A Vanishing of Griffins

by S. A. Patrick

  “Ah!” said Barver, rising and having a stretch. “Hedge-beet! That explains things. Causes uncontrollable flatulence in dragons. The kind that causes widespread burning. And explosions.” He leaned down to Wren. “Both ends!” he whispered.

  Tobias gave it some thought, then nodded. “Very well,” he said. “Dermy bean and…um…turnip stew?”

  “Sounds good,” said Barver. He yawned, settled back down, and closed his eyes again.

  “I’ll give you a hand, Tobias,” said Alia.

  “Call us when the food is ready,” said Rundel. “We haven’t quite gone through everything yet, we’ll take these upstairs and get it finished.” He and Erner gathered up the papers and scrolls.

  Once they’d all gone, Wren wandered around the room, looking at the tapestries on the walls.

  “How is it, Wren?” asked Patch. “Being human again, I mean.”

  She smiled, thoughtful. “I keep wanting to run up to your shoulder,” she said. “Everything is much more colourful. And detailed! A rat’s eyesight isn’t much to boast about, I have to say.” She looked down at herself, and tutted. “Still wearing the same clothes I left home in too!” She spun where she stood, her red-and-white striped dress billowing out a little. “Time for a change,” she said. “When you were hunting warm garments for the journey, I spotted boxes of clothes. I think I’ll go and see what I can find.”

  It didn’t take her long. “How’s this?” she said when she returned. “Much better than my old dress!” She’d chosen a style of patchwork goatskin clothing popular in the north, a simple trousers-and-tunic outfit long associated with those who hunted for a living – nothing baggy to snag on branches in a chase.

  “Looks comfortable,” said Patch.

  At that, Alia came through the door to the kitchen, a glum expression on her face.

  “I thought you were helping with the stew?” said Patch.

  “I was,” said Alia. “As I went to add some mint to the pot, Tobias was so horrified he sent me out.” She screwed up her face and put on a mock-Tobias voice: “‘You can’t have mint with dermy beans, are you mad?’ I mean, who is he to judge?”

  Patch decided it would be wise to keep silent on the matter. While they were in the little cottage on Sorkil Island, Alia’s cooking had always had a decidedly medicinal taste to it, almost as if she’d taken a potion recipe and thrown in some potatoes. He’d often been unsure whether to eat it, or rub it on a rash.

  To fill the time, Patch took his Pipe from one of Barver’s harness packs, and ran his fingers through some of the patterns Tobias had used in his Healing Songs. Once he had things clear in his mind, he started to play aloud. It seemed like an age since he’d actually played anything, and it felt good, like stretching your legs after sitting in one place for too long.

  He was pleased with how much he’d remembered from listening to Tobias. The foundations of the Curative Sleep were soon well established, holding together strongly. He added some of the tweaks Tobias had used to adapt the Song for Alkeran. As he played he kept a close eye on Barver, whose sleep had seemed rather uneasy – he’d been shuffling and muttering occasionally, his flight muscles presumably giving him some discomfort.

  Sure enough, Patch’s Song seemed to help, his friend’s agitated sleep becoming more restful. Patch let the Song fade. He’d certainly made a lot of progress, and having a Healing Song tailored to help Barver was a skill he was keen to perfect.

  “That’s what Tobias played for the griffin,” said Alia.

  Patch nodded. “I’ve never spent much time on Healing Songs,” he said. “It’s good to learn from an expert. I imagine Wren thinks the same, which is why she’s so desperate to be your apprentice.” He smiled at Wren, but she glared at him.

  “Oh, hush!” said Alia, blushing. “I have to admit I’m looking forward to it. I think you’ll make a good student, Wren.”

  “Thanks,” said Wren. “I’ll not let you down.”

  “You have to wait until you’re fifteen,” said Alia. “And you’ll need permission from your parents, of course.” She paused, then frowned and pointed to Wren’s face. “You’ve got a whisker,” she said.

