The Care and Feeding of Griffins (36 page)

Taryn picked up her firestick and morosely poked the folded paper further into the coals, trying to make it burn faster.  Abruptly, she changed her mind and started banking her fire instead, moving Aisling to one side as she went about shutting down her camp.  She had plenty of things she needed to be doing right now, but her concentration was shot.  It was time for an outing.

She needed to see a friendly face.

46.  Poor, Lonely Magus

F
inding the cabin was easier than she expected it to be.  After all, there wasn’t a trail of any kind leading through the woods.  Taryn wasn’t quite sure how the magus managed that.  He must not leave very often, although how he could be a homebody and still eat was a mystery to her.  There was no garden around the side of the cottage, no chicken coop, no nothing.

But she did find it, which was the important thing, and as soon as her eyes spied the cozy little cabin nestled in its little clearing in the middle of the dense forest, she felt much better.  The whole way here, she
’d been wanting to turn aside.  Go see Tonka instead, or maybe go across the bridge and see if she could find wherever it was that Antilles lived.  The thought of the magus’s cat was still an unnerving one, but the letter from Aunt Janet had made her miserable enough that the magus himself suddenly looked very sympathetic to her.  She’d run out on him in hysterics, and after he’d saved her life and everything.  The least she could do was drop by and try to be neighborly.

Besides, although she hated to admit it, what she wanted most of all after that awful letter was a little human contact.  And Tonka and the other Farasai, as friendly as they were now, simply couldn
’t fit that bill.

Taryn walked up to the cabin door and knocked, feeling slightly ridiculous as she did so.  Knocking was still cemented in her mind as the polite thing to do, and she saw no practical reason why that should change here in Arcadia, but it still felt odd.  The magus had the only real door for miles around (the lodges at Tonka
’s kraal did have wooden doors, but no catches.  They swung to a closed position from which they could be either barred securely or simply nudged open) and she was probably the only person in all Arcadia who would knock on one.  Nevertheless, habits were habits.

“
Taryn!” she heard the magus call, and sudden happiness surged through her glum fugue at the very sound of her name.  He followed up with a muted, “Get back there.  Go on.  Go!” and the woman-cat’s petulant voice replied, “Don’t want to go.  Is he angry?  I hate him.  It’s dark in here.”  A door closed, and then the one before her opened to reveal the magus broadly smiling.

“
A visitor,” he said.  “My first in fifty years.  Come in, come in.  And you brought your little friend.”

Taryn set Aisling down after a cautious glance proved the back room
’s door was indeed shut tight.  (The cat was on the other side, loudly proclaiming that she wanted to come out and that she hated the magus and wanted to kill him, but she seemed incapable of reaching for the simple latch and opening the door.)  Aisling, freed from Taryn’s restraining grip, immediately pounced under the magus’s robe, lashing his tail high and yowling to himself.

“
Um…” said the magus.

“
He won’t bite.  Just jiggle your toes a little.  He’ll run off.”

The magus lifted the hem of his robe just enough for Taryn to see the first human feet other than her own since arriving in Arcadia.  He shook his foot a little and Aisling leapt back, screeching happily as he gamboled madly around the room.

“Cute,” said the magus.  His eyes were riveted to the griffin’s every move.  “How long have you had him?”

“
I’m not totally sure.  I haven’t been keeping a calendar and the days kind of blend together.  About a month, I guess.”

“
Mm hm.”  The magus continued to watch Aisling for a moment more, but then abruptly straightened up and waved her into the kitchen ahead of him.  “Oh, where’s my head?  Let me get the kettle on.  And look!  I made another chair, just for you.”

He
’d put some effort into it, clearly.  The new chair was broad-backed, with contoured curves in the seat, not just a slab of wood, and a cushion made from some woolly kind of animal.  She didn’t recognize the critter who’d donated the necessary materials, but she supposed it could have been some russet-colored sheep or maybe the hide off one of the yak-like grazing monsters.  The young ones were sort of that color.

“
Hm?  Oh…goat,” the magus said, when she asked.  “Turned out to belong to someone, although I didn’t realize it at the time.  Didn’t make any friends that day.”  He glanced at her as she knelt down to see how the thing had been built.  “Aren’t you going to try it out?”

“
Sure am.  Just wanted to…What’s this?” 

Her fingers, trying to feel out whether he
’d attached the legs with pins or with pitch, had run across what felt like a carving.  She tipped the chair onto its back legs and saw an image cut into the underside of the seat—something abstract and highly detailed, all curves and shapes and connecting lines.

“
I tried my hand at carving,” the magus answered, watching her.  “I didn’t like the result, so I put it on the bottom.  Where I figured no one would see it.”

“
Whoops.”  Taryn righted the chair and stood up.  “It’s very nice.”

“
Thanks.  Are you going to sit now?”

A crash from the other room signaled Aisling
’s successful bid to knock over the only piece of furniture there, as well as all the books stacked on it.  The griffin came darting to her immediately afterward, eyes panicked and tail between his legs.  She scooped him up and went to inspect the damage.  “Nothing’s broken,” she called, righting the table.

“
Yeah, it’s hard to break a book,” the magus said dryly.  “Sit down already.  Do you suppose I could interest him or you in a bite to eat?”

“
I could be tempted.  What do you say, Aisling?” she asked, rubbing his beak feathers.

The magus, who had been reaching down a platter of blobbish-looking biscuits, turned around fast. 
“Aisling?” he said sharply.

Aisling peeped.

“Um, yes.  Why?  Is that a dirty word here?”  The thought that she may have inadvertently named her young griffin something socially-awkward was a particularly alarming one.  No one else had mentioned it if it was, but then, the horsemen weren’t in the habit of pointing out other people’s mistakes.

