Gryphon in Glory

2 Kerovan

In a land such as ours a man is wary of dreams we of the Dales carry old fears, not the least being that perhaps, when we dream, our innermost selves receive warnings, orders . . . Save that we carry into waking only broken shards, to be haunted by them. Can a man dream himself into madness? I have sometimes feared so. For I was haunted . . . Yet with the coming of each morning I hoped again to wake from the shadow which new deep dreams had laid upon me and which I never could remember.

In a way I was captive—to whom or what I could not name.

When I last went into the Waste it was in search of Joisan to whom I owe duty. Yes, I will have it so—duty only. She must not be more to me. No matter what boy’s hopes I once held, I recognize that they are not for my kind—half man, half—what? At least I now have the courage to know myself for what I am and show it. I need only look at my bootless feet, bare after all those years when I tried to conceal my otherness, to see the hooves upon which I walk . . .

I went then into the Waste, still, in part, Kerovan of Ulmsdale. What did I come out as? I do not know. Perhaps I will never learn—maybe for my own good. Yet I was driven by restless loneliness, sharp as any sword point against my flesh.

Joisan—no, I will not think of Joisan. I will harness my determination to keep her out of my mind. I need only remember how they looked at me in Norsdale when I brought her there—sale, still her own woman. Then I broke our wedding bonds, I evoked wife-right for her, since she would not for herself.

That woman—the Past-Abbess . . . No, I will not think of her either. Their world is not mine. In truth, I felt no tie with the Dales, even though Lord Imgry had summoned me again. Because nothing, any longer, has meaning for me, I have answered his order.

Yet the dreams come and I cannot tear them out of my aching head as a man tears away the badge of a lord he no longer serves. I hate to sleep—unless it be to drop into darkness without another awakening.

My escort sit and talk around the fire well beyond me. Men, as I once was, or seemed to be. They avoid me and I know it is only Imgry’s will that has kept them in my company.

Once I was fascinated by the Old One’s secrets. I had gone exploring in the Waste with the Wiseman Riwal. Together we rode the Road of Exile. No—I am not going to remember!

Hair—like the polished leaves of autumn, her quick steps, her voice . . . Too strong a memory, a hurting which will never heal. I will not remember! I am not the Kerovan that was . . .

To tramp about the camp at night is a way to keep awake. My body aches with fatigue. The men watch me from the comers of their eyes, whisper. I do not allow myself to think of them—or . . .

However, one cannot fight sleep forever. I dream again . . .

There was one of the Old Ones—Neevor—I remember his name. Who he was or what I do not know. Once—twice—he has given me aid. A friend? No, those such as I have no friends. When I am awake I try to think of Imgry and what he wants of me. A cold man, strong with a pride that feeds on accomplishment. on strength of will and purpose.

We of the Dales (once I was of the Dales) have never given oaths to any one overlord. That was our great weakness when the invaders, having tested us with their spies, struck our land. Each lord fought for himself to defend his own holdings, so was speedily overrun.

Painfully we learned our lesson. The sea coast by then lay in their hands, while those among us who had the grace and largeness of spirit to attract others to serve under them were dead—either slain in fruitless battle, or by assassination. Only then we drew together under three of the southern lords who were far-seeing and strong enough to make a kingdom of sorts out of a loose confederation of holdings.

Of these Imgry is the least liked. However, no man who has served with him can deny that he has the iron will to gather support. A man does not have to be loved to be well served. He, most of all, drew together our broken forces, hammered them mercilessly into an army where old feuds were unallowable—an army knowing only one enemy, the Hounds of Alizon.

Only that army was so battered and weary they could make no real stand. They raided, like the snarling outlaws of the Waste, fighting like wolves even as those canny beasts hold to pack-kin.

Still the invaders poured into the port they had taken. The only advantage we had was that they brought no more of those strange weapons from overseas which had given us such blows—rolling over strongholds as a man steps upon a hill of ants. Those, we were told by the few prisoners we took, were not of Alizon but a new magic known to allies of our enemies.

The fact that these land-crawlers were broken, or helpless, for some reason we did not understand, meant little for they still had men and weapons in plenty. Though our smiths labored in the far western Dales, we could not make one dart do the work of two, and we must at times raid for the very supplies we needed.

I had been one of the scouts seeking out such supplies. My childhood in the far Dales, where I had been fostered with a hunter, gave me skills for such work. I had been content to serve so, for among my own kind I was suspect even before my physical differences were known—monster—half-man—rumor had always played with me.

Imgry had sent me north months ago because my father ailed. Also, there was always the chance that the Hounds, nosing along the coast, might strike inland there. I had visited Ulmsdale in secret, learning then that I had enemies of my own blood, my closest blood. My mother had hated me from birth, not altogether because of my misshapen body but because (as I learned) I failed to be the weapon she had sought, with her limited learning of ancient Power, to forge.

