by Erin Hoffman
“Stand with ‘us'?’ Vidarian said, turning to gesture to the three apprentices who now emerged from the main house with armfuls of bandages and a crate of medicines.
// With you, of course, // Thalnarra eyed him dangerously, // against the priestesshood. //
The cottage was quiet when Vidarian returned to it, looking for Ariadel, who had fled while he helped see to Thalnarra's wounds. He called out her name, but there was no answer, and he expected to find the building empty when he pushed open the door.
He found her crumpled on the floor, the embroidered robe loaned her by one of the apprentices pooling around her. Her breath came with a rattle of emotion, and she sniffed as she turned toward the door to look at him, her face streaked with tears. In her lap was the gangly kitten, half grown, and before it occurred to him to wonder how in the world it had gotten there, Vidarian thought perhaps it was dead, and this the cause of her distress. But the kitten, lying on its back, rolled over with easy agility and pushed its face at Ariadel's hand, demanding attention.
“How-?” Vidarian managed, rushing to Ariadel and kneeling. She pointed across the floor, where the small tinderbox that she had used for the golden spider, before their flight to the Selturians, lay open and empty. Vidarian looked at it blankly. “What? I don't understand,” he said.
Ariadel stroked the kitten's head, then leaned close to look into its eyes. Something passed between them-and then the kitten disappeared. Vidarian gasped, leaning closer, and Ariadel lifted her hand. Perched upon it, balanced delicately on the tips of its feet, was the spider.
“How is this possible?” he whispered, head swimming.
“She's a shapechanger,” Ariadel said, and laughed softly, incredulously, a sob half mixed with it. She reached out with her free hand to slide a leather journal open to a marked page across the carpet to Vidarian. He picked it up; the page was labeled “Snowmelt,” and held sketches of a white horse, some of them fancifully rendered, the horse's rear end replaced by a sinuous fish tail. Ariadel turned her hand, and the spider skittered, then vanished, replaced once more with the kitten.
“What is this?” Vidarian asked, turning a page. “And why does it trouble you so?” He reached out to touch her shoulder, and she leaned into him.
“My great-great-great-grandmother had a horse named Snowmelt,” she said. “She was the last fire priestess in our family, until me. As a girl I loved the stories of Snowmelt, her devoted horse-there were stories that he wasn't just a horse, but a shapechanger, able to turn into a great cat and protect her. We always assumed they were just stories.”
“It's remarkable,” he said, reaching out to let the cat sniff his hand. It did, then turned up its nose at him. “But why does it affect you so?”
“Everything's changing,” she said, and blinked back tears again, composing herself. “The gryphons declaring war against the priestesshood. Shapechangers returning to the world. New magics are coming, many of them strange and dangerous.” She stopped again, breathing deeply. Something in her tone made him think of the strange voices he'd heard, and he thought of confessing them, but she went on. “…And I…I'm afraid I…”
He wrapped his arms around her, careful not to upset the kitten, and rested his chin on her shoulder, waiting.
She shook her head, swallowing. “It's nothing. It's just overwhelming, that's all.” She coughed, clearing her throat, and stiffened in his embrace ever so slightly. “None of us know what's coming. I fear for all of us.”
Aldous had treated the gryphons’ arrival with as much nonchalance as he had his daughter's, and now he sent them off again with equal gentle authority. The gryphons, he said, and their intention to aid Vidarian's cause, meant that the hour was truly grown late.
“I wish you strength,” the older man said to Vidarian, seriousness in his pale eyes. “If our studies are accurate, you are even now encountering some strange things, indeed.” His weighty gaze searched Vidarian's, and then he patted his shoulders with both hands like a father would a son. “But you'll bear up under them. You must.” Vidarian longed to ask him about the voices, and the severing of his telepathic bond with Ariadel-but in his features saw the father of the woman he loved, and dared not.
On their second day on the island Ruby had joined them, availing herself cheerfully of the hospitality of Aldous's house. Now, though, they were to separate, and Vidarian saw her off from the sandy beach.
