Celie woke up still buzzing with excitement over the events of the previous day. But her excitement was short-lived. Master Humphries had decided that he would die of shame if, as well as being fluent in Grathian, the three younger Glower children didn’t know the name of every Grathian king since Grath was founded, and be able to greet the ambassadors from Larien and Bendeswe in their own languages.
The court was still in an uproar over the queen’s discovery of the hatching tower, but all Celie wanted was some peace and quiet so that she could read the book Lulath had given her until darkness fell, and she and Rufus could take off once again.
Lulath’s book was a miracle. The author, Wizard Had-locke, was not only notable for having been a woman, but also happened to have been Celie’s many-times-great-grandmother. And she had had a passion for uncovering the Castle’s secrets that rivaled Celie and Bran’s.
Wizard Hadlocke had scoured the countryside, collecting stories about Castle Glower, and had written them all down with notations about what elements of the story were true and what were exaggerated or couldn’t be verified.
She also recorded the story Celie had heard about Castle Glower appearing suddenly one day, though her language was considerably more poetic. Hadlocke described the griffins “swarming out of the Castle to hunt the gleaming unicorms,” and said that “Larien’s bold king, moved to tears of sorrow, did send ships for the shining beasts to convey them on their final journey.” Celie could not tell if “final journey” was a nice way of saying they died, or if it meant climbing the rainbows to some magical realm.
More fascinating even than that was talk of the people who had come with the Castle. Hadlocke called them survivors, and mentioned wounds that killed some of them after the Castle’s appearance, but Celie couldn’t tell whether the wounds were from a battle or some sort of plague. There were references to both, and Hadlocke was frustratingly vague on that point.
Rolf had joined her after their lessons, and soon read through the bestiary and the epic poetry, and even found the poems of Karksus that Arkwright had recommended, but hadn’t found anything half as interesting. The bestiary had merely stated that griffins were half eagle and half lion, and probably mythical. The accompanying illustration had been quite rough, and Rolf had said with disgust that he could have done a better job himself. The poem that Celie had copied for Master Humphries had contained the only mention of griffins in that book, and the Karksus poetry was so dense and dramatic that even Celie thought the author was probably being fanciful.
“So, apparently griffins were ridden by giants who threw balls of fire at their enemies and cracked the earth with their war cries,” Rolf reported, tossing the volume of Karksus down on a table in the holiday feasting hall. “But they would lie down and die of ennui if there weren’t any battles happening.”
“What’s ‘on-wee’?” Celie asked as she lovingly turned the pages of Hadlocke’s book and showed Rolf a much more skilled drawing of a griffin.
“Ennui is, basically, boredom. The mighty griffin riders, fierce of eye, noble in battle, bold in love, would get bored and die,” Rolf said, rolling his eyes. “I think Karksus had read too many of those unicorn stories Lilah used to like, and decided to try it with griffins.”
“Well, Hadlocke says that the griffin riders were dying when they arrived in Sleyne,” Celie told him. “So maybe Karksus really did know some of them, and thought they were dying of ennui because they were already sick.”
“Hadlocke … Hathelocke … ,” Rolf said. “Do you think this great-great-grandmother of ours was related to the fearsome Hathelockes?”
“No,” Celie said. “The Hathelockes conquered some land called the Glorious Arkower. And I’m not sure they were entirely human.”
“So do you think Hadlocke’s book is real?” Rolf asked seriously. “Do you think the Castle just appeared one day, spilled out a bunch of griffins and sickly giants, and then … what?”
“I guess the griffin riders all died,” Celie said. She cleared her throat a little. To her surprise, thinking of the strange, noble people of the tapestries all dying had made her choke up a little. “And the griffins died soon after.”
She’d just found that part, and turned the pages to show Rolf, not trusting her voice. Griffins bonded to their riders at hatching, and rarely outlived them. Likewise, a rider whose griffin was killed often sickened and died even if he hadn’t been wounded. She supposed that might look like ennui to an outsider, but she couldn’t imagine life without Rufus, even though he’d only hatched a couple of months ago. Her whole day revolved around him, despite the fact that no one but Bran and Pogue knew he existed.
“If I only believed Karksus, I’d be convinced that griffins weren’t real and never had been,” Rolf said. He patted the cover of Hadlocke’s book. “But the amount of detail you’ve shown me in this book makes me think they could be. It’s so matter-of-fact: This is the day the griffins came. This is what they looked like. This is how they lived. This is how they died.”
“Who died?”
Wizard Arkwright was standing in the archway of the hall.
“No one,” Celie and Rolf said in chorus.
Arkwright raised one of his eyebrows. Celie was struck anew by how much he looked like the griffin riders on the tapestry, and like some of her ancestors from the portrait gallery as well. Really, his eyebrows were freakishly mobile, and his forehead was much too high to be normal.
His eyes lit on the books on the table. “I see you found the Karksus I recommended,” he said. He came over to the table and picked the book up, smoothing his hands over the cover. “What do you think of him?”
“Honestly?” Rolf shrugged. “A bit elaborate for my taste.”
“He felt very passionately about the griffins and their masters,” Arkwright said. “And it’s written in a style that has never been the fashion in Sleyne.”
“Yeah, the verses are a little weird,” Rolf said.
“Well, he wasn’t writing in Sleynth,” Arkwright said defensively.
“Was he Grathian?” Celie asked.
“No” was all Arkwright said.
He put the book down, and then saw Hadlocke’s book. Celie watched him start, and then she noticed that his hands had begun to shake.
“Prince Lulath gave it to me,” Celie said.
She resisted the urge to leap forward and snatch the book away from Arkwright. He didn’t try to pick it up, though— he just touched it with trembling fingertips, as though he were afraid it would sting him.
