The Fifth Codex

by J. A. Ginegaw

  “Yes, my friend, very much so,” he said in a firm voice Ovahdya had not heard for weeks. Excited by this, he moved closer. With one hand, Apadimex rubbed the handle of his cane. “Especially the only one who saw that such boldness was wrong. Especially Persephone. Gryphons are magnificent and regal, but for the Elites who dared create your kind, their end was neither magnificent nor regal as both time and rot rendered them all insufferable fools.

  “Each of your kind is a splendid helper,” Apadimex continued as he again tried to sit up straighter in his chair, “and has done better than Queen Gorgynna or any others could have ever envisioned. But that does not matter, Ovahdya – you were taken!”

  The confused Gryphon tilted his head at this. He did not understand.

  “But Master, we are as you say – magnificent and regal. Why would our creators be fools and why would they suffer at all?”

  And what did his master mean by ‘taken’?

  “The first Gryphons were molded from captured lions and giant eagles,” Apadimex explained slowly. “Caged and brought inside the city walls, they were no longer free to roam the plains and skies of Lapith Fields. As unlearned animals cannot choose such a path, the Elites transformed these creatures against their will. To do such a thing for our amusement, our benefit, our pride – one cannot do so freely. An act such as this requires those guilty to pay a ghastly price and every Elite indeed did so. Both in our fleshy world,” Apadimex pointed to the still chilly corner, “and most likely the next one as well.”

  Seeking warmth away from this corner, Ovahdya set his head in Apadimex’s lap and enjoyed a soft rubbing for many moments. In truth, a rock would have been softer than the bony legs he rested on, but he adored his master too much to care. During this rubbing, Ovahdya let his eyes wander and they now wound their way around the repository. It had always been his home and Apadimex had always been his master. Luckily, the palace that would most likely be his next home adjoined with the repository and – the current historian willing – he would still be able to visit it.

  The works in the Great Repository of Knowledge were not all histories. In fact, less than half of them were. Stories written by others who were not a historian or his scribes ranged from the mundane to the fantastic. Some were true and some were not. One of a handful of Gryphons even allowed in the repository, Ovahdya had read many of them. But Queen Gorgynna allowed NO Gryphon to read from the historical texts. This was why even a learned Gryphon whose master was once a historian asked such questions. All Gryphons knew was that the Elites who spoke the spells to create his kind were all dead.

  “I know at first that Gryphons were simply clever, Master,” Ovahdya said, “but we have come a long way in a short period of time.” He lifted his head, but did so slowly so that the palm of one hand still touched him. “A short amount of time for a Sapien at least. Did any of our creators get to see us learn so much so fast?”

  “Not a one I am sorry to say,” Apadimex said after he let out a deep sigh. His eyes began to swell. “Within a decade after, every Elite who fulfilled Gorgynna’s greatest wish – for the benefit of all, of course – lost their vision, their sanity, or both. Within twenty years, a wasting death claimed them all. Riddled with crippled limbs, tumors, and lesions, the thirteen mystics who created your kind just rotted away. To own a fatal lack of appreciation in regards to so ‘grand’ an endeavor, there could be no other fate. The only one to protest our queen, Persephone, did receive a small reward for doing so – Hades took the youngest, bravest Elite last.”

  Ovahdya knew nothing of this Persephone his master had singled out for a second time. In a less rushed setting, he certainly would have asked more of her. Instead, he focused on another who still lived. There was something odd about Queen Gorgynna’s part in their creation. Ovahdya had heard ‘rumors’ of her forays into dark magic, of course. Many said she wielded an even more powerful magic than that needed to create the first Gryphons.

  But what of HER punishment?

  “If it was our queen,” Ovahdya began slowly, “who commanded the Elites to create us, then why do the gods not make her suffer as well?”

  Apadimex let out a labored, wheezing laugh. He then gurgled a few times. Ovahdya did not understand what was funny about this question so he stayed silent.

