Chapter: 119 Sky
Over the next week, Ian methodically carried out his investigation into the slave ship. He interviewed the merchants on the list one by one, and finally, he submitted his conclusion to Illyrio: the slave ship did not exist.
Although he had known the result from the start, he understood that the investigation itself was a test. The process was Illyrio's way of further evaluating his worth, so Ian did not simply go through the motions. He handled every detail with meticulous care.
During this period of collaboration, Ian also developed a good friendship with Hazru, the leader of Illyrio's 'little mice.' Ian hoped that Hazru's intelligence network would prove useful in the struggles that were sure to come with the other players hidden in Pentos.
Once the investigation was complete, Ian did not leave Illyrio's manse, remaining there until the end of the month. He spent the time continuing to hone his sword skills and attempting to become a true shapechanger.
Originally, Ian had wanted to buy a young eagle and cultivate a bond with it from a young age, but he soon realized the time cost was far too great. He couldn't afford to wait for an eagle to mature.
So he settled on another path. He had Denzel, the Dornishman, purchase a falcon that had already passed through a dealer's hands, one that had most of its wildness trained out of it. His plan was to change shape not through bonding, but by forcibly occupying its consciousness.
Unfortunately, his first two attempts had ended in failure.
Today, Ian prepared for his third.
After breakfast, he walked out into the courtyard adjoining his bedroom, making his way to the marble pool that sat in its center, surrounded by six cherry trees. In the middle of the pool stood a statue of a naked boy, handsome and elegant. He looked to be no more than sixteen, with shoulder-length blond hair, and he held a Braavosi assassin's dagger, poised to strike.
Ian opened the cage. The falcon immediately shot out, trying to fly away. It got no farther than the statue. A hemp rope was tied to its talons, pulling it up short and preventing it from gaining any height. It landed on the shoulder of the marble boy, flapped its wings twice, and, realizing it was still restrained, gave up the struggle and fell quiet.
The next moment, the falcon's and Ian's eyes rolled back in their heads simultaneously.
Ian felt a tearing pain rip through his skull, followed by the disorienting sensation of his spirit being pulled from his body. But unlike any out-of-body experience he had ever imagined, the moment he initiated the skinchanging, his consciousness was lost. He fell into an endless, silent void.
Then he felt a force pressing in on him, an alien consciousness battering his own, seeking to break his will. His mind began to blur.
He knew this was the falcon's resistance. This was the step where he had failed the first two times.
The first time, the resistance had been ferocious. Fearing permanent mental damage, Ian had only probed its defenses before retreating.
The second time, the falcon's consciousness was noticeably weaker. It was still a tough, unyielding barrier, but it lacked the do-or-die desperation of the first attempt.
But this time, the falcon's resistance was almost entirely defensive. It seemed to be waiting for Ian to retreat on his own.
He did not retreat. He endured the searing pain, clung to the core of his human identity, and launched an assault several times more violent than before.
Doubt, fear, terror—the last trembling emotions of the falcon's spirit bled into his soul, bit by bit. He felt himself melting, dissolving into a white, formless unknown.
Then, the chaos ended as abruptly as it began. The will to resist had vanished. The falcon's remaining consciousness had surrendered to him.
Gradually, Ian's senses returned. First came touch, then hearing and smell, and finally, sight.
He was the falcon, perched on the assassin's stone shoulder. His eyes were clear again.
Ian took a moment to adapt to his new vision. Everything was rendered with impossible clarity. He looked straight ahead and could see tiny insects crawling on leaves more than ten yards away. He looked at Keith and Luo Er in the courtyard and found their movements seemed as slow as a mummer's pantomime.
Finally, he saw himself, standing at the edge of the pool, his own eyes rolled back into his head as Luo Er supported his swaying body. He could still feel a connection to that body, a faint sensation deep within his consciousness, but it was weak and distant.
"Cut the rope," Ian ordered in a low voice. He discovered he could still control his human form, not simultaneously with the falcon, but he could switch between them at will.
Keith acted at once, drawing a knife and severing the hemp rope tied to the falcon's leg.
The next moment, Ian the falcon beat his wings again, soaring into the air and climbing toward the open sky. The acceleration was breathtaking. In what felt like a blink, he was hundreds of feet high.
*Flying… is this what it feels like to fly?*
*I'm flying!* The falcon, under Ian's joyful control, beat its wings and climbed higher still.
This feeling of weightlessness, of breaking free from all constraints… for a moment, it felt as though he had left all the pressure of his life behind. All that existed was freedom. All that existed was the flight.
Higher, and higher still…
He burst through a layer of clouds, climbing into the endless blue above.
And there was the sun. He had never imagined the sun could be so magnificent.
*Wait… the sun?*
*What am I doing? Damn it!*
The sight of the sun finally jolted his consciousness back to its senses, breaking him free from the unprecedented, euphoric state. As he was bathed in its light, a single story came to mind: the myth of Icarus and his waxen wings.
Fear, sharp and cold, seized him. He turned and dove, plunging back below the clouds.
A memory, one that had come embedded with the shapeshifter skill, surfaced in his mind: *…the most important thing is not to possess birds. They are the worst. A man is not meant to leave the earth. If you stay among the clouds for too long, you will no longer wish to come down. The feeling of flight is extremely addictive. I have known skinchangers who tried hawks, owls, and crows. When they returned to their true bodies, they became… vacant, staring endlessly at the unlucky blue sky.*
Was that it? Had he been only a moment away from losing himself completely? Flying smoothly over the rooftops of Pentos, Ian felt a profound sense of relief, the feeling of having narrowly survived a disaster.
An absurd thought struck him. *I'm a falcon now. My wings are real, not feathers glued with beeswax. They won't melt!*
A moment later, he felt ridiculous for the thought. This wasn't the world of Greek myth. And though he had flown thousands of feet into the air, he was no closer to the sun. The temperature here hadn't increased; on the contrary, it was brutally cold.
*What is wrong with me? Has my mind become as simple as this bird's?*
Not daring to remain in the falcon's body any longer, Ian wheeled in the sky and flew swiftly back to his courtyard. He returned his consciousness to his original body, hastily ending the skinchanging state.
The experience had lasted only a few minutes, but he already felt an immense mental strain.
He needed to rest.
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