The cold had reached for her, had sought to compel her onward toward the ruin just when she had striven to break the compulsion she had used to bring her here. It wanted her inside. Now she wavered—if an essence could waver. The drag forward, the chilling against the warmth being fed into her. Her will awoke from the effects of that first, numbing, near-fatal blow. Back—she fastened not on Hawkholme, rather on her memory of their camp.
Think of Alon—the warmth grew! The Falconer —a thread more of freedom gave her strength; the Falconer—it was his face that filled her thoughts now —a face bearing a terrible set concentration like a mask laid over the man she had grown to accept as a trail comrade. Within his eyes those yellow fires flared high. She could see only those eyes and the fires in them—warmth against the cold—the OTHER who willed her to Hawkholme in a state which it could use. Yes, warmth!
Fire rose about her; tongues of blue flame formed a defense wall. Abruptly the assault of the cold ceased.
The fires lingered for a moment, died, and she was in the dark.
Rain—she lay out in the rain—water ran down her face, into her open mouth. She heard hurried breathing, fast, shallow, such as a near-spent runner might have. She opened her eyes—there was a blaze of half light around her head, so that she quickly closed them again, feeling that somehow she had been cut adrift and caught up in something that she could never hope to either escape or control.
“Tirtha, Tirtha!” A call, faint at first and then very strong. She was once more aware of her body, of stiffness and pain. The warmth that had aided her return to life slowly traveled from her head down her entire length.
“Tirtha!”
She dared to open her eyes once again. There was Alon’s face, one side of it strangely blue. His eyes held fear; then it faded and he smiled—laughed—as if a burden had been lifted from him.
Tirtha saw that other form kneeling by her, in his hands the sword, tight gripped, its pommel ablaze and the blue light bathing her from head to foot. Increasing strength followed the warmth, flowing into an emptiness she had not realized was there until it was refilled. Cautiously she lifted her head. Almost instantly an arm was thrust beneath her shoulders, bracing her higher. She felt the small, chill touch of that claw against her cheek for just an instant.
Alon squatted on his heels directly before her, his expression one of eagerness. The Falconer, because he supported her, she could not clearly see. He had laid aside the sword. Its output of energy had faded; there was only the faintest glow from it now.
“I—am—back.” Her lips, as they shaped those words, were stiff. In her own ears her voice sounded hardly more than a whisper. “You brought me back.”
For it was from the two of them—no, the three (she must not forget the feathered brother she had sensed as part of her rescue)—had come the warmth, generated within themselves to combat what had lain in wait for her at Hawkholme.
Lain in wait? Tirtha for the first time thought clearly. She had not only the ruin to find, but there was an unknown terror there—one determined to have what? That which she sought herself and still could not name? Logic told her that that might well be the truth. So…
She moved her head, her shoulders a little, though she did not try as yet to pull free from the Falconer’s support. Perhaps she needed that strong arm behind her to strengthen her—even to remind her—of what she must say to these two, of the decision that was hers to make and about which there could be no choice, for the very honor of the Hawk.
“You found the way?” Before she could speak, Alon’s question came.
“I found the way.”
“Then we can go.” He glanced over his shoulder as if he were ready to saddle and ride at once.
“Not ‘we’.” Tirtha had herself in hand now. “This is my quest only.” She looked directly to the Falconer. “I release you—take Alon. There are those over-mountain who will give him shelter—the Tregarths—for they know that power does not always run in the same channels. From here I ride alone.”
He regarded her with that same level and angry glance he had worn before when she would have broken their bond in full ceremony.
“There are twenty days—no less.”
Tirtha sat upright, and he moved away from her quietly. The falcon gave one of its soft cries and fluttered to his claw wrist.
“I lead no one into that—” she declared sharply in return, determined this time to have her will in the matter.
10
Yet strong as she thought herself to be, Tirtha did not have her way. The Falconer was stubborn, determined to fulfill his bargain. Though she ordered him twice to use that sense of duty by taking Alon over-mountain, swearing that she would be satisfied, that this would set the balance straight between them, he refused. Tirtha wondered if she must slip away from her companions, only she could not be sure whether the stubborn man would not attempt to track her. It was Alon who confirmed that suspicion when they were alone the next morning, the Falconer having taken the water bottles down to the stream.
“He is single-minded and that rides hard with him,” Alon observed. “These bird men are trained to what they believe is their duty. Thus he would pursue it and you to the end. You cannot shake us off. Lady.” He smiled and gave a small laugh.
Tirtha was not to be beguiled from her own sense of right. “There is danger waiting at Hawkholme. Did that not already strike at me?”
“And did you not then beat it?” he interrupted. “Yes, it waits, but you do not draw back because of it. Neither shall this Swordmaster allow any foreboding to lessen his intent. Nor”—he paused for a second or two before he continued—“shall I. There is in me”—his hands went to heart level at his breast, touching the wrinkled smock Tirtha had washed in a stream—“that I must learn to master and live with. Yachne would not teach me. Did she,” his face screwed up into a frown, “fear me?” He asked that not of Tirtha but of himself, as the girl was well aware. “Yet there was much of the power in her—one could feel it always. And I am not Wise. I am not—what then am I?” Again he spoke to Tirtha. “Have you seen my like before? They tell me many tales of Estcarp—that the old knowledge was treasured there, not lost, forgotten by the Old Race as it was here.”
Tirtha made fast the latching of her saddlebag. “I have not seen any male before who has commanded the Power. The Witches who rule in the north say such a thing is unnatural, and therefore perhaps of the Dark.”
Alon was on his feet in one supple movement, to stand staring at her, wide-eyed.
“I am not…” His protest came sharp and quick.
“Do you think that I do not know that? The Dark Ones cannot hide what they are to any of our blood. Also there is one man, Simon Tregarth, who has something of the talent. However, he is not of our blood, hut an outlander who came through one of the Gates. It is also true that his two sons command strange forces, and they carried them and their Witch sister westward into Escore so that they broke the old curse to open that land to all of our race again.
“Though perhaps to no peaceful purpose, for there were many evils loose there, and now they war. Those of the Old Race, who followed the Tregarth calling to the east, fight against many Dark perils. There have been scores of stories during the past few years, perhaps twisted in the telling as such often are. Still we hear of battles won and lost, a country rent by the will of things unlike human kind. It could be that Escore blood has ventured westward here.” She sat with her hands clasped together studying Alon measuringly.
“You said that you were son to one this Parian knew,” she continued.