Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

There followed the sensation of being lifted by a whirlwind. I dared not look down lest I see nothing below. We were sealed in by the light, and now the gryphon-man laid one taloned hand on Kerovan’s shoulder, the other on mine.

That light touch brought warmth, drove out my fear. No matter, however, if this stranger so sought to comfort me, what counted most was that my lord held me in his arms.

The streams of light whirled enough to make me giddy. I closed my eyes, but the sensation of flying was not lost. I no longer heard the gryphon’s roars. Had the creature been overwhelmed? I hoped passionately that was not so.

“Telpher is in no danger.”

The stranger had reassured me then. Who was he? Then—we swooped downward with such speed that I held even more tightly to my lord, felt his grasp also stiffen.

Fresh air . . . I opened my eyes. We stood in sunlight. Here were flowers—a feeling we had returned to our own time and world. Again came a trumpet call as a winged body passed over us. The gryphon flew to perch above the wide arch of a gate.

Though we stood in the open there were still four walls boxing us about. Each was pierced by a wide arched gate, three of which showed hard usage from time by fallen stone, but the fourth, where the gryphon had landed, was intact. Flowers grew in drifts of soil that spread in from the ruined gateways. There was even a tree or two that had taken root here.

The gryphon-man stood a little apart from us now. Even in the full light of the sun there remained that glow clothing him. He turned slowly, facing each of those doorways in turn. I do not think he meant us to hear him, but perhaps his earlier invasions of our minds may have linked us. for I caught thoughts carrying overtones of grief.

“Matr, Yoer, Rlleneé! Has it then been so long, and you gone so far?”

To each door he made a small gesture of the head as one uses in bidding farewell to a companion-friend. It was only then that he turned his attention once more to the two of us.

“We have but little time. If Galkur dared to invade the hall, he will follow swiftly . , “ He once move studied Kerovan with the same searching intensity he had used before. This time my lord, now awake, looked as straightly back.

“Yes,” the Old One continued. “I can well understand now what moves Galkur. Only his power appears somewhat lessened, perhaps by time. Now . . .!”

He flung up his head and, from his beaklike mouth, there sounded a roar not unlike that which the gryphon had uttered before it flew into the dark. The sound was oddly magnified; it filled, I thought, both heaven and earth. There was an answer.

A man who appeared as human as a Dalesman walked toward us under the arch where the gryphon crouched. His gray clothing was that of any wandering merchant. Only I knew him and spoke his name—with relief.

“Neevor!”

His answering smile was as kindly as that of my uncle when, as a small child, I had sought him out over some matter of unhappiness or doubt. A human smile, surely, and a warm one. From him flowed reassurance like a warm cloak placed about my shoulders in the chill of winter.

My naming of him came only moments before my lord did likewise. Kerovan took a step away from me. I believe that at that moment he reached for the same assurance that had comforted me.

“So—Neevor—your hand is in this matter also?” The gryphon lord thought-spoke.

“Was it not from the beginning, Landisl? I come now to take my part in the ending. When Galkur made mischief did not the dream of it enter your slumber? He thought then to shape a man-tool”—Neevor nodded toward Kerovan—“to his patterning and his purpose, taking advantage of a fool. But then, whose power essence interfered? Now what have you to say concerning the result of your dreaming, Landisl?”

The gryphon-man’s beak-mouth opened on a sound that was not human laughter but carried the same note.

“Yes, it was I who spoiled Galkur’s plot—even in my sleep. As to this one”—talons touched Kerovan’s shoulder gently, then gripped tight—“I have yet to prove him. You know the Law, Neevor—the future depends upon—”

Neevor interrupted him. “Just now it may depend upon Galkur. And you stand alone of the Sky-Ones. It look four of you to defeat him once.”

Landisl’s eyes glittered like sun-touched rubies. “Some powers wax with time, some wane. I believe that Galkur has lost somewhat. Or surely he would not have played games with the aid of a self-taught fool of a sorceress to foster a plot so easily overturned. What are his new plans, Neevor? It was your choice to spend years wandering, what have you learned during that restless travel to and fro?”

“Never to underestimate such as Galkur. His game has new elements. Landisl. There is a race of flawed and evil men overseas who entered this world through one of the gates. They are of the Dark, doubly so, though their learning is of another kind that does not answer to our Law. Therefore it is twice dangerous. They are embattled now and they need a new force for aid.

“Through their own ways of detection—and some reaching out on Galkur’s part—they have learned of Arvon and what may be tapped here. Though their conception of Power is distorted, and they do not understand our usage, they come seeking. They sent war into the Dales, endeavoring so to clear a path to us. And they are of a kind who can always provide a rallying point for many who have nourished the Dark here.

“Galkur ponders now on giving them more aid. So many of our Great Ones have gone, seeking gates of their own—new worlds beyond. Of those who remain, very few are full adepts—only a handful as learned as Galkur. So . . .”

“So you use your spells to send these two to awaken me?”

“Send, no. It is by your doing that even one stands here, that you have already acknowledged.” He nodded toward Kerovan. “It is by their own will and courage that they have won here.” There was a sharpness in that. “Those qualities they have in plenty. Kerovan’s birthright none may take from him. Daughter”—now he looked directly at me, once more smiled with such sweet gentleness that I longed to throw myself into his arms—“I told you once that you had a Key—to be used in the right time and place. You have done well with it. Now it remains for us to do as well with what will follow.”

Above the arch the gryphon roared.

Neevor half turned to look behind him through the gate.

“It seems that our time for doing so is now,” he observed.

Once I had paced a certain hall in a dream, then I did it waking—or was all a dream? What is illusion and what is truth when the Old Ones choose to weave patterns beyond the understanding of men? Was I more than one of strange blood? What part weighs in me the strongest?

This time I watched the sleeper wake; then came the first trial of strength between old, long-opposed Powers. Now we stood again in the world that the human half of me knew and welcomed. Struggle lay before us, though four was now five—a small army indeed. This would be such a battle as once before I had known when, to save my dear lady, I went up against the Dark.

There was a reason, going back to my birth—or before that even—which bound me to this course, and, through it, bound Joisan. Perhaps I was even first fashioned to play a part here—but that was not so for my lady.

Had I been able at that moment I would have caught her up, hurled her from us into safety. As I gazed at her that part of the inner self, which I had kept under such tight restraint and tried to banish, awakened as had the sleeper. I knew then, for all my fears, I could never set her apart. We were indeed bound together for good or ill.