Текст книги "The Silver Gryphon"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

Соавторы: Ларри Диксон
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Two more of my fledges go out to prove their wings. I think you'll like the post; neither of you are the kind to pine after a city when you can thrash around in the forest and see things no one else ever has before." He sighed. "Adventures are for the young, who haven't got bone aches. Now me-I'm happy to be here in White Gryphon where I can sunbathe every day. But there should be enough new discoveries there to make even two youngsters like you happy." He did not mention that he knew their personal prime reason for being so happy with this assignment; getting away from their beloved families. He had never acted as if he recognized them as Skandranon's and Amberdrake's offspring– Well, he wouldn't; not while we were in training. But he's never even mentioned our parents casually. Maybe he is a little absentminded in that direction; maybe he doesn't recognize us now that we're grown. "We're looking forward to it, sir," he said honestly. "And it'll be nice to be away from home for the first time." Aubri nodded, then grinned. "Oh, you aren't the only ones who've been interested in long assignments outside the city, believe it or not. I told Judeth that she should never assign anyone to Five who didn't have a good reason for being there as well as a good reason for getting away from home. I've never seen anyone who fit those qualifications better than you two. And to tell you the truth, I had a third reason to want you out there-you're a two-and-four team. That's a good combination for an outpost." That was a gryphon paired with a human. That particular team was not all that usual among the Silvers; people tended to team up with members of their own species. Usually the two-and-fours were default teams, made up of those who couldn't find a compatible partner among their own kind. Quite often they broke up after training, when a senior Silver could take a junior out of training as a partner. Those who were in default two-and-fours generally did just that. "I like a two-and-four for these remote postings," Aubri continued, then got that twinkle back in his eye. "The teams are more flexible, more versatile. Even if some people think there's something wrong with a gryphon who doesn't team up with one of his own." Tad stared back at his superior with his head held high and challenge in his gaze. He'd heard that one before, and it didn't ruffle his feathers. "Oh? Does that include you, too, sir?" Aubri laughed. "Of course it does! Everyone knows I'm a twisted personality! All of us war veterans are warped, it comes with combat! What's your excuse?" Tad grinned back as the perfect answer came to him. "Family tradition, sir," he responded immediately, prompting Aubri into another bray of laughter. "Well said! And I can't wait to tell the Black Boy what you just told me; if that doesn't make his nares redden, nothing will." He shook his head, and the feathers rustled. "Now, you two run along. Give that list to the supply officer; he'll see to getting your basket packed up. All you need to worry about is your own kit." They both stood and snapped to attention. Aubri chuckled, and rose slowly to his feet to let them out-old, maybe, but not dead yet. As Tad had expected, his father already knew about the posting, and was outwardly (and loudly) enthusiastic. If he had beaten every contender and been appointed as Judeth's sub-Commander, Skandranon could not have been more thrilled. It was positively embarrassing. As they gathered for the evening meal in the main room of the family aerie, with the sky a dark velvet studded with jewellike stars beyond the window, Tad wondered if he shouldn't have opted for a quiet bite alone-or perhaps have gone hungry. "Outpost duty! And you fresh out of training!" he kept saying, all through dinner. "I can't ever remember any Silver as young as you are being put on remote duty!" His tone was forced, though, and he hadn't eaten more than half his meal. At the least, this sudden change in his son's status had put him off his feed. Was he worried? Why should he be worried? What's there to be worried about? Zhaneel, Skandranon's mate, cuffed him lightly. "Let the boys eat," she admonished him. "You won't be doing Tadrith any favor by giving him no time to have a proper meal." But her look of rebuke followed by a glance at Keeth made Skandranon's nares flush red with embarrassment. He had been neglecting Keeth the whole time, although Keeth didn't seem too terribly unhappy about that. "I hear fine reports about you from Winterhart," he said hastily to his other son. "You're training in things your mother and I dreamed of doing, but were never able to achieve." Tad winced. Now, if that didn't sound forced, he'd eat grass instead of good meat! "Well, if there hadn't been that annoying war, Father, you two would probably have invented the gryphon trondi'irn, the gryphon kestra'chern, and the gryphon secretary," Keeth said, with a sly grin at his brother. "And probably the gryphon seamstress, mason, and carpenter as well!" Trust Keeth to know how to turn it into a joke, bless him. Skandranon laughed, and this time it sounded genuine and a bit more relaxed. "And maybe we would have!" he replied, rousing his feathers. "Too bad that war interfered with our budding genius, heh?" Tad kept silent and tore neat bites from his dinner, the leg of a huge flightless bird the size of a cow and with the brains of a mud-turtle. One of these creatures fed the whole family; the Haighlei raised them for their feathers, herding them on land that cattle or sheep would damage with overgrazing. The gryphons found these creatures a tasty alternative to beef and venison. Tad was perfectly pleased to let clever Keeth banter with their father. He couldn't think of anything to say, not when beneath the Black Gryphon's pride lurked a tangle of emotions that he couldn't even begin to unravel. But he was more and more certain that one of them was a fear that Skandranon would never admit to. Of course not. He doesn't want to cripple me with indecision or even fear of my own before I go out there with Blade. He knows that if he shows he's unhappy with this, I might be tempted to back out of it. And he knows that there's nothing to worry about; we 're hardly the first team to ever take this outpost. We 're just the first team that included one of his sons, and he's been thinking about all the accidents that could happen to us ever since he heard of the posting. He was worrying too much; Tad knew that, and he knew that his father knew it as well. This was not wartime, and they were not going to encounter hostile troops. But this is the first time I'm "leaving the nest." I suppose it's perfectly normal for parents to worry. I worry, too, but I know that it can be done. I wonder why parents can say they trust their young so much, yet still fear for them? He supposed that a parent's imagination could conjure up a myriad of other dangers, from illness to accident, and play them out in the space of a heartbeat. Parents had to be that way; they had to anticipate all the trouble youngsters could get into and be prepared to pluck them out of danger before they got too deeply into it. But I'm an adult, and I can take care of myself! Isn't he ever going to figure that out? He has been an adult for ages longer than I have, and he has had to be rescued before-so why is it that adults regard trouble as the sole territory of the young? Do we remind them of their vulnerability that much? Between bites, he cast a glance at his mother, surprising her in an openly concerned and maternal gaze at him. She started to look away, then evidently thought better of it, and nodded slightly. Mother's worried, but she admits it. Father won't, which will make it worse on him. And there's no reason for either of them to worry at all! Maybe the more intelligent a parent is, the more they worry, because then they are able to see more of what could go wrong. The Kaled'a'in Quarters know that they could concentrate just as much on what could go right, but when it comes to children-or young adults-it could be smartest to have only grudging optimism. Still He spared a thought for Blade, who was probably undergoing the same scrutiny at the hands of her parents, and sighed. He didn't know how Amberdrake and Winterhart would be reacting to this, but Blade had threatened to spend the night with friends rather than go home to face them. Tad had managed to persuade her to change her mind. It could be much worse, he told himself. They could be so overprotective that they refuse to let me take the post. Or, worse than that, they could be indifferent. A couple of his classmates had parents like that; Tad had heard mages speculating that the raptor instinct ran so strongly in them that it eclipsed what Urtho had intended. Those parents were loving enough as long as their young were "in the nest." They began to lose interest in them when they fledged, just exactly as raptor parents did. Eventually, when the young gryphons reached late adolescence and independence, their parents did their best to drive them away, if they had not already left. Such pairs were more prolific than those who were more nurturing, raising as many as six or eight young in a reproductive lifetime. But those offspring were, as Aubri would say, "glorified gamehawks;" they lived mostly for the hunt and, while extremely athletic, were not very long in the intelligence department. Most of the gryphonic fatalities at White Gryphon had occurred among this group, which for the most part were assigned to hunting to supplement the meat supply of the city. They were very much like goshawks in focus and temper; they would fly into the ground or a cliff during a chase and break their foolish necks, or go out in wretched weather and become a victim of exposure. Some simply vanished without anyone ever knowing what happened to them. Aubri had said once in Tad's hearing that a majority of the fatalities in gryphon-troops of the war-other than those attributable to human commanders who saw all nonhumans as expendable and deployed them that way-were also among this type of gryphon. Needless to say, the type had been in the minority among those that had reached safe haven here, and were not likely to persist into a third generation. Not at the rate that they were eliminating themselves, at least! When they weren't hunting, they could usually be found lounging about on the sunning platform with others of their kind, either attempting to impress like-minded females or comparing wing-muscles. Granted, there was always a bit of that going on among young gryphons, but this lot acted like that all the time! Very attractive, to look at perhaps. But as trysting mates or play-fighters, I don't think I could stand them. So while Skandranon was probably thinking over how many young gryphons of Tadrith's generation had been lost, it was not occurring to him what those unfortunate fatalities had in common. Say-an absolute dearth of brains. A squandering of what they had. And most importantly, a lack of decent parenting. Keeping a young one's body alive was one thing, but it only created more breeders to do the same with the next generation they bred. Even a charming young idiot can succeed with good parenting. I'm proof of that, aren't I? His father had lost some of his self-consciousness and was now speaking normally to Keeth and Zhaneel about some modification Winterhart had made to the standard obstacle course in order to train trondi'irn. Tad took full advantage of their absorption to get some more of his meal down in peace. Skandranon was an odd sight just now; halfway into a molt, he was piebald black and white. The white feathers were his natural color-now-and the black were dyed. He dyed himself whenever he was due to visit Khimbata in his capacity as special representative of White Gryphon. Ever since the Eclipse Ceremony, when he had come diving dramatically down out of the vanishing sun to strike down an assassin who would have murdered Emperor Shalaman, Winterhart, and probably several more people as well, he'd been virtually forced to wear his Black Gryphon "guise" whenever he visited. He had rescued Shalaman, the Black King, as the Black Gryphon-and in a culture that set a high value on things that never changed, he was mentally set in that persona whenever he returned to the site of his triumph. The Gryphon King, beloved where e'er he goes. That was what Aubri had said to his face, mockingly. But the real irony of the statement was that it was true. He never left Khimbata without being loaded down with gifts of all sorts. His jewelry collection was astonishing; if he and Zhaneel wore all of it at one time, they'd never get off the ground. Between us, if we're lucky, Keeth and I might manage to be a quarter as famous as he is-and then most of it will be due to the fact that we're his sons. That could have been a depressing thought, if Tad had any real ambition. But to be frank, he didn't. He'd seen the negative effects of all that adulation– how it was always necessary for Skandranon to be charming, witty, and unfailingly polite no matter what he personally felt like. How when the family visited Khimbata, Skandranon had barely a moment to himself and none to spare for them. And how even at home, there was always someone who wanted something from him. He was always getting gifts, and a great many of those gifts came with requests attached. Even when they didn't, there was always the chance that a demand, phrased as a request, would come later, perhaps when he wasn't expecting it and was off his guard. There was no way for Skandranon to know whether someone wanted his friendship because of what he was or because of who he was-and the difference was critical. No, thank you. I am very fond of obscurity, all things considered. It would be no bad thing to be an obscure Silver, always assigned to the Outposts, hopefully collecting enough extra from his discoveries to finance a comfortable style of living. Let Keeth collect all the notoriety of being the first gryphon trondi'irn; Tad would be happy to