“Just accept it, Mika.”
I swallowed my protest. “I should be thanking you.” If I had gone in alone . . . I shuddered to think of the consequences.
“You’re welcome.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “See, that’s how you accept gratitude.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Note how I’m not apologizing for blacking out and leaving you to cart my hunk of flesh out of there. In fact, you’re welcome for that, too. I’m sure it made you a better person.”
I threw the remaining bundle of lamb’s ear leaves at him. He caught it easily. His grin tugged at my heart, and I found myself wistfully imagining him looking at me with genuine affection.
Shaking my head, I struggled to my feet. While Marcus kept his back politely turned, I pulled on yesterday’s pants. Fortunately, most of the wounds on my legs were superficial and the greenthread compound had already sealed them, allowing me to remove the bulk of the lamb’s ear leaves from my legs. One puncture on my right thigh and another on my left knee I kept bandaged after peeking at the wounds.
I required Marcus’s help to wiggle into yesterday’s shirt, which I layered on top of my current one without removing any leaf bandages. Marcus wouldn’t let me touch my shoulder blades, afraid I’d open the cuts on my arms, so I made him do it for me. He traced the outline of two hexagons larger than my palm, one on each shoulder blade. I shivered, partially in memory of the pain, partially at the feel of Marcus’s rough fingertip across my sensitive skin. The patches tingled even after he lifted his hand, but I wasn’t sure if it was from Marcus’s touch or the scar tissue.
“Wings,” I whispered, finally answering his unasked question. “All gargoyles have wings.”
Marcus’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, not even when I started to cry. It was just as well. I couldn’t explain the jumble of emotions snarled inside of me. I mourned the loss of my connection with the baetyl as keenly as if I’d lost a parent, which made no sense. It terrified me with its impressive, unstoppable power and with how badly I wanted to possess it again. Fear had been a foreign concept for it and ultimately what had saved my life, but for a brief moment, I’d possessed the mental clarity of a truly ancient being, and I’d feared nothing. I’d known how to do the impossible because nothing was impossible. I’d been able to reshape my own body. I’d started to grow myself wings.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks and turned to the dormant gargoyles. While I walked among them and tested their health, Marcus busied himself near the fire. I appreciated the space; my emotions were too raw for me to want anything else.
In the dormant gargoyles, I caught remnants of the baetyl’s magnificent pattern. It whispered at the periphery of my magic, but when I shifted my attention to focus on it, it slipped away. Sighing, I returned to the fire.
“They need to get inside the baetyl soon.” They were far too weak to leave unattended much longer.
“Maybe if we can get them closer, they’ll wake up.” He offered me a bowl filled with a thick stew, derailing my denial; the gargoyles were no more likely to wake now than they had been in Terra Haven. They needed to be inside the baetyl to receive its benefits.
My stomach grumbled and I snatched the bowl from Marcus’s hand.
“Don’t expect too much,” he said, indicating the food. “We used up the last of my stimulant earlier. This is trail rations, plain and tasteless, but it’ll give us some strength.”
I hadn’t expected anything other than the jerky and dried fruit I’d stuffed in my bag. To me, the stew tasted more divine than the first-class chef’s gourmet potpie.
“Got any more special tricks in your pack?” I asked. Bandages, energy drinks, real food and bowls to eat it in—the man had clearly thought this through. I, on the other hand, had brought a change of clothes, snacks, and seed crystals like I was going on a picnic where I might get dirty. Then I’d marched us into the unknown dangers of the baetyl and nearly killed us both. I was a naive idiot.
“Not unless you consider dry socks a special trick.”
“I was hoping for something more like Gus’s personal air sled to transport the gargoyles.”
“That would be handy.”
We both turned to study the toppled gargoyles. “Looks like we’re doing this the hard way,” I said.
“With you, what’s new?”
14
We stood in the middle of the dormant gargoyles while Marcus wove temperature-regulating spells into our clothing. It was a complex blend of fire, wood, and water, with dabs of air beading the surface. He didn’t need the gargoyles’ boosts, but he used it anyway; the wild magic that had escaped from the baetyl had sustained them for hours, but it wouldn’t last much longer.
