The Shadowed Throne (14 page)

There had to be something important in the cave, and Kullervo resolved to find out what.

But how?

Briefly, he considered changing back into a man. Maybe Skandar would see his resemblance to his own human and be prepared to listen.

Kullervo rejected that idea very quickly. In human form, he would be even more defenceless, and would have no easy way to escape. And the transformation would leave him too weak to change again without plenty of food and rest. In these mountains, the chances of finding a good meal were beyond tiny.

It had to be the griffin shape, then. But what could he do?

Eventually, hunger stirring in his stomach gave the answer. Skandar would have to leave his cave sooner or later if he wanted to eat. All Kullervo had to do was wait.

But first things first. He tucked the map away with the rest of his belongings and flew away from the tree to hunt.

Kullervo had never been a very good hunter, but patience and several failures finally won him a feral goat. He carried it back to his tree and ate it before he went to begin his vigil.

He found a vantage-point on the side of a mountain not far from Skandar's cave, and there he settled down, his eyes fixed on the cave-mouth.

There was no sign of Skandar. He must be inside.

Kullervo waited.

H
e waited through the night and into the next morning. During that time Skandar only left his cave once, very briefly, to drink from a small pool at the base of the mountain. He was within sight of the cave the entire time and returned to it instantly. After that, he did not emerge again.

Kullervo didn't give up. He stayed where he was, not even leaving to drink. The pool was too close to Skandar's cave for comfort, and he didn't want to be seen.

But Skandar did not come out.

Kullervo groomed himself to occupy his time. When he eventually started to get hungry again, he fought it down, reminding himself that Skandar must be hungrier. The only question was who had the most endurance.

Nearly two entire days passed before Skandar finally left his cave. The dozing Kullervo woke up with a jolt to the sound of massive wing-beats, and nearly died of fright when the shadow fell over him. He scrambled to his paws, but the shadow passed over and was gone, and as he looked upward, he saw Skandar flying away over the mountains.

Kullervo hissed his triumph and opened his wings. He beat them a few times to work out the stiffness and flew toward the cave without a moment's delay.

The moment he landed at the lip of the cave, a foul stench punched him in the gullet.

Nostrils burning, he took a few hesitant steps inside.

The space was comparatively small—it was hard to imagine how Skandar had managed to fit inside. It was also far less impressive than he had imagined; all jagged rock and cold wind. And that smell . . .

At the far end of the cave, he could see something lying on the floor. He moved toward it, and the smell grew and thickened until he could almost taste it. He had already guessed what he was going to find.

It was a rotting human corpse.

Kullervo nosed at it, examining it as closely as he dared. The body wore a mouldering pair of leggings that had turned a sickly brownish colour, and boots whose leather had cracked and peeled open in the damp. Everything else was exposed.

He could see the pale flesh, bloated and split, the limbs bent and twisted in ways that showed the broken bones through decaying muscle. There wasn't much left of the face at all. The eyes had disappeared into their sockets, and the skin had worn away to show the skull beneath. The lips had drawn back over the teeth in a twisted snarl.

But there was enough left for Kullervo to see. Enough black bristles still clinging to the chin, enough long, curly strands of hair left to stir in the wind.

Kullervo looked at the dead, sneering face whose empty sockets seemed to stare back, and felt sick and afraid.

All his life he had tried to imagine how his father would look at him when they finally met, and now he knew. King Arenadd had greeted his son with a smile.

K
ullervo rested by his father's body for a while, fighting back the human tears that the griffin's mind rejected.

Despite his hesitation, he knew what he had to do. The King's remains must be taken back to Malvern. They were the proof Laela needed that he was indeed dead. And they should be properly buried as well. Whatever Arenadd had been, he deserved a proper resting-place.

Kullervo pushed away the emotions threatening to force his body to change shape and stood up. He wrapped his talons around the body and began to drag it toward the entrance.

Something snagged on an outcrop, and the corpse tore open with a sick, wet noise. Instantly, the smell burst out, a thousand times more powerful than before.

Kullervo let go of the disintegrating body and stumbled away. He vomited, and the stench of acid joined the miasma.

The shape-shifter couldn't take it any more. He turned away toward the entrance, and there was the Mighty Skandar, blocking his way.

The monstrous, dark griffin didn't move. Here, in this confined space, he looked twice as big as before. His slab-like shoulders brushed the ceiling, higher than the heavy, streamlined head and pitted black beak.

Kullervo flattened himself against the ground, openly cringing under Skandar's gaze. “No, please don't . . .”