donate whatever measure of "fame" fate had in store for him to his brother! Just as he had finished that thought, he noticed that the others were looking at him. Evidently Keeth had run out of things to say, and it was his turn again. Oh, bother. Skandranon cleared his throat. As always, the sound, an affectation acquired from living so much with humans, sounded very odd coming from a gryphon. It sounds as if he's trying to cough up a hairball, actually. "Well!" Skandranon said heartily. "Your mother and I are very interested in hearing about this outpost you're being sent to. What do you know about it?" Tad sighed with resignation, and submitted himself to the unrelenting pressure of parental love. Blade couldn't bring herself to sit, although she managed to keep from pacing along the edge of the cliff. The stone here was a bit precarious for pacing-how ignoble if she should slip and fall, breaking something, and force Judeth and Aubri to send someone else to the outpost after all! Tad would never, ever forgive me. Or else-he'd take a new partner and go, and I would be left behind to endure parental commiserations. Ikala sat on a rock and watched the sunset rather than her. He'd asked her to meet him here for a private farewell; her emotions were so mixed now that she honestly didn't know what to say to him. So far, he hadn't said anything to her, and she waited for him to begin. He cleared his throat, still without looking at her. "So, you leave tomorrow. For several months, I'm told?" Of course, he knew her assignment, everyone in the Silvers did; he was just using the question as a way to start the conversation. The sun ventured near to the ocean; soon it would plunge down below the line of the horizon. Her throat and tongue felt as if they belonged to someone else. "Yes," she finally replied. Now she knew why, people spoke of being "tongue-tied." It had been incredibly difficult just to get that single word out. She wanted to say more; to ask if he would miss her, if he was angry that she was leaving just as their friendship looked to become something more. She wanted to know if he was hurt that she hadn't consulted him, or chosen him as her partner instead of Tad. Above all, she wanted to know what he was thinking. Instead, she couldn't say anything. "Come and sit," he said, gesturing at the rocks beside him. "You do not look comfortable." I'm not, she said silently. I'm as twitchy as a nervous cat. But she sat down anyway, warily, gingerly. The sun-warmed rock felt smooth beneath her hand, worn to satin-softness by hundreds of years of wind and water. She concentrated on the rock, mentally holding to its solidity and letting it anchor her heart. "I am both happy for you and sad, Blade," Ikala said, as if he was carefully weighing and choosing each word. "I am happy for you, because you are finally being granted-what you have earned. It is a good thing. But I am sad because you will be gone for months." He sighed, although he did not stir. Blade held herself tensely, waiting for him to continue, but he said nothing more. She finally turned toward him. "I wanted an assignment like this one very much," she agreed. "I'm not certain I can explain why, though-" But unexpectedly, as he half-turned to meet her eyes, he smiled. "Let me try," he suggested, and there was even a suggestion of self-deprecating humor. "You feel smothered by your honored parents and, perversely, wish for their approval of a life so different from theirs. Additionally, you fear that their influence will either purchase you an easier assignment than you warrant, or will insure that you are never placed in any sort of danger. You wish to see what you can do with only the powers of your own mind and your own skills, and if you are not far away from them, you are certain you will never learn the answer to that question." "Yes!" she exclaimed, startled by his insight. "But how did you-" Then she read the message behind that rueful smile, the shrug of the dark-skinned shoulders. "You came here for the same reason, didn't you?" He nodded once, and his deep brown eyes showed that same self-deprecating humor that had first attracted her. "The same. And that is why, although I wish that you were not going so far or for so long– or that we were going to the same place-I wanted you to know that I am content to wait upon your return. We will see what you have learned, and what that learning has made of you." "And you think I will be different?" She licked her lips with a dry tongue. "At least in part," he offered. "You may return a much different person than the one you are now; not that I believe that I will no longer care much for that different person! But that person and I may prove to be no more than the best of friends and comrades-in-arms. And that will not be a bad thing, though it is not the outcome I would prefer." She let out her breath and relaxed. He was being so reasonable about this that she could hardly believe her ears! "I don't know," she admitted. "I think I've spent so much time proving who I'm not that I don't know who I am." "So go and find out," he told her, and laughed, now reaching out to touch her hand briefly. The touch sent a shivery chill up her arm. "You see, I had to come here to do the same thing. So I have some understanding of the process." "Are you glad that you came here?" she asked, wondering if the question was too personal, and wishing he would do more than just touch her hand. Now it was his turn to look away, into the sunset, for a moment. "On the whole-yes," he told her. "Although in doing so, it became impossible to follow the alternate path I might have taken. There was a maiden, back in my father's court-but she was impatient, and did not like it that I chose to go somewhere other than to the court of another emperor. She saw my choice as a lessening of my status, and my leaving as a desertion of her. I have heard that she wedded elsewhere, one of my more traditional half-brothers." "Oh-I'm sorry-" she said quickly, awkwardly. But he turned back to her, and did not seem particularly unhappy as he ran his hand across his stiff black curls. "There is not a great deal to be sorry about," he pointed out. "If she saw it as desertion, she did not know me; if I could not predict that she would, I did not know her. So" He shrugged. "Since it was not long before my sorrow was gone, I suspect my own feelings were not as deep as she would have liked, nor as I had assumed." "It's not as if you were lacking in people willing to console you here!" she pointed out recklessly, with a feeling of breathlessness that she couldn't explain. She laughed to cover it. "And that is also true." His smile broadened. "And it was not long before I felt no real need of such consolation, as I had another interest to concentrate on." Her feeling of breathlessness intensified; this was the nearest he had come to flirting with her, and yet behind the playfulness, there was more than a hint of seriousness. Did she want that? She didn't know. And now-she was very glad that she was going to have three months to think about it. "Well, I think, on the whole, it will be a good thing for you to have six months to learn what it is that Blade is made of," he said, in a lighter tone. "And I shall have the benefit of knowing that there will be no other young men at this outpost that may convince you to turn your attentions elsewhere. So any decisions you make-concerning our friendship-will be decisions made by you, only." She snorted. "As if any young man could 'make me change my mind' about anything important!" she replied, just a little sharply. "Which only proves that I cannot claim to know you any better than any other friend!" he countered. "You see? This much I do understand; you have a strong sense of duty, and that will always be the first in your heart. I would like to think that I am the same. So, whatever, we must reconcile ourselves to that before we make any other commitments." It was her turn to shrug. "That seems reasonable but it isn't exactly romantic." That last came out much more plaintively than she had expected, or intended. "Well, if it is a romantic parting that you wish-" He grinned. "I can be both practical and romantic, as, I suspect, can you." He took one of her hands, but only one, and looked directly into her eyes. "Silverblade, I crossed an empire, I left my land and all I have ever known. I did not expect to find someone like you here, and yet-I do not follow some of my people's reasoning that all is foredestined, but it sometimes seems as if I was drawn here because you were here. Now I know something of what I am. I believe that there is in you a spirit that would make a match for my own. If, in the end, a few months more will bring us together, such a wait will be no hardship." He patted her hand. "I trust that is romance enough for your practical soul?" She laughed giddily. "I think so," she said, feeling as light-headed'as if she had just drunk an entire bottle of wine. "I-I'm not nearly that eloquent-" "Neither is the falcon," he said, releasing her hand. "But she is admirable for her grace without need of eloquence. Go become a passage bird, Silverblade. When you return, we shall try out hunting in a cast of two." Blade hadn't needed to do all that much packing last night, but she had pretended that she did-and as soon as she was done, she blew out her candle and willed herself to sleep. The need for rest was real, and if she had not torn herself away from her overly-concerned parents, she would not have gotten any. They would have kept her up all night with questions, most of which she didn't have any answers to, since all of them were fairly philosophical rather than practical. She dressed quickly and quietly, and without relighting her candle. With any luck, only her mother would be awake; Winterhart, for some reason, seemed to be handling this better than her spouse. Don't people usually complain that their mothers never see them as grown up? she thought, as she pulled on a pair of light boots, then fastened the silver gryphon badge to the breast of her tunic. The Silvers had no regular uniform; Judeth thought it better that they wear the same clothing as those around them. Uniforms might remind people too much of the regular troops, and war, and even the most battle-hardened wanted to put warfare far behind them. Now-if I can just walk quietly enough, I might be able to get out of here without another discussion of my life-view. Her father Amberdrake was notorious for sleeping late-to be fair, it was usually because he'd been up late the night before, working-and she hoped by rising with the first light, she might avoid him at breakfast. But no. When she carried her two small packs out to leave beside the door, she saw that there were candles burning in the rest of the house. Amberdrake was already up. In fact, as soon as she turned toward the rear of the dwelling, she saw him; dressed, alert, and in the little nook at the back of the main room that they used for meals, waiting for her. But so was her mother, which might temper things a bit. She sighed, while her face was still in shadow and he couldn't see her expression. Breakfast with Amberdrake was always a bit strained at the best of times, and this was not going to be "the best" of times. He keeps remembering when he was the chief kestra'chern and it was his habit to find out about -his fellows when they all drifted in for breakfast. He keeps trying to do the same thing with me. "Good morning, Father," she said, feeling terribly awkward, as she approached the tiny table. "You're not usually up so early." She wondered if Amberdrake's smile was strained; he was too good at keeping a serene mask for her to tell. However, it was obvious that he had taken special pains with his appearance. Silk tunic and trews, raw-silk coat, some of his Haighlei gift-jewelry, and Zhaneel's feather in his hair. You 'd think he was having an audience with Shalaman. She regarded him objectively for a moment. He was still a strikingly handsome man. Despite the white streaks in his hair, her father scarcely looked his age in the low mage-light above the table, and the warm browns and ambers of his clothing disguised in part the fact that there were dark circles under his eyes. Caused by worrying, no doubt. "I didn't want to miss saying good-bye to you, Silverblade," he said, his voice quite calm and controlled. "If I slept until a decent hour, I knew that I would. You dawn risers are enough to make a normal person's eyes cross." She knew that her answering laugh was a bit strained, but there was no help for it. "And you night prowlers are enough to make people like me scream when we think of all the perfectly good daylight you waste sleeping!" She slid into the seat opposite him, and helped herself to fresh bread and preserves. He reached across the table and added thinly-sliced cold meat to the plate quite firmly. She didn't really want anything that substantial first thing in the morning, but she knew better than to say so. Why start an argument? That would be a poor way to leave her parents. What can it hurt to nibble a piece to please him? It can't, of course. Not that long ago, she would have protested; now she knew there was no point in doing so. She'd only hurt his feelings. He was only trying to help. And after today he won't be able to be so meddlingly helpful for six whole months! I should be pitying the people, gryphon and human and her-tasi alike, who will wind up as my surrogates for his concern. She ate one slice of the meat, which was dry and tasted like a mouthful of salty old leather, and went back to her bread. Amberdrake pushed a cup of hot tea toward her, then made a move as if he was about to serve her a bowl of hot porridge from the pot waiting beside him. