Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (10 page)

Just before sunset he reached a village of pleasant villas and gardens that bore the marks of conflict. Indeed, some of the villas were in ruins. The village was strangely quiet, though a few lights were beginning to burn in windows, and the inn, when he reached it, had its doors closed and there were no signs of revelry from within. He dismounted in the inn's courtyard and banged on the door with his fist. He waited for several minutes before the bar was withdrawn and a boy's face peered out at him. The boy looked frightened when he saw the wolf-mask. Reluctantly he drew the door open to let Hawkmoon enter. As soon as he was inside, Hawkmoon pushed back the mask and tried to smile at the boy to give him reassurance, but the smile was artificial, for Hawkmoon had forgotten how to move his lips correctly. The boy seemed to take the expression as one of disapproval, and he backed away, his eyes half-defiant, as if expecting a blow at very least.

"I mean you no harm," Hawkmoon said stiffly. "Only take care of my horse and give me a bed and some food. I'll leave at dawn."

"Master, we have only the humblest food," murmured the boy, partly reassured. The people of Europe in those days were used to occupation by this faction or that, and the conquest of Granbretan was not, in essence, a new experience.

The ferocity of the people of the Dark Empire was new, however, and this was plainly what the boy feared and hated, expecting not even the roughest justice from one who was evidently a noble of Granbretan.

"I'll take whatever you have. Save your best food and wine if you will. I seek only to satisfy my hunger and sleep."

"Sire, our best food is all gone. If we—"

Hawkmoon silenced him with a gesture. "I am not interested, boy. Take me literally and you will serve me best."

He looked about the room and noted one or two old men sitting in the shadows, drinking from heavy tankards and avoiding looking at him. He went to the center of the room and seated himself at a small table, stripping off his cloak and gauntlets and wiping the dust of the road from his face and body. The wolf-mask he dumped on the ground beside his chair, a most uncharacteristic gesture for a noble of the Dark Empire. He noticed one of the men glance at him in some surprise, and when a murmur broke out a little later, he realized they had seen the Black Jewel. The boy returned with thin ale and some scraps of pork, and Hawkmoon had the feeling that this was, indeed, their best. He ate the pork and drank the ale and then called to be taken to his room.

Once in the sparsely furnished chamber he stripped off his gear, bathed himself, climbed between the rough sheets, and was soon asleep.

During the night he was disturbed, without realizing what had awakened him. For some reason he felt drawn to the window and looked out. In the moonlight he thought he saw a figure on a heavy warhorse, looking up at his window. The figure was that of a warrior in full armor, his visor covering his face. Hawkmoon believed he caught a flash of jet and gold. Then the warrior had turned his horse and disappeared.

Feeling that there was some significance to this event, Hawkmoon returned to his bed. He slept again, quite as soundly as before, but in the morning he was not sure whether he had dreamed or not. If it had been a dream, then it was the first he had had since he had been captured. A twinge of curiosity made him frown slightly as he dressed himself, but he shrugged then and went down to the. main room of the inn to ask for some breakfast.

Hawkmoon reached the Crystal City by the evening. Its buildings of purest quartz were alive with color, and everywhere was the tinkle of the glass decorations that the citizens of Parye used to adorn their houses and public buildings and monuments. Such a beautiful city it was that even the warlords of the Dark Empire had left it almost wholly intact, preferring to take the city by stealth and waste several months, rather than attack it.

But within the city the marks of occupation were everywhere, from the look of permanent fear on the faces of the common folk, to the beast-masked warriors who swaggered the streets, the flags that flowed in the wind over the houses once owned by Parye's noblemen. Now the flags were those of Jarak Nankenseen, Warlord of the Order of the Fly; Adaz Promp, Grand Constable of the Order of the Hound; Mygel Hoist, Archduke of Londra; and Asrovak Mikosevaar, renegade of Muskovia, mercenary Warlord of the Vulture Legion, pervert and destroyer, whose legion had served Granbretan even before her plan of European conquest became evident. A madman to match even those insane nobles of Granbretan he allowed to be his masters, Asrovak Mikosevaar was always at the forefront of Granbretan's armies, pushing the bound-aries of Empire onward. His infamous banner, with the words stitched in scarlet on it, Death to Life struck fear into the hearts of all who fought against it. Asrovak Mikosevaar must be resting in the Crystal City, Hawkmoon decided, for it was unlike him to be far from any battle line. Corpses drew the Muskovian as roses drew bees.

