by Stefon Mears
* * *
Going around the gargoyle didn’t look like an option, though Cavan did feel some gnawing curiosity about what would have happened if he tried to ride through the rift from the other side of the bridge. Would it even have been there? Would it have taken them home? Or would it have taken them to some third world, even more distant from the world Cavan knew as home?
He couldn’t risk finding out.
But thinking about that gave him something to focus on as the trio followed the dark gray path around the curve of the slate-gray hillside to the matching bridge. Slate gray hills. Slate gray bridge. Slate gray gargoyle, except for the burning orange eyes.
Cavan couldn’t wait to get home and see greens and browns again. Maybe even a blue sky, if he was lucky.
But first, he had to get past that gargoyle.
The bridge looked broad and stable as Cavan, Ehren and Amra rode closer. It looked like the sort of stonework done by the old Rentissi — lots of decorative carvings and filigree along the rails and the outside of the bridge. And most of the bridges built by the Rentissi remained, as strong and solid as ever. Much like their roads, and more than a few of their castles.
Odd to see their design work here though. Was that a reflection of how close Cavan was to his own world? Amra’s arrow-flight theory? Or did it imply that the Rentissi had been here too? Or even were they here even now, continuing to exist, if not really living, here in this place between?
Was the gargoyle an independent creature? Or something carved by the hands of a Rentissi artisan, given life by need and nature in this place between?
Cavan had no time for these questions though. He forced himself to focus on what he knew. What he could tell about this place.
The path before him stopped at the rift. He could see as he approached that, past the rift, the bridge was uniform in its coloring and the dark path did not continue on the other side. The road there was the same slate gray as so many other things around it.
And through the rift, Cavan thought he could see hints of blue sky, but it was so close to gray that might have been a trick of perception.
He could smell magic from the gargoyle. Not in any usual way he detected magical forces, but in a more visceral way. Something about the gargoyle smelled of philters and herbs, the same as every magical laboratory Cavan had encountered or built. Normally the smell relaxed him these days, but here and now it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
The air felt moist, as well as cold here. Cavan considered that a good sign. An indication of how close he was to his own world. Because he did not remember that initial mountain as dusty, or the forest as woodsy. But the water in the air here added to the ambient chill, the way it had so often when Cavan rode over rivers among hills back home.
The gargoyle watched the riders approach, and Cavan noticed that it continued to smile. He decided that this was the expression given to the gargoyle by the artist who carved it, not any sign of malevolent glee.
At least, Cavan devoutly hoped that wasn’t an expression of malevolent glee.
He stopped at the foot of the bridge, maybe forty feet from its apex, where the gargoyle — and the rift to home — waited.
“We don’t want to fight,” Cavan said, though the words came out more perfunctory than hopeful this time. He didn’t believe for a moment that the gargoyle would simply let them pass. “So we hope you will step aside and let us pass in peace. This path” — Cavan pointed to the dark gray path that stopped at the rift — “is the path we must follow. We must pass through that rift to return to our world. To save people who are in danger. My family.”
Cavan drew himself as straight as he could in the saddle. “So, please, let us pass in peace.”
The gargoyle spoke in the same hollow voice as the spider, and the corpses before it. And like them, it spoke without any sign of movement. The gargoyle’s frozen smile did not budge as its words came.
“This is your world now. You may not leave.”
“No,” Cavan said slowly. “This is the world we must pass through to get back to our world.”
“This is your world now. You have changed it. Burnt its forest. Killed its creatures. You may not leave.”
Cavan could feel Ehren’s glare, but refused to look away from the guardian as he spoke.
“We defended ourselves when attacked. As we said we would. Any damage beyond that was … accidental.”
Cavan hated that he cringed as he said that last word, but he couldn’t help it. He knew well that he might have been able to control the flames. If he’d become a full wizard.
“This is your world now. Forged by your own hand through its challenges. Fed by your memories. You may not leave.”
