Eight

Amberdrake managed to get Skan out of earshot of most of the camp before the Black Gryphon exploded, pulling him deeply into the heart of the obstacle course and into a little sheltered area with a tree or two for shade and a rock to sit on. He counted himself lucky, at that; this obstacle course of Zhaneel’s was large enough for privacy even at the level of shouting Skan was capable of. Large gryphons had large lungs.

The course should be safe enough with all the traps sprung, and now that the “show” was over, anyone who might happen to overhear Skan’s outburst was likely to be sympathetic anyway. Up until today there hadn’t been anyone unfriendly among the spectators.

Zhaneel’s first “show” had been utterly eclipsed by her second; standing up for her rights to that officious Trondi’irn, Winterhart. It was nothing anyone had expected, given Zhaneel’s diffident manner up until this moment.

She must just have been pushed too far. Not surprising. That woman would have pushed me over the edge.

Even the Sixth Wing trainer had been disgusted with the woman, and even more disgusted with Garber. If everyone who said they would actually did lodge a protest with Urtho-bypassing Shaiknam altogether-Garber would go down on record as the commander most disliked, ever. Even the humans had been appalled by the precedent that would be set if this action was not met with immediate protest, a precedent that permitted a commanding officer to decree what could and could not be done during off-duty hours.

Well, the woman had at least enough conscience left that she was embarrassed by those orders she was supposed to deliver. That’s about all I can say in her behalf. If first impressions are important, I can’t say she’s made a very good one on me. A Trondi’irn should have enough fortitude to stand up for her charges, not roll over and show her belly every time the commander issues some stupid order. And wasn’t she the one Gesten told me about, that ordered the hertasi to be reassigned? Can’t she do anything but parrot whatever Garber wants?

Amberdrake took a seat on the sun-warmed rock, and let Skan wear himself out, venting his anger. He was annoyed with the woman, and very put out with her commander. But Skandranon was enraged enough to have chewed up swords and then spit out tacks. It was better for him to show that anger to Amberdrake than sweep into camp and get himself in trouble. It wouldn’t have been the first time that his beak had dug him a hole big enough to fall into.

“This is what I mean!” Skan fumed, striding back and forth, wings flipping impatiently. His talons tore up the ground with every step he took, leaving long furrows in the crumbling earth. “This is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you! Now you see it for yourself-this whole sorry business! We gryphons are constantly being ordered about by humans who know and care nothing about us! We get chewed up trying to keep them alive, and they won’t let us figure out ways to keep ourselves alive! Damned idiots can’t tell their helms from the privy, and they’re trying to tell us what to do! And now they’re ordering us around when we’re off-duty, and the dungheads think it’s their right and privilege!”

There was more, much more, in the same vein. Amberdrake simply remained where he was on his rock, nodded, looked somber, and made appropriately soothing noises from time to time. He wished there was something else he could do, but right now, all he could provide Skan with was a sympathetic ear. He was, himself, too angry to do Skan any good. If he tried to calm the gryphon through logic games, he’d only let his own anger out. Besides, Skan didn’t want to be calmed; he wanted a target.

The trouble was, Skan was right on all counts; Amberdrake had seen it time and time again. And it wasn’t as if the gryphons had any choice. They couldn’t simply pack up and leave their creator, no matter now onerous conditions got. They were, in a sense, enslaved to their creator, for only Urtho held the secret of their fertility. Without that, they could not reproduce. Without that, if they left, they would be the last of their kind.

Skan knew that, better than anyone else, since every time he returned from a mission, intact or otherwise, someone asked him when he was going to pick a mate and father a brood. It was a constant irritant to him; he never forgot it, no matter how cavalier he might seem about it. And yet, he had never once brought it up to Urtho directly.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe he’s afraid to, for all his boasting that he speaks to Urtho as an equal. Maybe he keeps thinking that Urtho will realize on his own what an injustice has been done.

Amberdrake wished there was some legitimate way that he could calm his friend down; by now Skan had worked himself up into a full gryphonic rage-display-crest up, hackles up, wings mantling, tearing the thin sod to shreds with his talons. He agreed with the Black Gryphon more with every moment. How could he calm Skan down when he himself wanted to carefully and clinically take Garber and Shaiknam apart on Skan and Zhaneel’s behalf?

Not just their behalf, either. How long before they try that sketi on the other troops? Or before they try to command the exclusive services of one or more Healers, or even kestra’chern? If they’re willing to break the rules once, how many more times will they break them? And then, when they make the rules, who can oppose them?

He’d thought that Skan’s display had cleared the area. No one really wanted to get too near a gryphon in that state, especially not when the gryphon was Skandranon. He’d never actually hurt anyone, but when he was this angry, he got malicious enjoyment out of coming within a feather’s width of doing so. But after listening to Skan for a quarter candlemark, Amberdrake spotted someone else storming up over the rough ground toward them, short Journeyman’s robes marking him as a mage, and carrot-colored hair identifying him as Vikteren.

He’s heading straight for us. Good gods, what now? Another disaster?

“Gods!” the young mage shouted as Skan paused for breath. “I would have the hide off that fatuous, fat-brained idiot, if only I knew how to make it hurt enough!”

“Garber?” Amberdrake asked mildly.

“Gods! And Shaiknam!” Vikteren said bitterly, dropping his voice below a shout. The young mage snatched up a fallen branch as he reached them, and began methodically breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces. “Anthills and honey spring to mind-and harp-strings, delicate organs, and rocks! I thought this bigoted business with poor Zhaneel was bad enough-but now-!”

He struggled with the press of his emotions; clearly his rage was hot enough to choke him, and even Skan lowered his hackles and cocked his head to one side, distracted from his own state of rage by seeing Vikteren’s. The youngster was one of the coolest heads in the mage-corps; he prided himself on his control under all circumstances. Whatever had happened to break that control must have been dreadful indeed.

“What happened?” Amberdrake asked anxiously, projecting calm now, as he had not with Skan. Not much, but enough to keep the young mage from exploding with temper.

Vikteren took several long, calculated breaths, closing his eyes, as his flush faded to something less apoplectic. “I heard Skan just now, and I have to tell you both that it isn’t just his nonhuman troops that Shaiknam’s been using up. He’s been decimating everyone with the same abandon. I just talked to the mages from Sixth Command. We almost lost all of Sixth Crimson this morning, the mage included, because Shaiknam led them into an ambush that he’d been told was an ambush by his scouts. Ividian covered their retreat; he died covering that retreat, and it was all that saved them. Ividian died! And Shaiknam reprimanded the entire company for ‘unauthorized maneuvers’! And I’m not just livid because Ividian was my friend. Shaiknam killed three more mages today-and he has the brass to claim it was by accident.”

Amberdrake let out his breath in a hiss, his gut clenched and his skin suddenly became cold. The loss of any portion of Sixth Crimson was terrible-and the loss of their mage dreadful. And all through prideful stupidity, like all of Shaiknam’s losses.

But what Vikteren had just implied was more than stupidity, he had very nearly said that Shaiknam had murdered the other three mages. “How,” he asked carefully, “do you kill a mage by accident?”

Vikteren’s face flushed crimson again. “He forced them-ordered them-to exhaust themselves to unconsciousness. Then he left them there, where they fell. Ignored them. Got them no aid at all, not even a blanket to cover them. They died of power-drain shock where they lay. He said that there was so much going on at the time that he ‘just forgot’ they were there, but I heard someone say that he ordered them to be left alone, said if they were such powerful and mighty mages they could fix themselves. Called them weaklings. Said they needed to be taught a lesson.”

Amberdrake and Skan both growled. That was more like murder-by-neglect. A mage worked to unconsciousness needed to be treated immediately, or he would die. Every commander knew that. Even Shaiknam.

There was no excuse. None.

“Shaiknam’s a petty man, a stupid man-the trouble is he gives petty orders that do a lot of damage,” Vikteren finished, his scarlet flush of anger slowly fading. “He has no compassion, no sense of anything outside of his own importance, no perspective at all. He used those three up just so he could recoup the losses he took on the retreat-just so that he wouldn’t look bad! That was the only reason he ordered them to attack; they fought there against ordinary troops, there was no need for mage-weaponry!”

Vikteren took another deep breath and dropped the splinters still clenched in his hands. “I came to tell you two that there’s going to be a meeting of all the mages tonight. We’re going to tell Urtho that none of us are going to serve under Shaiknam or any other abusive commander, ever again. We’re tired of being treated like arbalests and catapults. I’m going to have a few things to say at that meeting, and before I’m done, you’d better believe they’re going to follow my vote!”

“But you won’t have a vote,” Amberdrake protested. “You’re just an apprentice-well, a Journeyman, but-“

But Vikteren snorted. “Hah! I’m not a Journeyman, I’m a full Master mage at the least, but my master never passed me up. He saw who was in charge and snarled the status on purpose so I’d work back here, and not get sent out on the lines to get killed by a fool. He saved my life today, that’s how I feel. I could be a Master if I wanted to get slaughtered, and every mage in the army knows it.”

Amberdrake glanced over at Skan, who nodded slightly. One Master mage could always pick out another. Well, that was certainly interesting, but not particularly relevant to their situation.

But Vikteren wasn’t finished. “Dammit, Skandranon! We’re not makaar, we’re not slaves, and we’re not replaced with a snap of the fingers! We’re going to demand autonomy, and a say in how we’re deployed, and I came to tell you that all the mages I’ve talked to think you gryphons ought to do the same! Maybe if both parties gang up on Urtho at once, he’ll be more inclined to take us seriously!”

Skan’s hackles went up again, and his claws contracted in the turf with a tearing noise. “We are not going to gang up on Urtho! He is my friend. Still-we might as well be stinking makaar,” he rumbled. “While Urtho is the only one who can make our matings fertile, he holds all of us bound to him.” Then in a hiss, “Much as I care for him, I could hate him for that.”

Vikteren started. “What are you talking about?” he asked, obviously taken aback. “I’ve never heard of anything of the sort.”

“Let me-“ Amberdrake said hastily, before Skan could rouse back to his full rage. “Vikteren, it’s because they’re constructs. Urtho alone knows the controls, what triggers fertility, and what doesn’t. Gryphons that survive a certain number of missions are the only ones permitted to raise a brood. There’re some things only Urtho knows that trigger fertility, and they are different for male and female gryphons; both have to have something secret and specific done to them before their mating results in offspring-plus they have to make an aerial courtship display. Only if all three of those things happen do you have a fertile coupling.”

“We can go through the motions of breeding as much as we like,” Skan said tonelessly. “But without that knowledge, or that component that Urtho keeps to himself, it’s strictly recreational.” He shook his massive head. “Not only is it slavery, or worse than slavery, it’s dangerous. There are never more than a tenth of us fertile at any one time. All it would take is one spell from Ma’ar-or for Urtho to die-and our race would die! You can’t have a viable breeding population with only a tenth of the adults fertile! Even the breeders of hounds know that.”

“But why?” Vikteren said, bewildered. “Why does he hold that over you?”

Skan sighed gustily. “I have no idea. None. We don’t need to be controlled. Do you know how much we revere him? We’d continue to serve him the way the kyree do. We’d do it because he is right, and because we respect and care for him, not because he controls our destiny. We’d probably serve him better if he didn’t control us like that. Damn! If he doesn’t give it to us, maybe we ought to steal it.”

“So-steal it? The spell, or whatever it is?” Vikteren said slowly. “That’s not a bad idea.” Amberdrake stared at him, not believing the mage had said anything so audacious even though the words had come out of his mouth.

“What good would that do?” Amberdrake asked. “If you need a mage to make it work-“

Skan closed his eyes for a moment, as if Vikteren’s words had caused a series of thoughts to cascade. “About half of the gryphons are apprentice-level mages or better,” he rumbled. “We are magical by nature. We wouldn’t need a mage to cooperate with us. I’m a full Master, for instance.”

“Even if you lacked for mages among yourselves, you’d find plenty of volunteers with the human mages,” Vikteren insisted. “Do it, Skan! You’re right! If he won’t give it to you, steal the damn spell! And if you’re a Master, then make the change permanent! Don’t put up with being manipulated like this!”

Much to his own surprise, Amberdrake found himself agreeing.

Think of the families sundered by Ma’ar. They, who did not deserve such horrors, and now these gryphons you know and love cannot have families at all unless their lord wills it.

“Take your freedom, Skan,” Amberdrake whispered. “Steal the spell, and teach it to everyone you trust.”

Skandranon backwinged in place, then pulled himself up to his full, magnificent height.

The brisk wind from the Black Gryphon’s wings sent Vikteren’s hair into his face and kicked up a bit of dust that made Amberdrake squint for a moment.

“Stealing a spell from Urtho, though . . .” Vikteren’s eyes lit up with a manic glee. “You know, that’d be nearly impossible? Not working the spell itself, that would be pretty simple, fertility spells nearly always are. No, it’s the stealing part that would be hard. Getting into Urtho’s Tower, getting past all the protections . . .”

From the look on Vikteren’s face, he relished that very challenge and impossibility.

“It would not be impossible for me,” Skan replied, his crest-feathers rising arrogantly.

But Amberdrake shook his head. “Be realistic, Skan. You’ve always flown directly to Urtho’s balcony when you went to see him. You have no idea what safeguards are in that Tower, many of them built only for human hands. It would be impossible for you. But not for us.”

“Us?” Skan asked, eyeing them both. Vikteren nodded gleefully, seconding Amberdrake.

“Exactly,” the kestra’chern said with immense satisfaction, feeling as if the weight of a hundred gryphons was lifted off him. “Us.”

In the end, the “us” also included Tamsin and Cinnabar. After a brief discussion, the means of bypassing all those special protections turned out I to be absurdly easy.

Cinnabar crafted a message to be sent to Urtho just before Urtho was to meet with the leader of the mages’ delegation. She claimed that there were some problems she and Tamsin were encountering with gryphon anatomy-not even a lie!-and that she and he needed to consult the records on the gryphons’ development so that they could tell what Urtho used for a “model.”

She did not specify who she would have with her, only that she needed some “help.”

“Urtho keeps records on everything he’s ever done,” she said, as they waited in her tent for the reply. She sat as calmly and quietly as if they were all her guests for an evening of quiet social chat and not gathered to perform what could, by some standards, be considered a major theft. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she leaned into Tarnsin’s shoulder, wearing an enigmatic little smile. Her pale green robes were as smooth and cool as tinted porcelain; beside her lover, she looked like an expensive doll propped next to a peasant-child’s rag-toy. “I know he has extensive records on how he put your race together, and what he modeled you on. I specified ‘internal problems,’ which could be anything in the gut, and that’s difficult stuff to muck about with when you don’t know what you’re doing. It isn’t enough to be a Healer familiar with raptors in order to be successful with gryphons, even though that is how I became a default Healer to your people, Skan. You aren’t all, or even mostly, raptoral. I’m counting on his being preoccupied with this mages’ meeting; he should simply give us access to the Tower rather than taking the time to explain things to us in person.”

“A pity about the timing on that,” Skan observed dispassionately. “Vikteren did want to be here, and he has some-ah-unusual talents for a mage. He could have been very useful. Still, he will surely keep Urtho’s attention at the meeting.” The Black Gryphon lay along one side of the tent on Cinnabar’s expensive carpet of crimson and gold, where the furniture had been cleared away for him. Until he moved or spoke, he looked like an expensive piece of sculpture, brought in to match the carpet. Or, perhaps, like a very expensive and odd couch.

Amberdrake chuckled. “Well, he’ll be here in spirit, anyway,” he said, patting his pocket where the bespelled lock-breaker Vikteren had loaned him resided. “It’s just as well, given that we’ve been huddled together like conspirators for the whole afternoon. This way, if anyone has seen us all together, they can assume we won’t do anything without him, and won’t be watching us.”

Tamsin laughed and reached across Cinnabar for a cup of hot tea. “You’ve heard too many adventure tales, kestra’chern,” he mocked. “Who would be watching us? And why? Even if Urtho catches us, the worst he’ll do is dress us down. It’s not as if we were trying to take over his Power Stone or something. We are not even particularly important Personages in this camp.”

Skan raised his hackles at that. “Speak for yourself, Tamsin!” he responded sharply. Tamsin only laughed, and Cinnabar smiled a little wider.

Before a verbal sparring match could begin, one of Cinnabar’s hertasi scratched at the tent flap, then let herself in, handing the Lady a sealed envelope. Cinnabar opened it, read the contents, and nodded with satisfaction.

“As I thought,” she said, to no one in particular. “Urtho is so caught up with the mages that he didn’t even ask me what the complaint is. He’s leaving orders to pass us into the Tower. We have relatively free access to the gryphon records; he warned me that some things have some magical protections on them, and that if I want to see them, I’ll have to ask him.”

“Which, of course, we will not,” Amberdrake said. “Since we have other means of getting at them.”

“So, you see, we didn’t need all that skulking and going in through windows that you three wanted to do,” Cinnabar replied, with just a hint of reproach in her voice.

“Lady, don’t include me in that!” Amberdrake protested. “It was Tamsin, Skan, and Vikteren that wanted to go breaking into the Tower! I knew better!”

“Of course you did,” Tamsin muttered under his breath, as they all rose to go. “And you never collected ropes and equipment for securing prisoners. I don’t even want to know why you conveniently had all that stuff on hand!”

Amberdrake raised an eyebrow and pretended not to hear him, and simply rose with all of the dignity that years of practice could grant.

They all walked very calmly into the Tower, a massive and yet curiously graceful structure of smooth, sculpted stone. They gave a friendly nod to the guard on duty, and received one in return; very clearly he was expecting them. They didn’t even need to make up some excuse for Amberdrake and Skan being with them. The guard didn’t bother to ask why they were there.

There were no fences; the Tower didn’t need them. It probably didn’t need a human guard, either, but such things made mere mortals feel a little more comfortable around a mage like Urtho. The entrance was recessed into the Tower wall, and the door opened for them at the guard’s touch. They passed out of the darkness and into a lighted antechamber, bare of all furnishings, with a mosaic of stone inlaid on the floor. Three doors led out of it; Cinnabar had been here before and she led the way.

Ah, bless the mages, Amberdrake thought yet again. II it hadn’t been for them-

Then again, perhaps Lady Cinnabar would have found another excuse. She was a woman of remarkable resources, the Lady was.

The area where Urtho kept his records on the gryphons was several floors up, but all of them were fit enough that they didn’t much mind the climb. The circular staircase was wide enough for Skan and, other than the fact that it was lit by mage-lights, seemed completely ordinary. It was constructed entirely of the native stone of the area, planed smooth, and fitted together so closely that the joins looked hardly wider than the blade of a knife.

