Ware Hawk

9

For three days they drifted westward. There were no trails in the foothills, though once or twice they chanced upon indications that they did not travel through a deserted country. There were signs of old campfires, unhidden, and hoof prints of horses stitched soft earth. Still the falcon, scouting aloft, reported only native animals.

The last of the supplies they had brought over-mountain were gone. Tirtha’s bow kept them in meat. There must have been little hunting hereabouts for years, since the pronghorns and the hares were easy to bring down. Alon also possessed knowledge of the wild. He triumphantly dug up fat roots which, when roasted in the fire, broke apart to be tasty and filling.

More and more the older two came to accept Alon as an equal in spite of his childish appearance. Tirtha’s careful questioning produced more of his relationship with Yachne—plainly a Wise Woman of such talent as would have placed her high in Estcarp.

“She was”—Alon frowned slightly as he tended the fire on their third night of encampment—“not of the kin Parian claimed, nor was she, I am sure, even of the blood they knew. She had been many years with his household, for she came with his mother when she was a girl first handfasted to his father. She was old, yet always she looked the same without change. And it was she who went alone to find me when I was left kinless, bringing me back to the household. Also”—his eyes darkened oddly, as if to hide part of his thoughts—“she was not there when Gerik came. She had gone seeking a rare herb which she thought would draw Parian out of his fever, or so she said. Had she been within the walls I do not think Gerik could have entered. Yachne”—he nodded, as if to underline the importance of what he said—“could read the Dark Ones. Twice she told Parian to send away men who came to him seeking shelter, and one of them was a long-time comrade he would have trusted.”

“And this garth master always listened to her advice?” the Falconer asked.

Alon nodded once more. “Always. I think he was even a little afraid of her. Not that she would do him or his any harm, but because she knew things that he did not understand. Men always seem to fear what they cannot find a direct reason for.” Again it was as if someone far older sat there, licking grease from his fingers, wearing the outward appearance of a child who must be protected from the rigors of the world. If Tirtha closed her eyes and listened only to his speech, she built up in her mind a far different Alon, always to be slightly startled when she looked directly at the boy again.

“She was—is a Wise Woman,” Tirtha said now.

“Such are always to be found among our people. But if she returns and finds the garth as it now is, will she follow us?”

One possessing the Power could well use the trance (as she herself had attempted) and trail them as easily as if they had left all manner of open markings behind. She saw the Falconer stir. His frown was twice as heavy as Alon’s had been. This man could accept her, Tirtha, since she had dealt with him after the established custom, claimed his services by open bargain. But that he might ride with a true Wise Woman whom his kind held close to hatred—no. Nor would she herself welcome such a one who might read her and her mission as easily as one would understand a fair-written scroll.

For a long moment Alon apparently considered her question, his head a little atilt in the same fashion as the bird would hold his feathered crest when appealed to. Then, slowly, he shifted his gaze, past Tirtha, past the fire, out into the dark.

“I do not feel her,” he said simply. “When I try, there is nothingness. Yet I do not think she is dead. Perhaps, knowing that the garth is gone, she has followed some plan of her own. She is a secret person.” Now he looked back to Tirtha. “I could tell many things about other of Parian’s people. I knew when they feared, or were happy over some matter, or when they were about to sicken. But with Yachne you did not know. There was always a barred door past which you did not go. I think that she aided Parian not because she held any liking within her for his clan, but rather as if there rested between them a debt she was paying. Perhaps it was so with me also. Though I also believe that she found in me some future use…” He appeared now to be thinking aloud rather than trying to answer any of Tirtha’s yet unspoken questions, turning over ideas which had long puzzled him.

“You would know if she were near?” The Falconer asked that sharply, in a tone that was meant to arouse, bring a quick answer.

“Yes. Even if I could not find her directly, I would mind-touch her inner wall.”

“Good enough. I think”—the man regarded the boy measuringly, those old yellow sparks plain in his eyes—“that you will tell us if you sense such.” He might have meant that for a question, but it came forth more as an order.

“Yes.” Alon’s answer was brief. Tirtha, at that moment, was in two minds whether they could rely upon it or not. She knew that there was nothing of the Dark in this child. Still, that did not mean that he would consider himself committed to their own quest. They might claim a debt for saving his life but she had no wish to do so. Those who weighed and balanced such acts were tarnished by the doing. One gave aid freely when it was necessary. There was to be no payment returned, save by the desire of the debtor. In so much, in spite of all the hardness of her life, she held to the ways into which she had been born. Nor did she believe that the Falconer would argue differently. The sword-oath he had taken made his road hers as long as their bargain held.

