Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 02 - The White Gryphon

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The White Gryphon
Mage Wars 02
by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon
version 2.0 compared to original, spell checked, completed February 1, 2004
Lovingly dedicated to our parents,
Edward and Joyce Ritche
&
Jim and Shirley Dixon
One
Light.
From crown to talons, tailtip to wingtip, it will be a sculpture of light.
Skandranon Rashkae rested his beaked head atop his crossed foreclaws and contemplated the city
across the bay. Although his city was considered dazzling at night by the most jaded of observers, even
by day, White Gryphon was a city of light. It gleamed against the dense green foliage of the cliff face it
had been carved from, shining in the sun with all the stark white beauty of a snow sculpture. Not that this
coast had ever seen snow; they were too far west and south of their old home for that.
Of course, given the way that mage-storms have mucked up everything else, that could
change at a moment's notice, too.
Well, even if such a bizarre change in climate should occur, the Kaled'a'in of White Gryphon were
prepared for it. We build our city to endure, as Urtho built his Tower. Let the most terrible winter
storms rage, we are ready for them.
It would take another Cataclysm, and the kind of power that destroyed the twin strongholds of two
of the most powerful mages who ever lived, to flatten White Gryphon. And even then the ruins of its
buildings would endure, for a while at least, until the vegetation that covered these seaside cliffs finally
reclaimed the terraces and the remains of the buildings there...
Skan shook his head at his own musings. Now why are you thinking such gloomy thoughts of
destruction, silly gryphon? he chided himself. Haven't you got enough to worry about, that you
have to manufacture a second Ma'ar out of your imagination? You came over here to rest,
remember?
Oh, yes. Rest. He hadn't been doing a lot of that; it seemed as if every moment of every day was
taken up with solving someone else's problems—or at least look as if he was trying to solve their
problems.
There was no one near him to hear his sigh of exasperation, audible over the steady thunder of the
surf so far below him.
He dropped his eyes to the half-moon bay below his current perch, and to the waves that rolled
serenely and inexorably in to pound the base of the rocky cliffs beneath him. On the opposite side of the
bay, where the cliff base lay in shelter thanks to a beak of rock that hooked into the half-moon, echoing
exactly the hook of a raptor's beak, the Kaled'a'in had built docks for the tiny fishing fleet now working
the coastline. One year of terrible travail to cross the country to get here, and nine of building. We
have managed a great deal, more than I would have thought, given that we cannot rely on magic
the way we used to.
Now his sigh was not one of exasperation, but of relative content.
From here the half-finished state of most of the city was not visible to the unaided eye. Things were
certainly better than they had been, even a few years ago, when many of the Kaled'a'in were still living at
the top of the cliff, in tents and shelters contrived from the floating barges.
The original plan had called for a city built atop the cliff, not perched like a puffin on the cliff face
itself. General Judeth was the one who had insisted on creating a new city built on terraces carved out of
the cliff face. Like so many of the Kaled'a'in and adopted Kaled'a'in, she was determined to have a home
that could never be taken by siege. Unlike many of them, she had a plan for such a place the moment she
saw the cliffs of the western coastline.
Skan still marveled at her audacity, the stubborn will that saw her plan through, and the persuasion
that had convinced them all she was right and her plan would work. Small wonder she had been a
commander of one of Urtho's Companies.
The rock here was soft enough to carve, yet hard enough to support a series of terraces, even in the
face of floods, winds, and waves. That was what Judeth, the daughter of a stonemason, had been the first
to see. The cliffs themselves had dictated the form the city took, but once folk began to notice that there
was a certain resemblance to a stylized gryphon with outstretched wings—well, some took it as an omen,
and some as coincidence, but there was never any argument as to what the new city would be called.
White Gryphon—in honor of Skandranon Rashkae, who no longer dyed his feathers black, and
thanks to the interval he had spent caught between two Gates, was now as pale as a white gyrfalcon. The
only black left to him was a series of back markings among the white feathers, exactly like the black bars
sometimes seen on the gyrfalcons of the north.
The White Gryphon regarded the city named for him with decidedly mixed feelings. Skandranon
was still more than a little embarrassed about it. After all those years of playing at being the hero, it was
somewhat disconcerting to have everyone, from child to ancient, revere him as one! And it was even
more disconcerting to find himself the tacit leader of all of the nonhumans of the Kaled'a'in, and deferred
to by many of the humans as well!
