Andre Norton - Gryphon's Eyrie

What does a mastersmith do when he would forge a sword or axe to fit the hard palm of a fighter? He draws forth that raw material which gathers on the bones of the earth and works cunningly, with all his craft, over many days—even years—until there is that within him which shall say:

“Enough! The task is done as well as your art and all your striving can make it.”

So it is also with the songsmith, who wrestles with self, skill, and words—for words are the rough ore which must be worked upon with all the patience of the fashioner. They must be heated by heart-fire, chilled with fear, pointed and edged with great care. Again, time has little meaning, for often the end of a song is a long time coming, because those whose fortunes it records do not win their place in legend between the setting of one day’s sun and the light of dawn next morn.

Is this not so of that Tale of the Gryphon (which was at once a crystal-enclosed bauble of an amulet, again an Adept near forgot by even time, and lastly a man and a woman true-forged into something greater than they had even thought that humankind could yearn to become)?

There was Kerovan of Ulmsdale, whose cursed mother dabbled in black lore, striking an evil bargain that she might bear a child to be a tool of Power, serving her purposes alone. That son did indeed carry on his body the stigmata of the Dark, having amber eyes and cloven hooves for feet. Yet all her bespelling failed in the end, for the Great Ones, both Light and Dark, are not easily summoned, nor lightly dismissed. So that the Lady Tephana, knowing in her heart she had failed, assumed a pious horror of the babe and urged that he be sent for fostering far from her sight.

However, her lord Ulric, hot for an heir to follow him in Ulmsdale, took note that the child be well trained, befitting one of his rank, and Kerovan paid close heed to the man-at-arms sent to lesson him. From Jago he learned much of the skills of war, both in personal combat and in the art of battle tactics and strategies. But in his isolation, he turned also to the Wiseman Riwal, who hunted strange knowledge in bits and pieces to be found in the Waste, then seemingly deserted by the fabled Old Ones.

Lord Ulric also sought to protect the rights of his long-desired son by bringing about a childhood axe-marriage between the boy and the Lady Joisan, daughter of the House of Ithkrypt, in those days before the invaders rent the Dales from the sea’s edge to the Waste. Wed they were, still there was no meeting between the two of them.

Little notice had Joisan from this lord whose gryphon coat of arms she now wore ’broidered upon her feasting tabard. Until one name-day there was delivered into her hands an amulet which was plainly not of human fashioning—a crystal globe in which was enclosed a tiny gryphon. The whole, she came to realize, was a thing of vast Power. Kerovan had found this talisman of the Old Ones in the Waste (that desolate land shunned by humankind, yet still roamed by strange creatures) and had been moved, against his will, to send it to her. Mistress of some small arts of healing, of herbal lore, and learned a little from what she had read in old abbey parchments, Joisan carefully prepared for her rulership as Lady of Ulmsdale. Nor was she then aware that the Lady Tephana still worked against her son, thinking to replace him with a true Dark heir in the person of his cousin Rogear.

To all schemes there is a season, and it was the invaders from Alizon-Over-Sea who broke this game so played in the north. For Kerovan marched with Ulmsdale’s levies before he could bring his bride home, and as the war raged, Ithkrypt was overrun.

Saved through the strange Power of her unknown husband’s chance gift, Joisan, and those left of her people, escaped, to wander the wilderness. There Kerovan, having answered a summons from his dying father, and so near walking into raw betrayal by his Dark kin, chanced upon them.

Though he recognized his lady, she knew not him but thought rather that this stranger was (because of his odd eyes and feet) one of the Old Ones. Thus she was laid open for the trickery of Rogear, who came, calling himself “Kerovan,” to lay a bemusing spell upon her—drawing her into the Waste, that, through Joisan, Tephana might harness the Power of the gryphon.

Kerovan, tracking them to a bloody site of sacrifice where they strove to compel the Dark to their will, there stood firm with his true lady, calling upon Powers he feared mightily in her behalf. And because of his invoking of the Powers of Light, those who summoned the Shadow were, in turn, summoned, to death and Dark. Then Joisan, seeing her lord in the bright force of his spirit, knew that, in truth, they were indeed wedded, even as gold may be inlaid into steel for all time to make a weapon fit for arming a hero. But in Kerovan there remained the memory of his dual heritage, causing deep doubt, and he chose to set aside all custom’s binding for her sake, riding from her.

Into the Waste he went once more on a mission for the Lords of the Dales—to perhaps enlist some remaining Old Ones against the invaders. Then Joisan put mail over her body, a helm on her head, and swung a sword at her belt, to follow. His trail she sought, knowing that no false pride was greater than the love in her, even as the weight of the gryphon—his gift—lay outwardly on her breast.

Divers strange and terrible ventures did these two have, apart and together. Kerovan rode ever with the belief that, in him, there was the smoldering fear of a divided heritage. However, Joisan was strong with the strength of one who fears more for another than herself.

Through captivity and darkness, and at last together, went these twain, until they fronted the beginning of their true destiny—which was a battle such as shook their part of the world. Five stood for the Light—Kerovan, Joisan, the gryphon, released at last from his long captivity in the crystal globe, his ancient master Landisl, and Neevor, a wanderer who had played a part several times in the tangle of Kerovan’s life. While for the Dark was Galkur, the cloven-footed, who claimed Kerovan as “son.” Which was a lie, yet such a lie as to weigh upon a young heart and spread much poison, even after the fall of the Dark Lord.

This dread weight Kerovan carried with him, even into the new land, and it remained ever a burden to plague him.

Wander they did, but together, and once more the land was troubled by the Shadow and they must stand to it, more knowledgeable perhaps this time. Again they were not alone, for, if no Adept arose from the past to front the Dark by their side, there were others bound to the Waste, a longing in their hearts ever pulling at them: Elys, who was of Witch blood and wise training, also he who rode ever as her shield mate and battle comrade, Jervon, and thirdly the boy Guret who had no arcane learning—only great courage.

The Tale of the Gryphon is not a new song to be word-built, but an old one to be added to—for out of a great endeavor there is spun in turn a longing for that which we ourselves may lack or never see. And what finally became of those who dared stand against the Shadow—

Ah, it takes a songsmith to summon full skill, looking into hearts, listening down the years to half-remembered tales, to use all which can be drawn or scraped from time itself to answer that. Thus comes into words the third part of the tale of Kerovan and Joisan, telling what they wrought—and were wrought—by the years in Arvon, during the fullness of time, and, with new cup-comrades, to endure and battle always the darkness.

Our world…