A Feather on the Breath of Ellulianaen
Page 19
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Hwedolyn carried Atdaholyn home to his uncle’s eyrie.
On seeing the dead body Milélyn gave a great and terrible cry, his sinewy neck muscles straining, and he grieved for his son, and the desolate howl of his grief echoed throughout the mountains. Atdaholyn’s mother Thwyrlyn was broken and disconsolate, and it was terrible to see how crushed her strength and spirit was by the news.
Anger burned in Hwedolyn’s chest as he watched them grieve. He told them that he believed the elf-mage had caused their cub’s death. He told them that he had heard the fell voice of the elf-mage on the wind, and that he had seen him standing on the ground in the first flash of lightning, far away, and fancied that the stench of elf-magic had been on the wind. But Milélyn just stared at him, as though he was a mad, insane gryphon, worthy of being chained to a rock in some lonely place, and Hwedolyn wondered if Milélyn thought he was responsible for Atdaholyn’s death.
Then Hwedolyn went to tell his own parents, and their grief was just as great. Halomlyn squarely blamed himself, saying, “I should not have insisted on having our eyrie so close to theirs!” But Tiawéflyn said gently, “You must not blame yourself, gryphon, it is not your fault. Nor is it yours, Hwedolyn.” But it didn’t comfort Halomlyn at all. So, thinking to assuage his father’s grief and guilt, Hwedolyn told him that he had seen the elf-mage, that it was the elf-mage that was responsible for Atdaholyn’s death.
Halomlyn questioned Hwedolyn further, sensing that his cub was not certain of what he saw, and he spoke to him as though Hwedolyn was a young cub, newly fresh from the gryphon egg. “Lightning has many causes, Hwedolyn,” he said, “It is most often found where cold clouds and warm air meet, which is also where the winds are most turbulent and best for riding.” Hwedolyn knew all this, but Halomlyn did not give his cub any credit for his powers of observation or his knowledge of the world, which was as deep and broad as any adult gryphon’s.
The funeral of Atdaholyn was bleak and heartrending. The sky was grey and an unremitting drizzle fell down all day long. They built a funeral pyre for him, from pine trees they had taken from further down the mountainside. They laid his body upon the pyre and waited until the sun had begun to set. As the sun descended, the gryphons blew flame into the pile of wood, and the flames went up and licked the low-lying clouds, and the fire took Atdaholyn home to Ellulianaen, to the King of all the gryphons, in his great hall above the sky. But Hwedolyn’s heart was sour, and he doubted that the Gryphon-King heard their prayers at all, for none of his questions had been answered and justice seemed not to exist on the earth.
After this the gryphons wept and drank mead and sang laments and odes, drunkenly, flying about in drunken circles and swooping down and plummeting onto the ground like sacks of potatoes, rather than alighting gracefully on the earth as gryphons do when sober.
The next morning they met together at Halomlyn’s eyrie to discuss the future. Hwedolyn couldn’t help noticing how withered and shrunken Milélyn looked, how bony his face was and how sunken his eyes were.
“We can live here no longer,” said Atdaholyn’s mother, Thwyrlyn, her voice breaking. “This place that I have loved is grievous to me now.”
Milélyn spoke next in a frail, shaky, emaciated tone of voice, “This is all my fault. I thought that no harm would come to us if we lived near each other… We disobeyed the greatest rule of gryphonkind, and my own cub was the one who paid for it.”
Then Halomlyn faced them squarely and said, “Nay, you are surely not at fault. If anyone is at fault, it was I. I was the one who first had the idea, and came to live here, and you opposed my presence in your borough at first. But if I blame not myself, then I cannot think that any of us are truly to blame. It is simply one of those tragedies that strike gryphons sometimes, good gryphons, for which there can be no explanation. And if my son is right, then we are not responsible for the actions of an elf-mage who caused that lightning bolt that stole your cub away from his life, but I doubt very much that this is what happened! I believe Hwedolyn was mistaken in what he saw – the terrible shock of the moment played tricks upon his mind, and he was reminded of the terror of another fearful night, that night at the tavern when they overcame the elf-mage. Surely it was but a stray lightning bolt that hurt Atdaholyn, even if the storm brought forth little thunder. The ways of storm-weather are mysterious, and I have seen lightning appear from nowhere. None of us smelled magic on the wind that evening, and unless that elf-mage has found a way to hide the stench of it, it cannot have been him. Would he linger in the place where he was defeated, for this long, just for vengeance?”
Then Hwedolyn said: “Can great Mages not hide their magic? Father I am certain that what I saw was the elf-mage, lit by the flash of his lightning, from the corner of my eye, and I think I smelled magic upon the wind before the lightning bolt began.”
“That may indeed be so,” said Halomlyn, taking Hwedolyn aside to speak to him. “Or it could have simply been a trick of the mind, like to the dark ghost of the sun that appears in our vision when we close our eyes! Or perhaps, my cub, you wish it to have been so, for then you have someone to seek vengeance upon, and your own responsibility is lessened.” Then Halomlyn pleaded, “Come, Hwedolyn, Milélyn doesn’t need to hear this. Let it be the lightning, let this not have happened because we disobeyed the gryphon-lore and lived in eyries that were too close together, or because you offended an elf.”
