"I do not know," she said, but sadly. "It has never happened before that an Emperor took as his Consort a kestra'chern. I suspect he could order it to be so only at the Eclipse Ceremony."
So much hinges on that damned Ceremony! he thought bitterly. Even the barest hope of happiness for Silver Veil! "I cannot promise anything," he said at last, "but I will do what I can to help you, as you have so often helped me. Perhaps—perhaps, if everything works out properly at the Ceremony, there may be a solution for you as well."
"But you must not tell him of my feelings for him!" she insisted. "You must not! It is bad enough now, but it would be worse for both of us if you do! Loving in silence is misery, but loving, knowing the other loves, and remaining parted is twice the misery! I have seen it happen all too often that way."
Sadly, so had he. "I swear it," he pledged her. "Yet I also swear that I will do what I can to remedy the situation, if a remedy can be found." He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, and smiled into her eyes. "I might even offer my own services to the Emperor," he said, only half in jest. "Then, at least, there would be a substitute for you. You often said that I am the one pupil who is your equal."
"You surpass me, and beware lest I hold you to that," she murmured, but she managed a wan smile. "And meanwhile—I shall consult with Leyuet. There may be something that the Spears can do quietly to help search for Skandranon."
"Thank you." He took her hands again, squeezed them gently, and stood up. "I must go back to Zhaneel before she begins plucking her feathers. I will let you know if we learn anything."
"And I, you." She smiled up into his face, this time with more feeling. "Odd, how we can forget our troubles in the troubles of others."
"Isn't it?" he responded.
She escorted him to the door of her suite herself, and let him out with another embrace.
But the moment he left her presence, all the fears for Skan and for their entire precarious situation came back a hundredfold. He hurried back to the gryphons' quarters, half in hope, and half in fear.
Zhaneel was where he had left her, but her muscles were the tiniest bit less tense. "I have spoken to Kechara," she announced before he could ask anything.
"I think she understands the concept of shields, and she is going to look for them. Snowstar is to show her one, and he will teach her to break in if she can. He thinks that she should be able to, especially since these people do not know as much about mind-shields as we."
He heaved a sigh of relief. At least that was one bit of good news in all the bad.
"So now we wait," she finished, with tired and worried resignation.
"Now we wait," he confirmed. "But—we also hope. After all, isn't he the Black Gryphon again? And hasn't the Black Gryphon always been able to return, no matter how harsh the odds?"
She nodded. And that seemed to be all the answer she needed, at least for the moment.
Ten
Amberdrake paced the floor of the gryphons' suite, surrounded by the rest of the White Gryphon contingent, who were fretting and worrying each in his own fashion. While he knotted and untied a length of satin rope, Zhaneel preened her feathers with exquisite care for each one—preening to the point where she was doing them damage around the edges. Judeth sharpened a knife; by now, it must be the sharpest knife on the continent. The rest of her Silvers were following their leader's example, including Aubri, who sharpened his claws. And Winterhart braided, unraveled, and rebraided the fringes of her sash.
It had been two days since Skan's disappearance, and in all that time Kechara had not been able to contact him.
What she had been able to do was to learn what long distance mind-shields "tasted" like, and how to break or bypass them. That had taken her a day, and Amberdrake was astonished what she had learned in so little time. He had not thought she had the mental capacity to learn anything in so short a time period, much less something fraught with so many sophisticated concepts.
She had been searching for mind-shields since dawn, and systematically getting past them. Most of them, predictably enough, were crude things, masking only the minds of those who were Gifted and had shielded themselves against the outside world. Some had been put in place over temples or the minds of Haighlei priests, which again was not surprising, given how these people felt about Mindspeaking in the first place.
Faithfully, she reported every shield found, and every shield broken, although Snowstar was reportedly growing worried that she was nearing the end of her strength.
But time was growing short as well. The Eclipse Ceremony would take place beginning at dawn and ending later tomorrow. Everyone intending to take part in the Ceremony—which was everyone except Zhaneel and Amberdrake—was supposed to meet with the Haighlei priests for a special cleansing that would take until sunrise. Amberdrake was excused by dint of his insanity, and "Hawkwind" because "he" was supposed to be guarding Amberdrake. The servants were due at any moment to come and fetch them all.
There was a knock at the door in the next room. Gesten went to answer it, coming back with the expected result.
"They're here," he said in a toneless voice. "We'd better get going."
Judeth rose from her seat, and the rest stood up with her. "If we're going to have any hope of pulling our tails out of this fire, we have to play along with this," she said, for at least the twentieth time.
Amberdrake nodded, deciding not to answer because as short as his temper was, he was likely to snap at her. She waited for a few moments, then taking the nod and the silence as her orders, ushered everyone else out, including Gesten. Only Makke remained behind to watch the children. Winterhart was the last to go, casting an anxious glance back at him.
He sensed that she wanted to say something—like "don't do anything stupid while we're gone"—but she wisely kept her own thoughts behind her lips. He smiled at her, and mimed a kiss. She did the same.
Then they were all gone. The silence in the suite was enough to make him shake his head with the feeling that he must somehow have gone deaf.
