Hands of Flame n-3

by C. E. Mutphy

  “Of course I know. Most of my job is defending the bad guys. But the truth is, there are always going to be bad guys, and what’s more important than who they are is that they establish some kind of control down here. You’re on the verge of warfare with humans, never mind among yourselves. You can’t afford that. So you either take the deal I offered or I walk out of here and you face the consequences.”

  “Well,” Tariq said softly, “no.”

  Anticipation rolled through the gargoyles like a living thing, eagerness shared by an entire people. Alban could see them beyond Eldred, hundreds of faces half-present in memory and a scant handful actually there, watching him with hope and curiosity and resentment.

  It was to that last, particularly, that Alban responded. His gaze fell from Eldred to Biali, who remained hunkered and glowering into the fire. He was as closed off to the gestalt as was possible, a mere pinpoint of sullen presence with no more hint than that to his thoughts. “It’s not a quorum, Stoneheart. It doesn’t have to be unanimous.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t.” Bemusement filled Alban’s voice, spilling into the overmind. That his people could even conceive of such an idea was beyond his expectation of them. They had always been small clans gathered into tribes, passing history back and forth within the family lines. They’d known little in the way of hierarchy; a people able to sense each other’s thoughts tended toward agreement without specific leadership. To strive for something as extraordinary—and as human—as an agreed-upon…Words failed Alban as he looked from Biali to their people and back again. He was no king or president, and neither did the sense of their expectations carry that, nor even so much as chiefdom or some other small title. Leader was sufficient; guide was more appropriate. That word, out of many offered, made Alban nod before he crouched across from Biali.

  “You were my first friend,” he said quietly. “Perhaps no longer my oldest, but my first. Tell me, Biali, what you think of this idea.”

  “You’re right.” Biali looked up, his one good eye hard with old anger. “We’re not friends. You’re a fool and you’re dangerous to all of us. Always have been. Know what’s bad enough, Korund? Watching you walk away with the woman I loved and leaving me to make what I could of the rest of my life. Know what’s worse?”

  Alban shook his head, silent, and waited on the scarred gargoyle’s words rather than seek out answers in the overmind. They came soon enough, Biali’s voice an angry growl. “Having the choices you made follow me around for centuries. Me, I changed with the world. Went to work for Janx when there was nothing else to do. Found Ausra and hoped there was another chance for me. Didn’t look beyond any of that. And now I am. Can’t help it. We all are. And what we’re seeing is that neither way works, not mine and not theirs.” A flickered gesture indicated the silent gargoyle clans. “What we’re seeing is the little choices you made are adding up and showing us how the world’ll look in another hundred years. What do I think? I think it’s a terrible idea.”

  He finally lifted his eyes again, scowling heavily at Alban. “But it’s like I told the lawyer. No point in standing on shifting earth. No point in standing against the tide. You’re the only choice we’ve got. So show us how to live, Stoneheart. Teach us what to do.”

  Alban breathed a laugh. “You’re the one who sat on the quorum and voted for the destruction of all our laws. If I’m to help our people find a new path, I could do worse than to have your advice as we walk it.”

  Biali’s gaze sharpened and disruption shot through gargoyle link. Mountains sprang up around Alban, craggy, impenetrable, and filled with Biali’s will. Surprise washed over Alban as Biali came out of the rock, the walls he’d created so much a part of himself that he imbued them.

  “I’d forgotten,” Alban said almost idly. “I’d forgotten what privacy looked like in the overmind. I’ve become so accustomed to not needing it, I think I’d forgotten this could be done.” He turned, looking at the tall cliffs and the stars that clawed their tops, far away. “It seems I’ve forgotten a great deal.”

  “You’re a gargoyle,” Biali growled. “You don’t forget anything. You just misplace it for a while.”

  “Perhaps so.” Alban faced his rival again, wondering at the confidence that had allowed him to turn his back on Biali, particularly in a world of Biali’s own making. “What are we doing here?”

  “Are you just that good?” The last word was sneered, though craggy walls around them echoed with different emotion: frustration; bewilderment; dismay. “Is Janx right? So true and noble as to sicken? Do you hold no grudge, Stoneheart?”

