Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 2 - Courage of Falcons

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COURAGE OF FALCONS

By Holly Lisle

For Matt With love and hope

An Diplomacy of Wolves...

Magic, in the world of Matrin and especially in the Iberan lands where the last of the true humans

live, has been a study both forbidden and reviled for a thousand years. But Kait Galweigh, daughter

of the powerful Galweigh Family and promising junior diplomat, has survived to hide the secret

scars of old and dangerous magic. While chaperoning her cousin prior to the girl's wedding to a

second son of the Dokteerak Family, with whom the Galweighs desired an alliance, Kait's need to

hide her Scarred nature - which causes her to skinshift, and which would lead to her immediate

execution even by members of her own Family - puts her into position to overhear a plot involving

the Dokteeraks and the Galweighs' longtime enemies, the Sabirs. These two Families are planning

to destroy the Galweighs at the upcoming wedding.

Kait survives a harrowing escape from Dokteerak House with her information, aided by a stranger

who, like her, is Scarred by the skinshifting curse, which is called Karnee. She is drawn to the

stranger, but is dismayed to discover that he is a son of the Sabir Family. She returns to the

embassy, where she informs the Galweighs of the Dokteerak-Sabir treachery and tries to put her

attraction to the Sabir Karnee out of her mind. Her Family takes both military and illicit magical steps

to foil the conspiracy and crush the conspirators - steps that would have succeeded had the Sabirs

not been planning all along to betray their allies the Dokteeraks, too. The Sabirs never intended to

share power with the Dokteeraks; instead, they used them to get the Galweigh military away from

Galweigh House and out into the open. Then, on two carefully managed fronts, they wipe out the

Dokteerak and Galweigh armies as they meet in battle in the city of Halles, and use both treachery

and magic to overthrow the unguarded Galweigh House back in the grand city of Calimekka.

However, magic used forcefully against another always rebounds. Both Families' wizards, who call

themselves Wolves, expected to strike unprepared targets with their spells, and have readied

sacrifices sufficient to buffer that amount of rebound, but their attacks hit each other at the same

time, and the magic feeds back on them. It overwhelms their sacrifices, breaks out of the

boundaries with which they controlled it, and wipes out the majority of both Families' Wolves.

It simultaneously does two other things as well, both seemingly irrelevant but both destined to

change the face of the world of Matrin and the lives of everyone in it. First, the magical blast sends

a shock wave across the face of the planet - a wave that wakes an artifact called the Mirror of

Souls. The Mirror is a beautiful and complex creation designed by the Ancients before the end of the

Wizards' War a thousand years earlier, and it has been waiting for just such a powerful rewhah, or

rebound wave, for rewhah demonstrates that the world has returned to the use of magic . . . and

more importantly, magic of the right sort. The Mirror awakens the souls it holds within its soulwell,

and they reach out to people who might be able to help them.

Second, the rewhah horribly Scars a young girl named Danya Galweigh, a cousin of Kait's, who has

been held for ransom by the Sabirs and who is used as a sacrifice by the Sabir Wolves when the

Galweighs fail to meet the ransom. Danya is changed beyond recognition, and the baby she

unknowingly carries, a baby conceived through rape and torture during her capture, is changed,

too, but in more subtle ways. The force of the rewhah throws Danya into the icy southern wastes

of the Veral Territories, where, were it not for the help of a mysterious spirit who calls himself

Luercas, she would die.

Kait, sensitive to magic, is knocked unconscious by the rewhah blast as she and her uncle Dughall

and her cousin Tippa are escaping from Halles via airible; Kait awakens alone to find that someone

has hidden her in the airi-ble's hold, and that the airible has landed in Galweigh House, but her

Family's House is in Sabir hands and many of her Family have already been executed. She steals

the airible and flies it to the nearby island of Goft, where the Galweigh Family has other holdings,

hoping to get help. However, the head of this lesser branch of the Galweigh Family sees the demise

of the main branch as his chance to advance, and he orders Kait killed. A spirit voice claiming to be

her long-dead ancestor warns her of the treachery, and she escapes again, this time after stealing

money from the House treasury.

The spirit tells her another way she can hope to aid her Family, even though it says they are now

all dead. Following its advice, she hires a ship from the Goft harbor to take her across the ocean in

search of the Mirror of Souls. The spirit tells her that this ancient artifact will allow her to reclaim her

murdered Family from the dead. She enlists the aid of the captain by telling him she is going in

search of the undiscovered ruins of one of the Ancients' lost cities. Such a place would make any

man's fortune, so Captain Ian Draclas takes her on as a passenger and sails immediately.

Onboard the ship she runs into a man named Hasmal rann Dorchan, whom she met briefly on the

night of the party celebrating her cousin's upcoming marriage. Hasmal, a wizard of the sect known

as the Falcons, had been trying to escape the doom that an oracle had warned would befall him if

he associated with Kait. He is not pleased to see her.

