Gryphon in Glory (13 page)

To linger on here was no answer. Nor did I altogether believe Elys's assurance that this was the road I must take to some unknown confrontation with the future. However, it had its safeguards, and was a means to reach the heights. I mounted the mare that had been Joisan's, fastened the lead rope of the pack pony to my saddle horn, and at last rode on.

“The sun awoke silvery glints from the patterns laid in the stone. Those varied ever (though there were always the many foot, paw, and hoof tracks cutting sometimes even across symbols). I noted that all those prints pointed in the same direction—forward, none returned—as if all traffic here lay in one direction only—toward the mountains. Just one more mystery to add to all the others.

I kept the mare to a walk. For about me, as I rode, there clung the feeling that I was not alone (perhaps that had been allayed yesterday when I did have human comrades), and neither did I believe that I passed unobserved. So I found myself watching the prints far more than the way before me. In the sunlight they did not change as they had in the night, when it appeared that invisible feet fitted and left their outlines.

This close watch on the pavement caused a feeling of detachment in my mind, induced a dreamy acceptance of all lying about me. When I suddenly realized that, I knew a pinch of fear. Was I being so ensorcelled by some long-laid spell?

Deliberately I turned the mare to the edge of the road, urged her to step off onto the turf. Unexpectedly she tossed her head, fought me, mouthing the bit angrily, planting her hooves and refusing to go. Was it the firmer footing of the pavement she wanted? Or was she under the guidance of another, even though I held her reins? Perhaps the sorcery I suspected already had her enthralled.

Even for me it no longer seemed strange that I should close my eyes for an instant now and then, and feel (when I was not looking on the emptiness around me) that I was riding in company, though none of those I sensed appeared aware of me in turn. Or, if they were, my presence meant nothing to them as they had urgent and pressing affairs elsewhere.

That feeling of urgency came to possess me also. The first slow pace I had set the mare became a trot without my conscious urging. She held her head high, her tail switched from side to side, as if she were a parade mount, proud among her kind. The pack pony crowded up on my left until he paced abreast of us.

Though we certainly traveled more swiftly than before we had taken the road, those dark heights to the west were very slow in drawing closer. It was as if they in turn retreated before our advance.

Nor did I sight any more ruins such as the towers. This part of the Waste might have always been forsaken wilderness had not the road traversed it. At intervals there were those ovals such as we had used for a campsite. Each had its basin of water, a good stand of grass inviting a traveler to rest. I drew into one at nooning, allowed the mare and the pony to graze, ate my journey cake washed down with water. Then I simply sat, no longer thinking, just accepting that this is what must be.

Lord Imgry, the Dales, the Wereriders, even Elys and Jervon, faded and diminished in my memory. I spun the band about my wrist. Holding that, I summoned up (first with an effort, and then with a fast burst of clear inner sight) my vision of Joisan. So vivid was that, I felt she actually stood somewhere ahead, waiting for me, a serious, questioning look on her face—the same expression I had seen there so many times during our last days together in Norsdalc.

“Joisan! Joisan!” I awoke to the fact that I was calling her name over and over as my fingers slipped around that band.

Within me . . . No! I was not just a husk of a man after all! The dream that had held me most of the morning shattered at that new force astir within. I saw again the churned earth and Jervon digging in it; I watched a cup fill itself to the brim and my lady's face show mistily, surrounded by the heavy dark but still with the blazing gryphon in her hand. Hurriedly now I reclaimed the mare and the pony, swung into the saddle. There was a purpose in all this, as Elys had suspected. I might see only the beginning of it at the moment, but there would be more later and . . .

What more that might be, or how I was so important a part of it, I did not yet understand. Yet the urgency now fastened full upon me and my thoughts no longer drifted. Rather did I make a speedy return to what once I had been—a scout of the Dales’ force, marking not patterns upon the road, rather the country through which it ran. For the first time I saw that indeed my morning's ride had brought me well ahead. There lay foothills not too far beyond—forming the fringes of the heights.

