Hands of Flame n-3

by C. E. Mutphy

  “What about you, Grace?” The question held him in place even when he might have wanted to move at her command; to embrace the world as it had become and learn his place in it. “Will you stay where you are while the world changes around you? Will you not move on, too?”

  “Ah, sure and you know the answer to that,” Grace said with a sighed smile, and a ghost of humor turned Alban’s mouth up at the corner.

  “You’ll move on when you’ve been given the kiss of angels, isn’t that what you say? What does it mean?”

  “Grace’ll let you know when she finds out.” She nudged him toward the door with a bump of her hips, encouraging him to move without touching him. Alban chuckled again and went where he was bid, putting weight onto the heavy iron door handle that opened the way into the below-streets central refuge.

  It opened silently. Grace’s territory was inevitably well oiled and smooth-running, far more so than might be expected of a ragtag bunch of teens led by a leather-clad den mother. The group within, though, was wholly different from the youthful faces and chip-on-the-shoulder attitudes Alban had come to recognize and admire over the past months.

  Instead an older man straightened from his crouch and turned to look at Alban. He was stocky, not gone to fat, but broad and jowly. White touched otherwise steel-gray hair at the temples, and deep-set eyes were much the same shade as his hair. Alban wondered suddenly if it would be as clear to Margrit that this was Eldred in his human form, or if the ability to recognize one another in any shape was part of what made them unique.

  Looking over the others, he thought it took no more than an ability to extrapolate. The lanky youth—younger, certainly, than Alban himself—had a touch of strawberry to his white-blond hair and was as leggy and elbow-ridden in human form as in his gargoyle shape. The two women were as much Valkyries—Margrit’s memory intruding, that; Alban wouldn’t have chosen the word himself—in mortal form as in immortal, both broad-shouldered and blue-eyed with long, pale hair. They looked like themselves, all of them.

  And they were all riding judgment on him. Nervousness that hadn’t been present the night before fluttered in Alban’s gullet, a reaction that seemed inordinately human. He bowed, as much a slight offer of respect to the elder as a way to hide his own sudden nerves. After an instant Eldred tipped his head in response, gesturing Alban to join them. A mockery of outrage rose to replace worry: this was, after all, Alban’s home, and it should be he who offered a place at the table to the newcomers. Only a mockery, though, the thought seeming laughable even as he felt its sting. There were far more pressing matters to be concerned with than whether he was welcomed or welcoming.

  “Alban Korund.” Eldred’s voice was as deep and rich in his mortal form as it had been the night before. “Welcome home.”

  What had been a trickle of mental touch suddenly became a flood, emotion ranging from reserved to angry and, as Grace had said, to curious. Unprepared, Alban shuddered under the onslaught, the round walls and concrete seating around him disappearing and staggering mountains replacing them.

  There was vitality in these mountains, unlike the memories he’d slipped through over the last months. Those peaks had been worn with time, too many lives lost to grow them taller. They had been his family, his closest friends, and they had reflected a dying race.

  No longer. Now mountaintops were jagged with change, snow patches glowing blue in moonlight beneath clear skies. The tree line burst with the promise of spring, hints of green in the night, and echoes of voices rang the stone, shivering loose rock into short slides.

  Stunned, Alban turned, taking it all in, and when he’d completed a full circle, he faced a campfire, the half-dozen gargoyles in the room with him seated around it. Beyond them rippled hundreds of others, faces and minds joined in the gestalt but not physically present. Challenge was written on those faces; challenge and interest, anger and hope.

  “What has happened?” Astonishment pushed his question out before he knew he intended to form it. “We live. We…live.”

  Biali thundered in, door clapping shut behind him in the real world and carrying ricochets of sound into the mind of memory. He muttered, “You happened,” and sat down at the fire, making himself comfortable in a way that seemed beyond Alban to accomplish himself. “You and that lawyer of yours,” Biali added, clearly not expecting Alban to put it together himself. “You and that quorum.”

