Grand Theft Griffin

by Michael Angel

  I unzipped my pack and found a handy shelf to set out some of my cooking supplies, a vacuum-packed plastic bag full of ‘rough travel’ clothes, and a first aid kit. Then I unrolled my air mattress – a strawberry-colored lozenge of plastic dotted with duct tape patches. I checked the mattress’ power pack to ensure that I had a fresh pair of batteries installed, and then flicked the pump switch to ‘on’. The two griffins’ eyes went dinner-plate wide as a raspy buzz filled the cabin’s interior and the air bed expanded like so much rising dough.

  “What strange magic your world must possess!” Ulrik breathed. He cautiously extended a forepaw and poked at the now plump end of the mattress. Luckily, the Elder had his lion’s claws retracted, or my world’s most interesting magic item would have unceremoniously popped and deflated.

  “Thou hath not seen the half of it!” Shaw chuckled.

  “Indeed! Then I shall take my leave of you, Dayna Chrissie. And take care: should you depart from the aerie, you must adhere to the law regarding how you may return. No magic is allowed. Grimshaw can meet you at our border as per your needs.”

  “I shall follow the law to the letter.” Ulrik bowed to me, and I clumsily followed suit. But my vow for honesty bothered me a little, and I couldn’t help but speak up one more time. “I do need to level with you about one thing, Elder One.”

  In response, the older griffin’s eyebrow raised in question. I hurriedly went on.

  “While I will be checking your warriors’ health, there is an additional goal I have to keep close-mouthed about for now. Grimshaw will vouch for my need, and that I only have the best interests of the griffins in mind.”

  The older griffin considered. “If such a hero as Grimshaw vouches for you, then I am satisfied.”

  Another knot of tension I’d been holding in my back unraveled. “Thank you. I’m just glad that you don’t think that I’m here to subvert anything.”

  Ulrik’s golden eagle eyes held mine for a moment, then danced with merriment as he let out a squawk of a laugh. “Do you take me for a just-hatched chick? One who has tumbled from his nest and landed upon his head? I shall save the conspiracy theories for dear Belladonna.”

  “That does seem to be her realm of expertise.”

  “Oh, aye. Ever since the supposed coming of the dragon Sirrahon, our High Elder has been speaking of demons locked in stone, of owls and secrets and beings that dwell in the dark.”

  “You…don’t think there’s any merit to this?” I asked carefully.

  “Nay, and none of the Elders will entertain this foolishness either.” He waved a paw in Shaw’s direction. “When Grimshaw came to us before, asking advice about dragons of yore, we tried all day to dissuade her from filling one of our best warrior’s head with ridiculousness.”

  Shaw looked on incredulously. “If it t’were such a foolish matter, why was I charged with an oath of blood and talons to stay within the palace’s demesne until I spoke with the Albess of the Owls?”

  “Because the Albess is wise, because she is discreet, and most importantly, she is an owl,” Ulrik declared. “The owls are known throughout our lands to be the most difficult to understand, so no one truly tries. Any scrap of nonsense she told you would scarcely be taken seriously by anyone in power!”

  “But…Elder One…”

  “I know, I know. Enough with this talk of insanity and stories fit for a chick’s first night off the cliffs. There is no conflict that can touch us within the fastness of our aerie, let alone one from a time long ago.”

  Ulrik bid us farewell. If he noticed the stunned look on our faces, he didn’t let on. Grimshaw had been mistaken. The leaders of his people hadn’t been deliberating about the threat posed by Sirrahon, or the dark forces that may have been behind the dragon’s return. All but a single one of the Elders thought the entire notion was pure fantasy.

  And the one that did think we were on to something was flat-out insane.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It turned out that fighting for one’s life in a wyvern-griffin battle was the best cure-all for insomnia ever invented.

  Galen’s silver medallion had transported me back to my living room. It had done so reliably ever since I’d first been to Andeluvia. That said, it also reliably dumped me on my butt about half the time. So I’d swapped out the ratty sand-colored carpet for a plusher Persian rug with a bulls-eye pattern. The change had reduced the number of bruises I picked up, so I figured that it was worth the extra money.

