Mercedes Lackey: The Silver Gryphon

That was one of the reasons why Amberdrake was so confounded by the idea that she wanted to be a Silver. How could an Empath ever choose to go into a profession where she might have to kill or injure someone?

Easily enough. It’s to prevent the people I must take care of from killing or injuring others.

He would never accept that, just as he would never accept the idea that she would not want to use her Empathic ability.

She shuddered at the very idea. He knows every nasty little secret, every hidden fear, every deep need, every longing and every desire of every client he has ever dealt with. How he manages to hold all those things inside without going mad — Icannot fathom it. And that he actually wants to know these things — Icould never do that, never. It makes my skin crawl. I don’t want to know anyone that intimately. It would be like having every layer of my skin peeled off—or doing it to someone else over and over.

She loved her father and mother, she knew they were wonderful, admirable people, and yet sometimes the things that they did made her a little sick inside. All a Silver ever had to do was stop a fight, or break some bones once in a while, and apply force when words didn’t work. That was just flesh, and flesh would heal even if it was shredded and bleeding—it wasn’t as serious as getting into someone’s heart and digging around.

From that moment of understanding of who and what her father was, she had been terrified that people would simply assume that she was like him— that she wanted to be like him. Her greatest fear had been that they would take it for granted that she would cheerfully listen while they bared their souls to her—

Gods. No. Anything but that.

For a while, until the Healers taught her how to control her Empathic ability, she had even shied away from touching other people, lest she learn more than she wished to. Even after she had learned to block out what she did not want to know, she had been absolutely fanatic about her own privacy.

At least as much as I can be while I still live with my parents.

She kept her thoughts strictly to herself just as much as she could; never confided anything about the things she considered hers alone. Even affairs of love or desire.

Especially matters of love and desire.

By now she wondered if both her parents thought she was a changeling. Here were two people who knew everything there was to know about the physical, and yet their daughter appeared to be as sexless as a vowed virgin.

She had made up her mind that she was not even going to give her father and mother the faintest of hints that she might have an interest in partnering anyone or anything. Unfortunately, they would not have been taken aback by any liaison she cared to make. They were, in fact, all too assiduous at suggesting possible partners, and would have been cheerfully pleased to offer volumes of advice on approach and technique once she even hinted at a choice!

And it would be advice of a kind she blushed even to contemplate. There was such a thing as too much information.

Why can’t they be like other parents? she thought, rebelliously. Why couldn’t they have been surprised that I was no longer an innocent little girl, horrified by the idea that I might one day bed someone, and attempt to guard my virtue as if it were the gold mines of King Shalaman? Any of those would be so much easier to deal with!

She had found out personally that it was much harder to deal with sunny cooperation than with outright opposition.

It’s a great deal like the hand-to-hand combat styles we Silvers learn, she thought in frustration, noting down yet another item for Tadrith. When your opponent moves against you, there are any number of ways you can counter him. You can block him, parry him, evade him, or use his attack against him. When he attacks, he gives you options, to counter him. But when he does nothing — when he actually flows with your moves, it is impossible to do anything to extract yourself from the situation.

Ironic, to think of her outwardly serene life with her parents as a combat situation.

The only real escape from this ridiculous situation was to move away from White Gryphon altogether. As she had advised Keenath, there were positions available for Silvers in the Haighlei Empire. The ambassadors from White Gryphon needed a token guard of honor in order to convey the proper presence at the court of the Emperor; that guard was comprised mostly of humans, but always had at least four gryphons and two each of the kyree and dyheli. The tervardi preferred not to live in such a warm climate, and the hertasi took sly enjoyment in their roles of servants, ferreting out intelligence that would otherwise never have come to the attention of the ambassadors. The Emperor also had two gryphon-guards assigned to him, serving alongside the younger sons of the other Haighlei Kings.

Icould ask to be posted there . . . I think I would enjoy the solitude of the outposts, but there are more things to consider here.

Tad would never be able to tolerate assignment after assignment to the lonely wilderness. He would go absolutely, stark, staring lunatic after a while. He was a very social creature, and their partnership would not last very long if she was the only other being around to talk to.

Not to mention what would happen to him without female gryphons about. He only thinks he’s nothing like his father. He has as wild a reputation among the fair flyers as his father ever had, if not more so. I had better check in on him to make sure he gets some sleep before we leave.

She chuckled to herself, and Tad looked back at her for a moment in curiosity.

And as far as that went, she was no chaste virgin, untouched and unawakened. She might well go quietly insane if she lived too long away from civilization.

For one thing, after too long out there, some very disturbing things might begin to look attractive. Tension can do that. When I find myself eying snakes and fondling branches, I’ll know I’ve been away too long. Still, that’s only one thing to miss, and easy enough to simulate — it is far more difficult to replace a lover’s concern. For another complication — well — there is Ikala.

She sighed. Ikala was important to Blade, and she had kept her parents from finding out about him only through plotting and planning that would have done a spymaster proud.

Haighlei Kings with more than one son—and most of them, ceremonially wedded to a new priestess-bride each year, had many children—sent those sons off to be the personal guards of other Kings. This ensured that there would be no warfare and no assassination attempts, for every King had hostages from every other King. Furthermore, every King had the opportunity to win the loyalty of the sons of his fellow Kings, giving him an ally in the courts of his neighbors. It was a good system, and in the highly structured and rigid culture of the Haighlei, it worked well.

Ikala was one of those younger sons, twentieth in succession behind the actual Crown Prince of Nbubi. But instead of being sent to serve in one of the other Courts, he had elected to come to White Gryphon instead, to be trained by Aubri and Judeth and serve in the Silvers.

The culture of the Haighlei was a strange one by Kaled’a’in standards. Every action was tightly bound up in protocol; every moment cemented with custom. The Haighlei lived in the most rigid society that the Kaled’a’in had ever seen or heard of; change was only permitted when decreed by the Emperor and his chief priests and then only at the Eclipse Ceremony. . . .