Dawn of the sorcerer, p.31
Dawn of the Sorcerer, page 31
The griffon… well… it squawked when it felt the stone leave its feet. It was clearly surprised, and once again, Jake fought an urge to grin.
“Get the others. Go home. Don’t harm any more humans.”
The griffon jerked its head up to look first at Jake then at Isabel then back to Jake. * I… I do not understand. Is this some kind of trick? *
“No. It’s no trick. Just as I am not what you thought, you are not what we thought. You’re not the true criminal in this. Yes… we would like for you to tell us what you know about whoever set you to this task, but it’s not required for your freedom. Your fear for your people carried across your words when you spoke of what you expected me to do. You made some terrible mistakes, but I truly believe you made them for the right reasons. You’ll have to live with the fact that you killed people who bore you no malice and were no threat to you for the rest of your life. Their families don’t even know you or your people exist. How would killing you help them?”
The griffon regarded him in silence for several heartbeats. * You are truly not what we have come to believe the sorcerers were. I… my shame is complete. I will take my people and go… return to Aerie… and never bother the humans again. *
“That’s all I ask. They have no part in any of this.”
* What if the young one desires to stay? He has become entirely too fond of the human. *
Jake grinned. “Oh… I’m sure we can work something out.”
The griffon bobbed its head in a nod and turned, leaping into the air and taking flight.
Jake and Isabel watched it go in silence for several moments until Isabel spoke.
“This is not how I expected the night to end.”
“Me, neither, but I think it could’ve ended a lot worse.”
Jake felt a surge of power, and Isabel the woman stood beside him once more. She regarded him with an appraising expression for several minutes.
“Yes, it could have. Shall we return to the Grove?”
“That sounds amazing. I’m up past my bedtime.”
They crossed the parking lot to Jake’s SUV in silence. Just as they reached the vehicle, the jaguars slinked out of the night. Jake stopped to give each of them pets and rubs, then opened the back hatch for them. He wasn’t sure what fallout there would be from the jaguars rescuing Jolene, but that was a matter for another day. Besides, he suspected the Grove was about to adopt a young griffon. It would be interesting to see where that led.
Just as Jake was about to close the hatch with the jaguars inside, a pulse of power touched his new sense. It was faint, but he heard Emilia’s voice in his mind.
* Jake, help! *
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Jake ran through the possibilities that Emilia was bait for a trap… but arrived at the conclusion that it largely didn’t matter. Leaving aside his desire to date her, he wouldn’t leave anyone in need of help if he had any say in the matter.
But how much time did Emilia have? The clearing where she was supposed to meet Jolene was not easily accessible from the trailhead… by car or foot or paw. An idea came to the forefront of his mind. It was risky. Possibly very risky. But it was also the fastest way to reach her.
After all… the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Jake closed his eyes and focused on two thoughts. His sense of self and his sense of Emilia. He built a framework around those two thoughts that would open a portal between them. He touched the ambient power and saturated his new framework with it.
Then, he released the framework.
A hole in reality appeared, beginning at a point slightly above Jake’s head and moving in a straight line to the ground. Almost as if space-time was unzipping itself. When the ‘zipper’ reached the ground, the opening widened and took on the shape of an arched doorway that looked out on Jolene standing beside Emilia. They looked off to the right, beyond what the portal could show him.
Jake stepped through the portal, Isabel and the jaguars following. When everyone was through, Jake severed the power to the portal, and it winked out of existence as if it had never been.
Jolene gaped at their arrival. Her jaw worked as if to speak, but no words emerged.
“What’s happening?” Jake asked.
“Jolene didn’t want to leave without helping her new friend… who is the young griffon currently having his ass handed to him nine ways from Sunday,” Emilia answered, jerking her chin toward the meadow they faced.
Jake turned and saw what she meant. Two griffons fought, one large and fully adult while the other was little more than a plucky early adolescent. The adolescent fought with fierce conviction, but that never stood up to experience, knowledge, and skill… which the adult griffon apparently had in spades. Left to their own devices, it wouldn’t be long before the older griffon killed the younger.
Right, then.
As much as he felt it wasn’t his place to intervene, Jake was not about to allow someone to die for doing the right thing, not if he could prevent it at all.
And prevent it, he could. Easily so.
He took a few steps forward as he focused on quickly assembling the framework in his mind for the effect he wanted to achieve. He’d have to time it just right, but his intuition told him he’d have his moment soon enough. It was a simple matter to saturate his framework with power once he had it formed to his liking, and it all came down to waiting for the right moment.
Soon enough, the adult griffon sent the adolescent rolling through the meadow. The plucky youngster made a valiant effort to stand and continue the fight, but while his spirit was willing, his body had taken too much punishment. It was obvious that he couldn’t get back to his feet in the time he had… or at least, thought he had.
The moment there was enough distance between the griffons, Jake released his framework. A power-rich aura of Life energy settled on the young griffon, healing in mere heartbeats what would’ve taken months even with the best care. At the same time, the grassy meadow swarmed up to enshroud the adult griffon’s feet in boots of solid earth just as the air around its body solidified to complete the prison.
