possible time.” Judeth straightened, and looked straight at Skan again: “And
in case you’re wondering why I haven’t put you two in on the expected line,
it’s because the two gryphons out there already flew that line and didn’t see
anything before weather forced them down. So either the missing patrol didn’t
fly that line, or it’s going to take an expert in that kind of territory to find signs
of them. That’s Ikala, not you; he’ll be leading a party of people all used to
moving quickly, and after he scouts the line on the ground, he’ll be covering
the areas north and south of that line. I’m putting you two on the likeliest
alternate track; Tad always had a tendency in training to stay on the northern
side of a given flight line. My guess is, if they’re anywhere off the line, it’s in
the north.”
“But that’s just a guess,” Skan stated. “They could be south.”
She nodded. “And the gods know I’ve guessed wrong before; that’s why
the third party. The parties are going to number eight; one gryphon, one
Healer or trondi’irn, or whatever comes close—that’s you, Drake—two mages,
and five fighters, all experienced Silvers. Any smaller is dangerous, any larger
is unwieldy. Don’t bother to pack at all; you’ll be taking standard Silver kits
including medical supplies, and you aren’t going to have time to change
clothing. Besides, by the time you make a camp at night, you and your
clothing should be sluiced clean.”
Her stare at Amberdrake said, as clearly as words, And if you don’t like
that, you don’t have to go.
He stared right back at her. Try and keep me from going and you’II have a
fight.
She waited for him to say something, staring into his gaze with challenge in
her stance, but it was she who finally dropped her eyes. “This is an in-and-out
mission, the faster the better. As of this moment, consider yourself facing a
real enemy, a powerful one, if he can drain all the mage-energy out of a place.
I don’t know what’s caused magic to leach out of that area, but I have to
assume it’s a hostile, and it isn’t going to like having twenty-four people
traipsing all over its territory. As soon as the mage gets to the Gate-point, we’ll
be bringing it up, and I don’t want it up for longer than it takes to pitch all of
you through it. Is that understood?”
Once again, she stared at him as if her words were meant for him alone.
Her tone of voice implied that, given the opportunity, she would “pitch”
Amberdrake through the Gate. He simply nodded, as did everyone else.
“Good. From now until you leave, you are all sleeping, eating, and
everything else right here.” She smiled thinly at their surprise. “That’ll be
quicker than trying to gather all of you up once the mage gets into place. I
don’t intend to waste a single minute on any dallying. I’ll have sleeping
arrangements brought in; the mage I sent out is being carried by Darzie, so I
expect to hear that they’ve made their landing within the next full day.”
Amberdrake was impressed, as much by the identity of the gryphon as by
the speed with which the duo expected to reach their destination. He
wondered what Judeth had promised to get Darzie to fly a carry-basket at all,
much less try to do so breaking a record and in bad weather. Darzie was not a
Silver; he was one of a new class of gryphons who were primarily athletes.
Whether as acrobats, fast couriers, or actual racers, these gryphons earned a
very fine, even luxurious, living by serving the Haighlei appetite for speed and
spectacle. Darzie was the best of the fast couriers and one of the fastest
racers—he was a more consistent flyer than gryphons who actually clocked
the occasional faster time. It was hard to imagine what hold Judeth could
have over him to induce him to risk injury and strain in this way.
But maybe he was being uncharitable; maybe Darzie had actually
volunteered. . . .
Not without blackmail.
It didn’t matter, so long as Judeth had gotten him, whether it was through
bribery or blackmail, or a combination of both.
Maybe she’s following my example. The gods know she has enough power
of her own to leverage just about anyone in this city into doing her bidding at
least once.
“Any questions?” Judeth asked, and looked around the room. “No? Right.
Fall out, and for those of you who haven’t slept, I’m calling Tamsin in to make
you sleep.” There was no doubt who she was targeting with the daggers of
her gaze, and both Amberdrake and Skan flinched; but she wasn’t finished.
“That includes me; we won’t be any good to anyone if we aren’t rested when
the call comes. Right, Drake?”
Her question came as a surprise, and he was doubly surprised to sense the
compassion and sympathy—and worry of her own—behind the words. It
penetrated even his defensiveness.
“Ah, right,” he admitted sheepishly, relaxing just a trifle. So she does
understand, and she’s forgiven us. . . . He had not hoped for it so soon, but he
welcomed it as a tiny bright spot of hope in the midst of too much grief.
“Good. Glad you agree, because you’re going to be one of the first to go to
sleep.” A commotion at the door proved to be bedding, food, and Tamsin all
arriving simultaneously. “Now, stand down, all of you, and get yourselves
taken care of. I’ll be watching to see that you do.”
