Crystal Gryphon (3 page)

In the ancient learning the gryphon symbolizes gold: the warmth and majesty of the sun. Ofttimes in legends it is the guardian of hidden treasure.

Thus the gryphon is mainly pictured in red and gold, which are sun colors. Yet the one enclosed in the globe was the white of ice—a white gryphon.

Shortly after that farseeing, Dame Math and I returned home to Ithkrypt. But we did not remain there long. For in this Year of the Crowned Swan I had reached the age of fourteen, and Dame Math was already preparing my bride clothes and the furnishings I would take with me when Kerovan would send for me, as was the custom, in the next year or two.

So we went on to Trevamper, that town set at the meeting of highway and river where all merchants in the north show their wares upon occasion. Even the Sulcarmen, who are searovers and seldom come far from wind and wave, travel to Trevamper. For there is the interior trade.
And by chance we met there also my Aunt Islaugha, her son Toross, and her daughter Yngilda.

She came to pay a call on Dame Math, but I felt it was one of duty only and there was little liking between these sisters. However the Lady Islaugha presented a smiling face and spoke us fair, congratulating me on the fine marriage that had united me to the House of Ulm.

Yngilda pushed closer to me when our elders had turned their attention back to their own concerns, and I thought she stared rudely. She was a stout girl, bundled in rich clothing down which her braids rippled, their ends bound in ribbons hung with little silver bells meant to chime sweetly as she moved. Such a conceit did not suit her broad, flatfish face, with its too-small mouth always pursed a little as if she chewed upon a spicy secret she debated over sharing.

“You have seen the likeness of your lord?” she asked almost abruptly.

I stirred uneasily under the probing of her eyes. I knew her then for unfriend, though why she should be so when we hardly knew each other, I could not guess.

“No.” As always when such uneasiness with others was in me, I was wary. But the truth is better than any evasion which may later trip one up. And for the first time I wondered.a little at a matter I had never considered before. Why had Kerovan not caused to be sent a likeness of himself? That such was done in axe marriages I knew.

“A pity.” Her gaze seemed to have some manner of triumph in it now. “Look you here—this is my promised lord, Elvan of Rishdale.” She brought out of her belt pocket an oblong of wood with a face painted on it. “He sent it with his bride gift two years ago.”

The painted face was that of a man of middle years, no boy. And it was not a pleasant countenance to my thinking, but perhaps the limner had either not been skillful or
had some reason not to flatter this Elvan. That Yngilda was proud of it was plain.

“He would seem a man of authority.” I did the best I could in way of praise. My disliking for the pictured face grew stronger the longer I regarded it.

She took that, as I had hoped, as a compliment to her promised lord.

“Rishdale is an upper dale. They are wool people, and the trade is rich. Already my lord has sent me this and this—” She patted an amber necklace which lay above her tabard and thrust her hand out to me that I might look upon a massive thumb ring of a serpent with eyes that were flecks of red gem-fire.

“The serpent is his House badge. This is his own ring, sent for a welcome gift. I go to him next harvest time.”

“I wish you happy,” I answered.

Her pale tongue swept out over her lower lip. Again she was in two minds over some speech to make. At last she brought herself to it, bending her head even closer, while I had all I could do not to withdraw at her approach, for her close company did not please me.

“I would I could say the same to you, kinswoman.”

I knew I should not encourage her now, yet something made me ask, “And why not, kinswoman?”

“We are not so far from Ulmsdale as you. We have heard—much.” And she strove to give such a dire accent to that last word that she did indeed make an impression on me. For all my prudence and distrust, I could not now deny her this confidence.

“Much of what, kinswoman?” My tone made a challenge of that, one she was quick to note and that pleased her, I am sure.

