Crystal Gryphon Read online

  Lord Ulric was prudent and wise enough to see that there was that to it which might come to overshadow our whole land, as it did. Speedily he sent accounts of what had been learned to all the neighboring dales, as well as to Ithkrypt.

  It seemed from the babbling of the wounded man that he was indeed a spy, the scout of an army soon to be landed on us. We realized that those of Alizon had decided that our rule was so feeble and weak in its nature they could overrun us at their pleasure, and this they moved to do.

  Thus was the beginning of the great shadow on our world. But I nursed the crystal ball in my hand, uninterested in Alizon and its spies, sure that somehow the Lord Kerovan would do as I willed, and I would look upon the picture of a man who was no monster.

  5

  Kerovan

  To my great surprise I discovered Jago had returned before Riwal and I came out of the Waste. His anger with me was such that, had I been younger, I think he would have cut a switch from the nearest willow and used it for my discipline. I saw that that anger was fed, not wholly from my supposedly ill-advised foray into the dubious territory, but also from something he had learned at Ulmskeep. Having spoken his mind hotly, he ordered me to listen, with such serious mien that I lost the defiance his berating had aroused.

  On two occasions in the past I had been to Ulmskeep, both times when my mother was away visiting her kin. So it, and the lower part of the dale, was not unknown to me. Also on those times when my father had come to me, he had taken patience to make me aware of the spread of our lands, the needs of our people, those things that it was necessary for me to know when the day came for me to take his place.

  But the news Jago brought I had not heard before. For the first time I learned of the invaders (though they were not termed so then, being outwardly visitors on leave from their ships at Ulmsport).

  With what contempt they regarded us we quickly learned, for we are far from stupid—at least in that way. Dalesmen may insist too much upon their freedom, having a strong disliking for combining forces, save in time of immediate and pressing need. But we can sniff danger like wild things when it treads our land.

  They had first come nosing into our ports, up river mouths, a year or so earlier. Then they had been very wary, circumspect, playing the roles of traders. Since the stuffs they had to offer in return for our native wool, metal, and pearls were new and caught the eye, they found a welcome. But they kept much to themselves, though they came ashore in twos and threes, never alone. Once ashore they did not linger in port, but journeyed inland on the pretext of seeking trade.

  As strangers they were suspect, especially in those districts lying near the Waste, even though it was known that their origin was overseas. Men met them courteously and with guest right, but as they looked and listened, asked a question here, another there with discretion, so did others watch and listen. Soon my father, gathering reports, could see a pattern in their journeying which was not that of traders, but rather, to his mind, the action of scouts within new territory.

  He sent privately to our near neighbors: Uppsdale, Fyndale (which they had visited under the pretext of the great fair held there), Flathingdale, and even to Vastdale, which also had its port of Jorby. With all these lords he was on good terms, for we had no feuds to separate us. And the lords were ready to listen and then set their own people to watching also.

  What grew out of all this was the now-strong belief that my father had judged the situation rightly, and these overseas strangers were prowling our country for some purpose of their own, one meaning no good to the dales. It was soon to be decided whether or not the lords would make common cause and forbid hew landings to any ship from Alizon.

  However, to get the lords to make common cause on any matter was a task to which only a man with infinite patience might set himself. No lord would openly admit that he accepted the will of another. We had no leader who could draw the lords under one banner or to one mind in action. And this was to be our bane.

  Now there were to assemble at Ulmskeep five of the northern lords to exchange their views upon the idea. They needed some excuse for such a gathering, however, for it must be a festival of a kind to keep people talking in such a way that the strangers might hear a false excuse. My father had found a cause in the first arming of his heir, bringing me now into the company of my peers as was only natural at my age.

  So far I followed Jago. But at his flat statement that I was to be the apparent center for this gathering, I was startled. For so long had I accepted my lot apart from the keep and from the company of my kin, that this way of life seemed the only proper one to me.

  “But—” I began in protest.

  Jago drummed with fingertips upon the table. “No, he is right, Lord Ulric is. Too long have you been put aside from what is rightly yours. He needs must do this, not only to give cover to his speech with the lords, but for your own sake. He has learned the folly of the course he has followed these past years.”

  “The folly of—?” I was astounded that Jago spoke so of my father, since he was so stoutly a liegeman of Ulric's as to think of him with the awe one approached an Old One.

  “Yes, I say it—folly!” The word exploded a second time from his lips, as might a bolt from a crossbow. “There are those in his own household who would change matters.” He hesitated, and I knew without words what he hinted at: that my mother favored my sister and her betrothed for the succession in Ulmsdale. I had never closed my ears to any rumor brought to the foresters’ settlement, deeming I must know the worst.

  “Look at you!” Jago was angry once more. “You are no monster! Yet the story spreads that Lord Ulric needs must keep you pent here in chains, so ill-looking a thing, so mind-damaged, that you are less than a man, even an animal!”

  His heat struck a spark from me. So this was what was whispered of me in my own keep!

