Dark Moon (31 page)

On trembling legs Duvodas stepped through. There were children, statue still, throwing a ball which hung in the air like a small moon. Older Eldarin were sitting on park benches. Not a movement could be seen. There was not a breath of wind. Duvo glanced up at the summer sky. Clouds stood motionless.

‘How can this be?’ he asked the Oltor.

‘Time has no meaning here. Nor will it. Come, help me in what I must do.’

The Oltor Prime moved across the Great Square and up the broad flight of granite steps to the entrance of the Oltor Temple. There were some Eldarin inside. A father, statue-still, was pointing towards a section of bones laid upon a velvet-covered table. Beside him his children stood in silent, frozen wonder.

The Oltor Prime stood in the centre of the enormous hall, scanning the thousands of bones. Then he strode towards the high altar, and lifted a chunk of red coral. Duvodas followed him. ‘This was once my lifeblood,’ said the Oltor Prime. ‘Now it will be the lifeblood of my people.’ Lifting a section of blue velvet cloth, he tore a long strip loose. ‘You will need to cover your eyes, my friend,’ he said, ‘for there will be blinding lights that would melt your sight away for good.’ Duvodas took the velvet strip and tied it around his head. The Oltor handed him his harp. ‘You will not know the song I am to sing, but let your harp follow it as your heart dictates.’

Once more the Oltor’s sweet voice broke out in song. Duvo waited for several moments, feeling the rhythm, charting the melody. Then he began to play. Even through the velvet blindfold he could see the brightness grow. It was sharp and painful, and he turned away from it. The music was similar to the Song of Morning which Ranaloth had taught him many years before. But it was infinitely more rich and multi-layered. And slowly the song swelled, other voices joining in, until it seemed that a great choir was filling the Temple with a magic so potent that Duvo’s senses swam.

He sank to his knees and let fall his harp. The music washed over him like a warm wave, and he lay down upon the stones and dreamed. In his dream he saw the Oltor Prime, standing before a host of his people. The Curtain of Time was open once more, and the people filed slowly through it to a land of green fields and high mountains: a place of peace, harmony and tranquillity. Duvodas longed to go with them.

He awoke as the Oltor Prime touched his face, feeling more rested than at any time in his life. Pulling clear his blindfold, he saw that the Eldarin father was still pointing towards the high altar. But now there was nothing upon it. Swiftly Duvo scanned the great hall of the Temple. It was empty. Not one shard of bone remained – save the skull held in the hands of the Oltor Prime. ‘You brought them back from the dead!’ whispered Duvo.

‘
We
brought them back, Duvodas. You and I.’

‘Where are they?’

‘In a new land. I must join them soon, but I need your help one last time.’

‘What can I do?’

The Oltor lifted the skull. ‘This is all that is left of me, my friend. I cannot join to it, for I cannot both sing and be born again. You must play the song you heard.’

‘I cannot do it like you. I do not have the skill.’

The Oltor Prime smiled. ‘You do not need the skill. You need the heart – and this you have.’ The Oltor retied the blindfold. ‘Join with me in the music. And when I fall silent, play on!’

Once more the song sounded. Duvo’s fingers danced upon the harp strings. There was no conscious creation of sound, no planned melody. The music he played was automatic and instantaneous. He failed to notice when the Oltor’s voice faded away, and his fingers continued to dance effortlessly along the strings of his harp.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he let the music die away. ‘We are here, Duvodas,’ said the Oltor. Duvo untied the blindfold and rubbed his eyes. Lying on the floor was the sleeping figure of Brune. No longer golden-skinned, he was the sandy-haired young man Duvo had first seen in the Wise Owl tavern with the swordsman, Tarantio. Beside him stood the tall, naked figure of the Oltor Prime.

‘I must leave now,’ said the Oltor, ‘and you must return to the world.’ He handed Duvo a small piece of red coral. ‘I have imbued this with a spell, which will open the Curtain twice only. It will take you to the land below a monastery on a high mountain some forty miles south-east of the ruined city of Morgallis. There you will find Sirano. He has the Pearl with him. Take Tarantio with you, if he will go.’

‘Could you not stay and help us?’

