A Gargoyle Tale of Epic Proportions
An Alternate Gargoyles Universe (AGU) Novel
| Edited by:
Pegasus and MaryK | Created: Saturday, May 25, 1996
Completed: Tuesday, December 17, 1996 Last revision: February 29, 2000 | Revised by:
Cinnamon and Dasha Ariel |
This is an original work, not associated with the Walt Disney Corporation. No copyright infringements intended. All rights to the elements of this work reserved by the author. None of this content is in anyway directly copied from any Disney publication. "Gargoyles" belongs to Walt Disney Studios.
This fanfic is rated for all audiences, and contains nothing sexual or improper of any nature. I would recommend it be rated G.
The year is 1996.
The first time such a blood red moon shown over the world, as the dark fairies danced about, was three hundred years before the day She was born. Her birth marked the start of the end of the revolution, that would either tear the world apart or knit it together again afterwards. Even then, the light was withdrawing from the world, and destruction lay perilously close. Mankind could feel it's approach, but when the second moon arose in 1978, no one saw it's meaning except The One. That was when his search began.
The first time he awoke from stone in the Western Hemisphere, was in May of 1996. He'd followed prophesy and fairy paths, and now he'd reached his final destination. The new moon had peered into the darkening night sky as the sun was sinking below the Oquirrh mountains to the west. Although dusk was only an hour away, the light of day hung brightly in the air. The streets emptied throughout Salt Lake City, as people there were determined to get home the evening.
Two stone figures, strapped down inside the massive museum truck to prevent damaging them, were being hauled from the airport up a canyon on the east side where the Rocky Mountains cut through Utah along the Wasatch front. This particular canyon, one of many in the sides of the Wasatch, had steep rock sides and rocky clefts all along it, remnants of an ancient sea bed.
It was all owned by the museum manager.
The Roland Art Museum was owned and named by Mr. Gerald Theodore Roland, a scrawny man of small stature who always dressed impeccably in a tuxedo and fine silk bow tie. G. T. Roland, as he was known, was one of the richest and most eccentric men in the state and fancied himself to be an art collector, and had inherited most of his collection from his father. He was very young, only about twenty five, and was quite handsome, and was one of those people who seemed to have everything going for him. Now, as the truck pulled up to the Museum's receiving entrance, he stepped out from his office to meet the driver.
"What do we have there, Steve?" he inquired.
Keeping a guarded distance, he watched the grubby truck driver, Steve. The truck made a loud WHOOSHING sound as the air brakes engaged, and with a rumble, the engine shut down. Steve climbed out of the cab, and rubbed his back as though it hurt. Mr. G. T. Roland was very careful not to dirty his clothes by stepping into any of the puddles in the dirt and gravel road left by all the rain that had been falling off and on the last few days.
"More of the same." Steve moaned. "Only THESE two came all the way from France. There's all kinds of papers for you to sign on these. The bills of lading are almost as thick as my auto insurance."
"How do the figures look?"
"They're in good shape. The folks that sent 'um were afraid they'd be destroyed by acid rain or something."
"That was considerate of them, wasn't it?" Roland replied brightly, basking in the dream of his newest acquisition. "Won't Christy be impressed?"
"I dunno. These stupid things are made of SOLID stone. They were a real pain to load at the airport." Steve added. "We couldn't use an ordinary pallet jack, and had to find somebody with a tow motor."
Roland threw back the canvas tarp covering the truck's cargo. The massive stone carvings of grotesque, winged creatures; although impressive, were not what Roland believed he had ordered. He made no attempt to hide his disappointment - or his contempt.
"How bland..." He sneered dryly.
"I dunno," the driver shrugged, "they look kinda cool to me."
"These aren't renaissance figures like Christine enjoys," Roland spurted angrily. "These are just odd water spigots from an altogether different century." he huffed, "Don't even bother placing them on the main floor. Store them in the basement until I can sell them."
He huffed and stormed away. Steve gave a sigh of relief at his departure. "Rich men." he muttered. "Insensitive jerks."
He rubbed his back again as he went to find a tow motor to unload them. Meanwhile, the sun was setting.
As the hour passed, Roland thumbed through a catalog. Disappointed with his London men for their lack of judgement in the figures they had sent, he set the catalog aside and began composing a letter of complaint about it.
CRRRAAASSSH!!!
The sound of massive breakage downstairs shattered his concentration and Roland bolted from his desk and rushed out onto the studio floor. A glass case with Her third century Mayan amulet, lay smashed on the floor, emitting a strange light. A light in one corner of the room, darkening with the falling light of day outside the showroom windows, flashed in the darkness.
With no weapon at hand, Roland backed away, glancing around frantically for some assistance. Once he had some distance between himself and whatever lurked in the shadows, he shouted for his workmen as he darted back into his office and fumbled for the gun he kept in his desk. Clutching it in shaking hands, he returned to the studio to confront the intruder only to have it seized from his grasp by a huge shadow looming out of the surrounding gloom of dusk. He barely caught a glimpse of his pistol being crushed in massive claws before a blow from the same huge shadow sent his senses reeling and left him blacked out and unconscious on the floor.
It was a beautiful sunset, setting right below the rim of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island. By the time Steve had finished unloading the truck, closed up the trailer, filled out his logbook, and left the museum grounds, he was disappointed to have missed all but the last few minutes of the sunset. Now the tall trees around him were dark and ominous as he opened his sack dinner and began munching idly on a sandwich. Hearing the loud crash from inside the museum followed by the tinkling of broken glass, Steve snapped his head around. The building lay oddly dark in the encroaching evening shadow. The sound of groaning metal drew his gaze toward his truck - and two pairs of brilliantly burning devils' eyes. He did not see much else before a sudden thud threw him flat on the ground where he could feel his truck on top of him, pinning his legs.
Early the next morning, around an hour before the sun would rise, Christine Shelton made her way up the canyon. She was always tempted to drop off at her boyfriend's museum on other days when she drove past to see how he was getting along. However, today it was far too early in the morning to go see him.
Christine did not mind the early hour. In fact she preferred it. She was determined to get some climbing in before classes today. There would be plenty of time to get back to lectures, classes, exams, performances, projects, activities, dances, meetings, parties, and a hundred other useless tasks by the time she was done. A pre-dawn solo climb in her beloved mountains gave her the chance she longed for to escape having to pretend she was interested in being sociable.
She stripped off her shirt and pants, leaving only the navy blue polyurethane body suit underneath. Her little brother Matthew, for some reasons, had bought it for her for Christmas - with some helpful assistance from her overzealous father. It wasn't like she was trying to make a good first impression on anyone, or worry about anyone seeing her. The suit probably did her flat figure no justice, she thought, and was several sizes too big for her, but she didn't care as long as it was comfortable and wouldn't tear on the rock.
