Gryphon in Glory

12 Kerovan

This road, which I knew as well as Elys did, was no track such as ran through the Dales. It carried the mark of sorcery even more than that which the Exiles had used, and it ran toward the heights. Though I had determined to ride west, now I was reluctant to set out upon such a way, easy as it was to travel. Not so my companions, for remounted, Elys swung out upon the pavement, nor did Jervon linger, but was at her side, the pack pony on a lead, already past me.

I mounted the mare, fighting inner turmoil. To take such a path was to expose myself to—to what? Was I such a one now as started at shadows, drew steel at the sloughing of a wind through tree branches? This shaming fact I could not yield to. I sent the mare on, where the click of her shoes on the stone of the way sounded overloud.

Whoever had laid out the way that highway traveled had paid no attention to the contour of the land, had allowed no fact of nature to dispute where it would run. Hillocks had been cut through, leveled back to allow passage, surfaces smoothed. Its making was a feat of labor that I do not think the Dales, even if all their manpower was summoned to the task, could ever have equaled.

As the pavement provided the easiest of footing, we made far better time than we had riding cross-country. Nor did we see any signs of life, except a bird or two—not flying in that threatening coil of the evil flock but high and alone. The country apparently was very bare hearabouts. or else all that lived near kept their distance from the road itself.

A little before sunset we came upon a place where the pavement curved out at one side, forming an oval section that was still attached to the highway, as a piece of fruit might lie next to a bough. Elys turned her mount in that direction and for the first time in some hours spoke, raising her voice to reach me where I still trailed a little behind.

“This will afford a safe campsite.”

Most of the surface of that oval was covered by one of the five pointed stars, so that the space might lie under some protection, a kind we should welcome, I guessed. There might not be any inns or other shelters along the highways, but those who had built it had arranged such places as this for the safe rest of the travelers.

Here the surrounding land was wide open, covered mainly with a tall-growing grass. We put our horses on picket ropes, allowing them to graze to their content. There was also (within a stride or two of the road) a basin in which water bubbled up from underground. The water was not only very clear and very cold, but it possessed a flavor all its own and . . . Can water be perfumed? I had never heard of such, yet when I rinsed my hands and then cupped them to make a drinking cup, I was sure that I caught a faint scent—like unto that of a garden of fresh herbs lying under the full-drawing rays of the sun.

Nor did we have to light a fire to brave the draw-in of the dark. For with the coming of night that star in which our camp was set began to glow faintly. There was a warmth in the air. Whoever had fashioned this wonder we would never know, but to me it was a fitting answer to all those who claim that only evil comes from the use of that which belongs to the Old Ones.

Elys sat crosslegged in the very heart of the star after we had eaten from our trail supplies. Her eyes were fixed on the road. At first I believed that, in truth, her sight was turned inward, and that she was near in a state of trance, which made me uneasy. With the coming of the dark a feeling of Power, which I had not sensed as we rode under the sun, gathered to hedge us in. One’s skin prickled with uneasiness, one’s hair seemed to stir with a force of deeply pent energy.

I looked from Elys’s closed face to the road. In me something came alert, waited—Would this highway also prove to be “haunted”? Would we see and hear tonight the passing of some who had long gone before? There came another thought into my mind. Power such as I now felt could certainly be drawn upon. Suppose we tried again to scry—might not the result be that I could see Joisan, learn enough to be guided directly to her?

“The cup . . .” I began, though I knew that breaking through her present deep absorption might alienate rather than lead Elys to agree to my plea.

She did not turn her head, she did not even break her forward stare by so much as a blink. But her answer came readily enough.

“Not here. I have not the strength to hold what might answer. I am not so learned . . .” In her voice there was an unhappy, longing note. “No. I could not control the forces that await here. They have not been tapped for long and long—that does not mean they have grown the less, rather they have built in strength.”

My disappointment was tinged with a fraction of anger. Still I knew that she was right. One should not meddle to raise any Power that one did not know one had the ability to control. It was very certain that our present surroundings, benevolent as they seemed, might hold a violent response to any witchery, no matter how mild or well intended.

