Crystal Gryphon

  A barking dog at a farmhouse, well up-slope, kept me frozen with a pounding heart until a man shouted angrily and the brute was still. So it took me some time to reach the place I hunted.

  Ulmsdale was freer of those relics of the Old Ones than most of the northern dales. In fact it was only here, in the shadow of the Giant's Fist, that there were signs any had found their way into this valley before the coming of my own race. And the monument to the past was not an impressive one—merely a platform leveled among the stones of these heights, for what purpose no man might say.

  The only remarkable thing about this smoothed stretch of stone was that deep-carven in it was that creature from which the first lord of Ulmsdale had taken his symbol—a gryphon. Even in this uncertain light the lines of the creature's body were clear enough to give me the bearings I needed.

  So guided, I scrambled up the slope a little farther, my bruised, stiff body protesting every action, until I found that place in the wall of the valley where care had been taken generations ago to set stones about a cunningly concealed break.

  I edged past those into a dark pocket. Until that moment I had not realized the difficulties of this path without a light. Drawing my sword, I used it to sound out walls and footing, trying to remember as clearly as I could what lay before me now.

  All too soon the sword met empty space, and I had found my destination. I sheathed my blade and crouched to feel about with my bare hands. Yes, this was the lip of the vent down which I must go. I considered the descent. In the first place the boots fashioned to hide my feet were built only for ordinary service. I distrusted them when I had to use toe holds in the dark. In fact I was not even sure my hoofed feet would serve there, but at least they would be better free. So I wrested off my boots and fastened them to my belt.

  The substance of my hoofs was not affected by the chill of the stone, seeming not to have the sensitivity of flesh, and somehow with my feet free I felt secure enough to swing over and test beneath me for footholds. I need not have worried; my hoofs settled well into each and, heartened, I began the descent. I could not recall how deep I must go. In fact when my father had brought me hither we had not climbed this; he had only shown it to me from below.

  Thus I went down into the dark, and the space seemed to be endless. It was not. A reaching hoof touched solid surface, and very cautiously I placed the other hoof beside it. Now—a light—

  Fumbling in my pouch, I brought out my strike-light, keeping it ready in one hand while I felt along the wall with the other. My fingers caught at a knob of wood. I snapped the light, and the torch flared, dazzling me with sudden illumination.

  Not stopping to put on my boots, for I relished more and more the freedom of my hoofs, hitherto so cramped by concealment, I started along a downward-sloping way which would bring me under the dale-floor to the keep. It was a long way and, I think, more than half of it was a natural fault, perhaps the bed of some stream diverted by nature or man. The roof was low, and in several places I went to hands and knees to pass.

  But here I did not have to fear discovery, and I made the fastest pace I could over the sand and gravel. The slope went sharply downward for a space; then it leveled out, and I knew that I was now in the valley. The keep could not be too far ahead.

  My torch shone on a break in the wall of the passage, crude steps going up at a steep angle—though the passage kept on—into a sea-cave of which my father had told me. I thus had two ways of escape.

  I began to climb, knowing this stair was a long one. It went up not only through the crag on which the keep was built, but within the wall of that to my father's own chamber. Halfway up I paused and rubbed out the torch on the wall. Now I needed both hands for the holds here, and there were peepholes along the way where light might betray me.

  The first of these was in the barracks. A cresset burned low against the far wall, leaving the room much-shadowed. There were some men asleep here, but only a handful.

  I climbed again and looked now into the great hall from a position somewhere behind my father's high seat. There was a fire on the hearth which was never allowed to go out. A serving-man nodded on a bench near it and two hounds were curled up there—nothing else. This was normal enough at this hour.

  The end of the passage was before me, and I could no longer put off reaching it—though I dreaded what might lie ahead.

  Men freely use the word “love” to cover both light emotions, such as affection and liking, and viler ones such as lust, or strong attachments that last through life. I had never been one to use it at all—for my life in youth had been devoid of much emotion—fear, awe, respect were more real to me than “love.” I did not “love” my father. In the days that I had spent with him after he had given me public acknowledgment, I respected him and was loyally attached to his service.

