Gryphon in Glory

9 Joisan

In spite of my tired body, of my hunger, of the nagging fear that I was trapped forever here—so that the very dark itself pressed against me with a force I could almost feel, I forgot for a space all this—for I was possessed by this idea of the use of will. So slender and frail a thing as thought alone—might this indeed be for me more of a key than . . .

A key! It was as if I came fully alive, waking out of a nightmare-laden sleep. Neevor had said it—and I had marshalled only human thoughts of locks and doors—not of this! If 1 were right. . . !

Once more I set my shoulders against the support of the wall, ready to do battle in another way—with a part of myself. I cradled the globe, high against my breast, dared to take the chance of closing out my senses for a space, all that lay about me, centering my attention only on the gryphon—on its red eyes.

Now I did not fight to reach Kerovan—no. This was of even greater importance in the here and now—my own escape. If will—my untrained will—held any force, all of it must be focused on my key!

“Out!” I do not know whether I whispered, cried, shouted that aloud, or if it rang only through my mind, answered by the strain I laid upon myself. “Out!”

Slowly, with such an effort as even an hour before I had not believed lay within me, I envisioned a wall such as that against which I now leaned—save with one difference. In it was an opening—a door . . . out!

The globe blazed with heat, it burned. Still I held and willed that heat away from me. I bad no body, no pain, I had only a will—a will demanding obedience.

Out!

Once more the globe burst bright with fire, dazzling me by shooting forth white rays. Those shifted, though I did not change the position of my hand or what it held. The rays joined into one, became an oddly thick rod of pearl color—as if the light had taken on tangible substance.

I turned in the direction it now pointed, began to walk, keeping—with every fraction of energy locked on it—the picture in my mind of what I sought, of what I must find. At that moment nothing in the world must be allowed to exist save that ray of light. I would have been easy prey for the creatures of the dark—had they chosen to move in upon me then.

The ray crooked, turned, struck, as a spear is sent flying at a target—not the wall but a crevice, a long, vertical crack. Into that spun my radiant spear and I followed. The way was rough and 1 stumbled over loose rocks and slippery gravel.

Just as my arm had tired when I had used the belt lash over and over, so now my will was beginning to falter. The ray rippled, no longer so solid. This narrow crevice sloped sharply upward and I climbed; each time my footing shifted the light dimmed a fraction as the focus of my thought was disturbed.

It began to seem that I had been trapped forever in an evil dream, condemned to ever climb over a constantly shifting footing where I fought for balance. The fingers of my left hand were raw-tipped from scrambling for holds on the wall, while my other wrist was stiff and numb as I held the globe out before me. The illumination from it grew fainter; I was nearing the limit of the compulsion 1 could put upon my will.

Now the gleam was hardly brighter than it had been back in the cavern. I was forced, in spite of myself, to climb and climb without knowing what a misstep might bring. Finally the impression came dimly, through my exhaustion, that my path was leveling out once again. Also, the stench that had polluted the lower region was gone. I lifted my chin a fraction, drew a deep, sobbing breath. Surely what had touched against my cheeks just then had been a thin current—of fresh air!

Hope gave me a last spurt of energy. I pushed forward to half fall out of the crevice into a very different place, where I stood amazed, staring about, first in bewilderment and then in growing wonder.

This still lay underground, though far above was a circular opening to the sky. For I was sure the dark expanse I sighted, with those points of light, could be no other than night sky and distant stars. However the cavern was filled with a pale illumination that did not come from any torch, lamp, or fire. Instead the walls themselves gave off a diffused glow, pale and wan, but enough for me to see.

The chamber, cave, or whatever it might be, was a hemisphere with a level flooring. Round walls curved up on all sides. Such perfect symmetry could not be of nature’s devising.

The floor was divided by a large number of low partitions, which followed no logical pattern, cutting across or joining each other to form a crazy maze of sharp-angled spaces. There was no design nor could I imagine any purpose for such a meticulous network of squares, triangles, and other odd forms. Some looked far too small even to set foot into, others were wide enough to provide short paths, which led nowhere.

