“Twenty days we agreed. However, if I will it and say I am now satisfied, then our bargain is dissolved even as…” Her hand raised, about to toss what she held into the air.
He moved the swifter. His fingers imprisoned her wrist in a hard grip, holding her hand fast so that she might not loose the dust and so break their bargain. She did not believe that it was altogether the firelight that made his face seem flushed. Surely his eyes were fully alive with anger.
“Twenty days I said, and in all ways I do my duty—on shield oath.”
“It must be done willingly.” She disliked this inner struggle between them, wanting none of it. Let him ride off and be rid of her and all witchery. “For one to hold back even in thought will open doors. I do not know what may threaten, only this is a dangerous land. What I would do is as perilous as if I rode disarmed into an outlaw camp. Help—must—be—given—willingly.”
He dropped his hold on her, settled back. “You know best your needs,” he returned tonelessly. “I shall endeavor to aid as you wish. What is it you desire of us?”
“I must go again out of my body,” Tirtha said deliberately and slowly. “Perhaps that power, which you and the feathered brother share and which Alon has a portion of, can in a manner follow me and so protect my return road so that none else, or no alien will, can make of me a tool or a weapon.”
“Very well.” He turned his head a fraction, gave one of those small chirruping calls which summoned the falcon. The bird perched on his claw wrist where it rested on his knee.
“I cannot tell you against what or how you shall stand guard,” she continued. “Nor do I know if this thing is even possible. But fasten your minds upon the wish that I may succeed in what I strive to do. I hunt a guide to Hawkholme that we may head overland to where it once stood. Keep in your minds that name and the wish that I, in vision, may travel swift and sure over the countryside between where we are and that place. This”—she lifted her hands a little—“is all I can ask, for I do not know how else to bind us together.”
“Go, we shall follow.” It was not the Falconer who had given that firm promise, rather the boy.
Tirtha took from her belt pouch the potent herb and tossed it into the fire. She saw the Falconer again draw his weapon of power, drive the point of the blade into the earth before him. She leaned forward and inhaled deeply the smoke which brought with it a strong smell of spice and other goodly odors.
There was no going into dark this time. Rather she was enveloped by a blaze of blue light so strong that she nearly retreated, then warmth and strength reached out to surround her. She moved as firmly and with such purpose as she might have walked on a road in Estcarp.
The light accompanied her. She looked up to see a globe of blue (the blazing pommel of the weapon?) spinning with her into the place of otherness. Then that light began to fade as she moved on into a gray-ness.
Though Tirtha had no impression of foot touching ground, there was land about her, solid looking and as real as any they had covered in their passage through the foothills. The darkness of trees, massed together, arose on one hand, while to the right stood a bare escarpment of rock across which ran a notable vein of black. This was one of the marks to remember, that much Tirtha understood.
The veined wall began to sink lower and lower into the earth as she left the heights behind. Now that distinguishing sable marking disappeared; it was only a ridge of rock she followed.
Hawkholme—even as she had told the others to do, so did she now hold that name firmly in mind. Her one fear was that she might be whirled into the repetition of her old dream and not learn the way, only arrive within that hold, to relive once more the final action.
Tirtha was out of the hills. Open country lay beyond and to her right. To her left the wood thickened into a forest, a growth so tangled that she did not believe anyone could force a pathway through. When she turned her head slightly to view it, she saw a flickering movement that was stealthy and yet continuous. Within that screen of entwined limbs and vines and brush, something paced at her own speed, spied upon her.
She caught glimpses now and then of a pallid gray-ness but with no distinct form, which slid easily in and out, the thickness of the wood offering it no opposition. Tirtha would have kept to the open, yet what she had summoned up by her will drew her toward the wood in spite of misgivings.
Always that which paced there watched. Tirtha sensed a malignant threat, but she determined not to try to learn more. All her concentration must be centered on reaching Hawkholme.
Even as she set her will so determinedly, Tirtha turned a fraction to head straight for the wood. Here the underbrush appeared less interwoven. There were faint indications that there had once been an opening, that perhaps a long overgrown road had run in this direction. The lurker was still there, yet it did not manifest itself to meet her, rather it followed the same procedure, heading into the undergrowth parallel to her own path.
At intervals the old road was more open. She sighted once or twice a tall stone set on end, as if to mark her path. There were other objects farther back, emitting a pale and ghostly light. She sensed essences there of things that were totally alien, rooted or imprisoned where they stood. Against these the girl hurriedly raised mind barriers, for she felt the touch of a demanding desire reaching for her.
This wood was a place of menace. Even were she here in body and not just in essence, she would have found it so, that she knew. Yet what she sought lay beyond it, and there was no escaping the journey.
How long it would take to traverse the sinister forest, she had no way of knowing. Tirtha had the impression that such a journey was no short span.
However, there came at last an end, where the overgrowth trail opened again on meadow land. Here were fields which had once been walled, those stone barriers crumbling now, yet their lines plain to read. Through them curled a stream nearly of a size to be proclaimed a river. On the other side of that…
A vast surge of emotion, which she could not define, gathered within her, such as she had never felt before. Even from afar she could see that the defenses the builders of this hold had planned had failed in the end. Strong walled towers, a mighty keep had been raised upon a mound, at the foot of which washed a side channel of the river which had been diverted to ring around the hold. There were the splintered remains of a bridge—now only broken timbers—across a stretch of water to the gap that formed the entrance.
In all, this was a larger and more formidable hold than she had thought, although the huge hall of her dreams had argued it was part of a major building. The clan that had wrought it must have been a strong and well numbered one—and one with enemies, for the whole scene before her suggested that defense had been highly important.
Tirtha had found her goal. Now she deliberately set about relaxing her will—that will which was still bearing her onward toward the ruin. There was no need to travel farther.
The blow came like a blast of winter’s wind against an unclad body. Deep and numbing cold cut at her. Tirtha had not believed pain could be felt by one in her present state. How wrong this thing out of nowhere was proving her! She fought, strove to free herself from that agonizing icy horror which battled to keep her prisoner. Now, her will cried out, now—if you can hear me, sense me, aid me—bring what power you have to draw me back!
Had the other two indeed followed her, did they know that she had been so taken? If she had no aid, she was lost, for that cold ate into her will, tearing it apart as a wild wind shreds a cloud.
“Come!”
She could not cry that aloud, but her whole self shaped itself into that plea. Was she being driven back into the same limbo that had held Alon when they found him?
Warmth—a faint glow of warmth. The cold pressed, but there was warmth, and somehow she could draw it to her little by little, hoard it within to keep cold and death at bay. The strand of warmth gave an upward surge, grew stronger.