14

Alon set one hand against the edge of the opening; with the other he thrust inward. Tirtha heard a rattle and was alarmed lest the sound carry. It was plain that Alon worked to loosen something within the shadow of the opening. The Falconer braced his body closer to the slimed wall, holding steady. There came another sharp ping from above. Alon swung down a dark bar that Tirtha hastened to catch.

It was metal, foul smelling, flaking off rusted bits in her hands. She let it slide on down into the sludge about her feet where turgid water swallowed it up without sound. Alon was at work again, and it was not too long before a second bar, torn from its setting, was freed, dropped, and likewise disappeared.

They might be striving to force entrance into a totally deserted building, and the very fact that they heard nothing, saw no sign of any guards, was to Tirtha a source of continued uneasiness. Those within might know very well that their prey was coming to them, resting at ease, needing only to wait. Yet what other recourse had she and her companions?

A third bar was freed. Then Alon dropped down from his perch to report in the thinnest of whispers:

“There is now a full opening, and I felt within. It is a foul place, but it is clear. There are even hand holds on the walls. Perhaps the lord here once planned a way of escape for a bad time.”

“That could be true,” murmured the Falconer. Tirtha could also understand the logic. Had this moat not been half dammed off from the river by the fallen wall and if, instead, the water in it had been up over the old markings they had felt as they had come, the opening would have been below the surface, completely masked. A determined or desperate in-dweller could well use it secretly. However, she eyed this particular door to Hawkholme with little favor. This opening was narrow, it was good that they had gone short of rations recently, and that she had always been thin, with few curves to plump out her jerkin or leggings. She wondered if the Falconer could force entrance, but, like all his breed, he was wiry, not thick of body.

“I go first,” Tirtha declared firmly. “But how will you reach it?” She looked to the Falconer; he could give her a hand up as he had Alon, but who could do the same for him?

“There will be a way.” He spoke with such confidence that Tirtha knew he was sure of his own ability. He caught her quickly under the arms to lift her, steadying her body against the wall until she thrust her hands into the mouth of the drain. One arm scraped across a broken space from which Alon had loosed a bar. She groped frantically within, seeking those holds Alon said existed. Then one hand, digging deep into noisome, crusty filth, hooked into what was manifestly a loop. A moment later she discovered its twin on the opposite side.

Tirtha was grateful for past hard work in the fields. What she had learned on Estcarp farms gave her the strength needed. Had she not had those years of hard physical work behind her, she could never have fought her way up that hidden ladder where the stench near choked her, her hair and garments rendered sodden and thick with foulness. Her cloak she had left bound to her saddle, and she was glad of that, for its folds would never have allowed her passage. As it was she felt the harsh rasp of stone against her leather garments, with now and then a painful scrape on her skin.

Luckily the way was not straight up but slanted. And Tirtha discovered, once inside the hole, she could feel ahead for each hold, drawing herself along more easily than she would have believed possible, though it was a worm’s progress. The nastiness of the foul encrustation choked her, so that she could only hope that the exit lay not too far ahead.

In the dark she could move only by touch. Also the stench grew even thicker, though this drain had been abandoned for many years. Finally, her hand hit against a solid barrier and she could have cried out in her dismay. Holding on with one hand, she clawed along that surface. The drain took an abrupt turn here.

The long slant, up which she had worked her way, ended in a right-angled space. Above that there seemed to be nothing but solid roof. She refused to let herself panic. She ran first one hand and then the other back and forth across the barrier. Her third such try brought success. She knocked loose a solid cake of encrustation, enough so that once more her fingers hooked into a space that felt carved to receive just such a grip.

First she bore down, dragging with all her might, to no purpose. Must she believe that, if there had ever been an opening here, it was now impossible to move? A last desperate try made her shove instead of pull. There was a grating sound. So heartened, Tirtha changed hands again quickly and put all the effort she could into a full sidewise push. Stationed so awkwardly, able to work only with one hand, she fought stubbornly. There was a give, the barrier moved, though with a louder grating that winged her heart to a faster beat. She held on for a wild moment, five fingers gripped on the sliding panel, the other hand flailing out into an open space. Then she was able to hook that hand over an edge and pull herself up with a wrench that took what seemed the last flare of her strength. Her head and shoulders rose into clean air as she flopped across the edge of a stone bench onto the floor of a narrow chamber in the heart of the wall itself.

A cool rush of night air struck at her as Tirtha pulled herself around to face the fissure in the wall through which that welcome breeze came. This must be the upper floor of the main dwelling chambers wherein the family had once had their private apartments. She scrambled to her feet, feeling about her. Her outflung hand broke a remnant of charred wood, as she stumbled into a narrow hall. The far end of it showed faint light, radiating from far below. Sighting this, Tirtha crouched, trying to still the gasps of air she had been drawing into her lungs, as if such sounds might betray her to any keeping vigil by that distant gleam of light.