Hasmal's oracle mocks him and warns that he must teach Kait magic to protect himself. He does,

but grudgingly; she learns, but denies the relevance of the shared destiny he claims will send both

of them to their doom if she fails to learn his lessons well.

Kait is plagued by dreams of the Sabir Karnee she met while escaping the Dokteerak House; she

becomes certain that he is following her across the sea. To break her obsession with him, she

accepts the advances of the ship's captain, Ian Draclas, and they become lovers. But her obsession

only worsens.

As the ship nears its destination, it sails into the heart of a Wizards' Circle, a place where magical

residue from the Wizards' War a thousand years before is still so strong that it can affect and

control anyone moving within its reach. Hasmal works magic to free the ship, and Kait, in her

skinshifted form, saves the life of the captain. In saving the ship and the captain, though, Kait is

revealed as a monster and Hasmal as a wizard, and the crew turns against them. They reach the

shore and discover the city, but while Kait, Hasmal, Ian, and two of his men set out to retrieve the

Mirror of Souls from its distant hiding place, the crew mutinies against the captain and his loyal

supporters and maroons them in the unexplored wilds of North Novtierra.

An Vengeance of Dragons...

Kait, Ian, and Hasmal escape the brutal dangers of the Novtierran wilderness when Ry Sabir, a

Kamee son of her Family's Sabir enemies, rescues them; Kait discovers that the gods have done

more meddling in her life when Ry and Ian reveal that they are half-brothers . . . and bitter

enemies. They transport the Mirror of Souls across the Bregian Ocean and get close to their goal,

but the Goft Galweighs and Sabir House have formed an alliance to acquire the Mirror. They use

airibles and magic to attack the Wind Treasure; they kill or capture most of the crew. Kait, Ry, Ian,

Hasmal, and Ry's surviving lieutenants escape in one of the longboats, hidden by Falcon magic, and

would have succeeded in getting the Mirror of Souls to safety, except that the Mirror, acting on its

own, breaks through their shields with a beacon, drawing the enemy allies to it. Kait is forced to

abandon the Mirror to the sea. She and the rest of the longboats occupants find refuge on one of

the islands of the Thousand Dancers, where she discovers her uncle Dughall waiting, as he was

instructed to do by his magic.

Meanwhile, Crispin Sabir, Ry's cousin and a powerful Sabir Wolf, successfully retrieves the Mirror of

Souls from the sea, then kills his Galweigh allies. With his ownership of the Mirror undisputed, he

returns to Calimekka, where he follows the instructions of the spirit of a long dead Dragon that has

been guiding him, and activates the Mirror before a crowd of prayerful Iberans. He does not

become immortal as he was led to expect; instead, his soul is ripped from his body and replaced by

the soul of the ancient Dragon Dafril. Throughout the city, the freed Dragons choose other young,

strong bodies to steal, and the Mirror rips those bodies' rightful souls away and inserts the souls of

the Dragons.

Kait, Ry, Dughall, Ian, and Ry's men sneak into Calimekka in disguise and attempt to locate and

reclaim the Mirror. Even though the Dragons have been freed, they hope that by acquiring the

Mirror they can reverse the damage it has done. So, pretending to be traders of ancient artifacts,

they manage to discover the identities of several Dragons and acquire an idea of where they might

find the Mirror of Souls. But Kait, following up on a lead, falls into the hands of both Dragons and

Sabirs. They prepare to torture her to find out who she's working with and what she knows about

the Dragon conspiracy to achieve immortality.

Dughall and Ian, meanwhile, have located the Mirror of Souls, and Dughall has discovered the

general principle by which it works. Now, watching what is happening to Kait via magic, he creates

a miniature version of the Mirror and draws the soul of the Dragon preparing to torture her out of

the body it has stolen and traps it in a ring he'd been wearing. However, the man whose body was

previously inhabited by the Dragon's soul isn't able to save Kait before she throws herself off of the

tower.

Meanwhile, Kait's cousin Danya, hiding in a Scarred village in the uncharted wastelands of the Veral

Territories, gives birth to a son. The baby bears no physical signs of the Scarring that changed

Danya from a beautiful young woman to a hideous monster; he does, however, bear the markings

of enormous magical power. Further, his mother, once a Galweigh Wolf, has the training to see and

feel the newborn's magical connections to Falcons across the known world. The Falcons' magical

interference, which has enraged Danya since it began, grows more intense once the baby has

drawn his first breaths. Luercas tells Danya that the baby is the Reborn, the long-awaited Falcon

hero, and that his mission in life is to create a world of enforced peace ... a world in which Danya

will forever be denied her revenge against the Sabirs who destroyed her and the Galweighs who

failed to rescue her.