"Well?" he asked finally, just to hear something, even if it was his own voice.
Zhaneel raised her weary head from her foreclaws; she hadn't slept in all this time, and she looked it. "She has found another shield, and she is working on it. This one tastes magical in nature."
He frowned, rubbing his weary, aching eyes. That was odd. That was distinctly odd. The chief effect of every mage-storm so far had been to destabilize or knock down shields, so this one would have to have been put up since the last storm.
And to put up a magical shield right now would take an enormous amount of power. Why bother, especially here?
Unless whoever was beneath that shield had something to hide from the priests....
Like more magic? Like—blood-magic?
He had hoped so many times, and had his hopes dashed, that he was afraid to hope this time. And yet—and yet this time all the parameters fit, all of them, and not just some of them.
He waited, and Zhaneel waited, as the water-clock dripped toward three.
Zhaneel suddenly jumped to her feet, uttering a cry that made his ears ring and every hair on his head stand straight up.
"Drake!" she shouted as his heart lurched into a gallop. "Drake, she found him! He is alive!"
Alive, but not necessarily well... according to Zhaneel, Skan was trussed up like a bird for the spit, had been cut on a bit, and had not eaten or drunk since his capture. With his high energy needs, he was not in very good shape at the moment, and he was light-headed with exhaustion. Getting details from a tipsy gryphon through a gryphon with the mind of a child to a gryphon who was giddy with lack of sleep was a lesson in patience.
"Little Kechara is worried about her Papa Skan. I can feel it. She hasn't yet admitted to herself that Skandranon's in trouble, but she can tell something isn't quite right. Skan's been trying to soothe her, but he isn't in very good shape, Drake."
"All right, I want every single detail that she
can get from him," Amberdrake said wearily. "I want her to describe everything he's hearing, smelling, and seeing. If he's anywhere in the Palace complex, I might be able to identify the place. The gods know I've walked over every inch of it, looking for clues."
Zhaneel nodded, her eyes closed. "There is the smell of peppers, and of night-trumpet," she said, slowly. "The stone of the wall is a pale yellow, and—it is marble." She lapsed back into silence for a moment. "She looks in his memory, and there are fine furnishings, like the ones in our rooms."
"Could be anywhere," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Could even be out in the city. Damn!"
"Sounds, though. There is no sound of people or traffic, and there are always those sounds in the city," she said, and his heart rose a little. If Skan was somewhere, anywhere, within the complex, it would make things much easier.
"The sound of falling water," Zhaneel continued. "And windchimes, wooden ones. Oh, there are night-singers, nearby, perhaps in a garden!"
That narrowed it down a little, to one of the less-desirable, older sections of the complex. Night-singers, which were a type of singing insect, had fallen out of favor a century or so ago, but no one had bothered to eradicate them from the gardens of those who themselves were not particularly in favor. The fashion now was for birds that sang at night, or no singers at all—or, more accurately, the fashion three generations ago was thus, and nothing had changed.
"Anything else?" he asked, in desperation, as his back and neck clenched with tension. She spasmed her talons in her pillows, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
"No—yes!" she said, and her eyes flew open. "There is a sentry, calling the hour, within hearing distance of the room!"
He leaped to his feet, every nerve alive with excitement, his heart racing again. There was only one place where one could hear the hours called as sentries made their rounds, and that was near the outer walls of the huge complex. And because most people did not care to have their sleep disturbed, there was only one building near enough to the walls to hear that—
"He's in the Hall of Fragrant Joy!" Amberdrake said, fiercely. "He has to be!" He thought quickly. "Zhaneel, try to get the priests to let you in to the others. I'll go after him now, while we still have a chance of getting to him before they really hurt him."
"You?" she said incredulously. "You? You are not a fighter! How could you—"
I will not think about this, or I will not have the courage.
"Zhaneel, it is a moonless night and you know you don't fly well at night! Skan has enhanced night-vision, but you don't, and if you can't see to fly, you'd have to walk. That puts you on the ground, where you are terribly vulnerable, and that's in the open. Inside—well, I may not be a fighter, but the hallways in that old section of the Palace are narrow, and you would hardly be able to move, much less fight!" He took her head between his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. "And I do not intend to fight! I intend to slip in, find him, turn him loose, and get out of there! If I go now, I can probably manage so that no one notices me. You couldn't be inconspicuous no matter how hard you try."
She made a growling sound but nodded in agreement.
"Go get the others; badger the priests until they let you in," he urged. "Send them after me. Now, I've got to go!"
He was already wearing the best possible clothing for night prowling; his guise of Hawkwind, black-on-black.
She clicked her beak in anxiety for a moment, then appeared to make up her mind, and rushed out the door.
He didn't bother with the door; perhaps he wasn't a fighter, but he hadn't been spending all these years helping to build White Gryphon without learning some rather odd skills for a kestra'chern.
I will not think about this, only do it.
He had a balcony, and it was a lot faster to get to the ground by sliding down the spiral support poles.
And what was more—if their enemies were watching the door, they'd never see him leave.
He went over the balcony railing and hung by his fingertips for a moment, as he felt for the support pole with his feet. In a moment, he had it; he wrapped his legs around it and let go of the railing, sliding down the pole like a naughty boy fleeing confinement to his room.
