Gift of Griffins

by V. M. Escalada

  “He’s signaled to us,” he said to Wynn once they were out of earshot of the poultry man. “Like this.” Barid laid his hand on his chest in imitation of what he’d seen.

  Wynn nodded. “It’s enough like one of the standard military signals that I think I know what he means.” She stopped and turned around, moving her head back and forth as if she was looking for something. She laid the thumb and forefinger of her right hand against her cheek.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “Don’t worry. He saw me.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  Wynn took his arm as they resumed their stroll. “He doesn’t come to us openly, so that means he’s got secrets. He signals for a meet, and that means he wants to tell us something. So now we’ll follow him and find out what those secrets are.”

  “Are you insane?” Whispered through clenched teeth. She tugged on his arm, leading him forward.

  “No, I’m a soldier, though there’s many will say it’s much the same thing, truth to tell.”

  She was smiling. Barid couldn’t believe it. “We should go back. He’s only trying to rob us.”

  Wynn pursed her lips and shook her head. “He doesn’t have that look. No, it’s something else.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “More than you, apparently. Look, Barid, there’s a way to make sure, but I didn’t think you’d want to try it. . . .”

  Barid’s shoulders crept up—that she could even think about him Flashing. He thrust his trembling hands under his armpits as though he were cold. “We’re going back. We can’t afford to take chances.”

  “We can’t afford not to. Oh, all right, here. You take the basket and head back. I’m going to find out what the boy wants.”

  Barid hesitated, but his hand was already reaching for the basket’s handle.

  “Go on, what’s the worst that can happen? They kill me? Every soldier takes that chance every day. It’s different for you, of course. You’re afraid. Go.”

  Barid jerked the basket out of her hand and stalked off. Stupid girl. Typical soldier’s attitude, mistaking common sense for fear.

  * * *

  • • •

  As Wynn had rather expected, the thin blond boy fell into step beside her as soon as she’d wandered back into the more crowded center of the market.

  “You were with Jerek,” he said out of the side of his mouth when they both stopped to examine some apples that had seen better days. “Jerek Firoxi. I saw you.”

  “He’s Jerek Brightwing now,” she answered in the same way, shaking her head at the stall owner and turning away, back into the open spaces between the vendors.

  “He all right, then?”

  “Who are you? Who do you run with?” The boy eyed her sideways, the fixed smile on his face was for passersby only. “Come on, who’s your auntie? Or is it your uncle?”

  “What do you know about it?” His eyes were wary now, his face stiffer.

  “I ran with the Falcons, in Lausan, on the coast.” Wynn bought a pastry, and she and the blond boy sat on a wall watching the market square to see if anyone was watching them. “I’ve had three, no, four aunties.” Wynn handed the boy his half of the pastry. “And a couple of uncles.”

  “And that makes you my friend?”

  “It’s you came to me, remember? It’s you who’s asking me about Jerek. I thought you might as well know that I see what you are.” She turned to him and smiled. “And I’m letting you see what I am. Or at least, what I was.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “Joined the military.”

  Boy gave a grimace and looked away. “I’ve got my brother to think about. He needs me.”

  Wynn nodded. “I’m Wynn.”

  “Talian.”

  “How do you know Jerek?”

  “We roped him in off the street, a couple of months ago, before winter. My auntie sold him back to his father. He was teaching me how to ride his pony. Is it true what they say about his father? He’s the new Luqs?”

  Wynn shrugged. “The Halians think so.”

  “So why isn’t Jerek with him? He was quick enough to pay old Goreot what she asked for him.”

  Goreot must be Talian’s auntie. “That was when he wanted to keep Brightwing Holding, and Jerek was the heir. Now Firoxi’s got bigger fish on his line, and he doesn’t want to share.”

  “So where’s Jerek now?”

  Wynn laughed and punched the boy lightly on the arm, as if he’d said something funny. Which, in a way, he had. “Why would I tell you?”

  “I can help you. We saw you come in with the Shekayrin; we can help you get away.”

  “Out of the swamp into the quicksand, is that it?”

  “We can get you to the mountains. We’ve helped others, lots of them.”

  Well, that certainly explained the trickle of soldiers who’d managed to find their way to the Mines. At least those coming from this area. “I’ve a job to do here,” she said, without committing herself further.

  “You’d rather stay with them?”

  “What makes you so sure you know who ‘they’ are?”

  Talian went pale and tensed, ready to run. “Rest easy.” She put a hand, feather light, on his arm. “Don’t run off yet. I just meant that things aren’t always what they seem.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  That was the real question, wasn’t it? How did anyone know anything anymore, now that there were no Talents to judge? But Talian came from the same kind of background as Wynn, a world on the fringes of the law, populated by criminals, who had no desire to call in the Talents to expose them and their enterprises.

  “How did we ever know?” was what she said now. “It’s not like people like us ever went to the Halls of Law.” They shared a grin.

  “What are you doing back here with him?” A tilt of the head toward the administrative building at the far side of the square.