On those hills were odd outcroppings, which did not look to be natural in such places. I had thought this part of the land held no ruins, but I saw them now—and so many that I might be approaching the remains of a town as large as one of our own port cities.

The sun, however, was well westward, when I came close enough to see those tumbled walls clearly. Above them, on a tongue of higher ground licking to the east, stood towers, more walls—plainly a keep. It was of course a site such as any builder would choose for a place of defense. So perhaps there had been those also among the Old Ones who had not found life so safe that they could neglect such positions of prudent safety.

As I drew rein to gaze upward, make sure that the keep was indeed a ruin (and not perhaps one hiding such a peril as that tower around whose territory we had so carefully ridden), I caught a brilliant flash from the top of a broken wall a little below the tower itself. I raised my hand as a shade for my eyes and felt growing warmth about my wrist.

The band burned. For a moment or two I thought I had actually seen a small tongue of flame leap from its surface.

Now I dropped hand to sword hilt, even though I well knew that whatever might lie in wait there might be impervious to any steel, even that forged from Waste metal itself.

At that moment there sounded an ear-punishing squall. Out of the brush that rimmed the flat land between the road and the rise on which stood the keep, a tawny, brown-yellow body flashed in great ground-covering bounds, heading for me. Behind it came a second.

Very faint and far away, nearly drowned by the animals’ challenge. I thought I also heard a shout. My sword was out. The creatures coming for me moved fast—like arrows of gold shooting through the tall grass. My pack pony snorted and jerked back on the lead rope. However, the mare showed no fear, though she sidled around to face head-on those who came.

Both halted short at the very edge of the highway, panting from the effort that had brought them at such speed. I half expected now that one. or both, would launch into the air in a characteristic leap at prey. For I could now see they were feline, not as large as the cunning and formidable snow cats to be sure, but still big enough to cause some trouble if they did attack.

I studied them as they made no further move, to my astonishment. These might be kin-cousin to those cats living in the Dale keeps save they were much larger and of a uniform yellow-brown I had not seen before. Both of their heads, between the large eyes and on the upper breasts, showed distinct V marks.

Since they had stopped and now were settling in a seated position, I felt slightly foolish to be holding bared steel and thrust my sword back into its sheath. Their behavior was certainly not that of ordinary animals. I reminded myself once again to expect anything in the Waste. Also they were certainly
not
as formidable as—

“Do not be too sure of that!”

The cats had not made a sound since their initial squalls. Nor were those words
sounds.
They had formed in my head, and came as a clear answer to a thought I had held! In spite of my belief that the Waste could hold any surprise, I found it startling now to have my mind invaded by a coherent message—and it must have originated from one of the animals, now regarding me round-eyed.

“What do you want of me?” I strove to form that as a mind-question and then discovered it was far easier to ask it aloud.

“Nothing.” The reply was both clear and curt.

“Nothing? But you cried—you came . . .”

The smaller of the cats, a female, turned her head a fraction to look back over her shoulder at the slope down which she and her mate had just descended.

"We
want nothing. Wait—you shall learn who does.”

Wait? For whom? That the cats might be allied with some other Waste dweller was not out of reason. I glanced at my wrist band. The metal was still warm; however, the flame I thought I had seen in play was no longer there. I was sure that I had not received a warning of evil to come, rather it had been another message—perhaps a recognition of another Power.

I slipped from the saddle and stretched. That saddle was not an easy perch for my heavier body. Both the mare and the pony watched the cats, but I detected no sign of fear such as my desert mounts had displayed at the coming of the Wererider.

“How long must I wait?” I asked after a moment.

Now the other cat also turned his head to look up-slope. I saw there a wavering of brush, as if someone, or something, was fighting a path through tough growth. A figure burst into the open, running and dodging among piles of stone that marked old ruins. From this distance it appeared human enough. Though that also could mean nothing. It was well known that many of the Old Ones were human in appearance, enough so that they could couple successfully with Dale folk and produce offspring such as myself. Was it not true that my mother's clan had been rumored to have had such ancestry, and it was not only her sorcery that had warped my body, but also her blood?

