The Griffin's War (Fallen Moon Trilogy) (19 page)

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Authors: K. J. Taylor

BOOK: The Griffin's War (Fallen Moon Trilogy)
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Senneck paused and then spat out a bone. “I do not know much. It is said to be the place where a band of your ancestors stopped as they entered this land for the first time.”
“Yes, I know that part,” said Erian. “And Baragher the Blessed was with them, as their leader.”
“How much do you know of your ancestor, Erian?”
Erian shrugged. “He brought Gryphus to Cymria, they say. He built the first temples to him, and created the rituals and the chants. They say Gryphus appeared to him in a dream and gave him this symbol.” He touched the sunwheel around his neck.
“Some even say he became the first griffiner, because Gryphus willed it,” said Senneck. “I do not believe in your gods, but if Baragher discovered a powerful object of some kind . . .”
“What do you mean?” said Erian.
“Simply that the Island of the Sun is said to be where Baragher concealed an item with great powers; therefore, if it is real, it must have magic inside it.”
“I don’t understand,” said Erian. “How can magic be
inside
something? I thought only griffins—”
“Magic comes from the world, from nature,” Senneck told him in clipped tones. “We are part of nature. Some believe that our kind was created by magic, when—”
“Oh yes, I know about that,” said Erian. “That old children’s story about how Lion and Eagle fought each other until they fell into a bottomless pit, and while they were in there a great light appeared and changed them into one being called Griffin.”
Senneck glared at him. “Magic is in us, and we wield it, but nature wields it also. That is what makes the sun rise and the seasons change. And magic can be in certain objects—sometimes placed inside them by griffins, perhaps by accident. I have heard of an object becoming infused with magic accidentally, simply by being close to a griffin using magic.”
“Oh!” said Erian. “So . . . so you think that whatever Baragher hid on this island must be something like that.”
“That is the only logical explanation,” said Senneck.
“I wonder what it could be, though?” said Erian. “If it’s a weapon . . . maybe it’s a dagger . . . or a sword!” His eyes gleamed. “By gods, a magic sword . . . when I was a boy, I used to pretend I had a magic sword, and I called it . . .”
“Erian.”
“. . . and I used to pick up a stick and pretend that was it, and—”
“Erian,” Senneck repeated patiently. “Your food is burning.”
Erian jerked back to reality and retrieved the charred meat, swearing colourfully.
Senneck chirped and cracked a bone into splinters with her beak, while her human gloomily settled down to his blackened meal. “That’ll teach me to daydream,” he muttered. “Magic swords—hah.”
“I doubt it could be a sword,” Senneck said unexpectedly.
“Hmm?” said Erian.
“I said, I doubt it could be a sword.”
Erian deflated slightly. “Why?”
She struck the goat’s skull with the point of her beak, cracking it open in order to get at the brain. “Think carefully. Whatever it is, it has been there for hundreds of years. Any sword would have rusted away to nothing by now. No matter how magical.”
“Oh.” Erian couldn’t help but be disappointed. “But . . . how can it be a weapon, then? If a sword would rust away, so would a dagger or a spear or anything else.”
“As I said before, I do not know,” said Senneck. “But we shall find out, you and I.”
Erian chewed at a piece of burned meat for a moment, and then gave up and threw it into the fire. “There’s something else I was wondering about,” he said.
Senneck made a rasping noise in the back of her throat but said nothing. She pulled the goat’s brain out of the skull in chunks and swallowed them.
Erian tried not to let his revulsion show. “I’ll wait,” he muttered.
Senneck finished eating and rubbed her beak on the ground to clean it before she settled down to groom her chest feathers. Erian didn’t try to interrupt, and she proceeded to reorder feathers and fur, even nibbling the length of her tail and combing the fan of feathers she used to steady herself in the air. After that she cleaned her talons, nipping away a few dead scales from her toes and forelegs. That done, she shook herself vigorously, sending up a small cloud of dust. She scratched her flank, dislodging a few loose feathers, and then lay down again with a contented sigh.
“Always questions with you!” she said abruptly, as if there had been no interruption to their talk.
“Well, what do you expect?” said Erian, a touch irritably. “One moment everything’s normal and I think we’re done with . . . with
him
at last, and now people are telling me I’m some sort of Chosen One or something.”
“I suggest you accept it,” Senneck said brusquely. “I believe Kraal’s word—do you?”
“Of course I do. But I was wondering . . .” Erian sat back. “If I’m
Aeai ran kai
, shouldn’t I have powers?
He
does—why not me?”
“For a human to use magic is not as simple as you think,” Senneck snapped. “You are not born to it. If you were to use it, you would have to become something other than what you are now. It would change you in ways that would make you unrecognisable. You would not be Erian Rannagonson any more, or even human—you would be something else, something as warped and hideous as
Kraeai kran ae
. Would you, too, choose to be heartless; would you give up your very soul simply to have what only griffins were supposed to have?”
Erian gaped at her for a moment, and then looked away and shuddered. “No. I didn’t mean . . .”
“I do not know all there is to know about this,” said Senneck. “Only what Kraal has told me, and the things I knew already. But I know this: if
Kraeai kran ae
uses magic, then he is no longer human. And the more he uses it, the further from human he will become. It will corrupt him in ways you cannot imagine.”
Erian felt cold inside. “I understand, Senneck. But—” He couldn’t stop himself from persisting. “But isn’t there something—some sign—something I’d be aware of myself?”
Senneck clicked her beak. “It is said that
Aeai ran kai
sees Gryphus—the god—in his dreams, or that some voice comes to him with advice and warnings, which humans believe is Gryphus.”
Erian tried to think. Had he ever dreamt of the Day God, or something that could have been him? He trawled through his memories, looking for something—some message or symbol—but he had always been bad at remembering his dreams, and nothing struck him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember ever seeing him.”
“Then perhaps you will one day,” said Senneck, though she didn’t sound as if she believed it.
Erian returned to his ruined meal, deep in thought. He wondered if
Kraeai kran ae
had had dreams, if Scathach, the Night God, had come to him in his sleep. Had she appeared to whisper her dark messages and commands in his ear? Was she truly the one commanding him to do the things he had done? Erian felt his stomach twist. If she had, what did that mean? Did
Kraeai kran ae
have any control over himself; could he refuse to obey the Night God? She was said to be powerful and seductive, and full of deception, just like her chosen people. What would she do if her creature disobeyed her? What would Gryphus do to him, Erian, if
he
became defiant?
But I won’t,
he promised himself, thinking that perhaps the Day God could hear.
I don’t want to disobey you. I
want
to kill him; I want to protect Malvern. You won’t have to punish me. And I won’t fail you
.
He thought back to his boyhood, back at the little farm where he had grown up. His grandparents had raised him, and his grandmother had been the one who liked to tell stories and teach him the history of the world.
Long ago, she had said, long ago, there was a giant egg, floating in the void. One day it hatched, and two great lights came out. One was gold, one was silver; the first was male, the second female. They were called Gryphus and Scathach, the two gods. In the beginning, Gryphus and Scathach were in harmony. They loved each other dearly, and together they conceived a second egg, which hatched into the world. Then they created humans, to live on this world and be their children. Scathach, who was clever as well as beautiful, said that she and Gryphus could not rule the world together. And so they agreed that they would share, taking turns. Those times became day and night, and Gryphus ruled the first and Scathach the second. Gryphus created the griffins to be the guardians of day, and he gave them magic and wings so that they could fly to him. But Scathach was jealous of what he had made. She did not have the power to create new life, only to end it, and one night she gathered a group of humans together. They were outcasts: liars and thieves and rapists. Scathach gathered them to herself and said that they would be her own people; they would live in darkness and worship her alone. And as they bowed down to her and turned their back on the sun, their skin became pale like the moon and their hair and eyes turned black as night.
When Gryphus saw Scathach’s people, he became angry and said that if she could have her own people then he would, too. He gathered the rest of the people—the strong, the brave, the kind and the honest—and he gave them yellow hair like the sun and blue eyes like the daylight sky.
But the people of the night, seeing Gryphus’ chosen, became angry and jealous and began to attack them. They would steal into their villages at night and kidnap their women and take their children to sacrifice to Scathach. When Gryphus saw this, he was angry, and he commanded the griffins to help his people. So the first griffiners were born when the griffins chose humans worthy to ride them, and they attacked the night people and massacred them and drove them into the cold North.
Scathach had no griffins, but she chose to protect her people by her own power. She found Gryphus at night, when he was asleep, and she took the sickle moon from the sky and stabbed it into his back. But Gryphus did not die. He woke up and they fought, and he took his sword and cut out Scathach’s eye. Her blood created the colours at sundown, and his created the sunrise. Scathach was defeated and fled north with her people. She took the full moon from the sky and put it into her eye socket to replace the eye she had lost, and forever after she and Gryphus were bitter enemies, and so were their people.
“And that is why the griffiners have always hated the Northerners and fought them,” his grandmother had said. “And why the Northerners have always tried to attack us and take our lands.”
Erian sighed. He had loved that story then and had often asked the old woman to elaborate on the battle scenes and the creation of the griffiners. Now though . . .
Could it be true?
he thought.
Maybe it was. After all, the world and its people couldn’t have come into being all by themselves. Something must have been there, some magic . . . and perhaps Senneck was wrong. Perhaps magic, too, had an origin and a creator. Perhaps everything did.
He killed my father like a coward, the way Scathach stabbed Gryphus in the back. Now she wants to destroy us, just as she did back then. It’s happening all over again, all of it. History repeating, like a giant wheel turning
.
He retired to his shelter with thoughts like these still churning around in his head. Senneck curled up in the entrance and went to sleep before he did, protecting him from the wind.
 