  Yet there always stood between us the manner of my upbringing; that I had been hidden away. Though he had come to see me during those years, had brought me small gifts such as boys delight in, had provided well for me, yet I had always sensed in him an uneasiness when we were together. I could not tell if that came from his reaction to my deformity, or whether he reproached himself for his treatment of me and yet could not bring himself to defy my mother's feelings to name me openly son. I knew only, from very early years, that our relationship was not akin to that of other fathers and sons. And for a long time I thought that the fault was mine, so I was ashamed and guilty in his presence.

  Thus we built a wall stone by stone, each adding to it, and we could not break it down. Which was a great loss, I know, for Ulric of Ulmsdale was such a man as I could have “loved,” had that emotion ever been allowed to grow in me. Now as I went to his chamber through the dark of this hidden way, I felt a sense of loss such as had never emptied me before. As if I had once stood at the door of a room filled with all the good things of this world and yet had been prevented from entering in.

  My hand was on the latch of the panel that opened inward, concealed by the back of the huge, curtained bed. I inched this open, listening. Almost I swung it shut again, for I heard voices and saw the gleam of lamplight. But I remembered that so well-concealed was this way, that unless I crawled around the bed to boldly confront the speakers, they would not know of my presence. And certainly this was a chance to learn exactly what might be going on. Thus I squeezed through the door and edged around the head of the bed, the stiff, embroidered folds of the curtains providing excellent cover, until I found a slit to let me see as well as hear.

  There were four in the room, two using for a seat the long chest against the wall; one on a stool; and the last in the high-backed chair in which my father had sat when I bid him farewell.

  Hlymer and Rogear. On the stool a girl. I caught my breath, for her face—leaving out those points of difference that were due to her sex—could have been my own! And on the chair—I had no doubt that for the first time in my life I was looking upon the Lady Tephana.

  She wore the ashen gray robes of a widow, but she had thrown back the concealing veil, though the folds of it still covered her hair. Her face was so youthful she could have been her daughter's elder sister by only a year or two. There was nothing in her features of Hlymer. By her cast of countenance I was indeed her son.

  I felt no emotion, only curiosity, as I looked at her. Since I had reached the age of understanding, I had been aware that for all purposes of living, I was motherless, and I had accepted that fact. She had not even kin-tie to me as I watched her now.

  She was speaking swiftly. Her hands, long-fingered, and with a beauty that drew the eyes, flashed in and out in quick gestures as she spoke. But what I saw and resented, was that on her thumb was the gleam of my father's signet, which only the ruler in Ulmsdale had the right to wear and which should have weighted my own forefinger at this moment.

  “They are fools! And because they are fools, should we be also? When the news comes that Kerovan has been killed in the south, then Lisana will be heir, and her lord”—she
nodded to Rogear—“will command here in her name. I tell you that these invaders offer good terms. They need Ulmsport, but they do not want to fight for it. A fight will gain nothing for us, for we cannot hold long against what they can land. Who gains by death and destruction? The terms are generous; we save this valley by such bargaining—”

  “Willingly will I be Lisana's lord and Ulmsdale's,” Rogear answered, as she paused for breath. “As to the rest—” He shook his head. “That is another matter. It is easy to make a bargain. To keep it does not always suit the one in power. We can open gates but not close them again thereafter. They know just how weak we are.”

  “Weak? Are we? Say you that, Rogear?” Lady Tephana gazed at him directly. “Foolish boy, do you then discount the inherited might of our kin? I do not believe that these invaders have met their like before.”

  He was still smiling, that small, secret smile which had always led me to think that he carried within him some belief in himself that far outreached what others saw in him. It was as if he could draw upon some secret weapon as devastating in its way as those the invaders had earlier sent against us.

