The Masks of Sentinel Chapter Two (part 1 of 2)

  
          With the smouldering dragon-wall before him and the fading day at his back, Falk felt as though trapped between two sunsets. To the watchers in the castle (visible and invisible) the outlines of the three strangers glowed red as molten iron.
          On the battlements, the heads of the guards appeared crested with flame. They wore helmets of eccentric design, the visors shielding not only the eyes, but covering the whole face. Each rutilant mask was stamped with a different bestial aspect. Those visible were falcon, jackal, ram, lizard and bull.
          Warily, Falk moved closer to the gate. At his approach, the ram-headed guard, stationed above the arch, leaned forward and pointed a lance at him. A fragment of rough white crystal glittered at the weapon's tip. It seethed with power: some ancient energy that Falk could almost feel, pricking at his skin. As far he could see, the other guards were armed with ordinary spears only.
          "I am Commander Bralud." The voice rang out like hammered steel, indicating an amplification device inside the ram-helm's visor. "Who are you? What's your purpose in Erastor?"
          "I'm called Falk. I ask no more than passage into the country beyond your castle."
          "Why were you marooned here? How did you displease the master of ... the Kuthnar?"
          "Interesting. You possess either miraculous eyesight or uncommon instrumentality. I'm here of my own free will."
          "I assume, then, that you're a journeyman entertainer. Your menagerie is intriguing. A sample trick might prove amusing."
          "I regret I'm unable to oblige, being a simple adventurer by profession."
          "And what adventure do you hope to gain here?"
          "If I knew that, there'd be none."
          "Enough." Bralud jerked his head impatiently. Red and silver light flowed over the goat-mask. "Speak now and speak plain. What do you seek in Erastor?"
          "A road straight through it."
          Without warning, a bolt of eye-searing blue shot from the lance, cracked the air. It hit the ground between Falk's legs. A wave of heat engulfed his body. He refused to flinch. Wolf and Hawk remained still as heraldic beasts.
          Falk glanced down at the beach.
          A nugget of smoking glass, fused from yellow sand, marked the beam's target-point.
          Bralud laughed: a harsh, grating sound. "Impertinence improves my marksmanship. If occasioned, a slightly higher aim will produce a sensation of unusual poignancy. I urge you to reconsider your answer."
          Containing his anger, Falk racked his brain for a serviceable falsehood. "My liege-lord," he said at last, "has an obsessional interest in objects of antiquity. He learned but recently that this region was rich in such artefacts. His collection is lacking in - "
          "Hold! Your ignorance of the lie-maker's art almost confounds belief." Bralud's tone implied amusement rather than anger. "The balance shifts in your favour. Though not enough, I fear - "
          He broke off, tilted his goat-mask to the sky. Falk followed his gaze, caught a moon appearing, breaking the blue like a surfacing ice floe. Assuming full shape and clarity, it followed the same path as its predecessor, sliding like an oiled wheel down the starsea's blazing curve, vanishing beyond the castle heights.
          "An omen possibly," Bralud mused aloud. "What can it portend?"
          Falk took a risk. "Does not Challun-Tioch - Fallen Moon - lie further inland?"
          He saw immediately that he had made a mistake. All the sentries within earshot betrayed increased alertness. Their goat-headed leader asked, "What do you know of the Hunters of Challun-Tioch?"
          "Only the name," said Falk. "And that out of a cloud of legend."
          "Your lies grow progressively less diverting. In this matter I must insist on absolute truth." Bralud pointed the lance at Wolf. "A death in the family will straighten your tongue, I think."
          Before the commander could release another beam of energy, Hawk spurted into flight. Time froze for all but the winged attacker. Even as Bralud tightened his finger, he saw a blur of dark gold, then nothing else but hooked talons clawing through his visor. Instinctively, he reached up to protect his eyes ... and let go of the lance.
          Falk ran forward and caught the weapon as it fell. He felt again an alien force, far stronger than before. A hurried inspection revealed the device to be controlled by a recessed black jewel halfway along its length.
          Wolf snarled. Falk glimpsed a spear streaking towards him, thrown by the lizard-headed guard. Wielding the lance staff-like, Falk deflected the oncoming missile. Then, in a blurring arc, he brought the weapon to bear on its erstwhile owner, shouting, "Hold, or your leader dies!"
          Hawk drew in its claws, curved free of Bralud's frantically clutching hands, flew back to Falk's shoulder.
          The ram-headed commander was shaken, but unharmed. He signalled his men to lower their spears. In line with the last fires of the lodestar, the rigid, armoured figures atop the dragon-wall shone like bronze statues.
          The crimson light now reached no higher, so that the castle towers were stark as swords against the shimmering starsea.
          "I could easily deprive you of all sensation," said Falk, "poignant or otherwise. I've no wish to do so. All I ask is free passage through Erastor."
          "Have no fear," said Bralud. "Survival is one of the few principles I'd risk my life for."
          Falk smiled. "I think we understand one another. So: I seek present entry."
          "All in good time. First, I have a few more questions that must - "
          "Time is," Falk insisted. "And procrastination sharpens my temper and improves my marksmanship."
          "I crave your indulgence," said Bralud. "But I must warn you, before you enter, that our king exacts a toll."
          "If he can, he will. I have a few coins of gold."
          "Gold is of little interest to him I serve. You must enter this gate prepared to give whatever the king asks of you."
          Falk shrugged. "So be it. But tell me, commander: how is this king of yours, who has no taste for the food of kings, named?"
          "Xaltoran the Masked."
          "Thank you, commander. If I should meet with your curiously titled ruler, I'll mention your name, and commend you highly."
          "Not necessary, though I confess I'm touched by your magnanimity," Bralud said dryly. Then he attended to some mechanism hidden in the wall in front of him. "Now enter, stranger, and in peace."
          A line of pale fire sprang out from beneath the bronze gate. The great door lifted as easily as a brocaded hanging. When its lower edge had eased into place within the stone arch, Falk and Wolf moved forward. A curtain of white light shimmered before them.
          The golden three passed into the gate of Erastor.