My eyes closed as Marcus’s spell settled into my shirt, bathing me in warmth as if I stood in the sun instead of atop a chilly mountain in the middle of the night. Most of my body was numb from the greenthread compound, my stomach was full, and as my shivers abated, exhaustion crept back in, urging me to lie down and take a nap.
I snapped my eyes open. I had to keep moving.
We carefully righted all the gargoyles, linking to lift them with thick bands of air and settle them next to the tunnel’s entrance. If it would have done us any good, we would have fixed the air sled and used it to carry the gargoyles again, but it was too wide to fit into the tunnel.
“Who’s first?” Marcus asked.
Life flickered weakly in all the gargoyles. I wanted to insist we carry them all at once, but we didn’t have the strength.
“Rourke,” I said, meeting Celeste’s worried gaze.
Oliver and Celeste dropped their magic into the link Marcus and I shared, filling us with power. So little power, I thought, remembering the enormity of the baetyl’s magic.
Marcus lit the way with two medium-size glowballs, and Celeste and Oliver trailed behind us. Heat built the deeper we went, and Marcus’s spell cooled my shirt in response, keeping my body at an even temperature. I tried to focus on appreciating that rather than the way my pants tightened on my bandages with each step or how my shirt stuck to the wet lamb’s ear leaves wrapping my arms and stomach. Beside me, Marcus walked stiffly, his upper body mostly immobilized by the bandages.
I recognized the curve in the tunnel where I’d collapsed: I hadn’t made it as far out as I’d thought when I’d been dragging Marcus.
“Mika.” Oliver’s chiming voice echoed in the tunnel. “I have to stop.”
I twisted to look at him, then stopped fully when I saw his pain-pinched expression. Celeste had stopped a few yards behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“The baetyl doesn’t want us any closer.”
The moment he said it, I felt the weight of the baetyl pressing against me. It didn’t want any of us closer, but the pressure didn’t physically hurt me.
“Celeste?” I asked.
“I can’t go any farther,” she said.
“Okay, go back to the surface,” I said, not wanting them to wait in pain.
“Drop the boosts now, too,” Marcus said.
I nodded. With Marcus and I moving in the opposite direction as the gargoyles, we’d soon be out of range of their magical enhancements. It was better to lose their boosts now than to have their extra magic jerked from us unexpectedly.
“We could wait here,” Oliver suggested.
I shook my head, remembering how the baetyl had viewed Oliver and Celeste as deformed gargoyles. “We actually might be better off if the baetyl doesn’t sense a connection to you in our magic,” I said.
“Oh.” Oliver’s ruff drooped.
“Hurry,” Celeste said before turning around. She withdrew her enhancement, and the level of magic in the link diminished. With a sigh, Oliver took away his boost, too, and followed Celeste. Marcus had already turned away, drawing magic through me to keep Rourke aloft. The muggy air suctioned around my feet like molasses, as if it was trying to glue my feet to the tunnel. We both leaned forward, our steps exaggerated, and I was reminded of O
liver walking as if bracing against a hurricane-strength wind when he’d returned to the baetyl to help me pull Marcus out. Several yards later, the air element grew slick in Marcus’s grip, slipping and twisting under Rourke. After another four labored steps, Marcus lost control of it completely and Rourke smacked to the rock floor. I pulled magic from the link and checked his health. I didn’t know if I should have been thankful or worried to find it unchanged.
“We’re not close enough,” I said, but Marcus already knew that through the link. He gathered air again, but it slipped away before he had enough to lift the gargoyle.
“Maybe we can drag him,” I suggested.
“How much farther can you walk?”
Good question. I trudged past Marcus, and the glowball trailing me flickered and extinguished. I made it another dozen steps, each progressively more difficult. We were close, with the baetyl looming around the bend. Tentatively, I reached for it, then jerked back when a malevolent presence swiped at me. I was no longer welcome.
