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“The breastplate, Chayim, the breastplate will guide us. I will carry you on my shoulders and your foot—your colossal, beautiful foot—will block the sight of the ruby slopes from us both. Hold the cuirass before you like a mirror and direct my steps. It will be slow, but we will reach the Griffin’s aerie.”
And in this way, an ungainly beast ascended the heights of Nuru. Chayim’s gnarled trunk was not so heavy as it first seemed, and his great knee pressed only a little into my now-bare chest. The scarlet facets rose up around us, but I saw none of it, only the fleshy surface of his foot, covered with hair like moss on the root of an ancient tree. I studied the patterns of his yellow toenails; I counted the pores in his heat-cracked skin. Only the Monopod glimpsed the beauty of those crags; only he saw what no man yet had seen without paying the price of his eyes.
I still envy him that sight.
After a full day and night of climbing, Chayim called out to me that the peaks were no longer blindingly red, but had darkened to violet, and gave off no light to harm us, but rather seemed to pull the light of the sky, the spires below, and the breastplate into itself and extinguish it. We could look at it—so long as we did not look down into the inferno of stones below—and not be hurt.
I set him down and we clambered up the last few boulders, strange and alien stones pocked like purple moons. No plant grew—the mountain at this height was a great dead thing, scarred and pitted—and the sharp rim of the windswept crater loomed up ahead of us.
Perched just below the blasted crater, so precariously it seemed ready to tumble from its niche at any moment, was the nest of the Griffin.
I was surprised—the nest did not shine or sparkle as I would expect gold-thatch to sparkle. It was a dull yellow, mottled and dim, clearly gold, but dusted with feathers, its color dampened by the use of its owner. The Griffin itself was, of course, predictably magnificent. His haunches took all the burden of golden shades his nest had abandoned, his tail whipping back and forth b
ehind him like a snake, tufted with a little flame of orange fur. His plumage was a garish turquoise and green, with flashes of deep red underfeathers peeking out from beneath the sea-colored wings. His face was broad, his metallic beak half a mouth, drawn back in a snarl. The wind roared around us, his voice vying with it for deafening power.
“Go away, Arimaspian! I have nothing for you! Your ape grandfathers have killed us and stolen from us and cracked our eggs on their knees—you think I will portion out my gold for you like a shopkeeper? I wish rotting diseases on all your children!”
I was prepared for the abuse. Those who are not beloved of the World-Eye always harbor hatred for those who are. But the Monopod looked panicked—it seemed to him, I imagine, that it was impossible to convince such an irrational creature to part with any piece of itself. Of course that is true—I never had his silly intention of asking for what I needed. I drew my curved silver knife and advanced on the Griffin, who reared on his hind legs and beat the savage wind with his blue wings.
“Jin, Jin!” Chayim cried, falling to his knee in desperate terror. “Listen to me and I will not let him hurt you!”
The Griffin and I laughed at the same moment, both amused by the idea of the hapless Monopod staying my hand or protecting such a beast in any way. Chayim looked at me pleadingly, and his chapped lips mouthed the single word: Tova. I lowered my knife but did not sheath it.
“Who told you my name, one-leg? Griffins guard their names as their gold!”
“It was told to me by the Anchorite of Shadukiam, noble Jin. I am sure she meant no harm—she knows my need is great.”
The Griffin folded his wings swiftly and leaned forward, his face suddenly soft and eager as a chick’s.
“Giota? Giota sent you to me?”
I was forgotten. The two creatures were suddenly intent on each other, and on the ghost of this third creature who was not on the mountain. I could have sunk my knife in the Griffin’s emerald flank then, and had my choice of his body or his nest to make my eye. But I did not; I was merciful; I was, I admit, curious.
“Yes, yes, she sent me; she said that you would help me. Please—I must have a talon of yours, so that I may kill a thing and save my beloved.”
But the Griffin was not listening. He beckoned Chayim to him and allowed the Monopod to awkwardly climb into his nest, so that the excited, reedy voice of the bird-beast, now soft with wonder, could be heard easily above the wind. I strained forward to hear, and Chayim lay like a babe cradled in those iridescent wings.
“Little lumpish man, Giota brought my sister into this world…”
SHE WAS THE RUNT OF OUR LITTER—THE SMALLEST egg, last laid, white beryl with stripes of cobalt and a cord of quartz streaking through the curve like a splash of milk. My mother feared that it would not hatch at all, and she would be left with a dead rock to nurse. But she sat on it all the same, sharing the warmth of her hindquarters with three other eggs, all much grander and larger than the white one. They were her real hope—the violet, the flame-colored, and the deep blue.
Of course the Arimaspian horde came when the greedy Oluwas needed another bushel of gold. They were de lighted to find my mother had laid her eggs; the yolk of our agate eggs is the purest ore of all. Though she screamed and slashed at them with her forepaws, the men dashed my siblings against the rocks and scooped up the precious stuff. The indigo Griffin squeaked and died, half-formed, in a puddle of golden yolk, and the flame-bright brother I might have had did not even manage so much—his skull was cracked when the egg burst. Only I survived, who was laid first, for we are not birds: we give eggs one at a time, during each moon of the mating autumn. I was large enough that I tumbled out, a bundle of screeching feathers and fur streaked in ropy gold. But Arimaspians have no use for live Griffin chicks; our beaks are too small to yield much metal. They made their escape, baskets brimming, though a handful met my mother’s claws.
My sister’s egg was so small that they had not even noticed it.
In her grief, my mother could not accept that all her children but one had perished, and with me clutched to her back and the unhatched egg clasped in her talons, she flew from the heights of Nuru into Shadukiam, where all manner of secret things are known. It is said that in Al-a-Nur all the wisdom of heaven is kept, but if you seek the dank, reeking magic of the underworld, if you want real power, to Shadukiam you must go. My mother was wise; she went directly beneath the Rose Dome and ensconced herself on the roof of the Basilica, among the waving branches of the Door-Tree, where she sent up her mourning cries like bells tolling the hours. So it went for a full fortnight, and the city could not sleep for the noise.
Giota was young then, and she alone was brave enough to answer my mother’s cry. She climbed the walls of the Basilica like a little monkey, her short braids swinging. In those days she did not wear her gown of hair, but dressed as any of her kind would, and kept her locks cropped and knotted like a penitent. She crawled over the arched cupola painted with silver stars, and crouched before my mother, panting. Her face, of course, was smooth where her lips should have been, but she pulled open her tidy black vest to show her belly-mouth, and called out:
“Mother Griffin, cease your cries! Giota is here, she will mend your egg.”
“How can you know that it is my egg which wounds me?” My mother beat her rose-gold wings impressively, to instill the proper fear in a flightless creature. I chirruped beside her, eager to help.
“Giota knows much. She can hear your wails—and would never mistake a mother’s grief for any other kind. Give over the egg; I will quicken it.”
My mother was desperate, and she knew no other would come clambering up the cathedral walls. “These are the last, little Giota. My bright blue son and this stunted white egg. The last Griffins in all the world. The one-eyes have slaughtered all the rest, and the next time one of their Princes itches for an eye, they will slaughter me. Save my egg and you will have gold, more than you could wish for.”
Giota shook her head ruefully. “That is the other Shadukiam, the one which does nothing if it does not bring them jewels and silver. I will do this because I wish to. If reward comes to me, it will come in its own time, and in its own way. Giota does not bargain for lives. Only pray that the egg contains a hen.”
