His sister nodded agreement.
“Yes, Oddmarr! Part of his saga may help you understand.” She continued as soon as I had taken a swig from my canteen and returned to the sparring area. “My brother refers to one of our oldest stories. The griffin warrior Oddmarr, after many exciting adventures along the Shores of the Sorrowful Sea, felt his bones finally grow weary with age. But to his amazement, there along the shore one day was the shape of a griffin, one whose body was smoke, bound together by sunbeams. He knew at a glance that it was death itself, the embodiment of all he had cheated and diced against during all of his battles. Death called to Oddmarr to join her where she reclined upon the warm sand.”
I had to interrupt at this point. “Death is a reeve, a female griffin?”
“Well, in the old stories, she always was. Should you meet her, perhaps she will show a different form and gender to you, as a human.”
“No doubt. Sorry, go on with your story. This is getting interesting.”
“Oddmarr lay on the beach across from Death, understandably wary. Death explained that she was somewhat annoyed at the fact that Oddmarr had kept on evading her talons, and that she wanted to settle things once and for all. She challenged him to a game – one where if she won, Oddmarr would let Death take him right there, and return him to the Eternal Sky. If Oddmarr won, then he would ascend into the night sky and become the greatest of all griffins, honored in star and song.”
“I take it that Oddmarr took up the challenge.”
“Actually,” Ironwood put in, “Death made it clear that he didn’t have any choice but to play the game.”
“Death can be like that in these kinds of stories, I’ve noticed.”
“As it happened,” Holly went on, “Death surprised Oddmarr by creating a square board set atop a grand table of crystal. The board was made up of black and white squares, each of which contained an object that could only move in certain ways.”
I couldn’t help but interrupt again. “Wait, wait. Are you talking about ‘chess’?”
“The very game. But at this time, in the distant past, only the human kingdoms played it. Poor Oddmarr had never even seen this game, and he couldn’t keep all of the strange rules straight in his head. Very soon, he realized that he was badly outmatched, and Death began wiping his pieces off the board. And that is when he did the thing which he is immortalized for.”
“He won the game?”
“In a manner of speaking. Oddmarr unsheathed his talons, and with a mighty blow, he shattered the crystal table and broke the board to pieces!”
“How did that…”
“How did it help? Oddmarr was a canny drake, and one who knew how to listen. Death had told him what would happen if he won, and what would happen if he lost. She never said what would happen if the game never finished.” Holly’s eyes smiled as she added, “Legend has it that all of Death’s head-feathers fell out from the shock!”
“What happened to Oddmarr?”
“He could not ascend to the heavens, nor be taken by death. So he remains even now, wandering the Shores of the Sorrowful Sea, immortal and ever questing after adventure. Which was all Oddmarr ever wanted.”
A sniff from Blackthorn, who sat up and let out a sigh.
“I just love happy endings,” he said, completely sincere. “They make me cry.”
“The point is,” Holly concluded, jabbing a talon in my direction, “Sometimes the best option you have is to pull the unexpected out of nowhere. Let’s say that you know to use a club when your opponent thinks that all you can use to defend yourself is a Dragon-Hand gun.”
I finally understood. “That’s a major advantage. Just because no one expects it.”
“Good. Because now we’re going to spar.”
So we did. I mostly stayed on defense, using the moves that Holly taught me, while she circled about like a big jungle cat and took swipes at me from every angle. I quickly lost my inhibition against hitting Shaw’s daughter as I realized how badly I was overmatched. None of my blows connected, no matter how hard I tried.
Amazingly enough, I found that I was enjoying myself. Holly disarmed me a couple of times, though most often I would find her beak pressed against my leg or her talons jutting an inch away from my abdomen. Ironwood would call out ‘strike!’, and we’d return to our positions.
Sweat dripped from my brow, but I didn’t brush it away as I tracked Holly’s movements. Her tail twitched excitedly, and I knew that her blood was up as well. She performed the same strike pattern I’d seen twice before: a swipe from the left, then at my head from the right. I ducked, and with more luck than anything else I scored a hit on her forearm. She jumped back, more startled than anything else.
“Maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this,” I panted. “You better watch yourself!”
“Maybe you are!” Holly replied, sounding pleased. “Let’s find out.”
In two lightning-quick moves, Holly batted the club from my hand and swept me off my feet with a swipe of her tail. I landed on my back with the wind knocked out of me. I gasped as Holly unfurled her wings and made a short aerial hop, then pinned me with a talon set fully upon my chest. She brought a hind leg up and rested it on my belly, flexing the claws there. I felt pinpricks through my clothes. One flex of her hamstring, and she would completely disembowel me from rib cage to pubic bone.
“I have you pinned, Dayna. Just where I want you!” she exulted. Given how her paw was compressing my rib cage, I didn’t have the breath to answer.
A strange, joyful look came into her eyes. She bent her razor sharp beak towards my face, and I opened my mouth to scream. No air, no sound came out.
Holly nipped me hard, between my head and my right shoulder. She repeated it with a second nip on the left. Only then did she back off and let me get up. I coughed and gasped as I got to my feet and forced air back into my lungs.
Blackthorn and Ironwood sat at attention, an unreadable expression on their eagle faces. They traded a glance and then looked curiously at their sister.
“That was…unexpected,” Blackthorn said.
“Who knew that your winds blew in that direction?” Ironwood remarked.
“Go pass a clutch of eggs, the both of you!” Holly shot back. She turned to me, sounding apologetic. “I am sorry if I scared you, Dayna. You were in no danger from me just then.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, as I rubbed one of the spots where Holly had bitten me. It throbbed painfully, enough to let me know that I’d have one hell of a bruise there the following morning. “What did you…why did you do that?”
Holly glared at her siblings as she answered. “It was a mark of friendship, that’s all. I forgot how…tender humans can be.”
Blackthorn looked up into the sky and nudged his brother. They both scowled.
“Our sire approaches,” Ironwood stated. “I shall take my leave.”
“Not alone, brother,” Blackthorn gritted.
Holly shook her head as the two took off. “Dayna, this was great fun. Perhaps we can do it again? I may be able to find a private sparring ground for us next time.”
“Sure, I think I’d be up for it,” I said, though a twinge ran down my collarbone from one of her nips. She really had bitten me hard. “You don’t want to stay to speak with Grimshaw?”
“I wouldn’t object. But my brothers need me.”
With that, she unfurled her wings and followed her siblings’ flight path.
A few moments later, Shaw glided in to land. He had one fist clenched, and he looked troubled.
“I take it that the True Born kept thee well enough?” he asked.
“Pretty well,” I hedged. “Holly wanted to stay, but the drakes don’t want to talk with you.”
“Mayhap I can repair the bond another time. I need to share with thee what the Council has said. Dark spells surround a certain object. The High Elder has charged me with finding the truth of this matter at all cost.”
Shaw opened his fist to reveal the c
rystal that Holly had taken off of Lance Captain Thundercrack.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I took the crystal shard from Shaw and held it up to the light. It was so clear as to be almost completely transparent, and I could see no crack or internal flaw along its entire length. I was no gemologist, and I’d never seen the entire ‘phantom quartz’ exhibit that had been stolen from the Natural History Museum. But this looked to my untrained eye like a quartz crystal – one which had no inclusions or faults of any kind.
“The Elders cannot find a specific use for this stone,” Shaw informed me. “Yet one of the Council members determined this crystal hath been subjected to portal magic. And that is not all.” His voice dropped as he added. “The portal magic used…was cast from inside the aerie itself. It does not match the pattern of a centaur’s spell work. So they know thou art innocent – but not who is guilty.”
I considered. “This is serious. We better go talk to Galen.”
“Aye, I thought as much.”
