Текст книги " The White Gryphon"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

Соавторы: Ларри Диксон
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

He heaved a sigh of relief. Trust Shalaman to think of that! He knew his courtiers better than Amberdrake had suspected.

She blinked then and touched his hair as if she had only just that moment noticed it. "What's this?" she asked, startled. "You won't be able to show up in public like that—"

"Not as Amberdrake, but as Hawkwind, Skandranon's bodyguard, there shouldn't be a problem," he told her, and laughed. "Besides, this is a carrier version of the feather-dye. It washes right out again. I won't be able to swim or take a bath in public, but not everyone swims, and these people don't have public baths. I'll just hope it doesn't rain much. Come to think of it, I'd better have a hood with me."

"Why do this at all?" she asked. "We have enough people now. You don't need to go out in public."

"Three reasons." He sat back and stretched his shoulder muscles as he spoke, easing the tension out of them. "Skan should have a bodyguard, and he won't listen to anyone but me. Granted, he doesn't often listen to me either, but at least I have a better chance of getting through to him. Two, if I'm nothere and an assassin comes calling, I won't be killed, and only the assassin would know I wasn't here. So anyone who would accuse me of sneaking out would be the assassin, or have hired one. Three, no one ever pays any attention to a bodyguard, as I just had brought home to me. I might hear or see something you and Skan don't, since you are Personages and I won't be."

She nodded, and added another reason. "Four, you're going crazy here, cooped up in these rooms."

"I hadn't wanted to mention that," he admitted, "But yes. You're right. It's very lonely here."

He hadn't intended to admit that, but somehow it came out. She blinked thoughtfully, and nodded.

"I can see that," she began, when there was a tapping on the door to the balcony.

Before either of them could answer it, the door opened, and the Black Gryphon stepped in, leaving the door ajar to let in more of the fresh breeze that followed him inside.

"I," he said to both of them, "am one frustrated gryphon."

Skandranon finished the third night of his patrols the way he had finished the first two; with empty talons.

Well, not quite empty—he had already caught three thieves this evening alone. One was not exactly a petty thief, either; he'd managed to scale one of the lesser treasure-towers, and was about to break in through a window hardly big enough to admit a child. Of course, since this man was either a dwarf or of some race that was naturally stunted, the window made a fine entrance. Since the thief was so small, he was able to comfortably snatch the small man from the wall. The Black Gryphon carried the man's tiny, terrified body to the proper authorities, whereupon the thief blurted out a full confession, as they all had. Leyuet's Spears had them all in custody, a neat arrangement so far as Skan was concerned.

He'd assumed that since magic wasn't working properly, their enemies couldn't be using it even to disguise their movement or hide themselves—and that his old night-combat and night-spying skills would be better suited to spotting the culprits from above than even the most experienced Haighlei guard from below. Whoever this was might not think about hiding himself from a watcher above him. Even Ma'ar's people, as accustomed as they were to dealing with gryphons, still occasionally forgot.

All it had netted him, though, was the common and not-so-common thief. No killers. Most of the little rats had not been any kind of threat physically.

Put a bedridden old woman with a cane against any of these clowns, and 1 would bet on the old woman to beat them senseless.

But he was not going to give up. For one thing, Drake was watching.

The fact that Amberdrake was still considered to be the person in charge of this whole operation still rankled, even though he agreed logically with it. It rankled even though he agreed emotionally—at least in part.

He just hated to think he'd been superseded, and worst of all, no one had askedhim about it. They'd all just assumed it would be all right with him.

That was what left the really sour taste in his mouth.

As he glided on still-rising thermals, circling with a minimum of wingbeats, it continued to rankle.

Drake is a terrific planner. Drake is a fine organizer. Drake knows what he's doing, and yes, I am a bit too reckless, as long as it's only my own neck I'm baring to the makaar's talon. But still– if they'd justasked me....