Skandar took in Arenadd's stinking remains and the small griffin cowering in front of him. His chest and flanks seemed to inflate, and a slow hiss filled the cave.

“Mine.”

Kullervo backed away. “Please, Mighty Skandar, I am your servant. I meant no—”

“MINE!” Skandar screamed. “My human, mine!”

There was no room for a leap. Skandar made a horribly fast, scrabbling charge, straight at Kullervo.

The shape-shifter's mind shut down, man and griffin. He tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. Slipping in the rotting flesh under his paws, he pressed himself against the cave wall.

A shocking blow to his face smashed his head against rock. He ducked to avoid the next one, and stupidly ran straight at Skandar. One talon caught in a crack, and he felt it snap clean off as he shoved between the raging monster's forelegs and crawled under his belly. With no room to manoeuvre, Skandar wriggled backward to try to catch him, but he was too slow. Kullervo burst out and into the open air.

But Skandar would not be escaped again. He freed himself from the cave and whirled around, rearing onto his hind legs.

One massive talon hooked into Kullervo's haunches. Chunks of fur and hide came away and the smaller griffin was hurled onto the lip of the cave. Something inside him cracked, but there was no time to tell what. Before the pain had even registered Skandar was on him. One hind leg twisted and screamed agony at him, and an enormous crushing grip closed around the base of his wing.

Kullervo screeched and flailed helplessly, unable to pull free. He kicked backward with his good hind leg, catching the giant griffin in the chest, but he might as well have kicked a boulder. Skandar shook him mercilessly, like a dog with a rat, and hurled him down the mountainside.

Kullervo never knew how he managed not to fall to his death. He tumbled head over tail, bashing into rocks, too confused to know what to do, and in the end it was pure griffinish instinct that saved him. He rolled over a rock and into space, and his wings opened out of pure reflex, and beat hard.

Some inner voice screamed that his wing was broken, he couldn't fly, his body had been torn apart, he couldn't fly, shouldn't fly . . .

But he flew. Blindly, maddened by fear, he flew.

Maybe Skandar chased him. Maybe he let him go. But there were no more attacks. He had escaped.

O
eka
had
heard Laela's cry, but she ignored it. She turned her back on Malvern and flew southward as fast as she could. To Laela, it must have looked like she was fleeing, and in a sense she was. For a griffin, every journey was a flight anyway.

Oeka had never really flown any great distance before. She had spent her early life entirely in Malvern's Hatchery with the other unpartnered griffins and had never had any reason to leave—at least until she had chosen Laela.

Life in the Hatchery was competitive and often rough. Unpartnered griffins were given all their basic needs, but nothing else, and the only special privileges were got by being able to dominate the others. Normally, a youngster like Oeka would be at the bottom of the pecking order, but she was different.

Other griffins became able to use their magic when they reached maturity, or sometimes even older than that.

Not Oeka. Her powers had begun to emerge when she was scarcely a year old. They had been weak back then, but they were more than enough to win her respect and allow her to dominate the other hatchlings. As she grew, so did her gifts. Her talents were rare and special, and she knew it.

She had always believed that she would have a human one day—and only the best would be enough. None of the ones she saw were enough, no matter how much potential they had or how much importance they had already earned. Oeka had ignored them all, and eventually her real ambition had emerged. The only human she would choose would be nothing less than the heir to Malvern's throne. She had intended to choose one of Saeddryn's two children, but both were claimed before Oeka's chance came.

And then Laela had come. On that day, even though Oeka hadn't known the King's secret plans, something had happened. The moment she saw her—this one, this half-breed companion to the King—the small griffin had sensed something. Some voice, some part of her magic that had been hidden until then, showed itself.

Uncertain, Oeka had attacked the human to test her. Laela had impressed her by fighting back and so, almost on impulse, Oeka chose her.

Now, she knew the inner voice had been right. She had waited a long time in the hopes that it would come again and bring new abilities with it, but it never had. And Laela was weakening.

That was something Oeka would not accept.

She flew on, pushing herself as hard as she dared. Ahead, the Northgate Mountains were easily visible. She had never seen them, but all griffins knew where they were. For a riderless griffin, they were less than two days' flight away. And she had to reach them quickly.

Every griffin in Malvern had heard the rumours about what was hidden just beyond them. The Mighty Skandar, who Oeka liked to think was her father, was said to have found something special on his way from the South. A cave. A magical cave, whose entrance was said to only reveal itself at certain times. The Spirit Cave.