From a slight crack running down one side of the cliff face, she pulled her rope out from where she had hidden it from the effects of the rain. She slung her harness from her shoulder, pulled it around her legs, and tied the rope. Letting go of all her frustrations and gathering all her enthusiasm she jammed her foot into the crack at the foot of the cliff.
She pushed down on her first hold.
Christine's father always complained about her mountain climbing, probably afraid it was dangerous. She felt unstoppable up there, on the on the heights where she belonged! On the ground the entire idea seemed insane, but never while she was in the middle of a climb.
The cliff was a solid patch of exposed grey/purplish sedimentary rock about twenty or thirty meters across, and a hundred meters high, one of many that stuck out of the sides of the Twin Peaks mountains. An easy path circled around both sides through some small trees and light brush, leading to where the rope was secured by a bolt in the rock, at the top. Most of the climb was flat and vertical. A few small cracks ran down the lower portion of it, up to a small strip of green limestone she called the Blank Stripe. There were no more places to grab hold there. She'd never been any higher up the cliff than that Blank Stripe, that's what kept her coming back here. It was her challenge - to find away to get past the Black Stripe.
In her mind, she was free. She wanted to be up there, away from gravity, away from people and to soar in the clouds. That was the thrill of it! The feel of air running through her hair and across her face and arms was always a warm -- almost passionate -- caress. If only she could fly, suspended in the air, above everything! She so envied birds the way they could stretch out their wings and ride on the wind...
She knew how much weight and just where to put it. Leaning out away from the rock face with legs splayed, and reaching her way upward, the rope was all she had to keep her from falling to a sudden death.
The rays of the early morning sun were beginning to faintly glimmer up behind the Wasatch mountains, just as Christine neared the Blank Stripe. However, this time something was different. There were small marks in the Black Stripe. They were easily within reach of her hands -- small clusters of four finger-sized holes, staggered on either side as if placed there intentionally for easy climbing access.
Christine's initial momentary surprise immediately changed to outright indignation. Who on earth would have the gall...? Inwardly seething with annoyance, she started up the wall. Whoever had so conveniently drilled those perfectly spaced holes had deprived her of the challenging climb she had so eagerly anticipated when she first set out this morning.
"Like climbing a ladder." she complained disgustedly as she completed the easy ascent. "This was too easy."
Christine only barely saw the dark shape of the huge fist before it hit her with enough force to throw her back over the cliff. For a few terrifying seconds she flailed wildly in midair until her rope snapped taut, stopping her fall. It could not stop her from slamming into the cliff face. She felt the hot, stickiness on her face and touched blood.
For Christine, being scared usually led directly to getting angry. Furious, she pulled herself back to the top of the cliff. 'No one gets away with trying to kill me!' she thought. In the pre-sunrise light of the early morning, they glared at her, only a few meters away, hands on hips.
"They" were two creatures with humanoid shape dressed in loincloths, one with a sapphire blue and grey leathery flesh, the other the color of chocolate. Each had eyes that glowed white hot like... radioactive fuel. Their resemblance to humans was only in that they stood upright and had two arms and two legs. Beyond that they were clearly.... something else. Attached to their shoulders and held impressively behind them were huge, leathery, batlike wings. These were undoubtedly powered by the massive pectoral muscles forming their broad chests. They had long, pointed, elfin ears; long, muscular tails; and showed sharp fangs for teeth. Their hands were more like claws with four fingers tipped with razor sharp talons, and additional talons on their heels and knee and elbow joints. Christine stared at them, astonished; but her rage at their unprovoked attack kept her from being intimidated by them.
"What in God's name are you?" she demanded fiercely, throwing down her climbing harness, her expression accusing and angry.
The two glanced at each other, as though asking each other permission to speak. "We are the owners of this mountain."
"I don't see your name on it." Christine replied stubbornly. "Who are you? What are you?"
"We are the ones who are going to throw you back off that cliff again, HUMAN." The brown one snarled, placing a heavy sneer on the word HUMAN.
"Like I'm going to let you!" she taunted defiantly. Both creatures rushed forward. Christine made a quick effort to dodge them, but she wasn't expecting what came.
Their grips were like iron. She was lifted off the ground and slung off the cliff like a rag doll.
Fortunately her rope, which had become twisted around the bolt at the top of the cliff, saved her again. After her second bone-jarring stop, she found her holds once again and leaned forward against the cliff face to catch her breath. High above there was a sound like a knife slicing through wire and her rope suddenly came loose and tumbled to the ground beneath her.
She looked up to see the creatures disappear beyond the brink of the cliff, apparently satisfied that she was now beaten and would not trouble them further. Christine was not one to give up - even when most others would. Carefully slipping a small shard of limestone shale into her sleeve, she footed her climbing range for the third time, this time without the safety net of her rope. The monsters were walking away as she came up over the lip of the cliff.
"My turn now, boys?" Christine announced, standing atop the cliff again. The creatures turned, surprised at her tenacity.
"Cursed human!" the blue/grey one bellowed.
"Quick! Kill her. The sun is soon to rise." the chocolate colored one added in a sidelong voice.
"I'm sorry." Christine mocked. "I didn't quite catch your SPECIES."
They were rushing forward again.
"We are Gargoyles." the chocolate colored one said.
"We will be owned by no human." blue/grey added.
Christine charged forward on the tips of her toes, meeting them headlong. They did not slow, and the chocolate colored one raised a massive fist. Christine quickly ducked under it, and stabbed him from behind with her shard of shale. She then yanked it free, doing even more damage on the way out.
The... gargoyle, as he called himself, cried out in agony, spun around, and slashed at her with his claws. Dodging, Christine backed towards the edge of the cliff, preparing to face them again. Both gargoyles charged her once more. She had to act quickly to avoid being thrown off the cliff a third time.
Christine did the fastest thing she knew how. She ducked down and slipped underneath their hands. Their momentum carried them over the brink of the cliff, but they didn't seem to care. Part way down the fall their wings unfolded, bringing them up in a controlled glide to the wall of the cliff. There they slammed their hands into the solid stone like jack hammers. With the sound of power drivers, they clawed their way up the cliff, leaving small pockets of crumbled stone behind them in the wall.
"So you're the creeps who messed up my climb." she fumed. How strong were these things?!!! If they could rip apart stone with their talons...?
There was no time to think about it as they came over the ledge and were on her again. One of them slashed at her. She felt nothing, but knew it had connected somewhere, her blood was on his talons. The next instant she saw the world go upside down as the other one seized her by an arm and a leg, swung her over his head, and threw her against the ground opposite the cliff. She hit the ground face first with a bone breaking thud. Only by managing to land in a roll was she able to avoid breaking something vital. Nevertheless, she felt the wind knocked out of her and lay gasping on impact. Her surging adrenaline was the only thing that kept her from blacking out.
