by DAVID B. COE
“That, I would believe,” Trahn said aloud, turning to face his brown hawk, who sat motionless on an ancient stump a few feet away. The bird blinked at him indifferently.
Trahn climbed to his feet and held out his arm. Reivlad flew to him instantly, and the Hawk-Mage started toward the trees where Jessamyn and Peredur were murdered. He had time; he would not be leaving until he found Jaryd and Alayna, or at least learned something of their fates. This seemed as good an opportunity as he would have to reexamine the site of the killings. Possibly, because of the darkness, they had overlooked something last night, or maybe Sartol had concealed something. In either case, the daylight could help.
Reaching the center of the thicket, Trahn stopped and tried to reconstruct in his mind the horrifying scene they had encountered the night before. Just in front of him, he saw the branches that Jessamyn had intended to use as torches, still arranged in a tidy row. Her body had been lying just about where he now stood, and Peredur had died a few feet to the left. . . .
Glancing in that direction, Trahn froze. Several feet away, at the base of a tall pine, he spotted a small mass of feathers, wet and disheveled, and matted with blood. Stepping quickly to where it lay, and stooping to inspect it more closely, Trahn recognized it as the body of Peredur’s familiar, headless and mutilated, but identifiable still. He searched the area with his eyes, and there, a few feet farther into the tangle of trees and brush, he discerned the owl’s bloodied head. He felt his pulse quicken, although he could not say why. In and of itself, the discovery of Peredur’s familiar signified nothing. Both Sartol’s owl and Orris’s hawk were powerful and swift enough to kill a bird of this size, even if it was an owl. But could Orris’s hawk have torn the head off of this owl? Of that, Trahn was less certain. Sartol’s great owl, on the other hand, would have had little trouble doing so. He stood again, his thoughts going back to the night before, when Baden and he first saw Sartol. The Owl-Master had been wounded, with a cut on his forehead and a burn on his leg. But while his owl seemed uninjured, its talons had been covered with blood. Trahn had assumed at the time that the blood had come from Orris’s bird, but if he had been wrong, if Sartol’s familiar killed Peredur’s owl, that would lend a great deal of weight to the case against Sartol.
Another memory: an eerie wail emanating from the Shadow Forest just before Baden and he found Sartol, and only a few moments before they watched Sartol’s bird glide back to the Owl-Master’s shoulder. With a quick last glance around the thicket, Trahn moved through the undergrowth and back into the sunlight. He then made his way to the edge of the Shadow Forest, to the approximate area from which that strange wail had originated. Again, he did not have to search for very long. Along the fringe of the dense wood, within just a few yards of the grassy clearing, he found the body of Orris’s pale, rust-colored hawk. It had a single red stain on its breast, where Sartol’s owl had punctured its heart with a sharp, powerful claw, and, like Peredur’s owl, it had been decapitated. Trahn sighed. Sartol’s owl had killed this bird; there was no way to know whether the blood on its talons had come from Peredur’s owl as well. The talons of Orris’s bird bore no blood, but, given the rain that had continued to fall throughout the night and the first several hours of the morning, that told him nothing. Still, he felt his anxiety increase with each new discovery. Peredur’s owl and Orris’s hawk had been killed in very similar ways, each by a bird powerful enough literally to rip off its head. Obviously, Sartol’s owl had killed Orris’s familiar; had it also killed Peredur’s?
Yet another memory from the night before flashed through Trahn’s mind. When Baden, Sartol, and he entered the thicket, Jessamyn’s owl had hissed at them. But what if she had been hissing not at the mages, but at Sartol’s bird? If Orris had attacked Jessamyn, her owl would have tried to protect her, and, again, Trahn wondered if Orris’s hawk could have prevailed in a fight with the white owl. He did not doubt for an instant that Sartol’s powerful bird could have.
