Greyfax Grimwald (16 page)

“You have been of more use than you imagine. But come, this is our first meeting after a long parting. I’m here now, but rather in a hurry, and must soon leave you again.” Greyfax ignored Dwarf’s anguished look, and went on. “My instructions to you now are these. This box you will take with you, and keep safe. No one, not even Bear or Otter must know you have it. I can only impress upon you the fate of your journey beyond the River, and all my own, and indeed of all the Circle, depend upon your safekeeping of this box.”

Greyfax had become slightly stooped as he spoke, and Dwarf detected a faint edge of fatigue.

“Am I to do nothing more than hold a box? Is this the part I’ve come so far to play?”

“Yours, my friend, is perhaps the greatest part of all, when it comes to that. When well-laid plans are made, the smallest, as well as the largest, must be perfect.”

“Then can you at least tell me something of where you’ve been, or what news you have gathered?”

Dwarf was recalling the long wait, and determined to pry out what he could of the wizard’s news and actions, to make up for the long nights of worry and torment.

“In brief, to answer your reasonable demand, I have been up one side of these worlds, down the other, over, under, and beyond anything that would make any sense to you. I may simply say that the darkness has been gathering since the rebirth of these creations, and now gains strength in these lower worlds. The sister of our lady Lorini waxes strong, and seeks to overcome these lower realms of ours, and to put herself on an even footing with the King. We have the five Secrets to combat her, and the Sacred Arkenchest, which contains the Music. You must watch yourself carefully, and your friends. From now on, you are in the gravest danger you have ever known.”

Greyfax paused, patted the stunned dwarf affectionately on the shoulder, and went on.

“Now I really must be off, dear Dwarf. You may look for me at this parting much sooner than last. And remember, you’re better guarded than you realize.”

Dwarf was in the beginning of a huff to demand more, when Greyfax thrust the tiny box into his hands, murmured his farewell, and without further explanations, the lights inside the spiraling cyclone began again, and Dwarf was returning alone, clutching closely the small object the great Greyfax Grimwald had entrusted to him.

If he had been less upset, and not quite so impatient, and had he but looked into the older man’s eyes, he would have seen in that atmosphere of serene quietness, the late sun slanting through the slow, swirling music which danced in the room, and in the middle of it, Greyfax Grimwald, looking at him with an expression of infinite love and patience, marred only by the tiniest fleck of sadness at the slow and painful inevitability of everything, of the unfolding of it all.

But immediately afterward, the golden light came forth once more, and the love in the wizard’s eyes flowed forth in unchanging, ever widening circles.

G
reyfax Grimwald had barely conjured the dwarf out the door when into the book-cluttered room came Froghorn Fairingay.

“Don’t you ever announce your arrivals, Fairingay? You might have come while I was working, and you know what that would have meant,” growled Greyfax, but without real menace.

“I’m sorry, Grimwald, but you know why I’m here. I’ve just seen Dwarf sitting amid a great heap of leaves where you dropped him, hat askew and grumbling horrible oaths into his hat, and I knew he’d been with you.”

The marmalade-colored cat with the distinguished dark blue-black stripes down his back casually transformed himself into a pale halo of light, then with a sudden fiery popping, Froghorn stood before the older wizard in his true form.

“I was hoping, Grimwald, that this trip wouldn’t become necessary, but I fear you told Dwarf nothing at all of our plans, and you know how little able he is at dealing with a problem of this nature without guidance. He’s been harping at Bear and Otter until they’ve gone out wandering about all over the valley, and he thinks I am out now looking for them. It’s all absolutely absurd. I could well be used elsewhere more effectively. And I find this task you have set more than tiring.

Froghorn glared hard at Greyfax to see if his protest was registering.

“You know how little we have to go upon now, much less having to deal with that bungling gnome not knowing his giblet from his grump, or his bookends from a shield boss. Why, dear Grimwald, didn’t you tell him anything of what he was to do? Or at least something that he
wasn’t
supposed to do?”

Fairingay had paced down the room until he stood staring out the window into the forever twilight that had fallen While they were talking.

Greyfax sat silently as his friend finished speaking, and stroked the fire absently. The room brightened, turning the bright beige and golden carpet into figures that turned and spun from the light, and the room was like a thousand bright lamps come to life on the face of the moon.

“I told him everything he needs known to him for the moment. If I were to tell him all, it would overpower him. But he knows as much as he need know at this time. And I gave him the Arkenchest to hold.”

Grimwald looked closely at his young friend as he said this. Fairingay drew in an involuntary gasp, but said nothing.

“You know it’s much safer there, Fairingay. They would know exactly where to find it if I had kept it much longer with me.”

Froghorn Fairingay thought a moment, his eyes cast downward, watching the movement of the figures upon the rug as they portrayed the story of their birth and life, the finely woven shadows and patches of light swimming back and fro to the soundless, unceasing Music of the Universes.

“But do you think Melodias will approve? And what of Cairngarme? Is this not a decision for the Circle? To put the Secrets to such peril must surely be the responsibility of Cephus Starkeeper. It carries the fate of our entire mission upon it.”

“There was no time to call such a meeting. And I shall go soon to Cephus Starkeeper, to find what I shall find, and give him what bit of news I have that he doesn’t already know. I shall be gone perhaps

Suite some space of time, as this world knows. And

: the Darkness thinks I carry the Chest with me yet, perhaps it will keep their interest upon the bait, and away from where the Chest in truth lies.”

“This is a serious decision, Grimwald. I only hope it proves you right in the end.”