  Wynn thought for a moment. She knew Talian. She used to be Talian. She couldn’t confide anything to him. He’d use it if it was profitable. Not because he was evil, but because that was the way of their world.

  “You’ve waited so long, I know you’re not going to tell me,” he said. “But now I also know there’s something to tell.”

  Well, she should have thought of that. She shrugged. “Not my story to tell,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

  He stood up and dusted crumbs off the front of his tunic. “If you need anything, come to Goreot’s alehouse, Wainwright’s Lane.”

  She smiled at him. “You’ll help me for a price?”

  He smiled back. “That’s right.”

  * * *

  Tel dismounted and wrapped the reins of his horse around his left hand. After all the checkpoints he’d passed through since leaving the others behind in Gaena, he knew the drill. Though there might be one mounted soldier as backup, guards at gates and checkpoints were usually on their feet. Not that there had been many gates. It seemed that most towns in the Peninsula no longer had them, except decorative ones that couldn’t keep out so much as a child in a pony cart. That had been one of the reasons the Halians had found the Peninsula so easy to overrun and occupy—that and jeweled traitors in the right places.

  Of course, even the people passing through checkpoints, let alone real city gates like these at Farama the Capital, were more often on foot than not, Just like the three people immediately in front of him. From the way they spoke to each other, it was clear they were family, and that one of them had been right when he’d said it was too early to gather enough wild asparagus to make it worthwhile to go foraging.

  Once they were passed through, still arguing, Tel stepped into the shadow of the gate’s arch and handed the guard on his left the horse’s reins. To the man on the right—and it ha
d always been men, every time he’d been stopped—Tel handed his sealed pass.

  “Purposeforenteringthecity?” the man said without looking up. The fact that Tel and the guards were all wearing the same uniform never made any difference. Tel knew he wasn’t required to answer. The pass answered all questions. He also knew that if he didn’t say something, these guards would find a way to harass him. Oh, he could complain afterward, and the guards might be disciplined, but he’d still be delayed now.

  Or rather, he could complain if he was on a real errand from a real Shekayrin.

  Instead, Tel shrugged. “I’m to go to the palace,” he said. “Someone there is supposed to check the seal and tell me which Shekayrin I’m to report to.” They wouldn’t ask why. He hoped.

  Sure enough, the guard only wrinkled his nose and held the pass out to Tel. “Press your thumb to the seal,” he said in a tone that let Tel know he wasn’t in any way impressed.

  Tel hesitated for only a second. He’d never been asked to do this at any of the previous checkpoints he’d been through, but again, he knew better than to ask the guard any questions. So, again, he shrugged and pressed his thumb to Svann’s seal.

  He almost pulled his hand away. The wax felt unnaturally warm under his skin, as if freshly applied. When he lifted his thumb off the parchment, the image of it remained long enough for the guard to inspect it before it changed back to the imprint of Svann’s jewel.

  Tel waited patiently for the other man to decide he’d proven who was boss. As Tel suspected, after raking him with another skeptical glance, the guard tapped the pass on the palm of his hand.

  “He can go.” As if he actually had an option.

  Tel scrambled as his pass was tossed at him from one side, and his reins from the other. “Noridinginthecitystableyourhorseassoonaspossible.”

  “Keep your nose clean,” the first guard added. “Move along.”

  Tel could think of several sarcastic responses, but contented himself with moving along, vacating his spot for the next unlucky traveler. He didn’t look back when he heard voices raised, though the skin on his neck crawled. In the normal state of affairs, a man like this one, half bully, wouldn’t have been given an assignment that put him into direct contact with Polity citizens. But the normal state of affairs hadn’t existed since the arrival of the Halians.

  He knew roughly where he should head. Jerek had gathered enough information to give Tel at least an idea of which of the streets leading away from the gate would put him in the right direction for the Ram and Boar. He took the first turning that would put him out of view from the gate, and a young girl with pale hair and a rose-colored tunic fell into step with him.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she said in a clear melodic voice. She probably earned money singing as well as her present business.

  “Not interested just now, thanks all the same,” he said, softening his words even further with a smile.

  “You’re too tall for me anyway, Tel Cursar, even if I didn’t have other business with you.” She smiled as she said it, but that had nothing to do with why Tel’s heart skipped a beat. He slowed down a little, turning toward her, as if he was listening to her pitch.

  “Do I know you?” he said, still smiling at her, keeping up the act. The girl put a hand on his arm, and her smile widened. Seemed she was thinking along the same lines. The gate guards were out of sight, and therefore wouldn’t be wondering why he wasn’t going straight to the palace, but there was no knowing who else might be watching.

  “Not to say know me, exactly. But I’m to tell you it wasn’t a bird’s claw. You know what that means, I hope? Because the Daughter knows I don’t.” Still with the most enticing smile on her face.

  Tel’s heart lifted, and a wave of warmth flushed though his body. He saw the girl’s eyes sparkle as his smile turned genuine. Of course, he knew what it meant. When he and Kerida had first encountered the Feelers of the Mines and Tunnels, they had asked her to prove herself by identifying a large claw they’d found down one of their shafts. It was far too big to be any bird’s claw, of course, because it was a griffin’s. One of Weimerk’s, in fact, shed as he grew larger.

