Modern Magick

Royalty and Ruin: 19

'I think so,' whispered Indira, gazing at our griffin companion like a woman ensorcelled.

If true, the implications were astounding. It has long been supposed that magickal beasts are drawn to the magick that soaks every inch of a Dell or Enclave. What if, sometimes, it was the other way around? What if it was the beasts who brought the magick to the Dells? Or some combination of the two?

We'd let griffins die out. They'd been hunted for their claws and horns and bones: "For he hath his talons so long and so large and great upon his feet, as though they were horns of great oxen or of bugles or of kine, so that men make cups of them to drink of. And of their ribs and of the pens of their wings, men make bows, full strong, to shoot with arrows and quarrels." (Mandeville again). Their talons and feathers and eggs were said to have various restorative or curative properties, and perhaps that was even the truth. There was also the incidental fact that they could be somewhat dangerous. For all these reasons and more, they had been hunted to destruction centuries ago.

A chagrined thought drifted across my mind. If magick had declined, was this partly why? We'd been killing off some of its most potent sources for the sake of a feather or two.

I'm occasionally ashamed to classify myself as human.

One of the griffins was staring right at me.

I managed not to squeak, and I was proud of myself for that small victory. The griffin in question might have been the smallest of the three, but that was not saying much. It could still have swallowed me in a single snap of its beak.

I stared back.

Those eyes, the deep green of fresh moss, held a spark of liveliness I found surprising considering the potency of my magickal lullaby. All right, maybe it was arrogance to think my own mere magicks could hold a trio of griffins for more than three seconds. But I had got those pipes from a creature of similar magickal eminence, which said a lot for their efficacy; and it had worked before, when I had almost been swallowed by one.

This griffin, though, was definitely not lulled. Nor was it making violent objection to our foray into its territory. It looked like... dared I believe it? Like it was not so much tranquillised by the music as simply... enjoying it.

'Well,' Jay croaked. 'If you're right about this lot, it's just possible they won't eat us.'

Indeed. Because according to Lady Tregawny, the population of Farringale had made festive pilgrimages out here to the griffins' mountain in order to... what, exactly? Our new hypothesis cast her account in a different light. They had allotted me a fair draught... what had they been doing? Were they celebrating those surges of magick, or — or making use of them?

Especially Torvaston.

'Considering we are the first people to set foot in Farringale for quite some years—' I began.

'As far as we know,' put in Jay.

I inclined my head in acknowledgement of this point. 'Their earlier aggression may have had more to do with surprise than a deep-seated need to rend us apart.'

'They can't be the same ones as were here in Torvaston's day,' Jay said, shaking his head.

'Can't? Do you know how long griffins live?'

'No,' he allowed. 'How long do they live?'

'I'm not sure anyone knows. We kept killing them for their feathers.'

Jay grimaced. 'Right.'

Something unpleasant was happening to the floor. I'd become aware of it first as a faint warmth, and then a low, peaceful, thrumming, as of nectar-drunk bees.