'I owe you my life,' Hawkmoon said. 'And my conscience would not be clear if I rode away from Soryandum knowing that your city would be destroyed, your race exterminated, and the Dark Empire given the opportunity to wreak even more havoc in the East than it has already. No - I will do what I can, though without weapons it will not be an easy task.'
Rinal signed to one of the wraith-folk, who drifted from the room, to return at length with Hawkmoon's battered battle-blade and Oladahn's bow, arrows, and sword. 'We found it an easy matter to recover these,' smiled Rinal. 'And we have another weapon, of sorts, for you.' He handed Hawkmoon the tiny device they had used earlier to open the padlocks. 'This we retained when we put most of our other machines in store. It is capable of opening any lock - all you must do is point at it. It will help you gain entrance to the main storeroom where the mechanical beast guards the old machines of Soryandum.'
'And what is the machine you desire us to find?' Oladahn asked.
'It is a small device, about the size of a man's head. Its colours are those of the rainbow, and it shines. It looks like crystal but feels like metal. It has a base of onyx, and from this projects an octagonal object. There may be two in the storeroom. If you can, bring both.'
'What does it do?' Hawkmoon inquired.
'That you will see when you return with it.'
'If we return with it,' said Oladahn in a tone of philosophical gloom.
4
The Mechanical Beast
Having refreshed themselves on food and wine stolen from D'Avercs men by the wraith-folk, Hawkmoon and Oladahn strapped on their weapons and prepared to leave the house.
With two of the men of Soryandum supporting them, they were borne gently down to the ground.
'May the Runestaff protect you,' whispered one, as the pair made for the city wall, 'for we have heard that you serve it.'
Hawkmoon turned to ask him how he had heard this. It was the second time he had been told that he served the Runestaff; yet he had no knowledge that he did. But before he could speak the wraith-man had vanished.
Frowning, Hawkmoon led the way from the city.
Deep in the hills several miles from Soryandum, Hawkmoon paused to get his bearings. Rinal had told him to look for a cairn made out of cut granite, left there centuries before by Rinal's ancestors. At last he saw it, old stone turned to silver by the moonlight.
'Now we go north,' he said, 'and look for the hill from which the granite was cut.'
Another half hour and they made out the hill. It looked as if at some time a giant sword had sliced its face sheer. Since that time grass had grown over it again so that the characteristic seemed a natural one.
Hawkmoon and Oladahn crossed springy turf to a place where thick shrubs grew against the side of the hill. Parting these, they discerned a narrow opening in the cliffside. This was the secret entrance to the machine stores of the people of Soryandum.
Squeezing through the entrance, the two men found themselves in a large cave. Oladahn lit the brand they had brought for the purpose, and the flickering light revealed a great, square cavern that had evidently been hewn artificially.
Remembering his instructions, Hawkmoon crossed to the far wall of the cave and looked for a tiny mark at shoulder height. At last he saw it - a sign written in unfamiliar characters, and beneath it a tiny hole. Hawkmoon took from his shirt the instrument they had been given and pointed it at the hole.
He felt a tingling sensation in his hand as he applied slight pressure to the instrument. The rock before him began to tremble. A powerful gust of air made the brand flames stream, threatening to blow them out. The wall began to glow, become transparent, and then disappear altogether. 'It will still be there,' Rinal had told them, 'but temporarily removed to another dimension.'
Cautiously, swords in hand, they passed through into a great tunnel full of cool, green light from walls like fused glass.
Ahead of them lay another wall. On it glowed a single red spot, and it was at this that Hawkmoon now pointed the instrument.
Again there was a sudden rush of air. This time it nearly blew them over. Then the wall glowed white, turning to a milky blue before vanishing altogether.
This section of the tunnel was the same milky-blue colour, but the wall ahead of them was black. When it, too, had faded, they entered a tunnel of yellow stone and knew that the main store chamber and its guardian lay ahead of them.
Hawkmoon paused before applying the instrument to the white wall they faced.
