‘A long time ago, out of the terrible heat of the Great Searing came four figures. Shining white and brilliant, they walked the cooling world shaping it with their songs and their love into a great celebration of their sheer joy at being.
‘Many shapes it took, for great and endlessly varied was their joy. And when the time was due, they formed it as it is now so that their own creations could create in turn and celebrate their own joy at being.
‘And these four were called the Guardians: Sphaeera, Guardian of the Air and the winds and the sky; Enartion, Guardian of the Oceans and Lakes and all the rivers and streams; Theowart, Guardian of the Earth, its mountains and flatlands, islands and continents; and then, greatest of all, the First Comer, Ethriss, the Guardian of all Living Things.
‘And the Guardians looked at their work and at the Great Harmony of its Song, and were content. And they rested; each fading into his wardship, so that only Ethriss retained his original form, lying atop an unclimbable mountain, hidden from the eyes of men by Sphaeera’s mists.
‘But a fifth figure had come from the heat of the Great Searing, with lesser figures at his heels. And He shone red and baleful and carried an ancient corruption with Him from what had gone before. Brooding in His evil, and detesting the work of the Guardians, but daunted by their power and might, He remained still and silent until they rested. Then He came forth, quietly and with great cunning, for He knew that to wake them would be to court His own destruction. For they would know Him. And He walked among men for many generations, sowing His corruption softly and gently, with sweet words and lying truths, slowly souring the Great Harmony that the Guardians had created.
‘And so beautiful was He that none could see the evil in Him...’
Gulda stopped her tale abruptly and looked at Hawklan with a strange sad expression on her face. ‘And He was beautiful, Hawklan, so beautiful.’ Hawklan felt a myriad nuances in her voice but they were snatched from him as the momentum of her old tale carried her forward again.
‘And so wise was He that some men forgot the sleeping Guardians and took Him for a god and worshipped him, calling Him Sumeral, the Timeless One. And from their worship He drew great power, both in His spirit and in His possession of men’s hearts and minds. And men multiplied and spread across the whole world, and as they did, so His power grew until it rivalled that of the Guardians themselves.’
Again, Gulda stopped, as if recalling some long-forgotten memory. She raised a cautionary finger and spoke in her normal voice.
‘You mustn’t think to judge these people, Hawklan. Sumeral wrought His damage always with reasoned and subtle argument. He narrowed men’s vision, so that they could see only their own needs and desires. And seeing only these, they became discontented. He blunted their awareness of others — not just people, but plants, animals, everything. He made them forget their deep kinship, their reliance on and their need for all other things that were. He made them forget the joy of being, Hawklan, and knowing they’d lost something, people searched even more desperately for something to fill the emptiness He’d created.’
She leaned forward, and tapped her raised finger into the empty air. ‘So more and more He showed them how to satisfy these needs and desires. But each gratification led only to more emptiness and to more desire. And each was always at the cost of some previous treasure for which they now felt nothing. I fancy after twenty years in Orthlund you’ll find this hard to imagine, but animals were slaughtered utterly, forests wasted, mountains blasted, great tracts of land destroyed, even the air and the sea became foul with poisons.’
Hawklan lifted his hand to interrupt. At first Gulda had intoned her tale like some village storyteller. Her narrative was similar to many he had read in the past week, and he was prepared to hear old stories retold if that was what she wanted. But what was she saying now? She was right, he could not imagine such extremities, not least because, stripped of her storytelling lilt, the simple words seemed to fall on him like stinging hailstones.
‘Gulda, I don’t understand,’ he said, his perplexity showing openly. ‘You’re telling us an old fairy tale as if we were children...’ He stopped abruptly as he saw the expression on her face. It was not the angry irritation or stern reproof that such a comment might have been expected to invoke, but a terrible lonely sadness, as from an aching pain too deep to be reached by any solace. His eyes opened almost in horror as the healer in him touched on the edge of this torment, and a realization dawned on him. Gulda saw it, and nodded her head slowly.
‘Yes, Hawklan,’ she said. ‘You see correctly. This is no child’s tale. It’s the truth. I tell it like an old fireside lay because any other way needs my mind and my heart, and the pain of memory is too much for me.’ Tears formed in her eyes but no convulsion shook her mouth or face.
