Wayfinder's Story Page 17

  Presently they were over a good-sized lake, with a single island of substantial size visible near the middle, a dark blob in a great reflection of the last of the sunset. Soon Valdemar managed to guide the creature to a successful landing on the island.

  Tigris, her face, arms, and lower legs pale blurs in the deep dusk, remained in her saddle until her companion told her to dismount.

  At the same moment Valdemar began to climb out of his own basket, then hesitated, worried lest the griffin fly away once they both got off. But he could not very well remain permanently on board. Tigris had already leapt from her saddle to the ground, and in a moment he followed.

  The griffin turned its head and snarled; the young man spoke harshly and gripped his Sword, wondering if the great beast might be going to attack them.

  Well, that was simply another danger they would have to accept for the time being. Still carrying Wayfinder, and keeping an eye on the griffin, the youth went over to where Tigris was standing uncertainly. Angrily he began to question the woman who, an incredibly short time ago, had taken him prisoner.

  Truly, the change had been drastic, whatever its cause. Valdemar was now confronted by a stricken girl who looked back at him anxiously.

  Feeling angry all over again, he demanded: “What is this, some kind of joke? Some kind of pretense?”

  Recoiling from him, the young woman abruptly burst into sobs. There was a convincingness about this sudden relapse into childishness that caused Valdemar to feel the hair rise on the back of his neck, an unpleasant sensation that even the demon had not managed to produce. This was no game or trick, but something completely out of her control.

  She mumbled something through her tears.

  “What’s that you said?”

  “I’m—afraid,” she choked out. Tears were making some kind of cosmetic run on her eyelids, blotching her cheeks. Another moment, and she was clinging innocently to Valdemar as if for protection.

  Automatically he put his arms around her, comforting. Paradoxically, Valdemar found himself even angrier than before at Tigris. Angry at her and at his general situation.

  Not only angry at her, but still afraid of her in a way. What if she were to recover from this fit, or whatever it was, as abruptly as she had fallen into it? He didn’t know whether he wanted her to recover or not.

  Whatever magic might still have been binding Valdemar at the moment the sorceress had been stricken—obviously there had not been enough to keep him from lunging for the Sword—was now undone. He had felt the last remnants of that enchantment passing, falling from him, like spiders’ webs dissolving in morning sunlight.

  “Where are we?” she was asking him again, now in what sounded like tearful trust. She wiped at her eyes. “Who are you?” she added, with more curiosity than fright.

  “Who am I. A good question. I ask that of myself, sometimes. Here, sit down, rest, and let me think.” Seating his oddly transformed companion upon a mossy lump of earth—she obeyed directions like a willing child—Valdemar paced about, wondering what question he ought now to ask the Sword.

  His cut fingers, still slowly dripping blood, kept him from concentrating, and he used the peerless edge of Wayfinder to cut a strip from the edge of his own shirt, thinking to make a bandage. The crouching griffin kept turning its head watchfully from time to time, as if estimating its chances of successful escape or rebellion. Valdemar thought that the beast’s eyes glowed faintly with their own fire in the deepening night.

  Tigris, sitting obediently where he had put her, had ceased to weep and was slowly recovering something like equanimity. Now, when he got close enough in the gloom to see her face, he could tell that she was smiling at him. It was a vastly transformed smile, displaying simple joy and anxious friendliness. A child, waiting to be told what was going to happen next.

  As Valdemar stared at the metamorphosed Tigris, a new suspicion really hit him for the first time: the suspicion that this impossible, dangerous young woman could be, in fact, his Sword-intended bride to be.

  Going to her, he unbuckled the empty swordbelt from her slender waist, and, while she watched trustingly, fastened it around his own. Then he sheathed Wayfinder. Waving the little bloodstained rag of cloth which he had been trying to tie up his hand, he asked: “I don’t suppose you could help me with this?”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that trying to bandage my own fingers, working with one hand, is rather awkward.”

  And when he held out the cloth to Tigris, she made a tentative effort to help him. But the sight, or touch, of blood at close range evidently upset her, and the bandaging was only marginally successful.

  Gripping the black hilt of the Sword of Wisdom in his now precariously bandaged hand, Valdemar drew it and asked: “Safety for myself—and for my intended bride—whoever she may be!”

  The Sword promptly gave him a direction. Generally south again. He decided that, since this island had been certified safe for the time being, further travel would have to wait till morning.

  The next question, of course, was whether the griffin was going to get restless and fly away before sunrise. Or grow hungry, perhaps, and decide to eat its erstwhile passengers.

  Valdemar sighed, and decided they would take their chances here for the night.

  * * *

  The remaining hours of darkness were spent uncomfortably, with each passenger sleeping, or trying to sleep, in one of the side-baskets, which were still fastened to the griffin’s flanks. Some cargo in the right basket—the most interesting items were food and blankets—was unloaded to make room for Tigris. Valdemar thought it would be hard for the magical beast to attack them while they were on its back; and if the thing felt moved to fly during the night, it could hardly leave its passengers behind. As matters worked out, the griffin remained so still during most of the night that Valdemar wondered from time to time whether the beast had died. But he definitely felt more secure staying in the basket.

