Gryphon's Eyrie

11 Joisan

As I knelt beside my lord in this place that Sylvya’s memory named as The Setting Up of the Kings, he turned his head to look up at me. His face was naught but a misty blur now that the light from his wristband had died out, and his eyes no longer glowed the brilliant amber that had faced down even an Adept of Maleron’s ability. I knew that the Will he had expended to sway the Margrave, convince him to withdraw from Arvon, had sapped his strength as no physical battle could. Even as I tried to support his head, his hands slid along the rocky ground and he lay still.

For a terrible second I feared the worst, but, mind-sharing, I knew that this was simple unconsciousness—not the blankness that is death. At Sylvya’s urgent “Joisan! Guard yourself!” I scrambled to my feet, sword in hand, watching the wraiths and those two Shadow-creatures draw closer to our little band. Maleron and Nidu were gone, but with them went all semblance of an enemy we could speak to, possibly reason with—the hilt of my weapon slid in my sweaty grasp as I tried to think of some way to fight these new threats. Somehow, eyeing them, I did not think steel would avail us this time. And Kerovan was so tar spent that he could not even protect himself.

Beside me, Guret. shuddered. “Jerwin… Cera, it is Jerwin! But I saw him die!”

“He is dead,” I said absently. The insubstantial form of a woman stepped toward me, her hand held out pleadingly. She had the black hair of a woman of Elys’s race. I wondered how long ago she had been swept up into such a hideous fate. “They are all dead, Guret. They want only to rest—” I stopped as my own words made me think . About the nature of death… how it was part of life, if things followed a natural path. Nature…

A thought niggled within me, tantalizing me with a possible solution, then it was gone as the wraith before me reached out a transparent hand and, even though I told myself to stand firm, my flesh shrank away from any contact with it. Cold… wrenching, numbing cold radiated from the woman, and I knew if I suffered her touch, she would crawl within me, seeking to rest in my warmth—

The thought was so repellent that I needs must force myself not to step over Kerovan and retreat. Jervon cried out, backing away from the blackness seeping along the ground toward him—one of the Shadow-creatures. I knew that they were even more dangerous, that they sought to drain our Power, our spirits, as the wraiths hungered for our life and warmth. They would seek out the one holding the greatest Power—

The two Shadow-creatures flowed by Jervon, heading directly for me. “No! Joisan, you must get away!” Sylvya stepped before me, her trill sharpening in her anxiety. “Your daughter, Lady! They seek your child!”

I shrank back, my heart hammering as I realized she was speaking the truth. My bootheels were against Kerovan’s side now—the wraith-lady reached for me again and I took yet another step, so that I balanced with one foot on either side of his body. If I retreated any farther, I would be abandoning my lord in order to protect my child-No! I could not—would not—choose one over the other!

My hand, went instinctively to my breast, seeking the crystal gryphon—but of course that was gone. My groping fingers brushed only the Amber Lady’s talisman, the ripened wheat and grape-bound amulet of Gunnora—Gunnora. I looked again to the moon, that orb that is also Her symbol. “Gunnora,” I said clearly. “Amber Lady, hear me, please! Give these poor creatures the rest they crave, I beg of you! You who protects the young and we who carry them—help me!”

As before, the amulet began to glow, sending amber ripples of light out to envelop the wraiths. Like frost in the morning sun, they began to fade… fade… and then, with a final glimmer, they were gone!

Leaving only the two Shadow-creatures. I walked quickly up to Sylvya, who motioned me yet again to retreat. “No,” I said firmly. “Give me your hand, my sister. I will not escape at the price of leaving my comrades here to face them—living with that knowledge would be worse than succumbing to them here and now.”

I forced myself to stare at the two Shadow-creatures, ignoring the stomach-twisting wrongness they exuded, that of beings completely outside their rightful time and place. Like tiny rips in the fabric of reality, they seemed, as they slowly flowed to front the two of us—

Not just two of us, I realized suddenly, three. Within me was a child holding greater Power than any of us here could claim. But an embryonic Power all the same, unable to think or reason. Little one, I thought, reaching out for Sylvya, lend me your strength, also…

Sylvya’s hand grasped mine, and I realized with this first touch that it was only through the child that she had been able to reach me for these many days. It was as though she were the holding link in the chain between me and my daughter (for daughter it was, Sylvya was right—the spirit that touched me now was clearly feminine).

Shutting my eyes, I let my awareness travel inward, seeking the strength that the child possessed but could not shape or direct. There! It was as though I had discovered another Will, one that inhabited my body but did not belong to me.

Touching that other strength, that Power, I channeled it, directed it outward…

Those Shadow-creatures were not properly of this world. Therefore they could not be allowed to stay. Using the child’s Power as I would use a tool to cut, I opened—

I heard Elys cry out, raised my eyes to see a flash of violet light over our heads and, beyond it, a glimpse of stars—black stars on a paper-white sky.

The world reeled past me as I glimpsed that strange otherness, that place beyond the Gate I had opened. Steadying my Will, still clinging to Sylvya’s hand, I gestured at the Shadow-creatures. “Your home lies there! Go!” And with all the Power that lay within me, I pushed.

There was a hideous moment of touching, of resistance; then it broke, and, with the sound of a mountain falling, my world turned inside out.