The Black Gryphon

Aubri’s beak clamped shut, and when Skan opened his own eyes, the broadwing’s eyes were blazing as red with madness as any goshawk’s.

“I got Conn Levas,” Skan said, around the lump of rage and grief in his own throat. “This will take care of Ma’ar. If we can get it to him.” He tilted his head to one side. “I have to admit—I was told that I’d have a count of a hundred to get away, and then this thing will make Jerlag look like a campfire.” He shook his head. “If you can think of any way you can get yourself and Kechara out of range. . . .”

Aubri’s pupils dilated, and he produced a harsh bark of a laugh. “On clipped wings? I don’t think so. Besides, all I ever asked was to go down fighting. I’m sorry about the little one, but this is going to be clean, right?”

He nodded. “As clean as fire. And I can still send you both into the Light if all seems hopeless.”

As you’ve done too many times before—Urtho, why must we feel these burdens? Why?

“Well,” Aubri rumbled. “You need me. Bet we can even find a way Kechara’ll be useful. And if it gets Ma’ar—” Aubri’s savage grin and the scrape of his talons on the stone told the rest. “And—ah, demonsblood, Skan, you always were the luckiest son of a vulture I ever saw. Your luck, you’ll find a way out for us. I’ll take my chances with you.”

Skan let out the breath he had been holding in. “Well,” he said lightly. “That was the hard part. Now the easy part.”

“Which is?” Aubri asked as Kechara gave a breathy squeal of glee and pounced on something. She stuffed it in her mouth and looked up innocently, the tail of a rat hanging out of one corner of her beak for a heartbeat, before she swallowed and it vanished.

Skan looked cautiously around the corner; the doors to the stable stood open wide, and the apparently- deserted stable-yard stretched between them and the Palace kitchens. “Oh, it’s nothing much,” he replied, offhandedly. “Just getting into the Palace and the throne room.”

The last Tower door had been opened; there were still books and devices here Urtho wished he could save, but the vital things had been carried off. He had persuaded Vikteren and the rest to leave. Now there was only the small matter of hanging on, living every possible second, for every second meant more time to ensure that all of his people who could, would reach safety.

The Tower echoed with the whisper of air through doors long locked, and the occasional thud of something falling, echoing through stone corridors suddenly more empty than imagination could bear. In all of his life, Urtho had never felt so alone.

He had never expected to die alone, much less like this. At least the mages and Healers had taken all the pain, blocked the hallucinations and the convulsions, and left him only with growing weakness.

He was so tired, so very, very tired. . . .

No! He had to fight it, to stay conscious, awake! Every heartbeat was vital!

All we have done, and all I have learned, and I cannot slow the progress of my own death by even a candlemark.

He had never thought much about revenge, but now he burned with longing for it. Revenge—no, I want to protect my people, my children! And when the Tower goes, I want it to be something more than the end, I want it to mean something, to accomplish some purpose! He had always hoped, if it came to that, he would be able to lure Ma’ar, or at least some chief mages of Ma’ar’s, into the Tower-turned-trap. He’d planned for that, all along; a desperate gambit that, if nothing else, would keep Ma’ar so busy cleaning up the damage that his children and his people would be able to get far beyond Ma’ar’s reach or ability to find.

Now, when he died, the Tower would die in an expanding ring of sound and light, and it would be no more than the most impressive funeral pyre the world had ever seen—

—wait a moment.

Something stirred under the morass the poison had made of his mind. An idea, and a hope. Ma’ar cannot know that Conn Levas succeeded. What would happen if I challenged him?

There was a permanent Gate, a small one, big enough only for one human at a time, not more than a room away. It would take no effort at all to open it. A moment of clear thought, and it could be set for the Palace, the Throne Room. Urtho had used it to step directly from his own audience chamber into the King’s—an impressive bit of nonsense that never failed to leave foreigners gaping and a little frightened. That was how he had gotten to the Palace the night that Cinnabar had summoned him; he had opened a larger Gate elsewhere for Skan. He hadn’t been certain what the effect of trying to squeeze through a too-small Gate might be, and that had not been the moment to find out.

The odds are good that he’ll be in the Throne Room, waiting to hear from his army. What if I opened that Gate and challenged him to come over? A fierce and feral joy flooded him, and for the