Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

  “Where?” Audrey asked, then fell silent at another footfall. Her skin prickled with irritation. Couldn’t the blotchy ensign just stand guard like he was supposed to?

  But then she heard a deep, familiar voice say, “Ensign Smathers.”

  She froze.

  “Admiral Harding, sir!” The ensign threw his shoulders back and saluted.

  “At ease. Has the prisoner given you any trouble?”

  “None, sir! That is, I can’t see him, so I’m not sure.” The ensign flushed, trailing off into confusion.

  “What’s this?” Now her father stood right behind her.

  Her stomached knotted. Audrey kept her head bowed instead of jumping to her feet and saluting. If her father saw her face… Disaster. She’d end up stuffed back in a dress, confined to quarters, and not allowed to talk to anybody, much less Piers.

  “Supper for the prisoner, sir,” Ensign Smathers said. “I didn’t think it wise to open the door.” He sounded worried.

  “Certainly not. Nevertheless, I think the prisoner has had enough food for now.”

  Still keeping her gaze lowered, Audrey scrambled to her feet, almost tipping the plate in the process. She headed down the hall toward the kitchens.

  One step. Two.

  “Private!” Her father’s voice arrested her in her tracks. “Stand and salute your superior officer.”

  No help for it. She turned, shoulders thrown back, spine straight. Fixing her gaze on his chin, she saluted. Please, let my disguise hold.

  Piers tried to help, whacking the bars with his hand. “Let me out!”

  Ensign Smathers jumped.

  Her father merely shot Piers an irritated glance, then resumed glaring at Audrey. “You’re a new recruit, so I’ll let you off with a warning this…” He stopped. Blinked.

  A wave of cold horror swept over Audrey. She met her father’s gaze and saw disbelief, followed by anger. “Smathers,” he snapped at the ensign, “guard the end of the hallway. Private, come here.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bait

  Stone World

  Memory rolled through Dorotea, shaking her foundations like an earthquake.

  A gargoyle pounding her father’s head against the floor. A gargoyle with a brutish, ugly, pink face.

  All her life, Dorotea had been told that her father’s gargoyle, Flint, had turned on him. But Flint was dark gray.

  All her life, she’d been told that she hadn’t been there when her father was killed, that it had happened far away in another cavern. She’d been assured her nightmares were just dreams, but it wasn’t true.

  Her father had been killed before her eyes, in their chambers in Stone Heart Cavern while she hid in a laundry basket.

  All this time, she’d blamed the gargoyles and called them monsters, but it had been Gerhardt who’d ordered Rose Granite to break his neck. Because her father had been a traitor: he’d secretly freed Flint and sided with the gargoyles in the rebellion.

  Her father must have believed that the gargoyles were not beasts.

  Cold sweat greased her skin, and her breathing hitched. She felt dazed, as if she’d been clobbered over the head with a rock.

  “It was a cover up,” Dorotea said slowly, thinking it through. “Stone Heart Clan didn’t want anyone to know that some of their people had sided with the gargoyles. So you pretended my father died heroically, killed in the fighting.”

  “Of course,” Gerhardt confirmed.

  “But why did my mother agree to the lie?” Surely she must have known, or at least suspected, the truth?

  “Hilde was smart enough to see that otherwise she and her child would have been shunned and spit upon as the family of a traitor.” Gerhardt shook his head. “She was happy to go along with the fiction that Niall died a hero’s death.”

  “But why didn’t she tell me the truth?” Dorotea demanded. “I saw Rose Granite kill him. Why did she lie and say I didn’t, that it was my imagination?”

  Gerhardt laughed. “Because I gave her reason not to. Your parents’ marital troubles were well known in the clan. So I told her your father ran off with his gargoyle lover and left her and that you, a child, had just seen them flee through the stone. I knew she’d rather you believe him a dead hero than a man who abandoned his family.”

  Her father had told her that they were going on a trip. They’d been about to flee, Dorotea realized. But her mother hadn’t been there. Had he intended to leave Hilde behind, or had she just been absent when the emergency struck?

  “But…but the funeral.” She clearly remembered the hero’s funeral for her father. “Whose body did we bury?”

