Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-100 Page 7

  "Oh, don't look at me like that. I'll give you a good meal, but that's it. After this, you're on your own."

  The baby continued to stare.

  "Stop that! Don't you understand? I can't stay here to take care of you, and I can't take you with me; you'd never be able to keep up. Ha, you can barely walk steadily as it is!"

  But the gryphon continued to watch him even as it gulped down meaty sliver after sliver. At last it seemed to be full, its little belly gently rounded. With a satisfied little churr, the baby collapsed on Leryn's feet, staring adoringly up at him.

  "Wonderful. Just wonderful. Now what am I going to do with you?"

  He reached a tentative hand down to the spotted baby down, wondering if the little beast would let him touch it. When it didn't even flinch, he stroked the gryphon gently, enjoying the fuzzy feel of it. The baby smelled faintly of spices—cinnamon, was it?—and of that delicate newness that all young things seem to have in common.

  And for a moment, Leryn's hand paused in its stroking as he remembered another baby, and Elenya—

  Not I will not—No! "Ah, gods," Leryn murmured to the gryphon. "I can't leave you here to die."

  The baby churred again, almost as though it understood, and Leryn sighed. Maybe this would work. The little thing was about dog-sized, after all, and he doubted it weighed much more; a creature meant for flight couldn't be too heavy. Leryn sighed again, knowing he'd already come to a decision.

  "All right, baby. We travel together, at least till I can find an adult gryphon to take care of you. Assuming the creature doesn't try to rend me apart first as a baby-thief!"

  Ah, well, one problem at a time. The gryphon had curled up on his feet, sound asleep. Leryn continued to stroke the warm, fuzzy fur. And after a tune, he realized, much to his astonishment, that he was smiling.

  He stopped smiling about midway through the next day. The gryphon had tagged along after him nicely enough for a while, but it was a baby, with a baby's limited attention span and lack of sense. First, Leryn had to rescue it from a pond into which the little thing had fallen while chasing a butterfly. Then he had to pry it out from between two rocks which were just a bit too close together to allow the gryphon to pass. In between, the baby would plop itself down with a baby's suddenness, instantly sound asleep, or complaining with ear-splitting pathos that it was hungry.

  Leryn glanced at the rapidly diminishing chunk of venison and winced. It wasn't going to stay fresh much longer or, for that matter, judging from the gryphon's appetite, last much longer.

  And what do I do when it's gone? I'm no hunter; I'm not even carrying a decent knife! Gods, I don't even have any way of starting a fire!

  At least, now that that spectacular, deadly storm was past, the weather remained dry. But the air was cold, and it grew colder as night fell. Leryn tried to sleep curled up in as tight a ball as he could manage, struggling to ignore his aching, hungry body, but the earth was as chill as the air. And for all his weariness, he couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.

  But then a fuzzy little body, warm as a furnace, pushed itself against him: the gryphon, whimpering softly. Leryn drew the baby to him, glad of its warmth, and the two lonely beings at last slept

  * * *

  Leryn sank wearily to a rock, head down. The gryphon pushed against him, trilling anxiously, but the man ignored it, too worn to care.

  How many days had it been of endless walking, of hunger and aching muscles and skin chafed raw from the clothes he couldn't change? How many nights of broken sleep and cold, never-ending cold? The last scraps of the by-now-barely-edible meat had been devoured by the baby a day ago, and though the gryphon had managed to snap up enough bugs along the way to feed it—or at least keep it from that ear-splitting complaining—there hadn't been anything for a human to eat. Leryn had tried to fill his complaining stomach with spring water, but the water had been so cold it chilled him to the bone.

  You knew it was going to come to this sooner or later. You knew you didn't have a chance of surviving. . . .

  "I just didn't know it was going to take so long."

  The gryphon cut into his bitterness, pushing anxiously against him, trilling and trilling in panic till at last Leryn roused himself from thoughts of death. He stared at the small, frantic baby. And slowly it came to him that he couldn't die, not yet, not while this small, so-very-alive creature was depending on him.

  Leryn reached out a weary hand to ruffle the gryphon's fur, then staggered to his feet.

