“That depends on what you want to say to her,” Claudia answered.
Then I won’t bother, Lukin thought. She’d just shout at me again. And for himself, he suspected that he would whine and complain to Olga that he needed her, which would annoy Olga and make Lukin ashamed of himself. But then, when he started to think of needing Olga, he discovered that the need was really there, much deeper and much stronger and likely to go on for much longer than he had ever believed such a need could. And he began, dimly, to see why Olga had been so upset. She had after all been born to a very different family from Lukin’s. But I don’t care two hoots about her beastly father! he told himself angrily. In fact, I’d quite happily set an enormous infallible mousetrap for him personally. But he knew this was not really what this was all about. He sighed. “But I’ve no idea where she’s gone,” he said.
“Aren’t you training to be a wizard then?” Ruskin asked him.
Lukin frowned at him.
“Ruskin means,” said Elda, “that if you’re linked to Olga in any way, then you can know where she’s gone.”
Lukin thought about this, too, while everyone again watched him expectantly. At length the heavy look cleared off Lukin’s face, and he smiled. “On the roof of the Spellman Building,” he said. “More or less where Elda was.”
Olga was indeed on the roof. Climbing up the narrow wooden staircase to the trapdoor beside the chimney, tears whisking off her chin and soaking her hair as she went, felt just like the many, many times she had climbed to the masthead after Olaf had beaten her. Just the same, she thought. I’m alone again. As usual. She coiled up by the chimney, which gave her some small shelter from the cold breeze up there, and she cried. She cried for herself, for her father, and for Lukin—Lukin, who she had thought had such great kindness and depths and affection under that rather sulky face of his and who obviously had not. Or not for Olga. She had seen that, fully and truly, while Lukin was putting on his crown prince face for the dwarfs. Aristocratic, haughty, and so polite. Considerate to people lower than he was—and most people were lower, of course. Olga was lower than most. Waterfront riffraff she would have been, had Olaf not stolen that ship after Olga’s mother died.
And she cried. Oblivious of the cold breeze, which kept wrapping itself around her in strands and plastering her hair into her mouth, she cried and cried.
Oh, what is the matter? the breeze cried back. Speak to us! Please speak to us again!
Olga opened her wet and swollen eyes and stared at the air elementals wrapping themselves around her. They were long, silky, scarflike beings, and quite transparent, with anxious birdlike eyes. Elda’s eyes remind me of theirs, Olga thought. That must be why I like her so much. “What’s happened? I can see you!” she said. Her voice sounded thick and awful. “I can hear you again! Why haven’t you talked to me all this time?”
But we did! they cried back. Their voices were like the delicate moan of wind in wires. We talked, but you never seemed to hear us. You never cried.
Nor had she, Olga realized. That first time when Olaf had beaten her half to death, she had refused to make a noise or shed a tear. Somehow it had been important not to. And after that it was as if the tears had gone underground in her and got lost in a place she could never find. “I think I got too proud to cry,” she told the elementals. “I wasn’t going to let him know he hurt me.”
But what has hurt you now? they asked.
“Lukin,” Olga gulped.
We’ll go and blow him away for you, they offered.
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I don’t want him hurt. It looks as if I’ll just have to leave the University.”
We don’t understand, they said.
Human reasons for things had always been beyond them, she thought, and actually almost chuckled at some of the misunderstandings. That huge storm which had blown their ship right across the Inland Sea to Farness because Olga had told them that Olaf had refused to let her dress as a boy any longer. They had been trying to blow Olaf overboard, they said. At least that postponed the change of clothes. You couldn’t buy anything on Farness, let alone skirts.
The door by the chimney opened, and Lukin climbed out. “Oh dear,” he said, seeing Olga’s swollen face and tear-drenched hair. “I’m sorry.” He was, as he spoke, almost sure that he could see long, transparent creatures spiraling about her. Next moment he was utterly sure. The things dived upward and streamed around his head until his eyes watered and he thought his hair would blow off. “Hey!” he said. “You can talk to air elementals again! That’s marvelous. Call them off.”
“Why are you here?” Olga said. “Can you see them, too?”
