The Masks of Sentinel Chapter One (part 3 of 3)

  
          Falk was not his given name. He had stolen it from a thief he had surprised in an act of robbery. He could never be sure that Falk had been the thief's real name; but it was certainly the last syllable he had uttered before the wolf's jaws had closed about his throat. It may have been that the robber had cursed him, calling upon some god or demon to avenge his death. To Falk, it was of no importance; he had a name, as good as any. If he had ever had another, and he supposed he must have, then it was as one with the rest of a forgotten past.
          Apart from a name, the thief had furnished Falk with appropriate clothing and ornaments, valuables, weapons. Of the latter, he had retained only the sword, for which he felt an instinctive affinity - it seemed fitting to have a hilt near his hand, even if the blade itself was rarely needed.
          Set beside Tarush, Falk was a giant, though economically fleshed, and imbued with a tensile strength.
          Fortunately, the thief had been roughly the same size as himself. Personal taste, therefore, had not dictated his choice of apparel: a sleeveless jerkin of black leather; loose blackcloth trousers; calfskin boots, turned double below the knee. Even when the opportunity had arisen, he had not troubled to replace this clothing: like the name, it fitted as good as any.
          The adornments were few and barbaric in design. Falk had never fully appreciated their purpose. He wore them mainly because the thief had done so. Upon his wrists and arms were bands of beaten silver, overlaid with complex patterns in gold, set with semi-precious stones.
          A golden torque hung about his neck.
          His accoutrements comprised a brass-studded belt, and the sword itself - its blade of fine-tempered steel, its hilt of fluted ebony, its scabbard of leather cross-banded with silver.
          Both corpses - the thief's victim having lost his most valuable possession before Falk's intervention - had provided a substantial haul of currency and precious objects. Falk had, by various means, converted most of this into a minimum of high value tokens, which he stored in pockets concealed in the lining of the jerkin.
          Prior to this encounter, Falk's only belonging of any material worth had been the silver astrolabe.
          Falk's hair was yellow, hanging loose to his shoulders. He was clean shaven; in fact, there was no trace of a beard whatsoever. His skin was lightly tanned. His features were regular and unremarkable - except the eyes, which shone with the colour and hard brightness of gold metal.
          A group of deep-cut scars on his chest, visible through the loosely tied jerkin, formed a five-pointed star. The patch of skin thus branded was smooth and shining like silk.
          (Tarush knew this symbol, and it disturbed him. It was used in sorcery, and its name was Opener-Of- Gates.)
          With the final scene of the hunt still burning itself into his brain, Falk struggled to focus on the captain's broad, weather-beaten face. "Do you remember anything else?"
          Tarush shrugged. "It's a legend only. I can't even be certain that this is the place of which it speaks. My chart of this area shows only a country of considerable extent. But there are no names, no cities inscribed, no detail of mountains or rivers. Might as well be a desert from coast to coast."
          An early departure never far from his thoughts, the ship-master paused to assess the condition of wind and current. The elements provided him with an appropriate metaphor.
          "Think of time as an ocean," he said. "And think of this planet Sentinel as a shore of that ocean. The tides of past ages have left stranded much that is strange and misunderstood - and feared. There are several regions piled up with antique jetsam, and here is one of them. Such places are sparsely populated, shunned by the rest of the world."
          "Antique jetsam," Falk repeated with a smile, clearly taken with the phrase. "Curious that such wrecks of time are less tarnished than the megaliths of the present."
          "Aye. Witness these glass towers." And may the gods pardon our presumption in challenging their right to this patch of sea!
          Falk recalled the lens-crowned hill in the forest. "A great people must have fashioned these monuments."
          "True. A race called, simply, The Makers, for all that is really known of them is that they made things ... things both prodigious and perfect."
          "And so The Makers are revered as demigods." It was not a question.
          "In some quarters," Tarush demurred. "Though whether as deities or demons, patriarchs or archangels, The Makers have found a place in most religions."
          Falk nodded. "I lived for a time in the monastery at Parthag-Arn. The philosophy espoused there was something of a puzzle to me. Now it grows clearer."
