Hands of Flame (24 page)

Alban, softly, said, “We've all paid,” and after long moments Biali settled back, no longer pressing the point.

Eldred continued as though the brief fracas hadn't happened, his gray eyes turning blue as moonlight spilled over his face. “That in itself was a break with tradition. More so was the friendship you built with Eliseo Daisani and the dragonlord Janx. Dragons and vampires,” he said with a shake of his head. “No one befriends vampires. But even that, extraordinary as it might have been, was nothing to the choice you made on their behalf. To separate your memories from all of ours, to make yourself a breach amongst our people, in order to hide half-human children? What—” and he sounded as though he truly wanted to know “—were you
thinking?
”

“That the sins of the fathers need not be visited on the children.” Alban turned a palm up, knowing he borrowed human concepts and hoping to placate all his people with the gesture. “They were condemned by their heritage, but innocent in their birth. Their mother loved two men of the Old Races and would have never betrayed the truth of them to the world. I saw no risk in helping them all to live.”

“And that,” Eldred said, voice filled with granite, “is why you
are
the Breach, Alban of the clan Korund. Your life has not been that of a gargoyle, not in any way that we recognize. You have lived separately from our memories. You've told humans about our existence more than once. You've chosen to allow forbidden children a chance to survive. You have taken the lives of our brethren, and you have made no apology for these choices and decisions.”

“I—” Words were useless in the gestalt, memory and emotion riding faster and farther than any vocal construct
could, even if Alban could muster them. Eldred was right: there was no apology in him for the deaths he'd caused. Sorrow, yes, and guilt, and regret, but a lifetime, even one as long as a gargoyle's, would not change the fact that he would act again as he had in the heat of the moment. He would choose Margrit over Ausra; he would, in any way that mattered, choose Janx over Malik. Ausra's madness would always be a point of agony, a thing he would never find a way to cease mourning, but Malik had intended to take Janx's life, and for all his horror at causing the djinn's death, Alban knew it had been accidental. He had not done the deliberate murder Malik had intended, and whether the Old Races, whether the gargoyles, whether anyone at all understood that, it was the fine point of difference that mattered to Alban himself.

And that sentiment rocked back through centuries of time. He believed the choices he had made were the right ones, whether they were supported by Old Races law or gargoyle tradition. Sarah Hopkins had not deserved to die for having loved Janx or Daisani; her children had deserved a chance to live, for all that their fathers' people said they were aberrations which should not exist.

“You are right,” Alban whispered. “I am not like you at all.” Shock made him cold, unusual for a gargoyle, and he stared across the shifting faces within the overmind in a disbelief so deep it was stained with humor. “All this time spent in defense of our traditions, and it seems I have had very little sense of them at all.”

“Biali once said you might have led us.” Eldred's eyes went to the stark, white gargoyle, and the weight of a thousand more gazes joined him before they all returned to Alban. Even Biali looked up, mouth flattened with ir
ritation. “I believe you have done so,” Eldred continued. “Whether deliberately or not, you have led us to this place and time, and to these schisms in what we were and what we must become.”

The urge to apologize rose in Alban, but that intent was drowned beneath the weight of Eldred's words. “We have discussed this amongst ourselves, amongst all the clans who are left.” Power lifted his words, a tide of tears and fear and joy so profound that it tore through Alban's chest, ripping away the breath there and leaving nothing in its wake.
Anticipation:
the gestalt tasted of it, and his heart began a too-fast beat of uncertainty, as though understanding lay just beyond his grasp.

“We have debated,” Eldred said again, “and have found only one answer that we can agree to. We gargoyles number in the hundreds, no more, and our time as part of this world will come to an end if we do not choose to change as the selkies have changed. We are not well equipped to force ourselves down that road, and so for all our people,
before
all our people, it comes to me to tell you that we have, for the first time, chosen a leader for all of our clans, chosen someone to guide us down a path we cannot walk without help.

“So I put it to you, Alban Korund.” A hint of humor darted over Eldred's face as he obviously and deliberately formed his question in a fashion not typical to gargoyles. “Will you be our first democratically elected leader?”

HUMANS LIVED BY
threes.

Through a fog of rage born from fear, through a blur of red and violent white streaks, the bit of trivia gave Margrit something to hold on to. Three weeks without food, three days without water: those were the average extremes that humans could typically survive.

Three minutes without air.

She would have had more confidence in that number if she'd hyperventilated before being snatched.

She'd left the bar clearheaded, Daisani's gift working its magic to wipe away the effects of alcohol. If she'd had a plan, it had been to work her way into the storm tunnels and find Alban. Their worlds were changing in tandem, and she wanted both to be at his side, and to have him at hers as they discovered what new paths lay before them.

Instead, for the second time in her life, someone had grabbed her from behind and turned her into nothing more than mist drifting through the city streets.

