Gryphon in Glory (5 page)

To keep my horses better tempered, tethered as they were away from grass and water, I crumpled journey cakes upon a rock. They nosed at them avidly, paying no attention as I made them secure for the night before I crawled into the space I had cleared.

There was only the one entrance, though overhead was no roof. The rocks tilted slightly inward so that the open space above was small. I pulled before the door itself my saddle and the bags of supplies, using them as a barricade. This night I wished that I had some comrade-at-arms to share watch and watch. Instead I must depend upon that faculty any soldier learns, the art of awaking into instant awareness at the least change in his surroundings. Once more I laid my sword, bare-bladed, at my side, while I sought sleep.

If any danger prowled the night it did not come near my refuge. However, I was awakened at dawn by that same shattering scream my mount had earlier given when he first sniffed the wind from the Waste. I crawled out to discover all three of the horses pulling furiously at their halters, rearing and pawing at the rocks.

Though I used all the art I knew to soothe them, I discovered, once I had loaded and saddled, there was little I could do with them. They were determined to head back to the oasis and perforce I had to allow that, since they needed grazing and water. They could have it as I broke my own fast.

Thus the sun was about an hour above the horizon when we set forth again toward the heights. Gradually the country changed. The desert stretch became a brown-gray soil that rooted clumps of grass, seared by the sun. As we passed, my led horses strove to snatch mouthfuls of the stuff, their elongated necks aiding them to so feed. Bushes were next, then trees, some of which my animals made wide detours to avoid.

I trusted to their instincts for they knew this land far better than I. Near midday I saw the first moving thing. The clumps of brush had become so thick that we must swing well to avoid them, and on such a side venture I caught a glimpse of more open land.

Crossing that was a rider. Though he was distant I could not mistake the glint of sun reflected from armor. His horse was unlike my three; there was no sign of the long neck.

He rode with the ease of a man who knew exactly where he was going. I did not think him a scavenger—though he could be an outlaw. Or . . . this might be the very kind of contact I had been sent to seek! I loosened my sword in its sheath and headed out into the open willing to let myself be sighted, in spite of possible risk.

Certainly his mount was of better stock than the desert-bred nags I had selected, for, though he did not appear to be going at more than a comfortable trot, he continued to draw ahead. Nor did he seem aware that I followed.

Not too far before him stretched a spread of woodland. I wanted to catch up before he vanished into its shade. If I were to meet with trouble I desired such confrontation in the open. So I urged my mount to a faster pace, though he snorted and jerked at the reins angrily.

The stranger was almost under the shadow of the trees when the ill-tempered beast I bestrode actively protested our chase. Voicing one of those screams, he arose with his forefeet pawing the air. The other two used their advantage at the same moment to pull back on their lead cords. Perforce I was brought to a speedy halt.

Viciously my mount continued to rear and kick, attempting to attack his own companions. I had my hands very full striving to control the three of them. What suddenly pierced the din they were creating was a whistle, commanding, imperative.

My horses set all four feet to the ground again. Still their eyes rolled to show the whites, ribbons of foam dripped to the earth they had torn up with their hooves. However, now all three stood as if as well rooted as the trees not too far away.

Taking as tight a grip on reins and lead ropes as I could. I looked around.

The rider I had trailed had finally swung about and was heading toward me, the gait of his mount a smooth flowing gallop. Indeed that horse
was
different. As large as a lowland-bred stallion, it possessed a strangely dappled hide such as I had never seen before; shades of gray-brown merged into one another so there was no clearly spotted pattern, only a suggestion of such.

His horsecloth was not woven, but rather formed by the skin of some beast—silver gray and also spotted. As he drew nearer I recognized it for the tanned hide of a snow cat, one of the rarest and yet most deadly and cunning beasts to roam the heights within the Dales.

He, himself, wore armor of the same silver-gray as the skin. The helm, which overshadowed his face until he seemed half masked, was surmounted by a beautifully carven crouching cat of that species. There were yellow jewels of eyes in the cat head, and, by some trick of the sun, they appeared to blink as if the thing were alive and merely resting on a perch, watching me curiously.

The stranger rode only a short distance toward me before he pulled up his shadow-patterned horse. My three beasts sweated, stared wild-eyed, gave the impression they were possessed by terror. Yet this other had, as far as I could see, made no gesture suggesting attack. His sword still rested in sheath, its heavy pommel forming the head of a cat, while the belt he wore was again of fur and its buckle a snarling feline head.

