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arrows.”
    â€œWhich are somewhere in the City of Death,” Scirye finished. “We have to find them before he does. We were on our way there when the lord of thunder ambushed us. Roland had hired him to keep an eye out for us.”
    Bayang cleared her throat. “I also think Roland might have hired the lyaks to keep us occupied while he searched for the arrows.”
    The Nest burst into noise once more as every griffin began speaking until the Keeper silenced them with ringing blows to the branch. “My lord and lady elders, I suggest that I question our guests in detail before we discuss what to do about the lyaks. Captain Kaccap, if you’ll bring them to my chambers?”
    Then, spreading her wings, she spiraled gracefully upward and through a circular hole in the ceiling.

 
    13
    Scirye
    As soon as Scirye and the others mounted the griffins, the warriors rose into the air. Higher and higher they flew, past more trophies and honors, some so ancient that the banner cloths were disintegrating. Scirye felt as if she were rising through time itself.
    Kles flew beside her, head raised high, his fatigue gone as the elders of his clan watched him soar through the air.
    The hole in the ceiling was decorated with gold vines from which grew silver crescent moons, and they flew through it to a new level. Here the ceiling was only twelve feet high, and they flew down a corridor past offices and archives staffed with a mixture of human and griffin clerks.
    At the end of the corridor was a stone oval door decorated with panels of human kings and queens receiving gifts from griffins. They were posed stiffly but rendered realistically.
    â€œThis door came from an ancient king of Babylonia,” Kles boasted to her.
    When Captain Kaccap knocked, a griffin servant answered. His beak was decorated with swirls of gold inlay. “Please come in,” he said with a bow before he flew away with a note in his paw.
    Kaccap and his patrol stayed outside while Scirye and her friends entered. The room was the first in the eyrie that she felt comfortable in. Plush, richly colored carpets covered the floor and the room itself was furnished with human chairs and divans as well as griffin perches. In a corner was an old-fashioned Victrola with a crank handle to power it and huge horn towering above it as a speaker. Scirye guessed that the Keeper entertained human visitors here.
    Glancing at her own filthy clothes, Scirye hesitated to sit on the elegant antique furniture.
    â€œLady Scirye, please be at ease.” The Keeper bounded easily onto a perch about four feet off the floor. Immediately, a human maid brought her a small golden plate filled with preserved dates and bread flat as a disc. “Your father and I are old friends and I hope that we will be too.”
    On the other hand, Koko didn’t hesitate to make himself right at home, throwing himself onto a cushion-covered couch. “Yeah, this is more like the life I want.”
    The Keeper regarded the badger with amusement. “And from what jail did Lady Scirye recruit you, badger?” she asked in accented English.
    Koko defended himself. “I was in a perfectly respectable museum, getting culture.”
    The feathers around the Keeper’s eyes twitched in amusement. “Or picking out what to steal, but no matter,” she said, wagging a date at him. “Just make sure you leave with no more than when you arrived.”
    Koko rubbed his paws together as more human servants brought in trays of food and set them on tables. “I’ll settle for a square meal,” Koko said as he watched a servant begin to slice meat from a haunch of venison. “Don’t be chintzy now. Oh, heck. I’ll take the whole thing.” When the servant handed him the platter itself, the badger happily picked up the whole haunch and began to munch away.
    Another servant brought over a tray of small cakes in the shapes of rabbits, deer, boar, and