Well, what went for Ancar also went for the woman. More so, actually, since Ancar wanted Falconsbane to increase his own power, and the woman would naturally want to eliminate both of them once she discovered the conspiracy against her. He would need to offer nothing more than access to Falconsbane - he could turn the tables on both Ancar and Falconsbane, and reveal himself to this "Hulda." But she was an Adept as well, and she would be just as likely to use An'desha to destroy Falconsbane, then proceed to finish the job by ridding herself of An'desha. What did she need him for, after all? She had power of her own, and no fear of using it. And she was just as depraved as her former pupil. More; after all, she had schooled him in depravity.
There was a last possibility, as disgusting as it was. He could reveal his presence to Falconsbane, and strike a bargain with him. The "coercions" Falconsbane kept thinking about had been put on the Adept, not on An'desha. If Falconsbane cared to remain in a passive mode and simply instruct An'desha, the Shin'a'in might be able to use their powers to free both of them....
Yes, he could try to strike a bargain to that effect. Offer Falconsbane the way out of this gilded trap in return for simple survival; taking no more than he already had, a little corner of the Adept's mind.
Except that such a bargain would make him no better than Falconsbane; to know everything the creature had done and turn a blind eye to it in the hope of staying "alive" was as nauseating as anything Falconsbane himself had ever done. It would be a betrayal of all those Falconsbane had destroyed. Further, such a plan assumed Falconsbane would actually keep any bargain he made, and nothing of what An'desha knew of him gave any reassurance the Adept would do any such thing.
He felt tied into a hundred knots by conflicting emotions. Only one thing really seemed clear. None of these folk were worth helping. If any of them had ever done a single decent thing in all their lives, they had certainly take pains to insure it went undiscovered.
I must listen to the Avatars and remain quiet. That was still not only the best plan, it was the only plan. I must help the Avatars as they ask; I must hope they can help me. That is the only plan, the only decent course to take.
:Wise choice, little one.:Tre'valen's voice rang in his mind, so clearly that he glanced around, startled, looking for another physical presence in the room. But there was no one there; Tre'valen and Dawnfire rarely made physical manifestations since their first appearance. He understood why now; such things made a disturbance that could be sensed, if one were looking for it with the inner eye.
:Let the Falconsbane sleep,: the shaman-Avatar continued :Meet us upon the Moonpaths, where we cannot be overheard or overlooked.:
With relief, An'desha abandoned his hold on the body he and Falconsbane shared, and turned his focus in the direction Tre'valen had taught him, within and without. There was a moment of dizziness, a moment of darkness, and a moment in which he felt he was falling and flying at the same time. Then he found himself standing upon a patch of pristine white sand, in a world made of mist and light, and all that had transpired in the time it took to draw a quick breath.
Tre'valen and Dawnfire were already there, looking quite ordinary, actually, although they glowed with a soft, diffused inner light. It was easier to "see" them here; Tre'valen looked like any of the younger shaman of the Clans, as familiar as his horse or saddle. Lovely Dawnfire on the other hand was garbed in odd clothing that made her look like a slender birch tree wrapped in snow - her hair was long and as white as a snowdrift - and she was as exotic as he had imagined the Hawkbrothers to be when he had first run off to seek them. But her smile and her wink made her still enough like a young scout of the Shin'a'in that he felt comfortable around her.
Except when he looked directly into the eyes of either of them...for they shared the same eyes, eyes without pupil, iris, or white; eyes the same bright-spangled black of a starry night sky. The Eyes of the Warrior...and the single sign that they were truly Her creatures. Those eyes made him shiver with awe and not a little dread, and reminded him that whatever they had been, these two Avatars were not human anymore.
So he tried to avoid looking into their eyes at all; not at all difficult, really, since he tended to keep his own glance fixed firmly on his own clasped hands whenever he spoke with them on the Moonpaths. Strange, how his body here looked like the one he had worn before he left his Clan and home, and not like the strange half-beast creature that Mornelithe Falconsbane had twisted it into.
"We have a new teaching for you, An'desha," Tre'valen said matter-of-factly. "It should help you seal your control over Falconsbane's body so that when he sleeps you will not awaken him by moving the body about."
Even as he spoke, An'desha felt Dawnfire's mental "hand" brush the surface of his own mind, and he absorbed the lesson effortlessly. And he even managed to smile shyly up into those two pairs of unhuman eyes, in thanks.
He took all the time he needed to study the implanted memory, to examine it and walk its pathway until he was certain he could follow their lesson exactly. And it was a most welcome gift. Such an ability would make things easier for him, for if Falconsbane's healing body demanded food while he slept, or made other needs known, such things would eventually wake the Adept so that An'desha must quickly and quietly retreat into watchful hiding. Now he would be able to silence the needs of the body before Falconsbane woke, and that would give him more uninterrupted time in full control. It was only when Falconsbane slept soundly, for instance, that An'desha dared to walk the Moonpaths. He feared, and so had the Avatars warned, that if Falconsbane woke while An'desha was "absent," An'desha would not be able to rejoin his body without the Adept noticing that something was different.
"Be patient, An'desha," Tre'valen said, but in a voice full of sympathy and kindness. "We know how tempting it must be to try to find some other, quicker way to rid yourself of the beast. But truly, our way is the surest, and even it is uncertain. We give you only a chance, but it is a chance with honor. There would be much less honor in any of the other paths you have contemplated. None of these people are worth the backing, as you yourself thought, much less worth making even temporary allies of them. Even trying to deceive them would be fraught with both peril and dishonor."
He hung his head in embarrassment and a little shame. Tre'valen was right, of course. And it had been making a choice with no concern for honor that had gotten him here in the first place, a fact that Tre'valen kindly omitted to mention.
"If you are very, very careful," Dawnfire continued in her high, husky voice, "you will even have ample opportunity to undermine all of them. She knows; She has faith in your good heart. Remember the Black Riders."
He looked up again and nodded. The Swordsworn seldom miss their marks. The Leshy'a Kal'enedral, never. That was a Shin'a'in proverb as old as the Swordsworn themselves. And yet, in shooting at Falconsbane, ostensibly to kill, they had missed, and had left the body holding both An'desha and Falconsbane alive. Then the Black Riders had appeared, bringing gifts that Falconsbane had thought were for him, but were truly for An'desha - a tiny black horse, the kind given to a child on his birthday, the token that he was ready for his first real horse and would be permitted to pick out a foal to train on his own. And the black ring, the ring Tre'valen had told him was worn only by those sworn to the service of all four faces of the Goddess. An'desha now knew, as Falconsbane did not, that if the Adept had ever held the ring up to strong sunlight, the seemingly opaque black ring would show a fiery heart that contained every color of earth, air, sky and water, a fitting symbol for those sworn to every face of the Shin'a'in Goddess.