The White Gryphon

He closed the door neatly behind him and stepped over the wall across the entrance— a necessary precaution to keep unfledged, crawling, leaping gryphlets from becoming hurtling projectiles off the balcony. The gryphons had never had to face that particular problem when their lairs had been on the ground, but a small inconvenience seemed a trivial price for the added safety of their youngsters.

Small mage-lights illuminated the interior of the lair—unusual in the city at the moment, as were the mage- fires that heated the lair by winter. Mage-lights and mage-fires were far down on the list of things the mages needed to create during the brief times that magic worked properly. Skan had made most of these, and Vikteren had done the rest.

There we are again. Another reason why I am such a feathered lump. Lying in place for days on end to make mage-lights. Staring at a stone to enchant it to glow like a lovesick firefly while hertasi and humans bring me enough food to sink a horse. What would Urtho think of me now?

The humans and hertasi had to make do with candles and lanterns; while mage-lights and mage-fires were in limited supply, they went first to the Healers, then the gryphons and tervardi, then the kyree. Only after all the nonhumans had sufficient lights and heating sources would humans receive them for their homes. This had been a decision on Skan’s part that although it seemed slightly selfish, had a sound reason behind it. The Healers obviously needed mage-lights and heat sources more than anyone else—and as for the gryphons, tervardi, and kyree, well, the former had feathers, which were dangerous around open flames, and the wolflike latter didn’t have hands to light flames with.

Freshly crisped gryphon and roasted tervardi, mm-mm! Served fresh in their own homes, in front of their children—Ma’ar’s secret recipe! That was the very phrase he’d used to persuade the rest of the Council to agree to the edict, and as he’d figured, the invocation of Ma’ar’s name did the trick, more than logic had.

He hadn’t enjoyed manipulating them, though. Tricks like that left a rather bad taste in his mouth. He really didn’t like manipulating anyone, if it came right down to it. Neither had Urtho.

There were many things Urtho didn’t like, gods bless his memory. I always secretly pitied him for the position he was put in by others’ need for him. He never liked being the leader of all those who craved freedom from Ma’ar, but it was something he had to do. I remember him looking at me once, with a look of quiet desperation, when I asked him why he did it.

Skandranon paused, eyes unfocused, as his memory brought the moment back in sharp detail. He said, simply, “If not me, then who?”

Now I know how he felt then. It wears a soul down, even though the sense of fulfilling a duty is supposed to make a soul enriched. A noble heart, the stories say, is supposed to live and find joy in the responsibility. But I am satisfied less and less, doing a great deal I don’t like—including getting fat!

“Zhaneel?” he called softly, when a glance around the “public” room showed no signs of life, not even a gryphon dozing in the pile of pillows in the corner. “I’m—”

He’d called softly, hoping that if the little ones were sleeping, he wouldn’t wake them. Stupid gryphon. Vain hope.

A pair of high-pitched squeals from the nursery chamber greeted the first sound of his voice, and a moment later twin balls of feathers and energy came hurtling out of the chamber door. They each targeted a foreleg; Tadrith the right and Keenath the left.

They weren’t big enough to even shake him as they hit and clung, but they made it very difficult to move when they locked on and gnawed. And Amberdrake and Winterhart thought they had problems with their two-legged toddler! Young gryphons went straight from the crawling stage into the full-tilt running stage, much like kittens, and like kittens they had three modes of operation—”play,” “starving,” and “sleep.” They moved from one mode to another without warning, and devoted every bit of concentration to the mode they were in at the time. No point in trying to get them interested in a nap if they were in “play” mode—and no point in trying to distract them with a toy if they were squalling for food.

Zhaneel followed her two offspring at a more sedate pace. She was more beautiful than ever, more falconlike. Her dark malar-markings were more prominent; now that she wasn’t trying to look like the gryphons whose bodies were based on hawks, and now that she had learned to be self-confident, she carried herself like the gryfalcon queen she was. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t trying to settle them for a nap,” she said calmly over their wordless squeals of glee, as Skan tried vainly to detach them. “We were just playing chase-mama’s-tail.”

“And now we’re playing burr-on-papa’s-leg, I see,” he replied. Zhaneel took one bemused look at what her children were doing and began chortling. At the moment, still in their juvenile plumage, the gryphlets looked like nothing but balls of puffy, tan-and-brown feathers, particularly absurd when attached to Skan’s legs. “The Council session broke up early,” Skandranon continued, “and I decided that I’d had enough and escaped before anyone could find some other idiot’s crisis for me to solve.”

It came out a lot more acidic than he’d intended, and Zhaneel cocked her head to one side. “Headache?” she inquired delicately.

He succeeded in removing Tadrith from his right leg, but Keenath, being the older of the two tiercels, was more stubborn. “No,” he replied, again with more weariness than he had intended. “I am just very, very tired today of being the Great White Gryphon, the Wise Old Gryphon of the Hills, the Solver of Problems, and Soother of Quarrels. No one remembers when I was the Avenger in the Skies or Despoiler of Virgins or Hobby Of Healers. Now they want someone to do the work for them, and I am the fool that fell into it. I am tired of being responsible.”