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. Not for anything would she eat porridge, not even for the sake of pleasing her father! "None of that! Not when I'm flying! I do not want to decorate the landscape underneath me!" Amberdrake flushed faintly and pulled his hand back. "Sorry. I forgot that you didn't inherit my impervious stomach." "No, she inherited my questionable one. Stop badgering the child, dear." Winterhart emerged at last from the rear of the dwelling, putting the last touches on her hair. Blade admired the way she moved with a twinge of envy. Winterhart managed to combine a subtle sensuality with absolute confidence and a no-nonsense competence that Blade despaired of emulating. Now if I looked like that Ah, well. Too bad I inherited Mother's interior instead of her exterior! Unlike her mate, Winterhart had not dressed for a special occasion, which much relieved Blade. Her costume of a long linen split skirt, tunic, and knee-length, many-pocketed vest, was similar to anything she would wear on any other day. The only concession she had made to Amberdrake's sartorial splendor was to harmonize with his browns and ambers with her own browns and creams. "I hope we won't be unwelcome, but we would like to see you and Tadrith leaving, Blade," Winterhart said, quite casually, as if they were only leaving for a few days, not six months. "We do know how to stay out from underfoot, after all. Yours is not the first expedition we've seen on its way." Now it was her turn to flush. "Well, of course I want you there to see us off! Of course you won't be in the way!" she replied, acutely embarrassed. "I would never think that!" The only trouble was, deep down inside, she had been thinking precisely that. She gulped down her cooling tea to cover her embarrassment and guilty conscience, as Amberdrake toyed with a piece of bread, reducing it to a pile of crumbs. He's trying to pretend that he isn't worried; trying to put on a brave face when I know he's feeling anything but brave. Why? Why is he so worried? If he's transparent enough for me to see through, he must be all of a knot inside. Finally Amberdrake looked up at her, slowly chewing on his lower lip. "I know I probably seem as if I am overreacting to this situation, ke'chara," he said quietly. "I shouldn't be so worked up over the simple fact that you and your partner are going off on a normal, peaceful assignment. I realize that I am being quite foolish about this, and I can't even pretend that I have some mysterious presentiment of doom. It's all due to old-well, I suppose you'd have to call them habits, habits of feeling, perhaps." Winterhart stood behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, gently massaging muscles that must have been terribly tense. Outside, seabirds cried, greeting the dawn and the winds that would carry them out to their fishing grounds. Amberdrake reached up and covered one of his mate's hands with his own. "I have two problems with this assignment, really, and neither of them is rational. The first is that it is you, my daughter, who is going off for six months to a place that is unsettlingly far away. And you'll be all alone there, except for a single gryphon. If it were someone else, I would see him or her off with a cheerful heart, and go about my business." "But it isn't," she stated. "No." He sighed, and patted Winterhart's hand. "Your mother is handling this better than I." "I have perfect confidence in Aubri and Judeth," Winterhart said serenely. "They wouldn't send anyone that far away who wasn't prepared for any contingency." Her tone turned just a little sharp as she looked down at him. "If you won't trust Blade, dearheart, at least trust them." "Intellectually, I do" Amberdrake protested. "It's just-it's just that it's hard to convince the emotions." He turned back to Blade, who was even more embarrassed at her parent's decision to bare his soul to her. She struggled not to show it. And underneath the embarrassment was exasperation. Can't he learn that I am grown now, and don't need him to come haul me out of difficulties? Can't he just let me go? "The other problem I have is very old, older than you, by far," he told her earnestly. "And it has absolutely nothing to do with your abilities; it's something I would still feel even if you were a warrior out of legend with magical weapons at your side. It doesn't matter to my heart that this is peace time, that you are simply going off to man a wilderness outpost. The point to my reaction is that you are going out. When-" momentary pain ghosted over his expressive features. "-when people used to go out, back in the days of the wars, they didn't always come back." She opened her mouth to protest; he forestalled her. "I know this is peacetime, I know you are not going forth to combat an enemy, I know that there is no enemy but storms and accident. But I still have the emotional reaction to seeing people going out on a quasi-military mission, and that fact that it is my daughter that is doing so only makes the reaction worse." He smiled thinly. "You cannot reason with an old emotional problem, I am afraid." She looked down at the polished wood of the tabletop, and made little patterns with her forefinger, tracing the grain of the wood. What on earth did he expect her to say? What could she say? That was years and years ago, before I was even born. Can't he have gotten over it by now? He's supposed to be the great magician of the emotions, so why can't he keep his own trained to heel? What could possibly go wrong with this assignment? We'll have a teleson with us, we 'II be reporting in, and if there is a life-threatening emergency and they can't get help to us quickly, they 'II take the risk and Gate us back! But that wasn't what he wanted to hear, and it wouldn't help anything to say it. "I can understand. At least, I think I can. I'll try," she finished lamely. True, it is nothing but wilderness between here and there-but when we get "there," we'll be in a fortified outpost built to withstand storm, siege, or earthquake. And, granted, no one has even tried to explore all the rainforest in between, but we'll be flying, not walking! What could possibly knock us out of the sky that our people or the Haighlei wouldn't have encountered a long, long time ago? It was-barely-possible that some mage-made creatures of Ma'ar's survived from the Cataclysm. It was less likely that any of them could have made it this far south. And even if they did, there had never been that many of them that could threaten a gryphon. The last makaar died ages ago, and there never was anything else that could take a flying gryphon down. We'll be flying too high for any projectile to hurt us, and even if we weren't, there'II be the mass of the carry-basket and all our supplies between us and a marksman. "Father, I promise you, we'll be fine," she only said, choking down a last dry mouthful of bread. "Makaar are extinct, and nothing less could even ruffle Tadrith's feathers. You've seen him; he's one of the biggest, strongest gryphons in the Silvers!" But Amberdrake shook his head. "Blade, it's not that I don't trust or believe in you, but there is far more in this world than you or Tadrith have ever seen. There were more mages involved in the Mage Wars than just Urtho and Ma'ar; plenty of them created some very dangerous creatures, too, and not all of them were as short-lived as makaar. I will admit that we are a long distance from the war zones, but we got this far, so who's to say that other things couldn't?" He's not going to listen to me, she realized. He's determined to be afraid for me, no matter what I say. There was more likelihood of moving the population of the city up to the rim of the canyon than there was of getting Amberdrake to change his mind when it was made up. "What's more, as you very well know, the mage-storms that followed the Cataclysm altered many, many otherwise harmless creatures, and conjured up more." His jaw firmed stubbornly. "You ask Snowstar if you don't believe me; some of the territory we passed through was unbelievable, and that was only after a year or so of mage-storms battering at it! We were very, very lucky that most of the things we encountered were minimally intelligent." "Sports and change-children die out in less than a generation," she retorted, letting her impatience get the better of her. "That's simple fact, Father. There're just too many things wrong with most magic-made creatures for them to live very long, if they've been created by accident." He raised an elegant eyebrow at her, and the expression on his face told her she'd been caught in a mistake. "Urtho was not infallible," he said quietly. "He had many accidents in the course of creating some of his new creatures. One of those accidents was responsible for the creation of intelligence in kyree, and another for intelligence in hertasi. And neither race has died out within a generation.' ' She had already spotted the flaw in his argument. "An accident may have been responsible for the intelligence of the creature, but not the creature itself," she countered. "Creature creation takes great thought, planning, and skill. An accident is simply not going to be able to duplicate that!" He looked as if he were going to say something, but subsided instead. "Besides," Blade continued, taking her advantage while she still had it, "people have been going to this outpost for years, and no one has seen anything– either there or on the way. Don't you think by now if there was going to be any trouble, someone would have encountered it?" Amberdrake dropped his eyes in defeat and shook his head. "There you have me," he admitted. "Except for one thing. We don't know what lies beyond that outpost and its immediate area. The Haighlei have never been there, and neither have we. For all we know, there's an army of refugees from the wars about to swarm over you, or a renegade wizard about to take a force of his own across the land-" "And that," Blade said with finality, "is precisely why we will be there in the first place. It is our duty to be vigilant." He couldn't refute that, and he didn't try. Blade extracted herself from her parents with the promise that she and Tad would not take off until they arrived. With one pack slung over her back and the other suspended from her shoulder, she hurried up the six levels of staircase that led in turn to the narrow path which would take her to the top of the cliff. She was so used to running up and down the ladder-like staircases and the switchback path that she wasn't even breathing heavily when she reached the top. She had spent almost all of her life here, after all, and ver-ticality was a fact of life at White Gryphon. Below, on the westward-facing cliff the city was built from, she had been in cool shadow; she ascended as the invisible sun rose, and both she and the sun broke free of the clinging vestiges of night at the same time. Golden fingers of light met and caressed her as she took the last few steps on the path. It would be a perfect morning; there were no clouds marring the horizon to presage storms to the east. Red skies were lovely-but red skies required clouds. If I am going to be traveling, I prefer a morning like this one; not a cloud in the sky and the air dry, cool, and quiet. At the top of the cliff a great expanse of meadow and farmland composed of gently rolling hills stretched out before her. It was completely indefensible, of course; like Ka'venusho, Urtho's stronghold, there was no decent "high ground" to defend. This was why the city itself had been built into the cliff, with the only access being a single, narrow path. You couldn't even rain boulders down on White Gryphon from above, for the path had been cut into the cliff so cleverly that it channeled objects falling down from the edge away from the city entirely. Judeth's idea, but it took some very clever stonecrafters to put her idea into solid form. At the edge were large constructions of wooden frames and pulleys that could lower huge amounts of material down to the first level of the city; that was how food was brought down from the farms up here. Those could be dismantled or destroyed in mere moments by a very few people. Nothing that was up here would be left to be used by an enemy if there ever was an attack. The farmers used to live in White Gryphon and travel up each day to tend their flocks and fields; now they didn't bother with the trip. There was a second village up here on the rim, a village of farmhouses and barns, a few warehouses and workshops, and the pens where herds were brought during the few days of each year that the weather was too bad to keep the herds in the fields. If severe winter storms came from the sea instead of the landward side, the herds could be driven into the shelter of the forest, and those who were not sent to watch over them could take shelter within the rock walls of White Gryphon. The stockade and supply warehouse of the Silvers was up here as well. Space was too precious in the city for any to be wasted on bulk stores except in an emergency. And as for the stockade, most punishment involved physical labor in the fields with the proceeds going to pay back those who had been wronged. Since most crime in the city involved theft or minor damage, that was usually acceptable to the victims. There had been those-a few-who were more dangerous. Those were either imprisoned up here, under bindings, or-dealt with, out of the sight of the city. After Hadanelith, no one was ever exiled again. The possibility that another dangerous criminal might survive exile was too great to risk. Just outside the stockade was a landing platform. Sitting squarely in the middle of it was what appeared to be a large basket, about the size of a six-person expedition-tent. There was a complicated webbing of ropes attached to it, and standing nearby was Tadrith, with a hertasi helping him into a heavy leather harness. As usual, he was carrying on a running dialogue with his helper, trying to get his harness adjusted perfectly. She knew better than to interrupt; her life would depend on that harness and whether or not he was comfortable in it. This was the carry-basket that would take her and all their supplies to the Outpost. It looked far, far too heavy for Tadrith to fly with, and it was. Even the strongest of gryphons would not have been able to lift her alone in it unaided. But magic was working reliably enough these days, and there would be a mage somewhere around who had made certain that the basket and anything that might be in it would "weigh" nothing, with a reserve for changes in momentum and speed. He would