The Eye of the Falcon (4 page)

S
he remembered the Egg. Being all crumpled up inside, with her feet jammed under her beak. She couldn't move a claw, it was awful.

But she
did
move. Twisting her head, she pecked, and panted, and pecked again—and at last the Egg cracked, and she was
free
.

She couldn't see, but she was aware of the other fluffy hatchlings, and of her mother's warm feathers pressing down on her. She smelled droppings, sticks, and rock. She heard her parents' piercing cries, and the roaring air.

She was
hungry
. She jostled and trod on her brothers to get at the meat that her parents stuffed down her beak.

She grew stronger. Now that she could see, she struggled out of the Nest and explored the Ledge. She pulled her brothers' tails with her beak, and peered at the slow, earthbound creatures in the forest far below.

She learned to sharpen her sight by bobbing her head up and down. Soon she could follow three snowflakes at once. She
loved
all the bright colors: a red-and-gold eagle, the brilliant hues of flies. But if a crow flew past, glinting green and purple and black, her talons tightened—because crows steal eggs, and are the enemies of falcons.

After several Lights and Darks, strange itchy bumps began breaking out all over her. She was outraged. Then her fluff fell out and the itchy bumps grew into feathers.

She adored them. They were white, brown, pink, gray, blue; some speckled, all beautifully sleek. She learned to tidy them by running them through her beak with a satisfying
zzzt;
and now when she watched her parents soaring on the Wind, she envied them. She longed to explore the Sky. It was always changing: sometimes dark, sometimes light. During the Lights, the fledgling sensed something vast and powerful hidden behind the clouds. It never showed its face, although she wished it would.

Above all, she longed to fly. She flapped her wings till she was exhausted, but nothing happened.

Then one Light, as she was furiously flapping, the Wind scooped her off the Ledge—and for the flick of a feather, she was very nearly flying!

Abruptly, the Wind dropped her and she fell off the Ledge. She fell for ages, too startled to squawk, and landed in snow. Angry and humiliated, she struggled to her feet and shrieked for her parents, but they'd gone hunting and didn't hear.

The fledgling gaped in terror. She was stuck on the ground like an earthbound creature. She could see the Ledge, horribly high above, but she couldn't get back to it.

She started to crawl over the snow, hoping the Wind would pick her up again. Instead she slipped and rolled over and over.

She came to rest in a patch of bare earth, by a hole seething with ants. She pecked one. It tasted sour, so she spat it out, but this angered the other ants, and they started biting her feet. So many ants, swarming up her legs and stinging the roots of her feathers. She flapped and shrieked in panic.

The ground shook, and a huge earthbound monster darkened the Sky. He scooped her up and started picking off the ants. His voice was a low rumble, like a distant river; the fledgling found it oddly soothing.
Human,
she thought.
This is a human.

After picking off the ants, the human placed her in a warm dark nest, which was such a relief that she went to sleep.

She woke in a Windless place with
two
humans: the male who'd saved her from the ants, and a smaller female. Like the male, the girl had neither wings nor beak, but the fledgling was fascinated by her brilliant colors. Instead of feathers, the girl had an odd loose hide that was orange, yellow, and green, with red fur like a fox on her back, and long black hair on her head, streaked purple and blue.

Slowly, the girl reached toward the fledgling, holding a scrap of meat in her big soft talons.

Alarmed, the fledgling rose to her full height, gaping and spreading her wings. Then she snatched the meat in her beak and flung it scornfully aside.

The girl held out more meat. She neither stared nor loomed, she simply spoke in a gentle rumble. Her strange pale face lacked feathers or fluff, but her eyes were as dark as a falcon's, and in them, the fledgling glimpsed a spirit as trapped and flightless as her own.

The fledgling stretched out her neck and took the meat.

Pirra watched the fledgling snatch another scrap of mouse in its outsize beak. “Are you
sure
it's a falcon?” she said doubtfully.

Userref's lip curled. “Of course I am.”

Pirra snorted. “It's not like any falcon I've ever seen.”

The creature huddled in the pouch was a scruffy brown-and-white bundle the size of a pigeon: mostly feathers, except for a few bizarre tufts of white fluff on its head, with lots more on its legs, like fluffy white leggings. It had large yellow-green feet and long black claws, and it was glaring up at Pirra with big, dark, baleful eyes.

“Where'd you find it?” she said.

“On the ground, below a crag. I heard her squawking; she must have fallen out of her nest. It's early in the year for fledglings, but this is such a strange time, the wild creatures don't know if it's winter or spring. This falcon is a good omen. Maybe she'll bring back the Sun.”

“How d'you know it's a she?”

“I don't, but I feel it.” He paused. “If she lives,” he said carefully, “she'll want to fly. Whether or not she does—that's up to you.”

“Why?” Pirra said suspiciously.

