Crystal Gryphon Read online

  The dark was close to that of true night, and we had no torch. So crowded were we that Riwal's shoulder rubbed mine whenever he moved even slightly, yet the rain was so tumultuous we could not have heard each other without shouting, which we did not do.

  What had been the original purpose of the ruin? Built so beside the road, could it have been an inn? Or was it a guard post for some patrol? Or even a temple? As Riwal had said, who knew the purposes of the Old Ones.

  With one hand I explored the wall. The surface of the stone was smooth, not pitted as the more exposed portions were. My fingers could detect no seam or joining, yet those blocks had been set together somehow. Suddenly—

  Men sleep and dream. But I will swear any oath I did not sleep. And if I dreamed, then it was unlike any dream I had ever known.

  I looked out upon the road, and there were those moving along it. Yet when I tried to see them through what appeared to be a mist, I could not. They remained but shapes, approximating men. Could they be men?

  Though I could not see them clearly, their emotion flowed to me. They were all moving in one direction, and this was a retreat. There was a vast and overwhelming feeling of—no, it was not defeat, not as if some enemy had pressed them into this withdrawal, but rather that circumstances were against them. They seemed to long for what they left behind, with the longing of those torn from deep rooting.

  Now I knew that they were not all alike or of one kind. Some as they passed gave to me their sense of regret, or loss, as clearly as if they had shouted it aloud in words I could understand. But others were less able to communicate in this fashion, though their emotions were none the less deep.

  The main press of that strange and ghostly company was past. Now there was only a handful of stragglers, or of those who found it the hardest to leave. Did I or did I not hear the sound of weeping through the rain? If they did not weep in fact they wept in thought, and their sorrow tore at me so I could not look at them any longer, but covered my eyes with my hands and felt on my dusty cheeks tears of my own to match theirs.

  “Kerovan!”

  The shadow people were gone. And so was the force of the storm. Riwal's hand was heavy on my shoulder, as if he shook me awake from sleep.

  “Kerovan!” There was a sharp demand in his voice, and I blinked at what I could see of him in the dusk.

  “What is the matter?”

  “You—you were crying out. What happened to you?”

  I told him of the shadow people withdrawing in their sorrow.

  “Perhaps you have the sight,” he said gravely when I had done. “For that might well have happened when the Old Ones left this land. Have you ever tried farseeing or tested a talent for the Power?”

  “Not I!” I was determined that I would not be cut off from my fellows by a second burden. Different I might be in body because of the curse laid on me before my birth, but I needed not add to that difference by striving to follow those paths trod by Wisewomen and a few men such as Riwal. And he did not urge me, after my quick denial. Such a way must be followed by one wholly willing; not by one led into it by another. It has its disciplines that are in some ways more severe than any warrior training, and its own laws.

  After the storm the day lightened again, and we were able to set out at a brisk pace. The water still settled in pools and hollows, and we refilled our smaller water bag, letting the horses drink their fill before we moved on.

  I wondered, when we rode that way, if I would have the sensation of the company of those I had seen in the vision or dream. But that was not so. And shortly I forgot the intensity of the emotion that I had shared with them. For that I was thankful.

  The road, which had run so straight, made a wide curve heading toward the north and the greater unknown of the Waste. Now ahead we caught sight of heights making a dark blue line across the sky of evening, as if we headed for a mountain chain.

  Here also the land was more hospitable. There were trees where before had been mostly shrubs and stretches of grassland. We came to where the road arched in a bridge over a stream of some size. And it was beside that running water that we camped for the night. In fact Riwal settled us, not on the bank of the stream, but on a bar which thrust out into it. The water was high from the storm, and there was flotsam carried with it, piled around the rocks edging that bar.

  I eyed his choice with some disfavor. To my mind he had deliberately selected a site which would give us little room and which appeared dangerous from the sweep of water. He must have read my expression for he said, “This is chancy land, Kerovan. It is best to take the common precautions when within it—some uncommon ones too.”

  “Common precautions?”

  He gestured at the stream. “Running water. That which is ill-disposed to us, if it be of the Power and not human, cannot cross running water. If we camp so, we have only one front to defend.”

  So reasoned, it was common sense. Thus I pushed rocks and pulled loose drift to clear a space between for us and the horses. Nor did Riwal deny us a fire made from the driest of the drift. The river was falling, but the current was still swift. It held life also, for I saw a dark shape of a length to suggest that the fish of this country were of a huge size, though I was teased by the disturbing suggestion that that shadow beneath the surface did not altogether resemble any fish I knew. I decided that in the Waste it was better not to probe too deeply into the unknown.

  We set a watch, as we would in enemy country. At first, during my tour of duty, I was so uneasily alert that I found myself peopling each shadow with an intruder, until I took my fancies in hand and forced control over them.