  “You sat for the gargoyles at the quorum,” Alban protested. “Not I.”

  “Pah. You started it, Korund. Talking to the lawyer. Telling her what you were. Deep quakes send waves across the world.” Biali shoved a thick hand into the fire, rearranging branches, and Eldred, looking wry, picked up where he left off.

  “We have been dying, all these centuries. You know this.” You encompassed far more than just Alban: a shift of agreement ran through a thousand faces, swirling back through crowded memories until it had touched them all. “We are slow to change, and have always chosen the safety of tradition over the risk of innovation.”

  At that, Margrit’s image, rife with exasperation, swam before Alban’s eyes and made him chuff laughter. That thought splashed through the linked gargoyle minds, making Eldred lift a heavy eyebrow. Alban ducked his head in apology, finding a smile still stretching his face. “I’ve always held that we were right to stand by our traditions.”

  “And yet you have disregarded them broadly through your entire life.”

  Fresh astonishment burned away Alban’s humor and he straightened again, agape as he met Eldred’s gaze. The elder gargoyle’s expression was cool, though beneath it lay a pool of warmth, even admiration, welcoming enough to startle Alban anew. Eldred’s sense of self carried a hint of envy, memories shifting and exploring the choices he might have made, all of those thoughts visible to the gargoyle overmind. Hundreds of years earlier he might have embraced the selkies and their decision to save themselves by breeding with humans. Instead he had been repulsed, holding tight to tradition. Now, for all that gargoyles were not creatures in the habit of second-guessing themselves, it was clear that Eldred wondered what changes might have been wrought in the world if he had admired the selkie daring and accepted their choice rather than turned his back on a man who had been his friend for centuries.

  “You left our mountains before your hundredth year,” Eldred said. “You went to live among humans, to explore the world that they were creating. To try to understand it. Only one of us was bold enough to join you.”

  “And she paid for that choice with her life,” Biali snapped. For an instant tension sang through the gargoyles, Hajnal’s loss fresh and painful through the intimacy of memory.

  Alban, softly, said, “We’ve all paid,” and after long moments Biali settled back, no longer pressing the point.

  Eldred continued as though the brief fracas hadn’t happened, his gray eyes turning blue as moonlight spilled over his face. “That in itself was a break with tradition. More so was the friendship you built with Eliseo Daisani and the dragonlord Janx. Dragons and vampires,” he said with a shake of his head. “No one befriends vampires. But even that, extraordinary as it might have been, was nothing to the choice you made on their behalf. To separate your memories from all of ours, to make yourself a breach amongst our people, in order to hide half-human children? What—” and he sounded as though he truly wanted to know “—were you thinking?”

  “That the sins of the fathers need not be visited on the children.” Alban turned a palm up, knowing he borrowed human concepts and hoping to placate all his people with the gesture. “They were condemned by their heritage, but innocent in their birth. Their mother loved two men of the Old Races and would have never betrayed the truth of them to the world. I saw no risk in helping them all to live.”

  “And that,” Eldred said, voice filled with granite, “is why you are the Breach, Alban of the clan Korund. Your life has not been that of a gargoyle, not in any way that we recognize. You have lived separately from our memories. You’ve to
ld humans about our existence more than once. You’ve chosen to allow forbidden children a chance to survive. You have taken the lives of our brethren, and you have made no apology for these choices and decisions.”

  “I—” Words were useless in the gestalt, memory and emotion riding faster and farther than any vocal construct could, even if Alban could muster them. Eldred was right: there was no apology in him for the deaths he’d caused. Sorrow, yes, and guilt, and regret, but a lifetime, even one as long as a gargoyle’s, would not change the fact that he would act again as he had in the heat of the moment. He would choose Margrit over Ausra; he would, in any way that mattered, choose Janx over Malik. Ausra’s madness would always be a point of agony, a thing he would never find a way to cease mourning, but Malik had intended to take Janx’s life, and for all his horror at causing the djinn’s death, Alban knew it had been accidental. He had not done the deliberate murder Malik had intended, and whether the Old Races, whether the gargoyles, whether anyone at all understood that, it was the fine point of difference that mattered to Alban himself.

