Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

“What did Maleron do?”

“He naysaid his sister, accused her of being the one who was trafficking with the Shadow; then, when she would not retreat, would not take back her words, he became more and more enraged. Finally, Sylvya challenged him to prove himself untainted. Grabbing him by the wrist, she dragged him out of the room, taking him secretly down the ancient stone-chiseled road leading to the lowlands to the north, down the mountainside on the other side of that peak which is twin to this one we have claimed.”

I took a deep breath, my mouth dry from talking. Guret passed me a cup of the crystal liquid from the fountain, and he and my lord waited wordlessly while I drank. “Thank you, Guret. Ironically enough, this was Sylvya’s challenge—” I shook the last drops of water from the drinking vessel so they spattered onto the floor. “Water, running water. Most Shadowed Ones cannot cross it. Sylvya led Maleron to a tiny stream, skipped across it, and, once on the other side, dared him to follow.

“He tried. But as soon as his foot left the bank, he staggered back, sickened. Then, when he realized that his sister had indeed proved her point, won her challenge, his anger knew no bounding. He spoke words—words the like of which Arvon has not heard for long and long—mercifully. These words opened a Gate, and through that Gate came hunters and hounds, like unto none our world has known before. Maleron mounted himself on a steed spawned surely in some hellish otherworld, giving the order to loose those hounds.

“Sylvya panicked. The brook could not delay them indefinitely—sooner or later there would be a crossing place for them. She ran, that ghastly hunt racing after her.”

My eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Kerovan! That was long and long and long ago… and she has been running ever since.”

His horror of such a fate filled his eyes. “How could such a thing happen?”

“It was Sylvya’s doing. As she ran, she called out in desperation to Neave, begging the forces of Things As They Must Be to prevent the evil her brother had become from ever catching her. And those forces heard. Sylvya, Maleron—the entire hunt, quarry, hounds, and huntsmen alike—were transformed, shifted outside the bindings of Time as we know it. Sylvya could not be caught, but neither could she ever be free.

“Thus every night, at the same hour, that terrible hunt comes thundering up the ancient road, into the ruins of Car Re Dogan. They are part and parcel of no world, rather trapped in an endless existence somewhere between. But even their half presence is deadly.”

“Aye,” said Guret, with a quick, indrawn breath. “Any who stands in that path then must be drawn in and destroyed. As Jerwin was.”

I nodded at him.

“So that is the true nature of That Which Runs the Ridges in the night,” Kerovan said. “Poor Sylvya. To be trapped ever thus is a thing beyond any horror I have yet encountered…”

My hands knotted and unknotted the leathern thong holding Gunnora’s amulet. “I was shown all this for some reason,” I said. “There must be a way to free her!”

“How, when even passing contact with the thing kills?” my lord asked. “Such spells are far beyond our ken, Joisan. It would take one with the Power and learning of an Adept to undo this.”

I sighed, feeling weariness flood over me, having no answer to give him. I made to rise, but even as I did so, both he and Guret put out restraining hands. “Rest, Cera,” the boy said. “Our skill as cooks may not equal yours, but it shall suffice.”

Thus I rested, watching them bustle back and forth, chopping roots and vegetables, skinning and preparing Kame, building a crude but serviceable spit, making a fire in the stone fire-bowl we had discovered earlier.

The food they served seemed to strengthen me, restoring much of the energy I had lost. We all ate in hungry silence, then, our stomachs filled, sat back for a few moments of rest, gazing out at the deepening darkness. Finally Guret arose. “I will give the horses their grain tonight, m’lord,” he said, hefting the dwindling sack of feed.

“That is another thing we must trade for,” Kerovan observed, “if we want to keep the horses in riding trim. How many more feedings have we?”

“If I cut down gradually, perhaps three or four,” the young man said. His footsteps echoed slightly on the stone flooring as he left the courtyard.

Kerovan gestured at the eastern arches. “Can you still feel your Other?”

“Yes,” I made frank answer, “but as long as I wear the amulet, she can only reach me when I dream or let down my barriers.”

“I will sit up tonight and watch, lest you be plunged into another dream,” he said, his mouth set in a grim line. “Even though you say this Sylvya is not of the Shadow herself, it would not be well to chance another encounter.”

I hesitated, sorting through the impressions I had gained from this afternoon’s contact. “She has told me what it is needful for me to know,” I said at last. “The whyfor still puzzles me, but I—”

“Cera!” The shout echoed down the hallway toward us, accompanied by the beat of running feet. “Lord Kerovan!”

Together we rose as Guret plunged headlong into the courtyard, nearly toppling into the fountain in his rush. “The Great Hall!” he gasped. “There’s something there! Something…” He tried to steady his breathing. “Something that cannot be seen, or heard, or felt—but it is there, nonetheless! I swear it, by the Sacred Horsehide!”

My lord started for the entrance, his words reaching us faintly as we hurried after him. “I sense it, too, now. A questing, an opening…”

“As I started to walk past the throne, it was there —just there.” Guret’s words came quickly. “I could almost see something…”

I hastened my steps to a near run to catch up to Kerovan. “A questing? Nidu?”

“No.” He sounded positive. “I know not what it is, but there is no taint surrounding it, such as accompanied that one.” He frowned, the faint click of his hooves on the stone coming ever more rapidly. “But the boy has the right, there is something …”

“What?”

“Something familiar . I cannot recall—” He broke off as we burst into the Great Hall with its circular dais holding that huge, oddly shaped throne. As soon as I entered the room I, too, could feel the troubling.

Hesitantly, we began to walk around the chamber, to-ward the spot facing the throne—and as we took each step, that troubling grew stronger. There was Power alive here, ancient, growing evermore potent in the ages since it had last been tapped. It seemed to mist against our faces as my lord and I approached its center (Guret, perhaps wisely, having chosen to watch from the shelter ol the archway). I sniffed, detecting a sharp odor I could not put name to in the air.

Kerovan paused by the ramp leading up the dais to the throne, then, his face set, put out one hoof, beginning that ascent.

“Kerovan!” I made as if to grasp his arm.

“No,” he said, his voice ringing hollowly, overlaid with another, alien tone. “This is what I must do.”

I felt the resistance against my bone and flesh increase as I made to follow him, and stepped back, defeated. No spell I had ever enjoined could break down barriers of this kind. This, then, was for my lord to face alone.

Reaching that massive block of the quan-iron from which the seat had been carved, he hesitated for a long second, then, in one smooth motion, sat down. His hooves dangled by nearly a handspan, and he needs must squirm to find a comfortable perch thereon. Clearly, none of humankind had been the original occupant of the throne.