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  The Silver Gryphon

  ( Valdemar (01): Mage Wars - 3 )

  Mercedes Lackey

  Skandrannon and AmberDrake are both getting older and have settled into comfortable lives. The people of White Gryphon have been in Alliance with the Haighlei Empire for 12 years now, but that does not mean that they have not prepared themselves for other enemies. White Gryphon started up an elite guard made of humans and non-humans to protect their city; These became known as the Silver Gryphons. Among these are SilverBlade, AmberDrakes daughter, and Tadrith, Skan's son. They are both sick of growing up in the tales of the Fathers' heroisms. They wanted to prove themselves and make their own worths known. So finally, after rigorous training, they are both given their first assignments- a remote guard post in wild , unexplored territory. But something bad happens and Tadrith is forced out of the sky and plummets to the ground with SilverBlade. Bandly injured, and no way of communicating back, they are forced to take care of themselves. All magic has been drained from their equipment. Something evil and unknown lurks in the dark forest beyond them; Will help come in time, or will they both perish at the hands of this evil?

  Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

  Mage Wars 03

  The Silver Gryphon

  One

  Freedom!

  Tadrith Skandrakae extended his broad gray wings, stretching out his muscles to their fullest extent to take best advantage of the warm wind beneath him. Freedom at last! I thought I’d never get away from that Section meeting. He banked just slightly to his left, slipping sideways for the best line. I know it wasn’t my good looks or charm that were putting me under that old crow’s watch! I swear, Aubri must get a special pleasure out of keeping people around him who desperately want to be somewhere else. He half-closed his eyes against the glare of the sun on the water beneath him. He was conscious of two pressures, one tangible and one fanciful; the warm imagined push of the sun on his back, and the strong uplift of the thermal beneath him. Then again, maybe there were three pressures, or four; the warm air below, the hot sun above, and the twin desires to be away from the boredom of yet another Section meeting and the wish to be headed for something exciting.

  The thermal tasted of salt and seaweed, and it gave him some welcome relief from rowing his wings against the breeze. Beneath and beyond his left wing, the great Western Sea shone green-blue and vast, the horizon a sharp line where the brilliant turquoise of the sky met the deep emerald green of the water farther out. To his right, the cliff-built city of White Gryphon sent back the rays of the sun in a dazzling display of snowy stone laced with growing things, drifts of trailing vines, and falling water. As had been planned a generation ago, the city itself was laid out in the shape of a stylized gryphon with his wings spread proudly against the mossy uncut stone of the cliff. By day, it glowed; by night, it glimmered, lit with candle, lantern and mage-light. Tadrith loved it; a proud, promising, beckoning city, home to thousands.

  Beneath him, the olive-green waters of the cove rolled calmly against the base of the cliff and gurgled around the pillars of the dock, a delicate lace-work of foam atop the swells. The moorings there were all empty except for light utility craft, for the fishing fleet of White Gryphon would be out at sea until sunset, Tadrith himself had served with the fleet in his first year as a Silver Gryphon; young gryphons acted as aerial scouts, spotting schools of fish from above, and then worked as catch haulers later in the day.

  The only time that nets were used was when the catch haulers were taking the catch in to the shore. In their first years here, the fleet had fished with drag- and gill-nets, but did so no more. Their Haighlei allies had been horrified at the wastage caused by net fishing, for inedible sea life had been caught and wantonly destroyed along with the edible fish. They had rightfully pointed out that the Kaled’a’in would not have countenanced such wastage in hunting, so why should they allow it in fishing? Fishing was another form of hunting, after all; you did not kill creatures that were of no threat or use to you in the forest, so why do so in the sea? So now the fleets used only baited lines, allowing for the release of fish that were too young or unwanted. It took longer, and was more work, but that was a small matter compared with the fact that it ensured feeding the next generation, and the ten after that.

  Ten generations to come. That’s always the concern—the generations to come. Plan and work for ten generations’ benefit, Amberdrake says. Even if we wear ourselves to wingsails and bones doing it!

  Such thoughts tended to come to everyone at White Gryphon from time to time. Among the young, like him, they came to mind at least once an hour; in times of even harder work, they arose every few minutes. It was only natural, after all, that a day of bright sun and promise would hold a virile young gryphon’s attention better than going over Patrol charts and Watch rosters with an elder gryphon, even one as likable as old Aubri.

  I have places to go, things to do. I’m almost positive of it.

  The landing platform that Tadrith had chosen was not untenanted, a factor that had played some little part in his choice. Not that he was vain, oh no! At least, not much. But there were three perfectly handsome young gryphon ladies spreading their wings to catch some sun on that platform, with their mothers in oh-so-casual attendance on the off-chance that a young bachelor might show some interest. He knew all three of them, of course; Dharra was a year older than he and a mage, Kylleen a year younger and still serving with the fleet, and Jerrinni a fellow Silver. She was already working with a partner on unsupervised assignments, and he particularly wanted to impress her if he could. She was by far the most attractive of the three, being of the same goshawk type that he was. But that was not the only reason for his interest in her; she was also his senior in the Silvers and her comments to her superiors might edge him up a little toward his long-delayed promotion to unsupervised assignments.