“Of course I can,” Lukin said, batting at the creatures, which made no difference at all. “They’re making themselves rather obvious. Call them off. I came—well—because I love you.”
“They don’t always do what I—What did you say?” said Olga.
“I love you,” Lukin repeated. It seemed truer than ever the second time he said it. “I don’t care whether your father’s one of the Emperor’s elephants or chief bullfrog in the Marshes, I’d still love you. You’re Olga. And I brought you your cloak. Here.” He dragged the heavy fur out through the trapdoor and draped it around her. Somehow, while doing so, Lukin himself became wrapped around Olga, too. They stayed that way for quite some time, while the air elementals wreathed a joyous, windy, open pattern around the pair of them. Eventually Lukin said, with his chin on Olga’s smooth fair head, “Mind you, if he ran across the roof at this moment, I’d stamp on him.”
Olga shuddered. “Don’t. I still, well, love him, in a twisty sort of way.”
“I can understand that,” Lukin said, because he had his own father in mind, too, and he did not mention his plans for a mousetrap.
News. Visitors. Excitement! the elementals began crying out, swooping between the chimney and the parapet.
“They always know when something unusual is going on,” Olga said, disentangling herself. “Let’s look.”
“If it’s more senators or another batch of dwarfs, I don’t want to know,” Lukin said, following her to the parapet.
Down in the courtyard the first thing they saw was Melissa, racing past the statue, pursued by a little mob of mice and screaming, “Oh, save me!” The response was immediate. Students, not all of them male, hurried out of doorways all around the courtyard and stamped and shouted to scare the mice off. One student threw fire at them. Another rather spoiled that by trying to douse the mice in water. Lukin watched hopefully, but all the mice got away.
“That girl is such a wimp,” he said.
“No, she’s not,” said Olga. “Just stupid, and it’s not her fault she was born that way. She knows she was, and she’s trying to do something about it. I respect that. Those other girls helping her respect her for it, too.”
This sounded like the Olga Lukin knew. He turned to grin at her, then ducked as an enormous shadow boomed overhead. Wing feathers clattered as great wings cupped themselves to brake and a crowd of air elementals spilled out from under, screaming with the fun of it.
“See? They did know,” Olga said as she and Lukin leaned over the parapet to watch a great brown griffin come gently to the ground beside Wizard Policant’s statue and fold her cream-barred wings down on her lion’s back. She towered above the statue.
“That,” Lukin said, awed, “must be quite the biggest griffin ever. I think her name’s Callette.”
Next moment there were violent griffin shrieks from the concert hall. Its door banged open, and Elda streaked across the courtyard, shrieking, “Callette! Callette, you’re back! Are the others back, too? This is my sister Callette!” she screamed at Ruskin, who was coming after her at a bowling run on his short legs, followed by Felim at an awed trot.
The students who had come out to help Melissa stopped on their way back indoors and stared. Windows and doorways filled with more interested faces.
“I’m going down,” said Olga. “I want to mee
t her. Coming?”
By the time they had clattered down the stairs and into the courtyard, both griffins were inside a crowd and Elda was saying happily to everyone, “She’s ever so clever. She’s rich. She makes beautiful, artistic things called gizmos, and people buy them for ever so much money, don’t they, Callette? Thieves Guild bought nine last year, and before that the dragons bought twenty and—Oh, here are Olga and Lukin! Well, you’ve met Lukin once, I know, but this is Olga, Callette.”
Elda, Lukin was rather bemused to see, only looked like a small-medium size beside Callette. “You probably don’t remember me,” he said diffidently to Callette.
Callette’s large brown nearest eye inspected him. “Yes, I do. You were small, and your knees were black. You’d fallen down a pit.” The eye went on to inspect Olga, and then Callette’s head turned so that both eyes could look at her. “What a very beautiful human you are. Can I paint you sometime?”
“Olga’s—” Elda began.
“Shut up.” Callette pushed her face and beak affectionately along Elda’s feathery neck. “You do talk so. You haven’t let me tell you why I came.”
“To see me,” Elda guessed happily.
“Well, I did miss you.” Callette sounded a little surprised, saying this. “Quite a bit. But I really came to tell you that Lydda’s married.”
