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stone. Kade i forced herself to let go, to let the unfamiliar senses guide
her, ! and her wings made the correct angle and she caught the wind > again.
;
She thought she had the trick of it now. One had to exer- \ cise enough
control to keep one's memory and purpose, but had to give the hawk enough rein
to control the body. She ;. made a slow circle to face toward the palace,
watching the \ ground rush by below in such fine detail and trying not to
think about what her wings were doing. :
Kade had not taken this form lightly. She knew that hawks, \ who could
dive from hundreds of feet in the air and pluck a mouse off a forest floor,
would have good eyesight and that j with the gascoign powder she would
have a chance of finding ! the gap in the wards. The smaller body would
make slipping through easier as well. Also, if she failed, this wasn't a bad
way to spend one's last hour. But she had chosen better than she ' could
have guessed. She could see the wards as fine shadings ! of gray mist
moving almost imperceptibly above the walls.
And Just a moment ago I thought gray a dull color indeed, she mused. Who had
known that one bland color would have so many distinctions?
A few powerful strokes of her wings took her higher and she flew toward the
palace, astonished again at the power and strength of such a small form. She
had risen above the wards and almost overshot the palace before she caught
herself and turned back. It was no wonder human sorcerers lost themselves when
they changed shape. If her sense of urgency hadn't been so strong, it would
have been easy to play on these wind currents until she forgot who she was. Is
that what happened to att the human sorcerers who tried the shape-changing
experiment? Did they keep saying, "I'll just stay out a little longer," until
all the words faded from their minds? If only she could afford that kind of
self-indulgence.
Kade found the gap close to the high point where the edges of the wards met
above the palace. It was an irregularly shaped hole, a bare four feet wide at
its largest... And closing fast. Hawk instinct seized her and pushed on by her
fear she dove for the gap. She had forgotten how fast she could move if she
tried, and found herself safely through and frantically cupping her wings to
slow herself as the sloped roof of the Queen's Tower rushed upward at her.
Elated, Kade controlled her dive and slipped sideways, catching the wind
current around the tower and letting it steer her toward the North Bastion.
She hadn't felt a thing when she had rushed past the wards, and now she knew
she was going to beat that Bisran bastard at his own game.
Kade made one slow circle above the King's Bastion for curiosity's sake. Along
the top level, she could see the staining on the stones above the windows
where smoke had poured out from the sporadic fires there the night of the
attack. Then a play of light over the dark tiles of the multipitched roof
caught her attention. It looked almost like a ward.
Yes, it is a ward. She didn't think it was a new one of Grandier's design; it
lay on the roof like a discarded scarf. Kade circled again, losing altitude in
her effort to see it more
370
MARTHA WELLS
dearly. It could be Ableon-Indis, the ward she had called to route the Host in
the Old Hall. Her spell might have pulled it out of the etheric structure
entirely and that was why it was still here instead of with the other wards
above. It might not have been affected by Grandier's conversion of the other
wards at all.
Kade saw the black shape out of the comer of her eye, and her hawk's body
twisted away, reacting before her human mind had grasped the danger.
It was a black spraggat, its leathery wings stretched above her, its daws
raking. She dove again, slipping in and out of the currents, but it followed
her, its stronger wings overpowering the wind and forcing itself doser to her.
Kade slipped sideways and it overshot with a scream of rage. She flapped her
wings frantically, trying to gain height and take advantage of its mistake,
then she heard its screaming turn from anger to pain. She risked a look and
saw it was rolling and scrabbling across the roof of the King's Bastion, its
leathery wings smoking and bursts of flame appearing over its dark body. It
had fallen into Ableon-Indis. I'm right, she thought with great satisfaction.
But it's much weaker than it was without its keystone, or it would have burnt
that thing up at once. She had one ward on her side, and she would have to
think carefully about the best way to use it
She turned, making for the North Bastion. Then daws raked her back, and the
force of the blow sent her tumbling, her wings frantically beating the air.
The second black spraggat dove toward her again and struck at her, and she
wheeled and turned desperately to escape. The wall of the North Bastion seemed
to spin, all the while rushing closer and doser.
The instincts Kade had fought off earlier took over in force, letting her
right herself and fight her way toward the flat mountain looming in front of
her. Her daws grasped stone, and there was a rush of air behind her as the
spraggat stooped for the kill. For a long moment she felt herself fumbling,
trying to remember what she had to do now, her thoughts overwhelmed by the
hawk's fear and its terrible desire to turn and
THE ELEMENT Of FIRE
371
throw itself at the spraggat in a hopeless attack. With the last bit of
herself, she stretched out with her mind and touched the spark of light within
her feathers that in another existence was a fayre queen's glass ball. She
shattered it.
Then her fingers were digging into the chinks in the stone face, her boots
slipping on the ledge. The spraggat screamed its confusion, suddenly
confronted with a human larger than itself and the bright painful backwash of
a powerful spell. It swung away in fright, and half sobbing with exhaustion,
Kade dung to the stone and kicked at the catch of the window. Once, twice,
then it sprang open and she fell through.
She lay on the wooden floor of a cold empty room for a moment, gasping, then
reached into her pocket. Titania's glass ball was in shards, still faintly
warm with the force of the contained spell. Well, I'm not doing that again
soon, she thought, sitting up awkwardly. The fay's daws had torn through her
coat, leaving two long tears in her back that sluggishly leaked blood. Her
shirt and smock hadn't been torn, only snagged aside, and distractedly she
searched her pockets for a pin to pull the fabric of the coat back together.
Then Kade saw where she was: the walls covered with gilt-trimraed bookshelves,
the large windows, the beautifully carved partners desk still piled with
paper, more books, and an upset inkwell. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]