I turned around, steadying myself on the wall, and reached for Rourke, using the combined weight of Marcus’s and my linked magic. Air slipped from my grip again and again, and I couldn’t budge the gargoyle. Leaving the glowball behind, Marcus waded into the darkness with me, muscling himself two steps closer to the baetyl through brute force. The ominous weight of the baetyl tightened like a cat crouching, readying itself to pounce.
“Stop!” I gathered our magic into a quartz shield, prepared to throw all our strength into defending Marcus. He stopped, giving me an unreadable look in the dim light.
“It’s not going to let us any closer, and it doesn’t matter if we can’t bring the gargoyles with us,” I said.
He waded back to my side as if moving through waist-high mud, his exaggerated motions looking absurd in the empty tunnel. The baetyl relaxed but didn’t take its awareness from us. Grudgingly, I let Marcus disband my shield and attempt to pull Rourke closer to us. Magic worked no better for him than it had for me. Together, we slogged back up the tunnel. Each step grew lighter and easier, and I fought the urge to run back to the surface, knowing it was at least partially the baetyl’s compulsion.
“Now what?” Marcus asked.
“The plan hasn’t changed. We need to get the gargoyles as close to the baetyl as possible. Maybe if we get enough of them together, it’ll recognize them and let us take them in.” It was a slim possibility, but having something to do was better than giving in to the despair ghosting my thoughts. We’d come too far to stop now.
Celeste allowed herself one mournful whine when we told her we hadn’t been able to get Rourke into the baetyl; then she insisted on boosting us as far as the baetyl would allow so we didn’t fatigue ourselves carrying the gargoyles into the tunnel. Oliver was more than happy to back her up.
With their help, we were able to bring the curled-up fox and the owl-headed rabbit together, but the rest of the gargoyles were too large and had to be carried individually.
“It makes my insides hurt, like it’s trying to change me,” Oliver said after our fifth trip into the tunnel.
I whirled to face him. “Out. Now,” I barked, remembering the baetyl’s desire to snuff out his life and breathe its own pattern into him. I hurried Oliver from the tunnel, herding Celeste with him, and refused to let them back in when Marcus and I returned to the surface.
“I need to know you’re safe. Besides, there’s not much else you can do. We can carry the last gargoyle by ourselves.”
Oliver’s defeated posture and woeful eyes squeezed my heart, but I didn’t back down. He’d risked his life for me twice already today—once by entering the baetyl to begin with and again when he returned to help me pull Marcus out. I wasn’t going to let him endanger himself unnecessarily now.
Marcus and I carried each gargoyle as close to the baetyl as we could, physically pushing the lighter ones closer when magic failed us, but every time we were stopped by the baetyl before we reached the entrance. Where we were forced to drop each gargoyle didn’t follow a pattern; the baetyl let us carry the heavy wolf farther than the much lighter curled-up fox but not as far as owl-rabbit. The last, the sardonyx tiger, slipped from our grip just in front of Rourke.
Panting, I hobbled a few steps to the tiger’s side and draped an arm over her shoulders, resting my head on her motionless side while I caught my breath. I badly wanted to sit, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back up.
I wondered if the gargoyles could sense the baetyl. Did they know they were mere feet from the magic they needed to revive them? I reached into the tiger with a probe of the elements—fighting to hold even a tiny bit of fire, air, water, and wood. The gargoyle felt no stronger than she had on the surface. Possibly weaker.
We needed to feed the gargoyles magic.
I straightened, seeing my horror reflected in Marcus’s expression as we both came to the same realization.
“How are we going to give them magic here? I can barely hold an element,” I said.
“You don’t seem to have a problem with quartz-tuned earth.”
True. The baetyl had a soft spot for quartz, but I couldn’t do much with a singular element, and whatever I did wouldn’t be enough. Feeding the gargoyles magic was a stop-gap measure until we could get them into the baetyl. If we couldn’t get past the baetyl’s barrier, it wouldn’t matter how much magic we threw at the gargoyles; they wouldn’t wake and they wouldn’t get better.
