by Rex Hazelton
On the other hand, I've found Nyeg Warl's kings are doing little to prepare for war. Wombur is the only exception. Vineland is expending as much energy, readying to repulse Koyer's invasion, as the Lord of Regret is expending in his own preparations. Among those without a sovereign, the Woodswane, Tayn'waeh and Forest People are also not idle. Though having less renown than the kings, they will be no less formidable in battle. Surely, these people are Nyeg Warl's hidden treasure.”
Grour Blood paused before he added his crowning exhortation. “Sir, I've heard of the valor you displayed in the Eagle King's service and how highly he regards you. I encourage you to go to the Eyrie of the Eagle in Muriel's stead. Go and tell the king all you have seen and heard this past day. Perhaps your voice will awaken Cane from his sleep before it is too late, and when you go, tell them Grour Blood, Son of the Twice Born and Child of the Community of Blood, has taken Muriel to Vestlkynd. There she will be safe from further attacks from both Schmar and the Society.”
After the human and griffin bowed to one another, in a mutual display of honor and respect, Vav added, “Thank you for your confidence in me.”
“Muriel Blood, Truamor, climb aboard,” Grour Blood directed the young women.
Experienced in riding griffin, Muriel lept effortlessly onto the winged-lion's muscular back while Vav gave his daughter a foot up to a place behind her cousin.
With Truamor holding her cousin tightly about the waist, and Muriel firmly gripping Grour Blood's thick mane, the griffin nodded to Vav before leaping into the brisk morning air. Quickly rising above the tree tops, Truamor saw her father disappear under a canopy of leaves. With the Thangmor Mountains rising to their left, the three climbed into a thin layer of broken clouds. Before long, Grour Blood was flying at an elevation just beneath the level of the highest peaks as they sliced through the cool air on their way to Vestlkynd.
Muriel enjoyed the freedom she felt whenever she flew astride a griffin. The strange pressure that constantly hounded her, one that felt like a head band tied too tightly about her skull at its worse, evaporated whenever she lifted off the ground. A sense of peace took its place, freeing her thoughts to take whatever path they chose. This was a luxury she didn't allow herself to imbibe, not as long as she walked on the same ground that Schmar's children did.
The experience of flying brought other benefits. Most times it ushered her into a meditative state that heightened her Powers of Perception. As a result, revelations about herself and the warl around her would course into her mind as easily as a stream skitters down a hillside. The unbroken space of an endless sky magnified her inherent intuition, causing her to see visionary flashes that Grour Blood said was a part of the gifting the Singer had given her. Visions of war and peace, laughter and tears, sorrow and joy were a common fare.
Once, in one of the prophetic episodes, she thought she saw Ab'Don. Though she knew he was more than five centuries old, he looked less than forty summers in age. Handsome in a disturbing way, the features of his face appeared to be neither distinctly male nor female, but an eerie blend of both. Large piercing yellow eyes, sitting on either side of an aquiline nose, made him look like a bird of prey. The raptor like motions he used to moved his head as he looked from one place to another only added to this impression. A smallish mouth, with lips full and youthful, rested above a finely formed chin. Long unkempt hair gave him a wild appearance, making him look out of place in the very throneroom he so adored. Matted together in sections, it looked like eagle's feathers, appropriately fitting his bird of prey demeanor.
Every feature was perfectly formed. Nothing was out of place. His ears, when they could be seen, were identical twins positioned in flawless symmetry. His eyes were well-matched, as were his high cheek bones. Yet, all of this perfection only gave the Sorcerer a sterile iconoclastic look, one marred with inescapable filth. A blackish, oily substance that descended on every part of Ab'Don's throneroom, like soot covering a fireplace, besmeared his beloved golden armor, negating his servants' tireless efforts at giving it a regal sheen. The fallout from his use of dark magic was also responsible for his hair matting like it did.
Still, the thing that stuck in Muriel's mind, more than any other feature, was the ravenous hunger filling his jaundiced eyes, eyes that were feral, lacking any hint of civility, the likes of which she had never seen before, not even in Schmar's lair. Their inhuman quality portended equally inhuman thoughts, disclosing an infinite capacity for perverseness, propounding that his lust to control the Warls was not driven by his need to rule as much as it was motivated by his desire to have a meal large enough to satiate his appetites.
