Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt

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by The Silver Gryphon [lit]


  we return.”

  “What, no lovely gryphon ladies and human stallions to wile away your time

  of exile?” jibed Keenath, and shuddered realistically. “Well, never mind. I can

  guarantee that in the case of the ladies, I can make certain that they will not

  notice your absence, twin.”

  “They are more likely to cry out in pain at your I poor attempts at gallantry,

  Keeth,” Tadrith told him and turned back to Blade. “You realize that this shows

  a great deal of trust in our abilities, don’t you? I mean, the usual first

  assignment is something like—”

  “Like guarding the farms, I know,” she replied smugly. “That must have

  been why they kept us behind the others, training and overtraining us. They

  wanted to be sure we were ready, and I bet they decided to send us out there

  because we’re the only people who really want to go. In fact, I would bet my

  favorite armband that Aubri plans to send us out on long outpost duty every

  chance he can get!”

  They grinned at each other with relish, for there was another aspect to

  outpost duty they both anticipated with pleasure. Those so posted were

  expected to do a certain amount of exploring, and sometimes the explorers

  found something valuable. The Emperor Shalaman got a share, of course, as

  did the treasury of White Gryphon, but the generous portion remaining went to

  the intrepid explorers who made the discovery. Not that Tadrith was greedy,

  of course, but he did have a certain love of ornamentation, a pronounced

  interest in the finer things of life, and finding something extremely valuable

  would make it possible for him to indulge his interests. And it didn’t hurt to

  have the wherewithal to impress the ladies, either, and ornament them a bit

  now and then.

  “Just how much exploring has been done up there?” he asked.

  Blade’s eyes widened knowingly. “Not all that much,” she replied. “And

  there are more ways to explore than sailing over the tree-canopy, hoping

  something on the ground will show itself.”

  He nodded, following her thoughts. Probably most of the Silvers assigned

  to Outpost Five in the past had been gryphon teams; that made sense,

  although it probably wore them down terribly, not having humans and hertasi

  to tend to them. A human on station, though, could make a detailed survey of

  a particular area, including the smaller animals and plants living there, and

  take mineral samples. That was something a gryphon was ill-suited or, for that

  matter, ill-inclined, to do.

  “There’s been no trouble from that sector for years,” she mused. “We

  should have plenty of time for surveys.”

  “But most of all, you’ll be on your own,” Keenath said enviously. “I wish I

  could find some way to escape for a few months.”

  Blade patted his shoulder sympathetically. “And miss all the benefits of

  trondi’irn, hertasi and kestra’chern fawning on you every spare moment? The

  horror! You could ask to be taken on by the Silvers once you’ve finished

  training under Winterhart,” she suggested. “Then you’d get some assignments

  elsewhere. Down with the embassy at Khimbata, maybe; you could go as the

  trondi’irn taking care of the Emperor’s gryphon-guards.”

  Keenath’s eyes lit up at the idea, and Tadrith knew how he felt. For a

  chance to get out of White Gryphon he would have put up with just about

  anything.

  The problem was that there was literally nothing that he said or did that

  Skandranon didn’t eventually find out about. It wasn’t that Skan was

  purposefully spying on his sons, or even deliberately overseeing them—

  Well, not much, anyway. And not overtly.

  —it was just that everyone told the Black Gryphon everything that went on

  in this city. A mouse couldn’t sneeze without Skandranon finding out about it

  eventually.

  Neither can we—except that it’s guaranteed that if we sneeze, someone

  will go running to Father with the news. Not only that, but the report would be

  detailed as to how, when, and how well we sneezed.

  It wasn’t exactly tale-bearing, for people made certain to bring Skan the

  most flattering reports possible. Skan was a very proud father.

  He can’t get enough of hearing about all the marvelous things Keeth and I

  are doing, especially now that we aren’t in the family aerie to bully into making

  reports on ourselves. The trouble is, he is fully capable of blowing the most

  minor accomplishment up into the equivalent of a brilliant piece of wartime

  strategy or heroism.

  It was embarrassing, to say the least.

  And, of course, anyone who wanted to curry favor with the Black Gryphon

  knew the fastest way to his heart was to praise his sons. Skan would go out of

  his way to see that someone who flattered the twins got a full hearing and

  careful consideration. That was all he would do, but often enough, that was

  sufficient.

  As Keeth continued to look envious and a little pained, Tadrith preened his

  short eartufts in sympathy. “I wish there was a way to send you out of the city

  for trondi’irn training, Twin,” he murmured.

  Keenath sighed. “So do I. When we were all choosing the subject we

  wanted to study, I tried to think of some discipline I could enjoy that would

  also get me out of the city at the same time, but I couldn’t. I think I’m going to

  be good at this, and it certainly feels right, but it means I’m stuck here.”

