Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (12 page)

 
          
"I
think not," he said, his voice a sharp tenor. "There is no relsk
stone on me to bind me, nor am I blindfolded." He smiled down at her,
flashing white teeth. "And you are far too weak to command me,
sorceress."

 
          
Adelia
blinked.

 
          
"As
Nairn, I would have done anything you asked to stay as I was. I'd have done
twice that for my freedom. As a hawk, all I knew was that I wanted to fly free.
And you would have taken that hope from both of us. You meant to meld us into
one earthbound creature tied to your will. Didn't you, sorceress?"

 
          
She
dropped onto her back and licked dry lips.

 
          
"You
are bound to me," she said.

 
          
He
smiled again.

 
          
"No,
I am not." He looked down at her, examining her with cold but interested
eyes. "I am my own. More than I have ever been."

 
          
He
drew his sword and stroked the flat of it over her cheek.

 
          
"What
you have made of me, sorceress, is a better predator than I have ever been. The
hawk in me thanks you for that. And the man in me," he drew the sword down
her neck and across her breast to her heart, "he sees great possibilities.
The man in me knows that he doesn't need to fear the sorceress; your powers are
spent.

 
          
The
hawk in me knows that I need not fear the stranger; you lie there panting like
a rabbit broken in the hunt.''

 
          
He
grinned, most joyfully, and pressed the point of his sword onto its target.

 
          
"Good-bye,
Adelia."

 
          
Ron
Collins' short fiction has appeared in several magazines and anthologies,
including Dragon, Return of the Dinosaurs, Mob Magic, and Writers of the
Future. He lives in
Columbus
,
Indiana
.

 
          
I
HAD fallen asleep last night without making a fire, and the stone walls now
stood with cold permanence in the overcast morning light. The sound of the ocean
echoed inside the hollow of my room. Odors of salt and seaweed hung in the air
like new ghosts. Damp fog thickened the sky outside my arched window, and waves
rolled in the distance, steel-colored swells capped with streaks of white foam
that broke relentlessly against the rocky beach.

 
          
I
cleared my lungs with a deep breath, remembering the chore that awaited me.

 
          
My
father is dead now.

 
          
The
ache of loss returned in a rush, filling me physically as if my nighttime
dreams had served

 
          
to
keep this reality away. He had been working in our
open-air laboratory, concocting another spell that he would someday pass on to
me if he found time.

 
          
Something
went wrong. The explosion rattled the whole of Castle Talon, the small stone
building my father and I have lived in for as long as I can remember.

 
          
He
probably never knew what happened.

 
          
Fitting.
My father had always been a man whose focus was
intense, who could set aside distractions in order to concentrate on what he
found important. And as one of the distractions he oftentimes placed aside, I
knew how firm the walls around those compartments had been.

 
          
So
today I was alone inside this place he named after the hawks, the place where
the two of us have lived for so long, alone to deal with him as I have always
been.

 
          
And
for the last time, deal with him I will.

 
          
I
tightened the drawstring on my trousers and slipped summer sandals onto my
feet. The morning was cool and overcast, but the sun would soon burn through
the morning mist. Building Father's pyre would be hot work, and there was no
one else here to share the labor.

 
          
Kiva
chose that moment to land heavily on my stone windowsill. Her golden-brown
feathers beat against the air as she navigated the tight quarters. Once
settled, she stood proudly on the sill and stared at me with her intent black
eyes, her gaze unwavering but nervous, the feathers of her chest ruffled and
full.

 
          
At
her feet lay a bone, the small curved rib of perhaps a mouse, bare and smooth,
its
surface gray in the morning gloam.

 
          
Her
call pierced the room.

 
          
"Fly,
Kiva," I said while making a sweep of my flat hand, the motion that meant
she should return whence she came.

 
          
But
she did not. Instead she cocked her head and continued to stare intently at me.

 
          
Confused
and angry, I strode to the window-sill. The sound of the ocean was stronger
here. The wind blew cold against my face, moving my dark hair away from my
eyes. The bone lay pitched up at one end. I twisted it around in my fingertips.
It was dry and brittle, its surface slightly roughened like the finest of all
sandpaper.

 
          
But
it was just a bone.

 
          
I
let it drop outside the window, knowing it would be lost amid the shale rock
that lined the beach.

