The Shining Falcon

Chapter XIV

Finist awoke shuddering with cold, aching in every joint and almost too stiff to uncurl.

Uncurl? His last memory was of being falcon… Then he really had shifted back to human-shape in his sleep.

Where was he? It was difficult to concentrate; that brief nap had helped, but not enough, and the chill was fogging his mind. All he knew for sure was that he'd been driven far to the west, and that he'd come down in the middle of a forest—hardly surprising, since most of the lands about his own were forest.

And as his mind cleared, Finist could sense the life of that forest all around him. He was foreign here, and all the forest‑magic was awake and stirring in response to the unfamiliar presence of his Power as it never would have bothered to react to a magicless human. Finist quickly sent out a soothing I come in peace, I mean you no harm, and felt the sense of other fade away.

Before Finist could do anything more, he was shaken by a mighty sneeze that completely shattered his concentration. Akh, he couldn't worry about the forest now, not while he was shivering so fiercely. Worse, judging from the angle of fading light through the trees, and the rising chill from the earth, the hour must be somewhere in the late afternoon. He'd never survive the night, not like this!

Groaning, Finist staggered to his feet. At least most of the damage from his wild flight and fall was minor, scratches and bruises, already healing. But if he didn't find clothing…

Hear me, he sent to the forest-presence, I must make use of some of your Power, just a bit. Is it granted?

The branches about him rustled after a moment, rustled when there was no wind, and the prince took that for consent. Well and good, but it wasn't going to help him if this spell didn't work…

Luck was with him. Finist found tufts of deer fur caught in underbrush almost right away, and managed to disentangle them despite trembling hands. Closing his eyes, sending his will out to touch the forest‑magic, feeling Power swirl dizzyingly about him, he condensed a tiny bit of that fierce life-force, using the fur scraps as focus, into a sort of backwoods caftan and boots. The prince opened his eyes with a sigh, looking wryly down at his crude handiwork. At least it should prove warm enough. He slipped the makeshift caftan on, then sagged to the forest floor in renewed weariness.

His mind was working again—working a little too well, reminding him that he was in someone else's domain, reminding him of all the horror stories he'd ever heard of what might happen to royalty caught in foreign lands: torment, death, ransom enough to destroy his people… Finist glanced down at his ugly clothing and gave a dry little laugh.

At least I don't have to worry about being conspicuous!

Inconspicuous? With silver-bright hair and amber eyes? Finist groaned again, trying to concentrate only on the warmth of his caftan, trying to put off the moment of magic as long as possible. His falcon-shape might be as natural to him as his human form, but any other form certainly wasn't, There'd be a price to pay for even minor shape-altering—besides an increase in weariness—and after a moment his tired brain remembered it: he'd still be able to shift into falcon-form, yes, but every time he returned to human shape, it would be to the conjured form, not his own, until someone called him by his rightful name.

It seemed a small enough price to pay for safety.

So Finist called together as much will as he could find within himself, and set to work. It wasn't easy, and he wasn't helped by the forest's curiosity, all about him, peering around the edges of his concentration. But after a while, he'd managed to broaden and flatten high cheekbones, darken hair and eyes to a dull brown… Enough. He let himself fall back to the forest floor, staring blankly up at leaves.

Akh, but did his people think him dead? Finist knew he didn't have the strength to fly all that long way back, even assuming he could figure out where «back» might be. But as soon as he could find a quiet pool into which to gaze, he'd be able to contact someone. Semyon, probably, since the trustworthy old boyar had been taught by Finist's father to receive psychic royal messages—which simply meant that while Semyon didn't have any innate magic, he had enough inner sensitivity to let his mind, once properly trained, feel the particular psychic vibrations that meant royal scrying, and hear whatever his ruler sent to him.

Finist gave a long, weary sigh. Until he had the energy to locate that pool, Semyon and everyone else were just going to have to wait.

Suddenly the forest was stirring angrily all around him. Finist sat up abruptly, straining to hear what it heard, to sense what it sensed. There was a confused jumble of someone else's thoughts… Finist was no reader of minds, but surely he felt more than one someone, anxious, hostile—

Alarmed, the prince stole silently forward, and soon found himself overlooking a muddy, rutted road, and on that road, a shaggy brown horse pulling a small wagon and objecting with ears and switching tail to his driver's attempts to keep him at a trot. That driver was a bearded, middle-aged man in a work-worn blue caftan.

And surely his is the worry I sensed. But why should the presence of one innocent farmer so upset the forest?

After a moment, Finist realized the truth. There were still the other, hostile presences, and suddenly he knew they were:

«Robbers! Watch out!»

At his shout, the driver reined in his horse so sharply the animal almost reared. And the thief who'd launched himself at the wagon missed completely, sprawling across the horse's powerful haunches, scrambling frantically out from under massive hoofs. But now the other bandits were swarming out from hiding, grabbing at horse and driver, knives flashing. The driver held them off as best he could with his whip, but he was surrounded, as surely doomed as a stag cornered by wolves.

But these ragged wolves didn't expect an attack from a falcon. Filled with the sudden fierce energy of crisis, Finist—not about to watch a murder—shifted shape, launched himself wildly into the air, and dove at them, talons outstretched. The prince felt flesh tear and heard somebody shriek. He cried out in triumph, a falcon's scream, and turned to strike again. But one of the bandits flailed out blindly with his staff, and caught Finist a glancing blow that sent him tumbling back into the forest. He hit the ground with enough force to send him breathlessly back into human-shape, gasping for air.