The runner sped from the last fringe of taller growth and sprinted now through the grass that grew tall enough to brush those flashing legs knee high. Sun glinted on mail. But above that—a tangle of long hair was bunched into ragged braids flopping across slender shoulders. A woman!

Elys? But how . . . ? That first explanation went in a flash. This hair was not the black strands of the wise warrior-woman. It held the deep red-brown of autumn leaves in the high country. Only one had such hair—only—

I was running too, not aware of it until my boot snagged on a grass-hidden root and I nearly sprawled full-length upon the ground. Then I heard my own voice cry, as loud as the screams of those black birds of ill-omen.

"Joisan!"

Joisan

I
SQUEEZED CLOSER TO THE OPENING IN THE WINDOW, LEANED AS FAR
forward as I could to view the ribbon of white road that ran along the lowlands. From my vantage point, which was, of course, well removed, that highway appeared untouched by time. I expected to see riders—travelers along it. Save that, for the stretch I was able to view, it was bare of any traffic at all. Still the road itself was, in a manner, reassuring. If—or when—surely, it was
when
—I decided to leave this refuge and take up my journey again (though I had no idea in which direction I would go) that would be a guide.

Now I strove to study the slope descending to the plain across which that road so boldly ran. There were a number of upstanding outcrops of stone, which I believed marked other ruins, even more decayed by the action of time than that in which I stood. I wondered if this had been a fortress of greater extent than it first appeared. The narrow windows on this outer wall suggested that those who had built it might have had reason to fear some attack from the north. However, for me now, the road was more important than piles of old stone blocks.

I made the rounds of the three other sides of the tower, attempting to view more of the keep itself and its surroundings here on the upper ridge. On the courtyard side the vines had grown too thickly for me to break any peephole through. My attempts to do so brought shrill cries from the birds, a wild thrashing in the vines, so I left off such assault. To the east there was merely another drop—though this lay farther away. What lay below there showed a yellow patch, reminding me of the desert through which we had made our way into the Waste. To the west lay the long ridge, widening well out from the point on which the keep had been built. There were the remains of walled Fields, more shells of buildings, a portion of the orchard.

Sight of that brought back both hunger and thirst. I abandoned my exploration to seek out food and water. This morning, tracing the water from the spring for a short distance I came upon a stone walled pool. There I dared to slide out of mail and clothing, dipped myself, rubbing my body down with handfuls of grass to scrub me clean, then undertook to wash my hair which was still soil-clotted. Leaving it to hang free across my shoulders and wind-dry, I did such brushing and cleansing of my clothing as I could. The sun was caressingly warm on my bare body and I found myself humming, even as our keep maids had sung when they washed the linens along the water troughs.

I had drunk deeply. Now, pulling on, though I disliked their fustiness against my clean body, my breeches and jerkin, I tried to rebraid my hair, making sorry business of taming the still-damp strands. Even the bronze clip, which held the coils in place under my helm, was gone, and I tied it up as best I could with twisted bits of long, tough grass.

Then, my mail shirt slung in folds across my shoulder, I went hunting once more for the berry bushes. Only this time I had another find to chew on. There was a kind of water plant, the roots of which were crisp and sweet when washed clean. As I crunched away at those, I remembered—though it was dim—a part of a far different life, when such had been served in the summer at our high table in Ithdale. My aunt had also had a skillful hand in the making of sweets, and she had devised on her own
a
recipe for preserving these thin stalks, cut small, in a honey mixture for winter eating.

I looked down now at my berry-stained hands, at the mail, which lay in a coil of brilliant folds under the sun. Ithdale was so long ago, so far away, that my life there was more like the tale of a songsmith, nothing that had really happened to the Joisan who was here and now. Shrugging on the weight of mail, I went exploring farther into the orchard-garden. But I found no ripe tree fruit. There was a tangle of melon vines into which I dived eagerly and came up with two which were golden ready, small for lack of skillful cultivation—yet still to be prized. With those in hand I started back to the courtyard, which I now looked upon as my campsite.