  Blade wore as sympathetic an expression as Tadrith.

  “There is this, Keeth,” the gryphon said to his twin. “You can just go on

  doing what you are doing and you will have earned every right to be

  considered unique and special. You’re writing your own definition of a

  trondi’irn. You don’t have to stand there, blushing at the nares with

  embarrassment when someone comes in acting as if running the obstacle

  course was the equivalent of stealing one of Ma’ar’s magical weapons.”

  But Keenath ruffled his neck-feathers and clicked his beak. “That’s true up

  to a point, but there is another problem. Father literally does not understand

  me. We have absolutely nothing in common. When I talk about what I’m

  doing, he gets this strange look on his face, as if I were speaking a foreign

  tongue.” He laughed weakly. “I suppose I am, really. Well, I’ll get my chance

  eventually.”

  “You will,” Blade promised, but she made no move to rise to her feet. “I’m

  going to have to break the news to my parents, assuming that they don’t

  already know, which is more than likely. Tad, you’d better figure out how to tell

  yours.”

  “They’ll know,” Tadrith replied with resignation. “Father is probably already

  telling everyone he thinks will listen how there’s never been anyone as young

  as I am posted so far away on his first assignment.”

  Blade laughed ruefully. “You’re probably right. And mine is probably doing

  the same—except—”

  She didn’t complete the sentence, but Tadrith knew her well enough not to

  pressure her. They each had their own set of problems, and talking about

  them wasn’t going to solve them.

  Only
time would do that.

  Or so he hoped.

  Silverblade sat back on her heels when the twins began to argue over what

  Tadrith should pack. She was in no real hurry to get back home; since she

  was still living with her parents, she did not even have the illusion of privacy

  that her own aerie would have provided. The moment she walked in the door,

  the questions and congratulations—bracketed by thinly-veiled worry—would

  begin, and at the moment she did not feel up to fielding them.

  She breathed in the scent of salt air and sunbaked rock, half closing her

  eyes. I love this place. The only neighbors are other gryphons, quiet enough

  that the sound of the surf covers any noise they might make. And I love the

  fact that there are no other humans nearby, only tervardi, gryphons, and a few

  kyree.

  How she envied Tad his freedom! He really had no notion just how easy a

  parent Skandranon was to deal with. The Black Gryphon had a. sound, if

  instinctive and not entirely reliable, knowledge of just when to shut his beak

  and let Tad go his own way. He also attempted to restrain his enthusiasm for

  the accomplishments of his twins, although it was difficult for him. But at least

  he showed that he approved; Amberdrake had never been happy with the

  path-choice his daughter had made, and although he tried not to let his

  disapproval color their relationship, it leaked through anyway. How could it

  not?

  Perhaps “disapproval” was too strong a word. Amberdrake understood

  warriors; he had worked with them for most of his life. He respected them

  most profoundly. He liked them, and he even understood all of the drives that

  fueled their actions.

  He simply did not understand why his child and Winterhart’s would want to

  be a warrior. He can’t fathom how he and Mother produced someone like me.

  By all rights, with everything that they taught me, I should never have been

  attracted to this life.

  That was a gap of understanding that probably would never be bridged,

  and Blade had yet to come up with a way of explaining herself that would

  explain the riddle to him. “Blade, would you play secretary and write the list for

  me?” Tadrith pleaded, interrupting her reverie. “Otherwise I know I’m going to

  forget something important.”

  “If you do, you can always have it Gated to us,” she pointed out, and

  laughed when he lowered his eartufts.

  “That would be so humiliating I would rather do without!” he exclaimed. “I’d

  never hear the last of it! Please, just go get a silver-stick and paper from the

  box and help me, would you?”

  “What else are gryphon-partners for, except doing paperwork?” she

  responded, as she rose and sauntered across the room to the small chest that

  held a variety of oddments the twins found occasionally useful, each in its

  appointed place. The chest, carved of a fragrant wood that the Haighlei called

  sadar, held a series of compartmentalized trays holding all manner of helpful

  things. Among them were a box of soft, silver sticks and a block of tough

  reed-paper, both manufactured by the Haighlei. She extracted both, and

  returned to her seat beside Tad. She leaned up against him, bracing herself

  against his warm bulk, using her knees as an impromptu writing desk.

  As the twins argued over each item before agreeing to add it to the list or

  leave it out, she waited patiently. Only once did she speak up during the

  course of the argument, as Keenath insisted that Tad include a particular type

  of healer’s kit and Tad argued against it on the grounds of weight.

  She slapped his shoulder to get him to be quiet. “Who is the trondi’irn

  here?” she demanded. “You, or Keeth?” Tad turned his head abruptly, as if he

  had forgotten that she was there. “You mean, since he’s the expert, I ought to

  listen to him.”