  And that sentiment rocked back through centuries of time. He believed the choices he had made were the right ones, whether they were supported by Old Races law or gargoyle tradition. Sarah Hopkins had not deserved to die for having loved Janx or Daisani; her children had deserved a chance to live, for all that their fathers’ people said they were aberrations which should not exist.

  “You are right,” Alban whispered. “I am not like you at all.” Shock made him cold, unusual for a gargoyle, and he stared across the shifting faces within the overmind in a disbelief so deep it was stained with humor. “All this time spent in defense of our traditions, and it seems I have had very little sense of them at all.”

  “Biali once said you might have led us.” Eldred’s eyes went to the stark, white gargoyle, and the weight of a thousand more gazes joined him before they all returned to Alban. Even Biali looked up, mouth flattened with irritation. “I believe you have done so,” Eldred continued. “Whether deliberately or not, you have led us to this place and time, and to these schisms in what we were and what we must become.”

  The urge to apologize rose in Alban, but that intent was drowned beneath the weight of Eldred’s words. “We have discussed this amongst ourselves, amongst all the clans who are left.” Power lifted his words, a tide of tears and fear and joy so profound that it tore through Alban’s chest, ripping away the breath there and leaving nothing in its wake. Anticipation: the gestalt tasted of it, and his heart began a too-fast beat of uncertainty, as though understanding lay just beyond his grasp.

  “We have debated,” Eldred said again, “and have found only one answer that we can agree to. We gargoyles number in the hundreds, no more, and our time as part of this world will come to an end if we do not choose to change as the selkies have changed. We are not well equipped to force ourselves down that road, and so for all our people, before all our people, it comes to me to tell you that we have, for the first time, chosen a leader for all of our clans, chosen someone to guide us down a path we cannot walk without help.

  “So I put it to you, Alban Korund.” A hint of humor darted over Eldred’s face as he obviously and deliberately formed his question in a fashion not typical to gargoyles. “Will you be our first democratically elected leader?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Humans lived by threes.

  Through a fog of rage born from fear, through a blur of red and violent white streaks, the bit of trivia gave Margrit something to hold on to. Three weeks without food, three days without water: those were the average extremes that humans could typically survive.

  Three minutes without air.

  She would have had more confidence in that number if she’d hyperventilated before being snatched.

  She’d left the bar clearheaded, Daisani’s gift working its magic to wipe away the effects of alcohol. If she’d had a plan, it had been to work her way into the storm tunnels and find Alban. Their worlds were changing in tandem, and she wanted both to be at his side, and to have him at hers as they discovered what new paths lay before them.

  Instead, for the second time in her life, someone had grabbed her from behind and turned her into nothing more than mist drifting through the city streets.

  Even through blinding fury, she doubted her abductor would keep her misted until she died of asphyxiation. Not that she had any particular faith in her long-term survival chances when a djinn had kidnapped her, but she imagined her execution would be public. Allowing her to die during travel lacked drama, and the Old Races had a fondness for drama. Teeth gritted, Margrit closed her eyes against the smearing colors of the world and waited for the air to become breathable again.

  When it did, she was cast away, sent stumbling as though her captor had found handling her as distasteful as she’d found being kidnapped. Half blinded by tears, and gasping on too-thick air, she caught herself on her fingertips against the floor, then scrambled to her feet and faced the djinn who’d captured her.

  It was Tariq, standing too far away to retaliate against him, even if she had a way. A bubble of anger burst in her: she should be carrying the ridiculous watergun that had condemned Malik. It was feeble protection, but better than nothing. She’d rectify that mistake if she had the chance.