Too proud she had been of that learning; I was not her only failure. When she and her companions sought to summon the sea to blast Alizon’s men, they instead flooded the Dale itself and there remained no lordship for anyone. When I then would have returned to my duty with the army, I discovered the enemy between me and the Dale forces. Striking westward I had found—my lady . . .

No, I would not think of her as that—even though, by all the laws of the Dale, we were securely wed and had been since childhood, long before we ever saw each other. Joisan . . .

I cannot master my thoughts any more than I can master my dreams. I see her with her people, I see her with my cousin Rogear, who came to her under my name—she believing me to be an Old One; I see her in the Waste, under Rogear’s control, being used by him and my mother as a tool because in her hands was that thing of true Power which I had found and given to her—the ball with its imprisoned gryphon.

Yes, I cannot flee her in mind as I have in body. I see her always, proud, full of courage, kind of heart, all things a man wishes for. A man—I was not a man, yet still I want her.

Why does she linger so in my mind—I have released her? There are good men in plenty in the Dales to give her all she deserves. I am not to be numbered among them.

I rode away more to free myself from her than because Imgry summoned me, let me face the truth of that. And I am so tired—yet when I sleep I dream . . . Still I must sleep—though there is a pride in me which will not let me show fatigue or weakness to those who ride with me. Yet at last I must give way . . .

The hall was so vast that its walls lay beyond my sight. Great pillars formed aisles along which drifted wisps of sweet-smelling mist, which coiled and wove patterns in the air as if invisible hands played with their ribbon lengths. There were no torches, no wall lamps, but there was light.

I moved between two lines of the pillars, seeing as I passed that runes were graven over their surfaces. These runes, also, held light of their own, some gray as early dawn, some faintly blue.

The runes bothered me. I should be able to read them—the messages they carried were or had once been of vast import—perhaps the history of a people or a nation long since vanished. For this place was very old—the feeling of age lay so strong that it was a weight to press upon any venturing here.

Age—and knowledge. Our own keeps had their record rooms. There is something in a man which makes him wish to leave some remembrance of his life and deeds. However, the records of my people were as meaningless scrawls made with a twig in river sand compared to all this. Also it was a place of Power. Power that could be felt, tasted, filled this place throughout.

Still, I was awed, but not fear-ridden. All here seemed so far removed from the being I was that I could not be touched by it. The being that I was . . .

I was Kerovan. I clutched tightly at that scrap of identity. Where I was I did not know, but who I was—that I could not forget. My decision held defiance.

The pillars became only shadows I passed at a swift, steady pace. Though I heard nothing audible I was aware of a kind of whispering inside my head—small bodiless things pushed and plucked at some protective covering over my thoughts, striving to win an entrance.

Ahead was an intensifying of the light. The radiance, centered at that spot, began to change color, deepening to blue—then fading to a silver that was like a fire for brilliance.

Though I had no sense of my feet pressing any pavement, I sped along as might a runner intent upon his goal. There was a rising excitement in me as if I were indeed engaged in a race and that the end of it, for good or ill, lay just ahead.

That which was so alight was a dais, a point of which extended toward me. I guessed from what I could see that its full shape was that of a star. On that stood what might be an altar wrought of crystal—an altar—or a tomb—for a form rested within.

I reached the point of the star, there to sway dizzily for a moment—forward with the impulse that had borne me here, back when I encountered resistance from the air itself. Perhaps this formed a protection for the sleeper.

He was neither man nor bird; still a part of both species seemed fused in him. Though, as I looked upon him, this unnatural coupling seemed natural and right. His face was avian—provided with a bill-like extension, which was both nose and mouth; wide, if now closed, bird eyes. On his head rose a crest of feathers, which extended, growing smaller, down to his shoulders, then along the upper parts of his arms. However, his feet were not birdlike—rather broad paws showing the tips of mighty talons, which must have been withdrawn into sheaths. On the contrary, however, his hands were a bird’s claws, laced together about the hilt of a sword, unsheathed, unblemished by time, the blade appearing not steel but a rod of light.

All this and yet he was no monster. Rather the same awe that had filled me since I came here intensified. There, surely, lay one who in his own time had been far greater than any of those who call themselves “men.”

Why I had been summoned to this place I did not know, for summoned I was sure I had been. Those whispers in my head grew stronger, battered harder, with an almost frantic intensity as if they had but a little time in which to deliver some message and feared their mission was in vain.

Still I gazed upon the sleeper. More and more it seemed to me that there was something about him that was of the gryphon—that symbol of my House, which also hung imprisoned in crystal in the ball that Joisan wore. He lacked the beast body, the wings—yet his avian face—crested head—paw feet—claw hands—yes, there was a likeness.

That thought opened the door for an instant to the whisperers, for they became audible at last.

“Landisl, Landisl!”