I thought I wanted to be a leader. Silly me.
Truth to be told, what he'd wanted to be was not a peacetime leader; he'd wanted to be the kind of
leader who made split-second decisions and clever, daring plans, not the kind of leader who oversaw
disputes between hertasi and kyree, or who approved the placement of the purifying tanks for the city
sewage system....
Council meetings bored him to yawning, and why anyone would think that heroism conferred instant
expertise in everything baffled him.
He wasn't very good at administration, but no one seemed to have figured that out yet.
Fortunately, I have good advisors who permit me to pirate their words and advice
shamelessly. And I know when to keep my beak shut and look wise.
Somehow both the refugees and the city a-building had survived his leadership and his decisions.
Most people had real homes now, homes built from the limestone that partly accounted for the city's pale
gleam under the full light of the sun. All of the terraces were cut and walled in with more of that limestone,
and all of the streets paved with crushed oyster shells, which further caught and reflected the light. There
was room for expansion for the next five or six generations—
And by the time there is no more space left on the terraces, it will be someone else's problem,
anyway.
Sculpting the terraces and putting in water and other services had been the work of a single
six-month period during which magic did work the way it was supposed to. It had been just as easy at
that point to cut all of the terraces that the cliff could hold, and to build the water and sewage system to
allow for that maximum population. Water came from a spring in the cliff, and streams that had once
cascaded into the sea in silver-ribbon waterfalls, carried down through holes cut into the living rock to
emerge in several places in the city. It would not be impossible to cut off the water supply—Skan was
not willing to say that anything was impossible anymore, given what he himself had survived—but it
would be very, very difficult and would require reliably-working magic. It would also not be impossible
to invade the city—but every path, either leading down from the verdant lands above, or up from the
bay, had been edged, walled, or built so that a single creature with a bow could hold off an army. The
lessons learned from Ma'ar's conquests might have been bitter, but they were valuable now.
Skan raised his head and tested the air coming up from below. Saltwater, kelp, and fish. New fish,
not old fish. The fleet must be coming in. It had taken him time to learn to recognize those scents; time
for his senses to get accustomed to the ever-present tang of saltwater in the air. No gryphon had ever
seen the Western Sea before; his scouts hadn't even known what it was when they first encountered it.
Huh. "My" scouts. He shook his head. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for—but I
should have seen it coming. Amberdrake certainly tried to warn me, and so did Gesten and
Winterhart. But did I listen? Oh, no. And now, here I am, with a city named after me and a
thousand stupid little decisions to make, all my time eaten up by "solving" problems I don't care
about for people who could certainly solve those problems themselves if they tried. Now he knew
what Amberdrake meant, when the kestra'chern said that "my time is not my own."
And I don't like it, damn it all. I should be practicing flying, or practicing making more
gryphlets with Zhaneel....
Instead, he was going to have to return for another blasted Council session. They could do this
without me. They don't need me. There is nothing I can contribute except my presence.
But his presence seemed to make everyone else feel better. Was that all that being a leader was
about?
:Papa Skan,: said a sweet, childlike voice in his head, right on cue. :Mama says it is time for the
meeting, and will you please come?: Even without a mage-made teleson set to amplify her thoughts,
Kechara's mind-voice was as clear as if she had spoken the words to him directly. It was another of the
endless ironies of the current situation that the little "misborn" gryfalcon had become one of the most
valuable members of the White Gryphon community. With magic—and thus, magical devices—gone
unreliable, Kechara could and did communicate over huge distances with all the clarity and strength of
teleson-enhanced Mindspeech. She was the communication coordinator for all of the leaders—and,
more importantly, for all the Silver Gryphons. The Silvers were a resourceful policing organization formed
of the remnants of the fighters and soldiers who had made it through the two Kaled'a'in Gates, rather than
through the Gates they'd been assigned.
Kechara's ability, combined with her eternal child-mind, would have caused her nothing but trouble
in the old days, which was why Urtho had hidden her away in his Tower. But now—now she was the
answer to a profound need. No one ever questioned the care lavished on her, or the way her special
needs were always answered, no matter what else had to be sacrificed. She, in turn, had blossomed
under the affection; her sweet temper never broke, and if she didn't understand more than a tenth of what
she was asked to relay, it never seemed to bother her. Everyone loved her, and she loved
everyone—and with Zhaneel watching over her zealously, making sure she had playtime and naptime, her
new life was hundreds of times more enjoyable than her isolation in Urtho's Tower.