  “Precisely,” she said crisply. “What’s the point of asking his opinion on this

  if you won’t take it when you know he’s the authority?”

  “But the likelihood that we’d need a bonesetting kit is so small it’s

  infinitesimal!” he protested. “And the weight! I’m the one who’s going to be

  carrying all this, you know!”

  “But if we need it, we’ll need exactly those supplies, and nothing else will

  substitute,” she pointed out. “We don’t know for certain that there’s a bone-

  setting kit at the Outpost, and I prefer not to take the chance that the last few

  teams have been as certain of their invulnerability as you.” Keenath looked

  smug as she added it to the list, unbidden. “I’m going to insist on it. And if it

  isn’t in that basket when we leave, I’ll send for one. We may be in a position of

  needing one and being unable to ask for one to be Gated to us.”

  Tad flattened his ears in defeat as he looked from one implacable face to

  the other. “You win. I can’t argue against both of you.”

  Gryphons could not smirk like humans could, but there was enough

  muscular control of the beak edges at the join of the lower mandible that one

  could be approximated. More than a touch of such an expression showed on

  Keeth as they continued on to the next item. Part of the reason why Blade felt

  so comfortable in the Silvers and with the gryphons in particular was that their

  motives and thoughts were relatively simple and easy to understand. In

  particular, they made poor liars; gryphons were just too expressive to hold a

  bluff effectively once you knew how to read their physical cues, such as the

  lay of their facial feathers and the angle of their ears. Although they were

  complex creatures and often stubborn, gryphons were also exactly what they

  appeared to be. The kestra’chern, her father in particular, were anything but.

  Their job was to manipulate, when it came right down to it. The whole point

  of what they did was to manipulate a client into feeling better, to give him a

  little more insight into himself. But she wasn’t at all comfortable with the idea

  of manipulating anyone for any reason, no matter how pure the motive and

  how praiseworthy the outcome.

  Oh, I know things simply aren’t that black-and-white, but—

  Ah, things were just simpler with the Silvers. Issues often were a matter of

  extremes rather than degrees. When you had only a single moment to make

  up your mind what you were going to do, you had to be able to pare a

  situation down to the basics. Subtleties, as Judeth often said, were for times

  of leisure.

  She noted down another item, and let her thoughts drift.

  I can’t wait until we’re away from here. I wish we could go without having to

  talk to my parents.

  Once they were away from White Gryphon, she would finally be able to

  relax for the first time in several years. And once again, it was her father who

  was indirectly responsible for her unease of spirit.

  He knows too much, that’s the problem. When she had been a child, she

  had taken it for granted that Amberdrake would know everyone of any

  importance at all in White Gryphon. She hadn’t known any reason why he

  shouldn’t. But as she gradually became aware just what her father’s avocation

  really entailed
, she gained a dim understanding that the knowledge

  Amberdrake possessed was extraordinarily intimate.

  Finally, one day it all fell together. She put the man together with the

  definition of kestra’chern and had a moment of blinding and appalling

  revelation.

  Not only did her father know everyone of any importance, he also knew the

  tiniest details about them—every motive, every desire, every dream and

  indecision. Details like that, she felt deep in her heart, no person should ever

  know about another. Such secrets gave the one who held them too much

  power over the other, and that would weigh as an unimaginable responsibility.

  Not that Father would ever use that power. . . .

  Or would he? If he had a chance to manipulate someone for a cause he

  thought was right, wouldn’t he be tempted to do just that? And wouldn’t the

  fear of having such secrets revealed to others be enough to make almost

  anyone agree to something that Amberdrake wanted?

  She had never once seen any indications that Amberdrake had given in to

  the temptation to use his tacit power—but he was her father, and she knew

  that she was prejudiced on his behalf. For that matter, she was not certain

  she would know what to look for if he had misused his powers.

  Oh, it’s not likely. Father would never do anything to harm anyone, if only

  because he is an Empath and would feel their emotional distress.

  She ought to know; she was something of an Em-path herself, although in

  her case, she got nothing unless she was touching the person in question.

  That was one of the reasons why Amberdrake was so confounded by the

  idea that she wanted to be a Silver. How could an Empath ever choose to go

  into a profession where she might have to kill or injure someone?

  Easily enough. It’s to prevent the people I must take care of from killing or

  injuring others.

  He would never accept that, just as he would never accept the idea that

  she would not want to use her Empathic ability.

  She shuddered at the very idea. He knows every nasty little secret, every

  hidden fear, every deep need, every longing and every desire of every client

  he has ever dealt with. How he manages to hold all those things inside

  without going mad—I cannot fathom it. And that he actually wants to know

  these things—I could never do that, never. It makes my skin crawl. I don’t

 

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