“What is it with you people and threes?” Cavan said, throwing up his hands. “Fine. You’re not going to answer me now, but I’m telling you straight. My friends and I — and our horses and possessions — are going through that door. Rift. Whatever. I’ve asked nicely for you to stand aside. But I’m not asking anymore.”
Cavan drew his sword in one hand and dug through his spell pouch with the other. To his right Amra drew her sword, and to his left Ehren hefted his staff, a golden glow already limning its length.
Cavan pointed his sword at the gargoyle. “Stand. Aside.”
The gargoyle did stand aside, and Cavan felt so surprised he almost lowered his sword.
But then the gargoyle took to the air and spread its arms wide, words coming out of it in a language Cavan didn’t recognize.
The rift rippled, and began to close.
* * *
Some forty feet ahead of them on that slate gray bridge, the rift began to shrink. Already its torn bottom edge was off the path and nearly a foot off the ground.
Cavan dropped his sword and slid from his saddle, his focus entirely on the rift. Searching his mind for what he could remember of the Hawkspeaker’s ritual. If he could connect himself to the magic that opened the way, maybe he could stop the gargoyle from closing it.
Beside him he could hear Ehren chanting. See the golden glow of his goddess’ magic begin to ebb out from the tall, blonde man.
An arrow from Amra’s bow snapped uselessly against the gargoyle’s neck.
And the rift shrank another foot.
“Go!” Cavan yelled. “I’ll try to hold it open.”
“Forget it,” scoffed Amra, launching another arrow into the joints of the gargoyle’s right wing. It proved no more effective than her previous shot.
“We’re not leaving you,” Ehren said.
“Take Dzint’s reins and get through that rift,” Cavan said. “Now. If I don’t make it, I need you guys to save Kent.”
Those words should have done it. Should have given them more than enough reason to get through that rift before it closed. But Cavan had no more attention to spare for his friends. He could only hope they listened. If he failed, he needed to know that they would be there to save Kent and the others.
And Cavan didn’t like his chances. He spoke Ruktuk as well as any non-orc, but he hadn’t understood a syllable of the Hawkspeaker’s chanting. The symbolism, though. That he’d been able to understand. The chopped wood for the physical link to the rift. The water and the oils he did not have. The spelled blood to tie them to their purpose and to their own world as they passed … through … this one…
The spelled blood. That had to be the key. Or at least as close as Cavan could get to it here and now.
Cavan licked his fingertips, and touched them to the mixture of blood on his wrists, then knelt spread some of the residue along his sword blade. He breathed power along the blood, adding some of his own magic to the Hawkspeaker’s, in hope that the combination would serve him here and now.
Cavan stood, raised his sword, and charged up the bridge, screaming a battle cry.
The gargoyle swept down to meet him. Or at least to block his way. Hands still wide and lipless chanting still working at closing that rift.
Cavan
slid across the smooth bridge stonework on the knees of his leather riding breeches. He flung his sword past the landing gargoyle and at the rift.
“Zendexi hawnasa ela!” he yelled at the flying sword.
The breath of his power blended with the magic of the Hawkspeaker. The blade burned with fire the deep green of the Hawkspeaker’s skin.
The blade struck the edge of the rift…
…and stuck.
It wedged there in mid-air, like a spike in a door. And the rift, only eight feet wide and tall now — suspended six feet off the ground — shrank no further. And through it, Cavan was sure now that he could see a blue sky peeking out behind the gray.
“Ha!” roared Cavan, pointing at the gargoyle. “My magic is of my world not yours. And my world wants me to come home.”
“That may be,” the gargoyle said, folding its wings behind it. “But I will kill you first.”
Cavan instinctively reached for his sword, but it was busy elsewhere at the moment.
He hopped to his feet, drawing a dagger in each hand. He opened his mouth to give a challenge, but Amra tapped him on the shoulder.
“Allow me,” she said, stepping in front of him, that dark metal two-handed sword of hers held high and ready.