:I'm coming, kitten,: he told her with resignation. :Tell Mama I'm on my way.:
He stood up and stretched his wings; the wind rushing up the cliff face tugged at his primaries like an
impatient gryphlet. He took a last, deep breath of the air of freedom, cupped his wings close to his body,
and leaped out onto the updraft.
The cliff face rushed past him, and he snapped his wings open with a flourish—and clacked his beak
on a gasp of pain as his wing muscles spasmed.
Stupid gryphon—stupid, fat, out-of-condition gryphon! What are you trying to prove? That
you're the equal of young Stirka?
He joined the gulls gliding along the cliff face, watching the ones ahead of him to see how the air
currents were acting, while his joints joined his muscles in complaining. Like the gulls, he scarcely moved
his wings in dynamic gliding except to adjust the wingtips. Their flight only looked effortless; all the tiny
adjustments needed to use the wind instead of wingbeats took less energy, but far, far, more control.
And a body in better condition than mine. I should spend less time inspecting stoneworks and
more time flying!
He could have taken the easier way; he could have gone up instead of down, and flapped along like
the old buzzard he was. But no, I let the updraft seduce me, and now I'm stuck. I'm going to regret
this in the morning.
As if that wasn't bad enough, by the time he got halfway across the bay, he'd collected an audience.
His sharp eyes spared his bruised ego none of the details. Not only were there humans and hertasi
watching him, but someone had brought a dozen bouncing, eager young gryphlets.
A flying class, no doubt. Here to see the Great Skandranon demonstrate the fine details of
dynamic gliding. I wonder how they'll like seeing the Great Skandranon demonstrate the details of
falling beak-over-tail on landing?
But with the pressure of all those eyes on him, he redoubled his efforts and increased the complaints
of his muscles. He couldn't help himself. He had always played to audiences.
And when he landed, it was with a clever loft up over their heads that allowed him to drop gracefully
(if painfully) down onto the road rather than scrambling to get a talonhold on the wall edging the terrace.
He made an elegant landing on one hind claw, holding the pose for a moment, then dropping down to all
fours again.
The audience applauded; the gryphlets squealed gleefully. Skan bowed with a jaunty nonchalance
that in no way betrayed the fact that his left hip felt afire with pain. Temporary pain, thank
goodness—he'd been injured often enough to know the difference between the flame of a passing strain
and the ache of something torn or sprained. He clamped his beak down hard, tried to look clever and
casual, and waited for the pain to go away, because he wasn't going to be able to move without limping
until it did.
Stupid, stupid gryphon. Never learn, do you?
The burning ache in his hip finally ebbed; he continued to gryph-grin at the youngsters, then pranced
off toward the half-finished Council Hall before any of the gryphlets could ask him to demonstrate that
pretty landing again.
* * *
Amberdrake took his accustomed chair at the table, looked up at the canvas that served as a roof,
and wondered how many more sessions they would meet here before the real roof was on. Right now
the Council Hall was in a curious state of half-construction because its ambitious architecture absolutely
required the participation of mages for anything but the simplest of tasks to be done. The mages hadn't
been able to manage more than the most rudimentary of spells for the past six months, not since the last
mage-storm.
That left the Council Hall little more than the walls and stone floor, boasting neither roof nor any of
the amenities it was supposed to offer eventually.
But the completion of the Council Hall was at the bottom of a long list of priorities, and Amberdrake
would be the last person to challenge the order of those priorities. Just—it would be very nice to look up
and see a real roof—and not wonder if the next windstorm was going to come up in the middle of a
Council session and leave all of them staring up at a sky full of stormclouds.
The Kaled'a'in mage Snowstar, who had once been the mage that their Lord and Master Urtho had
trusted as much as himself, took his own seat beside Amberdrake. He caught the Chief Kestra'chern's
eye and glanced up at the canvas himself.
"We think the next mage-storm will return things to normal enough for us to get some stonework
done," Snowstar said quietly. "This time the interval should be about nine months. That's more than
enough time to finish everything that has to be done magically."
