Corridor’s end gave upon a staircase circling about a center core, winding steeply downward, the steps narrow edges of stone. There was a groove cut in the wall about this formidable coil of descent, perhaps to provide a hand hold.
At the foot of the spiral was a lamp in a niche, a basin of stone with a wick fed into it through a hole in the loose lid. The light it gave was limited, but that any here had seen fit to light this stair at all was a warning, one that Tirtha thought it well to heed. She hesitated at the top of that well-like way. Only one person at a time could descend, and if a guard waited below, out of sight…
She became aware of a soft rustle and glanced back. By the eerie light of the Falconer’s weapon, she saw that the bird which accompanied him was again perched on the man’s shoulder. Its head was extended well forward as it also stared down.
The presence of the lamp bothered Tirtha. Since they had come into the upper hall, the place had been utterly silent. Though these walls were thick, much of the interior had clearly been destroyed by fire and sounds should carry. Such quiet only meant to her that the three of them were, in spite of Alon’s earlier reassurance, not only expected but that a trap awaited them. She edged away from the stairway, then wondered if that was exactly how she was expected to reason—that the lamp below was set so as to make them take another path.
A hand caught hers, startling her, pulling her down so that she was on a level with the boy.
“He—he is here——” There was fear in his voice.
His grasp on Tirtha tightened, held with frantic force, pinning her to the fire-stained wall. If he should lapse now into that state of withdrawal… Terror was building up in him to such an extent as to awake panic in Tirtha herself. By his very touch he fed it to her. She caught at him, strove to shut out of her mind any dread of her own, to return only what strength of spirit she had to offer.
Somehow their alarm must have spread in turn to the Falconer, perhaps through the medium of the bird on his shoulder, for he swung up between them. The dim glow of his sword rested on both woman and boy, its pommel pulsating with the light that was both a warning and a solace against the spread of the Dark.
Alon’s involuntary shudders shook Tirtha. She could see his face, a vague blur turned up to hers. Then the light swept over him. He had closed his eyes tightly, his mouth was twisted as if to utter a noiseless scream. However, as the thin glow of the gemstone touched him, that expression of witless terror receded, even as she, also, felt a warmth rising within her body.
They had more than one weapon, these enemies who made their den in Hawkholme, and perhaps the strongest could not be seen or heard. They who invaded must seek action, for to remain cowering here was to open gates to this other, more deadly form of attack.
If she had only had better preparation! Those dreams—they seemed now to her to have been more deceptive than helpful. There must be a way through this ruined stronghold, yet she could only blunder and hope and perhaps fail.
No! Again that insidious thing which attacked through mind and emotion had struck at Alon through one kind of fear, at her with another. What of the Falconer—what did it strive to reach in him? For the impression grew in Tirtha that the thing lairing here with its servants might indeed need to reach them by devious means, that it shrank from physical attack. Why? The Sword—yes, it could be that weapon of power which had spun about them its small light. Perhaps, because it had come into the Falconer’s hand from the first, he was now the best armored of the three.
She heard again a rustle of wing as she deliberately pushed closer to the man so that her shoulder rubbed against his.
“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.