Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

“What kind of dreams?” I demanded anxiously, thinking of those strangely shifting shadows shrouding the other mountain’s summit. They disturbed me. One needed no lessoning in theurgy to realize that these mountains must be as cloaked in sorcery as the rest of this haunted land—how else could they have proved such an effective barrier ’twixt east and west, High Hallack and Arvon?

“Dreams of long ago, my lord… a dream whose end has not yet been revealed to me. There was an Adept, once, who lived in a Keep atop that mountain over there… Margrave of the Heights, he was, the watcher and guardian between the ancient land and the land from which his people had, mostly, withdrawn—High Hallack. Only there were none of the Dalesblood abiding there then, for it was long and long ago…” Her voice had taken on the cadence of a songsmith’s as she spoke, staring out across those twisted ways.

“Did he know Landisl?” I asked, fascinated and more than a little disturbed by and for her.

“I don’t know…” She hesitated, then shivered. “His place is gone, and Kar Garudwyn still stands. Oh, my lord… more and more I feel as though there is truly a designed purpose in our coming here. A purpose beyond finding a home, a cause we yet sense but dimly. Perhaps a reason that will be years… decades… in the revealing. I feel like a playing piece pushed hither and yon at the will of something greater—and I do not like it!”

I nodded. “In the past… I have felt the same. Do you recall Neevor’s words to us, that day we bested Galkur? He said that he —Landisl—had a part in my making, and that someday I might follow a road to Power that perhaps he had walked before me… Do you remember that?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft. “But I also am mindful of your answer to him… that you chose to follow no road which led to the holding of Power—that you wished to be only Kerovan, lord of nothing, man of no great talent…”

I smiled at her ruefully. “You and Guret both have a knack for summoning my own words back to haunt me. There is a time for holding to such, and a time for letting go. A time for choices of the mind, and a time for choices of the heart. And sometimes only the fullness of time can tell us if we have chosen well or ill.” I drew her close as I bent to kiss her forehead solemnly. “Joisan… you are truly a Wise One, my brave lady.”

She laughed shakily, her eyes downcast. “You give me too much credit, my lord. I can be as foolish—or as cowardly—as the next one. Just as you pointed out, sometimes we all cast away things that may be good just because we fear. Truth is a two-edged sword. Before we left Anakue, Zwyie made a foretelling for me. I awoke this morning, having dreamed of her words. “You shall journey and you shall find a home of ancient wisdom, a place of ancient evil. What are now two shall be three… then six, to face that not of earth…

“Indeed,” I mumbled, my mind worrying at those cryptic words as a hunting hound might worry a lure-skin. We have journeyed and found a place of ancient wisdom right enough. As for evil… could it be that well I battled?”

Joisan shrugged. “Perhaps. Foretellings are chancy matters in the best of cases.”

“What means ‘two shall be three… then six’? Three is a number of power, but not so six. Do you understand it, Joisan?”

Red stained her cheeks suddenly, she looked a little away and no longer met my gaze squarely. “I know not about the number six, Kerovan, but the two becoming three—”

“Guret!” I exclaimed. “Guret is with us, now.”

“So I am,” said the young man, approaching the window where we stood. “While you two looked upon the morning, I have prepared our breakfast.”

After I had washed and shaved, and we had eaten, we discussed plans for the day. Guret, who had more experience as a fisherman than I, proposed to try his luck in the river running the length of the valley. Joisan wished to search the woods and fields for edible roots and growing things, while I would take Guret’s bow and seek game.

When we met later in the afternoon, each of us had done well—Guret swung several fat fish from a line, I had two rabbits, as well as an unwary hedge-grouse, while Joisan’s shawl bulged with intriguing lumps and bumps. As she saw us coming, she waved, beckoning us to look upon what evidently excited her. “Look!” she exclaimed, showing us several gnarled kernels. “Wild grain! I shall be able to make “bread, of a sort. The soil is rich. We must trade with the Kioga for seeds of all kinds—flax, grain, vegetables”—she began sorting through her booty—“wild onions, carrots, and turnips… this valley must have been under cultivation, long ago.”

“Aye, Cera,” Guret agreed.

“We will need a plow,” I said, “and a harness. I wonder how Nekia will take to drawing the earth-breaking blade.”

“Have you ever farmed, m’lord?” Guret looked faintly scandalized, as though he found the thought of a warrior behind a plow disturbing.

“I have turned my hand to many things since we have been in Arvon,” I said, amused. “Including plowing. I can even do a fair job at smithing. Replacing horseshoes is a constant worry in the army.”

“Perhaps that is one of the things you can use in trade, m’lord,” Guret said. “Our smith, Jibbon, is growing old. Jerwin, the boy who died in the mountain passes last winter, was learning his trade, but—”

“Jerwin?” Joisan asked.

Quickly the boy told the story of the menace the Kioga had fled. Joisan glanced around her at the sunlit fastness of the valley, then at the mountain peaks rising above it. “Where in the mountains does this pass lie?”

Guret stood for long moment studying the position of the sun, glancing from peak to peak, in silent thought.

Finally he turned to us. “I cannot be sure,” he said reluctantly, “but it must be in this very region.”

Joisan looked distinctly uneasy, though I had the impression she was not much surprised, either. For me, I surveyed the peace of the valley, then the beauty of Kar Garudwyn, to learn that I could not imagine this as anything but a refuge of welcoming safety. “We were not menaced last night,” I reminded them. “Naught can enter this valley that I shall not sense.”

Even as I spoke, as though my words were an enlarging-glass to focus the many rays of the sun into one burning pinprick, I swung to face the southern end of the valley, whence we had come yesterday. It was as though someone had brushed a roughness across my flesh, abradingly, causing discomfort, but as yet no real hurt.

“What is it, Kerovan?” Joisan asked.

“I feel a troubling… southward. Something is trying to breach the Guardians of the pasts.”

“That runner of ridges?” Guret looked frightened.

“No. That menace is one that gains strength when the sun is fled. I don’t know what this is… but we must find out, and speedily.”

Whistling for our mounts, we saddled and rode up the’t alley at a brisk canter, toward that narrow throat of rock marking its entrance. As I rode, I could feel that other presence, like a filthy cloak muffled about my spirit. Some-tiling was pushing against the valley safeguards, growing more and more angered when their protection held firm. While on my wrist—though I showed that not to my companions—my talisman took on its warning warmth and light.

As we moved toward the englobed symbols, I indeed sighted a figure without, dark, sitting silent atop a black stallion. The stranger was hooded and shrouded in a sable cloak, but as we neared, the sunlight picked out a narrow ridge of nose, and I heard Joisan’s soft exclamation. “Nidu!”

Sensing my lady’s strong dislike mingled with fear, even though we were not directly mindsharing, I glanced at her reassuringly. “Such a one cannot pass the protection devices, Joisan, unless we open the way to her.”