Gift of Griffins Read online

  “I am Wilk Silvertrees, Ruby Cohort Leader of Bears. I bring you greetings from my Faro, Juria Sweetwater. But I also come on behalf of the Luqs of Farama.”

  Veriak looked sideways at Luca. “You said the Luqs was dead.”

  “Ruarel the Third died in Farama the Capital in Harvestmonth, killed by the Halians. I speak for the new Luqs, Jerek Brightwing, grandson of Fokter the Fourth, acclaimed by the Bear Wing on the seventh of Snowmonth.”

  “And how does that make us allies?”

  “Veriak, look at me.” Cuarel was the only one still sitting down, her arms loosely circling her raised knees. Ker only knew three Far-thinkers at all well, and all of them were quiet types. When they did speak, it tended to be to the point. “You know me, Veriak Lifter, Cuarel Far-thinker. You know I came last year with Sala of Dez to help your Far-thinkers practice. What Luca says is true; we’re allies now with the Bear Wing. We’ve taken them in, and they’re barracked in the Mines and Tunnels, as is the Luqs himself. We have citizenship, Veriak, and the Cohort Leader is here to offer the same to you if you join with us.”

  “And if we don’t join with you? What’s he going to offer us then?”

  Lips parted, Cuarel looked at Luca. No one in the Mines and Tunnels had expected an outright refusal. Ker’s stomach dropped.

  “This should at least go to your council, Veriak. If you would allow—”

  “No.” The man shook his head and took a step away, as if he expected one of them to suddenly leap the gap between them and seize him. “This is where I use my own judgment, and I say you’re not coming any nearer to us, none of you.” His glance slid sideways to Cuarel. “You must be insane if you think you can trust these people—to let them into your stronghold. . . .” He shook his head.

  “But the Prophecy—”

  “The Prophecy.” The man spat. “That’s all you can talk about, your precious Prophecy. You and your Time-seer have been holding that over our heads forever. ‘The Prophecy says this, the Prophecy says that.’ Much good it’s ever done you, and much good it’s doing you now.”

  Ker chewed the inside of her cheek, looking from Cuarel to Veriak and back again. This was the first she’d heard that the Prophecy wasn’t embraced by all Feelers. Or for that matter, that there weren’t other Time-seers besides little Larin.

  “Veriak, listen to me.” Cuarel got to her feet and took a step toward him, her hands spread, the scar on her face vivid in the moonlight. Veriak’s eyes narrowed, but this time he didn’t back away. “You know me. I’ve traveled outside in the world; you know I’m not a fool. Not everyone among us believed in the Prophecy either, but we have proof now. This girl, Kerida Nast, is the one who speaks to griffins. She found—”

  “She’s a Talent, Cuarel. How do you know she can be trusted?”

  “Because I say she can be.” Luca’s voice cold and hard. “I vouch for her as Denah Qetrek once vouched for me. And Kerida is not the only one who has seen and spoken with the griffin. What we tell you does not rest on our words alone.”

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  “We waited in this clearing out of respect for your wishes. I haven’t needed a guide to find your stronghold since you took me the first time, and Kerida here is a much stronger Talent than I am. She could find her way through the marshes and sands without anyone’s help. But I’ve never presumed. I’ve always respected the rules your people have set.”

  Veriak focused on Luca’s face as if he could read something there. Ker was only beginning to understand what it was like for people to live in a world without Talents. Talents could Flash when someone lied; good ones, strong ones, could tell even whether what someone sincerely believed was in fact untrue. When you didn’t have Talents and the Rule of Law they made possible to guide you, did you live constantly in this fever of mistrust?

  “You may come, then, Luca, to speak to the council. Cuarel Far-thinker and the Talent may come with you. But no one else.”

  Cuarel shook her head. “I’ll stay here with the Cohort Leader. Kerida can tell the griffin what’s going on, and he can tell me.”

  “Just a minute—”

  Ker grabbed Tel’s arm and held him back, shaking her head. “Don’t,” she said. “I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “And how do you know that?” His voice was stiff, but he looked at her, not the Feeler, and not around them into the darkness where she’d Flashed the others.

  “Because Weimerk will be here soon.”

  Tel pulled his lips back, but she felt him relax. “Now that I’d like to see. It’s not every day that something no one believes in drops by for a visit—emphasis on ‘drops.’”

  “Then you’ll wait here?”

  “I’ll wait. I don’t like it, but I’ll wait.”

  “I tell you I’ll be safe.”

  Tel showed his teeth again. “Safer than these guys, that’s for certain.”

  “Veriak,” Ker said, stepping to Cuarel’s side. “Trust has to go both ways. We’ll come with you, unarmed, but we have to know that we’ve left our friends in safety. There are four of your people watching us right now. Do we have your word that our friends will still be here when we come back?”

  The Feeler lifted his chin. “You can’t be so certain as that.”

  Ker closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “There’s one three spans behind you to your left. He’s a Far-seer. There’s another fourteen spans over there.” She pointed. “She’s UnGifted but a good archer. Shall I point out the others? Shall I tell you their names? The names of their children?”

