Below the Wizards' Tower (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 8) (12 page)

Zahlfast did not bother
answering.
 
I knew him well enough
however to know that he was simmering with irritation.
 
The night was now well advanced, and the
stars were beginning to fade.

The air cart stopped abruptly.
 
I had been dozing sitting up and was
thrown hard against the edge of the cart.
 
“What—?” I managed to get out.

“This is what I was afraid of,” said
Zahlfast, low and harsh.
 
“It’s the
mother griffin.
 
She has come for
her child.”

We all stared in horror, abruptly
fully awake.
 
A quarter mile ahead
of us, and approaching rapidly, was a huge winged form with the head of an
eagle but the body and legs of a lion.
 
She was coming straight for the air cart.

We
were
the only other winged
creature
flying over Caelrhon, I thought.
 
We must seem like a potential enemy, even
before she discovered that we had the young griffin imprisoned.

With a quick word, Zahlfast spun the
air cart around and set it flapping madly away.
 
He tried shooting a sleeping spell over
his shoulder, but it had no effect.

I glanced toward Sengrim, the wizard
who prided himself on understanding magical creatures, but he was no longer
there.
 
With a mental probe I
discovered him, invisible and flying toward the ground below, where he would be
out of harm’s way.

I looked back.
 
In spite of
Zahlfast’s
spells, the griffin was gaining.
 
He
and I might also be able to evade her, but Joachim and the still-sleeping
Marcus would be helpless before the lion claws and eagle beak.

Nothing else to
do.
 
Finding strength I had
imagined was gone hours
ago,
I sprang from the cart,
covered myself with illusion, and gave a great squawk.

The mother griffin’s eagle eyes and
beak swung sharply toward me.
 
She
would have seen something that approximated a fluffy avian head and a furry
body with oversized feet.
 
The
wings, I just knew, were coming out wrong, but fortunately they were not needed
for my flying spell.

Her yellow eyes seemed to pierce
right through the illusion, and she raised her front paws, claws out.
 
I had thought the young griffin
terrifying.
 
I had been wrong.

I flew away as fast as I could, at
right angles to the direction the air cart was taking, trying to make myself
look as much like her child as I could.
 
A few more squawks certainly held the griffin’s attention.
 
Abandoning pursuit of the cart, she turned
to follow.
 
Perhaps my squawks
sounded like a young griffin in desperation and fear.
 
That certainly described me.

What would she do when she
discovered I was
not
her child?
 
Probably assuage the hunger she had built up during the long flight down
from the land of wild magic.
 
My
only hope was that by the time she caught up with me and devoured me, the
others would be far enough away to be safe.
 
If Zahlfast dumped out the young
griffin, and she was no longer hungry, she might be calm enough not to kill
anyone else before the magical-creatures specialists arrived from the City.

The thought flashed through my mind
that I hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to the queen.
 
Well, given that she was in love with
the king, and never would have been with me, it was probably best that I take
my secret love to my death.

Part of me still wanted to live, in
spite of my certainty that I would not do so for more than a few more
minutes.
 
Trying a prayer to
whatever saints might listen to wizards, I darted back and forth, more
maneuverable than the big griffin.
 
She
kept on having
to alter course to follow
me.
 
Several times she gave a high
screech, that sent chills from my ears all the way down my back, apparently
telling her child to stop playing games and come back.

Unless that was a screech of fury,
that someone dared try to look like a griffin.

She was gaining on me rapidly, in
spite of my evasive efforts.
 
We had
reached the edge
of a woods
, and I darted low under
the trees.
 
Wild with either anger
or fear for her cub’s safety, she followed me—and caught a wing on a
low-hanging branch.

She jerked it free in a second,
leaving a few feathers fluttering behind.
 
But I dove deeper into the foliage, putting as many branches between
me and her
as I could.
 
She fought her way in after me—and became hopelessly tangled.

I dropped to the ground, shaking and
gasping for breath.
 
The illusion of
a young griffin dissolved around me, but the mother griffin, apparently cursing
me in the language of eagles, continued to struggle among the branches, getting
her wings even more ensnared and a big branch pressed against her neck.

The sky was lightening toward
dawn.
 
Wondering what had become of
the others, I staggered toward the woods’ edge—and saw a dark shape
hurtling toward me.

But after a panicked second I
realized it was neither the young griffin nor any other creature of wild
magic.
 
It was a wizard.
 
As it grew closer, I recognized it as
Sengrim.

Through my relief I felt momentary
guilt.
 
I had thought he was saving
his own skin, but he must only have been preparing his spells.

But my guilt for thinking badly of
him was short-lived.
 
“You probably
think you’re
very
clever to have tangled a griffin in a tree,” he
said.
 
Not clever, I thought.
 
Just lucky.
 
“You realize it will free itself very
shortly.”
 
I’d been thinking the
same thing.
 
“So it’s good that I’m
here.”

I nodded, hoping he could see me in
the dim light.
 
My mouth was too
parched for speech.

He started on spells, powerful,
complicated spells that I would never have been able to duplicate.
 
The griffin, no longer struggling,
glared at both of us with fierce yellow eyes, as though memorizing us for
future dismemberment.

“That little sleeping spell of
Zahlfast’s
was fortunate to immobilize the young griffin
for as long as it did,” Sengrim commented in a pause between spells.
 
