The White Gryphon

As Amberdrake stared at him, Hadanelith raised his right hand and wiggled the fingers at him in a childish gesture of leavetaking. "Fare, but not well, dear Amberdrake."

Amberdrake expected him to walk out of the room in a normal fashion, but evidently that was not dramatic enough for him. He pirouetted in place—stepped to one side—and vanished.

"Kechara has all of this," Skan said hoarsely as soon as he disappeared. "That's why I wasn't talking much. She's relaying it to the others now."

Which was, of course, one thing that Hadanelithhadn't counted on.

"The problem is that everyone except Winterhart is too far back in the crowd to do any good," Skan continued desperately. "And Winterhart isn't a Mindspeaker, so they can't warn her. They've decked Aubri out with a ceremonial drape that's strapped down over his wings—he can't fly—"

"Never mind," Amberdrake said fiercely, as he willed his muscles to relax hereand contract down hard there,and wriggled carefully in place. Got to get the strap around my elbows down first—His muscles protested sharply as he tried to squeeze his elbows together even tighter. Got to get some slack in the ropes—"There's something else Hadanelith forgot—"

They were silk ropes, very impressive to look at and very strong, but also very slick. If you knew what you were doing, silk was the worst of all possible bindings, though the most ostentatious.

The elbow ties dropped past the joints. Now he could ease them further down.

By squirming and shaking, he managed to inch the bindings around his elbows down to his wrists.

Thank the gods he didn't tether the elbow bindings to the back of the collar. Inexperienced binders work along the spine only, without thinking diagonally. The way he bound me, it looks nice, but isn't very hard to get out of—something areal kestra'chern would know.

He curled over backward until he got his wrists passed under his buttocks, then curled over forward and passed his legs through the arch of his arms. A moment later, he had his wrists in front of him and was untying the bindings on them with his teeth.

"I'm—a kestra'chern—Skan," he said, around the mouthful of slick cord. "A real—kestra'chern. I've probably—forgotten—more about knots—and restraints—than that impostor—ever learned. There!"

The cords fell away from his wrists, and the ones that had held his elbows followed them. He unfastened the collar—which was looped through but not even locked!—and crawled over to Skandranon. He could get his legs free later. Nowit was important to get Skandranon out of here and into the air!

Skan's restraints were artistic, but not particularly clever or difficult to undo, either. "Dilettante!" he muttered, as he untied more silk cords and undid buckles. He had to mutter, to keep the fear at bay a little longer, or else it would paralyze him. "Rank amateur!"

Damn knots! Damn Hadanelith! Damn all these people to the coldest hells! I swear, if I had a knife— if Winterhart— oh, gods, if Winterhart— Knife— Winterhart—

He blinked, and shook his head as the light took on a thin quality. "Is it me, or is the light fading—"

"It's not you," Skan said, his own voice rasping and frantic. "It's the Eclipse! That idiot Hadanelith hasto be dramatic, he would never strike at any time but the height of the Eclipse! Hurry!"

"I'm hurrying," Amberdrake snarled, doubtful if the red haze he saw was due to the Eclipse. "I'm hurrying!"

Shalaman stood tall and proud beneath his heavy weight of fine ceremonial robes, and surveyed his people.

They were gathered below him in a vast sea of faces, as many as could fit into the largest open section of Palace grounds. The Palace gates had been opened today to the public, as they were only opened on the most important of ceremonial occasions, and citizens of the city had been lined up for days to enter, squeezed in together on the other side of a barrier of guards, to view the Eclipse Ceremony with the Court. They were jammed together so tightly that none of them could move. The sheer numbers were overwhelming. Colors warred with each other, and the glare of sunlight on jewelry threw rainbow-hued flashes up into his eyes at unpredictable moments.

The heat down there must have been unbearable, but no one complained or showed any sign of it. This was the Eclipse Ceremony, and time for changes, and no one here wanted to miss a single word.

They were all silent, as his people seldom were. It was entirely possible to hear birds singing evening songs above the faint murmur of breathing and whispers. The light had been thi

To his right stood Winterhart, and to his left his three Advisors; otherwise, he was alone on the platform of three steps raising up above the level of the crowd. In his mind, he wasalone, for he and he alone could make the decision about the people of White Gryphon. He was the King; they would listen. They loved him; they knew his loyalty to their interests.

He turned his troubled attention, though not his eyes, on the pale-ski

He had to recalculate everything he had pla

But he would need the Gryphon King to do that, to speak for his friend—and the Gryphon King was not in evidence. Amberdrake could not be there to speak for himself—officially, he was supposedly mad, and the mad were specifically excluded from the Ceremony.

Without either of the two principals, there was nothing he coulddo about the settlement and the people in it, not with murder charges hanging over them and no one to receive Leyuet's blessing and declaration of i

He'd sent his men for the kestra'chern a few moments ago anyway, out of pure desperation. The priests wouldn't like the fact that Amberdrake hadn't been cleansed, but that was too bad. If Leyuet declared him sane, his presence wouldn't taint the Ceremony, and once that i

The one thing he could not delay was the Eclipse itself, and it was about to move into its final phase.

He looked down at the image of the sun's face, cleverly duplicated in the middle of a square of shadow at his feet. The shadow itself was cast by a thin plate of stone with a round hole in it, which allowed a single round beam of light to shine directly in front of the King. What happened to that round dot of sunlight was replicated in the heavens above, and there was a substantial bite in the circle, a bite of darkness that was visibly increasing. Out there in the gardens, the beams of light that filtered through the tree branches to fall on the ground also had bites of shadow taken out of them, forming dapples of crescents, and those who were wise were watching them instead of squinting up impotently at the sun-disk itself.