However, as they reached the floor they wanted, a gently-curved door opened itself as they approached. All the other doors they had passed remained securely closed, with no visible means of opening them. They passed through that open door into an area of halls and cubicles, all lined floor-to-ceiling with books.

It certainly looked as if they’d found the right place. Amberdrake wondered how Urtho kept the air moving and fresh in a place like this; there was no more than a hint of dust in the air, no mold, and no moisture. If he stood very still, there was a gentle, steady current of air running past him, but where it came from and where it went he simply couldn’t tell.

This place, too, glowed with mage-lights; a wise precaution with so many flammable books around.

Interesting that Cinnabar herself said we ought to simply take the secret without confronting Urtho. She knows him better than any of us. I wish I knew why she’d come to that conclusion, but she must have some reason to think he would have refused to give away his hold over the gryphons.

As a kestra’chern, Amberdrake’s curiosity had been aroused by that. He could think of many possible motivations, but he would have liked to know which of them was the most likely.

So while Tamsin and Cinnabar perused the index to the record room to find the books on the gryphons’ reproductive system, he browsed through the  notations written on the spines of the books in search of clues.

Unfortunately, he didn’t find any. The notations were all strictly impersonal, mostly dates or specific keywords to the contents. Eggs, raptor, failure rate, said one. Breeding records, Kaled’a’in bondbirds.

So he had a hand in that as well? Or did he just study what my people did?

Next to it, Breeding records, Kaled’a’in horses. Amberdrake had to chuckle at that. Just one book? Then Urtho had no real idea of what the Kaled’a’in were up to with their horse herds. Unless, of course, this was a very limited study of what they did with the warhorse breed.

That might be his only interest, but even so, Amberdrake doubted that the Kaled’a’in horsemasters had parted with their inmost secrets even for the mighty Urtho, Mage of Silence and their titular liege lord. Kaled’a’in Healers and Mages together worked on both the warhorses and the bondbirds-and while the results with the raptors might be more obvious, the ones with the horses were far more spectacular, though never to the naked eye.

The raptors had been given increased intelligence and curiosity, the ability to speak mind-to-mind with humans, and the ability to flock-bond to each other and to the humans who raised them. To compensate for the increased mass of brain tissue, and to make them more effective as fighting partners, they were larger than their wild counterparts.

But the horses had been changed in far more subtle ways. Bone density had been increased, hoof strength increased, in some cases extra muscles had been created that simply didn’t exist in a “normal” horse. The digestion had been changed; the war-horses could forage where few other horses could feed, taking nourishment from such unlikely sources as thistle and dead or dried plants, like a goat or a wild sheep. As with the raptors, the intelligence had been increased, but one thing had been utterly changed.

The warhorses were no longer herd beasts. They were pack animals. Their behavior was no longer that of a horse, but like a dog. Properly trained, there was nothing they would not do for their riders-and unlike a horse, the rider could count on his mount to continue a command after the rider was out of sight. “Guard,” for instance. Or “Go home.”

Very few people knew this, or the amount of work it took to change a behavior set rather than a simple physical characteristic. Did Urtho?

He was reaching for the book when Cinnabar called him. Regretfully, he pulled his hand back. Another mystery that would remain unsolved, at least for now.

“We’ve found the book we want,” Tamsin said, as he followed Cinnabar’s voice into yet another book-lined cubicle. “Very nicely annotated in the index, with the fact that it contains the fertility formula. He refers to it as that, by the way, rather than an actual ‘spell,’ so Cinnabar and I are assuming that only a small part of it actually requires magic.”

“That’s good news for the gryphons, then,” Skan said with interest, padding in from the opposite direction to Amberdrake. “If it only requires a little magic, most should be able to do it for themselves.”

“As we expected, however, the book is mage-locked,” Cinnabar interrupted, gesturing to a large leather-bound volume securely fastened with leather and metal straps. There were no visible locks, but then, there wouldn’t be, not with a volume that was mage-locked.

But, thanks to Vikteren, that was not going to be a problem.

The “lock picks” didn’t look like anything of the sort; rather, they looked like a set of inscribed beads of various sorts. “Urtho only uses about a dozen different spells to hold his ordinary magic books,” Vikteren had said. “There aren’t more than a hundred common spells of that sort in existence. Of course, there’s always a chance he used something entirely new, but why? Most people don’t know more than two or three mage-lock spells, even at the Master level. The chances that he’d use something esoteric for a relatively common book that he’s going to want to consult easily are pretty remote.”

Amberdrake had looked over the string of beads curiously. “So how many counterspells are there here?” he’d asked.

“Seventy-six,” Vikteren had replied with a grin. “My Master is a Lock-master among his other talents. I paid attention. You never know when you may need to get into something.”

“Or out of it,” Amberdrake had remarked sardonically. But he’d taken the “picks.”

Now it was just a matter of trying the beads against the place where all the straps met, one at a time. Vikteren had strung them in order-from the most common to the least, and that was how Amberdrake would use them. All it would take would be patience.

He didn’t need to try more than a dozen, however; as he took the bead away and fingered up the next, the straps suddenly parted company, unfolding neatly down onto the stand, and leaving the book ready for perusal.

Cinnabar exclaimed with satisfaction, and flipped the cover open. “Ah, Urtho,” she said with a chuckle. “Just as methodical as always. Indexed as neatly as a scribe’s copy, and here’s what we want on page five hundred and two.”

She and Tamsin leafed rapidly through the pages and soon located the relevant formula. They planned to make two copies, just in case they were discovered; they would turn over one, but not the second, unless Urtho somehow knew that they’d made it.

Suddenly, Skan’s head snapped up, alarm in his eyes, his crest-feathers erect and quivering.

“What is it?” Amberdrake whispered, afraid to make a sound. Was there a guard coming?

“There’s-another gryphon up here!” Skan muttered, his head weaving back and forth a little, his eyes slightly glazed with concentration. “It’s in the next room, but there’s something wrong, something odd-“

Before Amberdrake could stop him, the Black Gryphon had snatched the lock-pick beads out of his hand. He turned and trotted down the hall to a doorway barely visible at the end of it.

Tamsin and Cinnabar became so engrossed in their copying that they didn’t even notice Skan’s abrupt departure. It was left to Amberdrake to chase after him and snatch the beads out of his talons as he shoved them in a bundle against the door lock.

“What are you trying to do?” he hissed, as the gryphon turned to look at him with reproach. “Do you want us to be discovered?”

“I-“ Skan shook his head. “I just felt as if there was-something I should do about that other gryphon. It felt important. It felt as if I needed to get in there quickly.”

Amberdrake did not make the scathing retort he wanted to, “And what if that was the point?” he asked, instead. “What if there is some kind of trap in there and this feeling of yours is the bait? We both know how tricky Urtho is! That’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do!”

“He wouldn’t be mad, at least not for long,” Skan replied weakly. “I could talk him down.”

“Until he figured out that we had taken his precious fertility formula!” Amberdrake retorted. “Now will you be sensible? Did you actually unlock that door?”

“I thought I heard a click,” the Black Gryphon told him, with uncharacteristic meekness. “But I don’t know, I could have heard the beads clicking together.”

These were meant to unlock books, not doors-maybe nothing happened. “Look, Skan, whatever it is behind that door, it can wait until you have a chance to ask Urtho yourself. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you. You were supposed to be here, after all, and you can say you sensed another gryphon-then you can ask him what was going on. He’ll probably tell you.”

“Just like he’s told me the fertility formula?” the gryphon replied scornfully, sounding much more like his usual serf. He walked beside Amberdrake with his usual unnerving lack of sound. “Oh, please-“

“We’re done!” Tamsin grinned. “We copied legitimate information to cover the notes on the fertility formula, if we meet Urtho on the way out and he asks. Let’s get out of here. I’d rather not try and bluff him.”

“Right.” Amberdrake said. “Come on, Skan. You can solve mysteries later.”

He stuffed the “picks” into a deep pocket, one full of other miscellaneous junk of the kind a kestra’chern often collected; bits of trim, loose beads, a heavy neck chain, the odd token or two. He hoped that among all that junk the beads would appear insignificant. And hopefully, Urtho, if they met him, would not check him over for magic.

He hurried down the hall to join the others, assuming Skan followed. The mage-lights extinguished in his wake, leaving darkness and silence behind him.

Nine

Skan pushed the unlocked door open the tiniest bit. Stupid gryphon. Stupid, stupid gryphon. Going to get yourself into trouble again. This time with your own side! Skan shoved the door open a little more, carefully, listening, watching for moving shadows as he opened the portal, taking a huge breath of air and testing it for scents other than dust. His bump of curiosity was eating him alive. His weaker bump of caution was screaming at him to turn around and join the others on the staircase. As always, his bump of curiosity won.

Metal doors, and I wonder why? Never mind, Urtho’s not going to like this, stupid gryphon. He puts locks on things for a reason.

Yes, but what could that reason be? Why would paternal, kindly Urtho hide something that called to him like a gryphon-only not quite? What if it was something important, something out of keeping with Urtho’s kindhearted image? What if Urtho was as bad as Ma’ar beneath that absentminded and gentle exterior? After all, hadn’t the Mage of Silence been withholding the fertility secret all this time? What if he was hiding something sinister?

Stupid and paranoid, gryphon. Maybe you addled your brains when you struck the too-hard earth. It’s been known to happen.

Still. Just because you were paranoid, that did not mean your fears had no foundation. What if Urtho had no intention of giving the gryphons their fertility and their autonomy because he already had their replacement waiting in the wings, so to speak?

Some kind of super-gryphon, but one that wouldn’t do such an inconvenient thing as begin to think for itself and hold its own opinions. A prettier sort of makaar?

Stupid, stupid gryphon. And if you find out that’s really the case, what then? Take the chance that Urtho won’t know and stay to tell the others, or fly away before he can catch you? If so, to where?

The door moved, slowly, a talon-width at a time. Then, suddenly, it swung open very quickly indeed, all at once, as if he had triggered something.

For a moment, he looked into darkness, overwhelmed by a wash of gryphon “presence,” so strong that surely, surely it must be from many gryphons.

Then the lights came up, albeit dim ones that left the far walls in shadow-shrouded obscurity, and he found himself staring at-

Gryphon-ghosts!

That was his first thought; they hung in midair, floated, and he could see right through them. They were the source of most of the light in the room. Wasn’t that the way ghosts were supposed to look? Surely they must be the source of the “presence” that had hit him so strongly!

But then he saw that they didn’t move at all, they didn’t even breathe; they stared into nothingness, with a peculiar lack of expression. Not dead . . . but lifeless, he thought. As if they never lived in the first place.

And as he continued to stare, it occurred to him that it wasn’t only their surface that he saw, it was their insides, too! Every detail of their anatomy, in fact. If he concentrated on stomach when he stared at one, there would be the stomach, eerily see-through, suspended inside the transparent gryphon.

Fascinated now, if a trifle revolted, he stepped inside, and the door closed softly behind him.

They hung at about knee-height to a human above the floor, so that one could, if he chose, crawl under them to view the detail from below. Each one differed from the one next to it, some in trivial ways, some very drastically. Here was a rufous broadwing, like Aubri; there a dark gray gos-type, with the goshawk’s mad red eyes, blazingly lifelike even in the lifeless face. There was the compact-bodied suntail that was best at flying cover-

They’re all types. I’m looking at types of gryphons! All of them, every kind I’ve ever seen! We aren’t just one race, we’re many races! Why did I never see that before? Is that why Urtho keeps the fertility secret to himself? Is he trying to keep the types pure?

Dazed with the revelation, he wandered past another three of the transparent models, to find himself beak-to-beak with-

Zhaneel!

Only it wasn’t Zhaneel at all, it was a creature with no personality. But there was her general build, her coloration and configuration.

He looked back along the line of gryphons, following them up to where he stood, and the Zhaneel-type. Back and forth he looked, a thought slowly forming in his mind. There was something about this line of gryphons, something that had struck an unconscious chord. What was it? Of course. The types that were closest to the door represented more numerous populations than the ones nearest him, and as far as he knew of the Zhaneel-type there was only Zhaneel-

Because she is the first?

That was it! This was a visual record of Urtho’s entire breeding program! Zhaneel wasn’t a freak, she wasn’t malformed, she was the very first of an entirely new gryphon type!

Now-all those questions Urtho asked her, about her parents, her siblings, her training, they begin to make sense! Surely her parents knew that she was a new type-and if they had lived, they would have seen to it that she got special training for her special skills! But with them gone, she was left to flounder, and Urtho cannot remember everything-

As Urtho himself had reminded Skan. He could not remember everything, and evidently he had forgotten that one, solitary gryphon of a new falcon type-

Amberdrake called her a gryfalcon!

who survived, was alone, and needed an eye kept on her. Skan had been angry with Urtho, and now he was furious. How could he have done that to her? Surely he knew what lay ahead of her when she didn’t look anything like the others! Surely he knew how the gryphons felt about runts, sports, the “misborn.”

But there was the war. How could he remember? He could only trust to his trainers to be clever and see that she was not some misborn freak, but something entirely new. It is as much their fault as his, if not more. His anger faded, he sighed and rounded the image of the gryfalcon.

And he looked upon his own feet, his own chest, his face. His own beak, eyes, and crest, lifeless, mutely staring through the living Skandranon.

The shock was a little less, this time. He was quicker to see that it was no more him than the other was Zhaneel. Still, the shock was of an entirely different sort; he was perfectly well able to think of the other gryphons as the end result of a breeding program, and even think of Zhaneel that way-but it was profoundly harder to think of himself in those terms.

It was, in fact, uncomfortable enough that he had to remind himself to resume breathing.

But as he studied the model, he took some comfort in noting that his proportions were rather better than its were. Especially in some specific areas.

And I’m definitely handsomer. Better-feathered. Smoother-muscled. Longer-

:FEAR-ALARM-ANGER!:

The emotion hit him like a boulder shot from a catapult, and before he could even get his mental “feet” underneath him, something physical hit him from behind. It hurtled from a place he had subconsciously noted was a doorframe, but had dismissed because there were no lights on the other side.

The strike sent his feet slipping out from under him, causing him to fall sideways through the image of himself. He tumbled into a wall, and his dancer’s grace was not helping him in the least at the moment. Whatever wanted his hide was only about half his size, and it smelled like gryphon-only not quite like gryphon. It was muskier, earthier-

But this was no time to start contemplating scents! Whatever this was, it jumped him again and kicked his beak sideways into the wall. Only reflexes kept him from being blinded by the next slash-and then the assault began again.

This thing is like a wildcat! Too small to take me, and too crazy to know better. It just might hurt me bad. I don’t like being hurt bad!

And if this is something of Urtho’s-oh, damn and blast, I have to stop it without hurting it!

A scratch across his cere carried up over his eyes and sent blood down into them. He was momentarily blinded, but he blinked the haze away and rolled. He gathered his hindlegs under him, ignored the pain of the bites and claw-marks for a moment, then tucked both of his feet under its belly and heaved.

It tumbled into the other wall, without any sign of control, as if parts of it got tangled up with the rest of it. But it was game, that much was for certain; as soon as it stopped rolling, it sprang to its feet again and faced him, claws up and hissing.

It was a gryphon.

It was what Zhaneel had misnamed herself, something that the gryphons referred to as a “mis-born.” It was actually about a quarter of Skan’s size, not half. Its head was small in proportion to its size, and very narrow, more like a true raptor’s head than a gryphon or gryfalcon’s broader cranium. The wings were far too long for its body, and they dragged the floor so badly that the ends of the primaries had been rubbed off by the constant friction.

In coloration, it was a dusty gray and buff. It was that which made Skan realize why it looked slightly familiar.

It was a misborn-of Zhaneel’s type.

It was at that moment that it finally penetrated that the creature wasn’t hissing. It was trying, and failing, to produce a true gryphonic scream of challenge.

He blinked again, clearing the blood from his eyes with the flight membranes. The powerful telepathic “presence” of gryphon, a presence so strong he had thought that it must come from several of his kind, was all emanating from this single small creature that valiantly tried to howl defiance at him.

The mental hammering of alarm-fear-rage had come and was still coming from it.

Skan had reared instinctively into a fighting stance while his mind was putting all this together.

The misborn looked up at him-four times larger than it was-

Its eyes widened for a moment, and it cringed.

But in the next second, it had gone back into a defensive posture. The intensity of its mental radiations increased, and Skan dropped back a little. It wasn’t consciously attacking him with those thoughts, but they were strong. Very strong.

The moment he dropped back, it glanced to the side and scrambled away, into the next room. Lights came on in there as it entered, leaping up onto a table with incredible speed considering how clumsy it was. It scattered books and instruments in all directions with its too-long wings, and reared up again from the advantage of this greater height.

“Bad! Bad!” the thing hissed. “Go away!”

Skan forced himself to relax, and got down out of his fighting posture. The bites and claw-marks stung, but his injuries weren’t that bad, no worse than he got when playing with a rowdy bunch of fledglings. This poor little thing was obviously scared witless.

“What-ah-who are you?” he asked carefully. It did have enough language to tell him to go away; surely it would understand him.

“Go away!” it hissed again, feinting with a claw. “Go away! Where is he? Did you hurt him?”

It reared up again into a ridiculous parody of full battle display, and it was clear that its anger was overwhelming its fear. But why was it so frightened and angry? And who was “he?” “I hurt you!” it tried to shriek. “I hurt you! I will!”

Skan was completely bewildered, and he could only hope that there was some kind of sense behind all this. If the creature was completely mad, he would have to render it unconscious or trap it before he could make his own escape, and he really didn’t want to hurt it.

Urtho be damned; it would be like hurting a cat defending its litter. This creature doesn’t know what I am and that I don’t intend any harm-and unless I can get that through to it, I don’t think it’s going to stop attacking me.

“Hurt who?” he asked. “I haven’t hurt anyone; I haven’t even seen anyone here! Hurt who? Urtho? Who are you?”

He put his ear-tufts and hackles flat, and gryph-grinned, trying to look as friendly as possible. Evidently it worked, for the little creature stared at him for a moment, then suddenly sat down on the shredded desk blotter. It came out of its battle posture, instantly deflating, and wiped its foreclaws free of Skandranon’s blood. “Not bad?” it asked plaintively, its anger gone completely. “Not hurt Father? Where is Father?”

Father? What on earth can this creature mean? Surely no other gryphons have ever been up here; no one could keep a secret like this for long! No, of course there haven’t been any gryphons here, otherwise this little thing would recognize me for one.

He looked around at the room for clues who “Father” was, but there weren’t any; just the table with odd bits of equipment and a few books and papers, an old cabinet that looked mostly empty, and a sink. In fact, it looked more like a Healer’s examination room than anything.

