by K Vale Nagle
She closed her journal, put it into a pocket, and then felt the first bite. It was like she’d stepped on a thorn that slipped around the pads of her back paws. Then it throbbed. When she looked down, she saw a whole line of large, red ants making their way out of the branch and onto her hindquarters. She tried to scrape them off with her talons, then leapt into the air.
The ants just clung on tighter with their venomous little mouths.
She landed at a clearing, finally at ground level, and shook them off as best she could, rubbing her hindquarters against a post. It was only when she was sure the biting had finished that she looked up and saw a startled gryphon in a pink harness trying not to laugh.
“Satra?” Kia managed, still a bit out of breath after the ants.
Satra nodded. “Would you like to come in?”
The enclosure was a round dome with an open, woven top and wooden walls that pushed back against the clutter and vegetation on the ground. Kia entered the building and was greeted with a tidal wave of fluff and feathers. Her eyes took a moment to adjust. The light was dim down here despite the cage-like roof. There were thirty gryphons of varying degrees of youth climbing around the nursery. Most of them had black ears like Satra, suggesting they came from the same pride. Others resembled mockingbirds or shrikes in their plumage. Kia looked to an unlit brazier inlaid into a collection of stones.
“It’s not safe to have the fire going with so much down. They’re still clumsy at this age.” Satra turned to two newly-fledged gryphons. “Would you fetch the ointment?”
The two fledglings returned with a paste. Kia turned her head inquisitively at them.
“I’ve been here in the underbough long enough to recognize your little dance,” Satra said. “Ants, yes? Believe me, this will help. The gryphlets get into the ants often enough that I keep a supply within paw’s reach.”
Kia fought to stay still while a stranger applied ointment to her hindquarters and twenty gryphlets watched on. Her embarrassment was at its zenith, though some relief came from the fact that almost all the gryphlets were looking on with commiseration. It probably made them feel better to see that adults ran afoul of ants, too.
“I like your green fur paint,” Satra said. “My sister used to use blue.”
Kia was too shy to say more than a polite thank you.
Satra finished up and sent the kids to play at the far end of the enclosure. “I can’t imagine you found this place by accident. Did the headmaster send you or was it the reeve? If it’s the reeve, tell her I stand by my demands. The gryphlets need better food to develop properly. If it was the headmaster, tell him I don’t care about his research. They may be hostages, but I will not let them be lab pigeons. They’ll be full members of the Crackling Sea Eyrie soon enough.”
Kia tried to sit down but immediately regretted it. Instead, she found a comfortable standing position. Whatever she had thought Satra was, babysitter was not it.
“It’s just me,” Kia said. “No one sent me. You had food delivered here once, so I tracked it down.”
Satra tilted her head a little, inviting Kia to go on.
“I know a little about what’s going on here, about what went on at the Crackling Sea Eyrie. I just don’t understand it.”
Satra laughed. It was a scratchy, worn sound. “It’s simple enough. This is no bog wisp. They strung up a starving gryphon for taking some berries. We made sure they’d know what starving felt like. They brought in the Redwood Valley opinici to attack the kjarr while we were gone. They took the gryphlets and unhatched eggs. Some continued to fight, they died, and their children were killed. The rest agreed to have their wings cut and to fight for the eyries in exchange for their gryphlets remaining unclipped and granted full eyrie membership.”
Kia couldn’t help but notice Satra’s mature plumage. Satra was an adult by any measure and had been for several years at least. She seemed aware of what came next and spread her wings wide.
“Yes, I am no longer a child. My father was good at killing and eating but not so good at having gryphlets. I am his youngest, despite my maturity. My mom and siblings chose to die fighting. The opinici had to make sure my dad would stay in line, so I got to keep my wings.”
“Who’s your father?” Kia asked.
“My father is Jun the Kjarr, leader of the kjarr and bog prides, ravager of the Crackling Sea, blight upon the eyrie. He now leads the wingtorn.”
“Tell me about the wingtorn.”
When Kia slipped away and back into the light of the sun many hours later, she was sure of several things. The eyrie’s depths housed a large, hostile army that would soon march on the fisherfolk. If the kjarr gryphlets, most of whom couldn’t fly, could be moved to a secure location, the eyrie would lose control of the wingtorn.
Someone needed to warn the weald prides before they faced a similar fate. To do that would require finding out where all the explosives had been planted. Cherine’s field notebook had included a map with circled boxes, the alchemical notation for saltpeter, on it throughout the forest. If she was going to seek out Zeph Parrotbane, she’d need to get the original journal back.
There was one opinicus who regularly entered and left the headmaster’s study: the black cockatiel with the ink-stained harness. In Kia’s own notes, she called him “The Scribe” or “The Forger.” Breaking into the headmaster’s study could lead to too much trouble, but the cockatiel’s quarters should be much more accessible. She leaned upon several of the apprentices, promising them her notes and study assistance if they could track down the location of the black cockatiel.
Thankfully, like most functioning addicts, he would likely chalk up any paranoid feelings to his red fern consumption. She had apprentices following him for days. Despite his bloodshot eyes and disheveled plumage, he still maintained a clean and orderly hovel at the edge of university housing.
