by Andre Norton
She felt movement before she saw what her companion did; he was bringing forth his weapon of power. Holding it by the blade, he stretched out his hand so that the pommel knob hung steady above the child she held cradled in her arms. The dull gem took on life, within its heart a spark of fire glowed and grew. This was even more impressive and awesome than the light awakened from the rock wall in the valley. She felt now not only a tingle within hand and arm, but through her whole body.
Deliberately Tirtha calmed her mind, set herself to furthering, strengthening, if she could, what the bird summoned. She sensed energy speeding like a dart into flesh, striving to reach to the heart. It sought the very essence of the unseen child whose head rested against her breast.
In and in! The body in her arms twisted in a quick convulsion, so she must tighten her hold to a near bruising grip in order to keep the entranced one steady. There came a thin cry! Of pain? Terror? Perhaps both.
Still the bird raised power, the Falconer fed, the gem blazed.
They sought—surely they could go no deeper lest they carry death with them, while the one who was so sealed away fled their seeking!
Again the small body arched in Tirtha's arms. An invisible fist thudded against her breast, as the mewling cry grew stronger, so that she tried to feel for the mouth in a head that turned back and forth on her arm, to press her hand over it, to stifle any sound that might carry in these dangerous hills.
The gem pommel became so brilliant a ball that Tirtha dared not look directly at it. To whom had that belonged and what sorcery had gone into the forging of such a blade?
Then the falcon gave a croaking cry. Tirtha sensed that it was fast nearing the end of its strength. The body she held continued to struggle. She was able to sense now not just life, which had been near to the borderline of extinction, but overwhelming and terrible fear like a black cloud streaming upward about her to bemuse and stifle her own mind.
There was . . .
In her arms she held a child she could see. Its face was twisted, wrought into an ugly mask of terror so intense that perhaps sanity was lost. Tirtha drew on her healer's comfort, strove to pour down and in the quiet confidence which was a large part of that talent. She made herself picture a wide meadow, bright and open under the sun, a sky untroubled by even the smallest cloud. And through that open land, where fear was unknown, the child she held—yes, now that she could see it she could mind-picture it—ran in happy delight.
Tirtha fought to hold, refine that vision, let it fill her mind and flow outward.
“Nothing to fear.” It was a growing rhythm, an unvoiced chant within her. “Safe—safe—no fear—safe.”
She was no longer aware of either bird or man, only of the pitiful creature she so held and tried to comfort.
“Safe—no fear—safe.”
The open meadow, the flowers she visioned growing to charm the eye with their color, to catch and hold even a most fleeting attention, the cloudless sky . . .
“Free—no fear.”
The child's body, which had been stiff, taut, rigid in her hold, began to relax. Was this the relaxation of an outer covering of flesh that had been tried too far and too long—a withdrawal of life essence shocked out of its chosen hiding place? She could not tell.
“Safe—safe . . .” Tirtha strove to increase her flow of assurance, even as she would have with some injured animal, as she had times in the past tried so to heal or comfort.
Those eyes, which had been screwed so tightly shut, slowly opened. Dark gray they were, and with that in them which she recognized. This was blood of her people—the child was one of the Old Race.
The mouth, which had so shortly before shaped those woeful cries, opened a little. There came from between bitten lips, where flecks of dried blood had gathered in the corners to mark the small chin with a dribbled stain, a sigh.
Tirtha dared now to try to reach the child's mind directly. It was free and it was still sane! She had hardly dared hope for that!
With a joyful cry of her own, she embraced her charge closely, crooning a wordless murmur of relief and thanksgiving. Then there shot into her own mind, so sharp and clear it might have been spoken aloud by the child, a touch her fumbling attempts could never have produced.
“Gerik!” Fear flamed with that name as a fire might rise when fresh wood is laid onto its blaze.
“There is no Gerik here.” She summoned words. To answer mind to mind was no skill of hers. “I am Tirtha and this . . .” For the first time she looked to the Falconer a little at a loss. She had never asked his name, knowing well that they did not yield such to those outside their own kind.
“I am Nirel, little brother,” he answered for himself, speaking to the child. There were runnels of sweat down his face, gathering in large drops to drip from his chin. He had sometime during that battle swept off his helm, so the child who turned his head could see him plainly.
Little brother? Yes, it was a boy she held, which surprised her. For so legendary was it that such power of illusion could only be summoned by a woman, Tirtha had been certain she had carried out of that carnage a small girl. He was young, but perhaps older than his size would suggest, and his body, hardly covered by a short, tattered shiftlike garment, was brown and wiry. The dark hair of the Old Race had a slight wave where one longer lock fell across his forehead, near touching his level brows. What looked out of his eyes, though, was nothing of a young child.
“I am Alon.” He spoke clearly. “I . . .” The shadow was back on his face, and his hands reached for the front of Tirtha's jerkin, clasped it so tightly that his nails cut into the soft leather.
“Where—?” He had turned his head against her, hiding his face so that his words came muffled.
Tirtha chose to ignore what might be the true meaning of that question.
“We are in the hills,” she replied calmly.