“No,” he said persuasively. “I’m not bad. I haven’t hurt anyone. I just opened up a door and came inside.” He edged a little closer to the creature as it relaxed. “Who is Father? Who are you?”

“Father is Father,” the creature replied, as if stating the obvious for a very slow child. “Father calls me Kechara.”

Skan moved right over to the table and sat beside it, which put him just about beak-to-beak with the little one. “Tell me about Father, Kechara,” he said softly. “Everything you can. All right? There are a lot of people where I come from, and I need you to tell me what Father looks like so I know which person he is.”

Kechara (which meant “beloved” or “darling” in Kaled’a’in) was a female, as near as he could tell. It might have been more appropriate to say that Kechara was a neuter, for she had none of the outward sexual characteristics of a female gryphon. That peculiar muskiness of hers was not a sexual musk, just an odd and very primitive scent.

“Father comes here, Father goes,” Kechara told him. “Father bring me treats. Father brings toys, plays with me. He not here for a while, and I play.”

“What does Father look like, Kechara?” Skan asked. The little creature wrinkled up its brow with intense thought. “Two legs, not four,” it said hesitantly. “No wings, no feathers. No beak. Has-long stuff, not grown, not feathers, over legs and body. Skin, smooth skin, here-“ it pawed its face. “-long crest-hair here-“ it ran its paws down where the scalp would be on a human. “And Father makes pretty cries when he comes, so I know he here. Cries like songbirds, and he dances with me.”

That clinched it; the only person that would come into this area that whistled was Urtho. Oddly enough, Skan had noticed that most mages couldn’t whistle. Vikteren and Urtho were the only exceptions in this camp.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, trying to get some sense of how long Urtho had concealed the creature here.

But it just stared at him blankly, and when he rephrased the question several times, Kechara could only say that there was nothing else but here, for her. Only Father went somewhere else.

Which meant that Urtho had confined this poor thing to this section of his Tower for her entire life.

There were places Urtho had taken her where she could look out through windows, which was how she had seen and heard songbirds, but that was the closest she had come to the outdoors.

For a scant heartbeat, Skan was outraged. But after attempting a few more questions with Kechara, he understood why Urtho had thought it better to keep her here.

She couldn’t possibly function in normal gryphon society without protectors. She couldn’t do anything productive. Zhaneel had been made fun of as she grew up, and she was marvelous. This poor thing would be tormented if there wasn’t always someone watching out for her. Zhaneel was highly intelligent, resilient, and capable of remarkable things; this little one wouldn’t even know how to defend herself without risking injuring herself.

She seemed to be very much on the same level of intelligence as some of Urtho’s enhanced animals, and the biggest difference between her and one of those animals was that she had a rudimentary ability to speak. She didn’t seem to have much of a concept of time, either. She never actually lost track of the conversation, but sometimes there was a long wait between when he asked a question and she answered it, a wait usually punctuated by a short game of chase-her-shadow.

Then again, that might not be a lack of intelligence, that might be because she hasn’t had anyone to model her behavior on but Urtho. The winds only know he’s done the same thing.

He coaxed her down off the table and into taking a short walk with him since she seemed restless and kept fidgeting when he talked with her. After that, the conversation seemed to flow a little better; she bounded ahead or lagged back with him as he strolled through the gallery of “models.” She paid them no attention whatsoever, which didn’t much surprise him. She must be as used to them by now as he was to the messenger-birds or Amberdrake’s eye-blinding clothing.

But suddenly, as they drew opposite the “Skandranon” type of model, she looked from it to him and back again, as if she could not believe her eyes. She blinked, shook her head, and looked again.

“That you” she said, as if she’d had a major revelation.

“Oh, it does look something like me,” he replied casually. “Just a bit.” He left it at that, and she promptly seemed to forget about it.

A moment later, she made a dash into another room, and once again, the lights came up as she entered. She headed straight for a bowl sitting beside what must have been her bed, a nicely made nest of bound straw lined with soft, silky material. There was a box with a pile of brightly-colored objects in it; toys, probably. The top ones looked like the normal sorts of balls and blocks that young gryphlets were given to play with as nestlings, before they fledged. She grabbed for a clawful of something brown and moist-then, like a child suddenly remembering its manners, she shyly offered him some of it-her food, presumably. It did not look like much, and Skan declined, although Kechara wolfed it down with every evidence of enjoyment.

I can’t tell how old she is, he thought, watching her eat. She did manage that fairly well; gryphons were not the daintiest of eaters at the best of times. She has no idea of the passage of time, she can’t see the rising and setting of the sun from in here. She eats when she’s hungry, sleeps when she’s tired, and Urtho comes and goes at unpredictable intervals. But if I were to guess-misborns don’t tend to live very long, and I’d guess she’s near the end of her “normal” lifespan.

The notion revolted him as much as the food had. All her life had been spent in close confinement, never feeling the free wind, only seldom seeing the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars.

When she was bred for the skies, and only accident and bad fortune made her the way she is, and not like Zhaneel-

or like-me-

He ground his beak a little in frustration. Then there was the other side of the rock. How could she live outside? Maybe that was precisely why she was in here, because she couldn’t live outside the Tower. Misborn were also notoriously delicate, prone to disease, weaknesses of the lungs and other organs.

Maybe only living here in complete shelter made it possible for her to live at all.

This may be kindness, but it has a bitter taste.

He noticed that all of his earlier bleeding had stopped, and that reminded him of his own internal time sense. He was surprised at how long he had been in here with her. “I must go, Kechara,” he said at the first break in conversation. Such as it was.

She blinked at him for a moment. Then she asked him something completely unexpected. “You come back?” she asked hopefully. “You come play again?” And she looked up at him with wide and pleading eyes.

Oh, high winds and rock slides! She may not know the emotion for what it is, but she’s lonely. What can I tell her?

He ground his beak for a moment, then told her the truth. “I don’t know, Kechara. I have to talk to Father first. He makes the rules, you know.”

She nodded, as if she could accept that. “I ask Father, too,” she said decisively. “I tell him I need you to play with me.”

Then, as he paused at the door, she reared up on her haunches and spread her forelegs wide. It was such a weird posture that at first Skan could not even begin to imagine what she was up to. But then he understood. She was waiting for a hug, a human hug. The kind she always got from “Father” when he left her.

That simple gesture told Skan all he needed to know; whatever Urtho’s motives were in keeping this little thing here, they were meant to be kindly, and he gave her all the affection he could.

It was awkward, but somehow Skan managed. Then he gave her a real gryphonic gesture of parting, a little preening of her neck hackles.

It would have been much worse if she had put up some kind of a fuss about his leaving, but she didn’t; she simply waved a talon in farewell, and turned and trotted back to her nest room, presumably to play by herself.

She’s learned that fussing doesn’t change anything, he decided, as he walked stunned through the book rooms and touched the door to the staircase to open it. She’s learned that people come and go in her life without her having any control over where and when they do it. Poor thing. Poor little thing.

The lights dimmed behind him as he made his way down the stairs; slowly, for staircases were difficult for gryphons to descend, although climbing them was no real problem. When he got to the bottom, he was very tempted to try one of the other doors in the antechamber.

Stupid gryphon! Don’t tempt your luck. You’ll be in enough trouble with Urtho as soon as you bring up Kechara.

Oh, dear. That made another problem. How do you bring up Kechara without revealing you got into a locked room? And if you got into a locked room, how much else would he guess you got into?

The guard nodded to him and grinned as he left. “Damned hard for you critters to manage staircases, eh?” he said, as Skan realized that some of his injuries from the spat with Kechara must surely be visible.

And he hadn’t come in with fresh scratches on him.

But the guard had just offered him a fabulous excuse for his appearance, and he seized it with gratitude. “More than damned hard,” he grumbled. “I must’ve slipped and fallen once for every dozen steps. And would the others wait? Hell, no! They were in such a hurry to scuttle off with their Healer-stuff that they didn’t even notice I was lagging!”

The guard laughed sympathetically and patted Skan on the shoulder. “Know how you feel,” he replied. “With this gimpy leg I can’t even climb one staircase good anymore. Never much thought about how you critters managed until I got that crossbow bolt through the calf.”

Some chat might not be a bad cover at the moment, and I don’t really have anywhere to go . . . Tamsin and Cinnabar will be deciphering the text they copied and putting it into terms we gryphons can use. They’ll be so busy with that they wouldn’t know if I was there or not.

“Kyree and hertasi can manage all right,” he replied. “But us, the dyheli, the tervardi-staircases are hell, and other things are worse! You’d think with all the veterans hurt that can’t walk that they’d put in some ramps. But no-“

The guard sighed. “Well, that’s the way of the world, everybody sees it according to what he needs. If a man don’t need a special way up the stairs, why, he don’t think nobody else needs it, neither.”

Skan snorted. “You figured that right, brother! And my bloody aching head agrees with you, too!”

“Best run along and catch up with those Healer friends of yours, an’ make ‘em patch you up,” the guard advised. “Maybe then they’ll think twice before they rush off an’ leave you alone!”

Skan laughed and promised he would do that; the guard limped on his rounds with a friendly wave as Skan headed back toward camp, and Healer’s Hill.

All right, I’d better get this all in order. We’ll get the fertility spell straight; I’ll pass it on to the rest. Then, once I know everyone has it-I’ll come to Urtho and tell him what I did. That’s when I bring up Kechara. That would take a few days at the best, and his conscience bothered him about leaving her alone in there for so long-

But she’s been alone in there for all of her life. A few days, more or less, will make no difference.

There was an additional complication, however. What if Urtho made a visit to his-well-pet? If Kechara happened to mention Skan-

I’ll have to hope that she doesn’t. Or if she does, Urtho just thinks she’s talking about the models.

Complications, complications.

Stupid gryphon. You’re trying to do too much too fast. But doesn’t it need to be done? If not you, then who?

The walk down to the camp was a long one. There weren’t many people out at this time of night. Most of the ones still awake were entertaining themselves; the rest had duties, or were preparing their gear for combat tomorrow. It was a peculiar thing, this war between wizards; the front lines were immensely far away, and yet the combat troops bivouacked here, below Urtho’s stronghold, in the heart of his lands.

It was the Gates that made such things possible, the Gates and the gryphons.

The first meant that Urtho could move large numbers of troops anywhere at a moment’s notice. There were even permanent Gates with set destinations that did not require anything more than a simple activation spell, something even an apprentice could manage. Because of this, Urtho’s troops were highly mobile, and the problem of supply lines was virtually negated.

Of course, that was true for Ma’ar’s men as well. The defender had the advantage in a situation like this. A mage setting up a Gate had to know the place where he intended it to go, and Urtho or his mages knew every inch of the territory he was defending. Ma’ar’s mage could only set up Gates where they had been, places that they knew, so Ma’ar’s Gates would always be behind his lines.

There had even been one or two successful forays early on in the campaign where Urtho had infiltrated troops behind Ma’ar’s. That, however, would only work once or twice before your enemy started setting watches for Gate-energies, in order to blast the Gate as it was forming. This tended to cost your mage his life as the energies lashed him at a time when he was wide open and vulnerable. That was why Urtho’s forces didn’t do that any more, and there wasn’t a mage in the entire army who would obey an order to do so.

Not that Shaiknam hasn’t tried. But only once.

The gryphons were the other factor that made this war-at-a-distance possible. Aloft, they could cover immense stretches of territory, and their incredibly keen vision allowed them to scout from distances so high that not even the makaar would challenge them unless they were in the very rare situation where they were at a greater altitude than the incoming gryphon. Makaar were not built for the winds and the chill of high altitude; there were gryphons who were, though they were not the best fighters.

And there were gryphons built for long-distance scouting who had ways of overcoming their physical shortcomings that made them poor choices for combat. The one who could do it best was Zhaneel.

One gryphon, anyway. Maybe . . . one day, more.

As Skan took to the air for the brief flight to Healer’s Hill, his sharp eyes picked out the glow of the tent snared by Tamsin and Cinnabar. Hard at work already. They may even have it by the time I get there. Good.

The Black Gryphon used a thermal to kite in that direction, appreciative that the night was so clear and calm. He noted that Amberdrake’s tent was also aglow.

Hard at work, too? He chuckled. Well, the night usually is when most of his work is done. He bears the hearts of many, mine included. He is there when he is needed, even this late at night. I shall not tease him about it.

This time!

Ten

Amberdrake did not notice that Skan wasn’t behind them on the stairs until they reached the outside of the tower, beyond the antechamber. That was when he turned to say something to the Black Gryphon-

And the Black Gryphon wasn’t there.

They were already beyond the immediate perimeter of the Tower. Amberdrake swore under his breath. It was too late to go back and get him; the doors probably wouldn’t admit them a second time, and the guard would wonder what was going on when they returned, looking for Skan.

A light breeze blew at Amberdrake’s back, and camp sounds carried up from the tents below. It would be better to go back to his tent and go on with the plan as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Gryphons had a hard time with staircases. With luck, the guard knew that. Maybe he would figure that Skan was still inching his way down, step by painful step.

Not that Skan had any trouble with staircases, spiral or otherwise. He was as graceful as a cat under any circumstances. It was the dancing that did it; Amberdrake had seen him climbing trees, eeling through brush and scaling the outside of tower walls with equal ease and panache. But Amberdrake was one of the few people who knew that.

Amberdrake lingered in the shadows as Tamsin and Cinnabar hurried on ahead. He waited on the off chance that his friend might simply be sauntering along as if time had no meaning. He’s been known to do that. . . “It’s image,” he says.

Skan still did not appear. Whatever he was doing, it was not just a case of lagging behind. Where the hell is that idiot featherhead? he thought with irritation. Caught up in his own reflection somewhere?

Far more likely that he had found some book that had caught his eye and was leafing through it, oblivious to the time. Amberdrake could only hope that it was something as innocent as a book that had detained him.

But time was running out, for Amberdrake at least. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, the Black Gryphon would have to make his own excuses, and bail himself out of any trouble he got into. Amberdrake could not wait any longer. He had an appointment; a last-minute appointment set up by Urtho himself. This was not a client to keep waiting.

Especially not tonight. If he broke that appointment, or was even a tiny bit late for it, someone might put that together with Tamsin and Cinnabar’s request, ask the guard who had been with them, and put two and two together and figure they had all been up to something. And that someone would probably be Urtho.

Skandranon was a big gryphon; he could take care of himself. If he had been asked, that is exactly what he would have said.

The way back to camp was as clear as the night sky; with no one in sight anywhere close. That meant there was no one to take note if he broke into a sprint and wonder why he was running-or at least not close enough to recognize a distant runner as Kestra’chern Amberdrake. He took off at a lope, and didn’t pause until he was just within sight of his own tent.

I’m in better shape than I thought, he thought, with pardonable pride, as he composed himself before making his “entrance,” right on time. I’m not even out of breath.

Fortunately, his hertasi assistant, Gesten, would have everything he needed for this client prepared for him ahead of time. It had been a very long time since Amberdrake had performed the simple chores that surrounded his profession-getting out the massage table, warming the oils, putting towels in the steamer, preparing incense. Simple chores, but time-consuming. Things it would be impossible to take care of before a client came, if the kes-tra’chern in question happened to be doing something he didn’t want anyone to know about. For instance, in case a kestra’chern absolutely had to snoop around in the Great Mage’s Tower.

Thank goodness for hertasi.

The client was not waiting, which could mean a number of things. She could simply be late; she might be a little reluctant to go to a kestra’chern; new clients often were, until they realized how little of a kestra’chern’s work had to do with amorous dealings. That was fine; it meant he had time to change into his work clothes in peace. He could have done a massage in his current outfit, but he didn’t want to. He had a reputation to uphold, and much of that reputation involved his appearance. Clients should see him at his very best, for that was what he always gave them.

So he pushed the draperies aside and slipped into his private quarters; quickly shed the clothing he had on and donned one of the three appropriate massage-costumes that Gesten had laid ready for him. Tunic and breeches again, but of very soft, thick, absorbent material in a deep crimson with vivid blue trim. The cut was more than loose enough to permit him to take whatever contortion was required to give his client relief from stressed or sore muscles. And in the soft lighting of the tent, it looked opulent, rich, special. That would make the client feel special as well.

He braided his long hair up out of the way, but fastened the ends of the braids with small chiming bells which would whisper musically when he moved. He had found that the rhythmic chiming that followed the motions of the massage soothed his clients.

The new client still had not appeared when he moved back to the “business” side of the tent, so he double-checked on Gesten’s preparations. Not that he had any doubt of Gesten’s thoroughness, but it never hurt to check. The laws of the universe dictated that the one time he did not check, something would be missing.

The bottles of scented oil, already nicely up to temperature, waited in their pan of warm water. The hot stones had been set in the bottom of the towel-warming chest, and the steam that rose from the cracks in the upper portion, carrying with it the scent of warm, clean cloth, told him that all was in readiness there as well. The massage table had been unfolded and covered with a soft pad, of course, and a crimson chair was beside it in case the client was too stiff or sore to be able to get on it without assistance.

The wooden rollers were ready; so were the warming ointments for after the massage, in case the muscles needed herbal therapy. There was a pot of vero-grass tea steeping in case he needed to get her to relax beforehand.

And, most importantly for a new and possibly shy client, all the other tools of his many trades had been packed away out of sight. Most of them, in fact, currently cluttered up his private quarters. The only hint that he might not be a simple Healer was the incense in the air, the opulent hangings, and the scattering of pillows around the floor.

He prowled the room anyway, rearranging the pillows, making certain that nothing had been left out by accident, checking the oils to be certain they hadn’t gone the least tiny bit rancid. It was all energy-wasting, and he knew it, but the energy he was wasting was all from nerves, and it was his to waste if he chose.

He wouldn’t have been here, now, if he’d had any other choice. He’d be waiting outside the Tower for Skan or lurking outside the mages’ meeting.

I wish I knew what was going on at the meeting, he thought fretfully. I wonder if the hertasi have anyone there? If they do, Gesten will know the results as soon as they let out. Maybe before. I hope so-but of course Vikteren will tell me whatever happened.

Gods, I hope Skan got out of the Tower without tripping some alarm or other. I hope the guard doesn’t figure he was up to something. I hope he wasn’t up to something. He simply spotted a book he could not resist, I’m sure. I hope Tamsin and Cinnabar really can find a way to give the gryphons their fertility. . . .

Mental nattering, really. Fretting over things he could not control and could not change was a habit of his. If he could change something, he did so; if he couldn’t, he fretted it to pieces in hopes of finding a way he could affect the situation.

