Gryphon in Glory

5 Joisan

As 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.

Though I tried talking with Elys, her answers were so random that I began to believe she either had thought better of her agreement to aid me, or that the episode of the skull had sent her into deep speculations of her own.

I sat back on my heels to look about me. This rough pasturelike land was normal to Dale eyes, at least more so than that portion of the Waste we had crossed. I remembered tales of the scavengers—that scattered across this country were cities or fortresses so blasted that all that remained were lumps of congealed metal, which they hacked free to sell. The metal itself was uncanny, for sometimes it exploded when touched with tools, killing those who would master it.

Who were the Old Ones? What kind of lives had they lived here? That skull, when it had taken on the semblance of life, had been more avian than human. The dead had not been in our form entirely—had it been more—or less—than us?

“Who were the Old Ones?” I had not realized that I asked that aloud until Elys, shaken out of her preoccupation by my voice, answered.

“I think there were many different kinds of them. She who taught me a Wisewoman’s knowledge once said that they knew too much, tried too many uses of the Power. That they could change and did change into many forms. You have certainly heard legends . . .”

I nodded. Yes—the legends. Some were of monsters against whom our Dale forefathers had fought with fire and sword. Others—taking the seeming of fair women and comely men—enticed the venturesome away, some into permanent exile, others into visits from which they returned so bemused and bewildered that never again did they fit into human life, but went wandering, seeking that which remained ever hidden from them until their longing ate them into death.

“The use of Power,” Elys continued, “can be the deadliest fate laid upon one. It is somehow bred into us, maybe doubly so into them, that the more we know, the more we must continue to seek. I think that those ancient ones learned, tampered, attempted too much. Their thirst for knowledge became the only mover in their lives. So it would follow that they might not be bound by any code of right or wrong—only by their own wills and desires . . .”

The truth of that I had already seen proven when Rogear had used the force of his will to bend me for a space into a tool—save that my dear lord had followed, to prove himself stronger. Yes, Rogear and my lord’s own mother—others—had played with Power, drawing it greedily to them. However, in the end, it had turned upon them, eaten them up. Perhaps to bring upon them their endings.

“Can one use Power and still escape such consequences?” I made that a half-question, a new fear moving in me. Was I already, in my great need to gain my will with Kerovan, tainted with this hunger for the unknown? What had seemed to be a straightforward plan of action when I had ridden out of Norsdale was now confused. I was nibbled upon by doubt, which grew stronger. Was Kerovan—could he be right? Was it knowledge derived of the Dark and not the Light that would grow between us if we kept a bond and built upon it? Must I resist what lay in me clamoring for fulfillment?

No! That belief I refused to accept. I remembered again that strange man who had appeared out of nowhere when my lord had been so beaten down by the Dark, all those months ago. Neevor—he had said that I had the key, that we were fated to use it together. And for good—surely for good. I must allow no such doubts to creep into my mind.

Jervon returned just before sundown, excited and eager. He reported having found tracks of three mounts, one he thought ridden, the other two led. “There was a fourth also,” he added.

“Three of the horses are still there grazing free. There are packs also—but no one camps. I believe that someone met with the traveler—their trails lay close together.”

I was on my feet at once, heading for Bural. “Kerovan—he may have been taken captive!” In my mind churned the many dangers that could have befallen him.

“I do not think so. There is no sign of any attack. The horses are of the desert breed the scavengers usually use and they are peaceful. It is a good situation for a camp.” Now he looked to Elys. “Also there have been safeguards placed.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Of what nature?” she demanded sharply.

“None of a kind I have seen before. There are four peeled wands, each set upright in the earth at the outer limits of a well-seized grazing field. One, to the north, has fastened to it a tuft of horse hair. That to the south bears a patch of snowcat fur. To the east is one with an eagle feather, to the west one bearing boar bristles. I did not touch any. However, they manifestly have a purpose and the horses do not stray past them.”

I glanced at Elys for an explanation. She looked as baffled as I felt.

“Where did he go? The man of that camp—it is Kerovan!” I did not know why I was so sure, perhaps mainly because I wanted to be.

“There are hoofprints—leading on westward into a wood. I would have followed but Agran here”—he drew his hand down the neck of the horse he bestrode—“would not approach it. He was as wild with fear as if a red bear reared in the way reaching for him. It is plain that was forbidden territory and Agran recognized it.”

“But if the horses will not follow—then we can go afoot,” I persisted.

Jervon regarded me gravely. “Lady, I would not try to enter that place whether astride or on my own two feet. It warns one off, I believe that some power rules there. We can but camp and wait at that place—to dare more is to achieve nothing.”

I refused to believe him—then. We did ride on to that strangely marked camp and saw the horses as placidly grazing as if they were in a fenced field, never venturing beyond those wands. I paid only passing attention to those; instead I set Bural on the way to the wood.

She shied violently, near tossing me from the saddle. Twice we fought a battle of wills until I was forced to admit that I could not make the mare venture near the shadows of the trees.

My companions had gone their own way, establishing camp in the same hollow where the vanished traveler had left piled saddle and gear. Jervon tried the experiment of turning our own beasts into the square with the three desert horses and they appeared also to respect the wand barrier so that they need not be put on grazing ropes.

Only I was far too impatient to remain in camp awaiting a return that might or might not come. Having proven I could not ride into the wood, I was determined to attempt it on foot, with the turf torn by hoof marks for my guide.

My start was brisk enough, and neither Elys nor Jervon attempted to argue me out of it. It was not until I was some distance along my chosen path (so was I strengthened in stubborn determination) that I realized I could not move fast, nor could I touch any of those hoofprints with my boots. Rather, without any volition, I was zigzaging back and forth just to avoid that.

An uneasiness was growing in me for which I could not account. I persevered but against a growing sense of danger, of opposition, so that my pace grew slower and slower, in spite of my will to push on.

It was not that I was fronted by any visible wall forbidding entrance to the wood. No, rather my energy was steadily sapped, my will itself weakened with every step I fought to gain. I decided that I was not repelled by fear itself, rather a growing awareness that I was intruding rashly, rudely, on private ground, that I ventured where I had no right to go without invitation.

Even though I had come near under the outstretched branches of one of the tall trees, I realized that my hope of traveling farther was done. This was forbidden ground. Reluctantly I turned back, faced toward camp. Then it was as if a strong force swept me up, a storm of wind (though not a leaf rustled, none of the tall grass rippled) pushed me away, heavy at my back. I had dared to approach a guarded refuge—the wood was a sanctuary—but not one for those of my kind.