He probably would have said yes. He probably would have cheered. Now, it itched like an ingrown feather, and he couldn't stop obsessing on it.

Only a few days to the Eclipse Ceremony, and we still don't have our killer.That was his second ingrown feather. Shalaman can't marry Winterhart, so he can't ally with us that way. He can't declare us allies while we're still under suspicion. He can't declare us innocent, not without forcing the hand of our enemy in some way we probably won't like. Probably what would happen would be that he would just quit, leaving us with several corpses and no answers, but there are other things he could do– and Drake's histrionicsshould make him go after another victim before the Ceremony. He'll probably make it look as if I did it, since I'm making myself so conveniently obvious as a potential killer.

Wait a moment. What's this?

He turned a slow, lazy circle in the sky and peered down at the hint of movement below. There was something or someone climbing up the side of that tower—Now, it couldhave been a simie, one of those furry little creatures that looked so very human; normally they lived in some of the gardens and made the paintbox-birds miserable with their antics. But the simies often got out of their designated "areas" and went looking for something to do, some new mischief to get into, when they ran out of ways to torment the birds.

Ithought the shadow looked too big to be a simie, though– heyla!

There he was....

Skan spiraled down, taking care not to betray himself with the flapping of wings, and drew nearer. Silence....

The man was scaling the side of the tower, which was odd, because there were a dozen better ways to get into it, all of them involving a whole let less work.

If he was justa thief, why bypass all those easier ways in? He moved with a skill that told Skan he knew exactly what he was doing....

In fact, he moved in a way that put Skan's hackles up. Move a little—then freeze in a distorted pose that looked more like an odd shadow than the outline of a human. Move a little more, freezing again, this time in a different, but equally distorted pose. He wasn't going straight to his goal, either, but working his way back and forth along the face of the building to take advantage of all the real shadows.

This has to be the one!

Just as Skan thought that, the man suddenly vanished, and only by accident did Skan see the darker shape of a window inside the irregular shadow-shape he had entered.

Skan folded his wings and dove headfirst for the spot, backwinging at the last moment and thrusting out with all four claws to catch the sides of the window, and hold him there.

He clung there for just a heartbeat, long enough to see that the window was open and that it was big enough for him to enter. Then he plunged forward with a powerful thrust of his hindlegs, wings folded tightly against his body, head down and foreclaws out.

Where– was his last thought.

He woke all at once, which argued that a spell had knocked him unconscious rather than a blow to the head or an inhaled drug. He was, however, still quite unable to move; he was bound in a dozen ways. No matter how he strained against the bindings, he could not move even a talon-length.

He lay on his side staring at a wall, with a rigid bar or board stretched all along his spine. His neck was bound to this bar, and his tail; his head was tethered to the end of it as well, and he thought he had been bound to it in several places along his chest and stomach. His wings were certainly bound. He counted three straps at least, and there might be more.

He was muzzled, but not blindfolded or hooded. There were more bars, this time of metal, fastened to his ankles, holding all of his legs apart in a rigid pose, and rendering his talons useless. He could flex them, and his legs a little, but it wasn't going to do him any good; the ends of the metal bars were against the wall and floor and weren't going anywhere. A collar around his neck was tied to the muzzle and to the bar between his foreclaws. A soft footfall behind his back warned him that he was not alone. "Quite an artistic arrangement, don't you think?" said a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. "I thought it up myself."

Skan discovered the muzzle was just large enough to permit him to speak. "Fascinating," he said flatly. "And now that you know you've got a successful arrangement for gryphon trussing, would you like to let me go?"

"No," said the speaker. "I like you this way. It reminds me of home."

Why does he sound familiar? Who is this idiot? He's speaking our language, not Haighlei– could he be one of Judeth's people? No, or how would he have killed all those Haighlei women before Judeth got here?

Something about that combination was teasing at the back of his mind, but he couldn't seem to put the clues together into a whole.

