The Black Gryphon

“He told me to get you!” the hertasi wailed, caught in a dilemma between what he had been ordered to do and what Vikteren thought he should have done. “I couldn’t get you and stay there at the same time!”

“Leave it, Vikteren,” Skan snapped. “It’s done—let’s just hope that—”

The young mage sprinted for the door and shoved it open in the surprised face of Conn Levas. The mercenary mage recovered quickly from his surprise, and backed up a pace when Skan loomed up behind Vikteren.

From his greater height, Skan could see right past Conn, and spotted Urtho, clearly in terrible pain, collapsed into a chair in the corner. Conn followed his glance, paled, and began babbling.

“Urtho—” he said. “He said he wasn’t feeling well. The strain—”

But Skan’s hearing was better than a human’s, and the word Urtho was forcing through spittle-frothed lips was “—poison—”

Skan’s vision clouded with the red of rage; he saw Conn’s hands move, and he didn’t hesitate. The Black Gryphon lashed out with an open talon, and caught the mage across the throat, tearing it out in a spray of blood. His second blow, the backhanded return of the talon-strike, flung the mercenary’s body across the room to slam against the table with the wet crack of a snapping spine.

There the body of Conn Levas lay atop the tiny space of land that was still theirs, blood pumping down onto the map, flooding the representation of the Tower and the plain around it with sticky scarlet.

Vikteren had headed straight for Urtho, as Skan stalked in through the doorway with every feather and hair erect in battle-anger. “Poison,” the young mage said shortly, his face flushed and his voice tight with grief. “Miranda-thorns, very rare, no antidote. The bastard probably had enough in his pockets to hit us both, too; that’s what he was reaching for when you got him.”

The hertasi gasped and scrambled off, presumably to fetch help.

Skan only heard and heeded one thing. “No antidote?” he roared, so that Urtho whimpered and Vikteren winced. “What do you mean, no antidote!”

“Skan, I can’t change the facts,” Vikteren shouted back. “There’s no antidote! It’s something Ma’ar created as an assassination-tool, and we haven’t seen more than three victims since the war started! All we can do is buy him some time and counteract some of the effects.”

“Do it,” Skan snapped, spreading out his bloodstained claws over the body of his creator and friend, invoking every tiny bit of magery he had. He opened himself to Urtho, found the places in his mind that the miranda had muddled, bringing hallucinations and pain, and joined with Vikteren to help Urtho straighten the mental paths and banish those symptoms.

He fought with every bit of his grief and rage, every atom of energy. And still, it was not enough. He saw for himself that Vikteren was right. The poison replicated itself within Urtho’s body, spreading like some evil, sentient disease, and with every passing moment it destroyed a little more of Urtho’s life-force, corroding it away inexorably.

At last, his mage-energies exhausted, he dropped his outstretched claw and opened the eyes he did not realize he had closed.

Vikteren supported Urtho in his chair, and the face that looked up at Skan was sane again. “The evacuation —” Urtho whispered harshly. “Get me—Healers. I have to hold on—”

Vikteren looked up into Skan’s puzzled face. “I think he’s keyed some kind of destructive spells into himself—if he leaves the Tower, the place is going to go unstable. And if you thought what happened with that Gate at Jerlag Pass was impressive—”

The young mage left the rest unsaid. Leaves the Tower, or dies, he means. And there must be two dozen permanent Gates here, not to mention the Tower itself and everything still in it. The destructive potential staggered him. Anyone still here would be obliterated by the result, pulverized to dust-----

The noise of running feet from the hallway made him turn sharply, ready to attack again, but these were friends. The hertasi had returned with Tamsin and three more senior Healers, who squeezed through the door as one. Not Cinnabar. He must have sent her through the Gate while he could.

“We know,” Tamsin said shortly, taking Vikter-en’s place at Urtho’s side. “We’ll buy him all the time we can.”

Skan did not move out of the way. The Healers shoved past him, ignoring him as if he had been an inconveniently placed piece of furniture.

He started to say something, but Vikteren motioned to him to remain silent. Tears trickled down the mage’s face, and his shoulders shook, but he didn’t produce so much as a stifled sob to distract the Healers from their work.