  Patch looked, and there it was: a great big whisker beside Wren’s nose. An extra-large rat whisker, he had no doubt. Wren’s hand went up to feel it, and right before Patch’s eyes it shrank and vanished.

  Wren’s eyes were wide. “Underath mentioned there might be the occasional glitch,” she said, anxious. She turned to Patch and pulled back her upper lip, running her tongue over her teeth. “Do they seem normal to you?” she asked. “Not at all, you know, oversized?”

  “Glitch?” said Patch, horrified, but Wren shrugged.

  “I really do need a book on shape-shifting,” she said. “This kind of thing could get embarrassing.”

  “I’ll keep my eye open for something,” said Alia. “I know we’re supposed to be looking for Ural’s missing book, but it’s not the only important thing. The background of the woman who kidnapped Alkeran intrigues me too! I’d love to know what she was up to. I think I’ll be hunting for any mention of a Bestiary in Ural’s notebooks, when we go back down to the Caves after lunch.”

  Barver opened his eyes and gave a huge yawn. “Did somebody say lunch?”

  Patch felt more and more deflated as they made their way back to the Caves of Casimir. After the excitement of their trip with the griffins, and the triumph of Wren’s cure, the prospect of looking through the remaining books and papers held no appeal. He didn’t share Rundel Stone’s confidence that they would find the missing book. Even if they did, would it really provide any clues to help track down Casimir’s murderer, or the location of the Hamelyn Piper?

  Without even a drop of enthusiasm, he sat beside the shrinking pile of books he had yet to look through, knowing that the tall shelves on the walls behind him were still waiting.

  That was where Wren stood now, scanning the spines of the books and muttering to herself. She gave a frustrated grunt. “There’s bound to be something!” she said; then she looked at the higher shelves towering above her. “Maybe all the way up there… Barver? Any chance you could see if there’s a shape-shifting book in that lot?”

  “No problem,” said Barver. He stepped over to the shelves and started to look. “I see why these are all up so high,” he said.

  “Because they all sound very exciting and shape-shifty?” said Wren, crossing her fingers.

  “No,” said Barver. “Because they are dull, dull, dull!”

  Wren frowned. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “Oh, trust me,” said Barver. “It’s all boring!” He tapped the spines of each book as he described them: “Almanac for positions of stars; magical uses of herbs; almanac for positions of the moon; a cookery book; telling fortunes from sheep intestines; another almanac for star positions.” On he went, until he’d gone through every book on the higher shelves. “Nothing on shape-shifting, I’m afraid.”

  Rundel coughed and glared at them, so Patch and Barver returned to the job in hand. Wren continued her search, but over the next few hours her luck didn’t change. It was only when Alia came over, shortly before they left the Caves for the day, that she smiled again.

  “Here,” said Alia. “Look what I dug up.” She handed Wren a slim little book, small enough for a pocket: The Art and Method of Morphic Transmutation.

  “At least your day was more successful than ours,” said Patch.

  “That wasn’t my only success,” said Alia. “I found a single mention of a Bestiary that may be relevant!”

  Wren raised an eyebrow. “What did it say?”

  “A Bestiary is a book describing exotic or magical animals,” said Alia. “But apparently the term is also used to describe a kind of living Bestiary – a Sorcerer’s collection of live creatures, from where they could get fresh samples for their magic. I mean, Alkeran said he never saw anyone, but maybe there were mornings when he woke and had one less feather, or had lost some blood and didn’t
know it.”

  “Kept prisoner so a Sorcerer could use bits of him?” said Wren. “That’s awful!”

  “It is,” said Alia. “I didn’t find any reference to the symbol tattooed on the woman’s wrist, but that will wait until tomorrow.”

  Then it was time to leave the Caves of Casimir, after another day of failure. Tobias was particularly despondent about their lack of results. They climbed the steps to the surface, and when they reached the top, Barver pulled the lever in the wall.

  “How much longer will we spend on this, Rundel?” said Tobias, as the mechanisms above them rumbled and the exit opened.

  “We’re making progress,” said Rundel. “I’m certain the book Ural’s murderer wanted is within the Caves. We’ll find it soon.”