"Haven't you recognized me yet?" The voice sounded disappointed. "Oh, this is really too bad! Either youare becoming a senile old fool, Black Gryphon, or I am simply not notorious enough. I am inclined to believe the former."

"Which means you have outwitted a senile old fool," Skan replied instantly, with a growl. "Hardly impressive."

He hoped to annoy this person enough to get some useful reaction out of him, but he was again disappointed when the man giggled.

"But youaren't the important one, gryphon," the man said smugly. "You're only an annoyance that we had to get out of the way so you couldn't interfere in our real work. We have bigger prey in mind than you."

"We?" Skan asked.

The man giggled again. "Oh, no. You won't catch me in thatlittle trap. You have the most remarkable knack for escaping at the last minute—unlike those old bitches I practiced on." The voice took on a sullen quality, rather like an aural pout. "They were hardly good material. All flaws, and nothing really to work on. Very disappointing. Unartistic. Not worth my time, when it came down to that. You have some potential, at least, and I am truly going to enjoy showing him—ah—what you're made of." Another giggle, and this one was definitely not sane. "Now mind you," the man went on, in a belligerent tone, "I don't usually practice my arts on males, but I'm going to make an exception in your case, just to impress Amberdrake."

Skandranon lunged without thinking, succeeding only in throttling himself against the collar. As he choked, he realized how diabolically efficient his captor's bindings truly were, although they gave a little bit more than their creator had intended. Amberdrake? What's he got to do with this?

The man wasn't done yet. "I do owe him more than a few favors for what he did to me."

And with that, the last piece clicked into place in Skandranon's mind. Amberdrake– punishment?– women—tying up– cutting up—

Hadanelith!

"Hadanelith, you're out of your mind," he said flatly. "Whatever sanity you had when you lived in White Gryphon coughed once and died when they threw you out on your nose."

"Oh, good—you guessed!" The mocking tone sounded more pleased than anything else. "How nice to be given the recognition one deserves at last! How nice to know one's hard work hasn't been in vain!"

"And just what did you intend to accomplish with all of this nonsense?" Skan asked, making his own voice sound as bored as possible. Eventually Kechara is going to test my thoughts– she'll find out I'm in trouble and tell the others.

The only problem is, I haven't the foggiest notion where I am. Hard to rescue me when they have an entire city or more to cover.

"Well, disposing of those old bats was meant to make you lot look like bad little boys and girls," Hadanelith said. "It worked, too—no one likes you anymore. Even the charming and lovely Winterhart deserted you."

There was nodoubt about the tone of his voice now; gloating. And he lingered over Winterhart's name in a way that was just enough to make every feather on Skan's body stand straight on end. He practically breathed the name. Winterhart.

Oh, Kechara, I hope you're listening for me now!On the other hand, Winterhart's apparent defection from the Kaled'a'in had fooled even Hadanelith. Would that be enough to keep her safe?

"My colleagues have continuing plans, however, which I do not particularly feel like discussing with you," Hadanelith continued lightly. "I trust you'll forgive me. And I hope you won't mind waiting until I acquire Amberdrake before I introduce you to the delights of my skill. I want him to watch. He might learn something. I might even let him live afterward; being left alive would be a better revenge than disposing of him."

Hadanelith's voice took on a grating tone. "Before we all went on this mad flight to 'safety' and you morons built White Gryphon, I practiced my hobbies in Urtho's camp, on all the little human hens huddled around his Tower. I used to watch you and all your oh-so-glorious feathered brethren go off to fight Ma'ar, and inside I cheered when fewer of you came back. Urtho the 'artist' created the gryphons, but he quit too early. He made you to be pretty but shallow. The Black Gryphon will die the shallowest of them all."

With another half-hearted struggle and a gasp, Skan replied softly, almost pleadingly, "Don't mock Urtho."

"Mock Urtho?" Hadanelith laughed very near Skan's head, probably hoping for Skan to lash out fruitlessly again. "Uttering Urtho's name is mockery enough. Still, it would be below my honor to mock a lesser artist. If I had any."

