Hawkmoon_ The Jewel In The Skull Part 12

He rolled away as the Baron tried to trample him, dragged himself to his feet, and did his best to defend himself from the volley of blows rained down on him by the triumphant Granbretanian.

Twice Meliadus's sword struck the helmet of Agonosvos, denting it badly. Hawkmoon felt the Jewel begin to pulse afresh. He shouted wordlessly and dashed in close.

Astonished by this unexpected move, Meliadus was taken off-guard, and his attempt to block Hawkmoon's thrust was only half-successful. Hawkmoon's sword cut a great furrow along one side of Meliadus's unprotected head, and his whole face seemed to open up and gush blood, his mouth crooked with pain and paralysis. He tried to wipe the blood from his eyes, and Hawkmoon grasped bis sword arm and hauled him down to the ground. Meliadus wrenched himself free, stumbled backward, then rushed at Hawkmoon, his sword a blur of metal, striking Hawkmoon's blade with such force that both swords snapped.

For a moment the panting antagonists stood still, glaring at one another; then each drew a long dirk from his belt, and they began to circle, poised to strike. Meliadus's handsome features were handsome no longer, and if he lived, would always bear the mark of Hawkmoon's blow. Blood still came plentifully from the wound, trickling down his breastplate.

Hawkmoon, for his part, was wearying rapidly. The wound he had sustained the day before was beginning to trouble him, and his head was on fire with the pain the Jewel caused. He could hardly see for it, and twice he staggered, only to right himself as Meliadus feinted with his dagger.

Then both men moved and were instantly locked together, grappling desperately to stab the single mortal blow that would end their feud.

Meliadus struck at Hawkmoon's eye but misjudged his blow, and the dagger sc.r.a.ped down the side of the helmet. Hawkmoon's dagger sliced toward Meliadus's throat, but but the Baron's hand came up, caught Hawkmoon's wrist, and turned it.

The dance of death went on as they wrestled, chest to chest, to deal the finishing cut. Their breath groaned from their throats, their bodies ached with weariness, but fierce hatred glared from both pairs of eyes still and would glare on until one or both became glazed in death.

Around them the battle continued, with Queen Frawbra's forces driving the enemy farther and farther back. Now none fought near the two men and only corpses surrounded them.

Dawn was beginning to touch the sky.

Meliadus's arm trembled as Hawkmoon tried to force it back and make the hand release his wrist. His own free hand was weakening on Meliadus's forearm, for this was his wounded side. Despairingly, Hawkmoon brought his armored knee up into Meliadus's armored groin and shoved. The Baron staggered. His foot caught in the harness of one of the fallen, and he fell. Trying to struggle up, he became worse entangled, and his eyes filled with fear as Hawkmoon slowly advanced, himself only barely able to remain upright.

Hawkmoon raised his dagger. Now his head was swimming. He flung himself down at the Baron, then felt a great weakness seize him, and the dagger dropped from his hand.

Blindly, he groped for the weapon, but consciousness was going. He gasped with anger, but even that emotion was ebbing. Fatalistically he knew that Meliadus would now be able to kill him at his very moment of triumph.

CHAPTER SIX SERVANT OF THE RUNESTAFF.

HAWKMOON PEERED through the eyeslits of the helmet, blinking in the bright light. His head still burned, but the anger and desperation seemed to have left him. He turned his neck and saw Oladahn and the Warrior in Jet and Gold staring down at him. Oladahn's face was concerned, but the warrior's face was still hidden by that enigmatic helm.

"I am not . . . dead?" Hawkmoon said weakly.

"It does not seem so," replied the warrior laconically. "Though perhaps you are."

"Merely exhausted," Oladahn said hastily, darting a disapproving glance at the mysterious warrior. "The wound in your arm has been dressed and is likely to heal quickly."

"Where am I?" Hawkmoon asked now. "A room. . . ."

"A room in Queen Frawbra's palace. The city is hers again and the enemy slain, captured, or fled. We found your body sprawled across that of Baron Meliadus. We thought you both dead at first."

"So Meliadus is dead!"

"It is likely. When we returned to look for his corpse it had vanished. Doubtless it was borne away by some of his fleeing men."

"Ah, dead at last," said Hawkmoon thankfully. Now that Meliadus had paid for his crimes, he felt suddenly at peace, in spite of the pain that still pulsed in his brain. Another thought came to him. "Malagigi. You must find him. Tell him . . ."