And she did; standing over them all like a slave-master, to see that every
member of the three search parties ate, drank, and submitted to Tamsin’s
touch. As Judeth had warned, Amberdrake was one of the first, and after one
look at Judeth’s expression, he knew better than to protest.
So he crammed down a few mouthfuls of food as dry and tasteless as
paper, drank what was given him, and laid himself down on a standard,
military-style sleeping roll. He closed his eyes as Tamsin leaned over him,
and that was the last thing he knew until the rally-call awakened him.
Rain. Why did it have to be rain? Even snakes would be better.
Skandranon tried to keep his thoughts on his purely physical discomfort, but
try as he might, he couldn’t. His skin crawled, and the rain had nothing to do
with it. If Skan’s feathers hadn’t been plastered flat to his body, they’d have
been standing up in instinctive alarm.
He did not like this place, and his dislike was not connected in any way
whatsoever with the miserable weather.
It could have been that this bizarre, claustrophobic forest had swallowed
Blade and Tad without a trace, but that wasn’t the reason his soggy hackles
were trying to rise either. The other mage of the party felt the same, and if
there had been any choice in the matter, he’d have gone back to the base
camp because it just plain felt wrong here.
The two of them, after some discussion last night before the human took
the first sleep shift, had decided that the problem was that lack of mage-
energy in this place. Presumably an Apprentice-level mage or Journeyman
would not be affected in this way; they were not used to sensing and using
ener
gies outside themselves, unless those energies were fed to them by a
mage of greater ability. But a Master (as Skan and the human Silver, Filix,
were) was as accustomed to the all-pervasive currents of mage-energy as a
gryphon was to the currents of the air. Skan could not remember a time in his
adult life that he had not been aware of those currents. Even when the mage-
storms had caused such disruptions in magic, the energy had never vanished,
it just hadn’t worked or felt quite the same. But having no mage-energy
about—it felt wrong, very wrong. It had him disoriented and off-balance,
constantly looking for something that simply wasn’t there.
It feels as if I’ve suddenly lost a sense; something subtle, like smell.
Nevertheless, a quick trial had proved to his satisfaction that magic still
worked here, and furthermore, those magical items that they had brought in
with them were still empowered. Further checks proved that, at the moment at
least, there was no ongoing drain of mage-energy. The power that built up in
any area naturally was slowly rising back up. So whatever was wrong in this
forest, whatever had caused this anomaly, it had not completely negated
magic, just removed it. Whether that drainage had been gradual or all at once
was anyone’s guess. And there must be something coming along to drain
mage-energy again as it built up, or there would be some areas that had at
least a little power available.
As for what that could be, he had no idea. He did not care to think about
what must have happened if the basket had also had all of its empowering
mage-energy drained—all at once.
Skandranon mentally worked on a few new phrases to use when he finally
complained about it all to someone whom he could corral into listening
sympathetically. He had a reputation for—colorful—language to maintain after
all. He would much rather concentrate on that, than how miserable his soggy
feathers felt, how cold he was, how sore his muscles were after two days of
walking. That was something he simply hadn’t considered, and it was galling
to realize that Drake was in better physical shape than he was! Drake had
been climbing the stairs and ladders of White Gryphon for almost twenty
years; he had only been flying. He could not think of more than a handful of
times that he had actually climbed up rather than down, and none of those
times had been in the last three years. At least Keeth had been working out
on the obstacle course lately, and Winterhart had made certain that all
muscles were exercised. Poor Zhaneel must be as miserable as he.
But she has the best trondi’irn in the city to tend her. Keeth is a trondi’irn. I
only have Drake, who does his best, but still. . . he’s preoccupied.
Rain dripped into his nares and he sneezed to clear them, shaking his head
fiercely. He and Drake were at the rear of the party; with his keener sense of
hearing than the humans possessed, it seemed a good idea to have him at
the back where he might be able to detect something following them. Now he
wished he had thought to ask Judeth for a couple of kyree scouts for each
party; they would have been much more effective than any of the humans.
Rain poured down out of the sky, as it had since the fog lifted that morning.
This was a truly lovely climate; fog from before dawn to just after, followed by
rain until well past darkness, followed by damp chill until the fog came again in
the morning. Judeth had been absolutely right in grounding them, and he
would have grounded himself once he saw the weather; there was no way for
a gryphon to fly safely in this muck, even if he could get his wings dry long
enough to take off. Darzie had managed to bring his mage in safely only
because he was insanely self-confident and lucky enough for four gryphons,
and because the weather changed abruptly to something more like a “normal”
rainy season outside of the “no-magic” area.