Fortunately he didn’t have time to work himself up over either the mages’ meeting or Skan; Gesten finally poked his nose through the door flap and motioned someone inside.

A female, but Amberdrake knew that already.

But now he knew why Urtho had not specified who was coming, in making this appointment.

Stiff, severe posture, mathematically precise hair, with three thin braids down the back of her neck, pinched expression, perfectly pressed and creased utilitarian clothing-Winterhart? Oh, gods.

His shoulder muscles tensed, and his head started aching. He stopped his lip from curling with distaste just in time and dropped his mask of impas-siveness into place.

I am a professional. Urtho sent her to me, and the fee he included should quite cover the fact that she is a pain in the tail. I can take care of her without becoming the least involved. She is only here for physical therapy. I don’t have to know her inmost secrets, I don’t even have to speak more than a dozen words to her.

All that flashed through his mind, as he altered his expression into a carefully indifferent and businesslike smile. She was moving very stiffly, more so than he remembered, and it wasn’t all because she was not happy to be here. What had the note Urtho sent said? Back injury. Interesting; she was far stiffer than even a back injury would account for.

I don’t have to open up to her to know that she is as tense as a cocked catapult. It’s written in every muscle. I can’t work on her like that, and she is not going to relax. . . .

Interesting; I don’t think she recognizes me as having been with Skan. Maybe the dim light is working for me.

There was certainly no sign of recognition in her eyes-and then, there was recognition, but no sudden pulling back that would indicate she realized he had watched while Skan and Zhaneel made her look the fool.

Well, that tenseness was the reason there was vero-grass tea steeping. She wouldn’t be the first client who had come to a kestra’chern too tense to get any benefit from the visit.

“You look thirsty,” he said quickly as she looked around suspiciously. “Please, do drink this tea before we begin. It will help you.”

And as a Trondi’irn should know, vero-grass was thick with minerals; someone with a back injury was in need of minerals.

She accepted the cup of tea dubiously, waved aside his offer of honey to sweeten it, and took a sip. Her eyes widened as she recognized what it was, but she said nothing; she simply gulped it down.

Grimly, he thought. As if she dared him to do his worst.

Well, he wouldn’t do his worst, he would do his best, and to hell with her and her opinions.

“I’d like you to disrobe, please,” he said, taking the cup away from her and placing it out of the way. “And lie on the table.”

Winterhart had not known until she stepped into this tent that Urtho had ordered her to the hands of a kestra’chern. But she knew Amberdrake by sight-it seemed that he was always messing about with the Healers and the gryphons in one way or another-and she knew what his profession was.

She had thought she was being sent to a minor, unGifted Healer for her back problems-on Urtho’s direct orders of course, and after that rather painful interview following the altercation with Zhaneel. How the Mage had wormed the fact of her injury out of her, she had no idea.

Then again, she had told him any number of things that she hadn’t intended to, and that was only one of them. At least the fact of the injury and the pain she was in had apparently saved her from a reprimand; Urtho evidently counted it as a reason for her irritation with the world in general and gryphons specifically.

When he had told her that-and that he was ordering her to get treatment that he himself would schedule, she had been resentful, but just a little relieved.

Now she was resentful, not at all relieved, angry-and truth to tell, more than a little frightened. Angry that Urtho had set her up like this without telling her. Resentful that he had interfered in her private life, arbitrarily assuming that there was something wrong with her sexual relations and setting her up with a kestra’chern.

And frightened of what could happen at the hands of this particular kestra’chern.

She had heard very embarrassing things about kestra’chern in general and this Amberdrake in particular, stories that would curl the hair of any well-born young woman with a sense of decency. Amberdrake had a reputation for things that were rather-exotic. Conn Levas had used the fact that he had gone to this particular kestra’chern to taunt her with her inadequacies, and the things he had said had gone on here were considerably more than exotic.

And worst of all, she had no clue what Urtho had ordered for her . . . treatment.

If anyone back in her wing found out she was here, she would never hear the end of it.

And her back still hurt! That was reason enough to wish herself elsewhere!

The gods only know what’s going to happen to my back if-if- She found herself flushing and resenting her own embarrassment. A lot of arching would be very bad for my spine right now. And I doubt he has any notion of that.

Her suspicions hardened into certainty when she recognized the taste of the vero-grass tea. It was a calmative, yes, but it also had a reputation for enhacing other things than calm. But it was a muscle relaxant as well, and right now. . . .

Right now, my back needs it badly enough that I’ll drink the damned stuff, she thought grimly. Maybe he thinks that if he drugs me enough, I’ll be too limp to stop him. Huh. Not with this back. One cup of tea isn’t going to do worse than take the edge off the pain.

Then he looked at her as if he was sizing her up for purchase, and said, “Disrobe and get on the table, please.”

She stared at him, utterly taken aback, as much by his clinical coldness as by the words. Wasn’t there supposed to be some-well-finesse involved here?

She looked from Amberdrake to the table, and back again. “You want me to what?” she asked, still stunned.

Amberdrake sighed with exasperation. What was wrong with the stupid woman? Couldn’t she understand that in order to massage her he would have to have her unclothed and on the table? Surely she didn’t think he could do anything with her standing in the middle of the room like a statue!

“You are who Urtho sent me, aren’t you?” he asked, with just a touch of irony.

She swallowed, but with difficulty. “Yes-“ she replied.

“And you do have a back injury, do you not?” he persisted. What was going on in her mind?

She answered with more reluctance than before. “Yes-“

He sighed with open exasperation, which seemed to annoy her. Well, good. Up until this moment, he’d been the one who was annoyed. Let her enjoy the sensation for a change. “Then please, lady, let me help you, as I was assigned to do. I cannot help you if you will not disrobe and get on the table.”

“Help me how?” she replied sharply, her eyes darting this way and that. “I thought I was being sent to a Healer!”

He gritted his teeth so hard it hurt. “You have been sent to a Healer,” he replied, allowing his tone to tell her that there was no doubt that he was exasperated. “Apparently, you are not aware that a human cannot be effectively massaged through her clothing. If you would rather this were done by someone other than myself, you are quite free to leave. But you can explain to Urtho why you walked out on this rather expensive session. I perform my services in a professional manner, even with reluctant clients-and the services I intended to perform on you are entirely different from the ones I think you have imagined.”

Beneath his calm, cool exterior he was seething, and his back teeth jammed so tightly together that it was a wonder they didn’t split. Another gods-be-damned, pure-as-rain Healer. I should have known she’d react this way. Tamsin and Cinnabar were only too accurate in the way they described her. Bright Keros, how much more am I going to have to put up with this kind of nonsense? I’m besieged, truly I am!

And as for Winterhart the Pure-well, from the pinched look on her face, I’d say she’s certainly living down to her reputation as the Princess of Prim and Proper.

She hadn’t budged a thumblength since he’d begun talking, and if his muscle readings were correct, she was so tense that he was rather mildly surprised that her eyes weren’t bulging out.

And it was all too obvious that she not only didn’t believe he was a Healer, she was certain it was just some kind of a ploy to take advantage of her.

As if I’d want to. I like my partners willing, thank you.

His headache worsened. Wonderful. It wasn’t just his headache, it was coming from her as well. No wonder she had a pinched and sour look to her.

Now how do I convince her that I am a Healer? Chop off Gesten’s hand and fuse it back on? I wonder if Her Majesty the Ice-Maiden here would even react to that! She and that steel-necked lover of hers deserve each other. If Urtho hadn’t sent her to me, I’d invite her to take herself and her token back to her tent.

But outwardly, years of practice kept so much as a stray expression from crossing his face. “I am no threat to your-virtue-and I do assure you that you can relax. This is a massage table. I am to work on your back injury, and perhaps see if it is something that I can Heal. It is that simple.” He patted the table and smiled a cool and professional smile.

She shifted her weight uneasily and moved ever so slightly away from the tent flap and toward the table.

If that’s the best she can do, we’re going to be here all night before she gets on the damned table!

“Massage,” he repeated, as if to a very simple child. “I am very good at it. Lady Cinnabar will not have anyone else work on her but me.”

That earned him another couple of steps toward the table; he closed his eyes for just a moment, and counted to ten. She was turning what should have been a simple session into an ordeal for both of them!

“If you are body-shy with a stranger, I will turn my back while you disrobe. You may drape yourself with the sheet that is folded beside the table,” he said; he pointed out the sheet to her, and turned away.

The sound of clothing rustling told him that he had finally convinced her of his sincerity, if not his expertise.

His head was absolutely pounding with shared pain; he shielded himself against her, and it finally ebbed a bit. That was a shame. He generally didn’t need to shield himself against a fellow-Healer, and allowing his Empathy to remain wide-open generally got him some useful information. Remaining that way also improved his sensitivity to what was going on with injuries and pain and helped him block it; before a client even realized that something hurt, he would be able to correct the problem and move on.

Correct the problem. Well. Unfortunately, he could very well imagine why Urtho had sent the woman here. The few notes he had on her indicated some trauma in her life that she simply had not faced-something that she had done or that had been done to her. Trondi’irn were generally not so busy they disregarded their own health. There was the possibility she was punishing herself by leaving her conditions unattended, or worsening them in her mind. Oh, he had no doubt that there was a real, physical injury there as well, but the way she acted told him that this was not a healthy, well-adjusted woman. Urtho must have seen that, too; here was the implied message in his sending her here.

You’re supposed to Heal minds, so Heal this one.

What had Urtho said about her?

That she had abusive parents. But the signs are all wrong for them to have been physically abusive. . . .

Urtho was known for having a very enlightened idea of what constituted “abuse.”

No, this woman hadn’t been mistreated or neglected physically. But emotionally-ah, there was the theory that fit the pattern.

I would bet a bolt of silk on cold, demanding parents, who expected perfection-and got it. Very little real affection in her life, and most of it delivered when she managed, somehow, to achieve the impossible goals her parents set. Yes, that fits the picture.

And now, she was as demanding of everyone else as her parents had been to her. More than that, she was as demanding of herself as they used to be.

Well, that was why she would have gotten involved with an arrogant manipulator like that mage in the first place. She doesn’t see herself as “deserving” anyone who cares, so she picks someone who reminds her of what she grew up with. And then treats him the same, since she never learned to do otherwise.

He ran his fingers across his forehead as the creaking of the table behind him told him he had managed to convince her to trust him that far. I can’t undo decades of harm in a few candlemarks. Start with the easy stuff and release the pain. Then take it from there.

Amberdrake turned back to find her on her stomach, draped from neck to knee with the sheet, as modest as a village maiden. He selected one of the oils, one with a lavender base; that would be clean and fresh enough to help convince her that he was not going to seduce her. Then, before she could react, he turned the sheet down with brisk efficiency worthy of Gesten, poured some of the oil in his hands to warm it, then rubbed his palms together. A moment later, he was kneading the muscles of her back and shoulders.

He had not been boasting; he was particularly good at massage. Lady Cinnabar did prefer his services to anyone else in or out of the camp. Slowly, as he worked the knots of tension out of her back and shoulders, he sensed other tension ebbing. His expertise at massage was convincing her that he was, at least in part, what he claimed to be.

Some of the barriers she was holding against him came down. But he did not take immediate advantage of the altered situation.

No, my dear Icicle; I intend to show you that I am everything I said I was and a lot more besides.

You are a challenge. And I never could resist a challenge. And Urtho, damn his hide, knows that.

When Winterhart realized that the man really did know what he was doing-at least insofar as massage was concerned-she let the fear ebb from her body. The more she relaxed, the more his hands seemed to be actually soothing away the pain in her poor back.

Odd. I always thought massage was supposed to be painful. . . .

In fact, it was so soothing that she felt herself drifting away, not quite asleep, but certainly not quite awake. Several moments passed before she realized that the tingling sensation in her back really was something very familiar, after all. The difference was that she had never experienced it before as the recipient.

Her eyes opened wide although she did not move. She didn’t dare. The man was Healing her, and you didn’t interrupt a Healing trance!

“Well,” came the conversational voice from behind her. “You certainly have broken up your back in a most spectacular fashion.”

He was talking! How could you trance and talk at the same time?

“Your main problem is with one of the pads between the vertebrae,” the voice continued. “It’s squashed rather messily. I’m putting back what I can; if I can get the inflammation down, that will clear the way to stop most of the pain you’ve been enduring.”

“Oh-“ she replied, weakly. “I’d thought perhaps that I had cracked a vertebra.”

“Nothing nearly so exciting,” the voice replied. “But this could have been worse. It is good that Urtho sent you to me when he did. Do you feel any tension here. . . ?”

Winterhart felt a spot of cold amid the sea of warmth in her back. This man was amazing; the Healers she knew could activate the nerves in a specific point of the body, but never a specific sensation. By the time her training had been terminated, she could not activate a circle of nerves smaller than her thumb’s width without causing the patient to feel heat, cold, pressure, and pain there all at once. And here this-this kestra’chern-was pinpointing the nerves in a tenth of that area, and making her feel only a chill. Not pain!

She could only grunt an affirmative and let her defenses slip a little more. He knew what he was doing, and he felt so competent, so good. . . .

Amberdrake let the fluids around the damage balance slower than absolutely necessary, partly out of caution but mostly to buy some more time.

This was not going to be as easy as he had thought.

Winterhart was like an onion; you peeled away one layer, thinking you had found the core, only to find just another layer. She had so many defenses, that he was forced to wonder just what it was she thought she was defending herself against.

“How did you manage to do this?” he asked quietly, letting the soothing qualities he put into his voice lull her a little more. “This kind of injury doesn’t usually happen all at once; didn’t you notice anything wrong earlier?”

“Well, my back had been bothering me for a while,” she replied with obvious reluctance, “but I never really thought about it. My fami-I’ve always had a little problem with my back, you know how it is, tensions always strike at your weakest point, right?”

“True,” he replied, wondering why she had changed “my family” to “I.” How would revealing a family history of back trouble reveal anything about her? “And your back is your weakest point, I take it?” He thought carefully before asking his next question; he didn’t want to put her more on the defensive than she already was. “I suppose you must have seen how busy all the Healers were, and you decided just to ignore the pain. Not necessarily wise, but certainly considerate of you.”

She grunted, and the skin on the back of her neck reddened a little. “I don’t like to whine about things,” she said. “Especially not things I can’t change. So I kept my mouth shut and drank a lot of willow. Anyway, after the defensive at Polda, one of the Sixth Wing gryphons was brought in with some extensive lacerations to its underbelly, delirious, and when I tried to restrain it, it nearly went berserk.”

Interesting. Resentment there. As if she somehow thought that the gryphon in question had been acting unreasonably.

“Who was it?” Amberdrake asked.

“What are you talking about?” she replied suspiciously.

“Who was the gryphon?” Amberdrake repeated mildly. “I knew about Aubri’s burns, but I didn’t know anything about a Sixth Wing gryphon with lacerations. I was wondering if it was Sheran; if it was, I’m not surprised she reacted badly to being restrained. She was one of the gryphons that Third Wing rescued just before Stelvi Pass. Ma’ar had them all in chains and was going to pinion them. We don’t know what else he did tp them, but we do know they had been tortured in some fairly sophisticated and sadistic ways.”

There. Make her think of the gryphon in question as a personality, and not an “it.” See what that unlocks.

“It could have been,” Winterhart said slowly, as if the notion startled her. “There was a lot of scar tissue I couldn’t account for, and it was a female. . . .”

Amberdrake probed the injury again, before he spoke. “Ma’ar saves some of his worst tortures for the gryphons. Urtho thinks it’s because Ma’ar knows he thinks of them as his children, not as simply his ‘creations.’ “

“I didn’t know that.” Silence for a while, as the flames of the lanterns overhead burned with faint hissing and crackling sounds. “I like animals; I was always good with horses and dogs. That was why I became a Trondi’irn.”

“Gryphons-‘ He started to say, “Gryphons aren’t animals,” then stopped himself just in time.

“I thought gryphons were just animals, like the Kaled’a’in warhorses. I thought they only spoke like the messenger-birds . . . just mimicking without really understanding more than simple orders.” She sighed; the muscles of her back heaved and trembled a little beneath his hands, and he exerted his powers to keep them from going into a full and painful spasm. “I kept telling myself that, but it isn’t true. They aren’t just animals. I hate to see anything in pain, and it’s worse to see something that can think in a state like that gryphon was.”

“Well,” Amberdrake replied, choosing,his words with care, “I’ve always thought it was worse to see an animal in pain than a creature like the hertasi, the gryphons, the kyree, or the tervardi injured. You can’t explain to an animal that you are going to hurt it a little more now to make it feel better later. You can explain those things to a thinking creature, and chances are it will believe you and cooperate. And it has always been worse, for me, to see an animal die-especially one that is attached to you. They’ve come to think of you as a kind of god, and expect you to make everything better-and when you can’t, it’s shattering, to have to betray that trust, even though you can’t avoid it.”

“You sound as if you’ve thought this sort of thing over quite a bit,” she said, her voice sounding rather odd; very, very controlled. Over-controlled, in fact.

“It is my job,” he reminded her with irony. “You would be amazed at the number of people who come to me after a dreadful battle with nightmares of seeing their favorite puppy dying on the battlefield. Part of what I do is to explain to them why they see the puppy, and not the friends they just lost. Only I don’t explain it quite that clinically.”

There wasn’t much she could say to that, so after a few breaths, she returned to the safer topic. “Anyway, I was trying to treat the gryphon, and I’d gotten bent over in quite an odd position to stitch her up without tying her down, when she lashed out at me with both hindlegs. She sent me flying, and I landed badly. I got up, felt a little more pain but not much, and thought I was all right.”

Good. The gryphon has gone from “it” to “she.” That’s progress anyway.

“But the pain kept getting worse instead of better, right?” he probed. “That’s the sign you’ve done something to one of those spinal pads.”

“I think that’s one lesson I’m not likely to forget very soon,” she countered, with irony as heavy as his had been. “But as you said, the Healers were all busy with injuries worse than mine, and I don’t believe in whining about things as trivial as a backache.”

“I would never call telling of extreme pain whining,” was all he said.

She relaxed a little more; minutely, but visible to him.

“This is going to need more than one treatment,” he continued. “If you can bring yourself to resort to a mere kestra’chern, that is.”

The skin of her neck flushed again. “I-you are a better Healer than I am,” she replied, with painful humility. She hadn’t liked admitting that. “If you would be so kind-I know what your fees are for other things-but if you can spare the time-“

“To make certain the Healer of my friends is in the best of health, I would forgo the fee a king would offer for my services,” Amberdrake replied with dignity. “When you are in pain, you can’t do your best work; you know that as well as I do. Skan is not the only gryphon friend I have, and I want my friends to have nothing less than the finest and most competent of care.”

