Sworn To Transfer

Meres looked at Ciardis and put his hand on top of hers.

“At least you can feel the barrier,” he said. “Perhaps if you act as a conduit we can broadcast my thoughts through to the struggling mother inside.”

Ciardis nodded and put her hands back on the enclosure. She closed her eyes and opened her mind to the protective invisible barrier that vibrated under her fingers. She couldn’t feel the griffin or see it in her mind, but she saw the wild burst of magic emanating from the griffin’s core.

It wasn’t so much a sign of agitation as it was the feel of natural, wild magic. Human mages trained, pruned, and bound their mage cores so much that the presence was muted. In fact, it was considered a social affront to leave your magic leaking in a presence of another. Or a sign of a pompous twat, Ciardis thought with satisfaction while she remembered a certain count’s son who took joy in puffing up like a peacock and displaying his magic for all to see.

Outside of the wild magic of the griffin, she felt the cautious and steady beat of a complex system of magic surrounding the fence. It was built layer upon layer with all the efficiency of a seamstress’s prized cross-stitch. She wouldn’t be able to get around it; it had been built too well. Ciardis began to grow frustrated as she searched for a way in. She could hear the griffin’s magic and feel the distress in its mind. Both called to her, but in different ways. The magic felt like a power she could meld with, enhance, and push to greater heights. The mind was one she wanted to soothe and comfort through its agony.

Ciardis surfaced and looked behind her. Meres Kinsight couldn’t help her push through the barrier, but she had a hunch who could.

“Vana,” she called as she caught the woman’s eye. The mage was watching her with a cautious expression, legs crossed as she sat on a large rock conveniently placed nearby.

Sighing Vana asked Ciardis, “Do you know what you’re asking for?”

“Yes,” replied Ciardis, but she was beginning to wonder whom she was asking. She didn’t know much— okay, anything—about the background of the woman known as Vana Cloudbreaker. She knew that she was mage of the unknown—a dark specialty of mages whose powers took unique forms. But exactly what the extent of Vana’s experience was happened to be information that she didn’t know and she doubted anyone else knew, either.

Walking forward, Vana came to stand to Ciardis’s left. Over the girl’s head, she caught Meres’s eye and shook her head slightly.

To Ciardis she said, “I’ll help you get through this barrier, but understand this: we will not break it. We will only unlock it.”

Ciardis nodded in acceptance.

“Do you understand?” Vana repeated slowly with a glint in her eye.

“Yes,” Ciardis said, returning the look with a firm gaze.

Assured but wary, Vana latched onto Ciardis’s other hand and melded their magic.

Taking the lead, Vana formed a purple spear of magic in her mind. She mold the purple spear until it touched the edge of the enclosure. Wriggling it gently, she helped it ease a slight bit further into the barrier’s magic. Built by powerful mages, the enclosure’s magic resisted her advances and already sought to push the invading magic out of its meld. But the key was that Vana was in, and once she was in she could break anything. This she didn’t want to break, though. She just wanted to peek through for a second.

Focusing on that intent, she sent tiny tendrils of her magic out. Carefully pushing magic into the opposite end of the spear, she began to widen the end that sat in the barrier meld until it resembled a trumpet with a wide, shallow end inside the enclosure and a hold tube piercing the enclosure’s magical barrier to the outside. Smiling, Vana opened her eyes and looked over at Ciardis.

“Your turn,” she said while looking at Meres and Ciardis.

Ciardis and Meres poured their magic into the enclosure through Vana’s tunnel. When Ciardis reached the interior, she felt and heard a warning cry.

Warily, she halted, not backing up but not pushing forward, either. And then she heard Meres’s voice in her mind.

“The griffin is alert and she’s wary. Too many mages are surrounding her. Pull back, Ciardis. Now that I’m through, as long as the tunnel is here, I can get through on my own”, Meres said.

Ciardis felt like a child that had been shown a prize that had been snatched back immediately. She wanted to pout, she desperately did, but she restrained herself and did as he had asked. As she opened her eyes and saw Vana watching her, she said, “Meres said—”

“I know what he said,” said Vana curtly. “Just stand still and wait.”

Ciardis was miffed; why was she being so cold? Deciding not to bother with it now, she closed her eyes and leaned on the barrier physically. She might not be able to be inside the fence, but she might be able to hear what was going on.

Slowly, Meres’s voice began to trickle down the tunnel. At first it was distorted, but as she listened carefully she understood more and more of what he was saying.

On the other side of the fence, Meres stood facing an angry griffin imprisoned in a fence, its hackles raised and feathers fluffed. Standing firm so as to not give the appearance of fleeing, he began to speak using soothing words and a quiet voice. The pregnant griffin wasn’t really in the mood for the lullaby. She screeched and moved forward, raising her forearm in an intimidating manner and clawing the air in front of him.

“Let me go!” she screamed in his mind, enraged.

Time to change tactics.

“We’re trying to help you,” he pleaded.

“No, no.”

He crouched in pain, not from the mental shouting, which did hurt, but from the images she was sending through the link. She and her mate in flight. They’d been hunting and had dived down on unsuspecting prey—a juicy deer that they had torn to shreds with relish. Without warning, shadows had come from nowhere, a human walking behind them. He had ordered his creatures to attack them. She had barely gotten away.

She bore resentment for what she saw as one of his village warriors’ attacks.

“It wasn’t us, Queen of the Air,” he protested.

“Human, I saw—it was human!”

“There are many humans,” he said, “Many different ones.”

A gleam came into her eye. Meres continued to talk to her. To placate her, all the while using his mind magic to calm her down imperceptibly, to push the anger back and allow reason to flow through.

Finally she trembled and lowered herself to the ground. With all four legs beneath her and her wings smoothed along her back, she was beautiful, a radiant golden goddess of the air.

“Raina,” she said. “My name is Raina.”

“Raina, then,” he replied. “Your kits have been fueled by your rage. Are they well? Can you feel them moving inside you?”

She tilted her head quizzically at him, as if trying to understand his query, and then quickly stuffed her head under her wing and looked at her stomach.

Looking back at him, she said, “They move. They are whole.

“May I help?”

“Help? Help how?”

“By giving them energy and life.”

“Take me from this prison first.”

He raised an eyebrow. Griffins were intelligent and she knew how to bargain.

“I can only do that if you keep calm,” he said, “If my companions can speak with you and see that you are back to being of sound mind, they will free you so that you can birth your kits in freedom.”

She nodded.

Meres left the enclosure and retreated back to his physical form. Sighing, he stretched his neck to let out a crick in the side. Looking over at Vana, he said, “She wants out.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”