  Though the day had been sunless, we did not lack a moon. Its rays were particularly strong, making the landscape all black and silver—silver in the open, black in the shadows. There was life out there, for once I heard the drum of hoofs, and our horses nickered and tugged at their tethers, as if some of their wild kin had pounded by. Once I heard a distant, mournful cry, like the howl of a hunting wolf. And something very large with wings planed noiselessly over our camp as if to inspect us. Yet none of these were frightening in themselves, for all men know that there are wild horses in the Waste, and wolves run through the dales as well. And there are winged night-hunters everywhere.

  No, it was not those sounds that disturbed me. It was what I did not hear. For I was as certain as if I could see it that out there in the black and silver land lurked something, or someone, who watched and listened with the same intensity that I did. And whether it was of good or ill I could not guess.

  Sun and morning banished such fancies. The land was open, empty, in the daylight. We crossed the hump of the bridge and headed on, while before us the mountains grew sharper to the sight.

  By nooning we were in the foothills, which were ridges sharper than our dales, more like knife slashes in soil and rock. No longer was the road straight. It narrowed to a way along which two of us might still ride abreast, but no wider, and it twisted and curved, ran up and down, as if its makers had followed always the easiest route through this maze of heights. Here, too, the Old Ones had left their mark. Carved on the walls of rock were faces, some grotesque, some human-seeming and benign, and often bands of runes that Riwal busied himself to copy.

  Though no one could read the script of the Old Ones, Riwal had hopes that someday he would be able to do so. We had dawdled so while he copied the runes that noon found us in a narrow vale where we took our rest under the chin of a vast face that protruded strongly from the parent cliff of which it had been carved.

  I had studied it as we came up, finding it in something vaguely familiar, though what that was I could not say.

  Oddly enough, though we were here surrounded by the work of those who had vanished, I felt free of that watching, as if whatever had been here once was long gone and had left no trace. And my spirits rose as they had not since the storm caught us.

  “Why all these carvings?” I wondered. “The farther we go, the more they are clustered on the wall
s.”

  Riwal swallowed a mouthful of travel bread in order to answer. “Perhaps we now approach some place of importance; a shrine, even a city. I have gathered and sifted the stories of traders for years, yet I know of none who have come this way, into the foothills of the mountains.”

  That he was excited I could see, and I knew that he anticipated some discovery that would be far greater than any he had made during his years of wandering in the Waste. He did not linger over his food, nor did I, for his enthusiasm grew to be mine also. We did not pause beneath that giant chin for long, but rode on.

  The road continued to weave through the foothills, and the carvings grew more complex. There were no more heads or faces. Now runes ran in complex patterns of lines and circles. Riwal reined in before one.

  “The Great Star!” His awe was plain to see.

  Surveying the complexity of that design, I could at last make out a basic five-point star. But the star was overlaid with a wealth of other curves and bits, so it took careful examination to make it out at all.

  “The Great Star?” I asked.

  Riwal had dismounted and gone to the rock face in which that pattern was so deeply chiseled, running his fingers along the lines as far up as he could reach, as if he wished to assure himself by touch that what his eyes reported was true.

  “It is a way, that much we know, of calling upon one of the highest of the Powers,” he said, “though all save the design has been lost to us. Never before have I seen it in so complex a setting. I must make a drawing of this!”

  Straightway he brought out his horn of ink, tight-capped for journeying; his pen; and a fresh piece of parchment on which he began to copy the design. So lost was he in the task that I grew restless. At last I felt I could no longer just sit and watch his slow stroke upon stroke as he studied each part of the design to set it down.

  “I shall ride on a little,” I told him. He grunted some answer, intent upon his labors.

  Ride on I did, and the road took a last turning—to the end!

  Before me a flat rock face bore no sign of any gateway or door. The pavement ended flush with that cliff. I stared in disbelief at such an abrupt and seemingly meaningless finish to our quest. A road that began nowhere and ended thus—? What had led to its making? What could its purpose have been?

  I dismounted and went to run my fingertips along the surface of the cliff. It was real, solid rock—die road ran to it and ended. I swung first to one side and then to the other, beyond the boundaries of the pavement, seeking some continuation, some reason. There were two pillars standing, one on either hand, as if they guarded some portal. But the portal did not exist!

  I advanced to lay hand upon the left pillar, and, as I did so, at its foot I caught a glimpse of something. It was a faint glimmer, near-buried in the gravel. Straightway I was on my knees, using first my fingers and then the point of my knife, to loosen my find from a crack in which it had been half-buried.

  The gleaming object I had cupped in my hand was a strange find. It was a ball, a small globe of crystal, a substance one might have thought would have been shattered among these harsh rocks long since. Yet it did not even bear a scratch upon its smooth surface.

  Within it was a tiny image, so well-wrought as to be the masterpiece of some gem-cutter's art—the image of a gryphon, the beast that was my own House symbol. The creature had been posed with one eagle-clawed foot raised, its beak open as if it were about to utter some word of wisdom to which it bade me listen. Set in the globe directly above its head was a twisted loop of gold, as if it had once been so linked to a chain for wearing.

  As I stood with it cupped in my hand, the glimmer of light that had led me to its discovery grew stronger. And I will swear that the crystal itself became warm, but only with such warmth as was pleasing.