  I put out a change of clothes that included my Angel’s baseball cap, a pair of jeans, hiking boots, and my belt-clip mounted OME badge. Next, I set out a pair of saddlebags I’d purchased at the local saddlery shop, linked together with a sturdy black leather strap. Each bag held a hard-pack plastic carrier filled with pre-sealed buccal brush kits. Finally, I’d summoned up the last of my energy to eat a pre-packaged tray of airplane-worthy food straight from the microwave, raise the toothbrush to my mouth afterwards, and crash on my bed, still half-dressed.

  Despite the stress of avoiding dismemberment by flying reptiles or flaying by a griffin ruler who’d lost half her marbles, nightmares didn’t come to haunt me. In fact, ever since Destry had said that I would have fewer nightmares, my guess is that the pouquelaye, the dream horses of lore, had decided to cut me a little slack. But that didn’t mean I didn’t dream.

  In fact, as soon as I woke up and squinted into the bright morning outside my bedroom window, I realized that I’d dreamt of work. That, in and of itself, felt like a bit of a downer. I figured that dreams were meant to be an alternative to day-to-day drudgery, after all. But this one nagged at me like a popcorn kernel caught between my back molars.

  Instead of the crunch of hard-packed snow under my little-girl wigwam boots, there was the crisped-rice sound of my stompy gothic footwear of doom on bits of broken glass. I stood alone under the Hall of Gems’ cavernous ceiling. Dust tickled my nose, wind whistled through the saw-toothed edges of the shattered skylights.

  The whistling morphed into words hissed in the sibilant, insect-like voice of Rocky, the Old Man of the Mountain, when he’d finally shed his mask and shown his true, evil nature.

  You don’t see it, do you? It’s right in front of you and you don’t see it.

  “See what?” I asked.

  Hector Reyes appeared off to one side, materializing from the haze of dust that billowed into the room like smoke. He held up his camera and shook his head sadly.

  “I have to start all over again, again, again,” he lamented. A flash, and the exhibits around us rotated in their display cases as if on a set of tumblers. They each turned into faceted stones, glinting and blinding me.

  That’s when I’d woken up. I found my pillow bathed in a bright stripe of sunlight let in through a crack in the curtains.

  I pondered the dream as I ran a loofa brush over my grimy body under a steaming-hot shower. But even supplemented with a dose of Colombia’s best from my coffee maker, nothing was going ‘click’ in my brain this morning. So, I went to check on the contents of my fridge and let out a sigh once I opened the door.

  Between picking up camping gear and DNA testing equipment I’d neglected to buy much in the way of breakfast food. Not to mention that I was about to face the upchuck-inducing transport back to Andeluvia. So I blew on my coffee to bring it down to a temperature that would only give my tongue first-degree burns, sipped it to the bottom, and went to pick up my gear.

  One ozone-scented flash and bang later, I stumbled out onto the circular plateau at the griffin border. I lurched forward, trying to hang on to my saddle bags, until I felt a fur-covered arm come up like a velvet-sheathed bar for me to lean up against. My nose filled with the familiar, sun-warmed smell of feline pelt and eagle feather.

  Shaw let out a leonine chuckle. “‘Tis not easy to get used to traveling this way. We must speak soon to our wizard friend. Mayhap there is a way to make thy medallion spell easier on the innards.”

  “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,�
�� I agreed, as I got my bearings. Off to my left, just over Shaw’s broad lion shoulder, stood the vaguely Russian or Roman-styled border marker. And off to the right sat a young female griffin, one with a buzz-cut fringe to the feathers around her head and the tips of her wings. She looked on curiously, poised on her rear haunches as if to move back in a hurry from the strange creature who’d just appeared out of thin air.

  “Dayna, thou canst see that I have a visitor.” Shaw nodded his head towards the smaller griffin. “This is Linden. She hath undertaken her very first patrol on this day. ‘Tis a proud moment.”

