Кейт Новак - The Wyvern's Spur

I caught Thomas weeping over Jade’s little silver spoon yesterday. It turns out that two weeks ago she bumped into him in the street, and besides lifting his purse, she’d also stolen his heart. After a whirlwind courtship, he’d introduced her to his closest confidant—Drone—with the results already described herein.

The mausoleum key was in Jade’s bag, and I returned it to Drone but asked to keep the gifts he gave Jade as keepsakes. I gave Thomas the silver spoon.

Gaylyn begged me to sing at Amberlee’s blessing next week. She’s a hard woman to say no to. Drone has invited me to stay at Giogi’s townhouse to keep the light in the window for him. After Amberlee’s blessing, though, I think I’ll leave Immersea. It’s too lonely here without Jade.

The front door opened and slammed shut. Olive put down her pen. Thomas usually went in and out through the kitchen, and he never slammed doors. Cat and Dorath would still be up on Temple Hill at this time of the day. The parlor door opened.

“Heigh-ho, anyone about?”

“Giogi!” Olive cried, running to the young man who stood in the doorway. For a moment, she’d forgotten he was a human, well over six feet tall. She drew back before she embarrassed herself by hugging one of his legs. She held out her hand.

“Congratulations on your victory,” she said, shaking his hand and smiling from ear to ear.

“Oh. Thanks. Where is everyone?”

“Thomas is shopping. Cat is out with Dorath. They’ll be back in a while.” Olive looked down at the nobleman’s muddy, torn clothes and his scarred neck and his bruised and haggard face, covered with three days’ worth of stubble. He looked like an adventurer. “You have just enough time to clean up.”

“Good. I must be rather distressing to look at. I wouldn’t want to worry anyone.”

Olive laughed. “Too late for that. What took you so long?”

Giogi’s expression grew as distressed as his appearance. He shuddered as if from some fear. “I need a drink. Would you care to join me, Mistress Ruskettle?”

“But of course. You sit down. I’ll pour.”

Olive crossed to the tea table and unstoppered the brandy bottle. Thomas does such a good job keeping it full, she thought. She poured two tumblers full and carried them to the fireside, where Giogi slouched in an armchair, heedless of the grime he left on its arms. The nobleman took a hefty slug of the liquor. Olive sat on the ottoman at his feet.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked.

“Would you mind?” Giogi asked. “It’s not the sort of thing I could tell anyone else, but you’re so, well, worldly. I think it would upset my relatives, and I’m not sure Cat will understand how I feel.”

“I’m always ready to listen to a friend,” Olive assured him.

Giogi smiled gratefully. “It’s two things, really. The first isn’t that bad, but I used it as an excuse, trying not to think about the other. The wyvern shape takes a lot of … fuel, I guess you could say. I was really hungry after I used it the first time. I was starving after—after the battle with Flattery. I was miles from the road, though, and nuts and berries weren’t going to be enough, and it was cold out there. So I stayed a wyvern for the night and ate like a wyvern.” Giogi shuddered.

“Uncooked meals can upset one’s equilibrium,” Olive said, thinking of sweetened oats.

Giogi laughed. “You have such a way with words. I guess that’s why you’re a bard.”

“Among other things,” Olive said. “Go on with your story,” she encouraged.

“Well, I ate this wild pig, which was completely awful, all hairy and bony. Then I fell asleep. It was too cold to sleep out-of-doors as a human, so I stayed a wyvern.

“The next day, I kind of got lost. I thought I was north of the road to Dhedluk when I was really south. So I flew around as a wyvern for a long time before I found the road. Then I was hungry again. You know, Sudacar told me that my father was allowed to hunt in the king’s woods unaccompanied. Now I realize he didn’t go in with a bow and arrow. I ate this cow. I tried to get a deer first, but it dove into the woods where I couldn’t follow. So I had to eat the cow. I shall have to go back and reimburse whoever it belonged to.

“Anyway, the guardian said I couldn’t go all wyverny and forget I was human. I tried, though. I didn’t want to be human, I think. I—you see—Mistress Ruskettle, have you ever killed anyone before?”

“Oh, that’s it,” Olive said with an understanding nod. “Well, yes. Not as many as you might think, but more than I really know for sure. The first two were a matter of life or death, but I was really too scared to know I was doing it.”

“Yes!” Giogi said. “I was scared. Then it was over. But it doesn’t change things. I killed a man. A man who was sort of a relative. I knew he was going to kill me, as he’d killed my father and all those elves and tried to kill my Uncle Drone, and who knows who else. I didn’t think I’d ever kill anyone, and I guess I wanted to blame it on being a wyvern. I had to bite him as a wyvern to kill him. It’s easy to kill things when you’re a wyvern. Otherwise, you go hungry. I stayed a wyvern for a while so I wouldn’t have to think about whether I’d have killed Flattery as a human being.”

“What made you come back, then?” Olive asked.

“Well, the guardian was right. I’m not a wyvern. I kept thinking about things that made me human again. I had to think about killing Flattery as a human being. I think I had to kill him. I don’t think I wanted to, but I made a decision anyway. It was more important protecting my family.”

Giogi had another gulp of brandy. Then he asked, “Mistress Ruskettle, who was Flattery? What did he mean when he said Finder Wyvernspur made him? Is Finder really evil?”

Olive sighed. She’d seen this coming. “Nameless, that is, Finder Wyvernspur, is one of your ancestors. A grandson of Paton Wyvernspur, as near as I can tell. I went through the family histories while you were … out. There is a name crossed out in the list of Paton’s grandchildren, so I think that must have been his name. He magically created Flattery as a copy of himself. I’m still wondering if he named Flattery, or if Flattery named himself, or if someone else named him. Finder was kind of arrogant. He wanted his songs and his name to live forever, absolutely untouched by time, unchanged by the flow of generations. An interesting idea, but not very workable.

“Anyway, in making Flattery, Nameless—Finder—was responsible for the deaths of two people. I don’t know if the Harpers ever actually learned that Flattery had lived, or even if Finder knew, but they sentenced Finder to exile and suppressed his songs and made him forget his name. He didn’t age in exile, but his experiences, when he was released, changed him. I’m sure he’d be appalled by what Flattery had become.”

“But now the Harpers have forgiven Finder and released him?” Giogi asked, hopeful.

“Well, he’s been released. The Harpers are debating what they’re going to do about it. I think he’s redeemed himself, and not just because I love the man’s music.”

“Why was Flattery so intent on killing him?”

“Flattery was an experiment gone very wrong. He was too much like Finder. They say, if a mage makes an exact copy of a person, the copy or the person go mad and try to destroy one another. Flattery might have felt he was the one who had the right to exist, since he wasn’t the one the Harpers put on trial. Or he might have been afraid that his ‘father’ was going to find him and punish him for not doing what he’d been made to do.”

“Why didn’t Flattery want to sing his songs?”

“I don’t know. My theory is that Flattery was cursed from the moment someone died to create him, but maybe Finder just forgot to put into him what’s in you.”