The scream of falcons rang swiftly above Gamine's chant. The too-familiar beat of wings slapped around my head, and I flung up my arm to knock away one serpentine neck. My terrified horse plunged and I rocked in the saddle nearly falling. Another bird swooped down on Narayan--another--then there were swarms of them, gold and purple and green, crimson, blue, flame-color. The air was thick with their wings. Gamine screamed; I saw Narayan beat the air with his cloak. The veiled Spell-singer, crouched in the saddle, was lashing at them with the whip from her saddle. The lash kept the falcons at bay, but the razor talons caught at the blue shroudings. Narayan, whip in one hand, sword in the other, beat round him in great arcs, and I heard one bird's death-cry sending ringing echoes to the sky. I flung round me with my knife-- "The mirror--" screamed Gamine, "Evarin's mirror! Quick, they're coming by millions!" They were coming in scores--hundreds, whirling and screeing. These were not the soul-falcons, belled and elaborately endowed with the intelligence and cunning of their launcher. These were--machines. Alive, yes, but not a life we knew. Only the nightmare freak of a science gone mad could produce--or control--these hateful things that were filling the clean air, groping for us with needle beaks and talons and wild wings. Only Evarin-- I fumbled blindly for the mirror, clumsily stripping the silks. A needle-talon raked at my wrist, and by sheerest instinct I struck upward, turning the face of the mirror toward the bird. The bird reeled in mid-air--flapped--fell. A tingling shock rattled through my arm. I dropped the mirror--leaped to catch it. The thing was a perfect conductor. It--drained energy. I knew now why Evarin had been so anxious to have me--or Adric--look into its depths. It could have touched the energy waves of my brain through my eyes. The birds were brainless; all energy. I grabbed the mirror and held it upright; I caught a half-glimpse, from the tail of my eye, of the weird lightnings coiled inside it, but even that glimpse coiled my stomach in nervous knots. Shielding my face, I held it upward. The birds flew toward it like a moth to the candle. Shock after shock flowed along my arm. Three more of the horrible falcons fell limp, lifeless--drained. A strange exhilaration began to buoy me up. The force from the birds was not electricity but a kindred force, which my nerves drank greedily. I thrust the mirror out; was rewarded again by the surge of power, and again the birds, this time by dozens, flapped and fell. Then, as if whatever had loosed the army of falcons had realized their uselessness, the whole remaining force of the birds wheeled and fled, winging swiftly over the land to the distant donjon that rose high and far into the black midnight. Recalled--to the Dreamer's Keep! CHAPTER ELEVEN The Last Sacrifice