She shifted restlessly. To head on guideless, as they had been doing, was folly; she must know more concerning the direction in which their goal lay. In order to do that, she must dream or else evoke another trance. Only such dreams had eluded her now for days. Her sleep was deep and heavy at night. If she had walked in strange ways, she carried no memories back into waking. To try once more the herb-induced trance, with perhaps this Yachne somewhere about… The entranced one was always vulnerable. She had been reckless when she had attempted it before and certainly she had not been in command, for she had not been led to Hawkholme—rather to Alon.

Tirtha had come to suspect that it had been the force of the power Alon had employed without willing it that had drawn her own talent and that led them to the garth. Any gift so much greater than her own small one could bend her to another’s will when she was in the disembodied state. Also, Alon had spoken of the Dark spreading eastward. To be caught by a strong evil will…

Yet to continue to wander aimlessly—that achieved nothing. She looked to the boy across the fire now, her eyes narrowed a little. There was one way—yet she shrank from discussing it, from even considering it. All her life she had fought for her independence, for the ability to order her own existence as much as any living creature might in an uncertain world. To surrender in even this need came very hard. She looked down at her calloused brown hands, clutched so tightly on a fold of her cloak that her knuckles stood in sharp relief. Will fought need within her until at last that same common sense which she had clung to during all her plans triumphed.

“I must use the trance.” She spoke as sharply as the Falconer had done in his questioning of Alon. “That need may not be delayed any longer. I seek guides, and those I can only gain in that fashion. But one entranced, without protection, is in danger. My—my talent is limited. Therefore, when I go seeking, there could well be those of greater power to take and bind me to their will.”

The Falconer’s frown was dark, his mouth a straight slash across his face. Tirtha knew that with every word she uttered, she aroused opposition in him, brought to the fore all the dislike he had for such as she was. Only his oath bound him, but in that she had a foundation. Alon was watching her with a similar intent stare, but with none of the resentment that the Falconer radiated. His attitude was one of excitement and interest, such as any ordinary boy might show before a feat of action.

“I need your help.” Those were the hardest four words she remembered uttering in years.

The Falconer made a quick gesture of repudiation, using his claw as if, with that symbol of grim loss, such a negation of what she had asked was thereby made the stronger. Alon, however, nodded briskly.

Now she looked directly to the man. “This is a thing you wish no part of, that I know. It is not bound without your oath.” In that much she would yield to him. “But I have seen what you and your bird brother can do, and so I ask of you, not aid in my going forth, but another kind of help—protection against what might well net me while I am in that other state.”

It was Alon who answered her and not the Falconer, and he did not speak to her but to the man.

“Swordmaster, this Lady asks of you protection. She says that you are not oath-bound to give it after the fashion in which she must now have it. Perhaps that is so. I know of sword oaths and shield men only what I have heard in tales and accounts of the old wars and troubles. Perhaps it is against your own beliefs that you do such a thing, but this is not of the Dark. Therefore a man does not break his innermost allegiance if he follows a path that helps, not harms. I do not know how great an aide I can be in such a matter.” He now addressed Tirtha directly. “I think there is much, very much, that I must learn concerning myself. But what I have now”—he held out his hands as if he were offering her something as invisible as he himself had been when they first found him—“is at your service.” Once more his eyes swung to the Falconer as if he waited.

The man had drawn from its sheath the weapon of power, then rammed it back with savage force. His rage, controlled with an icy strength, was visible to them both. He spoke as if he would bite each word drawn from him and answered harshly.

“I hold not with witchery. But also I am indeed oath-bound, though you”—he looked flame-eyed at Tirtha—“have said that in this that is not so. However, the boy is right—one does not give half oaths if one is of the blood. What would you have of me?”

She felt no elation. To have him believe that she had in a manner forced this might even endanger what she would do. For their wills must be united lest there be an opening for the Dark to twist one against the other. Tirtha leaned forward to pinch up dust, as much as she could hold between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes on him rather than on what she did. She saw his gaze narrow.

“Twenty days we agreed. However, if I will it and say I am now satisfied, then our bargain is dissolved even as…” Her hand raised, about to toss what she held into the air.

He moved the swifter. His fingers imprisoned her wrist in a hard grip, holding her hand fast so that she might not loose the dust and so break their bargain. She did not believe that it was altogether the firelight that made his face seem flushed. Surely his eyes were fully alive with anger.

“Twenty days I said, and in all ways I do my duty—on shield oath.”

“It must be done willingly.” She disliked this inner struggle between them, wanting none of it. Let him ride off and be rid of her and all witchery. “For one to hold back even in thought will open doors. I do not know what may threaten, only this is a dangerous land. What I would do is as perilous as if I rode disarmed into an outlaw camp. Help—must—be—given—willingly.”

He dropped his hold on her, settled back. “You know best your needs,” he returned tonelessly. “I shall endeavor to aid as you wish. What is it you desire of us?”