“What?” screamed Elda. “Who to? When?”
“Who’s Lydda?” Ruskin rumbled.
“Her sister. One of the other griffins,” Lukin whispered.
“Last week, over on the other continent,” said Callette. “Kit and Don and I all went to the wedding. Blade was the only human there. There are quite a lot of griffins across the ocean, in big families. Lydda’s is called Harrek Acker. Acker’s a high-up fighting family, though they do have a few wizards in it, too. They gave a very good wedding out on the plains just before we started for home. Tremendous amounts of food.”
Elda spread her wings and jumped up and down. “Callette, tell it properly! You never do! How did Lydda meet this Acker person? Does she like him at all?”
“Like him!” said Callette. “It was the soppiest thing I ever saw. We were still on the boats then, but we could see the land, and Lydda was going to fly there, so she was in the air. But there was this war on. That was why we were there, to try to stop it. And it turned out that there were griffins on both sides in this war, as well as humans, and Harrek was flying patrols for his side. He saw our boats and came over. Or down, I think. He was up near the clouds. The first thing we knew, there was this smallish whitish griffin diving in on Lydda. He has a hooked beak and bent-back wings. They say that’s how a real fighter looks. And Lydda yelled and turned upside down to meet him. She says that’s how you fight, and it was instinct. But instead of fighting, they sort of spread, wing tip to wing tip, and went over and over in the air.” Callette shrugged, in a rattle of feathers. “We didn’t know what was going on. Kit and I both took off to help, but before we got anywhere near, they both yelled out that this was their mating flight and to go away. Love at first sight, Lydda said.”
There was a sigh of sentiment from most of the listening students. Lukin hugged Olga to his side.
“Huh!” said Callette. “Neither of them was any use at all after that. Mooning about. Twining necks. Rubbing beaks. We had to settle the war without them. Mind you, Don was almost as bad by the end. Females coming out of his ears.”
“And Kit?” Elda asked with acute interest.
Callette put her beak in the air and rolled her eyes. “Kit? There aren’t too many black griffins over there. They think he is so handsome. Girls were flopping out of the sky and fainting at his feet.”
“But did he like any of them?” Elda asked.
Callette considered. “Not so’s you’d notice,” she conceded. “His head didn’t get half as swelled as I’d expected. He told me he wanted to get the world straightened out before he settled down.”
Elda giggled. Somebody at the back of the crowd called out, “How about you? Did you meet anyone?”
Callette’s tail lashed irritably. “None of them are big enough.” She turned pointedly toward Elda. “Elda, Mum’s gone into a complete fuss about Lydda. That’s why I said I’d come and tell you. Mum says she’s got to go there and check that Lydda’s happy. Dad said he’d go, too. They’re taking Flo and Angelo and going as soon as we can find them a boat. Blade’s over at the coast seeing about that now. Kit’s at home trying to calm Mum down. Kit says to tell you he and Blade will try to come over to see you after that—today if they can. You’re not upset like Mum, are you?”
“I don’t think so,” Elda said, though it seemed very strange to have another sister married. “Is this Harrek good enough for her?”
“You sound just like Mum,” Callette said. “He’s fine. Nice. Aristocratic, the way families stand over there. Not very stupid. It’s Lydda’s life. I quite like him.”
But Lydda might have waited until the rest of her family could get there, Elda thought. She knew just how Mum must be feeling. Anxious, rather hurt and left out, and suspecting that Kit had organized it all, saying grandly that he would deal with their parents. Oh, well. As long as Lydda was happy …
She was smelling griffin quite strongly all the while she was thinking this. It was not Callette’s sweet, familiar, feathery smell. This was unwashed griffin, dirty. Kit? But Kit kept himself as clean and well preened as Callette did. Don, however, was not always as fond of washing as he might be. “Where’s Don then?” Elda asked.
“Still at sea,” Callette told her. “His boat didn’t have a wizard—” Her head jolted up. She had smelled dirty griffin, too. “Oh, gods!” she said. “I don’t believe this! I warned that Flury—Get all these people out of here, quickly!” Callette rounded on the gathered students, wings up, beak outstretched, eyes glaring, tail slashing, looking so menacing that even Elda backed away. “All of you clear out of this courtyard. There’s a griffin coming who isn’t nice. Go on. Shoo!”
