She looked out of the window, but there was no-one on the other side. It was as if the night had simply swallowed him up.
“Arren, please!” she called. “Arren, there’s something I—”
But there was no reply. He was gone.
Darkheart was lost. He wandered disconsolately among the trees, not knowing what to do or where he should go. It was daylight now, and he didn’t want to take to the air. He was trying to find the human, and humans stayed on the ground.
He followed its scent to the edge of the trees and stood there for a time, looking at the village. It must have gone there, but for some reason he didn’t want to try to follow.
He went back toward the base of the mountain and found the place where the human had died and then . . . not been dead any more. He didn’t understand how it had happened; he sniffed around the ground there and picked up a strange odour lingering about the rocks, a cold, metallic smell, unlike anything he had ever smelt before. It made the fur stand up on his back.
Darkheart sighed and lay down on the spot where the human had been. Part of him still wanted to go back to the valley, but another part wanted to stay. After having been caged for so long, he couldn’t remember his old home any more beyond a few vague images, and somehow the pull it had had for him before wasn’t there any more. His longing to go home had changed into a general and hazily defined wish to fly again. And now that he was free and had his wish, he wanted something else, something just as ill-defined and confusing. He wanted something to show him the way, some guide to help him survive in this new place.
The voices of other griffins came from overhead; he glanced up, but all he could see was the underside of the city. If none of them ventured this low, then they would never see him from the air. He didn’t particularly care. Other griffins held no attraction for him.
He thought about the human instead. The image of its face was still vivid in his mind, and the sound of its voice, shouting something he did not understand. What have you done to me? What have you turned me into?
Darkheart shivered. He still felt weak and drained after what had happened, and he remembered the light and how it had come out of him and gone into the human. The scream was no longer imprisoned in his throat. It was gone. But instead of giving him relief it made him feel empty and useless, like a heap of bare bones with no meat left on them. It frightened him, and he hissed to himself.
The fear grew. He was lost in this place that he hated and feared but felt bound to by some unexplained force; he felt sick and distressed. He was hungry, but he had no will to seek out food. He wanted to fly away, and yet he wanted to stay. He didn’t know what to do. He even began to think of going back to the cage. There, at least, the world made sense.
He whimpered to himself, a chick-like sound that would have seemed comical to anyone who had heard him make it. This place was wrong, all wrong, and now he had lost the only tie he had to his old home and his old life. He wanted the human to be there again. It knew how to open cages. It could show him the way home.
“Arren,” he mumbled. “Arren.”
After that he slept, woke and slept again. Waiting.
It was not until night came that he finally rose from the spot where he lay. He walked down into the trees and found a pool to drink from, the same one where he had left the human. But it was gone now.
Darkheart looked up at the sky. The sun was long gone, and the stars were out. The human was out there somewhere. All he had to do was follow its scent.
25
Blackrobe and Darkheart
It was cold in Rannagon’s study. He put another log on the fire, hoping that would improve matters. The bark caught and began to burn, giving off a pleasant spicy smell. Once he was sure it was well alight and wouldn’t need any prodding, he straightened up and sat down in his chair, looking up at his sword, which hung