difference was critical.
No, thank you. I am very fond of obscurity, all things considered.
It would be no bad thing to be an obscure Silver, always assigned to the
Outposts, hopefully collecting enough extra from his discoveries to finance a
comfortable style of living. Let Keeth collect all the notoriety of being the first
gryphon trondi’irn; Tad would be happy to donate whatever measure of “fame”
fate had in store for him to his brother! Just as he had finished that thought,
he noticed that the others were looking at him. Evidently Keeth had run out of
things to say, and it was his turn again.
Oh, bother.
Skandranon cleared his throat. As always, the sound, an affectation
acquired from living so much with humans, sounded very odd coming from a
gryphon.
It sounds as if he’s trying to cough up a hairball, actually.
“Well!” Skandranon said heartily. “Your mother and I are very interested in
hearing about this outpost you’re being sent to. What do you know about it?”
Tad sighed with resignation, and submitted himself to the unrelenting
pressure of parental love.
Blade couldn’t bring herself to sit, although she managed to keep from
pacing along the edge of the cliff. The stone here was a bit precarious for
pacing—how ignoble if she should slip and fall, breaking something, and force
Judeth and Aubri to send someone else to the outpost after all! Tad would
never, ever forgive me. Or else—he’d take a new partner and go, and I would
be left behind to endure parental commiserations.
Ikala sat on a rock and watched the sunset rather than her. He’d asked her
to meet him here for a private farewell; her emotions were so mixed now that
she honestly didn’t know what to say to him. So far, he hadn’t said anything to
her, and she waited for him to begin.
He cleared his throat, still without looking at her. “So, you leave tomorrow.
For several months, I’m told?” Of course, he knew her assignment, everyone
in the Silvers did; he was just using the question as a way to start the
conversation.
The sun ventured near to the ocean; soon it would plunge down below the
line of the horizon. Her throat and tongue felt as if they belonged to someone
else. “Yes,” she finally replied. Now she knew why , people spoke of being
“tongue-tied.” It had been incredibly difficult just to get that single word out.
She wanted to say more; to ask if he would miss her, if he was angry that
she was leaving just as their friendship looked to become something more.
She wanted to know if he was hurt that she hadn’t consulted him, or chosen
him as her partner instead of Tad. Above all, she wanted to know what he
was thinking.
Instead, she couldn’t say anything.
“Come and sit,” he said, gesturing at the rocks beside him. “You do not look
comfortable.”
I’m not, she said silently. I’m as twitchy as a nervous cat.
But she sat down anyway, warily, gingerly. The sun-warmed rock felt
smooth beneath her hand, worn to satin-softness by hundreds of years of
wind and water. She concentrated on the rock, mentally holding to its solidity
and letting it anchor her heart.
“I am both happy for you and sad, Blade,” Ikala said, as if he was carefully
weighing and choosing each word. “I am happy for you, because you are
finally being granted—what you have earned. It is a good thing. But I am sad
because you will be gone for months.”
He sighed, although he did not stir. Blade held herself tensely, waiting for
him to continue, but he said nothing more. She finally turned toward him. “I
wanted an assignment like this one very much,” she agreed. “I’m not certain I
can explain why, though—”
But unexpectedly, as he half-turned to meet her eyes, he smiled. “Let me
try,” he suggested, and there was even a suggestion of self-deprecating
humor. “You feel smothered by your honored parents and, perversely, wish
for their approval of a life so different from theirs. Additionally, you fear that
their influence will either purchase you an easier assignment than you
warrant, or will insure that you are never placed in any sort of danger. You
wish to see what you can do with only the powers of your own mind and your
own skills, and if you are not far away from them, you are certain you will
never learn the answer to that question.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, startled by his insight. “But how did you—•” Then she
read the message behind that rueful smile, the shrug of the dark-skinned
shoulders. “You came here for the same reason, didn’t you?”
He nodded once, and his deep brown eyes showed that same self-
deprecating humor that had first attracted her. “The same. And that is why,
although I wish that you were not going so far or for so long— or that we were
going to the same place—I wanted you to know that I am content to wait upon
your return. We will see what you have learned, and what that learning has
made of you.”
“And you think I will be different?” She licked her lips with a dry tongue.
“At least in part,” he offered. “You may return a much different person than
the one you are now; not that I believe that I will no longer care much for that
different person! But that person and I may prove to be no more than the best
of friends and comrades-in-arms. And that will not be a bad thing, though it is
not the outcome I would prefer.”
She let out her breath and relaxed. He was being so reasonable about this
that she could hardly believe her ears! “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think
I’ve spent so much time proving who I’m not that I don’t know who I am.”