“Ah,” she said weakly. “Ah, thank you.”

He examined the injury again. “I’ve done all I can about this spinal pad right now,” he told her truthfully. “I need to finish that massage, and then you can go. I think you’ll feel some difference.”

“I already do,” she admitted.

He rubbed some fresh scented oil into the palms of his hands to warm it, and started soothing the muscles of her back he had not reached earlier. They had gone into spasms so often they had become as tense and tight as harp-wires, and as knotted as a child’s first spun thread.

She gasped as the first of them released; quivered all over in fact. Amberdrake was quite familiar with that reaction, but evidently she wasn’t.

“Oh!” she exclaimed and tensed again. “I-“

“It’s quite all right, don’t move,” he ordered. “It’s the natural reaction to releasing tensed muscles. Ignore it if you can, and try to enjoy it if you can’t ignore it.”

She didn’t reply to that; interesting. The last commoner he’d made that particular remark to had said, with dangerous irony, “What, like rape?” It was a natural thought for the ordinary soldier, who all too often found him or herself in the position of victim.

But there was no tightening of Winterhart’s neck muscles, no tensing at all to indicate that thought had occurred to her.

Interesting. Very interesting. So whatever she is afraid of, it isn’t that. And she is not the “ordinary soul” she says that she is.

“If I hurt you, tell me,” he said. “A good massage should not hurt-and in your case, if I start to hurt you, you’ll tense up again, and undo everything I’ve done so far other than the real Healing.”

“I will,” she promised. “But it doesn’t hurt. It just feels very odd. My m-the massages I’ve had in the past were never for injuries.”

What other kinds of massages are there? She can’t mean sexual. So-for beauty treatments?

That would account for the superb state of her body. There were no blemishes, no signs of scarring anywhere. When the posturing and stiffness were gone from Winterhart’s body, she was a magnificent sculpture of human beauty. She cared for her skin and hair scrupulously, filed her toenails, and had no calluses anywhere that he had seen, not even the calluses associated with riding or fighting.

Unusual, and definitely the marks of someone highborn, and he thought he knew all the humans of noble lineage who had ever lived near Urtho’s Tower.

Perhaps she was from before I came here? But that would date back to the very beginning of the war.

“Do you get along with your commanders?” he asked, adding, “I need to know because if you don’t, it is going to affect how your muscles will react and I may need to ask you to resort to herbal muscle relaxants when you are around them.”

She was silent for a very long time. “They think I am the proper subordinate. I suppose I used to be; that may be why my back went badly wrong all at once. I don’t ever contradict them, even now. I suppose you’ll think I’m a coward, but even though I don’t agree with the way they treat the gryphons, I don’t want to be stripped of my rank and sent away.”

“You wouldn’t be, if you took your case to Urtho,” he pointed out. “As Trondi’irn, it is your job to countermand even the generals if you believe your charges are being mistreated.”

“I can’t do that.” Her skin was cold; she was afraid. Of what? Of confrontation? Of going directly to Urtho?

“Besides,” she continued hurriedly. “My I . . . lover is one of Shaiknam’s mages; his name is Conn Levas. If I went to Urtho, I’d still be reassigned, and I don’t want to be reassigned to some other wing than his.”

Untrue! Her muscles proclaimed it, and Amberdrake’s intuition agreed. The way she had stumbled over the word “lover,” not as if she were ashamed to say it, but because she could hardly bear to give the man that title. Amberdrake remembered Conn Levas, the mage who had come to him in order to shame his lover. That lover, it seems, was Winterhart. She and the mage might trade animal passions, but there was no love in that relationship. She didn’t care that she might be reassigned someplace where he wasn’t, precisely.

There is something deeper going on here. In some way, the man protects her. He must not know he is doing so, because if he did, he’d use it against her.

This was getting more and more complicated all the time.

“Well, I would say you aren’t going to have to worry about that much longer,” he said without thinking.

“What do you mean?” Her alarm was real and very deep; she actually started.

He put a hand in the middle of her back and soothed the jerking muscles. “Only that thanks to Zhaneel, Urtho is already aware of the situation in Sixth Wing. You won’t have to confront anyone now. I suspect he’ll take care of things. He always does.”

“Oh.” She relaxed again.

Now what on earth set her off like that? It has to be something to do with whatever it is that she is afraid of.

What that could be, he had no clue. Perhaps he ought to try probing farther back in her past-so far back that it would not seem like a threat.

“I learned all of my skills at Healing when I was a child,” he said casually. “My parents sent me to a very odd school, one that did not admit the existence of a Healing Gift, nor of Empathy. I did learn quite a bit about Healing without the use of either-everything from massage to anatomy to herbal and mineral medicines. But I was also more or less trapped among very sick people with Empathy too strong to shut them out. I was miserable, and my parents didn’t understand why when I wrote them letters begging to come home. They thought they were doing their best for me, and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t grateful.”

“My parents were like that,” she said, sounding sleepy. “They knew their children were exceptional, and they wouldn’t accept anything leg’s than perfection. They never understood why I wasn’t fawningly grateful for all the opportunities they gave me.”

I thought as much! Well, this is something I can start on, right this moment.

“Like my parents, yours surely thought they had your best interests at heart,” he replied quickly. “Perhaps they were too young for children. Perhaps they simply didn’t understand that a child is not a small copy of one’s own self. Many people think that. They feel the child must have the same needs and interests they do, simply because it sprang from them. They have no notion that a child can be drastically different from its parents.”

“So?” she replied, probably more harshly than she intended. “Does that excuse them?”

He let her think about that for a long time before he answered. “There are no excuses,” he said at last. “But there are reasons. Reasons why we are what we are. Reasons why we do not have to stay that way. Even Ma’ar has reasons for what he does.”

That turned the discussion into one of philosophy, and by the time he sent her away, he had come, grudgingly, not only to feel sorry for her, but even to like her a little.

But she was going to have to change, and she would have a hard time doing so all alone. He was going to have to help her. As she was, she was a danger, not only to herself, but possibly to everyone she came in contact with. No matter how she tried to hide it, she was unbalanced and afraid.

And fear was Ma’ar’s best weapon.

Eleven

Skandranon cautiously pushed his way into Tarnsin’s work tent with a careful talon, and the tail of a playful breeze followed him inside, teasing his crest feathers. As he had expected, Tamsin and Cinnabar mumbled to each other over their notes, oblivious to anything else going on. They made quite a pretty picture, with their heads so close they just touched, lamplight shining down on them, the table, and the precious stack of paper. Dark hair and bright shone beneath the lantern. They were a vision of peace. But pretty pictures were not precisely what he was after at the moment, and all peace was illusory as long as Ma’ar kept moving. And he knew that, despite his motivations, stealing this secret was a dangerous game to play.

But this secret would at least ensure the survival of his people, no matter what befell Urtho.

“Took you long enough to get here,” Tamsin said without looking up, though Cinnabar gave him a wink and wry grin. He wrote another word or two, then set aside the paper he had been scrawling on and raised his eyes to meet Skan’s. “What did you do, stop to seduce half a dozen gryphons on the way here?”

Skan’s nares flushed, but he managed to keep his voice from betraying him. Half a dozen gryphons? Well-one female, and there certainly wasn’t a seduction involved. And until he had a chance to think out a plan, he’d rather not discuss Kechara with anyone. “Not at all; I just stopped to look at something very interesting in the Tower. So what have you discovered?”

By the gleam in Tamsin’s eyes, it was good news, very good news. “That your so-called ‘spell’ isn’t precisely that,” Tamsin replied. “Enabling fertility in male and female gryphons takes a combination of things, and all of them are the sort of preparation that any gryphon could do without magical help, though a little magic makes it easier. Urtho just shrouds the whole procedure in mysticism, so that you think it’s something powerfully magical. His notes detail what to do to make the most impressive effects for the least expenditure of energy. He’s been bluffing you all, Skan.”

Skan’s head jerked up so quickly that he hit the top of the doorframe with it and blinked. He’d hoped for simple spells; he had not expected anything like this. “What?” he exclaimed.

Tamsin chuckled, and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “When he designed you, he wanted to have some automatic controls on your fertility, so he borrowed some things from a number of different beasties. Take the Great White Owl-the females don’t lay fertile eggs unless their mate has stuffed them first with tundra mice. The sudden increase in meat triggers their bodies to permit fertilization of the eggs; and the more meat, the more eggs they lay. Well, Urtho borrowed that for your females. The ‘ritual’ for the female gryphon is to fast for two days, then gorge on fresh meat just before the mating flight. That gorging tells her instincts that there’s food enough to support a’family, just like with the tundra owls, and she becomes fertile.”

“But-“ Skan protested weakly. “We don’t lay eggs. How can that-“

Tamsin ignored him. “He borrowed from the snow tigers as well; they would have litters four times a year in a colder climate, but they only have one because the male’s body temperature is so high that his seed is sterile except in the winter. So Urtho designed you males so that your body temperature is normally so high that your seed is dormant, just like theirs. So your half of the ‘ritual’ is that business of sleeping and meditating in the cave for two days while the female fasts. That drops your body temperature enough that your seed becomes active. That, or a very simple spell ensures that the male’s temperature stays lower than normal until after the mating flight is over. And that is the only bit of magic that Urtho performs that actually accomplishes anything. It’s such a minor spell that even an untrained Healer could do it-or there are drugs and infusions we could give you that have that effect, temporarily.”

“Or you could sit on a chunk of ice,” Cinnabar added gleefully, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Another breath of breeze entered the open tent flap, and made the flame of the lantern flicker for a moment.

“Thank you,” Skan said with as much dignity as he could muster. “But I doubt I shall.”

“Seriously, though, that means that in the total absence of Healers or herbs, a male gryphon could keep his seed active simply by mating in the winter like a snow tiger, or by sleeping for two days in a cave and then flying very high during the mating flight, where the air is cold even in the summer,” Tamsin said. Then he laughed. It had been a long time since Skan had heard the Healer laughing with such ease. It was a good sound. “But as hot-blooded as the Black Gryphon is, he may need to go to the northernmost edge of the world!”

Cinnabar joined her lover in laughter, and even Skandranon wheezed a slight chuckle. It had been a long time since Tamsin had researched anything that concerned creation, rather than destruction. For this brief time, perhaps he had been able to forget the war and all it meant. “Oh, and there’s the mating flight itself. The better the flight, the easier it is for-ah-everything to get together. Gets the blood and other things moving. And with a strenuous flight . . . there,” he said, preferring a sheet of notes, “the better the flight, the more likely that there will be more than one gryphlet conceived. But that’s basically it.”

Skan sat down heavily, right in the doorway. Hard to believe, after all the mystery, all the bitterness, that it could be so simple. “But that’s all?” he asked, too surprised to feel elation yet.

“That’s it.” Cinnabar shrugged and idly braided a strand of hair. “The rest is simply Urtho’s own indulgence in theatrics-which is considerable. He is quite an artist. Most of his notes were involved with that and only that. I promise you, though, that unless those guidelines are strictly adhered to, you gryphons will be as sterile as always.” She tilted her head to one side, and regarded him with dark, thoughtful eyes. “He designed you very well, and I think you ought to know that his notes said precisely why he made you sterile unless elaborate preparations were made.”

Skan waited for her to elaborate, but she was obviously enjoying herself in a peculiar way and intended to make him ask why.

“Well, why did he?” The gryphon growled. Some of the anger he had felt at Urtho was back. “Not that I can’t think of a number of reasons. We are supposed to be warriors, after all, and it’s difficult to wreak destruction away from home while there are gryphlets in the nest to tend to.”

“You have a flair for the dramatic yourself. ‘Wreak destruction?’ “ Cinnabar teased.

Skandranon tried to ignore her. “He might not have wanted to discover himself neckdeep in fledglings. That would mean a strain on food supplies, and hungry gryphons could decimate wild game over a wide area. Also, we’re his creations; he might have wanted more control over which pairings produced offspring.”

That breeding program. He might have wanted nothing but pure “types.” He wouldn’t have wanted hybrids, I would imagine. Breeders usually don’t.

“He might only have wanted the control over us that holding this ‘secret’ had.” The bitterness he felt in discovering Kechara’s plight and the records of the “breeding program” showed more than he liked. “So. Was I close?”

Cinnabar’s expression was understanding, and her tone softened. She leaned forward earnestly. “Skan, it was for none of those reasons. Here it is, in his own words. Let me read it for you, and I think you might feel a little better about all of this.”

She bent over the notes and read them quietly aloud. “ ‘Too often have I seen human parents who were too young, too unstable, or otherwise unfit or unready for children produce child after doomed, mistreated child. I will have none of this for these, my gryphons. By watching them, and then training others what to watch for, I can discover which pairings are loving and stable, which would-be parents have the patience and understanding to be parents. And in this way, perhaps my creations will have a happier start in life than most of the humans around them. While I may not be an expert in such things, I have at least learned how to observe the actions of others, and experience may give me an edge in judging which couples are ready for little ones. Those who desire children must not bring them into our dangerous world out of a wish for a replica of themselves, a creature to mold and control, a way to achieve what they could not, or the need for something that will offer unconditional love. For that, they must look elsewhere and most likely into themselves.”

Cinnabar paused, giving him a moment to absorb it all, then continued. “ ‘The reasons for bearing young should simply be love and respect for the incipient child, and for the world they will be born into. If it took more effort to produce a child than the exercise of a moment’s lust, perhaps there might be less misery in this world. Perhaps my gryphons will be happier creatures than their creator.’ “

Cinnabar looked back up at him expectantly. Skan simply sat where he was, blinking, surrounded by silence. The sounds of the camp seemed very distant and somewhat removed from reality. Or, perhaps, eclipsed by a more important reality.

Skandranon’s internal image of Urtho had undergone multiple drastic changes over the course of the evening. But this-

Elation-and a crazy joy began to grow in him again. Simple, uncomplicated joy; the same joy that he’d had in his friendship with Urtho and had thought he had lost. This is more than I ever hoped to hear. A reason, a good one, a sound one. One even I can agree with. He wrote that in his own hand, to himself and no other. The whole secret makes sense. And look how even with all those precautions in place, a mistake can happen. One happened with Zhaneel; her parents died, and she was neglected by others who thought her to be misborn. I had no idea he had put such thought into this. . . . “Urtho is wiser than I thought,” he said at last, his voice thick with emotion that he simply could not express. “He was right to guide us so.”

“Oh, I dare say you all can do well enough on your own,” Tamsin told him, with a twinkle in his eye. “If nothing else, all this takes considerable effort on the gryphons’ part, and a pair will probably think carefully before going to all that effort.”

Skandranon squinted his eyes shut tightly and took a deep breath, then shook his body and flared his breast and back feathers. “There’s no ‘probably’ about it,” he told Tamsin, with some of his humor returning. “We can be as lazy as any other race. There will be more young, but not that many more, not at first. For one thing-with the war, there is rarely the leisure to make such extensive preparations.”

Cinnabar smiled, and nodded her understanding. Tamsin sighed. “By the way,” he said, “it’s obvious from the notes that a male or female can’t be overweight if they want to produce a youngster, and a mating flight has to be damned impressive in order to get everything moving well enough that fertility is assured. If you can’t put everything you’ve got into that flight, well, you won’t get anything out of it except a bit of exercise.” He raised his eyebrow suggestively.

“Sometimes exercise can be very beneficial,” Skan replied with dignity.

“Well,” Lady Cinnabar replied, with a face so innocent that Skan knew she was intending to prod him. “You should know. I’ve heard you’re probably the biggest expert in that type of gryphon exercise that has ever lived.”

“I?” Skan contrived to look just as innocent as she. He would never miss a chance to boast a little in good company. Anyone as well-known as he had detractors to belittle any and all of his traits; so it was up to him to say otherwise, wasn’t it? “I suppose, since I am an expert dancer, attractive, and skilled in aerobatics, you might be correct about that.”

Tamsin’s shoulders shook with silent laughter; Cinnabar simply smiled serenely and released the bit of hair she had been braiding. “I’d have been worried about you if you’d said otherwise, Skan,” she said gravely a heartbeat later. “In all of this, it would be easy to lose yourself.”

“I won’t say that I am not feeling like a feather in a gale, my Lady. But I have to maintain who and what I am. And since I am irresistible, it is only responsible for me to say so to reassure you all that I have not been overwhelmed.”

“I owe you most profound thanks, my friends,” he quickly continued, changing the subject before Cinnabar could ask him who he was supposedly irresistible to. “I could not have done this alone. And that is perhaps the first and last time you will have heard the Black Gryphon admit he could not do something.”

“Indeed!” Tamsin’s brows rose. “Quite a concession, Your Highness. We were going to ask for all your possessions as payment, but that concession is rarer than-“

Cinnabar elbowed her lover sharply. “He’s serious, dolt,” she scolded. “About the thanks, that is.”

“So much so, that I cannot think how to properly repay you,” Skan told her softly. “It will not only be me that owes you a tremendous debt, but all of us.”

But Cinnabar only shook her head. “Don’t think of it as owing anyone,” she replied. The expression in her face was affectionate. “Think of it simply as a gift between friends. Perhaps the greatest gift that we could ever give you-and it was a privilege to do so, not a burden.”

He regarded her with surprise. He had not known that she felt that way-oh, he had known that they were his friends, but he had never realized just how much that word could mean. “Why?” he asked, making no secret of his surprise.

Cinnabar looked thoughtful for a moment. “Tamsin, Amberdrake and I are greater admirers of your folk than you know, I think. It is the same with nearly all the Trondi’irn as well. One cannot deal with gryphons without feeling that admiration, there is so much about you that is good.”

Skan ground his beak, torn between pleasure and embarrassment. It was one thing for him to boast about gryphons in general and himself hi particular-it was quite another thing to hear such effusive praise coming from the sweet lips of Lady Cinnabar, who had traveled the world, been entertained in the highest Courts, and seldom praised anything or anyone.

“Still, you are an aggravating lot,” she continued, her expression lightening with mischief, “and an abundance of equally aggravating nestlings is exactly what you all deserve to teach you proper humility!”

Skan snorted and drew himself up to his full height, until his crest flattened against the canvas roof of the tent. “Indeed,” he replied. “We shall be put in our place, if you would be so kind as to teach me that ‘simple Healing spell’ of yours, then tell me what herbs are needed. I will start circulating the information among the others.”

“All ready, my friend.” Tamsin flourished a neatly-lettered paper at him. “Memorize this, follow it through to the letter, and the joys of parenthood will be yours! And any other gryphon that you want to condemn to years of nestling-feeding, baby-chasing, and endless rounds of ‘Whyyyy-yyy?’-just give them this.”

