Текст книги " The White Gryphon"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

Соавторы: Ларри Диксон
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Telica here, for instance, was too quiet. It was nearly impossible to get as much as a whimper out of her. He was no more lusty than any other man, he felt, and there were times, just as when one craved a certain dish or fruit, when he simply had to hear a muffled cry of anguish or a sob. Telica was mute as a stick unless he lacerated her with a blade or pierced her flesh with a needle. She was just as flawed in her silence as Gaerazena was in her garrulous, hysterical chattering and Yonisse was in her shuddering anxieties.

It couldn't be his skill; it had to be the material itself. If only he could get his hands on a woman of real substance, breeding, true quality. A woman like Winterhart....

Thatone he had yet to touch, although he had watched her hungrily for ten years. Now there was a creature fit for an artist! Not wood at all, she was the finest marble, a real challenge to carve and mold. But he could do it. He was more than a match for her, just as he was more than a match for any of them. What sculptor was ever afraid of his stone? What genius was ever afraid of his toys? The challenge would be to unmake and then remake her, but to do it so cleverly that she askedfor every change he made to her.

What a dream....

But a dream was all it ever would be. She would never come to him, not while she was mated to the oh-so-perfect Amberdrake. And not when the whole city knew how disgustingly contented she was with her mate. It was all too honey-sweet for words, just as sickeningly, cloyingly sweet as that sugar-white gryphon, Skandranon, and hismate.

It was just a good thing for him that not everyone in this little Utopia was as contented with life as those four were.

He would certainly enjoy giving all of them a bitter taste of reality when the time was right. Especially Winterhart. Get under that cool surface and see what seethed beneath it. Find out what she feared.

Not the ordinary fears of his six creations, he was certain of that. No, Winterhart must surely fear something fascinating, something he would have to work hard to discover. What could he cut free from inside her? Now there was an interesting image; a hollow woman, emptied out slice by slice, with only a walking shell left for everyone else to see. How could it be done? And how thin could he carve those walls before the sculpture collapsed in on itself? Well. If the wood was good enough, he could scoop out quite enough to satisfy his needs.

These thoughts were on his mind as he lowered his knife down between Telica's thighs. That, and his craving for her to make some noise for him.

The blade touched the birch-white skin of one thigh.

At that moment, a shadow moved across Telica's still skin. The lighting in the room shifted as someone—no, several someones—came into the room uninvited. Now thiswas an outrage! Hadanelith whirled, knife in hand, to confront these presumptuous invaders. Before he could utter more than a snarl, a boot to his face made things quite different than a minute before, when hewas the one in control.

Amberdrake's trepidation had hardened into a dull, tight pain in his gut. It certainly wasn't because he hadn't seen horror in his life, or felt himself grow ill from feeling others' suffering. It wasn't precisely because he feared a violent confrontation, or the cleaning up that was always needed after such a thing happened. The sensation he had, as the group arrived at Hadanelith's home—or perhaps it should be called a lair—was dread for its own sake. Amberdrake had the feeling that nothing good was going to come of this arrest. Morally it was the right thing to do, by Law it was the right thing to do, yet still there was that gnawing in his gut that told him they were doing more harm than good.

Aubri, the Eternally Battered, apparently felt it also, although it might have just been a bad breakfast that caused his disgruntled expression. He was a gryphon who never had any good luck, if you believed what he said.

"It's too quiet in there, Drake," he wheezed, as they held themselves poised just outside Hadanelith's door. "We know he's got someone in there, so why isn't there any sound?"

"I don't know," Amberdrake replied, in an anxious whisper. "I don't like it, either. Judeth?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this," she said shortly. "Let's get in there—now."

With a wave of her hand, she led her group of ex-fighters through the door in a rush. Amberdrake trailed behind, warrant still held in his clenched hand, dreading what they would find.

So he didn't actually seeJudeth kick Hadanelith in the jaw and send him sprawling to the floor, but once he saw what had prompted that action, he also saw no need to protest what might be considered an act of brutality.

The young woman was bound only by thread, in one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable positions Amberdrake had ever seen. Her skin was sheened with sweat, and her muscles trembled with the effort of holding herself in place. There were faint scars in many places on her pale skin. With Hadanelith's carving knife lying on the floor where Judeth had just kicked it, there wasn't much doubt in Amberdrake's mind where those scars had come from.