There were furred things in the grass, which leaped or ran ahead of my passing, but I had no knife nor dart gun with which to hunt. In an odd way I could not bring myself to think of killing here—even for food. This must be a rich hunting ground for the cats—perhaps also for the bear—some of his kin were noted as relishing flesh as well as berries and such.

Juggling the melons I climbed over fallen stones and so entered the courtyard once more, planning to use the sharp edge of my belt buckle as a tool to slit the fruit. They might furnish both food and drink. The sun now beat so hot that my mail was a steadily irksome burden.

I had become so used to the loneliness of the keep since my awakening that I gave a start when I saw that both cats had returned, were lying lazily at their ease in the beam of a sun ray. The female licked at her paws, her eyes slitted against the light. Even as I came closer her mate rolled over, his paws in the air, wriggling his body back and forth against the warm stone as if he were relieving just such an itching as my own leather jerkin brought in a portion of my back that I could not reach.

Seeing them thus taking their ease I paused, feeling very much the intruder—an uninvited guest. The female blinked at me, took no other notice, but continued to curl her tongue about a paw. However, the male sat up and shook himself vigorously.

I stood there, melons in my hand, facing them both uncertainly. Surely this was the strangest confrontation that could occur even in this land. Then I rallied and found myself voicing the guest greeting of my own people. These were not animals—but much more . . .

“For the welcome of the gate"—I found myself speaking aloud, and my gratitude did actually stir—"my thanks. For the feasting on the board"—(though that was my own gleaning and whether the cats could be thought to have ownership over the garden was a point to be questioned, though I certainly would not do so)—"my pleasure and my good wishes. To the Lord of this roof, fair fortune.”

“Lord of this roof?” The repetition of my own words sprang into answer within my head. If such a manner of communication could express amusement that was what was plain to me now. “A pretty speech, woman of the Dales. So that is how you speak among your kind. Now let me but think a little . . . ah, yes. ‘To the Farer on far roads the welcome of this roof, and may fortune favor your wandering.”

That was one version of the Dale welcome for a guest unknown personally to any lord. That this cat would quote the exact formal words was again startling. How did an inhabitant of the Waste learn
our
polite courtesy? However, the cat was continuing.

“You did well to listen to us—and remain here.” Now the light note had vanished from the mind-speech. Nor was I entirely surprised at the rest of what he said now.

“There has been a new stirring—”

When he added nothing to that, I moved forward to settle crosslegged on the heap of wilting grass that had been my bed (after all, he had given the guest greeting). Placing the melons on the stone before me (food was not my main interest now), I had a question ready.

“What manner of stirring? The Thas?” Since that or those had been the one menace I had met so far, my mind turned immediately in that direction. For a moment the fear that had been part of the dark and the stench awoke in me. My imagination painted a picture of tumbling walls (even such as these which had so long withstood the hammering of time), the ancient keep caught in a churning of the earth, all of it and us, too, sucked under.

“Perhaps Thas, among others.” The cat did not shrug as might a man, but some inflection of his reply signaled such a gesture. “No, not as you think now—here. Old as are the protection spells laid on Carfallin they still hold, and shall for perhaps many seasons yet. However, last night had its riders, its searchers, its seekers. Things are awake, watching, to prowl and sniff and hunt. Though as yet they are not sure of what they seek or how the hunt will begin.”

“You believe that my coming has done this? But if the Thas had already burrowed their underground ways into the land—that was surely done well before my arrival,” I protested. I deemed it certainly unfair to lay upon me the rousing up of Dark Forces, when I had not called on any Power except to save my own life. Nor had I used it, save only in the battle in the darkness, against any inhabitant of the Waste.

The Thas had fled the light, yes but I did not think that they had suffered any real hurt from its beams. No—I refused to have such burden as this laid upon me.

However, even as a man might do, this time the cat shook his sleek head from side to side.

“Even with that"—a lift of his muzzle indicated the gryphon lying on my breast—"some stir now which could not be called into action by such a talisman alone. Forces are on the move, we do not know why—as yet. It is only that all that move are of the Dark. Long ago boundaries were set, locks were made, spells were cast. Within stated ways Light and Dark could come and I go, always apart. Now there is a straining of those containing spells, a touch here, a thrust there—a testing to see if they still hold. The reason for this . . . who can tell?”

