A Feather on the Breath of Ellulianaen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mynowelechw Suvoglah Cwig

  The Eagle’s Eyrie

  lla Lchlwldd Lslhom

  The sun was high in the sky, and their hearts were full of joy, for they believed that their adventure was over. They began flying south, but Hwedolyn said, “Gwendolyn – we ought to travel east first for ten or fifteen leagues, then south, to the Iomedae Mountains, in order to avoid the village of Thegol Emirae, which is about thirty leagues to the south.”

  “How do you know the lie of the land?” she asked him, “Have you been here before?”

  “Once, but only once, I saw a map of this area,” said Hwedolyn, who, like most gryphons, had an excellent memory for minor details, and would only ever have to see a map once in order to remember it for ever.

  So they wheeled around to the east, flying no more than five hundred feet above the ground, lest the villagers see them above the horizon, though like as not they would think they were nothing more than far-off eagles. Soon, the Iothuiolmae River was beneath them, and they turned south, and flew towards the Iomedae Mountains, of which they could now see the peaks, just over the round edge of the earth.

  Gwendolyn said, “Where are we going to hide the talisman?”

  He replied, “Somewhere high. Somewhere inaccessible, that the elf-mage cannot possibly reach.”

  And they flew in silence for a long while, feeling very happy in each other’s company, and quite satisfied with their achievement in capturing the Mage’s talisman. The day lengthened into late afternoon. After some time, Hwedolyn said, “Do you know, now that we have done this, I’m much happier. I don’t think I need vengeance, now, or any more vengeance than we already have had in getting his talisman. The elf-mage is powerless. Once we have delivered this talisman, Gwendolyn, do you think – ”

  “ – Hwedolyn, we don’t have to talk about it yet. Let’s not rush anything.” And she looked him in the eye, with the fey gaze of one eye, even as she flew, and somehow he knew that they had a long future together.

  They flew for a long time, then, without speaking. Gradually the landscape below changed from a sparsely vegetated rocky plain into a forest, thick with large pine trees, and the mountains came closer and closer, and the afternoon turned once again to twilight. They were great, craggy mountains, many of them with harsh cliffs and some with mesas on top and some with sharp craggy peaks, but they all looked as if they had been carved with a larger chisel than the mountains in the north, for there were more angles and edges and cliffs and crags than any mountains the two gryphons had ever seen before.

  On the tip of one mighty crag Hwedolyn saw an eagle’s eyrie, hanging in space on the edge of nothingness like a question mark on the end of a sentence, far too far away for any to see it who was not a gryphon. He decided that it would be a good place to leave the talisman, and told Gwendolyn his thoughts.

  “Indeed. No elf would ever find it there, and it is a very lonely place,” she agreed. So they flew to the eagle’s eyrie and landed on the nearest ledge, and, after speaking to the eagles, for gryphons can speak many languages, Hwedolyn flew over and put the talisman in the nest.

  After this they flew north, thinking the matter was over and finished, and each of them was thinking how nice it would be to found an eyrie with the other, but neither of them said anything about it.