The Care and Feeding of Griffins (29 page)

40.  Taryn’s Letter

“…P
rius took all his family and…the age of floods that swallowed the earth…receded and struck atop the range that now is known as Ocean’s Rest…”

Someone was talking.  An old man
’s voice, low and cultured and serene.  A voice she knew.  Taryn tried to concentrate on it, but her mind kept slipping in and out.  She couldn’t feel her body.  Well, not exactly.  She felt hot, she felt cold, she felt sore, but these were all blurry points in space, without meaning to her, without connection to physical flesh.

“
…long seasons passed as the oceans fell and the world renewed…great chief of Cerosan…Daegelimos…”

Taryn tried to get her eyes open, but managed only a fuzzy glance of light and shadow before falling back into the black.

“…alone for many seasons…built a great forge upon which he hammered fire and earth until the very heart of him came forth and there did Daegelimos draw forth Ioppe, a female of his kind to be his mate and companion…”

Handy way to get a girlfriend.  Taryn tried to raise a hand and failed, but she thought she might have managed to twitch her fingers, at least a little.

“…many more in this fashion and enjoyed among them many matings, getting of his fiery creations many young.  And this became the city of Oceanus, and Daegelimos became its lord, and they were all the Cerosan that survived the great flood.”

Taryn
’s vision came into focus on her next effort.  She saw Morathi, relaxing on a horseman’s bed beside her, his head on his arms and his gaze calmly exploring the fire.  He was smiling.

“
In the ages following the great flood, the Cerosan grew strong.  It split and traveled, split again, and so the forge-lords of ancient days came to walk the roads of many worlds.”

“
Many?” Taryn croaked.

Morathi
turned to her, his brows rising.  “You waken!  Pity, that.  I have seldom held so captive an audience.  Shard!”

The filly with the red bar across her eyes appeared at the door in a wedge of light.

“Go and tell your chief that the human is conscious,” said Morathi, and as Shard raced away, he went on, “Your griffin is well.  Do not try to rise and see him.  I will have him brought to you when your words with our lord are done.”

She thought he meant Tonka.  It took a very long time in her own mind for his use of
‘lord’ to mean something else.  She tried to sit up, exhausted herself in seconds, and then fell back, sweating.  Wait a minute.  Lord.  She opened her eyes.  “Antilles is here?” she whispered.  “Why?”

“
Because I am the lord of this Valley,” his great voice rumbled, and right on cue, he came striding into the lodge, his head low and horns gleaming.  “And you are a part of it now.”

He didn
’t sound altogether pleased about that.

“
I’m so happy to see you,” Taryn said in her cracked and whispery voice.

It was sarcasm, but that may have been hard for him to discern, considering the means of her delivery.  The words stopped the minotaur in his hoof-tracks.  His head raised, his ears came forward.  He looked uncertain, and in Taryn
’s unsteady mind, uncertainty made him look kind of cute.

She smiled at him. 
“You just fill my life with sunshine,” she went on hoarsely.  “Pucker up and plant ‘em, Tilly.”  Giggles took her and she collapsed into her bedding, her eyes rolling back, exhausted.

“
God, I feel terrible,” she whispered, once she had breath enough to speak at all.

“
Aye, but you look better,” Morathi said mildly from the blackness at her left.

Taryn raised her hands
—they each felt about two hundred pounds heavier than they’d ought to be—and looked at the bandages.  “I can’t believe I got my stupid self infected,” she whispered.  “I was so careful.”

Morathi
made a politely noncommittal sound.

“
I was, dammit.”  She let her arms drop, breathing like she’d run up three flights of stairs.  “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so sick so fast in my life.  Is it tomorrow or is it only later today?”

“
Tis tomorrow’s tomorrow,” Morathi said, amused.  He heaved himself onto his hooves in his careful old-man’s way.  He came to touch her shoulder and tug her blanket up a little higher around her breasts.  “And it will be tomorrow again before you are well enough to rise, so lie still and be easy.  All will be well.  Be gentle, my lord,” he added, and headed for the door.

‘
Yeah, be gentle,’ she thought.  ‘It’s my first time.’  She giggled breathily until she nearly passed out.

Antilles came a little closer and brushed her hair from her face.  His hand was huge, hairless and callused. 
‘A working bull’s hands,’ she thought, and giggled again.

“
Nay, you are not well, are you?” he murmured, addressing the fire rather than her.

“
I’m fine,” she said mechanically.  “I just need to lie here for a while.  Good grief, I’m completely naked under this thing.  Oh, who cares, so are you.”  Her eyes drooped shut.  “You don’t even have a thing to be naked under.  You have to be naked right out in the open.  I need to write my mom and dad a letter.  Do you think Tonka has any paper?”

“
Perhaps.”

“
I have some in my backpack.  I know I brought my backpack with me but I don’t know where it is.  I just don’t know where I put it.”  Her heart sank.  She thought she might have cried a little.

“
I shall have it found for you.”

“
Thanks, Tilly.  You always were the sunshine of my life.”

“
So you tell me.”

She dozed, listening to the fire hiss and pop, listening to the breath of the minotaur beside her.  It was so thoughtful of him to come and see her.  She wondered if this time, he
’d brought a pie.  Eventually, she stirred and opened her eyes again.  “I need to write my mom and dad a letter.  Romany is coming.  Maybe.  I don’t know.” 

“
Romany?” Antilles echoed.  His eyes were narrowing.

