As he would give me to his underlings, if he judged me a failure. As he would kill me, if he knew of my rebellion.
Therefore he must not learn of it...She reached the border of the ruins before she expected; she slowed to a walk, and sharpened her eyes to catch the glow of body heat. She knew in general where the gryphons' nest was, but not precisely. She also freed her ears from her hair, and extended them to catch any stray sound.
It didn't take her long to determine where the nest was; she heard the murmur of voices echoing among the stones of the ruins, and traced them back to their source. She froze just behind the shelter of a broken-down wall, hearing not only the gryphons, but Darkwind as well.
'There was a red-shouldered hawk circling around you when I left,' he was saying. His voice sounded odd, thick with emotion, and hoarse.
'Dawnfire's Kyrr was a red-shouldered-you know, I made her promise me that she wouldn't come around here today-'
'Which may have been a missstake,' Treyvan interrupted wearily.
Nyara peeked around the end of the wall.' Sssshe wasss curiousss. Very curiousss. It isss entirely posssible ssshe did full-bond with her birrrd.
And whoeverrr it wasss that attacked usss, may have attacked and killed herrr asss well. If the birrrd diesss, the bondmate diesss, no?'
'Yes,' Darkwind replied, but he sounded uncertain. 'If they are in full-bond at the time. But I didn't see any dead-' he faltered,
'_birds-'
'You might not,' Hydona said, emerging slowly from the entrance of the nest, the little ones trailing after her. 'It might not have ssstruck the grround. Perrrhapsss it wassss caught in a tree... ' She went on to say more, but Nyara didn't hear her. All of her attention had been caught by the female gryphon and the nestlings.
They bore the unmistakable stamp of her father's taint.
Hydona wore the contamination only lightly, a glaring red tracery like burst veins... and it was fading, as if Mornelithe had attempted something against her, and had failed: But the gryphlets- She moaned silently, to herself, as she had learned only too well to do.
Now she knew that it had been her father who had masterminded the attack on the gryphons. And how, and why.
The physical attack had never been intended to succeed. It had been intended to bring the gryphons down out of action, and only incidentally into his reach. He had attempted to subvert Hydona, to insert his own Will and mind into hers. He surely found her too tough for him to take, at least, given the short amount of time he had to work in. She knew he had never really meant to do more than make a cursory attempt to take them, on the off chance that he would succeed by sheer accident.
Because what he had really wanted was the opportunity to get at the little ones and work with them, undisturbed. She knew from bitter experience that it would not take him long at all, with a young thing, to subvert it to his will. The gryphlets would not be as useful, as quickly, as the adults-but they were more malleable, and far less able to defend themselves against him.
And they had one thing the adults did not; a direct tie into the power-node beneath their birthplace.
Mornelithe wanted that; he could pull power away from nodes, by diverting some of the power-flows into them, but he had no direct access to any nodes. The only nodes anywhere near this area were the one beneath k'treva, and the one beneath the gryphons' nest. Both were within k'treva territory, and out of Mornelithe's reach.
The power-node here was very deep, but very strong, and its ley-lines ran into k'treva Vale. Through the young, tainted gryphons, Mornelithe would have direct access to the node, the line, and very possibly, could drain the node beneath k'treva.
Or move it to his own stronghold.
It was entirely possible he would also have access to lines and nodes in the Plains; she had no idea if the node here was connected there, or not.
And these ruins themselves could conceal artifacts from the ancient Mage Wars. Mornelithe had been trying to collect those for as long as she had been aware of his activities; he had only been marginally successful in his quests, gathering in creatures and devices either flawed, broken, or only marginally useful. His ambition was to acquire something of great power; one of the legendary permanent Master Gates, for instance. One of those would give him access to the old Citadels of the Lord Adepts; and those, however ruined, wherever they were hidden, would undoubtedly contain things he would find useful.