  As if his current crop of problems were not quite enough, Valdemar continued to be nagged by worries about his untended vines back home, and about his lack of a wife. The images rose before him of several of the women with whom he had had temporary arrangements; all of them, for various reasons, had proven unsatisfactory.

  At last he slept, but fitfully.

  * * *

  In the morning, when it seemed that no more sleep was going to be possible, Valdemar stretched and took stock of the situation. Tigris, as he could see by peering across the empty saddle, was still sleeping like a babe. She actually had one finger in her mouth.

  The griffin, on feeling its heavier passenger stir, looked round lazily; but at least it had done nothing—yet—in the way of a serious rebellion.

  Valdemar had the Sword of Wisdom still gripped in his right hand. Raising it again, he bluntly demanded: “Where is the woman I should marry?”

  His wrist was twisted by an overwhelming force. Remorselessly the weapon continued to point out Tigris.

  Dismounting with a grunt, straightening stiffened limbs, Valdemar walked around to the animal’s right flank and awakened his companion, who rewarded him with a cheerful, vacant smile.

  Then, chewing on some of the food they had removed from that cargo basket, he attempted to nail down the Sword’s meaning beyond any doubt. Addressing Wayfinder, he demanded: “Are you trying to tell me that this, this one with me now, is the very woman? That this creature is not simply meant to be a help of some kind to finding my rightful bride?”

  The Sword, without a tremor, still indicated Tigris.

  “Oh, by all the gods!” the young man roared. Such was his disgust that he felt a serious impulse to throw this Sword away.

  He did in fact make an abortive gesture toward that end, but such was his practical nature that the Sword went no farther than necessary to stick the sharp point in a nearby tree. A moment later and Valdemar had hastened to retrieve the weapon of the gods. Wayfinder might produce some unpleasant surprises, but still it
seemed to be the only hope he had.

  A few minutes later they were preparing to fly again. This time Valdemar occupied the saddle, and Tigris went indifferently into the left basket, where he had ridden as her prisoner.

  Time for the orders of the day. Valdemar put some thought into his request. “Sword … I want to go home, to my own hut and my own vineyard. I want to reach the place safely, and I want the world to leave me in peace once I am there. Also I want to have there with me—someday, somehow—the woman who should be my wife. Whoever she may be.”

  Pausing, Valdemar eyed Tigris. Sitting obediently in the basket where he had put her, she returned his gaze with an eager, trustful look that he at the moment found absolutely sickening.

  He returned his concentration to the sharp Blade in his hands. “With all those goals in mind, great Sword, give me a direction.” The response was quick and firm. “Very well! Thank you! Griffin, fly!”

  He gave the last command with as much confidence as possible. If the griffin only turned its head and looked at him, he was going to be forced into some act of desperation.

  Fortunately, things had not yet come to that. Gathering its mighty limbs beneath it, the creature sprang into the air.

  This morning’s flight lasted for about an hour, and during its entire course, controlling the griffin continued to be something of a problem. Tigris, giggling and babbling what Valdemar considered irrelevancies, distracted him and made his job no easier.

  Wayfinder at least was predictably reliable. In response to Val’s continuing requests for safety for both passengers, the Sword guided them through several aerial zigzags that had no purpose Valdemar could see. And then, point tugging sharply downward, it indicated a place to land.

  * * *

  At that same hour, a great many kilometers away, the Ancient One found himself able to spare a little time and thought to contemplate the treachery of Tigris, and to decide upon the most satisfactory method of revenge.

  Another of Wood’s inhuman secret agents had just brought confirmation that he, Wood, had been able, from a distance, to inflict a severe loss of memory upon his most faithless subordinate.

  “And not only that, Master, but a complete regression to near-childhood. The foul bitch is deliciously, perfectly, helpless!”

  “It is a rather powerful spell.” Wood nodded, somewhat complacently. “I am not surprised at its success. If the Director of Security for the Blue Temple could not resist it, our dear Tigris had no chance … of course in her case, this treatment is meant as no more than a preliminary penalty. One might say it is not really a punishment at all, only a form of restraint. I want to neutralize the little wretch until I can spare the time and thought to deal with her—as she truly deserves.” He frowned at his informant. “Now who is this companion you say she has? No one, I trust, who is likely to kill her outright?”

  “Only a man, Master. Don’t know why she brought him along. Not much magic to his credit. Youthful, physically large. A lusty fellow, by the look of him, so I don’t think he’ll want to kill her very soon. He has of course taken over the Sword Wayfinder now.”

  “And I suppose he has been making use of it—but to what end, I wonder?”

  “No doubt I can find out, great lord. Indeed, you have only to give the word, and I will step in and take the Sword away from him. I, of course, unlike the faithless Tigris, would bring the prize directly to you, without—”

  “You will not touch that Sword, or any other!” Wood commanded firmly. “From now on that privilege is mine alone!”

  “Of course, Master.” The demon bowed, a swirling movement of a half-material image.

  “I,” the Ancient One continued, “am presently going to take the field myself.”

