Mayka heard people muttering: “Who’s that?” “Some crackpot.” “Master Sorb?” “No, that’s not it. What did he say his name was? Siorn?” “Hey, what are those? Eh, nothing new. Look over there.”
His mishmash creatures waddled onto the stage.
“These carvings aren’t new, you say?” Master Siorn said. “True! But what they do is new. I present to you a new mark, my own invention, inspired by legend: the obedience mark!”
That caught the crowd’s attention.
Mayka felt Si-Si peek over her shoulder, half hidden by Ilery’s scarf.
“Now what’s happening?” Jacklo asked.
“It’s beginning,” Mayka said.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
“Yes, it’s true!” Master Siorn said. “I have perfected the long-sought-after obedience mark! It will tame all your stone friends!”
“Friends?” Jacklo muttered. “He doesn’t know what that word means.”
“Shush,” Mayka said. “Baskets don’t talk.”
In a booming voice, Master Siorn introduced his mishmash creatures as they stood on the pedestals. “When I first showed you these carvings at a Stone Festival, you called them ‘undesirable.’ I challenge you to find them undesirable now, when they obey my every command! Garit, the fire.”
Garit hurried onto the stage, to the pile of wood he’d dumped there, and he struck a piece of metal against the arm of the nearest stone creature. The flame started. Soon it was roaring.
“Stand in it,” Master Siorn ordered his creatures.
The nearby crowd fell silent—his fire had caught the attention of the men and women who were closest. A few of them sat on the benches facing his stage. Others continued to mill through the square, their attention fixed on other stages or on the food vendor carts.
Mayka didn’t look anywhere but at the stage.
Stone creatures wouldn’t burn. It wouldn’t hurt. But they’d feel the heat. One of them—the lizard with the hedgehog’s body—hopped into the middle of the fire, turned around, and did a little dance.
Oh no, they’re not free! she thought.
Her story hadn’t worked. She hadn’t carved the marks correctly, and no one had changed.
Or maybe it had worked, and the creature had chosen to go into the fire. She remembered how they’d played catch with the kitchen fire. Maybe they were just waiting for the audience to get bigger.
Either way, the audience was beginning to believe Master Siorn. All around Mayka, a crowd was forming as the dancing lizard in the middle of the fire caught their eyes. “What’s going on?” “He claims he invented the mark.” “Obedience mark, he said.” “But that’s just a legend!”
The other mishmash creatures joined the lizard in playing with the fire. They tossed embers back and forth, giggling and laughing. The one with the deer’s head caught a burning stick on his antlers and swung his neck so it spun around.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” one woman sniffed. “Mine play in the hearth all the time. They think fire tickles. What I’d like to see is a way to keep them out of the fire. They track ash all over the house.”
Master Siorn was done with the fire trick. He dismissed the mishmash creatures from the stage, and they hesitated—but their hesitation wasn’t dramatic enough for the crowd to notice, and even Mayka wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not.
Next, Master Siorn summoned the octopus, and it mounted the platform using four of its tentacles, then rose up on them until its face was level with the stonemason’s.
“Behold, my octopus, carved in homage to the glorious and mysterious sea creatures!”
The audience began to chatter again—they’d seen the octopus last year. No one had been interested then; no one was interested now. Master Siorn and his oddities were out of vogue and had been since the days of the Stone War. The crowd began to drift, pulled toward the other stonemasons’ stages.
“Ah, I sense you are not impressed yet. What would impress you? How about height? Climb!” Master Siorn ordered, and the octopus slithered off the stage and began to climb up the side of the building. “Higher!”
This caught people’s attention again.
She heard snippets around her: “Why is that octopus climbing?” “What’s he trying to prove?” “Obedience mark.” “But that’s impossible!”
“Ah, and how about danger? What would you say when my mark proves stronger than the basic instinct to survive?” Master Siorn cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice and shouted, “Jump!”
The audience gasped. “He can’t!” “That’s barbaric!” “That poor creature, he’ll be destroyed!”