  Alban fell silent, searching for an inoffensive answer, then spread his wings—his wings; in the sanctuary of Biali’s mind, he wore his gargoyle form, for all that it was the human shape that stood in Grace’s meeting chamber—spread his wings in dismissal of politeness and acceptance of the truth: “I won, Biali. Come the dawn, I have won…everything. Our battle. Hajnal. The quorum. The trial. A place amongst our people. Margrit. What I’ve lost isn’t so much that I must hold to bitterness and begrudgery for the wrongs you’ve done me.”

  “You lost Hajnal, in the end.”

  “But I was with her for a little while.” Alban breathed another laugh, soft sound, and turned again to look at the white mountains rising around him. “A year ago, I think I would have been angrier with you. I was alone then. Melodramatically alone,” he added wryly. “Mourning for a life lost two centuries ago, bitter for the chances wasted, angry at the world for snatching happiness away from me, though I wouldn’t have admitted to any of that. I would have said I was only doing as gargoyles ought to, standing unmoved against time. The past few months have changed me greatly. This position our people have offered me…I wouldn’t have been worthy of it then.”

  “You always were pompous.”

  Alban blinked and looked back to find Biali glowering irritably at him. “You wouldn’t have had the chance, three months ago. That lawyer changed everything, including you.”

  “And you?” Alban asked.

  Biali’s jaw worked before he finally spat, “Don’t count on it.” The sentiment reverberated from the walls around them, lending it weight.

  Alban considered his onetime friend for a long moment, then nodded. “All right. I won’t.” He crouched and sprang upward, wings catching the air and driving him to the distant peaks. A moment later he broke free of their private conversation and rejoined the gathering of gargoyles, landing amidst them as though he had never left.

  Curious faces turned to him, glanced at Biali, and returned to Alban again, unnerving in their solidarity. Alban caught the eyes of those in the room with him, and then the nearest of those in the world beyond as he gathered himself to speak.

  “I have, I think, done very little to earn the trust you’re offering me. The choices I’ve made have not been made out of foresight or wisdom, only a belief in what was right regardless of what our laws dictated. If you’ve changed enough to recognize that we must adapt further or die out, then I think any leadership I might provide is moot. You have already become the change you wish to see. Biali made courageous choices at the quorum, choices I don’t know if I would have been bold enough to follow through on myself, even if not doing so might have been hypocritical. I think I feared change more than any of us, but it seems even I’ve fallen beneath its scythe. If there’s any guidance I can offer, then I will, of course, but it seems to me that you would be better served by Eldred or one of the others.”

  He hesitated, then turned his palms up in supplication. “That said, there is one thing I think we as a people should do. The djinn have it in their hearts to make war on us over the death of one of their own. I’m responsible for that death, and will not hide from it. But I still believe that our third law must hold sway. We Old Races cannot be allowed to turn on one another even when something as terrible as Malik al-Massrī’s death rocks our ranks. If exile is to be the price, so be it. I will pay it willingly enough. But we cannot permit this to come
to war. Bloodshed is too costly for any of us. So I would ask, if I may ask anything, that some of you join me in finding the djinn and designing a peace accord out of this tragedy before it escalates out of control.”

  Biali cracked his knuckles over the fire and shoved out of his crouch. A smirk shadowed his scarred face as Alban looked askance at him, and he shrugged his thick shoulders. “What? Pretty words don’t disguise that you’re going in looking for a fight. I’m not going to miss this one, Stoneheart. It ought to be good.”

  Ice slid through Margrit’s veins, holding her in place as Tariq continued, his voice so soft and steady it seemed that what he was saying must be reasonable. “There is still the matter of Malik al-Massrī’s death.”

  “It was an accident. Would you be persecuting Malik if he’d managed to kill Janx? Or Janx, if he’d killed Malik to survive?”

  “Irrelevant questions. The glassmaker lived and Malik died at your hands and the gargoyle’s.”

  Recollection struck a chord. “Glassmaker, that’s right. You two know each other, don’t you? He knew your name.”

