Cinnabar crafted a message to be sent to Urtho just before Urtho was to meet with the leader of the mages’ delegation. She claimed that there were some problems she and Tamsin were encountering with gryphon anatomy—not even a lie!—and that she and he needed to consult the records on the gryphons’ development so that they could tell what Urtho used for a “model.”
She did not specify who she would have with her, only that she needed some “help.”
“Urtho keeps records on everything he’s ever done,” she said, as they waited in her tent for the reply. She sat as calmly and quietly as if they were all her guests for an evening of quiet social chat and not gathered to perform what could, by some standards, be considered a major theft. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she leaned into Tarnsin’s shoulder, wearing an enigmatic little smile. Her pale green robes were as smooth and cool as tinted porcelain; beside her lover, she looked like an expensive doll propped next to a peasant-child’s rag-toy. “I know he has extensive records on how he put your race together, and what he modeled you on. I specified ‘internal problems,’ which could be anything in the gut, and that’s difficult stuff to muck about with when you don’t know what you’re doing. It isn’t enough to be a Healer familiar with raptors in order to be successful with gryphons, even though that is how I became a default Healer to your people, Skan. You aren’t all, or even mostly, raptoral. I’m counting on his being preoccupied with this mages’ meeting; he should simply give us access to the Tower rather than taking the time to explain things to us in person.”
“A pity about the timing on that,” Skan observed dispassionately. “Vikteren did want to be here, and he has some—ah—unusual talents for a mage. He could have been very useful. Still, he will surely keep Urtho’s attention at the meeting.” The Black Gryphon lay along one side of the tent on Cinnabar’s expensive carpet of crimson and gold, where the furniture had been cleared away for him. Until he moved or spoke, he looked like an expensive piece of sculpture, brought in to match the carpet. Or, perhaps, like a very expensive and odd couch.
Amberdrake chuckled. “Well, he’ll be here in spirit, anyway,” he said, patting his pocket where the bespelled lock-breaker Vikteren had loaned him resided. “It’s just as well, given that we’ve been huddled together like conspirators for the whole afternoon. This way, if anyone has seen us all together, they can assume we won’t do anything without him, and won’t be watching us.”
Tamsin laughed and reached across Cinnabar for a cup of hot tea. “You’ve heard too many adventure tales, kestra’chern,” he mocked. “Who would be watching us? And why? Even if Urtho catches us, the worst he’ll do is dress us down. It’s not as if we were trying to take over his Power Stone or something. We are not even particularly important Personages in this camp.”
Skan raised his hackles at that. “Speak for yourself, Tamsin!” he responded sharply. Tamsin only laughed, and Cinnabar smiled a little wider.
Before a verbal sparring match could begin, one of Cinnabar’s hertasi scratched at the tent flap, then let herself in, handing the Lady a sealed envelope. Cinnabar opened it, read the contents, and nodded with satisfaction.
“As I thought,” she said, to no one in particular. “Urtho is so caught up with the mages that he didn’t even ask me what the complaint is. He’s leaving orders to pass us into the Tower. We have relatively free access to the gryphon records; he warned me that some things have some magical protections on them, and that if I want to see them, I’ll have to ask him.”
“Which, of course, we will not,” Amberdrake said. “Since we have other means of getting at them.”
“So, you see, we didn’t need all that skulking and going in through windows that you three wanted to do,” Cinnabar replied, with just a hint of reproach in her voice.
“Lady, don’t include me in that!” Amberdrake protested. “It was Tamsin, Skan, and Vikteren that wanted to go breaking into the Tower! I knew better!”
“Of course you did,” Tamsin muttered under his breath, as they all rose to go. “And you never collected ropes and equipment for securing prisoners. I don’t even want to know why you conveniently had all that stuff on hand!”
Amberdrake raised an eyebrow and pretended not to hear him, and simply rose with all of the dignity that years of practice could grant.
They all walked very calmly into the Tower, a massive and yet curiously graceful structure of smooth, sculpted stone. They gave a friendly nod to the guard on duty, and received one in return; very clearly he was expecting them. They didn’t even need to make up some excuse for Amberdrake and Skan being with them. The guard didn’t bother to ask why they were there.
There were no fences; the Tower didn’t need them. It probably didn’t need a human guard, either, but such things made mere mortals feel a little more comfortable around a mage like Urtho. The entrance was recessed into the Tower wall, and the door opened for them at the guard’s touch. They passed out of the darkness and into a lighted antechamber, bare of all furnishings, with a mosaic of stone inlaid on the floor. Three doors led out of it; Cinnabar had been here before and she led the way.
Ah, bless the mages, Amberdrake thought yet again. II it hadn’t been for them—
Then again, perhaps Lady Cinnabar would have found another excuse. She was a woman of remarkable resources, the Lady was.
The area where Urtho kept his records on the gryphons was several floors up, but all of them were fit enough that they didn’t much mind the climb. The circular staircase was wide enough for Skan and, other than the fact that it was lit by mage-lights, seemed completely ordinary. It was constructed entirely of the native stone of the area, planed smooth, and fitted together so closely that the joins looked hardly wider than the blade of a knife.
However, as they reached the floor they wanted, a gently-curved door opened itself as they approached. All the other doors they had passed remained securely closed, with no visible means of opening them. They passed through that open door into an area of halls and cubicles, all lined floor-to-ceiling with books.
It certainly looked as if they’d found the right place. Amberdrake wondered how Urtho kept the air moving and fresh in a place like this; there was no more than a hint of dust in the air, no mold, and no moisture. If he stood very still, there was a gentle, steady current of air running past him, but where it came from and where it went he simply couldn’t tell.
This place, too, glowed with mage-lights; a wise precaution with so many flammable books around.
Interesting that Cinnabar herself said we ought to simply take the secret without confronting Urtho. She knows him better than any of us. I wish I knew why she’d come to that conclusion, but she must have some reason to think he would have refused to give away his hold over the gryphons.
As a kestra’chern, Amberdrake’s curiosity had been aroused by that. He could think of many possible motivations, but he would have liked to know which of them was the most likely.
So while Tamsin and Cinnabar perused the index to the record room to find the books on the gryphons’ reproductive system, he browsed through the notations written on the spines of the books in search of clues.
Unfortunately, he didn’t find any. The notations were all strictly impersonal, mostly dates or specific keywords to the contents. Eggs, raptor, failure rate, said one. Breeding records, Kaled’a’in bondbirds.