“I am mightily impressed, Illucian,” Lady Blackmoon remarked to her guide. The seraph ludrakoni Admin only smiled as they passed through the newly renovated seventh hall. It still smelled of new plaster and concrete, of paint and turpentine, but that was to be expected. IN the year following the destruction of most parts of the Guild mountain by a rogue meteorite, construction crews worked day and night – sometimes through the whole day – to bring it back to its former glory. Some Guilders remarked that the meteorite had been a blessing in disguise, knocking down walls and opening up ventilation shafts in the best of places. Sometimes in the worst of places, but they proved thoughtful in the end.

“You must see the fourteenth level,” Lux – as she was commonly called – told her counterpart. “That was the one most heavily hit by the meteorite. We are still fixing plumbing problems and adding new enforcements to the walls as we speak.”

“What about those clan gryphs and dragons that were swarming all over the place last I heard? Where have they gone?”

Lux sighed and shook her head. “We were grateful so much for their aid in the beginning, but our lifestyle did not suit them so long afterwards. They have all departed, but we can carry on with the rest without them.”

Maly paused to run a hand along the near-invisible seam of new rock installed to her right. “And you received no help from your neighbors – those stuffy elves? I am quite surprised. What with our Crys’ sister being their ambassador and all.”

“Too true,” Lux murmured as they continued their walk. “We asked numerous times, but we have never been on their list of priorities. Kalaki broke many rules indeed giving us the Tsurieths four years ago. I fear they wish us nonexistent.”

“Well, if that’s the truth, I won’t hesitate to send the horde down and teach those featherheads a lesson!”

“Surely not all elves are bad, are they, dark lady?”

A shadow detached itself from a corner, resolving into a familiar, slim figure. “Certainly not this elf, eh?” A rogueous grin split unmistakable elven features: high cheekbones, canted eyes and long hair tied in war braids.

Lux and Maly chuckled. “Of course not, Ary,” the hematite dragoness replied, “you are no where near their level.”

“I should hope not,” he told her with a wry grin and a twinkle of his mischievous eyes. “I hear they smell.” And with that, he vanished back into the shadows, undoubtedly going off to bug his favorite victims and their offspring, Muse and Crystal.

Malystryxx shook her head with a smile. “That Aryante,” she chortled. “I fear our sister and her mate shall never be free from his tricks!”

“Ah, well, our sister is resilient; so is Muse. They cope.”

Meandering up the staircase to the fourteenth floor, they heard a delighted squeal followed by a loud moan. The ever-curious Maly picked up her step and Lux hurried after. There, in the hall, situated under a step-ladder and a precariously-perched gryphoness was Aryante and the twins. Crystal was crouched in the doorway, hands over her head in futility, Muse covered in the tarp that had fallen on top of him from the scaffold near the ladder.

The gryphoness on the ladder wiggled to stay where she was, vulturine head darting all around while talons clutched at her broad base. “Come off of it!” she hollered down below. “You’ll knock me off!” Her Phoenix partner on the scaffold, paintbrush in beak, stared wide-eyed at the scene.

Heads popped out of dorms to see what the fuss was about. Another disheveled Phoenix head peered around and blinked sleepily, yawning with his huge beak. “What gives …?”

Lux wallowed in and plucked Ary from under the ladder, using her feathered tail as a prop for Kynekh; with the other hand, she freed Muse from the tarp. Shyne and Sular danced about, eager to play some more. Seeing his eminent defeat, Ary detangled himself from his favorite playmates and beat a hasty retreat. “That elf!” Lux tried to sound disgusted, but it came out as more of a laughing snort. “Oh! I’m sorry, Muse, did I step on your tail?”

There was a grunt from under the iridescent dragoness’ hind foot as she stepped to the side. “Not – really,” the smokey-blue Glacial replied, eyes crossed; he doubled over and landed back on the tarp, clutching at something.

“Daddy!” the twins shouted, running over to their father. “Daddy,” Shyne demanded, “what did Auntie Luxie do?”

“Did Auntie Luxie break you, Daddy?” little Sular inquired.