“Honestly,” Ehren said, stepping forward, his goldenwood staff limned with sunlight, “as though we’d abandon you now.”
The gargoyle spread its wings to take to the air, but Ehren cried out in the tongue of old Penthix and a golden dome spread over the four of them. A dome with a ceiling no more than eight feet high.
Amra leapt forward and swung her sword through a series of attacks too fast for Cavan’s eyes to follow. The gargoyle blocked each one — at first — with each blow raining chips of stone from its arms and wings without appearing to damage that amazing sword of hers.
Amra pressed her attack, each blow coming faster than the last. The gargoyle backing away steadily until it’s wings were pressed tight up against the dome. Chips started falling from its torso and head. Its wings began to sizzle where they touched the golden dome.
“Mercy!” it cried. “Mercy!”
Amra stilled her blade, but held it ready to strike straight for the gargoyle’s neck. She did not look away from the creature, but Cavan knew she was letting him make the call.
“We should grant mercy,” Ehren whispered. “Don’t let this place change you.”
Cavan gave Ehren a disgusted look and muttered, “As though I’d kill a surrendering foe. What’s wrong with you?”
Louder he said, “We will grant you mercy, but you must undo what you did to the rift and you must fly away and let us leave in peace.”
“I will stand aside and let you leave in peace, Cavan Oltblood, but I cannot leave the bridge, and I cannot undo what I did to the rift.”
“You’re lying,” Cavan said, stepping closer.
“No,” it said, and while Cavan couldn’t be certain he heard sincerity in the creature’s hollow voice, he definitely heard fear. It continued, “My nature is guardian. I protect. Deny. Withhold. I have no power to open or admit.”
“That does make sense,” Amra said, not that she lowered her sword.
“All right then,” Cavan said, “swear to do nothing to impede us or further reduce the gate. Swear you will move aside and let us pass in peace, doing nothing to attract other guardians or bring any harm to us. Swear these things and we will spare you.”
“I swear them by the Rock at the heart of your world, and the Sea at the heart of mine.”
Amra glanced back, and Cavan nodded. Ehren dismissed the golden dome.
“Where was that dome when we were facing a spider?” Cavan said.
“Do you really want to talk about how we handled the spider? Here and now?”
“Later for that, boys,” Amra said. “Let’s go.”
She strolled back casually and swung herself up into Caramel’s saddle.
“How?” Cavan said.
Amra looked expectantly at Ehren. He shrugged.
Amra scoffed.
“Honestly,” she said. “As long as you two have been riding.”
She rode Caramel back to the foot of the bridge and turned around. She waved her hands to get Cavan and Ehren to move their horses out of the way. Cavan looked at her. Looked back at the rift. Surely she didn’t mean…
“Cavan,” she said, “you should come last. Just in case the rift closes when you pass through.”
Then she galloped Caramel up the bridge and cleared the lip of the rift in a single bound, vanishing from sight.
Cavan looked at Ehren. “Are you feeling as stupid as I am right now?”
“Let’s just not talk about this,” Ehren said, riding Highsun back to the foot of the bridge and charging up to the rift before clearing the lip in a single deft leap.
Cavan looked over the gargoyle, now perched on the side of the bridge, where Cavan had first seen it. “If I pulled my sword out…”
“I wouldn’t risk it, were I you,” the gargoyle said. “That might start the rift closing again.”
Cavan sighed and mounted Dzint. He rode back to the front edge of the bridge, then galloped toward the rift. Closer and closer he rode, trying to remember exactly where he should make his leap.
“Up, boy,” he yelled at what he hoped was the right spot.
Dzint leapt high into the air, and straight through the rift.
8
There were a few storm clouds in the sky, but Cavan didn’t care. For one thing, they weren’t uniformly gray. They were shades of black and dark gray. Even better, they were few, and they were off to the north.
