Gift of Griffins Read online

  Wynn nodded. “He’s got a point. We may outnumber them, but this is their home, and they are Feelers, after all. If they wanted it that way, none of us would get out of here alive.”

  “You’re missing the point that—” Ker broke off. The knuckles of Jerek’s clasped hands showed white.

  “I have to know,” he said, with a slight tremor in his voice. He pushed his hair back from his face. It had grown long enough to touch his shoulders. Despite his being clean, well fed, and well dressed, it seemed that no one here in the Mines and Tunnels was looking after the finer details of the boy’s personal appearance.

  Ker massaged her temples. Even her facial muscles felt tired. Still, she knew exactly how the boy felt. She’d been in the same position once herself, wondering whether the Talent would manifest when she didn’t want it to. “Jerek, I’ve never examined anyone before. We should get Luca Pa’narion.”

  The boy rubbed his hands on his trousers. “I don’t think so,” he said. “He’s a High Inquisitor. What if he feels he has to tell?”

  Ker would have thought Jerek paranoid, if he hadn’t been through what he’d been through. When your own father abandons you, claiming you aren’t even his son, just to make his own hold on the throne surer, you can’t be blamed for suspecting comparative strangers won’t have your best interests at heart. “Then we won’t take the chance.”

  Jerek sighed, relaxing. How long has he been holding onto this fear? Ker wondered. That because of him all their careful planning would fall into dust? How many nights had he gone sleepless, afraid to know, afraid not to know?

  Ker knelt in front of him and took his hands. His fingers felt cold, but his grip was steady and strong. She took three deep slow breaths and murmured her trigger word. Paraste. Jerek’s aura immediately sprang up around them, the colors spiky and surging like waves in a rough sea. Ker frowned, and glanced over at Wynn’s aura: blue, green, and yellow, as compact and tidy as Wynn herself. Concentrating, Ker muted both Wynn’s and her own aura to allow Jerek’s to shine alone.

  “Definitely no turquoise,” she said, hearing the relief in her voice. “You’re not a Talent.” She passed her hands through the boy’s colors, stroking the waves and smoothing them out. Jerek’s shoulders dropped at least an inch.

  And that’s when Ker saw them clearly. Delicate threads, little more than hairs, so fine she’d almost missed them. Black, silver, gold, indigo, and pink. Feeler’s colors, with the Far-thinker black line thickest.

  “Wynn, you remember when we first saw Jerek? Me and Tel, you and Sala Far-thinker?”

  “Of course. Sala saw him first, watching us from high up in that strange tower.”

  “Right. And Sala somehow knew it was a boy up there. And Jerek sometimes knows what I’m thinking.” Ker sat back on her heels. “Let me try something.”

  <>

  <> The griffin’s thoughts brought with them a sensation of space and cold. Ker shivered.

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  “What is it, Ker? What are you doing?”

  “Give me a minute, Wynn. I’m talking to Weimerk.”

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  What did it mean? A couple of pieces fell into place. <> She’d long suspected that Jerek might be the one the Prophecy foretold.

  Ker turned to Wynn. “Is there any law about Feelers being apart from the world?”

  “How can there be?” Wynn said. “We’re the only ones who know they even exist. If there ever was such a rule—”

  “Luca Pa’narion might know,” Ker finished the other girl’s thought. “But since we’re not going to tell him . . .” She shrugged.

  “I’m a Feeler?” Jerek whistled softly, but he had a new light in his eyes. “What kind? I’d love to be a Lifter like Ganni.”

  “Far-thinker, for certain . . .” She sorted through the threads again. “But it looks like you’ll have more than one Gift, when you’re a little further from the egg.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “What do you think it means?” Tel had already stretched out on the sleeping ledge in the inner room, and spoke to her through the doorway, where the curtain had been pushed to one side. The ledge was only just long enough for him, and Ker suspected that Ganni or one of the other Lifters had moved the rock to make it so.

  She had finally returned to her own small set of rooms, after helping Errinn Mind-healer remove the mist from the more recently captured soldiers. She’d had the spark of an idea while they were working together, that she might be able to train the Mind-healers to remove the red mist by themselves. If they could calm people without seeing the auras . . . but it needed more thought, and more trial, something she was too tired to even think about right now.

  “If Jerek has more than one Gift, you mean?” She paused with her right boot in her hands, too weary even to set it down. “I think it means he’s the one the Prophecy is about, the one who is going to unite us all again. A Luqs who’s a Feeler—doesn’t that make sense to you?”

  “You just don’t want it to be you.” Tel yawned, stretching out one arm.

  Ker pulled her left boot off and set it down next to the right. She wriggled her toes, remembering the fleece-lined slippers she’d worn in Questin Hall. That life had never felt so far away. “I never thought it was me, you know that.”

  “I know you hoped it wasn’t.”

  “Disappointed?” She pulled her tunic off over her head and laid it carefully over the back of the outer room’s only chair. Early military training in neatness had only been enhanced by similar training in the Halls of Law.

  “No. This way it’s far more likely that, when this is all over, we can get back to having a normal life together.” He turned onto his side, back against the mossy wall behind the sleeping ledge, and shifted over to give her room.