Though he had halted some distance away, I could see those cat heads clearly. They loomed as if they were the House sign of some clan.

We sat so for some moments of silence, eyeing each other across that gap he had chosen to keep between us. Now I was able to make out more plainly his features. He was young, I thought, perhaps near my own age. His face was smooth—but that was not strange, for many of the Dalesmen grew little or very scant beards until they were well past the middle span of life.

His skin was brown, and his eyes were slightly elongated, sloping up a little under straight brows. The more I studied him, the surer I became I had found one who called this Waste, or some place like it, his home. This was no strayed Dalesman. His accoutrements were too finely wrought, his mount a superb animal. Also, though he looked fully human, yet I did not need that light warmth at my wrist to tell me that this was one who possessed Power of one kind or another.

He regarded me with an equally intent study. I was certain he had not missed the sight of my hooves in the special stirrups I had devised. Did he know of any of my kind?
Were
there any of my kind or kin—or was I merely half-misshapen hybrid, and so, in the eyes of any true blood here, as much a mistake of birth as I was in the Dales?

I knew that without any warning it was useless for me to approach him closer. It was plain that my three animals held him in odd terror. They shivered, while foam still gathered at the corners of their mouths.

Since he had not drawn steel—did he think that I was so unworthy a foe, so helpless that he need not defend himself in that way—dare I accept him as neutral? There was no other choice. I would do what I had to.

Taking a chance, I dropped my reins and raised my hands palm out. The silk-fine mesh of my mail fell a little back from my wrist and the sunlight made a blue flame of that band.

Was it a passport, something that would gain me recognition in this place, at this time? I could only wait on the stranger's answer to me.

Joisan

A
s THE LIGHT OF DAY GREW STRONGER MY COMPANIONS ROUSED
The mist was gone and the protecting star about us faded. Jervon gave the animals each a small measure of grain, led them out to water at a hillside spring, while we opened supply bags for our own food.

With the mounts saddled, the packs on the pony, we headed away from the walls, following a hint of a trail, a shadow of a road, perhaps one so old that even the hills across which it cut had forgotten it.

Jervon led, heading westward across heights where there were no signs of any traveler before us, save twice a tumbledown hut such as were built by herders when they took the flocks out for summer forage. Those days of peaceful herding were past. We saw no one or any life, save for a blundering hill hen or two that ran squawking from under the very hooves of our horses, and once a glimpse of a snow cat staring arrogantly down from so high a ledge I wondered how even that venturous climber could have reached it.

We lit no fire that night since we camped in the open. It was plain that my companions moved with the wariness of scouts and took all precautions. As we sat closely together, more for the need for company than the warmth of our bodies, I asked whether they had ever been into the Waste.

“Only to the fringes,” Jervon answered. “For a while we rode with scouts who were sent north to see if the invaders had headed down country. There was no sign of any Hound passing, though we combed the country as best we could. We saw the beginning of the Road of Exile.”

The Road of Exile—Kerovan had mentioned that during those days when we had traveled to Norsdale, leading my poor people to safety. He had once traveled for a space along it, though he had not told me many details of that journey. Even that much of his past he had refused to share with me.

“Do any know where that leads?” I asked.

“Not that I have heard. We did not try to follow it. But neither have I heard of any other open road into that country.”

During our day's journey I had had no chance to speak to Elys about my idea of early morning. Somehow I did not wish to mention my longing to master Power before Jervon. It was not because I feared he might object. Because of Elys he accepted much where any other Dalesman would have decried the very idea. It was rather that I was shy of making a plea for aid and did not know just how to phrase such.

During the next four days I had no better luck. The land was so deserted that, even though we traveled with all caution, we covered a goodly amount of distance in a short time. On the fifth evening Jervon pointed to the westward where there was a yellow glow across the clouds, differing from the clean sunsets I had always known.

“The Waste.”

During our journey to the southwest we had searched diligently for any trace of a track such as the metal gatherers might have made, but had not sighted a single sign of such. Now, when we had unloaded the pack pony and Elys had collected certain dry branches, which she said would not yield much notice of a fire, Jervon did not unsaddle. Rather he proposed to ride out on a half circle, seeking again for trail marks.

As the yellow sky-glow faded, Elys and I spitted hill hens to roast, a more tasty meal than we had had for four days past. This was my chance and, as we worked, I made my desires known to her, hurrying lest Jervon return before I was done.

She listened, but when she spoke it was with a most serious note in her low voice.

