Crystal Gryphon Read online

  I spent all the time I could with her, between us a question that neither of us, I believe, wanted to ask or answer. But she talked more than she had in all the years before, as if she had a very short time left in which to impart to me so much. The lore of healing and herbs I already knew a little, since that had been a part of her lessons since my childhood. Besides that she spoke of other things, some of it strange hearing, and so I learned much of what perhaps was seldom shared between one generation and the next.

  That we lived in a haunted land we all knew, for a person need only turn head from one side to another to sight some remnant of the Old Ones. They were old dangers that could be stirred into life by the unwary—that, too, all knew. Children were warned against straying—venturing into places where there was an odd stillness, more like waiting than abandonment.

  I was drawn into the edge of a secret that was not of my seeking, nor of Dame Math's save that duty, by which she ordered her life, urged it on her. The Flame to which the Dames gave homage was not of the Power as the Old Ones knew it. And at most times those who professed the Flame shunned what lay in the hills, invoking their own source of Power against the alien one. But it seemed that even one of the House of Dames could be driven in times of stress to seek aid elsewhere.

  She came to me early one morning, her poor face even more worn and haggard as she stood plucking nervously at her prayer hoops, gazing over my head at the wall as if she did not want to meet my eyes.

  “Joisan, all is not well with Cyart—”

  “You have had a message?” I wondered why I had not heard the way horn. In those days such were always used between friend and friend on the approach to any keep.

  “None by word of mouth, or in runes,” she answered slowly. “I have it here.” She allowed the hoops to dangle from her belt-chain and lifted her thin fingers to smooth the band across her forehead.

  “A dream?” Did Math share that strange heritage?

  “Not as clear as a dream. But I know ill has come to him, somewhere, somehow. I would go to the moon-well—”

  “It is not night, and neither is it the time of the full moon,” I reminded her.

  “But water from that well can be used—Joisan, this I must do. But—but I do not think I can go alone—that far—”

  She swayed and put her hand to the wall to steady herself. I hurried to her, and her weight came against me so I had trouble guiding her to a stool.

  “I must go—I must!” Her voice rose, and there was in it an undercurrent of alarm that frightened me. When one who has always been rock-firm becomes unstable, it is as if the very walls are about to topple.

  “You shall. Can you ride?”

  There were beads of moisture showing on her upper lip. Looking at her straightly in that moment I saw that Dame Math had become an old woman. As if overnight all the weight of years had crushed down upon her, which was as frightening as her unsteadiness.

  Some of her former determination stiffened her shoulders, brought her head upright again.

  “I must. Get me one of the ponies, Joisan.”

  Leaning on me heavily, she came out into the courtyard, and I sent a stable boy running for a pony: those placid, ambling beasts we kept mainly for the carrying of supplies. By the time he returned, Dame Math was as one who has sipped a reviving cordial. She mounted without too much difficulty, and I led the pony across the fields to that very well where I had once slipped in the nighttime to ask a question of my own.

  If any marked our going, they left us alone. The hour was early enough so that I think most were still at their morning food. As I tramped beside the pony, I felt the pinch of hunger at my own middle.

  “Cyart—” Dame Math's voice was hardly above a whisper, yet it was as if she called and hoped to have an answer to her calling. I had never thought much about the tie between those two, but the ring of that name, uttered in her voice, told me much at that hour. For all their outward matter-of-fact dealing with each other there was deep feeling too.

  We came to the well. When I had been there at night before, I had not seen clearly those traces by which others had often times sought out a sign of the Power that was said to be there. There were well-worn stones rimming in the well, and beyond those, bushes. To the bushes things were tied. Some were merely scraps of ribbon, color lost through the action of wind and weather. Others were crudely fashioned of straw or twig—manikins or stick horses, sheep—all twirling and bobbling within sight of the water, perhaps set there to signify the desire of the petitioners.

  I helped Dame Math from the pony's back, guiding her forward a step or two until she pulled free from my aid and walked as might one who needed no help. With her goal in sight, a semblance of strength flowed back into her.

  From a deep skirt pocket she brought forth a bowl no larger than could be fitted into the hollow of her hand. It was of silver, well-burnished. And I remembered that silver was supposed to be the favorite metal of the Old Ones, just as opals, pearls, jade, and amber were their jewels.

  She gestured me to stand beside her and pointed to a plant that grew at the lip of the well itself. It had wide leaves of dark green veined with white, and I did not remember ever seeing its like before.

  “Take a leaf,” she told me, “and with it dip to fill this bowl.”

  The leaf, pinched, gave forth a pleasant aroma, and it seemed to twist almost of its own will into a cup, so I might spoon water into the bowl. The water in the well was very high, its surface only a little below the level of its stone rim. Three times did I dip and pour before she said, “Enough!”

  She held the bowl between her hands and raised it, blowing gently on the liquid within so it was riffled by her breath.

  “It is not water of the Ninth Wave, which is the best of all for this purpose, but it will do.”

  She ceased to puff, and the water was smooth. Over it she gave me one of those compelling looks that had always brought my obedience.

  “Think of Cyart! Hold him as a picture in your mind.”

