Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

Juggling the melons I climbed over fallen stones and so entered the courtyard once more, planning to use the sharp edge of my belt buckle as a tool to slit the fruit. They might furnish both food and drink. The sun now beat so hot that my mail was a steadily irksome burden.

I had become so used to the loneliness of the keep since my awakening that I gave a start when I saw that both cats had returned, were lying lazily at their ease in the beam of a sun ray. The female licked at her paws, her eyes slitted against the light. Even as I came closer her mate rolled over, his paws in the air, wriggling his body back and forth against the warm stone as if he were relieving just such an itching as my own leather jerkin brought in a portion of my back that I could not reach.

Seeing them thus taking their ease I paused, feeling very much the intruder—an uninvited guest. The female blinked at me, took no other notice, but continued to curl her tongue about a paw. However, the male sat up and shook himself vigorously.

I stood there, melons in my hand, facing them both uncertainly. Surely this was the strangest confrontation that could occur even in this land. Then I rallied and found myself voicing the guest greeting of my own people. These were not animals—but much more . . .

“For the welcome of the gate”—I found myself speaking aloud, and my gratitude did actually stir—“my thanks. For the feasting on the board”—(though that was my own gleaning and whether the cats could be thought to have ownership over the garden was a point to be questioned, though I certainly would not do so)—“my pleasure and my good wishes. To the Lord of this roof, fair fortune.”

“Lord of this roof?” The repetition of my own words sprang into answer within my head. If such a manner of communication could express amusement that was what was plain to me now. “A pretty speech, woman of the Dales. So that is how you speak among your kind. Now let me but think a little . . . ah, yes. ‘To the Farer on far roads the welcome of this roof, and may fortune favor your wandering.”

That was one version of the Dale welcome for a guest unknown personally to any lord. That this cat would quote the exact formal words was again startling. How did an inhabitant of the Waste learn our polite courtesy? However, the cat was continuing.

“You did well to listen to us—and remain here.” Now the light note had vanished from the mind-speech. Nor was I entirely surprised at the rest of what he said now.

“There has been a new stirring—”

When he added nothing to that, I moved forward to settle crosslegged on the heap of wilting grass that had been my bed (after all, he had given the guest greeting). Placing the melons on the stone before me (food was not my main interest now), I had a question ready.

“What manner of stirring? The Thas?” Since that or those had been the one menace I had met so far, my mind turned immediately in that direction. For a moment the fear that had been part of the dark and the stench awoke in me. My imagination painted a picture of tumbling walls (even such as these which had so long withstood the hammering of time), the ancient keep caught in a churning of the earth, all of it and us, too, sucked under.

“Perhaps Thas, among others.” The cat did not shrug as might a man, but some inflection of his reply signaled such a gesture. “No, not as you think now—here. Old as are the protection spells laid on Carfallin they still hold, and shall for perhaps many seasons yet. However, last night had its riders, its searchers, its seekers. Things are awake, watching, to prowl and sniff and hunt. Though as yet they are not sure of what they seek or how the hunt will begin.”

“You believe that my coming has done this? But if the Thas had already burrowed their underground ways into the land—that was surely done well before my arrival,” I protested. I deemed it certainly unfair to lay upon me the rousing up of Dark Forces, when I had not called on any Power except to save my own life. Nor had I used it, save only in the battle in the darkness, against any inhabitant of the Waste.

The Thas had fled the light, yes but I did not think that they had suffered any real hurt from its beams. No—I refused to have such burden as this laid upon me.

However, even as a man might do, this time the cat shook his sleek head from side to side.

“Even with that”—a lift of his muzzle indicated the gryphon lying on my breast—“some stir now which could not be called into action by such a talisman alone. Forces are on the move, we do not know why—as yet. It is only that all that move are of the Dark. Long ago boundaries were set, locks were made, spells were cast. Within stated ways Light and Dark could come and I go, always apart. Now there is a straining of those containing spells, a touch here, a thrust there—a testing to see if they still hold. The reason for this . . . who can tell?”

“The Dales have been invaded.” I seized upon that one fact—though why the inhabitants of the Waste should take that into account I did not understand. There was no doubt that they had defenses that no such invaders could pierce. They need only call upon perhaps the least of these, then return safely thereafter to their old ways of life. “I know nothing of how the war there goes now, save that the fighting so far has not favored my people. The Hounds of Alizon range far, they have more men, better weapons. Could this war now have lapped into your country?”

The female curled a scornful lip. “Men only—they hold or call no Power. Our land would not stir awake for the likes of them! The least of us could send them fleeing at will, or kill without much effort. No, what stirs is rooted in the past, has been long asleep, now it awakens. Those who rouse are not yet fully awake, or you and every living thing, between the Mountains of Arvon and the sea would know it. However, they turn and move in their sleep, and their enfolding dreams have come to an end. It may well be that the cycle of slumber has finished. We—those of our kind—never knew the appointed time of awakening. Such will cause a mighty change . . .”

She gave a last lick to her paw before folding it under her.

“It will not be well to be one such as you if and when the day of true awakening comes,” she commented (with something of relish, I thought resentfully). “Unless, of course, you can learn a bit—and have not only courage, but also the will to survive.”

I refused to give any ground to her. Though I had no intention of claiming any talent I did not possess, still I looked at her straightly as I answered.

“We all must learn many things during our lifetimes. If there is that which I must do—then I am ready to do it.” (I thought of my plea to Elys and of how that had come to nothing in truth because the Thas trap had put an end to it. On the other hand I had learned through that. I remembered only too easily the burden of concentrating my will on the gryphon.) “As for courage and will—we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust that there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.”

I had suddenly a flash memory of my aunt—had that phrase sounded as if said in her very voice? A little so, I thought. Once the pronouncements of Dame Math had been the laws of the world to me. I brushed back the hair that I could only secure in such an untidy fashion and perhaps I sighed.

“There is another of your blood coming.” The male broke through the silence that had fallen upon us. “He may even be the one you have sought. This one, at least, dares to ride the white road. No rune or spell set there has turned him back, though these forbade the way to others in his company. He comes now with one purpose in his mind—or so he believes. I think that he is to be fitted to another.”