  "Come on, baby. We'll see how much farther we can get."

  The gryphon shrilled in sudden alarm. Leryn stumbled back, staring blankly at the men who'd come out of hiding and into whose arms he'd almost walked.

  For a moment Leryn's mind simply refused to function, noting only that these strangers were warmly clad, and looked well-fed. But the gryphon continued its shrill screaming, stubby wings fluttering, trying its baby best to defend him against:

  Bandits, Leryn realized through the haze of weariness. Maybe even the same who attacked me the first time.

  What difference did it make? He certainly didn't have anything on him of value, and if they just waited a bit, he'd probably die of hunger or exhaustion and save them the trouble of—It was the gryphon they wanted. They were going to kill his little friend for its fur, or carry it off to captivity.

  "Like hell you are!" Leryn roared (or at least thought he roared), and charged.

  The first bandit was so astonished by this rush of strength from such a worn-out creature he didn't defend himself in time. Leryn tore the club from his hands and laid about with it with half-hysterical fury. The gryphon baby, shrilling a childish battle scream, fought with him—small, sharp beak nipping, small, sharp talons scratching. But of course they hadn't a chance of winning, not one weary man and one little gryphon.

  At least this'll be faster than dying of hunger, Leryn thought wryly.

  Thunder deafened him, wild wind buffeted him. For a dazed moment, swathed in sudden shadow, Leryn could only wonder how a storm could have struck so swiftly.

  But the storm was moving, shrieking, and all at once he realized that what was looming overhead was a gryphon, two gryphons, and he forgot all about the bandits as he stared in wonder at the living golden wonders soaring down at him.

  The bandits didn't waste time in staring. They scattered in all directions, racing off into the underbrush like so many terrified rabbits, and Leryn could have sworn he heard one of the gryphons hiss in soft, fierce laughter.

  They landed in a wild swirling of wind and dust. The baby gryphon let out one startled little yelp and ducked behind Leryn, then took a wary step out from hiding, gaping, every line of its small body rigid with astonishment. For a long moment, Leryn stood frozen as well, staring, too weary for fright, at the savage, splendid, vibrant size of them, at the wise, keen, alien eyes watching him, at the beaks, wickedly elegant as curved swords, that could snap him in two, at the gleaming talons that could rend him apart as easily as he might tear worn-out fabric. He should be afraid, Leryn thought, he really should.

  But the last of his desperate strength was ebbing from him. Leryn felt his exhausted body crumple to its knees.

  And then he knew nothing at all.

  He woke slowly, languorously, to warmth, wonderful, spicy-scented warmth. Meat was being pushed at his lips, and if that meat was raw, at least it was fresh and full of the promise of life, and he chewed and swallowed without protest, feeling the dawn of strength returning to him.

  Then Leryn came to himself enough to realize he was cradled like a baby against a gryphon's side, a golden wing sheltering him, and it was a deadly beak so gently offering him food. The beings must have known he was half-dead for want of food and warmth.

  Ah, warmth, yes ... it was so good to be warm again . . . warm and fed and cozy ...

  . . . cozy as he'd been with Elenya, his own sweet wife cuddled beside him in their bed, and the promise of new life growing inside her.

  The pro
mise that had gone so terribly wrong.

  The memories hit him without warning, hit him so hard that Leryn, still too weak to control his will, broke as he had not during all the long, empty, dry-eyed days of mourning. Broke and wept against the warm, tawny side, sheltered under the soft, golden wing while the gryphon churred ever so softly, stroking his hair with a gentle beak as though he were her child.

  Her. He had no doubt of his protector's gender. And Leryn heard, or felt, or sensed, he couldn't have said how, the gryphon's own grief. She who had died in the storm had been this one's sister, long lost from the nest: too proud, too sure of herself, heeding no one's advice, taking an aging mate, one who'd died and left her and her young one alone.

  Race, species were forgotten in their mingled grief. And out of mingled grief came at least the seeds of healing.

  "Eleyna, Eleyna, I still miss you, and shall miss you all my life. But. . . I am alive. And I must go on being alive."