  “Many suffered greatly. Many more that helped in the creation of Gryphons did not. And not just Gorgynna – the Triumvirate and Apprentices escaped punishment as well. This is but one cruel twist in the ways of magic, my friend. Fair or not, to command or help another perform acts such as these is simply not punishable. For the one who speaks such spells, this one accepts that, soon after doing so, Hades will reach through his or her open mouth and tear away the soul cowering inside. The Elites had spoken the spells, Ovahdya! And because of this, they bore the full brunt of the mystic mischief Gorgynna had dreamt up.”

  Mystic mischief? Ovahdya loved his master. Did his master not love him as well? How could his master love him AND refer to the creation of his kind with such cruel words.

  These thoughts brought tears to Ovahdya’s eyes and he purposely wiped them on Apadimex’s bare arm. His master shuddered as he felt this.

  “You believe our creation was wrong, don’t you, Master?” Ovahdya’s voice cracked as he asked this. “You do not believe we deserve to live in this world at your side?”

  Apadimex’s worn face frowned as if upset he had allowed Ovahdya to think this. His fingers again buried themselves in his servant’s mane and he took in a raspy breath.

  “It is my kind, dear friend, who do not deserve to live in this world at your side.” Apadimex let a few moments pass before he continued. “Queen Gorgynna once told me, ‘To be dominated is in the best interest of every Gryphon, for there is no other way they will learn.’ Tell me, Ovahdya, do you believe this?”

  “Yes,” Ovahdya answered immediately. “She is right. If I were a lion or giant eagle and not a Gryphon, I would have died decades ago and learned little for my troubles. Sapiens created us and are great teachers and we are thankful for it. I serve you, Master, because you are kind and teach me. How else could I have learned to speak? Because you care for me, I can read and write as well as any Sapien. When I was born, few Gryphons could read or write. Now, at least somewhat, most of us can do both. Longer life, a purpose, learning – what more is there?”

  Well, there WAS one thing more….

  For the first four or five generations, Sapiens had restricted the breeding of Gryphons. During this time, they allowed only the most gentle and sturdy ones to do so; only after the first century of their existence, did it become lawful for males and females to choose their own mates.

  In every way, a Gryphon and his mate were equal to a Sapien couple aside from one: By order of Queen Gorgynna, they could not marry. Every Gryphon hated this, but sadly obeyed. Nevertheless, they came to understand well what a commitment between two hearts truly was. As with Ovahdya and his mate, once one chose another, it was often for life.

  “Great teachers … great teachers … great teachers …” Apadimex repeated in faint whispers only keen Gryphon ears could hear. “Perhaps too much so. Gryphons will eventually learn all Sapiens can teach them.” His frail voice stayed soft, but turned dark. “And what then? How long before the captive state that now comforts you no longer does so? How long before you wish for the same freedoms your masters enjoy?”

  For Gryphons to be ‘free’ from the protection of their masters, to want to fend for themselves – what lunacy was this?

  Ovahdya had never considered such things. As far as he knew, a servant only went hungry when he did something wrong and was only beaten when he did something wrong repeatedly. The creatures the long-dead Elites molded his kind from went hungry more often and for lesser reasons. Gryphons wore clothes – nowhere near as fine as Sapiens, of course – took an interest in their world, and lived underground with their masters during winter.

  No ‘free’ lion or eagle did this! They were naked with no
shame, knew nothing more than that needed to feed their faces, and had no choice but to huddle near fissures where lava flowed when the harshest of seasons came.

  In the end, perhaps these were simply the babbling words of an old man taking in his last breaths. But this brought to mind the second important question Ovahdya wished to ask. Since their beginning, Gryphons drank from the waters of the Pool of Torment and Discovery. And since their beginning, Sapiens had bred them to be as meek as lambs.

  But why?

  Ovahdya felt it again even worse than before. Perhaps the Grim was just tired of this story, perhaps another somewhere inside Elkabydos needed taking – bone-chilling cold approached. He needed to hurry.

  “I see lions on the plains, Master, and they are savage, unfeeling. They rip their prey into pieces with pure joy. When another dies; even if the dead lion is from their own family, they simply walk on. Aside for our size and the care we give to our young, we are nothing like them. Giant eagles are much the same.”