Kia would be the first to admit she’d led a sheltered life. She didn’t know much about red fern abuse, but she’d heard that addicts could possess super-opinicus strength and speed when confronted. She wished she had Cherine here to ask. He’d at least have an opinion on the matter, even if it turned out to be wrong.
Her best bet, she decided, was to attempt to bribe the cockatiel first. The key to keeping an addict-scribe in your employ, she speculated, was to be the sole supplier of his fern. Since such appetites often grew, she hoped he’d be amiable to a bribe.
She went back to Cherine’s home, taking a moment to hang the chimes she’d purchased for him. From their past relations, she knew he had a small supply of the fern in the back of his larder. It only took a small regular dose to keep male opinici infertile. She found the jar with the powdered herb. Its level was the same as last year when they’d broken up, far too little to bribe anyone with. Standing in his larder while he may be dead, going through his contraceptives, she was overwhelmed by the invasion of privacy. She stumbled outside and flew away in embarrassment.
Kia flew around the university district to help clear her head while she came up with a new plan. She had some beads saved up. She could try to find a fern dealer in the underbough who would sell to her. Underbough fern might be less potent than what the forger was used to. Would low quality fern be enough to buy his silence? Probably not, she conceded.
Below her, the scythe-beak twins were weeding and talking about their lessons. The grass outside the botanical gardens was always under attack from invasive flora—the headmaster’s term. Wire mesh let water and air through while stopping some of the birds and squirrels of the eyrie but often carried seeds out onto the lawn. Once they sprouted, they were returned to the gardens if they looked valuable or moved to compost if they were just weeds. The occasional red fern would sprout up on the lawn in the shady sections next to the botanical gardens but were returned while they were still small. At least, most of them were. She suspected some of the students sold them or tried to grow them in the forests around the eyrie.
Kia landed next to the twins.
“Hello, Kia!” the male scythe-beak chirped.
“We’re just about done here, then we need to get to class. It’s just slow going,” his sister added.
“It’s okay, I’m not here to scold you. I thought I heard the chimes and wanted to make sure you weren’t too caught up in your own discussion.”
“The chimes!” The sister was surrounded by two piles. One was weeds that needed to be taken to compost and the other, smaller pile, was of precious plants to be brought to the botanical gardens.
“We’re going to be late!” The brother looked at all the dirt on his feathers.
Kia pretended to think something over, going so far as to put a claw against her beak. “Well, you two have been so helpful, I suppose I could take care of things here. Just be sure not to track mud into the classroom!”
They both chirped a thank you and flew towards the main building, kicking dirt off their paws as they went and showering several junior apprentices.
Kia looked down at two piles of plants in front of her. She pulled the most gnarled, sun-dried plant she could find from the soon-to-be-compost pile and slipped it into the large pouch on her harness. Then she dug through the pile of valuable plants and pulled out three nascent ferns. The rest of the plants she combined with the compost pile and dropped it off on her way to the front entrance of the botanical gardens.
Kia landed alongside the botanical gardens and peeked around the corner. Two Reeve’s Guards, an owl and a hawk, stood vigil. There were always opinici trying to sneak in to steal the fern, so it had an around-the-chimes watch.
“You haven’t seen some of the weald monitors that sneak in after the turkeys,” the owl was saying. “They’re as big as Commander Wolden.”
The hawk scoffed. “Even Commander Wolden would agree that nothing beats a lace monitor. Remember when that pack of them came through the underbough and we had to chase them all down? They’re nasty little venomous beasties.”
“Wait, cave monitors or lace monitors?” the owl asked.
The hawk bit off some salted meat and chewed. “Aren’t those the same thing?”
Kia got a brisk pace going and came around the corner with her best scholarly look. “Good morning, guards. Just dropping off the latest batch of ferns from the apprentice weeders.”
The guards spared a glance for the ferns she was bringing in and motioned her through. No one tried to smuggle ferns into the botanical gardens, so she hoped no one would stop her.
“Wait!” the owl Reeve’s Guard called out.
Kia froze.
“Is a cave monitor and a lace monitor the same thing?” he asked.
She turned around and put on her best Cherine impression. “Yes! They also go by the name mountain monitor. Did you know that they may not be venomous at all? There’s a theory in academic circles that the germs in their mouth from eating carrion cause them to spread disease to what they bite. I’m in the middle of writing a new tome on the subject and I’d be delighted to bring it by later if you’re interested?”
The look on their faces suggested that they were not, in fact, interested.
“That’s more than okay. We wouldn’t want to take up anymore of your time than is necessary. Sorry to have bothered you,” the owl said.
As she slipped away, she heard the hawk whisper, “Don’t you know better than to ask a question of the university folk? They’ll talk your ear off about nothing.”
She smiled. Cherine might not think she listened to him, but she did. She had a weakness for the esoteric, even on subjects outside her expertise, such as monitor mouth hygiene.
