Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

“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.