But most horrible of all—she acted as if she were completely unaware of their presence.

No. She's not acting. Sheis unaware of our presence. She will not acknowledge that we are here because he has not told her to.

That was what held him frozen, and what made Judeth's eyes blaze with black rage; that one presumably human person had done thisto another.

The scars are only the least of what he has done to her. This will take months to undo. This is a case for the Healers; my people can't possibly make this right.

With trembling hands, Amberdrake unrolled the arrest warrant and read it out loud. Hadanelith did not move from the place where he lay sprawled across his own floor, not even to finger the growing bruise on his jaw.

He only glared up at Amberdrake in impotent fury as the kestra'chern read out the charges and the sentence.

"You've heard the charges. We've seen the evidence before our eyes. You've been caught, Hadanelith," Judeth said fiercely, biting off each word as if she bitterly regretted having to say anything to him at all. "Have you got anything to say in your defense?"

In answer, Hadanelith spat at her. Since he was lying on the ground and she was standing over him, it didn't get very far. The glob of spittle hit the top of her boot and ran down the side. One of the human Silvers snarled and pulled back a fist; Judeth caught his arm.

"No point in soiling your hands, Tylar," she said coldly. She looked around, picked up a piece of expensive silk that Hadanelith was using for a couch drape, and deliberately wiped her boot with it, dropping it at her feet in a crumpled heap. Only then did she turn to look at her prisoner.

"There are a lot of things I would liketo do to you, scum," she said, her voice flat and devoid of all emotion. "However, we've got one Law to deal with people like you. Hadanelith, by reason of being caught in the acts described, you will be taken as you are to the plateau above White Gryphon in chains. You will be taken to the edge of the lands we have claimed and cultivated. There you will be freed of your chains, and you will be given from now until darkness falls to take yourself outside our border marker. If, by tomorrow at dawn, you are still inside them, whoever finds you is permitted to take any steps he deems necessary to get rid of you."

Hadanelith's rage showed clearly in his eyes, but his voice was as cold as Judeth's. "As I am? What, no weapons, no food, no—"

"You are a mad dog, scum. We don't supply a mad dog with food and weapons." Her lips thinned, and her eyes glinted as she looked down at him. "You think that you're so clever—I suggest you start using that cleverness to figure out how to survive in the forest with only what you're wearing." She jerked her head at the rest of the Silvers. "Chain him up, and get him out of here before he makes me sicker than I already am."

The Silvers didn't need any urging; within moments they had their prisoner on his feet, collared and manacled.

Amberdrake had expected Hadanelith to fight, to heap verbal abuse on them—to do or say something, at any rate. This continued silence was as unnerving as his continued certainty that no good was going to come of this.

He is a mad dog. The forest is going to kill him, but painfully, and perhaps slowly. Shouldn't we have at least had the compassionate responsibility to do it ourselves?

But his crimes had not warranted execution, only banishment. He could not be cured, that much was obvious, so the rulers of White Gryphon had an obligation to remove him from among those he was preying upon. That meant imprisonment or banishment, and White Gryphon did not yet have a prison.

Hadanelith glared at Amberdrake all the time he was being bound, and continued to glare at him all the time he was being hauled out of the room, as if he held Amberdrake personally responsible for what was happening to him. That just added another level of unease to all of the rest.

If they had found Hadanelith alone, Amberdrake might have turned and bolted at that moment—but they hadn't, and through all of this, the young woman had not moved so much as an eyelash. Amberdrake's personal unease gave way to a flood of nausea as he knelt down beside her.

He eased down his own shields, just a trifle, and touched her arm with a feather-brush of a finger to assess the situation.

He slammed his shields back up in the next instant, and knew he had gone as white as Skan's feathers by the chill of his skin.

He looked up at Judeth, who hovered uncertainly beside him.

"It's not good, Judeth, but I can take it from here." He took a deep, steadying breath and reminded himself that this was no worse than many, many of the traumas he had helped to heal in his career as the Chief Kestra'chern of Urtho's armies. He looked up again and manufactured a smile for her. "You go on along. I can manage. She'll have to go to Lady Cinnabar, of course, but I can snap her out of this enough to get her there."