“There is some logic in what you say. It could well be that this country has an influence over those born here—even if they have never had any reason to believe they had talents because fortune did not demand such efforts from them. As for learning the calling of Power—yes, I could teach you a little, if you showed aptitude, even as I was schooled in my girlhood and youth. But there is no time. This is not knowledge that one can pick from the air. It needs careful study. However, that does not mean that you cannot strive within yourself to awaken what may lie in you. Only you must be very patient.”

After this warning she began there and then outlining to me some disciplines of mind I could practice, while I vowed that if I could win anything by following her teaching—that I would do. So from that hour forward I stretched my mind as a warrior stretches and exercises his body that battle skills may be known to every muscle over which he holds command.

We rode on in the morning, though Jervon had again found no guide, heading outward into a land that was grim and full of foreboding. I knew that the Waste must be a mixture of different kinds of land, but here it was all sand and gravel and bare rock upon which the sun beat with great waves of heat. We used the tricks of travelers in such desert land, seeking shelter during the worst hours, traveling in the early morning or in the evenings. We did not move at night, bright though the moon might hang over us.

Here there were too many oddly shaped shadows, strange sounds (though those were far away). It was better to camp, even though our traveling time was thus cut to a crawl, and be sure we were on guard.

By some favor of fortune we did chance upon meager grazing and water each day. Jervon remarked that, though there was no sign of any road, it might be that we had stumbled on some travelers’ route—perhaps long forsaken.

I watched my gryphon anxiously, hoping it might in some way offer a clue as to whether we were headed in the right direction or not. I did not know what I expected, it was mainly hope that kept me at that quest. Only the globe remained ever the same.

Jervon wove a zigzag path ahead of us, still hunting a track. returning always to report he found none. Perforce, because we had to have some goal, we chose to head toward the line of heights in the west—those that loomed purple-black at night and brown by day. They were the only noticeable landmarks.

On the second day Jervon returned at a fast trot from one of his side expeditions. We had kept our horses to a walk for their own sakes and this burst of speed on his part suggested trouble.

“There is an oasis with water where there has been a camp,” he reported, “and recently.”

So slim a chance that that camp had been Kerovan's. Still I at once swung my mare in that direction, the others with me. The oasis lay in a narrow cleft, cutting below the surface of this sandy waste. It held greenery, dark and withered-looking. The water of the stream was not pleasant appearing either, rather dark and turgid as if it were a stagnant pool, though there was a slow, rolling current. However, our beasts drank greedily as Jervon pointed to where grass had been shortened by grazing and that not long ago.

“There is something else—” He beckoned us to follow him between two bushes.

I sniffed and wished I had not. There was the sweet corruption-smell of death here! The ground was disturbed, a pile of stones covering a narrow, filled-in depression.

“An animal would not be buried.” Elys surveyed the stones. “But that space is too small to hold a man.”

To my relief she was right, only a half-grown child could be in such a short grave. But a child—Kerovan could not have killed a child!

Elys's eyes were closed, she swayed, Jervon was at her side instantly, his hand out to steady her. She shuddered before she looked at us again.

“Not of our blood—it was not of our blood. Something strange—or perhaps
not
strange in this land. But whatever it was, it lived as a servant of the Dark.”

I drew back involuntarily. The Dark—that signified the evil Powers and all who served them. Had Kerovan been attacked again by such force, which he spawned in the Waste?

“Leave be!” Jervon's order came harshly. “There is no need to fear the dead, do not mind search for it. We must not meddle.” It was the first time he had spoken so, with such a show of authority.

She turned away. “You are right. And this is truly dead—for many days I would say.”

“Then Kerovan—” I stumbled over one of the rolling stones. He must not have been responsible for that death, though he could have buried the corpse. I held on to that belief as tightly as I could. I hoped that he had not fronted again—and alone—a dire danger of the Dark.

“I do not believe,” Jervon continued, “that this is a place of good omen.”

The three of us withdrew from that grave place, as far down the cut as we could, allowing our mounts, who showed no distaste for their surroundings, to graze through the hottest part of the day. When the sun was westering we started on.

It was when we topped the far bank of that sinister hollow that what I had waited for so long happened. The gryphon flashed with more than the sun's reflection. At my cry the others drew rein, while I shifted in the saddle, this way and that, my attention close fixed upon the ball—until I thought I judged in what direction it flashed the brightest.

