Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar (7 page)

Kelvren dozed off and on, as best his wounds would let him. The humans were given drugged drinks to reduce their pain, but Birce was not willing to risk mixing such stuff with a gryphon’s unknown anatomy. It was very hard to get good rest when parts of your body were simply screaming at you and throbbed with every breath. Still—the attention, the full belly, and the company gave him new strength. When he was able to, he answered questions and shared scores of stories about his exploits and his people with dozens of eager listeners. He related the story of Hallock’s Healing, but felt a pang of wistfulness when Hallock’s wife Genni was brought up, because Kelvren was acutely aware he had no mate to go back to should he survive this. And by this age, he
should
.

The night swallowed up the sky, and he lost all track of time between naps. Most of the rest of the convalescents were asleep, their night dosages in full effect. He raised his head, looking up to the starry sky, seeded by sparks from the camp’s fires. He whimpered softly.

“Sir? Y’there, sir? You awake?” He heard Jeft’s voice at his side and turned an eye that way without lifting his head. “Oh, good, you’re awake. Sir, I, uh, my mum wanted to see you. I fetched her here.” The young man waved someone in. A woman in trews and blouse carrying a large basket knelt beside him, and licked her lips.

“My lord gryphon,” she said in a voice gentled down as if talking to a scared child, “Jeft’s talked so much about you, I wanted to see you myself. You—” and she glanced at where Jeft stood back by Kel’s flank, “—you’ve treated him well, better than most people ever have. I—wanted you to know it is appreciated. He’s never really had many friends, and even then they didn’t consider him an equal. But then here you are, this—wonder dropped into our lives—and you talk to him as a
person
. Not as a servant. You’ve done us a great honor.”

Kel listened to every word and raised his chin up then laid his head sideways. “The honorrr isss mine, Lady. . . .”

“Ammari. Not a Lady, though, my lord gryphon. I am just a seamstress and artisan.” She looked down at her hands when she said this. There was something in her tone that was deeply sad for a moment.

“Hurrrh. Jeft isss a brrrave—” and he paused, “I won’t sssay ‘boy.’ But he isss brrrave. Sssmarrrt.” He brought his head up and shifted his weight from his sideways slouch, which sent lightning shots through his body from each stitch and scab deep into him. “Urrrh. Ssso. Welcome to my palacsse.”

Ammari pulled back the cloth cover from the basket, and hesitantly pulled out a scrub brush. “Jeft said that—that you didn’t look—uhm, that you needed some cleaning up. And he knew you were in pain. When he gets hurt, he comes to me, so he thought if you were in pain—I should come to find
you
.” She asked, apprehensively, “You won’t bite me if I do this badly, will you?”

Kel smiled but took his time to answer. “Haven’t the ssstrrrength to bite, Ammarrri. You have no fearrrsss frrrom me. But. You arrre herrre forrr morrre than tending to my filth.” He glanced back to where Jeft was pinching and toying with the tattered feathertip of one of his primaries. “And it isss not jussst about him, isss it?”

Ammari swallowed and nodded to Kel. “It’s—about both of us. I’ve never been like this before—I feel so lost. My husband—” She caught Kel’s eye. He nodded. “You know, then? Jeft must have told you. I’ve been alone with Jeft all this time, and we work so hard, but—when all of this happened, it just—it’s just been too much for us. I’ve been trying to find work here at the camp—honorable work, I mean. But it’s so hard.” She reached out to Kelvren’s face, but let her touch fall instead along his neck. His hackles looked black in the dim light. Flakes of dirt crumbled away off of feathers. “I’m sorry—words don’t come easily about this. I feel selfish being here, when you’re so badly hurt. But, with what happened—you’re magic. And—magic does bad and good in this life, and you—you’re good magic. Everyone talks about what you could do. What you did do. I don’t know where else to turn, and Jeft thinks so much of you.” Ammari pulled her hand back and wiped her eyes, where tears had welled up. “I just—is there any work I could do for you—is there anything you can do to help us?”