His shoulders hunched a little as he gave one convulsive sob. He held to her for a long moment and then turned to look at both of them once more.
“They are all dead.” It was no question but a statement of fact, and Tirtha found that she could answer only with truth.
“We believe so.”
“They said they came from Lord Honnor; they showed his seal rod to Lamer, and so the gate was opened. Then he laughed and . . .”
Again that body convulsed and Tirtha answered with a tighter grip. But it was the Falconer who leaned forward and spoke.
“Little Brother, there will come a time for blood payment. Until then, look to the days ahead, not the hours behind.” Such words he might speak to one of his own kind and his own age. Tirtha felt a rising indignation. Did he believe that a small child could be so comforted, if comfort was what he intended by that somber advice.
Only it would appear that he was right, for Alon met him eye to eye. His small face wore an intent, serious look and there was almost the same communication between the two of them as existed between bird and man—one Tirtha could not even sense.
“You are a bird man,” the boy said slowly. “And he—?”
He loosed his hold on Tirtha, raised a thin arm to point to the falcon who now looked as if it wished to sleep, its yellow eyes half closed, its wings tight held to its body.
“In his own tongue he is called Wind Warrior. He is a flock chief and . . .”
“One of the Learning,” Alon said softly. He spoke directly to the bird.
“Brother in Feathers, you are a great fighter.”
The falcon unlidded its eyes, gazed down, uttered a single small and very soft sound deep in its throat.
Now Alon turned his head once more to look directly up into Tirtha's face.
“You are—are like Yachne, no?” Again a shadow frown crossed his small face. “She has the Calling in her; you—you are different. But you are of the Blood.”
Tirtha nodded. “Of the Blood, but one born in another place, kin-brother. I am from overmountain.”
He had moved, not to free himself entirel
y from her hold, but rather to sit higher in it. She helped him so he could be more comfortable.
“Overmountain,” he repeated. “But there is evil . . .” He glanced up, then stared at her. “No—the Dark ones—one can feel those. You are not of the Dark, kin-sister. Are you from the east where there is the clouding? Yachne has tried to read the throwing stones many times, but always there is the Dark between. There are the prowlers who come down from the hills, but they are not like Gerik”—his lips met tightly together for an instant—“for Gerik is a man, and he has chosen to serve the Dark of his free will!”
“Overmountain from Estcarp. There is little evil there in the way you know, kin-brother,” Tirtha answered as gravely and with the same tone the Falconer had used. “But my kin were once of this land, and now I return for a purpose.”
He nodded. His growing composure was far from childlike. She wondered if this was natural to him, or whether it had been born of the release of power that had sent him into hiding and so changed his mind, perhaps enlarging a talent. He seemed twice as old as he looked.
“There are such as Gerik patroling.” He hitched himself even higher in her hold. “They will be watching, and they hate all of the Old Blood. We kept mine secret, yet somehow they knew.”
The Falconer resheathed his strange weapon and put on his helm.
“Then it would seem that we must find a shelter better than this.” He got to his feet, held out the wrist of his claw, and the falcon moved onto it.
Alon pushed out of Tirtha's hold, though she kept one hand on his shoulder to steady him. It was difficult to believe that the child who had been so limp and helpless when she had borne him here could now show such vigor. He wavered for a moment, then stood as tall and straight as his small body would allow, though he did not shake off her hand as the Falconer went to bring up their mounts.
Alon looked at the Torgian round-eyed and hesitatingly lifted his right hand. The beast snorted, moved toward the boy one step at a time as if puzzled and wary, the man loosing the leading rein to let it go free. The shaggy head of the horse dipped, it sniffed at the boy's palm, pawed at the ground, and then blew.
“He—he is different.” Alon's gaze swung from horse to ponies, then back again.
“Yes. In Estcarp,” Tirtha answered, “his kind are horses of war, and they are highly prized.”
“He is alone.” It was almost as if Alon had either not heard her or else that what she said meant little to him. “The one whom he served is dead; since then his days have been empty. But he will take me!” There was a sharp change in the boy's face. A smile, as bright as the sun Tirtha had imagined when she was pulling him out of his inner darkness lighted it. There was an eagerness in his voice as both his hands tugged at the flowing forelock of the horse. “He accepts me!” It was as if something near too wondrous to believe had changed his world.
For the first time since she had traveled with him, Tirtha saw the Falconer smile and gained a dim idea of how different he might appear among his own kind. He caught Alon around the waist and swung the boy up to settle him in the empty saddle of the dead man's horse.
“Ride him well, little brother. As the Lady has said, his kind is not easily found.”
Alon leaned forward to draw his hand down the curve of the Torgian's neck, and the horse tossed its head, whickering, taking one or two small steps sidewise as if he were very pleased with both himself and his rider.
With them all to horse and the falcon settled on saddle perch, they headed back into the foothills. Tirtha watched the boy anxiously. Though she claimed hardness of spirit for herself and even in childhood had cultivated a shell to protect both her inner self and the feeling that some important destiny lay before her, she could not believe that so young a child might so quickly lose the remembrance of the raid and of how he had escaped from it.