  “I hope to make you proud,” Linden said humbly, in a voice that sounded like it should belong to a teenaged girl. She regarded me for a moment longer, then added, “I don’t mean to be rude, Day-na. But…where are your wings? Does it take longer for them to sprout on a human?”

  That actually made me smile. Even Shaw looked amused. “I take it that I’m the first human you’ve met.”

  “Yes, you are. I came from the egg only after the last trade mission had left.”

  “Well, sad I am to say, my ‘wings’ are never going to come in. This is the way we humans look when we reach adulthood.”

  “Yet…surely you can’t have to…walk everywhere?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  Linden gasped. “How horrible!”

  “Thou shalt not be unkind to those without our blessings,” Shaw said firmly, but in a gentle tone. “Not all creatures ‘pon this world are born to fur and feather. ‘Tis not their fate.”

  “Then I count myself lucky to have been fated as such!”

  “Aye, true.”

  A distant caw floated down the breeze. Linden perked up.

  “That would be my lance’s summons. I must fly.”

  “Good hunting, young one.” Shaw extended a wing and the two griffins touched the feathery tips.

  “The same to you, father!” Linden cried, as she took off, circled overhead, and vanished in a flurry of wing beats.

  “Father?” I said, dumbfounded. “Shaw, how many offspring do you have?”

  Grimshaw thought a moment. He turned one golden forepaw over and muttered as he counted on his talons.

  “Time has passed since I last made a survey. I believe sixteen now count me as their named sire,” he said, with a touch of pride. His chest swelled more as he added, “And besides these, you have met the three True Born ones.”

  “Sixteen?” My mind boggled at that number, even as it still irked me that I didn’t get this ‘True Born’ terminology. “You’re…a busy griffin.”

  “Mayhap. Come, we must talk whilst we travel.”

  With that, Shaw turned his side to me. I slung the saddle bags over his torso, fixing them in place behind the saddle so that they wouldn’t fall off. Then I got on, suppressing a shiver at my memories of the last flight. I reminded myself that it would be suicidal for any wyvern swarm to get this close to a griffin aerie.

  Shaw leapt into the air, wings beating sure and fast so as to clear the tree line. Yet I noticed that he kept to a lower altitude and a rather sedate speed. Maybe one of his three ‘True Born’ had told him that his human friend looked green around the gills after yesterday’s flight. We banked south and west towards the massive hump of rock rearing on the horizon. The land immediately began to narrow, and the scent of the sea filled my senses again.

  “I wouldst not pretend to understand how a mere scrub brush can identify one’s lineage,” Shaw said, with a rather wry undertone that I could hear even over the wind that beat past us. “But I can fathom thy work with prints and scratch marks, at least.”

  “I think you’re selling yourself short, but go on,” I encouraged him.

  “Thou hadst spoken about marks made by gauntlets. Those are expensive, human-crafted pieces we trade for with King Fitzwilliam’s armorers.”

  “You think we should ask Galen to check the Air Cavalry, see what they have in storage?”

  “Nay, no griffin in service ever uses such a thing in battle. They are heavy and cumbersome, so they are used as part of our warriors’ training. All of which is performed here at the Reykajar Aerie.”

  “So it’s likely that whoever it was came from here, or at least got the gauntlets from here.”

  “Aye, mine own thoughts ran that way. These items are kept in the Lance’s Armory, where they can be checked out and returned.”

  That made me sit up straighter. “Were you able to speak to the griffins running the armory, then? Maybe we can find out who has been borrowing gauntlets.”

  “I did speak to those in charge. Alas, armor pieces may be taken and returned for up to a fortnight. In that time, dozens of griffins have requested armor for training in their various Martial Schools.”

  “Still…” I tapped a finger on the saddle in thought. “Maybe we could use a list to narrow down the numbers.”

  “A valiant idea, but one that cannot succeed. The armory does not keep records, and the keepers I spoke to cannot remember all the borrowers over a period of nigh on two weeks.”

  “They don’t keep records? Are you serious?”

  Shaw did his best to throw me an offended look over his shoulder.

