Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (75 page)

And Hawkmoon, drawing further energy from the Runestaff, raised his sword knowing he had only enough strength for one blow and that blow must slay the man who stood transfixed before him, mesmerised by his own image.

And Hawkmoon brought up the Sword of the Dawn and he brought it down again and Meliadus gave a great, agonised cry as the blade bit through his shoulder bone and down into his heart. And his last words, which came with his last painful breath, were:

"Curse the Runestaff I It has brought ruin upon Granbretan!"

And Hawkmoon collapsed to the ground knowing that now he would die: That Yisselda would die and that Orland Fank would die; for there were few Kamarg warriors left and the Dark Empire soldiers were many.

HAWKMOON AWOKE IN alarm, staring full into the Serpent mask of Baron Kalan of Vitall. He sprang upright on the bench, groping for a weapon.

Kalan shrugged, turning to the group of people who stood in the shadows. "I told you I could do it. His brain is restored, his energy is restored, his whole foolish personality is restored and now, Queen Flana, I would beg your permission to continue with what I was doing when you interrupted me."

Hawkmoon recognised the heron mask. It nodded once and Kalan shuffled into the next room and carefully closed the door. The figures stepped forward and Hawkmoon saw with joy that one of them was Yisselda. He hugged her in his arms and kissed her soft cheek.

"Oh, I feared that Kalan would trick us," she said. "It was Queen Flana who found you, after she had ordered her troops to cease fighting. We were the last alive, Orland Fank and I, and we thought you dead. But Kalan brought you back to life, removed the jewel from your skull and dismantled the machine so that none may ever fear the power of the Black Jewel again."

"And what business did you interrupt him in, Queen Flana?" Hawkmoon asked. "Why was he so disgruntled?"

"He was about to kill himself," Flana said flatly. "I threatened to keep him alive forever if he did not do what he did."

"D'Averc?" Hawkmoon said, puzzled. "Where is D'Averc?"

"Dead," said the sad queen in the same flat voice.

"Slain in the Throne Room by an over-zealous guard."

Hawkmoon's joy turned to gloom. "And are they all dead, then—Count Brass, Oladahn, Bowgentle?"

"Aye," said Orland Fank, "but they died for a great cause and they freed millions from slavery. Until this day Europe has known only strife. Now perhaps people will seek peace, for they can see where strife leads."

"Count Brass wished for peace in Europe more than anything," Hawkmoon said. "But I wish he could have lived to see it."

"Perhaps his grandson will see it," Yisselda said.

"You need fear nothing from Granbretan as long as I am queen," Flana told them, "I intend to leave Londra dismantled and meanwhile make my own town of Kanbery the capital. The wealth of Londra—which is almost certainly greater than all the wealth of the rest of the world—shall be used in rebuilding the towns of Europe, in restocking the farms, of making good, as best we can, the evil we have done." She drew off her mask, revealing that great, sad, beautiful head. "And, also, I shall abol-ish the wearing of masks."

Orland Fank seemed sceptical, but he said nothing.

"The power of Granbretan is broken for ever," he said, "and the Runestaffs work is done." He patted the bun-dle under his arm. "I'm taking the Sword of the Dawn, the Red Amulet and the Runestaff itself into safe-keeping, but if there should ever come a time, friend Hawkmoon, when you have a mutual need to rejoin each other, then you shall rejoin each other, I promise."

"I hope the time does not come, Orland Fank."

Fank sighed. "The world does not change, Dorian Hawkmoon. There is merely the occasional shift in equi-librium and if that shift goes too far in one direction, then the Runestaff attempts to right it. Perhaps the days of extremes are over for a century or two? I do not know."

Hawkmoon laughed. "But you should—you are omniscient."

Fank smiled. "Not I, my friend, but that which I serve—the Runestaff."

"Your son—Jehemiah Cohnahlias..."

"Ah, there's the mystery even the Runestaff will not answer." Fank rubbed his long nose and looked at them, over it. "Well, I'll say farewell, what's left of you. You fought well and you fought for justice."

"Justice?" Hawkmoon called after him as he left the room. "Is there such a thing?"

"It can be manufactured in small quantities," Fank told him. "But we have to work hard, fight well and use great wisdom to produce just a tiny amount."

"Aye," Hawkmoon nodded. "Perhaps you are right."

Fank laughed. "I know I am right." And then he was gone. And his voice came back to Hawkmoon with just one last observation. "Justice is not The Law, it is not Order, as human beings normally speak of it; it is Equi-librium, the Correction of the Balance. Remember that, Sir Champion Eternal!"

Hawkmoon put his arm around Yisselda's shoulders.

"Aye, I will," he murmured. "And now we return to Castle Brass, to make the springs flow again, to bring back the reeds and the lagoons, to bring back the bulls and the horses and the flamingoes. To make it our Kamarg once more."

"And the power of the Dark Empire will never threaten it again." Queen Flana smiled.

Hawkmoon nodded. "I am sure of that. But if some other evil should come to Castle Brass, I shall be ready for it, no matter how powerful it shall be, or in what form it will come. The world is still wild. The justice Fank spoke of has hardly been manufactured at all. We must try to see that we can make a little more. Farewell, Flana."

Flana watched them leave and she was weeping.

The End of the High History of the Runestaff