Ware Hawk

7

Tirtha enfolded herself in her cloak, having refused any more food, since what she desired was better accomplished fasting. Had she followed the proper ritual, she would have fasted for a full day while clearing her surface mind of all thought. Now she must take the Falconer into her confidence—what she practiced was the “witchery” he distrusted, but there was a need for it. Tirtha used flat and decisive words to settle the matter. After all he was an oathed shield man; thus what she did, unless it threatened them both, was beyond his questioning.

Already Tirtha floated in and out, half aware of their bare camp, half into gray nothingness. Then she slid entirely into the gray, like a feather or leaf tossed by air, without substance and with no control, though she tried firmly to keep her purpose to the fore of her mind.

No Hawkholme lay before her this time, though she emerged from nothingness into sharpening clarity. Before her, smoke trailed upward in rank, standing amid trampled earth beds of heat-withered or broken plants. She recognized some of those as sources of balms she well knew. Whoever had dwelt here had cultivated the gifts of earth.

The rankness of spilled blood was foul through the acrid stench of fire. There was another odor also—a sickening one. For a moment or two she thought perhaps this was Hawkholme after all, that she viewed it after the vengeance of Yvian’s attack.

Only this was surely much smaller, even though she had never been granted a complete vision of Hawkholme in its full pride. No, this was not the remains of any great hall or lord’s hold, rather more the garth of a small landholder.

A hound sprawled on the crushed herbs. A ragged wound had ripped its side to bare the white arch of its rib cage. Beyond the dead beast lay another body, small, crumpled together, as if flung contemptuously aside. Because Tirtha knew that she was being shown all this for a reason of importance, she willed herself to approach the dead.

A child lay face down, her unbound dark hair swirled, mercifully hiding her features, but there was no mistaking the brutal usage which had been given that fragile broken body—discarded in death as a worthless bit of refuse. In Tirtha awoke a flame of deadly anger. She had seen much in past years of pain, death, and hardship; she had believed herself immune to easily-aroused feeling. Now some part of her, long hidden and buried, was aroused to life.

This dead child, she knew—perhaps by virtue of the drug that had awakened her talent to its utmost—had not been the only one slain. Within the fired building lay others, as hardly treated, as ruthlessly used and slain. There had been those here who had played with their victims, relishing the cruelty they employed—who might call themselves men but were no different within (save perhaps less strong and powerful) than the beast thing she and the Falconer had killed in the mountains.

Why vision had summoned her here, Tirtha could not tell. She strove to master her anger, to loose herself, that she might be guided into learning what meaning this held for her. For she did not believe that the single purpose was to warn her. There was another and far more powerful reason to summon her for a viewing of murder and ravishment.

She moved, not by her own volition, but as if she rode a mount she could not control. Past the burned-out house that compulsion carried her, on into a stonewalled field where a stand of young grain lay beaten into pulp in ragged paths as if riders had crossed and recrossed it. Riders—hunters.

That impression of a deadly hunt struck her full on. She could view those tracks and visualize the action that had taken place here. What prey had they ridden down?

The need that drew her, now drove her toward a pile of stones at one corner. A break in the wall about to be mended—those stones were piled ready to hand. Behind them, crouched in so narrow a space that Tirtha would not believe any body could exist there, was another child. Dead?

No! This one lived—with a mind filled by overwhelming horror and terror. The one in hiding had been driven near to the point of complete withdrawal and denial of life by what had happened, but there was still a faint spark of identity remaining.

Tirtha had asked guidance for her own purposes. It would seem that the knowledge she had sought was not of importance to whatever force she had so hazily called upon—but this was. She had been summoned, she was being used, and to the demand there could be no denial.

She opened her eyes upon the night, their handcup of fire, the Falconer seated cross-legged beside it. In his hands was the dagger-sword, its pommel beaming with a fierce, demanding light, his head downbent as he stared at the now living gem, bemused.

Out of her vision, she had brought urgency.

“We must go!”

His head jerked as if she had startled him out of a vision of his own. Tirtha was already on her feet, hurrying toward the picketed ponies. A full moon above provided brilliance stronger than she had ever seen, the better for the task that must be done.

“What is it?” Her companion was at her heels, his weapon in sheath.

Tirtha pivoted slowly, struggling to pick up the trace which must exist. Time might be against her. No! This duty was a part of her, as compelling as that other search had been through all the years, only much more immediate.

Fire! That smoke they had witnessed from the pass! That must be the place! She was suddenly certain.

“A garth they burned.” She spoke out of her vision, not caring if he could not follow her thoughts. “It is there!”