  I wear the badge, but I am not yet allowed to bear the responsibilities the badge represents. He did not have to glance down at his harness to see that badge, made in the form of a stylized gryphon.

  The Silver Gryphons, so named for that silver badge they wore, served in every kind of military and policing capacity that fighters, guards, scouts, and constables had in the old days. And in addition to those tasks, the gryphons in the Silvers—especially the young ones still in training—made themselves useful in a variety of other tasks.

  Or to be more precise, their leaders assigned them to those so-useful tasks. Like hauling cargo, or carry-nets full of fish, or hoisting supplies, meat from the herds, and the fruits of the fields down from the top of the cliff, for instance.

  Or sitting through boring meetings.

  I have a hundred things that need to be done, Or as Father would say, “places to go, people to be.“ He makes a joke of it, but I live it, more than he ever did even after all of his adventures and missions and roles. Even more than he did at the Eclipse Ceremony.

  He sideslipped and caught another thermal, one that would place him precisely where he wanted to be.

  The thought of his father, as always, made him flinch internally. Not that Skandranon was a bad father—oh, no! He was an excellent teacher, provider, and friend. He was a fine father, but he was a very difficult person to have as a father. Trying to live up to the image of the Black Gryphon was . . . difficult and vexing. He may be a living legend, but it makes being his son a living hell.

  But the platform and its attractive occupants loomed up before and beneath him, and Tadrith allowed himself a touch of smug satisfaction. He prided himself on his aerobatics, and most especially on his control. His mother Zhaneel was the gryphon who had been most revered for her flying finesse, and he had studied her techniques more than his father’s. A
t least the Great Skandranon can’t do this as well as I can. . . .

  Tadrith banked in over the platform and pulled up, to stall in midair and then fall, wings cupped, to land standing on one foot, then two, and from then to all fours without any sound louder than the creak of the platform accepting his weight. The gryphon ladies all gazed on in approval, impressed by his display of control and dexterity, and Kylleen cooed aloud and smiled in his direction.

  Yes! That worked out just the way I wanted. Tadrith stood rock steady and struck a momentary pose, wings folded crisply, crest up and gently ruffled by the breeze. Just right. That will show them what I’m made of. Father never flew like that! He’d have powered straight in and knocked them half off their feet with the backwash of his wingbeats. I have finesse and style!

  Tadrith’s self-congratulatory reverie was shattered a moment later when one mother said to another, “Did you see that? Why, he’s the very image of his father, with aerobatics like that.”

  Crushed, Tadrith drooped his head and crest and stepped off the platform.

  I’m doomed.

  At least the younger ladies seemed oblivious to the effect that the casual remark had on him. They continued to bestow coy and admiring glances on him as he made as unhurried and graceful an exit as he could manage under the circumstances.

  The platform jutted out over the cove below, and led directly to one of the balustraded “streets” that ran along the edge of the terrace. The Kaled’a’in who comprised the greater part of the population of White Gryphon were accustomed to being surrounded by greenery, and even in a city carved and built completely of cliff-stone had managed to bring that greenery here. Built into the balustrades were stone boxes filled with earth brought down a sackful at a time from the fields above; those boxes now held luxuriant vines that trailed down to the next terraced level. More stone boxes each held a single tree or bush, with flowering herbs planted at its base. There was water enough coming down from above to allow for the occasional tiny waterfall to trail artfully from terrace to terrace and end in a long fall to the sea. The greenery had been planned so that it actually formed feather-patterns, adding texture to the pure white of the stone gryphon. Part of the philosophy of White Gryphon, when the city was planned, had been “recovery with dignity.” The leaders of the people—Skandranon included—used the survivors’ artistry and style as a point of pride and unification. If a simple box would do, an ornamented box was better. This strategy of increased self-esteem, guided by the kestra’chern, worked in making the people feel less like beaten refugees and more like proud homesteaders.

  The philosophy was simple. If an object could be made beautiful—whether it was a street, doorway, or garden—it was.

  Homes were carved directly into the cliff behind the avenue, some going twenty or thirty gryphon-lengths back into the stone. The size of a family home or a gryphon aerie was limited only to the willingness of family members to dig (or pay for someone else to dig)—and to live in the windowless spaces beyond the main rooms. Gryphons tended to find such spaces disturbing and confining and preferred not to carve more than two rooms’-worth deep, but hertasi and kyree and even some humans actually liked the idea of such burrows, and sent their dwellings quite far back indeed. There were entire complexes of man-made caverns back in those cliffs, and Tadrith had to admit that the one advantage they had was that weather made little or no difference to the folk living in those rooms.

  Amberdrake was one such. He and Winterhart had buried their personal chambers so far back into the living stone that no natural light ever reached there to disturb late sleepers. Tadrith shuddered at the very thought of so much rock on every side, cutting him off from the air and light. He had no idea how his partner Blade ever tolerated it, for she was another such as her parents.