“You're off in search of more booty, I understand,” she said, grinning at him from the shadow of a rather absurd feathered hat. “I should think you'd be satisfied with what you had, you greedy git.”
“Are we ever?” he asked, for once not finding her ceaseless ribbing grating to his nerves, and realized with surprise that he'd miss the Viere as well. Her solid decks had stood them well around the horn. “You've executed your part of our bargain. I regret that I cannot pay you yet.”
She tutted in response. “My business is in Val Harlon, as it was before we departed. We'll meet you there, and I'm sure your friends will have helped sort out this little misunderstanding with the fire priestesses by then.” Ruby indicated the gryphons with a gesture of her chin. When she'd seen them for the first time, her eyes had widened, a shadow full of dread and memory passing behind them-but it was gone, fled behind her customary mask of an easy smile, before he could inquire.
“You'll be for the horn again, then,” Vidarian said, guilt welling up that he would not be there to assist them.
“Tish. We've sailed it before. I got you here, I can certainly get my own ship back.”
“At Val Harlon, then,” he said, offering his hand.
She took it, and pulled him into a rough, brotherly embrace. “Val Harlon. Take care you're not late.”
Aldous, despite his unruffled demeanor toward them, had never worked with gryphons before. They had no carrying boat, but the older air monk had closeted himself away with the white gryphon, called Altair, to discuss their shared magic at incomprehensible detail. That left Ariadel, Vidarian, Thalnarra, and the fisher-gryphon, called Arikaree, to improvise one.
They started with a yawl, a small sailboat decommissioned from a larger sailing vessel kept by Aldous and the small community. With its mast removed, it was larger and considerably less unnerving than a dinghy or pram, but still small enough for its weight not to tax the gryphons overly. Still, it was heavier than the lighter craft built for flight, and so, after fitting it with harness and rope-a light, strong kind made of silk here on the islands-they provisioned it sparingly. The flight path east to An'durin, the great inland sea along the Karlis River, should take them over forests plentiful with game, and the gryphons were confident of their ability to hunt along the way.
At length, and as they were prepared to depart, Aldous and Altair emerged from the former's study, still chattering but more conscious now of those around them. Vidarian was impressed that they'd managed to reckon the time on their own, until he saw an apprentice emerge behind them and exchange a nod with Ariadel.
Ariadel's departure from her father was not without a few tears, and it pulled at Vidarian's heart to separate them so quickly after so long and perilous a journey. The few days on the islands had been a respite, not just for the warm sun and clear air, but from the strange voice that spoke to him as well. The presence in the ocean still nagged at him: he would swear that the one who spoke to him during the storm first was Nistra. But the second-the one that had invaded his thoughts so many times now? Had the magic in his mind grown wild, developed a personality of its own? It certainly seemed capable of it.
The kitten, now, was inseparable from Ariadel, and looked quite pleased with itself. Either natural maturation or its time as a spider had favored it: it was sleeker, seemed not quite so desperate for food, though it still ate its own body weight daily, it seemed. Aldous had exclaimed with wonder the first time Ariadel had shown him its trick of shapechanging, and inspected it closely; Thalnarra had also been impressed, but more reservedly.
The gryp
honess, the largest of the three if he didn't count the fisher-gryphon's overlong neck and head, had benefited from the attentions of the field healer that lived here on Aldous's island. The man's talent was small, but made a difference: her cuts were not quite so vivid, and would hold together in flight this time.
As the apprentices helped Thalnarra and the other two gryphons into their harnesses, the gryphons spread their massive wings, testing flexibility and the strength of their harnesses. Finding both satisfactory, they sat back on their haunches, waiting for Vidarian and Ariadel to board.
“I thank you for your hospitality and invaluable advice,” Vidarian said, clasping Aldous by hand and elbow in a formal Imperial gesture learned from his father. “I know little of such things as fate, but knowing what we know now, I should think our course doomed without either.”
