Law of the Broken Earth: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Three

by Neumeier, Rachel

  Mienthe nodded and started to speak, but then stopped. The sun was nearly down, flashing flame-red against the flat horizon where sea met sky. Other than that distant blaze, the world had gone dark. The dark and hidden depths of the marshes rolled out beyond the city; nearer at hand, the earliest stars glimmered into sight to meet the warmer glow of lanterns and lamps in the streets below. Bertaud took a taper from the desk, struck it to life, and stretched up to light the lamps that hung from the ceiling on bronze chains.

  And outside the windows of the solar, a sudden blackness moved against the sky. It spread out, bulking enormous—not a bird, no bird would be so large, but certainly not clouds across the sky; it moved too fast and looked all wrong for that. She held her breath, half expecting it to crash against the windows—shattering glass would fly everywhere—she took a step back in fearful anticipation. But then the dark shape, if she’d really ever seen it at all, dwindled and disappeared.

  Mienthe took a step closer to the windows, blinking, wondering whether she’d actually seen something or merely imagined it.

  Behind her, Bertaud made a wordless sound that held an extraordinary combination of astonishment, longing, intense joy, and anger.

  She turned. There was a man in the solar with them. A stranger. He was much older than Mienthe—older than Bertaud, she thought, though she did not understand why she thought so. His black hair was not streaked with gray and his eyes were ageless, but Mienthe was sure that he was actually much older than he looked. He had an austere, proud face and powerful deep-set black eyes. His clothing was all of black and a red as dark as dying coals.

  And there was something strange about his shadow. It wasn’t just the flickering light of the lamps: The shadow itself flickered with fire; it was made of fire, but with eyes as black as those of the man who cast it. And it was the wrong shape—not the shape of a man at all, but Mienthe could not have said what form could have cast it. She took another involuntary step back, expecting the rugs and drapes and polished wood of the solar to blaze up in flames. But the shadow seemed to contain its fire, and nothing else burned. Then the man turned his head, glancing at her with a strange kind of indifferent curiosity. Mienthe saw that although his eyes were black, they, too, were filled with fire. She stared back, feeling pinned in place with shock and terror, like a hare under the shadow of a falcon.

  Then Bertaud took a step forward. He said sharply, “Kairaithin. Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin. Why have you come here?”

  The stranger turned his attention back to him, and the moment passed.

  Beneath the sharpness, Bertaud’s voice shook. But not, thought Mienthe, in terror. Whatever strong emotion gripped her cousin, it was not fear. Nor had Bertaud moved—say, to step in front of her. He did not pay her any attention at all. Rather than feeling hurt or overlooked, Mienthe found this reassuring. The man—the mage—whoever he was, he had to be a mage, though she had never heard of any mage who cast a shadow of fire—but he could not be so dangerous if her cousin, who clearly knew him, did not think Mienthe needed protection.

  Bertaud did not wait for an answer, but said, his tone changing, “You look tired. You look… older. Are you… are you well, then?” His voice had dropped, the anger replaced by… worry? Fear? Mienthe wasn’t certain what she heard in his voice. “Did it harm you, crossing the Wall?” Bertaud asked. And then, “But how did you cross it?”

  The man—the fire mage, Kairaithin—tilted his head, somehow a strange motion that made Mienthe think of the way a bird moved; it had something of that quick, abrupt quality. Mienthe saw that his shadow was a bird’s shadow, only too large and feathered with fire, and not altogether the shape of a bird. She blinked and at last recognized what creature cast that kind of shadow—she couldn’t believe she’d been so slow to understand. This was not a man at all, not at all. He was a griffin. The human shape he wore just barely disguised the fact, and only for a moment.

  The griffin said, “The answer to all your questions is the same answer.”

  His voice was as outrageously inhuman as his shadow: pitiless as fire and with a strange timbre, as though his tongue and throat were not accustomed to shaping the sounds of any ordinary language. He stood very still, watching Bertaud. Not as a falcon watches a hare, Mienthe thought, but she was not sure why she thought it was different, or why she thought the stranger was… not exactly afraid, but wary.

