At first it was improbable. Daile felt so human, so rooted to the ground. But gradually she began to lighten, to feel as if the morning wind was flowing through her. And suddenly she felt… different indeed.
"That's it, Daile!" Gamaliel whispered intently. "Let the wilderness influence you. There is something within you, trying to break out to answer the call. Let yourself be free."
Yes, be free, Daile said to herself. Exultation washed through her. The sounds and scents of the woodlands were overpowering, intoxicating. She felt as if she was falling through air.
"Open your eyes, Daile Redfletching!"
Gamaliel's shout sounded oddly distant. Daile opened her eyes. Wonder filled her.
She was flying.
She stretched her wings, feeling the air rush over her feathers. She laughed for joy, and the sound came out as the high, piercing cry of a hawk. She beat her wings, soaring on an updraft, and wheeled high in the sky. She saw Gamaliel below her, shading his eyes with a hand as he grinned up at her. Then in a flash the barbarian was gone, and the tawny great cat was bounding through the forest.
She followed him, marveling at the way her wings guided her on the swirling currents of air. Her sharp eyes caught glimpses of Gamaliel loping gracefully among the trees below, and she pumped her wings, easily keeping pace with him.
A silver lake flashed beneath her, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of a red-gold hawk with red bands on the tips of its wings. It was only after a moment that she realized it was a reflection of herself. Rainbow-sided trout leaped in the cold water. She had the urge to swoop down and snatch one in her outstretched talons. But Gamaliel's snarl caught her attention. She flew after him.
Her vision amazed her. She could see a mouse cowering under a pile of dead leaves and the gossamer strands of a spider's web glistening in a tree a league away. She wheeled gracefully in the azure sky. In moments she saw them. Four travelers just breaking camp in a forested bowl a few leagues to the south.
There was Kern, saddling his horse, and Listle and Miltiades packing their gear. There was another with them, an old man Daile did not recognize, but by the scales of justice engraved on the hilt of his sword, she knew him to be a venerable paladin.
She cried out, letting Gamaliel know that she had seen them. The cat bounded back toward camp, and Daile followed. Moments later she swooped down and perched on a branch near Evaine. She began to explain that she had seen Kern.
The sorceress regarded her curiously. "I can't understand hawk speech very well, Daile," Evaine said dryly. "Could you try Common, please?"
Suddenly the branch beneath Daile buckled. She fell to the ground with a thump.
"It would probably be better if you landed on the ground next time before transforming back into human form," Gamaliel noted as he shifted into his barbarian shape and stepped into the clearing.
Daile nodded in agreement as she stood, rubbing her sore backside. Quickly she relayed to Evaine what she had seen, and they hastily broke camp. If they marched swiftly, they might intercept their friends by noon.
Once they were on their way, her head reeled. Had it not been for Gamaliel's strong grip on her arm, Daile might have tripped and fallen as the full implications of what happened washed over her.
"Gamaliel," she began hesitantly, "how… how did I do that?"
"As I told you," he said gravely, "it is the wild gift, a legacy from Ciela, your druidess mother. She had the gift, as many druids do, though I do not think it ran so strongly in her blood as yours." Gamaliel smiled, then his face grew solemn. "It is a remarkable talent, Daile. But you must take care. Sometimes… sometimes those whose blood sings with the wild gift can become lost in it. The call of the wilderness becomes so overpowering, it drowns out all other thoughts and desires."
Daile shivered. She thought she knew what he meant.
"Always remember, Daile, that when you become a hawk, you must lock a part of yourself away in a corner of your mind, a part that remembers what it is to be a human."
"What would happen if I didn't?" she asked.
"Then you would forget you were once a woman, and you would become a hawk forever."
With that, Gamaliel moved swiftly through the trees after Evaine. Daile hesitated a moment and followed, thinking of the way her hunt for creatures of evil had nearly consumed her in the Valley of the Falls. For those three days after burying Ren, she had thought of nothing but the hunt, as if she were an animal. She had almost lost herself, she knew now.
She shivered. "I will never forget that I am human," she whispered fiercely. "Never again." She hurried to catch up with the sorceress and barbarian.
The crystal resting in Evaine's brazier flared brightly, then flashed into dust. Her locating spell was complete. The sorceress's eyes flew open.
"I've found it!"
She stood weakly. The sun was fast sinking toward the western mountains, and the companions had made camp in a grove of ancient fir trees.
"The pool of twilight?" Kern asked, unconsciously gripping the haft of the Hammer of Tyr.
"No, Kern, she means the button she lost from her tunic last tenday," Listle replied, rolling her eyes. Despite the elf's usual flippant humor, her delicate face was wan and tight.
Evaine sat on a log near the crackling campfire. She, Gamaliel, and Daile had found Kern and the others on a windswept pass around midday. The reunion had been a joyous one. It had been good to see that Kern and Listle were well. And Miltiades.
There had also been a new introduction, but Evaine found that she was already enjoying Trooper's company-as well as the old paladin's tongue, which was as sharp as his rune sword and wielded with similar dexterity.
"Yes, Kern, the pool of twilight," Evaine said. She threw a handful of crystal dust into the campfire. The flames flared higher, an image appearing within. A pinnacle of dark stone with a distinctive cloven summit was revealed. At its base was the dark opening of a cave. "Always before, the mountains interfered with my locating spell. But this time we are finally close enough. I have a solid fix on it. This spire is located in a valley no more than a dozen leagues from here. And the pool of twilight lies beneath. But…"
"But what, Evaine?" Miltiades asked when the sorceress paused.
Her face turned grim. "This time, when I detected the pool, I sensed a dangerous change in it. The guardian Shal and I encountered was no longer there. Instead, there was a new… presence. One even more evil than the last."
"Sirana," Kern growled.
Evaine nodded. "Yes, it could be that she controls the pool now."
Kern stood, regarding the others. "You should stay here. Tomorrow, I'll journey to the valley alone. After all, it's the hammer she wants to get her hands on. I'll confront her in the cave and-"
"And get burned to a crisp, Son?" Trooper snorted. The old paladin's eyes flashed like steel against stone. "I don't know where you got the notion that foolishness is akin to heroism, but you would do well to use that hammer of yours to knock the idea out of your head." He tugged at his beard in agitation. "Go to the pool alone? You might as well hand this Sirana the hammer on a silver platter. Fine lot of good your heroics would do us. Sirana would have the hammer, you'd end up a pile of ashes, and I'd have been wasting my time trying to turn you into a real paladin." He poked a bony finger at Kern's breastplate. "And I don't have much time to waste any more!"
Kern stared at the paladin, much chastened.
"What Trooper means to say, Kern," Miltiades went on in a more gentle tone, "is that we are all in this quest together and that as a group we are stronger than any one of us alone."
Trooper opened his mouth to point out that this was not at all what he had meant, but a glare from Miltiades' empty eye sockets snapped his mouth shut. He didn't suppose there was much point in arguing with a dead man.