Read Online The Blue Hawk by Peter Dickinson - Free Book Online

slave’s who brings you your food. Phew! I’d forgotten how hot sand could get. How does your hawk stand this heat? Blue hawks are mountain birds, you know—it’s cooler up there.”
    â€œI try to hunt near dawn and dusk, Majesty, and rest when O is high. The hawk’s asleep in my cell now. The stonework is thick enough to keep it cool.”
    â€œIs it thick enough to hide secrets, Tron? Have you found anything?”
    â€œA door, Majesty, but …”
    â€œGood! Let’s see.”
    Tron led him to a long, low room, which must have been one of the eating halls, and turned to a deep-carved relief of Gdaal, fox-headed and carrying the sacred bow. Around the God ran a dance or procession of wild animals, hares and lions and desert asses and antelopes. Tron gripped the horns of one of the antelopes and twisted inward and up, sliding that small section of the frieze along hidden grooves into the cavity behind.
    â€œThe catch is like that of an ordinary door,” he said. “This one was so corroded that I had to break it. There are three doors I can’t move at all. I think the sand must have clogged under them.”
    The King grunted, then fiddled with the secret section, trying its movement along the grooves. He looked at the floor.
    â€œYou swept the sand clear here?”
    â€œI had to. There was sand on the other side too, but I rocked the door to and fro till I could squeeze through. It moves quite easily now. Look.”
    The slab swung silently under his weight and he led the way into a bare little chamber lit from above by a shaft. River owls nested here and had covered the floor with their mutes and droppings. The King grunted again.
    â€œYou won’t be able to hide the fact that this door’s been opened,” he said. “Not on the inside, anyway. But when we’ve finished you’d better sweep the sand back on the outside. Where now?”
    â€œI … I haven’t explored very far, Majesty. I … I was afraid.”
    â€œNo wonder,” said the King, looking at the two narrow slits of darkness that led out of the chamber. “Let’s try this one. I’ll go first.”
    The slit was so narrow that Tron had to edge sideways along it. Even when it was still faintly lit by the light from the chamber they had left Tron felt that the massive walls were poised to move in and press him into nothingness, like a midge between a man’s fingers. He crept along, tense to snatch himself back from any touch or rustle.
    â€œHello!” said the King’s voice some distance ahead. “Steps, going up. Light at the top … twelve steps, Tron. Ah. Come and look at this.”
    The light was only a faint grayness, but Tron yearned toward it as though it were safety and sanity. When he reached it he found the King gazing through an irregular shaped opening, two inches across at its widest.
    â€œKnow where we are?” said the King, giving way.
    The spyhole tunneled down and gave on a patch of sandy floor, mottled to a regular pattern. The taloned feet of a colossal statue of Gdu showed at the upper rim of vision.
    â€œThat is a side aisle in the House of Tan,” said Tron.
    â€œWhat made those marks on the floor?”
    â€œI did, Majesty. I do my dances to my Lord Gdu morning and evening.”
    â€œYes, of course. And that’s where the King would sit during the Rituals. One would think this hole was big enough to spot from down there. What’s on this wall of the aisle?”
    â€œI think we are looking out of the ear of Sodala, Majesty.”
    â€œHm. I wonder how far these tunnels lead.”
    They seemed endless. For an hour the two of them crept like spiders along the crannies between the Temple walls, and still Tron trembled with the horror of the darkness and closeness of these secret ways. They were never wholly lost, because of the frequent spyholes which gave onto every major room or courtyard in