Hawklan’s mind washed to and fro like a pebble at the edge of a storm-tossed lake. For a moment he actually became dizzy and he put his hands to his temples to steady himself. Something was shaking his entire being. Here was this silly old woman telling him fairy tales, just as Andawyr had, when he needed answers to his many questions. He cursed himself for his weakness in hoping for so much from this strange creature. And yet... And yet... she believed what she was saying, that was obvious. And... he believed it, too, even though reason railed against it. But...?
‘How can you know it’s true?’ he asked at last.
Gulda looked at him and spoke simply and without hesitation. ‘That’s a tale for another telling, Hawklan. And probably not mine. Do you doubt me?’
Hawklan recoiled from the pain in her look as the bright blue eyes pierced him. This time, they too were filled with doubt, but such doubt that his own fretting of the last few weeks dwindled into insignificance.
Had she placed too much hope in a foolish empty-headed man who had some little skill in healing and who had perhaps stumbled by chance into the possession of an ancient and magical Castle?
For an instant he felt again her appalling despair and loneliness at the realization that her long, aching journey might after all have to continue, and continue into who knew what distant darkness. Something in his mind shifted, like the dropping of the keystone into an arch, and the doubts and turmoil ceased.
He took her face between his two hands. ‘I’m sorry, Gulda,’ he said. ‘I didn’t understand.’
She lifted her stick and placed it on the table, then she covered his hands with her own and for a moment closed her eyes.
‘And I’m sorry I doubted you, Hawklan. For an instant I thought you were the wrong man and that I’d have to... But I see now your doubts were the last throes of your life with the Orthlundyn. It would be a sorry man indeed who wanted to leave what you’ve had here.’
Hawklan nodded slightly. ‘Finish your story — your history,’ he said gently.
Gulda smiled sadly and releasing Hawklan’s hands recovered her stick. The mutual doubting had been cathartic. She continued her tale.
‘Not everyone was seduced by His cunning though. Many remembered the tales of the Guardians handed down through the generations and saw Sumeral for what He was. They resisted Him.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s many a tale there to bring joy and sadness to you. Many a tale.’ She held up her hands as though she were clasping a sphere. ‘Strangely, as those who opposed Him shrank in number, so their resistance hardened. And even among those under His sway, there were murmurs against Him when the degradation of the land and the seas became increasingly obvious.’
She leaned forward, nearing the crux of her tale. ‘So, ever the master of originality, He created His most cunning and evil device — He taught His people war.’
She stretched out the word, war, and it sounded like a death knell.
Gavor cocked his head on one side.
Gulda lapsed into her sonorous storyteller’s voice again. ‘He delved into the deepest pit of darkness that can be dug in men’s minds and drew out wild-eyed, screaming war. “As you worship Me, so you must worship this, My most mighty creation, for it alone can lead you to crush those who stand between you and the greatness that is yours by right”.’
Hawklan looked at one of the window images brought into the Library by the mirror stones. Outside, storm clouds flew overhead, themselves like raging hordes.
Gulda became matter-of-fact again. ‘With this He hoped to quell the murmurings of His own people, and destroy those who opposed Him. And for a while He was successful. But He’d overreached himself. The clamour and torment that only war can bring woke the Guardians.’
Gulda rested her head on her hand and shook it bitterly. ‘Oh, Hawklan. There are so many terrible “ifs” in this tale. If the Guardians hadn’t slept, if they’d wakened earlier or been less drowsy from their long sleep. If, if, if. Such a long and terrible word.’
Hawklan waited as the shadows of the clouds marched across the Library.
Gulda continued. ‘Sumeral felt their waking, and He was afraid. His power equalled theirs, but He knew that to combat them directly would be to risk His own destruction, even if He were victorious. So it spurred Him to yet another evil deed.’ A little of the storyteller’s lilt returned. ‘He took His three most terrible regents and filled them with secret knowledge so that they became the most powerful of all men, then He gave them immortality and bound them with ties unimaginable to become ever His servants.’
‘The Uhriel,’ said Hawklan softly. Gulda nodded.
‘Creost,’ said Hawklan.
‘With power over the waters of the earth, to bind Enartion.’
‘Dar Hastuin.’
‘With power over the air and the sky, to bind Sphaeera.’
‘And Oklar.’
Gulda paused. ‘The greatest of them all. With power over the land and mountains, to bind Theowart.’
The words hung in the air like a chanted catechism.
‘They it was who locked the Guardians in combat and tended to matters of earthly generalship, leaving Sumeral to face Ethriss unhindered.’
