Friday Fiction: The Six Powers

 

THE SIX POWERS

 

On the evening of a dead day at the end of fall, the Loremaster, John Craft, came to the tower and bid them sound the Horn. It was of copper, green with age, but bound in gold. They blew a mighty blast.

Far away, in her timeless halls, the Grey Lady sat up straight in her polished chair. For a moment she stood thus, erect and motionless; then called for her horses to be prepared at once.

In a grove of fir trees, the Blind Prophet stood leaning on his staff, motionlessly contemplating the rush and babble of a flood-gorged stream. He raised his head, cocked it to one side, like a dog catching a scent. He turned and was gone like a ghost among the trees.

Further yet, in the world of men, the Harpist played in the hall of a king amid the roar and mumble of a feast. He too heard the Horn, and slowly he turned his tune to one of enchantment. Heavier grew the eyes of the revelers, and at last all were sleeping. He took up his harp and passed out into the evening under the stars.

Far, and farther away still, the Wandering Smith was winding his way through a dried watercourse, tools clanking on his belt. Thin and from afar came the call, but he heard it. He ran troubled fingers through his short black beard as he stood still. With a heavy groan he turned and set a steady pace.

And farthest away of all, at the End of the Earth, the Warrior stood guarding the Doors of Night. He uttered a great cry, and bounding onto his horse he sped away, leaving the iron-bound doors alone in the dim twilight.

On the day of the Call the Grey Lady arrived, drawn by her star-white horses. On the second day the Prophet came, drifting in like a dead leaf. On the third came the Harpist, surrounded by solemn melodies. The fourth day came, and with it the Smith, dust-covered and grim. The fifth day brought the Warrior, his horse bathed in sweat but unwinded, his hair unbound by any helm and gleaming like the sun.

On the sixth day, they all entered the Room of Councils, to hear the words of John Craft.

He came before them, as old as time, clothed in red and blue, holding a staff, not as a prop for age, but as a rod of power and symbol of his office. His eyes were grave.

"The Horn is sounded," he said. "You know well what that means."

"Yes," said the Grey Lady evenly. She lifted her eyes to his. "The Battle of Doom and the End of an Age of this World."

The Smith smote his fist on his knee. "So soon, so soon! Had I but time..."

"But alas! No time is left," said the Harpist. His eyes were dreaming and his fingers lightly brushed the strings of his harp. "The Legions of the North are marching, and the Horn has sounded. The Evil One and the Shrouded One and the Dark One are calling their minions from the corners of the land, their armies prepare. The Wolf has broken its chains, in the Dead Forest the Hag has woven the iron shirt. And so the Master has sounded the Horn, for the Battle is called."

John Craft paused. "It is not so," he said.

"What!" cracked the Smith. The yell snapped through the hall. The Harpist's fingers stumbled, jangling his strings. The Lady stood upright, her grey eyes focused on their aged leader. The Warrior went pale as death with his lips forming the word "Why?"

Only the Blind Prophet stood unshaken, a light smile playing about his face.

"It is not so," the Loremaster continued in even tones. "The Wicked Ones yet plot on the far shores of the sea, the Legions still await their orders, the Wolf strains against its bonds, and the Hag lacks one sleeve of the iron shirt that will bind and protect their Lord"--here he made a strange sign--"in the Battle of Doom. And yet, I have sounded the Horn."

Now the Warrior arose, and drawing his sword stepped forward, and placed the naked blade against the wizard's throat. "Are you mad?" he asked in low, shaking tones. "For unless you are, I shall slay you as you stand for dooming our land. For look! I have left the Door unwarded, and the Evil Lord shall surely waste no time escaping its iron bounds. Even now..."

"He has broken forth," came the voice of the Prophet. All voices stilled, all eyes turned upon him. His blind eyes stared across the leagues. "For six days he has struggled against the Door, and now, on the start of the seventh, he has broken out, even as the Warrior spoke. He travels with great speed to the sea."

