Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 03] - Owlknight (21 page)

Gryphons, like birds, also tended to be single-minded about their bathing, so Kel didn't look up and notice Darian until he was done and looking for the best spot to clamber out and sun himself.

“Ha! Darrrrian!” Kel exclaimed. “Have you rrrrecoverrred from all the cccelabrrrationsss?” He looked so ridiculous that Darian had to strangle his laughter, for otherwise he'd hurt Kel's feelings.

“Barely,” Darian acknowledged. “I'm going for a swim. Mind if I join you afterward?”

“Be my guessst,” Kel responded genially. “I will be verrry happy to ssshare a rrrock with you.” The gryphon waded out, generously
not
shaking himself until Darian was out of range. And when he did go into a blur of motion, he carefully did so where a plot of flowers looked as if they could use the water, then saw to it they were fertilized, too.

Darian meanwhile stripped and waded in along the shallow rock-shelf. The water here was tepid—fine for bathing gryphons, but not particularly refreshing. He wanted his swim in cooler waters, and as soon as he reached a place where the lake was deep enough, he dove in and struck for the opposite shore.

By the time he'd swum to the shore and back again, he felt relaxed and sufficiently cleansed of the oil and dirt of tack cleaning that he was ready to come out.

The ever-watchful
hertasi
had spirited his dirty, oil stained clothing away and left towels and one of the loose, enveloping robes where his clothing had been. He dried himself off and pulled the robe on over his head, cinched the various ties, then climbed out onto Kel's chosen rock to join him in the sun.

There were many flat-topped sheets of rock here, conveniently near the underwater rock-shelf, and Kel wasn't the only gryphon drying his feathers in the sunlight. All of the gryphons in k‘Valdemar were young adults, looking to make reputations for themselves; Kel had the most experience and seniority of the lot. That could have been a cause for problems, because young and ambitious gryphons were like young and ambitious humans—they tended to forget they weren't immortal and took risks. Kel was not old enough to remain immune if the rest got excited, but they were all in the Silver Gryphons as well, and their senior officer was a Kaled'a'in of about fifty, imbued with plenty of caution and good common sense. Their
trondi'irn,
who cared for their injuries and ills, was Nightwind—and there wasn't a being in all of k‘Valdemar who cared to annoy Nightwind by getting hurt by doing something stupid. With Nightwind and Redhawk supervising them, the young gryphons of k'Valdemar would probably not do anything intolerably risky.

Darian threw a towel down on the rock and stretched out beside Kel. Damp gryphon had an odd scent, not unpleasant, but different from the spicy-musky odor of dry gryphon. Kel smelled a little like spice, but more like a certain dark brown, salty sauce that Ayshen used for vegetables. Strange, really. He looked almost black, his feathers were still so laden with moisture; when he dried, he would be a beautiful golden-brown, with a sheen of bronze.

“So, have you gotten a chance to ask Herald Anda about studying with Treyvan and Hydona?” he asked lazily.

There was a long, and unexpected pause. “I darrre not,” Kel confessed sheepishly.
“
Trrreyvan and Hydona! The Great Ones! Why, they arrre legendsss!”

“They're gryphons, like other gryphons, Kel. They're bone and blood and gristle. And Herald Anda is as fallible as anyone else; you don't have to be intimidated by him.” He glanced over at the sunning gryphon, who had his head down on his outstretched forelegs, watching Darian with one golden eye. His ear-tufts were flat, a sign that he really was feeling as sheepish as he sounded.

“That iss not ssso easssy,” Kel sighed. “It isss harrrd to rrregarrrd Herrrald Anda asss orrrdinarrry.”

“Listen, you may not believe this, but the awesome Herald Anda just did one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of.” Without sparing Anda, he related the Herald's blunder of the afternoon, and Nightwind's response to it. He watched for Kel's reaction, and saw the gryphon slowly lift his head, his ear-tufts picking up as he recounted the story.

“I sssuppossse—” he began, “that wasss not the brrrightesst of actionsss.”

“Kel, it just proves that you don't have to be intimidated by him,” Darian repeated. “You haven't done anything quite that stupid.”

“It wasss not precisssely ssstupid,” Kel protested, but his eyes sparkled.
“
Jussst—overrrconfidence.
”

“Call it what you will,
I
don't think that you need to feel as if he's some sort of minor god just because he was trained by your idols,” Darian repeated. “Besides, didn't he say he was looking forward to getting acquainted with all the gryphons? You're the chief gryphon of this Vale. You've got as much rank as I do, Kel—which means you're Herald Anda's equal.”

Kel perked up more. “I am, arrren't I?” His beak gaped in pleasure, and he looked around with contentment. “I believe I will find an imprrresssive enough placsse, and welcome Herrrald Anda on behalf of the otherrrsss—when he wakesss, in a few daysss, that isss.”

Darian laughed. “That's a good choice, Kel,” he agreed, and turned over onto his back, shading his eyes with a flap of towel. “I doubt very much that he wants to see anyone for quite a while.”

He was half asleep when Kel's voice woke him. “Darrrian,” the gryphon said. “What arrre you thinking?”

“Nothing, actually,
”
Darian replied sleepily. “Why?”

“I wasss thinking, You arrre my frrriend, and I am yourrrsss. That we arrre of the sssame family of sssorrrtsss. We arrre wingmatesss and brrrotherrrsss, you and I.
”
The gryphon paused to scratch an ear slowly, sending a freshly dried tuft of feather-down drifting in the breezes caused by his movement. “I wasss thinking, how prrroud my parrrentsss arrre of what I have done, and how yourrrsss would be the sssame if they knew.”