The youngster pushed himself to stand and gave himself a look-over. If Jake wasn’t projecting, he thought the young griffon’s manner suggested surprise and perhaps bewilderment. The adult betrayed surprise, too, along with a healthy dollop of rage; his full-throated scree seemed fit to wake the dead five counties over.
Before anyone else could do anything, a collection of dark shapes swooped out of the night sky and landed in the meadow. Griffons. Easily a dozen, maybe more. The apparent leader approached the group of onlookers, making a point of walking between the two combatants, and stopped a respectful distance away from Jake.
* I thought we had an accord. I thought you swore you had no plans to entrap us. *
He heard a gasp over his left shoulder, suggesting that the griffon broadcasted his mind-speech to everyone.
“We do, and I did,” Jake replied. “When I arrived, the two griffons were fighting, and the adult had damn-near killed the youngster. I stopped the fight to give us time to figure out the situation.”
The young one moved to the apparent leader’s side and looked up at him unafraid. * The sorcerer speaks the truth, Father. *
Father? Well, damn… that meant the situation would go either really, really well or really, really badly… and probably in very short order.
The griffon who had met Jake and seemed to be the leader regarded the youngster for a moment before turning back to the onlookers. * If this is true, who killed one of us back at the abandoned structure? *
Bandit padded forward and faced the griffon full-on. * That was me. He was pacing right outside the window where you kept Jolene. I didn’t realize I’d killed him, though. I regret that. I just wanted him incapacitated long enough to get Jolene out of there. *
The griffon regarded Bandit for a moment in silence, then deeply bowed. * Then, rest well knowing it was as you desired. She woke up not long ago, none the worse for wear. Her pride was a bit wounded, but that is healthy for all of us from time to time. *
Bandit’s apparent tension vanished, and he gave his version of a smile. * I’m glad she was just unconscious. I didn’t want to harm her, just make sure she couldn’t stop me from getting Jolene. *
The griffon leader turned to the ensnared adult. * Come. It is time to return to Aerie. The sorcerer is not what we thought, and we have much to discuss. *
For a moment, Jake feared the adult griffon wouldn’t listen to reason. After a tense handful of seconds, though, he bobbed his head once in a nod, and Jake severed the power to the framework that ensnared him.
The young griffon padded up to the leader and nuzzled at his side. * Please, Father… may I stay with the nice person? She’s my friend. *
The leader looked down at his offspring in silence for the longest time, then looked to Jake. * I understand that the humans of this world like to exchange hostages to help ensure the good behavior of their allies. I think they call them emissaries. Would you accept my young one as an emissary? *
Jake managed not to sigh. “Emissaries aren’t hostages. They are people who choose to serve as representatives to help facilitate communication between allies. I’m sure your young one would be welcome at the grove, where Jolene could easily visit without the world at large getting involved. But I want everyone to understand that he is free to come and go between your lands and the grove as he desires… as long as he can do so without alerting the world to your existence.”
The young griffon gave a happy chirp and trotted over to Jolene. For the moment, their eyes were level with each other, but the griffon wasn’t fully grown yet.
The griffon leader seemed to sigh and gave a small, almost invisible headshake. Jake recognized it as the ages-old wordless lament of all parents whose children chose a questionable friend. He walked forward and brushed his cheek along the crown or crest of his child’s head, prompting an almost-feline purr before he turned and returned to the other griffons.
The adult Jake had ensnared in chains of earth and air darted looks from the leader to Jake and back, like he expected a sneak attack at any moment. But when his leader kept walking and Jake gave him a nod, the adult joined the griffons.
Almost as one, they flapped their wings and leapt into the air, and soon, they were merely small dark spots, barely visible against the night sky.
Jake turned to survey his group and found them looking to him now. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that, but maybe it was just an ‘in the moment’ type of thing.
“Well… like they say in the movies, our work here is done.”
He decided to flex his muscles and adjusted his portal framework to open three at once. One led to the trailhead where his SUV waited in the parking lot. Another led to the Wainwright Grove. The third opened to the second trailhead that wasn’t too far away and revealed Mike Stannyk leaning against the fender of his police cruiser.
“Jolene, Mike will see you home. He’ll probably insist on a quick checkup at the emergency room for the police report, but that’s nothing major.” Jake turned to the griffon. “You and Emilia and anyone else who wants to can take the center portal straight to the Wainwright Grove. We’ll deal with proper introductions later, because I’m all kinds of tired. Anyone who wants to ride back to the Grove with me can join me at the SUV.”
No one made to move until Isabel walked through the center portal. Then, the jaguars went to the SUV as Jolene went to Mike. Emilia surprised him by waiting for him and walking at his side through the portal to the SUV.
The portals closed the moment Jake passed through his, and as soon as he pulled the key fob out of his pocket, Emilia claimed it.
“You’ve been throwing around a lot of power tonight. I haven’t. I’ll drive us back to the Grove.”
Jake wanted to argue with her. He really did. None of his favorite stories ended with the hot young woman driving off into the sunset while the hero dozed in the passenger seat… but he didn’t have the energy to argue with her. He was rather beat.