Not all that Muriel saw in her prophetic episodes was dark and evil, there were also equal parts of light and goodness. In one reoccurring vision, she saw herself emerging out from the center of a pit filled with swirling, seething water, looking like she was the pistil of a foamy flower. A ruby adorned hammer, held in her uplifted hand, drew her forth. Hundreds of children, dressed in brightly-colored clothes, danced all about her as she rose into the air, making her look like the center of a great wheel and they its lively spokes. The pleasure their revelry gave her rivaled the unadulterated joy she experienced in her stay on Stromane's beautiful white cliffs.
But on this trip, with her cousin holding her tightly about her waist, her prophetic tendencies were held at bay. Instead, she and Truamor laughed like young girls as the wind rushed through their hair.
Leaning forward, placing her mouth close to her cousin's ear, Truamor tried describing the grandeur of all that lay beneath. “It looks like a giant quilt covered with trees and grass. Doesn't it, Muriel? LOOK!” Truamor shouted as she spotted a herd of white-tailed deer winding their way through the sylvan woods. “OH MY!” A flight of geese, crossing below, was responsible for the ecstatic outburst. “I've never seen that side of them before. Least wise, not while they're in the air.”
Eventually, Truamor fell silent as she worked at engraving the memory of this remarkable experience in her mind. Carefully reaching her hand down to touch Grour Blood's side, she felt his iron strong muscles flex with each stroke of his huge wings while the sound of his rhythmic breathing filled her ears.
Closing her eyes for a time, Truamor sat in wonder, awed by the things she had seen and by the hope the Warl's Magic was awakening. If the griffin have returned, she thought, then anything is possible!
Suddenly, a cold dizzying chill swept over her, extinguishing her sense of delight, causing Muriel to swoon in her arms. Holding her cousin tightly, making certain she remained astride the griffin's back, Truamor saw the Dyne River emerging from the forest growing on the Thangmor Mountain's lower slopes.
“Do you feel that?” the griffin quizzed his passengers. “Evil rises up from the ground like stink off of dung, and, I think the wretched stench it carries is Schmar's own.”
Grour Blood picked up speed to place distance between them and the loathsome spell infesting that part of the warl.
In time, they were warmed by the untainted beauty spreading beneath them. It was good to be alive and free to enjoy the warl's splendor. Relieved they had escaped the polluted air sitting atop the Dyne River, and overcome with joy from flying through boundless skies, the young women began laughing, once again.
Caught up in their revelry, chest heaving with rumbling merriment, Grour Blood was forced to glide along until he could recapture his composure. The three made quite a comic sight guffawing loudly as the hapless griffin, fluttering about like a large moth, struggled to stay above the tree tops. The girls laughed even harder when they heard their indomitable host, revealing the soft underbelly that even legends possess, say, “Oh, my side… it hurts! You've got to quit laughing or we're going to crash.”
After a time, and nearly exhausted by their antics, Grour Blood regained his former altitude. As he did, the mountains, rising to their left, began dropping into the Klarn River Valley, a place that lay west of the Thangmors and east of the Alabaster Mountains. Soon gras
slands stretched out below, glistening like a sea filled with chartreuse water. A summer's breeze, moving in whimsical gusts, rustled through the tops of the ribbon like growth, looking like the wake of invisible ships sailing over the verdant grasses.
Truamor tugged on Muriel's sleeve before pointing to a herd of horses that were being escorted along by a half-dozen riders. She was later to learn these were Forest People from the village of Dalnostrokynd that lay upon the Thangmor's western slopes. The Dalnostronor, as they were fond of calling themselves, were expert horsemen who sold their stock to Wombur of Vineland. He, in turn, sold them to the rest of Nyeg Warl.
In time, the Alabaster Mountains, looking like a giant wave, rose up above the far side of the inland sea of grass. Once they crossed over the quickly approaching foothills, greenwoods reappeared.