Kel's words acted like that bucket of cold water after the sweat-house ceremony; they shocked him awake. “They would,” he said, but his mind was elsewhere, sent careening on a new path—or rather, on an old path that he had not traveled in far too long.

I still don't know what happened to them. I meant to go out and hunt the old trap-lines to find out
—
or try
—
but I never did. How did I forget?

Guilt wracked him for a moment with a physical spasm. How could he have let himself get so involved in the life of the Vale that he forgot his parents?

Get hold of yourself. There's no reason to feel guilty.
You did not forget, you were busy. You have thought of
them constantly, you just didn't go do that one thing. You had too much else to do, including growing up,
he told himself, though it was easier to tell himself that than it was to shed the guilt.
Two years aren't going to make any difference in the clues that are left
—
if there are any.
He was woods-wise enough to know that (in the worst possible case) bodies left out in the open were quickly torn apart by scavengers. The parts were carried off, scattered; summer insects found what was left to be irresistible. In a year, not even the major bones were likely to be left. Although it made him sick to even think of applying that to his parents—

After all this time, two years wouldn't make any difference,
he repeated to himself.
Five, even ten wouldn't make any difference.

Darian rubbed at his face with both hands, coping with the thoughts that Kelvren's innocent commentary had dredged up. He murmured a thanks to the gryphon, who responded by bumping him affectionately with a wing, then assuming another lounging position. Darian's thoughts stayed on his parents' fate. They could not have been lost in the Pelagiris this long—not even for a year. Blind, deaf, dumb and limbless they could find their way back to Errold's Grove by orienteering. They had been that good.

But if his parents
weren't
dead—then there was only one other thing that could have happened to prevent them from returning to him.

They had to have been caught in a Change-Circle. And if they had survived that experience, there was no telling what might have happened to them. What they might have become.

Or where they were.

His duties to his homeland, his adopted people, his friends and his mentor had been fulfilled, and then some. It was more than time for him to use his own tracking skills and resolve, and find out what he could about the past.

“I
want to visit the Sanctuary,” Anda abruptly declared, just as Keisha set her plate and cup down and joined the little group around the table he shared with Shandi and Darian. Shandi smiled at her sister and shrugged slightly; Darian kept eating. “How do I go about doing that?”

“Catch a disease?” Darian offered.

Anda was looking at Darian, but it was Keisha who answered seriously, ignoring her breakfast for the moment to shoot Darian a look of disdain. The meal was too hot to dig into immediately anyway; she might as well deal with Anda. She wasn't at all certain that he had learned the lesson of impatience.
If he's going to the Sanctuary, though, I'm going along.

“I suppose I can take you there,” she said. “When do you want to go?” She already knew the answer, of course. Anda had been running at full speed since the moment he arrived, and not even the exhausting welcome-week had kept him from what he saw as his duty to integrate himself into the life of Vale, village, and tribe.

“Today, if possible.” Anda had taken a frugal breakfast of fruit and bread; Keisha wondered how he could accomplish so much on so little food. Her heartiest meal was breakfast. “Are there any new patients there at the moment?”

“There are always new patients there,” Keisha sighed, but with envy rather than weariness. “Except in the dead of winter, the Sanctuary gets a new group roughly every fortnight. If what you want to see is Northerners fresh from the wilds and tired to the bone, that's exactly what you're going to get.” She took an experimental bite of her own breakfast of stuffed mushrooms; they were cool enough to eat, and she didn't want them to grow cold. She gave Darian a glance; he took the hint, and picked up where she left off.

“The Ghost Cat people sent up a couple of messengers to the tribes they were related to,” Darian explained, fully aware of how irritable morning hunger made Keisha. His meal was all made up of things that wouldn't be spoiled by getting cold, and he had no problem talking around bites of food. “Those tribes have been spreading the word that there's a place of Healing down here, but they are being careful the word doesn't get to tribes like Blood Bear—those were the barbarians that overran Errold's Grove. Either we were lucky or very careful. Those tribes seem to have gotten a lot of strange diseases out of the Change-Circles up north.”

“We were careful,” Anda said, after swallowing the last of his own breakfast. “After the scholars at Haven figured out the pattern for where the Circles would pop up, people were told. No one went near them until they'd been checked over. Sometimes they were sterilized by fire, if need be.”

“But things still got away,” Darian pointed out. “Animals, insects, some creatures we never could identify. We know that—and it happened here in Valdemar. My parents hunted all kinds of bizarre things that came out of those Circles. I'd have to say we were lucky, Anda; we could have ended up with the Summer Fever and Wasting Sickness as readily as Ghost Cat did. And—bless poor Justyn, but he would have been the first to admit to this—the Healer we had at the time wouldn't have had the power to cure it.”

“But he
would
have the power to call those who did,” Anda said firmly. “Furthermore, those he called would know the right steps to take, not only to cure the disease, but how to keep it from spreading further. Keisha, when can we go to the Sanctuary? Will this be an overnight trip?”

Keisha hastily swallowed the last of her mushrooms. “Overnight, yes, but longer than that, no, and we won't have to pack anything. But I think we ought to go first to Ghost Cat so they can explain how they deal with the pilgrims.
They
are the ones who are most involved, after all. You ought to see how this is benefitting all of us, not just the Northerners. If we leave now, we can go there, then to the Sanctuary, then be back by nightfall tomorrow.”

“Then I'm ready.” Anda stood up. “Shandi?”

“Ready enough.” Shandi followed her Senior's example. “Karles says he and Eran will meet us at the Vale entrance. He'll have Tyrsell send a
dyheli
for Keisha.”