Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

Behind me, Elys’s chant rang out loudly, and, mind-sharing, I sensed that Joisan, at least, was doing as the Witch had demanded and was aiding her in whatever spell or protection she strove to raise. The hounds, barely a sword’s length before me, hesitated, their slender heads weaving as if they were puzzled. Then, slowly, those heads swung toward Nidu as she crouched at the foot of one of the niches.

The woman gave a gasping cry of horror as gradually the outline of her body began to shimmer. It was as though the entire light of the moon were suddenly concentrated upon her, and I could feel warmth streaming from the Shaman even from where I stood. Elys’s voice rose higher, higher, became more commanding—

The pack leader turned, those pitted eyes naught but wells of shadow. Nidu screamed thinly, scrabbling for her ruined drum, but the heat radiated from her as though she were filled with a score of suns—

The hounds leaped, but their target was the Shaman. The black-clad woman went down under their writhing, sinuous forms with a shriek that was hideously stillborn.

I found I could not watch and turned my eyes back to the Adept. Maleron turned away from Nidu’s body with a half shrug. “That one should not have meddled with what she could not understand,” he said. “Perhaps her fate has lessoned you, half-man?”

I felt heat flood my cheeks at the casual gibe but forced myself to face him squarely. “You are so inured to death that naught can reach you, Maleron. Can you not see that your time is past? We stand ready to stop you before you can Shadow this land as you have Shadowed this lonely mountain for these many ages.”

“Stop me?” He chuckled, and the sound was enough to make the hounds, still tearing at the ravaged thing that had been the Shaman, stiffen and whine. “There are none left who can stop me, half-man… beast-man…” He swung off his white mount with a quick, sure motion, facing me nearly eye to eye across the moonlit oval of the ancient Guardians. “Any who might have been my peers have vanished. They are less than memory… less than dust.”

I hesitated for a long second, watching him summon his power as a soldier will gather his weapons. A faint, dark light began to flicker around him, and suddenly he seemed even taller, his eyes radiating palest ash-silver. I took a breath, lifting my wristband, ready to stand against him with all the Power that was in me—

All the Power that was in me…

It flooded into me, filling me, and yet this time I remained myself, not some other. I knew that the knowledge had bided its time, and that this time I was to be no unthinking, unknowing instrument of an ancient wisdom—but truly myself, more myself than ever before. Landisl had so waited until I had accepted my heritage, found my home, was ready.

“Not so,” I said, and my voice rang forth as though I had sounded the charge for a full company, filling this ensorcelled burial ground. I heard Joisan gasp, but I could not look away from the Adept now. My eyes bore into his as I strengthened my Will, and after a second he had to brace himself to meet my gaze. “It is time for you to realize just what you have done, Maleron, and in that knowing will lie your fate.”

His eyes narrowed and the darkness around him blazed like a wind-fed fire. “Who are you?” He faced me squarely. “I know you not, yet—”

“You know me,” I corrected him. “We were neighbors long ago, Margrave of the Heights. Your sister was far kin to me, though you were not, since your father’s first lady was of humankind. Do you remember my Name?”

He backed half a step, shaken. “Landisl? But you are not—”

“I am,” I said. “I am of the heritage of the Gryphon, if not the blood. Kar Garudwyn is my home, just as Car Re Dogan was yours. But you, with your meddling and dabbling along that Shadowed Path, have dishonored what your ancestors built. Look around you!” My shout rang like the clang of a sword upon shield. “Your home is dust and illusion, fallen into ruin because of you and your evil. Look, and look well!”

Slowly his head turned until he could see through the archway behind him to the ruins holding those shifting hallucinations that had once been walls, and courts, and rooms for living. “No,” he whispered. “No…”

“Sylvya was right, Maleron. You trifled with that which should not even be thought of, and as a consequence, your entire Keep, your line, and all that you call yours fell after you departed. There is naught here for you, except to resume the evil you have wreaked for these ages—slaying and stealing spirits. Is that what you want?”

He did not answer, only stood staring wide-eyed. I could see shudders wracking his body. Pity stirred within me for a brief second, but I quenched it sternly. Ten heartbeats’ worth of remorse could never make up for ten centuries of destruction…

The Adept turned back to me, his eyes dull and hopeless. “I see,” he said softly. “What must I do? How can I mend… ?”

“You cannot,” I said inexorably, again quashing those brief stirrings of sympathy. Landisl’s wisdom was mine for the moment, greater and fuller than my own, and the truth was inescapable. “If the Light has surfaced within you at last, it cannot be for long. The Shadow has held you in thrall for time out of mind, and you must act quickly, while you can think with your wits undarkened.”

“I must undo—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It is too late for that, Margrave. It is a hard thing to know, but it is the truth. The most good you can do now for the world is to ensure that you will never again have the opportunity to work evil.”

I pointed to that empty niche waiting by the archway, and violet light flared up from my hand to outline it. The coursing of the ancient Power through me was beginning to make me tremble, but grimly I held that channel to the other open, focusing all my Will upon Maleron.

“Your rest, Adept. For all these ages you have wished for rest from that mad chase. There it lies.”

He turned back to me for a long second, then his shoulders came forward in defeat and he nodded. His eyes, no longer greenish-silver, but leaden, went past me to Sylvya, who had moved up beside me. “Your forgiveness, sister,” he said, reaching a hand toward her in supplication.

“It is yours, my brother,” she said, and I heard her voice for the first time. It was a high, musical trilling, as though she sang rather than spoke.

Maleron turned back to the niche, still blazing with that coruscating light, his shoulders straightening again. Head high, he walked deliberately to that opening, stepped within, then turned to face us. Crossing his hands on his In-east, he closed his eyes. The Power flickered through my open fingers again, almost without my willing it, and as I slowly raised my hand, a wall of the blue stone Landisl named quan-iron grew to cover the niche, not stopping three-quarters of the way up, as for the other guardians, but enclosing the opening completely.

As the wall reached his chin, I saw the Adept’s face for (lie last time—and watched an expression of peace flow across it just before the quan-iron encased him.

“Walled in,” Sylvya whispered beside me. “Forever…”

“No,” I said heavily, feeling a strange, life-ebbing sensation as the Power began to leave me. “He is gone. If we were to open the niche, we would find naught but dust within.”

That trickle of waning strength widened, to become a wash of exhaustion. I staggered under such an onslaught of weariness as I had never experienced—even after Nita’s rescue. Jervon grabbed my arm, slinging it across his shoulders, steadying me. I tried to stand, brace my knees, but it was too much effort to even hold my head up. And yet, within me was the knowledge that the next time I used the ancient Power, it would be easier… though the exercise of such Will would always exact a toll in physical energy and strength.