  Ovahdya’s words dismissed this savagery, but his thoughts did not. In a way, he was jealous that lions and giant eagles could keep the feral instincts Sapiens worked so hard to breed out of his kind.

  “We can be mighty of both tooth and claw if taught to be,” Ovahdya said in a hopeful voice, “… if allowed to ––”

  “Sapien warriors atop Gryphons soaring over the Agathis would terrify even the bravest Arachna Majora,” Apadimex interrupted with a wheezing chuckle.

  “Yes, Master, yes! Why not breed us to keep some of these instincts and then teach us how to use them?” Ovahdya watched and waited for the answer with great interest as his master took in a number of shallow breaths.

  “Your creators, dear friend, are a species who own the coldest of hearts … the most cunning of minds.” Apadimex’s breathing grew heavy and his tone turned dull and raspy. Each word now seemed as if a chore. “To do this might at first seem wise,” his voice began to fade, “but is entirely out of the question.”

  Apadimex sunk into his chair and closed his eyes. Ovahdya lifted his right limb and carefully wrapped his talons around Apadimex’s exposed left arm. The colder it became and the closer it appeared his master would pass into the next world, the tighter Ovahdya gripped him. Apadimex shivered more and more with each passing moment. His last words were but whispers with long pauses in between.

  “Obedient, submissive … most important. To learn any different, a most dangerous path to wander … to wander down … lies before you. To reach … to reach the lone destination at the end, but one outcome … but one outcome … is … possible.…” Upon a final exhale, Apadimex’s soul was no longer his.

  “No, Master, no,” Ovahdya sobbed, “please don’t leave me.”

  Despite the horrid cold now cloaked around him, he laid his head in Apadimex’s lap. Through his tears, he looked at the lifeless fingers that would never again stroke his silver mane. After many cries, many fond memories, and many moments, Ovahdya lifted his head up and stood, but kept his eyes blurred with tears to the black as pitch granite floor.

  These grand tales to answer his questions had ended with an enigma: What outcome?

  The last words Apadimex had spoken to him now bounced about his mind. They did so not in the frail voice spoken at his master’s end, but in the deep, calm tone Ovahdya recalled from his own beginning. He still remembered and always would until his own end the times Apadimex whispered into his ear when he was just a blind, helpless cub. He of course knew nothing of words then, but just the sound of them soothed him. Having spent countless days teaching Ovahdya of the world and its ways, he would insult his master’s memory if, after all this, he was not clever enough to finish the last sentence Apadimex ever spoke.

  Ovahdya paced fretfully. As he did so in a tight circle, he kept his eyes pointed to the stone floor.

  “A dangerous path to wander down …” he whispered to himself. “We are submissive, but to learn any different, this path lies before us. This dangerous path – why is it dangerous if we are not submissive? If we are not submissive … are we no longer obedient?”

  He thought some more and continued to pace. His dead master was never more than a couple of pike lengths away as he did so.

  “But one outcome, but one outcome – why just one?” Ovahdya continued to whisper again. “Freedom, freedom … Master talked of Gryphons someday wanting freedom. For this one outcome, would we need to want freedom as well?”

  Ovahdya stopped suddenly and stared at the traces of blood on the floor. Somehow, he had not noticed this until now. The stunned Gryphon then followed this trickling of blood until the floor became the legs of the chair Apadimex’s soulless body now slumped in. The blood was as if a narrow stream that led up cream-colored robes and pooled at the bare arm Ovahdya had gripped with his talons.

  He now raised these bloodied talons; with wondrous eyes, Ovahdya inspected each one as if seeing both them and their might for the first time. He then did the same to the rest of his body. A Gryphon outweighed a Sapien many times over, owned crushing jaws – and these talons!

  Could one swipe of untamed talons tear the skin off a Sapien’s back? And upon doing so, could the next swipe then rip the spine clean from his or her body?

  These were truly horrid thoughts, yet Ovahdya could keep neither them nor his whispers at bay.

