Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

I was here? What did she mean? Then the warmth still consuming me made that plain. The husk that had been Kerovan now held life. All my good intentions, my knowing this was wrong, that I was tainted—they were threatened by that warmth, by her words . . .

Setting my teeth I raised my hands to her wrists. By main strength I must break her hold, push her away from me. Still she shook her head. Now she also writhed in my hold, fought me as if she had been one of the tawny cats.

“No!” Her denial arose louder. “Do you not understand? You shall never be free of me—you cannot. We—we must be—”

Her voice faltered. I do not know what expression my face wore, but hers became one of growing despair. Then her shoulders slumped, her hands went limp in my grasp. It was she who edged away.

“Let me go,” she said in a low voice. “I shall not trouble you so again. I thought that . . .” Her voice trailed off; she raised one hand to smear it across her cheeks. Then she flung back her head, tossing her disordered hair out of her eyes, away from her face.

I could not answer, it took all my resolution to curb the rebellious desire within me. I could only stand—alone. Her chin lifted, strength of purpose shone from her eyes. There was that in her carriage, her voice—such will and self-confidence—which would provide a safeguard as strong as the armor and leather she wore.

“I have no pride,” she said, even when every inch of her taut, straight body, proclaimed her right to that. “I listen to your voice saying, ‘You are not my lady, I have no wish to be your lord’—but I cannot accept those words as a woman should. So I come after you because—only with you, Kerovan, am I a person in whom I can believe. Therefore, if you deny me again, and ride on for whatever mission Imgry has set you—and how is it that such as he dares say ‘do this and do that’ to you —I shall follow. Even if you are sworn to his service.”

As she studied me through slightly narrowed eyes, I could not even yet find the power of tongue to answer her. If I could not command my inner self, how then could I man my defenses against her? Not with this wild mutiny growing within me.

I shook my head, glad in a small way to be able to answer a lesser question.

“I swore no oath.” I found those words easily enough. “I came at my own will. Had it not been my choice I would not have ridden forth.”

Perhaps then, because I was so glad to find an excuse not to meet her personal challenge. I spoke of my mission—of what Imgry had learned about Alizon’s search for a “power.”

To my relief she listened with growing interest.

“And what success have you had in marshalling any of the Waste?”

I told her of the Wereriders.

“So—and now whom do you seek?” she asked.

J drew a ragged breath and shook my head. Instead I told her of my return to my camp, of the devastation I found there. At my mention of Elys and Jervon, she put out her hands, catching at my arm.

“Then they live—were left above ground! I thought—I hoped—that might be so.”

I had a question of my own. “Where were you?”

She moved back a little, her hands busy now with her hair. For the first lime I became aware of a rising wind, the fact that the sun had gone behind clouds. She frowned at the sky.

“There is a storm coming. You can feel it in the air. Up there”—she pointed to the rough, steep slope—“there is shelter—come!”

I could find no reason to refuse. Leading the mare and the pony. I followed her. For the first time I remembered the cats. There was no sign of them now.

The ascent was not an easy one, and above the clouds grew ever thicker and darker. As we rounded the side of a wall and entered into a courtyard the first drops of rain began to fall. Lashes of lightning cracked across the sky to the west. The roll of thunder was heavier than the nimble of Alizon war machines crowding through the throat of some narrow dale.

I loosed the pack pony and the mare from their burdens, Joisan stooped to catch up a share of the bags and packs, helping to draw these into a dark chilly hall. She caught at a smaller pack from the pony.

“Elys’s thought—I am glad of this. But where is she? And Jervon? Did you send them away—or did they deem me dead and . . .”

“It was when we came to that road. Only this morning she said that they would travel no farther—for some reason that was forbidden. A Wisewoman who carries a sword is a thing I had never heard of. She cannot be of the Dales—”

“If it were meant that they should not come, she would know, of course. No, she is not of the Dales—nor the Waste either—her parents came from a wreck on the coast. And, though she was born here, her blood is strange.”

Gloom of near-night darkness came quickly with the rush of rain outside. Her face was only a blur to me.

“She has power,” Joisan was continuing. “And Jervon”—for a moment she paused, then continued in an even tone—“he accepts her for what she is. He is not the less in her eyes, nor she the greater in his. They are two halves well-fitted together to form something stronger than either, This may not happen easy or often, but when it does . . . Ah. then it is as if both have found a treasure—a treasure beyond dreams of other men!”

There was a ring of something close to defiance in her tone. I knew I must not confront her again on this subject, which lay heavy in both our minds. Instead I asked once more what had happened after the earth swallowed her.

So I heard the strange tale of her being caught in thick dark and hunted through that dark by the Thas. Also of how the gryphon had been her salvation.

“I do not know just how it was awakened to my aid. Somehow the strength of my will, my need, brought it to life. It was the light that showed me the door into a place—a very strange place.”

She spoke then of a chamber wherein lay a maze of low waHs, of how she had won to the center of that having perceived a pattern. In the middle she had taken refuge and fallen asleep—or into the web of another sorcery—and had awakened outside this keep.

“There was fruit and water here . . .” Before I could move she dashed out again into the courtyard, returned near as swiftly, laughing and shaking raindrops from her hair, bringing with her a melon, which she dumped on the floor between us.

“Give me your knife. Mine—all my weapons—were taken from me in the dark.” Joisan plucked my knife from the belt sheath to slash open the melon. She pressed half of it into my hands.

The fruit was sweet, filled with juice—better than I could ever remember eating—bringing comfort to my mouth and throat. I produced in turn a cake of journey bread which we also shared—Joisan having gone to wash her hands in the fall of water beyond the door, shaking them as dry as she could.

“There are more of these—and berries, water plants—I did not go hungry once I reached here.”

“And the cats?”

Joisan had settled herself cross-legged beside me, well within touching distance, only her hands lay loosely together on one knee. She made no move to reach out to me.

“Yes, the cats. You may not believe this, Kerovan, but those two are not animals as we know them. They understand one’s thoughts and speech and mind-speak in return. There is—was, for I have not seen him since my first coming—also a small bear who can do likewise. The cats told me to wait, that one was coming. I climbed the tower and saw the road. But I wonder . . .” I saw her lift one hand now and regard it closely. Then she held out that hand to me and asked a question.

“Kerovan, you have been much more up and down the Dales than I. Have you seen the like of this before?”