Swiftly she loosed the mare, girthed on saddle pad. He did not question her, only followed her example, and the falcon on the saddle perch, mantled, raising wings, then took to the air, up and out into the dark. Perhaps the man had dispatched it without audible command.

They angled toward the west, yet farther south. Where the land opened, they went to a fast trot. As they rode, Tirtha gave a terse account of what she had envisioned. The Falconer listened without question; when she had done he made comment. “Raiders or some lordling’s men who had reason to loot. This is a riven land.” There was harsh distaste in his voice. For all their somber reclusiveness and their well-tested fighting ability, those of his race did not kill wantonly, nor ever amuse themselves with such nastiness as she knew had blasted the garth. Falconers dealt clean death when and if that were necessary, risking always their own lives in the doing. But for the rest, no man could ever declare that they were merciless barbarians, no matter how much the Witches of Estcarp disliked their private customs.

Down from the night sky spiraled the falcon, alighting on the saddle perch to face the man. Tirtha heard what sounded like sharp clicks of its beak. The Falconer turned his head.

“It is as you saw—the burning, the dead. There is no one there.”

She shook her head determinedly. “Not at the house, in the field. They hunted but they did not find. There is still life. If there is not”—she hesitated—“then I think it would be given me to know that there was no reason for us to go on.”

He said nothing. Perhaps he thought that as a shield man there was no reason for him to contradict her. Still she believed that he thought her wrong—that only the dead awaited them.

It was graying for dawn when they picked up the odor of the burning and that sweet stench of death which was a part of it. Then they came to the edge of open land, and she saw before her a wall of logs deep set to make a barrier. This had not been a part of her vision; but just ahead of them a gate swung loose as if, for all their guard, those who dwelt here had relaxed vigilance for some reason, allowing entrance to the very wolves they prepared to defy.

Tirtha’s mare snorted and shook her head vigorously, not liking the smell. But she did not resist when Tirtha urged her on, and with the Torgian trailing behind them on a lead rope, the two rode into this once guarded place.

Facing her stood the smoke-blackened ruins she had seen, the trampled garden. The fire had burned itself out. She could sight the dead hound, the other pitiful body beyond. The dead did not need them now; the living did.

Tirtha pulled rein, sending the mare circling to the left, away from the destroyed house. Yes, there was the stone wall—high here, built as part of that protection which had proved so futile. Another gate stood open as she pressed on into the field where signs of the chase were so deep printed.

Straight across pounded the mare at a harder pace than Tirtha had pushed her before. While they were still some distance from that neat pile of rocks, Tirtha pulled up, slid from her riding pad, and ran, throwing her cloak back across her shoulders lest it impede her speed.

As she went she mind-sought. Life essence—yes! They were still in time! She reached the neat pile of stones, looked around it. There was nothing wedged there! Tirtha swayed, so dismayed by the evidence of her eyes that she could almost believe she was again not here in body, but rather caught up still in sleep-vision.

Once more she sought mind touch. There was life essence, faint, wavering as if almost drained away—yet still here! Only she saw emptiness. Tirtha pulled away some of the stones—letting them thud outward into the field. Then she knelt to stretch forth both hands. Where her eyes could see nothing her hands felt what her vision had told her was there—a small body huddled into such confined space it would seem that there was no room for breath to enter the lungs of the compressed form she could feel.

She spoke over her shoulder to the Falconer as he joined her.

“Can you see…?” she began.

His bird helm, easy to mark in this growing half-light, turned from side to side in denial.

“Then come here.” She reached out, caught his hand, pulled it and him closer, dragging him down so that his fingers might tell him the truth. He jerked back, freeing himself from her grasp, and she could tell that he was aware of the same mystery.

“There—it is there, though we cannot see it!” She was triumphant.

“Witchery!” She heard the word as a half-whisper. Still he loosened stones with his claw, hurling them afar with his hand. Now the falcon perched on the wall to watch them, leaning forward to peer into the small space they uncovered, much as it had looked upon the knife-sword it had led her companion to find.

Slowly, carefully, Tirtha ran her hands along that body they were freeing though they could not see it. This was another thing she had read of in Lormt—the strength of a hallucination whereby one could hide safe from danger, though in the accounts she knew, such had consisted mainly of form-changing. To achieve complete invisibility was another matter of which she had not heard. Still, anything was possible with the Power. Who had hidden the child here so successfully?

By those marks in the field the hunters had pursued prey back and forth, played with a victim after a brutal and beastly fashion, prolonging the terrible fear of the one who had fled. A woman carrying a child—who had had something of the Talent brought perhaps to the highest level because of her fear for her own blood, who had managed to so conceal son or daughter and then had herself fallen prey to ravishers and murderers?