  Behind Tariq stood a group of djinn, held in check by little more, Margrit suspected, than his will. It was less defiance than genuine curiosity that made her ask, “Am I still alive because you wanted an audience?” Her voice scratched and she drew another breath, coughing out the last of the fog. It tasted faintly of acid or blood. Like ketchup gone wrong, she thought, then tried to drag her mind back in line.

  She’d been brought to a tall delivery garage. Its corrugated rolling door was closed, rattling as traffic passed outside it. The concrete floor was empty in the center, with boxes and pallets piled around its edges. Those, in turn, were littered with selkies and djinn.

  There were more than was easily countable, and they had split the room more or less evenly, the door’s width creating a no-man’s-land down the center. Tariq joined his brethren, leaving Margrit alone in a broad, empty swath. She felt suddenly small and remarkably fragile under the eyes of so many Old Races. Unwise impulse drove her to mumble, “You’re probably all wondering why I called you here today….”

  Over her attempt at humor, far more clearly than she’d spoken, Cara Delaney’s voice cut through the room: “No.”

  Startled, Margrit jerked her gaze up. “Cara? You should still be in the hospital.”

  Cara stepped out of the gathered selkies with her head held high, though her cheeks were pale. “I dismissed myself. No, Margrit Knight, we are wondering how it is you think it’s within your right to offer the djinn control of Janx’s territory.”

  “I could have sworn you told me to avert a war.”

  “Avert a war, not—”

  Exasperation flooded Margrit, drowning any sympathy she might have had for the young woman’s injuries. “Give it a rest, Cara. You’re not the right person for the job. I’m sure there are plenty of bastards among your people, and you might’ve gotten a tough-girl badge for getting shot, but you’re not hard enough to run this. Seeing as how Tariq was willing to squeeze my mother’s heart to a pulp, I’m pretty confident he’s got the stones for it.” Margrit shot a glance at the djinn. “Does this mean you’re accepting my offer?”

  “We would be fools not to.” Tariq’s voice was thick with dislike.

  “And what do the selkies do, Margrit? Slink away with our tails between our legs?” Cara’s voice remained cold, but a sliver of humor wrinkled Margrit’s eyebrows.

  “Do seals have tails? Or back legs? They’ve got flipp—” She broke off at Cara’s expression and fought down a smile. “Sorry.” Amusement fled and she pressed fingertips over her eyelids momentarily, knowing she gave away signs of strain and not much caring. “You get to not be embroiled in a war, Cara. You get to be fully recognized members of the Old Races. There ar
e tens of thousands of you, and your leader—Kaimana is your leader, isn’t he?—has a world-market business already. You don’t need Janx’s empire to establish yourselves as heavyweights among your people. In the name of peace, walk away.”

  Cara’s jaw tightened and she looked imperiously toward the djinn. He tensed in protest, and Margrit sighed. “If that’s a ‘go away so I can discuss your fate with the human without your interference’ look, don’t bother. Just say it.” Reckless anger flooded her, pushing her beyond the bounds of wisdom. She had a sense of fait accompli, that regardless of her actions it would end badly for her; would very likely end badly for the people to whom she now spoke. Railing at them would probably do her no good and could easily do her harm, but aggravation was more powerful than self-preservation. Especially given that she doubted she could shield herself from whatever sentence the offended Old Races already had in mind.

  Cara’s voice dropped as if she could disguise her words from the djinn through softness. “Do you understand what they might do if given their heads, Margrit? D—”

  Margrit cut her off with an incredulous laugh. “Cara. Janx ran a crime empire. He employed murderers as a matter of course. He gave them things to do. He ran gambling houses and whorehouses and drugs and, for all I know, he ran people. I don’t want to know,” she added more sharply, more clearly, as Tariq drew in a breath to speak. “You were a squatter, Cara. You’ve got to have some idea of how dark the world Janx ran is.”

  Something flashed in Cara’s eyes, a hint of old hurt that made unexpected guilt spike through Margrit’s belly. “I know,” the young woman said. “I know, which is why I ask if you have any understanding of what you’d unleash by giving the djinn control over this empire.”