 
          
Kiva
called again, and she leaped off the sill, swooping downward to catch the bone
in midair just before it disappeared into the jagged rock. In a moment she had
perched back on my windowsill, and the bone lay again in its spot.

 
          
"Damnation,"
I said to myself, wondering if she had lost the common sense that the gods gave
all creatures. "All right, Kiva. I'll keep it." I slipped the bone
into a small pouch that was clipped to my belt, then turned and walked out the
door.

 
          
I
had more things to worry about than a deranged hawk.

 
          
For
as long as I can remember, we have kept hawks at Castle Talon. As of this past
breeding season there are fifty-eight of them. We leave them free to come and
go as they please.

 
          
And
yet, they stay.

 
          
They
always stay.

 
          
My
father studied them intently, casting sorcery amidst them on more occasions
than I could possibly count. They fascinated him, and drew every ounce of his
attention. While he loved them all, he had been particularly fond of Lissa, a
huge hawk with golden feathers and a wingspan as wide as my father was tall.

 
          
He
doted over her, speaking to her in quiet moments, and watching her glide over
the land, flying majestically in the blue sky while he remained locked to the
ground.

 
          
His
eyes would mist sometimes.

 
          
And
after these times he would increase his efforts in the laboratory, feverishly
studying magic and incantations at the expense of his own physical health.

 
          
He
wanted to get closer to the hawks, I know. He wanted a deeper connection.

 
          
I
remember a night in a distant tavern where Father and I had traveled to fill a
contract for his sorcery. Father, as he always did, had brought Lissa with him.
A woman with thick, red lips and wearing strings of gold so false that even a
boy my age could see them for
such,
asked if I was
jealous of the birds.

 
          
I
didn't know what to say then.

 
          
Certainly
I was jealous. I knew that to the core of my being. I never understood my
father's single-minded fixation on these creatures while I stayed outside his
circle of concern. But at the same time, the hawks were as much a part of my
life as they were of my father's. I fed them in the winters.

 
          
I
cleaned after them as they needed cleaning after, and I tended their wounds and
sicknesses as they arose.

 
          
The
hawks were a part of my life, and if truth is told, I had in some ephemeral
fashion always felt attached to them. I asked my father about them once,
though.

 
          
"Why
do we have so many hawks?" I said.

 
          
His
face grew troubled and distant, and he pursed his lips.
For
just an instant, his eyes softened, losing the edge that his glance always
carried when he looked at me.
He tried to speak,
then
stopped. He breathed deeply and hesitated longer.

 
          
"You
will understand when you are older."

 
          
Father's
smoke was gray and black. It curled upward in thick streams that twisted like
drunken snakes and smelled of driftwood and salt. The hawks, all of them,
glided in the sky above, riding drafts and twirling downward in a dance that
seemed almost ritualistic.

 
          
The
fire baked my face and prickled my bare chest with heat that made my skin ache.
Sweat I had given in the preparation of the pyre boiled away.

 
          
When
the burning was done, I cast a spell over the embers. Fire can hide, and, no
matter the castle's dilapidated condition, I had no intention of waking to find
my newly inherited manor burned to the ground. It was an easy spell, among the
first my father had taught me.

 
          
I
sighed, watching the last of the flames snuffed.

 
          
When
my father was alive, there was always a goal—always a plan, a new spell to try,
or a fresh experiment to run.

 
          
But
he was gone now. And yet I felt his presence stronger than ever before.

 
          
His
gaze seemed to come from each direction, expectation riding upon it as thick as
the morning mist. The familiar hills reminded me of him; he had been like these
hills to me, always here. How could they still spread from the oceanfront and
he be gone? I thought of the creases in his forehead that I, too, would likely
have someday, and he seemed even more real. I turned to the castle, expecting
at any moment that he would step from the laboratory doorway and announce he
had discovered some new facet of his magic.

 
          
He
was not there, of course.

 
          
I
had watched his body burn and the smoke that carried his soul waft up into the
hawk-filled sky.

 
          
Now
I felt like a lifeboat freed from a ship, adrift and loose on a windless sea.

 
          
Drained
and hungry, I returned to the castle.

 
          
Kiva
swooped down to land gracefully on a perch beside the doorway. Another bone
slipped from her hooked beak, falling to the ground at my feet. She called
again and stared at me insistently. I picked it up. This bone was similar to
the last, but a bit larger.

 
          
It
was certainly not from a mouse.