Year of the Griffin (24 page)

But what has hurt you now?
they asked.

“Lukin,” Olga gulped.

We'll go and blow him away for you,
they offered.

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I don't want him hurt. It looks as if I'll just have to leave the University.”

We don't understand,
they said.

Human reasons for things had always been beyond them, she thought, and actually almost chuckled at some of the misunderstandings. That huge storm which had blown their ship right across the Inland Sea to Farness because Olga had told them that Olaf had refused to let her dress as a boy any longer. They had been trying to blow Olaf overboard, they said. At least that postponed the change of clothes. You couldn't buy anything on Farness, let alone skirts.

The door by the chimney opened, and Lukin climbed out. “Oh dear,” he said, seeing Olga's swollen face and tear-drenched hair. “I'm sorry.” He was, as he spoke, almost sure that he could see long, transparent creatures spiraling about her. Next moment he was utterly sure. The things dived upward and streamed around his head until his eyes watered and he thought his hair would blow off. “Hey!” he said. “You can talk to air elementals again! That's marvelous. Call them off.”

“Why are you here?” Olga said. “Can you see them, too?”

“Of course I can,” Lukin said, batting at the creatures, which made no difference at all. “They're making themselves rather obvious. Call them
off
. I came—well—because I love you.”

“They don't always do what I—
What
did you say?” said Olga.

“I love you,” Lukin repeated. It seemed truer than ever the second time he said it. “I don't care whether your father's one of the Emperor's elephants or chief bullfrog in the Marshes, I'd still love you. You're Olga. And I brought you your cloak. Here.” He dragged the heavy fur out through the trapdoor and draped it around her. Somehow, while doing so, Lukin himself became wrapped around Olga, too. They stayed that way for quite some time, while the air elementals wreathed a joyous, windy, open pattern around the pair of them. Eventually Lukin said, with his chin on Olga's smooth fair head, “Mind you, if he ran across the roof at this moment, I'd stamp on him.”

Olga shuddered. “Don't. I still, well, love him, in a twisty sort of way.”

“I can understand that,” Lukin said, because he had his own father in mind, too, and he did not mention his plans for a mousetrap.

News. Visitors. Excitement!
the elementals began crying out, swooping between the chimney and the parapet.

“They always know when something unusual is going on,” Olga said, disentangling herself. “Let's look.”

“If it's more senators or another batch of dwarfs, I don't want to know,” Lukin said, following her to the parapet.

Down in the courtyard the first thing they saw was Melissa, racing past the statue, pursued by a little mob of mice and screaming, “Oh,
save
me!” The response was immediate. Students, not all of them male, hurried out of doorways all around the courtyard and stamped and shouted to scare the mice off. One student threw fire at them. Another rather spoiled that by trying to douse the mice in water. Lukin watched hopefully, but all the mice got away.

“That girl is such a wimp,” he said.

“No, she's not,” said Olga. “Just stupid, and it's not her fault she was born that way. She knows she was, and she's trying to do something about it. I respect that. Those other girls helping her respect her for it, too.”

This sounded like the Olga Lukin knew. He turned to grin at her, then ducked as an enormous shadow boomed overhead. Wing feathers clattered as great wings cupped themselves to brake and a crowd of air elementals spilled out from under, screaming with the fun of it.

“See? They did know,” Olga said as she and Lukin leaned over the parapet to watch a great brown griffin come gently to the ground beside Wizard Policant's statue and fold her cream-barred wings down on her lion's back. She towered above the statue.

“That,” Lukin said, awed, “must be quite the biggest griffin ever. I think her name's Callette.”

Next moment there were violent griffin shrieks from the concert hall. Its door banged open, and Elda streaked across the courtyard, shrieking, “Callette! Callette, you're
back
! Are the others back, too? This is my sister Callette!” she screamed at Ruskin, who was coming after her at a bowling run on his short legs, followed by Felim at an awed trot.

The students who had come out to help Melissa stopped on their way back indoors and stared. Windows and doorways filled with more interested faces.