  “I told you, man, she can Flash things I can’t.” Luca stuck his thumbs into his belt.

  * * *

  • • •

  Gradually, the path Veriak Lifter led them along single file left behind even the thinning trees and entered a flatter landscape, swept bare of snow by a constant wind.

  “Is it like this all the time?” she asked.

  “In my experience, yes,” Luca said from behind her. “I come usually in high summer, or in winter. Otherwise the ground is too wet to be safe.”

  Ker glanced back over her shoulder. “Wet?”

  Luca swept his arm out in a gesture than included everything they could see. “All this moorland can turn into bog in the wet seasons. Sometimes it’s so bad even the Springers stay put.”

  Ker nodded. Even now, it seemed, the path to the stronghold of Springs and Pools was treacherous. The land—some of it clearly mud—seemed uniformly frozen and solid, but Flashing told her a misstep could spell disaster. The safe way was narrow, and doubled back on itself, changing direction over and over, until Ker was completely disoriented. As Luca had said, she probably could have found the path by Flashing, but it wouldn’t have been easy.

  They had been walking for close to two hours, with only one break, when Kerida noticed the air growing warmer, and that the ground underfoot, while still solid, was no longer frozen. The sun was rising, but that alone wasn’t enough to account for the warmer temperature. Ker pushed back her hood and allowed her cloak to swing open.

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  Ker jumped and almost slid off the pathway. <>

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  Ker risked taking her eyes off the path long enough to look up. Nothing there but an empty, colorless winter sky. <>

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  Ker snorted. <>

  After a while the air
grew warm enough that Ker and Luca took off their cloaks entirely, and Veriak let them stop long enough to fold them into their packs.

  “It’s not much farther now,” Luca said. The ground became gradually firmer, rockier, and finally the path widened to reveal a village that might have been anywhere in the Polity, except for the steam rising from scattered pools of water. The houses and buildings were more spread apart than usual, perhaps, but they were built of stone, or wattle and daub, or timber, just as might be found practically anywhere. The villagers—many of them Feelers, as Ker could Flash when she triggered her Talent—were dressed for warm weather, sleeveless tunics showing bare arms, and shirts with sleeves rolled up, depending on what task they were performing. The most wonderful thing for Ker was the smell of the air. Even the slightly sulfurous odor that drifted over from one of the steaming pools didn’t cover the smells of green growth and warm soil that Ker hadn’t experienced since helping with the harvest back at Questin Hall, before the Halians. Before winter.

  Veriak brought them to a halt in the center of a cleared space too irregular to be called a square. People gathered from everywhere, hesitating when they saw Veriak wasn’t alone. One skinny boy backed away so fast he fell over in the act of turning around to run. Cuarel had said there were Far-thinkers here, but there hadn’t been one with Veriak.

  No one could mistake the status of the white-haired woman who approached them now, the skinny boy who’d run away dancing at her elbow, her slow progress aided by a heavy wooden cane, darkened by time and use. Ker Flashed that a badly healed break had left one leg shorter than the other. Over the years the injury had affected the way the woman’s muscles worked, and even displaced her pelvis, and the bottom of her spine.

  “Something in my teeth?” The woman’s voice was dry enough to crackle.

  Ker blinked. While she’d been Flashing, the woman had finally reached them. “Sorry, I mean, I beg your pardon. I’m the Talent Kerida Nast.” She’d been a Candidate so recently it still felt strange to announce herself that way. “If you have a Lifter who is willing to work with me, I might be able to fix your leg.”

  The silence was so profound Ker could hear the burbling of the nearest hot spring.

  “Might you now,” the woman said finally, her voice flat and hard. “I’m so used to it, it’s hardly worth the effort. But how is it that you can do this?”

  “The griffin showed me.”

  “The griffin showed you.” The woman’s tone softened and became kinder. Clearly, she thought Ker was mentally defective, simple, perhaps, like Ennick. “And what griffin would that be, my dear?”

  Ker pointed upward. “This one.”

  She could hear Weimerk chuckling in her head as he landed, making people scatter to all sides. It wasn’t that he took up so much room in himself, but his wingspan was easily as wide as the space they stood in, which he proved by flexing his wings with vigor.

  “That. Is. Better.” Weimerk shrugged his wings again, exactly like someone who wanted to loosen overworked muscles. “I am Weimerk of the Serpents Teeth,” he said. “You. Are. Speaker. For. The Springs and Pools.” The slight hesitation, almost a “click” between Weimerk’s spoken words, that Ker had noticed when she first met him, had recently started fading away. Technically, of course, the griffin wasn’t speaking words, but reproducing sounds.

  The old woman visibly swallowed but gave no other reaction, and Ker gave her full marks for courage. The Miners had had months to get used to Weimerk. The Springers obviously hadn’t taken his existence seriously.

  “I’m Ylora, and I’m Speaker, all right.” She bobbed her head. People began to edge closer again. Children peered around the legs of adults who kept them back.

  “You. Seem. Surprised. To see me. Were. You. Not. Told?” Weimerk sat back on his haunches, front feet neatly together, the claws used in landing retracted.