  There yet remained in the old magician’s mind some nagging doubt that his lovely young assistant had really turned against him—his ego really found it difficult to accept that.

  Perhaps it would be possible to learn the truth from her before she died.

  * * *

  At first she had been somewhat frightened, coming awake out of that awful dream—or sleep, or whatever it had been—to find herself straddling the back of a flying griffin. A griffin was an unfamiliar creature—certainly there had been nothing like it on the farm, home of her childhood, scene of most of her remaining clear memories—but it was not completely strange. She remembered—from somewhere—certain things about the species. Thus it proved to be with many other components of this strange new world.

  By now, the young woman who had been Tigris had just about decided that this world in which she found herself—the world that had in it such an interesting young man as her companion—was, taken all in all, a sweet, wonderful place.

  She who had been Tigris, her sophistication obliterated and her knowledge very drastically reduced by the magical removal of most of the memories of the later half of her life, continued to be very confused about her situation. But in her restored innocence the young woman was mainly unafraid.

  From her place in the passenger’s basket she gazed thoughtfully at Valdemar, looked at him for the thousandth time since—since the world had changed. Since—whatever it was, exactly, that had happened.

  Since, perhaps, she had awakened from a long sleep of troubled dreams—and oh, it was good to be awake again!

  She found herself still gazing at the strong young man. And she found him pleasant indeed to look upon.

  It was something of a shock—it was almost frightening—to realize abruptly that she did not know his name.

  In a loud clear voice she asked him: “Who are you?”

  Turning a startled face, the youth in the saddle stared at her. “It is now something like a full day, my lady, since we met. I have told you almost as much as I can tell about myself. Have you no memory?”

  She who had been Tigris did her best to consider. “No. Or, I have some memory, I suppose, but—I don’t remember who you are. Tell me again.”

  The young man continued to stare at her. For the moment he said nothing, only shaking his head slightly.

  Gently she persisted. “But who are you? Where are we?”

  When Valdemar did not answer, she began to be a little afraid of him. She saw him as a very formidable person—even apart from his obviously gigantic physical strength. He had an air of confidence and reliability.

  After a while she told him as much, in simple words.

  He gazed at her with returning suspicion. “So, I am to believe that you are only a child now, and easily impressed? Is that it?”

  She laughed girlishly. She could not really remain afraid of this young man for long. He was too … too…

  “Ah, Lady Tigris, if only 1 could be sure … but how can I determine what you are really—but you have let me have the Sword, haven’t you? Oh, truly you are changed!”

  The lady was frowning. “What did you call me?”

  “Tigris. Lady Tigris.”

  “But why do you call me that? Are you playing some game?”

  “No game, no game at all. Not for me, certainly. By what name should I call you, then?”

  “Why, by my own.”

  “And that is—?”

  “How can a friend of mine not know my name?” She paused, thinking, her red lips parted. “But then I didn’t know yours, did I? … my name is Delia. And now I remember that you did tell me your name before—Valdemar. That has a strange sound, but I like it.”

  He looked at her for what felt like a long time. “What else do you remember about me?”

  “Why, that you are my friend. You have been helping me to—do something.” Gradually, with an effort, Delia was able to remember a few other things that he had told her about himself, before—before the world had changed.

  Valdemar asked: “And what do you remember about the Sword of Wisdom?”

  She blinked at him. “What is that?”

  He stared at her, the wind of flight whipping his long dark hair. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said
at last.

  * * *

  The longer the flight went on, the longer she looked at him, the more definitely she who had been Tigris began to flirt with Valdemar, innocently and sensuously at the same time.

  Valdemar at first took no real notice of her smiles and subtle eyelid-flutters, and occasional voluptuous stretches. He was watching the griffin grimly, and from time to time he repeated his latest question to Wayfinder: “Point me—point both of us—the way to safety.”

  Under his inexpert piloting, the great winged creature, continuing to change course on demand at frequent, irregular intervals, carried the couple back to some place that was half familiar-looking; Val, who as a rule had a fairly good sense of direction, had the feeling they were not far from the armed camp from which Tigris had marched him—it seemed like a terribly long time ago.

  Obviously Wayfinder was not guiding them directly toward his vineyard. Well, having once decided to trust his life to the Sword’s guidance, he supposed he had better trust it all the way. And anyway, he wouldn’t want to arrive home with a griffin.

  They landed in the middle of a small patch of forest.

  * * *

  Wood, once having made his decision to take the field in person, had not delayed. Within a few minutes he was airborne, flying on his own griffin.

  On his arrival at the camp which had been taken by Tigris, he took charge at once, and ruthlessly. By dint of seriously terrorizing her former subordinates, he was soon able to confirm—if any confirmation was still needed—that Tigris had indeed captured the Sword Wayfinder, and had deliberately failed to notify him.

  All of Tigris’s people who remained in or about the camp automatically fell under grave suspicion in the eyes of the Ancient One. Those who Wood thought should have prevented her defection were placed in the hands of interrogation experts.

  Wood had been in personal command of the camp for less than an hour when an alarm was sounded. But this time the news was good: another griffin, bringing in the Sword Woundhealer, along with a prisoner.