Another of his maniacal giggles, this time farther away.

"Ma'ar, at least, came closer to worthy creation than that so-sweet 'Mage of Boredom.' Ma'ar took what Urtho limply tried with the gryphons and created the makaar. Now there was something closer to art. Makaar weren't flatulent, preening extravagances made by a pretend leader, they were hunters. They hunted and enslaved with style. And while on the subject of style, let me tell you of how my next carving will go. I believe an amusing end for the failed legend, the 'Black Gryphon,' would be to carve and rebuild him, into a female makaar."

Oh. My. Word. I can't say I like the way this is headed at all.

"Think of it as being remade into a tribute to the departed lesser artist Ma'ar, Skandranon! Like Ma'ar himself, though, the lifespan of the work will be only temporary. A pity, but then again, transforming the 'Black Gryphon' into the 'Bleeding Makaar' is art enough. The knifestrokes begin here...."

He went on at some length and in great detail, describing all of the things he had in mind to do to Skandranon, starting with that most private of parts. He tried to push the mental images of what was going to be done to him away from the fore of his thoughts, although it was difficult. The descriptions of the mutilations were bad enough, but Hadanelith gloated over how the agony could be made to linger. Skandranon had never liked pain at all.

Skan could only stare at the wall, listen, and hope that there were no mind-shields around this place, that none of Hadanelith's "colleagues" were aware of the gryphonic ability to Mindspeak, and that Kechara would find him quickly enough for the others to search for him.

Because, in three days' time, it was all going to be too late for Skandranon's life to make a difference in the relationship between White Gryphon and the Haighlei. Hadanelith, without a shadow of a doubt, had timed his plans to come to fruition before then.

Zhaneel was doing an admirable job of not panicking, but she wasn't far from it. Her ear-tufts were flat to her head, and her entire posture suggested she was restraining herself by pure will alone.

"Where was he supposed to be flying last night?" Amberdrake asked her. It was hard to think; he was very tired, and last night had been a late one for him. He rubbed his temple, trying to will his fatigue headache away.

She shook her head. "Mostly over the Palace, but he also intended to fly some patterns over the city nearest the Palace walls," she told him. Her feathers already showed signs of overgrooming, ragged around the edges and a bit frayed. "Leyuet says that he last heard from Skan at three on the waterclock, when he brought in another trespasser. This one was let go—he was only trying to sneak in to see his lover among the servants."

"Did Leyuet check that out this morning?" Amberdrake asked sharply.

"I don't know—" She shook her head, sadly. "They did not let the boy go until dawn, to frighten him."

"He couldn't have anything to do with it, then." Amberdrake bit his thumbnail and tried to think. "Skan musthave discovered the murderers, maybe even stopped them before they could strike again—but then what? Why would he disappear?"

"What could they want with him? Where could they have taken him?" Zhaneel echoed, her voice shrill with worry. "Kechara has not yet found him!" She dropped her head with distress.

"Remember, she has to know whereto look, what minds to find him among," Amberdrake told her, patting her shoulder to comfort her. "Right now, she's going to have to search through the whole city to find him."

And we have to hope they don't have shields up to cover him. Kechara is good, but I don't know that she's ever broken a shield. Would she know what to look for?"Does Kechara know anything about mind-shields?" he asked, wanting to give her something she could act on. "All I know is that they exist, and that some kinds of magic shielding acts like a mind-shield. Could she break one if she found it to see if Skan's under it?"

Zhaneel brought her head up, quickly. "I do not know, but I think I can explain it to her!" the gryfalcon exclaimed. "It would be much faster to search for a shield than to search for Skan! As for breaking one—Amberdrake, there is nothing she has tried with Mindspeech that she cannot do, and she might well be able to break one."