"And so the Battle strikes sooner than it must," spoke the Warrior. "Talk, if you be not traitor, and say why you have done this thing."

"Do not be afraid," said the Loremaster calmly. "The Battle cannot be before the signs are fulfilled. If I have started the hour earlier, it is because I would choose the hour and the time of the Battle myself, rather than have it strike when we are unprepared. And we are most unready. The Rings of the Elements are lost."

"Lost!" cried the Smith. "Without them we have no hope of winning! Calamity upon calamity. And it is now that you choose to blow the Horn?"

"Not no hope," said the Prophet darkly.

"How did this come to pass?" asked the Lady. "Where are the Rings gone?"

"All that is known is that they are in the World of Men. A human thief, with some knowledge of the Arts, came and took them while I was away. Their power shall hide them from our eyes, and in the normal course of things we would never recover them before the Battle," said John Craft.

"But what use is it to have blown the Horn?" she demanded.

"It is not only the Evil Lord who walks beyond the Door of Night," he said. "Behold!"

All turned, and there in the doorway stood a figure, heavily cowled, with no part of its body shown.

"What is it?" cried the Harpist.

"Some shade of night," said the Smith. "Slay it, Warrior, ere it work some mischief."

"No!" said the Loremaster, and moved to prevent the Warrior, but in vain. With drawn sword he swept forward toward the figure, but before he could strike, the sleeve of its robe brushed his face, and the Warrior crashed senseless to the floor.

All the rest froze. "Who are you?" wondered the Lady.

From the figure came a soft voice. "I am Sleep. Because the wizard has been the cause of my release, I owe him one service. What is your wish?"

"I will tell it, but I must talk with my Council first." The Loremaster turned to the others. "This being is why I have blown the Horn. It is our one hope. We must pass into the World of Men and search for the Rings and one who will bear them back. For as a human stole them away, only a human can return them. We must seek them not with our craft, but even as men, using our wits and eyes. While we are gone, he shall drown the land in sleep. The Hag will not weave or the Wicked Ones prepare."

"But our own people shall sleep, too," said the Harpist.

"It is the price we must pay. Though he be freed, even the Evil Lord cannot yet act in his full power," said the wizard. He turned and spoke to the shrouded figure. "After we leave, drown all the land in a sleep that shall only be broken when a human bears the Rings of the Elements into the land."

"Join hands now," he told the others, and when they did so, they were instantly gone.

And immediately the being that called itself Sleep cast its power over the land. In the Dead Forest the Hag dozed over her loom, the Wolf slept curled in its chains, the Legions drowsed at post and in bunk. The Wicked Ones and even the Evil Lord slumbered on the shore of the sea. In the Room of Councils the Warrior dreamed of battles, and all through the land the Elves slept.

Even the rivers stopped in their courses, and the wind fell to nothing. The mystic sun, poised on the brink of rising, stopped. The land lay still in the timeless dark.

But on a sunlit hill in the World of Men stood five figures, four men and one woman. The old woman in grey went south, shawled and bent. To the north went the dark man and his tools, his beard set grimly against the light breeze. To the east the blind man went tapping down the road. West went the man with a harp, a wandering song setting the pace for his steps.

Later that day, a young woman said to her husband, "You know, a funny old man is building a house on the hill. I've never seen him around here before."

"It's probably not important," he said. "What's for supper?"

Notes

This story(and the accompanying map)is almost certainly from 1981, and was intended as a sort of Prologue to the Alben stories; the house John Craft was building would be the house Thomas Norfield and Jack Holden would be heading towards. The gist of the proposed novel, The Shadow Over Alben, would have been the recovery of at least one of the Rings, if not all of them, which might have provided plots for several sequels. As it turned out ... no.

The story shows, I think, the deep influence Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series had over me; the Grey Lady certainly has the air of the Lady from those books. I love the character of John Craft, whom my brother John had invented, and I was always seeking for a vehicle for him. He even turned up years later in an Ortha story, Shutting the Door, where he gives Dunwolf some advice.

The story has been slightly edited from its original form.