Mercedes Lackey - The Silver Gryphon

“But that’s just a guess,” Skan stated. “They could be south.”

She nodded. “And the gods know I’ve guessed wrong before; that’s why the third party. The parties are going to number eight; one gryphon, one Healer or trondi’irn, or whatever comes close—that’s you, Drake—two mages, and five fighters, all experienced Silvers. Any smaller is dangerous, any larger is unwieldy. Don’t bother to pack at all; you’ll be taking standard Silver kits including medical supplies, and you aren’t going to have time to change clothing. Besides, by the time you make a camp at night, you and your clothing should be sluiced clean.”

Her stare at Amberdrake said, as clearly as words, And if you don’t like that, you don’t have to go.

He stared right back at her. Try and keep me from going and you’II have a fight.

She waited for him to say something, staring into his gaze with challenge in her stance, but it was she who finally dropped her eyes. “This is an in-and-out mission, the faster the better. As of this moment, consider yourself facing a real enemy, a powerful one, if he can drain all the mage-energy out of a place. I don’t know what’s caused magic to leach out of that area, but I have to assume it’s a hostile, and it isn’t going to like having twenty-four people traipsing all over its territory. As soon as the mage gets to the Gate-point, we’ll be bringing it up, and I don’t want it up for longer than it takes to pitch all of you through it. Is that understood?”

Once again, she stared at him as if her words were meant for him alone. Her tone of voice implied that, given the opportunity, she would “pitch” Amberdrake through the Gate. He simply nodded, as did everyone else.

“Good. From now until you leave, you are all sleeping, eating, and everything else right here.” She smiled thinly at their surprise. “That’ll be quicker than trying to gather all of you up once the mage gets into place. I don’t intend to waste a single minute on any dallying. I’ll have sleeping arrangements brought in; the mage I sent out is being carried by Darzie, so I expect to hear that they’ve made their landing within the next full day.”

Amberdrake was impressed, as much by the identity of the gryphon as by the speed with which the duo expected to reach their destination. He wondered what Judeth had promised to get Darzie to fly a carry-basket at all, much less try to do so breaking a record and in bad weather. Darzie was not a Silver; he was one of a new class of gryphons who were primarily athletes. Whether as acrobats, fast couriers, or actual racers, these gryphons earned a very fine, even luxurious, living by serving the Haighlei appetite for speed and spectacle. Darzie was the best of the fast couriers and one of the fastest racers—he was a more consistent flyer than gryphons who actually clocked the occasional faster time. It was hard to imagine what hold Judeth could have over him to induce him to risk injury and strain in this way.

But maybe he was being uncharitable; maybe Darzie had actually volunteered. . . .

Not without blackmail.

It didn’t matter, so long as Judeth had gotten him, whether it was through bribery or blackmail, or a combination of both.

Maybe she’s following my example. The gods know she has enough power of her own to leverage just about anyone in this city into doing her bidding at least once.

“Any questions?” Judeth asked, and looked around the room. “No? Right. Fall out, and for those of you who haven’t slept, I’m calling Tamsin in to make you sleep.” There was no doubt who she was targeting with the daggers of her gaze, and both Amberdrake and Skan flinched; but she wasn’t finished. “That includes me; we won’t be any good to anyone if we aren’t rested when the call comes. Right, Drake?”

Her question came as a surprise, and he was doubly surprised to sense the compassion and sympathy—and worry of her own—behind the words. It penetrated even his defensiveness.

“Ah, right,” he admitted sheepishly, relaxing just a trifle. So she does understand, and she’s forgiven us. . . . He had not hoped for it so soon, but he welcomed it as a tiny bright spot of hope in the midst of too much grief.

“Good. Glad you agree, because you’re going to be one of the first to go to sleep.” A commotion at the door proved to be bedding, food, and Tamsin all arriving simultaneously. “Now, stand down, all of you, and get yourselves taken care of. I’ll be watching to see that you do.”

And she did; standing over them all like a slave-master, to see that every member of the three search parties ate, drank, and submitted to Tamsin’s touch. As Judeth had warned, Amberdrake was one of the first, and after one look at Judeth’s expression, he knew better than to protest.

So he crammed down a few mouthfuls of food as dry and tasteless as paper, drank what was given him, and laid himself down on a standard, military-style sleeping roll. He closed his eyes as Tamsin leaned over him, and that was the last thing he knew until the rally-call awakened him.

Rain. Why did it have to be rain? Even snakes would be better. Skandranon tried to keep his thoughts on his purely physical discomfort, but try as he might, he couldn’t. His skin crawled, and the rain had nothing to do with it. If Skan’s feathers hadn’t been plastered flat to his body, they’d have been standing up in instinctive alarm.

He did not like this place, and his dislike was not connected in any way whatsoever with the miserable weather.

It could have been that this bizarre, claustrophobic forest had swallowed Blade and Tad without a trace, but that wasn’t the reason his soggy hackles were trying to rise either. The other mage of the party felt the same, and if there had been any choice in the matter, he’d have gone back to the base camp because it just plain felt wrong here.

The two of them, after some discussion last night before the human took the first sleep shift, had decided that the problem was that lack of mage-energy in this place. Presumably an Apprentice-level mage or Journeyman would not be affected in this way; they were not used to sensing and using energies outside themselves, unless those energies were fed to them by a mage of greater ability. But a Master (as Skan and the human Silver, Filix, were) was as accustomed to the all-pervasive currents of mage-energy as a gryphon was to the currents of the air. Skan could not remember a time in his adult life that he had not been aware of those currents. Even when the mage-storms had caused such disruptions in magic, the energy had never vanished, it just hadn’t worked or felt quite the same. But having no mage-energy about—it felt wrong, very wrong. It had him disoriented and off-balance, constantly looking for something that simply wasn’t there.

It feels as if I’ve suddenly lost a sense; something subtle, like smell.

Nevertheless, a quick trial had proved to his satisfaction that magic still worked here, and furthermore, those magical items that they had brought in with them were still empowered. Further checks proved that, at the moment at least, there was no ongoing drain of mage-energy. The power that built up in any area naturally was slowly rising back up. So whatever was wrong in this forest, whatever had caused this anomaly, it had not completely negated magic, just removed it. Whether that drainage had been gradual or all at once was anyone’s guess. And there must be something coming along to drain mage-energy again as it built up, or there would be some areas that had at least a little power available.

As for what that could be, he had no idea. He did not care to think about what must have happened if the basket had also had all of its empowering mage-energy drained—all at once.