  Gerhardt shrugged. “Another victim of the rebellion. I couldn’t dig up your father’s real body because I’d told your mother he’d abandoned you. But the hero story worked so well, we had to have a funeral. Fortunately, one body wrapped head-to-toe in cloth looks much like another.”

  No wonder Hilde was bitter.

  Though it still didn’t justify marrying Martin.

  Dorotea closed her eyes. Please let Marta have woken from her coma. Please let my actions not have hurt my mother.

  Impossible wishes, both of them.

  Her plan had seemed so simple when she started this: wake a gargoyle, use him to ask the Goddess to heal her sister, then put the gargoyle back.

  She’d been incredibly naïve.

  The hole she’d jumped into just kept getting deeper. To have any chance of a happy ending now, she had to convince the Elect to stop mining gold, save the Cave Lords, free the gargoyles, and stop Qeturah’s plan—whatever it might be. Oh, and not getting executed for treason would be a nice addition. Throw in a pardon for Jasper’s mother and the other rebels… Simple as soup. Dorotea stifled an inappropriate laugh.

  Gerhardt prodded her. “Walk faster.”

  Dorotea lifted her head and discovered they’d covered some distance while she was in her funk. Tall steel buildings had been replaced by shorter ones constructed of reddish-brown rectangular blocks, as perfectly identical as twins. She glimpsed broken furniture inside and odd things on the roofs. Little metal troughs led down into a large basin. They were dry now, but looked as if they’d once contained water. Peculiar. Rivers ran in low spots, not high.

  They passed on, and her momentary curiosity changed to worry for Jasper. She hoped he was safe, that the scavenger rat did know his mother.

  Her feet were sore, and she was very thirsty by the time they reached the power station on the outskirts of the dead city. The building was the size of the Vegetable Cavern, though much squarer in shape—Above-dwellers seemed to have a passion for flat things and sharp corners. It stood among a small crowd of metal towers with blades at the top. Seven of the towers’ blades turned creakily, but the rest were still, the metal rusty. More odd-shaped devices like large white bowls sprouted from the roof.

  Unskilled workers busied themselves shoveling a path through the sand. They respectfully moved aside for Gerhardt, but a woman cried out, “Halt! Identify yourself!”

  Looking up, Dorotea saw a woman in Elect green perched on a corner of the roof. She had a long face, and her blonde hair was pulled back into tight braids. Something about the metal tube she pointed in their direction raised goose bumps on Dorotea’s arms.

  “I’m Gerhardt, the leader of Stone Heart Clan. This is my gargoyle and my prisoner.” He indicated Rose Granite and Dorotea.

  “Where’s the red gargoyle?” the woman demanded.

  Gerhardt curled his lip. “I report to Elect Harmon, not you.”

  “Let me see the gargoyle’s collar.”

  Rose Granite waited until Gerhardt gestured her to move forward.

  “And the bracelets controlling her?”

  Gerhardt gritted his teeth, but pulled back his sleeves and revealed two gold bracelets.

  Dorotea eyed them speculatively. If she could get the bracelets off, maybe she and Rose Granite could escape.

  “Very well. You may pass,” the woman El
ect called out grandly.

  Gerhardt stalked up to the double metal doors and rapped on one. His voice grew clipped as he was again required to identify himself before someone opened the door. Dorotea recognized Burt, Elect Harmon’s Unskilled servant, from the violent fight in the Cathedral.

  “Elect Harmon will want to speak to you. This way, please.”

  The inside of the power station was even queerer than the outside, with large curved tubes, some things that resembled the turbines on a mill, and metal contorted into pipes and odder shapes. What did they all do?

  Elect Harmon and two of his brethren bent over a row of lit green panels with pictures and text on them. “Did we lose a satellite?”

  “I don’t think so. It looks more like a computer glitch—”

  Burt cleared his throat. “Elect Harmon?”

  “Just a moment,” he said without looking up. His green eye-shields had slipped down on his nose. “Don’t be ridiculous. How can it be a glitch? The same program’s been running since my grandfather’s day. It’s sabotage, pure and simple.”

  “But no one Above would have that kind of knowledge.”

  “One would.”

  Dorotea wondered what a satellite, a computer glitch, and a program were. Her mind raced. The first time Elect Harmon had spoken of sabotage, back in the tunnel en route to the Cavern of Gargoyles, he’d mentioned a crazy woman who lived Above. Could he mean Jasper’s mother, Sigrun? Or, rather, Qeturah?

