“Such are always to be found among our people. But if she returns and finds the garth as it now is, will she follow us?”
One possessing the Power could well use the trance (as she herself had attempted) and trail them as easily as if they had left all manner of open markings behind. She saw the Falconer stir. His frown was twice as heavy as Alon’s had been. This man could accept her, Tirtha, since she had dealt with him after the established custom, claimed his services by open bargain. But that he might ride with a true Wise Woman whom his kind held close to hatred—no. Nor would she herself welcome such a one who might read her and her mission as easily as one would understand a fair-written scroll.
For a long moment Alon apparently considered her question, his head a little atilt in the same fashion as the bird would hold his feathered crest when appealed to. Then, slowly, he shifted his gaze, past Tirtha, past the fire, out into the dark.
“I do not feel her,” he said simply. “When I try, there is nothingness. Yet I do not think she is dead. Perhaps, knowing that the garth is gone, she has followed some plan of her own. She is a secret person.” Now he looked back to Tirtha. “I could tell many things about other of Parian’s people. I knew when they feared, or were happy over some matter, or when they were about to sicken. But with Yachne you did not know. There was always a barred door past which you did not go. I think that she aided Parian not because she held any liking within her for his clan, but rather as if there rested between them a debt she was paying. Perhaps it was so with me also. Though I also believe that she found in me some future use…” He appeared now to be thinking aloud rather than trying to answer any of Tirtha’s yet unspoken questions, turning over ideas which had long puzzled him.
“You would know if she were near?” The Falconer asked that sharply, in a tone that was meant to arouse, bring a quick answer.
“Yes. Even if I could not find her directly, I would mind-touch her inner wall.”
“Good enough. I think”—the man regarded the boy measuringly, those old yellow sparks plain in his eyes—“that you will tell us if you sense such.” He might have meant that for a question, but it came forth more as an order.
“Yes.” Alon’s answer was brief. Tirtha, at that moment, was in two minds whether they could rely upon it or not. She knew that there was nothing of the Dark in this child. Still, that did not mean that he would consider himself committed to their own quest. They might claim a debt for saving his life but she had no wish to do so. Those who weighed and balanced such acts were tarnished by the doing. One gave aid freely when it was necessary. There was to be no payment returned, save by the desire of the debtor. In so much, in spite of all the hardness of her life, she held to the ways into which she had been born. Nor did she believe that the Falconer would argue differently. The sword-oath he had taken made his road hers as long as their bargain held.
She shifted restlessly. To head on guideless, as they had been doing, was folly; she must know more concerning the direction in which their goal lay. In order to do that, she must dream or else evoke another trance. Only such dreams had eluded her now for days. Her sleep was deep and heavy at night. If she had walked in strange ways, she carried no memories back into waking. To try once more the herb-induced trance, with perhaps this Yachne somewhere about… The entranced one was always vulnerable. She had been reckless when she had attempted it before and certainly she had not been in command, for she had not been led to Hawkholme—rather to Alon.
Tirtha had come to suspect that it had been the force of the power Alon had employed without willing it that had drawn her own talent and that led them to the garth. Any gift so much greater than her own small one could bend her to another’s will when she was in the disembodied state. Also, Alon had spoken of the Dark spreading eastward. To be caught by a strong evil will…
Yet to continue to wander aimlessly—that achieved nothing. She looked to the boy across the fire now, her eyes narrowed a little. There was one way—yet she shrank from discussing it, from even considering it. All her life she had fought for her independence, for the ability to order her own existence as much as any living creature might in an uncertain world. To surrender in even this need came very hard. She looked down at her calloused brown hands, clutched so tightly on a fold of her cloak that her knuckles stood in sharp relief. Will fought need within her until at last that same common sense which she had clung to during all her plans triumphed.
“I must use the trance.” She spoke as sharply as the Falconer had done in his questioning of Alon. “That need may not be delayed any longer. I seek guides, and those I can only gain in that fashion. But one entranced, without protection, is in danger. My—my talent is limited. Therefore, when I go seeking, there could well be those of greater power to take and bind me to their will.”
The Falconer’s frown was dark, his mouth a straight slash across his face. Tirtha knew that with every word she uttered, she aroused opposition in him, brought to the fore all the dislike he had for such as she was. Only his oath bound him, but in that she had a foundation. Alon was watching her with a similar intent stare, but with none of the resentment that the Falconer radiated. His attitude was one of excitement and interest, such as any ordinary boy might show before a feat of action.
“I need your help.” Those were the hardest four words she remembered uttering in years.
The Falconer made a quick gesture of repudiation, using his claw as if, with that symbol of grim loss, such a negation of what she had asked was thereby made the stronger. Alon, however, nodded briskly.
Now she looked directly to the man. “This is a thing you wish no part of, that I know. It is not bound without your oath.” In that much she would yield to him. “But I have seen what you and your bird brother can do, and so I ask of you, not aid in my going forth, but another kind of help—protection against what might well net me while I am in that other state.”
It was Alon who answered her and not the Falconer, and he did not speak to her but to the man.
“Swordmaster, this Lady asks of you protection. She says that you are not oath-bound to give it after the fashion in which she must now have it. Perhaps that is so. I know of sword oaths and shield men only what I have heard in tales and accounts of the old wars and troubles. Perhaps it is against your own beliefs that you do such a thing, but this is not of the Dark. Therefore a man does not break his innermost allegiance if he follows a path that helps, not harms. I do not know how great an aide I can be in such a matter.” He now addressed Tirtha directly. “I think there is much, very much, that I must learn concerning myself. But what I have now”—he held out his hands as if he were offering her something as invisible as he himself had been when they first found him—“is at your service.” Once more his eyes swung to the Falconer as if he waited.
The man had drawn from its sheath the weapon of power, then rammed it back with savage force. His rage, controlled with an icy strength, was visible to them both. He spoke as if he would bite each word drawn from him and answered harshly.
“I hold not with witchery. But also I am indeed oath-bound, though you”—he looked flame-eyed at Tirtha—“have said that in this that is not so. However, the boy is right—one does not give half oaths if one is of the blood. What would you have of me?”
She felt no elation. To have him believe that she had in a manner forced this might even endanger what she would do. For their wills must be united lest there be an opening for the Dark to twist one against the other. Tirtha leaned forward to pinch up dust, as much as she could hold between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes on him rather than on what she did. She saw his gaze narrow.