  Bertaud, too, stood unmoving. Mienthe thought he had recovered from his astonishment, but she thought he was bracing himself against some message he would not welcome. He said, “What is that answer?”

  “The Wall has cracked,” the griffin said. Then he was still again, watching Bertaud.

  Bertaud clearly understood this very well. “Tehre’s Wall?” her cousin said, not a question, but in clear dismay. “How?”

  “I do not know. It should have stood for a thousand years, that making,” answered the griffin—Kairaithin, Anasakuse Something Kairaithin—and how did her cousin come to know his name? Or the names of any griffins?

  Bertaud said, “I thought it would.”

  “Yes. Something disturbed the balance, which should have been secure. The Wall has cracked through twice—in the east where the lake lies high in the mountains and then again in the higher mountains of the west, near where the mouth of the lake called Niambe finds its source.”

  Bertaud took a step forward. “Is it a problem with the wild magic, then? Does that interfere with the mageworking?”

  Kairaithin moved a hand in a minimal gesture of bafflement. “Perhaps. The wild magic has lately trembled, yes. Something has troubled it. Or so I felt as I came through the heights. Though why, then, have both the wild magic and the maker’s magic woven into the Wall changed this spring, now, at this moment?” He did not attempt to answer his own question, but only stood still again, watching her cousin.

  “So you came here to me,” said Bertaud, and stopped. There was an expectation in his silence. He was waiting… he expected something from the griffin mage. Something specific. Something, Mienthe thought, that he did not really want to receive, or hear, or know. And the mage expected something from her cousin as well.

  “Twice, you have tasked me with my oversight when I did not warn you of an approaching storm,” said Kairaithin. “This time I think it best that you know what comes. This wind that approaches now… it will be a savage wind. If the Wall does not hold, as I think it will not, then my people will come down across the country of earth in a storm of fire.” There was neither apology nor regret in his tone as he said this. He simply said it. But there was an odd trepidation hidden behind the fierce indifference of his voice. He was afraid of what Bertaud might say or do, Mienthe realized. She blinked, not understanding this at all. She didn’t understand why a griffin fire mage—a griffin mage so powerful he could take on human shape and draw himself right out of air and the sunset light—should be afraid of anyone. Certainly not why he should be afraid of her cousin.

  “Why would they?” asked Bertaud. “How can they? Six years ago, you said that if your people fought mine without quarter, yours would be destroyed. How has that changed? Discounting what—what might prevent them. You have not told them about that?”

  “No, nor dare I. Everything I told you six years ago remains true,” Kairaithin said sharply. “Save this one thing: My people now count among their treasures the fire mage Kereskiita Keskainiane Raikaisipiike. Kes. My kiinukaile Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike remains her first iskarianere, but Kes has also taken Tastairiane Apailika as a second iskarianere.”

  “Tastairiane!” Bertaud exclaimed, flinching from a name he evidently recognized.

  “Even so. Kes has come entirely into her power. She has become fierce and forgotten the earth from which she was taken. She calls for a wind of fire and a brilliant day of blood, and though I would speak against her, I have no allies among the People of Fire and Air.”

  Bertaud said, “Even without allies, Sipiike Kairaithin, can you not turn that wind, n
o matter how strong the storm, and find another for your people to ride?”

  “You mistake me,” said Kairaithin. And, after a moment, “Do you not understand me, man? When I say I have no allies, I mean I fly alone. The Lord of Fire and Air no longer regards my opinion. He has not since I supported the building of the Wall. He does not understand… none of my people understand… why, on that night of fire, I chose to turn the wind we had brought down against Casmantium. He believes I deliberately caught defeat out of a wind that should have carried us to victory.”

  There was a pause. Then Bertaud said quietly, “No. I did not know.” And, after a moment, “I am sorry, Kairaithin. I would do the same again. But I’m sorry the cost of what we all did that night fell on you.”