After terrible internal struggle, she chooses to sacrifice her son to prevent him from carrying out his

mission. She decides that she must have her revenge. In his dying, her son first attempts through

magic to save his own life; then, when it becomes clear that he cannot, he uses what remaining

power he has to revert Danya to human form, excluding only the two talons that she drove into his

heart. Even at the moment of his death, he loves her and she can feel his love.

Once he is dead, Luercas - one of the most powerful of the Dragons-claims the infant body for

himself. He revives it and uses its inherent magical talents to force Danya to care for him until his

new body is physically mature enough to allow him to care for himself.

Back in Calimekka, Kait, falling from the top of the tower, Shifts frantically, and for the first time in

her life she develops wings. Expecting to die, she instead soars to safety; when she returns to the

inn where she and the rest of her comrades are hiding, her brush with death has made her realize

that she cannot spend whatever time she has hiding from her life. She and Ry become lovers.

When Ian discovers this, he leaves the group in secret and offers to sell his knowledge to the

Dragons in exchange for power.

At the same time that Ian is making his deal with the Dragons, the Falcons are shattered by the

death of Solander, whose rebirth has been prophesied for a thousand years, and who was

supposed to lead the world to a new age of peace and enlightenment. A thousand years of

prophecy and an entire magic-based religion have just been destroyed, and many of the faithful

take the paths of despair and even suicide. Dughall gets Ry, Kait, Hasmal, and the surviving

lieutenants out of Calimekka when he discovers proof of Ian's betrayal, but he is certain that the

Dragons have won the world - he sinks into despondency. Hasmal and Alarista, the Gyru-nalle

Falcon who once saved Hasmal's life and later became his lover, debate the merits of fleeing east

to the unexplored lands of Novtierra, since they, too, are certain that everything is lost. Even Ry,

who converted to Falconry after contact with Solander's love, withdraws.

Kait Shifts to the Karnee; in beast form she avoids thought and loss. But when she reverts to

human form, she is forced to face the fact that Solander's death has made one thousand years of

hope and prophecy a lie. After long thought, she finds hope from this truth instead of despair, for

nowhere in the prophecies was Solander's death ever mentioned as a possibility. Therefore, all

prophecies in the Secret Texts become invalid - any guarantees of either Falcon defeat or Dragon

ascension to immortality and godhood are equally false. The Falcons have no guarantee that they

will win, but neither are they guaranteed defeat because Solander is no longer with them.

Kait rallies the surviving Falcons and develops a plan - she and Ry will go back to Calimekka and

magically mark any Dragons they can find. The Falcons, from the relative safety of their camp in the

mountains of southern Ibera, will draw out the Dragons' souls and trap them in rings, the way

Dughall trapped the first soul when trying to rescue Kait. They will find a way to recapture the

Mirror of Souls, too, and as soon as they do, they will reverse the spell the Dragons had cast. They

hope doing so will recapture all the Dragons' souls within the Mirror.

The first part of their plan goes well: Both Ry and Kait find work within the Dragons'

city-within-a-city in Calimekka, and both mark a number of Dragons. They have no luck finding the

new hiding place of the Mirror of Souls, but are patient, trusting that sooner or later they will

succeed. However, the Dragons become aware of their presence and take them prisoner.

Dughall and Hasmal attempt to rescue Kait and Ry via magic, but the magic backfires - Dughall is left

weak and nearly helpless, while Dafril, the Dragon who wears Crispin Sabir's body, has the luck to

connect with Hasmal. Dafril rips Hasmal's body and soul from the Falcon camp and deposits him in

an interrogation room in the center of the Dragon compound. There Dafril tortures Hasmal; Hasmal

manages to mark Dafril with the magic that will allow a Falcon to capture his soul in a ring, but

there are no Falcons capable of controlling a soul as powerful as Dafril's left in the camp.

While this is going on, Ian replaces the guards watching Kait and Ry, and they are certain that he

plans to kill them. Instead, he tells them how he joined the Dragons in order to find the Mirror; he

still loves Kait and though he knows he cannot have her, he decided when she chose Ry to do what

he could to assist her. He releases both Kait and Ry and the three of them retrieve the Mirror from

its hiding place. They haul it to a carriage that Ian has waiting, and the three of them take off for

Galweigh House, which had been abandoned once the Dragons created their new city.

Book One

Nothing tears at the thoughts like a house abandoned. Its empty rooms whisper of tender memories

forgotten, of the ghosts of joy and pain left to wander unheeded, of dreams dead of neglect. Here, where

once people lived and loved, brought forth life and faced death, 1 run my fingers along crumbling

masonry and shiver at the unimaginable loss of the unknowable dead, and 1 flee in dread lest the soul

of this forgotten place waken and cling to me and claim me . . . and refuse to let me leave.

