“I must,” she said in the lowest whisper she could manage, “reach the Great Hall. It is only from there that I know my path.”
He did not answer at once, but neither did he draw back from that contact between their bodies as she thought he might. As she had tried with Alon, perhaps in the same way he sought now to reassure her. Even as she thought that, there was in her, this time, no answering surge of rebellion. The three of them were locked into action which they must share; upon each other they must depend until the very end.
Again came a rustling of feathers. Tirtha could see by this faintest of lights that the falcon was mantling, bobbing its head, stretching its neck forward, not toward the stairwell from which they had retreated, but toward the other end of this hall. The Falconer swung in that direction, holding the sword in his claw, for he had drawn his dart gun in one sure movement, and had as usual taken the lead, walking with a scout's care that Tirtha tried with all her might to equal, drawing Alon along with her. The reflection of the powered gem appeared to exert a soothing effect on Alon for though he clamped fingers tightly in Tirtha's belt as an anchorage, he opened his eyes, pacing beside her in the wake of the man.
What they came to was the ruin of another staircase. Its core was stone, but that had once been covered with wood, and paneled walls must have once enclosed it—now burnt away. So again the descent would be a perilous one. Still, there was no lamp below, while the roof stretched high above their heads, for they had issued out of the mouth of a hallway which was on one level of what must have been a towering chamber.
The falcon winged out into this open space of which they could see so little. Now the Falconer began to descend the stairs, one step at a time, his helmed head turning slowly from side to side, as if he sought to hear the more clearly since he could not see. There was no change in the quality or strength of the light given off by the sword. Oddly enough, as Tirtha and Alon began their own halting descent some two steps behind the Falconer, the boy appeared to have fully shaken free of his fear. In his small face his eyes looked larger than before, as if his sight could pierce the dark.
Thus they came into a vast space surrounding the foot of that ruined stair. For the first time Tirtha believed she recognized the necessary path. She turned to the left, bringing Alon, by his continued hold on her, along, the Falconer falling in at her side. Through the darkness, lit only by the small glow the sword gem spun about them, she guessed what lay before her, as if her dream had once more enclosed her.
This was the Great Hall. In Tirtha arose an excitement that fear could not touch. Because she had won this far, what had drawn her here was strengthening, taking over within her. She strode, not crept, confident of where she went.
The dais with the chairs of honor had stood there. She could not see them; doubtless they had been swallowed up in the fire or hacked wantonly to pieces by those who had overrun the hold. Now she must turn this way, behind a screen . . . .
So sure was she that a screen stood there that she put up her hand lest she run into it. Yet there was nothing but a wall. The Falconer, as if anticipating her request, held the sword up and forward. What she sought lay beyond, of that she was certain. Almost roughly she loosed Alon's hold, ran to that wall, swept her grimy hands back and forth across it. Her fingers left trailmarks in the dust and ash, but she had no luck this time. There was no possible hold she could discover that would open for her like the door in the drain.
It lay here! She knew it. Tirtha strove to command her impatience. She closed her eyes—this might be the most dangerous thing she could do, but she must throw open the gate of memory to the dream, command it, as in the past it had commanded her. Only so could she come at what she must take into her hands.
The great hall—piece by piece she labored to draw it out of the nothingness and ruin about her. Just so had the lord sat, and his lady, between the two of them on that table the casket. Then had come the alarm. The more Tirtha pulled and drew, the clearer the picture became. She could feel those others she had not seen clearly in her dreams, their rise of emotion, fear and excitement, determination, dread, above all a flare of courage that was like a lighted torch in the dead dark.
The lady—Tirtha did not know it now but her own hands were up breast high before her, cradling the invisible at the level of her heart. Behind the carven screen—now the wall—a wall once paneled in wood carving, fancifully wrought, painted and gilded here and there. Only it was not the wall that was so important. She did not raise a hand now to its surface. Instead she advanced the toe of one worn boot, planted it firmly on a pavement fashioned of many small colored stones in strange and angular pictures. So by instinct she sought out one of those fitted stones slightly larger than the others, and upon it she bore down firmly, with as much weight as she could bring to bear on such a small surface.
There was resistance. She tried again, the need for speed lashing at her. Once, twice, three times. Surely it would not refuse her entrance now that she had come so far!
The wall moved. With a thin screech of sound as if metal crossed metal long ungreased and near-rusted in place, a passage opened. From that shone light—blue, faint, but still light!
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. From 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.”
15
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.
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 ca
rven 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.