I decided to edge along the outer walls and thus seek any exit. For to reach that roof opening was far beyond my ability. But there did exist an unwalled space between the first of the maze walls and the circumference of the cavern.

It was not until I squeezed into that space and set out that my hand (which I still slipped along the curve to steady me, for to my rising concern I was growing more and more unsteady on my feet) discovered this wall was not as smooth as it looked. Instead it bore a regular series of indentations. Peering more closely at them, I decided they were runes, though in what forgotten language they had been wrought must remain a mystery.

When, as a child, I had visited Norsdale Abbey with my aunt and had there been allowed to delve into the archives, I had seen manuscripts that reproduced fragments of inscriptions from the places of the Old Ones. Though for my own people these remained a tongue locked against their knowing, these discover ies had been preserved because they marked this or that place that had had some influence upon the Dalesman.

How Fiercely I longed to be able to read what was inscribed here. Perhaps the very information I needed—how to get out—lay in those lines under my fingers. However, even though I could not master their secret, I continued to slip my hand along over those lost messages as I went.

I had won a good third of the way around that curved rise, and as far as I could see ahead, there was no break in the wall, nothing to let me out into the world, the sky of which hung so tantalizingly overhead. I was tired.

At last, my legs shaking under me, I perched on one of the maze walls and let my hands fall to my knees. I was thirsty and my thoughts kept running back to that pool I had found in the dark, the icy sweetness of the water there. This place was utterly sterile and dead. No water—no food—I had come to the end of my escape way to discover but another trap.

Nor did I believe that I could summon up once again that strength of concentration to bring the globe alive. Even as I rested there my energy seeped away as though 1 were deep wounded, losing heart’s blood. My confidence drained in the same way, I huddled where I was, apathetic, in a state of uncaring.

I could not have slept, but I must have fallen into a half-dreamlike state, for I did not blink and look about me again until I realized that the gray light of the chamber was changing. Glancing up I could no longer see those pinpoints of stars. Rather, there came a paling of the sky. In that outer world I could not reach, a new day must be at dawn.

The sight of that portion of sky now was a dull torment to me. I might as well wish for wings, such as the gryphon sported, to raise me out of here; there was no other escape. However, the sight of day broke through the state of uncaring that had held me. Somehow I wavered to my feet, stood swaying. My mouth was dry—my whole throat parched and raw. Almost I could turn again to the dark way that had brought me here, return to seek the basin into which that blessed water dripped in constant flow.

The rest of the curved wall was still to be explored, to no purpose. I turned unsteadily and viewed it all—no break save that ragged seam through which I had first come. To go stum bling in and out of that crazy mixtures of spaces on the floor was utter folly.

Drawing on a very small store of strength, I began again to move, without any real hope, only because I could not simply sit and wait for death to enfold me. The light above grew ever stronger. Day did not pierce to the walls of the chamber, there the gray still held. Then a sudden sharp flash to my right brought my head around.

Daylight had awakened a glittering response from edges of those low dividing walls that were immediately under the dome opening. The response was one of rich color.

I stood in wonder to gaze at gem-bright sparks of red, of gold, of brilliant green, of purple, amber, blue—winging from stone that only moments before had been lifelessly dull. It looked as if a casket had been opened above, loosing in careless profusion such jewels as even the wealthiest of the Dalelords had never hoped to possess.

There was—I began now to perceive it—some arrangement, some pattern about those sparks. They lay thick in some places, thin in others, not at all in a few sections. A design perhaps, but one (the idea awoke sluggishly in a mind that had been overtired by my earlier efforts) that could only be properly viewed and understood if one could see it from above.

Could a person standing on one of the low walls see it? I leaned back against the curved wall, an uncomfortable position, to consider that. What good could it possibly do for me to make such an effort? This was only another unsolvable mystery and nothing to give me any aid.

The glitter grew steadily stronger. I could almost imagine that I saw mists of color flaring upward even as flames arise from wood being consumed. There was certainly something of import out there, tenuous, but perhaps having more substance than light alone.