Through the first half of the year, the winds in Oltoss blew from the south. No northern storm would touch them. A southern storm, sure. An eastern or western storm, once in a while. But a northern storm? Never before the peak of summer.
The rest of the sky was gloriously blue. Wonderfully blue. The blue he remembered from childhood, so rich it could have iced a berry cake. Cavan drank the color in with his eyes. Just sat there atop Dzint, grinning at the sky like a madman, and maybe he was. Just a little.
He didn’t care. Just seeing colors in the world again was worth a few minutes of madness.
Those dark storm clouds were rolling away, even as he watched. Cavan could feel a touch of the southern wind that carried them, softer down here than up there, but still enough to muss his brown hair and make him laugh. It smelled of rivers and trees and green grass.
Grass!
Cavan slipped down off of Dzint’s back and buried his hands in the thick, strong, green grasses that grew atop the hill they’d landed on. He knew these hills, maybe an hour’s ride south of Tradeton, where he’d grown up. But in the moment, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that this grass smelled delightful. Another reason to laugh, and this time he heard Ehren and Amra laughing along with him. They were off their horses too, but still standing. Ehren, through his laughter, was singing some paean to Zatafa.
Their horses only cared about the grass as the meal they no doubt felt was long overdue.
Or did they? True, they were nibbling at the blades, but Cavan knew he had felt no hunger in the other world. Had the horses?
Cavan laughed and rolled onto his back, abandoning the question for the scholars in their high towers. Here the sun was warm and bright and yellow. The sky was blue, and the grass was green. After that deadly, gray world, these things were all that mattered.
Cavan hadn’t realized how much he’d missed green grass. After that long trek through the Dwarfmarches, then into the great goldenrod, all of them shades of yellow. But here they grew the green of childhood, complete with tiny yellow-and-white flowers that might have been weeds but he never thought of them as such.
And Cavan was alive, and not trapped in that other world. Alive and alongside Ehren and Amra, the truest friends he’d ever known. Closer than friends. Family.
Family!
Kent!
Cavan was on his feet in an ins
tant, hand checking automatically for his absent sword.
“We have to get moving,” he said. “We—”
“We need to sit,” Ehren said. “And eat.”
“Are you sure?” Amra said, inspecting Caramel. “I would have sworn Caramel would need a rubdown after all that riding, but the signs aren’t there. No sweat, no effort in the muscles, even her breathing is relaxed and even.”
“The horses don’t,” Ehren said, “but we do. For our minds and our souls, as much as for our bodies. The horses were spared the worst of the trials by their nature. We’re not so lucky.”
Ehren dug through that strange bag of his and pulled out strips of jerked beef, hardboiled eggs, and somehow fresh golden cherries and apples. He looked at Amra, who was still stroking Caramel’s mane, and at Cavan, who he knew had his agitated let’s-get-moving expression, and said, “Sit. Eat.”
And Ehren sat.
Amra turned to Cavan and said, “You know what he’s like. Better to do it now and spare the lecture.”
“I don’t lecture,” Ehren said as Amra sat. But then he looked at Cavan, eyebrows high. “But if you doubt me, I could explain why this is necessary. At length.”
Cavan shook his head and sank down to sit cross-legged next to his … hobbled horse?
“When did…” he started, but Amra said, without looking, “While you were busy cloud-gazing. One of us has to be responsible, after all.”
“Speaking of responsibility,” Ehren said, as Cavan tore off a chunk of jerked beef, “let us discuss the giant spider.”
“Must we?” Amra said, around a mouthful of hardboiled egg. She swallowed. “We’re alive. It’s dead. What else matters?”
“More than that spider died, but only that spider threatened us.”
Cavan stopped chewing the salty beef and swallowed a hunk. “One of us had to do something. I didn’t see you trapping it in any golden domes.”
“That’s not how they work,” he said. “We would have had to be inside the dome.”
“Not a bad defensive option, but I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have outwaited a spider.”