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"And . . . ?"
Dughall focused his attention on her. His gaze, direct and thoughtful, sent a
chill through her veins.
"First, there's the question of you. I need you to become a Falcon, Kait."
She met his gaze, trying to see the threat in that, and after a moment,
shrugged. "Hasmal.was going to initiate me into the Falcons," she said. "He
wanted to make me a Warden. It doesn't sound so ominous."
"It doesn't. But when you swear yourself to Falconry, you become oathbound to
the Falcons."
She had assumed she would have to swear an oath. That still didn't sound like
such an ordeal.
"So?"
"Oathbound," Dughall said, his voice slightly impatient.
She supposed she was failing to see what he was trying to get at. 'I've sworn
oaths before."
"You have never been oathbound. Oath . . . bound. Constrained by the power of
your word - locked into certain forms of action by the ties that connect you
to every other Falcon, alive or dead. The
Falcon oath is not empty sounds whispered into the wind, Kait. It has a
thousand years of lives bound into it. A thousand years of magic, poured layer
upon layer, life upon life. You swear your oath and it's like . . . like . .
." He closed his eyes and for a moment seemed to go very far away.
When he looked at her again, she saw the old man that he truly was looking out
at her from inside that young body. "It's like throwing yourself from a dock
into an angry sea. The waves pick you up and fling you where they will, and
you're a long time finding your breath and your stroke and hauling yourself
against the current and back to shore. And even when you reach dry ground
again, for the rest of your life, you carry that angry sea inside of you. It's
a weight, and you can feel it with every step you take and every breath you
breathe. I won't deny that there are times when it's a comfort. In moments of
trouble, you can feel the path that the Falcons would take - you can feel the
current of that huge sea pulling you toward right actions and away from wrong
ones. It can be a second conscience - one that won't ever weaken and tell you
what you'd like to hear."
"That still doesn't sound so terrible."
He sighed. "It can also blind you to new paths, new ideas, new possibilities.
When the Reborn . . .
died ... the tide pulled toward despair. There was a reason why so many
Falcons killed themselves then, Kait. A thousand years of hopes and dreams and
striving, a thousand years of having a specific reason to exist, died in the
moment of his death, and the shock of that realization ripped through us like
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a tsunami. Falconry had no answers, no reason to go on, and no way to see
clear to a new future. Bound together, we would have drowned together. You
provided a bit of solid ground, Kait - hope and a new direction. You could see
it because you were outside. Once you're inside . . ."
At last, Kait could see the danger for what it was. "Then it seems to me,
Uncle, that I would serve better as a friend to the Falcons, without becoming
a Falcon."
"And if enough Falcons survived to do what needed to be done, and if they were
here where I
needed them and when I needed them, I would agree with you wholeheartedly." He
braced both feet on the ground and leaned forward. "But the ... the artifact
you have in there ... it poses a danger that grows with every day and every
moment that it watches us. A slip from us - a false word, a false move - and
it will call other keepers to it. If it does, it can destroy us. It will
destroy us."
Kait clearly remembered her own experience with the Mirror calling other
keepers - the bloodred beacon cleaving the night sky, the Mirror of Souls
tumbling into the sea, their frantic journey through the inlets and byways of
the Thousand Dancers with Ry and Ry's men and Hasmal, with Ian at the rudder
urging them to row faster . . . and faster. . . . She closed her eyes tightly
and drew a steadying breath. "We don't want to give it the opportunity to do
that again."
He knew the story of their narrow escape. He said, "No, we don't." He rose,
and began to pace.
"We need great power to destroy it - and we need that power quickly, before
one of us makes a mistake. You and I and Ry can control an enormous amount of
magic between the three of us.
Alarista, too, might join us, though I fear that, frail as she is, she would
become the weak link in the chain with which we seek to rip apart the Mirror.
But three should be enough, if the three of us also share the oathbond of
Falconry. Then, you see, we can create a thathbund - a ring of power. All
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