Including the Council Hall. Amberdrake smiled his thanks. Snowstar had been put in place by
Urtho, the Mage of Silence, as the speaker to his armies for all of the human mages in his employ, and no
one had seen any reason why he shouldn't continue in that capacity. General Judeth, former Commander
of the Fifth, was the highest-ranking officer to have come through the two Kaled'a'in Gates before the
Cataclysm—purely by accident or the will of the gods, for she was one of the Commanders who
appreciated the varied talents of the nonhumans under her command and knew how to use them without
abusing them. On Skandranon's suggestion, she had organized the gryphons, the other nonhumans who
had served in the ranks, and the human fighters into a different kind of paramilitary organization. Judeth's
Silver Gryphons had acted as protectors and scouts on the march here, and served in the additional
capacities of police, watchmen, and guards now that they all had a real home.
Amberdrake liked and admired Judeth. I would have willingly named her Clan Sister even if no
one else had thought of the idea. Members of the Kaled'a'in Clan k'Leshya comprised the bulk of the
humans who had wound up together—and with no qualms on anyone's part, they had adopted the mixed
bag of service-fighters, mercenaries, kestra'chern and Healers who had come through with them. The
adoption ceremony had ended the "us and them" divisions before they began, forging humans and
nonhumans, Kaled'a'in and out-Clan into a whole, at least in spirit. And the journey here had completed
that tempering and forging....
Well, that's the idealistic outlook, anyway. Amberdrake did not sigh, but his stomach churned a
little. Most of the people of White Gryphon were folk of good will—
But some were not. The most obvious of those had marched off on their own over the course of the
arduous search for a place to build a home, and good riddance to them, but some had been more clever.
That was why Judeth's people still had a task, and why they would continue to serve as the police of
White Gryphon.
Because, unfortunately, the Silvers are needed.
In an ideal world, everyone here would have had meaningful work, status according to ability, and
would have been so busy helping to create their new society that they had no thought for anything else.
But this was not an ideal world. There were shirkers, layabouts, troublemakers, thieves,
drunks—any personality problem that had existed "back home" still existed somewhere among k'Leshya.
There were even those who thought Skandranon was the villain of the Cataclysm, rather than the hero.
After all, if he had never taken Urtho's "suicide device" to Ma'ar, there would never have been a
Cataclysm. And in a way, there might have been some truth in that idea. There would only have been the
single explosion of Urtho's stronghold going up—not the double impact of all of Urtho's power and
Ma'ar's discharged in a single moment. Perhaps they would not now be suffering through the effects of
mage-storms.
And perhaps we would. Even Snowstar is not certain. But there is no persuading someone
whose mind is already made up, especially when that person is looking for a nonhuman
scapegoat. Not even Judeth herself could reason with some of these idiots.
As if the thought had summoned her, Judeth arrived at that moment. Her carefully pressed, black
and silver uniform was immaculate as always. The silver-wire gryphon badge of her new command
gleamed where her medals had once held pride of place on the breast of her tunic. She wore no medals
now; she saw no reason to. "If people don't know my accomplishments by now," she often said, "no
amount of medals is likely to teach them, or persuade them to trust my judgment."
She smiled at Amberdrake who smiled back. "Well, this is three—Silvers, Mages, Services—and I
know that Cinnabar can't be spared right now for Healers, so where is our fourth?"
"On the way," Snowstar said promptly. "Zhaneel had Kechara call him."
"Ah." Judeth's smile softened; every one of the Silvers liked Kechara, but Amberdrake knew she
had a special place in her heart for the little misborn gryfalcon. Perhaps she alone had any notion how
hard Kechara worked to coordinate the Silvers, and she never once took that hard work for granted. "In
that case—Amberdrake, is there anything you want to tell us before Skan gets here?"
"Only that I am acting mainly as Chief Kestra'chern in this, rather than as Chief of Services." With no
one else to coordinate such common concerns as sanitation, recreation, medical needs, and general city
administration, much of the burden of those tasks had fallen on Amberdrake's shoulders. After all, the
kestra'chern, whose unique talents made them as much Healers as pleasure-companions, and as much
administrators as entertainers, tended to be generalists rather than specialists. Amberdrake had already
been the tacit Chief of Urtho's kestra'chern, and he was already Skandranon's closest friend. It seemed
obvious to everyone that he should be in charge of those tasks which were not clearly in the purview of
Judeth, Snowstar, or Lady Cinnabar.
Judeth raised an eyebrow at that. "Is this an actionable problem?" she asked carefully.
"I think so." He hesitated.
"I think you should wait long enough for me to sit down, Drake," Skandranon said from the
doorway. "Either that, or hold this meeting without me. I could always find something pointless to do."