“Of the curse, kinswoman. Did they not tell you that the Heir of Ulmsdale lies under a double cursing? Why, his own mother has refused to look upon his face since his
birth hour. Have they not told you that?” she repeated with open relish. “Alack, that I should spoil your dreaming about a brave young lord. He is a monster thing, they say, sent to live apart because all men shrink from—”

“Yngilda!” That saying of her name was as sharp as a whip crack, and under it she flinched as if indeed some lash had bitten into her body. Dame Math stood over us, and it was plain in her face she had heard those words.

So open was her wrath that at that moment I knew Yngilda had indeed spoken the truth, or at least come so close to it as to shake my guardian. Only the truth could have aroused her ire so greatly.

She said no more, only eyed Yngilda menacingly until the girl edged back, her full cheeks blanching a little in her fright. She gave a kind of squeak and scrambled away. But I sat where I was and met Dame Math eye to eye. Within me the cold grew, setting me to shivering.

Cursed—a monster whom even his mother could not bear to look upon! By the Heart of Gunnora, what had they done to me, to give me in marriage to that? I could have screamed my terror aloud, but I did not. For in that much I kept my control. I only said slowly, forcing my voice to be level, determined to know the full of it here and now, “By the oath of the Flame you serve, Lady, tell me now the truth. Are her words that truth? Am I wed to one who is not like other men?” For I could not bring myself to say “monster.”

I think up until that moment Dame Math might have covered with fair words. But now she sat beside me, her face grave, as the flush of anger faded.

“You are no longer a child, Joisan. Yes, I will give you what truth I know. It is true that Kerovan dwells apart from his kin, but he is not a monster. There is a curse laid on those of the House of Ulm, and his mother comes from the updates, from a family rumored to have inter-wed with
Old Ones. Thus he has such blood within him. But he is not monstrous—of this Lord Cyart made sure before he would consent to the marriage.

“Yet he dwells apart from his kin. Is it true that his mother will not look upon him?” The cold within me was such now I could hardly control myself.

Still she was frank with me. “That is true because of the manner of his birthing, and she is a fool!” Then she told me an unusual tale of how the Lord of Ulm had taken wives and had no living heir because of the curse. How he wed a third time with a widow, and how she had been taken on the road before her time with birth pains and had borne her son within the walls of one of the Old Ones’ buildings. And of how thereafter she had turned her face from him because she was so filled with fear that the babe was of the Old Ones’ sending. But he was sound and no monster. His father swore to that by the Great Oath for which there can be no breaking.

Because she told it all so plainly, I believed her and was less shaken.

Then Dame Math added, “Joisan, be glad that you take a young lord. Yngilda, for all her prating, goes to one already wed once, a man old enough to be her father, and one who will have little patience with any youthful follies. She will find him far less indulgent to her whims and laziness than her mother, and she will perhaps rue the day she left her own keep for his.

“Kerovan by all accounts is one you will well company with—for he is learned in rune scrolls as well as in sword-play, which so occupies the minds and bodies of most men. He has a liking for searching out old things, such as you have also. Yes, you have much to think right in your wedding, and little to see of shadows. You are a maid of good mind and not easily shaken. Do not let the envious words of this foolish wench overset your reason. I swear,
if you wish it, by the Flame—and you well know the meaning of such an oath for me—that I would not stand by without protest and see you wed to any monster!”

Knowing Dame Math, that reassurance was indeed all I needed. Yet during the days that followed I did think again and again of the strange upbringing Kerovan must have had. That a mother had turned her face from her child was hard to believe. Still, giving birth in a place of the Old Ones might have poisoned her mind against the cause of her pain and fear as she lay therein. And I knew well from my reading at the Abbey that many such places had malignant atmospheres that worked subtly upon mankind. She could well have fallen prey to such influences during her hours of labor.

For the rest of our stay in town my aunt and her daughter did not come near us. Perhaps Dame Math had made plain her views on what Yngilda had told me. I was well content not to see her full face, her pursed mouth, and her probing eyes again.

3

Kerovan

To most dalesmen the Waste is a fearsome place. Outlawed men were driven to refuge there, perhaps coming to regard it in time as they had their native dales. And there are hunters, wild as any outlaws in their own fashion, ranging it to bring back packloads of strange furs as well as lumps of pure metal congealed into odd shapes: not native ores, but substances that had been worked and then reduced to broken pieces.