"Talk to her, then, the next time she calls you, and ask her." This was the maddening part; the only time the people here, where Skan was presumably captive, could speak to Kechara was when the little gryphon stopped searching long enough to talk to one of the strong Mindspeakers here. There were only two, with Skan gone—Zhaneel and a Kaled'a'in trondi'irn named Summerhawk. Aubri was a Mindspeaker, but not very strong; Winterhart was on a par with Aubri, and Amberdrake's Gifts were in the sensing of emotions and the healing of the spirit, not in Mindspeaking. It was incredibly frustrating—

But at least Snowstar was in charge of Kechara and her search, and he was interrupting her at regular intervals to get her to talk to one or more of them and to rest and eat. Otherwise, the poor little thing was so frantic to find her "Papa Skan" that she was likely to drive herself until she dropped.

If ever we find her limits, it will probably be now.

He racked his brain, trying to think of any other way they could look for the gryphon. No new murders this morning, and all courtiers accounted for at Morning Court, so if Skan had intercepted the killers, he'd done so before they even got at their potential victim.

And at least he won't be blamed for another killing.

So what else could they do? Ask for a room-by-room search of the Palace? What would that accomplish, besides getting people more annoyed with the Kaled'a'in than they already were?

And besides, if they know there is a search going on, they could and would move him.

"You stay here, just in case he comes flying in with his tail singed," he ordered Zhaneel. "I'm going to go talk to Silver Veil. Maybe she can help."

He left Zhaneel consoling herself with her twins, who played on, oblivious to their mother's worries, and left the suite in his "guard" guise. Like most kestra'chern, by the very nature of her work, Silver Veil was usually alone in the morning and early afternoon, and he found her enjoying a solitary lunch beside the pool in her own garden. She knew immediately that something was very wrong, of course, even though she did not have the level of Empathy he did.

"What is it?" she asked, leaving her lunch forgotten and hurrying across the garden as soon as she spotted him. "What has happened? I heard nothing of another death!"

"No death that we know of, but Skan is missing," he told her, taking the hands she held out to him with gratitude. "We have a Mindspeaker searching for him, but that takes time."

Her eyes went wide when he said that Skandranon was missing, and her hands tightened on his. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked quickly.

"I was going to ask you that; can you think of anything?" He tried not to show his disappointment when she shook her head, but his heart fell a little anyway. He hadn't exactly counted on her coming up with a brilliant plan on the spur of the moment, but he'd hoped, just a bit. She was so resourceful, it was hard to realize that she couldn't do everything, solve every problem.

"I cannot solve every problem," she said softly, as if she had read his thoughts. "I cannot even solve my own."

Only then did he see that her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping, and that there were shadows beneath them that told him she had been spending some sleepless nights.

"I can't do anything more to look for Skan," he told her quietly, drawing her back over to her seat under the trees. "Why don't you tell me about your troubles? I may not be able to help, but at least I can provide a sympathetic ear."

She let him lead her there passively, and sat down again with a sigh. "It is nothing I had not known about when I came here," she said wearily. "It is just that I had not known how it would affect me until I saw Winterhart with the Necklace."

"Winterhart?" he said, puzzled. "What—" But the question was answered by her woeful expression before she could even say a word. "Oh, my very dear! You have gone and fallen in love with Shalaman, haven't you!"

She nodded, a tinge of color creeping over her cheeks. "A dreadful confession for a kestra'chern, to say she has fallen in love with her chief client."

"I did with mine—" he objected, but she waved the objection away.

"Winterhart was not the King," she pointed out. "And you were not in Haighlei lands. It is assumed here, among the Haighlei, that a true kestra'chern is a precious thing, too precious for any one person to have to himself. Yet the King's Consort obviously could not—well. I am caught in a double bind, you see."

"And it would be bad enough that you love him, but he is also in love with you, I suspect," Amberdrake hazarded. "Ah, now a great deal makes sense. That was why he thought he was in love with Winterhart! It was really a reflection of his true feelings for you!"