  Gerhardt had had enough. “Elect Harmon, I’ve apprehended the traitor.”

  Traitor! Dorotea burned with indignation where once she would have writhed in shame.

  Elect Harmon’s head snapped up. He bared his teeth, then frowned, looking past her. “Where’s the red jasper gargoyle?”

  “She freed him,” Gerhardt said.

  “Yes, I told you that already,” Elect Harmon said impatiently.

  “They weren’t together when I found them,” Gerhardt said. “Rose Granite and I will, of course, continue to search, but I thought you’d want to question the girl first.”

  The Elect’s cheeks flushed with anger. “The gargoyle is of greater importance! You’re wasting time.”

  Gerhardt crossed his arms. “The girl claims the gargoyle feels indebted to her. We can use her as bait and lure the gargoyle to us.”

  Dorotea sniffed.

  Elect Harmon turned his green-tinted gaze on her. “You disagree?”

  “He dislikes me. I didn’t treat him very well at first.”

  “But you freed him?”

  She shrugged. Leah had freed him; Jasper was unlikely to confuse the two of them.

  Burt cleared his throat. “Beg pardon, Master Gerhardt, but was she alone when you found her?”

  Gerhardt twitched his shoulders in annoyance. “She was with two scavenger rats.”

  “Was one of them a half-naked youth of about eighteen with dark hair?”

  Gerhardt frowned at the Unskilled man, then addressed Elect Harmon. “What does it matter?”

  Elect Harmon sighed. “Just answer the question.”

  “I didn’t pay much attention. I suppose one of the boys was about that age and shirtless.”

  “Did you see his eyes?”

  “No. I repeat, what does it matter?”

  Burt turned to his master. “The boy I saw her with earlier had dark hair and golden eyes. Humans don’t have eyes that color. Gargoyles do.”

  Dorotea stopped breathing. She searched her fuzzy memories. Yes, Burt had almost caught Leah and Jasper in his boy form just before a sandstorm blew up.

  “So you told me,” Elect Harmon said. “I remain skeptical. Is there anything in Stone Heart lore about gargoyles changing form?”

  Gerhardt snorted. “Gargoyles are born of stone and die of stone. I’ll prove it. Rose Granite, change shapes or suffer.”

  “I can’t—” she started to say, but he clenched his fist, and she choked.

  Dorotea watched in disbelieving horror as the gargoyle fell onto the floor, convulsing in agony.

  “Stop it!” She ran at Gerhardt and wrenched at his bracelet, but he fended her off with a hand in her face.

  Burt caught her arm, and she kicked his shin in frustration. “Stop hurting her!”

  Gerhardt and Elect Harmon ignored her and stared down at Rose Granite. She thrashed around, clutching her throat, then went limp.

  “Convinced?” Gerhardt asked.

  “Oh, I was never convinced the other way,” Elect Harmon said casually.

  “Breathe,” Gerhardt commanded. He spread his fingers wide, and Rose Granite gasped in a breath.

  “Monster,” Dorotea accused him. She trembled with anger.

  The Stone Heart curled his lip in disgust. “Look at the traitor, crying over a gargoyle who’d break her neck in a second if given the opportunity.”

  That brought Dorotea up short. Was she being foolish? Rose Granite wasn’t half-human like Jasper, but Dorotea remembered the warmth with which Jasper had spoken of Rose, and somehow, having granted Jasper human status and feelings, it felt grossly wrong to treat the other gargoyle as a beast.

  Dorotea extended a hand to Rose Granite. “Are you injured?” she asked awkwardly.

  Rose Granite growled and pushed her hand away.

  “Enough of this,” Elect Harmon said. “Gerhardt, take your prisoner and set your trap. If the gargoyle doesn’t come for her, I’ll execute her in the morning. Right now, I need to get the satellite back up and running.”

  Dorotea blanched at his casual judgment. Execution, not just exile? She almost protested, but it wouldn’t do any good, and she refused to beg for her life.

  Gerhardt escorted her outside. She stumbled once, still in shock. She stood numbly while he tied her hands behind her back and bound them to a rusted tower.

  “Now call your gargoyle,” Gerhardt said. “Call for help.”