“In the end, my friend, we have no responsibility for anything he does not will, except to ponder whether or not we did anything at all, right or wrong.”

Greyfax walked to his minutely carved figure of a sea sprite and withdrew a tiny bottle that was blown in the form of a rose petal, and poured two small cups of its contents.

“Now, dear Fairingay, we’ve talked much too long, and I fear I’ve been rather curt. Take this, and let’s think no more of it for the moment.”

He handed the brass cup to his friend, and the two drank the strong potion, made of snow from the high mountains in Cypher and a deep part of the sea from their first passing.

“But what shall I do in the meanwhile, Greyfax? I mean while you’re away?”

Fairingay had begun to suspect that the valley was, as Dwarf dreaded, or felt in his own huffy way, known to some outsider, or worse, real enemies. Froghorn could put a name upon it. He feared the Darkness had stumbled across the quiet valley, and knew of its inhabitants. How much they knew of the nature of those inhabitants, he did not know, but he did not like to think that Greyfax would be unavailable should an emergency arise or events take a general turn for the worse.

“It is not as dire as you think, my friend. After all, you will stay with the Chest. It is extremely dangerous, and very important, so you must, as you already know, keep yourself close to it at all times, and reassume your other guise. I don’t really think you shall have much trouble before I return, but if you should,” and here Greyfax removed a carved ivory ring with the face of a hippogriff smiling sadly upward. “Place this ring over your head and call three times on the Order of the Ancient Yew. You will then be able to speak to Melodias, or myself.”

Froghorn placed the ring in an inside vest pocket, feeling at least a small bit better.

“Thank you, Greyfax. I hope you have a safe journey and good luck.”

“With any at all, I shall. I will see you next when it is written.”

Froghorn Fairingay turned thrice on the bright . carpet and was gone, leaving Greyfax facing away toward the fire, drawing circles across the face of this place where he now stayed. It would be a long space of time before he could relax here in his little room he loved so dearly again, with his books and charts he was forever laboring over.

But then there was the Darkness, and it must be dealt with before either he or anyone else could safely sit before his fire, or doodle, or swim, or anything else one loved to do enough to not do something else in place of it.

He gazed on briefly at the fire, and when he knew Froghorn Fairingay was far enough away for convenience, he showered the room and the sky and the dark wind outside with the sparkling light of his passage, upward and beyond where the sleeping stars napped on in the warm dark arms of the tree called night.

A
s Greyfax Grimwald sped on his way, he sensed the dark and ice-covered world of the realms of Dorini, and although none there could see him, he shivered secretly to himself at the memory of the great frozen palace where he and Froghorn Fairingay had been held captives, and where they had first learned of the creation of the dark hordes of Worlughs and Gorgolacs that Dorini intended to use to overcome the faltering resistance of Atlanton Earth, and to wrest away from the Circle the rightful reign of the lower worlds.

Dorini had fallen quite enamored of Greyfax, and although she recognized him as her enemy, she confided many things to him in her grim chambers, for she was much in his company, and thought it safe to divulge her plots and schemes against the other worlds. She never believed that he or Fairingay would ever escape her. Dorini had tried to enlist Greyfax in her plans for keeping the lower worlds forever under her dominion, going against the natural order of the evolution of the Creation, keeping the lower three spheres in ignorance of themselves, and thereby under the power of the designs of the Dark Queen, and making them unaware of the fact that they were all children of the Light, and that their true home lay in the very Heart of Windameir, and not on these dark and frightening planes where they found themselves imprisoned.

Greyfax was at once repulsed yet oddly drawn to the cold beauty of Dorini She was a twin to her sister, Lorini, lady of the Light, although there was a harshness, a bitter edge, that flawed the awesome beauty of the Dark Queen.

“I can make you the equal of the arrogant Starkeeper himself,” she had said, “if you will but, cast your lot with mine. We shall rid these worlds of the imperfect and weak, and create a grand new design to, equal that of Windameir itself.”

Greyfax, although unafraid, suddenly saw the power and danger of this creature, cruelly beautiful, ambitious, and determined to be on equal footing with the very Creator himself.

Her eyes held him enthralled, and he felt a momentary urge to give in to her and join her dark designs, but the sound and beauty of the Music over* came her clever snare, and he remembered himself. He chided Dorini gently at her outrageous plans, and urged her to return to her former place within the natural creation of the three lower worlds.

Her laughter came, cold and terrifying, Mid as Greyfax listened, he heard the low, menacing laughter shattering the icy air still, and knew the Queen of Darkness was yet busy planning her siege of these lower universes. The great wolf she kept to slay the suns growled hideously when he sensed Greyfax passing, but sent up a long, high wail of anger and despair when he was unable to follow Greyfax in his swift, invisible flight. The wolf had helped Greyfax and Fairingay to make good their escape from the dark realms, by carrying the two on his back beyond the enchanted gate after they had told him they knew the silent signs to halt the sun Ions enough for him to devour it. They had kept their word by halting a nearby sun, and the great wolf had gulped it down, only to find it cold to touch, and icy in his great cavern of a stomach. For Grimwald had merely made an illusion, and what he had eaten had been only a long-dead star, and while his attention was diverted, Greyfax had tugged an ancient talisman from his coat pocket and tossed it toward the rising sign of Capernicus, and Fairingay spoke silently in the depths of his deep gray-blue eyes, and the two were far away before the great wolf had realized he had been tricked. It was too late to give chase to the two, who left their laughter lingering on in the silent globe of the star in his stomach, so that forever he heard their laughter ringing quite clearly anytime he became hungry. His hatred of the two friends smoldered constantly in his cold, revengeful heart.