Sounds from the wall chamber marked Alon’s arrival in turn. The boy moved out to clutch at Tirtha’s shoulder. They leaned against the wall together, intent upon the far end of the hall, until the Falconer joined them. With him came light, dim and wan yet visible. The pommel of the power weapon was awakening.

Again Tirtha left the other two, to slip along that wall. She passed yawning caverns on her right where more burnt wood marked doors to chambers, but those were not important. She had to reach the Great Hall. Only from there could she trace the steps to be taken for conclusion of her mission. And surely the Great Hall would be the one place where their enemies within would be.

Corridor’s end gave upon a staircase circling about a center core, winding steeply downward, the steps narrow edges of stone. There was a groove cut in the wall about this formidable coil of descent, perhaps to provide a hand hold.

At the foot of the spiral was a lamp in a niche, a basin of stone with a wick fed into it through a hole in the loose lid. The light it gave was limited, but that any here had seen fit to light this stair at all was a warning, one that Tirtha thought it well to heed. She hesitated at the top of that well-like way. Only one person at a time could descend, and if a guard waited below, out of sight…

She became aware of a soft rustle and glanced back. By the eerie light of the Falconer’s weapon, she saw that the bird which accompanied him was again perched on the man’s shoulder. Its head was extended well forward as it also stared down.

The presence of the lamp bothered Tirtha. Since they had come into the upper hall, the place had been utterly silent. Though these walls were thick, much of the interior had clearly been destroyed by fire and sounds should carry. Such quiet only meant to her that the three of them were, in spite of Alon’s earlier reassurance, not only expected but that a trap awaited them. She edged away from the stairway, then wondered if that was exactly how she was expected to reason—that the lamp below was set so as to make them take another path.

A hand caught hers, startling her, pulling her down so that she was on a level with the boy.

He—he is here——” There was fear in his voice.

His grasp on Tirtha tightened, held with frantic force, pinning her to the fire-stained wall. If he should lapse now into that state of withdrawal… Terror was building up in him to such an extent as to awake panic in Tirtha herself. By his very touch he fed it to her. She caught at him, strove to shut out of her mind any dread of her own, to return only what strength of spirit she had to offer.

Somehow their alarm must have spread in turn to the Falconer, perhaps through the medium of the bird on his shoulder, for he swung up between them. The dim glow of his sword rested on both woman and boy, its pommel pulsating with the light that was both a warning and a solace against the spread of the Dark.

Alon’s involuntary shudders shook Tirtha. She could see his face, a vague blur turned up to hers. Then the light swept over him. He had closed his eyes tightly, his mouth was twisted as if to utter a noiseless scream. However, as the thin glow of the gemstone touched him, that expression of witless terror receded, even as she, also, felt a warmth rising within her body.

They had more than one weapon, these enemies who made their den in Hawkholme, and perhaps the strongest could not be seen or heard. They who invaded must seek action, for to remain cowering here was to open gates to this other, more deadly form of attack.

If she had only had better preparation! Those dreams—they seemed now to her to have been more deceptive than helpful. There must be a way through this ruined stronghold, yet she could only blunder and hope and perhaps fail.

No! Again that insidious thing which attacked through mind and emotion had struck at Alon through one kind of fear, at her with another. What of the Falconer—what did it strive to reach in him? For the impression grew in Tirtha that the thing lairing here with its servants might indeed need to reach them by devious means, that it shrank from physical attack. Why? The Sword—yes, it could be that weapon of power which had spun about them its small light. Perhaps, because it had come into the Falconer’s hand from the first, he was now the best armored of the three.

She heard again a rustle of wing as she deliberately pushed closer to the man so that her shoulder rubbed against his.

“I must,” she said in the lowest whisper she could manage, “reach the Great Hall. It is only from there that I know my path.”

He did not answer at once, but neither did he draw back from that contact between their bodies as she thought he might. As she had tried with Alon, perhaps in the same way he sought now to reassure her. Even as she thought that, there was in her, this time, no answering surge of rebellion. The three of them were locked into action which they must share; upon each other they must depend until the very end.

Again came a rustling of feathers. Tirtha could see by this faintest of lights that the falcon was mantling, bobbing its head, stretching its neck forward, not toward the stairwell from which they had retreated, but toward the other end of this hall. The Falconer swung in that direction, holding the sword in his claw, for he had drawn his dart gun in one sure movement, and had as usual taken the lead, walking with a scout’s care that Tirtha tried with all her might to equal, drawing Alon along with her. The reflection of the powered gem appeared to exert a soothing effect on Alon for though he clamped fingers tightly in Tirtha’s belt as an anchorage, he opened his eyes, pacing beside her in the wake of the man.

