Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (25 page)

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 wraithman 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 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 men 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 altogether. The wall began to glow, become transparent, and then disappear altogether. "It will still be there," Rinald had told them, "but temporarily removed to another dimension."

Cautiously, swords in hand, they passed through into a great tunnel that was full of cool, green light that came 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 milkyblue color, 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 be activated 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 color as the strange, cold wind struck their faces.

From behind the wall came an awesome wail of pain and bewilderment. The wall turned to pink, faded—and revealed the machinebeast.

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 multicolored scales halfblinding them. The length of its back, save for its neck, was a mass of knifesharp 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 colors, and its snout was full of razorsharp 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 weird metallic smell that was repulsive to Hawkmoon's nostrils.

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 toward its gaping mouth. Hawkmoon yelled and struck with 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 bellshaped nozzle. At the end of this 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 eh 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 killed in any ordinary sense; but if it were blinded, he might stand a chance.

But now, as the beast came into the 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 him

self 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 beastman 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 beastman'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 wraithfolk.

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 wraithfolk 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 must have been seen," Hawkmoon gasped. "We must all leave. We cannot fight so many."

Rinal frowned. "We cannot leave, either. But if we use our machine, it will leave 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 wraithfolk, 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 armor of jet and gold?" Hawkmoon interrupted.

"Aye, he told us you—"

"Duke Dorian!" Oladahn cried, pointing to the window. 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, but it was firmly held below. Another warrior came level with the window, and Oladahn swung at his head knock

ing 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 to 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 spacetime. 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 plowed.