The Silver Gryphon v(mw-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  Her eyes darkened dangerously at his words, but her voice remained calm and even, which was something of a testament to her own control. Judeth did not like threats, but she was a realist, and she must know that he was not bluffing. “Right at this moment, the original patrol is flying out about a day in the right direction to see if they can find anything. If they don’t, they’ll go north of the track, then south, to see if they somehow went off course. Meanwhile, we’re working on it. We’re not just sitting around, waiting to see what happens. We’re trying to find some way of locating them from here, and—and—” she finally raised her own voice as he got ready to explode again. “—and we are putting together search parties. Those will leave in the morning, since we can’t possibly get one together before then. There is no point in grabbing unprepared people and sending them out at random. Now, if you can think of anything I might have missed, I’d like to hear it.” The truth was, he couldn’t, but that didn’t stop him from wanting some action right that very moment, something besides merely “readying a search party.”

  “I can’t think of anything, but I’m—this is difficult. It’s hard to think,” he admitted grudgingly. “Does Skan know yet?”

  “Aubri’s telling him.” Poor Aubri, her tone said, but Poor Skan, was what he was thinking.

  He was afraid of this. He didn‘t want Tad to go off on this assignment any more than I wanted Blade to. I know he thought about going to Judeth and asking them to be reassigned to something else, and didn’t do it. And now he must be wondering if he is to blame for them being missing.

  “I’ll tell Winterhart—” he began, his throat tightening at the thought. Gods, how do I tell her? This was my fault, if it all comes down to it; something I said or did made Blade want to be in the Silvers in the first place, all my interference made her want to be assigned somewhere far away from here—if I hadn‘t tried to meddle in her life so much, she would still be here—maybe even doing something else with her life. And Tad would have a different partner, one that wouldn’t have urged him to ask for assignment out of the city. He desperately wanted someone else to take on the burden of telling her, so that he did not have to face her accusing eyes. Cowardly, yes, but —

  “No, I’ll tell her,” Judeth said firmly. “I already know where she is, and I’m Silverblade’s commander; that’s part of my job. You go to Skan; I’ll send her to you there.”

  There, as everyone in White Gryphon knew, was “Kechara’s nursery” this time of the day. Skandranon spent at least an hour with her and the other children, human and otherwise, every afternoon. He loved to spend time with them, telling stories, playing games. Once again, Amberdrake got to his feet and headed for the door; this time Judeth didn’t stop him.

  As soon as the White Gryphon Council Hall was finished, the spouses of every city official had demanded the addition of real offices to it—Winterhart included. “We’re tired of you people bringing work home, and we’re tired of having work follow you home,” she had said, both in her capacity as “spokes-spouse” and in her capacity as a city official herself. “Home is where you go to get away from idiots who couldn’t find the public latrine without a map and a guide! And every official gets an office, even if it’s no bigger than a closet!” she had added. “I don’t care if the post of k’Leshya Clan chief has never had a physical office before, the k’Leshya Clan chief has also never lived in anything other than a tent before, and if he can break tradition by living in a cave, he can break it a little more by having an office and regular hours, and he can bar the door when his office hours are over!” She had glared at Amberdrake, and her eyes had said, And that goes twice as much for you, my dear and over-obliging spouse!

  Since Lionwind’s wife had been standing behind Winterhart, nodding her head at every word and with one hand on her knife, he and every other city official had readily agreed.

  The offices were all built into the cliff behind the Council Hall, small and private, and close to the other public buildings. The administrative building for the Silvers was not that far away from Amberdrake’s office, and in that building was the nursery they had made for Kechara when she was still acting as the communication center for the Silvers. She shared it with the youngsters of anyone else in the Silvers or in city administration who needed to have someone tend their little ones while they worked. It was a good arrangement for everyone, and it gave Kechara a never-ending stream of playmates who were all her mental age, even if she was chronologically six or more times older.

  Even though Kechara’s powers were severely limited, she could still “talk” to any gryphon within the city territory. That alone was useful to the Silvers, and a very good reason to keep her right where she always had been.

  As Amberdrake hurried toward the building, every muscle and nerve writhing with anxiety, he couldn’t even begin to imagine how Judeth had thought that Aubri could break something like this gently to Skan. She must have been so upset by the news that her ability to reason had flown right out the door! Aubri hasn’t the tact of a brick. When Skan—

  “DRAKE!” The bellow of a gryphon enraged could probably be heard all the way up to the farms, and the gryphon that burst out of the door of the Silvers’ headquarters looked perfectly ready to chew up iron and spit out nails. Burst was indeed the correct term; the white-and-black gryphon erupted from the door flying, his head swiveling in all directions, presumably looking for his friend as he gained altitude. “Drake!” Skan bellowed again, from a height of about three lengths above him. “These idiots! They’ve lost—”