  “Well, I’m not certain, not at all,” said Tobias. “And even if it is there, it’s a thankless task you’ve set us! How do you find an unusual book, in a library full of unusual books?”

  A moment later, Patch simply turned and ran, three steps at a time, back towards the Caves.

  “Good Lord, what’s got into him?” said Alia.

  “He can hardly see the steps!” said Wren.

  “We’ve only just got up here,” complained Tobias. “I’m not going back down!”

  “Oh, give me that,” said Wren, taking the lantern Tobias was carrying. “I’ll go back and see what’s wrong with him.”

  Patch didn’t have a very high opinion of his ideas, as a rule, but even he had to admit that he occasionally came up with a doozy. Turning the Iron Mask inside out was a particularly good example, of course, but right now he thought he’d had another one.

  “Hey!” shouted Wren, catching him up. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I had an idea,” said Patch, panting. “It was what Tobias said: how do you find an unusual book, in a library of unusual books?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Wren.

  “The murderer went through the books in the mansion’s library and tore each of them! Even though those books were all just poetry and plays and adventure stories, they tore them! Those books looked ordinary on the outside, do you see?”

  Wren’s puzzled expression vanished, and Patch knew she’d remembered: as Barver had described the books on the high shelves, there had been one that should have jumped out at them right away.

  Because in a library of unusual books, an ordinary one should stand out.

  There was a ladder Erner had been using earlier; Patch carried it over to his and Wren’s section, and climbed up to the highest bookshelf.

  “If you go to the trouble of disguising a magical book, you make it look as unmagical and run-of-the-mill as possible!” he said, as he looked at each book in turn. “The kind of book anyone might have in their unmagical, run-of-the-mill library.”

  And there it was. In among the almanacs and the magical herb encyclopedias was a single cookery book. He pulled it free, then came back down the ladder.

  Wren cleared a spot on the table, and Patch set the book down. For a moment they both just looked at it, then Wren flipped it open.

  The first thing they saw was a loose sheet of paper, the words Poddle and Poddle, Booksellers at the top. On the paper was the following:

  Sir,

  Here is the book you have sought for so long, with a false cover to hide it from prying eyes. It seems genuine: a copy of the lost work of Lar-Sennen, called Tharras Infina Nadus, or Thoughts of the Unlimited Dark. There are rumoured to be only three copies in existence. I trust it is to your satisfaction.

  Yours,

  Kondry Poddle

  Wren took the letter out and set it to one side, but she seemed wary of touching the first page of the book.

  “Go on,” said Patch.

  “It looks so old!” she said. “I’m afraid of damaging it.” She took a deep breath and very carefully turned the page.

  There was a detailed picture that looked like some kind of plan or design; on the next page was a sketch of a strange box with a hinged lid, that seemed to match the plan. Underneath was text, written in a curious and unfamiliar alphabet.

  She turned to the next page. There was another plan, of what seemed like jewellery, a kind of intricate necklace; again, an image of the finished item, and writing.

  And the next: a pyramid of some form, carved with eyes on each side.

  They both looked to the cabinet in the centre of the cavern, then ran over to it to be certain. And there they were: the pyramid, the necklace, the box.

  They rushed back to the book and looked through the rest. Page after page: designs, alongside a picture of the finished item, and unintelligible writing.

  Magical devices.

  Wren turned more pages, and more, and the devices seemed to be getting larger, the designs taking up several pages each, some with human figures to give a sense of their scale.

  And then, close to the back of the book, they could only stare at what they saw. After a dozen pages showing detailed plans for long tube-like structures, a full page was devoted to a sketch of the final result. Those tube-like structures rose high above a small human figure beneath, playing on a board of keys.

  It was the Obsidiac Organ.

  Wren gasped and stepped away from the book, her eyes filled with dread. “Patch,” she said. “Go and get the others.”

  Patch ran.

  For the next two hours, Alia studied the book. The others watched from the far side of the cavern.