  “Griffins are an honorable people, Dayna. We do not have a problem with theft, so there is little need to write down who has taken what. All are under stricture of their oath to return said item borrowed.”

  “True, my friend. I spoke out of turn there,” I assured him. “I just never thought one of my leads…would be stymied by a culture’s honesty!”

  I was rewarded with a griffin chuckle at that. Shaw went on, in a more sober tone.

  “Thou must know something else: that I will be leaving you with Hollyhock for the remainder of the day.”

  I thought about that for a moment as we drew closer to the aerie. Faint caws and screeches echoed from the clouds around us as we entered the main flight paths. I certainly didn’t mind his daughter’s company, but I already felt somewhat removed from my circle of friends without Galen and Liam. This made things all the worse.

  “I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that news,” I said honestly.

  “Mayhap, but ‘tis of no import. High Elder Belladonna has charged her with thy keeping, and we cannot gainsay it.”

  “What will you be doing in the interim?”

  My friend let out a sour grunt. “I have been summoned to speak with the remaining Elders about a painful subject: whether or not this thrice-damned ‘Way of the Serpent’ that Lance Captain Ironwood developed shall be considered dishonorable in the main. I like it not, since I must speak out against mine own blood over it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said, redoubling my efforts at stroking his neck. “It looks like we both may have a difficult day ahead of us. But at least it’s not combat.”

  A pained squawk at that.

  “Combat I could stand without fear, at least!”

  Now that got my attention. As far as I could tell, Shaw was pretty damned close to fearless.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Should a griffin act in such a way that dishonors their entire lineage, then flaying is the mild part of the punishment,” Shaw said, his voice grave. “Should such a griffin fall into the hands of the Elders, then the dishonor stains the rest of their line. It becomes part of the song of that family’s saga, told from then to the line’s eventual extinguishment.”

  “That…sounds pretty harsh. But how can inclusion of a crime into a song lead to a family’s demise?”

  “Song sagas are the history of a lineage. If it is stained, no one will court or mate with members of said line. Yet I take comfort that Ironwood will likely suffer no more than a rebuke. True dishonor is rare indeed. Thou espied the half-dozen Skinned Ones, correct?”

  “Five griffins, one human,” I agreed.

  “Those are all that have been punished as such in the last few centuries. Only those five family names have returned to dust.”

&nb
sp; “And the human?”

  “A man of a country long since gone. He lied to Gunnargrim of the now-dead Baldir Pride and used him to gain secrets of the aerie for the purpose of war. For his crime, and Gunnar’s willingness to assist, they both joined the Skinned Ones’ ranks.”

  I suppressed a shiver. That sounded just a little too close to the line I’d been pushing with Belladonna. Just like my probation board victory over Deputy Chief McClatchy, I was starting to wonder how much my ‘wins’ were going to start costing me in the end.

  Shaw banked lower, skimming over the first eight ranks of the twelve apartment levels that had been carved or sectioned off along the mountain. Once again I was struck by how the griffins mimicked a cliff-nesting colony of seabirds. We landed along one of the pathways in front of the sectioned-off dwellings. The architecture of the griffin aerie still puzzled and amazed me. Each studio apartment, as I thought of it, lacked a roof, and the walls were little more than rough tumbles of glittery white and gray stone about as high as my chest.

  A little way up the slope, I made out the crest of Hollyhock’s head jutting up from inside her space. I slipped out of the saddle and gave a little wave. I spoke up so I could be heard over the general noise of griffins going about their daily business, and the ever-present background crash of the waves.

  “Hollyhock, we’re here!” I called.

  Shaw’s head whipped around to stare at me. “Dayna, thy tongue shall shame us! Know you nothing of polite society?”

  I bit my lip. Leave it to me to mess up some interspecies cultural protocol before I even started the day proper.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Um…actually, maybe I don’t know what’s polite,” I admitted. I spread my hands. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean to.”

  Shaw’s golden eagle eyes suddenly looked downcast. He sounded sheepish as he spoke. “Nay, ‘tis I who wronged you. My mind has been cast towards the Elders, when it should have been occupied in teaching you our ways.”