I turned my head back and forth as one does to dislodge buzzing woodsflies, trying to escape that shrilling. Once before I had heard that name—for name it was—but where and when?

Memory opened—I had called it when I had faced the black sorcery of my mother’s and Rogear’s raving, though then it had been so alien that I had not understood.

“Landisl.” My own lips shaped that once . . .

There followed a moment of dark, a twisting and wrenching, as if my body had been seized and jerked out of one life into another. I opened eyes upon light. But it was not the brilliance of the star dais. I blinked and blinked again, stupidly, be-mused . . . There was a fire, born of wood, real, of this world . . .

Standing over me was the chief of those sent by Imgry. Behind him the other men stirred in the early morning light. I felt a surge of rage—I had been so close to knowing – learning . . . This dolt had broken the dream—the first dream that had meant something, from which I might have learned!

I still found difficulty in seeing trees instead of pillars—fire . . . This time I did not lose the details I dreamed. Rather I carried with me, as we got to horse and rode on through the morning mists, a vivid memory of that other place.

In fact, I became more and more sure that that had been no ordinary dream. Instead, part of me, which thought and could remember, had been drawn into another time—or world—where there still did lie the body of the gryphon-man, sleeping or dead.

“Landisl.” I tried to shape that name waking and found that now it was distorted, sounded so unlike, that I caught my tongue between my teeth. Nor did I exchange any words with my companions. I did not even note when they forged ahead, leaving a gap between us.

Finally I summoned resolution and shut the vision or dream back into memory. I had an odd feeling that if I allowed myself to dwell upon it too long, or too often, I might be lost somewhere, between the world in which I now moved and that other place.

I concentrated with determination on what lay about me—the morning’s warmth of sun, the track along which we rode, even the men of our company. My old scouting instinct returned and I was as alert as if I moved on a foray.

Now I wanted to talk, though heretofore I had held aloof from the others, speaking only when spoken to, which was seldom. That the war in the south was in stalemate I gathered from comments I had heard. Our own fighting had become a smattering of raids made by small squads of men. Imgry and his two fellow-leaders were busied about the foraging of weapons, the rebuilding or building of a closer knit army, under tight leadership.

The invaders, also, appeared less aggressive, willing to hold to what they had seized, but making few attempts to enlarge that territory. Two of the men I traveled with had been talking eagerly of a Sulcar ship, which had made a landing to the far south and been met by a scouting party.

Those hardy merchant adventurers had brought news of a second war overseas, one that hampered the plans of Alizon. The Sulcars, always fighters, had taken with them an invitation to come coast raiding if they could, taking toll of the invaders’ captured seaports. Whether anything might come of this loosely discussed alliance no man knew, but the possibility was heartening.

However, we all knew that the Hounds must be defeated in the Dales, and that we alone must face the struggle for freedom. That was dictated, not only by stiff Dale pride, but the fact that we could claim no other allies—having always been a lone people living much to ourselves.

Or were we alone? I looked to the west as that thought stirred in my mind. In the beginning, generations ago, the Dalesmen had come up from the south. We are a legend-loving people with our songsmiths ever ready to blow up a small encounter into an epic battle. Oddly enough, though, we had no tales of our race that reached farther back than our coming into High Hallack. That our fathers then built well-fortified keeps here suggested they had left behind turmoil and trouble.

What they had fled from we do not know. We are not nomads by nature. Each lord kept his fort-keep snug, trained his sons to war as a matter of course. Yet we had faced no threat, until the coming of Alizon, that was more than a brush with outlaws, a kin feud between one Dale and the next.

Our people had come, however, into a haunted land. The Old Ones (and how many races and kingdoms there had been of them we shall never know) had already withdrawn. They left behind them numerous traces of their own, alien to humankind. There are places where no man dares venture, not only for his life’s sake, but also because of a threat to his spirit. Other places are known to welcome, bring peace and healing. Some of our blood sought out what small secrets they could uncover, but that lore was often baffling.

However, though the Old Ones had left coast and Dales for some compelling reason, we are all certain they had not altogether withdrawn from our world. There was the Waste to the west, a vast buffer between us and even more unknown land, full of signs of Power, potent places. We knew well that there was life there—besides the outlaws—perhaps left to spy upon us, perhaps utterly uncaring, since their affairs and desires might be so far removed from those we understood.

There were fighters among the Old Ones—we have found traces of ancient and terrible wars. Metal seekers have brought out of the Waste masses so congealed and melted that it proved such had been the targets of vast forces.

If the Dalesmen had first believed that they only lived in High Hallack on sufferance, Jong, undisturbed years had lulled us into thinking that we had nothing to fear from those others. Still—suppose that the invaders, who knew nothing of this land, the things that trod the Waste, were to overrun us? Where next would they strike? Would they be stopped by legends and shadows?