Aware that her attacker was advancing on her again, she desperately searched her immediate surroundings for something to use for a better weapon. Aside from sticks and twigs no bigger than her finger and a variety of sandstone boulders too big to dislodge, there was little within reach. One boulder, roughly the size of a watermelon, lay near the feet of the blue/grey gargoyle. Then, as she struggled to get up, she felt her belt under her. Hanging on it was her climber's chalk bag - still mostly full. Quickly she slipped a hand into it and grabbed a fistful of powdery chalk. As the gargoyle sprang at her, she twisted aside before his claws could connect and flung the handful of chalk into his face. Her action left him momentarily blinded and choking on the dusty stuff - and gave her the few extra seconds she needed to get to that one loose boulder. With strength she never knew she had, she hefted the rock overhead and brought it down hard and solid on the gargoyle's skull, splitting the rock apart.
He grunted and collapsed.
Christine wanted to collapse as well, but suddenly realized it was not yet over. In the frenzy with the blue/grey she had forgotten his chocolate-colored companion. That one now appeared out of the last shadows before dawn and picked her up by her shoulders. Oddly, he seemed impressed at her endurance.
"You're quite a feisty one, Human," he jeered.
His claws pinching the bones in her shoulders caused her to cry out in pain. Not sure how much longer she could hold on, Christine still would not readily yield.
"Do you always attack people smaller than you are for no reason?" she demanded angrily. "You're prob'ly not used to one who are willing to fight back!"
The gargoyle dropped her, and she rolled onto the ground.
She stood up, fists in front of her. She slung her torso around in a heavy kick to his chest. It was like hitting a brick wall.
This was going to be ugly, Christine she thought. The gargoyle gave a low growl from deep in his throat and brought up his claws, as though he were going to slash at her again. Christine had anticipated that move, and was waiting for it. However, the creature suddenly twisted his torso instead and whipped his tail across her legs.
"Two can play that game." Christine mocked, yet undaunted. With an amazing burst of agility, she ducked around one side, rolled on the ground, and kicked her feet into the back of the gargoyle's knees. Momentarily off balance, he waved his hands in the air for a moment like he was falling backwards.
Then the sun rose.
Suddenly, a crushing weight forced Christine to the ground, where she lay exhausted, battered, and bleeding -- beneath a stone statue! It took several minutes before her pounding heart and ragged breathing began calming to something close to normal. All through the intense struggle to stay alive she had hardly felt any pain. Now there was no part of her that did not feel it. She was covered with bruises and scrapes, some in places she usually did not think of as being so sensitive. Several minor slashes through her blue body suit were bleeding superficially, but nothing seemed broken besides skin. Still, it was several minutes more before she finally tried to move.
Movement increased the pain and she groaned as she struggled to worm her way out from under the stone gargoyle. Stone? How?! She could not have simply imagined fighting the two massive creatures. Her painfully battered body was proof of that. They were real enough all right. Now too, she realized just how close to the edge of the cliff she had fallen. Another couple of feet and... Best not to think of that.
Using her feet and the last of her adrenaline reserve, she managed to shove hard enough to get it off her. Once moving, the statue rolled over once and its own weight carried it off the edge to smash to rubble on the rocks below.
Christine crawled to the edge to look over at what she had just done. The other one -- the blue/grey one she had clobbered with the boulder, still lay where he had fallen. Now, he too was cold, grey stone, but still whole. She didn't think she had killed him -- only stunned him. But this one -- shattered to pieces far below... Was he... dead?
When the nurses at the University Infirmary asked just how she had come to have been beaten up so badly, she explained she had taken a fall climbing... not far at all from the truth. Besides, they knew her very well at the infirmary, they wouldn't tell anyone. Christine had come in many times before, after encounters with various unpredictable coeds. (Sometimes she wondered if she attracted them.) Christine felt stunned, on a variety of levels. She had never been so stunned in her life! (She thought perhaps the successive blows to her head might have played some small part in that.)
She was also troubled. The creatures had turned to stone as the dawn had broken. For the time she had spent in the mountains before coming home, they had stayed like that. However, when the sun went down in the evening, might they reawaken? Christine was not anxious to return now. If that one she had smashed was actually dead...
She didn't want to think about it. Yet, she felt drawn by a strange compulsion to return to the cliff top that evening. Christine wasn't stupid, though. She brought a chain up with her; the one they hauled Mandy's car with. It was nearing eight O'clock, and the sun would be going down soon. It was already beginning to disappear beyond the small Oquirrh Mountains to the west.
Completely oblivious to why she was doing it, other than the odd feeling in her mind that she needed to, Christine chained the other stone-turned creature's wrists and ankles together where it had collapsed after she had hit it over the head that morning, and bolted the chains to the cliff top where her climbing rope had been.
She chastised herself for how stupid and nonsensical it all was. It made no sense that a statue would come to life. Yet, it hadn't been a statue this morning, now was it? Her blackened eye lay testament to that fact. Still, Christine wondered if she had only been seeing things. She had borrowed Mandy's camera, just in case. Then she waited and watched as the sun finally set.
The blue/grey colored gargoyle's eyes burst open, blazing with white light.
It was working! She had been right! Christine thought, feeling elated. Somewhere, a voice in her mind cautioned her that these creatures had tried to kill her and very nearly succeeded. Yet, the sheer thrill of her discovery was too much to pass by. She began to shoot pictures.
The stone cracked down it's body. It shattered, flying in all directions, and there he was, the blue and grey colored gargoyle. Christine kept shooting.
The gargoyle, a bit disoriented, yanked up on the chains. He pulled again and again, trying to break them. For some reason he could not break them. He had been so strong before! Couldn't he break a tow chain? He kept trying.
Christine looked at his feet, long and slender with a sharp ankle, and thick clawed toes. His legs were splayed wide, and a long muscular tail ran from his back. He had wings, batlike, the back of which was covered in a black ebony velvet fuzz. At the apex of each wing were small fingers. His elbows were barbed, and he had four-taloned claws. His face was flat with horns protruding from his brow. Seeing the human female staring at him, he stopped trying to pull the chains apart, and faced her, eyes blazing with malice.
Christine had stopped taking pictures and just stood staring at him in silence. It was almost as if she could, in her mind, hear her mother playing her violin again... encouraging her...
...Why was it she felt like she knew him...?
She suddenly remembered the companion gargoyle, and looked down the cliff. The shattered gargoyle remained a shattered stone statue. If he hadn't come to life, that must mean...
Christine felt a tear roll down her cheek.
BLAST! Now, of all times, she was getting emotional again? Why should she? The devil tried to murder her! She pulled her dark blue cotton jacket around her T-shirt and jeans, shivering. Damn estrogen...
The gargoyle just watched her. She stood, looking over the cliff morosely. What strange behavior was this for the human? What was she looking at?
He looked.
He saw the tears on her face, and the dusty shards remaining of his brother.
"I'm sorry." she said softly. The anger faded from his eyes, and Christine saw they were almost normal, calm as the sea after a storm and twice as deep.
He was taken aback by the human's compassion. "Why are you sorry for him, human? He tried to kill you, and you hold me prisoner. How can you be sorry?"