  I held it on the palm of my hand, level with my eyes, that I might study the gryphon closely. Now I could see that there were small flecks of crimson in the head to mark the eyes. And those flecks sparkled, even though there was no outer light to reflect within them, almost as if they had life of their own.

  Long had I been familiar with all the broken bits on Riwal's shelves, but never before had such a thing been found intact—save for the brokers loop at the top, and that, I saw, could be easily repaired. Perhaps I should offer it to Riwal. And yet as I felt its warmth against my flesh, saw the gryphon's stance of wisdom and warning within, I had the belief that this was meant for me alone and that its finding was not by mere chance but by the workings of some purpose beyond my knowledge. If it were true that my mother's House had intermated with Old Ones, then it could well be that some small portion of such blood in my own veins made me find the crystal globe familiar and pleasant.

  I took it back to Riwal. When he saw it, there was vast amazement on his face.

  “A treasure—and truly yours,” he said slowly, as if he wished what he said were not so.

  “I found it—but we share equally.” I made myself be fair.

  He shook his head. “Not this. Is it mere chance that brings a gryphon to one who wears that badge already?” Reaching forth, he touched the left breast of the jerkin above my mail, on which was discreetly set the small gryphon head I always wore.

  He would not even take the globe into his hand, though he bent his head to study it closely.

  “This is a thing of Power,” he said at last. “Do you not feel the life in it?”

  That I did. The warmth and well-being that spread from it was a fact I could not deny.

  “It will have many uses.” His voice was low, and I saw that his eyes were now closed, so he was not viewing it at all. “It shall bind when the need is for binding; it shall open a door where there is want of a key; it shall be your fate, to lead you into strange places.”

  Though he had never said he could farsee, in that moment I knew that he was gripped by a compelling force which enabled him to envision the future uses of the thing I had found. I wrapped it within a scrap of his parchment and stowed it against my flesh within my mail for the greatest safety that I could give it.

  About the bare cliff Riwal was as puzzled as I. All the signs suggested a portal of some importance, yet there was no portal. And we had, in the end, to be content with what we had discovered and to begin the trek back from the Waste.

  Never during that journey did Riwal ask to see the gryphon again, nor did I bring it forth. Yet there was no moment during the return that I was not aware of what I carried. And the two nights that we lay encamped on the return road, I had strange dreams, of which I could remember very little save that they left an urgency upon me to return to the only home I had ever known, because before me lay a task of importance.

  4

  Joisan

  Though I had little liking for Yngilda, I found her brother Toross unlike her. In the autumn of that year, soon after we returned to Ithkrypt, he came riding over the hills with a small escort, their swords all scabbarded with peace-strings, ready to take part in the fall hunt that would fill our winter larder after the kills were salted down.

  Differing from his sister in body as well as in mind, he was a slender, well-set youth, his hair more red than the usual bronze of a dalesman. He possessed a quick wit and a gift of song that he used to advantage in the hall at night.

  I heard Dame Math say to one of her women that that one, meaning Toross, could well carry a water horn through life to collect the tears of maids sighing after him. Yet he did nothing to provoke such admiration; never courted their notice, being as ready in riding and practice of arms as any of the men, and well-accepted by them.

  But to me he was a friend such as I had not found before. He taught me the words of many songs and how to finger his own knee-harp. Now and then he would bring me a branch of brilliant leaves clipped at their autumn splendor, or some like trifle to delight the eye.

  Not that he had much time for such pleasures, for this was a bustling time when there was much to be done for the ordering of supplies against th
e coming of cold days. We stewed some fruits and set them in jars with parchment tied firmly over the mouths; dried other such; brought forth heavy clothing and inspected it for the need of repairs.

  More and more of this Dame Math left to my ordering, as she said that now I was so nigh in years to becoming the lady of my lord's household I must have the experience of such ways. I made mistakes, but I also learned much, because I had no mind to be shamed before strangers in another keep. And I felt more than a little pride when my uncle would notice with approval some dish of my contriving. He had a sweet tooth, and rose and violet sugars spun artfully into flowers were to him an amusing conceit with which to end a meal, and one of my greater triumphs.

  Though I busied myself so by day, and even a little by lamplight in the evening when we dealt with the clothing, yet I could not altogether thrust out of mind some of the thoughts Yngilda had left with me. Thus I did something in secret that otherwise only a much younger maid would have thought on.

  There was a well to the west in the dale that had a story about it—that if one went there when the full moon was reflected on its water surface and cast in a pin, then luck would follow. Thus, not quite believing, yet still drawn by some small hope that perhaps there was luck to be gained by this device, I stole away at moonrise (which was no small task in itself) and cut across the newly harvested fields to the well.

  The night was chill, and I pulled high the hood of my cloak. Then I stood looking down at the silvered reflections in the water and I held out my pin, ready to drop it into the disk mirrored there. However, before I released it, the reflection appeared to shiver and change into something else. For a long moment I was sure that what I had seen there had been far different from the moon, more like a crystal ball. I must have dropped the pin without being aware, for suddenly there was a troubling of the water, and the vision, if vision it had been, was gone.