‘I wish to see no more wars. I have touched the stars, Duvodas, and seen many wonders. The Eldarin allowed the humans through the Curtain many centuries ago. Do you know why?’

‘Ranaloth told me it was because our world was dying.’

‘Yes, there was charity and kindness involved in the deed. But the underlying reason was that the Eldarin knew you were similar to the Daroth. They felt great guilt for imprisoning an entire race. You humans were not as grossly evil as the Daroth, but you had a capacity for vileness which the Eldarin were trying to understand. They believed that if they could master relations with the humans it would better help them when they restored freedom to the Daroth.’

‘We are not like the Daroth! I cannot believe that.’

The Oltor sighed. ‘But, deep down, you do, Duvodas. Yours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy – these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that within every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul. The Eldarin came, at last, to this realization. And here they are all around us, unmoving. Alive, and yet not living.’

‘I thought this but a frozen moment in time,’ said Duvodas. ‘I thought you had opened a Curtain on a heartbeat from the past!’

‘No, my friend, though it is a heartbeat frozen in time. This is the present. We are inside the Pearl.’ For a moment only the words failed to register. Duvo looked around him at the silent buildings and the statue-still Eldarin. ‘Rather than fight or kill,’ continued the Oltor Prime, ‘they chose to withdraw from the world. They left behind one elderly mystic to carry the Pearl to a place of safety. He did not survive.’

‘How can I help them?’ asked Duvo. ‘How can I bring them back?’

‘First you must find Sirano and the Pearl, then bring it to the highest mountain above Eldarisa. Lodge it there and climb the Twins. Then you must play the Creation Hymn. You know it – Ranaloth taught you.’

‘I know it. But I was here once before. I cannot find the magic in these rocks.’

‘And yet you must, if the Eldarin are to live again.’

Brune took a deep, shuddering breath and woke. He sat up and looked at the Oltor. ‘You … are not with me any more,’ he said, fear in his voice.

‘A part of me will always be with you, Brune. And now it is time to say goodbye.’

Ozhobar was a large man, and distrustful of the spindly ladders giving access to the stripped barracks roof. Yet he climbed steadily, unwilling to allow his invention to be set in place by inferior hands. Coming to the roof, he stepped out and cast an expert eye over the work of the four carpenters, who stood by expectantly. They had constructed a large, flat surface of interlocking planks, set on four huge beams. Ozhobar strode on to it, stamping his foot here and there. It was solid, the joints neat, the pins planed down perfectly. Satisfied, he took a piece of string and summoned one of the workmen. ‘Hold this in place with your thumb,’ he said, laying one end of the string on the centre of the platform. Stretching the other end to its full length of five feet, he took a piece of chalk and traced a circle with a diameter of ten feet on the wood. The carpenter watched with curiosity as Ozhobar shortened the string by three inches, then traced a second circle within the first. Returning the string to his pocket, he called the carpenters to him. ‘I want a series of holes drilled within the chalk lines, three inches deep and set four inches apart. No more, no less.’

‘What are they for?’ asked the team leader.

‘Pegs,’ said Ozhobar. ‘I need the work completed by noon. The rails are being delivered then.’ The Weapon Maker strode away from them to where a series of pulleys had been constructed, the ropes hanging down to the street far below. He had designed it himself to take three times the expected weight of the weapon and its ammunition. Even so his mind was full of calculations, possible problems and their likely solutions. Crossing the roof once more, he scanned the countryside beyond the northern wall. He already knew it was 400 yards to the first probable Daroth catapult site, 375 to the second, and 315 to the third. Prevailing winds in spring came from the south-east – but not always. In terms of maintaining optimum accuracy, the wind might still prove a problem.

He saw Karis on the wall some sixty feet to the north. She was talking to several officers and the veteran warrior, Necklen. Seeing him she waved and smiled. Ozhobar gave a cursory nod and turned away. Could he build a catapult? Could a blind man piss in the dark? Irritating woman.

His natural sense of fairness asserted itself and he felt guilty about his rudeness. It was hardly her fault that she, like all the others, failed to recognize his genius. People rarely did. The world was full, it seemed to Ozhobar, of men with small minds and little imagination. ‘Why are there so many fools in the world?’ he had once asked his father.