  “I know, I know,” Amberdrake shouted back, waving his hands frantically. “That’s why I’m—”

  Skan folded his wings and landed heavily, as if he were pouncing on something, every feather on end. “I want every mage in this city working on a way to find them!” he said wrathfully. “I don’t care what they’re doing! This is an emergency! I want everybody pulled in off of whatever they’re doing, and I want search parties out there now! I want messengers sent to Shalaman! I want every man the Haighlei can spare out there looking, too! I want—”

  We have to work this together, or they’re not going to listen to us. Amberdrake seized his friend’s head in both hands, hooking his fingertips into the gryphon’s nares. He pulled Skan’s beak down so that the gryphon was looking directly into his eyes. “I know,” he said forcefully. “Believe me, I feel the same! We have to call the Council to authorize this, Skan, but I don’t think anybody on it is going to disagree with us, and if they do—”

  Skan growled wordlessly at the very idea.

  “If they do, we—we both know things they wish we didn’t,” he pointed out.

  “We do. And I’ll use that.” There it was; Skan agreed with him. It wasn’t right, but it was better than arguing with shard-counters until it was too late to do anything.

  “But there’s no point in scattering everybody like a covey of frightened quail,” Drake persisted, trying

  to convince himself as much as Skandranon. “All right? Let’s get things coordinated. Judeth told the original patrol to look for them; right now that’s all that anyone can do out there. We have to organize, and get people out there, talk people into using Gates again if we have to. We have to get Council backing for all that before anything else can be done, and that isn’t going to happen if we’re both standing here and wasting precious time screaming like outraged parents!”

  “We are outraged parents!” The gryphon kicked clods of dirt in flurries of rage. “I don’t want to have to follow procedure!”

  Amberdrake put his fists on his hips and leaned toward Skandranon. “We will get Council approval, by whatever means necessary.”

  I hate it, but that’s the case. If we want to have more than just “the usual effort” from the Silvers, we have to get Council authorization. And that’s where the threats of blackmail come in.

  Skan growled again, but without as much force behind it. “Damn it, Drake, why do you have to be so right?” he snarled.
“All right then, I’ll go back in there and have Kechara call in the Council members so we can authorize all of this.”

  Amberdrake wanted to add don’t frighten her, but he held his tongue. Of all of them, Skan knew best how not to do anything that would make Kechara unhappy. He was her “Papa Skan,” and she loved him with all of her heart—which was as large as her poor brain was small. He would no more do anything to frighten her than he would allow Blade and Tad to languish in the wilderness, unsought-for and unrescued.

  He headed back toward the Council Hall, certain that if Winterhart and Zhaneel were not already on the way there, after Kechara’s call, they would be.

  Skan came stalking in shortly after Drake, and within moments after that, the rest of the Council members came hurrying in. Judeth was one of the first, looking very surprised and taken aback, and just a little annoyed; and although Skan leveled an icy glare at her, his tone was civil enough.

  “I’ve called this meeting,” he said. “Since this is an emergency situation.”

  He waited only until there were enough Council members present to constitute a quorum, and until everyone was seated before nodding to Judeth.

  “You’re the commander of the Silvers, so I think it best that you explain the emergency to the rest of the Council,” he said crisply. Judeth looked as if she wanted to say something scathing to him, but held her tongue, which was probably wise.

  Amberdrake had a good idea of what she was thinking, however. She was, first and foremost, a military commander, and under any other circumstances, the fact that two of the most junior members of the Silvers were missing—or overdue—should not have been considered an emergency the Council should be concerned with. Only an hysterical—but powerful—parent could have thought that it was.

  And Amberdrake would have cheerfully throttled her for suggesting any such thing, if she dared.

  Throttled her, then revived her so I could throttle her again. Part of him was appalled at this capacity for violence within himself; the rest of him nodded in gleeful agreement at the idea. Then I’d revive her so that Skan could have a turn.

  But she evidently knew better—or the threat of his influence made her think twice about suggesting any such thing. Judeth explained the situation, coolly and calmly, while the other members of the Council listened without making any comments. Skan kept glaring around the table as if daring any of them to say that this was not the sort of emergency for which the Council should be called.

  No one did, but Snowstar did have something to say that put the entire situation into a perspective that Amberdrake greatly appreciated.

  “Has anyone ever gone missing this way before?” he asked, without looking either at Skan or at Amberdrake. “I know that there have been a handful of accidents among the Silvers, but I don’t ever recall any of our Silvers on Outpost Duty ever disappearing before. Judeth, you haven’t even had any fatalities in the Silvers since we encountered the Haighlei, and all of those were on the trek to find the coast. If this is a new development, I think it is a very serious one.”

  Aubri opened his beak, then looked at Judeth, startled. She was the one who replied.

