Thirty seconds into her mad dash back through the tunnels, Daphne was thanking the muses and every god that she still had a lot to learn about griffins.

Normally, being ignorant about something didn’t fill Daphne with feelings of gratitude. It annoyed the heck out of her, especially if the subject was as near and dear to her heart as GRIFFINS. But since the stuff she didn’t know about griffins had saved her bacon several times since coming to Euloban, she was now more than content to let the amazing creatures surprise her.

Today’s edition of ‘Daphne Didn’t Know This About Griffins’ was the noble beasts’ astonishing sense-memory. She knew griffins had incredibly keen senses, of course. You couldn’t put an eagle and a lion together and not expect the resulting creature to have scary-strong sensory abilities.

But Bjarni couldn’t just smell someone from a long way off. He could remember all the places where he had last smelled that someone, long after the scent would have gone cold for even the most experienced bloodhound. He could also follow the trail through twists and turns that would have left a bloodhound dizzy.

“Runar!” Bjarni cried as he tore around corners, following Daphne’s scent-trail back towards the place where he had last heard the golden griffin. “Brother!”

Daphne wanted to join in the call, but she had to conserve all her breath just to keep up. Bjarni was barreling through the narrow tunnels like an actual fireball. He barely hesitated whenever they came to a crossroads or an off-shoot. It was like his nose detected the decision-point several yards ahead and was ready with the right answer well before the moment of choice.

Instead, she tried to exert her own senses, listening with all her might for Runar’s answering call.

That was when it became clear to Daphne that the griffin’s super-senses wasn’t limited to just his smell.

“There! I hear him!” Bjarni cuffed her joyfully with his wing without breaking his stride. “Faster, Wordsmith!”

Daphne strained her ears. “Where?” she gasped, barely managing to follow Bjarni into a hairpin right turn. “I don’t hear —”

“Runar!” Bjarni simply bounded forward, guided by the sounds and smells that were lost on Daphne. “We are coming!”

A new terror clawed at Daphne’s lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

“Are you sure?” she panted. “What if it’s another dirt monster?”

“That is my brother,” Bjarni replied firmly. “I know his scent. Faster!”

It was a full minute later before Daphne’s ears finally picked up the faint cries. The voice was definitely Runar’s, and it was getting further and further away as it kept calling Bjarni’s name. But while the dirt monster had been limited to just repeating one word, calling Daphne’s name over and over in Mark’s voice, this voice had a much broader vocabulary.

“Bjarni!” Runar was calling, somewhere up ahead but getting fainter with every word. “Stop, thou overstuffed flame-cushion! Wait! I am coming!”

“Brother!” Bjarni bellowed. “I am not there! I am back here! Wait!”

Like a living jet engine, the young griffin took off in another burst of speed, leaving Daphne in the dust. She struggled on, following the sounds of Bjarni’s pursuit along with Runar’s distant cries.

A sharp turn to the right, another to the left. Runar’s voice sounded closer now, and she’d just caught a glimpse of Bjarni’s swishing tail darting around a corner. Maybe one more turn, and she’d catch up —

Then one very good and two very bad things happened to Daphne basically all at once.

The very good thing was that she did, indeed, catch up with the two griffins. She heard both their voices loud and clear for a moment, and then she rounded one more curve to the left and actually saw them, at the end of a short hallway.

That was where the two very bad things came in.

First was the sound of Runar’s voice breaking into a horrible wordless scream of pure terror. Second was the sight of the golden griffin cowering in a small circular room at the end of the hallway, with a massive mound of dirt towering over him.

Daphne froze just long enough for her senses to register what was happening. The dirt monster rose higher and grew wider, stretching out on either side as if to embrace Runar. Daphne’s brain had no idea what she could do to help, but it gave the go-ahead to her muscles anyway. She felt her whole body tensing, about to spring into action on Runar’s behalf somehow.

Then a third example of griffins’ sensory superiority demonstrated itself in front of her eyes.

“Brother!”

Bjarni’s senses didn’t need even a moment’s pause to take in the scene. He probably hadn’t even stopped when he rounded the final curve. He just kept bounding forward, leaping into the room and throwing his wings around Runar just as the dirt monster closed its soil arm-walls around them both.

Daphne screamed internally. She couldn’t spare breath for anything else. Her muscles were already moving, propelled by unstoppable momentum towards the mound of dirt that had just eaten both her friends. Her brain was running on fumes at this point, but it kicked into overdrive anyway, rapidly calculating how long it would take for her to tear the monster to pieces with her bare hands, and how far into that process she could get before the dirt monster made her its next meal.

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But before she could put any of those calculations into practice, the dirt mound began smoking. No, glowing. No, both — by the time Daphne skidded to a halt at the room’s threshold, the dirt monster was most definitely shining with a warm rosy glow and giving off a sweet-smelling smoke, like it had been transformed into a furnace.

Or just swallowed one.

“Bjarni?” Daphne’s voice was hoarse, but it sounded very loud in the sudden total silence of the room. “Runar? Can you hear me?”

The mound exploded.

Daphne threw up her hands reflexively to cover her face, but there was no need. The dirt monster’s body seemed to evaporate as it blew up, each particle vaporized by the golden light emanating from the griffin brothers. The next instant, the room was one hundred percent soil-free, the rocky walls as clean and smooth as if the very idea of dirt was just a bad dream.

Daphne’s muscles began moving on their own. They must have decided her brain was taking too long to give orders. Her legs made the executive decision to stumble forward into the room, then drop her to her knees beside Bjarni and Runar while her arms threw themselves around the two griffins.