“Why? What’s wrong with this griffin?” Claudia asked. She had ventured out to gaze at Callette, too, calculating that someone Callette’s size could protect her from any number of legionaries and probably the whole Senate as well, and was standing behind Elda with the cloakrack faithfully at her side.
“Everything’s wrong with him,” said Callette. “I hate him. He makes me go soft and squeamish inside.” The smell was stronger now. Ruskin and Olga had both caught it and were making faces. Everyone else was still standing, staring, innocent and unbelieving. Callette’s head switched back and forth in exasperation. She swiveled back at Elda. “You’re a wizard. Make me go invisible or something. Come on. Quickly. Maybe he’ll go away if he thinks I’m not here. Quick!”
Callette was so agitated and so obviously in earnest that Elda turned anxiously to her friends. “How do I?”
“Willing her to disappear, do you think?” Olga suggested.
“If we all try willing together, maybe,” Felim added.
“Let’s try. Everyone will Callette invisible!” Elda said. She put her head down and willed, hard and urgently. Beside her Claudia, Olga, and Lukin linked arms and willed, too. Felim hauled Melissa in on the other side of Elda and put his head down beside hers. The distant raucous scream of griffin voices came clearly on the wind. This caused most of the other students there to realize that Callette had not been making a fuss about nothing. After glancing uneasily in the direction of the screams, almost everyone put his or her head down and willed.
Callette’s enormous shape was suddenly not there. She did not blur or fade. She simply winked out of sight like a burst bubble. She seemed to be gone so completely that Elda raised her beak and sniffed anxiously. Under the now almost overpowering smell of alien griffin, Callette’s scent was still faintly there.
“She really is just invisible, I think,” Elda said uncertainly.
“Just in time,” Ruskin said, pointing.
Not one but five big winged shapes were wheeling th
rough the air above the Spellman Building, screaming remarks to one another as they came. No one could catch the words, but it was evident from the tone that violent, derisive things were being said. The yell with which the foremost griffin folded his wings and plunged to the courtyard made hearts lurch and goose pimples rise on backs. Elda felt her hackles wrench themselves upright, from her tail to her crest. Nearly all the students stampeded for safety as the first griffin plopped to the ground, and the next plummeted screaming after, and the next after that. Each one was at least as big as Callette, and all, as Callette had said, were not nice creatures in any way.
Elda stampeded with the rest and found herself, along with Ruskin, rushing hard into something huge and soft and warm, in the region of the statue of Wizard Policant. Realizing she had run into Callette, she backed hurriedly off, only to find that she and Ruskin were almost alone in the courtyard with the alien griffins. Claudia was the only other person out there. Claudia had tripped over the wretched cloakrack, realized when she picked herself up that there was no more time to run in, and was now on one knee with both hands wrapped around the central pole of the cloakrack and the hook-laden head of it aimed aggressively at the nearest griffin, in the manner of an Empire legionary pointing a spear. Though doorways and windows were full of anxious faces, the three of them were the only ones in the open, if you did not count Callette, and Callette was clearly lying low.
The griffins had landed here and there about the courtyard, apparently randomly, but somehow in positions where they cut Elda and her friends off from every doorway. Elda did not need to turn her head to see the ragged brown-and-white male behind her, looming in front of the door of her concert hall. Being able to see behind you was an advantage that griffins had over humans, but as Elda realized now, it was no advantage at all with other griffins. They were all so large, too, at least as big as Callette, and filled the air with raffish aggressiveness. Otherwise they were an ill-matched lot. The main one, who was now strutting toward Elda, jeeringly swinging his tail, was streaky chestnut with a shaggy dark brown crest and bold yellow eyes. Another was pigeon colors, but so unkempt that the pinks and greens on his gray neck barely showed at all. One was plain dull brown, and the fifth ought to have been white, but he was so dirty he looked yellowish. At any other time Elda would have been marveling that there should turn out to be so many kinds of griffin, but here and now she was plain scared.
Year of the Griffin Page 17