“You'll need to look after her.” Again he paused. “If she lives, she'll be the fastest creature in the world. The female falcon is bigger, stronger, and faster than the male.”

“Well, that's as it should be,” muttered Pirra.

“A falcon is proud and quick to take offense. She never forgets an insult. You can't tame her and you can't punish her into obedience. You can only gain her trust, and persuade her to stay with you.” He glanced at Pirra. “And she will
never
try to please. So I thought you two might get along.”

Pirra snorted a laugh.

“For now, she's a captive, like you. But if you look after her, you could teach her to fly. You could set her free.”

Pirra repressed a spark of excitement. “You've thought it all out, haven't you?” she said drily.

Userref smiled and shook his head. “Not me, Pirra, this is the will of
Heru
. Why else do you think this falcon came to you?”

Pirra named her Echo, because of her ringing
eck-eck-eck
. She was clever, moody, and fierce, and she either liked something or she didn't, and that was that.

Luckily, she liked Pirra. She liked Userref too, but she
hated
Silea, and had a horror of ants. If she spotted one, she went into a frenzy and wouldn't calm down till the entire chamber had been searched and rendered antless.

The days sped past, and Pirra forgot everything but Echo. She kept her chamber dim to reassure the fledgling, and Userref put a log in a corner for a perch, and tied Echo to it with traces of braided lambskin around her legs.

At first the fledgling was nervous, standing tall and glaring with half-open beak. Pirra talked to her and eventually she relaxed, fluffing out her chin-feathers and perching comfortably on one leg, with the other tucked under her belly.

She had astonishing eyesight. She could spot an ant at thirty paces, and would turn her head right around to follow it. And she seemed fascinated by Pirra's clothes. “She sees more colors than we do,” said Userref. “They say that to falcons, the green and purple glints on a raven's wing are as bright as a rainbow.”

Echo swiftly learned that Pirra meant food, and begged with plaintive wails,
kyi-kyi-kyi
. Her favorite was pigeon: She would pluck out its feathers with her beak, toss away the guts, then hold down the carcass with one foot and rip it to shreds. Later, she'd squirt her droppings into the corner, then sick up a neat pellet of squashed feathers and bone.

With startling speed, she grew from a scruffy fledgling to a handsome falcon, as tall as Pirra's forearm was long. Her head and wings were a beautiful dusky gray, her throat and breast creamy buff speckled with brown. Her large hooked beak could snap a pigeon's spine or bite a chunk out of Pirra's finger—although she never did. And beneath her great black eyes ran the mark of all falcons: a dark vertical stripe, like the track of a tear.

Pirra hated tying her up, so she gave her the run of the chamber—although on Userref's advice, she left the traces on her legs.

“To teach her to fly,” he said, “you must gain her trust. Stay with her, talk to her, give her scraps of squirrel to keep her busy. Get her used to your touch.”

By now, Echo knew her own name, and sometimes when Pirra called, she hopped off her perch and came running, her talons clicking on the floor. Once, when Pirra left the chamber, Echo called to her:
eck-eck-eck
.

At first, Pirra stroked her with a feather, then the back of her finger, over her cool soft breast and down her scaly yellow-green feet. Echo seemed to like having her feet stroked best.

One day, as Pirra was stroking her ankles, the falcon stepped calmly onto her fist. Pirra felt a prickling of awe. For all Echo's endearing ways, she was a creature of the Goddess.

“Keep your elbow close to your side and your forearm level,” Userref said quietly from the doorway, “that'll make a comfortable perch. Don't let go of the traces.”

Echo was heavier than she looked, and her talons dug into Pirra's flesh like slender black thorns.

“I'll make a leather cuff to protect your wrist,” said Userref. “And from now on, you should carry a pouch with scraps of meat, for rewards.”

“How come you know so much about falcons?” said Pirra without taking her eyes off Echo.

“All Egyptians know about falcons. My brother Nebetku taught me. He knew more than most.”

“Did he have a tame one?”

“Remember, you never
tame
a falcon! You just persuade her to stay with you for a while.”

Pirra wanted to know what he meant by a while, but Userref had gone back to his chamber. It made him sad to talk of his brother; they'd been close before Userref was taken for a slave.

That night, Echo roosted on the bedpost by Pirra's head, and Pirra lay listening to her doing her evening preen: brisk little rustlings and beak-clickings, then a snap of shaken-out feathers as she settled to sleep. Pirra felt better than she had since she'd been brought to Taka Zimi.

Next day, she took Echo into the courtyard for the first time. Silea and the guards were banished indoors, and Pirra and Userref watched the falcon hop about to explore. She pecked everything, and seemed fascinated by the juniper tree on the lookout post. When the wind gusted, she flapped her wings.

“She ought to be flying by now,” said Userref. “Maybe she lost her confidence, falling out of her nest.”

“How can I help her?” said Pirra.