staring out to sea, a slight smile on his lips. D'Averc seemed to sense Hawk-moon's attention and glanced at him.

  'You are puzzled, Duke Dorian,' he said. 'Are you not a little pleased by the outcome of our plan?'

  'Aye.' Hawkmoon nodded. 'But I wonder about you, D'Averc. You joined in this venture spontaneously; yet there is no gain in it for you. I am sure you were not greatly interested in bringing Shagarov his deserts, and you certainly do not share my desperation in wanting to know Yisselda's fate. Also, you have not to my knowledge made any attempt to escape.'

  D'Averc's smile broadened a little. 'Why should I? You do not threaten my life. In fact, you saved my life. At this point, my fortunes seem linked closer to yours than the Dark Empire's.'

  'But your loyalty is not to me and my cause.'

  'My loyalty, my dear Duke, as I have already explained, is to the cause most likely to further my own ambition. I must admit I've changed my views about the hopelessness of your own - you seem endowed with such monstrous good luck I am sometimes even inclined to think you might win against the Dark Empire. If that seems possible, I might well join you, and with great enthusiasm.'

  'You do not bide your time, perhaps, hoping to reverse our roles again and capture me for your masters?'

  'No denial would convince you,' D'Averc smiled, 'so I will not offer you one.'

  The enigmatic answer set Hawkmoon to frowning again.

  As if to change the topic of conversation, D'Averc suddenly doubled up with a coughing fit and lay down, panting, in the boat.

  Oladahn called out now from the prow. 'Duke Dorian! Look - on the beach!'

  Hawkmoon peered ahead. Now, under the looming cliffs, he could make out a narrow strip of shingle. A horseman could be seen on the beach, motionless, looking towards them as if he awaited them with some particular message.

  The keel of the skiff scraped the shingle of the beach, and Hawkmoon recognized the horseman who waited in the shadow of the cliff.

  Hawkmoon sprang from the boat and approached him. He was clad from head to foot in plate armour, his helmeted head bowed as if in brooding thought.

  'Did you know I would be here?' Hawkmoon asked.

  'It seemed that you might beach in this particular place,' replied the Warrior in Jet and Gold. 'So I waited.'

  'I see.' Hawkmoon looked up at him, uncertain what to do or say next. 'I see . . .'

  D'Averc and Oladahn came crunching up the beach towards them.

  'You know this gentleman?' D'Averc asked lightly.

  'An old acquaintance,' Hawkmoon said.

  'You are Sir Huillam D'Averc,' said the Warrior in Jet and Gold sonorously. 'I see you still wear the garb of Granbretan.'

  'It suits my taste,' D'Averc replied. 'I did not hear you introduce yourself.'

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold ignored D'Averc, raising a heavy, gauntleted hand to point at Hawkmoon. 'This is the one I must speak with. You seek your betrothed, Yisselda, Duke Dorian, and you quest for the Mad God.'

  'Is Yisselda a prisoner of the Mad God?'

  'In a manner of speaking, yes. But you must seek the Mad God for another reason.'

  'Yisselda lives? Does she live?' Hawkmoon said insistently.

  'She lives.'

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold shifted in his saddle. 'But you must destroy the Mad God before she can be yours again. You must destroy the Mad God and rip the Red Amulet from his throat - for the Red Amulet is rightfully yours. Two things the Mad God has stolen, and both those things are yours - the girl and the amulet.'

  'Yisselda is mine, certainly - but I know of no amulet. I have never owned one.'

  'This is the Red Amulet, and it is yours. The Mad God has no right to wear it, and thus it turned him mad.'

  Hawkmoon smiled. 'If that is the Red Amulet's property, then the Mad God is welcome to it.'

  'This is not a matter for humour, Duke Dorian. The Red Amulet has turned the Mad God mad becauase he stole it from a servant of the Runestaff. But if the Runestaff's servant wears the Red Amulet, then he is able to derive great power transmitted from the Runestaff through the amulet. Only a wrongful wearer is turned mad - only the rightful wearer may regain it once another wears it. Therefore, I could not take it from him, nor could any man save Dorian Hawkmoon von Koln, servant of the Runestaff.'

  'Again you call me servant of the Runestaff; yet I know of no duties I must perform, do
not even know if this is a fabric of imaginings and you are some madman yourself.'