Aldous chuckled, shaking his head. “I suspect you would have found your way, if indeed fate is involved, as I suspect she is. Thank you for bringing a little sunshine to an old man's island retreat. And remember,” he smiled broadly, magnanimous as the gentle tropic wind, “what I said about the knees.”
“Of course, sir,” Vidarian agreed, and stepped back hastily to the craft where Ariadel waited, perched on its newly padded center seat. He vaulted into the craft beside her and sat, reaching for the rope ties they'd fixed to the craft's sides to help keep them from pitching out. The craft Vidarian had ridden before had no such precaution, but he wasn't about to replicate that particular design if he could avoid it.
As soon as Aldous and his apprentices stepped back to the tree line to give them clearing, the gryphons began to beat their wings, each giving two to stretch the muscles before leaping into the air and laying about with earnest. The craft lifted steadly, its counterweights balancing as intended, and they rose steadily into the air.
The island, its house, and its inhabitants dwindled rapidly as the gryphons circled higher. Whitecaps on the waves crashed against the shore, and soon they could see the other two islands, one north and one east, bare of inhabitation it would seem from here. Far below, the Viere d'Inar angled toward the northern coast, and Maladar's Horn with its ever-present storm. He wished them better luck with it, and watched the ship move through the waters for as long as he could, until they passed through a layer of clouds and mist that obscured the world below.
An'du, the great whale of the inland sea, was the last known possessor of the storm sapphires. How they would find her, much less convince her to relinquish them, he had little idea-and he had two days in the air to figure it out.
Distances were strange by air, but on a map he knew the An'duril to be as far east as Val Harlon was west, but only a third as far north. The gryphons rode prevailing winds from the sea and so flew strongly, tracing the edge of the Windsmouth Mountains. By day, the trees rushed by below, so regular as to be hypnotic, and by night they dipped beneath the canopy to take shelter and sleep. Not only would it have exhausted the gryphons to fly through the night, it would have been dangerous as well: after sunset, their heads seemed to nod unwillingly with sleep, some deep drive urging them to roost.
At noon on the second day the trees thinned out below into a meadow, and then into a sparse grassland as they arrowed northeast. A glint on the horizon was the Karlis River, and it widened toward late afternoon into the glittering expanse of the An'durin. By sunset, the whole of the inland sea dominated their horizon, and distantly, at its far northern shore, was the shadow of the An'durinvale, the dark forest that half-wreathed it.
The gryphons dropped altitude as they drew nearer to the expanse of water, turned to dark glass by the sun sinking below the skyline behind them.
They made camp, foraging for fallen wood and grass for a fire, the five of them silenced by the presence they knew waited in the water. The gryphons tore the earth, digging shallow sleeping holes and lining them with grasses before they flew off to hunt. Vidarian and Ariadel made a cold supper out of provisions from the yawl, and were preparing the night's campfire when the gryphons returned. When Ariadel moved to light the fire, Thalnarra stopped her.
// He should be exploring the other half of his abilities, // she said, and Ariadel looked at Vidarian, then nodded.
Vidarian regarded the pile of grass and branches for some time before he reached out with the smaller, brighter sense within him, the erratic one that snapped and snarled as it could against his water sense. In attacking the water within him, as it did perpetually, it turned and lashed out at his own essence, and without quite realizing what he was doing he snarled back at it as he would a dog. It quailed, dipping in what he would swear was apology, and cooperated as he reached out to the stacked sticks. It seized upon them hungrily, and flames leapt up with alarming quickness. As the light and heat flared, something, too, flared inside him, opening, and for a moment every detail of his surroundings was revealed in instant clarity, as if he were more awake than he'd ever been in his life. Then the fire crept back inside of him, coiling, to bicker with his water sense again, and the feeling faded.
// A little rough, but well done, // Thalnarra said sleepily, settling into her bed of grass. Vidarian and Ariadel followed suit, climbing under blankets they'd spread across more of the ubiquitous summer-burned vegetation.