Even through blinding fury, she doubted her abductor would keep her misted until she died of asphyxiation. Not
that she had any particular faith in her long-term survival chances when a djinn had kidnapped her, but she imagined her execution would be public. Allowing her to die during travel lacked drama, and the Old Races had a fondness for drama. Teeth gritted, Margrit closed her eyes against the smearing colors of the world and waited for the air to become breathable again.

When it did, she was cast away, sent stumbling as though her captor had found handling her as distasteful as she'd found being kidnapped. Half blinded by tears, and gasping on too-thick air, she caught herself on her fingertips against the floor, then scrambled to her feet and faced the djinn who'd captured her.

It was Tariq, standing too far away to retaliate against him, even if she had a way. A bubble of anger burst in her: she should be carrying the ridiculous watergun that had condemned Malik. It was feeble protection, but better than nothing. She'd rectify that mistake if she had the chance.

Behind Tariq stood a group of djinn, held in check by little more, Margrit suspected, than his will. It was less defiance than genuine curiosity that made her ask, “Am I still alive because you wanted an audience?” Her voice scratched and she drew another breath, coughing out the last of the fog. It tasted faintly of acid or blood. Like ketchup gone wrong, she thought, then tried to drag her mind back in line.

She'd been brought to a tall delivery garage. Its corrugated rolling door was closed, rattling as traffic passed outside it. The concrete floor was empty in the center, with boxes and pallets piled around its edges. Those, in turn, were littered with selkies and djinn.

There were more than was easily countable, and they
had split the room more or less evenly, the door's width creating a no-man's-land down the center. Tariq joined his brethren, leaving Margrit alone in a broad, empty swath. She felt suddenly small and remarkably fragile under the eyes of so many Old Races. Unwise impulse drove her to mumble, “You're probably all wondering why I called you here today….”

Over her attempt at humor, far more clearly than she'd spoken, Cara Delaney's voice cut through the room: “No.”

Startled, Margrit jerked her gaze up. “Cara? You should still be in the hospital.”

Cara stepped out of the gathered selkies with her head held high, though her cheeks were pale. “I dismissed myself. No, Margrit Knight, we are wondering how it is you think it's within your right to offer the djinn control of Janx's territory.”

“I could have sworn you told me to avert a war.”

“Avert a war, not—”

Exasperation flooded Margrit, drowning any sympathy she might have had for the young woman's injuries. “Give it a rest, Cara. You're not the right person for the job. I'm sure there are plenty of bastards among your people, and you might've gotten a tough-girl badge for getting shot, but you're not hard enough to run this. Seeing as how Tariq was willing to squeeze my mother's heart to a pulp, I'm pretty confident he's got the stones for it.” Margrit shot a glance at the djinn. “Does this mean you're accepting my offer?”

“We would be fools not to.” Tariq's voice was thick with dislike.

“And what do the selkies do, Margrit? Slink away with our tails between our legs?” Cara's voice remained cold, but a sliver of humor wrinkled Margrit's eyebrows.

“Do seals have tails? Or back legs? They've got flipp—” She broke off at Cara's expression and fought down a smile. “Sorry.” Amusement fled and she pressed fingertips over her eyelids momentarily, knowing she gave away signs of strain and not much caring. “You get to not be embroiled in a war, Cara. You get to be fully recognized members of the Old Races. There are tens of thousands of you, and your leader—Kaimana
is
your leader, isn't he?—has a world-market business already. You don't need Janx's empire to establish yourselves as heavyweights among your people. In the name of peace, walk away.”

Cara's jaw tightened and she looked imperiously toward the djinn. He tensed in protest, and Margrit sighed. “If that's a ‘go away so I can discuss your fate with the human without your interference' look, don't bother. Just say it.” Reckless anger flooded her, pushing her beyond the bounds of wisdom. She had a sense of fait accompli, that regardless of her actions it would end badly for her; would very likely end badly for the people to whom she now spoke. Railing at them would probably do her no good and could easily do her harm, but aggravation was more powerful than self-preservation. Especially given that she doubted she could shield herself from whatever sentence the offended Old Races already had in mind.

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 glower
ing 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.

“I have, I think, done very little to earn the trust you're offering me. The choices I've made have not been made out of foresight or wisdom, only a belief in what was right regardless of what our laws dictated. If you've changed enough to recognize that we must adapt further or die out, then I think any leadership I might provide is moot. You have already become the change you wish to see. Biali made courageous choices at the quorum, choices I don't know if I would have been bold enough to follow through on myself, even if not doing so might have been hypocritical. I think I feared change more than any of us, but it seems even I've fallen beneath its scythe. If there's any guidance I can offer, then I will, of course, but it seems to me that you would be better served by Eldred or one of the others.”