Griffin's Daughter

by Leslie Ann Moore

  Griffin's Daughter

  Leslie Ann Moore

  Winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Book (Fiction), this riveting novel tells of a young, orphaned woman who is scorned by society for her mixed human and elven blood. She discovers that she possesses a mysterious magical power and when she travels to Elven lands in search of answers, she discovers a shocking truth about her identity that will have epic consequences for an entire nation.

  Leslie Ann Moore

  Griffin's Daughter

  The first book in the Griffin's Daughter Trilogy series, 2007

  ***

  Prologue

  A Spell is Cast, A Child is Born

  Part I

  On the crest of a small hill, a woman stood alone, gazing off into the distance. She was dressed for battle, her once bright armor now grimed with mud and gore. A broadsword hung at her left hip. The woman and the blade were old comrades, having seen many a battle in their time together, but never had they witnessed such a slaughter as this. The unmoving results littered the plain below; grotesque shapes lay twisted in the churned earth, the corpses of creatures too horrible and unnatural to be of this world.

  The woman’s hair, unfettered by helmet or ties, streamed out from her head like black banners snapping in the wind. A pall of weariness hung about her, stooping her shoulders slightly under its gray weight. Her pale, still face contrasted sharply with her green eyes, which burned with a fierce intensity, mirroring her thoughts.

  How has it come to this? How?

  We must succeed, or Goddess help us all.

  A soft ahem from behind broke her melancholy reverie. The sounds of an army settling in for the night now brushed against her awareness, like a great beast at her back. She turned.

  “ Highness,” the man said, ducking his head in a quick salute. He was slightly out of breath and clearly agitated.

  “ What is it, soldier?” she replied. She took a step forward to see the messenger more clearly in the rapidly diminishing light.

  “ Lady Junko has returned. The Kirians await you at your tent.”

  She ran.

  Her heart slammed against her breastbone as if it would tear itself free and fly from her chest. Terror bayed at her heels.

  What if Junko has failed?

  Well, then, we are all dead.

  Men and women threw themselves from her path, upending plates of food and spilling mugs of hot tea, but yelps of outrage were quickly stifled when they realized who had torn through their midst. She saw none of it. Her vision tunneled down to a single point as all thoughts crystallized into one.

  The ring.

  She skidded to a halt in front of a tent that was larger, though no less plain, than its neighbors, and set apart by an open space. Two soldiers stood guard on either side of the doorway. They saluted briskly as she paused for a moment to catch her breath and gather her composure. She closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to the Goddess.

  A soft buzz of voices fell silent as she entered.

  A group of people stood in a loose huddle around a camp stool, upon which sat a young woman. The woman rose to her feet, and the entire group bowed their heads in obeisance. A white-haired man stepped forward, his age and great air of authority clearly marking him as their leader.

  “ Princess Syukoe, Lady Junko has returned, successful. We have the ring.”

  Syukoe breathed out a long sigh and closed her eyes. She felt as if she would fly apart at any moment, her entire body drawn up tight as a bowstring. She didn’t realize she was swaying on her feet until she felt the steadying hand of Master Iku under her elbow. She put a trembling hand to her forehead. When did I last eat? she wondered.

  “ I must sit for a moment,” she murmured.

  Master Iku steered her to the just vacated camp stool. She sat, and someone immediately handed her an ornate silver goblet. The clean, sweet smell of her favorite wine tickled her nostrils. She took a long pull and wiped her lips with the back of her hand in a very un-princess like manner, frowning at the grime she saw caked there. She was a soldier as well as a princess, and right now, she felt bone-weary, filthy, and she reeked of the battlefield. She desired nothing more than a hot bath and deep, dreamless sleep, but she knew she would have neither this night.

  “ Master Iku,” Syukoe began.

  “ Highness, we have very little time. Your father…”

  “ Knows, Master. He already knows. Of that you can be sure.”

  Despite his advanced age, the Master of the Kirian Society stood straight and tall. The ruby Eye of Lajdala upon his breast, symbol of his high office, gleamed softly in the mellow light of the oil lamps. His long white hair hung in a single, neat plait down his back. Stern-faced and somber in his black robes, nevertheless, he inspired feelings of comfort and safety in Syukoe. She trusted him completely.

  “ My fellows and I must begin the spell immediately if we hope to succeed. There is no time to prepare you. I fear that your strength is depleted after this day’s terrible work.”

  “ I am strong enough. I have to be,” Syukoe replied. “The ring. Let me have it.” Master Iku placed it into her upturned palm. It felt cold, so cold, and yet it burned her skin, searing the flesh without leaving any mark. She could barely stand to hold it, but she could not release it either.

  This is my father’s ring.

  There is blood on it.

  Syukoe looked first to Master Iku, then to Lady Junko. “How did you get this from my father?” she questioned, her voice sharp.

  Junko came forward and knelt before Syukoe. She was very young, but her eyes were already hard and sad. “I cut off his finger, Highness,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “I drugged his wine. I’m the only one he trusts these days…or trusted. When he fell asleep, I tried pulling it off, but it wouldn’t come, so…” She fell silent.