  “More a lion than a lamb upon realizing such strength … no longer obedient … wanting freedom … native instincts unleashed … a path stepped onto and a lone destination at its end reached … but one outcome possible….”

  Ovahdya gasped. Great anguish swept over him. He had lost his beloved master and now suddenly realized that the future of his kind would someday become the greatest of struggles. With his beak to the ceiling of the repository, he let out a load roar that ended in a piercing screech. The walls of the grand library shook and those who would send his master on his final journey would soon come.

  Ovahdya then hung his head low and closed his eyes to keep in his tears, but could not do so tightly enough. Both eyes shed these tears as if waterfalls onto the stone floor and his heart began to hurt. A great shame swelled inside him for thinking of the one word he would never dare speak, but that now pounded away at his mind as if trying to inflict on him the worst beating of his life….

  REVOLUTION!

  Chapter Sixteen

  SPOOKED

  It is now evening in the CIC, yet probably only I realize it. A symphony of hums that emanate from assorted computers and other equipment is all I hear. As if sculptures, thirteen men sit in silence … thirteen men sit motionless.

  Having revealed such grandeur from late morning until now, my lips twist into a devilish grin. None of the men grins back, but how can they? Dumbfounded, delightfully stupid stares grace every face. So much so, I feel it is near criminal that learned men should suffer such goofy looks. For just a moment, I consider the devious path my grin dearly begs me to set them on: These thirteen practically zombies; I very easily could command each one to strip down to his skivvies, slip on pink tutus, and march into the desert cold more than willing to freeze every bone. Alas, to be alone in such a harsh place is almost as horrid a fate.

  To give the room a much-needed jolt, I leap up and run my fingernails along the map ready for the pieces with which I had earlier teased Dr. Leitz. With a wobbly start, the men begin to exit from their trances. The premise simple, but my purpose sweeping: I need those around me to agree to catapult our story thirty centuries ahead from where we just left off. And if so, they will then be privy to what I have gamely kept hidden.

  “Now … my friends,” I whisper in an almost pleading way. “These codices tell of a world brimming with so much more than just mystic Sapiens and servant Gryphons. As such, I must now ask a most pressing question: Do we wish for just a good story or do we truly seek to understand the civilizations that once existed so far beneath our feet? And if so, if we really want to learn all these scripted plates can teach us, then we must move ahead,
far ahead, into the future of the past. To when wonder filled each new day, to when every kind of intelligent being these five codices speak of were the masters of their own fate. Just say the word and we will travel to the dawn of the apex of this world.”

  My hopeful face begging them to agree is not just for show. It foresees the protests to come next.

  “But the Sapiens, the Gryphons – why stop now?” Victor pleads.

  “Something about a revolution, we cannot skip that!” Alistair tells me.

  “We are fine this way – continue on!” Major Sinclair declares.

  Agreeable café trolleys unexpectedly greet our bickering. Perfect timing to quiet the protests – dinner has arrived. I forcefully let out the breath I have been holding in for nearly a full minute in thanks for this. But then I see something that strikes me as odd: Those who have just delivered our food and drinks hurriedly depart as if an invisible hand shoos them away.

  Most certainly more in anger than hunger, the men attack the trolleys, spitefully slurp their drinks, and snatch up every morsel of food cowering on silver trays. Seated once again, they fire a number of annoyed stares in my direction.

  “Do not worry one bit! Many amazing events inside these thirty centuries will be revealed, I promise. We will meet Queen Gorgynna again, the Arachna and Gryphons never leave us, Mermaids and Centaurs finally join us, and we just may meet a Yeturi.”

  Grunts and groans follow. The second time today I have mentioned the savage Yeturi and not a single question asked about the brutes; for now, fitful anger overrules their curiosity.

  After another fifteen minutes or so of failing miserably to explain my reasons for wanting to leap ahead ––

  I hear the vacuum doors to the CIC open….

  Slippery steps now slither about my ears….

  Even before they come into view, I can smell their stench. A line of men dressed in black suits with white shirts stream in and now stand as a smug group in front of our shocked faces. As if their presence has suddenly cast a shadow over the CIC, the lights dim.