'We must be cunning and move swiftly,' he told Oladahn, 'for the creature beyond this wall will come alive the moment it senses our presence -'
He broke off as a muffled sound reached their ears - a fantastic clashing and clattering. The white wall shuddered as if something on the other side had flung a huge weight against it.
Oladahn looked dubiously at the wall. 'Perhaps we should reconsider. After all, if we wasted our lives uselessly we . .'
But Hawkmoon was already activating the instrument, and the protecting wall had begun to change colour as the strange, cold wind struck their faces. From behind the wall came an awesome wail of pain and bewilderment. The walls turned to pink, faded — and revealed the machine-beast.
The wall's disappearance seemed to have disturbed it for an instant, for it made no move toward them. It crouched on metal feet, towering over them, its multicoloured scales half-blinding them. The length of its back, save for its neck, was a mass of knife-sharp horns. It had a body fashioned somewhat like an ape's, with short hind legs and long forelegs ending in hands of taloned metal. Its eyes were multifaceted like a fly's, glowing with shifting colours, and its snout was full of razor-sharp metal teeth.
Beyond the mechanical beast they could see great heaps of machinery, stacked in orderly rows about the walls. The room was vast. Somewhere in the middle of it, on his left, Hawkmoon saw the two crystalline devices Rinal had described. Silently, he pointed to them, then made to dash past the monster, into the storeroom.
Their movements as they ran stirred the beast from its daze. It screamed and lumbered after them, exuding a repulsive metallic smell.
From the corner of his eye Hawkmoon saw a gigantic taloned hand clutching at him. He swerved aside, knocking into a delicate machine that toppled and smashed to the floor, scattering bits of glass and broken metal parts. The hand plucked at air an inch from his face, then grabbed again, but Hawkmoon had already sidestepped.
An arrow suddenly struck the beast's snout with a clatter of metal on metal, but it did not scratch the yellow and black scales.
With a roar, the beast sought its other enemy, saw Oladahn, and pounced toward him.
Oladahn scampered backward but not fast enough, for the creature seized him in its paw and drew him towards its gaping mouth. Hawkmoon yelled and struck his sword at the thing's groin. It snorted and flung its prisoner aside. Oladahn lay supine in a corner by the door, either stunned or slain.
Hawkmoon backed away as the creature advanced; then he suddenly changed tactics, ducked, and dashed between the surprised beast's legs. As it began to turn, Hawkmoon dashed back again.
The metal monster snorted in fury, its claws thrashing about it. It leaped into the air and came down with an earsplitting crash, rushing across the floor of the gallery at Hawkmoon, who squeezed down between two machines and, using them for cover, crept closer to the machines he had come to take.
Now the monster began to wrench machines aside in its insensate search for its enemy. Hawkmoon came to a stop by a machine with a bell-shaped nozzle. At the end of its nozzle was a lever. The machine seemed to be some kind of weapon. Without pausing to think, Hawkmoon pulled the lever. A faint noise came from the thing, but nothing else seemed to result.
Now the beast was almost upon him again.
Hawkmoon prepared to make a stand, deciding that he would fling his sword at one of the eyes, since they seemed to be the creature's most vulnerable feature. Rinal had told him that the mechanical beast could not be kill
ed in any ordinary sense; but if it were blinded, he might stand a chance.
But now, as the beast came into direct line of the machine, it staggered and grunted. Evidently some invisible ray was attacking it, possibly interfering with its complicated mechanism. It staggered, and Hawkmoon felt triumphant for an instant, judging the beast defeated. But the creature shook its body and began to advance again with slow, painful movements.
Hawkmoon saw that it was slowly regaining its strength. He must strike now if he was to have any chance at all. He ran toward the beast. It turned its head slowly. But then Hawkmoon had leaped at its squat neck and was climbing up the scales to seat himself on the mechanical beast's shoulders. With a growl it raised its arm to tear Hawkmoon away.
Desperately Hawkmoon leaned forward and with the pommel of his sword struck first at one eye and then at the other. With a sharp, splintering sound, both eyes were dashed to fragments.
The beast screamed, its paws going not to Hawkmoon but to its injured eyes, giving the young duke time to leap from the creature's back and dash for the two boxes he sought.