Such lumps of metal were greatly prized, though smiths had to rework them with care. Swords and mail made from this metal were stronger, more resistant to weathering. On the other hand, sometimes it had fearsome properties, exploding in vast configurations to consume all nearby—as if some power had struck it. A metal-smith both yearned to use it for the promise of fine craftsmanship and feared that each piece he brought to the forge might be one of the cursed bits.

Those who found such metal and traded in it were notoriously close-mouthed about the source. Riwal believed
that they mined, not the earth, but places of the Old Ones wherein some ancient and unbelievably horrible conflict had fused metal into these lumps. He had attempted to win the confidence of one Hagon, a trader, who had twice passed through our forest territory. But Hagon refused to talk.

So it was not only the broken-off road that beckoned us. There were other secrets to be uncovered. And I found this venture well to my liking.

We reached the broken-off end of the road by mid-morning and stood studying it before we set foot on its earth-drifted surface. It was indeed a puzzle, for that break was as clean-cut as if some giant swordsman had brought down his blade to sever the masonry. Yet, if some such action had occurred, where was the rest? For beyond the break there was not even a trace of old rubble to suggest it had ever run beyond this point. And why would any road come to such a purposeless ending? It may be true that the purposes of the Old Ones were not the same as those of men, and we cannot judge their actions by ours.

“How long ago since men walked here, Riwal?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Who knows? If it were
men
who did so. But if the road ends thus, the beginning may be of more interest.”

We were riding the small, desert-bred horses used by Waste rovers, tough beasts with an inherited ability to go far on a minimum of drink and forage. And we led a third horse with our supplies in a pack. We went clothed as metal traders, so that any spying upon us could believe we were of the Waste ourselves. We traveled alert to sign and sound, for only he who is ever-watchful can hope to best the traps and dangers of such a land.

The Waste is not pure desert, though much is arid land with a scant covering of small, wind-beaten shrubs and
sun-dried grass in ragged clumps. At times, dark copses of trees grow so thick they huddle trunk to trunk. And outcrops of stone stand like pillars.

Some of these had been worked, if not by man, then by creatures who used stone for monuments. But the pillars had been so scoured by years of winds that only traces of the working remained. Here a wall could be seen for a bit; there a pair of columns suggested a past building of some pride.

We passed such a place soon after we took to the road, but there was not enough left to explore. In the open there was silence, for this was a windless day. The clop-clop of our mounts’ feet on the pavement seemed to echo, making far too loud a sound, so that I found myself looking from side to side, and now and then over my shoulder. The feeling grew stronger that we were being watched—by outlaws?

In spite of myself I found my hand straying ever in the direction of the sword hilt, ready to defend against attack. Yet when I glanced at Riwal, I saw him riding easy, though he also watched right and left.

“I feel”—I urged my mount closer to his—“that we are watched.” Perhaps I humbled my pride to admit that, yet this was more his land than mine, and I relied on him.

“It is ever so—in the Waste,” he returned.

“Outlaws?” My fingers closed about the hilt now.

“Perhaps. But more likely other things.” His eyes did not quite meet mine, and I sensed he was at a loss to explain. Perhaps he, too, feared to display some weakness before me, a younger and less-tried venturer.

“Is it the truth then that the Old Ones left guardians?”

“What man among us knows?” He countered my question with another. “This much is so: when one ventures into their ways, there is often this feeling of being watched.
Yet it has never been with me more than just watching. If they left guardians, as you say, those are now too old and tired to do more than watch.”

I found that hardly reassuring. And still I continued to watch—though nothing stirred out in that flat land across which the road hammered a straight and level path.

At nooning we drew to the side of the pavement, ate and drank, and gave our horses to drink also from the water skins we carried. There was no sun, and the sky over us
was gray; still I could see no clouds gathering to threaten storm. But Riwal sniffed the air, his head up to the sky.