  Ker paused, sitting still on the edge of the bed. One of them had to say it. “Tel, I’m a Talent. I’m not allowed to have that kind of normal life.”

  Tel propped himself up on one elbow, rubbing her back with his free hand. “Let’s not borrow trouble,” he said. “The whole world is changing, Farama may never be the same. There’ll be room for us somewhere.” He chuckled. “Maybe in the Fog Islands.”

  Ker lay down and rested her head against his chest. Listened to the steady beat of his heart. Her eyes closed. Maybe he was right. Maybe there would be room for them somewhere in the new world, if they ever reached it.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ker amplified the pattern she had chosen until it spread across the floor like a rug. “I wonder what will happen if . . .” Laughing, she stepped out onto the lines, pacing along the outer edge until a crossing line led her closer into the center.

  “May I know what it is you do?” Svann’s voice sounded far away, though he stood no more than a span or so from her. His face looked exactly like a child who’d been told he couldn’t join in the game. Ker let the pattern loose.

  “I’m so sorry, Svann, I got carried away. I was walking the pattern.”

  “No, no. It is quite all right. Curiosity is natural to a student, after all. Though I fear I do not make a good teacher.”

  “Don’t say
that.” Ker linked her arm through his. “You’ve already shown me how to move things, and to lift myself.” She wouldn’t tell him that all she’d done was use the jewel pattern that felt right to her.

  “Let me try something.” She relaxed, allowing the colors of her aura to reach out and touch Svann’s pattern. Maybe if she could get his to expand like hers had, he might gain—

  “Stop! I beg of you.”

  Ker stopped immediately, catching hold of Svann by his arms. The Shekayrin’s face was ashy, and his breath uneven.

  “What . . . what did you do?”

  Watching him carefully, Ker took a step back. “I tried to expand your web. Don’t worry, I won’t try again.”

  “Thank you. I felt as though you were pulling my bones out through my skin. Interesting, but I would not need a repetition.” He allowed Ker to lead him over to where he could sit on a natural ledge in the rock wall. “Shall we go on to the next practice module?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “Tel’s coming to meet me here, and I don’t want to be in the middle of a test.”

  “True.” Svann agreed. “He does not enjoy watching you use the soul stone.”

  Ker said nothing. Tel didn’t mind that she could use the jewel—he agreed that it was important—but Svann was right. He didn’t like watching her do it.

  “Your progress is impressive.” The tremor was gone from Svann’s voice. His smile looked stiff, as if he was out of practice. “If I were not a confident fellow—indeed, a friend to griffins—I might be annoyed that you have accomplished seemingly effortlessly and in days magics that took me years of study and discipline to master.”

  “I can’t imagine how you managed to do anything without the auras to guide you.” Ker sat down next to him. Regardless of what Svann might say, working with the jewel tired her.

  “Weimerk speaks of all magics as if they were the same.” Svann’s breathing had now returned to normal. “As if there was no difference between what moves in my blood and what moves in yours.”

  “He says it’s like birdsong.” Kerida searched the Shekayrin’s face. His color was returning, but now he had the faraway look he got every time he thought about the griffin. “Birds all sound different, but it’s all singing.” She sighed. “Why can’t he just tell us the things we need to know?”

  “He is a teacher,” Svann said. “If he merely told us the answers, we would never learn anything.” He paused. “He answers the questions we know to ask.”

  Ker’s head felt heavy. “There’s a war on. We haven’t time for all this mystery and scholarship.”

  “That is the only way we can get answers.” Svann turned to Ker. “Consider this, you can use the jewel, Kerida. No one else here, none of the Feelers can. Neither I nor the Feelers can see the auras you and the griffin see, not even with your help.”

  “I think Larin can see them,” Ker said.

  “She is a Time-seer, perhaps she only sees some moment in time in which the auras exist.”

  Ker blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Come, tell me, what does the jewel do?”

  Ker rolled her eyes and sighed. Weimerk wasn’t the only teacher in the Mines. “I’m not a Lifter or a Far-seer or a Mind-healer or a Far-thinker. By myself, I don’t have any of the Feeler’s Gifts. But—with the jewel—I do.” She looked up at him. “With practice, I might have all of them. The jewel makes people into Feelers.”

  “So it would appear. However, not just the jewel, and not just any person.” Svann had his approving-instructor look. “People must be marked with the magic of the world to be taught to use the jewel. And even those who have the mage mark are not all capable of being instructed. As I said, mastery of the jewel requires years of dedicated study, and for many—for most—the discipline required is simply too much.”

  Discipline again. What Matriarch had lectured Ker about back in Questin Hall. “Thank Mother and Daughter I don’t have that problem. Every minute I’m here practicing is time out of some poor jeweled person’s life.”

  Svann grimaced. “A pity there are no studies of female mages for me to consult. I have seen no document which suggests they had your skills. We have always been taught that women have only the magic of the body, what you call the Talent.”

  “But you know now that’s not true,” Ker said. “You know that men have Talent as well, right?”