He shook his head grimly. He had found little that might prove Sartol’s guilt or Orris’s innocence; certainly not enough. He had only his knowledge of the birds, his suspicions of Sartol, and his stubborn faith in Orris’s loyalty on which to rely. Still, he could not rid himself of the feeling that Baden’s life was in danger. For an instant, as he started back toward the camp, he considered using the Stone-Merging to contact Baden and warn him, but he knew how his friend would react. “You have no proof,” Baden would say. “You’re allowing your emotions to cloud your judgment.” And perhaps he would be right in saying so. Besides, Trahn thought to himself with resignation, if Sartol had betrayed the Order, contacting Baden would place the Owl-Master’s life in danger. His friend had ridden north fully aware of the risk. For now, at least, Trahn would have to accept the fact that he could do nothing but watch for the young mages, and accept as well that Baden could take care of himself, even against Sartol.
Trahn looked over his shoulder, once again scanning the edge of Theron’s Grove for some sign of the two young mages, and, as he did, he heard the horses start to whinny nervously in the distance. Immediately, he began racing toward the ancient farmhouse where he and Baden had taken the animals the night before, and where the six mounts that remained were still tied. Bears, wolves, and panthers inhabited this part of the land, and all of them possessed sufficient strength to kill a tethered horse. The nearer he drew to the old town, the more the intensity of the neighing increased, and he cursed himself for demanding that the company shelter the horses so far from the camp. Then, just before he reached the ruins, matters turned worse; far, far worse. The clamoring of the horses, which had been alarming enough, abruptly began to fade, and he heard their hooves drumming away to the west. With a cold, sick feeling in his stomach, he hurried on to the ruined farmhouse. But by the time he reached it, the animals were gone. Only the trampled grass and a few scattered hoof prints indicated that they had ever been there at all.
Jaryd awoke with a start late in the morning and immediately reached for Ishalla with his mind. She was perched beside Fylimar on a low branch just a few feet away, silent but watchful. Feeling her presence, he instantly felt more at ease. The sky had cleared, and sunlight filtered warmly through the leaves and past the gnarled, winding tree limbs of the grove. Turning his head, Jaryd found Alayna lying beside him, a slight smile touching her lips as she watched him. Her long, dark hair, tousled and still slightly damp from the rain, tumbled across her shoulders, and her dark eyes, rich brown like the earth, and flecked with green, glittered in the daylight.
“Good morning,” she said softly.
He raised himself up on one elbow. “Good morning.”
“Did you know that you talk in your sleep?” she asked.
Jaryd felt himself turn red, and Alayna began to laugh. “Actually, I did know that,” he admitted.
She raised an eyebrow.
“My brother has told me,” he explained. “We shared a room.” He hesitated. “Why? What did I say?”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I couldn’t make out a word of it. It wasn’t really talking as much as it was a kind of low mumble, like this.” She made a noise imitating what he had done. Jaryd groaned with embarrassment and she laughed again.
“So, how long is it going to take before the entire Order hears about this?”
She looked at him with a hurt expression. “That’s not fair,” she said. “I wouldn’t tell the entire Order.” She paused, trying to suppress a smirk. “I’ll just tell Baden and Trahn, and let them do the rest.”
Jaryd nodded and laughed. “That would be a much more efficient use of your time,” he agreed.
Their eyes met and locked as their laughter slowly died away, and Jaryd leaned forward to kiss her gently on the lips.
The soft smile lit her face again. “What was that for?”
Jaryd shrugged. “For being able to laugh, and to make me laugh, even when everything around us is falling to pieces.”
“Ah. My grandmother ta
ught me that,” she told him, picking up a leaf and playing with it absently. “She always said that as long as you have your sense of humor, you can cope with anything.”
“That sounds like good advice,” Jaryd observed quietly.
Alayna nodded. “It ought to be,” she said, “it kept her alive for almost ninety years.” She sat up. “Of course,” she went on, her tone growing more serious, “Gram never had to deal with unsettled spirits and renegade mages.”