Into Hawklan’s mind came the tales of battles and glory that he had been reading about so recently. He felt a reluctant stir of excitement.
‘Tell me about the war,’ he said.
Gulda caught a note in his voice and looked at him for a long time without speaking, her eyes seeming to pierce into his very soul. Her face wrinkled into an expression of disgust and resignation, mingled with compassion and understanding.
‘Hawklan, Sumeral and Ethriss fought on planes and in ways we can’t begin to understand. But amongst us, each led mortal armies in human form.’ She put her hand to her head. ‘Dismiss from your mind all the rhetoric you’ve read about war — glittering arrays of armoured men, spear points shining in the sun, bronzed helmets, plumes nodding, brave fluttering flags and on and on. Fine poetry, but not truth. Such small good as comes from war is no more than a solitary star shining through the fog to a man lost in a barren wilderness. Heroism, honour, dignity — they happen only because Ethriss’s children are infinitely adaptable and will strive eternally to survive, the wiser among them having regard for the needs of others. In the total sum these offerings are outweighed tenfold by the horrors that war works.
‘Instead you should feel terror to loosen your bowels, know steel hacking beloved flesh, hooves trampling skulls into the blood-soaked mud. Years of creation gone in seconds. Know great areas of land blighted for generations, rivers choked with mutilated bodies, men suffocating under mounds of their dead and dying friends, men dying of disease and unspeakable wounds, dying without solace or comfort, far away from everything they love. Old people slaughtered, children maimed and wandering. That’s war, Hawklan. No glory. No splendour.’
Hawklan bowed his head under this onslaught.
‘But the real horror is worse,’ Gulda continued. ‘Not for nothing did I say war was Sumeral’s most cunning and evil device. When Ethriss realized the truth, he wept.’
Hawklan looked at her uncertainly. ‘What could be worse than what you’ve just described?’ he asked.
Gulda seized his wrists. Again Hawklan wondered at the overwhelming strength of her grip.
‘In any combat, be it between men or nations, only the strongest and most ruthless can win, and they can win only by inflicting appalling losses on their opponents.’ Tears ran down Gulda’s face. Not petulant sobbing, but an overflow from some well deep within.
‘When Sumeral launched war against His enemies, they scattered and fell in dismay and confusion, like chaff in the wind, totally ignorant of the nature of the terrible thing that was afflicting them. They’d have been swept out of existence had not Ethriss...’
‘Taught them war,’ said Hawklan almost inaudibly. Andawyr’s words at the Gretmearc returned to him: the Guardians had to teach Sumeral’s evil to overcome it. Then Isloman’s voice in the soft grey rain: you have to be worse than your enemy. Don’t think otherwise or you’ll die. And his own inexorable conclusion: we act to preserve ourselves. It’s the most ancient of laws. Written deep into all living things.
Gulda nodded and released Hawklan’s wrists. ‘That’s why Ethriss wept. He had to complete Sumeral’s own work to defeat Him. He had to become a greater teacher of corruption than even Sumeral.’
Hawklan put his face in his hands as if to shut out his own thoughts as the logic of Gulda’s tale swept all before it.
‘Ethriss’s self-reproach at his own sloth and tardiness is a burden none of us can imagine,’ continued Gulda. ‘The only leavening he could add to the horror of what he had to teach was that men should fight only to preserve what was theirs and not to impose their will on others. And that in victory they...’
‘Should stay their hands from excess.’ Hawklan finished the sentence.
Gulda looked at him, her head tilted slightly as if she had heard a distant sound. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They should embrace compassion and eschew vengeance. Lonely and delicate flowers to grow amid such a harrowing. Nor did they always survive.’
The wind outside had dropped and the grey storm clouds hung solid and menacing overhead — like an army awaiting the order to advance, Hawklan thought. He sat up and looked around. Gavor was gazing transfixed at the lowering grey sky, occupied by who knew what thoughts. Gulda, pale and distressed from her long tale, but peculiarly triumphant, was wiping her eyes.
But Tirilen was sitting motionless, with her arms wrapped around herself and her head bowed low. Hawklan felt the fear radiating from her. She was trapped, like a child in a nightmare who, on waking, finds it is no dream.
Hawklan put out his arms and cradled her to him as he had done so many times when she had been a child. Though whether it was to console her or himself, he could not have said.