“We must seek shelter,” he said, and there was urgency in his voice.

“I see no storm clouds.”

“Storms come unheralded and swiftly in the Waste. There—” He had been surveying the countryside around, and now he pointed ahead to where there was a pile beside the road, perhaps another cluster of time-eroded ruin.

We pushed on, to discover that sight-distance was deceptive in this place. There was a haze that seemed to rise from the ground so that things appeared closer than they were. But at length we reached the spot he had appointed. And none too soon, for the sky was no longer the gray of a gloomy day, but had darkened now into twilight come hours too soon.

Chance had brought us to shelter. Though the ruins at the outset of the road had been so formless as to only suggest they had once had purpose, this ancient building was in better preservation. There was actually part of a room or hall among the jumble of stone blocks with a portion of roof over it. And into that we crowded both ourselves and our animals.

Now the wind blew, whirling up the grit, hurling it in marching columns to fill eyes, mouths, nostrils. We had to
fight to gain the last few strides to cover. Once inside, when we turned to look out, it was to see a curtain of dust.

That did not last long. Overhead sounded the rumble of thunder as if an army with a siege train marched. And the lash of lightning followed with force enough to suggest it had struck not too far away. Then came rain—quickly beating down the dust, yet not clearing any path for our vision; rather providing a second curtain, this time of moisture, not grit.

Water ran in a stream across the pitted floor, so we crowded back into the farthest comer of the ruin. The horses whinnied and snuffled, rolling their eyes, as if they found this fury of nature frightening. But to me our corner gave an illusion of shelter, though I flinched when the lightning struck again.

Such fury deafened us. We were reduced to the point of simple endurance and we kept hold of the reins, lest our mounts break out into the storm. As they began to quiet, no longer tossing their heads or stamping, I relaxed a little.

The dark was close to that of true night, and we had no torch. So crowded were we that Riwal's shoulder rubbed mine whenever he moved even slightly, yet the rain was so tumultuous we could not have heard each other without shouting, which we did not do.

What had been the original purpose of the ruin? Built so beside the road, could it have been an inn? Or was it a guard post for some patrol? Or even a temple? As Riwal had said, who knew the purposes of the Old Ones.

With one hand I explored the wall. The surface of the stone was smooth, not pitted as the more exposed portions were. My fingers could detect no seam or joining, yet those blocks had been set together somehow. Suddenly—

Men sleep and dream. But I will swear any oath I did not sleep. And if I dreamed, then it was unlike any dream I had ever known.

I looked out upon the road, and there were those moving along it. Yet when I tried to see them through what appeared to be a mist, I could not. They remained but shapes, approximating men. Could they be men?

Though I could not see them clearly, their emotion flowed to me. They were all moving in one direction, and this was a retreat. There was a vast and overwhelming feeling of—no, it was not defeat, not as if some enemy had pressed them into this withdrawal, but rather that circumstances were against them. They seemed to long for what they left behind, with the longing of those torn from deep rooting.

Now I knew that they were not all alike or of one kind. Some as they passed gave to me their sense of regret, or loss, as clearly as if they had shouted it aloud in words I could understand. But others were less able to communicate in this fashion, though their emotions were none the less deep.

The main press of that strange and ghostly company was past. Now there was only a handful of stragglers, or of those who found it the hardest to leave. Did I or did I not hear the sound of weeping through the rain? If they did not weep in fact they wept in thought, and their sorrow tore at me so I could not look at them any longer, but covered my eyes with my hands and felt on my dusty cheeks tears of my own to match theirs.

“Kerovan!”

The shadow people were gone. And so was the force of the storm. Riwal's hand was heavy on my shoulder, as if he shook me awake from sleep.

“Kerovan!” There was a sharp demand in his voice, and I blinked at what I could see of him in the dusk.

“What is the matter?”

“You—you were crying out. What happened to you?”

I told him of the shadow people withdrawing in their sorrow.

