by A Corrin
“Yes,” Peter confirmed. “And this.” From the ground by the base of the flowers’ stems and rough branches, he picked up a mahogany-colored sheath with a gold-plated tip. A clip on the back of it would hook on to my belt or around a belt loop.
“This sword,” Peter said, “will never fail you. It was made by the land’s most expert craftsmen: the dwarves. The very ones that made Mariah’s necklace.” He reached down and ran his hand over the sickle-shaped black handguards. “These belonged to the last king. It is a tradition among griffins that, when we die, we give something, namely a claw or a feather, to someone we loved or put the most trust in. The last things your predecessor did before he passed were entrust to me words of wisdom and comfort that are for my ears only, and to give his successor his claws in a symbol of trust and faith. It is an honorable custom.”
A feeling I’d never felt before filled me with sadness and gratitude. I ran my fingers over the smooth, sharp talons. The talons that would curl protectively over my fist in combat, like the hand of a best friend. I wished I could have met the former king, if only to thank him.
I tried to sheath the weapon, but my burning arms shrieked in protest. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to use this.” I chuckled, more than a little embarrassed.
Peter took the sword and turned it bottom up, so the compartment was exposed. “Well, this will help until you get the hang of it. If you press in these three talons, the compartment will open and—” He depressed the necessary talons, the little chamber popped open, and a switchblade handle shot out, partially ejected by a spring. I jumped. The rubber handle was set with three jewels on each side: a ruby, an emerald, and a sapphire. Peter pulled the blade out, and with a flick of the wrist, the knife extended to about half the length of the sword. The metal reflected the setting light like the tooth of some wicked creature.
Peter said, “In a hostage situation, if you don’t want to risk pulling out your sword, you can use this baby with only a few simple movements.”
“Wow,” I said, inarticulate.
Peter replaced the dagger, put my sword in its sheath, and allowed me to clip it to my trousers with the dignity I had left. I expected the sword’s weight to tug at my pants, but it didn’t; it rested in firm poundage at my hip. He patted my shoulder, and we went down the path back toward the inn. I told him what I’d learned at the carpentry.
His eyes tightened, but other than that, he reacted in much the same way as Mariah had.
“If the werewolf had any concerns that the griffin we entered the bog with was the Griffin Prince, we would all be in Ranker hands right now. Our identities are secure. Still, I’ll ask the Amazons to set up a watch tonight and keep an eye on him. Worst-case scenario, he has contacted a Ranker and we’ll have to brace ourselves for a fight.”
He looked at me, saw that I hadn’t been entirely reassured, and added, “We’re way ahead of the Rankers, son. They couldn’t have known just how much of their plans King Brody uncovered before he died—that we’ve deterred their reinforcements. But, to be safe, we should probably hurry up and find that chest so we can get the next clues and leave.” He didn’t voice the inevitable, but I shuddered at what had to be done. Somehow, we had to get into the bartender’s room.
Back inside the inn, we were abused by a wall of noise. Loud voices discussed the weather and other trivial happenings, or hiccupped and burped and drawled for more ale. The customers had really filed in.
Mariah, Kayle, Sergeant Flaherty, Marcus, and a samurai had saved us spots at a wraparound booth in a corner. Once we slid in to join them, and the samurai had finished discussing iaido with Marcus, Peter told them about what had happened at the carpentry. When he got to the enchanting part about who the key belonged to, everybody’s expressions (except for Mariah’s, who had already been told this story) turned from blank attentiveness to surprised interest.
“I propose we sneak into the bartender’s quarters tomorrow night,” Peter stated in a low whisper, “After the Amazons have some time to determine what the werewolf knows, if anything.”
After the initial unexpectedness of this proclamation wore off, talk turned to other things until commotion at the candlelit bar turned heads.
Two middle-aged men were sitting on stools. One was livid, an ugly scowl on his bearded face. The other beside him was quailing, his balding head lowered and chubby face twitching. “Please, Nox, don’t try it!” the man whimpered, pudgy hands grasping at the front of his friend’s coat.