The octopus was three stories up.
If it jumped, it would shatter. Mayka clutched Jacklo’s basket so hard that the handle crunched in her grip. Don’t do it. Resist.
It didn’t jump.
The audience murmured. There were few uncomfortable laughs.
Master Siorn smiled at the audience, as if this were all part of the show. “See, he responds only to my commands. If he can’t hear me, he can’t respond.” He seemed unfazed by the creature’s disobedience, and Mayka wondered if the octopus really couldn’t hear him. If he had been closer, would he have jumped? She thought of how the creatures had hurried to prepare his lunch and wished she could have tested whether their new stories worked. She’d thought she’d carved them carefully enough, but what if she hadn’t? What if she had only succeeded with Jacklo because she knew his story so well?
“But wait until you see what comes next!”
A man near Mayka muttered, “I’m not waiting around for this nonsense. He’s endangering his own stone creatures. It’s cruel, not to mention unprofessional.”
“Stay,” a woman said. “I want to see what he’s going to do.”
The otters were next.
They climbed up onto the pedestals.
Tossing them apple-size stones, Siorn instructed them to juggle, which they happily did, chucking the rocks higher and higher into the air. And then he called out to the audience, “What would you like to see them do? What would startle you? Shock you?” He pointed to one of the stone otters, the largest and strongest of them, who stood on the tallest pedestal. “Stand still, and do not move. No matter what happens: do not move.”
The otter stiffened, standing straight.
“Throw your stones at him,” Master Siorn instructed the other otters.
Please resist him, Mayka thought. The otters had thrown a stone at Jacklo, breaking his wing, while they had the mark. Now that they were free, they could make the audience think the mark wasn’t real. If they were free. She watched the faces on the crowd. Let this work!
The crowd began to rumble: “They can’t do that!” “He’ll be hurt!” “He’ll never stand there.” “They’ll never throw it.” “But if they do . . . If it works . . .”
Each of the otters cradled a stone. A few tossed theirs from paw to paw, testing its weight. The large otter didn’t move. He stared at the other otters.
Mayka didn’t move either. Couldn’t move. Could only stare at the faces of the flesh-and-blood men and women around her. The shock in their expressions was clear, but she couldn’t tell if they were horrified or fascinated. Or both.
“Break him,” Master Siorn ordered.
As one, the otters turned. And they threw their rocks at Master Siorn’s feet. Yelping, he jumped backwards as the rocks crashed onto the stage and then harmlessly rolled off.
The crowd laughed.
Mayka felt like cheering.
From that moment, the demonstration unraveled.
“Kisonan! Kisonan, take the stage,” the stonemason shouted, over the jeers and laughter of the crowd. As majestic as always, the griffin climbed onto the stage. The crowd fell silent as the legendary creature halted in front of the man who had carved him and given him life. “Kisonan, I order you to obey me: break the otter.”
Kisonan studied the stonemason
, then the otters. The crowd watched, listening, whispering. And then the griffin spoke.
“With all due respect, Master Siorn, I will not. If you would like to make a reasonable request, I would be delighted to fulfill it, but I will not harm any of my fellow creatures, or anyone in the audience. Nor will I cause harm or unnecessary discomfort to myself. I am a thinking, feeling being, and I would thank you to remember that, as I continue to serve you.”
His voice reverberated across the square.
And Master Siorn now had one thing he had wanted: the attention of everyone in the Festival Square, including all the other stonemasons. As Kisonan finished his speech, the entire audience burst into talk and laughter.
Master Siorn’s face flushed a purply red. He began to shout at his creatures. “No! You can’t! You must obey me!”
Lunging forward, he grabbed the closest otter. He yanked the creature’s arm up and examined the mark. “Someone has changed this! Who has done this? Garit?”
Garit shrank back. “When? I was with you the whole time! I couldn’t have done it!”
“Someone has sneaked into my home and—”
“Get off the stage!” someone shouted. The cry was echoed by others: “Liar!” “Fool!” “Crackpot!”