Oeka reached the Northgates and landed on a handy ledge to rest. Not far away, she could see Guard's Post, the fortress built into a pass that humans used to travel into the North. Now-a-days, Guard's Post was there mainly to keep watch for invaders from the South. The King had made a law that made it absolutely forbidden for anyone who wasn't a Northerner to be allowed through Guard's Post. Laela had only been admitted because she was a half-breed. And because she had bribed the guards.

Griffins, though, were free to come and go as they liked. No human could stop them anyway.

With that thought, Oeka made a side trip to Guard's Post. She had always wanted to see it. She landed on one of its two towers and was immediately intercepted by another griffin. This one was male, and big—probably one of Skandar's many husky sons.

“Speak, youngster.”

Oeka held her head up proudly, showing off the rings on her forelegs. “I am the Mighty Oeka, master of this territory, who chose the Queen of Malvern.”

The other griffin moved away at once, lowering his head to her and saying nothing.

“Go and bring your human,” Oeka demanded. “He must bring me food.”

The griffiner in question came running, and in no time at all Oeka had been supplied with a haunch of fresh mutton. She ate it while paying no attention to the griffiner's polite questions, or the other griffin's plea to be allowed to mate with her. He was far too inferior to be a potential mate, and she was too young for it besides.

Her stomach full, Oeka had a nap on the griffiner's bed, then left the tower without having said another word to anyone in it.

She flew away from Guard's Post, keeping the pass below her, and, a few wing-beats later, she entered Southern territory.

After that, it was just a question of finding the Spirit Cave.

Griffins said that after the Mighty Skandar had visited it with his human, nobody had ever found the cave again. Oeka knew that the chances of seeing it from the sky were very poor.

But she had a way of looking that no-one else did. She kept on flying, searching the area just beyond the mountains until she found the place the stories mentioned—a human place with a singing hill. That was easy. “Singing hill” was just a griffish term for a Sun Temple. Oeka had seen the ruins of one in Warwick, and she knew what to look for.

The nearest human habitation to the mountains was quite close to them, built by a river as they generally were. Oeka saw the dome of the Temple without having to fly too close. Satisfied, she turned back toward the mountains, found a tree, and came in to land.

Safely perched, she closed her eyes and let herself relax, breathing slowly and steadily until her heartbeat slowed too. She concentrated on shutting down all her senses—sight, hearing, scent, and touch. They were unimportant now. Not needed.

When she was ready, she unleashed her other sense.

Her beak opened. Every griffin worked magic by disgorging it from its throat, but while other powers were raw and savage, Oeka's was different. What came out of her beak looked like a thin, swirling mist the colour of new grass. It spread out from her and faded out of sight without a sound, as though nothing had happened at all.

But it had.

Oeka felt it moving away over the land, drifting off in every direction. It spilled into hollows and holes, covering everything it came across, and all the while it sent back information about what it found. Minds. Everywhere, minds. Animal minds, almost like her own but so much simpler. Her magic soon found the human place she had seen, and a myriad of vague emotions wavered back toward her. She shut them out and pushed harder, feeding more energy into her search.

Until, at last, she found what she was looking for. Faint signals began to reach her—faint, but insistent. Immediately she focused on them, pulling all her energy together and directing it toward what she had sensed. The signals became more powerful. Minds, she thought. But no minds she could identify.

Slowly, a tingling began to build in her magic gland. In her mind, voices whispered so softly she could only just hear them.
Come . . . come . . . come to me . . . Oekaaaaa . . .

Oeka's eyes snapped open. Without stopping to rouse herself or even to think, she took off and began to fly back toward the mountains. Toward the voices that pulled her on. She already knew that she had found the Spirit Cave.

T
he cave was by the mountains, in a heap of tumbled rocks. It wasn't much to look at; in fact it was disappointingly simple. No grand entrance, no yawning darkness, just a gap among the stones only big enough for a human. A full-grown griffin would never fit.

Oeka landed on the dirt just in front of it and sat on her haunches to look speculatively at the hole. It might have looked unimpressive, but as a griffin, she could feel the immense power lurking just beyond.

All magic came from the earth. Humans couldn't sense it, couldn't use it. They knew almost nothing about it. Of all the creatures in the world, only griffins had the ability to absorb it and use it for their own purposes. That was why they had become so much more intelligent than other animals. A big brain was needed to control and understand magic.

But even though griffins could use magic, they were only a part of it. Magic would always belong to nature. Some places seemed to attract it and store it. And there were a few places—just a few—where it was even stronger. Magic had saturated those places, sometimes so much so that even humans had a vague sense of it. Sometimes it could even affect the physical world in unnatural ways. When that happened, places like the Spirit Cave came into being.