The gryphon grinned as he said that, though, taking any sting out of his words. He strolled across the
expanse of unfinished stone floor to the incongruously formal Council table, the work of a solid year by
one of the most talented—and unfortunately, disabled—woodworkers in White Gryphon. Since an injury
that left him unable to walk or lift, he had been doing what so many other survivors at White Gryphon
had done—used what they had left. He'd built the table in small sections, each one used as an example to
teach others his woodworking skills, and then had his students assemble the pieces in place here. Like so
much else in the settlement, it was complex and ingeniously designed, beneath an outer appearance of
deceptive simplicity.
"So, what is it that was so urgent you had to call a Council meeting about it?" Skan said, arranging
himself on the special couch that the same woodworker's students had created to fit the shape of a
gryphon. "I know you better than to think it's something trivial—unless, of course, you're growing senile."
Amberdrake grimaced. "Hardly senile, though with an active two-year-old underfoot, I often
wonder if I'm in danger of going mad."
Skan nodded knowingly, but Amberdrake was not about to be distracted into discussions of
parenthood and the trials thereof. "I'm afraid that as Chief Kestra'chern, I am going to have to bring
charges against someone to the Council. That's why I needed three of you here—I'm going to have to sit
out on the decision since I'm the one bringing the charges. That means I need a quorum of three."
Snowstar folded his hands together on the table; Judeth narrowed her eyes. "What are the charges?"
Snowstar asked quietly.
"First, and most minor—impersonation of a trained kestra'chern." Amberdrake shrugged. "I do not
personally remember this man being in Urtho's service, as a kestra'chern or otherwise. I can't find
anyone who will vouch for his training, either. I do know that his credentials are forged because one of
the names on them is mine."
"That's fairly minor, and hardly a Council matter," Snowstar said cautiously.
"I know that, and if it were all, I wouldn't have called you here. I'd simply have examined the man
and determined his fitness to practice, then put him through formal training if he was anything other than a
crude perchi with ambitions." Amberdrake bit his lip. "No, the reason I bring him up to you three, and in
secret session, is because of what he has done. He has violated his trust—and if he had been less clever
he would already be in Judeth's custody on assault charges."
Judeth's expression never varied. "That bad?" she said.
He nodded. "That bad. We kestra'chern are often presented with—some odd requests. He has
used the opportunities he was presented with to inflict pain and damage, both emotional and physical,
purely for his own entertainment."
"Why haven't we heard of this before?" Skan demanded, his eyes dangerously alight.
"Because he is," Amberdrake groped for words, "he is diabolical, Skan, that is all I can say. He's
clever, he's crafty, but above all, he is supremely adept at charming or—manipulating people. He has
succeeded in manipulating the people who came to him as clients so thoroughly that it has been over a
year from the time he began before one was courageous enough to report him to me. Even the other
kestra'chern were fooled by him. They couldn't tell what he was doing behind his doors. But I know—I
have felt what his client felt."
Skan's beak dropped open a little. "What is this man?" the gryphon asked, astonished. "Some sort
of—of—evil Empath?"
"He might be, Skan, I don't know," Amberdrake replied honestly. "All I know is that the person
who came to me needed considerable help in recovering from the damage that had been done, and that
there are more people who are more damaged yet who have not complained." Amberdrake had been
very careful not even to specify the client's sex; while the victim had not asked for anonymity,
Amberdrake felt it was only fair and decent to grant it. He spent several long and uncomfortable
moments detailing exactly what had been done to that victim, while the others listened in silence. When he
had finished—as he had expected—all three of them were unanimous in their condemnation of the ersatz
kestra'chern.
"Who is he?" Judeth asked, her voice a low growl as she reached for pen and paper to make out the
arrest warrant.
Amberdrake sighed and closed his eyes. He had hoped in a way that once the charges had been laid
and the Council decision arrived at, he would feel better. But he didn't; he only felt as if he had uncovered
the top of something noisome and unpleasant, and that there was going to be more to face before the
mess was cleaned up.
"Hadanelith," he said softly, as Judeth waited, hand poised over the paper.
She wrote down the name.
"Hadanelith," she repeated as she sealed the order with her signet ring. "Can I deal with him now, or
is there something else you want to do with him first?"
"Now," Amberdrake said quickly, with a shudder. "Arrest him now. He's done enough damage. I
don't want him to have a chance to do any more."