“Lucky her,” Jaryd commented, climbing stiffly to his feet. Alayna held out a hand, and he pulled her up as well. He turned to look at the two birds and, with no more than a thought, called Ishalla to him. Effortlessly, the grey hawk sailed to his outstretched arm.
“Can you tell them apart?” Alayna asked him, as Fylimar flew to her with the same easy grace.
“Yes. Ishalla is slightly smaller, and her back and wings are just a bit darker. But,” he added, “I have to look very closely to be sure. Can you?”
“Usually,” she replied. “I see small differences in their faces, but I have to look pretty closely, too.”
Jaryd gazed at Ishalla’s head, with its dark cap, light eyebrows, and fierce red eyes. Then he looked at Fylimar. Whatever differences Alayna perceived were too subtle for him to notice. “I’ll take your word for it,” he remarked at last.
Jaryd’s stomach made a sudden, loud gurgling noise. He felt his face redden.
“Hungry?” Alayna asked with a giggle.
“Famished.”
Alayna nodded. “Me, too.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and, almost immediately, Fylimar leapt from her arm in search of food. Jaryd conveyed a similar thought to Ishalla, who flew off in the same direction. As the hawks hunted, the mages gathered wood for a small fire and set aside two long, sturdy branches to use as spits for the game brought to them by their familiars.
“Have you given some thought to what we should do after we’ve eaten?” Jaryd asked as they worked.
“Some. But I haven’t come up with anything too brilliant. You?”
Jaryd shook his head and pushed the hair back from his forehead in a gesture his mother would have recognized. “No. We don’t know if Sartol is still out there; we don’t even know who survived the night. And I’d like another chance to speak with Theron. I still think he can help us.”
“I’m sure he can,” Alayna replied. “The question is, will he?”
Jaryd shrugged and took a deep breath. “I think we should try, although if we had a way to find out what’s going on outside the grove, it would make deciding on our next move a lot easier.”
“We do,” Alayna said brightly. “Haven’t you ever flown with your hawk?”
Jaryd gave her a skeptical look.
“I’m serious,” she insisted. “I’ll show you after we eat.”
He started to respond, but was interrupted by the sound of laboring wing beats, as Ishalla returned carrying a hare. A few seconds later, Fylimar reappeared as well, bearing a quail. Accepting their meals from the birds, the two mages sent their familiars off again so that the creatures might feed themselves. Then they sat down by the fire and began to prepare their food, skinning the hare and quail before impaling them on the two skewers.
“I didn’t have the chance to tell you this last night,” Jaryd said a bit later as he watched his meal cooking over the flames, “but I’m sorry about Sartol. Never mind what he tried to do to me; I know how close you are, and how much you admire him.”
Alayna leaned forward and turned the branch that held her meal. “Thanks,” she said, sitting back, a sad smile flitting across her features. “I feel really stupid; I should have seen through his facade. But he was always so kind to me—” She stopped and shrugged. “I should have known.”
“How could you know, Alayna? There are people in the Order who have known him far longer than you have, and they didn’t see it. And that includes Baden, Jessamyn, and Peredur. He fooled them, and he fooled me. You shouldn’t blame yourself because he fooled you, too.”
Alayna nodded, but she would not meet his gaze, and they finished roasting their meals without speaking. The hawks returned a few minutes later, Ishalla with a jay and Fylimar with a robin, and, as the mages ate, so did their familiars.
By the time they all finished eating, Alayna’s spirits seemed to have lifted. She picked up her staff and handed Jaryd the torch that contained his ceryll. “Come on,” she urged, taking his free hand. “I want to teach you how to fly.”
As it turned out, what Alayna called “flying,” Baden had referred to as “using the Hawk-Sight.” In essence, Alayna explained, it merely demanded that he reach with his mind beyond his normal connection with Ishalla until her perceptions superseded his own. Then he would simply convey to her that he wished her to fly.