So I sat in silence, nor did I stare as she did down that road, which promised so much and yet which we dared not trust. I did not care what ghosts might walk here. They were no kin of mine—that I chose to be so. I was myself—alone—as in reality I had always been. Yet, sometimes with Joisan . . .

To think of her brought pain that was not of the body, rather an inward ache, as if I had hungered all my life and now understood that I must continue to hunger until I died. There was Joisan . . .

I no longer saw that band of metal on my wrist, on which I had idly centered my gaze. Rather, there arose before my eyes a girl’s face, the skin sun-browned, thin . . . Perhaps no man who did not look the second time would call her beautiful. No man—but I was not a true man, and, to me, she was as radiant as the fabled, much-courted daughters of keeps such as the songsmiths sing of—those before whom men paraded in their pride, fought monsters, and courted death-danger that they might be noticed and admired.

She had such courage, that brown girl, so wide and deep a heart, that even an outcast who was also a “monster” had been invited into the warm core of it. I need only have said the right words and she would have come to me willingly. But I did not want willingness out of duty—I wanted . . .

I wanted something else, not pity, not duty, not that she came to me because we had faced evil together and come unharmed out of that battle that we had fought. I did not know just what I wanted—save it was something I had not found, nor really could put name to.

Then I heard, even through my cloud of self-pity, a soft sound from Elys, a deeper gasp that could only have come from Jervon. Startled I raised my head. The road lay radiant in the j night. Each and every mark along it was alive with silver fire, even though the moon was not yet high.

Also—perhaps the cause was induced by some trick of that light, but it seemed to me that part of the patterns moved. There was a glow that came and went along the patches that resembled the footprints of man, beast, and bird, almost as if things now , trod upon them, clouding them for a second here and there as an invisible foot pressed, was again lifted, while those symbols in the corners of the stars glowed stronger, a light haze arising from them as if candles had been set ablaze.

I put out my hand, without being conscious that I did, until Elys’s fingers clasped mine. Also, I knew without looking, she must be linked with Jervon in the same manner. We were nor alone! There were travelers on the road though we might not see them, even as those other ghosts had passed into exile long ago. They did not approach us. Perhaps they journeyed, not in another dimension of space, but in time itself. Great concerns we could not comprehend drew them on. We dimly felt their concern—or at least I did.

Twice I stirred as a touch reached me. Slight as it was, that contact held the sharp impact of a blow. For that single instant I had been on the brink of knowledge and understanding. Yes. I almost knew—then the meaning was lost and I was left as empty as when I had put Joisan from me to ride alone out of Norsdale. Only this had nothing to do with Joisan, rather it came to me as a greeting, a meeting with those I understood, who knew and welcomed me—but to whose attention I could not hold because I was only a part of what they were in full.

I do not know how long we sat there so hand-linked, watching what no human eyes could ever catch in full. There came at last a time when the prints no longer glowed, dimmed, glowed again, when our sensing of those hastening travelers faded. Elys’s fingers slid out from mine. My hand fell limply, to lie on the stone.

We did not speak to each other—had we even seen or felt the same things? I never knew. Rather we separated in silence, all at once full spent, worn from the watching, wrapped ourselves in our cloaks to sleep. Nor did I dream that night.

However. I awoke later in the morning than my companions. Jervon had already brought up the horses and had them saddled, the packs ready. Elys knelt, was busy dividing supplies into two pouches. As I sat up, she gestured to a portion of journey cake set aside, giving the packet that held the remainder to Jervon.

He stayed where he was but Elys arose, to stand before me as I sat chewing the dry cake, wishing that for once I had a bowl of porridge hot from the pot, such as I had seldom tasted since I rode from Ulmsdale years ago.

“Kerovan,” she said abruptly. “Here we must part company.”

At first I did not even understand her. When I did, I stared at her open-mouthed. There were dark bruises left by exhaustion under her eyes, and her face seemed gaunt, as if she were fresh out of some battle. Her hand went out in a small gesture—not to summon power, rather one that expressed helplessness.