essentially have made the basket into a variant of one of the Kaled'a'in floating-barges. Tadrith would not be "lifting" the basket, only guiding it. The spell was a complicated one that Blade couldn't even begin to understand. Anything inside the basket-like herself-would still have its apparent weight. If that wasn't the case, everything not tied down would be in danger of drifting off on a stiff breeze. But to Tad, although the basket had no up-and-down weight, it would still have a certain amount of side-to-side mass and momentum. He would not be lifting it, but he would have to exert some strength in pulling it, just as teams of dyheli and horses pulled the floating barges. Blade hurried up to check the supplies lashed down inside the basket. As Aubri had promised, the supply sergeant had taken care of everything she and Tad would need except for their own personal gear. Most of the supplies they had requisitioned-the ones for after they reached the outpost-had already been sent on via Gate. So only what they would need for the trip, what there had not been time to send by the Gate, and what she had brought with her would actually travel with them. That's certainly going to relieve Tad. It had also relieved Tad when she told him that she was nothing like her father when it came to wardrobe. She could manage very simply, actually; but Aubri had once described Amberdrake's floating-barge and if gryphons could have blanched, Tad would have, at the thought of having to help move all that mass of clothing, gear, and furniture. She tossed her two bags into the basket, and waited quietly beside the platform for the last of the adjustments to be made. The hertasi in charge was Gesten's daughter Ghana; as thorough and meticulous as her father, she would not leave Tadrith's side until they were both satisfied with the fit of every strap. Blade knew that every buckle would be checked and rechecked, every rivet and every ring subjected to the most exacting scrutiny. Ghana would leave nothing to chance, and there was no possible compromise with safety in her view. Finally, she stepped back. "It'll do," she said, in her hissing hertasi voice. "Try to bring the rig back in one piece." Blade suppressed a laugh, for the remark was so like Gesten that it could have been he who was standing there. Like her father, Ghana would never admit to concern for the trainees she served, only to concern that the equipment return intact. But of course, it went without saying that if the equipment came back to the warehouse in pristine condition, the trainee would certainly have arrived at the landing platform in like shape. Tad waved her over, as Ghana began hooking up his harness to the basket itself. "We're waiting for the parents, I presume?" he said casually. She sighed. "Much as I would like to simply slip away, if we leave without allowing them their fanfare, they may not let us come back." "Or we may not want to," he groaned, and flexed his claws restlessly. "Because when we did, they'd make our lives sheer misery with guilt." She laughed, and patted him on the shoulder. "Parents always know how to pull your strings," she advised him. "After all, they attached those strings in the first place." "Do I hear someone borrowing my words?" The newcomer to the conversation was as elegant as Amberdrake in dress and demeanor, though far less flamboyant. Blade knew him too well to blush. "Of course, Uncle Snowstar," she retorted. "You weren't using them, so why shouldn't I?" He chuckled at her impertinence; next to Skandranon, she was the only person likely to take that tone with him. It was not wise to risk the anger of an Adept-level mage as powerful as Snowstar, as others, even his own underlings, had found out to their sorrow. "I don't think you'll have any trouble with the basket-spells, Tadrith," he said, turning to the young gryphon. "They are as tight as any I've ever set." Blade had assumed her "adoptive uncle" had come to see them off, along with her parents; she was astonished to hear him say that he himself had placed the magics on their carry-basket that would make it possible to fly with it. "You set them, uncle?" she said, making no secret of her surprise. "Isn't that-well-?" "Rather beneath me?" He laughed. "First of all, it is always a good idea for a mage to keep in practice on anything he might be asked to do, and secondly, if something were to fail, magically, on your basket-" He shrugged suggestively. "Suffice it to say, it was easier and safer to do the work myself, than have to explain to your parents why I let some 'inferior mage' do it." Blade nodded ruefully. "Only too true," she told him. She would have said more, but at that moment she caught the sound of familiar voices from below the edge of the cliff. At nearly the same moment, Tad pointed warningly with his beak at a trio of rapidly approaching gryphons, who could only be his parents and sibling. "All we need now are Judeth and Aubri to make this show complete," Blade groaned, resigning herself to a long and complicated farewell that would shave precious time off the amount of daylight they could have used for traveling. "Is that a complaint or a request?" Commander Judeth stalked out of the door to the Silvers' clifftop headquarters, but she was smiling rather than frowning. She was not Kaled'a'in; her hair, before it turned to snowy white, had been a dark blonde, and her eyes a clear gray-green. Nevertheless she had been one of Urtho's generals who understood the value of her nonhuman troops and deployed them with care and consideration, and no one had been unhappy to find her among the k'Leshya when the last Gate came down. She had proved her worth over and over, both during their retreat from lands racked by mage-storms and at White Gryphon. With her partner Aubri, she had organized the first beginnings of the Silvers, and the Silvers in their turn bore the stamp of her personality. She alone of all of them wore anything like a uniform; a black tunic and trews modeled from the tattered originals of her old dress uniforms. The gryphon-badge stood out proudly against such an elegant background. She stopped just short of the platform and looked sardonically from Tad to Blade and back again. "Can I take it from that remark that you think I might be a hindrance to a timely departure?" she continued. Blade flushed, and the old woman allowed a hint of a smile to steal across her lips. "I assure you, Aubri and I came here solely to make certain that your loving relatives did not do any such thing," she said crisply, and cleared her throat. "All right, troops!" she called out in a voice that had once commanded thousands, just as Amberdrake and Winterhart appeared at the end of the trail. "Let's get up here and get your good-byes said and over with! This isn't a holiday trip, this is a military departure! Move your rumps!" "Thank the gods," Blade breathed, as her parents and Tad's scrambled to obey. "We just might actually get out of here before noon!" "In a quarter-mark," Judeth replied sternly. "Or every one of you will be on obstacle-course runs before midmorning." Blade chuckled; not because Judeth wouldn't make good on that promise-but because she would. What had promised to be a difficult departure was already looking better, even with emotionally-charged families approaching. After this, things could only start looking up. Three Skandranon continued to peer off into the blue, cloudless sky for a long time after Tadrith and Silverblade were out of even his extraordinary range of vision. Even after fooling himself several times that some speck or other was them, he gazed on, feeling his eyes gradually go out of focus as his thoughts wandered. He was torn now between pride and anxiety. Their takeoff had been a very good one by anyone's standards; stylish, crisp, and professional. There had been no exhibitions of fancy flying, but not a single mistake in maneuvering either. With so many people watching, he would have been tempted to indulge in some theatrics, when he was Tad's age. And the odds were fairly good that I could have pulled them off, too. But on the other hand, I did have my share of foul ups. With the rising sun in his eyes, though, it didn't make any sense to keep staring off after them. He suppressed a sigh, and told his knotting stomach to behave itself; a gryphon's bowels were irritable enough without encouraging cramps through worry. Well, they're gone. My nestling really has fledged, gone past the brancher stage, and now-well, now he's on his way to have his own adventures. Real adventures, not just high scores on the obstacle course. He'll be making a name for himself now, just like I did. He dropped his eyes to meet Zhaneel's, and saw the same pride and worry in her gaze that he felt. She wouldn't show it in front of the boy and, in fact, had kept up a brave and cheerful front, but he knew this sudden departure had her upset. He tried to look completely confident for her, but it was a struggle that he wasn't certain he had won. Adventures. Huh. Now that he wasn't the one having the "adventures," he wasn't so sure whether or not looking for adventures was such a good idea. Was Tad ready? With the war, there had been no choice but to go and face the dangers-whether one was ready or not-but this wasn't war, and it seemed to him that they could all afford to be more careful of their young. His wings twitched a little as the temptation to follow them rose before him. I could use some exercise. Lady Cinnabar is always telling me to get more flying time in. And if I happened to parallel their course– "You promised not to fly as the children's wingman all the way to the outpost," Zhaneel whispered, quietly enough that no one else could have overheard her. "Remember. You did promise." Drat. He had. And she could read him like a child's primer. He twitched his wings again, ostentatiously settling them. "I'm glad I'm not making that trip," he said, not precisely as a reply, but to reassure her and to show her that he had heard her and he remembered his promise. Granted, she had caught him in a moment of extreme weakness and vulnerability last night when she extracted that promise, but that did not negate the fact that he had made the promise in the first place. If the Black Gryphon's word to his mate wasn't good, how could anyone trust him? Aubri sniffed derisively. "You couldn't make that trip, old bird," he retorted. "They're a lot younger than you, and in better shape on top of that." Skan bristled and started to retort, but paused for a moment to rethink his position. Aubri was not going to get him going this time. "Oh, in theory I could," he replied, as mild as a well-bred matron. "You did, and I'm in better shape than you-what's more, Tad's towing that carry-basket, and that will slow him down to a pace even you could hold. But what would the point be? What would I have to prove? That I'm stupid enough to make a pointless journey to show I'm still the equal of a youngster? It would be a complete waste of time, and I don't have enough time to waste." Aubri looked surprised and chagrined that he hadn't managed to egg Skan on to rash words or a rasher boast. Zhaneel cast him a look of gratitude which promised another interesting evening, and more than made up for the faint blow to his pride administered by Aubri's taunts. Judeth had listened to the conversation with a wry half-smile, and now put her own opinion. "So, now the next generation goes off hunting adventures," she said, combing her fingers through her hair, "while we stay home and see to it that when they come back, they won't find anything much changed. Personally, I don't envy them in the least." "Nor I," Skan said firmly. "Adventures always seemed to involve impact with the ground at a high rate of speed, and ended in a lot of pain. Maybe my memory is faulty sometimes, but I haven't forgotten that part." Amberdrake finally came out of his own reverie and sighed. "Your memory isn't faulty, old bird. I remember picking quite a few pieces of broken foliage and not a few rocks out of your hide, and more than once." He patted Skan's shoulder. "I don't know why you couldn't have picked a gentler way of collecting souvenirs." Skan winced, and Aubri grinned at his discomfiture. From the look in his eyes, Aubri was about to make another stab at puncturing Skan's pride. But Aubri had reckoned without Winterhart, who had been listening just as intently to the conversation as Judeth had. "And I recall that rather than collecting souvenirs of enemy territory, Aubri specialized in attracting enemy fire," she said, with a little smirk and a wink at Judeth that was so fast Aubri didn't catch it. "In fact, he did it so often that his wing used to refer to getting hit by flamestrike as 'being Aubri'ed.' As in, 'Well, I've been Aubri'ed out until my primaries grow back.' Or, 'Well, you certainly got Aubri'ed back there!'" Aubri met this piece of intelligence with his beak open in a gape. "They did not!" he gasped indignantly. Of course they didn't. Skan, who had known every piece of gossip there was to know back then, would have heard of this long before Winterhart ever had. In fact, Winterhart would probably not have heard any such thing, since before she was Amberdrake's lover, she had tended to treat the gryphons of her wing as little more than intelligent animals. Such an attitude was not likely to make anyone tell her anything. But Aubri's reaction was so delightful that everyone fell in with the joke. For once, someone besides Skan was going to come in for a share of abuse. Is it my birthday? Or has the Kaled'a'in Lady decided to bless me, however momentarily? Judeth rubbed the side of her nose with her finger. "I'm afraid they did," she confirmed impishly, and then elaborated on it. "When I deployed your wing, they always liked to fly formation with you on the end since it just about guaranteed that no one else would get hit with lightning or mage-fire. Once or twice I heard them talking about 'Old Charcoal,' and I think they meant you." Aubri's beak worked, but nothing came out; the muscles of his throat were moving, too, but he didn't even utter as much as a squeak. "It could have been worse," Winterhart continued, delivering