Christine did not reply. She didn't know why. She just couldn't bring herself to be angry any longer. Besides, she was tired of being angry. Too often she had been silently angry at friends and people who had not even known she was angry, holding it inside. She did not want to be angry now.
"Why do you not leave us alone?" the gargoyle continued, demanding.
Christine sighed, trying to pull herself back together, rubbing her shirt collar over her eyes. "If you'll leave me alone, I will." she said, trying to pull up her usual psychological defensive barrier in front of her.
"Then let me go." he replied, tempting.
Christine did, unlocking the chains and the bolt. He had not been expecting her to give up that easily. When he was free and rubbing his wrists, he only stood, watching her, unmoving.
Christine sat down on the ground, looking at the west where the sun's final rays were disappearing. "Aren't you angry?"
The gargoyle did not reply.
"This may be a little beyond the point, but what are gargoyles?" she inquired. "I've never heard of anything like you before."
"We are protectors."
"What do you protect?"
The gargoyle shifted nervously, as if he itched to be away from her, but something seemed to be keeping him where he stood.
"What is it?" Christine inquired.
"Why do you concern yourself with him?"
"Because he's dead."
"Many are dead."
"I... but I killed him." Christine stuttered, not facing him. "I didn't know you were going to do... that. Was he your friend?"
The gargoyle looked down at the remains once more. His gaze fell. "He was."
"Who was he?"
"He was my rookery brother."
"Your brother?"
"Yes. One of many rookery brothers and sisters taken from our home by you accursed humans."
"Where are they?"
The gargoyle sighed, as though he had been wondering the same thing.
"Me and my rookery brother were separated from the others when the airplane flew us here."
"Where are you from?"
"That is none of your concern." he barked angrily.
"Sorry." Christine apologized again. She simply did not have the energy to stand up anyone to else today. Sure, if he came at her again she was going to do something about it, but he was just watching her, not making any moves. "What's your name?" she inquired.
The gargoyle stuttered for something to say. "We... have no names. We are gargoyles."
Christine looked up at the hulking figure standing over her. "What have you been doing?"
"I can still kill you, if you cannot be quiet." he growled.
With a sudden burst of creative inspiration and recollection, Christine replied "I thought you said you were a protector."
He sighed. "I was... once."
"Before they brought you here, I take it." Christine guessed.
"Yes."
"Do you miss them? Your brothers and sisters, I mean."
"Yes." He said quickly, as thought the memory were somehow bitter. "There was one female of whom I was fond, and she of me."
"What happened to her?"
"A human boy killed with a gun her for standing in his way." he replied. He looked away, into the falling night, hurt. "She could not heal before she died."
Christine looked into his face. In shadow still, his eyes were large, and watery. "It must be a painful memory." she observed.
"Yes."
"When my mother died, I thought I was going to die too. I missed her so much. It made me ill for weeks before I finally came out of it." Christine muttered, rambling now.
"How did she die?" the creature asked.
"She was hit by a drunken driver while she crossed a canyon near here. His brakes failed." she answered. "I wasn't with her to protect her."
"Would you have protected her if you were there?"
"I couldn't have been there." Christine answered morosely, looking away. "I was too little and just a frightened child. I was too weak, too small, too stupid to think about it. It's not like I had your wings or your strength. I would have flown in and carried her away." she answered, dreamily.
This didn't make any sense to him. "It was not like you could have known the day she would be killed."
"Maybe if I'd been with her, I'd have been able to stop it from happening."
"Not many things can stop a speeding car without being destroyed by it." he replied, analytically.
"I don't know!" Christine cried out, desperately. "Would it have helped if I had died in her place?"
The gargoyle turned away. "I once thought it might, but what would it accomplish? It's nothing more than one death in place of another."
Christine looked up at him again.
"I once thought as you do, human. I had to stop and realize that things were the way they were, and to stop fretting over it." he answered.
Christine rebuttled violently, standing up to face him. "Then why are you going around attacking people climbing cliffs?"
He did not turn around. "We were too angry to think. We knew humans were at fault, so we began fighting them. I... I don't see any point in it anymore."
Christine relaxed. "It seems we have something in come on then. We both seem unable to let go of the past."
"We are also both reluctant killers. As strange as it seems, you are right, human."
"Christine." she corrected. "My name is Christine Shelton."
She held out a hand to him, in peacemaking. The gargoyle turned, and looked between her and her outstretched hand suspiciously.
"No more fighting each other, okay?" Christine proposed.
"On that account only," the gargoyle said, and shook. "we are agreed... Christine."
For a brief moment, with her hand in his, the gargoyle looked closely at her and noticed the extensive bruises. Indicating them, he seemed almost hesitant as he asked, "Did I... do that to you?"
Christine nodded slowly. "Yes. You and your... rookery brother... both did."
"Then... it is I who must say... 'I'm sorry.'"
She would not have expected that from him, but was all the more glad now that she had decided to return after all.
"Mind if I meet you back here this time tomorrow?" she inquired. "I'm gonna have to get some sleep tonight."
The gargoyle measured her expression carefully. "I'll be here."
As Christine drove home that night, she could see him following her by air in her rear view mirror. If he followed her back to her dorm, she was going to have a hard time explaining him to Mandy! When she finally arrived, he did not follow her any further, and just veered off in another direction. She waved.
She and Mandy ran into each other at the photo lab, as Christine was developing the pictures. She'd absently turned the CD player on in one corner, and before had been the only one in the Dark Room.
Luckily, she was in a good mood tonight. "Whew! You look like you took a fall climbing! Where have you been all night? On a date?"
"She's baaaaaaaaack..." Christine muttered so that Mandy could hear. Mandy cautiously walked into the room, sure not to bump her shins into anything in the red half- darkness. She was still dressed in a suit and tie, and smelled heavily of perfume. Christine might have asked what she had been up to, but decided against it.
She and Mandy had been roommates for an entire year, and so they knew each other's quirks rather well. Sure, they argued and fought at times, but usually it ended quickly. Most of the time their bantering was sheerly for the fun of it. Mandy had discovered early on that Christine had no skill at differentiating a serious remark from a joke, and Mandy had learned when to emphasize to Christine that a joke was, in fact, a joke. She was studying investigative medicine, and Christine loved to joke that Mandy might ask for volunteers at the operating table. At the same time, Christine had learned that most of Mandy's superficial playful attitudes held deeper feelings inside, some of which had come out on Christine's shoulder at late hours of the night.
Mandy Dateair came from a french family that had emigrated only a few years ago. She loved to play the social roles, always irritating Christine to no end. Although she was no whiner, she could usually talk her dates into anything short of driving off a cliff. She loved Chocolates, Flowers, and the gentlemen callers who came with them. What came out on Christine's shoulder, though, was something from someone very different. Heartbroken, insecure, helpless, and unhappy. She never showed anyone how hard it had been for her to move away and adjust to such an alien land. She envied Christine, because she was used to it.
