Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-101 Read online

  Ammari asked, “Why?”

  Rivenstone answered her. “When his inner channels are opened up, it will be a surge through the feather roots—where gryphons collect ther energy and begin its conversion. The sudden rush of power into—by now—sensitized vessels might well boil out as heat. Or rather, boil in, and—ah—cook him. If we can keep the inrush to a steady flow, we may be able to draw it out of him before it becomes too much.” He steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on his knees. “I must be honest with you all. No gryphon has ever been drained so completely as Kelvren has.”

  Treyvan laid out a spread of pages from one of the trondi’irn’s books. “We only have thisss frrrom the hissstorrries—an infusssion method unusssed sssince Ssskandrrranon’sss time. What effect it will have now, we can barrrely prrredict.” He looked off to the northwest. “Firrresssong isss bessside himssself—he wantsss ssso much to be herrre. He carrresss morrre about Kelvrrren than Kelvrrren prrrobably knowsss. He sssaysss everrryone frrrom Lorrrd Brrreon to the Ghossst Cat Clan wantsss Kelvrrren back. He sssaysss the Clansss arrre holding rrritualsss and lighting firrresss to guide Kelvrrren home to them.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment.

  “So,” Hallock began. “The questions are, do we try this method, can it be done, what is required for it to be done, and what will we do if it fails or succeeds?”

  “If it fails,” Rivenstone answered, “he will be his own funaral pyre.”

  “But the firrrssst quessstion isss what the rrressst hinge upon. Kelvrrren hasss rrresssolved that even if he diesss he hasss done well. I doubt he would want to lingerrr in a living death. Ssso I sssuggessst that we procsseed.”

  The others agreed. “We will need a sssite to prrreparrre,” Treyvan stated. “And I confesss, it isss no sssmall rrrisssk to me. We need a placsse clossse by, but sssafe from casssual interrrferrencsse—becaussse in a matterrr of a day, I mussst consstrrruct a node.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  Finally Hallock asked, “What’s a node?”

  “A confluence of magical power,” Rivenstone replied. “Like streams run to a lake, a node is where lines of force converge. But since the Storms, those lines have been largely dispersed. If Treyvan tried to use his personal power, he could wind up like Kelvren is, and Kelvren still wouldn’t be healed. So he has to use an outside source of power—a node. There aren’t any nodes around here, so we need a place to make one. Safely. Quickly.”

  Ammari raised her hand shyly. “Uhm. Will a Changecircle do?”

  Being gryphon through and through, Treyvan was very physical about his magic—but to human eyes he looked utterly mad while he worked. He had gotten volunteers to go into the Changecircle and dig holes in specific places, with the deepest in the very center, a man’s height in depth. He dropped particular stones in the holes and covered them up, and paced around the Changecircle, muttered to himself, then did things his gathered audience found inexplicable. Many times he leaped ten feet in the air and suddenly dove down, thumbs locked, as if trying to push a stake into the ground with his forefeet; other times he would slink along the ground and turn his head side to side before jumping up to circle in the air over the site.

  Shafts of light erupted from the ground periodically, equidistant around the circle. Treyvan walked around each one, then drew glowing lines in midair toward the center of the circle, and subdivided them. More shafts of light shone, higher this time, where those lines crossed, and then wavered. Treyvan growled and leaped on one that was brighter than the rest, and the others became evenly brighter.

  He warned loudly that no one was to enter the Changecircle for any reason, and took to the air, flew a circuit across the Changecircle, and then arced back to the convalescents’ tent, where Kelvren was awake after his trondi’irn’s drug-enforced sleep. Treyvan murmured to Pena, who dashed off after something. Hallock intercepted Treyvan.

  “Kel was just giving me his opinions about this political and military situation, in case the worst should happen,” the captain said. “And I have to say, I’m impressed. You should hear this.” He looked down at the notes he’d written. “ ‘In this conflict the Guard is already beaten, because they do not want to fight their fellow Valdemarans. And this insurgent militia, brought to bear arms against the Guard and Heralds, are also beaten for the same reason. In their hearts—regardless of blades, arrows, and horse—they cancel each other out. Therefore, the battle is between the mercenaries and the callous bastards who incited this, who owe no allegience to this country and have no affection for it—and those mercenaries hired by the Crown, who do feel affection for this country, but hold no pressing regard to spare that militia or their hired counterparts. So to make this conflict collapse, the motives must be attacked, without swords and arrows piercing flesh, and thus make the mercenaries cancel each other out. Create a collapse within this insurgents’ power structure, and the mercenaries fold up. Then may Valdemarans be brothers again, and meet in taverns to give thanks and apologize to each other, rather than soak their beloved soil in the blood of their brothers.”

