Impatiently the gryphon rose to its feet and cried out in its voice of imperious brass. Terascouros lurched upright, stumbling a bit.
‘Thewson, you’ll have to walk beside me to hold me up. These old legs don’t want to work, not at all. Medlo, help Jasmine, she’s as tired as I am. Oh, well, so are you. You won’t have to do much. Just come along and gather together what strength you have. If we catch the city by surprise, it may be enough. Bring our things, and come.’
At the edge of the pave they could look up into the sky where a slender moon and the stars shone dimly upon the city. The fringe of dead forest gleamed grey-silver, a softly luminous ring which swept from behind them away on either side, far out around the circle of the pave to vanish behind the ebon bulk of Murgin. Nothing moved upon the vast blot. The light from the sky fell upon it and was swallowed up. It was only blackness, with greater blackness as its centre.
‘All the trees cleared away,’ mumbled Terascouros. ‘So that from that tower they can see anything that moves. Well, let them see, eh?’ and she dug a sharp old elbow into the gryphon’s ribs. Jasmine shuddered, sure the beast would eat the old woman in one bite. Instead there was a sound of shallow thunder, the gryphon’s laughter.
‘Once again, we will make a circle,’ said Terascouros. ‘As I had you do once before. I with you, this time. Yes. We will call to those powers the gryphon senses, creatures of the dark, the forests, the seas, the lonely mountains, the chasms and abysses of earth. Jaer had seen strangeness, had she not? And you, Medlo? Strangeness which we have learned not to see. Well.
‘We will do what we can, and the gryphon will go to Murgin, break down the doors, search out that place the black robe spoke of, the place where Jaer should be. If those in Murgin are as I was, they will not be able to see her. She will come like a great, invisible scythe, a vengeful blade. Still, she is only one. We need more. A multitude, a horde….’
The gryphon may have sighed, or only breathed deeply. Wings struck downward, ringing like anvils, buffeting the air, lifting the beast upward in a long arching flight toward the black city. Terascouros tugged them into the circle, linked their hands and began the breathy, monotonous chant which hinted at melody. The other three shivered, caught in a skein of thoughts which flowed restlessly around the circle as they linked, as though doors had been opened among them, and their very selves flowed and coalesced. Medlo caught a thought of the Tree of Forever, knew it, lost it, wondered at it. Thewson was caught up in the gardener’s mind, was planting herbs, seeing them grow, and knew that he was Jasmine. She, in turn, watched the great sea serpent move down the moon track toward Candor. The flowing thoughts ebbed, steadied, became a torrent which rose up around them like flame. They grew within it like trees of force, their branches waving in a storm wind of sound which was the chant made manifest. It went up from them, a fountain exploding from within their circle, upward to break into clouds borne on hurricane winds, crackling with pent energy and shattering the sky with lightning. Within their circle the sources of the fountain dropped deep into the earth. They were a fragile ring around a tempest which plunged from the depths outward, widening, spreading across the sky to the horizons and beyond, around the sphere, the call of the chant falling from it like rain.
Then the call faded, the storm quieted, fell away into fragments of cloud, and they were left teetering at the edge of a bottomless well. They looked again, and it was only the bare, grey earth beside the pave. From the black city came a splash of acid light and a mighty clangour as of metal shattering. The squat tower came to life, and light speared out across the pave, beams which crossed and recrossed in search. Thewson gathered them back into the shelter of the forest. ‘Leona has broken the doors, he said, matter-of-factly.
‘She is only one,’ murmured Terascouros. ‘Only one. Did any other hear us?’
There were other sounds from the city, a shrilling of bells and whistles. Tiny black shadows began to mass in the light from the broken doors. Terascouros went on mumbling, ‘Only one. One.’
Jasmine caught her breath, staring toward the south where flickering whiteness at the limit of their sight moved from the rim of the forest into the cleared lands. The movement suggested tossing heads, manes thrown in silver veils, single horns jutting like spears from foreheads. Nearer there were bulkier movements, taller, like vast reaches of pinions. To the north, suddenly, were gouts of flame as though a mighty forge coughed among the trees; and sounds of hills moving, of horns blowing above and below the range their ears could hear. Around the full circumference of the pave drew in a noose of pearly fire, leaving only the space they stood in darkness.
Behind them came the pad of huge feet, and they turned to confront a sphinx which paced toward them on slow lion feet, fixing them with enigmatic eyes. ‘We come who were called, with those both high and low, with theuram, with
