Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

My days in the Kioga camp left me with too much time for such solitary speculation. As an honored guest I had no assigned duties, and those I could assist with, such as weaving the coarse linen thread spun from the wild flax growing along the riverbanks, were tasks that give one much time for thought. I spent long hours in conversation with Jonka, learning about the Kioga, how they had come to the plains, and was chilled to discover what had driven them from their mountain home—the same creature (or (me like unto it if one were to imagine the doubled horror dl two such) that Kerovan and I had seen that night on the hillside.

For some reason (perhaps to turn my speculations in any other direction—even an unpleasant one), thoughts of that mountain terror returned again and again to haunt me. I found myself wondering if it had always existed, a wrongness blighting the land since time itself was new, or if it had been created by some perverse follower of the Dark…

Sometimes at night I dreamed of it while lying alone in the guesting-tent, waking shaken and chilled, missing Kerovan’s warmth and strength more each time. We had always looked to each other for all companionship and happiness, as though we moved within a circle drawn by love—as a wand draws a pentagram for protection in a spelling. As the days passed, I wondered if, supposing that the drawing from the mountains was finally broken, we could extend that encircling warmth to include another, welcome a child…

With such hopeful speculation I barricaded myself against doubt and fear, for as the days passed, my certainty grew. At times I lay wakeful, hands pressed to my belly (though it would be long before any movement fluttered there), striving to ward off misgivings with reason.

Every woman fears a little when she first discovers she is bearing—I perhaps more than some, for I had presided at many birthings in past years. Fear of pain… fear of that ultimate aloneness that is labor… fear of change . . fear of the possibility—however remote—of death, nationally, I knew that I was well suited physically for childbearing, healthy, with a strong yet supple frame.

Women of my mother’s family for generations had been given to easy labors and birthings. Still I feared—a little.

But growing even more quickly, nigh eclipsing fear as the moon began to wax full again, was my eagerness to hold, touch, see my son or daughter. As I moved about the Kioga camp, my eyes were drawn naturally to the babies and young children, and I grew to know several of the young mothers—though my secret remained mine alone.

One of the young women, Terlys, was also alone while her husband was off with the scouting party, so I began to take my evening meal in her tent, helping her with her two lively youngsters, Janos, a boy of five, and Ennia, her daughter. Ennia was barely out of her cradle, but at times it seemed to me that she could crawl faster than her mother and I could walk, so busy did she keep us… untangling her from the spinning basket, snatching her from imminent immolation in the cooking fire; once I turned my back for what seemed a bare moment, only to find her playing with her mother’s copper necklet, sitting serenely between the front hooves of the herd-gelding tethered outside the tent!

Gunnora be thanked, the horse, as though he knew he must not move, stood like a rooted oak as I retrieved the baby. I carried her back into the tent, walking with knees that only will kept steady beneath me, as all the dreadful possibilities of the situation rose before my eyes. After I handed Ennia over to her mother, explaining how I had found her, I cut a thick chunk of bread, salted it, then fed to the gelding, scratching his ears and thanking him for his forbearance.

Returning to Terlys’s tent, I helped her change the baby into a clean dhoti, folding the thickness of the cloth carefully, so it would not chafe her little legs and bottom. Worn out by her exertion, Ennia was asleep before we slipped the clean tunic over her small head. Holding her carefully against my shoulder, I moved to put her in the wicker cradle. As I tucked the blankets around the sleeping child, Terlys’s voice reached me. “You need one of sour own to care for, Lady Joisan.”

I looked up, startled, to see the shadow of a smile about her lips, wondering if she had guessed. Perhaps I might have told her, then, if the tent flap had not rattled with Janos’s return from the practice field where he was learning to ride.

“How did it go today, Janos?” I asked, a little worried. Yesterday he’d returned dirty and scratched from a fall taken over the pony’s head when (acting with the waywardness most ponies possess) it had decided to buck rather than trot in a circle.

“Much better, Cera Joisan.” He grinned, showing the gap between his front teeth. “This time Pika went where I said, not where she wanted.”

His mother hugged him. “Good, good. No more falls, then.”

“Well…” He turned ruefully to show us the seat of his linen trousers. “I didn’t say that . But”—he brightened—today I got back on all by myself!”

That night when I left Terlys’s tent, picking my way carefully between the rows of tents and wagons, I saw that the moon was at her fullest and determined to ask Gunnora tor she is especially mindful of women who are bearing) if I indeed carried a child and, if so, for portents of its birthing. With this in mind, I made my preparations with special care, for I had never had need to try divination of this kind before.

Under the moon’s glow, I walked slowly to a nearby field, seeing there the distant shapes of the horses, hearing their muffled snufflings, the tearing of the grass as they grazed. Near the western side, protected from the animals by a makeshift hedge of cut thorn, was a stand of wild grain. Carefully I harvested a handful of the green heads, murmuring the proper thanks as I did so.

Returning to my tent, I poured these into an earthen bowl, adding wine until the grains bobbed in the dark liquid. Inhaling the fragrance of the grape deeply, I recited a silent invocation, asking Gunnora to bless and aid me, lastly holding the bowl so the rays of the moon shone full upon it. Then I settled down, cross-legged, closing my eyes to all about me, clearing my mind. Scrying is not a talent that all Wise Folk possess—as in all things, some are better at one thing than another. I had never tried such by myself before… but something seemed to be urging me to do so… whispering throughout my being that I must know … must know … must…

When my mind seemed clear and steady, I leaned forward, loosing the lacings of my shirt so that Gunnora’s amulet dangled free, still warm from its touch upon my breast. Without touching the amulet with my fingers, I lifted it by its thong over my head, then dropped it into the earthen bowl with the wine and the grain. When the red liquid was again still, I looked therein.

In the wavering glimmer and shadow cast by my single yellow candle, I could see the bowl and its contents clearly. I gazed at the surface of the liquid, trying to open my mind to any sight, any message forthcoming. The candle (lame reflection… my own wide eyes… there seemed to be nothing but those shifting flickers of red… then gold… red… red-gold…

I was floating above myself, looking down upon a young woman with slender shoulders, red-gold hair lying loose over them. Her/my face was hidden, of course, but my vision seemed expanded, intensified, so I could see the thing beyond the thing plain to normal sight… a wavering glow surrounded her very faintly, blue-green, brightening about her head, then shimmering into violet just below the faint outline of the shoulder blades beneath the linen shirt… violet, the color of the purest Power, that magic of the spirit… few of this world can harness it. The violet light brightened, pulsed, its throbbing quick and regular, as of a heartbeat. I seemed to see a white glow within the violet, at its heart, a quicksilver glimmer of something… something … something which seemed (o be enlarging infinitely, expanding to fill the universe, and at the same moment to be dwindling to the tiniest of specks, smaller than the human eye can discern.