The Eye of Wysaerie

Chapter Three--The Care and Feeding of Griffins

What is a griffin, you ask? While Vanoori scholars agree this oviparous carnivore shares bird and mammal characteristics, its non-chordate, leonine tail bars it from the birds, and its hindquarters lay eggs outside the domain of mammals. There is some talk of classifying it a monotreme like the egg-laying platypus, which is reinforced by the notion that both fusion creatures split their life between two elements--the platypus, on land and water, and the griffin, on land and air. However, the griffin is less hybrid than casserole. Although the feathers and fur seem to demarcate where eagle begins and lion leaves off, under the hide this monster of appetite has two stomachs, one of which digests flesh, while the other compacts bones, clothes, armor, swords, coins, and arrowheads into monstrous pellets, the better to eat its prey live, kicking, and whole, and cough up the salvage. Moreover, the pellet-producing stomach extracts iron and magnesium from consumed metals to fortify the griffin's hollow skeleton. If they only laid eggs and lived in two mediums, they might be defined as a monotreme mammal, but this unusual digestive appartus excludes them from animalia entirely, and places them in monstrum, the kingdom of monsters.

Though griffins hoard no gold, griffin eggs are priceless, for hatchlings imprint forever on whatever monster mothers them, whether their natural mother, an ambitious lord, or a madman. Since griffins are born wild and are untameable by anyone except their master, this limits the value of fledglings, although the Vanoori menagerie has a long standing offer of one hundred thousand coin for a live specimen, fashionistas and trophy hunters prize a dead griffin's plumage, and furriers, taxidermists, potion brewers, scientists, and certain superstitious, middle-aged men desperate for the glory days of their virility would gladly harvest the carcass.

Though griffins are less renowned and feared than dragons, this only adds to the peril of those unfortunates who encounter them, as griffins hunt in prides, play cruelly with prey, care not for bribes of gold, and take only flesh as tribute or trophy. While smaller than dragons, griffins are as large as a shed, with a wingspan three times their ten to twelve foot length; though a pride packs less monster muscle than a flight of dragons, their advance still causes spines to shiver and bowels to melt. Unlike dragons, who fear death and can be driven off by heroes, griffins fight to the end, not only to defend their lair, but for a single bite of horseflesh. Though griffins are driven wild by the smell of horses, they care not if the flesh of a rider mingles with the horseflesh, for they savor all flesh.

Eriva Kamadne's Vanoori Menagerie, "The Care and Feeding of Griffins."

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When the snagged overcoat ripped and Gaspar dangled precariously from the shredding fabric, he grabbed the griffin's talons in a grip whitened and numbed by the cold, dark storm. Though falling from this height was a nightmarish death Gaspar would never have predicted, he was also loath to be soaked, frozen, or lightning-struck, and cringed as the griffin flew towards the black cloud. When the beast caught an updraft, and coasted over the cloud's lip, Gaspar couldn't believe his eyes.

First he saw the unusually clean roots, dampened by the dark cloud through which they grew, a cloud darkened not by rain, snow, or hail, but the weighty shadow resting upon it. When the griffin crested the edge, his eyes followed the roots through to the other side, where mammoth trees loomed, stretching their majestic branches over a vast island. The sudden shift from dark cloud to dazzling green island, thick with leafy trees and overgrown by verdant grasses, pained his eyes and tore a hole in his common sense. When his bedazzlement subsided, he saw the mountains—titanic immensities never softened by rain or snow, and with crags so stark and sharp they seemed like the snapped-off bases of celestial stalactites. These wicked peaks towered so unbelievably high, that while they were flanked with blue sky, their tops were moored in the blackness above.