The trio stayed in their hug-pile for a long time, though not long enough for Daphne. Her mind was only halfway through processing the previous hour when Bjarni shook himself free and began joyfully berating his two elders.

“What wast thou thinking, Wordsmith? And thee, brother!” The young griffin accompanied each phrase with an affectionate wing-cuff, sending his still-unsteady companions sprawling. “We were all together, and safe, and then the Wordsmith went running off. And while we pursued her, Runar also turned to follow his own way! What happened?”

“I thought I heard Mark,” Daphne said shakily. She turned to Runar. “Didn’t you hear? He kept calling my name. He sounded like he was in pain.”

Runar’s golden eyes were still dilated from panic, but his voice was steady as he shook his head. “I heard naught, Daphne. Even as we followed, all we heard was your voice, calling for Mark. Until —” A tremor ran through Runar’s body, and one wing reached compulsively to brush across his brother’s head. “Until I heard Bjarni calling for me, far behind and growing fainter with every step.”

“But I was with thee,” Bjarni pointed out. “Not behind, but before. Thou couldst see me, and hear me as I called for the Wordsmith.”

“I know, brother.” Runar’s shoulders sagged. “But in that moment, I did not know. My thoughts were consumed. Visions of thee in great distress. Thy screams…”

Daphne placed a soothing hand on the golden feathers. “Don’t feel too bad. It’s a fear monster. It draws on your deepest, most irrational fears, so of course it could drive you to behave irrationally. We don’t think straight when we hear someone we love in pain.”

“I have heard tell of such creatures. Monsters that draw one into a private prison of terror, and which cannot be bound by word-chains.” Runar clacked his beak nervously. “But it is old lore, buried more deeply than the tunnels we traverse. Very few Lorists bother to study these matters anymore. I remember… once, in my own reading, I came across an old collection of verses and asked Vyth about them. He scolded me for wasting time on such ‘fanciful nightmares’ when our tribe was facing extinction from far more pressing, obvious foes.”

The golden eyes had been gazing out into the middle distance without seeing, but suddenly, they focused on Daphne.

“How dost thou know of such things, Daphne?”

“I — um —”

For a few anxious seconds, Daphne’s brain nearly blew a fuse in its frantic search for a response other than ‘you’re all fictional characters from my imagination, so every monster we encounter is some manifestation of my own fears.’ Unable to find a suitable answer, Daphne settled for the shield of another question.

“I mean, it was just a guess. But what I want to know is, why wasn’t Bjarni affected?”

Anything to do with Bjarni was sure to command Runar’s attention. The keen golden gaze shifted to the fiery younger griffin, and Daphne breathed a sigh of relief.

“That is a good point,” Runar said. “Thy mind seemed to remain clear, Bjarni. Didst thou hear any voices?”

Bjarni shrugged, apparently unconcerned.

“I might have heard thee, Runar. After the Wordsmith ran off, right as we were following her. I thought I heard something like thy voice, calling down one of those first side-tunnels. But I was with thee, was I not? We were running to the Wordsmith’s aid, and we were together. What was there to fear?”

“Remarkable.” Runar shook his head again, this time in dumbfounded awe. “Thy wisdom exceeds thy age, younger brother.”

“Aesthetics, rather. I am a Reader. I can tell a good story from a bad, or a truth from a falsehood.” Bjarni waved a wing dismissively. “But that is not the most important matter at present. Brother! The Wordsmith was taken by the dirt monster, and I could not reach her, but she defeated it. She summoned the Cleansing Flame!”

“Now hang on,” Daphne said, waving her hands. “I summoned Lore-light. That’s all. And I was only able to do that because you were helping me.”

“But it was a fire,” Bjarni pointed out. “The flames consumed the monster until nothing remained!”

“You did the same thing.” Daphne spread her arms to indicate the spotless room. “You exploded that monster from the inside.”

“Only because I had seen thee do it.” Bjarni’s talons began their excitement-drumming on the stone floor as he beamed at Daphne. “Thou kindled the Cleansing Flame, and I caught the spark, and carried it with me into the belly of the beast!”

“You carried your love for your brother,” Daphne argued, though she wasn’t sure on why she was so insistent on this point. “Fear can’t swallow love. I couldn’t summon the Lore-light until you reminded me that I wasn’t alone.”

Runar was looking from one to the other in bewilderment. “Thou summoned Lore-light? I thought — are not these tunnels older than our oldest lore? From where couldst thou draw the word-power?”

“Beats me.” Daphne stood and crossed to the wall, staring at the smooth, blank stone. “That’s why I didn’t even try at first, until Bjarni pushed me. I didn’t think it would work this far underground, and without any carvings.”

She placed her hand on the wall, running her fingers lightly over its unadorned surface, and then jumped back with a gasp.

Light was spreading over the wall’s surface.

Spiraling out from the place where Daphne’s fingertips had last touched, golden ribbons created winding pathways across the smooth stone. The light twisted as it spread, outlining the shape of runes and forming itself into elaborate designs, like the carvings along the Lorist Way. Yet, it was more intricate than the other tunnel or the dalamelles. It was all richer and felt more ancient than anything Daphne had seen so far, even in the Hall of Parables. And it wasn’t based on carvings in the stone. It was merely light, flickering across the wall and ceiling like lines of sentient fire.

Behind her, she heard Runar draw in his breath sharply. He started to speak, but whatever he was about to say was drowned in Bjarni’s great laugh.

“It has begun!” The young griffin beat his wings together in joy. “The Wordsmith has kindled the Cleansing Flame, and it has illuminated the ancient way, and we shall follow it to victory!”