A Feather on the Breath of Ellulianaen

by Robert Denethon

  Chapter Eight

  Mynowelechw Somimæ

  The Other Gryphon

  lla Æhachur Glaifym

  The sun rose resplendent above the forest horizon, and Hwedolyn saw a gryphon gliding in the distant sky. For a moment he thought it was the bright gryphon his uncle had seen, for its coat shone, reflecting the sun, but as it came closer he could see more clearly that it was no supernatural gryphon. It was a female gryphon, who nonetheless sported a coat as golden and glorious as the morning light glinting off dew-ridden sunlit summer leaves.

  At that distance, where even to the eyes of a sharp-eyed eagle the female gryphon would be but a speck on the horizon, Hwedolyn could see that she was the most beautiful gryphon he had ever seen, and as she came closer and he could see her more clearly, she only appeared more lovely to him.

  Her wingtips were delicately made and her feathers were neat and tidy with an attractive feather-pattern upon them. She had no mane of unruly neck-feathers, for female gryphons do not. She was a slim, fit, healthy gryphon, with golden hair and brown eyes and a large beak that was most attractively shaped, with just the right curve at the end.

  Her talons were not knobbly, as the talons of some gryphons become, but shapely, and neither stubby nor overlong at the tip. Her ears were relaxed, neither pricked up nor flat against her head, even though she approached a strange male gryphon, and Hwedolyn knew right there and then that she was brave and courageous and had an open and engaging nature and thought ill of no other gryphon; she was a gryphon who made friends easily.

  How shapely she was! He forgot everything else as she approached, all the troubles and trials he had been through, his imprisonment by the wyverns, the loss of his cousin, the lonely nights and frustrating days since he had left his parents, none of it mattered for her form and figure occupied his mind completely, to the exclusion of everything else. He could not keep his eyes from staring at her.

  They circled each other and descended into a forest clearing, where grass and one or two wildflowers grew and a little stream went burbling by. The sun was shining and there were few clouds in the sky that morning. She alighted perfectly on the ground, but Hwedolyn was so intent on watching her that he made a somewhat ungraceful, awkward descent and fell into a somersault, finishing up as a slightly ridiculous tangle of limbs and wings and fur and feathers at her feet. He looked up at her with one fey gryphon eye, mortally embarrassed, thinking that he had totally ruined their first meeting, for it had been his intention to show her how gryphonesque was his manner of landing. To his surprise she suddenly erupted in great gales of gryphon laughter. Laughter bubbled up inside him, erupted from his beak, and he straightened out his wings as he did so.

  Suddenly she stopped laughing, for his wings had become strong and muscular during his quest and she began to gaze at them admiringly. He proudly flapped them once or twice and stuck out his chest feathers, and the neck feathers at the top of his head stood erect, and she laughed again, and so did he.

  He opened his beak to say something, but a tiny squeak came out. She said, “I’m Gwendolyn.”

  “I am Hwedolyn,” he said, his voice sounding somewhat like a parrot’s, to his further astonishment. “Do you live roundabouts?” he asked, making his voice sound deeper and more gryphonesque for her.

  “About a hundred leagues to the south,” she replied. “I still share my parents’ eyrie. I am yet a cub; thirty-one years have I been out of the egg.”

  “You’re barely a cub. I’m nearly a gryphon. I’m thirty-two,” said Hwedolyn, “but I left my parents’ eyrie against their wishes, for my cousin was killed by a Mage, and so I set off on a quest to avenge his death.”

  Gwendolyn asked, “A human mage?” To try to avenge oneself upon an elf-mage would clearly be a great folly.

  “No, an elf-mage,” said Hwedolyn somewhat shamefacedly, perceiving the intent of her question. “My father tried to stop me from going.”

  Gwendolyn said, “It sounds like a foolish quest, Hwedolyn. Just the sort of thing a foolhardy young male gryphon would do.” And she turned away with her beak in the air.

  Hwedolyn strutted after her, grateful that she wasn’t watching, certain he looked clumsy, and said, “But Gwendolyn, I feared that the elf-mage would do the same to others. He was crazed, a lunatick elf! I wished to find a way to stop him from hurting other gryphons or other Nyashallyamaelin, the way he hurt my cousin, and two men at the tavern.”

  “Ah, well that’s completely different,” said Gwendolyn, looking around at him with her crest feathers erect. “That’s heroic!”

  Despite his weariness, for he had flown a day and a night without resting, Hwedolyn suddenly felt great strength and power within himself and his chest swelled with pride. He realised that what he had said really was the reason he was in the forest pursuing the elf-mage, and he thought to himself that it would be very useful to have a gryphon-companion like this very attractive female gryphon, who could make clear the rights and wrongs of a thing with a single pertinent question, and his own crest feathers rose up into the air again.

  “But how will you do it, Hwedolyn?” said Gwendolyn, deflating him a little again. “It’s very fine to have a heroic quest, but without any idea of how to do it, it is rather futile, is it not?”

  Being slightly taller than she was, Hwedolyn looked down at her.

  He said, “Well, Gwendolyn, to find out how to do it is part of the quest. That’s the sort of things gryphons do when they go on quests, you know.”

  She smiled and said, “Ah, I see.” He glowed with pride, though he had felt that his answer had been slightly silly.

  He said, “I did meet some dwarves – King Haldar – and he told me his brother King Klaer might know, when he got to the feast. But King Klaer didn’t arrive… Were you hunting?”