- VlNCALIS THE AGITATOR, FROM THE LAND BEYOND LOSS

Chapter 1

A late-season blast of cold wind set the walls of the tent snapping and blew icy mountain air

through tied-down flaps. Alarista crouched inside, looking from viewing glass to viewing glass,

fighting down panic.

In two glasses, she had twin views of the inside of a carriage cruising through Calimekka's narrow

back streets - Kait and Ry escaping from the Dragons with the Mirror of Souls. Over the steady

clatter of the horses' hooves she could hear Kait, Ry, and Ian recounting what had happened to

each of them since last they'd seen one another.

In another glass, she could see the remains of some delicate contrivance of crystal spires and silver

gears lying in ruins on a worktable. The two voices whispering from that viewing glass were shrill

with fear.

"... I just found it this way. Shamenar was in here working on it, and now he's gone, too. It will be

a month's work at least to restore it, if we can even find Shamenar - "

"You think they got him?"

"I don't want to think. ..."

Another glass, another view. Through the eyes of someone running, a long, dark corridor

illuminated by the runner's coldlamp - shadows dancing back, then leaping forward, fantastic

shapes crawling up the walls and resolving into mundane objects. The only sound at the moment

was the runner's harsh breathing. Whoever he was, he'd been down four branches of the corridor

already, asking the first guard he came to if anyone carrying anything had passed that way.

A dozen more glasses showed groups of people standing or sitting and talking, or revealed

fountains, or gardens, or books or papers being slowly perused. Several glasses were temporarily

dark - their sources asleep, or possibly dead. A hundred more glasses were lined to one side, these

never activated. With Kait and Ry gone, they probably never would be, but Alarista kept them

nearby because doing so was the procedure that Dughall and Hasmal had worked out. More than

once in the past several days a glass had come suddenly to life, and Dughall or Hasmal had learned

something valuable. Until all hope was gone, she would cling to that procedure.

Hasmal had been gone, she estimated, half a station - snatched bodily from the tent by some

unimagined Dragon magic and taken . . . somewhere. So far, not one of the viewing glasses had

revealed the view she sought - a glimpse of Hasmal. She whispered an unending prayer to Vodor

Imrish, asking that if he still listened and he still loved her he would give Hasmal back. If she could

see him, just for an instant, just to know that he was still alive, she would be able to breathe

again.

Hands pulled apart the tent flaps and Yanth slipped between them. He dropped to the tent floor

beside Jaim, who had been sitting quietly behind Alarista, offering support simply with his presence.

"The healer is on the way," Yanth told Jaim. "Any sign of Hasmal?"

Jaim's voice was soft. "She hasn't moved, so I don't think so."

Alarista summoned the energy to answer them, just to let them know she could hear them and that

she was still aware of the world around her, if only marginally. "No sign yet."

"I'm sorry. Is there something I can do to help?"

"Stay close," she said. "If anything changes, I might need both of you."

The healer came through the flaps a moment later, dragging her kit. She knelt beside Dughall and

unrolled it. The woman was one of Dughall's people - part of the army he'd built months earlier. She

was a Falcon, older and well trained in the healing magics, and calm enough, considering the

circumstances. If he had any chance of getting better, the healer would make the most of it.

Guards knelt quietly along the tent walls, swords in hand; they hadn't laughed or joked since

Hasmal vanished in a scream and a flash of light. They watched, tense and scared. It had been

their responsibility to kill Dughall or Hasmal if a Dragon soul, drawn through but not successfully

locked into one of the miniature soul-mirrors, possessed either of them. Now Dughall lay

unresponsive on one of the mats, and Hasmal was gone, and Alarista had already told them she

didn't have either the strength or the magical skills that had let Dughall and Hasmal successfully

capture so many Dragon souls. They knew that if she took on a Dragon, they were likely to have to

kill her.

A hand gripped her shoulder, and she jumped. "Look!" Yanth whispered, and pointed at one of the

viewing glasses that had until that instant been dark.

She turned to the sudden light, to the quickly resolving image, and she gasped. Hasmal's face was

suddenly very close to her own; it had been cut across both cheeks and over both eyelids, and

blood caked the wounds. Always pale, his skin had taken on the color of bleached bone. She could

count the beads of sweat that rolled across his forehead and marked his upper lip. "We found a

way to make our own Mirror of Souls," he whispered.

The image danced down to a long, bloody knife, and to a thumb that tested the edge of it. "Really?

Tell me more."

"I'll . . . I'll tell you anything you want to know. Anything."

She heard a soft chuckle that raised the hair on the back of her neck and made her stomach churn.

"I know you will. First tell me how you made it. We'll get to how you used it soon enough."