  “Hurrrh. The Shin’a’in sssay, ‘therrre are only two powerrrsss in a warrr—the sssworrrd and the ssspirrrit, and the sspirrrit will alwaysss win out.’ If Kelvrrren wasss a warrrlorrrd, we would all sssurrrely be in trrrouble,” Treyvan said in all seriousness. “Hisss ability to find powerrr in the mossst minorrr of thingsss isss unnerrrving.”

  Hallock looked back toward Kelvren. “I think he really needed to tell me all of that. It seemed very important to him, even though it exhausted him to say it.”

  “He wantsss morrre than anything to feel effective,” Treyvan observed. “But, I sssuppossse, ssso do we all.” Pena arrived by his side and offered an unlatched case which Treyvan delicately reached into. He pulled out a fist-sized sphere of glass, perfect in every dimension. With a calculating look he asked Hallock, “Do you know what a Heartstone isss?”

  It was dusk.

  Whitebird set the last of the empty bottles and cups aside, then arose from her knees beside Kelvren. “Those should strengthen you,” she said encouragingly, “and keep you going through what’s to come. Everyone is ready.”

  Kelvren stood up on all fours for the first time in days. He shook all over from the muscle strain, but he did not buckle. Whitebird folded her arms, squeezing herself in worry. Ammari shuffled close from the rear of the nowemptied tent. Kelvren pulled his shoulders back and raised his head to look her in the face. “Thisss isss a tale that tellsss itssself,” he rumbled wearily, forcing a raised-crest smile. “Pena hasss sssomething forrr yourrr ssson. If my ssstorrry endsss this night—hisss ssshall go on. I have a favorrr to assk of you, Ammarrri. Yourrr—liquid light—sssparrre a few jarrrsss for Genni Ssstaverrn. Frrrom me.” He lifted his head up to his shoulders’ height, and Ammari cupped his lower jaw in her hands and rested his beak against her bosom. She tucked her chin down and kissed him on the curve of his beak. “You’ll be all right, Kel—you will be.”

  His breath was hot against her body, and he trembled as he turned aside and took his first step toward the circle. “If I am not, I ssshall fly with yourrr husssband firrrssst of all.”

  Whitebird, Rivenstone, and Pena stepped in instantly to help him from the tent, but he warned them off. With wingtips dragging, Kelvren trudged to his fate on the hill.

  Spectators had gathered, but guards kept them a hundred feet from the Changecircle. They parted to let him through as he approached, and several murmured encouragements to him.

  All of the “gimps” were there among them.

  Treyvan awaited him several horselengths from the edge of the faintly-glowing Changecircle. “It isss not too late to refussse thisss,” he said to Kelvren in Kaled’a’in. “You may ssstill live if we use the other method.”

  “Live. But not fly, or rrrun even? Neverrr climb a back again? I’d rrrather die,” he chuckled weakly. “No—I must try this.”

  Treyvan shrewdly asked, “You already have plansss
for what you will do if thisss rejuvenation ssssucceedsss, don’t you?”

  Kelvren smiled slyly. “Oh, yesss. A few. If you’rrre in a fairrr fight, you didn’t plan it properrrly. If this worksss, it will mean more than if I lingered on. It will be a gloriousss life—or a gloriousss death.” He dipped his head solemnly. “Thank you for giving me the chancsse at eitherrr, my lord Treyvan.”

  Treyvan bowed his head, mirroring Kelvren’s own motion. “The sssite has been prepared. You must go in alone, and lie down in the exact centerrr. When I rrreleassse the sssequencsse, you mussst rrraise your wingsss if you can, and breathe deeply. In that inssstant, cassst your ssselfhealing ssspell. If you can ssstand, then ssstand. If you can—” He paused, obviously trying to hide something. “If you can fly then, fly. Ssstraight up, as far as you can.”

  Kelvren said the obvious. “If I can’t fly then, I burn.”

