Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

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.”

Alon reached across her, his hands out, not to her but to the Falconer. Into that hold the man relinquished the limp bird, which the boy drew as protectingly to him as Tirtha kept the casket. The Falconer arose from where he knelt, and she saw him, through the pain that held her, turn slowly, gazing about, sweeping off his bird helm to see the better, while he still clasped the sword within his claw. From it issued a wan light to vie with that from the casket.

Tirtha closed her eyes, ready to surrender, yet death did not reach for her as she hoped. The Last Road might lie before her, but something held her back from that journey. Alon murmured to the stricken bird.