"Malagigi is on his way. When he heard of your exploits he decided to call at the palace."

"Will he help me?"

"I do not know," Oladahn said, glancing again at the Warrior in Jet and Gold.

A little later Queen Frawbra entered, and behind her was the wizen-faced sorcerer carrying an object covered by a cloth. It was about the size and shape of a man's head.

"Lord Malagigi," Hawkmoon murmured, trying to rise from his bed.

"You are the young man who has been pursuing me in recent days? I cannot see your face in that helmet." Malagigi spoke waspishly, and Hawkmoon began to despair again.

"I am Dorian Hawkmoon. I proved my friendship to Hamadan. Meliadus and Nahak are destroyed, their forces gone."

"Hm?" Malagigi frowned. "I have been told of this jewel thing in your head. I know about such creations and their properties. But whether it is possible to remove its power I cannot say. . . ."

"I was told you were the only man who could do it," Hawkmoon said.

"Could-yes. Can? I do not know. I am growing old. Physically, I am not sure if ..."

The Warrior in Jet and Gold stepped forward and touched Malagigi upon the shoulder. "You know me, sorcerer?"

Malagigi nodded. "Aye, I do."

"And you know the Power I serve?"

"Aye." Malagigi frowned, glancing from one to the other. "But what has that to do with this young man?"

"He, too, serves that Power, though he knows it not."

Malagigi's expression became resolute. "Then I will help him," he said firmly, "even if it means risking my own life."

Again Hawkmoon raised himself on the bed. "What does all this mean? Whom do I serve? I was unaware . . ."

Malagigi withdrew the cloth from the object he carried. It was a globe covered with little irregularities, each of which glowed a different colour. The colors shifted constantly, making Hawkmoon blink rapidly.

"First you must concentrate," Malagigi told him, holding the strange globe close to his head. "Stare into the device. Stare hard. Stare long. Stare, Dorian Hawkmoon, at all the colors. . . ."

Hawkmoon now found that he was no longer blinking, found that he could not tear his gaze away from the rapidly changing colors in the globe. A peculiar feeling of weightlessness overcame him. A great sensation of well-being. He began to smile, and then all became misty and it seemed he hung in a soft, warm mist, beyond s.p.a.ce, beyond time. He was still absolutely conscious in one way, and yet he was unaware of the world around him.

For a long time he remained in this state, knowing vaguely that his body, which no longer seemed much a part of him, was being moved from one place to another.

The delicate colors of the mist changed sometimes, from a shade of rose-red to shades of sky-blue and b.u.t.tercupyellow, but that was all he saw, and he felt nothing at all. He felt at peace, as he had never felt before, save perhaps as a small child in his mother's arms.

Then the pastel shades began to be shot through with veins of darker, grimmer colors, and the sense of peace was gradually lost as lightnings of black and blood-red zigzagged across his eyes. He felt a wrenching sensation, one of terrible agony, and he screamed aloud.

Then he opened his eyes to stare in horror at the machine before him. It was identical with the one he had seen so long ago in the palace laboratories of King Huon.

Was he back in Londra?

The webs of black, gold, and silver murmured to him, but they did not caress him as they had done before; instead, they contracted, moving away from him, growing tighter and tighter together until they filled only a fraction of the s.p.a.ce. Hawkmoon stared around him and saw Malagigi and beyond him the laboratory where, earlier, he had rescued the sorcerer from the Dark Empire's men.

Malagigi looked exhausted, but there was an expression of great self-satisfaction on his old face.

He stepped forward with a metal box, gathered up the machine of the Black Jewel, and tossed it into the box, closing the lid firmly and locking it.

"The machine," Hawkmoon said thickly. "How did you get it?"

"I made it," Malagigi smiled. "Made it, Duke Hawkmoon, aye! It took a week of intensive effort while you lay there, partly protected from the other machine the one in Londra by my spells. I thought for a while that I had lost the struggle, but this morning the machine was complete, save for one element. . . ."

"What was that?"

"Its life force. That was the crucial issue whether I could time the spell aright. You see, I had to let the whole of the life of the Black Jewel come through and fill your mind, then hope that this machine would absorb it before it could begin to eat."

Hawkmoon smiled in relief. "And it did!"

"It did. You are now free from that fear, at any rate."