"How did it go?..."
"Fine. I was expecting a real battle, but he turned out to be quite a gentleman." she replied ironically.
"So you had a good time?" she laughed, helping hang bathed film sheets on the line.
Christine waved it off like it didn't matter, but Mandy simply would not let it rest. It was Mandy's opinion that Christine was too high-minded to fall in love with anyone, and always leaped at any slight possibility that she had. She looked over Christine's pictures, talking about their occupant like it was a real person.
"So... who is he?"
"Really, Mandy."
"Chrissy, you wouldn't believe how easy it is to find that the most unusual kind of guy can be a total gentleman."
"A water spigot?!" Christine forced a laugh. Mandy still hadn't backed down.
"Or perhaps you're just playing hard to get..."
"Mandy..." Christine growled in warning, the last syllable following on a far lower note.
"Fine, forget it!" Mandy backed down, hands raised over her head in mock surrender. "Look, the guys in the corner dorm are getting some of the girls to bring their dates to a costume party they're throwing tomorrow night for graduation."
"They shouldn't start planning parties until they know they've graduated."
Mandy huffed. "They just wanted to know if you'd come. You can bring... your water spigot friend along too." she motioned to the photographs on the top of the pile, just pictures of the gargoyle's stone form. Mandy hadn't seen the bottom of the stack yet.
Christine looked up at the wall for a moment, thinking. "A masquerade, eh?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Sure, we'll come." Christine affirmed.
"Aha! So there IS someone!" Mandy guessed. Christine did not reply.
Mandy and Christine were starting to develop pictures closer to the bottom of the pile.
"You took my entire film case to shoot water spigots?"
"Let's just say this particular drain spout interests me. How many water spigots do you see in a mountainside setting?"
"You went on a date with a drain spout? Chrissy, baby, you need some serious..." her voice trailed off. Mandy had stopped, looked at the successive pictures of the stone breaking apart. She was gaping at it.
"I need some serious mental help, do I? Huh. You don't know the half of it." Christine smiled to herself.
Christine placed one of the final portraits of the gargoyle before her. Mandy stuttered unintelligibly and gawked at the successive photographs as Christine finished the developing. "Yes. He's the guy I was with tonight. We'd love to come the party. He's got this great costume, ya' know." Christine began to laugh. Mandy was agape.
The gargoyle perched atop the melting snow on the peak of Mount Olympus.
That is, the Mount Olympus in Utah. He had taken a southerly course after... escorting Christine to her place of residence. The Wasatch mountains, it appeared, were a part of a large chain that ran to the north and south. He was unfamiliar with this part of the world, but it appeared quite impressive, none the less. At his island home, the mountains were only a few thousand feet high at maximum, but these out defined the meaning of the word mountain. Their ten thousand foot heights were enough to give the mightiest gargoyle the shivers. They had nothing like this on his father's island! Not this grand...
Most of the upper mountain's slopes were wooded to some degree, more thickly closer to the base of the mountain. Toward the bottom were hundreds of varieties of evergreens, the likes of which he had never before seen. Deciduous trees had grown their leaves, and the canopy of these desert woods was quite thick in the canyons. Higher up the mountains were wide grassy plains fenced off occasionally by ranchers. The gargoyle discovered bands of humans in a hundred different niches, roughing it. They were only a few miles from the city, but in total wilderness, singing songs around pit fires, and sleeping in tents of canvas and cloth cocoons.
He coasted off with the favorable warm night breezes. From high up in the air, the gargoyle could see that this was not one city, but a long string of interconnected cities tucked between the Wasatch Range on the east, and the Oquirrhs on the west. He explored the high rocky spaces about the city, on the same mountain where he and the human had met before. It was unusual, in that it bore two large peaks composed of slanting rock that ran out to wide alluvial fans forming a circle around the valley where the hillside plummeted down to the valley floor at a steep angle, like a great beach head. There, in the valley, the city lay like a sea of multicolored stars, occasionally interrupted by the mark of a large skyscraper down toward the heart of the city, near the cathedrals. Along a rough line down the side of the valley near the mountains, a crack and slip of the earth had been built over by the humans.
This valley had once been an ocean, he deduced, explaining the great beach heads against the mountains above the city. The gargoyle concluded that all that remained of this sea was the Great Salt Lake. However, upon contemplation, he realized this was not true. There was still a sea here, a sea of civilization.
The gargoyle was amazed... even awed at the landscape. It was incredible the things the humans had done. Not a terrible, wasteful thing as he'd long believed, but beautiful... graceful... he was lost for words to describe it. A nest of civilization set between the Wasatch mountains, the Oquirrhs, and that Great Salt Lake to the north with the mountainous island rising from it's center.
The jagged slip bank was obviously due to the moving of the earth. On an ocean bed? That was suicide! As beautiful as it was, this city had a death wish. No sane king would build his kingdom on the bed of a lake or sea where the earth moves! The land would swallow the castle when the land next moved! The gargoyle had seen it happen.
Sighing, he found a modest red sandstone cave atop the twin peaks, where he opted to spend the next day.
But not yet. He had something he needed to do before this night was over.
Daddy was there when Christine returned to her dorm. Michael "Mike" Shelton, was standing by his car door, whistling to her.
"Been driving around for an hour looking for you! When you weren't at the diner as usual, I got worried." he shouted. Christine rushed over to meet him. He whistled with astonishment at her expression.
"Wow! You look you've been through the wringer this week! What on earth happened?"
Christine smiled. "Only today, daddy. I... fell."
"Bad day for climbing?"
"You could say that."
Daddy winced with sympathy at the thought, and patted her shoulder. She knew how he felt about her climbing, and he would let it sink in by the look that he gave her. Christine sighed, and climbed into the passenger side of his small four door tawny colored Toyota Tercel.
The small square house in the countryside beyond Park City to the east was brightly lit, as though everyone had been waiting a while for her return. Once they reached the house, Christine had become so thoroughly ingrained in the deep melancholy mood she had been in to possibly get out of it. Upon leaving the car she encountered everyone in her family, waiting for her.
Of course mom wasn't there, and things seemed a bit hollow that she was gone. Yet, here and there she had left her mark, a picture on the wall, a knickknack, some saying or action that betrayed her influence upon them all. Matthew and Keturah "Ket", 13 and 11 years old respectively, were both hyper and excited when Christine came in the front door. Ket jumped up onto her shoulder, making Christine wince and rub her shoulder. Matthew was a strange boy, probably the most fashion-conscious of the family, he often gave Christine advice on what or what was not "en vogue". He usually acted distracted, and often tended to live in his own little world. Keturah was the most like mother though, in Christine's opinion, because of her innocence and mysterious nature. Sometimes Christine looked at Keturah, and saw her mother come to life.
Even though Christine was probably not acting as enthusiastic about being back with them again, she felt it all the same. Here was the only place in the world with decent people she knew and she could halfway trust. She didn't know why, but she did not trust people easily.
