Year of the Griffin

by Diana Wynne Jones

  As every male person in the University afterward agreed, and this included the cook, the janitor, the porter, and half the office staff, anyone else who was lucky enough to have Melissa fling her arms around him would have made the most of it. Not Wermacht. He unwrapped Melissa and shoved her aside. He said, “This is a ridiculous fuss over nothing. You with the secondhand jacket and you with the armor, pick up those desks. And you come out from inside those books, whoever you are.”

  “He can’t,” Olga explained. “They only go away when the danger’s over.”

  Wermacht stroked his beard smugly. “There is no danger,” he said.

  At this everyone gasped and tried to explain that the ghostly figure made up of whirling ashes was a trained assassin and that the fact that Felim was still inside the beehive showed there was danger.

  “There is no danger,” Wermacht repeated, against the chorus of agitated voices. “Go and sit at your desks, all of you. Corkoran will be here shortly. I have sent him a warn-spell. Wait quietly until he gets here. Let’s have no more silly screaming and rushing about.”

  “The man’s mad!” Ruskin said as everyone moved nervously to sit down.

  When Corkoran swept into the North Lab with his pink iris tie streaming over one shoulder, he was slightly surprised to find all the students sitting uneasily at a somewhat uneven row of desks—uneven because a large space had to be left for the beehive standing in the middle of the lab—while Wermacht stood with his arms proudly folded beside the peculiar whirling figure on the hearth.

  “Ah, Corkoran,” Wermacht said in his smarmiest manner, “I’ve neutralized the assassin for you, as you see, but I didn’t like to ash him completely without word from you, so I’ve kept him under my spell until you got here.”

  There was a gasp of pure indignation from Claudia. Her face was almost olive-colored as she whispered to Olga, “It was my spell! It’s almost the only one I’ve done that worked!”

  Corkoran was saying at the same moment, “Thanks, Wermacht. Very good of you.” He had a bag of Inescapable Net ready for this one. He reached out and rather tentatively tweaked at the nearest twirling flake of ash in the creature’s arm. To his relief, the assassin promptly became a two-inch-high pile of whirling dust. Corkoran blew it into his bag with a minor draft spell and no trouble at all. He stood up, smiled soothingly around at the students, and walked away.

  A slight thumping made him turn in the doorway. Felim was now standing where the beehive had been. Felim’s face was red, and his usually smooth black hair was sticking out in all directions, but he was grinning at Elda.

  “Five down,” Corkoran heard someone say as he hurried away. “Two to go.” He hoped whoever said that was wrong. He had had enough alarms. And the rat cage was quite crowded when he tipped the little dust storm into it. He turned it back into a rat-size man to prevent it trying to squeeze through the bars or the net, and the cage seemed more crowded than ever. Yes, he thought, as he went back to the careful magics of the moonship, five assassins is quite enough.

  An hour later the students boiled out of the North Lab into the courtyard, full of indignation. Every one of them was sufficiently attuned to magic to know that Wermacht had not cast a spell of any kind on the assassin. “Taking the credit just to suck up to Corkoran!” most of them were saying. “What a creep!” Even Melissa was saying it, and she was more indignant than anyone. “Did you see the way he treated me?” she kept asking. “I might have been a dog with mange!”

  “I must say I am highly interested that everyone else has arrived at the same opinion of Wermacht as we have,” Felim remarked. “It suggests that our judgment was sound.”

  “I’m just downright relieved that the protections came back around you,” said Olga. “My heart stood still when I saw those legs coming down the chimney. What’s the matter, Claudia?”

  “Nothing—or at least I have the most dreadful mixed feelings,” Claudia said. “You don’t know how good it feels to do a spell that works for once! But then I think of the way it turned a person into ash and I feel dreadful! And I keep hoping Corkoran isn’t going to do anything terrible to him.”

  “Of course he isn’t,” said Ruskin.

  “He’s probably simply going to release him into the wild or something,” Lukin said soothingly. “That’s the obvious thing to do. And let’s hope those protections go on working because there are still two more assassins somewhere.”

  Everyone knew there were two more. The entire student population, not to speak of the kitchen staff and the janitor, spent the rest of the day jumping at sudden noises and looking nervously over their shoulders. Felim’s friends arranged that he should never be alone. “But I am quite all right! The protection is better than armor,” Felim protested when Ruskin insisted on coming with him every time he went to the toilet.