Alarista gripped Yanth's hand and squeezed. "He's torturing him."

"I know."

"Oh, gods! Oh, Hasmal! We have to help him."

"I know. But how?"

Alarista couldn't turn her eyes away from the nightmare in front of her. "I'll have to draw the

Dragon's soul to me. I'll have to capture it."

"You couldn't do it before," Jaim said quietly.

"I'll just have to do it this time."

"And if you fail, we lose Hasmal and you. We're going to need you."

She turned to Jaim, snarling. "I can't sit here and watch him die!"

Jaim jumped back. "I wasn't suggesting that you watch him die."

"Then what?"

Jaim looked over at the healer working on the unconscious Dughall. "Dughali could beat the Dragon

if he had his strength."

"As could I, if I had his skills."

"Dughall said you had as much control of magic as he did, only in other areas. Could you use your

magic to help the healer heal him?"

Alarista stared at Jaim. She wasn't a healer, and just healing Dughall wouldn't do her any good.

Even healed, he would be drained of energy and incapable of besting the soul of a rested, powerful

Dragon. But where the healer could make him well, she could give him strength. Her strength. The

price she would pay . . .

She chose not to think about the price she would pay.

She asked the healer, "Namele, are you nearly finished?"

"I've done all I can - he hasn't woken up yet, but now he's merely sleeping. A few days' rest and he

should be able to sit up again. He's very frail - whatever happened nearly killed him." "But he's

healed." Namele looked over at her, eyes wary. "As much as magic can heal him, yes. He's old, he's

worn out, and simple healing can't fix that. He won't be able to do any more Dragon fighting."

Alarista turned to Yanth and Jaim. In a low voice, she said, "Drag him over here. Then sit by me -

when I finish what I have to do, I'll need you to catch me. Finally - and this is the most important

thing - when Dughall wakes, the very instant he wakes, show him Hasmal. Don't let him waste time

on me. Tell him he has to stop the Dragon before he kills Hasmal."

Yanth said, "What do you plan on doing?"

"The only thing I can. He needs youth and strength to fight the Dragons. I'm going to give him

youth. And strength."

She heard the healer gasp. "You can't - "

"Shut up. I can." She glared at Yanth. "You'll take care of this?"

He nodded. "I will."

They dragged Dughall to her, assisted by two guards and impeded by the protesting healer, and

propped him across from her in a sitting position. Then, while the guards held him upright, Yanth

moved to Alarista's left shoulder, and Jaim to her right. She heard Hasmal scream once, and she

shuddered.

Hold on, Has, she thought. Hold on. Help is coming.

She summoned all her courage, and rested her hands on Dughall's shoulders. Then she lifted her

chin, and stared toward the heavens where Vodor Imrish held his court, and in a loud, clear voice,

she commanded:

"From my strength, From my blood, From my flesh, From my life, I offer all that I am, All that I have,

All that Dughall Draclas needs To make him whole.

Take from me to give to him,

Strength and blood,

Flesh and life,

Even unto my own death.

I freely offer my gift,

And in his name accept my offer.

Vodor Imrish, hear me."

She did not draw her own blood, nor scrape her skin. She had no need of that. Their bodies

touched - hers strong and whole, Dughall's weak and worn. She would not limit her offering or mark

off with a circle that which she would give and that which she would hold back. Whatever Vodor

Imrish chose to take from her to give to Dughall, he could take.

She knew in offering that she might die - that Dughall, so near death, might take from her more

than she could give and survive. He might absorb her. But Dughall knew what she did not, and he

could win for them where she could not. If she died, she would do so fighting to destroy the

Dragons and to save Hasmal, and that would be enough. If she died, her soul would go on, and

she would someday find Hasmal again. And meanwhile, her Hasmal would live.

She felt the fire flow into her veins, Matrin's magic stirred by the godtouch, and she knew that

Vodor Imrish had heard her. She rejoiced for just an instant, for until that moment he had been

deaf to all prayers and all entreaties. Then, as the fire filled her, it burned through her and emptied

her. Her world grew dark and she heard a rushing in her ears. Her mouth grew dry, her body

heavy, and a giant weight pressed down on her, making each breath a fight.

She knew she was falling, but could not stop herself. Her soul tugged at the moorings of her flesh,

called by the wind of approaching death. She did not fight that wind, but at the last instant, when

she was sure she would leave her body behind, she felt a surge of energy flow into her, binding

her soul tightly to her cage of skin and bones. She was too weak to move - too weak even to open

her eyes - but she lived, and knew she would live yet a little longer. Her last coherent thought was

a prayer: that Dughall had received from her enough to do what he needed; that Hasmal could hold

on until he did it.