  Syukoe closed her eyes and struggled to keep from retching. The bitter taste of bile stung her mouth, and her skin prickled as if a thousand spiders had worked their way under her armor, trapping themselves beneath her clothing. Junko, because of her position as the king’s favorite concubine, was the only one who could get close enough to him to steal the ring, and even so, she could not have succeeded without the help of the Kirians. Junko did what she had to do, but, Goddess, did she have to cut off his finger?

  A dark anger settled over Syukoe, dense and cold. Junko must have seen it in her face, for she backed away quickly, putting

  Master Iku between herself and the princess. Syukoe stood up abruptly, overturning the stool. She glared down at the cowering concubine. Shiura Onjara, practitioner of the vilest form of magic, brutal and despotic though he had become, was still her father. He had once been a loving and attentive parent, adored by his only daughter, until the lust for power twisted him into the beast that she now stood against. Still…

  He is my father , the hurt child within her cried. This girl cut off my father’s finger!

  Get a hold of yourself, Syukoe! She did what had to be done, by whatever means necessary. She assumed a terrible risk, and she succeeded. Now you have the White Griffin Ring in your possession, the only thing that may keep you alive and free your people.

  If the spell could be completed in time.

  “ He is coming,” Master Iku breathed.

  The eldest Kirian stood with his head cocked slightly to one side, like an old hound that has caught the scent of danger. The others stood very still, bodies taut, eyes unfocused, as if they, too, could feel the approach of the king, like a great, onrushing storm. Syukoe cried out in pain as the ring, enclosed within her fist, burned with such sudden intensity that she had to drop it to the floor, where it lay shining with a white light like a star fallen from the heavens.

&
nbsp; Quick as a striking serpent, Master Iku snatched up the ring. Its cold fire did not seem to affect the old sorcerer.

  “ Highness! We must act now, or all is lost. For the elven people, you must be strong through what is to come. They will need a queen when this is finished.”

  For a brief moment, Syukoe hesitated. What choice had she, really? She must either go along with the Kirians or face another day in which she watched while brave men and women fought and died, torn apart by an army of loathsome and unnatural creatures called up from the depths of the Void by her father’s vile magic. No, she hadn’t any choice at all.

  She nodded once, decisively. “Let’s to it, then, and be done.”

  “ Hold onto my sleeve, Princess,” the Master instructed. “If you’ve never teleported before, it can be very disorienting, and you may be quite dizzy when we arrive.”

  “ Where are we going?” Syukoe asked.

  “ To the only place where he will not hold the advantage,” replied the Master. “The stronghold of the Kirians.”

  The Black Tower. Syukoe swallowed hard and tried to stop shaking. Her mouth tasted of ashes. She took hold of Master Iku’s elbow, as instructed. Beneath the heavy black fabric, the muscles of his arm felt hard, more like those of a warrior’s than a magician’s. Still holding fast to the ring in his left hand, he raised his right hand and traced a glyph in the air before him. He spoke a single word, and the glyph became visible, a softly glowing silver tangle of lines, meaningless to Syukoe’s untrained eye. The other Kirians obviously knew their part, for they all gathered close, surrounding Master Iku, Syukoe, and now Junko, who had wormed her way into the center of the group and stood with her back pressed against the princess’s.

  The mages began to chant softly, rapidly. The air within the tent started to crackle and pop with energy. Syukoe felt the bare skin of her face and hands begin to prickle unpleasantly as if she were being stung by nettles. Just as the prickling intensified into true pain, Master Iku spoke three words loudly, in rapid succession, closed his fist and pulled downwards.

  The room folded in on itself.

  Part II

  Syukoe’s mind couldn’t quite interpret what her body had just experienced. One moment, she had stood with the Kirians, surrounded by the canvas walls of her tent. The next, she hurtled through freezing darkness to land upon hard stone, dizzy and sick. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen, but a pair of strong arms encircled her waist, holding her firmly until she could stand again.

  “ My thanks, Master Iku,” she murmured, pushing herself gently out of the embrace of the old mage. She glanced around her. The group had alighted in a small room, barely large enough to contain them all. The walls were constructed of wood, the floor of stone. The corners still crackled with the blue fire of dissipating magical energy. A single doorway opened onto a dimly lit corridor.

  “ Come, everyone,” the Master called. “We must go to the Spell Chamber and activate the wards. Quickly!” He turned and rushed out of the room into the corridor. The other Kirians followed en masse, their black robes flapping like the wings of crows, sweeping both Syukoe and Junko along in their midst.

  “ Hurry! He comes!” Master Iku shouted over his shoulder, and for the first time, Syukoe thought she heard a note of fear in the mage’s voice.

  They ran now, fleeing ever downwards through a series of corridors and down staircases illuminated by softly glowing globes set into the walls at regular intervals. Master Iku still held fast to the ring. Syukoe could see his left hand ablaze with the cold starfire of the ring’s terrible energy, and she marveled at the Master’s strength that he could withstand its dreadful power.

  At last, Master Iku skidded to a halt in front of a set of massive double doors fashioned of highly polished black stone. Syukoe gasped in wonder at the sight of them. Glyphs and sigils covered their mirrored surfaces, and to her eyes, they seemed to move, swimming like a school of fantastic fish that alternately surfaced, then retreated into the inky depths of a dark, still pond.

