Hands of Flame

by C. E. Murphy

Discontent rippled through the room. Margrit followed it, watching frowns of uncertainty. “What am I missing?”

  “For a—usual challenge, one with our people and our people alone, the game pieces would be…symbolic. They would guide us through our memories—you know of the gargoyle memories?” Eldred’s rich voice sharpened and Margrit wondered whether an affirmative or a negative would be the preferred answer. She nodded regardless and Eldred echoed the action, expression inscrutable.

  “They would guide us through memories to some moment of wisdom or insight amongst our peoples. The gargoyle who delved deepest, found an unremembered time that most clearly helped to guide us forward as a people or whose recollection most obviously bore reflection on the matter at hand, would be considered the victor in the battle of intellect. But we have never before faced a second who did not belong to our people. The game itself must be the deciding factor,” he said reluctantly. “I see no other choice.”

  Margrit swung around to face Alban, feeling as though her body had taken on the shape of a question mark. He kept his gaze downcast for long moments, only lifting it grudgingly, and then to give Margrit an almost imperceptible nod. She clenched a fist in triumph and turned back to the tribunal.

  “I take it you’re uncomfortable with pushing the boundaries of your traditions that far.” At Eldred’s nod, she tightened her fist again, using the action to keep herself from crowing in delight. “I might have a solution.”

  This time the whispers that ran through the room were full of curiosity. Margrit waited on Eldred’s acknowledgment to continue, trying to keep her voice steady in face of rising excitement. “Alban and I discovered I’m susceptible to your telepathy, or whatever it is you call it that allows you to share memories so clearly. I don’t know if all humans are, but I’ve ridden memory with him more than once. I—”

  Babble erupted all around, drowning out Margrit’s voice and her arguments. She fell silent, knowing better than to try to outshout a boisterous courtroom. Eldred brought it back under control after a full minute of outrage and exclamation. Margrit bobbed her head in thanks as he gestured for her to continue, and went on, feeling bold and weightless.

  “I know it works with other gargoyles. I’ve caught an unguarded thought or two from Biali.” And for that, she sent an apologetic glance his way. Too much surprise creased his features for anger to have taken hold yet, but Margrit had little doubt it would, in time. “And I rode memory with Hajnal’s daughter, Ausra, the night she attacked me,” she said more quietly.

  This time the explosion of sound was concussive. Margrit held her ground only through years of training, and even that didn’t quell the urge to step back and make herself smaller amidst the uproar. She lowered her head and bit her lower lip, watching Eldred through her eyelashes. He was her litmus, out of the tribunal members. Biali was too angry in general, and Alban too determined to let old laws have their way, for either of their reactions to tell Margrit how to gauge the gargoyles as a whole. When tumultuous noise began to die down, Margrit lifted her voice, this time taking center stage without Eldred’s leave.

  “I’m willing to allow the gargoyles access to my memories of that night, after the trials are complete.” Margrit waited for the third time for order to restore itself, half wishing she was in an actual courtroom. This was trial-of-the-century stuff, law as theatrics on a massively satisfying scale. The fact that the judge, jury and audience was made up almost entirely of inhuman beings, made no difference at all: building arguments, taking risks, presenting theories and new ideas, were the lifeblood of her career. Margrit would have dearly loved to see a few of the moments she’d just passed shown on the six-o’clock news as the entertainment it rightfully was.

  “In the meantime.” Her voice cut through the falling chatter and quieted the room. “In the meantime, it’s possible that if one of you allowed me access to the memories through your mind, I might be able to participate in the trial the way you’ve always done it.”

  “How would we know that it was your wits and not your passageway’s that guided you to wisdom?” One of the female gargoyles spoke, her voice lighter than Margrit expected as she voiced the question Margrit imagined Biali badly wanted asked.

  Margrit shook her head. “You’d have to choose somebody you trusted, or…” Dismay wrinkled her face as she considered the other possibility. “Or grant me access through somebody who has no reason to want me to succeed. Someone like Biali.”