Yes, well done, a voice whispered in his head, half giggling. His arms clenched involuntarily around Ariadel, who looked up at him in sleepy askance, but he forced himself to smile and shake his head, relaxing. She closed her eyes, but as Vidarian looked out over the still waters of the An'durin, spangled over with stars and dark heavens, it was some time before he closed his.
They woke to thin light and cold air, a heavy fog that had obscured the sun and drenched the world in white mist. The fog stopped a spare handspan from the surface of the An'durin, as if some unearthly force kept it from touching the water and what lay beneath. All was quiet.
“We're going to have to go out on the water, to talk to her,” Vidarian said, though none too keen on the idea of piloting a mastless yawl on such a large body of water. The gryphons, with the exception of Arikaree, didn't like it, either; the pelican-gryphon tested the water with his claws, then proceeded to wade in and swim, buoyant as a gigantic duck. Thalnarra watched from the shore, and Altair took to the sky; his long, sharp wings allowed him to hover effortlessly high over the water.
They unloaded the yawl of all its cargo and took supple branches from a young tree, heavy with leaves on their ends, to use as makeshift paddles. The pebbled shore made launching the yawl a simple exercise, and soon they were paddling laboriously for deeper water. While they launched, a wind picked up, swirling from Altair's tiny form high above them; a slow cyclone spun mist away from the surface of the lake in a cone that met his glowing claws at its pinnacle.
Just as the silt-lined sandbar disappeared beneath them, dropping into cloudy depths, An'du appeared.
For a split second she was a shadow beneath them, and then she was breaking the surface. For Vidarian it was a dizzying memory-the massive whale, easily six times the length of their small craft, was exactly as he had pictured her in his vision at the Vkorthan island.
She rotated in the water, her movements turning the yawl as well. In a moment her massive head was at the prow.
Your presence, An'du said, and by their reactions Vidarian saw that Ariadel heard her also-not as gryphons spoke, from a respectful mind distance, but straight inside their heads. I know you. Please, come closer.
“Vidarian-” Ariadel began, but Vidarian was already leaning out across the water.
An'du's great eye rolled toward them as she turned on her side, then gave a powerful pulse of her tail to lift her great anvil-shaped head out of the water. Don't be afraid, she said, as Vidarian drew back into the boat. We are rarely quite what we seem.
When her nose touched his outstretched hand-slick and suppler than the finest leather-she vanished.
Thrashing suddenly in the water was-impossibly-a woman. Her skin was mottled green, a shadow of what An'
du's had been, and, as she writhed, it became clear that her whale body remained below her waist, though much diminished in size, complete with broad white tail and frond-like camouflage.
Her head broke the surface, followed by her body, as her powerful tail propelled her up to “stand” above the water. Her hair-a deep green-clung to her face, and as she brushed it from her eyes, she laughed, high and full. She spun in a circle, arms akimbo. Vidarian looked away from her bared chest, though it didn't seem entirely necessary: the skin there was covered with pale mottling, but otherwise smooth, without human feature. When she swam toward the yawl, her size became clearer: she was easily half again the size of a normal woman, and would have towered over Vidarian if they stood side by side.
“It has been centuries,” she said, brushing hair away from her face and opening her eyes, “since I have known my true shape.” An'du's eyes were inhumanly large and without whites, filled instead with deep brown iris and pupil. She smiled at Vidarian and Ariadel, then held the expression, as if testing it.
Vidarian looked at Ariadel, but she only shook her head, as astonished as he. “We came to ask you about the storm sapphires,” he said, stunned into the obvious.
Her smile brightened, savvy. “Of course you would. And I will give them to you, for your coming signals the long-delayed awakening of my people. You have no idea how long we have waited.”
“How many are you?” he asked, before he could help it. “And where?”
“Many,” she said, her smile dwindling at last into seriousness. “And through all the oceans of the world. But the tale is long, and you haven't time.” She dropped down into the water then, and dove. Seconds later, there was a pulse from below the water that rocked the boat again-and An'du was a whale once more. She continued to dive, disappearing from their sight, but in three breaths was returning again, and, as before, when she lifted her head from the water near Vidarian, she became the half-human creature again.