 
S
kade woke up with a bad taste in her mouth, and skin that felt as if it had been soaked in hot water. She sat up, pulling the sheets away from herself, and then slumped back to rest. Her head ached.
Beside her, Arenadd rolled over in bed, mumbling, “Come near me and I’ll bite your nose off.”
The lamps had burned themselves out, and the room was full of daylight. Skade prodded him in the back. “Arenadd, wake up.”
He stirred briefly and flopped onto his front, with his face buried in the pillow. Skade sighed and climbed out of bed. She found her gown and pulled it back on, and splashed her face with water from the jug on the table. That helped to wake her up, and she wandered into the nest to check on Skandar.
Moments later, she came hurrying back. “Arenadd!”
It took some coaxing, but eventually he rolled out of bed. Naked, and looking very unhappy, he tottered over to the jug and stood there for a long time, staring at it. Then he picked it up and poured the contents over his head before returning to the bed and slumping face-first onto it.
Skade growled to herself and gathered his clothes up off the floor. “Arenadd, this is no time to be feeling sorry for yourself. You have work to do.”
He managed to grasp his robe and drag it toward him, but didn’t put it on. “By gods, I am one hung-over Dark Lord,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Remind me to kill myself after I’ve sobered up.”
Skade sighed. “Put your clothes on.”
Arenadd levered himself upright and dragged the robe on over his shoulders. “Ugh. I’d say I wish I was dead, but on second thought there wouldn’t be much point.”

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