“
You be nice,” Taryn told him, and when his frown only continued to grow, she struggled to sit up and poke at him, since he seemed to be of the opinion that poking was the only way to get one’s point across.  “I mean it, buster, sunshine or no, I’ll…I’ll poke the hell out of you if you…say…”  She dropped back onto the bed, gasping and shivering.  “Anything mean to her,” she finished at a whisper.

“
Will you not lie quiet?”  Antilles dabbed at her brow with a cool, damp cloth and she raised her shaking hand to hold it over her eyes.  “Concern yourself with your own health, human.  Leave the welfare of this Valley to me.”

“
No,” she said.  “I know…what you’re like…with new people.”

Silence.  His hand on her brow was gentle as it washed her.

“Romany helped me.  She doesn’t have to take letters for me.  She does it for my peace of mind and no other reason.  She’s a good person and she’s doing a good thing for someone she has no reason to trust and you…you…”  She couldn’t remember what she was trying to say.  “You be nice to her,” she finished.  That was always a good way to finish.

“
Aye, then, if it will settle your fevered mind and lie you quiet, I’ll high hail to your damned Romany.”  He blew out one of his irritated, bullish snorts and dipped the cloth so that its coolness was renewed for her.  His hands were still so gentle, in spite of his short tone.  “Have you letters to send?”

“
No, but I could write one if I had my pack.  And if I could use my hands.”  She felt ridiculous tears well up and she let her voice break open, powerless to stop them.  “How am I supposed to hold a pen?” she sobbed. 

Although distantly aware that she was overreacting, Taryn wept helplessly for several minutes, clenching her bandaged, useless hands and thinking of her parents back in Oregon who would be unable to read her letters because she couldn
’t hold a pen.  She heard the minotaur go to the door, heard him speaking, and then heard his return.  His big hooves made a lot of noise.

That cool cloth touched her, wiping down her cheeks and soothing her brow. 
“What am I to do with you?” he sighed, his voice oddly tender even in his exasperation.

“
I don’t know,” she wept.  “I’m making all this up as I go along.”

“
Will you not return to your world, human, before ours destroys you?”

“
I can’t.  Aisling needs me.  I can’t take care of him anywhere but here.”

“
Stubborn human.”

“
You left out over-arrogant this time.  Admit it,” she sniffed.  “I’m winning you over, Tilly.”

“
Now that
is
over-arrogant.”

The lodge door opened and there was a hesitant trip-trap of little hooves on the hard-packed floor.  Taryn opened her eyes and saw the young filly with the red-marked eyes.  Shard.  She was holding Taryn
’s backpack in both hands and she looked like she was on the verge of tears herself.

Ah, poor filly.

“What runs all day and never tires?” Taryn asked faintly.  “Sings and speaks, but never breathes?”

Shard set the backpack into the minotaur
’s waiting hands, casting hesitant glances back at Taryn.  “A shadow?” she guessed.

“
Shadows sing where you come from?”

“
They do if we do.”  Shard came to the foot of Taryn’s bed and clutched at the edge of the table.  “What, then?”

“
A river,” Antilles said.  He was searching methodically through the many pockets and folds of Taryn’s crowded pack.  “Where is your paper, human?”

“
In the front flap, minotaur.”

He gave her a sharp look, and then returned all his attention to the backpack.

“What’s a minotaur?” the filly asked.  “Is it another riddle?”

“
Just a word we have.  Tilly, you’re going to hurt my feelings if you don’t start calling me by my name.”  She closed her eyes, heavy with the need to sleep.  “What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?”

“
That one was old when my grandfather’s grandfather was young,” Antilles remarked.

“
I know,” Taryn sighed.  “But I’m sick.  I can’t think of any others.”

“
I’ll come back,” Shard whispered.  Her little hooves resounded as she went to the door.  “I—I hope you get better.”

Not soon, Taryn reflected bemusedly as the door opened and closed.  Just better.  Stupid hands.

“Tell me,” Antilles said.

“
It’s a man,” she replied.  “See, he crawls when he’s a baby and—hang on, you said you knew that one.”

“
Tell me your words.  I shall write.”

She opened her eyes with effort and saw him holding her pen like a toothpick in one great hand, a sheet of paper spread beneath the other on the table. 
“Can you write?” she asked.

“
Aye,” he said, giving her a dry look.  “In several languages.  Speak, human.  I shall write.”

Taryn fell back into the pillow again.  She thought.  It was never a good idea to start out with,
‘Don’t worry, I’m okay’, but it was all she could think of.  “Dear Mom and Dad and Rhiannon,” she began.

“
Spell, please.”

She did, and then rested while she thought of what else to say. 
“I went to visit Tonka at his village the other day,” she said finally.  “His hospitality is hard to escape, so I’m still here.  Lazy me, I haven’t gotten out of bed in two days.”

Antilles snorted. 
“An interesting interpretation.”

But he wrote it.  His letters were neatly penned and oddly beautiful, ornamented with extra lines and dots and flourishes in a way that reminded her of the elvish in her illustrated copy of Tolkien
’s Ring series.

“
Maybe you should explain that you’re writing for me,” she said.  “But for God’s sake, don’t tell them that I’m sick.  Tell them…oh, I don’t know…just say I hurt my hand.”

Antilles glanced at her, skipped down a line on the paper and wrote, saying,
“By now, it shall be clear that it is not your daughter who makes these letters.  She is adamant that you should not worry for her, and indeed, she is in excellent care after an injury to her hands.  It is very slight—and appreciate, human, that I am not in the practice of telling lies, however rendered—but we shall take no risk with her health, for her work here is…”