The Care and Feeding of Griffins (20 page)

She had no choice.  If she stayed in the plains, she’d be run down.  If she jumped in the river to get away, she’d only drown.  She had no way of outrunning whatever was stalking her and her only weapon was a slingshot.  It was the trees or nothing.

Taryn went for it, walking at first, afraid to provoke the unseen creature into pouncing by initiating a pursuit.  But she hadn
’t gone more than a hundred paces—a hundred endless, terrifying paces—when there came a rush of footsteps and an ear-shattering roar.  Taryn answered it with a shriek and she, who hadn’t been physically capable of making a second trip down to the river to get another fish this morning, now leapt ahead, sprinting for the trees. 

The skin between her shoulder blades crawled; any second now, she would feel the hammering impact as she was struck and then it would be over.  Would it eat her alive?  Would it crush her throat like a lion or would it just rip it out?  Would it bother chasing Aisling down once it had her or could he get away?  Could he find his way back to the camp?  How would he survive at all, once she was dead?

But no impact came.  Taryn raced ahead of it, hearing its frustrated snarls but oblivious to the screams that continued to peal out from her own throat.  She careened from tree to tree, blindly leaping away from each new roar.  Heat stabbed her side, her breath twisting the knife just a little with every gasp she took, but Taryn forced herself on, unslowed.

She found she could smell smoke and ran with new speed until the shape of a cabin sprang up, as if by magic, between the trees.  The door opened even before Taryn reached it.  Taryn could see nothing of the man that appeared there except a pale face over a long wedge of mud-brown robes, and then she was tearing past him and into the safety of his home.  She struck a table immediately and crashed completely over the top of it, Aisling flying with a yowl from her arms as she banged into the floor.

“Please!” she screamed, kicking back until she struck a wall.  “There’s something out there!”

The man instantly slammed the door shut and barred it. 
“What is it?” he asked, turning to her.  “A fellcat?”

“
I didn’t see it.”  Adrenaline had worked its will on her.  Now it left, like a masked rapist, and left her shaking and full of tears.  Her voice took on the rawness of overuse.  She stopped even trying to stand up and just sat on the floor, her fingernails digging at the meat of her arms.  “I only heard it.  It was roaring.  It was…roaring.”

“
Probably a fellcat,” the man said grimly.  He righted the table that she’d knocked into and picked up the half-dozen books that had fallen.  “It’s the season for them at their worst, and they start out just as vicious as you can imagine.  They’ll hunt anything smaller than them for food, and they’ll attack anything larger than them if they think it’s competition.  If you outran one, it was only because it was inexperienced enough not to stalk you properly…Er…”  The man broke off suddenly, seeming to notice only now how badly shaken she was.  He took a step toward her, and Aisling leapt protectively into her lap and screeched at him.

“
Hush,” Taryn said, twining her arms around the wonderful heat and reality of her fierce little defender, and promptly burst into tears.  “Don’t yell at the nice man.  Oh God, I thought I was going to die!”

The man in the brown robes looked around the room, as though seeking a manual for this situation.  He abruptly retreated, which didn
’t surprise the sobbing Taryn one bit, but he came quickly back and gave her a tiny cut-glass bottle sealed with a cork.

Taryn held it in a white-knuckled grip, feeling the solidity of the bottle cutting into her hands.  She made her fingers open slightly and stared blankly at the thick liquid the bottle contained, pale grey and pearly, just clear enough to see through to her palm.  Her life-line looked awfully short today. 
“W-what is it?” she asked.   

“
Smoke-oil,” he said, sounding pleased with himself.  “Fellcats don’t like it.  Just a dab, though.  Too much and they get curious.  They…You should have a drink.”  He retreated again.

“
No, don’t…don’t bother.”  Taryn shoved the smoke-oil into her pocket, trying to steady her head, and wiped her eyes several times.  She heard a series of muffled squeaks and finally realized how tightly she was holding Aisling.  She let her arms fall like weights to her sides and Aisling fell into her lap, gasping and clicking his beak irritably.  ‘Lucky,’ Taryn thought.  She had been lucky.  Lucky Aisling hadn’t been as spooked as she and tried to fight his way out of her arms as she ran.

“
I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” the man said.  He was holding a glass of water out to her.  It was a clear glass (the uniqueness of this in a land filled with clay cups and hollowed horns would not occur to her until much later), half-filled, and when he nudged it towards her hand, she took it automatically.