Chapter 2

Dughall Draclas came roaring out of unconsciousness like a man trapped underwater who at the

last possible instant breaks free from his trap and bursts to the surface. He lunged to his feet,

gasping, his eyes open but for an instant unfocused.

His body burst with uncontainable energy. He felt as if he could fly, as if he could run from one edge

of the known world to the other without his feet ever touching the ground, as if he could rebuild

the Glass Towers single-handed. He had a hunger that he hadn't felt so overwhelmingly in years;

he desired sex with the obsessive full-body yearning of a young man.

He stared around him at blurred bright colors and at shapes that he could not force to resolve into

anything meaningful. The voices in his ears were clear and sharp, startlingly loud, full of nuances

and depths but lacking meaning. Smells filled his nostrils, pungent and heady and rich. It was all

new, all wondrous, all incomprehensible but glorious.

I've been reborn, he thought. Have died, have come into the world in a new body. I am once again

a squalling infant, and in a few moments or a few days I'll forget that I am Dughall Draclas. . . .

Sound was the first thing to resolve into comprehensible patterns, the first thing to shatter his

illusion. "... don't know whether she's going to survive the shock."

"What about him? He looks healthy as peasant hell." "Dughall? Can you hear us? Can you see us?"

"Nothing. She's paid a terrible price for nothing." Sight resolved next. He was in a tent. . . no. He

was in the tent, where he and Hasmal had been pulling the souls out of Dragons. He was standing

up, weaving back and forth, with a soldier at either side keeping him from falling on his face. He

was looking down - Jaim stared up at him, Yanth and the healer Namele were crouched over a

white-haired woman that he did not recognize.

He licked his lips, and they felt. . . different. Thicker, firmer, moister. He still felt that wondrous

energy, that illusion of incredible strength, that inescapable sexual fire. "What. . . happened?" he

asked, and wondered at the new depth of his voice, at the richness and the range. At the clarity of

the sound when he spoke, at the presence of soft sounds he hadn't heard in years. Decades.

A relieved smile flashed across Jaim's face. "Dughall? You with us?"

Dughall nodded. "Yes."

"No time for explanations, then. A Dragon pulled Hasmal physically through the connection between

them. He's torturing him now. If you can't pull the Dragon's soul from his body, he's going to kill

Hasmal. You don't have much time; Hasmal looks bad."

Yanth and the healer dragged the old woman out of the way, and Dughall dropped to his knees

beside Jaim. He stared into the viewing glass Jaim indicated and saw quick flashes of Hasmal, of a

knife, of blood and horror. He heard a scream - whisper-soft through the view-ing-glass connection

but no less chilling for its lack of volume - and heard a gentle, soothing voice say, "More. Or I'll cut

out a lung, dear fellow, and pull it out through your back. You really only need one, you know."

Jaim said, "Hasmal managed to plant a talisman on the bastard only a few moments ago. It's been

going on like this ever since. He's been lying - making up all sorts of wild stories and talking as fast

as he can. But the snake-futtering whoreson keeps cutting him anyway." Jaim's voice sounded tight

and dry in his throat.

"I'll get him," Dughall said. "I'll stop this."

For the moment he didn't question his strength. He accepted it, and with it the miracle that had

brought him back from sharply remembered pain and utter exhaustion. Jaim handed him a

featureless gold ring attached to a tripod of twisted silver wire; this would become a tiny Mirror of

Souls - a house and a prison for the soul of the Dragon who tortured Hasmal. He set it on the rug

directly in front of him and with a quick swipe of his index finger scraped a bit of skin from the inside

of his cheek.

He'd refined his technique since the first time he'd snatched a Dragon soul from its captive body,

but the process was still fraught with danger. He glanced at the guards. "Have them watch me," he

said to Yanth. "If you have any reason to think the Dragon has won and has pushed my soul into

the ring, give them a signal. They're to kill this body without question."

Jaim paled. "How can I know?"

Dughall shrugged. "You might not. You might make a mistake. But, Jaim, you listen to me. Better

that you make a mistake and kill me by accident than that you accidentally let a Dragon live. You

understand?"

The young man looked at him with frightened eyes and nodded slowly.

Hasmal screamed again.

"I have to do this," Dughall said. "What's the Dragon's name?"

Jaim said, "Hasmal has called him Dafril."

Dughall nodded. "Dafril." He crouched over the tiny tripod. He rested his hands on the viewing glass

that connected to Dafril's soul, and willed his soul to link through that ethereal connection to the

monster at the other end. When, after a moment, he felt the hot darkness of that evil other, he

concentrated all his will on the band of gold and said:

"Follow my soul, Vodor Imrish, To the Dragon soul of Dafril, To the usurper of a body not his own,

And from this body expel the intruder. Bring no harm to the intruder, The Dragon Dafril.