"Human dangers I can accept and meet cheerfully," Hawkmoon said, lifting himself from the couch. "I am in your debt, Lord Malagigi. If I can do you any service . . ."

"Nay nothing," Malagigi said, almost with a smirk. "I am glad to have this machine here." He tapped the box. "Perhaps it will be of use to me sometime. Besides . . ." He frowned, staring thoughtfully at Hawkmoon.

"What is it?"

"Ah, nothing." Malagigi shrugged.

Hawkmoon touched his forehead. The Black Jewel was still imbedded there, but it was cold. "You did not remove the Jewel?"

"No, though it could be done if you desire. It offers you no danger. It would be a simple matter of surgery to cut it from your head."

Hawkmoon was about to ask Malagigi how this could be arranged, when a thought came to him. "No," he said at length. "No, let it remain a symbol of my hatred for the Dark Empire. I hope they will soon learn to fear that symbol."

"You intend to carry on the fight against them, then?"

"Aye with redoubled effort now that you have freed me."

"It is a force that should be countered," Malagigi said. He drew a deep breath. "Now I must sleep. I am very tired. You will find your friends awaiting you in the courtyard."

Hawkmoon walked down the steps of the house into the bright, warm sunshine of the early day, and there was Oladahn, a smile splitting his furry face almost in two. Beside him was the tall figure of the Warrior in Jet and Gold.

"You are completely well?" asked the warrior.

"Completely."

"Good. Then I will leave you. Farewell, Dorian Hawkmoon."

"I thank you for your help," Hawkmoon said as the warrior began to stride toward his great white battle charger. Then, as the warrior began to mount, a memory returned and he said, "Wait."

"What is it?" The helmed head turned to regard him.

"It was you who convinced Malagigi he should remove the power of the Black Jewel. You told him that I serve the Power that you serve. Yet I know of no Power that is my master."

"You will know of it one day."

"What is the Power you serve?"

"I serve the Runestaff," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold, and he rattled the white horse's heavy bridge, urging his mount through the gate and away before Hawkmoon could ask him further questions.

"The Runestaff, is it?" Oladahn murmured, frowning. "A myth, I thought . . ."

"Aye, a myth. I believe that warrior enjoys mysteries. Doubtless he jokes with us." Hawkmoon grinned, slapping Oladahn on the shoulder. "If we see him again, we'll get the truth from him. I'm hungry. A good dinner . . ."

"There's a banquet prepared at Queen Frawbra's palace." Oladahn winked. "The finest I've seen. And I think Queen's interest in you is not sparked merely by grat.i.tude."

"Say you so? Well, I hope I do not disappoint her, friend Oladahn, for I am pledged to a fairer maid than Frawbra."

"Is it possible?"

"Aye. Come, little friend let's enjoy the Queen's food and make preparations to return to the West."

"Must we leave so soon? We're heroes here, and besides, we deserve a rest, surely?"

Hawkmoon smiled. "Stay yourself, if you will. But I've a wedding to attend my own."

"Oh, well," sighed Oladahn in mock grief, "I could not miss that event. I suppose I will have to cut short my stay in Hamadan."

Queen Frawbra herself escorted them to the gates of Hamadan the next morning. "You'll not think again, Dorian Hawkmoon? I offer you a throne the throne my brother died trying to win."

Hawkmoon looked to the west. Two thousand miles and several month's journey away, Yisselda awaited him, not knowing whether he had succeeded in his goal or was now a victim of the Black Jewel. Count Bra.s.s, too, waited and must be told of Granbretan's further infamy. Bowgentle, doubtless, was even now standing with Yisselda in the turret of the topmost tower of Castle Bra.s.s, looking over the wild fenland of the Kamarg, trying to console the girl who wondered if the man pledged to wed her would ever return.

He bowed in his saddle and kissed the Queen's hand. "I thank you, Your Majesty, and I am honored that you should think me worthy to rule with you, but there is a pledge I must keep that I would forfeit twenty thrones to keep and I must go. Also my blade is needed against the Dark Empire."

"Then go," she said sadly, "but remember Hamadan and her Queen."

"I will."

He urged his great blue-coated stallion out across the rocky plain. Behind him, Oladahn turned, blew a kiss to Queen Frawbra, winked, and rode after his friend.

Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke von Koln, rode steadily westward to claim his love and take his vengeance.