Matthew was doing something with dishes and silverware when Christine came in, and dad went right about orchestrating the details of getting dinner on getting dinner on the table.
Christine sat down at the table right away, lost in thought. Mike noticed how distant she seemed, and decided not ask her to help out with things.
"Why so quiet, tonight?" Matthew asked. Matthew was far too intelligent for his age, a trait that Daddy said Christine shared. Mother had been the really smart one, though, ten years ago. Ket was a prideful little girl, the one Christine thought she most resembled.
"Hard day." Christine answered blankly.
"Why?"
"Oh, I met this really strange guy, and he..." she admitted.
"Ah, Christine has a boyfriend!" Matthew summarily announced to the household. No one else paid him any attention. He did that whenever Christine came back from college for a day or two. He was obsessive about Christine's lack of a love life, almost as much as Mandy. Such a strange boy.
"Oh be quiet, he is not." Christine said, lightly but defensively.
"Why 'ya thinkin' about him, then?"
"He's just different."
"How?"
"He just is." Christine shrugged, hiding the irony in the statement.
"Why don't you ask him over for dinner, then?" Daddy asked, smiling.
"Oh, stop being pushy." she replied, lightly defensive still. "You don't know a thing about him. Besides, I'm almost nineteen and I've got my whole life in front of me right now to be worrying about romance."
Daddy was setting a few bowls and things on the dinner table, as Christine lightly snacked on tidbits here and there, waiting for everything to be done.
"Perhaps." he said, "but you can always start with someone like him. You never know what might happen."
"Daddy, really. What will happen, will happen. Would you just let it go?"
"No way! If I know you, you'll hole up in a text book or a museum somewhere and not come out until you're forty."
"Yeah, whatever dad." Christine muttered. Daddy only smiled.
Christine's gaze fell to the table top. The wind had risen outside, and the grass in the field was rustling outside, creating the sound that sand makes when it rustles in your hand. Christine softly touched her mother's black and white photograph in the red plastic frame. Always in the center of the table during meals, it was symbolic. Daddy had often said that, 'She's always in the center of our lives.'
"Daddy?"
"Hmm?"
"What was mother like? I'm having trouble remembering."
Ket and Matt were quiet, but dad's eyes stared up into the room with a glossy look.
"She was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her heart leapt with the deer and ached with the rain." he whispered poetically. "She was so sweet to you. She was protective of us all -- probably what got her into so much trouble. She loved to talk about your friend GT's newest figure, and secretly wondered if it would come to life."
Christine looked up, surprised. "She did? I never knew that!"
"Oh, it's not that she was crazy or anything. Just innocent."
Deathly silence. Christine shifted nervously. He'd said that before, but she had never learned what it meant. Could it be her mother had known about gargoyles?
At the sound of an unfamiliar tap at the window, Christine lost her train of thought. "What was that?"
"Probably just something blown on the wind." Matthew shrugged. Christine wondered for a moment more, and then turned back to her thoughts and her family.
The gargoyle behind the window watched from the shadows the entire night, unnoticed by everyone. As Christine slept that night in her attic bedroom, she never saw the figure in the shadows beyond her window in the moonless night that watched her.
Dark shadows mingled in the meager light on the forest floor where the Dreamer stood. At first, the Dreamer could not say from where the light came, for it was the darkest of nights. Then she saw the candles. Hung throughout the bows and branches of the trees were small tin plates with small, lit candles on them. Though bright, the light they gave was minimal, and the forest was full of shadows still.
She was hungry. She needed to find something to eat.
Turning about, she saw the man. He stood behind her in ninth century leather armor and sword. He watched the Dreamer with deep, unfathomable eyes. He stood oddly with wide splayed legs, as though something about his armor made him stand that way. His sword was drawn, but not raised. Rather he held it down and relaxed as he watched her. His face flickered and changed with the changing light of the candles, but his expression remained straight. She thought she recognized this face from someone she knew in waking, but the light changed so quickly that she could not make out who it was.
Then they became one. Somehow, without moving toward each other, the Dreamer knew that they had merged and become the same person. Now it was the Dreamer holding the sword. She raised it, and began to step forward. She felt it's weight in her grip, but somehow it's weight did not pose any for bother her.
She stood on the brink of a tree limb, hundreds of meters above the ground, with the candles flickering around her. From this height, she could not see the ground below. The Dreamer retreated from the brink, and found herself on a wooden suspension bridge hung between the branches of two great trees. One tree was laden with beautiful fruit, the other with strange, dark, and oddly colored fruit.
The Dreamer took a bite of the lovely fruit from the near tree. It was sour and rotten. She spat it out, and threw it down.
Looking at the fruit on the other tree, she wondered if it tasted better. She took careful hold of the ropes, and began to cross the bridge.
Suddenly, a man dropped from the sky, and landed on the bridge before her. She thought she recognized him.
"Do I know you?" the Dreamer asked.
"Do not leave us." he said calmly.
"I have not left you."
"You are leaving us."
"But the fruit is sour." the Dreamer complained.
"It is what we all must have. Who are you to say that you must have something else?"
"I just want to know if it is better."
Defeated, the dark phantom became a cloudy and completely unrecognizable form - wailing at her.
"NO! YOU MUST NOT EAT THOSE!" it cried, like an imprisoned soul.
"Why mustn't I?"
"IT IS THE WAY OF YOUR PEOPLE!" the voice wailed again.
She felt the warrior inside her take action. Raising her sword, the Dreamer attacked the dark, vaporous mist; charging across the bridge and slicing at it as she went. It cried out in agony, faded and was gone.
Approaching the other tree now, she saw that this dark fruit was not rotten. She ate one. Although it's outside was prickly and rough, inside it was soft and sweet. It quenched her hunger and she felt stronger.
The Dreamer looked around her. This end of the bridge was good. Here, there was a house built in the tree for her. Inside, she could see candles had been laid out for her return. She sheathed her sword, picked another fruit, and went inside.
"SO BE IT THEN! IF YOU CHOOSE THIS PATH, WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO FIGHT YOU!" the phantom's voice raged behind her where she could no longer hear.
When Mandy caught Christine whistling in the shower the next morning, she became suspicious. Her suspicions later became anxiety when Christine finished all her papers at work in the same day. However, what really blew Mandy away was that Christine was in the mood to fix dinner that evening after classes. Everyone in their room watched her whistle and cook simultaneously, as though they were watching an ant winning a boxing match with a bear.
"Really, Chrissy. Either you're in love, or you had some great sex last night. Either way, that's a frightening concept for someone like you." Mandy pointed out. "You're glowing!"
"Someone like me?" she asked, incredulously.
"You yourself told me you were a virgin."
"I just didn't realize I was doing it." Christine shrugged, returning to the original topic.
"Are you going to be there tonight?"
"Would you rather I stay here and study?"
"No! Of course not."
"Who are you going with?" one of the other girls in the room inquired.