“So go and find out,” he told her, and laughed, now reaching out to touch
her hand briefly. The touch sent a shivery chill up her arm. “You see, I had to
come here to do the same thing. So I have some understanding of the
process.”
“Are you glad that you came here?” she asked, wondering if the question
was too personal, and wishing he would do more than just touch her hand.
Now it was his turn to look away, into the sunset, for a moment. “On the
whole—yes,” he told her. “Although in doing so, it became impossible to follow
the alternate path I might have taken. There was a maiden, back in my
father’s court—but she was impatient, and did not like it that I chose to go
somewhere other than to the court of another emperor. She saw my choice as
a lessening of my status, and my leaving as a desertion of her. I have heard
that she wedded elsewhere, one of my more traditional half-brothers.”
“Oh—I’m sorry—” she said quickly, awkwardly.
But he turned back to her, and did not seem particularly unhappy as he ran
his hand across his stiff black curls. “There is not a great deal to be sorry
about,” he pointed out. “If she saw it as desertion, she did not know me; if I
could not predict that she would, I did not know her. So. . . .” He shrugged.
“Since it was not long before my sorrow was gone, I suspect my own feelings
were not as deep as she wo
uld have liked, nor as I had assumed.”
“It’s not as if you were lacking in people willing to console you here!” she
pointed out recklessly, with a feeling of breathlessness that she couldn’t
explain. She laughed to cover it.
“And that is also true.” His smile broadened. “And it was not long before I
felt no real need of such consolation, as I had another interest to concentrate
on.”
Her feeling of breathlessness intensified; this was the nearest he had come
to flirting with her, and yet behind the playfulness, there was more than a hint
of seriousness. Did she want that? She didn’t know. And now—she was very
glad that she was going to have three months to think about it.
“Well, I think, on the whole, it will be a good thing for you to have six
months to learn what it is that Blade is made of,” he said, in a lighter tone.
“And I shall have the benefit of knowing that there will be no other young men
at this outpost that may convince you to turn your attentions elsewhere. So
any decisions you make—concerning our friendship—will be decisions made
by you, only.”
She snorted. “As if any young man could ‘make me change my mind’ about
anything important!” she replied, just a little sharply.
“Which only proves that I cannot claim to know you any better than any
other friend!” he countered. “You see? This much I do understand; you have a
strong sense of duty, and that will always be the first in your heart. I would like
to think that I am the same. So, whatever, we must reconcile ourselves to that
before we make any other commitments.”
It was her turn to shrug. “That seems reasonable . . . but it isn’t exactly . . .
romantic.” That last came out much more plaintively than she had expected,
or intended.
“Well, if it is a romantic parting that you wish—” He grinned. “I can be both
practical and romantic, as, I suspect, can you.” He took one of her hands, but
only one, and looked directly into her eyes. “Silverblade, I crossed an empire,
I left my land and all I have ever known. I did not expect to find someone like
you here, and yet—I do not follow some of my people’s reasoning that all is
foredestined, but it sometimes seems as if I was drawn here because you
were here. Now I know something of what I am. I believe that there is in you a
spirit that would make a match for my own. If, in the end, a few months more
will bring us together, such a wait will be no hardship.” He patted her hand. “I
trust that is romance enough for your practical soul?”
She laughed giddily. “I think so,” she said, feeling as light-headed’as if she
had just drunk an entire bottle of wine. “I—I’m not nearly that eloquent—”
“Neither is the falcon,” he said, releasing her hand. “But she is admirable
for her grace without need of eloquence. Go become a passage bird,
Silverblade. When you return, we shall try out hunting in a cast of two.”
Blade hadn’t needed to do all that much packing last night, but she had
pretended that she did—and as soon as she was done, she blew out her
candle and willed herself to sleep. The need for rest was real, and if she had
not torn herself away from her overly-concerned parents, she would not have
gotten any. They would have kept her up all night with questions, most of
which she didn’t have any answers to, since all of them were fairly
philosophical rather than practical.
She dressed quickly and quietly, and without relighting her candle. With
any luck, only her mother would be awake; Winterhart, for some reason,
seemed to be handling this better than her spouse. Don’t people usually
complain that their mothers never see them as grown up? she thought, as she
pulled on a pair of light boots, then fastened the silver gryphon badge to the
breast of her tunic.
The Silvers had no regular uniform; Judeth thought it better that they wear
the same clothing as those around them. Uniforms might remind people too
much of the regular troops, and war, and even the most battle-hardened
wanted to put warfare far behind them.