"Right." Judeth stood up. "Skan, would you have Kechara call Aubri, Tylar, Retham, and Vetch,
and have them double-time it over here to meet Amberdrake and me?" She handed the arrest warrant to
Amberdrake, who took it, trying not to show his reluctance. "I'll be going with you to take this Hadanelith
down. This could look bad—I am considered to be the military leader here. A military leader arresting a
putative kestra'chern under any circumstances will cause some discontent. Still, I don't want to be seen as
being above getting my hands dirty or unfit for service with the other Silvers. And I definitely do not want
someone like that loose to deal with later. Hate to saddle you with this, Drake, but—"
"But I'm the one bringing the charges, so I had better be there. It's my job, Judeth," he replied as he
wrung the warrant loosely in his hands. "Though it's times like these when I wish I was just a simple
kestra'chern."
Judeth snorted and gave him a sideways look. "Drake," she said only, "you were never a simple
kestra'chern."
"I suppose I wasn't," he murmured as she, Snowstar, and Skan left the table and the Council Hall.
Hadanelith whittled another few strokes at the wooden bit before setting it down. After some more
cutting and rounding—not too much rounding, though, it needed to remain a challenge for the client,
right?—he'd add the pilot holes for the wooden pegs and straps later. Carving wood was so much like
what he did for a living with his clients, it was natural that he would be excellent at it. He could grasp the
roughness, grip it firmly, and then cut away at every part that didn't look like the shape he had in mind.
Telica, here, was one of his works. A slice here, a chunk taken off there, and before long she'd be
another near perfect item. Her mind was his latest work. She was nude, kneeling on the floor, held in
place by several lengths of thread binding her neck to her wrists, her wrists to her ankles. The thread was
completely normal in composition, which was what made it so amusing to him.
Virtually any effort at all would have snapped them, without leaving so much as a welt; no, the real
bindings here were those of his will over hers. The regular training that made her one more of his items
held her as firmly in place as any set of iron shackles or knotted scarves. She was one of his carvings,
inside, though she didn't presently show so much as a scratch on her alabaster-smooth skin.
Every time Telica came to him for one of her appointments she knew she would be trained and
tested in a dozen ways. All of his girls knew this. They could be trapped or tricked, hurt or caressed,
abused or set up for humiliation, and after a while, they came to love him for it—or at least obey him.
Obedience was close enough for him; he'd take that over love any day.
So it was with no worry at all that he took three steps to stand before her steadily breathing, still
form, and put a hand to her jaw. "Open," he said in his rich voice, and her lips parted in instant
compliance to receive the wooden bit he'd been trimming. As he pressed it deeper into her mouth, he
noted that it scraped the gums, and probably pressed the palate about there. Good, good. It would
serve as another test of her training in itself, then, and the soreness that lingered after Telica's visit would
simply be another reminder of his attentions, and who she served now.
Who she served? That was another delicious irony. Hadanelith was, as far as anyone else knew,
serving her, but behind these doors, she was his as surely as any other of his whittled treasures. His
treasures were six now; Dianelle, Suriya, Gaerazena, Bethtia, and Yonisse, and Telica here, each one a
good but still slightly flawed carving.
There was always something wrong with them by the time he'd made them his artworks. Why was
that? Why was the wood always unseasoned, or knotty, or split down the middle, when he'd finally
carved away enough of the bark to make something beautiful? It was as if the wood that looked so
promising on the outside failed to live up to the promise; that by the time he'd gotten enough of the
useless wood shaved away to refine the details, the flaws in the material showed themselves.
Telica here, for instance, was too quiet. It was nearly impossible to get as much as a whimper out of
her. He was no more lusty than any other man, he felt, and there were times, just as when one craved a
certain dish or fruit, when he simply had to hear a muffled cry of anguish or a sob. Telica was mute as a
stick unless he lacerated her with a blade or pierced her flesh with a needle. She was just as flawed in her
silence as Gaerazena was in her garrulous, hysterical chattering and Yonisse was in her shuddering
anxieties.
It couldn't be his skill; it had to be the material itself. If only he could get his hands on a woman of
real substance, breeding, true quality. A woman like Winterhart....
That one he had yet to touch, although he had watched her hungrily for ten years. Now there was a
creature fit for an artist! Not wood at all, she was the finest marble, a real challenge to carve and mold.
