Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

Again she hesitated, then continued, her voice coming in a tumble of words as if she would quickly be done with the rest of the story. “We did what was to be done for my brother’s sake. With him there was no place for me. I am what I was born and few men—very few—can accept me so. Perhaps, in truth, only one . . .” She looked now at Jervon as he came back to us through the fringes of the mist. There was that in her eyes which made me once more know envy. So, I was sure, I looked upon Kerovan—but all that I had to offer had not been enough!

“Now,” Elys spoke more briskly, “we ride together as blank shields, lending our sword strength to those who need it most. Yes, I am war-trained. It was my father who willed it so. We are kinless, landless, but never without what we need most.”

Kinless and landless they might be, Woman of Power, Man of Sword—but they were one.

“Where do you ride now?” I asked. Though I had determined to make this quest alone, now I longed, suddenly and fiercely, for her to say south. Surely if they were blank shields the gathering of forces under Lord Imgry would attract them.

Rather to my surprise Elys shook her head. “I do not yet know. There is . . .” She looked troubled. “Joisan, would you fear if I made a scry pattern for you?”

I remembered once I had seen that done—and also for me—in the bowl of the Past-Abbess. Then I had seen my lord but had I known it not.

“You can do this?”

“Only for others, not for Jervon—not for me. It is like all Power—it does not work for the direct advantage of the summoner. Still I feel it should be tried now—for you.”

“Once it was done for me—only I did not understand then what was meant by what I saw.”

Elys nodded. “Many times such foreshadows can be obscure. They can even deceive—always remember that. You must not confidently expect that this or that will come to pass. We make many decisions, turn right on some path when we might have turned left, enter into a hall wherein it chances that we meet with one to alter our future. There are ways beyond counting in which fate can be so changed. All we learn from the bowl is one single path. Do you wish me to do this for you?”

Jervon was now standing at her back, his face sober. When he spoke quickly, before I could answer, it was to Elys not me.

“This is needful?”

“I think so.” Her words came slowly. “If Joisan agrees—this may be a part of why we were led here.”

He knelt to open one of the saddlebags, bringing forth something bundled in a heavy swathing of cloth. This he passed to Elys as if he handled bare steel, uncertain that it might not turn its cutting edge against him.

The wrapping was in two parts, the outer being a length that might have been cut from an old cloak. Underneath that was a fair piece of linen with across it, not in stitchery, but as if one had applied a scorching hot brand to its surface, brownish runes and symbols. All Elys’s attention centered on what she did. I saw her lips move, though she spoke no words aloud. Yet it seemed that now the mist, held at bay by our fire, had a life of its own and began to encircle us, pushing against an unseen barrier.

What lay within the inner cloth was a cup of moon-bright silver, into the waiting hollow of which Elys poured liquid from a small vial she took from her belt pouch, measuring it drop by drop. Now I heard the murmur of her voice as she repeated in cadence what could only be the spell words of a Wisewoman.

Carefully she set the cup on the rock between us, holding both hands about it. Her eyes were closed, her head upheld as if she looked far beyond.

Then, she jerked her hands away—some mighty heat might have blasted outward—and looked directly to me.

“Watch then!” I could not have disobeyed that order even if I wished.

I leaned forward, my hands on the rock, my arms braced on either side of the cup, my head bent so I might see clearly within.

At first there was nothing, only that thin film of oddly dark liquid. I could not see through it to the silver beneath. Then the liquid began to swirl about and about, rising in the hollow.

I felt dizzy, my head giddy, I could not turn away my eyes. Slowly the liquid stopped, now it filled the cup to its very brim, still dark . . . A mirror’s surface but one that reflected nothing.

Nothing? No, there was movement there, not caused by the liquid itself. A shadow arose to the surface, changing, becoming clearer. Now I saw, not my own face reflected therein, but a sharp picture.

“Kerovan!”

He was there, armored, helmed, but still bare of foot—or hoof. The mail he wore was strange, holding the same blue sheen as that which clothed Elys. He sat with a bared sword stuck point deep in gravelly earth as if he must keep a weapon close to hand. Behind him grazed three horses, and there was a stream, coarse grass, some stunted bushes. There was a strangeness about that land as if it were not Dale country.

His face was that of a carven figure like unto those I had seen in the Waste—nothing remaining in it of the Kerovan I wished to see. In a way he was as walled in crystal as the gryphon—beyond my reach.

I dared not look too long directly upon him lest my longing draw from me the strength I needed. So I busied myself studying the place about him, trying to locate some landmark, some way of telling where he so rested.

How long that picture held I did not know. Then it began to fade, was gone. While, as a bubble is pricked and becomes nothing, that which filled the cup fell back to the bottom of the hollow.

“I think”—Elys spoke first, breaking through my frustration and despair—“that is the Waste.”

I settled back, aware now of the ache in my shoulders, the pain of my hands, as if I had tried to dig into the unyielding rock with my fingers.

“The Waste?” I echoed. Why should Kerovan head back into that piece of ill omen? He had gone to Lord Imgry. Had the sight of his hooves, the knowledge that he was of what would seem to a Dalesman tainted blood, made him an exile after all?

Jervon shifted a little where he sat beside Elys. “So—” His brows drew together in a frown. “Well, it was well within the realm of possibilities that sooner or later Imgry would be moved to try that.” His eyes were on the cup around which Elys was once more enfolding the cloth, having thrown the liquid it contained into the fire, only to have her act followed by a burst of brilliant flame.

“Try what, my Lord?” Instinctively I gave him the honor title.

“Imgry”—with one hand he caressed his chin where an old scar made a half-discernible seam—“has always been one to plan—to dare—if another bears the burden of the action. I would say that it is now in his mind to meet with some of those in the Waste—and not the outlaws or scavengers—to perhaps propose an alliance.”

Anger burned in me. “Using my lord,” I burst out, “because he is of mixed blood and perhaps, that being so, some of those who wander or abide there might then feel kinship? He uses men hardly, does this Imgry!”

“It is because he does,” Jervon replied, “that perhaps, in the end, he will impose peace in this land. He is not loved, but he is obeyed, and that obedience draws together men who might not otherwise be held to any strong purpose.”

“But the Waste . . .” Lord Imgry’s qualities of leadership meant nothing to me. “Kerovan has been there—he barely lived when he went up against one Power. And he has no longer access to this.” My hand covered the gryphon. “He is not trained or armored against what prowls there. May Imgry be everlastingly cursed!” My hands curled talon-wise. I wished that I were a hawk to tear at the face of that cold and devious lord.