  “Yes, but do you know how long the spell will last?” Ruskin retorted.

  The rest of Felim’s friends insisted that he spend the day in Elda’s room, where there was space for everyone.

  “I don’t pretend to be a fighter,” Lukin said, “but I can open a pit anytime, and Olga can fetch monsters. And if all else fails, Ruskin and Elda can take the assassins apart.”

  “I notice you don’t mention me,” Claudia said wryly, and Elda, who was couched on the floor amid the shriveling remains of the spells, carefully penning an extremely argumentative essay, looked up to say, “I don’t like the idea of taking people apart. I never have. But I’ll try.”

  Felim shrugged. He had wanted to be alone in his room to write his essay because, in spite of a night spent standing bolt upright in a hard shell smelling of book, he was determined to prove that he had no need to buy essays from the lofty student. His honor required it. But since there was obviously no use in arguing, he borrowed a wad of Elda’s fine handmade paper and set to work. The others set to work, too. Shortly they were all scribbling busily in various parts of the concert hall, Olga at the table with Felim, Claudia in a corner because her essay required scissors and a ruler, Ruskin kneeling in front of a chair, and Lukin sprawled out on Elda’s huge bed. The concert hall became more littered than ever, what with cups of coffee fetched by Olga, the mugs of beer Ruskin brought in after lunch, and the crossed-out pages that Lukin kept throwing away.

  Lukin always had more trouble writing things than the others did. It seemed to take him six crossed-out tries before he could get into his stride. But by the middle of the afternoon he, too, was going nicely. He was getting quite eloquent when he discovered, slightly to his surprise, that the one thing he needed to support his argument was something Wermacht had dictated to them back in the first week. He got out the jeweled notebook to check the exact words. And he was so surprised by what he found that he let out a sharp yelp.

  Everyone jumped, thinking Lukin had met the sixth assassin. Finding Lukin simply staring at his notebook, they all relaxed and went back to writing.

  Lukin went on staring. Part of what Wermacht had said was there—“Magic without definite aim is dangerous”—but it was alone in a blank page. The pages in front of it and after it were empty. When Lukin came out of his surprise enough to leaf onward he found that quite a lot of herblore and dragonlore notes were still there, but with mysterious crisp white blanks in them. His astrology notes had vanished entirely, leaving pages that looked as if they had never been written on. Almost the only thing that was complete was the page where he had tried to describe exactly how wonderful it felt to raise magefire.

  Olga noticed his frantic rifflings and rustlings. “What’s up?” she asked, flinging back her hair to look around at him.

  “My notebook, the one you gave me,” Lukin said. “More than half the pages are crisp and clean again; most of Wermacht’s next big headings have gone. Is it some kind of trick book?”

  Ruskin leaped up and trotted over. “Let’s see.” He took the little book between both large hands and leafed gently through it, grunting each time he came to a blank. “Hmm. Ah. Hmm. Dwarf ma
gic’s been at work on all the pages you wrote on, definitely. But that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know what the magic’s meant to do, but it looks as if you’d better get yourself another notebook.”

  “You can borrow my notes. They’re in my bag. Over there,” Elda said, pointing with one wing, without for a moment stopping writing.

  Lukin discovered he could remember quite well what Wermacht had said, anyway. “It’s all right. Wermacht says everything so often and so loudly that it’s hard to forget it. I’ll buy a new notebook tomorrow. I’ve just about got the money.”

  “I didn’t mean to give you a trick notebook,” Olga said, distressed about it.

  “You weren’t to know,” Claudia said. Then, realizing that Lukin had so little money that he would probably have to go without something in order to buy a new notebook, she added, “I’ve a spare notebook here with me. Please have that.” And before Lukin could get too proud to accept, she went on quickly. “Biscuits, anyone? Doughnuts? It’s my turn to go out and buy us something.”

  They settled down again with doughnuts, and the day drew on almost peacefully toward evening. Felim was on his twenty-third page, Elda on her fourteenth, and even Lukin was on page six when all of a sudden there came a giant cry of “HELP! HELP!” It was carried on a general warn-spell very hastily and badly applied by someone who was evidently terribly frightened, and it jolted them all where they sat, knelt, or lay.

