Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

I remembered the times I had soothed fevered patients, and made my tone gentle. “See what, Kerovan?”

“The symbol!” Frustrated, he pointed at the blank wall. “You see it—you must see it!”

I shook my head. “We see naught but a stone cliff, my lord.”

Kerovan turned to Guret for confirmation, then once again studied the rockface, his puzzlement growing. “But it’s so plain .”

Reaching toward the stone, he touched fingertip to its rough greyness—and I started, smothering an exclamation. Beneath his touch, light flared, violet light, and I could see the symbol as he traced it! A winged globe—Guret cried out from behind me, making Kerovan turn abruptly.

“It—it’s gone!” Guret blinked at the stone, then looked to me appealingly, fear touching his eyes.

The symbol that had flared there so briefly, carved deep into the granite of the cliff, was indeed gone. Still—I blinked in turn, squinting, then put out my own fingers to the same spot. Warm—

Under my touch a faint blue-green glow glimmered, fading almost as quickly as it came, but for the few seconds of its life, I had been able to feel the deeply incised symbol.

“Do you mean that to you the stone is blank?” Kerovan asked, his confusion fading. “But it is so clear…”

“Even as the valley entrance was to you,” I pointed out. “But to Guret and me, it was shrouded in mist, filled with glamourie. Do you see a door here?”

For answer he traced again the symbol, which once more glowed faintly with a violet light. There was a groaning, a sound I heard not so much with my ears, but with that other sense I had come to associate with my use of Power, and then the rock wall swirled, darkened—

We faced a wide passage, stone-floored and walled, that curved upward out of sight.

Even with the gently angled loops of that ramp, I was hard-taxed to make the climb. Kerovan bounded ahead, as tireless as Nekia, while Guret and I lagged behind. My legs began to ache from the strain, and I was forced to pause, breathing deeply, at several points.

At one such stop Guret reached out, took my pack, then shouldered it along with his own. “I can carry it,” I protested.

“I know, Cera, but it is heavy, and you must not tire yourself to exhaustion.”

I looked into his dark eyes, seeing there a gentle understanding and compassion. “How did you know?” I asked. “Did Terlys—

The young man smiled. “I have four younger brothers and sisters, Lady. I have seen my mother’s eyes grow shadowed, in just the way yours are, when she was carrying. My lord does not know?”

“No,” I admitted, “and he must not, until we know what it is we face in this place. Promise me you will keep silent.”

He hesitated. “Except for the weariness, are you well?”

“Completely,” I made firm answer. “I am a midwife, remember. I will take no foolish risks. Have I your sworn oath?”

He nodded heavily. “Aye. I swear by the Sacred Horse-hide to hold silence—unless you fall ill, Lady. Then I needs must speak.”

I nodded. “That is fair.”

Kerovan was striding impatiently back and forth as we toiled up the last reaches of the stone ramp.

Kar Garudwyn awaited us. In the last light of the sun the blue stone seemed shaded with a warm, welcoming glow. There were no wooden doors, such as I was accustomed to in the Keeps of High Hallack. Instead one entered through an arched portal somewhat larger than the many narrow ones admitting light and air. A short passage lay beyond, then a hall. It was large, with a circular floor, rising overhead to a domed ceiling. As we entered a crystal globe hung from the center of the dome flared into soft life, emitting a rosy light.

Tables, flanked by benches, filled the central portion, with a dais midpoint. A huge seat rose from it—seeming partially a throne, but clearly not one intended for humankind’s occupancy. A ramp led up to it, not stairs, as one would find in a Keep.

I frowned, suddenly arrested by something that should have been there, filling this hall, but was not—dust. I touched the surface of a table, looking at the ungrimed pinkness of my fingertip with disbelief. After so many ages, there should be dust!

The table’s surface seemed cool, smooth—not like wood, which at first sight I had thought it to be. No, this material had the color and circular veining of wood, but the slickness and glassy feel of polished stone.

“Cera!” I glanced up at Guret’s whisper. “Look at the walls!”

I walked over to join him, as he stood surveying the curving walls of the feasting hall—or so I now believed this to be. What I had thought were more veinings marking the stone surfaces were instead patterns and pictures made up of many tiny gem pebbles embedded in the surface. I touched the mosaic carefully, marveling at the intricate workmanship. A dark green stone—surely that was jade. And another one with tiny fires tracing its milky surface—opal?

My searching eyes and fingers discovered a kingdom’s ransom of agate, jade, opal, amber, and topaz, as well as other jewels studding the wall to form parts of the patterns. The scenes themselves were huge, swirling pictures of the sun, the mountain, plus what I realized after some study were very ancient runes—so old that I could barely recognize them for what they were. I could not read any of them, which saddened me. For I had a feeling, as I stood eyeing them, that they told the story of this place, if I could but understand their message.

“Cera!” Guret tugged at my arm. “M’lord Kerovan is not here!”

“Where did he go?” I had no wish to be separated from him in this beautiful—but passing strange—place.

“I did not see him leave. I turned, and he was gone.”

Hurriedly we forsook the hall to search passages. A ramp echoed overhead with the click of passing feet—hooved feet—and we took it at a run.

Kerovan moved quickly, but without undue haste, heading for the arched portal at the end of that hallway. Open archways as we passed revealed rooms empty of furnishings, dustless and silent.

The portal before us gave way to another ramp which we ascended quickly. Beyond it, the view from the southern and western windows was dizzying, naught but a clear sweep of reddened sky and purple cloud. Fortunately the lighting globes came to life at intervals along the halls, or we would have been soon in the darkness, and eyeing the unguarded floor-to-ceiling expanse of the narrow window-arches, I did not like that thought. My palms turned sweaty and itched at the unbidden fear of falling from such a height.

As we ascended one more ramp in my lord’s wake, I thought that we must be in one of the towers I had noted. A final archway met us at the top of the ramp, filled with a coruscating violet light, making me draw back instinctively. It would be death to touch that shimmering brilliance, I knew.

Kerovan put out a hand, speaking softly, words I did not know. The light grew softer, gentler, then vanished altogether. He stepped within. Taking a deep breath, I followed him.

Arched windows opened the circular room to the mountain air, making me feel a brief return of the same giddiness I had fought in the pass. Careful not to stray too close to any of those openings, I watched my lord.

The room was large, with naught but a few tables therein. Runes glowed softly on the walls, taking fire from the dying sun. A pentagram was incised on the floor; next to it, the winged globe symbol. The wind touched us here, chill with the coming of evening, making me shiver.

Kerovan stepped to the nearest table, laid hand to a book that sat at its center. I held my breath lest the volume crumble into nothingness, as I had once seen the contents of a spell-held room do in an ancient Keep, but it remained intact. My lord moved around the room, seemingly untroubled by the giddy sweep of air outside the windows, his hands rising now and again to caress a book, a scroll… a rune incised on the wall—everywhere he touched came that violet glow. I could feel Power here, stirring like some huge animal just waking from sleep.