There were no children in the streets of the Crystal City.

Those who had not been slaughtered by Granbretan had been imprisoned by the conquerors, to ensure the good behav-ior of those citizens who remained alive.

The sun seemed to stain the crystal buildings with blood as it set, and Hawkmoon, too weary to ride on, was forced to find the inn Meliadus had told him of and there sleep for the best part of a night and a day before resuming his journey to Castle Brass. There was still more than half of that journey to finish.

Beyond the city of Lyon, the Empire of Granbretan had so far been checked in its conquests, but the road to Lyon was a bleak road, lined with gibbets and wooden crosses on which hung men and women, young and old, girls and boys, and even, perhaps as an insane jest, domestic pets such as cats, dogs, and tame rabbits. Whole families rotted there; entire households, from the youngest baby to the oldest servant, were nailed in attitudes of agony to the crosses.

The stench of decay inflamed Hawkmoon's nostrils as he let his horse plod miserably down the Lyon Road, and the stink of death clogged his throat. Fire had blackened fields and forests, razed towns and villages, turned the very air gray and heavy. All who lived had become beggars, whatever their former station, save those women who had become whores to the Empire's soldiery, or those men who had sworn groveling allegiance to the King-Emperor.

As curiosity had touched him earlier, now disgust stirred faintly in Hawkmoon's breast, but he hardly noticed it. Wolf-masked, he rode on toward Lyon. None stopped him; none questioned him, for those who served the Order of the Wolf were, in the main, fighting in the north, and thus Hawkmoon was safe from any Wolf addressing him in the secret language of the Order.

Beyond Lyon, Hawkmoon took to the fields, for the roads were patrolled by Granbretanian warriors. He stuffed his wolf-mask into one of his now empty panniers and rode swiftly into the free territory where the air was still sweet but where terror still blossomed, save that this was a terror of the future rather than of the present.

In the town of Valence, where warriors prepared to meet the attack of the Dark Empire when it came - discussing hopeless stratagems, building inadequate war engines-Hawkmoon told his story first.

"I am Dorian Hawkmoon von Koto," he told the captain to whom the soldiers took him.

The captain, one thigh-booted foot on a bench in the crowded inn, stared at him carefully. "The Duke von Koln must be dead by now - he was captured by Granbretan," he said. "I think you are a spy."

Hawkmoon did not protest but told the story Meliadus had given him. Speaking expressionlessly, he described his capture and his method of escape, and his strange tone convinced the captain more than the story itself. Then a swordsman in battered mail pushed through the crowd shouting Hawkmoon's name. Turning, Hawkmoon recognized the insignia on the man's coat as his own, the arms of Koln. The man was one of the few who had fled the Koln battlefield somehow.

He spoke to the captain and the crowd, describing the Duke's bravery and ingenuity. Then Dorian Hawkmoon was heralded as a hero in Valence.

That night, while his coming was celebrated, Hawkmoon told the captain that he was bound for the Kamarg to try to recruit the help of Count Brass in the war against Granbretan.

The captain shook his head. "Count Brass takes no sides," he said. "But it is likely he will listen to you rather than anyone else. I hope you are successful, my lord Duke."

Next morning, Hawkmoon rode away from Valence, rode down the trail to the south, while grim-faced men passed him riding north to join forces with those preparing to withstand the Dark Empire.

The wind blew harder and harder as Hawkmoon neared his destination and saw, at length, the flat marshlands of the Kamarg, the lagoons shining in the distance, the reeds bent beneath the mistral's force - a lonely, lovely land. When he passed close to one of the tall old towers and saw the heliograph begin to flash, he knew that his coming would be newsed to Castle Brass before he arrived there.

Cold-faced, Hawkmoon sat his horse stiffly as it picked its way along the winding marsh road where shrubs swayed and water rippled and a few birds floated through the sad old skies.

Shortly before nightfall, Castle Brass came in sight, its terraced hill and delicate towers a black-and-gray silhouette against the evening light.

