Page 56 of Gryphon in Light

It would beg the question of “can he control all of them at once,” except I know the answer is “yes.”

But Tyrsell gave no indication that he was there for any other reason except to greet the delegation from Iftel. Kel did note, however, that Vindaria’s eyes pinned with surprise to see him, and she made a quick scan forward to see if there were any other creatures like this one.

:Greetings, Vindaria Lisson and Wingmates of Iftel.: Tyrsell’s very powerful Mindvoice rang in all their heads, whether or not the ones hearing him themselves were Mindspeakers, and made it very clear to all of the newcomers that dyheli were not . . . food . . . without saying it in so many words. It also made his powers very clear as well; you meddled with someone who could Mindspeak even to the headblind at your peril. :I am Tyrsell, King Stag of the k’Valdemar dyheli.:

“I thought your kind a myth,” said Vindaria. “Or at best, lost in the past. I am pleased to see it is not so. Takisheth did not report about dyheli in the capital and Court.”

Tyrsell just gave a nod. He’d made his point, and now it appeared he was going to keep his thoughts to himself. Meanwhile, Vindaria shifted her weight from foot to foot, and it was clear to Kel at least that she wanted to get to the Council Chamber as soon as possible and say her piece. He could also tell, now that the drama of their entrance was over, that she and her Wing were very tired, if not exhausted. He got the procession started again by moving on before Tyrsell’s head came up from his nod.

They took the most direct way to the Council Chamber, which was also coincidentally the broadest path. As Kel had expected, all of the Elders, of every species, were gathered in the Chamber. Tyrsell, while king stag, was not the Elder of his herd; that honorific went to his mother, Tronia. There were two hertasi Elders, one kyree, and two tervardi. But no other gryphons but him.

Now, that is interesting. Are they tacitly saying that in this case, I am the “Elder,” since Vindaria addressed me by name?

Kel stepped aside once they were in the Chamber, as did Firesong. Kelvren was on the edge of hyperventilating, controlling his effects upon local magic. More than a few attendees clearly wondered why Kelvren was even there, but none of them seemed inclined to step up to him to dispute it in such a gryphon-enriched environment. The Wing lined up in front of the half-circle of Elders seated on their benches, positioning themselves behind Vindaria. Once in place, they sat down, as did she—another sign, if he had needed one, that they were profoundly weary. They must have flown well into the night every night to get here.

“Elders of k’Valdemar Vale,” Vindaria said into the silence. “We come at the behest of Higher Powers.”

“Explain, please,” said the hertasi Elder, Sayla, his snout quivering with interest.

“I will show you,” she said simply, and made a gesture with her right claw that called up a misty sphere two man-heights tall which coalesced between her and the Elders, a sphere that soon cleared and showed the inside of what looked like a temple. At least, Kel presumed it was a temple, because what he could see of the structure was both more austere and more massive than he would have expected in any other sort of building. Not that he was terribly familiar with temples; the Vales didn’t have them, and there were far more people in Silver Gryphon who worshiped at home or outdoors than there were those who gathered in Temples.

It looked like a perfectly ordinary day in a temple during a time when there was no worship being conducted. Someone was sweeping; someone else in austere garments was lighting incense sticks and taking away the ones that had burned out. There were mage-lights mounted up on the walls, and an altar. There was nothing to show which gods were being worshiped here, which was in keeping with the Kaled’a’in. While there were priests specific to the gods worshiped in Silver Gryphon, the temples there were nondenominational. In the early days of the city, temples had been of low priority, so all religions agreed to share, and that had turned into a habit. This had astonished the Haighlei, who had not been sure whether they should be offended, or admire such an economy of worship. It appeared that things were the same in Iftel. So there was incense, and lights, and an altar, but if you felt you needed to call on a specific deity, you brought what you needed, from priest to paraphernalia.

And then, with no warning, two glowing figures, male and female, each three times the height of a normal man, appeared floating above the altar. The female was garbed in shifting shadows, and herself appeared to be made of tiny motes of shadow. She was rimmed in silvery light, and only her eyes stood out clearly; they had neither whites nor pupils, and seemed to be composed of scraps of the night sky, full of stars. The male was similarly clothed in shifting, golden light, appeared to be made of motes of the same light, and his eyes blazed like the noonday sun.

The sweeper let out a shriek and fell to his knees, and then his face, on the floor. The priest who had been changing the incense wasn’t quite that rattled, but it was clear that this was completely unexpected by the way that he took several steps back, then went immediately to his knees—involuntarily, as it looked like his knees just gave out under him.