“I must go again out of my body,” Tirtha said deliberately and slowly. “Perhaps that power, which you and the feathered brother share and which Alon has a portion of, can in a manner follow me and so protect my return road so that none else, or no alien will, can make of me a tool or a weapon.”

“Very well.” He turned his head a fraction, gave one of those small chirruping calls which summoned the falcon. The bird perched on his claw wrist where it rested on his knee.

“I cannot tell you against what or how you shall stand guard,” she continued. “Nor do I know if this thing is even possible. But fasten your minds upon the wish that I may succeed in what I strive to do. I hunt a guide to Hawkholme that we may head overland to where it once stood. Keep in your minds that name and the wish that I, in vision, may travel swift and sure over the countryside between where we are and that place. This”—she lifted her hands a little—“is all I can ask, for I do not know how else to bind us together.”

“Go, we shall follow.” It was not the Falconer who had given that firm promise, rather the boy.

Tirtha took from her belt pouch the potent herb and tossed it into the fire. She saw the Falconer again draw his weapon of power, drive the point of the blade into the earth before him. She leaned forward and inhaled deeply the smoke which brought with it a strong smell of spice and other goodly odors.

There was no going into dark this time. Rather she was enveloped by a blaze of blue light so strong that she nearly retreated, then warmth and strength reached out to surround her. She moved as firmly and with such purpose as she might have walked on a road in Estcarp.

The light accompanied her. She looked up to see a globe of blue (the blazing pommel of the weapon?) spinning with her into the place of otherness. Then that light began to fade as she moved on into a gray-ness.

Though Tirtha had no impression of foot touching ground, there was land about her, solid looking and as real as any they had covered in their passage through the foothills. The darkness of trees, massed together, arose on one hand, while to the right stood a bare escarpment of rock across which ran a notable vein of black. This was one of the marks to remember, that much Tirtha understood.

The veined wall began to sink lower and lower into the earth as she left the heights behind. Now that distinguishing sable marking disappeared; it was only a ridge of rock she followed.

Hawkholme—even as she had told the others to do, so did she now hold that name firmly in mind. Her one fear was that she might be whirled into the repetition of her old dream and not learn the way, only arrive within that hold, to relive once more the final action.

Tirtha was out of the hills. Open country lay beyond and to her right. To her left the wood thickened into a forest, a growth so tangled that she did not believe anyone could force a pathway through. When she turned her head slightly to view it, she saw a flickering movement that was stealthy and yet continuous. Within that screen of entwined limbs and vines and brush, something paced at her own speed, spied upon her.

She caught glimpses now and then of a pallid gray-ness but with no distinct form, which slid easily in and out, the thickness of the wood offering it no opposition. Tirtha would have kept to the open, yet what she had summoned up by her will drew her toward the wood in spite of misgivings.

Always that which paced there watched. Tirtha sensed a malignant threat, but she determined not to try to learn more. All her concentration must be centered on reaching Hawkholme.

Even as she set her will so determinedly, Tirtha turned a fraction to head straight for the wood. Here the underbrush appeared less interwoven. There were faint indications that there had once been an opening, that perhaps a long overgrown road had run in this direction. The lurker was still there, yet it did not manifest itself to meet her, rather it followed the same procedure, heading into the undergrowth parallel to her own path.

At intervals the old road was more open. She sighted once or twice a tall stone set on end, as if to mark her path. There were other objects farther back, emitting a pale and ghostly light. She sensed essences there of things that were totally alien, rooted or imprisoned where they stood. Against these the girl hurriedly raised mind barriers, for she felt the touch of a demanding desire reaching for her.

This wood was a place of menace. Even were she here in body and not just in essence, she would have found it so, that she knew. Yet what she sought lay beyond it, and there was no escaping the journey.

How long it would take to traverse the sinister forest, she had no way of knowing. Tirtha had the impression that such a journey was no short span.

However, there came at last an end, where the overgrowth trail opened again on meadow land. Here were fields which had once been walled, those stone barriers crumbling now, yet their lines plain to read. Through them curled a stream nearly of a size to be proclaimed a river. On the other side of that…

A vast surge of emotion, which she could not define, gathered within her, such as she had never felt before. Even from afar she could see that the defenses the builders of this hold had planned had failed in the end. Strong walled towers, a mighty keep had been raised upon a mound, at the foot of which washed a side channel of the river which had been diverted to ring around the hold. There were the splintered remains of a bridge—now only broken timbers—across a stretch of water to the gap that formed the entrance.

In all, this was a larger and more formidable hold than she had thought, although the huge hall of her dreams had argued it was part of a major building. The clan that had wrought it must have been a strong and well numbered one—and one with enemies, for the whole scene before her suggested that defense had been highly important.