"What? Tell you and let Mandy tell the whole university? I don't THINK so!"
Christine met the gargoyle on the side of Twin Peaks, near where they had met the night before. Christine called out for him once the sun had gone down. He appeared, dropping out of the branches of one of the trees on the wooded slope. Christine jumped back in shock.
"You startled me!" she accused him.
"No, I frightened you." he corrected Christine.
"That too." Christine added. "Look, I don't mean to be telling you how you should live your life, but I think you need to learn some more about the humans around here. If you're just hanging around up here, you are never going to find a way to avoid going on rampages through museums. Besides, you need to know who your enemies are, don't you?"
"True, however..."
"Great, then. Some friends of mine have been begging me for days to find a date to take to this costume party their having. I've always dreamed of winning first prize or something, and I wanted to bring you along. What do you think?"
The gargoyle scowled, uncertain.
"You need to know more about humans," Christine stressed pointedly. "This is the best chance you're going to get."
Solemnly, like signing his death wish, he agreed. Christine climbed into the driver's seat of her old Chevy Malibu, waving for him to climb in next to her. "I've gotta think of something to call you. Ever driven before?... press the metal end into the little thing by the side of the seat." Christine instructed him as he fumbled to imitate her actions with the seat belt.
"What does it do?"
"It keeps you in the seat if the car stops suddenly."
The next thing he managed to learn was to use the control for sliding the window down. He stuck his head out and let all his long white hair stream behind him in the wind.
Christine was still thinking about GT, and what Mandy had suggested about this gargoyle being a boyfriend. She would have mentioned it to the gargoyle, but he was so busy comparing driving to gliding that he was not paying any attention.
Christine sighed. She was willing to wait.
After fumbling around in the chest at the base of her bed for a few minutes, Christine discovered her mother's wedding dress which she had worn for Halloween a few months earlier. She loved the feel of it, all soft white gauze and lace in the back. Her mother had given it to her to wear only on special occasions, before she had died, and it seemed appropriate, given all her thoughts about her mother of late. When she was wearing it she felt like someone else - someone who was more than herself - and perhaps, to some small degree, beautiful as well. It was as though she had no problems in the world and could act entirely carefree. Christine loved the feeling. She normally had such a low sense of self-esteem that anything that made her feel beautiful was welcome relief.
The gargoyle had done nothing more to improve his rugged good looks than to put on a sports undershirt with large sleeves that allowed him to slide his wings through. Christine was amazed he had done it without tearing the shirt too badly. He looked a little like a combination of a sports figure and a movie actor, in the light shirt and loin cloth. Christine shrugged. They had better get first prize for this one, she thought. Then she dug about in Mandy's closet for a few moments, and finally uncovered what she had been looking for -- Mandy's leather jacket! The gargoyle zipped it up over his folded wings, leaving their extended length hanging below like some strange form of tuxedo tails. Christine wished she had not used all of Mandy's film. He was big enough that he fit the jacket perfectly. It was one of those items that Mandy had acquired from one of her male associates, who had been quite large, and emphasized the white T-shirt underneath and his broad chest perfectly. Christine admitted, perhaps, she was a little aroused by him as well.
Mandy, her roommate, was a tall girl with a figure she barely kept through rigorous weight training. Christine thought she was just killing herself with all that unnecessary work - the female form was just not designed to hold that shape. Just as long as Christine could climb, she didn't care how she looked to everyone else.
As she and her uncommon date approached the brightly lit and decorated Cultural Hall, Mandy noticed them coming up the sidewalk, and came bounding out the door. With the braids of her medieval princess getup flying behind her, she rushed to greet them with the friendly enthusiasm and carefree attitude that Christine had always admired in her.
"It's a great party, Christine! I'm glad you came. Everyone will remember this year's college graduates!" she exclaimed.
"We don't graduate for three years." Christine returned. Mandy shrugged it off, taking a look at Christine's gargoyle companion.
"Love the costume, big guy." she said, "I want to hear about everything you and Chrissy have been doing."
The gargoyle looked to Christine in his bafflement, but she merely shrugged. Mandy had seen the pictures, but Mandy seemed to be in some kind of total denial. "Some people I will never understand." she whispered.
The party was a joint activity between the men's and the ladies's dorms. This was mostly a church function, so dress and dancing standards were being enforced by large and portly women wielding large cooking spoons.
The gargoyle obviously did not trust her. Most of the time he appeared ready to fly at a moment's notice. Christine tried to quell commentary about his costume to ease his discomfort. Frankly, all the questions of the curious about her "date's" identity were making her nervous as well!
All of the girls from Christine's dorm were whispering among themselves, trying to figure out who in the world Christine's date was. Christine, afraid he might get himself into an awkward situation, acted possessive of her "date", so that, in truth, she could keep an eye on him. He was pleasantly intrigued by the treats on the dessert table, and asked many questions about why humans interacted the way they did.
Christine tried to introduce him to all her friends as politely as she could. Most appeared very impressed at how "realistic" his costume was. What surprised her more was that he understood just how humorous their comments were, and smiled at them. He was not much of a dancer, she had to admit, since he didn't know the steps to any popular dances. He could do a simple sway nicely. What a couple they must look like, Christine thought, one leather jacket and one wedding dress!
The music was not very different from what the gargoyle had expected. He seemed to have heard a lot of this music from a distance before.
"As a hatchling, when I had barely learned to glide, I would sneak away at second meal to a home a few miles to the southeast of my clan's home. There would always be some music playing there. I would just hide and listen until nearly midnight, when they would turn it off and go to sleep." he explained.
He had little enthusiasm for some songs. However some strong but slow songs got his attention very well, and he appeared to feel the emotion of the song very strongly. He learned to time his sway of motion while holding Christine to the rhythm of the music. There were even some heavier, more rock and roll style pieces which he enjoyed -- but Christine didn't try asking him to hold her during those. She tried urging him to at least tap a foot to the beat to show he was enjoying the music, but he was too engrossed in the lyrics, so she finally gave up. Besides, there was some danger in what his foot might do to the floor if he tried...
However, the biggest attraction for the gargoyle at the party remained the dessert table. Whatever his diet had been in that out-of-the-way hole he had been taken from, it was nothing to the modern pastries available at the dessert table. Cookies, punches, cakes, doughnuts, everything was new to him, and he ate with curiosity and vigor.
"Iw wike thews." He muttered to Christine with his mouth full. Christine slapped her hand over his mouth.
"Swallow." She directed. He did. "Show me gargoyles at least know basic manners."
"I like these." He repeated clearly.
Christine's eyebrows furrowed. "Where are you from, anyway?"
"Who are they?" Christine suddenly asked. The gargoyle had asked many times who the people were during the evening - some she couldn't identify because of their costumes, however, this time she was pointing to three ladies on the opposite end of the hall, watching them like hawks. All three had the same face, same profile, same clothes (no costumes), same hairdo, but different hair colors. She was intrigued.