In spite of my telling myself that this was a useless puzzle beyond my solving, I began to make my way, creeping from one of the enclosures into the next, toward that spread of radiance. While I was still some distance from it, I scrambled up on top of one of the dividing walls, teetered there, hands thrown out to balance me.

At first I thought that if there was any design I could not reach a height high enough to discern its outlines. However, the longer I traced one color to the next, or the joining of the glistening walls that, formed the base, the more I began to perceive that what I looked at was in reality the representation of a symbol I had seen before—carefully lined upon a sheet of very old parchment in the Abbey library.

The general outline was that of a winged creature, but not a bird or any of the fanciful, monstrous beasts Dalesmen were pleased to use to identify their House clans. The outspread wings, the point of one of which stretched quite close to the wall on which I now perched, were blue. Seeing that color gave me a little heart. It was well known that those places of the Old Ones j that held Power that was safe, or at least unharmful, to my race j were always touched with that color.

A round globe rested between the wings, the expanse marked by a circular center for the maze. This glowed amber-gold. While to the fore and back of that were other colors in bright gem shades, as if the thing wore a double crown, one at either side of what might represent either a bodiless head or a headless body.

The longer I stared at that pattern the clearer it became, while the colors were now bright enough to dazzle my eyes. I wavered back and forth on my perch, my weariness fighting against my will. Only I was as one entangled in a strong spell, for I could not turn my back and move away.

My hands closed about the gryphon globe, half expecting that to be afire, gathering force from what I looked upon. Perhaps I was too exhausted, had drawn too much upon its energy in the cavern, for it did not awaken.

If I were enspelled, that bondage held, not only held, but drew me. Still I did not walk straight toward the center; rather it was as if there was another in command of my movements. For some reason, I did not find this either strange or frightening.

My path from one space to the next was odd, sometimes I circled, sometimes I retreated a step, a whole square, a curve, then went forward at a different angle. I think I laughed lightheadedly when it struck me that I might seem, to any onlooker, to be engaged in the movements of some formal dance, such as we foot in the Dale keeps at mid-year when the kin gather for feasting.

Back, forward, sidewise, straight, my feet moved, sometimes having to squeeze into a space where my battered boots scraped both sides of the dividers. Still, to all things there comes an end, and at last I stepped across the final one of the low walls to stand in that golden center, not knowing why it was important that I be here, only that it was.

The light thickened as it streamed upward, walling me in with a veil I could no longer see through. It made a curtain, but I did not stir to sweep it aside; I had reached the place I was meant to be, from here there was no going on.

Now all my great weariness of body and mind settled in full force upon me, actually bearing me to the pavement, so that I wilted as if my knees were now as soft as the bruised flesh that encased them. I was thirsty, I was hungry, I was afraid. I would end here—there was no longer hope of reaching the world I had known.

I curled about in that gold-walled circle as might a child who has wept herself near to sleep. There was a dulling of thought and that pushed away the fear, banished the remaining scraps of wonder—then even memory. I watched drowsily, without marveling any more, the golden light grow thicker and thicker.

Now I could no longer see even the low wall from which it rose. The light billowed, began to spin. First slowly and then faster and faster. Because it made me dizzy to watch, I closed my eyes to shut out that whirl.

There followed a moment of cold, utter cold, sharp enough to bring a cry of pain from me. Then a feeling of deep horror that I was—elsewhere—in a place where no one of my kind should ever venture. Through this nowhere I was swept, or pulled, or pushed. I felt all three such urgings. The terror of the nowhere seeped into my head, drove out the part that was truly me. My inner self, so threatened, fled thankfully into deep darkness and I knew nothing at all.

I opened my eyes. There was no curtain of golden light enclosing me. Instead sunlight wrapped me round, so warmly that my mail shirt was an overheated burden, and my skin stung from a beginning burn. I sat up.

This was not the full light of day, through some opening overhead, that bathed me in heat. I did not still lie in the round of the circular chamber—I was in the open again!