The warm sun, having reached the zenith of the arching path it took over Nyeg Warl, looked down on the travelers as Vestylkynd came into view. Sitting atop towering alabaster cliffs, the citadel looked like a rose-colored crown nestled between two of the mountain's strong arms. Seven towers, representing the seven kingdoms that established the school of learning, rose up like masts on a wealthy merchant ship: Cassiakynd, Eagle's Vale, Plagea, Verdant Deep, Riverkynd, Vineland and Shomeron. The young women were later told that the beautiful hues sweeping across the school's walls were the result of the architects' decision to construct the buildings with granite containing this distinctive color, a stone found in the Alabaster Mountains and nowhere else.
Soon, Grour Blood was circling the enthralling structure whose location made it look like the impenetrable fortress its designers had intended it to be. This was The House of the Oath, a place built on Nyeg Warl's desire for unity.
After the Battle of the Breach, the fathers, in their wisdom, gave vows of faithfulness to one another and, because of this, pooled their resources to build the School of the Sword and the Song. Wishing to provide a place where Nyeg Warl's children could intermingle and become friends while receiving the best education the kingdoms' combined resources could afford, they had gladly undertaken the project.
A small cluster of houses, sitting at the foot of the alabaster cliffs- far below- were used to house the students when it was their turn to work the gardens. Growing in the rich soil, spreading out over a broad valley that forced its way between the great mountain range's lower hills, the crops never failed because the warlers had devised a way to use the Vestyl River to irrigate their fields whenever the regular pattern of rainfall was disrupted. The fortress itself got its water supply from numerous springs that gushed out of the alabaster cliffs rising above the school. Other smaller gardens wound their way through the narrow valleys running upward between the walls of stone. Some were filled with edibles; others had flowers, fragrant plants, herbs, and spices of a vast variety growing in them.
Truamor laughed out loud when she saw a group of young people kicking a ball around in some sort of game they were playing in a field situated within the fortress confines. Soaring low over another group of young people, those engaged in mock battle in a large courtyard located near the center of the school, Grour Blood banked so his passengers could get a better view.
A tall man, dressed in a golden robe, stood among the students who diligently worked on their fighting skills. A subtle smile, that failed to convey the excitement he felt, crossed the man's face. “Hail Grour Blood, descendant of the Twice Born and son of the Community of Blood!” The man who had raised his hand in greeting was tall, forty pounds overweight, bald on top, with a swath of light brown hair showing above his ears, and more growing the back of his head.
“Hail Ahrnosyn, Chief Mentor of Vestylkynd,” the magnificent griffin replied as he gently settled to the ground not more than three paces from the person he was addressing. And as he did, the students gathered around, amazed at what they beheld.
“I see you have brought two young women with you instead of just one.”
“Yes,” nodding towards the girls, Grour Blood explained. “This is Muriel Blood who I spoke to you about the last time we met. Her cousin, Truamor, is accompaning with her.”
“Is she courageous because she braved riding on your back, or is there another reason why you describe her so?” Rubbing his balding head, Ahrnosyn chuckled as he quizzed his guest.
“She is courageous on both accounts.” Grour Blood sat on his haunches so the young women could easily slip from his back. “But I mainly honor her for risking her life to protect Muriel Blood, not once but twice: first from the Society of Truth, and later from an attack mounted by Schmar's river-children.”
Ahrnosyn, troubled by the news he had heard, replied, “You battled Schmar's children and prevailed? Then you are indeed more than brave.”
“My Lord, if it weren't for Grour Blood, we most certainly would have lost the day,” Truamor replied.
“Surely, Good Griffin, there is much you have to tell after such a short trip,” the chief mentor concluded. “Today appears to be a day of surprises on many different levels. Soon, I think, the time will come when it will be a surprise to not be surprised... but for now, let's eat our noon meal and get you settled in. We'll talk in more detail later.”