Muse coughed. “Not really, my loves . . . Momma will have to . . . let Daddy know if . . . anything’s broken.” Tears popped out of his golden eyes and he curled inwards, groaning.

Sun-golden Shyne bounced up to her mother, tugged at her forearm impatiently. “Momma! Fix Daddy!”

“What’s wrong with Daddy, Momma?” Sular chimed in, perched by his father’s creased brow, black forepaws on his cheek.

Maly and Lux excused themselves. “I – I’m sorry, Muse!” Lux called over her shoulder apologetically, looking at Crystal as she bent over her mate, twins having at both her tufted ears.

A faint voice reached her equine ears. “I’ll … be fine. Just … don’t expect any more nieces or nephews. Ahhhhhhhhh, damn.”

Covering her muzzle, Lux blushed. “I hope he’ll be ok,” she told Malystryxx as they wandered deeper into the fourteenth floor. Maly shrugged, flicking her saillike ears. “Amazing how you managed to step directly on his –”

A glare from the ludrakoni cut her off. Maly only smiled and waved her hand in peace. “Oh, come on, it was an honest mistake. He’ll be all right; some rest and an ice pack will cure it.”

As they passed, Kynekh the vulturegryphoness snorted again and peered down as Crystal assisted her mate back into their dorm. Her companion, Ember the Phoenix pulled the paintbrush from her mouth and set it on the can hooked to the scaffold. “What happened here?” a new voice asked from down below, gruff and sorrowful all at the same time.

“Hold that ladder and I’ll tell ya,” Kynekh replied, bracing herself on the plastered wall. The male Phoenix did as he was bid, shifting his silver frame so that his leg locked against the nearest leg. Tri-form crest feathers twitched in his anxiety. Small golden Ember wrinkled her nares and blinked long emerald eyes at his apparent discomfort at waiting. Once she was stable, Kynekh turned about and sat on the wide ladder top, tail around her feet; she inclined her head in the last direction any of them had seen Aryante disappear down into. “What would you like to know?”

SilverFlame grumbled deep in his throat. “Hey, don’t get pissy at me, man,” he was told from above, “all that happened was that Ary came strolling by and the twins saw him. They tussled and it spilled out into the hall. Nothing important.”

“But Muse was in pain,” he told her, turning his head and looking at the closed door across the way.

“Heh, you’d be too if you got stepped on,” Kynekh returned, standing up and facing the wall again. “Ember, hand me that trowel. I dropped my other one in the bucket when Roly Poly Elfy decided to help.”

The small Phoenix obliged, lifting the implement and expertly tossing it over the spans. Kynekh caught it one-handed and immediately scooped paste from an attached pan and stuck it on the wall in front of her. “You look haggard, man,” the gryphoness commented as she slathered plaster. “Were you sleeping?”

The silver Phoenix nodded, not bothering to look up at her as he did so. “I’ll take that as ‘yes,’ then,” the vulturine female said to the air. “Hey, as long as you’re awake, want to help us?”

SilverFlame flipped his head up, staring at her. “Me?”

“I hood hink ho,” Ember chimed, having picked up her brush again, speaking out of the corner of her mouth. “I han’t oo iss hi myselfsh. Oo hall.”

“She means she’s too small,” Kynekh translated, pausing to wipe a fleck of plaster off her hand. “You’re the next-tallest Phoenix other than CP, she’s the smallest. Isn’t there a camaraderie between you all? A code of some sort?”

He shook his head at that. “You’re thinking of the Vahazayi; my people don’t have that sort of thing, and I don’t know about Ember’s people.”

“Vahazayi? Oh, right, that’s CP’s clan. Funny-sounding race, if you ask me, but anyway, use that block in place of your leg down there. Ember’ll show you how to climb up with only two legs and a pair of wings. That’s more stable than my little teeter-totter. Ember, take that brush out of your mouth.”

Her companion chuckled sheepishly and lowered the dripping brush back onto the can lip. Curling her flowing tail out of the way, the emerald-eyed immortal side-stepped to another section of the scaffold to allow room. “Ok, now, hook your talons into that rung,” she instructed once SilverFlame had braced Kynekh’s ladder. “There you go, up you come. One, two – all most there! Ah! Hello; wow, you’re bigger than I thought you were. Are you sure you and CP aren’t related?”