  Treyvan looked down. “Yesss,” he said softly.

  Kelvren stared at the center of the circle. His heart beat harder as he stepped across the circle’s edge, and more than a hundred people held their breath.

  Pena stood at Treyvan’s side, with a look of dismay and sorrow on her face. “He doesn’t know it’s a Heartstone—does he,” he asked Treyvan.

  The gryphon mage looked down at her with a look of resignation. “No. He doesssn’t know.”

  Pena’s eyes glittered from the reflected lights that were starting up from the ground as Kel approached the circle’s center. “It is probably best that he doesn’t.”

  Whitebird and Rivenstone walked up beside them. “Treyvan’s made a minor node,” Pena explained to Whitebird and Rivenstone, “But it’s channeled into a Heartstone—a purposely fragile one. It’s why Treyvan used glass. When the spell reaches its height, it will consume itself. Even a tiny Heartstone will release its power in a saturated burst.”

  Treyvan nodded. “I didn’t tell him. I completed the node hoursss before I buried the glasss sssphere. And the control pointsss I burrried, arrround the rrressst of the cssircle, are not to draw the power in from outssside. They are to contain the power and dirrrect the burst upward from the center. If his sssyssstem ressstartsss—he will absssorb it. If it doesss not—hurrrh. He will only feel pain forrr a few ssseconds.”

  Ammari and Jeft approached the four that were speaking Kaled’a’in. “What’re you all talkin’ about?” Jeft asked.

  “We arrre—wishing Kelvrrren luck.” He stepped toward the circle and spread his wings widely as Kelvren neared the center. “It isss time.”

  Pena ushered the humans back to where the Herald and his Companion stood even with the soldiers, locals, and patients who came to see the fate of their gryphon. Dusk descended further, making the light from the Circle even more apparent. Kelvren neared the center and walked around the packed earth there, until he faced the crowd.

  He lay down on his belly, and carefully and deliberately folded his wings.

  Treyvan stepped to the edge of the Circle, sat on his haunches, and pulled his wings straight back behind him. Faint beams of light broke through the ground around the perimeter. The light of the nearer control points visibly pulled toward him as his wings swept slowly back. Treyvan spread his arms wide, curled his claws toward the sides of the Circle, and swept his wings forward again. The light pushed back and caused the next nearer points to flare brighter.

  Kelvren watched Treyvan—and then looked at every one of the gathered crowd. A sharp eye could see that tears ran from his eyes and dripped from the hook of his beak.

  He laid his head down flat on the ground and his wings slumped.

  The sixty control points around the perimeter blazed fully now, all of them matched columns of light tapering to a foot high. Treyvan went back to all fours and walked a horselength farther from the crowd, and stopped again at the edge of the Changecircle. He sat up, raised his forearms higher than before, and swept his wings back then forward again, harder. All the perimeter lights swayed inward and another ring of them blazed up from the ground in unison. Another massive flap of his wings, and a third ring shot up and steadied, encompassing Kelvren. Arcs of energy extended from one light to another, seemingly randomly, and then all at once they made a stable, steady pattern which looked like a stained glass rosette.

  Treyvan held his own breath for a moment, and said in Kaled’a’in, “Wind to thy wings, sheyna.”

  Treyvan snapped his wings open.

  A boom of thunder struck the crowd.

  Inside the circle, a rising ring of light closed in on Kelvren in the center.

  And consumed him.

  Daylight surged upward from the circle’s center, and the briefest shadow of wings flickered in it before everyone watching was blinded by it. Treyvan’s irises pinned to width of a finger. He peered resolutely into the light.

  There was movement.

  There was the shape of a gryphon—getting to its feet. Standing. Its wings were unfolding, and raising up.

  Except it was not a shadow against light.

  It was light, and everything else was shadow compared to it.

  Treyvan stepped back, one step. Two. The figure in the center rose up onto its hindfeet. It was Kelvren, but he was radiating light like nothing Treyvan had ever seen before. His body color wisped away, replaced by a glow from inside the feather shafts themselves. The edges of every feather gleamed and rippled in a yellow-white radiance, like the edge of burning paper. His eyes more than glowed—they shone outward in tapered rays of light, wherever he looked.

  Kelvren raised a hindfoot, then the other, and stepped up into the air. Calmly, he shone there, suspended off the ground, watching everyone.

