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.
And then, after the Black Riders had shown their tokens, Tre'valen and Dawnfire had appeared.
They would not lie. They came to help him; She meant to help him save himself, if it could be done. He must not let this fear and uncertainty break him; must not let the filth of Falconsbane destroy his own soul and all his hopes. There was honor in the world, and kindness, and decency.
He must help those who brought those virtues to his aid, even if it meant that he -
He froze for a moment, as the thought ran on to its inescapable conclusion.
Even if it meant giving up his own chance at life and freedom.
There were things worse than death, after delving into Falconsbane's mind he knew that. He would be worse than a rabid animal if he chose his own survival over taking the opportunity to stop something like Falconsbane.