the final blow. "I did succeed in discouraging the nickname of 'Fried Chicken.'" Aubri's eyes widened; his head came up and his beak continued to move, but all he could manage to say was, "Well!" over and over. Since he sounded exactly like a highly-offended old matron, he only managed to cause the entire gathering to break up into laughter. And if the laughter was somewhat nervous, well, there were four nervous parents there who drastically needed the release of laughter. They laughed long enough to bring tears to the eyes of the humans and make Aubri's nares flush bright red. Before Aubri managed to have an apoplectic fit, though, Winterhart confessed that she had made it all up. "Not that you didn't deserve the nickname, after all the times you came back singed," she added. "But no one ever suggested pinning it on you." Aubri growled, his hackles still up. "They wouldn't have dared," was all he said, and Judeth led him off to ease his ruffled feelings and ruffled feathers. "I don't think he liked being on the receiving end of the teasing," Amberdrake remarked mildly. "Then perhaps he will stop treating Skandranon to so much of it after this," Zhaneel responded, her voice quite tart. "A little is amusing, but he makes a habit of sharpening his tongue on Skandranon, and I am weary of hearing it! Skandranon does not deserve it; and if Aubri continues in this way, there may be trouble with younger gryphons believing in his so-called teasing. They will think that anything Skan says he has done is only wind and empty boast!" Skan turned to her in surprise; she didn't often spring to his defense this way. "Aubri doesn't mean anything by it," he said on his old friend's behalf. "He's getting old and cranky, and he just likes to tease. And I don't think I'm going to lose any respect from the youngsters just because he tries to raise my ire now and again." Zhaneel sniffed and twitched her tail with annoyance. "That might be, and I will not be rude by chiding him in public, but I have had enough of it, and he can expect to get as good as he has given from now on." "I agree," Winterhart put in firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Skan deserves a great deal of respect, after all. Maybe not as much as you'd like, you vain creature, but more than Aubri gives you." Skan cast a look at Amberdrake, who only shrugged. "Don't get me involved in this," he said. "I don't think Aubri means anything of what he says, and I don't think anyone else takes him seriously either-but I think I'm outnumbered here." Winterhart made a little face, and put her arm over Zhaneel's gray-feathered shoulders. "Come along, my dear," she said to the female gryphon. "I think we should discuss this at length, just the two of us, since the men don't seem to take this situation with the gravity we think it merits." "I concur," Zhaneel said agreeably, and the two of them sauntered off toward the cliff rim and several pleasant lookouts that had been constructed there. Skandranon turned a face full of astonishment on Amberdrake-who was gazing after the two females with equal puzzlement. "What prompted all that?" he asked, trying very hard to get his thoughts back on track. Amberdrake shook his head. "I haven't any more idea than you do," he confessed. "Maybe with their chicks gone from the nest, they both feel they have to defend something. I might be considered something of an authority on human emotions, but I have to admit to you that sometimes my lady Winterhart baffles me." He nodded with his chin toward the head of the trail. "Care to walk down with me so we can both worry about the youngsters together?" Skan let out a deep breath; so Drake was just as troubled about Tad and Blade as he was! "Yes, I would," he admitted mournfully. "Zhaneel made me promise not to go with them, not to follow them, and not to talk about them with her unless she brings the subject up. I wish I had her confidence that everything is going to be all right, but I keep thinking of all the things that can go wrong." Amberdrake followed his mate's example by draping an arm over Skan's shoulders. It felt very good there; the support of an old and trusted friend, even if the friend was just as much in need of support himself. Tradition spoke of an elegant half-arch being only a fallen pile of stones without its counterpart to make it whole. "So much can go wrong, even in the most peaceful of times. I fear the worst, too," Amberdrake told him. "But as Blade very rightfully reminded me, their job is not to confront danger directly. They're only scouts, of a sort. If something dangerous appears, they are supposed to send a warning by way of the teleson, then keep themselves intact so that they can get home and brief us in detail." Skandranon took care not to step on Amberdrake's feet, and snorted in reply to his statement. "And just how likely do you think that is to happen?" he demanded. "They're our children! Do you think there's even half a chance that they wouldn't see themselves as the front line of the White Gryphon defenses and go confront something dangerous if it appeared?" He maneuvered Amberdrake into the inside position, between himself and the cliff, as they started back down toward the city. Drake needed to walk on the protected inside, since if one of them was to slip on the trail, it had better be Skan; he could fly and Drake obviously couldn't. "I honestly don't know," Amberdrake admitted. "My daughter baffles me more often than my mate does. I sometimes wonder if the midwife switched babies with someone else when she was born. She doesn't seem anything like either of us, and believe me, I have tried to find common ground with her." "I know what you mean," Skan replied with chagrin. "Although Keenath affects me more that way than Tadrith does. Still. Just because we've never seen either of them act the way we did at their age, it doesn't follow that they wouldn't. If you understand what I'm trying to say." "I think so." Amberdrake picked his way over a rough spot in the trail before continuing. "Children tend to act differently around their parents than when they're on their own. At least, that's what I've observed, both professionally and nonprofessionally." Of course he wouldn't remember himself being that way; he lost his own parents and all his family when he was hardly fledged. But he's right; I went out of my way to be the opposite of mine. They never wanted to be anything but followers, and I wanted to be the one others looked to for leadership. Sometimes I wonder if they weren't smarter than I was. "I wish we had some other way besides the teleson to keep track of them," he fretted. "It's very tempting to wish that Urtho was here to give us another Kechara" He couldn't finish the sentence; the pang of loss he felt even when mentioning the name of the creator of his adoptive "daughter" was enough to still his voice for a moment. "It's more than tempting to wish she was the way she used to be," Amberdrake sighed, "and not just because she'd be useful now. I'd gladly continue all the evasion and diplomatic garbage we had to concoct for the Haighlei if it meant she was still such a powerful Mindspeaker. She is such a cheerful little soul, though; I don't miss her powers at all if it means we get to see her alive and happy." Kechara had been one of Urtho's rare "mistakes," although Skan had never discovered what his leader, mentor, and friend had intended when he created her. Had she simply been a first attempt at the "gryfalcon" type, of which Zhaneel was the outstanding example? Was it possible that she had been a deliberate attempt to create a gryphon with tremendous ability at mind-magic? Or had she simply been a "sport," something Urtho had not intended at all, an accident that Urtho saw and carried through, then hid away for her own protection? Whichever the case had been, little Kechara had been what the other gryphons referred to as a "misborn." Severely stunted, slightly misshapen, with wings far too long for her dwarfed body, her mind had been frozen in an eternally childlike state. But her pure strength at mind-magic had been without equal. Adorable little Kechara had been able to reach her mind-voice as far away as the Haighlei capital of Khimbata, which was how she had discovered where Amberdrake and Skandranon had been made prisoners long ago. The madman Hadanelith and his two Haighlei allies had captured them in the last stage before the attempted assassination of Emperor Shalaman during the Eclipse Ceremony. Without Kechara, Skandranon would never have been able to get away in time to save him, and Amberdrake most certainly would not even be alive at this moment. Impelled by danger to him that even she had been able to perceive, her mental "shout" had sundered magical shields and incapacitated Hadanelith's two allies across all that distance. Urtho had known just how powerful her abilities were, and had kept her close-confined in his Tower for safekeeping. He had known that she might be viewed as a prize to be captured or a weapon to be used, and had thought to protect her from that fate. But in confining her, he had assumed that she would not live very long, an assumption that had proved incorrect. Skan shook his head. "I agree. And I also know that I would never want to take the chance that another one with worse problems than hers might be born-we just don't have the skill and judgment that Urtho did. We all love her, but Kechara's flaws were too high a price to pay for her gifts, objectively speaking. Quite frankly, I think that it is only because she still doesn't understand most of what she saw in other people's minds that she hasn't been driven mad by it all." He had done his best to make certain she never lost her trusting nature-and so had Judeth, Aubri, and anyone else in White Gryphon who ever came into contact with her. In her turn, she served the city and its people faithfully and joyously. She carefully relayed messages she barely, if ever, understood to and from all of the Silvers with even a touch of mind-magic of their own. It was a task they had all tried to ensure was never a chore for her, and she had loved the attention and approval. Skan reflected that it was odd, the way the Haighlei had acted concerning her. For them, a creature with the mind of a child and the ability to read anyone's thoughts would have been a blasphemy. For a year or two after the Eclipse Ceremony, Skan was fairly certain the Kaled'a'in had been able to keep Kechara's existence secret from their allies– but eventually they surely had discovered just what she was. There had been many, many circumspect little hints, diplomatic tail-chases and discreet suggestions. Finally an official communique from High King Shalaman had come, advising the "permanent elimination of the long-range communicator of White Gryphon"-referring to Kechara-making it clear by its phrasing that it was not an idle request, and that not doing so would have grave consequences. Skandranon, Zhaneel, and Amberdrake went to Khimbata to appeal to Shalaman in private, and returned to White Gryphon with a delegation of mages led by Advisor Leyuet. Between various nervous ceremonies of state, "Papa Skan" explained to Kechara that it was time for her to rest from her work, and that they were going to make sure nobody was ever scared of her. Kechara trusted Skandranon completely, of course, and gleefully greeted the delegation. The grim-faced Haighlei, who were steeling themselves to meet a monster and fight against its horrible soul-invading power, instead faced a little creature who only thought they were very funny and demanded their absurdly elaborate and colorful hats to play with. Well, that's the Haighlei for you. I suspect one could probably get away with just about anything, so long as it was wrapped in the proper historical protocol. Come to think of it, the reason Shalaman was so incensed about those murders in his Court was because the assassinations hadn't been done with the proper protocol! Perhaps if we could have found a way for Kechara to be put into Shalaman's service under their religion, she could have kept her powers-but that wouldn't really have been true to her, either, and it would only have made her into the tool, the bargaining chip that Urtho feared she'd be used as. It would have destroyed her loving innocence if she were used against one of us and realized it. At least this way she could stay at home and play. At least she can still talk to all the gryphons, as long as they're within the city limits. "Well, what are we going to do, old friend?" the aging gryphon asked, as they picked their way steadily down to the topmost level of the city. This level was the receiving platform for everything lowered down from the cliffs above, or sent up from the city to the cliffs. Work crews were already unloading pallets of food from the farms, and would continue to do so all day. "What do we do about the children, I mean?" "What can we do?" Amberdrake asked, with only the faintest hint of irritation. He led the way to the broad white-painted stairs that formed the back slope of the White Gryphon's "head." "Nothing. This is their job; the job they chose. They've been assigned to it by their superiors, who have judged them capable. Like it or not, they have grown up, and I'm afraid we had better start getting used to that." Skan ground his beak and prowled after him, talons clicking on the stone ramp alongside the stairs, which was easier for a gryphon to handle than steps. "I don't like it," he said finally. "But I can't tell you why." Amberdrake stopped suddenly, turned, and faced him, looking down at his friend with a troubled expression as the gryphon stopped a step later and looked up. "I don't either, and I haven't any real reason to feel this way. I wish I could say that I have a premonition about this-because this feeling that there is something wrong makes me look like a nervous old aunty-" "But?" Skan prompted. "You're worried you don't have the correct dress to play aunty?" Amberdrake chuckled, then sighed. "But I am afraid I haven't had anything of the sort, and there hasn't been a solid sign from anyone who does have Foresight that something is going to go wrong with