“
Aisling,” the magus said again.  “To me, Aisling.”

Aisling headed agreeably over, got distracted halfway there by the woolly cushion on the chair, and attacked it instead.

The magus’s smile faded to a frown.  He looked at Taryn.

“
What?” she said, amused.  “How many two-month olds do you know who come when they’re called?  No biting, Aisling,” she added, chasing him off the cushion.  “You act like you expect him to obey just because you—”

“
Sit down, Taryn.”

She sat.

At once, whatever mildly chiding thought she’d been trying to express went completely out of her head.  Arcadia meant a lot of long walks and hard ground when the walking was done.  It felt great to be off her feet and on a real chair.  The pleasure of it was glowy warm, almost sensual.  Taryn leaned back, wiggling herself cozy.

“
All right?” the magus asked.  He was smiling again.

“
Indescribably grand.”  It was.  All the strength seemed to have gone right out of her legs.  She thought she could sit there forever.

The magus brought his platter of biscuits over for her to try.  The first bite was dry and uninspired, with a gritty texture and a bitter aftertaste, but she ate it anyway.  One couldn
’t judge everyone by Ven’s cooking.  Besides which, Taryn had yet to even attempt something as complicated as a biscuit.  She offered Aisling the next bite, however.

Aisling wasn
’t as polite as she was.  He sniffed, sat and preened a toenail excessively, and then galloped off to pounce on the magus’s feet again.

“
Off, Aisling,” he said, and looked mildly put out by the griffin’s utter lack of obedience.  But he certainly didn’t seem cross as he bent down to chase the griffin away with a few well-placed pats.  “How old do you suppose he was when you found him?” he asked.

“
I hatched him,” Taryn said proudly.

The magus straightened up and gave her a sharp look. 
“How did you chase off the cob and crown?” he asked.

“
I didn’t chase anyone off.  The egg was abandoned.”

“
Griffins don’t abandon their eggs.”

“
Griffins don’t go to Earth either, but that’s where I found it.”  Taryn forced herself to finish off her awful biscuit, and the magus’s attention dipped to her mouth as she chewed.

“
Eat up,” he murmured, and then smiled to take away any cryptic overtones.  “That couldn’t have been an easy incubation.  Did you keep any eggshell?”

“
No.  You know, I almost did, but I figured it wouldn’t survive the trip out here, so I just crushed it up good and threw it out.”

The magus performed a slow blink.  It was an eerily familiar expression for Taryn.  Rhiannon did that, usually just before she said words that began with,
‘What kind of idiot’, but the magus only smiled.  “The chance to see a griffin’s egg up close is what one might call a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he explained.  “Like all magi, I’m a naturalist at heart.”

Taryn launched into a description of Aisling
’s egg, taking periodic bites of a second biscuit so the magus wouldn’t get his feelings hurt.  He seemed to be listening, but it was impossible to gauge his interest.  He had a way of breaking eye contact to study her face, actions that invariably brought a smile to his own, as well as a predatory gleam she didn’t care for.  The kettle sang and the magus started steeping a pot of tea, now examining her legs.

Or her jeans, Taryn reminded herself.  He
’d been here for fifty years, he’d said.  Her clothes had to hold at least as much interest as what she was packing in them.  Or maybe not, but in any event, she felt unusually willing to be ogled by him.

She accepted her cup of tea and drank.  It settled in her stomach in a warm glob that got bigger the more she swallowed.  She didn
’t recognize the flavor even a little, so she asked him what it was.

He looked surprised and then amused. 
“Nothing special,” he said.  “My own blend, made of teas native to my home.  Have another biscuit.”

“
No, I couldn’t.  They’re good, though.”

“
Have one, Taryn.”

She had one.  Aisling still wasn
’t interested and the magus spent the time it took her to eat alternating between staring at the griffin and staring at Taryn’s legs.  It didn’t bother her as much this time.  In fact, she found it oddly flattering.

“
Aren’t you going to have any tea?” she asked once she’d finished her horrible biscuit.

“
Alas, I spent all of my spare time making your chair,” he said.  “I’ll try to have a second cup for your next visit, and we’ll have a proper tea.”

“
It’s nice to have something to look forward to,” she teased.

He considered that, his smile slowly broadening. 
“You know, it is at that.”  He let his hand rest on Aisling’s back, stroking the soft fur in lingering movements.  “And it’s been a long time since I’ve really looked forward to anything at all, to tell you the truth.  But I do now.”  His teeth gleamed in a grin as he gazed at Aisling, and then he glanced behind him to the mantle over his hearth, where that glass of water was still sitting.  “I have so much to look forward to.  Who would have thought patience could be so exciting?”

The intensity in his face made her somewhat uncomfortable.  Not enough to get up, but enough to avert her eyes. 
“When was the last time?” she asked, groping for a new topic of conversation.

“
When…?”

“
You looked forward to something.”

Some dark and shamed emotion crashed down through his unsettling expression and left it safely neutral again. 
“I don’t want to talk about that, Taryn,” he said.  “But I would like to talk about you.  How did you come to Arcadia?”

She shrugged, strangely reticent to discuss Romany
’s part.  “I came through some woods,” she said, purposefully vague.

She saw surprise for the second time and the magus leaned forward. 
“Which woods?”

“
I don’t know.  Those.”  She pointed in a general southerly direction and the magus’s surprise became all out astonishment.

“
You came through the Wyvern’s Wood?  How long were you there?”

“
Pretty long,” she answered.

“
At night?”

“
It was when I got out, yeah.”