Tuesday, September 13, 2005

   Chapter 6: The University Caravan (part 1)
The day following Pen’s encounter with the griffin, he could be found in Archives library, sitting alone against a shelf, paging through a thick, leather-bound book about swords.
The night before, having heard Tory’s scream in the forest, she had been greeted by a crowd of wisepeople. The elf-woman, who had left her behind, held her in her arms as they cried together—one from fear and the other from guilt. Pen had come out of the forest then, still dripping with blood and with his sword in his hand.
For a moment, they were all speechless. Then, the old wiseman spoke.
“What has happened?” he asked him, his voice filled with power that Pen had never heard before.
“Tory was left behind,” he told them, forcing them all to meet his lifeless eyes. “It was getting dark, so I returned to the city to bring her back as quickly as possible.”
“But… what happened to you?” gasped a blue-haired wisewoman from the back.
“We encountered a night griffin.”
There was a ripple of quiet talk that overcame the group of adults. Pen waited patiently.
“Let us get this clear,” a young male demanded. “You fought a night griffin?”
“That’s outrageous!” exclaimed another, even before Pen had a chance to nod. “Do you really expect that a little kid like him could encounter a griffin and survive? He’s lying! He’s gotta be!”
This comment was answered by loud argument. Pen couldn’t believe it; they were even louder than the kids! His temper began to grow short.
“Shut up!” he yelled. The crowd grew quiet. “I killed the stupid thing! I killed it! Now let me go home!”
A deep, awkward silence had set in. The only thing that broke it was Tory’s soft, sobbed words.
“It’s the truth,” she cried into the wisewoman’s shirt. “He saved me. Leave him alone.”
At those words, a wiseman led Pen to the back of the dorms and helped him wash the sticky blood off his clothes and body. Lucaya was the first the cleaned, however; Pen made sure that not a spot was left on her.
She was officially his own now. The sword-wiseman had taken the school sword back without questions when Pen had gone to give it to him. He knew that the boy had connections to Danesan and he respected the swordsmith’s judgment.
So far, Pen was having no luck finding anything about two-name swords. He had spent the entire day paging through books. The only thing he found was meanings of the names of swords, but Lucaya wasn’t even in that. Nevertheless, he set it aside, feeling that it was a small step in the right direction.
As he was looking through the index of yet another volume, he heard footsteps coming his way. He pretended to ignore them as they drew closer and closer.
It was Tory. She was dressed in a plain lavender gown, with a matching bow that tied her hair back. She stared at Pen for a moment with her pink eyes. He continued to search the index, ignoring that she even existed. When she got no response, she walked down the row and sat down against the shelf beside him.
Tory sat there in silence for a long, long time.
“What do you want?” Pen said finally, sticking the useless book back and taking out another from the shelf across from them. When she did not say anything, he growled, “What, you can’t talk?”
“I just wanted to thank you,” she said. “For yesterday.”
Pen did not know what to say, so he said nothing. He had never been thanked for doing anything.
“You should have seen yourself,” she continued. “You were awesome! You saved my life!”
He still did not respond. Tory watched him out of the corner of her eyes.
“Can… can I help you?” she asked him, watching as he returned yet another book to the shelf.
“I don’t need your help,” he retorted, pulling out another.
“We leave for University in six days,” she said. “You might not find what you’re looking for in that time. If you tell me what you want, I’ll help you look.”
“I said I don’t need your help!” he said. Disgusted and not understanding why, he put down the book he had just taken out, picked up the one he wanted to keep, and strode out of the library. Tory was left alone in the isle.
She picked up the abandoned book, surprised by how heavy it was. It fell open in her lap to a page where someone had stuck in a piece of paper and forgot to take it out. Knowing that it was bad for the binding, especially for such an old book, she took it out. On her way out of the library, she stuck it behind one of the shelves against the wall, where it was hidden and well taken care of. Maybe someone would find it there later and be able to do something with it.
Feeling lonely, Tory wandered slowly back across the stretch of grass to the dorms. She wondered if Pen always felt this way; was it the reason for the way he was?
She decided that she wouldn’t let herself forget him ever again.
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