The White Gryphon

The man was scaling the side of the tower, which was odd, because there were a dozen better ways to get into it, all of them involving a whole let less work.

If he was just a thief, why bypass all those easier ways in? He moved with a skill that told Skan he knew exactly what he was doing. . . .

In fact, he moved in a way that put Skan’s hackles up. Move a little—then freeze in a distorted pose that looked more like an odd shadow than the outline of a human. Move a little more, freezing again, this time in a different, but equally distorted pose. He wasn’t going straight to his goal, either, but working his way back and forth along the face of the building to take advantage of all the real shadows.

This has to be the one!

Just as Skan thought that, the man suddenly vanished, and only by accident did Skan see the darker shape of a window inside the irregular shadow-shape he had entered.

Skan folded his wings and dove headfirst for the spot, backwinging at the last moment and thrusting out with all four claws to catch the sides of the window, and hold him there.

He clung there for just a heartbeat, long enough to see that the window was open and that it was big enough for him to enter. Then he plunged forward with a powerful thrust of his hindlegs, wings folded tightly against his body, head down and foreclaws out.

Where— was his last thought.

He woke all at once, which argued that a spell had knocked him unconscious rather than a blow to the head or an inhaled drug. He was, however, still quite unable to move; he was bound in a dozen ways. No matter how he strained against the bindings, he could not move even a talon-length.

He lay on his side staring at a wall, with a rigid bar or board stretched all along his spine. His neck was bound to this bar, and his tail; his head was tethered to the end of it as well, and he thought he had been bound to it in several places along his chest and stomach. His wings were certainly bound. He counted three straps at least, and there might be more.

He was muzzled, but not blindfolded or hooded. There were more bars, this time of metal, fastened to his ankles, holding all of his legs apart in a rigid pose, and rendering his talons useless. He could flex them, and his legs a little, but it wasn’t going to do him any good; the ends of the metal bars were against the wall and floor and weren’t going anywhere. A collar around his neck was tied to the muzzle and to the bar between his foreclaws. A soft footfall behind his back warned him that he was not alone. “Quite an artistic arrangement, don’t you think?” said a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “I thought it up myself.”

Skan discovered the muzzle was just large enough to permit him to speak. “Fascinating,” he said flatly. “And now that you know you’ve got a successful arrangement for gryphon trussing, would you like to let me go?”

“No,” said the speaker. “I like you this way. It reminds me of home.”

Why does he sound familiar? Who is this idiot? He’s speaking our language, not Haighlei—could he be one of Judeth’s people? No, or how would he have killed all those Haighlei women before Judeth got here?

Something about that combination was teasing at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t seem to put the clues together into a whole.

“Haven’t you recognized me yet?” The voice sounded disappointed. “Oh, this is really too bad! Either you are becoming a senile old fool, Black Gryphon, or I am simply not notorious enough. I am inclined to believe the former.”

“Which means you have outwitted a senile old fool,” Skan replied instantly, with a growl. “Hardly impressive.”

He hoped to annoy this person enough to get some useful reaction out of him, but he was again disappointed when the man giggled.

“But you aren’t the important one, gryphon,” the man said smugly. “You’re only an annoyance that we had to get out of the way so you couldn’t interfere in our real work. We have bigger prey in mind than you.”

“We?” Skan asked.

The man giggled again. “Oh, no. You won’t catch me in that little trap. You have the most remarkable knack for escaping at the last minute—unlike those old bitches I practiced on.” The voice took on a sullen quality, rather like an aural pout. “They were hardly good material. All flaws, and nothing really to work on. Very disappointing. Unartistic. Not worth my time, when it came down to that. You have some potential, at least, and I am truly going to enjoy showing him—ah—what you’re made of.” Another giggle, and this one was definitely not sane. “Now mind you,” the man went on, in a belligerent tone, “I don’t usually practice my arts on males, but I’m going to make an exception in your case, just to impress Amberdrake.”

Skandranon lunged without thinking, succeeding only in throttling himself against the collar. As he choked, he