Skan took it from him, and quickly committed the contents to memory. As soon as he had finished reading it, he tucked the paper away in his neck-pouch for safekeeping. “Have either of you heard anything from the mages yet?” he asked.

Both shook their heads. “I know I won’t be able to sleep until I do,” Tamsin said in all seriousness. “What happens with the mages is very likely to affect what happens to you and the other nonhumans.”

“I know.” Skan tongued the point of his beak for a moment. “Well. I have a reasonable idea. Shall we lie in wait for Vikteren? He will want to know what happened to us as much as we want to know what happened to him.”

Tamsin rose, and offered his hand to Cinnabar. “Let’s go ambush the man.”

They found Vikteren coming to look for them, on the path halfway between the Tower and Healer’s Hill, weary and not terribly coherent. And in the end, it turned out that the resolution wasn’t much of a resolution at all. Vikteren was exhausted by the time the meeting broke up, and all he would say to them when he met them was, “Well, we have a solution of sorts. Nobody’s entirely happy, so I guess it must have been a good compromise.”

That was enough for Tamsin and Cinnabar, particularly since Cinnabar knew she would hear Urtho’s version soon enough, but not soon enough for Skan.

The young mage promised Skan an explanation after he had gotten some rest, and Skan made certain to assail him again the next day. When they headed for Zhaneel’s obstacle course, Vikteren was able to elaborate a little more on what had evidently turned out to be one of the most anarchic meetings ever perpetrated in Urtho’s ranks. “There was a lot of complaining, a lot of yelling, a lot of talking, but I can pretty much boil it down in a couple of sentences. We bitched and moaned, named names, and pointed fingers. That took up most of the night. Urtho said the mages don’t know strategy, so they’re in no position to dictate it. But he agreed that we had some points, that there were certain leaders who acted as if troops were expendable, and that he would take care of it. And in the meantime, the mages were to retain their assignments, but now to report directly to that Kaled’a’in Adept, Snowstar, who would report directly to him. That’s where we left it.” Vikteren shrugged. “Snowstar wasn’t really pleased about being appointed like that, but he’s the most organized Adept next to Urtho that I know, so I figure he’s the logical choice. He has a huge staff of attendants to keep records, and a dozen messenger-birds. Anyway, the mages bitched about so little actually being done, but the generals bitched, too, about giving up any of their power, so I guess we came out ahead.”

“I would say you did.” They settled down on a little rise in the shade. Skan had come here to watch Zhaneel again, but Vikteren was not participating in this run; she was supervising other gryphons on the obstacle course. Vikteren was not up to helping her and all these others in what was still unofficial training.

Of course, according to rumor, that would change. Trainer Shire was pushing for it, and he had the backing of some of the mages, who saw this as an excellent place to train apprentices in combative magics. But until this training became official, anything Vikteren did here was going to be with strictly limited resources.

Neither of them knew what had gone on in Zhaneel’s “little talk” with Winterhart, other than the fact that Zhaneel appeared much more confident-and that she had told Aubri that the Trondi’irn Winterhart actually “had a point” worth considering. The “point,” it seemed, was that gryphons who ‘ were unsuited to her style of attack-and-evasion tried to emulate it, and that she and the trainer needed to supervise them before they hurt themselves. So now Zhaneel actually found herself in a position of authority, which had to be a unique experience for her.

It seemed to be doing her a great deal of good, at least from what Skan could see. He observed that there were a number of positive changes in her. She walked, stood, and even flew with more confidence, more energy. She looked others straight in the eyes, even humans, to whom she had formerly deferred with abject humility. Her feathers were crisp and neatly preened, her coat shone with health.

In short, she was the most desirable creature he had ever laid eyes on in his life. However, he wasn’t the only gryphon to make that particular observation.

It did not escape his notice that the other male gryphons exerted themselves and-posed-whenever she happened to look their way. It was also apparent that she was perfectly well aware of their interest.

It was enough to make him grind his beak in frustration.

She treated them all impartially, which was some relief, but she wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to him, which was no relief at all. He was sitting quite prominently in the open, after all. He was always conspicuous to gryphons, especially in the daylight. Surely she saw him. Had she forgotten already how he had defended her to Winterhart?

“So, how are you coming with spreading your little secret around?” Vikteren asked, idly braiding grass stems into a string.

“It spreads itself,” Skan replied, watching as Zhaneel demonstrated a tuck-and-roll maneuver, and wondering if his poor flesh arid bones had healed enough to permit him to join her pupils. His dancing skills would surely help him in becoming a star pupil. What had become of that shy little gryfalcon who had so aroused his protective instincts? The instinct she aroused now was anything but protective! “I told the eight wingleaders and their mates. They in turn told four more gryphons each, and so forth. As Tamsin said, it is an absurdly simple thing, once you know how much was simple misdirection. I expect that in three days, every gryphon here will know.”

And that includes Zhaneel. But the information I want to give her-I must find a way to get her alone. I need to tell her what she really is.

“Has anyone asked how you came by this?” The young mage glanced at him sideways. “Or are you playing stupid?”

Skan laughed and raised his ear-tufts. “I seldom need to play stupid! If anyone asks, I have half a dozen different tales to explain how I learned this information. None of them are true, and all of them are plausible. The greater truth is that this is so important to us all that no one is likely to question the origin, so long as Tamsin and Cinnabar can verify that it is accurate. And it is so important that I do not believe there is a single gryphon who will even tell his hertasi that he is privy to the secret. At least, not soon. No one wishes Urtho to learn that we have this knowledge until I am ready to tell him.”

Vikteren raised both eyebrows. “So you’re the victim-sorry-the volunteer who’ll take him the bad news and get nailed to his workroom wall?”

Skandranon’s nares flushed deep red. He could have done without hearing that. “Urtho is my friend. And right or wrong, it was my idea to steal the secret. I should be the one to face Urtho, and not a messenger. The gryphons are all agreed that I will be the one to tell him that he no longer controls us through our wish for progeny. They believe I am the one who can best express this without causing him to react badly.”

“You mean, they think he’s less likely to remove portions of your hide than that of any other gryphon,” Vikteren observed. “They’re probably right.”

“I can only hope,” Skan muttered. “I can only hope.”

Will Zhaneel know where the knowledge came from when it is passed to her? He sighed. I wish I dared tell her myself. . . .

Amberdrake had taken to finding Zhaneel for a few moments every day just to talk, if he could; this evening was no exception, and this evening, for a change, he had quite a bit of free time. That was just as well; all the recent improvement in her spirits and morale had triggered a partial molt, and she had a number of new blood-feathers with feather-sheaths that needed to be flaked and preened away. He hadn’t done that for any gryphon except Skan since his days as an apprentice and a feather-painter. The simple task was oddly soothing. Feeling the hardness of the feather-shaft against the softness of the insulating down, the pulse of her heartbeat just under the deep red skin, and the incredible heat a gryphon’s body generated was always exhilarating.

“He was there again today,” Zhaneel told Amberdrake, as he helped her groom her itching feathers. “I saw him. He looked thin.”

Amberdrake did not need to ask who “he” was, and the kestra’chern smiled to think of the mighty Skandranon watching Zhaneel from afar like a lovesick brancher in a juvenile infatuation. “He is thin,” Amberdrake replied. “That’s partially because he’s recovering from his injuries. We haven’t been letting him exercise as much as he’d like; he always overstresses himself too soon after he’s been hurt. But I think he might benefit from one of your classes; should I see if he’s interested?”

Interested? He’ll probably claw his way through anyone who stands in his way to get in!

“Oh. . . .” Zhaneel’s nares paled. “I . . . he. . . .”

“Don’t let him overawe you, my dear,” Amber-drake said sharply. “He is just a gryphon, like any other. Yes, he is beautiful, but he has as many faults as he has virtues. You are an expert on these new tactics of yours. He is not.” Amberdrake tapped her gently and playfully on the beak. “Furthermore, if you are interested in him, don’t show it. He has females flinging themselves at him all the time. You need to establish yourself as different from them. Pretend you think of him with simple admiration for what he’s done, but no more.”

“I do not know. . . .” She looked at him over her shoulder, doubtfully. “I do not know that I can do that. He is Skandranon. How can I not show-“ Her nares flushed with embarrassment.

“Why not?” he countered. “Zhaneel, you are every bit as good as he is. You know that; Trainer Shire and I have told you that daily. Haven’t we?”

“Ye-es,” she said slowly.

“So just be yourself. It isn’t as hard as you might think. Haven’t you always been yourself with me? Let your respect show, and let him guess at the rest.” Amberdrake carefully crumbled a bit of feather-sheath from around a newly-emerging wing feather. “Try to think of him the way you think of all those admiring gryphons who are showing off for you on your obstacle course. You don’t treat any of them specially.”

She blinked at him in perplexity. Amberdrake sighed; lessons in the games-playing of love never went easily. It was a concept totally foreign to Zhaneel, but eventually she grasped it.

“The quail that escapes is always fatter than the one you catch,” she observed. “I will try, if you think that will work.”

“Since no one has ever succeeded in playing that particular game with Skan before, I suspect that it will,” Amberdrake replied with amusement. “And what’s more, I think it will serve him right. It will do him good to think that he suddenly can’t have any lovely lady he wants. Should surprise him that there’s one who is immune to all his charms.”

He brushed Zhaneel’s feathers down with a slightly oiled cloth, both to pick up the feather-sheath dust and to shine the feathers themselves. “There,” he said, stepping back. “You look wonderful. Sleek, tough, competent, ready for anything.”

Zhaneel bobbed her head with modest embarrassment. “Or anyone?”

He put his hand beneath her beak and raised it.

“I tell you again, you are a match for any gryphon that ever existed.” He nodded approval as she lifted her head again. “Never forget that, and remember who told you. I am a kestra’chern. I know.”

“I shall try,” she promised solemnly.

“Good.” Amberdrake tossed the cloth into a pile of things for Gesten to clean up and sort, pulled the tent flap aside, and gestured to her to walk beside him. “Care to take a stroll with me? I have time, if you do.”

But she shook her head, “I would like this, but truly, I must go. I have a mission to fly in the morning.” She glowed with pride. “A real mission, and not make work for a misborn.”

His heart plummeted. It had been so easy to think of those exercises of hers as mere games, and to forget that they were intended to make her fit for combat. It had been possible to pretend that she would never go where so many others had been lost. “A long one?” he asked, trying not to show his apprehension. There was no more reason to be apprehensive about her than about any other gryphon. Less so, in fact, for the makaar could not anticipate her moves as they could those of a gryphon with conventional training. Wasn’t that what made Skan so successful, that the makaar couldn’t anticipate what he would do next?

Nevertheless, a chill he knew only too well settled over him. That is what makes Skan so much of a target as well. Eliminate him, and you strike a terrible blow at the gryphons as a whole, for it makes them more predictable.

Once again, someone he knew and cared for would be going away, making herself into a thing the enemy could strike at and-

And this was a war, however he might like to forget the fact. It was Zhaneel’s responsibility to obey her orders, wherever they took her, a responsibility for which she had been bred and trained.

And she was so pleased, so happy about this assignment; so very proud that she had been entrusted with it. How could he spoil it with his own fears and nerves?

He couldn’t, of course. So, as always, he tried to ignore the way his insides knotted up around a ball of ice in the pit of his stomach, and smiled and praised her, as he had smiled and praised every fighter he had sent out to this war. And despite the anxiety he felt, he did mean every word.

That was his duty, his responsibility. Give them confidence; relax them. Make them forget the past if they must, and remind them of what their reasons for fighting are. Show them that they have a life beyond the fighting, a life worth saving.

“It is a high-flight mission,” Zhaneel continued, blissfully unaware of the way his heart ached, and the pain in his soul. “The place where Skandranon found those stick-things. I am to carry the thing that Urtho made, which undoes them, and fly a pattern while I make it work; the rest of Sixth Wing East is to rain them with smoke-boxes. Then the fighters come, under cover of the smoke.”

So she would be above the general level of the fighting, presumably out of reach of any ground weapons. But makaar?

They’ll have to fight their way through Sixth Wing to get to her, he reminded himself. She’s carrying one of Urtho’s magic boxes, which makes her nonexpendable. They’ll protect her.

If they can. If the makaar don’t get through. If the magic really does work on those lightning-sticks.

If, if, if. Who commanded this mission anyway? If it was General Shaiknam-then even carrying a precious magical artifact, Zhaneel was considered expendable by virtue of the fact that she was a gryphon.

“Urtho planned this,” Zhaneel continued, thereby easing some of his unspoken fears. “He commands the mission, and General Sulma Farle is the field commander. And I am to carry the magic thing because I have true hands to make it work. If it is triggered too far away, it will not work, Urtho says.”

“Then fly high and well, warrior,” Amberdrake told her, patting her shoulder with expertly simulated confidence. “I shall have fresh fish waiting for your return, and a victory feast.”

Zhaneel’s tiny ear-tufts rose at that. “Fresh fish?” she said, clicking her beak in anticipation. “Truly?” She adored fresh fish-by which she meant, still alive-and liked it better when they wiggled as she swallowed them. Where she had acquired this particular taste, Amberdrake could not imagine; most gryphons preferred raw, red meat, and none but she liked their fish still living.

Maybe there’s some osprey in her somewhere. Or there are some eagles that have a liking for fish. Or maybe it is only because it is Zhaneel. “Truly,” he promised. “A victory feast between friends, though I shall have my fish nicely cooked.”

Zhaneel made a little hiss of distaste to tease him, but readily agreed to the celebration.

What Amberdrake had not told her was that it was not going to be a victory dinner for two, but for four. Zhaneel, himself, Gesten-and Skandranon. Though he would not tell Skan either. This should be very amusing, at the very least, and with luck it would come off well.

Now let her only survive this, he thought, as he saw her off to her roost for the night. Let her only survive this. . . .

Zhaneel held the precious box between her fore-claws, although it was quite securely fastened to her elaborate harness by clips and straps so that it did not interfere with her flying in any way. Her orders from Urtho had been quite detailed and just as specific. She must come in very high, far above the rest of the Sixth Wing; she must then dive as steeply as she could, then level off at about treetop height, making a fast pass above the heads of Ma’ar’s troopers, and press the catch that opened the bottom of the box as she did so.

A spy had confirmed that lightning-sticks had been distributed to the fighters. Urtho had told her before she left-Urtho himself!-that the thing in the box was something like a lantern, and its “light” would make the lightning-sticks useless as its rays fell on them. She would have to make several passes in order to be certain of getting most of the lightning-sticks, and each time he wanted her to come in from high above at great speed-hopefully so great that no one could train his weapons on her in time, and no makaar would be swift enough to follow. Like a peregrine falcon on a flock of ducks-or a merlin harassing pigeons.

It would take several passes to be certain of most of the lightning-sticks, for the box was useless past a certain range. And even Urtho was not sure how many passes it would take to neutralize the bulk of them. It depended on how closely the troops had been packed together, and whether Ma’ar’s mages had put shielding on the sticks themselves, or those who carried them.

It would likely be on the stick. Ma’ar would not care if the man survived, so long as the stick did.

The box would work through a shield, Urtho was confident of that. He’d warned her not to use any spells if she had them, saying the box was simply a thing that negated the controlling force on magic. It would negate the shield as well as the stick’s power pent within. The trick was, he couldn’t anticipate the effect of two spells being negated at the same time. He had used the only example of the stick that they had in making certain the box worked at a reasonable distance. Zhaneel had seen the effect of that-not much. A little light, and that was all.

But there were easily twenty types of shields, Urtho had said, and the troops could possibly be protected by a barrier-shield, a force deflector, a pain-bringer, or a concussion field-the complex interaction of three spells could not be anticipated without knowing what kind of shield Ma’ar would use.

Whatever it is, I do not think it will affect us. Unless it unleashes winds. That could happen. I must anticipate that. Or great light that might blind us; I must think of that as well.

They neared the target; Zhaneel signaled her flight and took herself high up above the clouds, so high that the other gryphons of her wing were scarcely more than ranks of dots below her, even to her keen eyes. Wisps of clouds passed between her and them. The sun overhead scorched her outstretched wings and back, but the wind bit bitterly against her nares, her underbelly, and her foreclaws.

The precious box protected her chest from the wind, but the icy currents chilled her throat and her breath only warmed when it reached her lungs. Was she high enough? The air was very thin up here, and her lungs and wings burned with the effort of staying aloft.

Soon enough, though, she would be a spear from the heavens. They neared their objective, Laisfaar at the Pass of Stelvi. Zhaneel had never seen the town when it had been in Urtho’s hands, but she had been told that the invaders had wrought terrible changes there.

They bring terrible change wherever they go; why should here be any different?

There had been gryphons here. Well, she knew well enough what Ma’ar’s forces did to gryphons. They had assuredly done such terrible things to her own parents. . . .

Reason enough to hate the creatures below. Reason enough to wish that what she carried might do terrible things to them.

It was time; she swept her wings back slowly.

There! There was the Pass, and below it, Ma’ar’s troops, a moving blotch upon the land below her fellows of the wing. Black makaar labored up from their perches on the heights, a swarm of evil. They rose like biting flies to attack the oncoming forces, to pull the gryphons to the ground where the men there could capture them in cruel wire nets, and stab them with terrible, biting spears.

The men below. Who have the lightning-sticks.

She folded her wings, and dropped like a stone from heaven, foreclaws clutched around the precious weapon the Mage of Silence had entrusted to her.

Faster, faster; the wind of her dive pressed against her as the earth rose up in her eyes, and it seemed as if the earth was trying to pull her down and swallow her. She narrowed her eyes and kept her wings pulled in tightly against her body, guiding herself with a tiny flick of a primary, a movement of the tail, even a single claw outstretched for a fraction of a heartbeat. The other gryphons could not spare an eye for her; she must watch out for them. She must avoid them as she lanced through the center of their formation; this would take timing of the most delicate kind, and the control of the best.

But not for nothing had she danced her dance of speed and skill against the imaginary enemies of her obstacle course. Even as the makaar closed with the leaders, she shot arrow-swift straight past makaar and gryphon alike, unstoppable.

The ground rushed at her.

Now!

Zhaneel arched her neck and fanned her wings open, feeling them vibrate as if the mountains themselves pushed her toward the ground as she strained. By treetop height she had changed her angle just enough to pull out of the dive, but she was still streaking almost as rapidly as her initial stooping dive. And her foreclaws tightened, opening the shutter on Urtho’s magic box, as she skimmed over the heads of the fighters-who were nothing but so many uptilted heads, and round, open mouths to her, passing below in a blur.

