“Your master has betrayed you. And through his betrayal man’s best friend becomes his worst enemy.”
—THE LEGEND OF THE SHRIKER
THAT NIGHT HANNA SWEPT THE KITCHEN FLOOR AS Mother tucked young Tymm in bed and Da read by the fire. As she whisked the crumbs into a pile, she wondered over Gurty’s words. Was there a pattern here? Did the beast call those who were loving and loyal? If that was true, as it seemed to be, Enoch’s story didn’t fit the pattern.
It was Enoch who first brought the monster back to Shalem Wood fifty years ago, Shree had told her that, and it wasn’t over love or loyalty, but through a summoning spell.
Hanna dumped the crumbs into the trash. The beast would want to hunt Enoch down—take revenge on a dog killer like his own master, Rory Sheen. Aye, she could understand that well enough. Some he hunted, others he called. Miles had told her that. So he’d hunted Enoch, and others like Polly, like herself, he called.
Heading down the hall, she fetched the knapsack from her room. Why call those who were loyal? She stopped in her doorway, suddenly remembering the argument she’d had with Miles the day Granda told the Shriker’s tale in the cave. Miles had insisted Rory’s dog was a loyal hound to begin with. But that was before the Darro cursed the dog.
Back in the kitchen Hanna filled a bag with dried mushrooms and stuffed it in the rucksack. Would the monster try to summon her again at the next full moon? She couldn’t let her fear of him get in the way. It was Miles needed saving now. And if the monster called her, she’d be all the closer to finding her lost brother.
Miles’s room was dark. No rushlight there. Still, she knew where he kept his weapons. Hanna took the hunting knife down from the high shelf and hid it in her rucksack.
At dawn Hanna stopped halfway up mountain to catch her breath and eyed the rose-colored clouds before pressing on. Her heart lifted at the sight of the broad-winged falcon flying beneath the cloud spray. “Aetwan,” she called, waving at him. He spiraled slowly downward and perched on a pine branch.
“You’ve come back to me,” cried Hanna.
Aetwan cocked his head and opened his beak. A small, triangular object fell to the ground by Hanna’s feet. She stooped to pick it up and turned the triangle over so the glassy side winked in the sunlight.
“A mirror,” said Hanna.
“A troll glass,” corrected Aetwan.
Hanna looked up. “What does it do?”
“Trolls can’t look at their own likeness.”
“Oh,” said Hanna. “What happens if they do?”
Aetwan squawked, or laughed—Hanna couldn’t tell which. “You’ll see.”
“You’re coming with me to find Miles, aren’t you?” She gazed up at him. Waiting. Hopeful.
Aetwan’s neck feathers puffed out. “Can’t,” he squawked.
“Why not? It’s your home, after all.” No one had ever told her this, but the animals and birds from Oth spoke, as Aetwan could, so she’d guessed he wasn’t hatched in Noor. The falcon still hadn’t answered her challenge. “I have to go and keep on searching for Miles,” she said. “And there’s not much time—”
“Till the full moon,” interrupted Aetwan.
“Only three days,” Hanna went on. “Gurty’s old and slow, and she said she may not come at all, depending on which way the fire is leaning.”
“You are not alone,” said Aetwan.
It was what the Falconer had said, but if Aetwan left her to cross into Oth without his company … “If you leave me, Aetwan, I’ll be very much alone.”
“Look around,” screeched Aetwan. It was a command as only he could give it, and she obeyed instantly, looking left and right, behind her and before her, and lastly up and down. But she saw no help at hand. “What do you mean?”
Aetwan flapped his wings impatiently. “Remember,” he said.
He took off again, flying awkwardly at first, then gaining grace as he gained speed.
“Come back,” called Hanna. She watched his pumping wings as he ascended at a sharp angle, his body growing smaller and smaller until he disappeared behind the clouds. “You’re always leaving,” she whispered, “all of you.” She was staring at the clouds as if they’d swallowed not only Aetwan, but Miles, the Falconer, and Granda—taken from her everyone she’d ever truly loved. “And what have you given back?” she asked them.
Up the path in the sunlit maple grove Hanna stopped and peered through the trees. “Be vigilant and look for the signs,” the Falconer had said. “These signs are not seen with the eye alone. The seeker must look with the eye of the heart.” How was she to do that? Did it mean to both see and feel? She stepped under the blowing branches and took the path that breezed before her, where the leaves were trembling.
“Such woods as these would make a stranger sleep.
But you they will awake.
Such winds as these would chill an enemy.
But friend, they will warm thee.”
“Who speaks?” asked Hanna. Her skirts rustled as if a tender hand were brushing against them, yet she could see no one. There was a stirring all about her, and the maple trees gave up their foliage to it. The breeze danced with red leaves and brown and yellow.
“In such hours as these a world is born.”
Hanna suddenly knew the voice, and she looked about for the wind woman.
“Wild Esper,” she called, turning round and round. “Where are you?”
“Where you are,” Esper breezed.
“But I can’t see you.”
“See me.”
Hundreds of leaves swirled before Hanna’s feet. In a rush of colors they lifted like a great wheel before her. Light shone from the center of the turning, as if the sun were caught in the hub of the wheel. Hanna shaded her eyes against the brightness. From the center of the wheel she heard the wind woman chanting the entrance charm she’d read in the Falconer’s book.
“Open as you have before,
Let the traveler through the door.
From this opening begin,
The only way out
Is in.”
Hanna felt herself being sucked toward the wheel, but she dug her feet into the soft forest floor. She didn’t want to go back to Attenlore without Gurty or Aetwan to accompany her. But the swirling passage, which had been as massive as the miller’s grinding wheel, was closing, just as the tunnel had closed around Miles long ago in the deeps. She knew she must go now, and go alone, or not at all. Hanna gripped the bowstring across her chest. She wasn’t feeling brave just now, but she loved Miles, and for that she stepped into the whirl.
Her feet went out from under her as she was sucked inside. She spun helpless, with hundreds of swirling leaves around her. Blue sky, red leaves, brown earth, evergreens, swirled into a central glow until earth and sky and head and foot were all the same. The burning at the center filled her. Heat spread over her tumbling body. She let out a scream, then fell suddenly facedown into something soft and damp and very cold.