“I'm going down,” said Olga. “I want to meet her. Coming?”

By the time they had clattered down the stairs and into the courtyard, both griffins were inside a crowd and Elda was saying happily to everyone, “She's ever so clever. She's
rich
. She makes beautiful, artistic things called gizmos, and people buy them for ever so much money, don't they, Callette? Thieves Guild bought nine last year, and before that the dragons bought twenty and—Oh,
here
are Olga and Lukin! Well, you've met Lukin once, I know, but this is Olga, Callette.”

Elda, Lukin was rather bemused to see, only looked like a small-medium size beside Callette. “You probably don't remember me,” he said diffidently to Callette.

Callette's large brown nearest eye inspected him. “Yes, I do. You were small, and your knees were black. You'd fallen down a pit.” The eye went on to inspect Olga, and then Callette's head turned so that both eyes could look at her. “What a very beautiful human you are. Can I paint you sometime?”

“Olga's—” Elda began.

“Shut up.” Callette pushed her face and beak affectionately along Elda's feathery neck. “You do talk so. You haven't let me tell you why I came.”

“To see me,” Elda guessed happily.

“Well, I did miss you.” Callette sounded a little surprised, saying this. “Quite a bit. But I really came to tell you that Lydda's married.”

“What?”
screamed Elda. “Who
to
?
When?
”

“Who's Lydda?” Ruskin rumbled.

“Her sister. One of the other griffins,” Lukin whispered.

“Last week, over on the other continent,” said Callette. “Kit and Don and I all went to the wedding. Blade was the only human there. There are quite a lot of griffins across the ocean, in big families. Lydda's is called Harrek Acker. Acker's a high-up fighting family, though they do have a few wizards in it, too. They gave a very good wedding out on the plains just before we started for home. Tremendous amounts of food.”

Elda spread her wings and jumped up and down. “Callette, tell it
properly
! You never
do
! How did Lydda meet this Acker person? Does she
like
him at all?”

“Like him!” said Callette. “It was the soppiest thing I ever saw. We were still on the boats then, but we could see the land, and Lydda was going to fly there, so she was in the air. But there was this war on. That was why we were there, to try to stop it. And it turned out that there were griffins on both sides in this war, as well as humans, and Harrek was flying patrols for his side. He saw our boats and came over. Or down, I think. He was up near the clouds. The first thing we knew, there was this smallish whitish griffin diving in on Lydda. He has a hooked beak and bent-back wings. They say that's how a real fighter looks. And Lydda yelled and turned upside down to meet him. She says that's how you fight, and it was instinct. But instead of fighting, they sort of spread, wing tip to wing tip, and went over and over in the air.” Callette shrugged, in a rattle of feathers. “We didn't know
what
was going on. Kit and I both took off to help, but before we got anywhere near, they both yelled out that this was their mating flight and to go away. Love at first sight, Lydda said.”

There was a sigh of sentiment from most of the listening students. Lukin hugged Olga to his side.

“Huh!” said Callette. “Neither of them was any use at all after that. Mooning about. Twining necks. Rubbing beaks. We had to settle the war without them. Mind you, Don was almost as bad by the end. Females coming out of his ears.”

“And Kit?” Elda asked with acute interest.

Callette put her beak in the air and rolled her eyes. “Kit? There aren't too many black griffins over there. They think he is
so
handsome. Girls were flopping out of the sky and fainting at his feet.”

“But did he
like
any of them?” Elda asked.

Callette considered. “Not so's you'd notice,” she conceded. “His head didn't get half as swelled as I'd expected. He told me he wanted to get the world straightened out before he settled down.”

Elda giggled. Somebody at the back of the crowd called out, “How about you? Did you meet anyone?”