  Trusting Rose Granite to tell Jasper it was a trap, Dorotea obliged. “Help! Help!” After a few cries, her throat hurt. “May I have some water, please?”

  “Later,” Gerhardt said carelessly. “Rose Granite, tell me the instant you sense him coming.”

  “I sense him now.”

  “What? He’s that close?” Gerhardt glanced around, leery.

  Hope for rescue and fear for Jasper competed inside Dorotea.

  Rose Granite answered carefully, “I cannot tell how far away he is.”

  “He must be close if he can hear her shouts,” Gerhardt said.

  Rose Granite kept silent, but Dorotea knew that gargoyles could speak over long distances as long as both of them were in contact with stone.

  Gerhardt hefted a maul. “Stand ready to attack.”

  Dorotea tried to wriggle free but only succeeded in tightening her bonds and rubbing her skin raw. She gave up and waited. They all waited under the harsh sun.

  Gerhardt soon put the heavy maul down. He asked Rose Granite for updates, but she always said the same thing, that she couldn’t tell how far away Jasper was.

  Dorotea slumped against the tower and tried to distract herself from her raging thirst by trying to figure out how the collars worked. If she could free Rose Granite, it might tip the balance in a battle.

  She unearthed the memories of Leah freeing Jasper. Leah hadn’t used blood. Unless by accident? The tactile memory floated up: her fingers had been damp, but with tears, not blood.

  Tears. Dorotea frowned. In the Cavern of Traitors, she’d grown frustrated and kicked the stone, stubbing her toes painfully. Had she wiped her eyes and wet her fingers with tears?

  Maybe stone-hearted was meant to be ironic rather than literal.

  Implementing her theory was going to be tricky—especially since Gerhardt had ordered Rose Granite to break her neck if she tried to remove the collar. The gargoyle could probably resist the command for a little while, but Dorotea would have to be quick. And then there was the little matter of her bound hands…

  The sun baked down on them. Her pores ran with sweat.
She asked for water, repeatedly, and was ignored. Her tongue swelled in her mouth, and her arms ached. Her legs trembled with fatigue, but she couldn’t sit down or even kneel because of her bonds. Misery sheathed her like a set of iron clothes.

  The darkening sky brought relief from the sun and so did the rising breeze. It took several long moments for Dorotea’s befuddled brain to realize why both things were bad.

  Elect Harmon emerged and studied the sky. “Everybody in. A storm’s coming.”

  Dorotea almost groaned in relief. They would have to untie her, and surely once they were indoors, someone would give her water?

  Elect Harmon turned to Gerhardt. “If the gargoyle hasn’t shown by now, he probably won’t. Leave the traitor for the storm.”

  Dorotea blinked dry eyes. Her ears rang. What? She tried to protest, but only a croak emerged.

  Elect Harmon vanished inside. The Unskilled workers who’d been standing guard and the Elect woman watching from the roof all followed. No one even glanced at her.

  The wind gusted harder, making the tower’s blades creak alarmingly. Stinging particles of sand whispered along the ground.

  “Please,” Dorotea appealed to Gerhardt. “I’m clan.”

  He spat. “You’re a traitor.” And he went inside, too, shutting the door after him.

  Her chin dropped to her chest in despair. If her eyes hadn’t been so dry, she would have cried.

  Gradually, another thought seeped through. Where was Rose Granite? Gerhardt wouldn’t leave her behind. Maybe Dorotea wasn’t as alone as she seemed. Maybe the gargoyle lurked beneath the stony pad on which the tower stood. Her heart beat in hard, fast strokes. Gerhardt wasn’t abandoning her to her death; this was still part of the trap he’d laid for Jasper, making her more tempting bait.

  Dorotea swallowed painfully, trying to work some saliva into her throat. “Rose Granite,” she croaked, hoping the gargoyle could hear her over the whine of the wind. “I know how to take off the collar. But I’ll need your help. Free my hands. Endure the pain.”

  Rose Granite’s head and torso emerged from the rock at her feet. “You ask much.”

  Dorotea just nodded. She knew. The wind whipped long strands of hair into her face as she waited. From Rose Granite’s expression, it was just as hard for a gargoyle to trust a human as it was for a human to trust a gargoyle.