Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

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.