One of Judeth's chief virtues was that she never questioned a person's own assessment of his competence; if Amberdrake said he could do something, she took it for granted that he could.

"Right," she replied. "In that case—I'll go along with the others. I want to make personally sure that chunk of sketigets past the border markers by sundown."

She turned on her heel and stalked out the door, leaving Amberdrake alone with the girl, a young woman whose name he didn't even know.

And that's the next thing; go through Hadanelith's records and find his client list. Where there is one like this, there will be more.

You knew it could be this bad, Drake. Just think how much worse it would be for her if you weren't here.

Hadanelith would not run, no matter how grim and threatening his captors looked. He walked away from them at a leisurely pace, as if he was out for an afternoon stroll, keeping his posture jaunty and his muscles relaxed.

It wasn't easy. The back of his neck crawled, and despite that officious bitch Judeth's assertions that they were not going to physically harm him– themselves—he half expected an arrow in the back at any moment.

But no arrows came, and he completed his stroll down the furrow of planted ground without incident, carefully stepping on each tiny seedling before him as he walked, and grinding it into powder beneath his feet. A petty bit of revenge, but it was all that he was likely to get for some time.

At the end of the furrow was the land that had not been claimed from the forest—forest that held so many dangers that sending him out here might just as well have been a death sentence. Even the field workers came out under guards of beaters to drive the beasts away, and Kaled'a'in whose specialty was in handling the minds of wild beasts in case the beaters couldn't frighten predators off.

And archers in case both fail. Thank you so much for your compassion, you hypocrites.

He did not pause as he reached the trees and the tangle of growth beneath them. He pushed right on in and continued to shove his way grimly through the bushes and entwined vines, ignoring scratches and biting insects until he finally struck a game path.

Thenhe stopped, a little out of breath, to take inventory of his hurts. He wanted to know every scratch, every bruise, for he would eventually extract payment for all of them.

There was the kick to his jaw, the other to his hand; the one had practically broken the jawbone, the other had left his hand numb. His guards hadn't been any too gentle on the trip up here, either; they'd just about dislocated his arms, wrenching him around, and they'd gotten in a few surreptitious kicks and punches that left more bruises and aching spots under his clothing.

Nevertheless, Hadanelith smiled. They'd been so smug, so certain of themselves—they'd said he was to be sent into this exile as he was, and then were bound by that word from searching him!

Fools.They assumed that a kestra'chern at work would be completely unarmed—but Hadanelith was not exactly a kestra'chern.

And Hadanelith was never unarmed.

He began to divest himself of all his hidden secrets, starting with the stiletto blades in the seams of his boots.

Shortly, he would resume his journey to the boundary markers, and he would be very careful to remain outside them for the few days it took to convince these idiots that some beast or other had disposed of him.

Then he would return.

And then the repayments would begin.

Two

Skan cupped his wings and settled onto the ledge of the lair he and Zhaneel had chosen when White Gryphon was first laid out, this time only stubbing two talons upon landing. That wasn't unusual; he was often less careful when he thought no one was watching him, and the pain was negligible. This was his home. He could blunt his talons on the stone if he felt like it.

Together with a small army of hertasi, they had carved it from the rock of the cliff, used the resulting loose stone for mortared walls and furniture, then filled it with such gryphonic luxuries as they had brought with them. It had a glorious view of the surf on the rocks below, but was sheltered from even the worst winter storms by an outcropping of hard, black stone covered with moss and tiny ferns. It was easily the best lair in the city; mage-fires kept it cozy in the winter, breezes off the sea kept it cool in the summer, and there were plenty of soft cushions and carved benches to recline upon. Occasionally rank didhave its privileges.

One of those privileges was absenting himself from the likely unpleasant confrontation with this Hadanelith character. He felt rather sorry for poor Amberdrake but, on the whole, rather relieved for himself. Perhaps he could soothe his guilt later by visiting Amberdrake with a special snack or treat.

At least that Hadanelith mess was one decision I didn't have to make. All I had to do was agree with Drake. What's happened to me, whennot deciding someone else's fate is an event?