  “Actually—you’re right,” she said, sounding just as surprised as Aubri looked. “The fatalities among young gryphons since we founded the city have all been among the hunters, not the Silvers, and the accidents causing injuries among the Silvers have all been just that—accidents, usually caused by weather, and not a single death from something like a drunkard or fight. To date we haven’t had a single case of Outpost Patrols going missing. They’ve broken limbs, they’ve gotten sick, we’ve had to send help out to them, and one set of humans even got lost once—but they had a teleson and we knew they were all right, we just couldn’t find them for a while. We’ve never had anyone just vanish before. . . .”

  Her eyes were the only part of her that showed how alarmed this new observation made her, but Amberdrake was savagely pleased at the way that her eyes went blank and steely. He knew that look. That was General Judeth, suddenly encountering a deadly enemy where she had been told there was open ground with no threats.

  “I kept thinking this was—sort of one of the hazards of duty—but that was under war conditions or while we were making our way here,” Aubri muttered, so shamefaced that his nares flushed a brilliant red. “Snowstar, you’re right! We’ve never lost a Silver since—since we allied with the Haighlei!”

  You two have been making the mistake of thinking that the Silvers were the extension of the old army—but they aren’t and our situation is completely different than it was before the wars. And how could I have been so blind not to have seen your blindness?

  “Then I believe this does qualify as a full-scale emergency,” Snowstar said firmly. “When two highly-trained individuals drop completely out of sight, for no reason and with no warning, it seems to me that the danger is not only to them alone, but possibly to the entire city. What if they were removed so that they could not alert us to some enemy who is moving against us? How can we know that if we don’t mount a rescue, in strength and numbers?”

  Heads nodded all around the table, and Amberdrake exchanged stricken glances with Winterhart, who had come in just in time to hear that. He felt cold all over, and she had paled. He could have done without hearing that. He was perversely glad that Snowstar had thought of it, for it certainly swayed even the veterans on the Council to their cause, but he could have done without hearing it.

  Either Snowstar really believes that, or the self-proclaimed nondiplomat Snowstar just made a shrewd play in our support. Or both.

  A heavy and ominous silence filled the Council Hall, and no one seemed prepared to break it. Skan was as frozen as a statue, and beside him, Zhaneel simply looked to be in too much shock to be able to think. Winterhart stood beside her Council seat, unable to sit, clutching the back of it; her knuckles were as white as her namesake. Amberdrake himself felt unable to move, every limb leaden and inert.

  Judeth cleared her throat, making all of them jump. “Right,” she said briskly, silence broken. “We have the original pair flying a search pattern; we’re putting together more search teams. Does anyone have any further suggestions?”

  Skan opened his beak, but Snowstar beat him to it. “I’ll organize the mages and start distance-scrying,” he said immediately. “We’re probably too far away, but those who can scry for them should at least try. We’ll look for the traces of the magic on all the items they had with them; even if something made them crash, those traces will still be there. I’ll also pick out mages for the search parties.”

  Once again, Skan opened his beak—then glared around the table, to make certain that he wasn’t interrupted this time. “We should send a message to Shalaman,” he said belligerently. “His people know that forest better than we do. We should make him—I mean, ask him—to send out parties of his hunters.”

  “That’s good,” Judeth approved, making a note of it. “I can put anyone who’s been posted to that area on search parties, but if we can field Haighlei who are trained to hunt the forest in addition to our own people, that will be even better. Anything else?”

  Search parties, magic, the Haighlei. . . . Thoughts flitted through Drake’s head, but he couldn’t make any of them hold still long enough to be examined. Judeth looked around the table to meet shaking heads, and nodded.

  “Good. We’ve got a plan,” she said firmly. “We should assume that whatever has happened to these Silvers could endanger the city, and make finding them a top priority. Let’s get to it.”

  She stood up and was halfway to the door before anyone else was even out of his chair. He didn’t blame her. If the situation was reversed, he wouldn’t want to be in the same room with four frantic parents either.

  And he wouldn’t want to face two people who had just threatened to blackmail him for not taking the loss of their children seriously enough.

  Everyone else deserted the hall as quickly. Only Aubri paused at the door, lookin
g back with uncertainty in his gaze. He opened his beak, then swallowed hard, shook his head, and followed the others.

  Skandranon wanted nothing more than to rush off to the rescue of his son. Failing that, he wanted to tear the gizzard out of those who were responsible for his disappearance. Right now, so far as his heart was concerned, the ones responsible were right here in White Gryphon.

  Judeth and Aubri. It was all their fault. If they hadn’t assigned the children to this far-flung outpost, both his beloved son and his dear friend Amberdrake’s daughter would still be here.

  “I knew that this was a mistake all along!” he seethed at Zhaneel as he paced the length and breadth of the Council Hall. “I knew they were too young to be sent off on Outpost Duty! No one that young has ever been sent off alone like that before! They should have been posted here, like everyone else was! Judeth’s getting senile, and Aubri was already there to show her the way—and—”