  SIXTEEN

  “IF YOU THINK I’m sharing my memories with you, lawyer—” Biali’s offense cut through the rest of the noise with a clarity seconded only by Alban’s splutter of disbelief. Janx chortled with pleasure, while the selkies and djinn snapped at one another, their din focused on whether Margrit’s offer to share her memories of Ausra’s death could be construed as invitation to investigate Malik’s, as well.

  Margrit, not expecting anyone to take heed, said, “It’s not my first choice, either,” and sat down at the chess table, body weary enough after the fight to want the respite even though intellect said she should probably remain on her feet. Intellect hadn’t taken the pounding her muscles had, though. It might want rest after this next challenge, and she deemed it wise to give in to her body now so it wouldn’t rebel later.

  “Who would you choose?” Eldred’s deep voice slipped through the hubbub, drawing Margrit’s attention for all that he spoke softly. She sighed and gestured around the room.

  “Alban, ideally, but I doubt that’s really an option. I don’t know the rest of you at all, so any other choice is more or less meaningless. That said, probably you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know your name? Because you’re the head of the tribunal and because that makes you the final judge in my mind.” Margrit reached out to touch one of the pawns, then dropped her hand again. “Judges are supposed to be impartial, so you seem least likely to sway or be swayed by someone drifting through your mind.”

  “If you undertake this task, Margrit Knight, you will need to burrow, not drift. This is not a game to be taken lightly.” Eldred retreated, leaving Margrit alone with the chess pieces and a room full of Old Races.

  Debate went on longer than she anticipated, less for the matter of permission than the appalling idea that humans could perceive the gargoyle memories. Margrit heard talk of battle and of treaties, all of it idealistic with the first blush of conception. Neither was a wise choice, not that she could think of a way to stop a cadre of gargoyles from exposing themselves in the human world if that was their desire. Letting their discussion fade into white noise, she pushed a pawn forward so she could see it better, examining the individually carved scales on the serpent’s hide.

  A second pawn across the board was pushed forward by a taloned finger. Margrit looked up, startled, to find Biali sitting down across from her. “They’ll be at it all night.”

  “Inconvenient,” Margrit said under her breath. “What with you turning to stone at dawn and all. I’d hoped we could do this in one day. Night. Whatever.” Since he was there, she prodded another pawn forward, resisting the impulse to pick it up and study the feathery wings on the clawed woman’s back. “What race is this one?”

  “Harpy. They lived in what you call the Amazon, and nine out of ten of ’em were female. Never stopped fighting amongst themselves, and when the humans came, they couldn’t organize to fight outsiders.” Biali pushed one of his hairy men forward. “Still, they did better than the yeti. They at least fought. The yeti only ran. What memories?”

  Margrit went still, a hand above the dragon-cum-bishop. She’d cleared a path for him to angle out, but she left him where he was, sorting out Biali’s question. “Hajnal, mostly. Last weekend when we danced at the ball. I saw her through your eyes for a moment. Saw, or remembered, how much you loved her.” She’d even felt a flash of desire, unexpected heat in looking on a feminine body. Sharing memories was disconcerting. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Sorry.”

  “You mean tha
t, lawyer?”

  “What, that I’m sorry? Yeah, of course I do. It’s not polite to pick up on other people’s memories without them knowing about it. I just don’t know how to brace against it.”

  “Keep playing,” Biali said after a silence. “I’ll teach you.”

  She wasn’t certain when the chess board had become slippery and malformed, like a thing out of dreams. Peaks and valleys rose, black squares and white distorted and stretched among them. Far too many of the playing pieces slipped away, plummeting to their doom in craggy rents that pulled the board apart. Margrit clutched at them, trying to save what she could, but they slid through her fingers, insubstantial and screaming as they fell. She lunged after them, unaware of her own danger until someone, grumbling, thrust a hand at her and dragged her back from a precipice.

  “No point in going after what’s gone, lawyer. You’ll only die trying.”