‘Well, boy, the world is ruled by fools so that other fools might prosper. Men of imagination are not highly regarded, as I fear you will find.’

How true it had proved! At thirty-five Ozhobar had seen many of his inventions scorned by lesser minds, his written papers mocked by the wise men of the day. Only now, with Corduin about to be destroyed, had they come to him. And for what? His water-pumping machine? His designs for an inter-connected sewage system to alleviate the spread of sickness and plague? His water-filtration device? No. For crossbows and armour and giant catapults. To call it galling would be an understatement.

‘What diameter holes do you want, sir?’ asked the team leader, moving up behind him.

‘One inch should suffice.’

‘I’ll have to send down for new drill bits. It’ll take time.’

‘What size do you have?’

‘Three-quarter, sir. And we’ve plenty of pegs that size to fit them.’

Ozhobar thought the problem through. The pegs would lock the wheels of the catapult into place, the rails allowing the weapon to be turned through 360 degrees. When the throwing-arm was released there would be a savage kick-back, driving the wheels into the pegs. Would three-quarters be thick enough? Should he design pegs of iron instead? That would be simple enough. But then iron pegs could damage the peg holes.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, use three-quarters. But deepen the holes. If a peg snaps, it will need to be hammered through, so as to allow a fresh peg to be inserted.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The man walked away. Ozhobar heard a distant voice call his name and he ambled across to the edge of the roof, gazing down to the street below. There was a cart drawn up there, carrying twelve of the huge pottery balls he had ordered; they were packed in straw. His irritation rose. They were not due until later this afternoon, and the canvas-roofed shelter had not yet been constructed for them.

His irritation flared into anger minutes later when the pulley crew, in their anxiety to finish the job swiftly, cracked one of the balls against the side of the building, smashing it to shards.

For the next hour the Weapon Maker moved back and forth between the pulley crew and the carpenters, checking the work. The pottery balls were stored against the western side of the roof, and covered with a canvas sheet. The circular iron rails arrived in the early afternoon, and Ozhobar himself fitted them over the chalk circles, hammering the iron spikes into place. It was almost dusk before the first sections of the catapult were hauled into the street below. Ozhobar oversaw the lifting of the cross-beamed base and the throwing-arm, then ordered lanterns to be lit so that the work could continue after dark.

It was midnight before the weapon was fully in place, its four wooden wheels set within the iron rails. The throwing-arm extended upwards more than ten feet, the bronze cup at the top gleaming in the lantern light. Ozhobar swung the machine to the right, and the wheels groaned as the catapult moved. He greased the axles. Now there was no sound as the catapult turned.

‘I hope it works,’ said the team leader, a thin-faced man with a seemingly permanent sneer.

Ozhobar ignored him, then smiled as he pictured the man sitting in the copper cup as the holding hook was hammered clear. In his mind’s eye he could see the fellow sailing up and over the north wall.

It began to snow. Ozhobar ordered the catapult to be covered with a tarpaulin, then made the long perilous descent to the ground, four floors below.

Striding back through the city, he stopped at a tavern for a brief meal, then walked the mile and a half to his workshop. His burly assistant, Brek, was talking to Forin and the female general, Karis.

Ozhobar moved to the forge, holding out his hands to the heat. ‘Are we ready?’ he asked the black-bearded Brek.

‘It is mostly assembled, Oz. A few minor additions will be needed to the helm.’

‘Then let us go through,’ he said. Aware of his earlier discourtesy, he bowed to Karis. ‘After you, General.’

Karis moved through to the rear store-room. There, set on a wooden frame, was a curiously wrought breastplate of polished iron, with bulging shoulder-guards and a raised, semi-circular neck-plate. Brek walked to a nearby workbench and came back with a huge helmet which he fitted inside the neck-guard. ‘It looks like a huge beetle,’ said Forin, with a deep belly laugh.

‘Put it on,’ said Karis.

‘You’re joking!’

‘I never joke. Put it on.’

Forin stepped up to the frame. Brek removed the helm, then lifted the breastplate clear, placing it over Forin’s broad shoulders. The jutting shoulder-guards made him look even more enormous. The open sides were protected by chainmail, which Brek hooked into place. ‘Now the helm,’ said Karis.