Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

Within that shadow she writhed in a torment worse than any torment of body, for torture of one’s body could end in death. For her there would be no death, no peace, no…

“Tirtha—Tirtha!” The voice was very, very far away—so thin that she could hardly hear it. Nor did she want to. There could be no one else in this evil world she had made for herself. She had fashioned this horror, unknowingly perhaps. Still it had grown out of her —let it not engulf anyone else.

She could not drive the murk from her mind, still she was dimly aware of other warmth.

“Tirtha!” A voice not so faint, possessing more depth, stronger, even more demanding than that other one. She strove to turn, twist, to outrace the voice.

But she was held. Her body lay against another’s, immobilized. For a second or two—the length of perhaps a heartbeat—that realization pierced through the emergence of the thing to which her inner spirit had given birth.

Tirtha strangled on a cry, begging for release, lest this other presence be tainted, befouled, lest he suffer because of her.

“No.” So emphatic was the denial that it broke through to her. “No, this is not of you, you are not so…”

She thought that she whimpered as her strength fast drained away. The shadow was winning; it was possessing the last remnants of her, devouring all she had believed once that she was or could be. That belief was built on rot within her.

“Tirtha!” Again that summons.

Then like a sun rising into the cloudless sky on a fair day of spring when the renewing of life could be believed in, the heart know a stir of joy and well-being, a spark of light rayed through the fog of evil about her. Larger, stronger grew that pinpoint. She was aware of another strength that pushed into the murk of her own failure.

Slowly, steadily it pushed. There came a sharp innermost thrust that pierced directly to the heart of what she now was. Death? If so, welcome.

Once more there whirled through her mind all that she had done, all that she had made of herself until this hour. However, the light followed, fought against sick self-contempt, her deep debasement of spirit. That portion of her confidence, which had been defeated, beaten into the ground, stirred. Slowly, oh, so slowly, a part of her answered the light, was nourished by it. Her thoughts no longer drew pictures of all that had gone wrong in the past—the least of those actions weighing against the good in her.

Again Tirtha strove to ask for help as she had done once before, only this was for help against her own being, a prayer that she be strengthened to face what she was and accept all her faults. The warmth which held her fed that need for comfort and strength of will, even as did the light.

She sighed, and the shadow no longer pressed in so tightly. Yes, this she had done and that, she had been harsh and cold and wrapped within herself, but she was no longer so utterly alone. There was a presence with her lifting her up and out, and out…

Tirtha saw the blur of a face close to hers, another beyond. She lay within a firm hold, while both her hands were imprisoned in another grasp, so tightly that her flesh was pinched and cramped. There was dark about the three of them. However, not that terrible inner darkness that had captured her without warning; this was the natural dark of the night. The Falconer held her, supported her, as he had when she emerged from the trance, while Alon knelt, her hands in his.

“I…” She tried to speak, to tell them. It was the Falconer who laid his sword-calloused hand across her lips.

In his claw, as it came about her shoulder, rammed well into the grasp of that cold metal, was the weapon of power. Light shone from it—lighter in color, not blue, but a golden-white—to illuminate all their faces. He had thrown off his helm, was unmasked, and as she looked up into his face, it was no longer impassive. Tirtha could not have said what the strange expression she saw there meant, save that he was more moved by some emotion than she had ever seen him. The flames in his eyes were steady while he watched her searchingly as if she were a land—a gate—that must be defended from all comers.

His bird, which she believed would never leave him, perched on Alon’s shoulder as the boy knelt before her. The avian eyes flamed with a fierce light, and the head turned at an angle to survey her with a predator’s steady, unblinking gaze.

Alon’s small face was nearly ashen in spite of the warmth of the color from the weapon’s glow. His lips were pinched between his teeth, and there was such strain in his face as she believed he might have shown had he once more confronted Gerik’s men.

“I…” She turned her head, slipped the Falconer’s hold from off her lips. “I was…”

“In the Dark.” The man answered her somberly. “This attack…”

Alon interrupted him. “You met that which only the Full Dark can summon.”

It was her turn to protest. “Not from without.” It was difficult to find the proper words. Her mind felt benumbed, beaten and sore, as might her body had she come through, survived only by inches, some battle. “It was inside—inside me.”

Alon shifted a little, settling back on his heels. “You even tried to use your sword—against yourself.” He had dropped his hold on her hands; now he motioned to what lay between them—that old, worn blade that was her talisman. “What possessed you would have made you self-slain.”

“Possessed…” Tirtha repeated his words. She had heard, had read of possession. That had been the worst and greatest weapon of the Kolder. Was this how they had possessed men’s bodies—turned them into their dead-alive servants? No, that had been done in another way—by the machines that had been destroyed in Gorm, so completely broken that no living man could hope to puzzle out their dread secrets. Yet now she said the only word that had once fitted such a state. “Kolder.”

The Falconer shook his head. The expression she had not been able to read had vanished. His features were again set in the somber mold they had always worn. “Kolder is gone. This is another matter.”

Tirtha roused herself, feeling that she must explain, must make them understand for their own sakes what she had learned within that shadow—that she carried in her the seeds of dire things, and the longer they companioned her, the more danger for them. All the truths and memories that shadow had used to weigh her down into despair still lay in her mind. This last crime she would not have added to the score to be balanced against her.

“It showed me to myself—what I have been, what I am. I beg you—go, if you have any compassion for me, you have no reason to do more than wish me well and ride. Grant me this much: that you will not be drawn into darkness because you think it your duty to follow where I must travel. Let me go alone; so take such an added burden from me.”

Alon’s lips parted as if he would speak, but it was the Falconer who answered first.

“Would you play its game then? I think, Lady, that you have too much courage to allow yourself to be so misled. Look you to what has happened. We are yet afar from Hawkholme, and yet something which has great witchery seeks to separate us. Therefore it fears. For only against what we fear, do we begin battle or launch a surprise attack. We do not know even the nature of this enemy. However, it would seem to me that when we unite, as we have done twice now, we provide it with a problem: strength it fears to face.

“In Karsten in the long ago the Kolder worked so; deep was their intriguing, their possession of Yvian and others near him, which led him to drive forth your people. And the reason for that was that Kolder could not take over one of the Old Race. The Old Race had to die because they could not be bent to another’s will. To seek to divide when there are allies united in strength is a very ancient move of strategy. If we ride hence, and you go on alone, then it has won. Do you wish such a victory. Lady? I think not, that is not in you. This enemy seeks to strike through your sense of duty, would set upon you the illusion that you already serve evil and so will lead you to open a door for it.”