He pulled a sack from where it was looped over his belt and dropped the two boxes into it.
The mechanical monster was flailing around. Metal buckled and snapped wherever it struck. Blind it might now be, but it had lost none of its strength.
Skipping around the screaming beast, Hawkmoon ran to where Oladahn lay, bundled the little man over his shoulder, and ran for the exit.
Behind him the metal beast had caught the sound of his footsteps and had begun to turn in pursuit. Hawkmoon increased his pace, his heart seeming about to burst from his ribcage with the effort.
Down the corridors he raced, one after the other, until he reached the cave and the narrow opening that led to the outside world. The metal monster would not be able to follow him through such a tiny crack.
As soon as he squeezed through the opening and felt the night air in his lungs, he relaxed and studied Oladahn's face. The little beast-man was breathing well enough, and there seemed to be nothing broken. Only a livid bruise on his head seemed serious, explaining why he was unconscious. Even as he inspected Oladahn's body, for worse injuries, the beast-man's eyes began to flutter open. A faint sound came from his lips.
'Oladahn, are you all right?' Hawkmoon asked anxiously.
'Ugh - my head's on fire,' Oladahn grunted. 'Where are we?'
'Safe. Now try to rise. Dawn is almost here, and we must get back to Soryandum before morning, or D'Averc's men will see us.'
Painfully Oladahn pulled himself to his feet. From within the cave came a wild howling and thundering as the mechanical beast sought to reach them.
'Safe?' Oladahn said, pointing to the hillside behind Hawkmoon. Possibly - but for how long?'
Hawkmoon turned. A great fissure had appeared in the cliff face as the mechanical beast strove to free itself and follow its enemies.
'All the more need for speed,' said Hawkmoon, picking up his bundle and beginning to run back in the direction of Soryandum.
They had not gone half a mile before they heard an enormous crash behind them. Looking back, they saw the face of the hill split open and the metal beast emerge, its howling echoing through the hills, threatening to reach all the way to Soryandum.
'The beast is blind,' Hawkmoon explained, 'so it may not follow us at once. Perhaps if we can reach the city we will be safe from it.'
They increased their pace and were soon on the outskirts of Soryandum.
Not much later, as dawn came, they were creeping through the streets seeking the house of the wraith-folk.
5
The Machine
Rinal and two others met them by the house and hastily bore them up to the entrance window. As the sun rose and light fell through the windows, making the wraith-folk look even less tangible than before, Rinal eagerly took the boxes from Hawkmoon's sack.
'They are as I remember,' he murmured, his strange body drifting into the light so that he might look at the objects better. His ghostly hand stroked the octagon set in its onyx base. 'Now we need have no fear of the masked strangers. We can escape from them whenever we please . . .'
'But I thought there was no way for you to leave the city,' Oladahn said.
'That is true - but with these machines, we can take the whole city with us, if we are lucky.'
Hawkmoon was about to question Rinal further, when he heard a commotion in the street outside and sidled to the window to peer cautiously down. There he saw D'Averc, his two brutish lieutenants, and about twenty warriors. One of the warriors was pointing up at the window.
'We have been seen,' Hawkmoon said. 'We must all leave. We cannot fight so many.'
Rinal frowned. 'We cannot leave, either. But if we use our machine, it will put you at D'Averc's mercy. I am in a dilemma.'
'Use the machine then,' Hawkmoon said, 'and let us worry about D'Averc.'
'We cannot let you die for our sakes! Not after all you have done.'
'Use the machine!'
But Rinal still hesitated.
Hawkmoon heard another sound outside and glanced cautiously through the window. 'They've brought up ladders. They're about to enter. Use the machine, Rinal.'
Another of the wraith-folk, a woman, said softly, 'Use the machine, Rinal. If what we heard was true, then it is unlikely that our friend will come to much harm at D'Averc's hands, not at this moment, anyway.'
'What do you mean?' Hawkmoon asked. 'How do you know this?'
'We have a friend not of our people,' the woman told him, 'who sometimes visits us, bringing us news of the outside world. He, too, serves the Runestaff -'
'Is he a warrior in armour of jet and gold?' Hawkmoon interrupted.