The water was cool, oddly thick-feeling as it slid down her throat, but shock made her thirsty and she would have willingly drank it all.  She didn
’t have the chance.  After two swallows, the man took it back.  Taryn was very dimly aware that he was staring at the glass, but that didn’t seem to matter half as much as her being alive and safely inside with Aisling struggling in her arms.

After a while, however, enough presence of mind returned to her to let her think that she was being unpardonably rude.  She looked up to thank the man for the drink and caught an expression of grim assessment on the man
’s face as he stared down at her.  Her words died in her throat and she realized all at once that this man was a perfect stranger.

He must have seen all this in her face because the stony gravity fell away at once.  He laughed nervously and put the glass down on the table so that he could show her his empty hands. 
“I’m sorry.  I’m very sorry.  It’s just…You are the first human I’ve seen in a long time.  Except the one I see in the mirror and…you know…it’s not the same.”  He stared at her for a little while, smiling and looking awkward.  “I’ll go put the kettle on,” he said finally.  He snatched up the glass and backed away through a doorway.

Aisling clambered back into her arms, having apparently decided that strangling-time was over.  He hooked his beak over her shoulder and began to chirr, inviting sleep.  Taryn gathered him up carefully and stood, looking around for the first time with a clear eye.

The walls were made of stripped logs, like a pioneer’s cabin, and the roof was thatch and mud.  There were no windows.  Bookshelves lined the dimensions of this room, with burning candles interspersed throughout.  There were no furnishings apart from the table and one chair.  There were no ornaments on the walls. 

The doorway where the robed man had gone was an open one, with only a hide flap slung to one side that could be used to close it, but there was a real door in the back wall, slightly ajar, and a dark room beyond.  Taryn, her legs still weak and trembling, shuffled to this door and pushed it wide, but she couldn
’t see much beyond where she stood.  The floor was painted.  That was odd.  She could make out a red wedge-shape, outlined in white, pointing its way toward her.  The rest was lost in darkness.

It was rude to poke around.  Taryn turned away from the back room and peeked through the hide f
lap at a very cozy kitchen.  In lieu of a sink, there was a tall counter with a wide earthenware bowl atop it, and a jug of water easily hip-high in the corner beside it.  There was a single wooden trencher and a wooden cup waiting to be washed, the only dishes he appeared to own.  The only furniture was a wooden chair set before a tiny table, both crudely carved and bound with twine.  There were a few shelves, piled high with jars, tins and boxes, but no obvious food.  The man in brown robes was kneeling at a stone-walled fireplace, adding tea leaves to a copper kettle and muttering to himself.  The glass of water had been placed on the mantle over the fire.

“
There we go,” the man muttered, and swung the kettle in over the flames.  He saw her when he stood up, and smiled after an awkward pause.  “It’ll just take a minute.  And if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you should be sitting down now.  You’ve had a pretty good scare.”

Taryn started to demure, then sat down. 
“Thanks.”  Something more needed to be said.  “I’m Taryn.”

The man
’s face underwent what could only be described as a thunderstruck expression, quickly eclipsed by a scary glee, and then just as rapidly swallowed by a mild interest.  “Really?” he said.  “I’ve never met a Taryn before.”  He glanced around, seeming surprised to discover that he had only the one chair, and then made himself comfortable leaning against the wall.  “And who’s your furry friend?”

He hadn
’t offered his own name.  Taryn found herself extremely hesitant to tell him Aisling’s.  “He doesn’t have one,” she said.

“
But it is a griffin, isn’t it?” he asked, and immediately softened the sharp question with a laugh.  “I’ve never seen one up close.”

Taryn nodded, trying very hard not to feel so suspicious.

The man studied her for a moment, his smile slipping sideways.  “I’m making a terrible impression, aren’t I?  Sorry about that.  Like I said, you’re the first human I’ve seen in a long time.”

“
I hate her,” a woman’s voice announced.

Taryn spun around at once, clutching Aisling hard enough to startle a squawk out of him.  The woman
’s voice was the first surprise—flat and unaccusing despite the hostility of the words—but the woman herself was the second and a far greater shock.  She was stark naked, but after Antilles and all the bare breasts of the horsewomen who had been looking her over for the past two weeks,
that
wasn’t too amazing.  What stole Taryn’s voice and thought were the woman’s ears.  They were pointed and black, and they grew right out of the top of the woman’s head.

30.  The Magician’s Cat

“
D
on’t!” the man said sharply, and Taryn, hardly aware that she had begun to rise, now dropped back atop her chair.  The man sighed and said, “Don’t,” again, much quieter.

“
Who is she?” Taryn asked, hugging Aisling tighter.