  “You must show yourself as you are; be claimed before those whose borders march with Ulmsdale as the proper heir. Then none may rise to misname you later. This Lord Ulric now knows—for he has heard some whispering, even challenged those whisperers to their faces. And one or two were bold enough to tell him what they had heard.”

  I got up from the table which stood between us and went to Jago's great war-shield where it hung upon the wall. He spent long hours keeping it well-burnished so that it was like a mirror, even though the shape distorted my reflection.

  “As long as I keep on my boots,” I said then, “perhaps I will pass as humankind.”

  Those boots were cunningly made, being carefully shaped so my cloven hoofs appeared normal feet. When I went shod, no man might be aware of the truth. The boots had been devised by Jago himself and made from special leather my father sent.

  Jago nodded. “Yes, you will go, and you will keep your boots on, youngling, so you can prove to every whisperer in the dales that your father sired a true heir, well able to take lord's oath. With weapons you are as good, perhaps even better, than those who are keep armsmen. And your wit is keen enough to make you careful.”

  Which was more praise than he had ever given me in our years together.

  Thus mailed and armed (and most well-booted) I rode with Jago out of the exile which had been laid upon me and came at last to take up life in my father's keep. I did so with inner misgivings, having, as Jago pointed out, some store of wit, and well-surmising that I was far from welcome by some members of that household.

  I had little chance to speak again with Riwal before I went—though I longed for him to offer to go with me, knowing at the same time that he never would. In our last meeting he looked at me in such a way that I felt he could somehow see into my mind and know all my uncertainties and fears.

  “You have a long road to ride, Kerovan,” he said.

  “Only two days,” I corrected him. “We but go to Ulmskeep.”

  Riwal shook his head. “You go farther, gryphon bearer, and into danger. Death stalks at your shoulder. You shall give, and, in giving, you shall get. The giving and
the getting will be stained with blood and fire—”

  I realized then that he was farseeing, and I longed to cover my ears, for it seemed to me that his very words would draw down upon me the grim future he saw.

  “Death stalks at the heels of every man born,” I summoned my courage to make answer. “If you can farsee, tell me what shield I can raise to defend myself.”

  “How can I?” he returned. “All future is fan-shaped, spreading out in many roads from this moment. If you make one choice, there is that road to follow; if you make another yet a second path, a third, a fourth—But no man can outstride or outfight the given pattern in the end. Yours lies before you. Walk with a forester's caution, Kerovan. And know this—you have that deep within you, if you learn to use it, that shall be greater than any shield or sword wrought by the most cunning of smiths.”

  “Tell me—” I began.

  “No!” He half-turned from me. “So much may I say, but no more. I cannot farsee your choices, and no word of mine must influence you in their making. Go with the Peace.” Then he raised his hand, and, between us in the air, he traced a sign. I half-started back, for his moving finger left a faint glimmering which was gone almost as quickly as I marked it. And I realized then that in some of his seeking Riwal must have been successful, for his sign was of the Power.

  “Until we meet again then, comrade.” I spoke friend-farewell.

  He did not face me squarely, but stood, his hand still a little raised to me. I know now that he understood this was our last meeting and perhaps regretted it. But I was not cursed with that sight which can hurt far more than it shields. What man wishes to see into the future in truth when there are so many ills lying there in wait for us?

  As we traveled to Ulmskeep, Jago talked steadily, and that this was of purpose, I shortly understood. He so made known to me the members of my father's household, giving each his character as he himself saw it, with unspoken shadings which allowed me to perceive that this one might be well-disposed, that one not. I think he saw me as a child fated to make some error that would bring about disaster and was doing what he could to give me some manner of protection against any outspoken folly.

  My elder half-brother, who had come to Ulmskeep as a very young child, had, when he reached the age suitable for instruction in arms, been sent to our mother's kin. But within the past year he had returned, riding comrade-in-arms to our kinsman Rogear who was my sister's betrothed. I could well guess that he was to me an unfriend and with him I must be wary.

  My mother had her followers among others at the keep, and Jago, with what delicacy he could summon, named those to me, giving short descriptions of each and of the positions they held. On the other hand my father's forces were in the greater number, and among those were the major officers—the Master of Armsmen, the marshal, and others.

  It was a divided household, and such are full of pitfalls. Yet on the surface all seemed smooth. I listened carefully, asking some questions. Perhaps these explanations were Jago's idea; perhaps my father had suggested that I be so cautioned before I came to face friend and unfriend, that I might tell one from the other.

  We rode into the keep at sunset, Jago having blown a signal with his approach horn so that we found the door guard drawn up to do us honor. I had marked the residence banners of Uppsdale and Flathingdale below our gryphon on the tower, and knew that two of those my father had summoned were already here. Thus, from the beginning, I would be under the eyes of the curious as well as those of the covertly hostile.

  I must play my role well, seemingly unaware of any cross-current; bear myself modestly as became a candidate for arms, yet be far from a fool. Was I able to do this? I did not know.