Did I dream? I pinched my own flesh sharply between thumb and forefinger to test that—achieving so pain but no change in what I saw, No rock walls here, rather tufts of coarse-bladed grass and bushes. Not too far away a flock of birds weighed branches—as they pecked eagerly at a bountiful harvest of scarlet berries—so the whole growth, down to its roots, trembled and swung under their assault.

Very slowly, still afraid that I might break this spell—which was certainly good instead of ill—I turned my head. No, this was not deserted country. There were walls, or the remains of such. They stood at a little distance and it was plain they had been tumbled by time, their stone much overgrown with moss. One squat tower was actually topped by a small tree, which had rooted itself there to take the place of a keep lord’s banner.

How had I come here?

Just at that moment I did not care. What drew me was the harvest of berries. I knew their like. Had I not gathered such many times over—the excess being reduced to a thick jam for winter use? They had never looked so plump, so abundant in the Dales though. Now their sweet, yet slightly tart taste promised delight to my hot, dry mouth. I started for the bushes on my hands and knees, not sure I had strength enough to get to my feet.

The birds wheeled up and away, scolding angrily, as I began to raid their feeding place. I culled handfuls from the branches, crammed them into my mouth, their juice relieving my thirst, their substance my hunger. I ate without thought for anything else, without prudence. If this were a dream after all, it was the first one in which I had ever feasted with such satisfaction and delight.

After the first edge was off my thirst and hunger, I allowed myself time to survey my surroundings more closely. The bushes I attacked (I was raking berries from the third bush by this time) had been planted in order, in spite of their now sprawling growth, at what had once been equal distance from one another—a fact still visible.

Beyond stood several similar rows of trees. The closer I knew also as a fruit bearer, though what it now bore was just beginning to grow pink. This was another native of the Dales, which any keep-dweller, finding on his land, guarded and cherished.

So I was in what had manifestly once been a garden. Now I looked to the walls, the three-crowned tower—all were certainly part of a keep. Wonderingly (having eaten what was, for that moment, my fill), I pulled myself up, still caught by the puzzle of how I had come here.

When I had opened my eyes, I had been lying—right there!

There was a slab of stone much moss-grown. As I made my way back to it I saw that some of the green cover had been scraped away, was now in ragged tatters. It looked as if, when I had landed—or somehow arrived there—I had done so with violence. Now I knelt and tore loose more of the moss. Deep-carved right under where my head had rested was the symbol of the ball with the outstretched wings.

Sitting back on my heels, I tried to think logically. I had fallen asleep, or been rendered unconscious, in the deep earth chamber, curled in the midst of a three dimensional representation of what was carved here. Later . . . how much later?

I looked up at the sky. By the sun’s westering position, the time must not be too far from late afternoon. Of the same day? Another? Or a still longer period? There was no way of my knowing.

The fact remained that some agency had transferred me from the cavern into the open, saving my life in the process. I could not be sure whether that act had been deliberate on the part of an unknown intelligence, greater and more far-seeing than my own, or whether I had merely stumbled on a process that would have worked for anyone fortunate enough to follow the conditions set by an ancient spell.

I was inclined toward the latter theory, perhaps because that was the more comforting. To believe that I was under observation, being moved at the will of some Old One, was enough to raise my neck hair and bring shivers in spite of the drowsy heat.

Very well—and for now it did not matter how—I was out of the cave chamber. Only where might I be in relation to the place that had turned into an earth whirlpool? How far was I from my late companions? I was certain I had not been somehow wafted out of the Waste itself, and I was weaponless, alone, with no horse or provisions, in country I did not know, without a guide. A series of facts that were enough to make anyone quail. I had only my own wits to depend upon. Night was on its inevitable way and I had no wish to be caught in the open by any such things as might run these ridges or crawl across the land.

The answer to a quest for shelter was, of course, the ruins. Perhaps beyond those broken walls I could find a hiding hole, a shelter until morning.