  I tried to draw a mind picture of my uncle as last I had looked upon him, and when he had drunk the stirrup cup of my pouring before riding south. I was surprised that the months between had dulled my memory so quickly, because I found it hard to recall him with any clarity. Yet I had known him all my life long.

  “There is that about you”—Dame Math looked at me narrowly—“which gainsays this. What do you have on you, Joisan, which obstructs the Power?”

  What did I have about me? My hand went to my bosom where the crystal gryphon lay in hiding. Reluctantly, urged to this by the stern eyes of Dame Math, I brought forth the globe.

  “Hang it over there!”

  Such was her authority that I obeyed her, looping the chain near one of those straw people lashed to a branch. She watched and then turned her gaze again to the bowl.

  “Think of Cyart!” she demanded once again.

  Now it was as if a door opened and I could see him, clear in every detail.

  “Brother!” I heard Dame Math cry out. Then there were no more words, only a desolate sound. She stared down into the small bowl, her face very bleak and old.

  “So be it.” She took one step and then another, turned over the bowl and let the water splash back into the well. “So be it!”

  Harsh, startingly clear, a sound tore the morning air, the alarm gong from the keep tower! That which we had feared for so long had come upon us—the enemy was in sight!

  The pony whinnied and jerked at its tether, so I reached for the reins. As I struggled to control the frightened animal, the gong continued to beat. Its heavy ring sounded in echoes from the hills like the thunder of a rising storm. I saw Dame Math hold out the bowl as if offering it to some unseen presence, allowing it to drop into the well. Then she came to me.

  The need for action was like youth poured into her frail body. Yet her face was one knowing hope no longer, looking forward into a night without end.

  “Cyart has dreamed his final dream,”
she said, as she mounted the sweating pony. Of him she did not speak again; perhaps because she could not. For a moment or two I wondered what she had seen in the bowl. Then the alarm shook everything from my mind save the fact that we must discover what was happening at the keep.

  The news was ill indeed, and Dagale broke it to us as he marshaled his men for what all knew could be no defense, only a desperate attempt to buy time for the rest of us. The invaders were coming upriver, the easiest road to us from the coast. They had boats, our scouts reported, that were not sailed or oared, but still moved steadily against the current. And we of Ithkrypt had little time.

  We had long ago decided that to remain in the keep and to be battered out of it was deadly folly. It was better for those who could not fight to take to the hills and struggle westward. So we had even rehearsed such retreats.

  At the first boom of the gong, the herdsmen had been on the move, and the women and children also, riding ponies or tramping away with their bundles, heading west. I went swiftly to my chamber, pulled on with haste my mail coat and my sword, and took up my heavy cloak and the saddle bags in which I had packed what I could. Yngilda was gone, garments thrown on the floor, her portion of our chamber looking as if it had already been plundered.

  I sped down the hall to the short stairs up to Dame Math's room. She sat in her high-backed chair, resting across her knees something I had never seen in her hands before, a staff, or wand. It was ivory white, and along its surface were carven runes.

  “Dame—your cloak—your bag—” I looked about me for those that we were to have ever-ready. But her chamber was as it had always been; there was no sign she meant to quit it.

  “We must be off!” I hoped she was not so weak she could not rise and go. I could aid her, to be sure, but I had not the strength to carry her forth.

  She shook her head very slowly. Now I saw her breath came in gasps as she could not draw enough air into her laboring lungs.

  “Go—” A whispering voice came with visible effort from her. “Go—at once—Joisan!”

  “I cannot leave you here. Dagale will fight to cover our going. But he will not hold the keep. You know what has been decided.”

  “I know—and—” She raised the wand. “For long I have followed the Flame and put aside all that I once knew. But when hope is gone and the heart also, then may one fight as best one can. I do now what I must do, and in the doing perhaps I may avenge Cyart and those who rode with him.” As she spoke, her voice grew stronger word by word, and she straightened in her chair, though she made no effort to rise from it.

  “We must go!” I put my hand on her shoulder. Under my touch she was firm and hard, and I knew that, unwilling, I could not force her from her seat.

  “You must go, Joisan. For you are young, and there may still be a future before you. Leave me. This is the last command I shall lay upon you. Leave me to my own reckoning with those who will come—at their peril!”

  She closed her eyes, and her lips moved to shape words I could not hear, as if she prayed. But she did not turn her prayer hoops, only kept tight hold on the wand. That moved as if it had the power to do so of itself. Its point dropped to the floor and there scratched back and forth busily as if sketching runes, yet it left no marks one could see.

  I knew that her will was such she could not now be stirred. Nor did she look up to bid me any farewell when I spoke one to her. It was as if she had withdrawn into some far place and she had forgotten my existence.

  Loath to go, I lingered in the doorway, wondering if I could summon men and have her carried out by force, sure she was not now responsible in word or deed. Perhaps she read my thought in my hesitancy, for her eyes opened wide once again, and in her loose grip the wand turned, pointed to me as a spear might be aimed.