  Waiting was torture, Patch thought, but Alia stared at them if they made a sound or approached where she worked. A stare from Alia was more than enough to stop anyone.

  At last, she called them to join her.

  “I apologize for taking so long,” she said. “The writing is in an old runic language that took me a while to get my head around.” She opened the book to the first page. “Tharras Infina Nadus, or Thoughts of the Unlimited Dark,” she said. “This book is a collection of devices that are all powered by obsidiac. They start small, but with each page the ambition grows, until we reach what the book calls the unlimited dark: what marvels could be created, if you had unlimited obsidiac? As Wren and Patch noticed, several of the items in Ural’s collection match illustrations in this book. For example…” She set down a small metal box, which had a kind of clip on the side. Alia turned the pages of the book until she found the matching illustration. “We found this on Imminus Rock. The text describes it as a device to instantly leap from one place to another. And this…” She turned to a page with a pair of strange pendants. “This is a device to see from far distances. I’ve not managed to translate much of the description for that one, so I’m not quite sure what that means.” She turned the pages again, coming to a stubby cylinder filled with cogs. “And this, a device for detecting what is called magical persuasion – that is, being compelled by magic to do something against your will. Which brings us neatly to the larger items. Most notably, the Obsidiac Organ, a device for magical persuasion on a huge scale. Each of its vast Pipes must be coated with a thick layer of powdered obsidiac bound together in resin. There’s a smaller persuasion device described earlier, but it claims only to work on the weak-willed, and takes significant time to achieve its goal.”

  Patch thought of the oddly empty people who had helped the Hamelyn Piper in Tiviscan – there had been a few dozen of them, perhaps, and all had escaped with the Hamelyn Piper. “That may have been how he controlled his helpers,” he said.

  Alia nodded. “The Organ can do the same thing to many hundreds at once, far more quickly, and works on everyone. At least, that’s what the book claims, and it’s certainly what you three witnessed at Tiviscan. The book keeps making a very clear point, however: these grandest of devices are all purely theoretical. They could not be created, as each would need more obsidiac than there was in the whole world.”

  “Until now,” said Rundel. “But how? How did the Hamelyn Piper find enough obsidiac to build that Organ?”

  Patch, Wren and Barver l
ooked at one another. For so long, they had kept that terrible secret to themselves. Barver had sworn to tell only Lord Drevis.

  Alia held up the bookseller’s note. “We know from this that Ural had been looking for a copy of the book for a long time, and that there may be two others in existence. One is clearly in the hands of the Hamelyn Piper. Now, I want you to look closely at this – the last section of the book consists of thirteen pages, detailing a single design.” She turned the pages slowly so that they could all see.

  At first it was hard for Patch to make out. The diagrams seemed to be for metal frames of various shapes, and alongside them were pieces of obsidiac that would fit into the metal.

  “Are those some form of spring clip on the edges?” asked Wren, pointing to the frames.

  “I believe so,” said Alia. “As with the jewellery earlier in the book, the obsidiac pieces here must be flawless and pure – resin-bound fragments are not enough. Those clips hold the pieces in place.”

  She continued to turn the pages; there were more and more of the oddly shaped frames, and Patch still couldn’t make out what they were, but then the designs began to show how the frames fitted together, to form a larger whole:

  A leg.

  An arm.

  A torso.

  And then the full construction. There was no need for a separate human figure in this illustration, because the finished result was a human figure.

  A figure, wearing a suit of obsidiac armour.

  Everyone looked at it, in absolute silence.

  “Black armour for the Black Knight!” said Tobias at last. “The ghost armies of the Ortings… That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That the Hamelyn Piper has made this, just as he made the Obsidiac Organ?”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” said Alia. “But the moment I saw this picture, I knew it was true.”

  “It’s impossible!” said Rundel. “You said the armour must be made of pure, flawless pieces of obsidiac. The only pure and flawless obsidiac that’s ever been found is the size of pebbles. This requires chunks as big as my head. No matter what source of obsidiac the Hamelyn Piper has found, pieces like that simply don’t exist.”