“Perhaps you have the sight,” he said gravely when I had done. “For that might well have happened when the Old Ones left this land. Have you ever tried farseeing or tested a talent for the Power?”

“Not I!” I was determined that I would not be cut off from my fellows by a second burden. Different I might be in body because of the curse laid on me before my birth, but I needed not add to that difference by striving to follow those paths trod by Wisewomen and a few men such as Riwal. And he did not urge me, after my quick denial. Such a way must be followed by one wholly willing; not by one led into it by another. It has its disciplines that are in some ways more severe than any warrior training, and its own laws.

After the storm the day lightened again, and we were able to set out at a brisk pace. The water still settled in pools and hollows, and we refilled our smaller water bag, letting the horses drink their fill before we moved on.

I wondered, when we rode that way, if I would have the sensation of the company of those I had seen in the vision or dream. But that was not so. And shortly I forgot the intensity of the emotion that I had shared with them. For that I was thankful.

The road, which had run so straight, made a wide curve heading toward the north and the greater unknown of the Waste. Now ahead we caught sight of heights making a dark blue line across the sky of evening, as if we headed for a mountain chain.

Here also the land was more hospitable. There were trees where before had been mostly shrubs and stretches of grassland. We came to where the road arched in a bridge over a stream of some size. And it was beside that running water that we camped for the night. In fact Riwal settled
us, not on the bank of the stream, but on a bar which thrust out into it. The water was high from the storm, and there was flotsam carried with it, piled around the rocks edging that bar.

I eyed his choice with some disfavor. To my mind he had deliberately selected a site which would give us little room and which appeared dangerous from the sweep of water. He must have read my expression for he said, “This is chancy land, Kerovan. It is best to take the common precautions when within it—some uncommon ones too.”

“Common precautions?”

He gestured at the stream. “Running water. That which is ill-disposed to us, if it be of the Power and not human, cannot cross running water. If we camp so, we have only one front to defend.”

So reasoned, it was common sense. Thus I pushed rocks and pulled loose drift to clear a space between for us and the horses. Nor did Riwal deny us a fire made from the driest of the drift. The river was falling, but the current was still swift. It held life also, for I saw a dark shape of a length to suggest that the fish of this country were of a huge size, though I was teased by the disturbing suggestion that that shadow beneath the surface did not altogether resemble any fish I knew. I decided that in the Waste it was better not to probe too deeply into the unknown.

We set a watch, as we would in enemy country. At first, during my tour of duty, I was so uneasily alert that I found myself peopling each shadow with an intruder, until I took my fancies in hand and forced control over them.

Though the day had been sunless, we did not lack a moon. Its rays were particularly strong, making the landscape all black and silver—silver in the open, black in the shadows. There was life out there, for once I heard the drum of hoofs, and our horses nickered and tugged at their
tethers, as if some of their wild kin had pounded by. Once I heard a distant, mournful cry, like the howl of a hunting wolf. And something very large with wings planed noiselessly over our camp as if to inspect us. Yet none of these were frightening in themselves, for all men know that there are wild horses in the Waste, and wolves run through the dales as well. And there are winged night-hunters everywhere.

No, it was not those sounds that disturbed me. It was what I did not hear. For I was as certain as if I could see it that out there in the black and silver land lurked something, or someone, who watched and listened with the same intensity that I did. And whether it was of good or ill I could not guess.

Sun and morning banished such fancies. The land was open, empty, in the daylight. We crossed the hump of the bridge and headed on, while before us the mountains grew sharper to the sight.

By nooning we were in the foothills, which were ridges sharper than our dales, more like knife slashes in soil and rock. No longer was the road straight. It narrowed to a way along which two of us might still ride abreast, but no wider, and it twisted and curved, ran up and down, as if its makers had followed always the easiest route through this maze of heights. Here, too, the Old Ones had left their mark. Carved on the walls of rock were faces, some grotesque, some human-seeming and benign, and often bands of runes that Riwal busied himself to copy.