Perhaps her first suspicion was right—the use of his power had released within him also an ability to accept things as they were. So, as the Falconer suggested, Alon was able to look forward and not back—yet another protective measure which the talent brought to him without even his conscious willing.
They halted for nooning at a spring, for these foothills were well watered. The boy shared the last of their rations of crumbling journey cake, as they had not tried to hunt along the way. By questioning, they discovered that Alon's knowledge of the land eastward was limited to stories that had come through infrequent contact with either a single small market town to the south or from such travelers as the master of the holding had trusted enough to shelter overnight.
There was a Lord Honnor who claimed rule over part of the land, but, by all Alon's accounts, his hold was a precarious one, his title often in dispute, though he was a man of some honesty—for Karsten—and did his best for those loyal to him. The master of the garth had been one Parlan, not of the Old Race but with a dislike for the perilous life of the more fertile plains where there was almost constant warfare. He had brought his family clan into this foothill region trying to escape the constant raiding he had encountered during the past dozen years or more.
It was when he had been taken sick two tens of days back that the mastership of the garth itself had fallen on his nephew Dion. Parlan was old enough to have served in Pagar's force, being one of the garrison left behind when the fateful invasion of Estcarp had been ordered. A seasoned fighting man, he had suffered a crippling wound in the chaos that had followed the turning of the mountains, and had then taken a wife and the land his lord commander had offered, only to change his mind and move into the foothills when that lord commander himself was treacherously slain and his forces badly routed.
Alon's own relationship with Parlan and his family was apparently not a close one. He had been added to the household when they had left the plains, as a very young baby, and he had been told that he was the only child of a kinsman who had been killed with the lord commander, his mother slain in a resulting raid.
“It was Yachne who fostered me,” he told them. “She—they were all somewhat afraid of her, I think.” He frowned a little. “And she was not of their blood either. But she was a healer and she knew many things—she taught the maidens weaving and the making of dyes. So Parlan got fine prices for their work in the market. Also . . .” He shook his head. “I do not know why, but he often came to her when he was in trouble and she would sleep, or seem to. Then when she wakened again, she would tell him things. But always she sent me away when she did this, saying this must not be told or understood by men. And when I asked her questions, she grew angry, though I cannot understand why.”
“Because she dealt in witchery,” returned the Falconer.
“And perhaps because she believed, as most do”—Tirtha herself had only today revised her own beliefs in that direction—“that the talent is only a gift for women.”
“The talent?” Alon repeated. “When I was frightened, then—what did I do? They said that they would have a hunt and that this was a fair way to bring down their hare.” He shivered. “Gerik's shield man tossed me out into the field and I ran, and then . . . then . . .” He looked questioningly to Tirtha. “I do not know what happened. There was a dark place, but it was not of the evil, that I know—rather it was like a house, strong-walled to hold me safe. Somehow I found that and hid until I was called, and that calling I could not stand against.”
Tirtha found it ever more difficult to think of him as the child he looked. Now she asked abruptly:
“How old are you, Alon?”
Again he frowned. “I do not know, for Yachne would not tell me. I know”—he glanced disparagingly down at his own small body—“that I am too small. Frith, who seemed close to me in age when we were little, grew; he was near half a head the taller. They called me ‘babe in arms’ when they wished to tease me. It seems that I do not look like the others. Even Sala who was only ten stood above me. I think I can count for myself near twelve years since we came from the plains.”
Twelve years—perhaps more
! Tirtha, startled, looked to the Falconer and read a trace of the same amazement on his face. The small body she had carried was certainly that of a child who looked hardly half that toll of years. Perhaps there was more than the blood of her own race in this one. There were stories of strange matings to be read at Lormt. A long-lived elder race might well produce a child whose development was very slow and whose seeming childhood much prolonged. The Old Race was long–lived, and they retained a semblance of late youth into scores of years, in fact until they were near death. But this very prolonged childhood was new to her.
Over the mountains from Escore—if the servants of the Dark had thus wandered, perhaps other blood had come also. It could be that Alon had less human blood in him than appearances warranted. If that were true, his self-caused retreat, even from sight, could well be a natural thing.
By evening they found a good camping place. There was a moss-and-turf-covered ledge projecting from a rise of ground, sided in part by an indentation that was close to a cave. Tirtha, seeing on the down side a covey of hares, loosed three arrows in close order and descended to pick up the bodies, while Alon, for the first time since he had mounted Torgian, displayed fatigue, sitting on one of the saddles the Falconer had stripped from their beasts, hunching his shoulders against the rising evening wind. His scanty clothing certainly gave him little protection against it.
They pulled stones together and lighted a fire at the back of the half cave, broiling the joints of meat over it, to avidly eat dripping bits to which Tirtha added some of her powdered herbs. Comfortable warmth radiated from the back wall of stone. The Falconer rummaged in his saddle bags and brought out a pair of under-trousers which were far too large until they were tied around Alon's waist with a doubled cord, the legs turned up and laced tight. There were no boots to pull over them, but at least they kept the saddle pad from chafing the boy's inner thighs, which were already red. Tirtha covered the marks with salve before he drew on the improvised leggings.