The hawk angled through the night sky on his outstretched wings. The city of Hearne lay far beneath him, pricked with light here and there, but mostly sleeping in darkness on the edge of the sea. The night sky above the hawk had more light to offer than the city, blazing and sparkling with stars in a perfectly clear expanse. The stars seemed impossibly close, and they bent their gaze down to the world and to the hawk flying alone in the night.
There were, perhaps, only four people in all of Tormay, save the hawk, who would have had the wisdom to hear the speech of stars, but they all were asleep. Only the hawk heard.
The stars hastened lower, growing in brilliance and deepening in the colors of their fire. Ruby, emerald, diamond and amethyst, the night grew darker and blacker around them as they burned ever brighter with their gem-like fire.
Hast thou seen? whispered one star.
Hast thou seen and hast thou not heard?
There is one who dreams in the darkness.
But he sleeps still, said another star.
Thankfully, he sleeps.
And thou, little wing, thou must watch and wait.
Watch and wait.
Look ye to the east.
Fly well, little wing, murmured another star.
Aye, fly well, for the house of dreams sleeps not.
Never sleeps but doth watch over all.
Even the stars.
Even the stars!
Rejoice!
And with this word echoing in the sky, the voices of the stars grew and rose in liquid song, thrilling through the dark and the bitter cold and the unfathomable distances of space. The sky trembled with the sound. The beauty of it was so sharp and sudden that the hawk faltered in his flight. But then the chorus died away and the stars withdrew to their appointed courses, shining in comfort and sorrow. The two will ever go hand-in-hand, for that is the balance of wisdom. The hawk knew it well, knew it to his own comfort and sorrow.
As he flew, the hawk considered carefully what he had heard. His gaze until this moment had ever been on the city of Hearne, particularly on the dark ruins of the university where the boy Jute slept. Now, however, he turned his beak to the east and looked there. There was no one in all of Tormay, no person, animal, or bird, who had as keen eyesight as the hawk. But even he could not pierce the night with his vision. All he could make out, far across the miles and distance, was the vague, jagged outlines of the Morn Mountains in the east, their snowy peaks touched here and there with starlight and moonlight.
With a shrug of his wings, the hawk turned and spiraled down toward the city. Hearne slept in an uneasy quiet below him. He could hear the surge and crash of the waves on the beach beneath the wharves. He could smell bread baking as a baker went about his lonely morning duties. His sharp eyes caught a hint of movement in an alley as three cats strolled along, careless and casual in their pursuit of rodents. Despite these tiny signs of life, the city lay in darkness. A deep darkness.
The hawk alighted on top of the tallest tower in the university ruins. He furled his wings. He could feel the whispering of the wards guarding the university. Down and away to his right, in one of the larger and better preserved wings of the complex, he sensed Jute. Sleeping, safe and sound. The hawk nodded in satisfaction at this. The wind blowing past the tower seemed to sigh in agreement.
The hawk turned and gazed to the east. There was nothing to see there except for the night, of course. But that did not matter to the hawk. He waited and watched and he did not sleep. He spent the remainder of the night there, perched in silence on the tower roof. And even when the first faint blush of sunrise crept up into the eastern sky, he was still watching.