The woman strolled sinuously towards them, her slender body undulating with effortless grace.  Her hair was short and very fine, almost a cloud of black smoke that hovered around her heart-shaped face.  Her eyes were green, very pale, and flat with dislike. 
“I do hate her,” she said solemnly.  “I would like to leap now.  To sink my claws in hot flesh and feel blood pour into my open mouth as she kicks and dies.”

Taryn gasped hugely and sprang back, knocking over her chair and banging her hip against the table hard enough to make her entire left leg go briefly numb.

The woman cast her pale eyes disinterestedly at the man.  “But perhaps I would be punished,” she said, and turned to walk away.  A long black tail twitched at her heels, growing right above the crack of her perfect ass.

“
W-who?  Wh-What?”  Taryn staggered sideways until she hit the table that supported the crude sink, rattling the dishes.  “I’m leaving, okay?” she announced, somewhat shrilly.

“
Please, don’t panic.”  The man was not looking at her.  He rubbed at the bridge of his nose instead, obscuring his face but emphasizing his awkwardness.  “She doesn’t mean it.  She’s harmless.”

“
She’s
harmless
?!”  Taryn got another step away from him, gaping.  “She just said she wanted to kill me!  Who is she?”

“
She’s my cat.”

“
She—!”  Taryn shut up and just stared.

The man sighed again and finally looked at her. 
“I’m a magus,” he said.  “I came here to study, to perfect my magic.  This place…this world, if you like that better…is very conducive to magic.  When I came here—”

“
That’s a
cat
?” Taryn interrupted, absolutely aghast.  “You made a woman think she was a
cat
?”

“
No, no.  I made a cat look like a woman.  I—”  Embarrassment skewed his features into a mask of itself.  “I was lonely.”

“
But…”  Taryn looked through the hide flap and into the front room.  The cat-woman was sitting on the table, staring back at her balefully and pushing books one by one off onto the floor.  “She’s horrible!”

“
I know.”  The magus rubbed his face again.  “It was a mistake.  One of many.  And not even the worst, as awful as it was.  I thought she’d be cute.  I thought she’d be playful and…you know…slinky.  Sexy.  The way you imagine cats would be if they looked and acted like people.  Well, now I know exactly what cats think and how they feel about us, and it is a singularly ugly thing.”

“
Why don’t you turn her back?”

“
I can’t.  I turned her into a baby when she was a kitten.  That wasn’t so hard.  Tricky, though.  Had to feed her constantly for three days during the transformation to build up her mass.  That’s the secret to all magic, correspondent exchange.  It’s the keystone to…never mind.  The point is, a year later, she was full-grown.  And now here we are.  If I tried to turn her back now, I’d kill her.  A housecat can’t hold one hundred pounds of tissue and flesh.  She’d split like—Sorry,” he said, noting her expression.  “All I’m really trying to say is, she’d die.  She’s my mistake.  I’m responsible for it.  I have to live with it.”

“
But she’s evil.”

“
No, she’s really not.  She’s just a cat.  And cats…cats are horrible.”

The kettle began to shrill.  The magus fetched it and poured tea into the only mug, offering it to her.

Taryn took it slowly, but did not drink.

“
It is so nice to see a familiar face, though,” the magus said softly, staring at her with unblinking intensity.  “And to have a
conversation
.  I’m desperate enough, I’ll get down on my knees and beg if you want.  Just please don’t go yet.”

Taryn bit her lips, summoning just enough self-control to be polite. 
“You seem like a nice guy,” she began, and put her cup down.  “But your…your cat is scary.  I think I want to leave now.”

“
She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” he insisted.  “She doesn’t even realize she’s talking.  She’s a cat!  I could give her speech, but I couldn’t make her think!  She just opens her mouth   and—”  He finished with a curt, helpless wave of both arms and then clasped his hands together under his chin.  “Please!  Just a little while longer, okay?  I’ll shut her up in the back room if you want.  She can’t open doors.”

Taryn peeked back through the hide flap at the door.  It was just a simple pull-latch.  She looked back silently at the magus.

“She’s a
cat
,” he groaned, clapping both hands to his face.  “She doesn’t reason.  Look.  I’ve been alone here for more than fifty years—”

Taryn performed the first flawless double-take of her entire life, staring in disbelief at his unlined features, his jet-black hair.

“—and I made a lot of stupid, arrogant mistakes.  I admit that.  But the minotaur…the horsemen…they don’t forgive things, Taryn.”

She had managed a short step toward the door, but the sound of her name had a profound effect on her.  All the loneliness and shame in him struck out at her, bringing up a swell of pity and an urge to comfort.  She sat and set Aisling on the floor so that she could touch his arm.