  “No. There is an old, wise gryphon who lives near our eyrie, in an old abandoned mine in the mountains. She is at least four hundred years old, for she remembers when Lhaghr’n’fumu was Emperor, in the prime of his power, and the attack of the dragon on the town of Ghwohlalaemyhalae, just south of here, and the battle of Chuiolliliae, when the priests of the temple massacred the ‘Sons of Ellulianaen.’ She saw it all happen, for she had a cave in the Valhahillae marshes in those long distant days. I visit her; some nights I bring her a barrel of mead, or a goat or two for her stew. She is a forthteller – she dreams dreams of the future.”

  “Truly?” said Hwedolyn, doubting that such things could be.

  Gwendolyn nodded. “Yes, indeed. She but recently dreamed of the coming of a gryphon to our forest at dawn, even the particular day was revealed to her. That day was this very day, Hwedolyn, and I came out here this morning to see if indeed that gryphon was real, or just a phantasm of her mind. And here, look, I meet a gryphon! Of course, a philosopher might say your presence in the forest today is nothing but a coincidence. But she says that Ellulianaen sends her the dreams, and I do believe her.”

  Hwedolyn was amazed at this. He babbled, “My father says such things do not happen in our day. Perhaps I should reconsider his point of view.”

  “Come, I will take you to her!” Gwendolyn cried out as she went aloft.

  Hwedolyn looked up and admired the feathers of her wing, for the colours and patterns upon them reminded him of the tints of the dawn sky and made him admire the artistry of the King of the Gryphons, giving him a strange excited wistful sensation, all at the same time.

  Gladly he followed her up into the cloudy skies. They flew southwest following the contours of the wind, almost invisible in the airy mists of morning, and kept flying until they reached a cave covered with tangled vines in the very midst of a dark forest some five leagues east of Lake Iolhamu.

  The ground was a swampy marsh, but the cave stood atop a high rocky promontory to the south of where the Lake’s tributary, the Mushommyhae River, split from the great Iothuiolmae River.

  They flew down and alighted upon the rocky ledge that stood before the massive cave. The
mouth of the cave looked down upon the wide Iothuiolmae River to the southeast, where a bend made it even wider. Looking like a fat green serpent the river cut a swathe through a tangled forest of willows and fig trees with great clumps of green moss hanging off their twisted branches. The river snaked off into the distance all the way to the southern horizon to where the silvery tips of faraway mountains mingled with shining, brilliant white clouds.

  Gwendolyn entered the cavern first, pressing in her wings and making her ears flat to pass through the cave entrance. For Hwedolyn it was an even tighter fit, and he scraped his thigh and his wing as he went in, but fortunately he did not lose any important feathers. A sporadic flickering fire-glow lit the stalactites, so they were able find their way. A spring bubbled out of one of the walls at gryphon eye-height, travelling in a murmuring stream down into the dark depths of the cavern. Around a rocky corner they followed the trickling stream to where they beheld the fire that cast the glow they had seen from the entrance. Next to the fire stood an old bent gryphon, stirring, with one bony talon, a large black pot balanced precariously upon the hearth. There were pots and pans hanging on the rock wall of the cave behind her, of a manner of pottery that Hwedolyn had not seen before, and the cave was comfortable and dry everywhere, except of course where the stream was burbling along.

  She was a very old gryphon, so skinny that her ribcage was visible at her sides, and all her joints were swollen with rheumatism. Her tired wings had bare, featherless patches. From the particular feathers that were missing Hwedolyn could tell that she was probably unable to fly. There were also patches on her body where her wrinkled grey gryphon-skin was showing through her white fur coat. Nevertheless, as she stirred the pot her gaze was spritely, and amusement shone in her eyes as she beheld them walking into her sanctuary.

  In a thin, reedy voice, croaking with age, she said, “There. Did I not tell you that a gryphon would come? I am the Oracle of Hwendoryllyan, and, of the gryphons roundabouts, you, my daughter Gwendolyn, are the only one who listens! One day it might perhaps be a blessing to you!” The old gryphon’s voice was like the caw of a crow, or the cry of an eagle, but a note of joy, and wryness, rang in her words like the tolling of a distant bell. “Come closer, cub, I would see thy wings and thy fey eye. Do not be afraid. What is your name? Ellulianaen did not tell me this.”

  “I am called Hwedolyn.”

  She replied, “I am Chalyom,” as she gently examined his eyes and his wings. “Yes, you indeed appear to be the gryphon I dreamed of.”

  “Chalyom is like a second mother to me,” said Gwendolyn. “She tells me the gryphon-lore. The things my mother never told me, about life, Ellulianaen, and the world.”

  Chalyom said, “All the other gryphons mock me, I know they do. May Ellulianaen enlighten their foolish minds with the truth!” she cackled, and Hwedolyn felt that her censure of the other gryphons was more wry observation than serious judgement, but Gwendolyn said in a serious tone, “It is a dangerous thing to mock the wisdom that comes from beyond the borders of the world.” The firelight reflected like a fey flame in her eyes, and for a moment she appeared unearthly and terrible to Hwedolyn, like one of the Mihalaetat, a winged messenger of Ellulianaen, a purveyor of vengeance upon the earth.

  Suddenly, feeling a little frightened that Gwendolyn could see into his heart, and might know that he had once doubted Ellulianaen, Hwedolyn said, “What do you mean?”

  Gwendolyn said, “I do love my father and my mother and my brothers, but they truly don’t understand. They tell me I’m a fool to come to Chalyom’s cave.”

  This dark, mysterious place, the fire-glow flickering, the rising, bent stalagmites and crooked, hanging stalactites, Chalyom the old gryphon-crone, the strangely shaped pots and pans, the flickering golden glow of the fire on her fur coat and feather; all of this only made Gwendolyn more beautiful in Hwedolyn’s eyes, for her graceful wingèd presence was now allied to the mysterious depths of the unknown, and touched him strangely deep inside his heart, in the place where his darkest secrets and fears were stored, and in that moment his heart went out to her as to no other.