  “You have said so, and Weimerk the griffin has said so, and I have seen persuasive evidence with my own eyes, in the person of the High Inquisitor, Luca Pa’narion,” Svann agreed. “I would like to study the phenomenon more closely with a view to preparing a monograph on the subject when I have more time to devote to the study. I would like, for example, for you to explain—”

  “Time is exactly what we don’t have,” Ker interrupted. Svann could lose himself for hours following blind scholarly alleys. “While the Halians control the Peninsula . . .” Her voice died away as an entirely new idea came to her. “We’re looking at this the wrong way. The Halians aren’t our first worry.” She took hold of Svann’s wrist. “They’re not the ones who defeated us. It was you, the Shekayrin. You’ve been—they have, I mean, they’ve been jeweling key people in Farama for years. That’s how the Peninsula was taken with so little force. Until the Shekayrin are stopped and their work undone”—Ker held up her jewel—“the Battle Wings won’t be able to save us.” Ker shivered. “Come on, we’ve got to see the Faro of Bears.” She slid off the rock ledge and was helping Svann to his feet when Barid Poniara came out of the darkness.

  The other Talent’s face lit up when he saw her. “Did it work? Can you use the soul stone?” It was odd to hear the Halian expression from Barid’s mouth, but good to see him bright and enthusiastic. Waiting was beginning to wear on him.

  “Has your quarantine been lifted?” she said. When his face fell, she wished she hadn’t asked.

  “Not really.” Barid shrugged. “Errinn said it was all right for me to come get you, since you aren’t anywhere near the living spaces.” He glanced around the small alcove. “It’s not like I had anything else to do.”

  “How did you find us?” Svann asked.

  “I am a Talent.” Barid spread his hands. “I can Flash things like the right way to go.” He took a step closer, holding out his hand. “Can I try it?”

  Ker felt a powerful reluctance to give him her jewel. She squared her shoulders. She could do as she liked; the jewel wasn’t in charge of her. “Here,” she said. “Let’s see what happens.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Svann reaching out to stop her, but the jewel was already lying in Barid’s palm.

  He drew his brows down in a vee. “I don’t feel anything,” he said. “What should I do?”

  Svann relaxed. Ker glanced at him and then back to Barid. Svann’s jewel had reacted to her when she’d first touched it. “Let me see,” she said, triggering her Talent. Immediately, his aura sprang up around him. “I’m sorry, Barid, but you don’t have any red in your aura.”

  Some of the light left Barid’s face, and Ker felt as though she’d kicked a puppy. But how she felt didn’t change a person’s aura.

  “Maybe there’s a way to bring out some red,” Barid said.

  Ker swallowed, but before she could say anything Svann stepped in. “I am sorry also,” he said. “But a mage cannot be created, any more than a Talent can. Without the proper Gift—the magic of the world—the soul stone will not respond to you.”

  Kerida held out her hand, waiting until Barid replaced the jewel on her outstretched palm. She closed her fist around it, and forced herself to put it away slowly, when what she felt was a frantic need to hide it.

  “Couldn’t the griffin give me the Gift? I mean, I’m Griffin Class as well as you,” he said to Ker. “Maybe if I could see the auras . . .”

  <>

  “What does the griffin say?” Sva
nn smiled.

  <>

  There really wasn’t any good way to say it. “He says Barid isn’t part of the Prophecy.”

  “He can’t do it?” Barid frowned.

  Ker shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s more that he won’t do it. He doesn’t see any reason to, and we can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

  <>

  Disappointment showed in the sag of Barid’s shoulders, but he nodded. “Well, it was worth asking.” His smile was weak, but at least he was smiling.

  “What brings you here, young man? You did not come to try the stone,” Svann said.

  “No. No, of course not.” Barid scrubbed at his face with his hands. “I came to fetch you. Faro of Bears wants to speak to you.”

  Ker took a deep breath. “That’s lucky, because we want to speak to her.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The full council, made up of some thirty or forty people selected from both Gifted and UnGifted, met in the only space large enough to hold them, the cavernous main hall of the Mines and Tunnels. Shaped like a theater, its raised tiers were only dimly lit by baskets of the luminous vine. It would hold the entire Clan, some two hundred people, but now the upper levels were dark and empty. The small council, a representative from each of the Gifts, plus an UnGifted, were in their usual mismatched seats on the dais. Jerek had refused to take the finely carved chair that was the usual seat of the Time-seers, so they’d left Larin in her large chair and had found him another, very plain but sturdy.

  Like Jerek himself. Ker, with Tel and Luca Pa’narion, stood at Jerek’s right. Juria Sweetwater, Faro of Bears, stood at his left, and her second in command, the Laxtor Surm Barlot, stood at her shoulder. The Leaders of the Pearl, Sapphire, Jade, and Opal cohorts sat in the audience. Svann, alone, stood in the center of the circle, where he could easily be seen and heard.

  Ganni stood. “I am Ganni of the Serpents Teeth, Speaker for the Mines and Tunnels. We welcome our Luqs, Jerek Brightwing, and his Battle Bears. If we may, lad—I mean my lord Luqs—we’d like to start by reciting the Prophecy. . . .” The old man hesitated.