          This was one of the most revealing statements Falk had ever made concerning his past, and Tarush ached to find out more; but with his future, and that of his ship and men, still balanced on the cusp of Falk's will, he decided not to pursue the matter.
          "At the monastery," Tarush said, "you'll have been exposed to one of the more ascetic forms of worship; but there are also cults of a more primitive nature, several of which even maintain the practice of human sacrifice."
          Falk saw again the head of the horned man, laying in the trampled grass like a forked branch fresh-cut from a scarlet tree. "Is there a sect that proclaims the hunting down of men as a sacred ritual?"
          Tarush frowned. "Never heard of - " With a swiftness startling in a man of such bulk, Tarush pulled his dagger from his belt and thrust it at the rail beside him.
          Red liquid jetted into the air, spattered onto the deck.
          Falk turned to look more closely. He saw the jewelled blade, scintillating in the sun. Beneath it, pinned to the wood, lay what looked like a pool of black slime. It was roughly circular in shape, and of sufficient size to cover a man's face.
          As Falk watched, the thing convulsed, quivered, then grew still. More of the crimson ichor oozed up around the anlace point.
          "Leech," Tarush grunted. He shivered involuntarily. "Must've been carried over the sharkring by a high wave."
          Falk nodded. The sharkring, he already knew, was a ridge of razor-sharp spines of metal and glass, encircling the Kuthnar's hull midway between oar-strake and waterline.
          "Perhaps the leech was attracted by our talk of sacrifices," Falk murmured.
          "Do you see any ears?" Reaching forward, Tarush pulled his knife free, then flipped the dead creature back into the ocean. After wiping the blood off on the rail, he held the blade before his eyes.
          "A messy sort of baptism," Tarush mused. "But it'll do."
          "With so much water available, your choice of fluid seems perverse. But what does this ceremonial signify?"
          "It's simple. This is a new weapon, as yet unnamed. I bought it in the bazaar at Parthag-Arn. I've killed with it, so must now name it."
          "Leech, perhaps?"
          "Seems inevitable, doesn't it?" He returned the blade to its sheath.
          "It does, though I haven't yet grasped the need for a name."
          "It's one of the Laws. Everyone knows the Laws. We couldn't exist without them." Tarush could still be disconcerted at the extraordinary gaps in Falk's knowledge.
          Falk said: "I believe I exist, therefore I exist. But my memory's a little parched. Kindly refresh it."
          "Well, the reasoning's straightforward enough," Tarush responded. "The organic is superior to the inorganic. Men are higher than animals, and animals higher than plants. Gods are paramount. The lesser cannot destroy the greater. Only life can take life. Everything that lives possesses a name. Weapons kill. Weapons must be named."
          "I see," said Falk. "But what of natural forces that often kill with spectacular conviction - earthquakes, tidal waves, avalanches?"
          "In these circumstances, such forces become supernatural. There are deities who move the earth and the sea at will. And when an animal slays a man, it is momentarily inhabited by some wilful spirit."
          Falk laughed. "I should have guessed. So when my sword steals a life, it becomes a temporary god!"
          "Exactly."
          "Then I name my sword ... Thief!"
          Tarush nodded approvingly, though the reference to the blade's previous owner was lost on him.
          Falk turned away and looked up. A black fragment detached itself from the starsea's edge. It sped across the sky, passed from smoky purple to clear blue, then curved beneath the oblate sun and descended towards the ship.
          The hawk, returning.
          "You should also name your ... companions," Tarush suggested.
          "Unnecessary," Falk replied. "But, for simplicity's sake, and to satisfy your Laws, I will call them Wolf and Hawk."
          The galley-master restrained himself from asking which was which.
          Hawk plummeted through the invisible levels of the wind, slowed as it neared the ship, sank past the straining sail, extended talons, settled gently onto Falk's waiting fist.

          Mist gathered over the sea, then flowed up the sky, catching fire from the sinking lodestar. Before it, even the crystal towers glowed red as the edges of a furnace door.
          Falk watched the caique that had brought them ashore return to the waiting galley. Not long after, the ship, black and vivid against the glare, turned and headed for the mouth of the bay. As it sailed into the distance, the main bulk of it dissolved into crimson vapour. The sail remained in sight for a while, hanging like a tattered banner; then it, too, was gone.