  The griffin mage shrugged off his sympathy. “It has mattered little. While earth and fire were divided, the People of Fire and Air had little need for my strength. Now that the Wall’s protection is failing, they still need not regard me.” The griffin mage paused. But then he said, his voice not precisely gentle, but so low Mienthe had to strain to hear him, “I would I had found a different wind to call, these six years past, when the cold mages of Casmantium first struck against my people. This one has come about into a different quarter than I ever intended. I see only two directions in which it may lead: the destruction of your people or the destruction of mine. I would choose neither. But I do not see any wind that can carry us in any direction but toward disaster.”

  “But—” said Bertaud, and stopped.

  “Yes,” said the griffin. “I am at fault. I am twice at fault. If I had properly judged the wind as I called it up six years ago, I would have guessed what storm it might become. If I had understood that, I would have seen plainly that I should have killed you, there in that desert we made with such bitter cost. Now the chance is gone and I do not know what to do. So I came here to you, though you did not call me. Will you hold me?”

  Bertaud did not answer at once. At last he said, “No,” and hesitated, glancing down. And then looked up once more to meet Kairaithin’s fierce gaze. “Not yet. Not if I can avoid it—How long will the Wall stand, can you guess?”

  The griffin mage shrugged. “Not long, unless the balance between fire and earth and the wild magic is restored. And, as I do not know what disturbed it, I cannot guess how it might be restored. I have studied the weakness in the Wall over these past days. I have considered the lengthening and branching of the cracks. I do not think it will hold long. Five days?”

  “Five!” Bertaud exclaimed.

  “Or six. Or ten.” Kairaithin lifted a hand and dropped it again in weary uncertainty. “I do not think it will hold longer than ten days, if it holds so long. And what will you do when it breaks, man?”

  Bertaud did not answer.

  Mienthe had an idea the griffin might have said something else, something more, only she was in the room, listening. His black eyes shifted to consider her. She flinched and tried not to back away, though she couldn’t have explained why she thought it would be a bad idea to back away.

  Kairaithin turned his gaze back toward Bertaud. “This is… your mate? Your child?”

  “My cousin,” Bertaud said. Then added, “My iskarianere—I think that would do.” He moved to stand next to Mienthe, put an arm around her shoulders. Not exactly protectively. Even now, it did not seem to occur to him that she might need protection. Now she had at last drawn the griffin’s attention, Mienthe found this extremely reassuring.

  “She is yours. I shall not harm her. I have no inclination to harm her. Do you understand me, man?”

  “Yes,” Bertaud said.

  Mienthe wondered what he’d understood that she had missed. This did not seem the moment to ask.

  “What will you do?” asked Kairaithin.

  “I don’t know. Warn Iaor. Go north. Wait to see what happens to the Wall. What will you do?”

  “I?” There was a slight pause. “I will seek an alternative wind, though I do not yet perceive any faintest whisper of any breeze I should wish to call up. And I will wait for you to call me. Call me, man, before you call any other. Shall I trust you so far?”

  “Just so far,” Bertaud said, rather more grimly than seemed reasonable for such an answer.

  The griffin mage inclined his proud head. His black eyes blazed with fire and something else less identifiable; even the black eyes of his fiery shadow burned. Then he was gone.

  Mienthe took a step away from Bertaud and looked at him incredulously.

  “Mienthe—” her cousin began, then dropped into a chair, bowed his head against his hand, and laughed. There was little humor in the sound. He laughed as though he did not know whether he should weep.

  Mienthe went to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and bent to rest her cheek against the top of his head. She did not speak.

  After a while, Bertaud stopped laughing. He put a hand up to cover hers, where it still rested on his shoulder, and said, “It will be… everything will come right, in the end.” He did not say it as though reassuring a young child, nor did he say it with the foolish confidence of a man who believes that a peril must surely be averted simply because he wishes it will be. He said it like a hope. Like an entreaty to the future.

  “Yes,” said Mienthe, because that was what he needed her to say. She took his hand in hers, tucked her legs up under her skirts, and sat on the floor beside his chair as she had used to do when she was a child. She leaned her cheek against his knee, saying nothing more.

  For a long time they sat like that, while the last glimmers of fire-tinged light faded in the west. The lamplight in the solar turned the window glass into an opaque mirror and showed Mienthe her face and her cousin’s. She thought she looked shocked, but that Bertaud looked desolate.