Kelvren let out a long, descending sigh and rested his head again. “Sssoldierrrsss have been coming herrre all day. My flessh issss brrroken, but my earrrsss arrre sssharrrp. They come to sssee the oddity—the thing that sssaved sssome of them. Sssome come in, want to touch featherrrsss orrr talonsss. They want to have sssome luck rrrub off on them. Hurrrh. Foolisssh—they want luck frrrom sssomeone who had all of
thisss
happen to him?” He snorted.

“Lord gryphon,
any
of those injuries would have killed a man. You survived how many? A dozen? Two? Cut, shot, stabbed, lanced through, even? And still you can speak? Even walk?”

“Hurrrh. I am ssstill dying,” Kelvren replied distastefully.

“Lord gryphon, we are
all
dying. But if you’ll forgive me for being so bold, sir, until you are dead, you are still living.”

Kelvren stayed silent for a while, and Ammari started brushing out feathers while Jeft picked away at the larger clumps of dirt around Kel’s hindlegs. “You know, my husband would have loved to have been here with you. He loved birds and kept feathers when he found them out on his travels. Yours would be a prize, if you dropped one.”

Kel looked sidelong at the woman.

“Jeft sssaid that you werrre about to be rrrich. What of that? Isssn’t money what sssoothesss illsss in Valdemarrr?”

Ammari smiled a little—a flicker of pride, then the sadness again. “When the Changecircle came—we—had just lost my husband. I was unconsolable. I ran into the circle in my grief. I just—clawed at the ground, crying out for someone to bring him back. Somehow. I knew there was magic there—else how could it have appeared?—but by morning, there was still no help. I clawed at the ground while I cried—I cried so much.” She paused in her work. “When daylight came, I saw that my hands were—different. There was something in that soil that made my hands glimmer in the light.” She resumed brushing. “My man was not back. But maybe he provided for us in his own way. I found a way to sift this from the soil and bind it, so that it would adhere to cloth and leather. No one but Jeft and I would go into the circle—so it remained ours alone. Almost all the money I had I spent to buy the land the circle was in. I made jars and jars of my solution. And there it sits.” She sighed. “Before all of this strife, traders were going to carry some to Haven, and Deedun, and—well, you understand. I staked all I had on a luxury item, and now no one wants it and no traders will come for it.”

Kelvren rumbled a little and then asked, “Thisss—sssubssstancsse of yourrrss. Do you have any to ssshow me?” The glint of speculation was in his eyes.

Ammari set the brush down and brought out a kerchief from her blouse. Even in the meager light, it shone with an irridescence like oil on water in bright sunlight. Jeft beamed when he saw it. “My mum’s special. She’s smart. An’ I helped, with the makin’ of the stuff.”

Kel admired the cloth as Ammari twisted and turned it around, showing its shimmer. “And thisss—ssubssstancssse. Isss it expensssive? Doesss it poissson, or ssstink, or come off easssily? Doesss anyone elssse know of it?” He added, with a hint of shrewdness, “And doesss it bind to featherrrsss?”

By noon of the second day, Kelvren’s plan was in motion. Through Hallock, he arranged the purchase of several jars of Ammari’s mixture. It positively blazed in the full light of day. Small wonder she knew it would make her wealthy! With his guidance, several of the convalescents trimmed away particular stray and partial feathers from around his wounds, painted them with the bright substance, and set them aside to dry.

Transmutation,
he thought.
Though I fade, I still have resources.
When he had time to rest, the pain actually sharpened his thoughts—it was only when he moved that it overwhelmed him completely.
I can turn what little we have into something important, whether I can fly—or even walk—again.
He
had
to be of use—he couldn’t bear to slide off into oblivion meekly. So, then, what was there to do? Assuming he couldn’t move, he had to somehow use what he was rather than what he could do. He was unique in the camp—an oddity. He had reputation here, even a growing mystique.

The elements were there: the soldiers’ superstitions about how he was good luck. A tent full of invalids making arrows. And to bring it all together, Ammari’s secret, beautiful mixture, that shone like—

The history was told lovingly, in the way only someone who loved tales, and had actually experienced a part of them, could tell a story.

Gryphons need the help of
trondi’irn,
though, like me, sometimes gryphons learn some healing along with other powers. Yet, one pair endured the venture for over six years, alone, blazing a trail eastward from White Gryphon, until they found their city’s long-lost brethren.