But he could do it. He was more than a match for her, just as he was more than a match for any of them.
What sculptor was ever afraid of his stone? What genius was ever afraid of his toys? The challenge
would be to unmake and then remake her, but to do it so cleverly that she asked for every change he
made to her.
What a dream....
But a dream was all it ever would be. She would never come to him, not while she was mated to the
oh-so-perfect Amberdrake. And not when the whole city knew how disgustingly contented she was with
her mate. It was all too honey-sweet for words, just as sickeningly, cloyingly sweet as that sugar-white
gryphon, Skandranon, and his mate.
It was just a good thing for him that not everyone in this little Utopia was as contented with life as
those four were.
He would certainly enjoy giving all of them a bitter taste of reality when the time was right. Especially
Winterhart. Get under that cool surface and see what seethed beneath it. Find out what she feared.
Not the ordinary fears of his six creations, he was certain of that. No, Winterhart must surely fear
something fascinating, something he would have to work hard to discover. What could he cut free from
inside her? Now there was an interesting image; a hollow woman, emptied out slice by slice, with only a
walking shell left for everyone else to see. How could it be done? And how thin could he carve those
walls before the sculpture collapsed in on itself? Well. If the wood was good enough, he could scoop out
quite enough to satisfy his needs.
These thoughts were on his mind as he lowered his knife down between Telica's thighs. That, and his
craving for her to make some noise for him.
The blade touched the birch-white skin of one thigh.
At that moment, a shadow moved across Telica's still skin. The lighting in the room shifted as
someone—no, several someones—came into the room uninvited. Now this was an outrage! Hadanelith
whirled, knife in hand, to confront these presumptuous invaders. Before he could utter more than a snarl,
a boot to his face made things quite different than a minute before, when he was the one in control.
Amberdrake's trepidation had hardened into a dull, tight pain in his gut. It certainly wasn't because
he hadn't seen horror in his life, or felt himself grow ill from feeling others' suffering. It wasn't precisely
because he feared a violent confrontation, or the cleaning up that was always needed after such a thing
happened. The sensation he had, as the group arrived at Hadanelith's home—or perhaps it should be
called a lair—was dread for its own sake. Amberdrake had the feeling that nothing good was going to
come of this arrest. Morally it was the right thing to do, by Law it was the right thing to do, yet still there
was that gnawing in his gut that told him they were doing more harm than good.
Aubri, the Eternally Battered, apparently felt it also, although it might have just been a bad breakfast
that caused his disgruntled expression. He was a gryphon who never had any good luck, if you believed
what he said.
"It's too quiet in there, Drake," he wheezed, as they held themselves poised just outside Hadanelith's
door. "We know he's got someone in there, so why isn't there any sound?"
"I don't know," Amberdrake replied, in an anxious whisper. "I don't like it, either. Judeth?"
"I've got a bad feeling about this," she said shortly. "Let's get in there—now."
With a wave of her hand, she led her group of ex-fighters through the door in a rush. Amberdrake
trailed behind, warrant still held in his clenched hand, dreading what they would find.
So he didn't actually see Judeth kick Hadanelith in the jaw and send him sprawling to the floor, but
once he saw what had prompted that action, he also saw no need to protest what might be considered an
act of brutality.
The young woman was bound only by thread, in one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable
positions Amberdrake had ever seen. Her skin was sheened with sweat, and her muscles trembled with
the effort of holding herself in place. There were faint scars in many places on her pale skin. With
Hadanelith's carving knife lying on the floor where Judeth had just kicked it, there wasn't much doubt in
Amberdrake's mind where those scars had come from.
But most horrible of all—she acted as if she were completely unaware of their presence.
No. She's not acting. She is unaware of our presence. She will not acknowledge that we are
here because he has not told her to.
That was what held him frozen, and what made Judeth's eyes blaze with black rage; that one
presumably human person had done this to another.
The scars are only the least of what he has done to her. This will take months to undo. This is
a case for the Healers; my people can't possibly make this right.
With trembling hands, Amberdrake unrolled the arrest warrant and read it out loud. Hadanelith did
not move from the place where he lay sprawled across his own floor, not even to finger the growing
bruise on his jaw.
He only glared up at Amberdrake in impotent fury as the kestra'chern read out the charges and the
sentence.