  Not that a gryphon ever needs to worry about being forced to live in such a place. Not while there are hertasi and kyree vying for such mausoleums and eager to give up cliff-side residences to have one. In the early days, when simply getting a dwelling carved out quickly had been of paramount importance, it had been faster and easier just to sculpt rooms side-by-side, often simply enlarging and improving existing caves. Mage-lights to aid in working deeper into the stone had been at a premium, and there were long stretches of time when magic could not be used to help work the stone at all, so that it all had to be done by hand. Workers tended to carve to a standard that happened to be preferred by most humans and all gryphons and tervardi. The dyheli, of course, needed the barest of shelters to be contented and all lived above, among the farms, but the hertasi and kyree who really were not comfortable with views of endless sky and long drops were forced to make do until there was time and the resources to create dwellings more to their liking. That meant there were always those who would happily trade an older, “precarious perch” for a newly-chiseled burrow. There were wider terraces, of course, that permitted real buildings and even small gardens, but those were all in the “body” of White Gryphon and most building space was reserved for public use. It was probably fair to say that three-quarters of the population of White Gryphon lived in glorified cave dwellings.

  That was how Tadrith and his twin, Keenath, had gotten their own aerie, which allowed them to move out of their parents’ home; they’d found a narrow stretch of unexcavated terrace down at the bottom of White Gryphon’s “tail” and had claimed it for themselves, then hired a team of masons to carve out a long set of six rooms, one after the other, deep into the living rock. This sort of residence was precisely the kind preferred by den-loving kyree and burrowing hertasi. Once the dwelling had been roughed in and the twins made it known that they were willing to trade, there was a bidding war going on even before it was completed.

  The result was that Tadrith and Keenath had their own bachelor suite of one main room, a food storage chamber, and two light and airy bedrooms on either side of the main room. Both bedchambers had windows overlooking the cliff, as had the main room. The kyree family that had gratefully traded this aerie for the dark tunnellike series of rooms pronounced themselves overjoyed to be leaving such a drafty, windswept perch, and had wondered why their parents had ever chosen it!

  Which only proves that one creature’s cozy nest is another creature’s draft-ridden mess of sticks.

  As Tadrith neared his home, which was out on what would be the first primary of the White Gryphon’s right wing, the “avenue” narrowed to a simple pathway, and the balustrade to a knee-high, narrow ledge of stone. Perhaps that had something to do with the kyree’s reluctance to live there—certainly such an arrangement would be dangerous for young, clumsy cubs. Tadrith and Keenath had been raised in an aerie virtually identical to this one, but on the first primary of the White Gryphon’s left wing; that distance between them and their beloved parents had played no small part in their final decision as to which family would win the bidding war.

  Tadrith could, if he had chosen to do so, actually have landed on the balustrade right outside his own door—but landing anywhere other than the public landing platforms was considered a breech of safety, for it encouraged the just-fledged youngsters, who were by no means as coordinated as they thought they were, to reckless behavior. No lives had been lost, but several limbs had been broken, when younglings had missed their landings and slipped off the edge or tumbled into a group of passersby. After a number of hysterical mothers demanded that the Council do something about the problem, the landing platforms were installed and gryphons and tervardi were “strongly encouraged” to use them. Tadrith and Keenath, with every eye in White Gryphon always on them, had been scrupulous in their use of the public landing platforms.

  By daylight, anyway. And no fledge is allowed to fly after dark, so they’ll never see us when we cheat.

  In glorious weather like this, the doors and windows always stood wide open, so Tadrith simply strolled inside his shared dwelling, his claws clicking on the bare stone of the floor. The room they used for company was airy and full of light, with the
rock of the outer wall carved into several tall panels with thin shafts of wood between them. Translucent panes of the tough material the Kaled’a’in used for windows were set into wooden frames on hinges, which in turn were set into the stone. The room itself was furnished only with cushions of various sizes, all covered in fabric in the colors of sandstone and granite, slate and shale. In the winter, thick sheepskins and wool rugs would cover that cold white floor, and the doors and windows would be shut tight against the gales, but in the summer all those coverings were whisked away into storage so that an overheated gryphon could lie belly-down on the cool rock floor and dump some of that body heat quickly. And, in fact, Keenath was doing just that, spread out on the floor, with wings fanned, panting slightly.

  “I was just thinking about dinner,” his twin greeted him. “I might have known that thoughts of food would bring you home.”

  Tadrith snorted. “Just because you’re obsessed with eating it doesn’t follow that I am! I’ll have you know that I only just now escaped from yet another yawnsome Section meeting. Food was the very last thing on my mind, and escaping Aubri was the first!”

  Keenath laughed silently, beak parted, as his tongue flicked in and out while his sides heaved. “That must have been a first, then,” he bantered. “So who was she? The pretty young thing that your mind was really on, I mean. Kylleen, perhaps?”