  “You seem… very calm,” Bertaud said at last, his eyes meeting hers in the glass.

  Mienthe did not know what to say. She was surprised he thought so.

  “Do you know… did you understand…” But her cousin did not seem to know how to finish either sentence.

  “He was a griffin,” Mienthe said in a small voice. “You knew his name… you knew him. He came to warn you about danger. About a fire mage who is your enemy. About danger to the Wall—the Wall in Casmantium, the one you helped to build.”

  “Tehre’s Wall. Yes. But I didn’t help build it. I was only there when it was built.” Bertaud paused. He added, reluctantly, Mienthe thought, “Maybe my presence convinced Kairaithin to help build it.”

  “He is a griffin and a mage,” Mienthe said, trying to get this all straight in her mind. “He helped you six years ago when the griffins came into Feierabiand. You stopped us battling them and made them our allies. And then he helped you again when you—when the Casmantian Wall was built. Between fire and earth, he said. Between the… the griffins’ desert and the country of men? He is your friend…” She hesitated, feeling strongly that the word did not exactly apply. But she did not know what other word to use. She repeated, “He is your friend, and he has suffered for it.”

  “I think he has,” Bertaud said. He sounded tired and disheartened.

  “And now the Wall is going to break? And there will be a… a war between fire and earth? I thought… I never heard anyone say that the griffins were dangerous to us. Only maybe to the northern towns of Casmantium, up close to where the desert lies.”

  “Yes,” said Bertaud. “No. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  He clearly did not want to explain. Mienthe said cautiously, looking up at him, “And the griffin mage, he thinks you might do something again. As you did six years ago? What was it you did?” The lamplight sent golden light and uncertain shadows across her cousin’s face, so that his shape seemed to change as she gazed at him: First he seemed wholly a creature of ordinary earth, and then, as the light shifted, half a creature of fire.

  “Nothing I ever want to do again,” he said succinctly, and got to his feet. Then he just stood for a moment, looking down at her. He
asked, “What did you think of Kairaithin?”

  Mienthe, too, rose to her feet, not very gracefully from her place on the floor. She wondered what her cousin wanted her to say. That she liked his friend? But she couldn’t say she did. That she appreciated what the griffin mage had done for him? But she had no clear idea what that had been. She said at last, “He is very… very… He frightened me. But his shadow is beautiful.”

  Bertaud smiled at her, the weariness she saw in him seeming to lighten a little. “Did you think so? He frightened you, that’s reasonable. But he didn’t terrify you. Good.”

  Mienthe nodded uncertainly. “But what will you do now?”

  “Now?” He paused, seeming to consider. Then he said, with evident reluctance, “I suppose now I had better speak to Iaor. I suppose we will ride north.”

  Mienthe felt very young and ignorant. She wanted to ask her cousin about the Wall, about the griffins. She wanted very badly to ask again, But what was it that you did? And she wanted to ask again, What will you do now? But it was very clear he was evading all questions like those. To protect her? Or because, as Mienthe suspected, he did not know the answers himself? She said instead, humbly, “May I come with you to see the king? I would like—I would like to know what you will do.”

  Bertaud looked distractedly down at her, half his attention already turning toward what he would tell the king. Or maybe to memories of the past: memories of fire and the Casmantian Wall. But after a moment he nodded. “Yes. Come. If I go north, Mie, you’ll stand in my place as the Lady of the Delta.”

  Mienthe stared at him.

  “So you must certainly hear what Iaor and I decide to do,” finished her cousin, and touched her shoulder to urge her toward the door.

  * * *

  Niethe daughter of Jereien, known since her marriage as Niethe Jereien Safiad Nataviad in the most formal, old-fashioned style, was a lovely and charming woman who was much younger than King Iaor. Indeed, she was not so very much older than Mienthe. Queen Niethe enjoyed being queen, loved her royal husband, doted on her little daughters, and loathed travel with a deep passion. She detested the mud of winter and the dusty summer, she hated rain, and she said the bright sun gave her headaches and made her skin freckle. She insisted on wearing unsuitable clothing and then complained of wrinkles and stains. She would not ride a horse, but then found fault with the closeness of her carriage.