With a graceful silence, he nodded and trudged over to the passenger door.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Wainwright Grove
Hornbeam, Illinois
19 June 2025, 8:35am
The morning after meeting his first griffon, Jake sat in one of the chairs on the back patio. The remains of his breakfast sat on the patio table in front of him. Morning birdsong filled the area, and a slight breeze tugged at his hair and shirt sleeves. But he didn’t notice either the birds chirping or the breeze. Not really.
His mind swirled around and over and through the events of the night before. Part of him felt like… well… maybe, it was a little too soon for the ‘building a bridge’ metaphor. But he certainly felt like they’d at least selected the location for the bridge’s abutments. He hoped they had, anyway.
A part of him wished all the hybrid races could come out into the open. Reveal themselves to the world. But he had a suspicion he knew where that would end.
Big game hunting was alive and well in American culture (at the very least). Conservatism was just another stupid idea from some stupid liberal nutbar with no idea how the world really worked.
Jake snorted a chuckle. Yeah… he could just hear someone saying that on one of the hunting shows that seemed to play non-stop in a few of the public establishments around Hornbeam. He didn’t agree with that sentiment… not at all… but he felt fairly safe in thinking he was in the minority when it came to American opinions regarding the value of conservatism. Maybe not, but he wasn’t about to hold his breath, either way.
No… despite how much he would like for hybrid races to have a place in the public awareness, he understood that it was probably best that they remained hidden like they did. If they hadn’t hidden themselves away back in Antiquity, it would be different. But now? After all the centuries that had passed? He didn’t see how revealing themselves to the world would go well for them at all, especially since the humans who thought they were the sole sapient life on the planet would wonder where these hybrid races came from, and Jake suspected the hybrid races would be only too eager to throw his subset of the crafters—the sorcerers—under that particular bus.
But were they right to let the griffon responsible for all those deaths just leave? Was that right course?
Jake was so deep into his thoughts that he wasn’t even aware when Isabel approached and sat in the patio chair ninety degrees to his left around the patio table. Her voice did pull him out of his thoughts, though.
“So, you seem a bit pensive this morning. What’s on your mind?”
Jake did his best not to grimace. “I’m wondering if we did the right thing in letting that griffon who’d killed all those people just fly off into the night with the others. I’m honestly very conflicted about it.”
Isabel leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. She took a deep breath and slowly released most of it as a sigh. “Jake, one of the most difficult things for me to grasp early on in my life was that the scope of my people’s lifespan is fundamentally different from every other creature on this planet… including humans. When I was a young hatchling, I remember hearing others discuss a Great Dragon Graveyard, but I’ve never seen it with my own eyes… because a dragon hasn’t died in my lifetime that I know of. Now, it’s easily within the realm of possibility that—far off in some forgotten and deeply buried lair—there is an ancient corpse of a dragon that is slowly decaying because he or she died while they slept the centuries away, and we’re such solitary creatures that… well… no one knows.
“It took me a little while to come to terms with the idea that I have outlived entire civilizations and probably will continue do so. The dragon that helped me learn to control my fire breath was over seven thousand years old, Jake, and that was over two thousand years ago. The last time I visited my family, a couple centuries ago or so, that dragon was still alive and well.”
The way Isabel casually brushed off whole centuries like humans would off-handedly mention years really hit Jake in that moment. Part of him wondered why it hadn’t penetrated his awareness before, but that question was largely pointless overall.
“And Jake?” Isabel asked, pulling his attention back to her.
“Yeah?”
“Your lifespan has the potential to equal mine… if not exceed it. No known sorcerer ever died of old age, and there were several who were older than some dragons.”
That little tidbit really set Jake back. How old were his birth parents when they chose to enter the soul vault? Were they two of the older ones? He leaned back against his seat as he tried to wrap his mind around being that old. In the end, he gave up, shaking his head as he realized he had no way to conceptualize living that long.
It was like Isabel knew what he thought. “Don’t feel bad about having difficulty understanding that. I didn’t have a frame of reference for it until I outlived the Roman Empire… and all the other nation-states that have arisen and fallen over the last twenty-one hundred years. And I brought this up as a lead-in to your concerns over how we handled the griffon.
“One of the other things I’ve had difficulty with over the years is maintaining that personal connection humans are so capable of. When you outlive whole civilizations, getting worked up over the fate of a handful or two of humans can—sometimes—be damned hard. The simple fact is that one of the things humans do really, really well is… die. Often at the hands of other humans. The griffon killed thirty-seven people from Los Angeles to that convenience store in Oklahoma. I didn’t read all their information, but every single one of them would’ve died within the next hundred years… probably less since there were no newborns among the victims.
“Is it unfortunate that they died? Absolutely. Is it tragic that they died? Undoubtedly. But the crux of the issue is where do we draw the line? Sure… we could’ve killed that griffon for what he did. I’ve killed supernaturals for less to maintain peace and order as well as the secrecy surrounding the supernatural world’s overall existence.