We were not even sure why those of Alizon were unleashed upon us, traveling overseas to expend such fury upon a country, which, by all accounts, was far less rich and useful than their own. I had heard one story that a high-ranking prisoner, taken when one of their mighty earth-crawlers had broken down, reported that those who had lent them those alien weapons had said the secret of vast power was to be found here—enough to make them masters of the world. So their ruler lusted for that.

The only place where such a Power could be found might be the Waste, or in a land that might lie beyond that. If that belief was what had brought the Hounds upon us . . . Then—could those of the Waste be made to see that they had a part in our war?

No thinking man doubted that if Alizon invaded there they would come up against potent forces. But could the wielders of those be persuaded now to lend aid to the Dales?

I chewed upon that, finding it held a flavor I liked. To meddle with Power on our own, as my mother and Rogear had sought to do, was fatal folly. However, to enlist on our side those who had tamed it was another thing. Had this lain somewhere in Lord Imgry’s mind?

I sent my horse forward with a click of tongue, suddenly eager to reach the journey’s end—as we did by nightfall.

My last meeting with the southern leader had been in a forester’s hut, no trappings of state had backed that tall man with the cold greenish eyes. Now I sat on a stool in a small keep’s great hall.

Imgry occupied a high-backed chair which had been taken from the dining dais, yet still raising him above those who came to him. The man’s authority was like an unseen armor, though the latter in truth he did not wear at present, only the plain leather of a lord home from a day’s hunting. The hunt he spoke of, though, lay before and not behind him.

I had waited for some change of countenance when he sighted my bared hooves—they had been boot-hidden at our last meeting. Only I came to believe that indeed I could have been as inhuman as the gryphon-man of my night vision and he would not have noted the difference since I was there to serve a purpose.

For Imgry, only his own ambition and aims had importance. Everything he said, thought, acted upon, was for one purpose alone—to achieve plans that burned in him, to the extinction of all else.

He had laid out on the bench between us a much creased and spotted leaf of parchment. There were marks on it that my own past scouting had added, but much was blank, and, upon that blank surface, his hand lay now, palm flat.

“The answer lies here.” That he was so frank with me was enough to make me wary. It was not in his nature to share even the thin edge of his plans with another. Neither was it in him to be conciliatory, to ask instead of order.

“Be a little more plain with me my lord!” During the time since I had at last accepted this man’s orders I had gained I freedom of a sort—at high price. He could not overawe me any longer.

“We have accomplished much.” That was not boast, but a matter of fact. “Our smiths have worked the metals that came out of the Waste—in spite of the danger. We have now many weapons better than any of us have ever seen. We gather men—but also we have lost.” Now the palm lying on the map clenched into a fist. “Still the invader ships land fresh troops. Oh, it is true that they have not advanced against us in force for a time. But that is not because we have held them. We can as yet only worry their flanks, strike a small blow here, another there. Though”—there was a faint satisfaction in his tone now—“they have at last learned the folly of pursuing us too far into land we know far better than they. Now”—he leaned forward a fraction—“we have learned for certain something new—”

When he paused I dared to strike in with a question. “Is it true they seek some mysterious power?”

He shot me a glance so sharp and piercing he might have used the dart thrower on his belt.

“So men talk openly of that?”

I shrugged. “It was a story told even before I rode north. There must be some sane reason why Alizon harries us, when, if we are to believe the word of traders, there is nothing in this land to match theirs. We possess no treasure.”

There was no deference in what I said. I spoke as equal to equal. Imgry was a force, yes, and those of the Dales might be very glad it was wielded for them. However, he no longer impressed me. I was, in a way, inner-walled against him now.

He studied me with narrowed eyes. I think I had suddenly become a person, not a weapon ready to his hand. That impatience that lay ever close beneath the surface of his manner retreated a little. He considered me in a new way for I was not the boy who had gone to Ulmsdale—but a new factor to be fitted into the game.

“Your hand,” I continued, “lies there upon the representation of the Waste. Is it there you believe your goal to be? No treasure in truth—but Power . . .”

His expression did not change, but I had a sensation of fronting pure cold. Heat of anger was not for such a man, his rage would ape the icy breath of the Winter Dragon. I had prodded him then as I sat there, unmoved, drawing on my self-confidence. Why should I care that this Lord was ridden by ambition—to carry on great things if fate allowed? I was not of his kin.

“Yes, it is the Waste—or what it can hold.” He had decided to accept me as I was. “We do not know what it may be. This much we have learned from more than one prisoner—the Hounds want something they must find or control. In their own land they face an ancient enemy—one they would devour as they have much of the Dales. This enemy—by their accounts—may be kin to our Old Ones. They were armed in turn by others who have some way of divining what they seek but not the manpower necessary to take it. The knowledge lies here!” His fingers turned inward, his nails scraped across the map as the talons of a hawk might grasp jealously held prey.