Now—if I can just walk quietly enough, I might be able to get out of here
without another discussion of my life-view.
Her father Amberdrake was notorious for sleeping late—to be fair, it was
usually because he’d been up late the night before, working—and she hoped
by rising with the first light, she might avoid him at breakfast.
But no. When she carried her two small packs out to leave beside the door,
she saw that there were candles burning in the rest of the house. Amberdrake
was already up.
In fact, as soon as she turned toward the rear of the dwelling, she saw him;
dressed, alert, and in the little nook at the back of the main room that they
used for meals, waiting for her. But so was her mother, which might temper
things a bit.
She sighed, while her face was still in shadow and he couldn’t see her
expression. Breakfast with Amberdrake was always a bit strained at the best
of times, and this was not going to be “the best” of times.
He keeps remembering when he was the chief kestra‘chern and it was his
habit to find out about -his fellows when they all drifted in for breakfast. He
keeps trying to do the same thing with me.
“Good morning, Father,” she said, feeling terribly awkward, as she
approached the tiny table. “You’re not usually up so early.”
She wondered if Amberdrake’s smile was strained; he was too good at
keeping a serene mask for her to tell. However, it was obvious that he had
taken special pains with his appearance. Silk tunic and trews, raw-silk coat,
some of his Haighlei gift-jewelry, and Zhaneel‘s feather in his hair. You ‘d
think he was having an audience with Shalaman.
She regarded him objectively for a moment. He was still a strikingly
handsome man. Despite the white streaks in his hair, her father scarcely
looked his age in the low mage-light above the table, and the warm browns
and ambers of his clothing disguised in part the fact that there were dark
circles under his eyes.
Caused by worrying, no doubt.
“I didn’t want to miss saying good-bye to you, Silverblade,” he said, his
voice quite calm and controlled. “If I slept until a decent hour, I knew that I
would. You dawn risers are enough to make a normal person’s eyes cross.”
She knew that her answering laugh was a bit strained, but there was no
help for it. “And you night prowlers are enough to make people like me
scream when we think of all the perfectly good daylight you waste sleeping!”
She slid into the seat opposite him, and helped herself to fresh bread and
preserves. He reached across the table and added thinly-sliced cold meat to
the plate quite firmly. She didn’t really want anything that substantial first thing
in the morning, but she knew better than to say so. Why start an argument?
That would be a poor way to leave her parents.
What can it hurt to nibble a piece to please him? It can’t, of course. Not that
long ago, she would have protested; now she knew there was no point in
<
br /> doing so. She’d only hurt his feelings. He was only trying to help.
And after today he won’t be able to be so meddlingly helpful for six whole
months! I should be pitying the people, gryphon and human and her-tasi alike,
who will wind up as my surrogates for his concern.
She ate one slice of the meat, which was dry and tasted like a mouthful of
salty old leather, and went back to her bread. Amberdrake pushed a cup of
hot tea toward her, then made a move as if he was about to serve her a bowl
of hot porridge from the pot waiting beside him.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. Not for anything would she eat porridge, not even
for the sake of pleasing her father! “None of that! Not when I’m flying! I do not
want to decorate the landscape underneath me!”
Amberdrake flushed faintly and pulled his hand back. “Sorry. I forgot that
you didn’t inherit my impervious stomach.”
“No, she inherited my questionable one. Stop badgering the child, dear.”
Winterhart emerged at last from the rear of the dwelling, putting the last
touches on her hair. Blade admired the way she moved with a twinge of envy.
Winterhart managed to combine a subtle sensuality with absolute confidence
and a no-nonsense competence that Blade despaired of emulating.
Now if I looked like that. . . . Ah, well. Too bad I inherited Mother’s interior
instead of her exterior!
Unlike her mate, Winterhart had not dressed for a special occasion, which
much relieved Blade. Her costume of a long linen split skirt, tunic, and knee-
length, many-pocketed vest, was similar to anything she would wear on any
other day. The only concession she had made to Amberdrake’s sartorial
splendor was to harmonize with his browns and ambers with her own browns
and creams.
“I hope we won’t be unwelcome, but we would like to see you and Tadrith
leaving, Blade,” Winterhart said, quite casually, as if they were only leaving for
a few days, not six months. “We do know how to stay out from underfoot, after
all. Yours is not the first expedition we’ve seen on its way.”
Now it was her turn to flush. “Well, of course I want you there to see us off!
Of course you won’t be in the way!” she replied, acutely embarrassed. “I
would never think that!”
The only trouble was, deep down inside, she had been thinking precisely
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt Page 7