'Aye, he told us you -'
Duke Dorian!' Oladahn cried. The first of the boar warriors had reached the window.
Hawkmoon whipped his sword from the scabbard, leaped forward, and drove the blade into the throat of the warrior just below his gorget. The man went backward and down with a gurgling scream. Hawkmoon seized the ladder, trying to twist it aside. It was firmly held below. Another warrior came level with the window, and Oladahn swung at his head knocking him sideways, but the man clung on. Hawkmoon relinquished his hold on the ladder and hacked at the man's gauntleted fingers. With a yell he let go and crashed to the ground.
'The machine,' Hawkmoon called desperately. 'Use it, Rinal. We cannot hold them for long.'
From behind him there came a musical thrumming sound, and Hawkmoon felt slightly dizzy as his sword met that of the next attacker.
Then everything began to vibrate rapidly, and the walls of the house turned bright red. Outside in the street the boar warriors were yelling - not in surprise, but in outright fear. Hawkmoon could not understand why the sight terrified them so much.
He could see now that the whole city had turned the same vibrating scarlet and seemed to be shaking itself to pieces in harmony with the thrumming of the machine. Then, abruptly, sound, and city vanished and Hawkmoon was falling gently earthward.
He heard the voice of Rinal, faint and disappearing, say, 'We have left you the twin of this machine. It is our gift to aid you against your enemies. It has the ability to shift whole areas of the earth into a slightly different dimension of space-time. Our enemies will not have Soryandum now . . .'
Then Hawkmoon landed on rocky ground, Oladahn close by, and saw that there was not a trace of the city. Instead there was pitted ground that looked as if it had recently been ploughed.
Some distance away were the troops of Granbretan, D'Averc among them, and Hawkmoon could see now why they had screamed in terror.
The machine-beast had come at last to the city and was attacking the boar warriors. Everywhere were the battered and bleeding corpses of Granbretanians. Urged on by D'Averc, who had his own sword drawn and was joining them in the battle, the Granbretanians were trying to destroy the monster.
Its metal spines shook in fury, its metal teeth clashed in its head, and i
ts metal talons ripped and rent armour and flesh.
'The beast will take care of them,' Hawkmoon said. 'Look - our horses.' About three hundred yards away stood the two bewildered steeds. Hawkmoon and Oladahn ran for them and were soon mounted, riding away from the site of Soryandum and the carnage that the mechanical beast was making of D'Averc's boars.
Now, with the strange gift of the wraith-folk wrapped carefully and placed in Hawkmoon's saddlebag, the two adventurers continued their journey to the coast.
The coarse turf was easier on the horses' hooves, and they made rapid progress over the hills until they came at last to the wide valley where the Euphrates flowed.
By the banks of the broad river they made their camp and debated how best to cross, for the water was fast-flowing at this stretch, and according to Hawkmoon's map, they would have to journey several miles south before they came to a likely fording place.
Hawkmoon stared across the water as the setting sun stained it the colour of poppies. A long, almost silent sigh escaped him, and Oladahn looked up curiously from where he was laying the fire.
'What troubles you, Duke Dorian? One would have thought you in good spirits after our escape.'
'It is the future that troubles me, Oladahn. If D'Averc were right and Count Brass lies wounded, with von Villach dead and the Kamarg under powerful siege, then I fear we shall return to find nothing but the ashes and mud Baron Meliadus once promised he would make of the Kamarg.'
'Let us wait until we get there,' Oladahn said with attempted cheerfulness, 'For it is likely that D'Averc only sought to make you gloomy. Almost certainly your Kamarg still stands. From all you have told me of the great defences and the mighty valour of the province, I do not doubt that they still hold against the Dark Empire. You will see . . .'
'But will I?' Hawkmoon's gaze dropped to the darkening ground. 'Will I, Oladahn? D'Averc was almost certainly right when he spoke of Granbretan's other conquests. If Sicilia is theirs, then so must be parts of Italia and Espanyia. Don't you see what that means?'