  Biali’s presence stabilized the world, chess colors fading into night shades along a mountain range that went on as far as Margrit could see. Trees, gray-green in moonlight, offered softness to the landscape, and a silver river far below glittered as it cut its way through the stuff of memory and made a living place of it. Biali glowed under the hard blue-white light, so bright Margrit cast a glance at the moon, half expecting it to be blue itself, like an ultraviolet light at a dance club. Everything around her had a sense of expectation, as if each thing she did was anticipated, considered and recorded. As if the world was a living, thinking thing, far more connected to its denizens than the one she lived in was.

  “It is,” Biali said gruffly. “These mountains are our memories. They live while we do, growing and changing, all our histories built tall and wide for delving into when we need. You’re the first human to stand here, lawyer. Enjoy the view while you can.”

  “That sounds ominous.” Margrit dragged a breath of crisp night air in, marking how different it tasted from the muggy warmth of Grace’s below-city tunnels. “And I didn’t say anything aloud, did I?”

  “There’s no privacy here, not unless you learn to close up your mind and keep your thoughts to yourself.”

  Margrit, not deliberately, thought of a box—a Chinese takeaway box, white with red painted letters on the sides and a fragile metal handle squared over its top—and folded it shut, trying to tuck her thoughts away. Biali laughed, startling her.

  “Not bad. Not bad at all, lawyer. You’re leaking a bit, but you’ve got the right idea. Now, what’ve you got in your hand?”

  Margrit clenched her hand, hard carved edges of a chess piece cutting against her palm. Feeling childish for asking, she said, “Does telling you give you some kind of advantage?”

  Biali stared, then barked another laugh. “You’re in trouble either way, aren’t you? Nah, even if we’re carrying the same token the memories will carry us down different paths. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. You’ll get free when you’ve done as much as you can whether I know where you’re off to or not.”

  Margrit nodded stiffly, then looked around again. “This is your memory?”

  “All of ours. You’re in the heart of our people.”

  “Why don’t I see anyone else, then? People who are important to you, anyway?”

  An image bloomed behind her eyes, drawn there as though it came from within her: her takeaway box, all white and red and faint angles. Then white granite grew up over its sides, sealing it off in flawless stone. The pictures faded and Margrit pursed her lips, looking down. “Oh.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “Yes.” Margrit lifted her eyes again. “What do I do?”

  Biali shrugged his massive shoulders. “Just follow the memories, lawyer. They’ll take you where they want you to go.”

  “One more question. Why are you letting me in?”

  Biali shrugged again, turned away, his form fading faster than distance could take him away. “I told you once. You’re not bad, for what you are.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Margrit alone on the mountainside.

  She began to open her hand, then suddenly clenched her fist around the chess piece instead. If what Eldred and Biali had said was true, she might find her way to whatever bit of wisdom she was meant to bring back without looking at the piece. She knew from feel that it wasn’t one of the winged harpies, nor one of the hunched gargoyles: it was too tall for that, and too narrow. It might have been almost any of the others, though not, she thought, one of the yeti; it didn’t seem squat enough. If she needed its guidance later she would look at it, but for the moment she tightened her fingers and studied the mountains.

  Openness and height spread out, reminding her that she hadn’t gone for a run in days. The leather and boots she wore were completely inappropriate for exercise, but Margrit glanced down at herself with a grin. Memories and dreams weren’t exactly the same thing, but they were kin to one another. If the gargoyles could shape the whole of their memories into a mountain range, she could certainly dress herself in running gear for the duration of her stay there.

  A moment later she went bounding down the mountainside, feet light in her running shoes, hair flying into her face as she bounced from one smooth rock face to another. Stone turned to trees to dart around, long strides eating up the ground, and trees became meadow as Margrit stretched and laughed and ran more freely than she’d done in weeks.

  She came upon the river with no warning, and with even less thought dove into it, gasping with shock both at her choice and the cold as a current swept her downstream. It pulled her deeper than she thought a river should go, the surface growing darker and farther away even as she struggled to reach it again. Panic seemed curiously missing as her lungs began to ache, as if a part of her mind disbelieved what was happening, and refused to accept she needed air within memory’s confines.