What they came to was the ruin of another staircase. Its core was stone, but that had once been covered with wood, and paneled walls must have once enclosed it—now burnt away. So again the descent would be a perilous one. Still, there was no lamp below, while the roof stretched high above their heads, for they had issued out of the mouth of a hallway which was on one level of what must have been a towering chamber.

The falcon winged out into this open space of which they could see so little. Now the Falconer began to descend the stairs, one step at a time, his helmed head turning slowly from side to side, as if he sought to hear the more clearly since he could not see. There was no change in the quality or strength of the light given off by the sword. Oddly enough, as Tirtha and Alon began their own halting descent some two steps behind the Falconer, the boy appeared to have fully shaken free of his fear. In his small face his eyes looked larger than before, as if his sight could pierce the dark.

Thus they came into a vast space surrounding the foot of that ruined stair. For the first time Tirtha believed she recognized the necessary path. She turned to the left, bringing Alon, by his continued hold on her, along, the Falconer falling in at her side. Through the darkness, lit only by the small glow the sword gem spun about them, she guessed what lay before her, as if her dream had once more enclosed her.

This was the Great Hall. In Tirtha arose an excitement that fear could not touch. Because she had won this far, what had drawn her here was strengthening, taking over within her. She strode, not crept, confident of where she went.

The dais with the chairs of honor had stood there.

She could not see them; doubtless they had been swallowed up in the fire or hacked wantonly to pieces by those who had overrun the hold. Now she must turn this way, behind a screen—

So sure was she that a screen stood there that she put up her hand lest she run into it. Yet there was nothing but a wall. The Falconer, as if anticipating her request, held the sword up and forward. What she sought lay beyond, of that she was certain. Almost roughly she loosed Alon’s hold, ran to that wall, swept her grimy hands back and forth across it. Her fingers left trailmarks in the dust and ash, but she had no luck this time. There was no possible hold she could discover that would open for her like the door in the drain.

It lay here! She knew it. Tirtha strove to command her impatience. She closed her eyes—this might be the most dangerous thing she could do, but she must throw open the gate of memory to the dream, command it, as in the past it had commanded her. Only so could she come at what she must take into her hands.

The great hall—piece by piece she labored to draw it out of the nothingness and ruin about her. Just so had the lord sat, and his lady, between the two of them on that table the casket. Then had come the alarm. The more Tirtha pulled and drew, the clearer the picture became. She could feel those others she had not seen clearly in her dreams, their rise of emotion, fear and excitement, determination, dread, above all a flare of courage that was like a lighted torch in the dead dark.

The lady—Tirtha did not know it now but her own hands were up breast high before her, cradling the invisible at the level of her heart. Behind the carven screen—now the wall—a wall once paneled in wood carving, fancifully wrought, painted and gilded here and there. Only it was not the wall that was so important. She did not raise a hand now to its surface. Instead she advanced the toe of one worn boot, planted it firmly on a pavement fashioned of many small colored stones in strange and angular pictures. So by instinct she sought out one of those fitted stones slightly larger than the others, and upon it she bore down firmly, with as much weight as she could bring to bear on such a small surface.

There was resistance. She tried again, the need for speed lashing at her. Once, twice, three times. Surely it would not refuse her entrance now that she had come so far!

The wall moved. With a thin screech of sound as if metal crossed metal long ungreased and near-rusted in place, a passage opened. From that shone light—blue, faint, but still light!

Tirtha threw herself forward. With the opening of the door the dream vanished. Still the summoned vision had served her well. This was the secret place, and before her must lie what was being guarded—which those of her line were pledged ever to protect until they were released from a very ancient bond.

Beyond lay a small room, and though time had wrought some ruin within, the wrath of men had not reached here. There were tapestries on the walls. At the stir of air which entered at her coming, they moved. Among them fell patches of paper—thin fabric, like dead and dried autumn leaves. What she had come for stood as it had been left—on a narrow table of stone jutting forward from a wall of which it was a part. The top of the table was deeply incised with symbols, which had once been brightly painted but were now dulled and dusty. They were words of Power so old that no one among those who served what rested here could any longer understand them. Tirtha, looking upon them, knew that these were Names here that, were they spoken, could destroy the walls about her, change perhaps even the running of time as men knew it.