Ai, the robbers had torn the whip from the driver's hand! Finist dove into his discarded caftan, and lunged at the robbers with a stout branch the forest-presence had graciously granted him. Magic or no, every prince was well trained in weaponry. Finist had even experimented with peasant weapons, and that branch was as good as any quarterstaff. It connected squarely with one man's head, and he crumpled. As Finist rapped another man sharply on the arm, the driver took advantage of the confusion to snatch a club from one of his attackers and copy the prince. And for a time there was chaos.

But chaos yielded quickly to order, because few thieves want to risk injury by standing and fighting. Soon those would-be robbers broke and ran, leaving behind only the man Finist had stunned.

There was silence. Finist and the driver grinned fiercely at each other, too winded to speak. Just as Finist decided he'd recovered enough to say something, the fallen robber stirred and groaned, and all humor fled the driver's face, leaving it bleak and cold. Grimly he leaped from the wagon and caught the robber by the throat.

«Who sent you?»

Finist had time to recognize a western dialect not dis-similar from his own tongue while their captive struggled to free himself.

«No one!» the thief gasped at last.

«Liar!»

«No, no, no one! Saw you, thought you'd be an easy mark— That's all, I swear it!»

«I think he's telling the truth," Finist said softly.

For a moment more the driver clutched his captive. Then he sighed and released his hold. «Yes. Of course he is. The woods are full of such trash.»

The robber took advantage of the moment to scramble off. The driver held up a hand to Finist. «No, let him go. And we'd best not linger! Hurry, my friend.»

But Finist's crisis-born energy had chosen that moment to desert him. Had he not grabbed frantically at the side of the wagon, the prince would have simply crumpled. The driver hastily threw a supporting arm around him.

«You're hurt!»

«No. Just… bruised a bit. And weary. I've had a… strenuous day.»

He let the driver help him into the wagon, and they started off. The nervous horse was very willing to move on, even managing a lumbering sort of canter. Finist clung to the wagon's seat and winced every time they hit a hole, but despite the jolting—or perhaps because of it—he found himself thinking clearly once more.

Now, this was odd: a driver with a shabby caftan and a wagonload of vegetables worries not that he's been attacked by robbers, but that those robbers might have been sent by a much more dangerous foe… A driver, for that matter, who speaks to those robbers in a cultured, educated voice…

Finist found himself thinking about those vegetables. After all, he had expended an alarming amount of energy, and he'd best restore it as soon as possible.

«Ah, would you mind if I helped myself to a carrot or two?»

The driver gave him a startled look. «No, of course not.»

But Finist paused, uneasy at the man's new uneasiness. «Is something wrong?»

«Oh, no.» The man was a bit too quick with that. «I was only wondering what a man whose voice shows breeding is doing wandering all by himself in the middle of the forest.»

Ah. «I could wonder the same thing about you," the prince murmured, and saw the driver tense.

«I live here," flatly. «And you? Where are you from? The west? No? Not from any of the cities? Stargorod, perhaps?»

This last was said with such cold emphasis that Finist looked at him in bewilderment, wondering for an uncomfortable moment if the man was quite sane. «No. My home's to the east. Why?»

For an instant their glances locked. Then the man turned away, as though relieved and embarrassed. «No reason, no reason. It's just that I… have a family. I worry about them lest— Never mind. Young man, I haven't properly thanked you for the rescue. You handled that branch like a trained warrior.»

Caught in the middle of a carrot, Finist could only mutter something noncommittal, and the man chuckled.

«If you're that hungry, come home and dine with me on something more filling than roots!»

«Oh, gladly!»

But now the driver was shaking his head. «Odd… Did you see that falcon, attacking almost as though it knew what it was doing?»

Finist shifted his weight uneasily. «Nesting birds will attack humans.»

«But the color of it!»

«There are albino animals. I suppose a falcon, too, could be — "

«No, no, it wasn't white, I saw it clearly! Its feathers were actually silver!»

Finist pretended to be deeply engrossed in his carrot, knowing all too well how intolerant and fearful of magic people tended to be outside of his own lands. They rode in silence, the driver stealing quick, curious glances at him.

«Lost your weapons, eh? And your possessions?»

«You… could put it that way," the prince answered carefully.

«This wasn't your first encounter with robbers, then.»

«Let's just say I haven't been fortunate lately.»

«Ah.» The driver hesitated, then added, «I am Ivan Mikaelovich," which was so common a name as to be almost surely false. Not, Finist told himself, that it's any of your concern.

«And I am Fin — " He stopped in mid-syllable, belatedly remembering caution.

«Finn, is it?» The man waited, but when Finist gave him nothing more, he added tactfully to no one in particular, «There's many a son of noble blood not, ah, recognized by his father; many a son cast loose to find his own way.»

If that was what he wanted to think Finist—the result of some lordling's illicit affair‑it was as good a disguise as any. The prince smiled vaguely. «So they say.»

«Off to see the world, are you?»

«In a manner of speaking.»

«Might I ask where you were headed?»

That struck Finist as wryly funny. Remembering the words he'd so lightly tossed to Semyon, back in Kirtesk, the prince started wearily to laugh.

«Where was I headed? Why, wherever the wind took me!»