“You don’t understand!” Master Siorn said. “I’ve been tricked!”
One of the stonemasons on a nearby stage called, “Disbar him!” It was Master Zillon, Mayka recognized, the one who specialized in doors. “Take his credentials! No stonemason lies about his marks. And no stonemason asks his stone creatures to hurt one another. Your behavior is unprofessional and reprehensible.”
And the other stonemasons joined in: “He’s not one of us!” “You disgrace us!” “Delusional, to believe he could create an obedience mark.” “We don’t need a crackpot in our ranks!”
“No! I have done it!” Master Siorn cried. “Listen to me! Let me prove it! I have been set up—arrest my creatures and my apprentice, force them to tell the truth, and you’ll see!”
The crowd shouted louder. “Remove him!”
And “Imagine, blaming his apprentice on top of it! Poor boy!”
Master Siorn’s eyes swept over the crowd. “No! No, no, you don’t understand!” And his gaze fixed on Mayka. She froze, like a rabbit spotted by a hawk. She saw his jaw drop, and then his face twisted. “Her! It was her! She did it, somehow! She—”
But he was drowned out by the crowd. Faced with taunts and shouts and boos, Master Siorn retreated from the stage. Mayka saw the otters and the griffin cheer, and she felt a smile on her own face as well.
“We did it,” she whispered to Jacklo and Si-Si.
“Yay!” Jacklo said in a half shout, half whisper. He poked his beak out from under the scarf. “Where is he? I want to see!”
Tucking the scarf back around Jacklo, Mayka looked up again. The crowd was shifting around her, repositioning to watch a different stonemason on another stage, and she couldn’t see Master Siorn’s stage. Elbowing as she went, Mayka pushed through, trying to see what was happening with her friends.
At last, she squeezed through, bursting out in front of the stage. Garit, Kisonan, the otters, and the others were there, cheering and hugging one another. One of the otters was dancing.
“Garit, where’s Master Siorn?” Mayka asked.
“So embarrassed that he ran away!” he said, grinning. “Do you know what this means? No one—not the other stonemasons, not my family—will blame me for leaving him!”
“That’s wonderful, Garit!” Mayka said.
Si-Si jumped out of the backpack onto the stage and danced in a circle around Garit. Laughing, Garit danced with her. “It is wonderful!” he said. “There’s talk of the stonemasons evicting him from the guild for lying about the mark! They might do it too. He might be kicked out of the Stone Quarter, his chisels confiscated, for disgracing his colleagues with his behavior. He won’t ever hurt another stone creature like Ava again.”
One of the otters hugged Mayka. The others started dancing with Si-Si and then dancing around the octopus as he joined them on the stage. She rejoiced with them for a moment, then noticed one of the stone creatures wasn’t celebrating: the griffin, Kisonan. Still as a statue, he was frowning at the empty pedestals. She crossed to him, and he spoke before she could ask him what was wrong. “We did not convince him that the mark failed. He knows we are responsible.”
The otters stopped dancing and exchanged glances.
He was right—and Master Siorn had spotted her in the crowd. She should have thought about what would happen after the demonstration. She had to get them all safely away before he returned.
“You can come with me,” Mayka said to them. “Or you can go wherever you want. Explore the world. Find another city. Either way, you should leave.”
“Leave Skye?” The octopus fretted, crossing and uncrossing his tentacles. Even though she’d never seen a face like the octopus’s, Mayka could read the worry on it.
“She’s right,” Garit said. “The city council might remove his badge, but he’ll blame you and try to make your lives miserable. And mine.”
“You’re welcome to come too,” Mayka told him. “Or you could find another stonemason to apprentice yourself to. Given what happened today, I’m sure any number of stonemasons will be sympathetic and want to help you start fresh.”
Kisonan warned, “It may not be so easy to escape him—”
The ground shook, as if in a slight earthquake. Mayka felt it through the stones on the street. The others felt it as well. The mishmash creatures clutched one another.
