flew. It . . . it wasn’t just that its wings blotted out the sun, that there was darkness over us at midday. The darkness in the shadow of a roc’s wings is like the end of the world. . . .”
Taralians are intelligent enough to be deadly enemies; norindours are cleverer than taralians. But rocs are at least as intelligent as humans or pegasi—and they had some powers of magic, possibly powers as strong as human magicians’. A confirmed roc sighting was the worst news the country had had in generations.
Everyone who lived in the king’s palace, and everyone who had ever attended one of the high festival days when the king carried the Sword, had seen it flame up at the king’s touch, but no one had ever seen it glare and dazzle as it did on this day. The news was already spreading, and people began to pour into the Great Hall to hear what the king would say—this too was reported, while the messenger still stood before the king.
“I—I came as fast as I could, my king,” said the messenger. “As fast as I could without foundering my horse. But other people saw the roc, my king.”
“Yes. A roc that wishes to be seen will certainly be seen,” replied the king. “Go get yourself some food and rest.” He put a hand on Sylvi’s shoulder.“I’m afraid our previous discussion, infinitely to be preferred though it is, must now wait.” He led the way toward the Great Hall, briskly, but not hurriedly. Sylvi, feeling superfluous and lagging a little behind, discovered Glarfin to have materialised at her other elbow. One did not lag with Glarfin at one’s elbow. She caught up with her father and Lord Cral, all three pegasi dropping back to allow her more room. They are always behind us, she thought. And Lrrianay is king, and I am only king’s daughter.
When the little group paused at the door, Sylvi’s father said to her, “Walk with me, young one; we’re all we’ve got at the moment. Danny should be around here somewhere, but everyone else is out on patrol.”
The king went up to the burning Sword and laid his hand upon it; Sylvi thought that she would not have touched it if her life depended on it. There was a great shout, or clap of thunder, a sound that was more of a buffet than a noise, that no one afterwards was sure they had heard, and the Sword’s light went out. Everyone found themselves gasping for breath; everyone except, perhaps, the king, who had turned to look at his eldest son, who had just appeared in the doorway next to the mural of King Fralialal and had paused, staring at the Sword. From where Sylvi stood at the king’s side, her brother’s face was in shadow, but she could see that his head was turned toward the Sword.
“I will ride west this afternoon,” said Danacor. “The Skyclears are ready.”
Danacor went with a party not only of his Skyclears, but also magicians and specialist trackers; he went to the mountain where General Randarl now watched, and where the roc had been seen. Danny had seen the roc—he had seen two rocs, although that was not generally known “—I hope,” read the private letter that came with his official report. “We are doing our damnedest to make it only one roc; one roc is bad enough.” The chief thing that he stressed and reiterated in all his reports—as well as why they had some prospect of preventing knowledge of the second roc—was that both rocs were still well to the far side of the boundary of the land King Corone called his, at the edge of the wild lands, where only the boldest hunters went, where there were known to be basilisks and chimeras as well as taralians and norindours and ladons and a wyvern or two. This territory had never been claimed by any human government because of the difficulty of administering it—although there were rumours of encampments of humans as wild as any of the beasts, and the occasional mad magician living there.
But if the rocs as yet came no nearer, neither did they go away. It had been two generations since anyone from Balsinland had seen a roc to be sure it was a roc—and more than one had not been seen, even in the wild lands, since the Great Hunt.
Farley took his own company of the Queen’s Own to a different mountain,