“We—we have been forbidden . . .”

I was on my feet, my food forgotten. What had happened as I slept away the rising of the sun? Who had forbidden?

She no longer looked at me but to the road, white and straight under the sun. I saw a longing, as deep as the heart-wrenching sorrow that I carried (perhaps with such ill grace) in her face. She might be regarding all the wonders the world can offer, piled in a heap before her, and yet know that she could touch them not.

“This way is not for us .. . not yet—not yet . . .”

The sadness in her eyes was near a sob in her voice.

“But you—you said . . .” I found myself floundering for words as might a child trying to learn from an elder the why of an inexplicable change in plan.

“When I told you that we would ride together—then I believed I spoke the truth. Perhaps—perhaps we, Jervon—I—have been weighed and found wanting.” Her disappointment was hurtful for any one to see. “Believe me, it is not for us to go on. This is your road only, Kerovan. Perhaps we played our part merely in companying you to this place, even as we earlier companied your lady. There must be some reason behind the pattern of our meeting with you both. Whatever that was, it is now fulfilled. But if we have in any way served—then remember us, Kerovan, in those days when you come into your heritage. It may be that we shall . . . No, you ride alone, for that is where you go—to accept your own fate, whether you believe it or not.

“If there comes a time later”—her expression did not change, still I read a thread of hope in her voice—“when we shall be made free of this way, and none shall say us no—then, when that time comes, look for us, Kerovan, be sure we come with glad hearts. What we shall do from this day forward is wait—and struggle and learn—until the road lies open.”

I clasped her hand and her flesh was chill. She said no more but mounted. Then I clasped hands with Jervon also. He had eyes mainly for Elys, as if whatever burden she bore, he would seize upon as his own if he could. I was left with no words at all as I stood and watched them go leaving Joisan’s mare and the pack pony, on which they had loaded the bulk of their own supplies, a last gesture of good will for me.

Back down the road they went, leaving in me a vast loneliness, a sharply growing need. Still, such had been the force of Elys’s words and manner I could not have found any argument to stop them.

I did not at once start in the other direction along that road, which Elys had said was to be mine alone. Rather I settled on my heels after I had seen them out of sight, they never turning once to lift hand to me again. Not until now had I been aware how much their company had meant during these past few days. I had ridden into this Waste telling myself that I was my own man (though I chose to go on Imgry’s errand), that in all High Hallack now there was not one I wished to comrade with, or who cared if I might come to trouble. Save only my lady—and her I had thought safe as anyone might be in this grim and war-torn land.

There was nothing, I had thought, which I any longer desired to have, to hold, to know. As if he who had been Kerovan of Ulmsdale was dead—only a husk of him walked, rode, spoke.

I had always known I was different. They had told me early that my mother could not bear to look upon me and thus I had been sent to the very edge of my father’s holdings to be fostered. There I had had but two friends—Riwal, for whom the Waste and its secrets were a lodestone, the attraction of which he never tried to deny, and Jago, a crippled man-at-arms who had taught me the ways of war—and later died treacherously at the hands of his enemies who were also mine, those enemies I faced in time I and fought.

No! Even at that battle with the Dark I had not been Kerovan of Ulmsdale; instead I had been filled by another personality, one who was out of another place (or else another time), filled I with great force, one who used me as I myself would draw a j sword. Save, when that presence withdrew, its will accomplished, j it took with it that part of Kerovan that had warmth, a love of I life, a belief in himself. Now I was empty, and only with the i going of Elys and Jervon (having witnessed the strong bond between them) did I realize how empty.

My fingers sought the wrist band of the Old Ones, as one of the Dames of Norsdale might tell her prayer hoops. Only I repeated no prayers, for though as any rational person I acknowledged there were Powers beyond the comprehension of my kind, still I called upon none such. The truth was I knew not which to call. Or whether any such would still concern themselves with a husk of a man who was lost inside his empty self as much as he would be lost in the world which was theirs.

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!”