Blade and Tad. I know what I would say to any of my clients who felt this way." Skan looked into his friend's eyes, and shook his head. "Let me guess. What we are feeling is a combination of old war reactions, and unhappiness because this fledging of our youngsters is a sure sign that we are getting old." "Too true. And who wants to know that he is getting old? Not I, I can promise you." Amberdrake's expression was as honest as it was rueful. "I've been keeping my body limber and capable for decades now, through all kinds of strain, as loose as a down-feather and as tight as whipcord as needed, but-it's all been to last as long as possible during the pace of time. One never bothers to think about growing old as one is growing older. Then suddenly it is there, looming in your face. Your bones and joints ache, youngsters are expressing concern that you are overexerting yourself, and when you try to insist that your experience means you know more than they do, you find them exchanging knowing looks when they think you don't notice." "Alas. It is life's cruelty, I say. One moment we are fretting because we are not considered old enough to do anything interesting, then we turn around and younglings barely fledged are flying off to do the interesting things we can't do anymore!" Skan shook his head, and looked out over the ocean. "And we are supposed to accept this gracefully! It is hardly fair. I protest! I believe that I shall become a curmudgeon. Then at least I can complain, and it will be expected of me." "Too late for that." Skandranon snorted, "Then I shall be an exceptional curmudgeon. I've earned the title. The Curmudgeon King." "Endured Where E'er He Goes. May I join you, then? We can drive the youngsters to distraction together." Amberdrake seemed to have thrown off some of his anxiety and, to his surprise, Skan realized that he had relaxed a bit as well. "Certainly," the Black Gryphon replied with dignity. "Let's go down to the obstacle course, and make loud comments about how we used to run it better and in half the time." "And with more style," Amberdrake suggested. "Finesse and grace, not brutal power." "Naturally," Skan agreed. "It couldn't have happened any other way-as far as they know." "So, just how worried are you?" Winterhart asked Zhaneel as soon as they were out of the range of Skandranon's hearing. As a trondi'irn she had a very good notion of just how sensitive any given gryphon's senses were, but she knew Skan's abilities in excruciating detail. For all that he was suffering the onset of the ailments of age, he was a magnificent specimen with outstanding physical abilities, not just for his age, but for any gryphon male. "About Skan, or about the children?" Zhaneel asked, with a sidelong glance at her companion. "Hmm. Both, of course," she replied, returning Zhaneel's glance. She's just as observant as I thought. "Skan, first. He's the one we have to live with." "As we must live with Amberdrake, heyla?" Zhaneel nodded shrewdly. "Well. Come and sit beside me here, where the wind will carry away the words we do not wish overheard, and we will discuss our mates." She nodded her beak at a fine wooden bench made of wave– and wind-sculpted driftwood, and sat down beside it on the cool stone rimming the cliff. Winterhart sank gracefully down into a welcoming curve of the bench, and laid one arm along the back of it. "Drake is very unhappy about all this. I think he expected Judeth and Aubri to assign Blade to something like bodyguard duty, or city-patrol. I don't think it ever occurred to him that they might send her out of the city, much less so far away." It didn't occur to me, either, but it should have. I've known that Blade wanted to get away from the city-and us-for the past year. Maybe if Drake hadn't been so adamant about her living with us until she was a full Silver Keeth and Tad had been able to move out in part because Skan had lent them his resources to excavate a new home to trade for an existing one. Sensing Blade's restlessness, Winterhart had tried to persuade Drake to do the same for Blade, but he wouldn't hear of it. "Why should she need to move out?" he'd asked at the time. "It's not as if she has any need for a place of her own. We give her all the privacy she would have anywhere else, and it's not as if she could feel embarrassed to bring a lover here!" Then he had sighed dramatically. "Not that there's any interest in that quarter. The way she's been acting, a vow of celibacy would be an improvement in her love life. Where could we have gone wrong? It's almost like she doesn 't want to listen to her body." Winterhart could have told him-that children were always embarrassed by the proximity of their parents when trying out the first tentative steps in the dance of amorous life, and inhibited by their parents when learning for the first time what kind of adults they would become-but she knew he wouldn't believe her. He would have, if Blade had been anyone else's child, but not when he was her father. A parent can sometimes be too close to his child to think about her objectively. When it came to seeing someone else's children, a parent could see a larger canvas, but with their own-all they would see were the close daily details, and not grasp the broad strokes. Amberdrake, brilliant as he was, couldn't grasp things like Blade not wanting to be around parents as she learned her body's passions. And if Blade had actually come out and asked him for a place of her own, he would probably have given in and made it possible. But she was too shy and too proud, and now, in retrospect, Winterhart could see that requesting assignment to outpost duty had probably seemed the only way she could get that longed-for privacy. "Skandranon is fretting, but not to pieces, I think," Zhaneel said, after a long pause during which she gazed out seaward. She might have been watching the fishing fleet; her eyes were certainly sharp enough to make out details in things that were only moving dots to Winterhart. "I hope that as he realizes the children are capable, he will fret less. Part of it is inaction. Part of it is that he wishes to do everything, and even when he was young, he could not do half of what he would like to do now." That observation surprised a faint chuckle out of Winterhart. "It is odd how our youthful abilities grow larger as we age, isn't it?" she replied. "I am absolutely sure that I remember being able to work for two days and nights without a rest, and that I could ride like a Kaled'a'in and shoot like a highly-paid mercenary, as well as perform all my duties as a trondi'irn. I couldn't, of course, but I remember doing so." "Even so," Zhaneel agreed. "It will not be so bad with Skandranon as with Amberdrake; our children are male, and one is still left to us. Your little falcon was the only chick in the nest, and female. Men wish to protect their females; it is bred in the blood." "And as much as Amberdrake would deny it, he is more worried because Blade is female, you are right." Winterhart stared out to sea, wondering how she could ever convince her spouse that their "delicate little girl" was as fragile as tempered steel. "Perhaps if I keep comparing her to Judeth?" she wondered aloud. "I don't think Blade is doing it consciously, but I can see that she has been copying Judeth's manner and mannerisms." "He admires and respects Judeth, and what is more, he has seen her in action; he knows that Judeth took special care in training your Blade, and perhaps he will take comfort from that," Zhaneel observed, then tossed her head in a gryphonic shrug. "I can think of nothing else you could do. Now, what am I to do with Skan? Concentrate on Keenath, perhaps?" "Could we get him involved in Keeth's physical training?" Winterhart asked her. "I'm a bit out of my depth there-and you and Skan did invent obstacle-course training. I've started all the trondi'irn on working-under-fire training, but the Silvers' gryphon-course is set up for combat, not field-treatment. It isn't really appropriate, and I'm not sure how to adapt it." "Ye-esss. I believe that might do. It will give him action, and something to think about. Or at least more action besides climbing my back to give him exercise." Zhaneel cocked her head to one side. "Now, what of Winterhart? And what of Zhaneel? What do we do to take our minds from our absent children?" Winterhart shook her head. "You have me at a loss. I honestly don't know. And I'll probably wake up with nightmares every few days for the next six months. I suppose we should concentrate on our mates' worries instead?" "That will certainly give us something to do, and give them the job of dealing with how we comfort them." Zhaneel nodded, then turned, and reached out to touch Winterhart's shoulder with a gentle talon. She smiled, and her eyes grew softer as she met Winterhart's gaze. "And perhaps we can give each other the comfort of a sympathetic ear, now and again, sister-in-spirit." One small problem with finally being on duty. Rising at unholy hours. Tadrith sighed, but in-audibly; his partner sometimes seemed to have ears as sharp as a gryphon's. As usual on this journey, Blade was up at the first hint of light. Tad heard her stirring around outside the tent they shared; building up the fire, puttering with breakfast, fetching water. She was delightfully fastidious about her person, bathing at night before she went to bed, and washing again in the morning. It would have been distinctly unpleasant to share a tent with anyone whose hygiene was faulty, especially now that they were away from the coast and into the wet forest. It was very humid here, and occasionally oppressively hot. Blade was not just being carried like living baggage; the basket shifted in every change of wind, and she had to shift her weight with it to keep it from throwing him off. This was work, hard work, and she was usually damp with sweat; by the time he landed for a rest, she was usually ready for one, too. He, of course, was not burdened by the need to wash in order to get clean, and most humans expressed pleasure in a gryphon's naturally spicy musky scent. He couldn't fly with wet wings, and there usually wasn't time to bathe before night fell when they stopped. He had decided to forgo anything but dust-baths until they arrived at their outpost. So he felt perfectly justified in lying in warm and sheltered comfort while she went through her bathing ritual and tended to the camp chores. There wasn't anything he could do to help her anyway. He couldn't fetch water; raptoral beaks were not well suited to carrying bucket handles. He shouldn't have anything to do with the campfire; gryphons were feathered and feathers were flammable. He had done the larger share of work last night, when it came to chores. He had brought up enough wood to feed the fire until this morning, and provided part of his kill to feed them both at breakfast. He would take the tent down, just as he had put it up; the fast way of erecting it required magic, and although he was no match for his father in that area, he was a minor mage in simple object-moving spells. So he had done his share of the camp chores; this was not lazing about, it was the just reward of hard work. He closed his eyes, and listened to water splashing and Blade swearing at how cold it was, and smiled. All was well. Because they were already working so hard, he was bending a personal rule and using magic to hunt with. He used it to find a suitable animal, and to hold that animal in place once he found it. They couldn't afford energy wasted in prolonged hunting, not now; he had to have the tent up, the wood in camp, and his kill made before dark. Back at White Gryphon, he could afford to be a "sportsman"; there were plenty of herd beasts and fish to feed the gryphons, and wild game was rightfully considered a delicacy. Once he arrived at Outpost Five, there would be time enough on each scouting patrol to hunt "properly." But he would consume more food than they could carry on this trip, and that meant hunting with absolute efficiency, using every trick at his disposal. Finally, the sounds of fat sizzling into the fire made him open his eyes and bestir himself again. That was breakfast, and although he personally preferred his meat raw, there were other things to eat besides meat. Though primarily carnivores, gryphons did enjoy other delicacies, and Blade had found some marvelous shelf-fungi last night when he had been bringing in wood. A quick test had proven them to be nonpoisonous, and a quick taste showed that they were delicious. They had saved half for breakfast, still attached to its log just in case detaching it might make it decay. Fresh venison and fresh mushrooms. A good night's sleep and a fine day of flying ahead of us. Life is good. "If you don't come out of there, sluggard," Blade's voice warned from beyond the canvas, "I'm going to have all of this for myself." "I was simply granting you privacy for your bath," he replied with dignity, standing up and poking his beak out of the tent flap. "Unlike some other people I could mention, I am a gentleman, and a gentleman always allows a lady her privacy." Perhaps it was technically morning, but out there under the trees it was gloomy as deepest twilight. Blade was slicing bits of fungus into a pan greased with fat; he saw that she had already set aside half of the remainder for him. It sat on top of his deer-quarter, from which she had sliced her breakfast steak. She had dressed for the heat and humidity, in a sleeveless tunic and trews of Haighlei weave– though not of Haighlei colors. The Haighlei were quick to exploit the new market that White Gryphon provided, weaving their cool, absorbent fabrics in beiges, grays, and lighter colors, as well as black and white. The people of k'Leshya could then ornament these fabrics to suit their own cultural preferences. The results varied as much as the root-culture of the wearer. Those of Kaled'a'in descent embroidered, belled, and beaded their garments in a riot of shades; those who had been adopted into the clan, those outsiders who had ended up with k'Leshya and the gryphons, were usually more restrained in their garments. Blade, consciously or unconsciously, had chosen