          Two leagues beyond the mouth of the bay, fog the colour of blood was torn into swirls of mist by the untrammelled wind. Cocoon-like trails of vapour twisted among the waves. Only a quarter of the sun remained visible above the horizon, flowing out like molten brass.
          The glistening tentacles of the starsea probed deep into the coal-red clouds piled against the sky.
          With its great sail looming like a purple cloud, the Kuthnar progressed towards the fog's swirling edge.
         
          Tarush stood on the foredeck, probing the baleful gloom with anxious eyes. He felt like the captain of a ghost ship. Around him, all sound was muffled, all activity blurred. Men moved through the vessel voiceless as a legion of shadows. The rowers were as featureless as waves, their motions suggesting the very flux of the sea.
          Lifting his swarthy head, Tarush peered up through the mist. He noted with satisfaction the agitation in its upper levels, rifts appearing, the starsea's light stabbing through.
          "This fog's like something living."
          Tarush swung his head around.
          The first mate had joined him.
          "Which is more than you'll be, Symos, if you creep up on me like that again."
          Symos grinned, showing large white teeth. "Apologies, captain."
          Physically, the first mate was a leaner, younger version of his master. Mentally, he was altogether different. Spontaneous in all things, he seized on any new experience, hazarded any venture. His world was a place teeming with wild magicks and baroque possibilities. And his sister, as Tarush often recalled uncomfortably, was a witch.
          "We've just passed the headlands," said Symos; then added, wistfully, "I wonder what Falk's up to."
          "I should've put you ashore with him," Tarush muttered. "You're badly in need of a severe dose of reality."
          "Falk's real enough. How would you explain him away?"
          Tarush stroked his beard. Now that Falk's powerful, brooding presence was gone, he felt that he could view him and his actions with a degree of objectivity.
          "A towering paradox," Tarush said. "He's on a quest of some kind, that's certain. Whatever he's searching for means life or death to him. Given this, one should expect ruthlessness. What's surprising is his counterbalancing sense of justice. After all, I haven't done so badly out of this voyage."
          (In point of fact, Tarush had made a greater profit than even Symos knew, Falk having had left behind in his cabin, as additional payment for the voyage, a sapphire of unusual size and brilliance.)
          "But what of his origins?" the first mate persisted. "His strange powers? And his ... companions?"
          Before answering, the galley-master considered the mist. It was turning from red to silver-grey. Tenuous chains trailed from the galley's prow and sides, mast and sail. Ghosts became men once more. All the noises of a ship at sea joined voice with the wind.
          "As he prepared to go ashore," Tarush said, "I asked Falk who - or what - he was. And he replied, One."
          There was a shout from the masthead lookout: the open ocean, clear and beckoning.
          Symos said, "Perhaps Falk meant that all three shared the same mind and the same soul - three separate parcels of flesh, with but one binding life-force."
          Both men fell silent as the Kuthnar broke free of the fog.
          Shapes of mist clung to the galley like clouds to a mountain peak, then shrivelled to nothing.
          Tarush breathed deep. The purple canvas filled. The long voyage home was finally under way.
          It was near the hour for prayer. Symos, knowing that his master liked to enjoy a few moments of quiet contemplation, stole away. But that image of man, wolf and hawk as a single being haunted him for some time after.
          The ship sailed through a night of light. The starsea now domed the sky, pressing down on the ocean's rim. The main itself was the colour of mercury, wrinkled with black waves, splashed with chromatic fire.
          Before leaving the foredeck, Tarush gazed up at the firmament for a while, as he often did. It seemed to wheel, by gentle degrees, at the well-mouth of his vision. It occurred to him then (not for the first time) that generations of poets had vied with each other to capture the starsea's essence in a perfect, jewelled phrase: whirlpool of fire, disk of eternity, heart of stars, chariot of the gods, lens of infinity, journeywork of a leaf of grass .... And as he opened the brass-ornamented door of his cabin, he decided (not for the last time) that while poetic utterance seemed inexhaustible, it was rarely successful.
          Halfway through the night, Tarush was roused by the watch.
          A fleet of ships had been sighted, coming out of the north, closing fast on the Kuthnar.

