Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

Bird?

Tirtha blinked. Now her injury built illusions. There had been a falcon in Alon’s hold. Now a shimmer covered that huddle of black feathers, as if one misty picture were fitted over another. What Alon nursed was not the same—rather a strange thing with gray-feathered body and large open eyes banded round with scarlet feathers. This other bird raised its head high, though behind its shadowy form she could see still the drooping crest of the falcon. Its bill opened as if voicing a challenge or cry of anger.

Alon’s eyes had closed. Now they flickered open, appearing large in his thin face. He stared down at what he held as if he, too, was aware of change.

The Falconer, seemingly alerted by what he sensed rather than heard, swung swiftly around, to stare at boy and bird. That doubled misty outline faded in and out, sometimes blotting out the falcon, at other times losing the gray bird. There might be a struggle between the two, one life force striving to impress itself upon a weaker one.

Alon shifted the bird, leaned closer still to Tirtha. She gained a measure of strength to dispute pain, to clear her mind. For that this had important meaning, she was sure. Perhaps some act might follow which, even if it could not save her, would carry to an end what the geas demanded of her. Guardianship was not enough, though it had been faithfully held to the last of the Blood to whom the task had been given. There was more, and if events were out of her control, yet all was still not swallowed by Dark mastery. Did the Falconer nurse some suspicion of unknown danger? His sword swung into place above Tirtha’s body from the other side, its point aimed at the bird that struggled from one form to the other.

The gem in the pommel flashed, emitting waves of light to encircle the bird. The bird became whole, complete, not dead but vibrantly alive, a species unknown to Tirtha. When its beak opened once again, its cry could be heard, as fierce as the call of the falcon it had replaced, yet with a different, even wilder note. Its head darted forward on a longer neck than the falcon had owned, a sharp bill struck at Alon’s fingers—struck but did not break skin. Instead the head jerked back, to slew about at a nearly impossible angle to view the boy.

It did not threaten such attack again, but it beat its wings, and Alon loosed his hold, so that it fluttered forward and down, coming to perch on the casket still resting between Tirtha’s numb hands. There it again elongated its neck, its be-ringed eyes approaching her own.

The bird spoke—this was no cry or twitter, but a recognizable word. She had heard of birds trained to mimic human speech. Yet this was no mimic. Whereas the falcon had communicated by its own twitterings, which only the man could understand, this one, arisen out of the other’s death, uttered what they could all distinguish.

“Ninutra…”

In the sway of Tirtha’s mind, where pain and the need for holding strove against one another, there flickered the faintest memory. Out of Lormt, out of some legend she had picked up in her wanderings? No, this was another thing, perhaps a blood memory, descending to her from the line of those who had worn the Hawk and kept faith with something greater, not of man and woman at all.

The pain became a raging fire enveloping her, and she recognized that the fire was not entirely of the body, but a sign of Power alien to anything she had dreamed might exist. They said there had been Great Old Ones who had left humanity far behind, made of themselves that which in later days had little touch with mankind. This fire—and within it a face of carven beauty—was utterly remote. Yet the face bore eyes that still lived, looked into this place, considered the three of them, weighed them, before making judgment. The old accounts spoke of adepts who were neither of the Light nor the Dark, who withdrew from quarrels and strivings for power among their kind to seek only new and stranger knowledge. Tirtha did not feel the Dark in this one, nor did she sense any surge of strength the Light might have granted her. Still in her mind remained that face, until Tirtha was sure that she would carry it with her even into the death that must come. To such a one as this, no plea she might offer could reach.

Or…

The geas! Had this one laid that upon her? Had there been ancient dealings between this One of High Power and those of the Hawk? If so, then she could surely claim, if not for herself, then for the two with her, some aid. Tirtha strove to form that appeal, a last demand that a faithful servant be so repaid.

There was no change in the face she saw, only intelligence and measurement. Tirtha felt more pain—the numbness in her hands and arms was receding—though the rest of her body was only a vehicle for torment, dead to all else.

Her fingers fumbled with the casket, feebly running about its sides, hunting clasp or lock. There was none she could find by touch alone, and her sight was dim. Nor could she lift her head to look closer at what she clung to. It must not be given into the hands of another. The bird still squatted upon it—wings outstretched as if to hide it from view. Tirtha suddenly realized she could not even feel the touch of feathers. Illusion? Yet Alon no longer held the dying falcon—it was gone.

“Ninutra!” The bird raised its neck and head to form a single line, the open beak pointing at the shadowed roof above them. It summoned—surely it summoned!

Still, who could reach them here save what prowled without, lacking the secret of the door?

From the four corners of the ceiling in that hidden chamber burst scarlet flame. Between those fiery tongues the air moved, as if all the dust the years had deposited here was drawn in, whirled about, kneaded into mass and substance. Over Tirtha that whirlwind centered and took form. There was a sword—a long-bladed, plain-hilted weapon of a misty-gray—a thing pulled from shadows not of a human world.

The point was above the casket and the bird. Tirtha understood. What lay within the guardian’s hold was to remain secret. Yet it was also a focus for the power that had been summoned. There was nothing they could do but watch and wait, for they were only a very small part of another’s plan. Perhaps in the end they would be discarded. One did not strike bargains, make pleas to such as this.

There was something about the shadow sword. Even as the Falconer’s weapon bore unreadable symbols along its length, so did similar markings appear here. And those in part she recognized. Some of these were written on the dead man’s scroll! She marveled at that for a long moment.

Alon, no longer holding the bird, had dropped his hands to lie limp on his knees where he sat cross-legged. His eyes, taking on a kind of luminance, not from those flames lashing over his head, but rather from the Falconer’s weapon, were fixed upon that shadow sword, and there was that in his face which no child could know nor feel. He was gathering what he had not yet learned properly to garner, fighting a private battle of his own.

The Falconer stood as might a defender, waiting for a last fatal charge meant to bring down all he would protect. His weapon of power was held point up as if to engage that shadow weapon should it strike.

“Nirel.” Into that Tirtha put what strength she had left. “Take the scroll, for it is a part of this, though I know not how.”

The Falconer did not move, but Alon, as if he were well aware of what she carried and recognized its value, opened her pouch and pulled forth the metal rod thrusting it upward into one of the empty dart loops on the man’s shoulder belt.

Within her mind the face of carven beauty withdrew as by a click of fingers, though Tirtha was sure that what it represented had not yet put them out of mind. Instead she felt, through the stone on which she lay, adding to her torment, a quivering of the rock, a tremor. Again she found voice, this time to cry a warning.