Why hadn’t I thought to bring the gargoyles into the baetyl before I’d sealed it? Or earlier, before I’d healed the heart? Why had I sealed the baetyl at all? I should have known it wouldn’t let me, a human, back inside after it was sealed, but I’d been too exhausted to think that far ahead. Some guardian I made. I might have doomed these gargoyles in my attempt to save them.
I squelched my self-recriminations. Focusing on the past and things I couldn’t change wasn’t going to save the gargoyles. I needed to work with the problems as they were now.
As far as I could tell, there was only one solution.
“I need to wake them,” I said.
“Can you?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to try,” I said. I gave the tiger a nervous pat, wishing Oliver were at my side. The gargoyles were so weak that forcing them from their comatose state could kill them. I wouldn’t even consider it if the only other option wasn’t watching them fade away on the doorstep of their cynosure baetyl. I considered what I had to work with. A simple infusion of quartz magic wouldn’t be enough to wake the gargoyles. I would have to attempt something far more drastic—and dangerous.
Tugging my hair behind my ear, I moved to the warthog-headed bear, the strongest of all the gargoyles. If any were going to survive waking, it’d be her.
She should have glistened like snow in the golden light of Marcus’s glowball, but her white quartz body was marred with grit etched into her pockmarked sides. Sickly green prasiolite striations wrapped her wide belly and coated her folded wings.
“What’s the plan?”
“First, we drop our link,” I said.
Marcus didn’t comply. “Why? We’re stronger together.”
Because being linked mucks up my individuality. Only I couldn’t tell him that, or he’d guess what I planned and stop me.
“Waking the gargoyle might attract the baetyl’s attention. I need one of us to be on guard,” I said instead. The weight of the baetyl pressed against my thoughts, and my fear was genuine. What if it lashed out, seeing me as an enemy to its gargoyle?
“All the more reason for me to be inside the link, helping you fight off the baetyl’s lure.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that now. The baetyl doesn’t like me anymore.”
“How do you know?” The shadows cast by the flickering glowballs made his scowl more impressive, but I was immune.
“I tried to connect with it to see if it’d let me through.”
“You did what?”
“And it slapped me as
ide. It’s done with me.”
His thick jaw muscle bounced as he ground his teeth. “That was stupid.”
“Yep.” No more stupid than what I was about to try, but these gargoyles deserved a chance to live, and I wouldn’t stop until I’d exhausted my options—short of killing myself in the process. “So I don’t need you in the link. I need you to protect us while I do my healer work and try to wake a comatose gargoyle.”
My healer work, such a nice euphemistic phrase. So much better than telling him I was going to try to imprint part of my spirit into the warthog’s and use my energy to wake her.
I hid my trembling hands against the gargoyle’s round side. I’d shifted pieces of my spirit from my body before at Focal Park when Elsa’s invention had latched on to Oliver and his siblings. It’d been the only way to simultaneously break the connection between the deadly magic and the gargoyles, and it’d been an act of desperation I hadn’t realized until later could have killed me.
By comparison, using a piece of my spirit to stimulate a single gargoyle wasn’t half as dangerous. For starters, it wouldn’t kill me. But if I could think of any other means of compelling the gargoyles from their comas, I wouldn’t have considered using my spirit. If this went wrong, a part of myself could be forever trapped inside the gargoyle, and having my spirit split would leave me mentally unbalanced or physically diminished, or both—for life.
I concentrated to keep my breathing even and not give away the frantic beat of my heart.
“We’re wasting time,” I said, my words clipped with tension.
Marcus stared down the tunnel, the end outlined by the faint glow of the baetyl around the corner. I knew he was weighing our options. When the link dissolved, I closed my throat around a belated protest. The magic available to me shrank, and for a second I was the small, ugly creature inside the baetyl again, letting go of all its fathomless power.
Marcus shifted closer and I purposely didn’t look at him. If he read the fear in my expression, he’d try to interfere again. Closing my eyes, I grounded myself inside my body. I am Mika Stillwater, gargoyle guardian.
Secret of the Gargoyles (Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 3) Page 15