  “Us Far-thinkers don’t get much practice.” She tilted her head to the left and narrowed her eyes. “We got some garbled message, at least, we thought it garbled—your pardon, but what do I call you?”

  “Weimerk.”

  “Thank you. Well, Weimerk, the people of the Mines and Tunnels are always going on about griffins and the Prophecy and such like. We don’t listen so well. We here in the Springs have less time for such stuff.”

  Glancing around, Ker could see what the woman meant. The Springers may have been dressed for warmer weather, but they weren’t well dressed. Their clothes, though definitely cleaner than Ker had seen lately, were homespun, and showed substantial wear. Children everywhere liked to be barefoot, but here, many of the adults were as well. In fact, except for the level of cleanliness, they looked like people from a poor village, one where the harvest had been bad for several years in a row. Light shone in some of the faces watching the griffin, especially if those faces belonged to children, but there were also faces showing no emotion at all, more such than Ker had seen among the Feelers of the Mines and Tunnels.

  Somehow the griffin didn’t bring these people hope the way he had to the others.

  Ylora pushed her hair back with her left hand. “We’re not going to talk about this here in the road,” she said. “I call the council to meet. The rest of you, the day’s well begun. There’s chores won’t do themselves, so get back to them.”

  Most people turned away quickly, pulling with them those who seemed disposed to linger. Four other people stepped forward, one after giving some instructions to a bony man who nodded, lips compressed, before jogging away.

  “This way.” Ylora turned, leading them to a building on the far side of the cleared area.

  “Ylora,” Luca said, his rough voice gentle. “Weimerk won’t fit inside your council building.”

  The old woman turned around, compressing her lips a moment before speaking. “We don’t have one bigger than this.”

  It surprised Ker that they had a building even this big. Lifters among the Feelers would have had no trouble with either the assembly or the positioning of any amount of rock or stone, but the building seemed large for the number of Feelers she’d seen. Had the group been bigger once?

  “Weimerk can stay out here in the square,” she suggested. “He doesn’t need to be present to know what’s going on. I can Far-think to him.”

  “You can Far-think?”

  “To the griffin, I can.” Weimerk had often said that Ker would one day be able to Far-think with others, but judging from the look on this Far-thinker’s face, she thought she’d keep that to herself just now.

  “No. Matter.” Weimerk thrust his eagle’s head between them. “I would like to See. And. Hear. For myself.”

  “We can leave the doors open.” Ylora gestured without looking at Weimerk. In fact, Ker was sure the woman hadn’t looked directly at him since he landed.

  The floor inside the building was earth pounded hard by the pressure of many feet. In the center of the space was a circle of low, three-legged stools. The Feelers sat down, and two other stools were pulled forward for Kerida and Luca Pa’narion.

  “I’m Ylora Far-thinker, Speaker for the Clan of Springs and Pools. There’s Alubin Mind-healer, Fana Far-seer, Naishan Lifter and Volor, UnGifted. We’ve no Time-seer, as we’ve already told you. Now, who’s going to speak for you?”

  The silence dragged on long enough to become uncomfortable.

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  Ker cleared her throat. <>

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  Ker cleared her throat again and began her story with the coming of the Halians to Questin Hall, the power and danger of the Shekayrin, the search for a new Luqs, and the finding of Jerek Brightwing. The story took long enough to tell that tea was brought for all of them. Though nothing to eat, as the rumbling of Ker’s stomach reminded her.

  “These Shekayrin, they’re the real problem, aren’t they?” Fana Far-se
er frowned as though he could see the mages if only he concentrated enough. “Otherwise, it’s just one bunch of soldiers against another. What all can they do?”

  “They can move things in battle, like arrows or spears or rocks,” Luca said.

  “Like a Lifter,” Naishan said.

  “They can affect how people think, make them behave in different ways.”

  “Sounds like a form of Mind-healing,” Alubin said, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “A bad one.”

  “Some of them can speak to each other over long distances,” Ker added. “Like Far-thinkers. As long as they have their jewels, they can do many of the same things Feelers can. The difference is that the Gifts are divided among you, ‘one Feeler, one Gift,’ right?” She waited until she got some nods. “Every Shekayrin has all of the Gifts, though not all of them to the same strength.”

  The Feelers all looked at each other, every brow wrinkled except for one.

  “So, they’re more like Feelers than Talents, is what you’re saying.” It was Volor, the UnGifted woman, who finally spoke. “Are we sure we want to be against them, if they’re more like us?” she said to the others.

  “They will not ally with you,” Weimerk said from the doorway. “Their. Magic. Differs. From. Yours. You are their ancient enemy. You. And. The. Talents. Both.”

  “What did we do?”

  Ker understood Ylora’s tone. When you’re used to thinking of yourselves as victims, it could be hard to learn that others saw you as oppressors.

  Weimerk rocked his head from side to side. “You outlawed them. You. And. The. Talents. Both. Their magic is alien to yours. Which. Arises. Out. Of. The. Natural. Body. Bursting forth, trained or untrained.”