  A shape came out of the water, lithe and quick and swimming against the current as though it hardly existed. Human hands caught her, a humanoid face coming close to hers. Masculine, she thought, though with peculiarly large, double-lidded eyes that blinked rapidly at her in the gloom. Not so dark she couldn’t see, though after a few seconds she began to think the creature who’d caught her glowed with his own bioluminescence, a waft of electric blue in the dark.

  He lifted his hands to her face, drawing her closer still, then tipped his head and, without invitation, covered her mouth with his own. Margrit squeaked a protest in the back of her throat, so surprised she could do nothing else before agony ripped over her.

  Memory seared her, changing her concept of herself from a human creature to something born of the sea. When she dragged in a breath, cold water flooded her ribs and throat, and when she gawked at herself in horror, it was to discover tremendous gills lining her torso. Her vision had cleared, leaving her able to see that her rescuer did glow, and that his hair was the same electric color as the aura he gave off. Like her changed self-perception, he too had gilled ribs, and now that she could see more clearly, fluttering gills at his throat, as well. His eyes were enormous, and his hands less human than she’d believed, with webbing between the fingers.

  A grin split her face so widely it hurt as she backed up to look at the rest of him. Despite the gills, he looked mammalian in form: the heavy, brilliantly colored tail had no scales, only soft-looking hide like a whale’s, and horizontal fins at the end, more like a dolphin than a fish.

  A trill of laughter escaped her throat and she tried for words, uncertain if she could make them underwater. “I get mermaid memories? Really? That’s so cool.”

  “I am only your guide.” The mermaid—merman—siryn, Margrit settled on, remembering the Old Races’ name for the undersea peoples, and feeling absurd using merman, which seemed even more made-up than mermaid. The siryn’s voice was musical, catching Margrit by the heart and tugging her whether she wanted to follow or not.

  Alarm spiked through her, abrupt recollection of the siryns’ reputation. Margrit backpedaled, only realizing as she did so that she, too, wore a merma
id’s tail, hers of rich coppery brown, like an impossibly vibrant shade of her own cafe-latte skin. “You’re not going to drag me off and drown me, are you?”

  A few powerful strokes of her benefactor’s flukes sent him around her in quick, irritated circles. “Would I have given you the memory of how to breathe and swim beneath the water if I intended to drown you? I am your guide, not your doom.” Even in pique he sounded like rainfall on crystal, voice shimmering with beautiful offerings. Challenge laid down, he flicked his tail a few times and surged away, leaving Margrit to follow or not, as she saw fit.

  A mixture of wanting to apologize and sheer delight at the scenario sent her after him, her hair clouding around her when she caught up. Like the tail she’d been granted, it was more brilliant in color than she was accustomed to, though not as unearthly as her guide’s. “How are you giving me the memory? Can siryns do that, too?”

  “No. This all takes place within the gargoyle histories. I utilize their ability to share memory in order to make you more comfortable. You could traverse this realm in your own form, if you so wished.”

  “In other words, this is all happening in my mind.” Margrit drew another deep breath, feeling water flood her ribs, and smiled against the coldness. “Guess I might as well enjoy it. Where are we going?”

  “Where does your heart tell you we are going?”

  “To the heart of the world,” Margrit said promptly, then coughed on her own pomposity. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  Laughter washed through the siryn’s voice, high notes on a piano rendered into something impossibly pure. “Because your heart told you to. Now, hush. We will not want to speak as the pressures grow stronger. The depths are not comfortable, even for our kind, and we need what air we can steal from the cold, black water.”

  It wasn’t until she didn’t find it that Margrit realized she had truly expected to see Atlantis when her blue-haired guide finally drew to a halt, closer to the dark ocean floor than Margrit had ever imagined being. Instead of the fabled city, though, there was merely a rent in the earth, so broad and deep that both heat and light rose from it even in the icy depths. A primitive impulse to run—or swim—as fast as she could, as far as she could, set Margrit’s heartbeat racing until she felt dizzy from it. This was not a place humans were meant to be, and the sensation that a price would be paid for intruding weighed on her as heavily as the ocean pressure did. Hell had much in common with this stretch of barren undersea land. Even the juxtaposition of hot and cold promised to punish the wicked with one form of misery, then another.