Four and Twenty Blackbirds

'With time—I might be able to,' she said, cautiously. 'It would be a bit more difficult than the first transformation, because it would be layering one spell on top of another, but I think I could. The spell as I learned it was never intended to be reversed, even by the death of the mage who cast it, but I think I could work a reversal out. But Revaner—no. No, I couldn't. The circumstances that created him were so complicated and so unpredictable that I doubt I could reverse them. It wasn't justour magic that was involved, it was the snapping of the spell that he had cast, and the involvement of Bardic magic from two Bards who were acting on sheer instinct, and Gypsy magic from Revaner's victim. The chances of deducing just what happened are fairly low.'

'And you still aren't certain that the bird I've seen and this Revaner fellow are the same.' He ground his beak a little. 'Still—whatever this creatureis , I can't see how it could fail to have something to do with the killings. You don't suppose that someone else entirely found out how to change himself into a bird, do you?'

Ardis looked as if she would have ground her beak, if she'd had one. 'I can't give you any reason why itshouldn't be the case,' she admitted. 'My main reason for thinking that it's Revaner is that the pattern of the murder-victims matches the kind of women that Revaner would be most likely to want to kill. On the other hand—'

'On the other hand, when you changed him into a bird, he wasn't a murderer.' Visyr couldn't help pointing that out.

'No, he wasn't. He was unscrupulous, immoral, utterly self-centered, egotistical, a liar, a thief, and ruthless, but he wasn't a murderer.' She wrinkled her brow as if her head pained her. 'On the other hand, there is one way to overcome just about any magic, and that is to overpower it. And one sure way to obtain a great deal of power is to kill someone. Now, when you combinethat fact with the motive of revenge—' She tilted her head in his direction, and he nodded.

'I can see that. Well, I was already going to make a point of looking for that bird, and now you have given me more reasons to do so,' he told her. 'And you have also given me plenty of reasons to make certain that it doesn't see me!'

Now Ardis rose, full of dignity. 'I will not ask you to place yourself in further jeopardy, Visyr,' she said solemnly. 'If this is Revaner, he is very dangerous. If it is not—well, he may be even more dangerous. Please be careful.'

In answer, Visyr flexed his talons, a little surprised at how angry and aggressive he felt. 'I am more than a little dangerous myself,' he said to her. 'And I am also forewarned.'

She looked him directly in the eyes for a long moment, then nodded. 'Good,' was all she said, but it made him feel better than he had since he lost the dagger-thief.

She left him then, and he took his mapping implements and went out to resume his dual duties.

Only to discover that now he couldn't find the damned bird!

He spent several days criss-crossing the city on every possible excuse. He thought perhaps that the Black Bird might have decided to lurk in places he had already mapped in order to avoid him—then he thought it might be in places hehadn't mapped yet. But no matter where he looked for it, there was not so much as an oversized black feather. It was as if the creature knew he was trying to find it and had gone into hiding. On the other hand, if all of their suppositions were true, and it was in league with the knife-thief, perhaps it had the suspicion that he was hunting it. At the very least, it now knew that there was danger in being spotted from above, and might be taking steps to avoid that eventuality.

Frustrated, he spent all of one evening trying to reason the wayhe thought a crazed human in bird form might.

It made him a little less queasy to think of it as a hunter as he tried to ignore the type of quarry it was taking; he came from a race of hunters himself, and it wasn't all that difficult to put himself in that mindset.

When one hunts a prey that is clever, particularly if one is hunting a specific individual, one studies that individual, of course. He'd done that himself, actually; the trophy-ringhorn that he'd wanted to take to Syri as a courting-gift had been a very canny creature, wily and practiced in avoiding Haspur hunters. It knew all of the usual tricks of an airborne hunter, and it would race into cover at the hint of a shadow on the ground. He'd had to spend time each day for months tracking it down, in learning all of its usual haunts and patterns, and in finding the times and places where it was most vulnerable.

Now, the Black Bird was probably not that clever a hunter itself. This creature was hunting prey that was not aware it was being hunted, nor were humans as versed as that ringhorn in avoiding a hunter, but the Black Bird still needed to find the moment that its prey was most vulnerable. It couldn't hunt inside buildings, and if it was going to hunt again but didn't want to be seen, it had to come out on the rooftops eventually. There was no other possible hunting ground for it.

That was how a Haspur would hunt in the same situation. But unlike a Haspur, the Black Bird might well have decided that there was another hunter that might be stalkingit. So it was torn between two courses of action: don't hunt at all, or find another way to hunt.

It still has to find prey. It still has to find the prey's most vulnerable moments. But somehow it is