His wing muscles still ached, distantly, from his landing, and he felt a lot more tired than he should have been after two relatively short flights. I'm going to have to increase the time I spend skydancing,he decided. No matter how I have to juggle my schedule. I shouldn't be tiring this quickly. After ten years you'd think I'd get most of my endurance back!

He folded his wings, and glanced back down at the surf before pushing open the door to the lair. Cinnabar kept warning him, even after all these years, that the time he spent between Gates followed too quickly by the perils of their cross-country trek had burned away every bit of his reserves. He was stripped to the bone by the strain, so many years ago—but he should have gotten all of it back by now!Amberdrake, Gesten, and Lady Cinnabar had done their best for him, too. This is all the fault of a sedentary life! I spend more time strolling around the streets than I do in exercises, and no one says anything because I'm Skandranon– but if I were any other gryphon, there'd be jokes about my sagging belly!

He closed the door neatly behind him and stepped over the wall across the entrance– anecessary precaution to keep unfledged, crawling, leaping gryphlets from becoming hurtling projectiles off the balcony. The gryphons had never had to face that particular problem when their lairs had been on the ground, but a small inconvenience seemed a trivial price for the added safety of their youngsters.

Small mage-lights illuminated the interior of the lair—unusual in the city at the moment, as were the mage-fires that heated the lair by winter. Mage-lights and mage-fires were far down on the list of things the mages needed to create during the brief times that magic worked properly. Skan had made most of these, and Vikteren had done the rest.

There we are again. Another reason why I am such a feathered lump. Lying in place for days on end to make mage-lights. Staring at a stone to enchant it to glow like a lovesick firefly while hertasi and humans bring me enough food to sink a horse. What would Urtho think of me now?

The humans and hertasi had to make do with candles and lanterns; while mage-lights and mage-fires were in limited supply, they went first to the Healers, then the gryphons and tervardi,then the kyree.Only after all the nonhumans had sufficient lights and heating sources would humans receive them for their homes. This had been a decision on Skan's part that although it seemed slightly selfish, had a sound reason behind it. The Healers obviously needed mage-lights and heat sources more than anyone else—and as for the gryphons, tervardi, and kyree, well, the former had feathers, which were dangerous around open flames, and the wolflike latter didn't have hands to light flames with.

Freshly crisped gryphon and roasted tervardi, mm-mm! Served fresh in their own homes, in front of their children—Ma'ar's secret recipe!That was the very phrase he'd used to persuade the rest of the Council to agree to the edict, and as he'd figured, the invocation of Ma'ar's name did the trick, more than logic had.

He hadn't enjoyed manipulating them, though. Tricks like that left a rather bad taste in his mouth. He really didn't like manipulating anyone, if it came right down to it. Neither had Urtho.

There were many things Urtho didn't like, gods bless his memory. I always secretly pitied him for the position he was put in by others' need for him. He never liked being the leader of all those who craved freedom from Ma'ar, but it was something he had to do. I remember him looking at me once, with a look of quiet desperation, when I asked him why he did it.

Skandranon paused, eyes unfocused, as his memory brought the moment back in sharp detail. He said, simply, "If not me, then who?"

Now I know how he felt then. It wears a soul down, even though the sense of fulfilling a duty is supposed to make a soul enriched. A noble heart, the stories say, is supposed to live and find joy in the responsibility. But I am satisfied less and less, doing a great deal I don't like– including getting fat!

"Zhaneel?" he called softly, when a glance around the "public" room showed no signs of life, not even a gryphon dozing in the pile of pillows in the corner. "I'm—"

He'd called softly, hoping that if the little ones were sleeping, he wouldn't wake them. Stupid gryphon. Vain hope.

A pair of high-pitched squeals from the nursery chamber greeted the first sound of his voice, and a moment later twin balls of feathers and energy came hurtling out of the chamber door. They each targeted a foreleg; Tadrith the right and Keenath the left.