  The guards clanged swords together as we dismounted. My father, wearing a loose robe of ceremony over his jerkin and breeches, came forth from the deep shadow of the main portal to the hall. I fell to one knee, holding out my sword by the point that he could lay fingers lightly on its hilt in acknowledgment.

  Then he drew me to my feet in a half-embrace, and, with his hand still on my arm, brought me out of the open into the main hall where a feasting board had already been set up, and serving men and maids were busied spreading it across with strips of fair linen and setting out the plates and drinking horns.

  There were two other men of early middle age, robes of ceremony about their shoulders. My father made me known to Lord Savron of Uppsdale and Wintof of Flathingdale. That they regarded me keenly I was well aware. But I was strengthened in my role by the knowledge that I made, in my mail and leather over-jerkin, no different appearance than their own sons might display. At this moment no man might raise the cry of monster. They accepted my proper deference as if this were an ordinary meeting and I had been absent from Ulmskeep for perhaps only an hour or two, not for all my life.

  Since I was still considered but a boy and, by custom, of little importance, 1 was able speedily to withdraw from the company of my elders and go to that section of the barracks where the unmarried men of the household were quartered. In deference to my heirship, I was given a small room to myself—a very bare room in which there was a bed, narrow and hard, two stools, and a small table, far less comfortable than my room in die forester's holding.

  A serving lad brought in my saddle bags. I noted that he watched me with open curiosity when he thought I did not mark him, lingering to suggest that he bring me hot water for washing. When I agreed, I thought that he was determined to make the most of his chance to view the “monster” at close quarters and perhaps report his discoveries to his fellows.

  I had laid aside my jerkin and mail by the time he returned, standing in my padded undercoat, sorting through my clothing for my best tabard with its gryphon symbol. He sidled in with a ewer from which steam arose, watching me as he placed it and a basin on the table, and twitched off a towel he had borne over one shoulder to lay beside it.

  “If you need service, Lord Kerovan—”

  I smoothed out the tabard. Now I deliberately unhooked my undercoat, letting it slide from my body, which was thus bared to the waist. Let him see I was not misshapen. As Jago said, if I clung to my boots, no man could miscall me.

  “You may look me out a shirt—” I gestured toward my bags and then saw he was staring at me. What had he expected? Some horribly twisted body? I glanced down and saw what had become so much a part of me I had forgotten I still wore it—the crystal gryphon. Lifting its chain over my head, I laid it on the table as I washed and saw him eyeing it. Well enough, let him believe that I wore a talisman. Men did so. And one in the form of the symbol of my House was proper.

  He found the shirt and held it for me as I redonned the gryphon. And he hooked my tabard, handed me my belt with its knife-of-pride before he left, doubtless with much to tell his fellows. But when he had gone, I drew the gryphon from hiding and held it in my hand.

  As usual when I held it so, it had a gentle warmth. With that warmth came a sensation of peace and comfort, as if this thing, fashioned long before my first ancestor had ridden into the south dales, had waited all these centuries just to lie in my hand.

  So far all had gone as it should. But before me still lay that ordeal from which my thoughts had shied since first I had known that I must come to Ulmsdale, the meeting with my mother. What could I say to her, or she to me? There lay between us that which no one could hope to bridge—not after all these years.

  I stood there, cupping close the crystal ball and thinking of what I might do or say at a moment which could be put off no longer. Suddenly it was as if someone spoke aloud—yet it was only in my mind. I might have looked through a newly unshuttered window so that a landscape hitherto hidden lay before me.

  The scene was shadowed, and I knew it was not mine to ever walk that way, just as there could be no true meeting between us which would leave us more than strangers. Yet I felt no sense of loss, only as if a burden had been lifted from me, to leave me free. We had no ties; therefore I owed her no more than she willed me to.
I would meet her as I would any lady of rank, paying her the deference of courtesy, asking nothing in return. In my hand the globe was warm and glowing. But a sound at the door made me slip that into hiding before I turned to face who stood there.

  I am only slightly over middle height, being slender-boned and spare-fleshed. This youth was tall enough that I must raise my eyes to meet his. He was thick of neck and shoulder, wide of jaw. His hair was a mat of sandy curls so tight he must battle to lay it smooth with any comb. He had a half-grin on his thick lips. I had seen such an expression before among the armsmen when a barracks bully set about heckling some simpleton to impress his standing upon his fellows.

  His tabard of state was wrought with fine needlework and stretched tightly over the barrel of his chest. And now he was running his fingers up and down its stiff fronting as if striving to draw attention to it.

  Big as he was, he did not altogether fill the doorway, for there was a smaller and slighter figure beside him. I was for an instant startled. The oval of that face was like enough to mine to stamp us kinsmen, just as his dark hair was also mine. His expression was bland, nearly characterless, but I guessed that behind it lurked a sharp wit. Of the two I would deem him the more dangerous.

  From the first I knew these for the enemy. Jago's descriptions fitted well. The giant was closer-kin to me than the other, for he was my half-brother Hlymer, while his companion was my sister's betrothed, my cousin Rogear.

  “Greetings, kinsmen.” I spoke first.