“Did anyone see where Master Siorn went?” Kisonan asked.
Another tremor.
“What is that?” asked an otter.
“Bad,” Jacklo said. He cowered in the basket.
Another tremor, harder, and a few people cried out—the shaking was now strong enough for flesh and blood to feel. Some scooped up their children.
Another shake.
Then another.
Steady, like the footsteps of a giant.
He couldn’t have—
“Please tell me you changed the mark on the monster too,” Garit whispered.
Mayka shook her head. She hadn’t thought about him, only the creatures who had lined up in the workroom. He’d still been inert when she’d seen him. “You don’t think he—”
Risa winged down from the roof, calling her alarm: three short chirps and one long. “Mayka! He’s brought the giant! Run!” She flew over the tops of the heads of the audience.
Another stomp.
One more stomp, and the stone monster was visible above the tops of the houses. It had been coiled within the back workroom, but now it was stretched to its full size, and it was massive. The features on its face were like a bull’s, but its mouth was filled with stone teeth, each as sharp as a spear. It had human-like arms that were thick with rock muscles, and its lion-like body was carved with diamond-shaped patterns that resembled scales.
It roared, and the crowd screamed.
Another roar, and people scattered. Mayka and Garit and the others were pushed and swept along with the crowd as they tried to flee the square.
“Look, he’s riding it!” Rearing onto her hind feet, Si-Si pointed. Her wings flapped, balancing her for a moment, but then she wobbled and dropped back down.
Up near the giant’s neck, Master Siorn clung to the monster’s shoulder. He was shouting, but Mayka couldn’t hear him over the screams of the crowd.
“He is trying to prove he can control the monster,” Kisonan predicted. “If he succeeds, it will negate all we have done. Watch—he will try to show how he can tame him!”
But the monster placed Master Siorn on the top of a building, and then with a roar, it waded into the Festival Square. Every step was like a thunderclap, shaking the ground.
“He doesn’t look tame to me,” Si-Si squawked. “He looks angry.”
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” Kisonan sa
id slowly. Then he turned to them and added urgently, “I believe we should flee. Now.”
All around them, everyone was panicking. Flesh and stone were screaming as they fled. Mayka and the others tried to run too. But there were so many people fleeing in so many different directions that speed was impossible. The monster’s shadow stretched over several streets. “How is it so huge?” Mayka asked.
“Multiple stones, combined,” Garit said, beside her, panting. “They’re shot through with iron rods, connecting them all.”
Looking back, she saw he was right—it had joints, like a puppet.
From the top of the building, Master Siorn was continuing to shout at his monstrous puppet, and it swung its massive head around, as if looking for prey. It’s after us! Mayka thought. Kicking off her shoes, she ran faster.
The otters were weaving in and out between the feet of the fleeing people around them, and the mishmash creatures were barreling through the crowd ahead of them. Risa was flying overhead, and the octopus loped beside them. We’re too conspicuous, she thought. Garit was visible, in his apprentice robes, and—
The monster spotted Kisonan first.
With a roar, it swiped at the griffin, but Kisonan was faster. “Climb on,” Kisonan ordered Mayka and Garit. “He wants you most of all.”
Mayka scrambled on. “Hurry!”
Garit climbed up behind her, and Kisonan sprang forward. He raced through the crowd, with his wings knocking aside people. The other creatures—Si-Si, the otters, the lizards, the mishmash creatures, and the octopus—scattered.
The monster stomped through a stage, knocking over the nearby stands. Wood fell and broke. Rocks tumbled into the street.
Ahead, Mayka heard trumpets blaring. “Make way for the guards!” voices shouted. “Make way!” People fanned back to allow a troop of humans to march into the square. Rushing forward, the guards began to attack the monster with two-handed hammers and axes.
Garit leaned forward. “Faster!”
Their little group raced out of the square, and the other creatures joined them. Mayka wanted to shout at them to split up and save themselves, but now it was too late. The monster had spotted all of them.
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