  “Another assassin!” Ruskin boomed. “I’ll stay here with him. The rest of you go and see.”

  They threw down their pens and raced for the courtyard, with Elda galloping ahead. There they found almost everyone else in the University dashing outside, too, even the librarian and Wizard Umberto, who were very seldom seen out of doors. Breaths rolled out of many panting mouths in the sharp air. Voices babbled, and fingers pointed into the strong blue evening sky.

  “The Observatory tower,” people were saying. “Two of them. Just look at that!”

  Elda reared herself above the babbling crowd and stared up at the tower above the Spellman Building. Those last two assassins must have been working as a pair, perhaps hiding in the tower until nightfall. She could see them clearly against the clear sky. One was clinging to the very tip of the dome, which was spinning like a whirligig under him. The other was hooked by the seat of his tight black trousers to some kind of spike sticking out from under the dome. He was hanging face downward over nothing and struggling a little. The one on the dome was just clinging. The windows of the spinning dome were crowded with blurred, desperate student faces. Faint cries of “Help!” came down from them.

  “That one on the spike is my spell,” Felim said, rather proudly, from beside Elda’s right wing. He had disobeyed them and rushed outside, too, with Ruskin hanging on to the end of his sash. “They must have attacked someone, or they would not have set it off. Whose is the spinning dome?”

  “No idea,” said Elda, but she had a swift, uneasy memory of herself flying across the room to let Ruskin in, and her wings stirring spells about. She forgot it almost at once. Corkoran was on the other side of her with Umberto, squashed up against her left wing.

  “So who are those up there with them?” Corkoran was asking.

  “My second-year astrology group,” Umberto answered. “I’m afraid they’re up there without supervision. I, er, shirked the stairs rather. Can you stop the dome’s spinning from here? I can’t.”

  “No,” said Corkoran. “I tried. Someone’s got to get up there to deal with it, I suppose. How’s your levitation, Umberto?”

  “Rotten,” confessed the chubby Umberto.

  Corkoran sighed and looked around for Finn. “So’s mine.”

  Elda realized that this was her chance to be of real service to Corkoran. Her heart thumped so with excitement that for a moment she felt almost as giddy as that assassin must be—not to speak of the students. She had to open her beak wide and gulp in frosty air before she said shyly, “Excuse me, Corkoran. I could fly up there holding you if you like.”

  It came out rather louder than Elda intended. Faces turned to her approvingly, and someone in the background gave a small cheer. Corkoran was forced to turn and look at Elda. “So you could,” he said, with quite remarkable lack of enthusiasm. He looked at Umberto and then down at himself, comparing weights. There was no doubt who was the slenderer. Corkoran sighed again. “Very well, but please don’t dig your talons in. And don’t drop me, or you’ll have my dying curse on you before I hit the ground.”

  This forced Elda to say, “Of course I won’t drop you. I’m terribly safe.” She had never actually carried a person through the air in her life. Derk would never allow it. But it was a bit late to explain that now. Everyone in the courtyard was making enthusiastic noises; Umberto loudest of all.

  Corkoran reluctantly moved over in front of Elda, and she put her talons very carefully around his chest, under his armpits. Wizard Umberto did his bit by running round in a circle, pushing people back, and crying out, “Make a space there, make a space there! The griffin needs room to take off!” People moved quickly, in an awed and worried way, until a fairly wide area was empty around Corkoran and Elda. When Elda judged it was large enough for her to spread both wings in, she flexed her wings and tensed her legs and took off. Unghgh. The first wing stroke was all right. The second was leaden. Corkoran was heavy. As her feet and his left the ground, Elda all but dropped straight back down. She flapped furiously. I will do it! she told herself. I’m huge and I’m strong and I will! All around her people were shielding faces from the wind she was making and she was still barely off the ground. Stop panicking, she told herself.

  All of a sudden she was back to being five years old, when she first started to fly. She could almost hear her mother’s voice. “Elda, for the gods’ sakes, go steady! You always rush at things so!”