“I don’t even know why he thought it
would work on an adult creature.”
 
Then he returned to the heavy syllables of the Hidden Language, looping
air made solid around it.

“That should hold it,” he said at
last, looking pleased.
 
I was not as
sanguine, but I was not about to argue.
 
“That spell is something very ancient, that I found long ago in an old
ledger tucked between more recent books in the school library.
 
It was written down by
a wizard who claimed to have gotten it from the wizard to whom he had once been
apprenticed, a man who asserted he had used it to control dragons
!
 
Now you’re laughing, Daimbert,” I wasn’t
but let it pass, “for you must know as well as I do how impossible it would be
to control a dragon.

“But over the years I have improved
it,” he continued, “strengthened it, replaced the herbs that the original
required with more spells.
 
And now
I can control creatures of wild magic, if not easily, then successfully.”
 
But then his rather complacent tone
changed.
 
“And yet the school is not
interested in my spells!
 
They’ve
always held it against me that I started my training as an apprentice, not in
the City with their first primer.
 
The Master tried to give me some nonsense about how modern technical
magic was better than old ledgers.
 
I
trust
you will tell him how I saved all of you.”

At this point I spotted the air
cart, coming slowly and cautiously toward us; Zahlfast must be prepared for a
quick retreat.

“I have imprisoned the griffin,”
Sengrim called, leaving out my role in slowing it down enough that his spells
were even possible.
 
“You may
approach safely.”

Zahlfast set the air cart down and
got out.
 
“My own specialty is
transformations,” he said thoughtfully, “which won’t work on a creature of wild
magic like this.
 
Sengrim, you’ve
immobilized it at least for the moment, and you are always boasting of your
knowledge of such creatures.
 
What
do you suggest?”

“Glad you recognize my abilities
for
a change,
” Sengrim replied testily.

The sky had yellowed into dawn.
 
There was a stirring from the air cart,
and Marcus abruptly put his head over the edge.
 
“What happened?
 
Where’s the griffin?
 
Did I fall asleep?”

Joachim introduced himself and
filled him in quickly.
 
I almost had
my breath back but was still scarcely able to talk.

“You know,” commented Zahlfast, “it
seems curious that a griffin family could have flown this far south into the
Western Kingdoms without being spotted.
 
Normally the school telephone lights up with calls from royal wizards
all over, if any magical creature ventures south of the mountains.
 
And could a young griffin have flown all
that way unaided, eluding its mother the entire trip?”

Sengrim did not immediately respond,
being busy with a new set of spells, but in a moment he said, with exaggerated
resignation, “I believe I will be able with my unaided magic to transport this
griffin, suitably bound, back to my royal castle.
 
This will of course mean my hours of
sleep are forever lost, but the sacrifice is worth it for the good of my
kingdom.
 
If I stay away from roads
and villages, I should be able to do so without terrifying the people of
Caelrhon, something I would have
hoped
one of the masters of the
school would have considered.
 
You
can however have the young one for Titus’s so-called collection, if you wish.”

“But you can’t separate the little
griffin from its mother!” Marcus objected.
 
“It’s just a baby!”

Sengrim sighed deeply.
 
“Then leave the binding box with
me.
 
I will be able to get them
both
home to the north.”

Zahlfast seemed ready to believe
him, though I was not so sure.
 
But
drained as I was, I did not feel I could object as he helped me back into the
cart and passed the binding box to Sengrim.
 
There was a faint thumping from
inside—the young griffin must be waking up.
 
I slumped between Joachim and Marcus as
Zahlfast sent the cart into the air and winging back toward Caelrhon.

Behind us, the mother griffin gave
an angry screech but remained motionless in the tree.
 
“That was an excellent plan of yours,
Daimbert,” said Zahlfast as soon as we were out of earshot, “getting it tangled
up in the trees like that.”
 
So he
had
recognized that Sengrim hadn’t captured it all by himself.
 
“I was trying to think of a complicated
spell that might stop it, but you knew that sometimes the simplest ways work
best.
 
But as soon as we can get to
a telephone, I’m calling Titus at the school and telling him to get here as
fast as he can.
 
Sengrim may need
help.”

It hadn’t been a ‘plan,’ but I would
take a compliment where I could get it.
 
“The mayor’s office may be open soon,” I managed to say.
 
“I think they have a telephone.”

We set the air cart down outside the
city walls, near where I had originally lured the young griffin.
 
While Zahlfast went to the mayor’s
office to call, Joachim said good-bye to Marcus and me.
 
Feeling that, even if I were not messily
devoured, my life might be draining away anyway, I managed to rouse myself to
say that I hoped I would see him again very soon, under less exciting
circumstances.

“I am sure the dean will understand
when I explain it was all a hoax,” Joachim reassured me again.
 
“And I can drop a word to the municipal
guard about how two improperly arrested prisoners managed to escape, so that
the guardsman will not be held to blame.”

He then added sternly to Marcus,
“Your appearance at the cathedral might only inflame wounded feelings at this
point, but a letter of apology would be entirely appropriate.
 
I hope you realize, my son, that saying
something insulting is never good, even in jest.”

“Oh, I completely understand, and I
really am sorry,” he said and slipped something into Joachim’s hands.

When we were back in the air cart
with Zahlfast again half an hour later, heading toward the great City, I asked
Marcus what it was.