They weren't big enough to even shake him as they hit and clung, but they made it very difficult to move when they locked on and gnawed. And Amberdrake and Winterhart thought theyhad problems with their two-legged toddler! Young gryphons went straight from the crawling stage into the full-tilt running stage, much like kittens, and like kittens they had three modes of operation—"play," "starving," and "sleep." They moved from one mode to another without warning, and devoted every bit of concentration to the mode they were in at the time. No point in trying to get them interested in a nap if they were in "play" mode—and no point in trying to distract them with a toy if they were squalling for food.

Zhaneel followed her two offspring at a more sedate pace. She was more beautiful than ever, more falconlike. Her dark malar-markings were more prominent; now that she wasn't trying to look like the gryphons whose bodies were based on hawks, and now that she had learned to be self-confident, she carried herself like the gryfalcon queen she was. "Don't worry, I wasn't trying to settle them for a nap," she said calmly over their wordless squeals of glee, as Skan tried vainly to detach them. "We were just playing chase-mama's-tail."

"And now we're playing burr-on-papa's-leg, I see," he replied. Zhaneel took one bemused look at what her children were doing and began chortling. At the moment, still in their juvenile plumage, the gryphlets looked like nothing but balls of puffy, tan-and-brown feathers, particularly absurd when attached to Skan's legs. "The Council session broke up early," Skandranon continued, "and I decided that I'd had enough and escaped before anyone could find some other idiot's crisis for me to solve."

It came out a lot more acidic than he'd intended, and Zhaneel cocked her head to one side. "Headache?" she inquired delicately.

He succeeded in removing Tadrith from his right leg, but Keenath, being the older of the two tiercels, was more stubborn. "No," he replied, again with more weariness than he had intended. "I am just very, very tired today of being the Great White Gryphon, the Wise Old Gryphon of the Hills, the Solver of Problems, and Soother of Quarrels. No one remembers when I was the Avenger in the Skies or Despoiler of Virgins or Hobby Of Healers. Now they want someone to do the work for them, and I am the fool that fell into it. I am tired of being responsible."

He slowly peeled Keenath from his foreleg, as the young gryphlet cackled with high-pitched glee and his brother pounced on Skan's twitching tail.

"You want to be irresponsible?" Zhaneel asked, with a half-smile he didn't understand, and a rouse of her feathers.

"Well," he replied, after a moment of thought, "Yes! The more people pile responsibilities on me, the less time I have for anything else! All of my time is taken up with solving other peoples' problems, until I don't have any time for my own! And lookat me!" He shook himself indignantly. "I'm fat, Zhaneel! I'm overweight and out of condition! I can't think of the last time I sat around chatting with Amberdrake and Gesten just because I enjoy their company, when I spirited you off for a wild storm ride, or just flew off somewhere to lie senseless in the sun for a while! Or for that matter, to lie on youa while. And the longer this goes on, it seems, the less time I get to even think!"

Zhaneel reached out a foreclaw and corralled her younger son before he reattached himself to his father's leg, nodding thoughtfully. "But the city is almost finished, except for the things that people must do for their own homes, which you cannot be responsible for," she pointed out. "So—surely they must not need you as much?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Except that the more things get done, the more they find for me to do. As the months go by, the things are always less vital, but they're frozen without my word of approval or decree. It's as if they've all decided that I am the only creature capable of making decisions—never mind that I'm only one member of a five-person Council!"

As she fixed her eyes on his, he struggled to articulate feelings that were not at all well defined. "I don't know if this is some twisted joke that fate has played on me, Zhaneel, but I'm beginning to feel as if I'm not me anymore. It's as if the old Skandranon is being squeezed out and this—this faded, stodgy, dull old White Gryphon is taking his place! And it is happening in my body, and I can only watch it happen."

As Tadrith raced around to attack Skan's other side, Zhaneel cornered him as well, tumbling both gryphlets together into a heap of cushions, where they attacked each other with exuberant energy, their father utterly forgotten. She sat down beside him and nibbled his ear-tuft, with an affectionate caress along his milky-white cheek. "The wars are over, my love," she pointed out with inarguable logic. "There are no more secret missions to fly, no more need to dye your feathers black so that you do not show against the night sky—no more real need for the BlackGryphon. We all have changed, not just you."