The grumpy guy, Nox, thundered, “I’ve had a helluvuh day, and I’m willing to try anything to help me forget it!” He twisted savagely to face the bartender, who was glaring back, and growled, “So I’ll take that Bowl of Bemusement!”
Everyone gasped or cursed or laughed in disbelief. Us knowing ones exchanged looks. Was this guy ignorant of the broth’s side effects?
The bartender jerked his head at one of his waiters who slipped around behind the counter and began to rummage beneath it for ingredients. Silent eyes watched him work. The bartender remained glued to his spot, as if not wanting to be touched by the foul concoction.
When finished, the waiter set the bowl and a spoon in front of Nox.
Ignoring his friend, Nox dug in. After a while, I started noticing changes coming over the man. He was twitching jerkily and tensing up. Soon, he started yelling at his surprised friend for staring at him, and then at the rest of the people in the bar. He became so abusive, teetering on the lip of violence, that the bartender had a couple of Dark Knights throw him out into the street.
Peter and I exchanged looks. Whatever the brew was, exactly, it did have a terrible effect on dream-creations, turning them vicious and violent. But why? What was the point? If it was a clue for the Ranker army, then why was the werewolf letting his customers drink it? I hoped the Amazons found out more that night. I’d hate to leave the swamp with questions unanswered, especially questions about the Rankers’ plans.
Chapter Nineteen:
A Father-Son Talk
Before bed, I went back outside and threaded my way through the untamed garden to get some more sword-practice in. I stood in the clearing from before, swiping and swinging my new sword, pushing through the complaining muscles in my arms and shoulders. At first I felt like an idiot, standing there trying to emulate the fluid movements Peter had taught me, trying to pivot and balance while ducking and dodging imaginary foes. But I knew that I was clumsy and slow and that I was letting my guard slip. Still, football had been hard for me once, too. All I needed was practice, practice, and more practice.
As I moved through a series of blocks and counters, I considered the little I knew of the Ranker plans. They wanted me in the dreamworld to keep me out of their way. They had left clues behind to subtly guide their reinforcements to their mysterious base of operations. We had intercepted those clues in the hopes of finding their base and discovering their plans. Garrett had been watching me all these years—but he wasn’t the only one. The gargoyle Ranker had been watching me too. Tormenting me with nightmares of my mother’s death. Why? Why me? Did they really want to turn me into some kind of monster? To torture me until I became the tool that they had wanted King Brody to be? The...Dark Griffin?
I shuddered, letting my arms drop and the tip of my blade to scrape through the grass. While Peter and Mariah seemed to make the whole thing look easy, just a storybook case of good versus evil, griffin versus Ranker, I had reservations. Something in my gut told me that there was more to this whole Ranker thing than there seemed to be. I just didn’t know what yet. My fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword. Once I found a Ranker, I’d do my best to find out.
A quiet, muffled sound came from the flowers nearby and I gave an almighty jump of alarm. Was it the werewolf? A Ranker? Nox from the bar, all crazy from the Bowl of Bemusement?
The sound came again, and I realized it came from the other side of the flowers, from
another path. It sounded like someone was weeping, or muttering sullenly to themselves. My first instinct was to scurry back to the inn. This was a sheltering zone for nightmares, as Peter had said. I didn’t want to push my luck and get eaten by a monster or something. But if the whimpers I heard belonged to a dreamer having a nightmare...then shouldn’t I see if I could help them? If not because I was supposedly the protector of this place then at least because it was the right thing to do?
I snuck back up the path until it forked and then I stalked along between heavily laden lilac trees and dogwoods with fat, pink petals that stroked my face as I bent beneath their boughs. The deepening twilight was turning chilly and the air felt misty on my skin. I knew that this wasn’t a place I wanted to linger in after night fell.
