Carol Berg - Flesh and Spirit

His grizzled mouth and chin worked in tight spasms, as he gently smoothed the worn edges of the page. His eyes filled with tears.

“Saved only this one map of them all. Promised Clyste to destroy them, so no human could travel there. The long-lived had grown to despise and fear us. Clyste said I could keep my promises without the maps. But this is my life’s greatest work. Our family’s glory.”

Thus we reached the heart of the matter. “Why, Capatronn? Why do the Danae despise us so?”

He shuddered and jerked, and I was afraid he would retreat again. But he took a quivering breath and gathered his spasming limbs. Summoning control, I thought. Every emotion, every physical expression required constant mastery to prevent it running wild. His head jerked and his eyes squinted and blinked as if someone was striking him.

“We lie,” he said at last. “We betray. They cannot grasp our nature and dance it into their patterns. Sometimes our needs make demands of us they cannot understand.”

“As with Eodward who did not return to the Danae, though he had promised he would.”

My grandfather bobbed his head. “That was but one of so many. They did not blame me for that one. Nor for the Scourge.”

“The Scourge?”

“Some humans want to drive them away. They foul groves and springs, trees and fields. Sometimes”—he leaned close and dropped his voice—“they damage the Canon itself. The long-lived never speak of it lest we learn the power we have over them. It is their direst secret: that they cannot cross the barriers of tormented spirits. If the guardian is not joined with the tainted sianou when it is poisoned, she cannot return to it. The Canon is corrupted, and the guardian wastes with grieving. If joined, the guardian is trapped—ah, holy ones—trapped inside the sianou. Chained as if with myrtle and hyssop, but chained with poison, and so he does not fade, but dies there. Both land and guardian lost forever. Forgotten. And so is the Canon broken.”

“Tormented spirits?” I said, wrestling with the ideas of dancing that could be broken and Danae who could be murdered while outside their bodies.

“Violent death. Corrupt blood.” My grandfather’s face crumpled. “They did not blame me for those crimes—nor any human save madmen. They could not believe that any reasoning creature would purposely break the Canon. And they knew I loved the dance. Ah”—he clutched his heart—“to see the dancing in Aeginea again. But never will I. Never. I am lost until the last ages of the world. They do not forgive.”

As fog lifts from the mountains, revealing snow-draped crags and sunlit pinnacles, so understanding grew in me. Not only about the world and coming chaos, not only about the savage rituals of Harrowers and royal bastards, but about what I saw in front of me. I took his chin and drew his face around so I could look on his pain-racked visage. Every word of sense, every moment of stillness, cost him dear.

“Capatronn, what did you do that the Danae have punished you so terribly? That they have broken their last ties with humans? You must tell me, Grandfather.”

“I”—his brow creased; his lips twisted and fought to shape the words—“stole from them. A treasure they did not value. I had the right, but they could not forgive the loss of it. And then I failed her. Ahh…” He gasped and gripped his head in his hands, drew up his knees, and curled into a knot. The book slipped off his lap.

I laid my hand on his trembling shoulder. “What treasure? What was worth all this?”

His fingers curled and he drew his fists to his head as he began to rock. “Cannot tell. Cannot. Secret…secret…secret.” Though he was trying not to, he moaned…louder by the moment.

“Can I help you? I could stay a while.”

“Naught.” He shook his head wildly, even as he clamped his jaw over a scream, and wrenched his shoulder from my hand. “Naught can be done. Go.”

I quickly gathered up the book, stuffed it in the bag, and snuffed the lamp. As I crept through the darkness toward the door, my grandfather began retching violently. The stench of vomit and loosened bowels followed me to the door.

“Go!”

“For the book…Grandfather…thank you.” I pulled the door closed behind me. Breathing deep of the clean, wintry air, I leaned on the thick oak that muffled his rising screams and wished that most futile of all wishes: that I could begin again and weave the knowledge I had just gleaned through the days of my life.

Swallowing hard, I crept silently through the frozen courtyard. I stopped in the rose arbor, brushed the snow from the stone bench, and sat, pulling the book from its bag again. The book must go back to Luviar, and if it was ever to be of any use to the cabal, I had to open it to them. Tonight, for I might never have the chance again. I had to trust that they would use it wisely, accounting for the information I would send them. And so, accompanied by the unholy melody of my grandfather’s screams, I touched the golden gryphon and recited the bit of verse he had pounded into me years ago.

With mighty sinew, beak and claw,

Feathered wings and eagle’s eyes,

The gryphon guards its nest of gold.

Ripping, flaying sinew raw,

Crushing rib and limb and jaw

Of all who seek its agate prize,

Save for the…wily…hunter…Luviar…bold.

I fed magic into the charm, which was supposed to impart whatever virtue you named to whomever you identified as the hunter bold. As a boy I had always inserted my own name as the hunter, wishing for strength to fight off my father’s next beating or cleverness to elude recapture when I ran away. I had hoped to use the golden nest and agate eggs to pay for my own house or buy my own contract, before I knew such possibilities were as much myth as the gryphon itself. I’d not even known how to quicken a spell in those days.

The golden gryphon pulsed with warmth and light, and I considered whether to give access to anyone else. To leave it with only one seemed risky. So Gildas. He was younger, less prominent, and the Scholar, who needed to find the Danae. And one more? I considered Stearc, but settled on Gram, the secretary, instead. Clearly the conspirators relied on Gram’s intelligence. And he understood the Danae better than any of the others.

Once done, I packed the book away and peered around the edge of the arbor to watch for Jullian. When the slight figure trudged down the path from the kitchen, lugging a heavy pail, I followed and slipped through the doorway behind him into the warm and comfortable apartment. The bathing tub was filled to its brim.

The boy about jumped out of his skin when I grabbed the door from his hand and closed it softly behind us. “Did you see him? Did you learn anything about the book? Is he truly mad?”

“Yes to all three. But first, did you have any trouble? Any suspicions?”

“The pureblood—not the one in these green clothes, but the other one in black and yellow—stopped me on the last trip and asked if I liked serving you. His hand was on my head as I answered, and I felt…unclean.” The boy averted his eyes.

“That was Caphur,” I said. “An overseer from the Pureblood Registry. Very skilled at his work, and he doesn’t like me very much. I hope you told him the truth.”

He nodded. I surmised that Caphur had approved his answer. I did not press to hear it.

I sat on the chair and summoned him close, lowering my voice even more. “So tell me, how did the abbot and my sister plan for you to send them information?”

“The false priestess said I should tell the people here that she had thought-summoned me back to her temple,” he said. “Or I could ask for Silos and tell him a particular word she gave me, but to do that only if things were very bad. Elsewise, I’m to wait until she sends for me.”