The Eye of Wysaerie

Chapter Five--Rogues in the Herd

The wizard was an exact man. Ilmar learned by way of rote, practiced to make perfect, hewed to the letter of contracts, and preferred measuring to believing and facts to friends. A magician and a scientist, Ilmar's credo was "not certitude but exactitude," for certainty was delusion, blind faith in a world less predictable than habitual, and just as often suggestible, coercible, cruel, whimsical, or random. A wizard first and foremost, and a scientist second, Ilmar determined not to be entangled by the habitual material universe, but weed stray causes, cultivate effects, and graft purposes in a garden of his own delight. The only fixed points were what you fixed yourself: the food you cooked to your taste, the wine you poured with your own hand, the bets you hedged, the lords you bribed, the servants you enslaved with magic, the griffin eggs you raised as your own savage children, and the countries you usurped. Until he could check all the way to the bottom of that list, he would not be satisfied.

Moreover, today was the worst of all possible days—as if paying the wizard back for his cuckoldry, Gaspar fell from the sky to steal a priceless griffin egg. Not that Ilmar believed Gaspar's arrival was either coincidence or divine retribution. There were no coincidences, just overlooked causes. And if you accepted the existence of the gods, which Ilmar did not, Gaspar's theft amounted not to divine retribution, but divine spite; it wasn't an eye for an eye, but an eye for a head. Adelae's faded beauty was of minimal value compared to the fabulous wealth of a griffin egg. The more he compared the two, the more he felt the horror of the poor exchange rate. Nonetheless, despite neither believing in coincidence nor the currency of the gods, Gaspar the stray cause had tripped his desired dominoes and stolen what the wizard loved. A reasonable man would learn to make do without a single griffin, but just as there was no certainty or coincidence in Ilmar's worldview, neither was there the reassurance of reasonableness; every hatchling factored in his great experiment, and his plans reluctantly expanded to include Gaspar.

As to the young woman, who being not only good with animals, but the daughter of his thrall, was not only gift-wrapped but prepackaged with leverage—one unlooked-for present deserved another. While griffin eggs usually hatch two days apart, it is not mandatory that they do so, and with a Midwife's Candle gathering dust on his shelf, it would be inconsiderate not to lend a hand.

Ilmar set the Midwife's Candle on his tea table, lit the wick with a pinch of his fingers, then headed for the kitchen.

***

Having no pillow, Elessa's sleep was fitful until her tossing and turning head found the egg. Though slightly damp, it was warm and spongy where the cracks expanded, and she found a few hours of uninterrupted slumber until its rocking and crunching roused her. Gaspar was woken by the shell's echo, followed by the farmgirl's startled cry. "What do I do?

"You don't have to do anything."

"Very funny. I meant to say this won't do. Ilmar will kill us in frustration."

"Come to the edge. I'll hand you what's left of the meat."

Gripping the partition, Gaspar cautiously leaned over the ascensor and extended the tray over the gap, but it wasn't enough—Elessa flailed for it, but couldn't grab hold. As the shopkeeper swayed another inch, then another, he got an eyeful of the enormous drop to the first floor. When his hand shook, not only with fear, but fatigue, the tray became an enfeebling weight—and Elessa snatched the tray, then snapped back to her side, one hand holding the tray aloft as the other caught the side of the bed.

As if mimicking their efforts, the griffin hatched in reverse—its hindquarters backed out of the shell, the sticky wings spilled out in a frail heap, then the head flopped onto the bed, squawking, all of it covered head to toe in an amber liquid that soaked the mattress. When bits of shell clung to its head like a comical helmet, Elessa left them alone, thinking that peeling them away might tear its tender skin. As she dried the head and wings, its lion hind paws clutched and needled her forearm, and with her good hand, she fed it two meaty chunks before its bobbing head nestled on her lap; it was trilling and half-asleep when it peeped plaintively at the onrush of an updraft through the ascensor.