I gathered up my pack and placed the crystal inside one of the small utility pockets, then secured the griffin club as best I could. I stuck the heavy end down into the backpack’s main compartment and zipped it closed. Eighteen inches of the handle jutted out and rapped me on the back of my head as I climbed up into the saddle. I gritted my teeth then grasped my silver medallion in my fingers.
One flash-and-bang later, we arrived on the wide stone balcony just outside of Galen’s study. Shaw swooned as if he were going to fall, so I scrambled out of the saddle before my leg got pinned. However, once free of my weight, the big griffin steadied himself well enough.
The centaur wizard threw open the glass doors at the far end of the balcony and came trotting out to meet us. Galen looked happy to see us, though his face was smeared with smoke or grease and he wore a pair of heavy work gloves. I could still make out the sleeves of his burgundy colored jacket, but the rest was hidden under a stained gray smock.
“My companions-in-arms have returned!” he said joyfully, as we all traded greetings with each other. “I gather that you have made your sudden appearance in order to divulge the solution to the griffin mystery?”
I rubbed the back of my head where the club’s handle had bonked me yet again during the rough transit. “Ah…not quite. We may have more questions than answers. One of these brought us back to you.”
“My intellect is completely at your disposal, as always,” he said, motioning us to follow.
The clip-clops of Galen’s hooves echoed on the stone balcony but quickly muffled as we trod on the carpet that lined his combination study and laboratory. He led us past an object that took up an entire table top. The wizard had discreetly thrown a heavy blanket over the item.
He pushed through a second set of doors to reveal an antechamber lit by a quartet of small porthole windows. The midafternoon sun illuminated the room’s contents: a smaller oval table and chair set, shelves filled with multicolored liquids in trapezoidal glass bottles, and a blackboard covered in chalk diagrams and math equations.
“That item under the blanket…part of the King’s special project, I guess?” I asked.
“Precisely. However, I may not divulge anything of its nature, so please refrain from asking.” Galen reached behind his blackboard, located a bell pull that ran up to a hole in the high ceiling, and gave it a yank. One of Fitzwilliam’s pages appeared almost before the bell’s peal faded away.
“Bring us comestibles and refreshment,” Galen instructed, in his familiar professorial tone, “Do so in sufficient quantity to fill the bellies of a famished centaur, woman, and griffin warrior. Enlist the aid of the kitchen help to bring it forth.”
The page, dressed nattily in the standard light blue uniform, bowed and went off at a run.
“Truly, thy magic is matched by thy wisdom,” Shaw said approvingly.
“And my hearing, perchance. It is early for dinner, late for lunch. But your belly was rumbling loud enough to alert any prey you might have decided to hunt on the way here.”
“That might have been my own belly,” I added. “I’ve been busy sparring all morning. Shaw was stuck in a Council meeting for the same amount of time, and neither of us stopped for a meal before coming here.”
“Indeed.” Galen set his smock aside on a nearby hook and selected a spot for us at the table as we waited for the food and drink to arrive. “I sense a tale that underlies all of this.”
Shaw and I began filling in the wizard on all that had happened at the aerie since we had last seen him. Galen’s expression wavered from general interest to outright concern. But he did not evince true emotion until I told him about allegations of magic brought up against Lance Captain Thundercrack.
“The white flash you observed during the pride-spar could have been a spell of confounding, analogous to the Staff of Stunning used by Master Seer Zenos,” Galen mused. “But that is minor magic, certainly nothing on a par with the kind needed to open a portal.”
“Could this help determine what kind of magic is at work?” I handed him the thumb-sized crystal Shaw had given me.
Galen grasped the crystal between thumb and forefinger, bringing it close to one eye for detailed examination. Then he held the piece up to one of the windows to allow light to pass through it. It glowed like a brand fresh from the fire as he moved his free hand slowly back and forth behind it to see how the image distorted. Next, he pressed the crystal in between two of the wooden boards that made up the table top, making sure that it stuck out upright. Finally, the wizard grabbed a two-tined Andeluvian fork from its nesting place on a heavy cloth napkin and gave the shard a quick tap.
