Rain. Why did it have to be rain? Even snakes would be better. Skandranon tried to keep his thoughts on his purely physical discomfort, but try as he might, he couldn’t. His skin crawled, and the rain had nothing to do with it. If Skan’s feathers hadn’t been plastered flat to his body, they’d have been standing up in instinctive alarm.
He did not like this place, and his dislike was not connected in any way whatsoever with the miserable weather.
It could have been that this bizarre, claustrophobic forest had swallowed Blade and Tad without a trace, but that wasn’t the reason his soggy hackles were trying to rise either. The other mage of the party felt the same, and if there had been any choice in the matter, he’d have gone back to the base camp because it just plain felt wrong here.
The two of them, after some discussion last night before the human took the first sleep shift, had decided that the problem was that lack of mage-energy in this place. Presumably an Apprentice-level mage or Journeyman would not be affected in this way; they were not used to sensing and using energies outside themselves, unless those energies were fed to them by a mage of greater ability. But a Master (as Skan and the human Silver, Filix, were) was as accustomed to the all-pervasive currents of mage-energy as a gryphon was to the currents of the air. Skan could not remember a time in his adult life that he had not been aware of those currents. Even when the mage-storms had caused such disruptions in magic, the energy had never vanished, it just hadn’t worked or felt quite the same. But having no mage-energy about—it felt wrong, very wrong. It had him disoriented and off-balance, constantly looking for something that simply wasn’t there.
It feels as if I’ve suddenly lost a sense; something subtle, like smell.
Nevertheless, a quick trial had proved to his satisfaction that magic still worked here, and furthermore, those magical items that they had brought in with them were still empowered. Further checks proved that, at the moment at least, there was no ongoing drain of mage-energy. The power that built up in any area naturally was slowly rising back up. So whatever was wrong in this forest, whatever had caused this anomaly, it had not completely negated magic, just removed it. Whether that drainage had been gradual or all at once was anyone’s guess. And there must be something coming along to drain mage-energy again as it built up, or there would be some areas that had at least a little power available.
As for what that could be, he had no idea. He did not care to think about what must have happened if the basket had also had all of its empowering mage-energy drained—all at once.
Skandranon mentally worked on a few new phrases to use when he finally complained about it all to someone whom he could corral into listening sympathetically. He had a reputation for—colorful—language to maintain after all. He would much rather concentrate on that, than how miserable his soggy feathers felt, how cold he was, how sore his muscles were after two days of walking. That was something he simply hadn’t considered, and it was galling to realize that Drake was in better physical shape than he was! Drake had been climbing the stairs and ladders of White Gryphon for almost twenty years; he had only been flying. He could not think of more than a handful of times that he had actually climbed up rather than down, and none of those times had been in the last three years. At least Keeth had been working out on the obstacle course lately, and Winterhart had made certain that all muscles were exercised. Poor Zhaneel must be as miserable as he.
But she has the best trondi’irn in the city to tend her. Keeth is a trondi’irn. I only have Drake, who does his best, but still. . . he’s preoccupied.
Rain dripped into his nares and he sneezed to clear them, shaking his head fiercely. He and Drake were at the rear of the party; with his keener sense of hearing than the humans possessed, it seemed a good idea to have him at the back where he might be able to detect something following them. Now he wished he had thought to ask Judeth for a couple of kyree scouts for each party; they would have been much more effective than any of the humans.
Rain poured down out of the sky, as it had since the fog lifted that morning. This was a truly lovely climate; fog from before dawn to just after, followed by rain until well past darkness, followed by damp chill until the fog came again in the morning. Judeth had been absolutely right in grounding them, and he would have grounded himself once he saw the weather; there was no way for a gryphon to fly safely in this muck, even if he could get his wings dry long enough to take off. Darzie had managed to bring his mage in safely only because he was insanely self-confident and lucky enough for four gryphons, and because the weather changed abruptly to something more like a “normal” rainy season outside of the “no-magic” area.
That, and Darzie is young enough to think he’s immortal, and good enough to fly as if he were. Like another stupid, stupid gryphon I used to know. In spite of the fact that the rainy season was normal back at the base-camp, “normal” still meant a raging thunderstorm every afternoon. Darzie had flown and landed in one of those thunderstorms, blithely asserting that it was all a matter of timing and watching where the bolts hit. His passenger had been white-lipped, but remarkably reticent about discussing the flight.
Drake had found out what had tempted Darzie into making the trip; a challenge. Judeth had asked the young gryphon if he knew of anyone who might be persuaded, and had hinted broadly that she didn’t think he could do it. That had been enough for Darzie, who had insisted that he and only he could manage the trip. And he had, in record-breaking time, and without damaging himself or his passenger. For sheer speed, audacity, and insane courage, that flight had surpassed even some of the Black Gryphon’s legendary accomplishments.
Some, but not all. Darzie will just have to take his own time to become a legend, and if he is wise, he will do it in his own way, and not try to emulate me. I think that my life must have used up the luck of twenty gryphons.
Skan, the base-camp crew, and the other twenty-three rescuers had piled through the Gate in a record-setting time of their own. Although no people had been “pitched” through, all the supplies had been; hurled in a mass by a small army of Judeth’s support crew. Not even during a resupply had Skan ever seen a Gate go up and down again so quickly.
Darzie flew home to receive his justly-earned accolades and the admiration of every unattached female in the city; the results of that would likely be more exhausting for him than the great deed itself. The Gate-mage and his helpers and guards remained to set up a base camp; the rest of them had shouldered packs and moved out under the beginnings of a rainstorm. No one had told them, however, that they were going to have to climb down a cliff to get into the forest where the children were lost. The three gryphons had shaken themselves dry and flown themselves down, but the humans had been forced to get to the bottom the hard way. That experience, in a worsening thunderstorm, had been exciting enough to age even the most hardened veteran in the lot. Absolutely everything they touched was slippery, either with mud, water, or substances they were probably better off not knowing about.