          Falk watched the bronze door close, marvelling at its hushed, controlled descent.
          The contrast with similar gates he had encountered on Sentinel, worked invariably by mechanisms of cog and chain, was absolute.
          Beyond the arch was a small hexagonal courtyard, vaulted with great tusks of stone. Opposite the entrance, three gates punctuated the rough masonry. Only the left-hand way was open.
          Falk muttered, "How considerate, to spare me the trouble of making a choice."
          Instead of the expected stairwell leading up to the battlements, he found a gently inclined tunnel, cutting straight as a rule through the living rock.
          Falk and Wolf braved the corridor.
          It stretched into featureless distance, with no sign of an early exit.
          Illumination was provided by red quartzlike formations in the ceiling. These were widely spaced, so that the walls were ribbed with bands of light and shadow - an effect powerfully suggestive of some gigantic throat.
          Apart from the sounds generated by their advance, and the occasional splash of water, the tunnel was completely silent.
          The air was warm and heavy.
          In places, there was evidence of ancient brickwork, indicating passage through the very roots of the castle. At one point, Falk paused to examine a section of large hexagonal blocks. The stones had been cut to an extraordinary degree of precision, slotting together without mortar. The actual age of the site was beyond calculation. In all likelihood, the towers and keeps flown over by Hawk, though of considerable antiquity, were of far later vintage than these foundations.
          As they went on, Falk became more and more intrigued by the way in which the castle linked together various distinctive layers of the past to achieve a sense of unity. Concepts and constructs spanning thousands of years coexisted, interlocked, meshed: a characteristic applying to the whole of Sentinel, though more concentrated in western lands: a quality of oneness deeply significant to Falk.
          The end of the tunnel came in sight, an expanding circle of brightness. Falk wondered what lay beyond. Perhaps Bralud had arranged a reception committee.
          Grinning fiercely, he raised the crystal tip of the lance before his eyes -
          And realized that the thing was dead, useless. He should have noticed it earlier. The tingle of power that he had felt, even from a distance, must have faded sometime before. With a curse, he threw it to the ground, then walked on.
          Increasingly, he felt like a pawn in some shadowy and complex game of chess. He knew that the lance's energy had been withdrawn by a remote agency. His next thought was that his entrance into Erastor had been achieved far too easily. He could have been stopped. The conclusion was inevitable and disturbing: someone wanted him there.
          Further conjecture ended with the corridor.
          It was like coming to the edge of a towering cliff.
          "A cavern," he whispered, dislodging echoes.
          Lion-coloured stone arched overhead, stretched beneath like levels of desert sand.
          At the heart of the place was a column of pale light, still as a pillar of glass, its source a white metal disk set into the vault.
          After the confines of the tunnel, this great space in the earth was inconceivably vast. Falk tried hard not to imagine the great weight of the castle pressing down on the roof-crust.
          There was no evidence of natural formation. There were no signs of life. The immensity and the stillness were overpowering.
          The tunnel's exit was positioned high on the wall. A sculpted dragon's head surrounded it. From between ornately carved jaws, a broad pathway, thin as foil and shining like steel, unsupported from above or below, extended to the base of the column of light.
          Falk tested the fragile-looking structure. It seemed firm enough. They walked along it, hesitantly at first. Then, finding it as solid as a stone road, they went on at normal pace.
          A number of glistening shapes lay strewn over the cavern floor. Falk readily grasped that they were machines: more accurately, parts of machines. Like broken toys left in a nursery by a bored child, the shells and components of gutted engines lay abandoned on the yellow rock.
          In places, scraps of metal and coloured glass had been arranged to form distinct geometric figures. One of these glittered with special meaning to Falk: a pentacle, a five-pointed star.
          The path ran unbroken to the heart of the floor, swelling out to form a broad disk of identical material. Where the light fell upon it, a faint blue glow hung in the air. Beyond, the way continued, rising to the lip of a dragon- mouth identical to that from which they had recently emerged - except that here the way was blocked by a sheer black door.
          They came to the pillar of light, and stood before it, waiting. Falk sensed that something was about to happen. He was quickly proved right.
          A vertical thread of darkness six yards long appeared at the centre of the beam. It trembled like a reflection in running water. Its agitation rapidly increased. Soon, it was twisting and writhing like a snake thrust into fire.
          As the black filament pulsed and coiled, it thickened, palpably. At the same time, the surrounding brightness intensified, filling the cavern with dazzling light. The yellow stone shone like gold; the broken machines gleamed and flashed like monstrous jewels.
          Falk stood back, shielding his eyes. Wolf and Hawk turned away. The core of darkness grew, took shape, stilled; the shaft of light faded to its original brightness.
          Falk lowered his arm. His first impression was of a shadow, formed like a man, fully three times taller than himself, hovering just above the floor.
          And then a face evolved, shining like a mirror.
          It spoke.

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