Instead, give his soul safe house and shelter Within the unbroken circle before me - Unbroken that

it may guard Dafril's immortality, and Protect the essence of his life and mind, While safely reuniting

the body and soul Of him whom Dafril has wronged. I offer my flesh - all that I have given And all

that you will take - Freely and with clear conscience, As I do no wrong, But reverse a wrong done."

White-hot magical fire burned through him once more, searing the anchor that held his soul to his

own body, searing the tenuous connection between him and the Dragon; and within the blink of an

eye it enveloped the Dragon's soul.

The fire pulsed and drew, and he felt first astonishment and then rage from Dafril. Because Dafril's

soul could have no permanent anchor in the body he had stolen, the fire ripped him loose and

pulled him toward Dughall as fast as light raced through a keyhole. Dughall braced and the enemy

soul was upon him in the same instant; and this enemy held power he had never experienced

before.

Dafril's soul dug into his mind and burrowed into his flesh seeking purchase; the Dragon fought

with a thousand years of experience and cleverness to pry Dughall from his body and force

Dughall's soul into the eternal prison of the ring. Dughall strengthened his connections with his own

flesh. He felt he was fighting an octopus - no sooner had he shored up one weak spot than Dafril

had wedged a tentacle into another and dug in. Every self-doubt, every half-remembered shame,

every wrong he'd ever done anyone became a weak point that the Dragon exploited.

He caught brief thoughts and images from his enemy's mind; he discovered he was fighting the

head of the Dragons. Dafril was the monster who had conceived the immortality engine a thousand

years before, and had planned out and designed the Mirror of Souls. This was the very monster

who, when the Wizards' War turned in favor of the Falcons, had gathered his faithful followers and

locked all of them into the Mirror of Souls, priming it to bring them back when the world was ripe for

their return. This was the master.

Dafril reached into his mind with a will forged of iron, and drove commands like knives into his soul.

Give in. Give up. Surrender.

Dughall gathered his strength and channeled his purpose and determination. He visualized himself

as the core of a sun, burning everything that was not him, expanding with unstoppable power,

filling all the cracks and crevices, all the weaknesses and shames and uncertainties of his existence

with the pure fire of his life. He accepted his self-doubt and admitted his imperfections, and when

he did, he no longer questioned his worthiness to exist.

At the moment that Dughall accepted himself as he was, Dafril lost his hold. His soul erupted from

the center of Dughall's chest in a fiery river that poured into the center of the ring. The light began

to spiral around the rim, and the room filled for an instant with a deafening wall of sound - a wail of

terror and rage so loud Dughall felt it more than he heard it. Fog poured out from the center of the

fire, white and dense and ice-cold. And for just an instant, Dughall choked on the stink of rot and

honeysuckle.

Then the air cleared and quiet returned.

Before him, pure golden light rose upward through the center of the tiny tripod and swirled into the

ring, spiraling slowly. It had become the Mirror of Dafril - a thing of beauty with a heart of evil.

Dughall shuddered and looked up at Jaim. "I beat him," he said quietly. "I beat that monster.

Hasmal should be safe now."

Jaim stared into his eyes, and Dughall became aware of the point of a sword pressed lightly against

his back, high on the left rib cage. A downward thrust would shove it through his heart and kill him

in an instant. He recalled his peril and realized its extent as he saw the doubt and the distrust in

the eyes of the man who held his life in a word.

Jaim's hands trembled. He nibbled at the corner of his lower lip. He stared at Dughall as if staring

could strip away the skin and bone and reveal the shape of the soul beneath. "Tell me something

that only you and I would know," he said.

Dughall took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He shook his head. "That wouldn't work. Dafril's

soul would have had immediate access to my memories. He could tell you anything I could."

Jaim frowned. A spot of blood appeared on that lower lip, quickly licked away. Abruptly he laughed

and looked up at the guard. "He's Dughall," he said, and the pressure of the sword at Dughall's

back vanished.

Dughall nodded. "I am. But how could you be sure?" Jaim said, "Dafril would have told me

something to convince me he was you, in order to save his life as quickly as possible. Only you

would say something that wouldn't give me any reassurance at all."

In the viewing glass, Hasmal was smiling through blood and pain. "You're the rightful owner of the

body, aren't you?" he was saying.

Dughall felt he could relax. Hasmal would be taken care of by the grateful man who had gotten his

life back. Meanwhile, he, Dughall, could take the time to find out what had happened to him. He

stretched and pulled his hands away from the viewing glass that still showed images of Hasmal.

"Tell me how I got my strength back."

Jaim glanced at the old woman still lying where Yanth and the healer had dragged her. "Alarista

knew she couldn't take on the Dragon who was torturing Hasmal and win. So she fed her youth

and her strength to you. You look like you're in your late thirties or early forties now."

