Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

I smiled, albeit a little grimly. “My own words return to haunt me—but perhaps we should both consider them…”

That night, with the silent camp sleeping around me, I found myself wakeful as I lay in my bedroll. Memories of Nita’s rescue played themselves over in my mind, in a slowed-down manner, against my will. I saw, as if from outside myself, the spinning current, Nita’s small form, my own movements—seeming incredibly clumsy and ineffectual. Sweat sprang dank and clammy on my body at the realization of just how close death had come to claiming me—and Nita—beyond all rescuing. And against death , I thought, shivering though the night was balmy, m an has no defense at all…

Not so , responded another part of my mind. Most men have those of their blood to follow them, and so, in a fashion, live on . I thought of Guret’s clear-eyed gaze, of Nita’s pert friendliness, and felt a pang of envy for their parents. What would it be like to have a son or daughter of my own to counsel, to comfort, as I had done today with Guret and Nita?

Joisan and I had been truly wed for three years, now. To my knowledge she had never used her Wisewoman’s learning to prevent conception, yet we had no children. This must mean that she could not conceive by me—once again I was too different from pure humankind.

I thought of my own boyhood when my father, though offering me all any son and heir was entitled to in the way of food, clothing, and training, had nevertheless held me at arm’s length insofar as any closeness, any sharing, was concerned. That his distance was partly due to my mother’s ensorcellment in her effort to turn him against the “monster” he had fathered, I had discovered only after his death—when it was too late. I remembered my childish vows, when, hurt by Ulric’s rejection, I had sworn that if I ever had a son I would never behave so… and then I recalled the soft, longing note in Joisan’s voice when she spoke of Utia’s child…

I took a deep breath, realizing that my hands were balled into fists, nails gouging my palms. Opening my eyes, I willed myself to relax, looking upward at the moon, once again waxing, and at the bright, bright stars. Here on the plains, with no trees to interrupt their sweep, they arced overhead in such brilliant profusion that it made one dizzy to look upon them. I seemed to shrink within myself, my sorrow to become a silly, maundering indulgence in the face of such eternal indifference.

Yet something within me fought that sentence of insignificance—that negation of spirit. I am a man , I told those faraway uncaring watchers, a man, and today I saved a life . The thought brought with it a measure of comfort. Closing my eyes, I willed sleep.

For the next ten days we rode, moving ever southward and to the east, our eyes searching the horizon for Obred’s looked-for mountains. On the morning of the eleventh day, when he chanced to ride beside me, I asked him why he and the Kioga had abandoned the mountains from whence Joisan and I had traveled—and if he and his people had originated in those heights.

“To answer your second question first, no. When I was still such a small one that I could barely ride alone, we came to this land. Nidu opened the way—” Catching my look of surprise, he nodded affirmation. “Yes, the same Wise One you have seen. My race is long-lived, true, but Nidu’s Powers have given her a lifespan known to few. She is old, yet seems not to age… It is best not to question one with Power. She drummed and sang, and we rode into a greyness… and when it faded, we were here, in this land.”

“Why did you leave your old land?” I asked, thinking that Joisan’s suspicion about these people having traversed some Gate from another world or time now had more substance in the face of Obred’s explanation.

“I was too young to understand much, and the Elders never liked to speak of it… but I remember hiding in one of the wagons and peering out, only to see some of our young men and women marched away in fetters, linked by neck-collars and chains. My mother was among them. Tall, thin men with light hair and eyes rode beside them with whips. Thus we were a strange band when we came into Arvon—numbering only the very old and the very young, with few riders who could be reckoned in their prime…”

“That is a heavy memory to bear,” I said slowly, thinking that, in its way, his fate had been even harsher than my own. “You must have missed your mother.”

“Perhaps in the beginning. I do not remember much. Only that one sight stayed with me. But here, things were different. We were free, roaming our mountain home with none to fear—until this past winter, that is, when that…” He paused, seeking for words. “That thing … that runner of mountain ridges claimed Jerwin’s life. Guret and I were among those who saw if, and one view was enough. We packed and marched with the breath of the he Dragon burning at our backs, lucky enough to traverse the passes without causing an avalanche, but none who had seen it ever thought of turning back.”

His words seemed to bypass my mind and sink directly into my body, causing a stirring at the back of my neck, as of little icy slivers pricking the flesh. My breath caught, then I managed, “ It ?”

“Everyone who saw it had a different perception of it, Lord, but all agreed it was uncanny—a thing against true nature. Yellowish, swirling, it seemed to me, and cold, colder than death, ranker than decay. It hurled itself up the ancient mountain road with the speed of a hunter, and young Jerwin happened to be caught in its path. He… froze… stood looking at it… while we shrieked for him to run. His face—” Obred’s voice caught, and it was a moment before he continued. “Jerwin was my sister’s boy, you see. It was his first scout. And I am haunted by the thought that he met a death that is not yet finished… an unclean death… a never-ending death.”

“I understand,” I whispered, stirred by the horror of his remembering and my own. “I, too, have seen it.”

“You? When?” Obred was plainly startled.

“Just before Joisan and I came into your land. I did not see its reality, only a shadow… a vision, if you will. It was horrible.”

“Aye.” Obred tugged absently at the heavy droop of his moustache, evidently thinking. “Did it appear to you much as I described it?”

“Yes. Streaks of red running through a yellowish mist… a droning sound like angry bees, or perhaps some insane music…”

“I heard nothing. So it was with each of us; some things seem the same, some perceptions differing with each watcher. Nidu was the only one who saw it clearly—or thought she did.”

“What did she see?”

“A hunt. Men and monsters pursuing a creature from legend. An unholy mixture of woman and bird-thing… grotesque and ugly. Like a harpy in Arvon’s old legends.”

Harpy ? My mind skittered through memory, finally seizing on one of the tiny figures my friend Riwal had collected on one of our many forays into the Waste, hearing again his words as he labored to fit together a broken body and leg. “True, this is a woman’s body, Kerovan, and what looks to be the leg of a bird. But they join perfectly, so. See? It is a pity the other leg is lost.” And I had stood in wonder at the one-legged creature with a woman’s trunk bearing the head and extremities of a bird of prey. Something about the rapacious expression on the tiny face had made me shiver and draw back, as though the creature might snap its fanged beak suddenly, then launch itself at me.

“A fearful thing, a harpy,” I said, the memory of the tiny carving vivid before me.

Obred nodded. “Following Jerwin’s grim death—after the creature rolled over him, there was naught left we could even bury or burn—we decided that we must leave. We did, and now we search for mountains again, safe ones, clean of the Shadow.”