  'Think what you wish. However, there is no doubt, is there, that you seek the Mad God - that you desire nothing greater than to find him?'

  'To find Yisselda, his prisoner . . .'

  'If you like. Well, then, I need not convince you of your mission.'

  Hawkmoon frowned. 'There has been a strange series of coincidences since I embarked on the journey from Hamadan. Barely credible.'

  'There are no coincidences where the Runestaff is concerned. Sometimes the pattern is noticed, sometimes it is not.' The Warrior in Jet and Gold turned in his saddle and pointed to a winding path cut into the cliff side. 'We can ascend there. Camp and rest above. In the morning we shall begin the journey to the Mad God's castle.'

  'You know where it lies?' Hawkmoon asked eagerly, forgetting his other doubts.

  'Aye.'

  Then another thought occurred to Hawkmoon. 'You did not. . . did not engineer Yisselda's capture? To force me to seek the Mad God?'

  'Yisselda was captured by a traitor in her father's army -Juan Zhinaga, who planned to take her to Granbretan. But he was diverted on the way by warriors of the Dark Empire who wished to claim the credit for kidnapping her. While they fought, Yisselda escaped and fled, joining, at length, a refugee caravan through Italia, managing to get passage, sometime later, on a ship sailing the Adriatic Sea, bound, she was told, ultimately for Provence. But the ship was a slaver, running girls to Arabia, and in the Gulf of Sidra was attacked by a pirate vessel from Karpathos.'

  'It is a hard story to believe. What then?'

  'Then the Karpathians decided to ransom her, not knowing that the Kamarg was under siege but learning only later of the impossibility of getting money from that quarter. They decided to take her to Istanbul to sell her, but arrived to find the harbour full of Dark Empire ships. Fearing these, they sailed on into the Black Sea, where the ship was attacked by the one you have just burned . . .'

  'I know the rest. That hand I found must have belonged to a pirate who stole Yisselda's ring. But it is a wild tale, warrior, and barely has the sound of truth. Coincidence . . .'

  'I told you - there are no coincidences where the Runestaff is involved. Sometimes the pattern seems simpler than at other times.'

  Hawkmoon sighed. 'She is unharmed?'

  'Relatively.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Wait until you come to the Mad God's castle.'

  Hawkmoon tried to question the Warrior in Jet and Gold further, but the enigmatic man remained entirely silent. He sat on his horse, apparently deep in thought, while Hawkmoon went to help D'Averc and Oladahn get the nervous horses out of the boat and unload the rest of the provisions they had brought. Hawkmoon found his battered saddlebag still safe and marvelled at his being able to hold on to it through all their adventures.

  When they were ready, the Warrior in Jet and Gold silently turned his horse and led the way to the steep cliff path, beginning to climb it without pause.

  The three companions, however, were forced to dismount and follow after him at a much slower pace. Several times both men and horses stumbled and seemed about to fall, loose stones dropping away beneath their feet, to hurtle to the shingle that was now far below them. But at last they gained the top of the cliff and looked over a hilly plain that seemed to stretch away forever.

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold pointed to the west. 'In the morning, we go that way, to the Throbbing Bridge. Beyond that lies Ukrania, and the Mad God's castle lies many days' journey into the interior. Be wary, for Dark Empire troops roam thereabouts.'

  He watched as they made camp. D'Averc looked up at him. 'Won't you join us in our meal, sir?' he said almost sardonically.

  But the great, helmeted head remained bowed, and both warrior and horse stood stock still, like a statue, remaining thus all night, as if watching over them - or possibly watching them to make sure they did not leave on their own.

  Hawkmoon lay in his tent looking out at the silhouette of the Warrior in Jet and Gold, wondering if the creature were in any way human, wondering if his interest in Hawkmoon was ultimately friendly or malign. He sighed. He wanted only to find Yisselda, save her, and take her back to the Kamarg, there to satisfy himself that the province still stood against the Dark Empire. But his life was complicated by this strange mystery of the Runestaff and some destiny he must work out that fitted with the Runestaff s 'scheme'. Yet the Runestaff was a thing, not an intelligence. Or was it an intelligence? It was the greatest power one could call upon when oath making. It was believed to control all human history. Why, then, he wondered, should it need 'servants' if, in effect, all men served it?

  But perhaps not all men did. Perhaps there emerged forces from time to time - like the Dark Empire — that were opposed to the Runestaffs scheme for human destiny. Then, perhaps, the Runestaff needed servants.