“Lulath? How did he …”
“It belonged to one of his ancestors,” Rolf said. He had one eyebrow raised, though not as far as Arkwright’s had been. “But he gifted it to the Castle, and to Celie and me specifically, when he realized that it was a history of Castle Glower.”
“It does not belong here,” Arkwright began. “It belongs …” He trailed off.
“Where?” Celie asked when he didn’t continue.
“I do wish you wouldn’t store such things here,” Arkwright complained. “It’s not wise.”
“Why not?”
Arkwright wheeled around. His face was white and strained, and it looked even less human than the tapestry people now.
“It simply isn’t, you foolish little girl. You have no idea what you’re toying with!”
“Get a grip on yourself, man!” Rolf stood up and faced Arkwright. “You’re a guest in the Castle, and if you don’t watch yourself, you’ll find your invitation revoked by the Castle itself.”
Arkwright started laughing. “The Castle could no more rid itself of me than I of it,” he said. “But if you continue to play with matters you cannot understand, you might find your own ‘invitation revoked,’” he said. Then he turned and stalked out of the feasting hall.
“That was weird,” Rolf said when the sound of Arkwright’s angry steps had faded away.
“Yes, yes, it was,” Celie said. With surprise she found that she was shaking so hard that her teeth chattered when she spoke.
“Let me take you to your room, Cel,” he said.
“No!” She said it a little too vehemently, and Rolf gave her an even more concerned look. “I just … I’ve never gotten a good look at the new map room.”
“Oh, really? It’s quite something,” Rolf said. “Follow me.”
He took her upstairs to a room that was basically the twin of the fabric room, except instead of bolt after bolt of fabric, spools of lace and ribbon, and tables scarred by large steel shears, there was rack after rack of rolled maps and high desks to lay them on. Some of the maps weren’t drawn on parchment, either, but were carved into wood, or burned on leather, or etched on silver.
The royal cartographer was there, working at a high, slanted desk. He looked up when they came in, an irritated expression on his face at being interrupted. But when he saw that it was Celie, he smiled.
“Ah! Your Highnesses! Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No,” Celie said. “I was just looking for a quiet place to study, and realized that I’d never seen this room.”
“I said I’d show her,” Rolf said. “We don’t want to bother you, though.”
“Not at all,” the royal cartographer said cheerfully. “Let me show you some wonderful things.”
He took them around the room and showed them scrolls of maps that had been done in wonderful rich colors. He showed them a map made of wood and clay on a tray that depicted the entire valley. The two etched silver maps were of the stars, though one of them showed constellations that Celie had never heard of before.
“Is this the southern sky?” Celie asked, looking at the strange star map.
“No,” the royal cartographer said. “These are no stars we’ve ever seen before. Even the Royal Wizard cannot identify them.
“But most of these maps are of places no one has ever seen,” he said, gesturing around the room with a broad sweep of his arm. “Cities that exist only in legend, or have never existed at all. Ranges of mountains drawn from the artist’s fancy, countries that could not possibly be real.”
“You don’t think so?”
Celie had lived all her life in magical Castle Glower, and had hatched and raised a griffin. She could imagine quite a lot of things that “could not be real” being real.
“I’ve traveled all over the world,” the cartographer said, matter-of-fact. “I’ve never seen mountain ranges like this, lakes this vast.” He tapped one of the scrolls. “But would you like to see my favorite of these fictional maps?”
Celie and Rolf both nodded eagerly.
The cartographer took a heavy, round platter from one of the shelves and set it on the largest table. Rolf and Celie crowded around to look, and discovered that it wasn’t a platter. It was a circular map made of beautifully inlaid exotic woods.
It depicted a country covered in forest, with a large lake in the northern part bordered by mountains. The trees of the forest were made of a wood that was greenish in color, and the lake was silvery gray. The mountains were a rich, dark wood that was nearly black, and the plains to the south were smooth caramel brown.
“I’ve never seen wood like this,” Rolf said, running a reverent finger over the green wood. “It’s like satin.”
“I’ve never seen most of these woods,” the cartographer confided. “Nor any country like this. Judging from the scale of the mountains and trees, this lake is enormous. And look at this,” he said, pointing to an emblem at the top of the map. “It’s worn, but do you see what this is?”
“A griffin,” Celie breathed.
In the blank space at the top of the map, above the border of the strange land, a griffin made of golden wood had been carefully inlaid. Time had faded its color, and many hands had worn it so smooth that Celie hadn’t noticed it until the cartographer pointed it out. The map reminded her of something, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was that seemed so familiar.
“Could we take this down to the holiday feasting hall?” Rolf brushed a finger over the griffin.
Celie thought that the cartographer was going to object, but after a moment’s hesitation, he said, “As Your Highnesses wish. No one else is using it.”
“You can come and look at it as often as you like,” Celie offered. “It’s just that we’re doing a project for our brother, Bran, and gathering up all the things we find that have pictures or stories about griffins and putting them in one place to study.”
“That reminds me,” Rolf said. “You’ve traveled a lot; have you ever found anything in your travels about griffins? Other maps featuring them? Statues? Heard any interesting stories?”
The cartographer frowned, and thought for a while. “No,” he said after a minute. “I never have. There’s the flag, of course, but that’s all. There are no griffins anywhere else in Sleyne.”
The cartographer helped Rolf carry the wooden map down to the holiday feasting hall, where Celie was relieved to find no sign of Arkwright. The cartographer looked at their collection with bemusement, then excused himself to go back to the map room.
Rolf put an arm around Celie, concerned. He helped her carry the Hadlocke book back to her room, just in case Arkwright decided to steal it in the night. Celie was so distracted by the encounter with Arkwright and then the revelation of the wooden map that she almost couldn’t go flying with Rufus that night.
Almost.