A delicate chime rang out from the stone as if from one of the little silver bells used to call for hotel staff or to let a waiter know that a dish was ready for pickup. Shaw’s already stern brow furrowed even more, and Galen let out a noncommittal hmmm.
I was on tenterhooks waiting for his conclusions, when suddenly the page and a pair of serving boys arrived, carrying platters of food and drink. Galen plucked the crystal from where he’d jammed it and stuck it into one of the many pockets in his wizardly cloth jacket without further comment.
One of the servers laid out a full suckling pig, complete with a roast apple stuck in its snout, right in front of Shaw. The griffin fairly drooled, but managed to restrain himself from snapping his first bite until the young man had moved his hands away from the platter. Another server placed a brace of game hens set in tureens swimming with root vegetables, pearls of barley, and a savory-smelling brown gravy on the side of the table closer to me and Galen. Finally, the page set out plates, extra napkins, pitchers of the Andeluvian sweet white wine called ‘summer table crush’, and a platter piled high with fragrant purplish-black baked figs drizzled with honey.
All conversation ground to an immediate halt as Shaw and I paused to stuff our faces. Galen politely nibbled at one of the roast hen’s legs and a scoop of the figs while we did so. This was classic Andeluvian banquet fare, hearty and heavy on the meat and grains. If by chance I did end up working more with Fitzwilliam’s court, I’d definitely have to start watching my weight more carefully again.
“Thou art dining well,” Shaw remarked as he began crunching his way through the bony skull of the pig with his sharp beak. “‘Twas brought promptly, too. Is it always as such here in thy demesnes?”
A shrug in reply. “The king feels that the less time I spend foraging for sustenance, the more I shall spend on his projects.”
“Nice to know that he takes care of his subjects,” I noted.
“Doubtless he is generous to all those who can aid him in the retention of what he desires. Now, as to that crystal: it carries no magic itself. Nor has it been utilized in any spell craft.”
“Really? Because the Elders believe that it has been subjected to a portal spell.”
“Indeed it has, in the sense that it has been teleported multiple times, to multiple locations. Likely your world, when it was removed from th
e museum, and elsewhere within Andeluvia. However, it was not used to facilitate the spell itself.”
“All right. But if these crystals weren’t used for opening portals, what use are they? Obviously, someone went to a lot of trouble here.”
“You speak truth.” Galen rubbed his chin in thought, one of his unconscious mannerisms I found so charming about him. “One thing I noticed, from the way this crystal reacts positively to light and vibration, is how pure the structure is. I would therefore deduce that it could be used in the process of amplification.”
“Amplification? Of what?”
The wizard spread his hands. “Light, heat, vibration, sound, or even magic itself. It’s why crystals are ensconced within many magic artifacts, for example.”
“Using a magic booster to help power a teleportation spell would be a good reason to grab a set of these crystals. But since they were able to open a portal to my world to get these in the first place…”
“Absconding with them would be superfluous,” Galen agreed. “Perhaps they are meant to amplify light, or heat, in a way detrimental to griffins. It is possible that they could be used to detonate a package of the incredibly powerful explosives your world possesses.”
I thought about that as I dabbed my lips with a napkin to wipe away the trace of honey that dripped from one of the figs I’d eaten.
“Maybe. But the powerful stuff you’re talking about, like military-grade C4, is kept under a lot more security. And I think law enforcement would have been informed if such a theft took place.”
Galen was quiet for a moment as he fished the crystal shard out of his pocket and held it up a second time. He ran his dexterous fingers over the surface, peering at the piece even more closely. His brow creased as he spoke again.
“Mayhap this is a minor point…but did Lance Captain Thundercrack use a harness, or bear a saddle with pockets when he arrived at the Lair of the Elders?”
I thought back. “No, he didn’t. Thundercrack never wore anything, not even armor.”
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