  Hawkmoon became confused. His was not these days the head for profundity of that sort, nor speculative philosophy. Not much later he fell asleep.

  2

  The Mad Gods Castle

  For two days they rode until they came to the Throbbing Bridge, which spanned a stretch of sea running between two high cliffs some miles apart.

  The Throbbing Bridge was an astonishing sight, for it did not seem made of any kind of solid substance at all, but of a vast number of criss-crossed beams of coloured light that seemed somehow to have been plaited. Gold and shining blue were there, and bright, gleaming scarlet and green and pulsing yellow. All the bridge throbbed like some living organ, and below, the sea foamed on sharp rocks.

  'What is it?' Hawkmoon asked the Warrior in Jet and Gold. 'Surely no natural thing?'

  'An ancient artifact,' said the warrior, 'wrought by a forgotten science and a forgotten race who sprang up sometime between the fall of the Death Rain and the rise of the Princedoms. Who they were and how they were brought into being and died, we do not know.'

  'Surely you know,' D'Averc said cheerfully. You disappoint me. I had judged you omniscient.'

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold made no reply. The light from the Throbbing Bridge was reflected on their skins and armour, staining them a variety of hues. The horses began to prance and became difficult to control as they directed them closer to the great bridge of light.

  Hawkmoon's horse bucked and snorted, and he tightened its reins, forcing it forward. At last its hooves touched the throbbing light of the bridge and it became calmer as it realized that the bridge would actually bear its weight.

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold was already crossing the bridge, his whole body seeming to be ablaze with a multicoloured aura, and Hawkmoon, too, saw the strange light creep around the body of his horse and then immerse him in a weird radiance. Looking back he saw D'Averc and Oladahn shining like beings from another star as they moved slowly over the bridge of throbbing light.

  Below, faintly seen through the criss-cross of beams, were the grey sea and the foam-encircled rocks. And in Hawkmoon's ears there grew a humming sound that was musical and pleasant, yet seemed to set his whole frame vibrating gently in time with the bridge itself.

  At length they were across, and Hawkmoon felt fresh, as if he had had several days' rest. He mentioned this to the Warrior in Jet and Gold who said, 'Aye, that's another property of the Throbbing Bridge, I'm told.'

  Then they rode on, with only land now between them and the Mad God's lair.

  On the third day of their journey it had begun to rain, a fine drizzle that chilled them and lowered their spirits. Their horses plodded across the vast, sodden Ukranian plains, and it seemed that there was no end to the grey world.

  On the sixth day of their journey, the Warrior in Jet and Gold raised his head and brought his horse to a halt, signalling for the other three to stop. He appeared to be listening.

  Soon Hawkmoon heard the sound too - the drumming of horses' hooves. Then, breasting a slight rise to their left, came some score of riders in sheep-skin hats and cloaks, l
ong spears and sabres on their backs.

  They seemed in a panic, and not noticing the four onlookers, they rode past at fantastic speed, lashing the rumps of their steeds until blood flew in the air.

  'What is it?' Hawkmoon called. What do you flee from?'

  One of the riders turned in his saddle, not lessening his speed. 'Dark Empire army!' he called, and dashed on.

  Hawkmoon frowned. 'Should we continue in this direction?' he asked the warrior. 'Or should we find another route?'

  'No route is safe,' replied the Warrior in Jet and Gold.

  'We might just as well take this one.'

  Within half an hour they saw smoke in the distance. It was thick, oily smoke that crept close to the ground, and it stank. Hawkmoon knew what the smoke signified but said nothing until, later, they came to the town that was burning and saw, piled in the square, a huge pyramid of corpses, every one naked - men, women, children, and animals heaped indiscriminately upon one another and burning.

  It was this pyre of flesh that gave off the evil-smelling smoke, and there was only one race Hawkmoon knew of who would indulge in such an act as this. The riders had been right. Dark Empire soldiers were nearby. There were signs that a whole battalion of troops had taken the town and razed it.

  They skirted around the town, for there was nothing they could do, and in even more sober spirits continued on their journey, wary now for any sign of Granbretanian troops.

  Oladahn, who had not witnessed so many of the Dark Empire's atrocities, was the one most visibly moved by the sight they had witnessed.

  'Surely,' he said, 'ordinary mortals could not . . . could not . . .'