Tirtha had found her goal. Now she deliberately set about relaxing her will—that will which was still bearing her onward toward the ruin. There was no need to travel farther.

The blow came like a blast of winter’s wind against an unclad body. Deep and numbing cold cut at her. Tirtha had not believed pain could be felt by one in her present state. How wrong this thing out of nowhere was proving her! She fought, strove to free herself from that agonizing icy horror which battled to keep her prisoner. Now, her will cried out, now—if you can hear me, sense me, aid me—bring what power you have to draw me back!

Had the other two indeed followed her, did they know that she had been so taken? If she had no aid, she was lost, for that cold ate into her will, tearing it apart as a wild wind shreds a cloud.

“Come!”

She could not cry that aloud, but her whole self shaped itself into that plea. Was she being driven back into the same limbo that had held Alon when they found him?

Warmth—a faint glow of warmth. The cold pressed, but there was warmth, and somehow she could draw it to her little by little, hoard it within to keep cold and death at bay. The strand of warmth gave an upward surge, grew stronger.

The cold had reached for her, had sought to compel her onward toward the ruin just when she had striven to break the compulsion she had used to bring her here. It wanted her inside. Now she wavered—if an essence could waver. The drag forward, the chilling against the warmth being fed into her. Her will awoke from the effects of that first, numbing, near-fatal blow. Back—she fastened not on Hawkholme, rather on her memory of their camp.

Think of Alon—the warmth grew! The Falconer —a thread more of freedom gave her strength; the Falconer—it was his face that filled her thoughts now —a face bearing a terrible set concentration like a mask laid over the man she had grown to accept as a trail comrade. Within his eyes those yellow fires flared high. She could see only those eyes and the fires in them—warmth against the cold—the OTHER who willed her to Hawkholme in a state which it could use. Yes, warmth!

Fire rose about her; tongues of blue flame formed a defense wall. Abruptly the assault of the cold ceased.

The fires lingered for a moment, died, and she was in the dark.

Rain—she lay out in the rain—water ran down her face, into her open mouth. She heard hurried breathing, fast, shallow, such as a near-spent runner might have. She opened her eyes—there was a blaze of half light around her head, so that she quickly closed them again, feeling that somehow she had been cut adrift and caught up in something that she could never hope to either escape or control.

“Tirtha, Tirtha!” A call, faint at first and then very strong. She was once more aware of her body, of stiffness and pain. The warmth that had aided her return to life slowly traveled from her head down her entire length.

“Tirtha!”

She dared to open her eyes once again. There was Alon’s face, one side of it strangely blue. His eyes held fear; then it faded and he smiled—laughed—as if a burden had been lifted from him.

Tirtha saw that other form kneeling by her, in his hands the sword, tight gripped, its pommel ablaze and the blue light bathing her from head to foot. Increasing strength followed the warmth, flowing into an emptiness she had not realized was there until it was refilled. Cautiously she lifted her head. Almost instantly an arm was thrust beneath her shoulders, bracing her higher. She felt the small, chill touch of that claw against her cheek for just an instant.

Alon squatted on his heels directly before her, his expression one of eagerness. The Falconer, because he supported her, she could not clearly see. He had laid aside the sword. Its output of energy had faded; there was only the faintest glow from it now.

“I—am—back.” Her lips, as they shaped those words, were stiff. In her own ears her voice sounded hardly more than a whisper. “You brought me back.”

For it was from the two of them—no, the three (she must not forget the feathered brother she had sensed as part of her rescue)—had come the warmth, generated within themselves to combat what had lain in wait for her at Hawkholme.

Lain in wait? Tirtha for the first time thought clearly. She had not only the ruin to find, but there was an unknown terror there—one determined to have what? That which she sought herself and still could not name? Logic told her that that might well be the truth. So…

She moved her head, her shoulders a little, though she did not try as yet to pull free from the Falconer’s support. Perhaps she needed that strong arm behind her to strengthen her—even to remind her—of what she must say to these two, of the decision that was hers to make and about which there could be no choice, for the very honor of the Hawk.

“You found the way?” Before she could speak, Alon’s question came.

“I found the way.”

“Then we can go.” He glanced over his shoulder as if he were ready to saddle and ride at once.

“Not ‘we’.” Tirtha had herself in hand now. “This is my quest only.” She looked directly to the Falconer. “I release you—take Alon. There are those over-mountain who will give him shelter—the Tregarths—for they know that power does not always run in the same channels. From here I ride alone.”

He regarded her with that same level and angry glance he had worn before when she would have broken their bond in full ceremony.

“There are twenty days—no less.”

Tirtha sat upright, and he moved away from her quietly. The falcon gave one of its soft cries and fluttered to his claw wrist.

“I lead no one into that—” she declared sharply in return, determined this time to have her will in the matter.