  “So, my dear lady, you think to invoke those? But take second thoughts or even third upon that subject. What may answer comes as its own whim and may not easily be controlled if it takes its own road. We are kinsmen, but we are not truly of the blood.”

  I saw her face flush, and she pointed her finger at him. “Do you dare to speak so to me, Rogear!” Her voice rose higher.

  “I am not your late lord, my dear lady.” If she threatened him with that gesture, he did not show it. “His line was already cursed, remember, thus making him easily malleable to anything pertaining to them. I have the same countermeasures bred in me that you have. I cannot be so easily shaped and ordered. Though even your lord escaped you in the end, did he not? He named his body-heir in spite of your spells and potions—”

  Her face changed in a subtle way that made me suddenly queasy, as if something had sickened my inner spirit. There was evil in this room. I could smell it; see it sweep in to fill that vessel waiting to hold it—that form of woman I refused to believe had ever given me life.

  “What did you deal with, my dear lady, in that shrine when you bore my so-detested cousin, I wonder?” Rogear continued, still smiling, though Hlymer drew away along the bench as if he expected his mother to loose some blast in which he did not want to be caught. “What bargain did you make—or was it made before my cousin's birth? Did you cast a spell to bring Ulmsdale's lord to your bed as your husband? For you have had long dealings with them, and not with those on the White Path either. No, do not try that on me. Do you think I ever come here unprotected?”

  Her pointing finger had been drawing swift lines. Just as Riwal, when he bade me farewell, had gestured in the air, and as I had seen thereafter a faint gleam of light marking the symbol he had traced in blessing, so did her finger leave behind a marking, or pattern. The marking was smoky-dark. Still it could be seen in the subdued light of the chamber, as if its darkness had the evil, black quality.

  Rogear's hand was up before his face. He held it palm-out, and all those hand lines that we bear from birth and that are said by the Wisewomen to foretell our futures stood out on his flesh as if they had been traced in red. Behind that hand he still smiled faintly.

  I heard a short, bitten-off cry from the Lady Tephana, and her hand dropped back into her lap. On her thumb the ring looked dull, as if its honest fire had been eaten out by what she had done moments earlier. I longed to free it from her flesh.

  “Yes,” Rogear continued, “you are not the only one, my dear lady, to go seeking strong allies in hidden places. It is born into us to have a taste for such matters. Now, having made sure that we are equally matched, let us return to the matter at hand. Your amiable son—” He paused and nodded slightly at Hlymer, though Hlymer looked anything but amiable. He sat hunched-over, darting glances first at his mother and then at Rogear, as if he feared one and had begun to hate the other.

  “Since your amiable son has rid us of the other barrier standing in the way of possession of Ulmsdale, we must indeed make our plans. But I do not altogether agree that we should deal with the invaders.”

  “And why not?” she demanded. “Do you fear them? You, who have that”—she nodded to his hand—“to stand to your defense?”

  “No, I do not fear them personally. But neither do I intend to give tamely into their hands any advantage. I believe, my dear lady, that you can indeed summon thunder from the hills to counteract any treachery that they might plan. But that which can be so summoned will not take note of selective destruction, and I do not propose to lose Ulmsdale in defending it.”

  “You will lose it anyway then.” For the first time Lisana broke silence. “Also, dear Rogear”—there was little liking in her voice as she named him so—“we are not yet handfasted. Are you not a little beforehand in naming yourself lord here?”

  She spoke coolly, and regarded him straight-eyed, measuringly, as if they were not betrothed but, rather, opponents at a gamingboard.

  “True spoken, my sweeting,” he agreed amiably. Had I been Lisana I would not have found that amiability pleasing, though. “Do you intend to be lord as well as lady here?”

  “I intend not to be any piece in your gaming, Rogear,” she returned swiftly, and there was no sign of uneasiness in her.

  He stared at her as one who studied some new and perhaps unaccountable thing. I thought I saw his eyes narrow a fraction. And then he looked not to her but to her mother.