  Only Kerida would have used that as an identification code. And as impossible as it might seem, that meant she’d sent this girl.

  “So where do I go?” he said now.

  “Where I’m going to take you, of course. Ah, if only you would look at me that way,” she added, laughing. “She must mean a great deal to you. Right this way, if you please, sir. Right this way.” She hooked her arm through his and looked up at him with the most coquettish smile he’d ever seen on a woman’s face. He tried his best to smile down on her with the look of someone who accompanied her for the usual reasons. He wasn’t at all surprised when her demeanor changed subtly as they turned off the street into a smaller laneway. Now she acted more like a girl out walking with her older brother. Her smile faded almost completely away, and she didn’t sway at all when she walked.

  He didn’t know what to expect, so when she led him through a swinging door into a small courtyard, he hesitated before following her in. Now she took him by the hand and led him past a fenced-in coop for chickens, and what sounded like a dovecote, against the house wall. An older woman with the dark hair and skin of Ma’lakai gathered eggs. She didn’t look up from her task as Tel and his guide passed her, though between them and the horse they made a fair amount of noise.

  “Leave the horse here,” his guide said. “He can’t go the way we’re going.”

  “What about my pack? Can it go ‘the way we’re going’?”

  “Some other of my auntie’s nieces or nephews will bring it along later,” she said with a smile. Crooking her finger, she beckoned him to the right, where crates and boxes were loosely stacked. When she stepped up onto the lowest one, Tel realized they’d been placed to form a set of stairs.

  “Duck down as much as you can,” she said to him quietly. “You may be tall enough to be seen over the roofs.” When they reached the top of the wall, they walked along it, passing by the roofs of two houses before she turned a corner and led him back in the direction they’d come along the street. Ingenious, he thought, people tended not to look up. They turned several more corners and walked at one point directly over someone’s roof before the ache in his back and legs made him speak up.

  “You realize I’ll never walk upright again if it’s much farther.”

  “See that blue-tiled roof? That’s where we’re going.”

  They were much closer to the center of town now, southwest of the gate he’d come in by. From here, he could just make out the complex of buildings that had to be the palace itself. They reached the blue roof, jumped down onto another, lower, roof, and Tel let himself down by his fingertips into a space far too small to be the stable yard for an inn, before dropping the last few feet to the ground. The tiny courtyard was crowded with ceramic pots containing what smelled like herbs, and still another chicken coop.

  “Ahem.” His guide still sat on the edge of the roof. If she started swinging her feet, he thought, she’d look like a child. She indicated an open doorway. “Through there, and it was nice to meet you.” Without another word she turned, and in a moment she’d disappeared from view. Tel grinned, watching her go. That was the neatest way of disguising a trail that he’d ever seen. He turned back to the doorway and put his hand on his sword hilt.

  “Well, my mother always said an open door is an invitation.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ker walked around the room she shared with Ester and sat down on the edge of the bed. A moment later she was on her feet again, pacing the length of the attic room, eleven steps, turning and pacing back. Finally, she stood still, tugged Tel’s plaque out from under her tunic, and held it in her right hand. Every time she Flashed it to find out how and where Tel was, she hesitated, torn between wanting to kn
ow, and not wanting to Flash that he’d been captured. Or worse. She drew in a deep breath. Paraste.

  She ignored the auras nearest her and concentrated on Flashing. She let out the breath she was holding and felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders relax. Tel was safe. Tel was here. She shoved the plaque back under her shirt and stood up straight, pushing her hair out of the way with her hands and tugging her tunic straight. When she realized what she was doing, she laughed out loud. Tel wouldn’t care what she looked like.

  “Glad to hear there’s reason for mirth.” Tel stood in the doorway, ducking to get into the room without banging his head. Ker smiled, suddenly shy. He seemed so much taller than she expected him to be. Besides, he looked so strange dressed in the gray tunic she’d seen on other soldiers. He reached out for her, and she took her first real breath since she’d left him in the Panther’s camp.

  “I’d forgotten how tall you are,” she said, coming forward with her hands outstretched. Tel caught them in his own and drew her into his arms. Suddenly, they were clinging to each tightly.

  “I can’t breathe.”

  She felt Tel’s laughter burbling in his chest as he loosened his grip, but only enough to let him look into her eyes and tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. His rough fingertips traced the arch of her cheekbone.

  “Your sister—” Tel cleared his throat. “Your sister doesn’t look much like you. Even allowing for the difference in age.”

  Ker’s smile was so big she could feel it. “Her mother was my father’s first wife. Killed along with most of her Cohort during the third Chadnian rebellion.”

  “Before you were born, obviously.”

  “How much more small talk do you think we’ll need to feel comfortable with each other again?” Ker drew him with her to sit on the edge of the bed she’d been using, keeping hold of his hand, savoring the pressure of his arm against hers. Tel rocked against her and squeezed her hand.

  “Tell me quickly, then. How much does your sister know—about us, for example?”