“The Dales have been invaded.” I seized upon that one fact—though why the inhabitants of the Waste should take that into account I did not understand. There was no doubt that they had defenses that no such invaders could pierce. They need only call upon perhaps the least of these, then return safely thereafter to their old ways of life. “I know nothing of how the war there goes now, save that the fighting so far has not favored my people. The Hounds of Alizon range far, they have more men, better weapons. Could this war now have lapped into your country?”

The female curled a scornful lip. “Men only—they hold or call no Power. Our land would not stir awake for the likes of
them!
The least of us could send them fleeing at will, or kill without much effort. No, what stirs is rooted in the past, has been long asleep, now it awakens. Those who rouse are not yet fully awake, or you and every living thing, between the Mountains of Arvon and the sea would know it. However, they turn and move in their sleep, and their enfolding dreams have come to an end. It may well be that the cycle of slumber has finished. We—those of our kind—never knew the appointed time of awakening. Such will cause a mighty change . . .”

She gave a last lick to her paw before folding it under her.

“It will not be well to be one such as you if and when the day of true awakening comes,” she commented (with something of relish, I thought resentfully). “Unless, of course, you can learn a bit—and have not only courage, but also the will to survive.”

I refused to give any ground to her. Though I had no intention of claiming any talent I did not possess, still I looked at her straightly as I answered.

“We all must learn many things during our lifetimes. If there is that which I must do—then I am ready to do it.” (I thought of my plea to Elys and of how that had come to nothing in truth because the Thas trap had put an end to it. On the other hand I
had
learned through that. I remembered only too easily the burden of concentrating my will on the gryphon.) “As for courage and will—we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust that there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.”

I had suddenly a flash memory of my aunt—had that phrase sounded as if said in her very voice? A little so, I thought. Once the pronouncements of Dame Math had been the laws of the world to me. I brushed back the hair that I could only secure in such an untidy fashion and perhaps I sighed.

“There is another of your blood coming.” The male broke through the silence that had fallen upon us. “He may even be the one you have
sought.
This one, at least, dares to ride the white road. No rune or spell set there has turned him back, though these forbade the way to others in his company. He comes now with one purpose in his mind—or so he believes. I think that he is to be fitted to another.”

The melons rolled away as I got to my feet in an instant.

“Kerovan! But how do you know?” Then I had second thoughts. There could well be others of human kind in this land—scavengers, outlaws and the like. I could not count that this was indeed Kerovan.

My demand was met by a second silence. I waited for a painful moment or two, then was forced to accept the fact that these two furred ones would keep their own council. To strive to force any more information out of them, when they did not choose to give it, would lessen me in there opinion. It is very odd to feel that one is an impulsive child in the sight of such as these. My first reaction was anger. Still, I suspected that anger itself, within the bonds of the Waste, might be a most dangerous emotion unless controlled and used only at one's desire, as a weapon—a feat I was certain I could not accomplish. Though the control part—that I must learn.

If this promised traveler was Kerovan on his way here, what mattered most was that I be prepared to meet him—to withstand
his
anger. If, indeed, he felt enough within that shell he had built about him to know hot human anger any longer. I must think carefully, plan alternate moves, each depending upon his attitude when we met. That we must resolve our difficulties—that was far more important to me now than any waking sleepers or stirring of long-dormant forces in the Waste.

I sat down on my heap of grass and worked to enwrap my eagerness, control a heart that had begun to beat faster, to appear as outwardly serene as the cats. Reaching for the nearest melon, I began the awkward business of sawing away at its rind with the sharpest edge of the belt buckle, thinking while I worked that it would be well when I had eaten this piece of fruit (not because I now really wanted or needed it, but because the very act of leisurely feasting would be the beginning of my prized control) that I search the rest of the ruins where I had not ventured earlier. There might just be in that supposedly barren interior something I could use as a weapon.