  “Congratulations, my dear lady. So you have made sure of your power this way also.”

  “Naturally. Did you expect any less?” She laughed. Then he echoed that laughter.

  “Indeed not, my dear lady. Ah, what a happy household we shall be. I can see many amusing evenings before us, trying this spell and that, testing each other's defenses.”

  “There will be no evenings at all,” growled Hlymer, “unless we unite upon what is to be done to hold Ulmsdale. And I see little chance of that where the great lords have failed. Ulmsport is open—they need only to bring up a goodly force and land. The keep can hold out for a day, mayhap two—but—” He shrugged. “You have heard all the tales; we shall end like the rest.”

  “I wonder.” Rogear had lost that shadow-smile. He glanced from Lady Tephana to Lisana and back again. “What if they cannot land? Wind and wave, wind and wave—”

  Lady Tephana was intent, regarding him in the same searching way he had earlier looked upon Lisana.

  “That takes the Power.”

  “Which you have in part, and my sweeting”—he nodded to the girl—“has in part, and to which I can add. Wind and wave have this advantage also. It will seem a natural catastrophe and one they will not fault us for. We shall be blameless. Follow in part your suggestion, my dear lady, but do not treat, only seem to treat. Then wind and wave—”

  She moistened her lips with tongue tip. “It is a mighty summoning.”

  “Perhaps one beyond your powers?”

  “Not so!” She was quick to answer. “But it will take the three of us truly united to do such a thing, and we must have life force to draw upon.”

  He shrugged. “It is a pity that we cleared the path so well of your lord's devoted followers. Hate can feed such a force, and we could have used their hatred. That grumbler Jago, for example.”

  “He drew steel on me!” Hlymer shrilled. “As if a broken man could touch me!”

  “A broken man, no,” Rogear agreed. “Had he been the man he once was—well, I do not know, brother-to-be. At any rate there are others to lend us life force. If we decide—”

  Lisana had lost her cool withdrawal. I saw her eyes shine with an avid hunger.

  “We will!” she cried out. “Oh, we will!”

  For the first time Rogear showed a faint shadow of uneasiness, and he spoke to the Lady Tephana rather than to her daughter.

  “Best curb your witchling, my dear lady
. Some rush where prudence walks with double care.”

  Lisana was on her feet so suddenly, her stool spun away as her skirts caught it.

  “Do not lesson me, Rogear! Look to your own Power, if you have as much as you claim!”

  “We shall all look to our Power,” Lady Tephana replied. “But such a plan takes preparation, and that we must turn to now.” She arose, and Hlymer went quickly to her side, offering his arm in clumsy courtesy. It was almost, I thought, as if he would rather be in her company than Rogear's. Lisana followed, and Rogear was left alone.

  My hand went to my sword hilt. What I had heard here filled me with horror, though it explained much. That these were working with Dark Power was plain, and they were not fresh come to such dealings either. That they—or at least the Lady Tephana (for never again in my mind did I think of her as my mother)—were old in such work, they had admitted. If my father had been ensorcelled, as Rogear had hinted, that explained much, and I could now forgive him all. The wall was broken—too late for me to tell him so.

  What they would enter upon now was some great summoning of the Power. Perhaps it could save Ulmsdale—for their own purposes. But dared I set my own love of country against them? If they aroused some of the ancient forces of this brooding land against the enemy successfully, then, even though I hated them, still I must count them allies at this moment. So I watched Rogear go out from that chamber, and I did not challenge him.

  There was one thought only in my mind. I had no idea what might be the consequences of the act they spoke of. In spite of the signs set on me at birth, I had none of the talent those three appeared to possess. There was only one in this land now from whom I could seek enlightenment, to learn whether I must let them do this to keep the dale free, or else turn what I could set against them to ensure that they fail. Which was the greater danger—the summoning of the Power or allowing the invaders foothold here? I could not judge, but perhaps Riwal, with his learning in those matters, might.