  Tariq’s amber eyes darkened. “Also irrelevant. You will not save yourself by changing the subject, Margrit Knight.”

  Margrit muttered, “It was worth a shot,” then, more clearly, said, “Do I get a trial? Alban got one.” Her body was still cold, but her thoughts, at least, seemed to be moving at their usual pace, searching for a way out, or at least an extension of the brief minutes she had left.

  “Alban Korund is a gargoyle, and faced a gargoyle tribunal for the death of another of his own kind. Their traditions are different from ours, as he will discover when we mete out punishment for Malik’s death.”

  “So no trial.” Margrit bit down on further response, realizing fear was translating itself into sarcasm. Her gaze went to the steel delivery door and slipped away again instantly: even if it was open so she could make a run for it, outrunning a djinn was quite literally impossible. Quick as she could be, she simply couldn’t outpace someone who didn’t need to travel the distance between two places.

  “Do you deny your guilt?”

  Startled, she looked back at Tariq. “I—” Complicated emotion arose, embodied in flashes of the House of Cards on fire, and Malik’s destruction in the flames. Picking her words carefully, she said, “I deny that I am guilty of murder. I do not deny that I’m partially responsible for accidental manslaughter, and I don’t deny that I’ll regret that for the rest of my life.” However long it may be, she added silently.

  “Then even if we were so inclined, there is no need for a trial.” Tariq nodded and two djinn appeared at Margrit’s sides, hands on her shoulders, forcing her to her knees.

  Fear finally caught up with her, making the fall thick and heavy. Tears burned her eyes, whether from terror or pain, and the whole of her body was cold. Tariq put his hand out and a third djinn placed a scimitar in it, then backed away as he unsheathed it with the too-familiar sound of metal on leather.

  Margrit’s throat clogged, choking off her breath as Tariq approached. Water swam in her eyes, but she couldn’t bring herself to blink the fog it produced away, irrationally afraid of missing the strike that would end her life. Out of nowhere, she recalled an article she’d read about decapitation, possibly one written during the French Revolution. The man scheduled to die had promised his friends that he would keep blinking as long as he could once his head left his neck, as an experiment in determining whether death was instantaneous or not.

  He had blinked for twenty seconds before finally going still.

  She did not want to know that she was dead, not like that. Horrifying enough to die young and badly, but far worse to face even a few seconds of knowing her life had already ended and she was only waiting for her damaged body to realize it.

  “Cara?” Panic turned Margrit’s question into a chalkboard shriek.

  “Yes, of course.” Cara stepped forward, still pale, and executed a careful half bow toward Tariq, who turned to her with the infinite patience of a man certain of his control.

  Cara met his eyes. “I don’t like it, but to avert a war that would destroy us all, I agree to Margrit Knight’s terms. The docklands and Janx’s empire are yours. I hope we may come to some new agreement on working together, but even if not, the selkies will not stand in the way of the djinn. Nor,” she added a little more coolly, “will we support you if you should pursue your vendetta over the matter of Malik al-Massrī’s death. If you choose to war against the others, you do so alone.”

  Tariq returned her hard gaze a long time before a sharp smile twisted his features. “We accept your terms, and in exchange will allow the life of this human to stand in the place of any of our brethren against whom we might otherwise hold accountable for unfortunate events.”

  Cara looked down at Margrit, then nodded and stepped back.

  Disbelief clenched Margrit’s stomach, forcing a frightened laugh free. Tears finally fell, scalding lines down her cheeks, and she shook her head savagely, trying to splash the droplets of salt water on the djinn holding her. Neither so much as flinched. Margrit twisted her head to the side, biting down violently on one of their hands before a blow across the face dizzied her. The injured djinn knotted his hand in her hair and hauled her head back to expose her throat to Tariq’s sword.

  A rumble arrested all attention, making Margrit’s tormentors turn toward the delivery door as it shuddered open. Headlights flared outside, silhouetting two slim figures against the night before the door rolled shut again. Cara took one step farther back from Margrit, shoulders rigid.

