The White Gryphon

When all was lost to him, she had taken him in. When he was adrift, she found him the avocation best suited to his talents. Who else would have done such a thing?

Silver Veil bowed her head in ironic acknowledgment of the truth of his answer. “Well, here and now comes the time to leave a certain amount of discretion outside the garden, and speak frankly, northerner to northerner, friend to friend.” She leaned forward, her violet-gray eyes darkened momentarily. “I need to give you some small idea of the world you have blundered into.”

“It baffles me,” Amberdrake confessed. “I am not certain how to act, and I find myself doing nothing rather than chance an incident.” He looked to Winterhart for confirmation, and she nodded.

Silver Veil fanned herself quietly. “Your instincts must be guiding you correctly,” she told them both, “For that is the safest thing to do here; nothing. Had you noticed anything odd about the Court itself? Physical things, I mean; things that seem familiar, but antique.”

Amberdrake frowned, for he had, although he could not name precisely what had set off those strange feelings of familiarity at one remove. But Winterhart was quite certain.

“There are strange echoes of our past here,” she said. “I see it in the clothing, some of the customs, even some of the food. But none of it is like the North we left.”

“Precisely,” Silver Veil said, with a nod. “It is like the North of years, decades, even centuries ago. That was what gave me the key to understanding these people. They both abhor, and adore, change.”

Amberdrake shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand,” he began.

Silver Veil interrupted him with a gesture of her fan. “The Haighlei are a people who avoid change at all cost. Their own customs go back in an unbroken line for hundreds of years. To them, our way of life with its constant changes and readjustments is one short step below blasphemy, for if the gods wanted men to change, would the gods not decree it?” She shrugged. “The point is, they not only hate change, it is mandated against by their holy writings. Change comes as the gods decree, when the gods decree.”

Winterhart frowned. “But if that’s the case, how is it that customs of ours have ended up in practice here?”

“A good point.” Silver Veil looked pleased. “That is one reason why change, with all the attraction of the forbidden, is very appearing to many of them. And the answer to how change comes to them is this; someone, at some point, understood that without some changes taking place, this society would rot from within. So at some point in the past, the holy writings were modified. There is a celebration connected to an eclipse that takes place once every twenty years. The more of the sun that vanishes, the more change can be integrated into the society. Thereafter, however, it does not change, except for deep exploration of the details. That is why you see things here that have only been written about in our lands. And that is why the office and position of kestra’chern were established here in the first place.”

“But it is the kestra’chern of a hundred years ago that they imitate?” Amberdrake hazarded.

“More like two hundred or more, the kestra’chern who were the pampered and cultured members of the households of the very elite, and never seen by the common folk at all.” She pointed her fan at the two of them. “You are on sufferance here; you embody change. Only if Shalaman accepts you and adds you and your presence here to the Eclipse Ceremony will you be actually accepted by the Haighlei as a whole.” She flicked her fan idly at a blue fly blundering past. “You don’t have many friends here. The Speaker to the Gods is firmly against your presence. Others are curious, but fearful of all the changes you represent.”

He nodded, slowly. “I understand. So the question becomes, how do we persuade others over to our side?”

She shook her head, and her jewelry sang softly. “Gentle persistence. It helps that you have Skandranon with you; he is such a novelty that he is keeping peoples’ minds off what you folk truly represent. I was accepted because what I am fell within the bounds of what they had already accepted. You must tread a careful path, Amberdrake. You dare not give offense, or give reason for the Haighlei to dismiss you as mere barbarians.”

“What else do we need to know?” Winterhart asked urgently.

“Mostly that the Heighlei are very literal people; they will tell you exactly what they mean to do, not a bit more, and not a bit less.” She creased her brow in thought. “Of course, that is subject to modification, depending on how the person feels about you. If you asked one who felt indifferent toward you to guard your pet, he would guard your pet and ignore the thief taking your purse.”

Amberdrake nodded, trying to absorb it all.

“What can you tell us about this Eclipse Ceremony?” he asked.

Silver Veil smiled.

“Well,” she said, with another wave of her fan, “Obviously, it begins, ends, and centers around the Eclipse. . . .”