  Thank you, Mum, Elda thought. She reduced her desperate fanning and tried instead for the slowest, strongest wingbeat she could manage. Almost at once she was rising above all the staring faces, and rising again, with Corkoran clutched to her chest, just as if he were really the teddy bear she used to fly around with when she was five. It was the situation she had been daydreaming about ever since that first tutorial.

  Except that it was not. Corkoran did not feel in the least like a teddy. He felt wide and stiffish, with a layer of meaty plumpness around the stiffness, which, try as she might, Elda feared she was digging her talons painfully into. And coming in gusts from under her talons was a most unpleasant smell of sweat. Corkoran was sweating with distress, probably because she was hurting him with her talons. Or maybe he was scared of heights. Elda had heard some humans were. Or perhaps he was scared of the assassins. Or perhaps—Elda did not want to think this, but she suspected it was the true reason—Corkoran was scared of her. She told herself that, anyway, to do this when he was so frightened meant that Corkoran was being very brave, but she did wish it didn’t make him smell so bad. And he was so heavy. Far too heavy to carry straight up to the tower in one swoop. Elda had to bank to find an updraft and circle for altitude.

  “You’re going the wrong way!” Corkoran said. His voice had gone rather shrill.

  “Circle … for … height,” Elda panted.

  “Oh, I understand,” said Corkoran.

  Elda hoped he did understand, because she had to keep on circling until their upward path became a spiral, while the courtyard full of upturned faces, the walls and turreted roofs, the other courtyards, and the town beyond wheeled this way and that underneath them. By the time they were on a level with the madly spinning dome, Elda’s forelegs ached from carrying Corkoran, and every muscle in her wings was a different fiery pain. The trouble was, she realized, she had spent nearly three weeks almost without flying a stroke. Kit was always telling her you had to fly at least every other day to keep in condition. And I will, I will! I promise! Elda thought as she crept toward the tower with long, laboring strokes. And it was not over yet.

  “Go around to
the left,” Corkoran said to her. “We’ll pick off the one on the spike first. He’s helpless.”

  He said it with an airiness that Elda knew was totally false. Gusts more sweat came off him. Elda made herself think how brave he was, but she knew, underneath, that Corkoran sweated because he felt as helpless as the assassin, dangling in the grip of a monster half bird, half lion. And she almost groaned aloud at what he said. In order to get at that assassin, she was going to have to hover, and she was bad at hovering even when her wings didn’t ache like this. Don, who was the family expert at hovering, always laughed when Elda tried it. Worse still, the assassin on the spike had seen her heading for him, and he had his poisoned dagger out. He was not that helpless.

  Grimly Elda backed her wings and started the fast back-and-over hovering movement, leaving herself enough momentum to inch slowly closer to the man. He held his dagger forward, and his lips were spread in a grin, because her head was stiffly out with the effort, and he was going to get her in the eye, she knew he was, and so did he. And she hurt. It was horrible. Her brother Blade always said that when things were horrible, you thought of something else to keep yourself from noticing, but Elda couldn’t. The dagger stabbed at her. She wove her face aside and stabbed back with her beak. Then they were fencing, dagger and beak, stab and weave, high in the air, while Elda tried to hover and tried not to drop Corkoran and tried not to get poisoned and tried not to scream....

  Corkoran wriggled in her grip, and she nearly yelled at him to keep still. But the assassin was quite suddenly the size of a bumblebee and dropping down into the little bag Corkoran was holding out under her neck. Of course he had to touch the person for the spell to work, Elda realized.

  “That’s one,” Corkoran said. He sounded as strained as Elda felt. “Rise up to get above the dome now.”

  No, I can’t! Elda thought. You don’t know what you’re asking! But she reminded herself that she had after all offered to do this, and somehow she got her wings out of the hover and was somehow going forward again, circling the giddy dome, up and around and up, to where the dizzily twirling final assassin sat clutching the hatch that covered the great telescope inside. He had a knife out, too. As each rotation brought him to face them, he made a threatening stab toward them with it. It was one of the big, spear-shaped knives, and it had quite a reach. As Elda winged in closer, the man even managed to stand up. Not bad for someone who ought to be too dizzy even to sit straight, Elda thought. But I’ve had enough of this! One thing griffins were extremely good at was the calculation of speed and angles. Elda sideslipped until the man’s back was briefly toward her and then pecked him hard in the rear.