Easy as it sounded, it turned out to be a bit disorienting at first; indeed, Jaryd nearly fell to the ground with dizziness when Ishalla first rose into the air and began to circle. But he quickly grew accustomed to the turns and undulations of her flight, and he soon understood why Alayna called this flying. He felt as though he himself were riding the wind currents and gliding above the treetops, and he laughed aloud when Ishalla and Fylimar circled overhead and he was able to see Alayna and himself as they appeared from above.
After enjoying the sensation for a few moments, Jaryd saw, through Ishalla’s eyes, that Fylimar had flown toward the campsite. Responding immediately to Jaryd’s thought, Ishalla followed the other bird. In just a few seconds, they cleared the grove. Jaryd found himself looking down upon the grassy clearing in which the company had set up their camp the night before. He saw the cluster of trees where the young mages had encountered Sartol, and he recognized the tarpaulin-covered pile of food and equipment that Alayna and he had worked on. It appeared, from the careless way in which the tarpaulin now lay, that someone had gone through the supplies since then. Not far to the west and south, the Moriandral, its waters muddied and frothy, roiled under the stone bridge and past the ruins of the old city. Nearer to the camp, two large, blackened mounds of timber still smoldered beneath the midday sun.
But other than that, Jaryd saw nothing that would tell him who survived the night. He saw no people; he didn’t even see the horses. He felt his stomach tightening.
After circling over the clearing several times, Fylimar wheeled back toward the grove. Again Ishalla followed. A moment later Jaryd heard Alayna speak his name and he broke the connection with his familiar. Opening his eyes, Jaryd nearly fell to the ground again. Alayna grabbed his arm to support him.
“Are you all right?” she asked, looking at him closely.
He gave a small laugh. “I will be in a minute. I like flying, but landing is still a bit rough.”
Alayna laughed briefly, but her expression quickly grew somber. “I didn’t see anyone,” she said, sounding alarmed, “not even the horses.”
“Neither did I,” Jaryd agreed.
Alayna ran a hand through her hair. “What were those things that were burning?”
“Pyres, I think,” Jaryd told her. “For Jessamyn and Peredur.” After a moment he added, “I hope they were for them.”
Alayna made no reply. For several moments they said nothing.
Finally, Jaryd took a long breath and made a helpless gesture with his hands. “This is almost worse than finding Sartol there alone,” he commented, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice. “At least if we had seen Sartol, we’d know to stay here. But this—this tells us nothing.”
“Actually,” Alayna returned, “that’s not entirely true. The pyres tell us that someone other than Sartol survived the night; he’d have no reason to bother with funeral rites if he was alone. And the supplies are still there, so everyone can’t be gone.”
“Maybe they started back toward Amarid and left the supplies for us, figuring that we’d need them if we survived the grove.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “That’s a possibility.”
“Or maybe Sartol hid the horses, left the supplies, and built the pyres to confuse us and lure us out of the grove,” Jaryd suggested. “Is he clever enough to do that?”
“Absolutely,” Alayna replied in a flat tone.
“So, in other words,” Jaryd concluded, “we can’t risk going out there yet.”
“No, I guess we can’t,” she said with resignation. “I guess we’ll have to try our luck with Theron after all.”
Unsure of what else to do, the young mages passed the rest of the day on the banks of a small azure lake tucked away in a corner of the grove and fed by a small waterfall. Alayna had spotted it—or, rather, Fylimar had—as the birds circled, before they surveyed the campsite, and she had insisted that they go there.
“After fifteen days of riding,” she said pointedly, “I would think you’d want a chance to bathe.”
After a brief but refreshing swim in the cool waters, the young mages spent much of what remained of the day reflecting on their confrontation with Theron the previous night. Both of them were convinced that the Owl-Master knew who had committed the attacks on Tobyn-Ser, but, having experienced for themselves the spirit’s bitter hatred of the Order, they could think of no way to enlist his aid. Nonetheless, Jaryd felt strongly that they should try to speak with the Owl-Master again.