“Rise,” said the two together. “Our people do not debase themselves before us.”

The priest struggled to his feet. The sweeper remained on the floor until the priest gave him a hand up.

“The gods request your help,” they said, still together. “The gryphon Kelvren Skothkar of the Vale in Valdemar means to journey into the lake called Evendim. The lake is the site of the Destruction of Ancient Ma’ar, but what was set in motion there has reverberated across the centuries, and now threatens even the gods ourselves. But the future is shrouded in shadow, the lake is a maelstrom of chaotic magic, and we cannot wisely pierce the shadows. We know that what is there has begun to affect even us. Kelvren and Adept Firesong will require more aid than has gathered. We have selected six gryphons of Iftel to Serve.”

Kelvren felt very much as if he had had all the air driven from his lungs. What? The Star-Eyed and the Sunlord knew of him? Well, of course they knew of him—they were gods, after all, and he had, on occasion, rendered a prayer or two to them—but here they were, with his name in their mouths!

He had to sit down. Hard. It felt as if all his joints had suddenly gone floppy and too weak to hold him.

“These are not champions of games; champions are not what is needed. What is needed are quick wits, deep knowledge, endurance, and will. They go into the unknown, and where they go, it is possible we may not be able to aid them.” A piece of parchment or vellum appeared on the altar, and the priest picked it up with a hand that was visibly shaking.

As soon as he had picked it up, the light around the two figures flared, too bright to look at, and then vanished. And there was nothing to show that anything had been there except the paper in the priest’s hands.

Vindaria waved her claw again, and the sphere vanished. “This is all we know.”

:Not true,: objected Tronia, her Mindvoice just as strong as Tyrsell’s. :We know that the Star-Eyed and the Sunlord rarely enter directly in the affairs of mortals, for we were given free will, and are meant to act on our own decisions, and repair our own mistakes. We know that for both of them to appear and say that the future is uncertain and potentially dire means that we must act on this information. And we know, for they told us, that the future is now so unsettled that we must tread with caution. Foreseeing can offer us even less guidance, knowing this.:

“And we know that the gods themselves are bound by the rules they set themselves to allow our freedom and free will.” That was Willowheart, one of the Tayledras Elders. “One of those precedents is . . . that for a miracle to occur, something equally miraculous often must be sacrificed. It may be a sacrifice you must make when you reach your goal, and their charge gives warning. Some of us felt that, as respected as Adept Firesong is, his concerns about the Evendim mystery stemmed simply from curiosity, and did not offer our full support. The gravity of this venture has changed.”

Silence met that pronouncement. Not just silence in the Council Chamber, but outside of it as well. Because surely everyone here, except for the Iftel gryphons, knew that the last time such a bargain had been made, three leaders of what would become the Shin’a’in had knowingly sacrificed themselves to make the Dhorisha Plains Cleansed and blooming. It was a drastic solution, and the opposite of how their Tayledras cousins had Cleansed the Pelagirs, in the slow, steady way of creating Vales and Cleansing outward from them. But then, the Shin’a’in had had nowhere else to go, and faced with a barren, blasted crater, the sacrifice had probably seemed the only viable solution.

As for Kel—he felt he had to remain sitting for a while. He felt a little sick. His name in the gods’ mouths! On the one talon, an incredible honor! On the other—did that make him a Chosen One?

Do I want to be a Chosen One? Did I make myself a Chosen One? No, no, no, did I set myself up for some kind of poetic, horrible Noble Sacrifice?

Vindaria continued, gravely. “We—both our mages and our priests—did our best to obtain more information. But the gods were not lying when they said it was impossible to obtain. Scryers see nothing but fog. Those with Foresight, and those whose spells can reach into the future, had no better luck. Energies, both magical and otherwise, are, well, a chaotic mess. Priests received only the message that ‘This is all we know.’ But we can deduce a little. We can deduce that somehow this state of being has worsened since the Mage Storms, requiring the gods to act.”

“We can deduce other things,” replied Stormtree, who besides being an Elder was an Adept. “We can deduce that this chaotic state is beginning to reach both above, to the realms where the gods live, and below, to those where demons dwell, and very likely across all the Elemental Planes. And that makes mortals uniquely suited to this task, for we are not as affected by the fluctuations and chaos of such energies.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” said Firesong, his tone one of deep sarcasm. “As I know personally, not as affected does not mean immune.”