Callette's tail lashed irritably. “None of them are big enough.” She turned pointedly toward Elda. “Elda, Mum's gone into a complete fuss about Lydda. That's why I said I'd come and tell you. Mum says she's
got
to go there and check that Lydda's happy. Dad said he'd go, too. They're taking Flo and Angelo and going as soon as we can find them a boat. Blade's over at the coast seeing about that now. Kit's at home trying to calm Mum down. Kit says to tell you he and Blade will try to come over to see you after that—today if they can. You're not upset like Mum, are you?”

“I don't
think
so,” Elda said, though it seemed very strange to have another sister married. “Is this Harrek good enough for her?”

“You sound just like Mum,” Callette said. “He's fine. Nice. Aristocratic, the way families stand over there. Not
very
stupid. It's Lydda's life. I quite like him.”

But Lydda might have waited until the rest of her family could get there, Elda thought. She knew just how Mum must be feeling. Anxious, rather hurt and left out, and suspecting that Kit had organized it all, saying grandly that
he
would deal with their parents. Oh, well. As long as Lydda was happy …

She was smelling griffin quite strongly all the while she was thinking this. It was not Callette's sweet, familiar, feathery smell. This was unwashed griffin, dirty. Kit? But Kit kept himself as clean and well preened as Callette did. Don, however, was not always as fond of washing as he might be. “Where's Don then?” Elda asked.

“Still at sea,” Callette told her. “His boat didn't have a wizard—” Her head jolted up. She had smelled dirty griffin, too. “Oh,
gods
!” she said. “I don't
believe
this! I warned that Flury—Get all these people out of here, quickly!” Callette rounded on the gathered students, wings up, beak outstretched, eyes glaring, tail slashing, looking so menacing that even Elda backed away. “All of you clear out of this courtyard. There's a griffin coming who isn't nice. Go on. Shoo!”

“Why? What's wrong with this griffin?” Claudia asked. She had ventured out to gaze at Callette, too, calculating that someone Callette's size could protect her from any number of legionaries and probably the whole Senate as well, and was standing behind Elda with the cloakrack faithfully at her side.

“Everything's wrong with him,” said Callette. “I hate him. He makes me go soft and squeamish inside.” The smell was stronger now. Ruskin and Olga had both caught it and were making faces. Everyone else was still standing, staring, innocent and unbelieving. Callette's head switched back and forth in exasperation. She swiveled back at Elda. “You're a wizard. Make me go invisible or something. Come on. Quickly. Maybe he'll go away if he thinks I'm not here.
Quick!
”

Callette was so agitated and so obviously in earnest that Elda turned anxiously to her friends. “How
do
I?”

“Willing her to disappear, do you think?” Olga suggested.

“If we all try willing together, maybe,” Felim added.

“Let's try.
Everyone
will Callette invisible!” Elda said. She put her head down and willed, hard and urgently. Beside her Claudia, Olga, and Lukin linked arms and willed, too. Felim hauled Melissa in on the other side of Elda and put his head down beside hers. The distant raucous scream of griffin voices came clearly on the wind. This caused most of the other students there to realize that Callette had not been making a fuss about nothing. After glancing uneasily in the direction of the screams, almost everyone put his or her head down and willed.

Callette's enormous shape was suddenly not there. She did not blur or fade. She simply winked out of sight like a burst bubble. She seemed to be gone so completely that Elda raised her beak and sniffed anxiously. Under the now almost overpowering smell of alien griffin, Callette's scent was still faintly there.

“She really is just invisible, I think,” Elda said uncertainly.

“Just in time,” Ruskin said, pointing.

Not one but five big winged shapes were wheeling through the air above the Spellman Building, screaming remarks to one another as they came. No one could catch the words, but it was evident from the tone that violent, derisive things were being said. The yell with which the foremost griffin folded his wings and plunged to the courtyard made hearts lurch and goose pimples rise on backs. Elda felt her hackles wrench themselves upright, from her tail to her crest. Nearly all the students stampeded for safety as the first griffin plopped to the ground, and the next plummeted screaming after, and the next after that. Each one was at least as big as Callette, and all, as Callette had said, were not nice creatures in any way.