All Tirtha knew of such matters had firmly stated that any building of illusion was a weighty exercise, for which one needed time and knowledge of complicated ritual. Certainly there had been no such time granted the hunted here.

Cautiously, with the utmost care, because she could only use her hands to aid, Tirtha drew out the small body, held it against her so she felt the weight of an invisible head against her shoulder. The flesh she touched was very cold, and she quickly drew the edge of her cloak around it, the bulging of the material proving that indeed she held substance, not shadow. With fingertips she sought to examine the face, feeling against her own flesh a faint surge of breath, just as a faltering rhythm of heartbeat could be distinguished. How they might aid a child who remained invisible, she had no idea.

There was a sound from the falcon. The man’s head whipped around, his helm tilted as he looked up at the bird and listened to the sounds uttered by the feathered scout. Then he turned to Tirtha, where she still knelt, cradling the child.

“The Brother can see it,” he said quietly. “What witchery holds for us does not curtain his eyes. He says that it is not wounded, but in deep hiding within itself, that there is great fear in it.”

Tirtha remembered other lore. Deep fear, terror could strike so into a mind that there would come afterwards no reawakening of intelligence. Had this small one retreated so far that they could not draw it back? She had some healing knowledge, that was so, but nothing to handle such a problem. In Estcarp this victim could be taken to one of the hospices set up by the Wise Women to be treated by those specially trained to seek out the inner essence of the mind, draw it carefully back once more. Even those trained to do so had failures when a case was too severe. She had nothing save the belief that she would not have envisioned the plight of the one she held unless that vision meant she could aid.

They could not remain here. The raiders had gone, yes, but that did not mean that their own small party might not be sighted. There was nowhere she might deliver what she held into safety; she must take the fear-bound child with her. For all her cultivated hardness, Tirtha recognized that truth.

The Falconer dropped his hand to the butt of his dart gun. Now the bird took off in the sky. Tirtha’s uneasiness at remaining was obviously shared.

“There is no place for…” She indicated what she held. “We must take it with us.”

She half expected a protest. Falconers knew nothing of children. They did not even own those they fathered. In their villages of women, men impregnated selected females, perhaps several of them, within a stated time, but they were never true fathers. When they were six, the male children went into the Eyrie, or they had in the old days—to be housed apart, trained by selected fighters who were old or maimed and unable to serve in the field. They had no true childhood, and it would seem that the custom served their way of life adequately. To be saddled not only with a child, but one invisible and perhaps catatonic, would be an experience none of his kind had faced before.

Yet he made no comment, only went for Tirtha’s mare, bringing the pony to her. She loosed the throat latch of her cloak, wrapped its folds about the limp body of the child. She passed the bundle to the Falconer, mounted to accept it back. Then, with nearly the same speed with which they had come, they re-crossed the field to pass by the ruins. To bury the dead—she nearly checked her horse by that other small body, then realized that her first charge was the child she carried and that their own safety might depend upon a swift withdrawal.

Back they rode into the forested hills; again the Falconer led. They went more slowly, while he took the precautions of the hunted, dismounting at times to draw a leafed branch over ground where they had left too plainly marked a trail, winding a way that took every advantage of the nature of the country and any cover offered.

The falcon made periodic flights, reporting back at intervals. Though the man did not translate for her any messages it brought, Tirtha guessed that they were in no immediate danger from any other travelers in this land.

In her hold the child lay unmoving, inert. She tried at intervals to break through the mind barrier terror had set, longing fiercely to know more, have the ability to help. There was, she feared, a very good chance that if the conscious mind was lost forever, the will to live might follow. Death would then ensue. Such an end might be merciful, but she knew she would fight for this life with all her strength.

They reached a place before noon that the Falconer appeared to believe spelled safety for a while, and there they halted. There was no water, but a tough growth of grass satisfied the ponies and the Torgian. There was a half-shelter formed by some rocks to conceal them from any but the most intent search.

Tirtha sat, holding the child across her knees. The small body, still invisible, which had felt so cold when she had first taken it up, was now warm—too warm. Her cautious hand brushed aside fine, sweat-dampened hair to rest on a forehead where fever heat burned. She located a small mouth, which hung a little open, was able to dribble into it some water from her saddle bottle. There came a faint gulping noise, the first hopeful sign she had received, and she eagerly gave her charge another drink.

At the same time her mind was busy. To break an ensorcellment as strong as this—no, she had not the power. On the other hand there were spells of the shape-changing kind that possessed their own time limit. She gritted her teeth against hot, hard words she had learned in her tramping, which could be a release for her frustration and anger.