  Ursula Hopkins folded her arms across her chest and stared boldly at each group gathered in the room: selkies, djinn and the little crowd around Margrit herself. Kate, like a crimson shadow, leaned on the garage door, a foot cocked against it as she studied her fingernails with a deliberate insouciance.

  Despite everything, amusement rose up to strangle Margrit. Janx himself couldn’t have looked more nonchalant, and she fought back the urge to suddenly begin wild applause.

  Instead all attention hung on the two young-looking women. Silence stretched until Tariq snapped it with, “What is this? We have business, and you—”

  “Business?” Kate glanced up with flawless ingenuity, eyes widened to see a hand tangled in Margrit’s hair and a blade at her throat. “Oh,” she said, as if in genuine surprise, and then smiled. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Half-breed.” Tariq spat the word. “You would shy from spilling the blood of your mothers. Even the selkies aren’t so weak as that.” The blade’s curve remained steady a few centimeters from Margrit’s throat. She thought her pulse must be reflected in the bright metal, panic and sour relief giving it wing.

  Kate minced forward, managing to put on the air of a prissy schoolgirl despite wearing heavy boots, cargo pants and a leather jacket thrown over a torn white tank top. Like Janx, she was exquisite in her portrayal of otherness; what the eye saw was not at all what was really there. Everything Margrit could see screamed of innocent curiosity, and it was all a gorgeous falsehood. This was not the woman Margrit had met that morning, though whether this Kate or the other had been closer to her true self, Margrit had no idea.

  “Oh,” Kate said in the same sweet trill, “oh, is that what you see? You think our heritage makes us more constrained, not less? Such a pity.” Her voice changed with the last words, gaining a depth far too profound for an ordinary human woman to achieve. “Release Margrit Knight or reap the whirlwind.”

  Margrit, afraid to move more than her eyes, jerked her gaze to Tariq and saw avarice light his features before a smile slid into place. “We are the whirlwind.”

  Like Janx, like Alban, Tariq was not so fast as Daisani. In the end, it seemed he didn’t need to be.

  It was an easy movement, really. Margrit saw it with full clarity, the way he straightened his arm the last half inch and drew it across in one short stroke. It looked brutal and efficient, the sort of thing that might b
e used to kill a goat or a cow.

  Not until the pain set in did she realize that no, in fact, it was the sort of thing that might be used to kill her.

  CHAPTER 26

  Someone screamed. Margrit was certain it wasn’t herself, because she was trying, and could only produce a bubbling gurgle. The two djinn whipped into dervishes and, released from their hold, she lifted both hands to her throat, clutching the wound, then staring without comprehension at the blood coloring her fingers.

  The pain was becoming extraordinary. Salt in the wound, she thought; salt from her hands, both at her throat again. She began to blink, counting each one and wondering if anyone watched to see how long she survived. Someone ought to be paying attention. Dying without even being noticed seemed worse than just dying. Somehow outraged by the thought, she looked up, searching for anyone who might care that she had fallen.

  The screaming came from Cara. Too little, too late, Margrit thought, and wished she could voice the accusation. She supposed she should be pleased someone was paying attention, but the selkie girl wasn’t the one she’d hoped for. Twenty seconds, she thought, and couldn’t remember how many times she’d blinked. It didn’t seem to matter as much as she thought it would. She was falling now, toppling over sideways with her hands still wrapped around the gaping wound in her throat.

  Flame gouted over her. Dizzy with exhaustion—that was the blood loss, she thought clinically—she kept her eyes wide even when the world blurred. She would at least watch what happened around her as she died. No one would know, but she would.

  The docking area was on fire. That was appropriate: Malik had died amidst flame, and so would she. Everything seemed terribly slow, even her thoughts, each of them drawn out with crystalline clarity. She’d thought dying would be more frightening, but instead it was simply…interesting. The last moments should be. She was glad she felt no fear, and then gladder that she’d visited her parents the previous weekend and gone to church with them. She wished she could reach out to them, to promise they would see each other again; to tell them she knew it would be such a long and hard time for them, but that for her only a moment or two would pass, and then they would be together.