garments cut in the style of the Kaled'a'in, but in the colors of her mother's people. In this case, she wore a subdued beige, with woven borders in cream and pale brown. As always, even though there was no one to see it, the Silver Gryphon badge glinted on her tunic. Around them, but mostly above them, the birds and animals of this forest foraged for their own breakfasts. After three days of travel, they were finally into the territory that the Haighlei called a "rain forest," and it was vastly different from any place he had ever visited before. The trees were huge, incredibly tall, rising like the bare columns of a sylvan temple for what seemed like hundreds of lengths until they finally spread their branches out to compete with each other for sun. And compete they did; the foliage was so thick and dense that the forest floor was perpetually shrouded in mysterious shadow. When they plunged down out of the sunlight and into the cover of the trees, it took some time for their eyes to adjust. Despite that lack of direct sunlight, the undergrowth was surprisingly thick. As was to be expected, all kinds of fungi thrived, but there were bushes and even smaller plants growing in the thick leaf litter, and ropelike vines that wreathed the trees and climbed up into the light. Anywhere that a tree had fallen or the course of a stream cut a path through the trees, the undergrowth ran riot, with competition for the light so fierce that Blade swore she could actually see the plants growing larger as she watched them. She was the team "expert" on plants, and half of the ones she had examined at their campsites were new to her. And they hadn't even done any exploring; the only plants she saw were the ones she found in the course of setting up camp! Tad couldn't even begin to imagine what she'd find when she began looking in earnest-and he began taking her up into the canopy. He couldn't identify half of the calls they heard from above them. He couldn't even have told her if those hoots and whistles were coming from the throats of furred animals, birds, or reptiles. It was all just a further reminder of how little had been explored here. Now he understood why the Haighlei were so careful about what they did here; not only were there scores of completely unknown hazards in this forest, but careless handling of the woodlands could destroy a priceless medicinal herb or some other resource without ever knowing that it was there. That's all very well, he reminded himself, as he eased himself out of the tent and ambled over to fall on his breakfast with famished pleasure. But it is difficult to be philosophical on an empty stomach. Later, perhaps He devoted himself single-mindedly to his meal. This would be the light one; he would eat heavily when they camped and he could digest while resting. A full gryphon could not fly very well. A hungry gryphon did not take long to finish a meal, and Tad was famished. He polished off the last of his kill in short order, saving the tasty fungus for last. While he ate, Blade put out the fire, buried their trash in the wet ashes so that it would decay properly, and packed up the gear they had taken out as well as everything inside the tent. Tadrith would leave the bones of his meal for the forest scavengers, who would no doubt be glad of the windfall. When they took off, the only signs that they had been here would be ephemeral; the firepit, the bones, and the pressed-down foliage where they had walked and set the tent. In two days, three at the most, the forest would begin to reclaim the site. In a month, it would be gone. Not even the bones would remain. No vultures, not in a place like this. Probably rodents, or perhaps some type of swine or canine. He preened his talons fastidiously, and stropped his beak on the log that had played host to their fungi. Well, I believe it is time to do my part again. He strode over to the tent, concentrated for a moment, then extended his power with a deft touch. He let the mage-energy reach for the trigger point of the tent-spell where it lay just under the center of the canvas roof. Obediently, the canvas tent folded in on itself, starting from the top. The sturdy, flexible poles, once holding the canvas rigidly in place, now became the slightly stiffened ropes they really were. Without a hand to aid it, the tent folded, and refolded, as if it was a living creature. Within a few moments, where the tent had been, a boxy package of canvas sat ready to be put in the basket. Now, as it happened, in accordance with Aubri's advice, the tent could be erected without magic, although new poles would have to be cut for it, since the rope supports obviously required magic to become "poles." Clearly, this was a great deal easier, however. Once the spell was triggered, the supports, which were nothing more than magically-bespelled pieces of thick rope sewn into special channels along the seams of the tent, stiffened in a particular order, unfolding the tent and setting it up at the same time. Since the shape of the supports was dictated by the shape of the channel, it was possible to have a tent that did not require a center-pole or guy-ropes, and only needed to be staked down in seven places to keep it from blowing away in a wind. Of course, if there had been no mage about to trigger the spell, the tent would have required a center-pole as well as corner-poles, and guy-ropes at each corner. This was standard issue among the Silvers now. Tad could never have set the spell himself; that required the hand of a Master. But even an Apprentice could trigger it, so any expedition coming out of White Gryphon that would be camping always had at least one mage along. The spell that made the tent collapse and fold itself up was a more complicated one, but again, it only needed an Apprentice to trigger and feed it. Tad could handle that sort of spell easily, and enjoyed doing so. Perhaps it was analogous to the way that a human felt when whittling or chip-carving wood. There was an odd, suffused warmth of satisfaction at having created something by use of a tool, which was a different sensation from the visceral feelings of hunting by claw or flying by wings. Perhaps it was the ability to affect things outside one's own momentary grasp that made one feel civilized? Tad picked up the neat bundle of canvas and rope and deposited it in the carry-basket. Blade was already stretching out and untangling the ropes of his harness. No matter how carefully they stowed the ropes the night before, in the morning they always seemed to have gotten tangled. How that could be was another of those mysteries he was certain he would never be able to solve. There were times when he suspected a supernatural explanation. The harness had to be stowed out of reach of rodents or other creatures that might like to gnaw on leather-and it had to go somewhere where dampness would not get into it. There was only one place that answered that description, and that was the tent itself, so although the ceiling of their temporary dwelling was fairly high, enough of it was taken up with the harness resting in a net suspended from the corners of the roof that Blade could barely stand upright inside. But if that minor discomfort meant that they could trust the harness not to have suffered damage in the night, it was a small price to pay. Both of them were agreed on that. "I'll share my bed with it if necessary," Blade had said firmly. "I thought that sort of thing was your father's specialty," he'd jibed back, only to be flattened by a swung harness-girth. Apparently Blade was not amused! Blade finally got the ropes sorted out; now she stood dangling the harness from one hand, beckoning with the other. It was time for Tadrith to go to work. The harness took some time to get into, and Blade made certain that it was comfortable for him. This was not the token harness of soft deerskin every gryphon in the Silvers wore, displaying his or her badge, and carrying the pouch in which they kept small necessities. Every strap must fit snugly, but without chafing. Large feathers must be moved so that they lay on top of the leather, or they would be broken off. Tadrith could do none of this for himself; instead, he must stand as patiently as a donkey while Blade rigged him up. The air warmed marginally, and now the usual morning fog began to wreathe among the trees. First, a few wisps formed and wafted through the forest of columns, disappearing and reforming again, like the ghosts of floating snakes. Then the ropes and swaths of fog thickened and joined together, until Tad and Blade were surrounded on all sides by it. Then, lastly, it began to thicken, until they could not see the trunks of trees more than two or three gryphon-lengths away. Up above, the sounds of birds, animals, and insects continued unabated. Down below, under the cover of the fog, animal sounds increased. Perhaps, now that they are concealed, they feel bold enough to call, Tad thought. Or perhaps they are calling to one another because they cannot see each other. It is an interesting question. Neither the fog nor the heavy overcast that had shadowed them for the past two days had given them any great amount of trouble, but Tad felt a difference in the air today. Gryphons were supremely sensitive to changes in the weather, and he knew by the feeling behind his nares and the way his feathers felt against his skin that they were going to have a real storm today. Storms around here seemed to stretch for leagues, so there would be no moving out of its path unless they were very lucky. If he had been alone, he might have taken a chance and tried to climb above the clouds-but he dared not with the basket in tow. Unpredictable winds could catch it and send it and him tumbling; lightning could incinerate either him or Blade, or both, in a heartbeat. No, if the storm threatened, they would have to go to ground quickly, before deadly updrafts or wind-shear caught them unaware. Then they would have to make a quick camp and get shelter before they were drenched. If the storm was over quickly and he was still dry, they could take to the air again to make a little more distance before nightfall; but if he was drenched, he would have to wait until his wings were dry, which would probably take all night. He said nothing to Blade, but she must have felt the same urgency. Perhaps long association with him had made her weather-sensitive, too; at any rate, without skimping on her checks, she hurried through the preparations. Sooner than he had expected, she was done. She made a quick final check of the campsite as he shook himself, checking the harness for loose spots. While she continued to police the campsite, he stretched and did wing-exercises, carefully loosening and warming up every muscle, even those he didn't normally use in flying. He faced away from the campsite, sunk his talons deeply into the ground, and energetically beat his wings as if he was trying to lift the earth itself. He twisted, writhed, and stretched, in a series of dancerlike movements designed to make sure every muscle was ready to do what he had asked it to. Then, when he finally felt no sense of strain no matter which way he moved, he looked at Blade. "Ready?" she called, as she made her way back through the fog toward the basket. He nodded. "Let's get in the air," he replied. "There's a storm coming." "I thought so." She removed the stakes holding the basket firmly to the ground and tossed them in, then vaulted into the basket herself. She shifted a few things with a deft sensitivity to the weight and balance within it, then settled into place with both hands clutching the front of the basket. That was his signal. With powerful wingstrokes, he rose slowly into the air. Leaves and dust scattered across the forest floor in the wind of his creation, and Blade narrowed her eyes against it. He rose about three lengths into the air before encountering the momentary resistance of the basket beneath him. But the spell was still holding firm, and the pull against the harness was no more than if he had been hauling a deer-carcass instead of the massive basket. Immediately, he felt something mildly wrong. The basket felt heavier, and now he noticed a stiffness in his muscles that had not been there when he finished his warm-ups. Is it the damp and chill? No matter; he was committed now, and he dared not abort the takeoff. He simply worked a little harder, made his wingbeats a little deeper, strained a little more against the harness. Blade hung on as the basket lurched up off the ground; this was the moment when it was possible to overset the basket, or novice riders tumbled out. He and the basket rose together through the trees in a series of jerks, propelled by the powerful downthrust of his wings. He was breathing harder than he should have. What is the matter with me? Did I get less sleep than I thought? Or did I eat too much? The thought of the mushrooms hung uneasily in his mind; they were not poisonous, but what if they had some subtle weakening effect on him? But if they had, wouldn't he have noticed it last night? Wouldn't he have noticed as he was warming up? Not necessarily In the next moment, they were above the layer of fog that clung to the earth and shrouded the leaf-littered ground, hiding it. He looked up, and the spreading branches of the canopy rushed to meet them. He willed strength into his muscles, strained toward the light. A thousand birds screamed alarm to see them, then fell silent with shock, as the laden gryphon labored up through the branches. He threaded his way through the hole left in the canopy after the death of some millennium-old forest giant, while below him, Blade shifted and released her holds to fend off reaching branches that threatened to foul the ropes or catch on the basket itself. She used a long pole with a crosspiece tied to the far end, cut last night for this specific purpose. As they burst through the last of the branches into the open air, she dropped the pole. They would not need it for the next descent, and it was too long to carry with them without causing problems. The contrast between the gloom below the trees and the overcast brightness above dazzled Tad until his eyes adjusted; he