Dughall looked at his hands - really looked at them - for the first time since he woke up. The skin

was smooth; the arthritis that had bent his knuckles sideways and swelled them into knots was

gone. He made a fist and saw the muscle below the webbing between his thumb and index, finger

bulge, big as a mouse. The air flowing into and out of his lungs moved slowly and easily. His spine

felt straight and strong, and no dull throb of pain grabbed at him when he arched his back or

turned his head. And lust coursed through his veins and filled his groin with urgent hunger.

He was young again.

And Alarista was old.

He twisted around and stared at the wasted body and wrinkled face of the woman across the tent.

That was Alarista? She had sacrificed herself to save Hasmal; had torn most of the years of her life

away and gifted them to him. He tried to conceive of a love that would do that - in all his years, he

had known and desired and enjoyed many women, but he had never found the one woman for

whom he would move the world.

He envied her the power of her passion, and realized in the same instant that he could not keep

the gift that she had given him. He had to return her life to her, though he didn't know how.

He turned back to the viewing glass as he heard Hasmal say, "Will you cut me loose? I need a

healer."

"You don't know who I am, do you?"

Through the eyes of the man Dughall had just restored to his life, Dughall saw Hasmal shake his

head. "Someone who appreciates having his body back, I hope."

The man watching Hasmal laughed, and Dughall's attention snapped fully back to the viewing glass.

He shuddered at the sound of that laugh. It was wrong. Cruel. It would have sounded right coming

from Dafril - but Dughall knew he'd banished Dafril to the ring in

front of him. Which suggested that the man whose body Dafril had claimed had been evil, too.

"You have no idea how grateful 1 am," the man told Hasmal. "There I was, ready to do wondrous

things, and suddenly that lying Dragon ripped me from my body and threw my soul into the Veil. I

wasn't dead, but I wasn't alive, either. Things hunt between the worlds - did you know that? Vast

cold monstrous hungers that seek out the bright lights of souls trapped in their lightless void so

that they can devour them. Annihilate them. Other souls were trapped there with me - I watched

darkness swallow some of them. They're gone forever. I barely evaded that same fate twice. Twice.

Being trapped in the infinite blackness of void, hunted by roving nightmares-made-real. facing

eternal extinction at any moment - I still don't know if there's a true hell, but the horrors of that

place will do for me. You, or rather the one you summoned, pulled me out of that."

He'd been watching Hasmal's face while he talked, moving closer step by slow step. Twice he'd

glanced at the knife in his hand.

His words created an image of gratitude, but some edge to his voice spoke of darker emotions.

"You and your unseen friend have powerful magic at your disposal. You're Falcons, aren't you?"

Hasmal's face showed that he had heard that edge, too. He nod-ded, but warily.

"Working with Ry Sabir."

Another slow nod.

"I thought as much. Ry's my cousin."

Hasmal tried a cautious smile, but it died on his face.

"Good guess," the man said. "We weren't friends, Ry and I. My name is Crispin Sabir. Perhaps

you've heard Ry speak of me?" A soft chuckle. "I see from your expression that you have, and that

Ry was careful to tell you all my best points."

Dughall's fists clenched into tight balls. Crispin Sabir. Of all the Sabirs Dughall had encountered in

his years of service to the Galweigh Family, Crispin was the closest thing to incarnate evil he had

ever encountered. Hasmal couldn't have fallen into worse hands.

"I helped you," Hasmal said.

"Well, yes. Undeniably. But I don't give that fact much weight. I'm grateful to have my body back -

please don't think I'm not. But you were only trying to save your own life when you summoned your

friend."

"Are you going to let me go?" Hasmal asked. Crispin Sabir was quiet for a long time. A very long

time. Dughall felt his muscles ache with the tension of waiting. Beside him, he heard Jaim's shallow

breathing, and movement as Yanth crouched at his left shoulder.

"You're a Falcon. My magic can't touch you. You're shielded somehow - I can't even see the shield,

but I can feel its effects. 1 can't control you. I can't make you work for me. If I set you free, nothing

I could do would guarantee that you won't turn on me." "My word - "

"I have no love for the trappings of honor, you. I've given my own word countless times, and have

broken it in the next breath. Expediency rules honor - you know this and I know it, and I would

have it no other way. But because that is true, your word is no currency I'd care to spend."

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COURAGEOFFALCONSByHollyLisleCopyright©HollyLisle2000ForMattWithloveandhopeAnDiplomacyofWolves...Magic,intheworldofMatrinandespeciallyintheIberanlandswherethelastofthetruehumanslive,hasbeenastudybothforbiddenandreviledforathousandyears.ButKaitGalweigh,daughterofthepowerfulGalweighFamilyandpromisingju...

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Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 2 - Courage of Falcons

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