"You've heard the charges. We've seen the evidence before our eyes. You've been caught,
Hadanelith," Judeth said fiercely, biting off each word as if she bitterly regretted having to say anything to
him at all. "Have you got anything to say in your defense?"
In answer, Hadanelith spat at her. Since he was lying on the ground and she was standing over him,
it didn't get very far. The glob of spittle hit the top of her boot and ran down the side. One of the human
Silvers snarled and pulled back a fist; Judeth caught his arm.
"No point in soiling your hands, Tylar," she said coldly. She looked around, picked up a piece of
expensive silk that Hadanelith was using for a couch drape, and deliberately wiped her boot with it,
dropping it at her feet in a crumpled heap. Only then did she turn to look at her prisoner.
"There are a lot of things I would like to do to you, scum," she said, her voice flat and devoid of all
emotion. "However, we've got one Law to deal with people like you. Hadanelith, by reason of being
caught in the acts described, you will be taken as you are to the plateau above White Gryphon in chains.
You will be taken to the edge of the lands we have claimed and cultivated. There you will be freed of
your chains, and you will be given from now until darkness falls to take yourself outside our border
marker. If, by tomorrow at dawn, you are still inside them, whoever finds you is permitted to take any
steps he deems necessary to get rid of you."
Hadanelith's rage showed clearly in his eyes, but his voice was as cold as Judeth's. "As I am? What,
no weapons, no food, no—"
"You are a mad dog, scum. We don't supply a mad dog with food and weapons." Her lips thinned,
and her eyes glinted as she looked down at him. "You think that you're so clever—I suggest you start
using that cleverness to figure out how to survive in the forest with only what you're wearing." She jerked
her head at the rest of the Silvers. "Chain him up, and get him out of here before he makes me sicker than
I already am."
The Silvers didn't need any urging; within moments they had their prisoner on his feet, collared and
manacled.
Amberdrake had expected Hadanelith to fight, to heap verbal abuse on them—to do or say
something, at any rate. This continued silence was as unnerving as his continued certainty that no good
was going to come of this.
He is a mad dog. The forest is going to kill him, but painfully, and perhaps slowly. Shouldn't
we have at least had the compassionate responsibility to do it ourselves?
But his crimes had not warranted execution, only banishment. He could not be cured, that much was
obvious, so the rulers of White Gryphon had an obligation to remove him from among those he was
preying upon. That meant imprisonment or banishment, and White Gryphon did not yet have a prison.
Hadanelith glared at Amberdrake all the time he was being bound, and continued to glare at him all
the time he was being hauled out of the room, as if he held Amberdrake personally responsible for what
was happening to him. That just added another level of unease to all of the rest.
If they had found Hadanelith alone, Amberdrake might have turned and bolted at that moment—but
they hadn't, and through all of this, the young woman had not moved so much as an eyelash.
Amberdrake's personal unease gave way to a flood of nausea as he knelt down beside her.
He eased down his own shields, just a trifle, and touched her arm with a feather-brush of a finger to
assess the situation.
He slammed his shields back up in the next instant, and knew he had gone as white as Skan's
feathers by the chill of his skin.
He looked up at Judeth, who hovered uncertainly beside him.
"It's not good, Judeth, but I can take it from here." He took a deep, steadying breath and reminded
himself that this was no worse than many, many of the traumas he had helped to heal in his career as the
Chief Kestra'chern of Urtho's armies. He looked up again and manufactured a smile for her. "You go on
along. I can manage. She'll have to go to Lady Cinnabar, of course, but I can snap her out of this enough
to get her there."
One of Judeth's chief virtues was that she never questioned a person's own assessment of his
competence; if Amberdrake said he could do something, she took it for granted that he could.
"Right," she replied. "In that case—I'll go along with the others. I want to make personally sure that
chunk of sketi gets past the border markers by sundown."
She turned on her heel and stalked out the door, leaving Amberdrake alone with the girl, a young
woman whose name he didn't even know.
And that's the next thing; go through Hadanelith's records and find his client list. Where there
is one like this, there will be more.
摘要：

TheWhiteGryphonMageWars02byMercedesLackey&LarryDixonversion2.0comparedtooriginal,spellchecked,completedFebruary1,2004Lovinglydedicatedtoourparents,EdwardandJoyceRitche&JimandShirleyDixonOneLight.Fromcrowntotalons,tailtiptowingtip,itwillbeasculptureoflight.SkandranonRashkaerestedhisbeakedheadatophisc...

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