When I rounded the bend in the path, I came out into a cozy little brick courtyard ringed by stone benches. A tall statue of an angel stretched up in the center of the courtyard, its wings half-open, its hands spread as if calling down judgement, its face grim but beautiful. And there, on his knees at its feet, shaking his head and talking to himself, was—
“Dad?” My heart leaped and I was seized by two contrary impulses. Here was a person from the life I’d left, someone I knew, and I wanted to run to him and embrace him for his familiarity. But I also wanted to turn right around and abandon him to whatever cruel dreams tormented him. It was less than he deserved after all he’d done to me.
At my voice Dad looked up, and by the way his eyes roved around in my direction, I could tell that he couldn’t see me. We may have been in the same bog, but his nightmare was affecting his perception.
“Jonathan?” he said desperately. He sounded so pitiful that my heart went out to him a little bit, but I still held my ground and watched him. After a moment, he stood up and said, “Are you there? Are you coming home?”
I shifted my weight, thinking. Dad wouldn’t recognize this as real. To him, this was just a dream, and there was no guarantee that he would even hear or remember the things I said to him, no matter how I wished he would.
He gave another moan, a terrible, helpless sound like he suffered from a wound, and I said, “What is it, Dad? What do you want?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t ever mean to hurt you.”
“Yes, you did,” I retorted. “You went out of your way to hurt me.”
Dad shook his head, huddling back against the statue, his eyes going round and frantic as if he saw himself surrounded by pacing wolves. I tried to calm myself down and mellow out my tone.
“No,” he murmured, “No, I…” then he seemed to deflate and he sank back down onto his knees again, curled up like a child at the feet of the angel, gazing blindly out in my direction. “Yes. Ever since your mother died, I just...felt lost. Broken. I thought I was stronger. I thought I was doing okay when she was taken from me. I still had you, and I thought I could do it, be a father. But when I started drinking...all of the pain went away.” He took a quivering breath. “And when I sobered up, I thought of how disappointed she would be, and I hated what I was doing… What I’d turned into.”
There were tears in his eyes now. He said a few disjointed sentence fragments and I stood there listening, feeling as insubstantial as a down-feather. Dad had never been this honest with me as far back as I could remember. We’d never had this conversation before. I could only drink it all in, clinging to his pain and wanting it to be authentic.
“Then you started growing up, and I—I look at you and I see her. You have her laugh, her smile, her eyes. You have her bright-blue eyes.” Not all of the time, I thought. “I blamed you for looking so much like her, being so much like her... As if you were purposely keeping the pain of her passing fresh...to remind me of it…”
“But I wasn’t,” I said coldly. “I was a kid who had just lost his mother, and I didn’t understand why. You weren’t there when I needed you most, when I needed a father, and now…” My anger built, threatened to pour over and bury my dad like an avalanche. He cringed as if waiting for the guillotine to fall and with a shock of surprise I realized that I was his nightmare; the words I wanted so badly to say, I don’t need you, I don’t want you, were the words that would break him, devastate him, horrify him.
So instead of saying the words I wanted to, I bottled my fury and tried to find the words I needed to say.
I stepped forward and squatted down so that Dad and I were at eye-level. Now he seemed to be able to see me, at least vaguely. He focused on my face and his mouth opened to give a choked gasp, or maybe it was a sob.
“What do you want to say to me?” I asked quietly.
Dad’s eyes watered. “I don’t know where you are. I don’t want you to be dead because I need you to know that I love you. And if you just come back, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it. Please come back, Jonathan, please don’t be dead.”
Pity stirred in my chest. I half reached out, but I couldn’t figure out why. Most of me wanted to wake him up from his nightmare, show him mercy and get him back to reality. But a very small, malicious little sliver wanted to watch him tremble in the throes of his conscience, to see him quail in fear as he had made me quail in fear so often growing up.
“I’ll come back,” I said after a long pause. “But not right now.”
Dad’s body started to fade so that he looked see-through, like a ghost. The settling evening pressed in upon me and I stood up. Time to retreat to the safety of the indoors.