did not pause, however, for he needed more height. He might not be able to see clearly, but there was no doubt which way he had to go. "Down" was the direction of the dragging on his harness; he rowed his wings in great heaves in answer to that steady pull, and by the time his eyes cleared, he was as far above the canopy as the branches were above the forest floor. That was enough. He angled out into level flight, taking his direction from his own inner senses, and now the basket hung true beneath him, no longer bobbing with every wingbeat. Blade did not release her hold on the edges, for she might have to shift her weight to compensate for sudden changes in the wind, but she did allow herself some relaxation. As soon as they leveled out and he was certain that there were no strange winds to contend with, Tad took a survey of the weather. His weather-sense had not betrayed him; the clouds hung low, fat-bellied and gray with unshed water. He could not scent rain on the air yet, but it was just a matter of time. These were not yet storm clouds; the storm, when it came, would roar down at them out of clouds that would tower thousands of lengths above their slate-blue bottoms. If they were extraordinarily lucky, they might manage to fly out from under this weather system before it developed into a storm, but he was not going to count on it. From the wind, they were flying in the same direction that this storm was going, which made it very likely that they would actually be flying into the teeth of it rather than away from it. I'II have plenty of warning before we get into trouble. In fact, I'll see activity in plenty of time to land. He might even feel it long before he saw it. We aren't making the best time right now, he noted ruefully. In spite of the careful warmup, he still felt– not stiff, not strained, but vaguely achy. Am I coming down with something? Or did I just eat too much this morning? He drove westward, moving as quickly as he could, watching the horizon for the telltale flickers of the lightning that would herald the storm front. He hoped he was not coming down with a fever; although gryphons were not prone to such infections, they were not completely unknown. This would be a bad time and place to get sick-although, if it proved to be a real emergency, Blade could use the light teleson set they carried with them to call for help. Now that magic was working again, even rudimentary mind-magic like hers could be amplified by the teleson to carry all the way back to White Gryphon. It would be work, but she could get help. It's probably just from sleeping in the damp. I've never had to sleep in a tent on damp ground before. Now, for the first time, he had a hint of how he might feel in years to come, when his joints began to ache and stiffen. No wonder his father moved so deliberately! And he had thought it was just an affectation, to increase his appearance of dignity! I don't think I'm going to like getting old. He flew on for some distance-and was very glad that they were not making this journey afoot. He had just traversed territory it would probably take days to cross on the ground, and all within a few marks. It wasn't even noon yet! Now he scented water, and the air felt heavy and thick, and another explanation for his flying difficulties occurred to him. This is not good air for flying. It may not be me at all; it may only be the atmosphere that is weighing us down. It was as difficult to fly in thick air as in thin, though in different ways, and the extra exertion necessary would certainly be enough reason for the ache in his joints! There was still no sign of the coming storm, but it could not be far off now. He strained his eyes, hunting for that elusive flicker of blue-white light among the clouds– Tadrith had no real warning, just a sudden lurching sensation in the pit of his stomach, as if he had been caught in a burst of wind and been hurled up, then dropped. His head spun with disorientation for a moment, and he gasped. Then-the magic on the basket was broken, like water draining out of a broken pot, all in the blink of an eye. And the moment it vanished, the basket regained its real weight-the full weight of Blade, all their supplies, and the basket itself. With nothing more holding it up than one very shocked gryphon. It dropped like a stone, and pulled him, shrieking in strangled surprise, with it. The harness cut into his shoulders; the sudden jerk drove the breath from his lungs and all thoughts from his mind. He pumped his wings frantically and with complete futility against the weight that hauled him down; below him, Blade shouted and sawed at the basket-ropes, trying to cut him free. He had to slow their fall! She was never going to get him loose-even if the ropes were cut, she would still plummet to her death! He wouldn't leave her! There was no time to try magic, no chance to concentrate enough for a spell, and what could he do, anyway? With his heart pounding in his ears, and his vision clouded with the strain, he tried to make his wings move faster, harder, scoop in more air. Surely, if he just tried hard enough, he could at least slow the basket! Fear sent him more energy, fueling the frantic wingbeats. His wing-muscles howled in agony, burning with pain, as if a million tiny demons were sticking him with red-hot daggers. His foreclaws scrabbled uselessly at the empty air, as if some part of him thought he might be able to catch and hold something. His mind jabbered as they plummeted down toward the forest canopy. He did not even have enough control to pick where they were going to hit. Below him, he thought Blade was screaming; he couldn't hear her through the pounding in his ears. His vision went red with the strain Then they hit the trees. That slowed them. As they crashed through the tree-tops, he felt the basket lighten a little; and for a moment he had hope that the springy boughs might actually catch and hold them. But the basket was too heavy, and the branches not strong nor thick enough. As the basket dragged him down into the gloom, he realized belatedly that hitting trees with wings spread wide was not a good idea for a flying creature. He was jerked a little sideways as the basket encountered more branches, which was not good for him; instead of dropping through the hole the basket made, he hit undamaged tree limbs with an open wing. Pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning. Then, there was only darkness. Four Jor some reason, Blade had never been the kind who sat frozen with shock when something dreadful happened. She had always acted; there was an even chance that whatever she did in an emergency, it would be the right thing. Without even thinking about it, Blade had her crossdraw knife out in an attempt to cut Tad free as they all plummeted toward the tree canopy below. She sawed frantically at the ropes holding him a helpless prisoner of gravity, but it was obviously of no use; they were falling too fast and there were too many ropes to cut. We're dead, she thought absently, but her body wasn't convinced of that, and just before they hit the treetops, she dropped into the bottom of the basket, curled into a protective ball. The basket lurched about as they hit tree limbs and broke through them. As wood crashed and splintered all around her, she was thrown around in the basket among all the lashed-down equipment like another loose piece of junk. Something hit her shoulder hard and she heard herself scream. The pain was like an explosion of stars in her head. Then, mercifully, she blacked out. Her head hurt. Her head hurt a lot. And her shoulder hurt even more; with every beat of her heart it throbbed black agony, and every time she took a breath or made the tiniest movement, it lanced red fire down her arm and side. She concentrated on that pain without opening her eyes; if she couldn't get that under control, she wouldn't be able to move. If she couldn't move, she, and probably Tad, would lie here until something came to eat them. Surround the pain and isolate it. Then accept it. Stop fighting it. Don't fear it. Pain is only information, it is up to you how you wish to interpret it. You control it. Her father's lessons came back as she controlled her breathing; she hadn't ever used them on anything worse than a sprained wrist before, but to her surprise, they worked just as well on this serious injury. Make it a part of you. An unimportant part. Now let the body numb it, let the body flood it with its own defenses. Blade knew the body could produce its own painkillers; the trick was to convince it to produce enough of them. And to convince it that at the moment, pain was getting in the way of survival Slowly-too slowly-it worked. She opened her eyes. The basket was on its side, a couple of wagon-lengths away from her. It looked as if she had been tossed free when, or just before, it hit the ground. Fortunately her lashings holding the cargo in place had held, or she probably would have been killed by her own equipment. The basket lay in a mess of broken branches, wilting leaves draped everywhere. It didn't look like it was ever going to be useful for anything again. Probably a fair share of the equipment is worthless now, too, she thought dispassionately. It was easy to be dispassionate; she was still in shock. I'm alive. That's more than I thought a few moments ago. She sat up slowly, being very careful of whatever injury made her shoulder hurt so badly. With her good hand, her left, she probed delicately at her shoulder and bit her lip, drawing blood, when her fingers touched loose bone that grated. Broken collarbone. I'll have to immobilize the right arm. No wonder it hurts like the Haighlei hells! Well, so much for doing any lifting or wielding any weapons. Her questing fingers ran over her face and head without encountering anything worse than a goose-egg knot on her skull and more spatters of congealing blood. With the same care as before, she stretched out her right leg, then her left. Bruises. Lots and lots of bruises, which just at the moment she couldn't feel at all. I must be black and blue from head to toe. That could be bad; she'd start to stiffen up soon, and in the morning it would be worse. She cradled her right arm in her left hand, and worked her legs until they were under her and she was in a kneeling position. She couldn't see anything but the basket at the moment, but from the direction that the ropes went, Tad should be right behind her. She was almost afraid to look. If he were dead– She turned, slowly and carefully, and let out a sob of relief as she saw him-and saw his sides heaving. He wasn't dead! He wasn't in good shape, but he was still breathing! He lay sprawled atop a tangle of crushed bushes, still unconscious. His left wing was doubled up underneath him at an angle that was not natural, with his primary feathers pointing forward instead of back, most of them shredded and snapped. So he had one broken wing for certain, and that meant that he would not be flying off anywhere for help. As she shifted again, trying to get to her feet, his eyes opened, and his beak parted. A thin moan came from him, and he blinked dazedly. "Don't move," she called sharply. "Let me get over there and help you first." "Wing-" That came out in a harsh whisper, and he panted with pain. "I know, I can see it. Just hold still and let me get to you." Gritting her teeth, she worked her right arm inside her tunic and belted the garment tightly, using only her left hand. That would do for immobilizing the shoulder for now. She stood up with the aid of the debris around her, and worked her way over to Tad. Once there, she stared at him for a moment, deciding where to begin. The rain forest was unnervingly quiet. "Can you wiggle the toes on your left hind foot?" she asked. He did so, then repeated the gesture with his right, then his foreclaws. "The right rear hurts when I move, but not as if something is broken," he offered, and she heaved a sigh of relief. "All right, your back isn't broken, and neither are your legs; that's better than we had any right to expect." The knife she had been trying to use to get him free was gone, but now she could reach all the snap-hooks holding the ropes to his harness. Hissing with pain every time her shoulder was jarred in the least, she knelt down in the debris of crushed branches and scratchy twigs and began un-snapping him. "I think I'm one big bruise," he said, as she worked her hand under him to free as many of the ropes as she could without having him move. "That makes two of us," she told him, straining to reach one last set of snap-hooks. He knew better than to stir until she told him to; any movement at all might tear fragile blood vessels in the wings where the skin was thinnest, and he would bleed to death before she could do anything to help him. Finally, she had to give up on that last set. She moved back to his head, and studied his pupils. Was one a little smaller than the other? Without a light to make them react, she couldn't tell. "You might have a concussion," she said doubtfully. "You might, too," he offered, which she really could have done without hearing. I can't wait for the concussion-headache to set in. "Just lie there," she advised him. "I'm going after the medical gear." If I can find the medical gear. If it's still worth anything. It had been packed on top of the supplies, even though that meant it had to be offloaded and set aside every time they stopped for the night. Now she was glad that she had retained the packing order that the supply sergeant had ordained for the basket; they would have been in worse shape if she'd had to move foodstuffs, camping gear, and the tent to get at it! The only question is, did everything fall on top of it? She worked her way over to the basket again, to find to her great relief that the medical supplies were still "on top"-or rather, since the basket was on its side, they were still the things easiest to reach. Although "easiest to reach" was only in a relative sense She studied the situation before she did anything. The basket was lying in a heap of broken branches; the supplies had tumbled out sideways and now were strewn in an arc through that same tangle of branches.