  He could almost have sworn that somewhere, far beyond space and time, she'd heard, somewhere she'd smiled.

  Leryn sat bolt upright. The gryphon raised her wing to free him, and he found himself staring into the wise, amused eyes of her mate.

  "ssso. You live."

  "You speak!" Leryn reddened. "I—I mean, of course you speak, it's just—I didn't expect—I don't know what I expected."

  The gryphon chuckled. "We hardly expected you to ssspeak our tongue."

  "Uh, no. I ... uh ... I'm not familiar with your kind." Leryn glanced about, seeing a neat-walled cave— no, not a cave, a ruin of some sort, human-built but plainly now the gryphon pair's nest. "But the baby!" he suddenly remembered. "The little gryphon. Where is—"

  A small thunderbolt sent him staggering back into the side of the female gryphon. The baby leaping at him, churring with delight, wriggling like a happy puppy, until a quiet word in the gryphon tongue made it reluctantly settle to the floor.

  "You've brought my sssissster's child to me," the female gryphon murmured. "For that we thank you."

  "You kept the little one alive," said the male. "And that," he added with a chuckle as the wriggling baby eyed then pounced on his tufted tail, "could have been no easssy thing. For that we thank you, too."

  "I could hardly have let a—a child die!" A little shiver ran through Leryn at the memory of his own son, who'd never known the touch of life, but he continued resolutely, "Besides, the child kept me alive!" It was true enough. "Without this little ball of fur, I would have given up a long time ago."

  "Yesss, but now the quessstion isss: What do we do with you?"

  "Ah." What, indeed? No funds, no weapons, not even

  a change of clothes. "I don't know. In my home town, I'm a merchant of gems, but—"

  "Gemsss? The pretty ssstonesss you humansss like? Then thessse mussst belong to you."

  "My gem pouches! Where did you—"

  The male gryphon licked his talons with a lazy tongue. "I chasssed the banditsss," he murmured, eyes glinting dangerously. "It wasss good sssport. And asss they fled, they dropped everything they bore."

  Leryn stared at the fortune glittering in his hands. His gems, returned to him. Ah, gods, now he could start over, and not waste the life he'd been given!

  Suddenly it was all too ridiculous. Leryn burst into laughter, gasping, "I—I've come a long way just to find the—the path back to myself. And I could have managed without the hardships, thank you! But," he added, bending to stroke the baby's furry head, "I think everyone's happy with how things worked out."

  "Everyone sssave the banditsss," the gryphons murmured, and gave their churring laugh.

  The Salamander

  by Richard Lee Byers

  Richard Lee Byers worked for over a decade in an emergency psychiatric facility, then left the mental health field to become a writer. He is the author of 7776 Ebon Mask, On A Darkling Plain, Netherworld, Caravan of Shadows, Dark Fortune, Dead Time, The Vampire's Apprentice, and several other novels. His short fiction has appeared in numerous other anthologies, including Phobias, Confederacy of the Dead, Dante's Disciples, Superheroes, and Diagnosis: Terminal. He lives in the Tampa Bay area, the setting for many of his stories.

  By my reckoning, the arsonist might strike in any of fifteen places. It was sheer luck, if that's the right term, that I'd chosen to guard the right location.

  When it happened, it happened fast. One moment, I was prowling the cramped recesses of the tiring house of the Azure Swan Theater. Painted actors frantically changing costume squirmed past me, glaring at the intruder obstructing the way. Their ill will didn't bother me half as much as the flowery rhetoric being declaimed on stage. That night's play was The Bride and the Bat-tlesteed, a tragedy that blends mawkish sentimentality with a flawless ignorance of life on the Dhorisha Plains. Suffering through a particularly lachrymose soliloquy, I wished that the theater would catch fire, just to terminate the performance.

  Try not to think things like that. One never knows what gods are listening.

  An instant later, I heard a boom. Some of the audience cried out, and the forty-year-old ingenue ranting on stage faltered in mid-lament. Something began to hiss and crackle. I scrambled to the nearest of the rear stage entrances, looked out, and saw that a patch of thatch on the roof of the left-hand gallery was burning.