  The Master spoke a word of Command and the doors swung inwards with a great inrush of air, as if no atmosphere had existed within the chamber until the instant the doors opened. Despite their previous haste, the Kirians entered the room slowly, reverently.

  This place, their inner sanctum, lay at the very heart of the fortress known as the Black Tower. Here, the Kirian Society performed its most powerful Workings. Here, they would work the Spell of Sundering, which would separate the Key that unlocked the power of the Griffin Ring from the ring itself. They would then attempt something that could only be described as an act of desperation.

  It would take every particle, every last bit of the collective energy of all of the Kirians to perform this Working, with no guarantee of success. No one in living memory had ever tried such a feat, and the elves had very long memories.

  If they succeeded, a hole would open up in the very fabric of Time itself. Through this portal, the Key would be cast into the living body of a person not yet born, a person of the blood royal, a descendant of the House of Onjara. The divinations had already been performed. The House of Onjara would endure, and there would be living members a thousand years hence. Theoretically, the spell should work.

  If it failed, they would all die. The Kirians, having drained themselves dry, would have nothing left with which to battle the vengeful fury of a sorcerer king betrayed by his onetime allies. Syukoe could expect to suffer an especially bitter fate as the treacherous child who dared to turn against her own father and aim to set herself in his place.

  Worse than anything Syukoe’s father could do to her would be the suffering of the elven people. Their pain would be everlasting.

  The spell had to work.

  The doors swung shut with a soft whoosh , sealing the room.

  The octagonal chamber had been cut from the living rock upon which the fortress stood. Its walls were made of the same polished black stone as the doors. Here too were the drifting symbols, giving Syukoe the impression of being in a glass-walled room submerged in black water. No symbols marred the dark perfection of the floor. In the exact center of the room, affixed to a square base, rested a slab, also fashioned of black stone. It stood at a height to make it comfortable as an altar or work table, measuring as long as the height of an average elven man, and about three times as wide as that same man’s body. Upon it rested many objects that Syukoe took to be the tools of the sorcerer’s craft.

  Master Iku stepped over to the table and dropped the ring into a bronze bowl, then fell back and folded his left hand into his right, hissing with pain.

  “ Master!” Syukoe cried out in alarm. Two of his fellows supported him as he doubled over, chest heaving. Syukoe knelt beside the stricken mage, her throat clogged with fear.

  “ The magic of the ring is very potent, especially with the king so near. It is a wonder that I was able to hold onto it for so long,” the old mage said through gritted teeth. He stood straight once more, having mastered the pain, and unfurled his clenched fingers.

  Where the ring had contacted his palm, a blackened hole gaped, seared into the Master’s flesh by the ring’s power. No blood seeped from the wound; the tissues had been cauterized by the intense energy.

  “ Master, you must let us tend to your hand,” one of the Kirians, a woman of middle years whose name escaped Syukoe, said.

  “ No! There is no time,” Master Iku replied, his voice full of urgency. “This wound is nothing compared to what I and the rest of us will suffer if we do not accomplish what we must this night. I will bind up my hand if I can find a bit of cloth, and make do.”

  “ Master, please take this.” Junko stepped forward and proffered a red silk ribbon that, moments before, had bound back her waist-length golden hair. Master Iku took the ribbon with a word of thanks and began wrapping it tightly about his injured hand. Junko, eyes lowered deferentially, backed away and retreated into a corner of the room where she then sat, back pressed against the unyielding sto
ne.

  Syukoe knew little about her father’s favorite concubine, other than she was very young and came from the north. The princess wondered just what the Kirians had offered her to betray her master and king. Perhaps sharing the king’s bed and receiving his favor had not been enough for this ambitious girl. Perhaps she had desired much, much more, and when she could not get what she craved, her mind had turned to treachery.

  Syukoe shook her head in frustrated anger. None of this was Junko’s fault.

  She is a victim of Father’s evil, just as we all are. Your problem is that you still love him. You would run to him and fall into his arms without a second thought. All he would have to do is speak a kind word, and all of the horrors of the last three years would be forgotten- that is, until he slit your throat for betraying him.

  She had to stay focused. Her survival, and that of the elven nation, depended on it.

  Master Iku had finished wrapping his hand and now stood at the stone table, the bronze cauldron containing the Griffin Ring before him. The light from the ring still blazed, throwing the upper half of the elder Kirian’s face into eerie shadow, making of it a bizarre, featureless mask. The others stood to either side of their leader, arms raised, palms turned outward. Master Iku spoke a single word, and the aimlessly drifting symbols in walls and doors began to swirl and dart, forming themselves into linear patterns, which then froze into place. Syukoe could now see that they had formed what looked to be the sentences of a massive text, written in a language unknown to her.

  The Kirians began to chant.

  A sudden wave of concussive force hit the chamber like an enormous hammer blow, throwing everyone off-balance. The chanting faltered for an instant, then resumed with even greater speed. Another shockwave rocked the chamber a heartbeat later, sending a fine powder of rock dust pattering to the floor.