She nodded. "Your lady is very like me in many ways, and he had every reason to believe that she was accessible to him. I have not let him know of my feelings, and I suspect that custom has made him deny his. As flexible as my King is, he is surprisingly custom-bound."

He let go of her hands and reached out to hold her instead. She did not resist at all but rested her head on his chest with a sigh that conveyed more heartbreak than all the tears in the world.

"I was able to manage when there was no serious contender for his affection," she said softly into his collar. "But when he offered Winterhart the Necklace—oh, it hurt, it hurt! It stabbed me to the heart, and I could scarcely bear to stand there and smile, and pretend to be glad! And even now, although I know it is all a sham, I cannot bear to stay in the Court for very long and watch her in the place of Consort-To-Be at his side!"

"One way or another, in two days it will all be over," he reminded her, with a stab of pain and fear in his own heart, as he wondered just how it would all end. With laughter and triumph—or in bloody war?

"But the situation will still remain," she replied, every word an unshed tear, a whispered fragment of pain. "One day soon, he must take a real Consort, and I know this now, as does he. I will bear it because I must—but, oh, my friend, I shall walk from that moment on upon knifeblades, with spears in my heart until the day I die!" He stroked her hair, unable to arrive at a satisfactory answer for her.

"I wish that I had a magic means of helping you," he said at last. "If there were a kestra'chern of your skill available to take your place, do you think—"

"I do not know," she said, but sadly. "It has never happened before that an Emperor took as his Consort a kestra'chern. I suspect he could order it to be so only at the Eclipse Ceremony."

So much hinges on that damned Ceremony!he thought bitterly. Even the barest hope of happiness for Silver Veil!"I cannot promise anything," he said at last, "but I will do what I can to help you, as you have so often helped me. Perhaps—perhaps, if everything works out properly at the Ceremony, there may be a solution for you as well."

"But you must not tell him of my feelings for him!" she insisted. "You must not! It is bad enough now, but it would be worse for both of us if you do! Loving in silence is misery, but loving, knowing the other loves, and remaining parted is twice the misery! I have seen it happen all too often that way."

Sadly, so had he. "I swear it," he pledged her. "Yet I also swear that I will do what I can to remedy the situation, if a remedy can be found." He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, and smiled into her eyes. "I might even offer my own services to the Emperor," he said, only half in jest. "Then, at least, there would be a substitute for you. You often said that I am the one pupil who is your equal."

"You surpass me, and beware lest I hold you to that," she murmured, but she managed a wan smile. "And meanwhile—I shall consult with Leyuet. There may be something that the Spears can do quietly to help search for Skandranon."

"Thank you." He took her hands again, squeezed them gently, and stood up. "I must go back to Zhaneel before she begins plucking her feathers. I will let you know if we learn anything."

"And I, you." She smiled up into his face, this time with more feeling. "Odd, how we can forget our troubles in the troubles of others."

"Isn't it?" he responded.

She escorted him to the door of her suite herself, and let him out with another embrace.

But the moment he left her presence, all the fears for Skan and for their entire precarious situation came back a hundredfold. He hurried back to the gryphons' quarters, half in hope, and half in fear.

Zhaneel was where he had left her, but her muscles were the tiniest bit less tense. "I have spoken to Kechara," she announced before he could ask anything.

"I think she understands the concept of shields, and she is going to look for them. Snowstar is to show her one, and he will teach her to break in if she can. He thinks that she should be able to, especially since these people do not know as much about mind-shields as we."

He heaved a sigh of relief. At least that was one bit of good news in all the bad.

"So now we wait," she finished, with tired and worried resignation.

"Now we wait," he confirmed. "But—we also hope. After all, isn't he the Black Gryphon again? And hasn't the Black Gryphon alwaysbeen able to return, no matter how harsh the odds?"

She nodded. And that seemed to be all the answer she needed, at least for the moment.