  And with a single wingbeat, the gryphon of light shot up into the air as a streak, and was gone. He went up higher, until he was a bright speck in the sky amidst the stars.

  No one could say a word.

  The mote of light descended a minute later.

  It shone even brighter than before, and swept over the encampment, making shadows shift as if a new sun was lighting the night up. Kelvren’s flight was effortless.

  He backwinged once, and with the lightest of touches, settled atop the mill with his wings spread wide, and regarded everyone below.

  Hallock, Pena, Ammari, Whitebird, Rivenstone and Jeft staggered, stunned, to Treyvan’s side. “What—just happened?” Ammari asked.

  “I have no idea,” Treyvan admitted.

  “Just look at him,” Whitebird gasped. “He’s beautiful.”

  “That’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen,” Hallock said.

  “He looks just like that tapestry back at White Gryphon,” Rivenstone gasped.

  “That’s my gryphon,” Jeft said.

  The gryphon of light stayed atop the mill for ten minutes, then he sprang up from the mill’s roof and dove to alight in front of the crowd, banking in to brake and hang in midair without a single wingbeat. His eyes swept them, one by one, and murmurs of astonishment came from nearly everyone.

  Kelvren spoke.

  “I have become—sssomething morrre than I wasss beforrre—but my hearrrt and allegiancssesss arrre unchanged. Ssso hearrr me,” his voice boomed. “I know what I mussst do. The forcssesss at Deedun know little of magic. Theirrr sssoldierrrsss arrre mossst likely bewilderrred by magic; and by now, they know what a sssingle grrryphon can do. I believe they will rrressspond to what they can sssee, and by that, even the sssimplessst of magic is made magnitudesss ssstrrrongerrr. He who isss afrrraid isss half beaten.” He lifted his from the ground and fanned his wings as he rose, suspended in midair. “I will ssstrrrike, and I will ssshed no blood. And I do it in the name of the Guarrrd, the Herrraldsss, and the Crrrown. Forrr all of you. Forrr all of usss. Forrr Valdemarrr!”

  The crowd erupted into cheers and shouts.

  The light from Kelvren’s eyes flared brighter, and swept over to Treyvan. “You underrrssstand,” he said, his voice seeming distant. Kelvren gazed upon the rest, where they’d gathered with the convalescents. The i
llumination surrounded them all, sharpening the shadows. “My frrriends—I will neverrr forrrget you.”

  And with those last words, Kelvren rose, did a wing-over, dove down from four winglengths up and slammed his claws down to the ground. The earth trembled, and loose earth momentarily heaved up to knee height. The resulting crater ignited into a white, scintillating brightness. When Kelvren leaped into the sky, the sunlike glow stayed. Then with several massive wingbeats, the gryphon powered away from the crowd, driving up debris and dust, and with each downstroke his brilliant wings surged brighter. Below him, a jagged incandescent line two wings’-width wide crackled up from the shimmering focal point, and split away from its origin. The shimmering swath on the ground directly followed his flightpath. He swept through his skies, leading the line of sunfire from the Changecircle, through the camp, to the great Trade Road. He followed the Trade Road precisely, and the brilliance followed him on the ground. With each wingbeat Kelvren absorbed more magical power from the air, and the swath trailed him as light, following every twist. He coursed faster with each wingbeat than any gryphon he had ever known of. He flew for hours, tracing the Trade Road below, leaving a trail of light all the way to Deedun.

  And it did not fade.

  Mercenaries and militia alike looked up in astonishment, uncertainty, or stark terror at the figure that shot past them by the time an arrow could be nocked.

  Candlemarks passed, and the path of coruscating light etched into the road still did not fade.

  Only when he reached Deedun did Kelvren backwing and hover in midair in front of the tallest of the High Keep’s towers. He stared at it, and concentrated.

  The citizens of Deedun saw, line by line, the crest of Valdemar, three stories high, burn itself into the wall of the keep’s tower, and blaze like daylight across the city.

  And like the wide line of light the length of the Trade Road, it too, did not fade.

  Kelvren turned his gaze across the city. Citizens, guards, militia, and mercenary alike were coming out of buildings, all lit by the bright path that came from the far distance through the center of the city. Kelvren knew that with the sheer power he’d put into his mage-light spell, the crest of Valdemar would not fade away for a month or more.