Her course took her straight for the cliff, and she headed for it unswervingly. These fighters did not seem to have the magic sticks, but the ones between this lot and the cliff could-

An explosion of-not light, but actual fire!-flashed up at her from below, startling her, causing her to veer and slow a trifle. What was that? Did Ma’ar have some new weapon to use against her?

Taking no chances, she aborted the run, closing the shutter and shooting skyward again, opening her wings as she pumped furiously, laboring back up above the clouds to her position of superiority.

Only then did she look down, to focus on the place where the fire had come from.

The ground there was littered with blackened bodies, most of them still afire, and they did not move-while the troops around that area tried to flee.

Slowly, the answer came to her. Ma’ar shielded these new weapons of his, just as we thought he might. And Urtho said he could not tell what canceling two such spells would do . . . perhaps the shield holds just enough that it contains the force of the lightning-stick and turns it into a fireball.

Savage joy filled her heart as she realized the havoc she could wreak among her enemies, and she folded her wings again.

This time they saw her coming; pointing, running, they tried to evade her. She knew what was in their minds. They thought that it was the box she carried that was the source of the attack on them, and not the properties of one of the weapons they themselves carried. Zhaneel quickly learned the range of the “light” as she purposefully pursued the fleeing men, rising into the sky only to descend again, leaving fire, death, and terror in her wake.

Her heart pounded with lust and excitement; the blood sang in her veins. Makaar tried to stop her, but she was too swift for them. Either they fell by the wayside, or they got too close to her, and she sent them tumbling injured out of the sky, slashed by one of her wicked hindfeet, to be finished off by one of the other gryphons. When they tried to set an ambush for her, the others broke it up. When makaar tried to get above her, the cold and thin air drove them back down, gasping for breath.

Again and again, she made her runs, as flashes of orange and blossoming flames traced her path on the ground, and her fellow gryphons pursued the makaar pursuing her. But finally, there were no more of those explosions, and the makaar turned tail and ran, their numbers depleted to less than half of those that had risen to fight off the gryphons.

Zhaneel’s instincts screamed at her to pursue the makaar, but she remembered her orders, and fought the impulse, taking herself and her burden up into the clouds again, where the makaar could not go. Now was her moment of retreat, and the Sixth Wing’s moment of glory. It was time for the other gryphons to detach the canisters on the harnesses around their shoulders and drop them, creating a pall of choking smoke to confuse the enemy. The few mages below would be trying to negate the “magical attack” of Urtho’s box, not knowing it would simply negate any spell they threw at her. They would assume that the smoke was magical in nature as well, and waste precious time trying to destroy an “illusion” or cancel out a smoke-spell. By the time they realized that it was real smoke and called up winds to disperse it, it would be too late.

She would not be there to see the result. Urtho’s orders were specific. When there are no more fighters carrying lightning-sticks, return home.

Perhaps Skandranon might have ignored those orders to fight makaar, but as Zhaneel reached her altitude again, the elation and battle-lust drained away, leaving her only weary and ready to drop and perch at the first possible moment. Her wings ached; holding them tight and steady against her dives, over and over again, had taken a toll of her muscles that not even preparation and strengthening on the obstacle course had prepared her for. Her neck and back felt strained, and she longed for a high peak, where she could rest for just a moment. . . .

No rest, not now. No telling who is watching, and one gryphon with a magic box is no match for Ma’ar or another Great Mage! And he will want you, little gryphon, for spoiling his lovely lightning-sticks and hurting his fighters. Fly fast, Zhaneel! If you are lucky, he will not track you!

Now fear, which battle-heat had kept away for so long, set hard, cold claws into her, and gave her wings new strength. How far could Ma’ar scry? Would he know to look for one particular gryphon? Would he look high, or among the others? Would he look for one lone gryphon, retreating?

No way to tell, Zhaneel. The only escape is to fly, fly, fly away, back to Urtho and his shields, his mages!

Her wings pumped, her lungs labored, and she cast a look behind her.

Smoke rose above the battlefield, thick and white, obscuring everything to the rear. Under the cover of that smoke, Urtho’s ground-fighters Gated in to retake Stelvi Pass.

And behind her, below her, just above the level of the smoke, were little dots of brown and gold, blue-gray and white, moving in her direction. The gryphons of Sixth Wing, properly deployed, turning to follow her home, their job done as well.

Ma’ar had more things to think about than one little gray gryphon, swiftly winging her way back to his enemy’s home. Urtho had sent enough troops to take Stelvi Pass without the devastating effect of the explosions Zhaneel had inadvertently set off. Now, the fighters of the Sixth would be encountering a demoralized and frightened enemy, as well as one confused by the smoke.

Her fear ebbed, and she slowed to let her fellows catch up with her. Yes, Ma’ar had more than enough on his hands at the moment; he would not waste scrying on her. Her task was over, but the reclaiming of Laisfaar had only begun. She and the others would learn the end of it with everyone else, and not until it was long over. But their chances were good, and the odds were with them to win this one.

And at the moment, that is enough.

Twelve

Winterhart paused at the threshold of Amberdrake’s tent, squinting out into the sunlight. Amberdrake dropped his hand down onto her shoulder, in a gesture meant to convey comfort and support.

“Remember,” he said. “Right now nothing that you or I will do can change the outcome of what’s happening with the Sixth. If you did everything in your power to get each and every gryphon ready for this, then you have contributed enough. And if you have prepared for the worst case you can imagine, then you are ready for their return. No one could expect any more than that; only the gods have the ability to do more.”

“I know, I mean, my head knows, but-“ Winterhart began.

“Then listen to your head, and stop thinking you have to be superhuman.” He patted her shoulder once, and then gave her a little nudge in the direction of the path to the gryphons’ landing field. “They’ll be coming back soon, I think.”

“Right. And-thank you, Amberdrake. For the advice as well as the massage.” Winterhart smiled wanly, but it was a real smile, and one of the few he had seen on her face. It was a start, at any rate.

She took herself off, and Amberdrake dropped the tent flap as soon as Winterhart was out of sight, sighed, and retreated to the comforting surroundings of his private quarters. Once there, he flung himself down on his bed, and performed the little mental exercises that allowed him to relax each and every muscle in his back and neck without benefit of a massage.

Not that I wouldn’t love one, but I don’t have time to call in any favors right now. Not and still get my little “victory feast” together.

He still had his share to do, though the bulk of that preparation had fallen, as always, on the capable shoulders of Gesten. They had raided Amberdrake’s hoard of tokens to prepare for this, but it had been Gesten who had done the truly impossible when it came to the feast itself. He had found a party of convalescing fighters willing and able to go hunting and fishing in exchange for those tokens, and now there was a prime raebuck waiting for Skan, a tub full of moon-trout for Zhaneel, and, most precious of all, a covey of fat young quail as appetizers before the main course. Amberdrake could not recall the last time he had seen a quail in the camp, and he had purloined one of them for his meal without a blush. And for Gesten, the hunters had picked a basket full of the succulent sponge-mushrooms that the hertasi prized so much. It would, indeed, be a feast, and a welcome change for all of them from camp-rations. Skan had assured him any number of times that different creatures tasted differently, even to a carnivore that did not cook or season its meals, and that he and every other gryphon grew as tired of the taste of herd beasts as any soldier grew of field rations.

But before he could do anything, Winterhart had had a therapy session scheduled, the last one of the day before the feast. She was making progress, both physically and mentally, but with all of the Sixth Wing gone, Winterhart had nothing to do. And that meant that she started thinking. . . .

She needs to think less, and act more. That was just one of her many, many problems. She thought too much, and there were times when she became paralyzed with indecision as one possibility after another occurred to her. Those were the times when she was most vulnerable to anyone who would come along and give her orders-for if she followed someone else’s orders, she could not be blamed if something went wrong. Or so her insidious little circle of reasoning went.

So seldom did Winterhart do anything on impulse that she literally could not recall the last time she had followed such a course.

Or so she says. Then again, given what I surmise of her upbringing, it probably is true.

Part of that was due in no small part to that lover of hers-better say, “bedmate,” since love had very little to do with that relationship-the Sixth Wing mage, Conn Levas.

Amberdrake still had no more idea of how she had come to be involved with that selfish bastard than he did of how she had come by a Kaled’a’in name when she was no more Kaled’a’in than Lady Cinnabar was. Information about her past came in tiny bits, pieces that she let loose with extreme reluctance.

He had guesses, that was all. Everything about Winterhart that showed on the surface was an illusion, a mask intended to keep the observer from asking questions.

She was not Kaled’a’in, but she knew enough about them to choose an appropriate Kaled’a’in name-since most of the Trondi’irn were Kaled’a’in, having such a name would tend to keep a casual acquaintance (which was all she allowed) from asking why she had chosen such a service. That made him think she must have had exposure to the Kaled’a’in in the past.

She had parents who had expected the infinite of her, and would reward nothing less. Hence the self-expectation that she must be superhuman.

She had impeccable manners.

That, in and of itself, was interesting, for she tried to pretend that she was nothing more than an ordinary Trondi’irn. Whatever their virtues, the Kaled’a’in did not cultivate the kind of manners that the elite of Urtho’s land learned as a matter of course. She tried to act as much like Conn Levas and his ilk as she could. But it was an act, and it slipped when she was under stress. She had to think in order to act “thoughtlessly.” Insults did not fall easily from her lips, and she could not bring herself to curse under any circumstance whatsoever.

In short, whenever she did not think she was observed, or when she was under stress, she acted like a lady.

In a camp where it was often difficult to find the time to bathe thoroughly and regularly, she was immaculate at all times.

In an army where no one cared if your uniform was a little shabby, hers looked as if it had been newly issued, neatly pressed, pristine.

And far more to the point, she had “the manner born.” She carried herself as if she never doubted her own authority, nor that she had the right to that authority.

To Amberdrake’s mind, that spelled out only one thing.

Far from being the commoner she pretended to be, she was of noble birth, perhaps as high as Cinnabar’s. That might be why she avoided Cinnabar’s presence as much as possiWe. If the Lady ever got a good look at her, long enough for unconscious mannerisms to show through the Trondi’irn’s carefully cultivated facade, Winterhart’s ruse might well be over. One could change one’s face, gain weight or lose it, alter clothing and hair with the exchange of a little coin, but habits and mannerisms often proved impossible to break.

Then again, Cinnabar is the soul of discretion. She might already have recognized Winterhart, and she’s keeping quiet about it. If there were no compelling reasons to unmask Winterhart, Cinnabar would probably let things stand.

Now that he came to think about it, ever since he had begun Winterhart’s treatments, Lady Cinnabar had been very silent on the subject of that particular Trondi’irn. This despite Cinnabar’s intervention at the time of the “hertasi incident.” The Healer had been as angry as anyone else over Winterhart’s parroted orders, but since then she had not said a word about Winterhart even when others discussed something she had said or done. Perhaps Cinnabar recognized her, or perhaps not; in any event, the Lady was a powerful enough Empath as well as a Healer to realize, once she had been around the Trondi’irn for any length of time, how much of Winterhart’s coldness was due to emotional damage and fear.

Little by little, she reveals herself to me, as she begins to trust me. But I think this may be the most difficult case I have ever dealt with. Zhaneel was simple in comparison; she only needed to learn how outstanding she was, and to be given a way to succeed on her own terms. Once she had those, she blossomed. Winterhart has so pent herself up that I do not even know who she truly is, only what the facade and the cracks in it tell me. Winterhart is afraid, every moment of her life, and she has yet to show me what she is afraid of.

Maybe that was why she had taken Conn Levas into her bed. The man was appallingly simple to understand.

Simply give him everything he wants, and he is happy to let you have an identity as “his woman.” He is protection, of a sort, because he is so possessive about everything he thinks is his. He doesn’t even know she isn’t a Kaled’a’in. He thinks she is, just because of the name, that’s how unobservant he is.

Then again, that was simply a reflection of what Amberdrake already knew. A mercenary mage, in this war only for the pay, would have to be unobservant. Anyone who could even consider being in the pay of Ma’ar would have to be completely amoral.

But Conn Levas was incidental to the puzzle. Amberdrake laid his forearm across his eyes for a moment, and tried to put the pieces he had so far into some kind of an arrangement. When she joined the army, it had to be for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is yet. But she joined it under a cloud of fear, terrified that her identity would be revealed, even though, since she is very intelligent, she must have chosen the profession of Trondi’irn because it was utterly unlike anything else she had been known for in her previous identity. She may also have taken that position because of another fear; the Trondi’irn do not normally go anywhere near the front lines. I know that fighting terrifies her. I know that she is horribly afraid of what Ma’ar and his mages can do.

He had seen her in the grip of that fear himself, more than once, when the two of them had been together at a moment when news came in from the front lines. She controlled herself well, but there was always an instant when absolute terror painted her features with a different kind of mask than the facade of coldness she habitually wore.

So, when Conn Levas propositioned her, it must have seemed sent from the gods. Perhaps he even wooed, charmed her. I am certain that he has the ability to do just that, when he chooses. He had a position with Sixth Wing; so would she. He had an identity that no one questioned; so would she, as “his woman.” No one would ask her anything personal. And she could do her job among the gryphons impersonally-after all, they were “obviously” nothing more than sophisticated animals. She could deal with them on terms that cost her nothing, other than a bit of energy.

That was where Zhaneel had inadvertently shaken up her world as much as Amberdrake had. The gryfalcon had forced Winterhart to accept the fact that the gryphons in her charge were not “sophisticated animals” with limited ability to ape human speech-for she had tried to convince herself that they were only something a little larger than a messenger-bird, but along the same lines.

But Zhaneel changed all that. Zhaneel showed her in no uncertain terms that these charges of hers were people. And she had an obligation to them, to see that they received treatment as such, with consideration, politeness, and decency. She had an obligation to act as their advocate to the commander of Sixth Wing.

She was in every way as responsible for them as their commander was.

She had not wanted to know that; it was putting stresses on her that showed up when she came to get her treatments for her back from Amberdrake. So long as the gryphons had not been “people” to her, she had been able to cope. Now they were real to her, as they had not been before. Now she had to look at them and know there were personalities there behind the beaks and alien eyes, personalities like those of every human in the ranks. She was sending people off into the war to be swallowed up, and she could no longer ignore that fact. She had begun to feel again, and ironically, it was that very fact that was sending tremors through her relationship with her lover. As long as she had not been able to feel, she did not care what he did to her, said to her, or how he treated her. Now she did care, and she was no longer giving him the absolute deference he required. That much came through in the edited things that she told Amberdrake.

Circumstances have been keeping them separated quite a bit, but once this operation is over, he’ll be back, wanting “his rights.” She’s not going put up with his arrogance and indifference to her feelings anymore; she is bound to break off with him. I don’t think she’s been sleeping with him much even when he’s in camp; maybe she’s been finding reasons to avoid their tent. I wonder if I should see if he’s been going to any of the perchi? Or should I stay out of it?

It was hard to tell; this was not the usual client-kestra’chern relationship, and had not been since the beginning. And of the two people in the relationship, only one was currently his client. How much interference was too much? When did “need to know” end and “snooping” begin?

And she was so profoundly damaged, so terribly brittle. A confrontation with Conn Levas would shatter her, for he would not hesitate to use the most hurtful things he could think of against her. Yet, under her fragility, there was a core of strength that he would like to have the privilege of calling on, from time to time. He needed a confidant as much as she did, and he had the feeling that once she sorted herself out, she would be able to fill that need better than anyone he knew. He sensed that he could trust her, and there were not many people that a kestra’chern could trust. All too often, the profession became a bone of contention, or a cause for derision. But somehow he knew that Winterhart would never do that to him; no matter what, she would keep the things she knew would hurt the most under the tightest control.

He knew that. Even though he couldn’t have told why he was so certain about it.

This end of camp was very quiet, unusually so for the middle of the day. Off in the distance, he heard a sergeant bellowing orders, but here there was scarcely more than the chattering of messenger-birds and the occasional rattle of equipment. He guessed that most of the other kestra’chern had opted for a nap, in anticipation of being needed when the Sixth returned. Well, all this thinking is not getting the dinner taken care of. And I do have my share of it to do!

He was as relaxed as he was going to get, and the tension-headache that had threatened to bloom while he was counseling Winterhart had gone away.

He took his arm away from his eyes and rolled off the bed. Time to get to work. First thing; find out what was happening with the Sixth and the attempt to retake Stelvi Pass. If all went well, the first gryphons from Sixth Wing, Zhaneel leading, should be coming back about now. But there would be more than enough folk crowding the landing field at the moment, and this was not supposed to be a mission whose purpose was widely known. No point in making a spectacle when someone might make some inferences.

So-find a messenger-bird, or appropriate one.

The birds were easy enough to come by most times; they swarmed the camp, and all you had to do to attract one was to scatter some of their favorite seed on the ground and wait. Amberdrake didn’t need the services of a bird often, but he did have a small store of the succulent sunseeds handy, since people liked the savory seeds as well as the little birds did. And Amberdrake was no exception to that liking.

He had a bag in his quarters, next to the bed; he dug out a handful, and took the fat, striped seeds to the cleared area in front of the tent, where he scattered them in a patch of sunlight. A few moments later, he had his choice of a dozen birds, all patterned in every color imaginable. They pounced on the seeds with chortles and chirps, making a racket all out of proportion to their small size.

He watched them for a moment, trying to pick out a smart one, then chose a clever little fellow whose colors of red and black with vivid blue streaks in his hackles made him easy to see at a distance. He whistled to it and leaned down to extend his hand, sending it a little tendril of comforting thought to attract it. The bird hopped onto his outstretched hand with no sign of fear and waited for his orders, cocking its head sideways to look at him.

While these were not the altered birds of prey favored by the Kaled’a’in, they were able to respond fairly well to limited mental commands. Amberdrake held the bird so that he could look directly into one bright bronze eye, and made his orders as simple as he could.

:Go to gryphon-field. Wait for gryphons. Look for this one-: He mentally sent an image of Zhaneel. :Listen, return, and repeat what you heard.:

That last was a fairly common order, when someone wanted to know what was going on in another part of the camp. The birds could recall and repeat several sentences, and the odds were good that at least one of those sentences would give some idea of what was happening at a distant location. And if it didn’t-well you could send the bird back to eavesdrop some more.

The bird flew off, lumbering away rather like a beetle. They weren’t strong flyers, and they were fairly noisy about it; their wings whirred with the effort of keeping their plump little bodies aloft, and they usually chirped or screeched as they flew. So if you didn’t want anyone to know what you were about, you had plenty of warning before you actually saw a messenger-bird arrive to snoop. But many people made pets of specific birds, as much for their engaging personalities and clownish antics as for their usefulness, so you had to really go to an extraordinary amount of effort to avoid them.

