C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

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.”

“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.