Oeka only knew of one other place where magic was this powerful, and that was at the place known as Taranis' Throne. But that was different magic—dark magic that no griffin could use.

The Spirit Cave wasn't like that.

Oeka stood up and breathed in deeply, savouring the air. The magic was so thick here that she could scent it, without the use of any of her powers. It tasted of earth and stone, and blood, and ice.

If a griffin came to a place like this, and knew what to do, then even something as unpredictable as the Spirit Cave was nothing more than power. Pure power, ready to be harnessed.

She could still hear the voices, calling her name. Echoes of the dead, called out of the earth by magic. There were many different intelligences here. Old intelligences. Many of them tasted of anger.

For the first time, Oeka was afraid.

Oeeekaaaa . . .
the voices whispered.

Oeka hissed.
They are powerful,
she told herself.
But so am I.

She raised her wings and went forward, into freezing mist.

O
eka couldn't tell when she had passed through the cave entrance. Pure whiteness swallowed everything, blanking out the entire world around her as if she had gone blind. The entrance was invisible—if it even still existed. She had been expecting this. She pressed on, following the sound of the voices. At first they were indistinct, seeming to drift around somewhere ahead of her. But as she got closer, they became clearer and louder, until they had merged into one voice softly calling her name. Oeka kept on toward it, but no matter how far she went, it was always just ahead of her. Distant. Tantalising.

She stopped and sat down. “Do not play with me, fool,” she said. “I am not a butterfly to be batted about. Show yourself to me.”

Silence.

“If you will not show yourself, then I shall force you,” Oeka warned. “Stop hiding.”

I am not hiding, Oeka,
the voice whispered, and as it spoke the whiteness faded away and was gone.

Oeka looked around. She was standing in a perfectly ordinary sandy-floored cave, and there in front of her was another griffin. Female, much older than herself, and the deep green eyes called up memories that she had kept buried for nearly all her life.

Oeka, my daughter,
the other griffin said, in a voice like a sighing wind.

Oeka stared. She stood up without thinking, and took a step toward her mother—but she stopped herself. She dipped her head, very coolly. “Greetings, spirits. I am the Mighty Oeka, ruler of Malvern. And you are an illusion, meant to confuse the weak-minded.”

Clever Oeka,
the illusion said.
I knew that you would be powerful from the moment you came out of your egg.

“All of Malvern knows of my power, spirits,” Oeka said.

Coldness began to needle at her.
But you are not content even with that, are you, daughter?

Oeka felt her mind begin to numb and shook off the power trying to break in. “Do not waste my time with tricks. My mother has been dead since I was a hatchling.”

The illusion came closer. It was warm. The fur smelt sharp and spicy with life. Real.
I am your mother, Oeka,
the voice insisted.
The magic here calls back the spirits of the dead. In this place, I can speak with you again. Trust me.

Oeka moved, subtly repositioning her back paws. “Very well. What do you want with me, Mother?”

To comfort you, and to advise you. You are troubled.

Oeka could feel the presence beginning to press in around her, smothering and cold. The illusion . . . her mother . . . seemed to be growing larger, the eyes filling her vision, the voice whispering insistently.

“Lies!” she screamed, and leapt straight forward.

Her outstretched talons hit her mother in the chest and throat. The impact was shocking. She fell backward with a thud and scrabbled upright to see the illusion dissolve into wisps of white.

A huge, rumbling shook the cave. Oeka staggered as the floor began to move. Dirt fell from the ceiling, and cracks split the walls. Alarmed, the small griffin darted toward the nearest corner. Too late. The floor shook more violently, and she lost her footing and fell hard onto her belly. She clawed at the dirt, trying to get up, and an almighty crack split the air. A chunk broke out of the ceiling and fell straight toward her.

There was no time to dodge. Oeka pressed herself to the ground and braced herself.

The chunk hit her and disintegrated.

Oeka dared to open her eyes. She wasn't hurt. Amazed, she got up again. The whiteness had seeped back. Around her, the cave broke apart, each piece crumbling and changing back into the white wispy substance that had made it. In moments, she was surrounded by the spirits again, and this time they were not whispering.

The mist flashed red and began to turn hot.
Arrogant little chick. Power-hungry. You will destroy, destroy, destroy . . .

Oeka faltered under the hatred that surrounded her. But as the voices grew louder and angrier, she reared up and screamed.

“Enough!”

The spirits closed in to attack, but she was ready. Despite her exhaustion, despite the danger, she unleashed her magic. Using a gift she had only just begun to discover, she hardened her mind, pushing away anything else that touched it. Her senses shut down. Deaf and blind, free of the accusing voices and confusing visions, she ran.