"I know that," he sighed and leaned into her caress. "But—that was more than a part of me, it was who I was and I miss it. Sometimes I feel as if the Black Gryphon died—with—with Urtho—and now all I have left is a shell. I don't know who or what I am anymore. I only know that I don't like what's happened to me."

Zhaneel clicked her beak in irritation. "Perhaps you do not care for what you are, but there are many of us who were very pleased to see a Skandranon who had learned a bit of responsibility!" she said crisply. "And we would be very annoyed to see that particular lesson forgotten!"

She glared at him just as she would have glared at a foolish young brancher for acting like one of the fledglings.

He shook his head, trying to bite back a hasty retort and instead make her see what he was talking about. "No, it isn't that," he replied, groping for words. "I—it's just that it seems as if I've gone to the opposite extreme, as if there just isn't any time for me to be myself anymore. I'm tired all the time, I never have a moment to think. I feel—I don't know—thinned out, as if I've stretched myself to cover so much that now I have no substance. My duty has consumed me!"

The slightly frantic tone of his voice was enough to make both the youngsters look up in alarm, and Zhaneel patted his shoulder hastily. "You'll be all right," she told him, clearly trying to placate him. "Don't worry so much. You gave a lot of yourself in the journey here. You lost almost all of your strength when you were trapped in the Gates. You just need more rest."

That's always the answer, any time I complain that I don't feel like myself.

"And that's just what I'm not getting," he grumbled but gave up trying to explain himself to her. She didn't understand; how could he expect her to, when he didn't really understand what was wrong himself?

The gryphlets came galloping over to him again, and he settled down on the floor and let them climb all over him. What waswrong with him, anyway? He had everything he had ever wanted—a lovely mate, a secure home, peace—and he was the leader he had always dreamed of being. Shouldn't he be content, happy?

Well—except that he wasn'tthe leader he had dreamed of being, back when he fought against the sky, makaar, and all the death-bolts an army could hurl at him. The stories he was raised on, of heroes and hopes, said nothing about the consumption of the leader by his duties. He had dreamed of dramatically-lit skies against which his glorious form would glide across the land he protected, and below him the people would cheer to behold him and flock to his presence.

Maybe the problem was simply that he was, at best, a reluctant leader when it came to peacetime solutions, and his discontent with that situation spilled over onto everything else.

Zhaneel nibbled his ear-tuft again, then disappeared into the depths of the lair, presumably with some chore or other to take care of now that he was keeping the youngsters out of her feathers for a while. Skandranon might be caught in chasms of distress, but he would always have affection for his little ones. He loved them day to day as much as he had enjoyed conceiving them. He fisted his claws and bowled the little ones over with careful swats, sending them back into the pile of cushions. They squealed and chirped, rolling around and batting at him in boundless exuberance—for the moment—and he wished that he could be as carefree and happy as they were.

Was everyone as unhappy as he was? He didn't think so. In fact, he wasn't quite certain when his current discontent had begun. It was simply that today, he was devoting concentration to realizing it was there, and just how deep it festered.

As arduous as the journey here had been and as fraught with danger and uncertainly, hisjob had actually been easier then than it was now. He'd only needed to offer encouragement, to keep peoples' spirits up. He could step up and make a rousing speech, inspire hope, and tell well-timed stories. He was the cloud-white cock of the walk at critical times. Judeth had been in charge of protecting the army of refugees, Gesten and Amberdrake in charge of keeping everyone fed and sheltered. Lady Cinnabar had taken over anything remotely concerned with the health of the group. All hehad been asked to do was to provide a figurehead, a reminder of the old days, and what the best of those days had meant.

Skandranon snorted to himself. In other words, vain gryphon, your job was to be their living legend.

Now he had to make decisions—usually difficult, uncomfortable decisions. Worst of all, he was the only "authority" anyone could agree on to arbitrate in disputes between nonhumans and humans—and even though the disputants might agree on him as arbitrator, they were seldom entirely satisfied with him. Humans, he suspected, always were sure he was favoring nonhumans, and the nonhumans were always convinced he would favor humans because of his special relationship with Amberdrake. Annoying, but there it was. And that just led to another source of discontent for him; if people were going to insist he solve their conflicts, the least they could do would be to pretend that they liked the solution! But no matter what he did or did not do, someonewould grumble about it!