The Black Gryphon

Blindly, he reached for them; they reached back as he held tightly to feathered shoulder and human and shook with sobs that finally brought some release.

The first flood of tears was over, for the moment at least, when he heard someone snouting his name.

“Amberdrake!” It sounded like Vikteren. “Amberdrake! The Gate! It’s opening again!”

The what? He stumbled to his feet, and ran back to the site of the old Gate- terminus, a roughly-made arch of stone. Sure enough, there was a shimmer of energy there, energy that fluxed and crackled and made him a little sick to look at.

“What is it?” he asked, as Vikteren ran across the clearing to him.

“I don’t know—can’t be Ma’ar—” The energy inside the Gate surged again. “Whatever it is, whoever, it’s been affected by the mage-blast.” He turned hopeful eyes on Amberdrake. “You don’t suppose it’s Skan, do you?”

Amberdrake only shook his head numbly, heart in mouth. The energies built a third time; the mouth of the Gate turned a blinding white—

And Kechara tumbled through, squalling with fear. Winterhart and Zhaneel both cried out and ran to her to comfort her, but before they could reach her side, the Gate flared whitely a second time, and Aubri leapt across the threshold, smelling of burned fur and feathers, to land in an exhausted heap.

“Skan!” the broadwing screeched, turning his head blindly back toward the Gate. “Skan! He’s still in there!”

The Gate fluxed—and collapsed in on itself, slowly, taking the stones of the arch with it. The entire structure began to fall as if in a dream.

“No!” Vikteren screamed.

Amberdrake was not certain what the young mage thought he was doing; he was only supposed to be of Master rank, and Amberdrake had always been told that only Adepts could build Gates. But Vikteren reached out his hands, in a clutching, clawlike motion, and Amberdrake felt the energies pouring from him into the collapsing Gate, seizing it—and somehow, holding it steady!

Amberdrake sensed Vikteren faltering, and added his own heart’s strength to the young mage’s—

—and felt Winterhart join him, and Zhaneel—

The Gate flared a third and final time, but this time it was so bright that Amberdrake cried out in pain, blinded.

Vikteren cried out too, but in triumph.

Amberdrake’s vision cleared after much blinking and eye-rubbing, and lying before them was Skandranon— shocked senseless, and no longer as he—was. The elegant black form they had known was thinner and bleached to snow-white, but it was unmistakably Skandranon.

The Gate and Vikteren collapsed together.

Then there was no time to think of anything, as the Eastern horizon erupted with fire—again. And for some reason Amberdrake could not understand, he could feel the death, far away, of the Mage of Silence, content that his people, including those he loved most, were safe at last.

They had just enough time—barely—to establish their shields before the double mage-storm hit. The worst effects lasted from before dawn to sunset. But their preparations held, and they all emerged from shelter to find a blood-red sun sinking over a deceptively normal landscape.

Normal—until you noticed the places where trees had been flattened; where strange little energy-fields danced over warped and twisted cairns of half-melted rocks. Normal—until night fell, and did not bring darkness, but an odd half-light, full of wisps of glowing fog and dancing balls of luminescence.

“We can’t stay here,” Winterhart said wearily as she returned to Amberdrake’s hastily-pitched tent. It was the only one big enough to hold four gryphons—Skan and Aubri, and Zhaneel and Kechara, the former two because of their injuries, and the latter because they would not leave Skan’s moon-white form.

“I’d assumed that. We’ll have to pack up and move West, I suppose.” He looked up at her and smiled, then turned his watchful gaze back down to the slumbering Skandranon. “I don’t mind, if you don’t.”

“Well, I wish we knew how many of the others survived,” she sighed. “But the mages can’t get anything through this—whatever it is. Magical noise and smoke. No scrying, no mage-messages, and we don’t want to risk the poor little messenger-birds. The tervardi don’t want to scout, the kyree are as scared as we are, the hertasi are