My companions willingly granted me the lead and I pushed Bural at a faster gait to where a circle of pointed rocks rose abruptly from the sand-drifted ground. Lying to one side there was a mass of dry stuff, which had plainly been dug from the core of the rock huddle. Powdery, disintegrating wood mingled with remains of long-withered vegetation. Perched on the highest point of that moldering heap sat a grinning skull and I thought that I sighted other bits of brittle bones in the decayed mass.

“Someone made camp here.” Jervon slipped from the saddle, went to peer within the circle of rocks. He stirred the dark heap a little with the toe of his boot. “This may once have been a nest lying within that.”

“The nest of something large enough to hunt such prey?” Elys gestured toward the skull.

Jervon stopped to view it the closer, though he did not touch it.

“Very old, I think. Also what laired here once must have been gone for a long time,” came his verdict.

I cupped the crystal between my palms. Now heat flared from it, startling me into a cry of pain. I let the globe fall, to swing at the end of its chain. Though I made no move of body it continued to move. In spite of my disgust and, yes, a growing fear, I, too, dismounted, advancing unwillingly toward the heap of debris, where that hollow-eyed skull rested—by chance or design.

Then . . .

There appeared in the dark eye hollows of the skull (I could not be so preyed upon by illusion even here) an answering fraction of light. My shaking hand was at my mouth, keeping back a cry of panic to which I refused voice.

The crystal now lifted from its place on my breast, pointing outward, pulling the chain that supported it into a taut line, as if it strained for freedom. I had said it would be a guide, now it drew me toward that ancient, time-worn thing of bone.

Unable to control the gryphon, I knelt, my hands going out, in spite of my efforts not to move. I was not going to touch that dry and years-leached bone—I was not!

The crystal became a ball of sparkling light, so bright I could no longer look directly at it. While to my ears, or perhaps within my head, came a very faint sound, like a far-off solemn chanting, such as might mark some ceremony. I wanted to put my hands over my ears and run as far as I could from that skull.

No skull—no! Air curdled about the yellowish bone, took on visible substance, building up a thin and unsubstantial vision of a face, a head. The eyes, the sharply jutting nose—so pointed that it might be likened to a bird's beak—overhanging a small chin, obliquely set eyes . . . No human face!

There was an urgency in the light-sparked eyes, a demand made upon me—but one I could not interpret. There had been something lost, which must be found. There was danger to be faced—there was—

The wisp of face vanished. While the bone it had built itself upon—I gasped! That, too, was crumbling into ashy powder. I cried out, “What is it that you would have me do? What do you want?”

The chant of that far-off ritual ceased, the terrible demand faded. Now the englobed gryphon lost its blaze of light, fell to rest again near my heart. Of the skull nothing remained.

“It wanted . . .” I stammered, turning to my companions, but I had no real explanation for them.

Jervon's face was impassive, Elys stared beyond me into that hollow among the rocks from which the skull and the rest had been cleared.

“There
was
something there!” I was obsessed with what I had seen. But had they also shared my vision?

“One who dies during some task laid upon him for good or ill,” Elys said slowly, “clings to a shadow of life, unwilling to depart to new roads until that task is fulfilled. I think that such a shadow clung here. It is now gone—for good or ill.”

“But it did not tell me what it wanted!” I found I could accept her words, accept them so completely that now I wished the skull back that I might again demand of whatever shadow was tied to it what I must do and where. For now I bore a burden also—though that might be an illusion only I could perceive.

“There will come a time when you shall know.” Elys did not say that as one promises enlightenment to calm a bewildered child, rather as one who is sure of the truth.

I rose to my feet, my hand moved, as it so often did for reassurance, toward the gryphon. Then I jerked my fingers away before they could close about the globe. I wanted to rid myself of the thing! That is, one part of me did, while, deeper in me, arose an excitement that demanded that I yield to an unknown force, that I throw aside all those old fears and wariness of my people and go forth—to grasp . . . as yet I did not know what.

We did not linger long at that strange nesting place but went on, and soon there came a welcome change in the land. The arid desert gave way to growing things.

An arrow shot by Jervon brought down a creature not unlike the deer of the Dales. Thus we ate fresh meat and were able to drink the water we found in a much more wholesome oasis. Here were the signs of older camps and we believed we had chanced upon one of the regular rest sites of either scavengers or outlaws. Since the grazing was good we decided to remain there while Jervon once more went out scouting.

I was certain in my own mind that Kerovan had sheltered among the rocks, also that he had been in the narrow valley earlier. Inwardly I was discouraged. There was no trail to be followed through this wilderness and I could neither guess his destination nor direction. The gryphon—no, since its actions with the skull, even that I distrusted.