The wall nearest me had fallen in convenient gaps so I did not have to seek any gateway. Through one of the gaps I entered into a paved courtyard. Empty window spaces and three doorways (one fringed by the rotting remains of a wooden door) broke the inner walls. Darkish holes those were, from which I could be spied upon, though unable myself to sight any lurker. The place was alive with birds, and I remembered Elys’s dissatisfaction with the wood because it had appeared to harbor no winged inhabitants.

Perhaps the berry feast enticed them. Still, where the ivy grew on the wall of what might have once been the great hall of whatever lord ruled there, there was a constant fluttering among its vines, which suggested nests concealed there in goodly numbers.

I did not hear any pad of foot, any rustle of the drifts of last season’s leaves that lay across the pavement, but, as I turned slowly, inspecting all I could see of the ruins, I found myself indeed under observation.

By the rotted door sat a cat—not such an animal as was esteemed in the Dales because of the slaughter it caused among rats and mice that feasted on stored grain. No, this was half again as large as one of those sleek-sided, striped tabbies. Also its fur was uniformly a yellow-brown and, between its eyes, boldly marked by a much darker growth of fur, was a V. Another such brand grew on the upper part of its lighter breast fur.

About an arm’s distance from the first was a second of the same breed, slightly smaller, a little more lithe of body, but of the like uniform color of coat and markings. The birds appeared to pay no attention to these who might well be termed natural enemies, rather wheeled back and forth overhead, intent upon their own comings and goings.

The cats were not alone. Before a second door squatted a small bear, sitting up upon its haunches and rocking a little to and fro. Catching sight of that red brown form I stiffened. My hand reached by instinct for a weapon I no longer carried.

This was a very small specimen of bear, to be sure. But if it were a cub and its mother was nearby—then I could have walked into a trap even more cruel than the earth one I had managed to escape. I knew only too well hunters’ tales. Among the worst menaces to be found in the Dales were female bears who thought, or suspected, that their offspring might be endangered.

While both the cats surveyed me with that unwinking stare that their whole species turns upon my kind upon occasion—emphasizing the gulf between us (one I have always been certain they believe was set for their purposes)—the bear paid me only fleeting attention. It snapped at a fly. then set to scratching vigorously with one long clawed paw at its own rounded paunch. I found that somewhat disarming and dared to expel the breath I had been holding, without knowing it, ever since I had caught sight of the creature.

I had been far too cautious to try to move—now I dared edge backward toward the gap that had given me entry into this too-well-occupied courtyard. Clearly, as an intruder, I was better away. And I hoped with all my heart that I would be allowed my retreat.

“A female—very young—and very stupid . . .”

I stopped short to stare. No one had said that! Only the cries and twitterings of the birds could be heard. No one had spoken. Then—how had I heard, and who had dismissed me so summarily? For I was certain that those words had concerned me. I fumbled with the buckle of my belt, ready once again to use it weapon wise as I had against the creatures in the dark. Only—who was the enemy here?

“To be young is a state through which all pass. And this one is not truly stupid—I think—only untaught. Which is another matter altogether.

I turned a gasp into a gulp. My hair had worked loose of its braiding since I no longer had a helm to hold it in place. I reached up with my left hand to brush away a straying lock that I might keep close attention upon those three—two cats, large, a bear, undersized. There was. I would take heart oath on that, no other life here—save the birds. And those I discounted at once.

The smaller of the cats arose leisurely and approached me. I stood my ground, even dropping my hand from the belt buckle. It advanced until it was just beyond reaching distance from me. settled again into the same dignified stance as its companion held, tail tip curled decorously over the front paws. Those unblinking yellow eyes were lifted to mine, caught—and held—my gaze. Now I knew!

“Who—what are you?” I had to moisten my lips with my tongue and use effort to ask that question. My voice echoed back from the open eyes of the windows and sounded far too small and tremulous in my own ears.

There was no answer. Still I was sure I had not been mistaken. The speaker had been this animal—or the larger one behind it. One had commented disparagingly upon me, the other had replied with more tolerance. And I had caught that speech in—my mind!