  Then the straw above the royal family's empty box exploded into flame. The two fires raced along the roof like lovers rushing to embrace. At the same time, they oozed down the columns into the topmost of the three tiers of seats. I peered about, but could see no sign of the enemy I'd been hired to stop.

  Shrieking people shoved along the galleries toward the stairs. Others climbed over the railings and dropped into the cobbled courtyard, where they joined the stampede of groundlings driving toward the exit at the rear of the enclosure. In half a minute, the passage was jammed.

  It was plain that not everyone would make it out that way. There was a stage door in the back of the tiring house, but none of the audience had come in that way, nor was it visible from any of their vantage points, so none of them thought to use it.

  Abandoning my efforts to spot the incendiary, I ran forward past two wooden columns painted to resemble marble to the foot of the stage. Though the blaze had yet to descend past the highest gallery, I could already feel the heat. "This way!" I shouted. "There's another exit!"

  Nobody paid the least attention. Perhaps, between the roar of the fire and the panicky cries, no one heard.

  I jumped off the platform, grabbed a strapping, tow-headed youth with bloodstained sleeves—a butcher's apprentice, I imagine—and tried to turn him around. "Come with me!" I said.

  He snarled and threw a roundhouse punch at my head. I ducked and hit him in the belly. He doubled over. I manhandled him toward the stage. "I'm trying to help you," I said. "There's another way out. Go behind the stage. The door will be on your right. Do you understand?" Evidently he did, because when I let him go, he clambered onto the proscenium.

  I induced several other people to head backstage. Eventually, others noticed them going, and followed.

  Which soon threatened to create a second crush, at the rear stage doors. I sprang onto the platform and dashed back there to manage the flow of traffic as best I could, with pleas when possible and my hands when necessary.

  By now the air was gray with smoke. I kept coughing. The Heavens—the machine room above me, the underside of which was painted to resemble the sky—started burning. Sparks and scraps of flaming debris rained down.

  At last the stage was clear. My handkerchief pressed to my face, I scurried toward the exit. The ceiling burst. A windlass, used to lower the actors portraying gods and their regalia, plummeted through the breach and struck where I'd just been standing. The impact shattered the floorboards.

  When I escaped the playhouse, I trotted some distance away, not only to make sure that I was out of danger but to better survey the overall situation. Turning, I noticed something strange.

  Fortunately
, the Azure Swan stood on a spit of land that stuck out into the river. It wasn't close to any other structure. For a while, the flames enveloping the building swayed this way and that, as if groping for some other edifice they could spread to. At times they appeared to move against the breeze.

  Two candlemarks later, those of us who had sought to defend the theater regrouped in a private room in a nearby tavern. This council of war included several blades of the Blue political faction, which vied with the Reds, Yellows, Blacks, and most bitterly with the Greens for control of Mornedealth, an equal number of their retainers, Draydech the sorcerer, and myself. And a singed, grimy, malodorous, and surly lot we were, too. Also present was Lady Elthea, widow of a middling prominent Blue leader, owner of the three businesses that had thus far burned, and my employer. Though elderly and infirm, she'd insisted on venturing forth from her mansion to view the site of the latest disaster.

  "All right," I said, "we searched the Swan beforehand, without finding any incendiary devices. Did anyone see a figure on the roof? Or any flaming missiles?" The other men shook their heads. "Then it's magic kindling these fires, Lady Elthea. That's the only logical explanation." I looked at Draydech. "Do you concur?"

  The warlock was a short fellow in his late thirties, younger than I, though with his wobbling paunch, graying goatee, and the broken veins in his bulbous nose, he looked older. He'd served his apprenticeship living rough with the nomadic Whispering Oak wizards of the deep forests. Afterward, he'd embraced the amenities of civilization with a vengeance. I'd never seen him eat a raw piece of fruit or vegetable, drink water, or go out in inclement weather. Nevertheless, he'd lost none of the skills he'd mastered in the wilderness. He was particularly adept at sniffing out mystical energies, and, despite his exorbitant fees and extortionate habits, I retained him whenever that kind of witchy bloodhound work seemed likely to be in order.