The inside of the botanical garden was both wide and tall. The high ceilings allowed opinici to hang vines from them, and the extra width meant there was enough room to lift off and land without crashing into anything important. The only area with a shorter, opaque roof was where the ferns were kept. She walked past a scholar hard at work on something vine-related and slipped into the shaded section.
The new crop was doing well, considering the past failures. The fern didn’t like to grow this high, preferring the depths of the weald to the heights of opinicus civilization. Even the forested area around the eyrie that housed the turkey population resisted fern growing efforts. Whether that was because the undergrowth had been cleared out, or because opinici snuck past the rangers to steal it, she didn’t know. She looked around and found a fern that looked on its last legs. There was a hole in the roof and direct sunlight was killing it. She replaced it with the dead weed from the yard and slipped the sickly fern into her harness. She consoled herself with the knowledge that it would have died on its own. She was giving it a purpose.
The scholar didn’t look up from his vines as Kia made her escape. The Reeve’s Guards grunted thanks and went back to arguing, this time about sailfin monitors. She was out of the botanical gardens and at her nest with no one the wiser.
Kia awoke the next morning before first chimes. She was sure that any moment someone would discover her deception at the botanical gardens and drag her off to jail. When she opened the door to her nest, she found a clay pot full of ointment left at her doorstep. Inside of it was a note that was just legible with all the marks of a gryphon scratching into vellum.
They left last night on the old goliath bird trail south of the eyrie. -Satra
Kia frowned. She’d expected to have at least another day to sort this out. Still, the apprentices she’d talked to had said the cockatiel spent all night working. If she approached his hovel now, at the break of dawn, he might be at his most receptive after a night of forging.
She slipped on her harness, fern still inside, and flew to the edge of the university district. Instead of ringing the chime, she pushed aside his door and walked right in.
The cockatiel looked up from his work. His feathers were stained with ink. His eyes had trouble focusing on her after staring at the written words for so many hours. She waited for him to speak.
“You…you’re…” he stopped. “Who are you?”
“I’m Kia, university scholar.”
He nodded. “Are you here to pick up the books for the headmaster?”
She looked at the pile of books next to him. They included copies of most of the forbidden teachings with new bindings. Was the headmaster setting up a new library somewhere outside of the university? Or were these gifts, perhaps for a colleague at the Crackling Sea Eyrie?
“Not the copies, but he needed a few of the originals,” she lied.
“Sure, take what you need.” He turned back to his current project.
Kia hesitated, then took out the stolen red fern. “Go easy on this, okay?”
Focus and recognition returned to his eyes. He seemed to understand that Neider hadn’t sent her. She could see the war inside of the forger. Fortunately for her, addiction won. He took the fern and went into a back room to prepare it.
She opened the original version of Cherine’s field notebook and carefully cut away the page that included his maps. Since the page contained a different map on each side, she hoped no one would notice it was missing. The reeve and headmaster likely had their own maps and didn’t need Cherine’s incomplete list. Then she closed the book and slipped away before the forger returned.
Kia packed lightly. She hid the map in the binding of a journal that was otherwise empty. Her other goods were all practical: food, but not too much of it; a container of ink; and a few quill pens. The quill pens were the only place she allowed sentimentality to slip in. If Cherine were alive, he could make her more. Just in case he wasn’t, she took one of the pens he’d given her and slipped it into her harness.
She thought about going into his house and looking for something he might miss. Hadn’t his mother gotten him a special harness? Maybe a book? But her earlier violation of his privacy had been too much for her. What if she found some keepsake she’d given him or a letter? It was nearly midday. The skies would be most crowded now, so it was time for her to leave while she wouldn’t stand out. She close
d the skylight, secured the door to her nest against squirrels, and then flew off southwest towards Hatzel’s section of the weald.
6
Merin
When Merin was young, just after he’d taken on his adult feathers but before he’d grown to the near-Hatzel size he was now, he would watch his father to learn how to become a pride leader. While the young Merin felt impatience at everything, his father seemed impervious to the daily annoyances. As members of the pride explained their issues—more trifles than troubles—his father would listen, unmoving. His patience had seemed supernatural to fledgling Merin, something his father had just been born with. Even his father’s tail remained frozen, a feat few gryphons could replicate. Merin had once watched a forest spinner crawl across his father’s tail. His father hadn’t as much as blinked.
It seemed ominous, now, thinking back to the calm his father had shown right before his death. He’d stood his ground against a stampede of goliath birds, escapees from an earlier grasslands experiment, to protect a nest of unhatched eggs in the birds’ path. Like with the spider on his tail, he hadn’t flinched when the stampede trampled him. Not that his death had been in vain. The lead bird had been spooked by its collision with the gryphon and turned left just enough to keep from trampling the nest.
The eggs had been saved. The goliath birds were hunted down and eaten—mostly by his pride, though some were tithed to the medicine gryphons. It was much later when Merin found out that his father had been born as precocious as any gryphlet but had trained himself to be preternaturally calm after taking over as pride leader. Upon hearing this, Merin had spent years practicing a stoic look that replaced his underlying feelings of impatience.