That, and Darzie is young enough to think he’s immortal, and good enough
to fly as if he were. Like another stupid, stupid gryphon I used to know. In
spite of the fact that the rainy season was normal back at the base-camp,
“normal” still meant a raging thunderstorm every afternoon. Darzie had flown
and landed in one of those thunderstorms, blithely asserting that it was all a
matter of timing and watching where the bolts hit. His passenger had been
white-lipped, but remarkably reticent about discussing the flight.
Drake had found out what had tempted Darzie into making the trip; a
challenge. Judeth had asked the young gryphon if he knew of anyone who
might be persuaded, and had hinted broadly that she didn’t think he could do
it. That had been enough for Darzie, who had insisted that he and only he
could manage the trip. And he had, in record-breaking time, and without
damaging himself or his passenger. For sheer speed, audacity, and insane
courage, that flight had surpassed even some of the Black Gryphon’s
legendary accomplishments.
Some, but not all. Darzie will just have to take his own time to become a
legend, and if he is wise, he will do it in his own way, and not try to emulate
me. I think that my life must have used up the luck of twenty gryphons.
Skan, the base-camp crew, and the other twenty-three rescuers had piled
through the Gate in a record-setting time of their own. Although no people had
been “pitched” through, all the supplies had been; hurled in a mass by a small
army of Judeth’s support crew. Not even during a resupply had Skan ever
seen a Gate go up and down again so quickly.
Darzie flew home to receive his justly-earned accolades and the admiration
of every unattached female in the city; the results of that would likely be more
exhausting for him than the great deed itself. The Gate-mage and his helpers
and guards remained to set up a base camp; the rest of them had shouldered
packs and moved out under the beginnings of a rainstorm. No one had told
them, however, that they were going to have to climb down a cliff to get into
the forest where the children were lost. The three gryphons had shaken
themselves dry and flown themselves down, but the humans had been forced
to get to the bottom the hard way. That experience, in a worsening
thunderstorm, had been exciting enough to age even the most hardened
veteran in the lot. Absolutely everything they touched was slippery, either with
mud, water, or substances they were probably better off not knowing about.
Once at the bottom, the three parties had formed up and gone their
separate ways—and Skan had been amazed at how quickly the forest had
swallowed the other two search parties. In an amazingly short period of time,
he couldn’t even hear the faintest sound of the others; only the steady
drumming of the rain, and the whistles, chirps, and calls of creatures up in the
tops of the trees.
Each day had been much like the one before it; only the navigator knew for
certain that they were going in the right direction and not in circles. The only
time that Skan was ever dry was just before he slept; the moment he poked
his beak out of the tent he shared with Drake and
the other mage, he was
wet. Either fog condensed on his feathers and soaked into them, or he got
soaked directly by the usual downpour.
Just at the moment, the downpour had him wet to the skin.
And he was depressed, though he would have been depressed without the
rain.
How can we ever hope to find any sign of them? he asked himself, staring
up at the endless sea of dripping leaves, and around at the dizzying
procession of tree trunks on all sides, tangled with vines or shrouded with
brush. There wasn’t a sign of a game trail, and as for game itself—well, he’d
had to feed himself by surprising some of the climbing creatures in the
mornings, while he could still fly. They could be within shouting distance of us,
and we would never know it! This forest was not only claustrophobic, it was
uncannily enveloping. One of the fighters swore that he could actually see the
plants growing, and Skan could find it in his heart to believe him.
How long would it take until vines and bushes covered anything left after a
crash? A few days? A week? It had been a week since the children went
missing, maybe more than a week; he lost track of time in here.
And they could have been down for three or four days before that. Gloomy
thoughts; as gloomy as their surroundings. And yet he could not give up; as
long as there was any chance, however minuscule, that they would find the
children, he would search on. No matter what, he had to know what had
happened to them. The uncertainty of not knowing was the worst part.
Drake looked like Skan felt; the kestra‘chern was a grim-faced, taciturn,
sodden, muddy mess most of the time. He spoke only when spoken to;
tended to the minor injuries of the party without being asked, but offered
nothing other than physical aid, which was utterly unlike him. He hiked with
the rest of them, or dealt with camp chores, but it was obvious that his mind
was not on what he was doing. It was out there, somewhere, and Skan
wondered if Drake was trying to use his limited empathic ability as a different
kind of north-needle, searching for the pole star of pain and distress hidden
among the trunks and vines. With the blood tie between himself and his
daughter, he should be especially sensitive to her. If she were alive, he might
be able to find her where conventional methods were failing.
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt Page 30