That night Ahrnosyn held a convocation in the great Hall of Song so that all could hear the things Grour Blood and Muriel Blood had to say. The students wore white tunics fastened with gold, silver and bronze-colored belts, identifying the level of study they had mastered. The mentors wore golden robes embossed with the image of a red hammer, signifying their commitment to the coming age of Parm Warl. The audience was comprised of young men and women who were roughly the same age as Muriel and Truamor, representing a cross section of Nyeg Warl's people. Woodswane, Tayn'waeh, Candle Makers and those from every realm in the land were on hand. Only the Forest People, Bjork, wild men, Tsadal's, and the inhabitants of the Isle of Regret were not numbered among the students who studied within the Vestylkynd's rose-colored walls.
In the present state of affairs, this assembly was an anomaly. The disease of suspicion coursing through Nyeg Warl, increasingly alienated the kings from one another and threatened Vestylkynd's future. More and more, the sovereigns tried to impose their own particular idealogies on the school's curriculum, thinking they knew better than the others.
“Gentleman! Gentleman!” Ahrnosyn was addressing Vestylkynd's Board of Regents at a recent meeting, a board comprised of delegates representing Nyeg Warl's various realms. “We must act in the spirit that our fathers displayed when they created the School of the Sword and the Song. Please! Remember their oath.”
It was now common for the kings to threaten to withdraw support if their ideas were not implemented, wholesale. The only thing that kept them from forbidding their children from attending the venerable school was the fading magic that accompanied the pledge of faithfulness their fathers had taken, magic the candles' flames had created, a power that worked on the kings like the migratory urge prompting the red saltach to the oceans and swim into Nyeg Warl's rivers. But now, battered by growing suspicions, the commitment to the oath had nearly eroded away. And if it were not for Ahrnosyn's impeachable reputation, it would have dissipated long ago.
“Remember the oath, you say!” Polytynor, the Eagle King's ambassador, voiced the others' sentiments. “An oath is only as good as the people who make it. And by what I'm hearing the rest of you say, Cane's suspicions appear to be true. If they are, I guarantee he will call for a vote and have Vestylkynd dissolved.”
“That's fine with us,” the Wolf King's ambassador intoned. “We're sick of the self-serving politicking that's going on here. The spirit of the oath is dead. Why shouldn't Vestylkynd die with it? Tell your lord that Wombur has already asked for a vote when we next meet.”
Muriel, who many believed was destined to become the Prophetess, came to Vestylkynd in the days of oath's fading glory. Fading? Yes! But enough of its vitality remained to pose a threat to Ab'Don's plans if Muriel could indeed learn to sing the Song of
Breaking.
“Come, Shomoryth.” Ahrnosyn's august voice echoed through the hall, silencing the students who had gathered there to hear Muriel and Grour Blood had to say.
Responding to the master's call, a Candle Maker came forward and lit two massive blue and white candles that stood on either side of the dais, up front. Presenting the liturgical response, the Candle Maker asked the Singer to bestow on the gathering the purity of heart needed to wield the magic they possessed. Once the candles- as tall as a man- were lit, other Candle Makers rose to their feet and lit smaller, but no less impressive, ones that lined the hall's aisles, singing as they went.
The haunting melody stirred the depths of Muriel's soul, bringing back the vision of the children dressed in brightly-colored clothes, those that danced about her as if she were the hub of a joyous wheel of laughter and delight. In time, she, Truamor, and Grour Blood joined the students who had joined in singing.
The candle's bright light will show the way.
To Parm Warl's shores we will go one day.
Though waves may toss and chill winds blow,
We'll embrace the courage we need to grow.
And become one people with one desire,
One soul, one vision, one heart on fire.
****
“A light led you to Muriel?”
“Yes, Young Sir.” Grour Blood's deep rumbling voice reverberated off the students' chests. “It came to Stromane and told us the Prophetess had come and that we should go to Nyeg Warl and find her.”
Ahrnosyn, having heard Grour Blood answer the same question at least three times before, interrupted the griffin's reply. “I think that's enough for tonight,” he intoned. “It's been a rich and rewarding evening.”
And, indeed, it was. Muriel Blood and her griffin companion had patiently answered each question asked, some more than once. Much food for thought had been served up. Now it was time to digest all that had been said.