  “Fool—in this hour I die—I have read it. Leave me pride of House, girl, and let me do what I can to make the enemy sorry he ever came to Ithkrypt. A blood-debt he already owes me, and that I shall claim! It will not be a bad ending for one of the House of the Broken Sword. See you do as well when your own time is upon you, Joisan.”

  The wand twirled as it pointed to me. And I went, nor could I do otherwise, for this was like a geas laid upon me. A will and power greater than my own controlled me utterly.

  “Joisan!” The gong no longer beat from the watch-tower, so I heard that call of my name, “Joisan, where are you?”

  I stumbled down the steps and saw Toross standing there, his war hood laced in place, only a portion of his face visible.

  “What are you waiting for?” His voice was angry and he strode forward, seized me by the shoulder and dragged me toward the door. “You must mount and ride—as if the night friends themselves were upon us—as well they may be!”

  “Dame Math—she will not come—”

  He glanced at the stair and then at me, shaking his head.

  “Then she must stay! We have no time. Already Dagale is at arms on the river bank. They—they are like a river in flood themselves! And they have weapons that can slay at a greater distance than any bolt or arrow can fly. Come—”

  He pulled me over the doorsill of the great hall and into the open. There was a horse there, a second by the gate. He half-threw me into the saddle.

  “Ride!”

  “And you?”

  “To the river, where else? We shall fall back when we get the shield signal that our people are in the upper pass. Even as we planned.”

  He slapped my mount upon the flank so that the nervous beast made a great bound forward and I gave all my attention to bringing it once more under control.

  I could hear far-off shouting, together with other sounds that crackled, unlike any weapon I could imagine. By the time I had my horse again under control, I could see that Toross was riding in the opposite direction toward the river. I was tempted to head after him, only there I would have been far more of a hindrance than a help. To encourage those who fled, to keep them going, was my part of the battle. Once in the rougher ground of the heights, we would split apart into smaller bands, each under the guide of some herder or forester and so, hopefully, win our way westward to whatever manner of safety would be found in High Hallack now.

  But before I came to the point where the trail I followed left the dale bottom a stab of memory caught me. The crystal gryphon—I had left it snared on the bush beside the well! And I had to have it. I swung my mount's head around, sending him across a field of ripe grain, not caring now that he trampled the crop. There was the darker ring of trees marking the well-site. I could pick up the gryphon, angle in a different direction, and lose very little time.

  Taking heed of nothing but the trees around the well and what I had to find there, I rode for it and slid from the saddle almost before the horse came to a full halt. But I had enough good sense to throw my reins over a bush.

  I pushed through the screen of growth, setting jogging and waving many of those tokens netted there. The gryphon—yes! A moment later it was in my hand, safe again. How could I ever have been so foolish as to let it go from me? I could not slip the chain over my mail coif and hood, but I loosened the fastening at my throat long enough to thrust my treasure well within.

  Still tugging at the lacings to make them fast, I started for my horse. There was a loud nicker, but I was too full of relief at finding the gryphon to pay the heed I should have to that. So I walked straight into danger as heedlessly as the dim-witted.

  They must have seen me ride up and set their trap in a short time, favored by the fact that I was so intent upon the bauble that had brought me here. As I reached for the reins of my horse, they rose about me with a skill suggesting this was not the first time they had played such a game. Out of nowhere spun a loop that fell neatly over my shoulders and was jerked expertly tight, pinning my arms fast. I was captive, through my own folly, to those of Alizon.

  9

  Kerovan

  So my father was dead, and I had been left for dead. Who now ruled in Ulmskeep? Jago—my min
d fastened on the only friend I might now find within those walls ahead. During the months I had spent here as my father's deputy, I had acceptance but no following to which I might look now for backing. But I must somehow learn what had happened.

  I drew into a screen of brush at the fence corner. The night wind was chill, and I shivered, being unable to stop that trembling of my body any effort produced. The keep would be closed at this hour except for—

  Now I could think more clearly. Perhaps the shock of seeing the tattered banner had cleared my head. There was the Escape Way—

  I do not know what brought our forefathers up from the south. They left no records, only a curious silence concerning the reason for their migration. But the fortifications they built here, their way of life, hinted that they had lived in a state of peril. For the petty warrings they engaged in here after their coming could never have been so severe as to necessitate the precautions they used.

  They did not have to fight against the Old Ones for the dales. Why then the keeps—one strong one built in each dale—with those secret exit points known only to each lord and his direct heir? As if each need look forward to some time of special danger when such a bolt-hole would be in need.

  Therefore, Ulmskeep had an entrance open to me, my father having shown it to me secretly late one night. I had a way into the heart of what might now be enemy territory and, if I were to learn anything, that I must take. There was this also—I licked my lips tasting blood, a sorry drink for me—there was this: perhaps the last place they would search for me would be within that grim building with its tattered, drooping banner.

  I took my bearings from the keep and began to move with more surety now that I had a goal in mind, though I did not relinquish any of my care not to be seen. It was some distance I must go, working my way carefully from wall to wall, from one bit of cover to the next. There were lights in the keep windows and in those of the village. One by one those winked out as I kept on at a snail's pace, for I had schooled myself to patience, knowing that haste might betray me.