Year of the Griffin Read Free Page A

you mean?” Corkoran asked.
    The dwarf’s bushy red eyebrows went up. “How do I mean? Obvious, isn’t it?”
    â€œNot to me,” Corkoran said frankly. “I understood dwarf and Central Peaks , and that was all. Start again, and say it in words that people who are not dwarfs can understand.”
    The dwarf sighed, boomingly. “I thought wizards were supposed to divine things,” he grumbled. “All right. I’m from one of the lowest tribes in our fastness, see. Artisans. Got that? Third lowest. Drudges and whetters are lower. Six tribes above us, miners, artists, designers, jewelers, and so on. Forgemasters at the top. All ordering us about and lording it over us and making out we can’t acquire the skills that give us the privileges they have. And around this time last year we got proof that this was nonsense. That was when Storn and Becula, both artisans and one a girl , forged a magic ring better than anything the forgemasters ever did. But the ring was turned down for treasure because they were only artisans. See? So we got angry, us artisans, and brought in drudges and whetters, and it turned out they’d made good things, too, but hadn’t even submitted them as treasure because they knew they’d be turned down. Oppression, that’s what it was, black oppression—”
    â€œAll right. Don’t get carried away,” Corkoran said. “Just explain how you come into it.”
    â€œChosen, wasn’t I?” Ruskin said. A slight, proud smile flitted above his plaited beard. “It had to be someone young enough not to be noticed missing and good enough to benefit here. They picked me. Then each one of them, young and old, man and woman, from all three tribes, put down a piece of gold for the fees and a piece of their magic into me. That’s the apostolic part. Then I came away secretly. That’s what we call virtual manumission. And I’m to learn to be a proper wizard, so that when I am, I go back and smash those forgemasters and all the rest of them. Overthrow the injustice of the old corrupt order, see?”
    And now a dwarf revolutionary! Corkoran thought. Bother! He saw that if Myrna sent out her letter to Central Peaks fastness, it would almost certainly bring an enraged party of forgemasters (and so forth) here to remove Ruskin and his fees with him. He made another note by Ruskin’s name, while he asked, “Is that why you’re in full armor?”
    â€œNo,” Ruskin answered. “I have to come before my tutor properly dressed, don’t I?” He eyed Corkoran’s tie and T-shirt again and frowned.
    â€œI advise you to leave it off in future,” Corkoran told him. “Iron interferes with magic, and you won’t know enough to counteract it until your second year. You’re going to have trouble, anyway, if you’re working with bits and pieces of other people’s magic.”
    â€œDon’t think so,” Ruskin blared. “We dwarfs are used to that. Do it all the time. And we work with iron.”
    Corkoran gave him up and turned, finally, to the griffin. “You.”
    All this while the griffin had sat brightly swiveling an eye on each student who spoke and quivering with eagerness for her turn. Now she fairly burst forth, both wings rising and tufted tail lashing so that Felim and Olga had to move out of their way. “I’m Elda,” she said happily. “Wizard Derk’s daughter. I used to be his youngest child, but now I’ve got two younger than me: Angelo and Florence. Flo’s wings are pink. She’s the baby. She’s beautiful . Angelo’s wings are brown, a bit like Callette’s without the stripes, and he’s a magic user already. Mum says—”
    â€œHang on,” said Corkoran. “Wizard Derk is human . You’re a griffin. How come—”
    â€œEveryone asks about that,” Elda said sunnily. “Dad made