Except that, unlike the boy, he had no sense of exhilaration. His muscles all shivered, and his heart beat double-time with fear and tension. He was only too aware that he was one man, alone, and that this course was madness.
A moment later, he was crouched in the shadow of the bushes at the foot of the pole, listening for the sounds of anyone else out in the garden. I suppose I could have dropped straight down; one story isn't too far to fall. Yes, but if I'd broken an ankle, I wouldn't be able to do Skan much good now, would I?
He felt the stir of the night breeze against his skin with unnatural clarity. As far as he could tell, there wasn't anyone nearby on the grounds. That was the way it should be; everyone of any consequence was in the various cleansing ceremonies, and the only people who were excused from the ceremonies were the sick, the injured, the mad (like Amberdrake), and those whose duties forced them to work, like the guards and some of the servants, and probably less than a third of those. This was the quietest the Palace had ever been. Lights were going out in every direction he looked, as servants went from room to deserted room, extinguishing them, in preparation for the Ceremony.
In this case, the best way to be inconspicuous—if a man with a face as pale as his ever would be inconspicuous here—would be to act as if he was going somewhere on orders. So once he made certain there was no one in the immediate area watching him, he stood up, straightened his tunic, and set off for the Hall of Fragrant Joy at a fast walk.
He felt as if there were hundreds of eyes on him, and the skin of his back prickled, as if anticipating an arrow. He wanted to run, but that was hardly the way to remain inconspicuous. No one ran, here. It simply wasn't done.
He couldn't have run in any case; the path was visible only because it was white gravel in the midst of dark green grass. If he tried to run, he'd probably fall and break his neck.
Oh, this is bright, Drake. You're going off by yourself, without any reinforcements. You've assumed that Skan will be alone and relatively unguarded, but you can't be sure of that, now, can you? So you're going off to play the hero, and you aren't exactly suited to the role, you know! And what are you going to do when you get there and find out that Skan isn't alone, hmm? Try and talk your way out of it? I don't think anyone is going to believe you just went out for a stroll and happened to show up where he's being held! And with a pale face like yours, you aren't going to pass for Haighlei!
The internal voice did nothing to still the fear; not even clenching his hands into fists kept them from shaking.
Buildings loomed all around him, poking up above the carefully sculptured foliage of the grounds, dark and lifeless. There wasn't a hint of the sounds that usually filled the night here; no music, no conversation, nothing. Just lightless buildings, with the star-filled sky up ahead, and the white of the path barely discernible in the heavy, flower-scented dark. He couldn't even make out much beyond the bare shape of the bushes and trees beside the path.
Thank you so much, Skan, for running off and not taking anyone to back you up. Even leaving Aubri up on a rooftop while you played mighty warrior would have been enough! Now you're in trouble and I'm running to your rescue like the fool I am. In the dark. Alone. Oh, brilliant, Amberdrake.
This was as close to being blind as he cared to go, and it took all of his concentration to keep from stumbling over uneven places in the dark.
Which was precisely why, when a shadow separated itself from the trunk of a tree overhanging the path and flung itself at him, he didn't have any time to react.
And he didn't even feel the blow to his head that sent him into unconsciousness; there was only a sense of timelessness where awareness should have been.
* * *
His head hurt—
It throbbed, horribly, with every beat of his he
art. His stomach turned over and there was a taste of blood and something bitter in his mouth. His lower lip stung; he tested it with his tongue, finding more blood, finding it swollen and cut.
His arms were twisted under him and behind his back in an awfully odd pose. He groaned, and tried to roll over. What had he done last night that—
A tugging at his neck stopped him. He couldn't roll over. In fact, he couldn't move at all.
Amberdrake's eyes opened, but slowly, slowly, for they were sticky and felt swollen, and hurt too, though not as much as his head. He didn't learn much of anything, however, for there was nothing more enlightening than a yellow marble wall in front of him. He was lying on his side, but someone had "considerately" propped him up and padded him with cushions placed beneath him in a primitive mattress.
Why does this not comfort me? Possibly because I have obviously been bludgeoned and am now tied hand and foot?
Moving even a little woke pain in his arms and neck, but also told him that much. His arms were pinned together by a restraint at the elbows, behind his back, although they had not been tied so tightly as to be uncomfortable.
Yet. Of course, I'm a kestra'chern, and I can force my muscles to relax, which might help.
His wrists were also strapped together, and there was a collar around his neck that was fastened to something behind him; that was what had kept him from rolling over.
So much for rescuing Skan. Whoever has him must have been watching our rooms. Gods, I hope they didn't get Zhaneel!
Blinding pain washed a red haze over everything for a moment; when it subsided, he continued to take inventory of his situation. Curiously, though, he began to realize that he wasn't afraid any longer. Maybe because the worst has already happened, so why be afraid?
His ankles were tied together, and his knees, although he could bend both. He craned his neck a little and bent at the waist as much as the collar would allow, to get a peek at the bindings on his legs. His head throbbed, but there was enough slack in his bindings for him to think about getting himself loose.
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