Having done what he could to establish their camp, the Falconer returned to squat on his heels beside her, pulling off his helm as if he felt his sight too limited by its half-mask.

“What holds it so?” he asked.

“Illusion, I think.” She could be sure of nothing. “It could have been carried there for hiding—you saw the tracks in the field—they were hunting someone. A mother might have possessed some talent. If she feared enough, she could have cast a spell to cover a child, hidden it away, even allowed herself to be taken…”

“Those now of Karsten have no witchery,” he pointed out. “And the Old Race…”

“…were long since damned and doomed here, yes. But that is not to say that some of the old stock could not have remained in hiding. Also, we can wed with others and prove fruitful. Some of us have mated with the Sulcars who have no witchery in them, their power lying in their sea knowledge only. There is also Simon Tregarth, the outlander. He bedded with one of the Wise Council. They outlawed her for it, saying she was none of them but a traitor to their beliefs. Yet it is true that he had something of the talent, and neither did she lose hers for being wedded as they had sworn she would.

“Three children she had at one birthing, which was never known before. And all three have the Power—still have—for it is they who, they say, now lead the war in Escore and have opened that land again to the Old Race.

“Thus it could be that one of my blood bred half kin here, who had talent. If that lies within one, then it can be summoned when the need is great. Still…” She paused.

“Still—?” he persisted.

“Even Lormt held no such secret as this. No”—she shook her head vigorously—“I am of the Old Race, but I have very little talent. I am a healer of sorts, and I can use the vision-seeing. That is the best of my learning. As you know, I can sense life essence and communicate with animals after a limited fashion. But all that I know or have heard of illusion is that it must be summoned by ritual, and that is not done swiftly or with ease. I do not see how one pursued, as those tracks showed, could have so wrought to hide this child in that way.”

“Then how else—?”

She had considered that all morning, striving to fit this and that answer to the same question. What was left was only a suspicion and one that seemed near impossible to believe, though she had long ago learned that the world was full of strange and awe-filling things.

“The child itself,” Tirtha replied slowly. “In Estcarp, girl children were tested early—sometimes when they were no more than five or six. The power can be recognized even at so small a score of years. Here in Karsten there would be no such recognition. Suppose a child of the full old blood—even of mixed blood—was born with full power. Such a one might see the world differently from the way we view it, and that early enough so that it would learn to hide what it was and what power was in it or be taught to so hide it by one close to it. There would be no formal training, but if danger—fear—were great enough, that fear in itself might open a door to the full talent, such as comes usually only after a long training.

“Uncontrolled, frightened by great terror, then a child’s instinct for survival might react as a protection, overriding the need for ritual that a trained Witch or Wise One would have as a barrier to betrayal through their own emotions.”

He nodded. “What you have reasoned sounds sensible. I know little of witchery. But fear which is strong enough can give a man physical strength past his own potential; this I have seen. The will, which is the inner core of a man, if it is determined, can lead him to accomplish more than his fellows would believe possible. Given this talent you speak of and fear great enough—yes—it might be so. But if that is the truth, how can we then help? Is this one so lost within itself that it cannot be summoned forth again?”

“I do not know.” Tirtha looked about her. If she was only sure they were safe here—perhaps the same drug that had sent her into the vision… But she could not herself seek within the child. That was an art far beyond her. “I know so little!” she burst out, her frustration banking down the anger that had been in her since she had gazed upon the work of those worse than brutes, making her voice rough and hard. “Mind healing or touching is a chancy thing.”

“I wonder…” He rubbed one of the prongs of his claw along the side of his thin cheek as he might draw a finger. “The Brother in Feathers can see where we cannot; can he reach farther than we may hope to?”

“The falcon!” Tirtha stared at him in open amazement. “A bird…”

He frowned. “The Brothers in Feathers are more than birds. There is much they know that we do not. Some of their senses are far clearer and keener than ours. Remember, he saw the child, the illusion did not hold for him. Therefore, if the outward illusion does not blind him, perhaps the inner one might not either. Would it be harmful to try?”

Such a thought had not crossed her mind. However, with his intent stare on her now, she was forced to consider what he said. Such an attempt could cause no harm she could see. And perhaps—just perhaps—it might provide the key to unlock a stubborn door. Slowly she made answer, though her arms tightened involuntarily around the child as she did so. “I see no harm.”

His lips twisted into a ghost of a smile. “But still little good? Well, let us see.”

His claw flashed in the sun as he made a small gesture. The falcon took wing, flying from its perch to light on one of the rocks overshadowing Tirtha and her burden.