          Carmine waves broke against the strand near to where Falk stood. Hawk perched on his left shoulder. Wolf crouched to his right, facing inland, keenly alert.
          Falk viewed the Kuthnar's departure with some sadness. It had been his home for a quarter-year. He had grown to feel genuine companionship for its captain and crew. There had been resentment, and the inevitable misunderstandings, but only a single tragedy .... Two of the men, seeking to cut short the voyage, had attacked Falk in his cabin while he slept. One had lost a hand to Wolf, the other an eye to Hawk. Falk chose to dwell on happier memories.
          He recalled his last words with Tarush. As the row-boat had pulled away from the ship, the galley-master had shouted: "By stormsnake and hellfire, I must know! You and Wolf and Hawk. Who, what, are you?"
          And Falk had answered, "One!"
          Soon, the evening itself commanded all attention.
          Sun and starsea generated conflicting tides of light, throwing whirlpools of shade and colour over the world. A quarter of the sky seemed to be on fire; the opposing quarter was filled with the blazing heart of a galaxy; and a vast web of luminosity spanned them, shot through with flames of coral, purple and silver. The beach, in the shadow of castle and cliff, was bluegrey; the sea-margins were red like wine.
          Dusk on Sentinel was always a time of splendour. But Falk had never experienced one such as this. All of his senses sang with it. Even the air tasted like some rare vintage.
          He lifted his face parallel to the sky, cutting off vision of all save the sky itself. He stood like this for a long while, satisfying some deep and unexplainable hunger. A great red glow still hung over the ocean, though perceptibly giving way to the stars. The stars, tight-packed as grains of sand. The stars: for an intoxicating moment, they appeared so close that he might reach up, lucifer-like, and snatch a handful.
          Falk knew the impossibility of mapping such a sky.
          It rose and fell and circled through stages of infinite variety. Even its discernible features, swirls and streams of light and colour, were often obscured by disturbances in the upper atmosphere. From Sentinel, the wheelwork of space was so intricate, so complex, as to seem almost invisible. This explained Tarush's reaction to the astrolabe - the concept was completely alien, and his mind had snapped shut against it.
          The astrolabe. Now that he thought of it, Falk did not understand why he had given it to Tarush. He had prized its beauty. He had not been scornful of its intrinsic value. It had been his only link with his lost past. And yet he had parted with it as though it meant nothing to him. He lowered his head and gazed at the stretch of water between the two towers.
          At the misty edge of the world, the lodestar smouldered like lava.
          A trumpet sounded: a single, held note, clean, piercing. Wolf scanned for the source, but found nothing.
          Intrigued, Falk turned away from the sea. Hawk transferred to his hand, then winged up over the castle. Walls gleamed like enamelwork in the variegated light. A tall, cloaked figure stood in the crenellated summit of a high tower. Two more notes were blown, identical to the first. The ancient stones answered with a flock of echoes. Three birds, whiter than salt, flew up from the shadows. When the last sounds had died away, and all seemed still, the trumpeter descended into the dark throat of the tower.
          Meanwhile, Falk considered the castle gate. He had first noted it from the row-boat. A massive arch, twice as high as a man, and easily as broad at the base, had been gouged out of the cliff. This formed the mouth of a colossal face, sculpted from the saffron rock. The carving was obviously of great age, the features largely eaten away by storm-wind and winter frost. Of the nose, little remained beyond a ridged outline. The eyes were no more than circular pits, positioned just below the dragon-wall.
          A solid bronze gate filled the arch. At its centre, etched into the metal, was a symbol Falk recognised with a quickening of blood: the five-pointed star. He reached up and touched the scars on his chest. He started to walk towards the doorway. Wolf went with him.
          As they passed into the shadow of the wall, Hawk returned to Falk's right hand - a hand in no need of a falconer's glove.
          Within the gloomy recesses of the giant, snakelike eyes above the gate, unseen lenses moved, sliding softly into new positions; glinting like rubies in the red light streaming from across the ocean, they focused on the golden tableau of man, wolf and hawk.

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