There would, without a doubt, be hundreds of birds waiting at the gryphons’ landing field. Although it was supposed to be something of a secret that the Sixth Wing was going to try to retake Stelvi Pass, enough people knew that the area would look as if the birds had learned of a major sunseed spill there. That was the discreet way of learning about something the outcome of which was supposed to be a secret; send a bird to watch, rather than looking around yourself.

And I am nothing if not discreet.

Well, now that he had a winged informant aloft, it was time to get on with the dinner itself. The preparations on his part were fairly simple, since a dinner with gryphons was by necessity informal. He cleared the front of the tent of everything except the piles of pillows. He saved one each for himself and Gesten, and arranged the rest in two gryphon-sized “couches.” On the rugs in front of these he placed waterproof tarpaulins; gryphons were not neat eaters.

The buck, the quail, and the tub of trout were behind the tent, and Gesten was seeing to the cooking of his mushrooms and Amberdrake’s quail. He had hinted that he would see to a few more small culinary surprises. So that much was taken care of.

Amberdrake changed into his Kaled’a’in festival clothing; the real thing this time, and not the fancy kestra’chern fakery. A silk shirt, leather tunic and tight breeches, both beaded and fringed, and knee-high fringed boots. It was amazing how comfortable the leathers and silks felt, and how simply shedding his “identity” of Amberdrake the Kestra’chern made him relax a little further.

I wonder if Winterhart has ever actually seen Kaled’a’in festival clothing-or if she is only familiar with what we would wear to blend in with folk from outClan?

He was tying up his hair when the chattering of the messenger-bird brought him to the front of his tent.

He held up his hand, his eyes straining to spot the red dot of the bird against the bright sky. The little red-and-black creature whirred in, and back-winged to a landing on his finger, still chattering at a high rate of speed. He placed one hand on its back to calm it, and it fell silent for a moment.

As he took his hand away, it muttered to itself a little, then began repeating what it had heard. Although its voice was very much that of a bird, the cadences and accents were readily identifiable as individual people. Sometimes the clever little things could imitate a favorite person so well that you would swear the person it was imitating was there before you.

But the first thing that the bird produced was a series of crowd noises, among which a few phrases were discernible. “She’s exhausted.” “Get water!” “It isss all rrright-“ this last obviously being Zhaneel.

Then the voice of Trainer Shire. “Zhaneel, I have a link to Urtho here, can you give him a quick report?”

The bird spoke again in Zhaneel’s voice, her sibilants hissed and r’s rolled, much as Skan spoke when he was agitated or weary. “The box hasss worrrrked. It made explossssionssss, and killed many, ssso the sssticksss mussst have been sssshielded. Therrrre arrre injurrrred gryphonssss, but no dead. The ssssmoke wasss ssssprrreading when we rrrreturrrned, and the fighterrrsss moving in. The rrressst follow me.”

The bird imitated the sound of a cheering crowd with uncanny accuracy, Zhaneel saying that she was fine and would take care of herself, and the voice of Winterhart countermanding that, and ordering hertasi to be in readiness for injured gryphons coming in.

Amberdrake very nearly cheered himself; he gave the little bird his reward of fruit and sent him off to rejoin his flock with such elation that he came close to giving the bird more fruit than it could carry away. He did kiss it, an endearment which the little clown accepted with a chortle, returning the caress with its mobile tongue.

Zhaneel would be along after she made her longer report to Urtho in person, rested, and cleaned herself up a bit. Skan was due before she arrived; Amberdrake had decided to get the Black Gryphon settled first. Skan did not know that Zhaneel was the guest of honor at this feast; he thought it was simply a whim of Amberdrake’s.

In a short time the camp was alive with rumors, a steady hum of conversation coming from everywhere. Amberdrake knew that Skan, if he had not been at the landing field, would surely be in the thick of things and have all the news by the time he arrived.

Gesten arrived even before Skan, pulling a laden cart. Amberdrake raised an eyebrow at that; he was not particularly concerned with the cost in tokens, but where in a war camp had the hertasi found so much in the way of treats?

Never mind. Better not to ask. There were always those who had hoards of rarities, and were willing to part with them for a price. And tokens for the kestra’chern were prized possessions. Eventually, in an irony that Amberdrake certainly appreciated, there was no doubt that a fair number of those tokens would find their way back to his coffers, anyway.

“Skan’s on the way,” Gesten said, as Amber-drake hurried to give him a hand. “I’ve got some real goodies in here. Hope he appreciates ‘em.”

“Save the best for Zhaneel, she deserves it,” Amberdrake told him with amusement.

“Huh. Got a couple things for you, too, Drake. And don’t tell me you don’t need a treat, you’ve been wearing yourself out between that Winterhart, Zhaneel, and the Black Boy.” Gesten pushed the cart to the back wall of the “public” room, and opened it up. “Look here-fresh nut-bread, good cheese, an’ not that tasteless army stuff, a nice mess of vegetables, pastry, eels for Zhaneel, an’ heart for Skan. Couldn’t ask for better.”

“I have to agree to that,” Amberdrake replied, a little dazed. “I don’t think I want to know where you got most of that.”

“Legally,” the hertasi said, turning up his snout saucily. “So none of your lip.”

“What about lip?” Skan said, pushing aside the tent flap. “Is Drake trying to give you excuses about why he can’t have a proper meal for a change?”

“Oh, you know Drake,” the hertasi replied before Amberdrake could even say a word in his own defense. “If no one else has something, he doesn’t think he should have it either. Martyr, martyr, martyr.”

“That is not true,” Amberdrake replied, going straight over to the cart and popping a bit of pastry into his mouth to prove Gesten wrong. “It is only that I do not think that I should take advantage of my position to indulge myself alone.”

“Oh?” Skan chuckled. “And what do you call this?”

“Indulging a client,” Amberdrake told him promptly. “You are one of my clients, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes-“

“And you have been undergoing a prolonged and painful convalescence, haven’t you?”

“Well, yes-“

“And you do deserve a bit of indulgence, don’t you?”

Skan coughed. “Well, I happen to-“

“There, you see?” Amberdrake turned to Gesten in triumph. “Moral indulgence!”

“My eye,” the hertasi replied, chuckling, and began taking things out of the cart. Skan eyed the heart appreciatively and moved a little nearer.

“Away from that, you!” Gesten slapped his beak. “That’s your dessert. And stop drooling.”

“I wasn’t drooling!” Skan replied with indignation. “I never drool!”

It was on the tip of Amberdrake’s tongue to say, “not even over Zhaneel?” but that would spoil the surprise. So he winked at Gesten, and gave the hertasi a hand in unloading the gloriously laden cart, while Skan stood by and made helpful comments.

“I hope you weren’t planning on eating right away,” Amberdrake said, as Skan settled down on his pile of pillows. “This is a little early for me, and I’d rather appreciate good food with a good appetite.”

“Oh, I can wait,” the Black Gryphon replied lazily. “Besides, by now everyone knows about the operation at Stelvi and I expect you want to hear how the Sixth did.”

“I’m sure you’d tell us even if we didn’t care,” Gesten sniped. “But since we do care, you might as well give us the benefit of your superior oration.” Skandranon pretended to be offended for just a moment, then tossed a pillow at him, which Gesten ducked expertly. “You cannot spoil my mood, I am feeling far too pleased. The Sixth has retaken the Pass. The messages are in from the mages, and the town is back in our hands.” He continued at length, with as much detail as Amberdrake could have wished for, then concluded, “But I have saved the best for last.” His eyes gleamed with malicious enjoyment. “General Shaiknam and Commander Garber have been placed on ‘detached duty for medical reasons,’ and General Farle has been given the Sixth Wing as a reward for successfully commanding them in this operation-and for, I quote, ‘appropriate and strategic use of the air forces’ end quote.”

“Meaning the gryphons,” Amberdrake said with pleasure. “Including Zhaneel.”

It was not his imagination; Skan’s nostrils flared at the sound of her name, and his nares flushed a deep scarlet.

He was going to probe a little further, but a shadow fell upon the closed flap of the tent. “Ah, here is our fourth guest,” he said instead, and rose and went to the door of the tent himself. “Lovely lady,” he said, bowing and gesturing for Zhaneel to come in, “you brighten our company with your presence.”

Zhaneel was looking very lovely, if rather tired; Winterhart must have helped her with her grooming. But then, since Zhaneel had been ordered to report directly to Urtho before she came here, the Trondi’irn would have taken pains to make her look especially good, at least to human eyes.

From the stunned expression on Skan’s face, she looked especially good to gryphon eyes as well.

She stepped inside, and only then did she see who was waiting there. She froze in place, and Amberdrake put one hand on her shoulder to keep her from fleeing.

“You know Gesten, of course,” he said quickly, “and this, as you know, is Skandranon-I do not believe you have actually been introduced, but as I recall, he gave you some good advice on the disposition of a valor-token.”

Amberdrake had no difficulty in reading Skan’s eyes. I’ll get you for this one, Drake. Well, this was fair return for the false impression that Skan had given poor little Zhaneel-however well the whole affair had turned out, he owed Skan for that one.

“I took the liberty of adding him to your victory dinner, Zhaneel,” he added. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

“No,” she replied faintly. “Of course not.”

But to her credit, she did not bolt, she did not become tongue-tied-in fact, she recovered her poise in a much shorter time than he would have thought. She blinked once or twice, then moved forward into the room, and took her place on the pile of pillows that Amberdrake pointed out to her.

Skan recovered some, but by no means all, of his aplomb. As the dinner progressed, he was much quieter than usual, leaving most of the conversation to Amberdrake and Gesten. Zhaneel managed to seem friendly toward Skan, and full of admiration, but not particularly overwhelmed by him, an attitude that clearly took him rather aback.

As darkness fell, and Gesten got up to light the lamps, she seemed to relax quite a bit. Of course, these were familiar surroundings to her by now, and perhaps that helped put her at ease. Before the dinner was over, Skan did manage to ask if she would accept him into one of her training classes, subject, of course, to Amberdrake’s approval-

“He’s my Healer, you know,” Skan added hastily. “Best gryphon-Healer there is.”

He fell silent then, as Amberdrake grinned. “Why, thank you, Skan,” the kestra’chern replied. “I personally think you’re more than overdue for some retraining, if Zhaneel is willing to accept someone who’s as likely to give her arguments as not.”

“I should be pleased,” she said with dignity, as her eyes caught the light of the lamps. “Skandranon is wise enough to know that one does not argue with the trainer on the field, I think.”

Her nares were flushed, but in the dim light of the tent, only Amberdrake was near enough to notice. “Did you know that General Farle is being given command of the Sixth?” he asked, changing the subject. “Skan brought us the news.”

“No!” she exclaimed, with delight and pleasure. “But that is excellent! Most excellent indeed! He is a good commander; most went according to plan, there were no missed commands, and when things happened outside of the plan, General Farle had an answer for them.”

“That leaves Shaiknam and Garber at loose ends, though,” Gesten put in, his voice full of concern. “I don’t know, I just don’t like thinking of those two with nothing to do but think about how they’ve been wronged.”

“But they haven’t been,” Skandranon protested. “They retain their rank, they retain all their privileges; they simply do not have a command anymore.”

“Which means they have no power,” Gesten countered. “They have no prestige. They messed up, and everyone knows it. They’ve been shamed, they’ve lost face. That’s a dangerous mood for a man like Shaiknam to be in.”

Amberdrake only shrugged. “Dangerous if he still had any power, or any kind of following-but he doesn’t, and thinking of him is spoiling my appetite. General Shaiknam will descend to his deserved obscurity with or without us, so let’s forget him.”

“I second that motion,” Skan rumbled, and applied himself to his coveted heart, as Zhaneel ate her eels.

And yet, somehow, despite his own words, Amberdrake could not forget the General-

or his well-deserved reputation for vindictiveness.

Skandranon ached in every muscle, and he needed more than a bath, he needed a soak to get the mud and muck out of his feathers. But that was not why he came looking for Amberdrake, hoping that his friend was between appointments. Drake wasn’t in the “public” portion of his tent, but the disheveled state of the place told Skan that the kestra’chern had been there so short a time ago that Gesten hadn’t had time to tidy up.

As it happened, luck was with him; Drake was lying on a heap of pillows in his own quarters, looking about the same way that Skan felt, when the gryphon poked his nose through the slit in the partition.

“Thunderheads!” Skan exclaimed. “Who’ve you been wrestling with? Or should I ask ‘what’ rather than ‘who’? You look like you’ve been fighting the war by yourself!”

“Don’t ask,” Amberdrake sighed, levering himself up off the bed. “It isn’t what you think. You don’t look much better.” The kestra’chern pulled sweaty hair out of his eyes, and regarded Skan with a certain weary amusement. “Zhaneel, I trust?”

Skan flung himself down on the rug right where he stood. “Yes,” he replied, “But it isn’t what you think. Unfortunately. It was a lesson.” He groaned, as his weary muscles complained about just how weary they were. “I thought I might impress her. It was a bad idea. She decided that if I was that much better than the rest of the class, I could run her course along with her.”

Amberdrake passed a hand over his mouth. Skan glowered. “You’d better not be laughing,” he said accusingly.

Amberdrake gave him a look full of limpid innocence. “Now why would I be laughing?” he asked guilelessly. “You look all in; you’ve obviously been pushing yourself just as hard as you could. Why would I laugh at that?”

Skan only glowered more. He couldn’t put it into words, but he had the distinct feeling that Drake was behind all of this, somehow. Zhaneel, the lessons, the private lesson-all of it. “I have been pushing, and pushed, and I am exhausted. I need to borrow Gesten, Drake, or I’m never going to get the mud out of my coat and feathers. And I wish you’d let me steal your magic fingers for a bit. And-“ he sighed, finally admitting his downfall, “-and I need to talk to you.”

Amberdrake nodded, as if he had expected as much. Which, if he really is behind all this, shouldn’t surprise me.

“In private, I take it?” the kestra’chern asked.

As if he didn’t know.

“Very private,” Skan confirmed, and flattened his ear-tufts to his skull in real misery. “Drake, it’s Zhaneel. She’s the one-the one. And I’m nothing more to her than one of her students.”

“And just how do you figure that?” Amberdrake asked casually.

“Because she-I just don’t impress her, no matter what I do!” Skan exclaimed in desperation. “It’s driving me insane! I don’t know what to do!”

“Let me see if I understand what you’re saying correctly,” Amberdrake replied, leaning back on one elbow. “You have decided that Zhaneel is your ideal mate, and you are upset because she isn’t following you and draping herself all over you like every other gryphon you’ve wanted. Then, when you strut and puff and act in general like a peacock, she still isn’t impressed. Is that it?”

Skan felt his nares flushing hotly. “I wouldn’t put it that way!” he protested.

“I would,” Gesten said, from behind him. The hertasi pushed his way in through the curtains past Skan. “Feh,” he added, “You look like a used mop. If I were a female, I wouldn’t have you either.”

“Drake!” Skan cried.

“Gesten, that’s enough,” Amberdrake admonished. “Skan, has it ever once occurred to you to go and talk with the lady? Just talk? Not to try to impress her, but to find out what she’s like, what she thinks is important, what kind of a person she is? Find out about her instead of talking about yourself?”

“Ah-“ the gryphon stammered.

“Try it some time,” Amberdrake said, leaning back into his pillows. “You might be surprised by the results. Gesten, this used mop would like to know if you’re willing to help him look more like a gryphon. I can go get a bath in the shower tent for once; I look worse than I feel.”

“If you want,” Gesten said dubiously. “I think you sprained something.”

“Then I can get Cinnabar to unsprain it for me,” Amberdrake said to the roof of the tent. “Go on, Skan needs your help more than I do at the moment, and we are supposed to be sharing your very excellent services.”

“All right,” the hertasi said with resignation. “Come on, Black Boy. But you’ll have to put up with my massaging; Drake is definitely not going to be up to it.”

Skan climbed to his feet with more groans. “Right now, I’d accept a massage from a makaar,” he replied. “And I’d court the damned thing, if it would get the muck off me.”

Gesten looked back over his shoulder and batted his eyes at Skan in a clever imitation of a flirtatious human. “Why, Skan, I never guessed! Harboring an unfulfilled passion for little me?”

Skan only snorted and followed the hertasi into the sunlight behind the tent. Gesten opened up a box built into the side of the wagon that carried Amberdrake and all his gear when the entire army was on the move, and got out the brushes and special combs needed for grooming gryphons. “You really ought to go find a vacant tub and have a bath,” the hertasi said, looking him over. “You’re mage enough to heat the water so your muscles don’t stiffen up in the cold.”

“Once you brush me out, please,” Skan pleaded. “If I go in like this, it’ll be a mud bath.”

“You have a point.” The hertasi picked up one of the brushes and set to work with a will. Bits of dried, caked mud flew everywhere with the force of Gesten’s vigorous strokes. “So besides you being infatuated with Zhaneel, and her having the good sense to see through you, what else is new out there?”

Skan ignored the first part of the question to answer the second. “What’s new is that we may have the Pass, but Ma’ar isn’t budging another toe-length.” He shook his head, and leaned into Gesten’s brush. “I don’t know, Gesten. I can’t tell if things look good for us, or bad.”

“Neither can anyone else.” Gesten put the brush down and picked up one with finer bristles. “Urtho doesn’t know what to do, I hear. Ma’ar won’t leave us be, and Urtho won’t spend troops like Ma’ar does to get rid of him. That’s the problem with an ethical commander; the leader who doesn’t care how many of his men he kills has an edge.”

Skan shook his head. “Too much for me, at least right now.”

The hertasi snickered. “Yah. I know what’s on your mind-what there is of it. Don’t know how Drake thinks you’re going to impress Zhaneel with it, since I haven’t seen much evidence of a mind in you since I met you.”

Skan did not rise to his teasing this time. “Gesten,” he said hesitantly, “do you really think she’d ever pay any attention to me if I did what Drake said? Nothing I’ve done has worked.”

“So try it. Who knows?” Gesten slapped him on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust. “The man’s job is the heart, you know. I figure he probably knows what he’s talking about.”

Skan considered that. Gesten was right. And besides, I have to tell her what she is, what I learned in the Tower. Might as well kill two birds with the same stone, as they say.

“But first, Skan,” Gesten cautioned, “there’s something that’s really important you need to do.”

Skan craned his neck around to look at him, the hertasi sounded so serious. “What is it?” he asked anxiously.

Gesten fixed him with a sobering gaze for a long moment, then said with deadpan seriousness, “Skan-get a bath.”

The hertasi made it all the way to the tent flap before the flung brush caught up with him.