COUNT BRASS passed Dorian Hawkmoon a fresh cup of wine and murmured, "Please continue, my lord Duke," as Hawkmoon told his story for the second time. In the hall of Castle Brass sat Yisselda, in all her beauty, Bowgentle, thoughtful of countenance, and von Villach, who stroked his mustache and stared at the fire.

Hawkmoon finished the tale. "And so I sought help in the Kamarg, Count Brass, knowing that only this land is secure from the power of the Dark Empire."

"You are welcome here," Count Brass said, frowning. "If refuge is all you seek."

"That is all."

"You do not come to ask us take arms against Granbretan?" It was Bowgentle who spoke, half-hopefully.

"I have suffered enough from doing so myself-for the time being - and would not wish to encourage others to risk meeting a fate I only narrowly missed myself," replied Hawkmoon.

Yisselda looked almost disappointed. It was plain that all in the room, save wise Count Brass, wanted war with Granbretan. For different reasons, perhaps - Yisselda to revenge herself against Meliadus, Bowgentle because he believed such evil must be countered, von Villach simply because he wished to exercise his sword again.

"Good," said Count Brass, "for I'm tired of resisting arguments that I should help this faction or that. Now - you seem exhausted, my lord Duke. Indeed, I have rarely seen a man so tired. We have kept you up too long. I will personally show you to your chambers."

Hawkmoon felt no triumph in having accomplished his deception. He told the lies because he had agreed with Meliadus that he would tell such lies. When the time came for kidnapping Yisselda, he would pursue the task in the same spirit.

Count Brass showed him into a suite consisting of bedchamber, washing room, and a small study. "I hope it is to your taste, my lord Duke?"

"Completely," Hawkmoon replied.

Count Brass paused by the door. "The jewel," he said, "the one in your forehead-you say that Meliadus was unsuccessful in his experiment?"

"That is so, Count."

"Aha . . ." Count Brass looked at the floor, then, after a moment, glanced up again. "For I might know some sorcery that could remove it, if it troubles you. . . ."

"It does not trouble me," said Hawkmoon.

"Aha," said the Count again, and left the room.

That night, Hawkmoon awoke suddenly, as he had awakened in the inn a few nights since, and thought he saw a figure in the room - an armored man in jet and gold. His heavy lids fell shut for a moment or two, and when he opened them again the figure was gone.

A conflict was beginning to develop in Hawkmoon's breast - perhaps a conflict between humanity and the lack of it, perhaps a conflict between conscience and the lack of conscience, if such conflicts were possible.

Whatever the exact nature of the conflict, there was no doubt that Hawkmoon's character was changing for a second time. It was not the character he had had on the battlefield at Kohl, nor the strange apathetic mood into which he had fallen since the battle, but a new character altogether, as if Hawkmoon were being born again in a thoroughly different mold.

But the indications of this birth were still faint, and a catalyst was needed, as well as a climate in which the birth would be possible.

Meanwhile, Hawkmoon woke up in the morning thinking how he might most speedily accomplish the capture of Yisselda and return to Granbretan to be rid of the Black Jewel and sent back to the land of his youth.

Bowgentle met him as he left his chambers.

The philosopher-poet took his arm. "Ah, my lord Duke, perhaps you could tell me something of Londra. I was never there, though I traveled a great deal when I was younger."

Hawkmoon turned to look at Bowgentle, knowing that the face he saw would be the same as the nobles of Granbretan would see by means of the Black Jewel. There was an expression of frank interest in Bowgentle's eyes, and Hawkmoon decided that the man did not suspect him.

"It is vast and high and dark," Hawkmoon replied. "The architecture is involved, and the decoration complex and various."

"And its spirit? What is the spirit of Londra - what was your impression?"

"Power," said Hawkmoon. "Confidence . . ."

"Insanity?"

"I am incapable of knowing what is sane and what is not, Sir Bowgentle. You find me a strange man, perhaps? My manner is awkward? My attitudes unlike those of other men?"

Surprised by this turn of the conversation, Bowgentle looked carefully at Hawkmoon. "Why, yes . . . but what is your reason for asking?"

"Because I find your questions all but meaningless. I say that without - without wishing to insult . . ." Hawkmoon rubbed his chin. " I find them meaningless, you see."