SilverFlame gave a long-suffering sigh. “No, only by the bond we share. Do I look Vahazayan to you?”

The orange-tinted cousin handed him a slate-grey dripping brush with a foot. “I wouldn’t know – I’ve only seen CP . . . and sometimes Muse when he does that funny transmo-, transfor-, Change-thingy. Yeah, that’s it.” She shut herself up by popping the paintbrush once again back in her mouth. SilverFlame eyed the wall and watched Ember for a few moments before setting to work. It was better than the interrupted sleep he’d been getting, anyway.

Sanguine lifted a velvet eyelid as he sensed Poison drawing near in the room. The bat shifted on his perch and opened the other eye warily. “What are you up to, Poison?”

Puffs of steam jetted out at him and the bat started backwards, falling off and onto the floor. A lavender-colored paw placed itself near his head and a gaping maw lowered to his level. The large bat was horrified to see that the gryphoness had reverted to her original dragon form – a most unstable and unpredictable state that was kept in check by her transformation to gryphon. Only Maly could order her to do something like this and Poison had evidently broken the rule. Sanguine was in trouble, big trouble.

“Revenge, pet,” the bull-ringed dragoness rumbled. A hard cuff from the hand nearest him sent the poor nightflyer spinning along the floor. He hit the wall and moaned aloud as fire raced up his nerves to his brain. Sanguine struggled upright, placing his thumbclaws in front of his afire body, half-rising. He coughed blood, splattering his snout with his own life-force.

“The mistress has forbidden you to transform, Poison!”

Hot, steamy breath was in his ear in an instant. The bat’s keen senses even smelt the metallic tang of gold that pierced Poison’s nose. The great bull bodied purple dragon’s tail lashed her sides as she spoke. “The mistress is not here, as you very well know, pet. I am sick of being her slave, doing her will! She cannot control me any longer.” A deep booming laugh exploded from her chest cavity, overpowering the overlarge bat. Sanguine cowered, trying to make himself as small as possible, fur slick with sweat, nose dry. “I have roamed this lair for many years and I know where Malystryxx keeps her most valued possessions; the Doomhounds pay me no heed – those that still live.” Sulfur mixed with steam, a noxious combination. Venom dripped from a special cavity in Poison’s mouth, behind her two upper canines. Sanguine felt some of it splatter onto his head, felt the bite of corrosion burn into his skull. He whimpered and tried to sidle away. Poison caught him in both hands, clamping about his soft body.

“Where to, little pet?”

“L-let me go, Poison!” he demanded, wetting himself in the process. The dragoness dropped him in disgust, shaking her hands free of the stuff. A back-kick sent Sanguine sprawling across the room.

“You’re of no use to me, pathetic little runt. I have what I want. Malystryxx will be in a long time coming. And when she returns, I’ll have a little surprise waiting for her – for a lot of people.”

Sanguine covered his eyes with his wings and waited until he sensed her gone. Lifting his head, he surreptitiously wiped himself clean of his soiling and took to the air, calling for his brethren. His echoes met no answer. Fear leaping to his breast, he beat a furious path to the enclave where they slept.

Blood met his nostrils, the scent of wanton killing. Here and there the bodies of his friends and comrades lay scattered, ripped and torn open, strewn like the broken forms they were. Entrails were everywhere, the odor of bowel and blood intermingled. Sanguine could hardly keep himself aloft. He slowly banked to the floor and cried.

Deep within Nightwings, Poison turned the pages of an ancient spellbook by candlelight. Her eyes lighted up as they passed over the rune-worked header of the next chapter. Not even the mighty Malystryxx should be able to disuade this spell, she thought to herself, committing it to memory. You have pushed the limits, lady. You really have.

The next tome gave her the knowledge of wards. Picking up one of Maly’s discarded scales, the purple dragoness began to chant.

Copyright 2002, Crystal Shekeira. All Guilders are © themselves. The Gryphon's Guild is trademarked to Tserisa Supalla. All other names, places and events are © MH. Do not alter, copy or distribute.