“Come back, Jonathan,” Dad said distractedly.
“Someday,” I replied, turning to walk back along the brick path. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“Come back, Jonathan,” I heard Dad murmur behind me, “Come home.”
Chapter Twenty:
Meanwhile, in the House Next Door
A shadow-black raven was perched on the windowsill, watching the angry man stumble down the street. A claw made entirely of stone stroked the bird’s breast. It felt like having a sharp rock scrubbed against it, but the raven knew better than to resist the touch.
To shame the gargoyle was to shake your tail feathers in the face of death.
The stone beast spoke in a low, gravelly voice. “I think the old man’s starting to get ripe.” The raven cawed agreeably. It had been a few weeks now since the gargoyle had claimed the house. The former resident had heard their knock, gone to admit them, and was dead from a blow to the head as soon as he had opened the front door. The gargoyle Ranker had thrown the corpse down into the basement, but he could smell the man getting gamey even on the top floor of the house where he crouched in the shadows beside an open window.
The gargoyle watched the bog-folk milling around the misty avenues of their pitiful village below him, their eyes melancholy, mouths limp, eyes hollow. He sneered, absently scraping one of the spikes on his snout against the window frame, scoring a rent in the wood, as his mind wandered.
“There was once a time when we could have walked down the streets of this world and enjoyed the subjugation of the masses,” the gargoyle muttered to his raven. “Once, we would have grown fat on the fear and respect shown us…” The raven burbled, pecking at the shavings left behind by the Ranker’s spikes as if hoping to find bugs clinging to them, and the gargoyle showed his teeth.
The fear and cringing admiration of the people, dreamers and dream-creations alike, was no longer the Ranker’s to enjoy—had not been for a great while. Not now that the griffins ran the show, not since King Brody the Gallant had destroyed some of their heaviest hitters and shown the entire dreamworld that the lion’s share of power rested in the talons of powerful dreamers such as Brody had been.
Before he had killed the old man and taken his home, the gargoyle Ranker had been waiting for word of Garrett’s allies arriving on the shores of Pebble Embark. When none was forthcoming, he had left his post in the Ranker fortress and gone to investigate. And the clue had been missing—
which meant it had not called their allies to the dreamworld’s golden shores from whatever nightmarish isles and seas they called home. Someone had taken it.
Garrett would be angry that he had abandoned his own duties to resolve the issue of their missing troops; he didn’t want any of his Rankers getting directly involved in the trail of clues and risk being discovered by the griffins, not now, when Ranker blood was especially precious, when every Ranker would be needed for the final battle. But something had to be done, and he would be generously rewarded for capturing the thief.
But then, there had come word from the werewolf that a griffin had arrived in the swamp with a strange collection of men and women. The gargoyle had arrived as swiftly as he could and situated himself by the windows where he could watch the inn and the main street from the shadows. He had seen plenty of people entering and leaving the inn throughout the past few days, but no griffin, and he was beginning to think that it had been a false alarm—someone’s dream creation, or a hippogriff or some other animal that the idiot-bartender had confused for a griffin.
But now...
The Ranker perked up. A window opened toward the very top of the inn, and a young man leaned out, carrying some bread and looking around at the darkening bog. The gargoyle leaned forward. How interesting. He had seen this boy wandering the streets earlier with a young woman and had glimpsed him meandering about the gardens in the back of the inn. The gargoyle hadn’t recognized him then, in patchy clothes and with dirty skin and messy hair. But now that he’d washed up, the Ranker knew him instantly.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he growled, his black eyes glittering. “You’re the thief…” The implications of a griffin, no, the Griffin Prince, having intercepted the Ranker clues were severe. It would mean a lot of work for Garrett, and the gargoyle, by extension, as one of Garrett’s lieutenants. They would have to move quickly, place new clues, work under the radar to collect their allies under the griffins’ beaks and also try to prevent the griffins from finding the rest of the clues.