Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

I went forward very slowly to touch the wood above that bar, half expecting to have it crumble. Against the pressure of my hand as I applied more strength, it had a very solid feeling. There was no one to forbid me to draw that bar, and the shaft itself looked as if it lay lightly in the two loops through which it rested. At last, after some hesitation (I must not surrender to any fear), I knew I had to learn why one door in all the deep remained in the same condition it must have been when the building was at its most complete, the bar still sturdy, while elsewhere armor and weapons flaked away to the touch. There are many legends of how curiosity brought into peril those of the Dales who were unable to resist mysteries left by the Old Ones. At that moment I could understand the need that had driven those unfortunates, for I was under just such a compulsion to draw the bar that I could no longer fight it. Draw I did.

Perhaps it was the bar alone that, by some trick of its makers, had kept the door intact. For, as I pulled it to one side, and the door itself began to swing slowly toward me, cracks appeared in its surface, ran with a speed I could follow by my eyes, over the wood. There was a grating, a puff of stale air blown outward. The door slipped drunkenly on one hinge as the other snapped with sound sharp enough to make me start.

Half open, the door was fast falling into the same sorry condition as its two neighbors to the right and left. Pieces of the wood broke, crumbled in dusty puffs as they hit the stone pavement.

I shrank as that disintegration began, but now that it appeared to cease, with a last clatter, as the bar finally fell and snapped in two, I made myself edge forward to look into the room beyond.

I had only a moment or so to see—to look upon what had been sealed from time until I rashly had let in the years, and age itself wrecked, with fury, whatever the spell (I was sure I had broken a spell) had protected.

This room had not been bare. There were tapestries on the wall, and, though I saw their splendor only for two or three of the breaths I had drawn in wonder, they were so rich I could not believe that any human hand or hands had been able to stitch such. There was a bed, with a tall canopy, the posts of which were seated cats, each taller than myself. On the bed lay rich coverings of a tawny yellow like the fur of the cats, which grayed into ash brown, then were gone, as were the coverings on the floor. A table had stood against one wall and on it a mirror, its carved frame topped by a cat’s head. On that table were boxes—whose richness I had very little time to see, other things gone fast to dust before I could identify them.

Were there chairs, stools, a tall, upright wardrobe chest such as might hold gowns any keep lady would find herself hot with desire even to hold? I am sure there were. I am certain I can remember having a hasty glimpse of such. I had not stepped across the threshold; I only stood and watched a glory that made me ache for its beauty become suddenly nothing. Windows were revealed now as the curtains that had been drawn across them withered away far faster even than a delicate flower can wither if it is left in the full light of the sun, having been idly plucked for no real purpose.

The light from those windows streamed in (there appeared to be no curtaining vine outside here). In its beans, the dust motes dance a thousand fold. Then . . . there was nothing—just nothing at all . . .

No, that was not true.

In the midst of one of those shining panels of sunlight there was a gleam, something that appeared to catch the sun and then reflect it forth again, not in a hard glitter but in a soft glow. I hesitated to cross that chamber. Only, just as I had been unable to resist opening the spell-locked door, so I could not now stop myself.

The dust was very thick. I coughed, waved my hands before my face, strove to clear the air that I might breathe long enough to reach what lay in the mote-clogged sunbeam. When my boot toe near-nudged it, I stooped to pick up a ring.

Unlike the rest of the metal in the room it had not flaked into nothingness. The band felt as firm as if it had been fashioned only yesterday. But the setting was unlike any stone I had ever seen in my life. We of the Dales are poor in precious things. We have a little gold, washed out of streams, we have amber, which is greatly prized. A few of the very wealthy lords may have for their wearing at high feast days some colored gems from overseas. But those are mainly small, polished but uncut. I held now something far different from those.

The stone (if stone it was) was near the size of my thumb, though the hoop which held it was small, clearly meant for a woman’s wearing. This gem or stone had not been cut, nor did it need to be polished. For it had been fashioned by some freakish twist of nature herself into the semblance of a cat’s head and the surface was neither pink, nor yellow, but a fusing of the two with an iridescent cast to the surface, over which rainbow lights slipped as I turned it this way and that. I slipped the band over my finger. It was as if it clung there, made for no other’s wearing—also it felt as if it were in its rightful place at long last.

Moving closer to the window I turned my hand this way and that, marveling at such a thing showing against the brownness of my skin where the scratches of berry briars drew many rough lines. I did not know what it was but—it was mine! I was sure of that as if the ring had been slipped solemnly on that finger in some formal gifting. Once more I turned it again for the sun to catch it fair, then I heard . . .

A yowling arose, so sharp and clear it could have come from immediately below my window. I was looking out, down the slope toward the road. Both the cats were leaping from stone to stone, winding about bushes, disappearing, as they made their way through the jumble of ruins and stone that lay there below.

Beyond . . . there was a rider on the road! A rider! I saw sun flare in bluish gleam, small and far away—a mailed rider. He whom the cats had said would come? Kerovan?

Forgetting everything but what had drawn me for so many days, t turned and ran, dust rising up above me in a cloud that set me choking and gasping, but still I ran. I must know who rode the white highway. I could guess, I could hope—but I must know!

That Joisan was here beside the White Highway of the Old Ones—not trapped in dark and danger—was the only thought that filled my mind. Then she was in my arms, and I held her with such a grip as would keep her sale against the worst the Dark might send against us—so would I keep her as long as my strength lasted.

She was crying, her face wet with tears, as her hands closed on my shoulders in a grasp I could feel even through my mail. I forgot all the thoughts that had ridden me through long hard days, as i bent my head to find her lips, tasting the salt of her tears. A fire arose and raged through me as we so clung, forgetting all else but each other.

Only such moments cannot last. I loosed her a little, remembering who I was and why this great joy might not continue for me. This was a time when once more I must don inner armor, not for my protection, but hers.

If my hold loosened, hers did not. She only pushed back a fraction so that she might look directly into my face as her sobs came as ragged and uneven breaths.

“Kerovan—truly Kerovan . . .” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper.

Kerovan—my name completed the breaking of the spell. I moved to put her away from me but she would not let me. Rather she shook her head from side to side as might a child who refuses to give up something upon which she has set her heart’s desire.

“No, you shall not leave me again! You were here—now you try to go—but you shall not!”