Within a concentric circle of those Names stood the casket. It was of the same silver metal as the sword that had come to the Falconer, and from its surface arose the diffused light filling the room. Tirtha put out both hands. With widespread fingers she drew in the air above that waiting treasure signs issuing from buried knowledge as old as the land on which Hawkholme stood. Then, between her two palms she felt the weight of the casket as she lifted it, to hold against her, even as the lady had borne it hither in her dream. Lifted it and turned…

The scream was that of a war cry, given to waken and alarm. Over her head swooped the falcon, out from the dark behind them. One of the bird’s feet was now a stump from which curled a thread of noxious smoke. At the same moment Alon and the Falconer were both hurtled inward toward her. They did not bear her to the floor, as perhaps they might have done had there been more room. Rather, they threw her backward so that her spine hit hard against the shelf table, bringing a pain so sharp and terrible that Tirtha lost control over her body and sank to the floor, folding over the casket which she still held.

There followed a crash, and she heard another scream—not from a bird’s throat this time, but from Alon she was sure. The pain that filled her brought darkness, and she sank into it as an exhausted swimmer sinks into a sea he can no longer battle.

“Tirtha! Lady!” Moisture on her face, a burning within her lips. She strove to see who called, but all was a haze that swam back and forth, making her ill so that she quickly shut her eyes. Pain filled her. When she strove to move, to crawl away from the fire which she felt as if about to consume her utterly, there was no life in her body. Her hands—no, she must not loose—loose what? She could not remember. But, save for the pain that burned, her body was as the dead.

“Tirtha!” Again that call. She sought to escape it, to find a way to flee both the pain and the demanding voice. Only there was something that compelled her to open her eyes once more.

The haze this time separated itself into two parts, one large, one much smaller. Tirtha frowned and squinted, trying to see the better. Faces—yes, Alon—slowly she fitted a name to the nearest—and Nirel—yes, that was his true name—Nirel. She thought she repeated both, but perhaps she did not, for she could not hear her own voice. It was such a struggle to try to hold on to this contact that she would rather they allowed her to slip back into that place of darkness, of peace.

“Holla!”

The force in that call was as terrible in her ears as the scream of the injured falcon. It offered no rest and it held her there.

“Hawk’s brood!” A second time words rang through the very air of this place, a torment added to all the rest she bore.

“Give unto the Dark Lord what is his and all shall be well.”

Yet that was no true promise or bargain. Even through the waves of pain that beset her, Tirtha knew that much.

“By Harith and Haron, and the Blood of the Hawk Brood”—Tirtha did not know from whence came the strength to draw intelligible words out of her, making her voice firm for that moment—“only to the Appointed One do we resign our guardianship. The hour is nigh…”

“The hour is nigh in truth,” roared the voice out of the air. “Treachery begets treachery. What is of the Dark shall return there, be it bound as might be. To all sorceries there comes an end, just as there is an end to time itself. Render up what was never of the Light.”

Deep in her something else stirred. He who was without, he could not enter, he dared not take, save by the permission of the true blood. And she—she was the true blood. This must not end in Hawk defeat—only in death. And against death who may fight?

Her mouth worked. Tirtha strove to fight the dryness that filled it so she could shape words once more.

“This I hold—I of the Hawk—and if death is the portion of that holding, then let it be so.”

“Aaaaghhh…” That came as a wordless howl of fury, dying away in an echo, as if he who had voiced it had withdrawn to a far distance.

Tirtha looked again to the two with her. She lay flat upon the floor in the heat of her pain, and she believed that her body was so broken she could not long be contained within it. Perhaps that purpose which had drawn her here would strive to hold her so, even in this agony. Now she gazed first at Alon and then at Nirel who held close to his breast the injured falcon. The bird’s eyes were dim, and its head sagged forward. It was dying—more blessed than she might be, Tirtha thought fleetingly.

“I ask pardon of you,” she said, first to the Falconer, for he had truly been outside this dire pattern before she had deliberately drawn him in, and he had lost much already. “This is an end my dream did not foretell, but there are many times unexpected changes in life’s weaving. Give me a comrade’s passing farewell even though I am what you deem the least—a woman.” She did not wait for any answer. In fact she shrank from gazing longer at him, since she did not want to read refusal in his eyes. Instead she spoke now to the boy.

“Your pardon, also, Alon. Though I did not willfully draw you into this venture. Perhaps that, too, was another fault in the weaving for us. I have failed, and by my nature, you both are caught and with you the brave bird. If there is any truth in the old stories, perhaps lives so oddly bonded here shall be later led to understand the why of such geas-setting. I think we shall not issue forth from this place alive. The secret I hold is not for those without. For that I must thank the Power which I never could summon.”

Her words came slower and lower as pain lapped her round. She looked once more to the Falconer. His face was again only a blur.

“Leave in my hands,” she said, “what I have taken up. That I must guard as best I can until the end.”

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