“Taryn,” he said again.  His eyes narrowed.  “Just talk to me.  Visit with me.  I’m all alone here.”

The poor guy.  She remembered how mistrustful Tonka and Antilles had been on meeting her.  It wouldn
’t have taken a very big mistake to get those two fired up.

The magus picked up her cup of tea and placed it into her hand. 
“Just drink,” he suggested. “A little drink, Taryn.”  His eyes on hers wavered and dipped down, crawling hungrily over her body in a way she had experienced before, but had definitely not missed.

As parched as she was, and as much as she wanted to be polite, having a man mentally strip you naked was a real thirst-killer.  Taryn put the cup down, a
nd the magus looked up at once, just for a moment, absolutely furious.  Then he was calm again, even boyishly shame-faced.

“
Sorry,” he said.  “It’s been a while.  I keep saying that, I know, but it keeps being true.”  He picked her cup up again and returned it to her hand.  “But I’m not a bad guy, Taryn, just…a little rough around the edges.  And I could help you.  It can’t be easy trying to settle in at this time of year.  I could give you gifts—”  He laughed suddenly, his eyes glinting with humor.  “As they say here, gifts to speed your settlement.” 

“
They gave you something?” Taryn asked, and looked around the room.  She couldn’t see anything that looked like it was made by horsemen.  “What did they give you?”

“
Plenty.”  He smiled with half his mouth, and then looked at her untouched cup, his smile fading.  His eyes came to hers again, staring, intense.  “But what I’d really like is a friend, Taryn.  Just a friend, I promise.”

She knew she didn
’t trust that.  Why was she smiling back at him?

“
I could be good for you, Taryn,” the magus said quietly.  His eyes never left hers.  He was starting to sweat, as though the struggle to win her over were a physical one.  “Magic is more real here than you could ever imagine.  I could make you young forever.  I could shower you with jewels, with gold.  I could—”

“
Kill it!” the cat cried happily, shattering the warmth of Taryn’s mind.

She leapt up, seeking Aisling and not finding him.

“Taryn!” the magus shouted, snatching at her arm, but she swatted him away and raced through the hide flap to the front room.

She got there just in time to see the cat-woman pounce, her human hands curled into claws and a gleeful smile parting her perfect lips.  Aisling was crouching, tail high and beak wide, facing off against her and ready for play, utterly unaware that his life was seconds from over.

Taryn acted without thinking, yanking Aisling back by his hind leg and simultaneously punching upward as hard as she could.  She put every ounce of her into that swing, dragging weight up from the soles of her feet and focusing it all into the ball of her right fist.  She caught the cat square on her pointed chin, sending a shock up her arm that numbed her clear to the shoulder. 

The cat fell back, squealing, and then scrambled up and ran for the back room, shrieking,
“Hurts me!  Hurts me!  I hate her!  I hate her!”

Taryn scooped a struggling Aisling up and ran for the door.  Never mind the fellcat.  Never mind the poor, lonely magic-man.  The heavy bar thudded to the floor and the door banged open as she crashed through it a second time.

She ran for the woods and the plains beyond them.  Enough was enough.  She wanted to go home.

“
Taryn!”

A slight pang tried to tap at her heart
—she was acting like a total flake!—but she crushed it.  She’d come back and visit all he wanted once he’d locked up his girlfriend.  But for now, she couldn’t get away fast enough.

He shouted again as she raced through the forest that surrounded his cabin, and despite the clear timbre of fury in his voice, she actually wanted to stop.  But distance made it easier for her to ignore the guilt that rushed her every time he tried to call her back, and soon the woods closed in behind her and either he gave up, or the sound of his voice stopped carrying.  Taryn slowed to a jog, forcing herself to lighten up on the Aisling-crushing, which he showed his appreciation for by giving her a nip on the arm.  She was out of breath and there was a nasty stitch in her side, but she felt better.  Safer.

She was still lost, though.  But as she came out of the woods, and in a much calmer frame of mind, she was able to stop and consider her surroundings more objectively.  The mountains, of course, were a clear indication of where north was, and although she couldn’t see the river through the tall grass, she could hear it.  As a matter of fact, the woods in which the magus lived grew right up to the sides of the river where it emptied into a pretty impressive lake.  How had she missed seeing these things?

Panic.  Something had happened, something that for the first time had demanded a clear head and decisive action, and Taryn had panicked herself blind.  She could have been killed.  Worse, she could have gotten Aisling killed.  Taryn stroked at Aisling
’s feathers, endured a second surly nip, and started trudging home.