Then Halomlyn addressed the others, “If it was the elf-mage, as my gryphon-cub claims to have seen, then we must leave this borough. But there are other reasons for leaving our eyries now also, alas. We become careless, like the gryphons of old in the time of the Dragon-Wars, and I hold myself partly responsible for this. If lightning can hit, then so can other misfortunes that the gryphon-lore warns us of. The miners of Hathon-Kathuiolké know of our existence now, and though they be men and women of good will, their sires or grandsires may not be. It was always better for us to be a myth, a mere fairytale to the sons and daughters of Udim, and a dim memory to the elves, and so we ought to leave here and make new eyries in climes far from these snowy wastelands, as the gryphon-lore teaches. There will be a tavern elsewhere from which to buy our mead. There will be a valley where we may hunt for goats for our stew. There will be a cave or cliff, where we can make our home.”
Thwyrlyn said, “But we will never have our cub back,” her voice breaking in that peculiar way that a gryphon’s voice does. “I wish that I never let him out of my sight!”
Tiawéflyn covered her sister-in-law with her own slender, graceful wing, telling her, “Atdaholyn flies beside the Gryphon-King in the eternal heavens now. But you do not know that you won’t have other cubs. You must not despair of this life, for the sake of the gryphons that are yet to be hatched, and for the sake of your gryphon-mate! For our sake, who are also your family, and the sake of our ancestors and your future descendants.”
And Thwyrlyn wept.
“Yet so it is that we must leave here,” said Thwyrlyn when she had recovered her composure, “This place holds nothing for us now.” And Milélyn nodded his agreement, too upset to say anything. And Thwyrlyn began to sob again, her voice cracking and breaking as grey rain fell from a dark, cloud-ridden sky, upon the icy mountainside beside the eyrie.
But Hwedolyn said to his father, “Why should we leave? We have made these mountains our home. Why should we let that elf-mage destroy our lives? And why should Ellulianaen have allowed the elf-mage to kill my cousin? He saved Hinfane the taverner, and the miners of Hathion Kathuiolké by sending the bright gryphon to you, Uncle. Does the King of Gryphons care nothing for gryphons? Atdaholyn never harmed anyone in his life. Where is the justice in these events? Why has Ellulianaen deserted us? Why did it happen? Why?” And he sobbed, and Tiawéflyn covered him with her wings.
And Thwyrlyn wept again, sobbing terribly, and said, “If we have no hope in Ellulianaen, what hope do we have at all?”
Tiawéflyn comforted her with a wing and said,
“We do have hope in Ellulianaen, and Atdaholyn is most certainly flying beside the King of the Gryphons in the heavens even now, even as we speak. Ah! My son! My cub’s body is gone! He is ashes and dust on the winds! My son!”
Thwyrlyn cried out, “It was his time. It was the time for him to leave us, and nothing we could have done would have made it any different. Ever does the brightest flame burn too briefly! He is with Ellulianaen...”
Halomlyn said softly, “My own cub,” taking Hwedolyn aside again, for he could see that Hwedolyn’s heart was becoming bitter and that what he had been saying was upsetting Thwyrlyn. “Hwedolyn, you cannot know for certain that the elf-mage did this. Firstly, however, let me make it clear to you that you are not to blame – every young gryphon loves to fly on the wings of the wind – I flew in storms when I was but a cub, just as you and Atdaholyn did; even against the advice of my father and mother. Nonetheless it is a dangerous pastime, and mighty wind often has been the death of gryphon, lightning or no. But merely because life has risks, should we therefore do nothing and take no risks, have no adventures? Your cousin died doing what he loved. A lightning bolt came from nowhere – this happens sometimes, by way of the course of Nature, which is stronger and more unpredictable even than young gryphons. That is all.”
“No,” said Hwedolyn. “I must take vengeance. It is my duty, it is what I vowed to do! When we were young gryphons, Atdaholyn was a timid gryphon – he did not want to leave the eyrie.”
“I remember this,” said Milélyn, “Then suddenly he changed his mind. He flew the wings of the wind with you, for the very first time.” He said this in such an accusatory way that Hwedolyn felt he was completely responsible for Atdaholyn’s death. Then Milélyn continued, “I am sorry - I did not mean to...”
Hwedolyn said, “It was I who convinced him to leave the eyrie and fly on the wings of the wind that night, but he was afraid that we might meet a snowdragon or a human. He refused to go until I had promised to protect him, insofar as I was able, and I then vowed that, should anything happen to him, I should avenge his injury! I never thought that the injury I would have to avenge would be his death. But this is the vow I made and I must fulfil it. Perhaps then Ellulianaen will let me understand why this had to happen!” And his voice was filled with such determination and desolation that it broke, and all their hearts broke with it.
Halomlyn sighed. He turned and faced Hwedolyn and said, “Even if, as you say, the elf-mage sent that lightning, you must counsel yourself that nobody has the power to enforce justice upon elves; unless one could send them by magic to Nefiloyym–Hamu, the underworld of the Nomoi. But none can send an elf there, except for great gryphon-heroes of the past, who had the power of opening the doors between the Realms, or Ellulianaen, when he judges evildoers, or great Wizards in the odes. But these things no longer happen in our age – if they were ever more than fairytales that gryphons tell each other… My cub, the voice of Ellulianaen has long been silent on the earth, and the most we have seen of the Gryphon-King may be the vision your uncle had of the bright gryphon, or even that may have been but a trick of the light as well, perhaps just a flock of birds seen in the light of a silver sliver of the moon…”
And Hwedolyn said nothing, for his heart was breaking.
That Friday, as a thin crescent moon rose above the mountains, without even saying farewell to the widow Hinfane or retrieving the barrels of mead hidden by the Hathion river, the gryphons left the mountains to seek other homes, to find other eyries, far from their sorrows.
Halomlyn, Tiawéflyn and Hwedolyn flew to the southwest and Thwyrlyn and Milélyn to the southeast.