C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“Then the ritual of request will suffice to allow us access to her memories?” Eldred’s rich voice held a mix of fascination and dismay.

Alban shrugged. “It’s entirely possible her memories will be cut off from us entirely. We haven’t tried.”

Margrit said, “Um,” and her voice cracked on the syllable. Another blush rose as the gathered Old Races turned to her again. “There was that one dream…”

Alban blinked at her slowly, and then to her delight, color flushed his pale face, the first time she’d ever seen him blush. “I assume that contact was initiated by my thoughts of you,” he said quite formally.

Suddenly cheerful with camaraderie, Margrit flashed him a bright smile that helped beat down the heat in her face, then turned to the gargoyle council with open hands. “So let’s try your request ritual. What do I do?”

“You may wish to sit comfortably.” Eldred gestured to the chess-table chair, and Margrit, relieved she’d dried off and changed clothes, set her towel aside and sat.

“Who’ll be in my head?”

Eldred’s hesitation was barely perceptible. “I will. But in such cases it’s traditional for the entire tribunal to follow, so we can all experience the events as clearly as possible.”

Goose bumps shot over Margrit’s arms as she looked from stranger to stranger, finally bringing her eyes to Alban’s. He inclined his head, small movement of reassurance. She dragged a deep breath and nodded, looking back at Eldred. “What about—” She tilted her head at the gathered selkies and djinn. “Will everyone be watching, or just the gargoyles?”

“Only the gargoyles. Sharing thoughts with the others requires repeating the welcoming ritual with each of them. I see no need to risk a greater link, particularly when we’ve never shared with a human before.”

“Did you have to say risk?” Margrit made a face, then brushed concern away: she’d ridden Alban’s memories with no ill effects. “How do I guide you?”

“By focusing on the events in question. We will not sift your memories, searching for things you don’t wish to share, but you should know that this is not a…” Humor curled the corner of the elder gargoyle’s mouth. “Not a surgical procedure. I can’t promise you your privacy.”

Janx, just within Margrit’s peripheral vision, shifted enough to be seen, making himself a deliberate reminder of things that should remain hidden. As though she could forget. Margrit quelled the urge to scowl at him and only nodded to Eldred. “I understand. You said there’s a ritual?”

Eldred sat across from her, moving chess pieces out of the way so he could place his elbows on the table and put his hands palms up, like an offering. “Your hands over mine, please, but not touching. And, perhaps, the name you go by.”

Margrit put her hands above the gargoyle’s, laughing softly at their comparative dark daintiness. With her fingertips above the heels of his hands, his fingers extended well past her wrists, talons making a thick and dangerous-looking cage. “My full name is Margrit Elizabeth Knight. My friends call me Grit.”

Another smile curved Eldred’s mouth. “Very well. Margrit Elizabeth, called Grit, the gargoyles ask to share memory with you, so that it might be recorded in the history of our peoples for all time.” His voice deepened, becoming more sonorous as he spoke. Prickles waved over Margrit’s nape, then soothed again as she relaxed into his words. “I am Eldred of Casmir. If you grant us this sharing, I will be your conduit into our memories, my eyes to yours, my hands to yours, my heart to yours, your eyes to us, your hands to us, your heart to us. Do you consent?”

Margrit, too aware of another ceremony, answered with the same words, heard herself say, “I do.”

Eldred closed his hands around hers.

Impossible noise took off the top of Margrit’s skull.

At eight, a stick of a thing with corkscrew curls lightened by the summer sun, she could outrun her best friend, a boy of the same age, with laughing ease. By eleven, he’d outgrown her by several inches, his legs seeming to go on forever while hers were stubby and short by comparison.

She could still outrun him.

She could at fourteen, too, though by then she was resigned to a diminutive height and beginning to grow into curves that most professional female athletes never saw. It didn’t matter: she ran as fast as she could, losing herself in the rhythms and challenges of speed.

One day she ran so fast she began to fly.

Winter nights slammed into her as she spread her hands and soared through the city sky. She was made of wind, or maybe ice, and then of glass, thin and fragile in the sky, but full of vibrancy and color. Her vision bent and telescoped, glass shaping to show her all the moments of her life.

A fraction of her that stood outside the colored glass whispered concern: there were connotations to your life flashing before your eyes, and with the pounding white static filling her mind, the idea that she was dying felt too close to possibility.

Luka Johnson folded as the jury declared her guilty of murder. Margrit caught her, prepared for the possibility of both the verdict and the fall. Her youngest daughter, a babe in arms, darted through Margrit’s memory like an old hand-cranked film, flickering and jumping from one age to another until she was three years old and her mother, finally granted clemency by the state governor, swept the little girl into her arms.

Glass fragmented, shards of stained color shattering out. One twisted as it fell, showing a dark-haired woman whose hand curled over her belly protectively. When the piece hit the floor, it broke in three, splitting apart a trio of men whose colors were those of life and death and blood: white and black and red.

Panic surged through Margrit, so raw it barely felt like her own. She kicked the shards aside, knocking them under a brightly woven tapestry that lay crumpled on the floor. The tapestry exploded with the sound of glass raining, and in each colored droplet lay a memory. Like came to like, bundling school together in a blur of youthful dreams and heartfelt promises; in hours of heavy-headed studying and searing moments of freedom found in long runs. Beyond school, Tony Pulcella, gloriously cast in warm, rich color, sent daggers through her heart for chances lost and promises broken.

She flew again, high and free, with someone else’s warmth cupping her body. Heat surged in her as she reached for that memory, eager for a strong touch and loving hands to encompass her and take away thoughts of the world with sensual, exciting exploration. She arched beneath the gargoyle’s body, and then, unwelcome in the midst of growing need, she heard his voice.

Concentrate, Margrit. Focus your thoughts. He sounded strained, as though he spoke from a great distance and through a barrier of immense proportions. Think of Ausra.

Fear and anger razed any memory of desire. Ausra, petite and loamy and beautiful, raged through Margrit’s memories. Every moment of her brief encounter with the half-gargoyle woman played through her at once, sparking pathetic whimpers of pain that reverberated as harsh, black streaks through stained-glass color. Terror bled orange and red, like fire, and then glassy flame consumed her, the blaze reflected and refracted everywhere she turned.

As in her nightmares, Malik died in the flames. Images fragmented again, the ridiculous first-person view of a neon-green watergun being fired; a wounded dragon in profile, roaring, frozen in time. A pale streak within the flame, crushing weight collapsing a djinn bound to his physical form. The bits of memory melded together, rewound, replayed, with acrid heat and the scent of hot steel filling Margrit’s senses. It was more inescapable than her dreams, a waking horror she couldn’t run from.