Christine couldn't pin down the age of the three girls. They had all the stance of a twenty-something year old, but faces that seemed to be of thousand years old set in stone. As Christine and her "date" approached them, the three nodded toward the back of the building so that they could see, and then began to walk out in that direction. Christine and the gargoyle just looked at each other for a moment, and then followed.
Outside, in the sheer darkness of a night with barely a slip of a moon and no one in sight, they wondered if these three were not just somebody come to look in on the party. They were about to shrug it off and go back inside, when there was a sudden burst of light.
Immediately in front of them, three figures stood in the air in front and above them, glowing with a beautiful radiant energy. Christine was more surprised than the Gargoyle was, because she ducked behind him with a surprised yelp. There were those three women again, this time in flowing white robes and with gold circlets running around their brows. They had long pointed ears and slanted eyes. The first had greyish white hair, the second golden blonde, and lastly one with ebony black hair.
"Who are you?" the gargoyle demanded fiercely, a growl rising in his throat. Christine watched with narrowed eyebrows.
"We are servants of Oberon."
"We bear you no animosity."
"We come to ask a favor of you."
The gargoyle stared at them with trepidation. "You'll forgive me for being suspicious as to the nature of your request."
"We do not ask for any great sacrifice,
"Only a favor when the battle comes"
"To this part of the human world."
"What battle?" Christine inquired in a low voice. She was ignored by the gargoyle.
"I will aid any if I can." the gargoyle agreed. He seemed very hasty to be polite to them, or perhaps to be of some use to someone again, for he said it with great concern.
The three turned to Christine. Their gazes were like owls' late after dark, piercing and frightening. The gold haired one turned to her, as if first noticing her existence. She made a simple three word inquiry of her.
"YOU accompany him?"
"Well, sort of... only recently..." Christine stuttered. It's not like she was on the best of terms with him. Things had been rather tense between them so far and she was not sure she could really say that they were friends, as much as Mandy might dream about him being her boyfriend. The gold haired one leaned over to the white haired one, and whispered something in her ear.
"Would you consent to accompany him,"
"In the tasks we would ask of you?"
Christine was baffled at what she was agreeing to. She could sense hidden meanings in all this, and that frightened her. The gargoyle was looking at her expectantly. "Be polite." the gargoyle warned her, whispering in her ear.
"Yes I would, but I can't make any promises..." she replied.
"Done, then!"
"Very well."
"We shall meet anon."
"The Dark Warriors approach this part of the world."
"We must all be prepared for the battles to come."
"Be watchful warriors both."
Then it was dark, and the three were gone.
"That was strange." Christine noted. "Who were they?"
"Messengers of some sort, with some relation to Oberon."
"Oberon? As in the king of fairies from A Midsummer Night's Dream?"
"He is the father of a race of Changelings, creatures of magic and sorcery. I learned about them during my rookery days."
"Dangerous?"
"Only if you make them angry. I'm glad to see you did not."
"I'd feel a lot better knowing what it was I agreed to."
The gargoyle nodded. "I doubt they meant us ill." he reassured Christine.
"I wish I could agree. Do you think we've had enough of people for the rest of the evening... and the rest of this year?" she was starting to get irritated. There was just so much about her gargoyle... companion that she simply did not understand.
"I suppose we have. It is time to leave." the gargoyle said, and began to move toward the door. They only made it about half was across the dance floor before Christine suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" he inquired, concerned.
Christine was rubbing her shoulders. "I don't know. I just had this pain in my shoulders..."
"Hey, Chrissy!" Mandy said, running over. "You want to join us for a game of Hearts?"
Christine did not reply. She had dropped her face into her hands. She took a deep breath, and looked up. "What was that?" she asked.
Mandy's face became concerned. "You okay? You look kinda pale..." Christine's expression turned a horrific combination of annoyed, angry, and pained. She turned, and glared at Mandy with an expression that said leave-me-alone-or-I'll-tear-your-guts-out. Then she growled... vocally. The sound, like the gargoyle's loud, vocal, animal growl, reverberated in her throat.
Mandy took an involuntary step backwards. Christine let her breath out slowly, her expression suddenly twisted with astonishment, clutching her throat in her hands.
"Did that come out of me?" she gasped in shock, eyes wide.
Mandy and the gargoyle nodded. Christine put a hand on the gargoyle, to steady herself.
"I just had the strangest feeling..." Christine said dizzily.
"Maybe we should get you to a doctor!" Mandy suggested.
"I feel so hot..." Christine whispered. She nodded her approval. They began to move across the dance floor once again, as the gargoyle tried to lead and steady her.
Then Christine screamed, the wild, high pitched scream of a wounded jaguar. Her friends were all wide eyed, now. The room fell into chaos as all conversation stopped short and people looked up in terror, and were shouting in alarm and concern. Christine threw her head back, hair flying. Her eyes glowed like red hot cinders in her face.
"CHRISTINE!" Mandy exclaimed in horror. The gargoyle's eyes were wide with astonishment. The air rippled with powerful magic.
Christine gripped the sides of her face and screamed again, shuddering in pain, standing on her toes. The gargoyle stared down at her in wide-eyed horror as she writhed and stumbled forward. She had grown two great horns, cresting along each side of her head. Mandy and the gargoyle gasped. Christine clenched her fists as the muscles in her arms and legs suddenly tightened. She had only four fingers!
The sound of ripping cloth was heard. From the back of her shoulders a pair of doubled wings sprang out and unfolded, demolishing Christine's mother's beloved wedding dress. From the base of Christine's spine, a tail ripped through into skirt of her mother's wedding dress. Her skin tone drained to a ghostly white and then flushed to a pale pink tint. Her fingers became talons, stronger and sharper than stone. Her pumps split open, as three toes burst out, and a pointed fetlock grew in place of her ankle. She became taller, muscles bunching and growing. Her voice pitched, deeper and fuller. Her legs extended further apart, and her knees and elbows became sharply barbed. Her wings grew as full as the gargoyle's, with their backs covered in a soft ebony velvet. The upper set of wings bore three little fingers at the tip, and overlapped the slightly smaller, more delicately shaped lower set. Her tail grew as long as twelve feet, like the gargoyle's. With her mouth open, they all saw her teeth had become great pointed fangs.
Christine's screams fell silent as she fainted and pitched forward. The gargoyle quickly caught her up in his arms and flung his wings wide.
The gasping and gawking students gave cries of astonishment at the sight of one winged creature hurrying out with a second. His wings were not just an odd part of the tail of the costume?
The gargoyle took Christine and ran with her out into the parking lot, leapt atop the hood of an unfortunate car, and then up onto the cool night winds.
Dazed and in complete shock, Mandy slowly picked up the torn remains of Christine's white pumps.
The metamorphosis had not stopped, and Christine's entire frame was shivering and convulsing. They needed to set down somewhere, and fast. The gargoyle glided across over Salt Lake City looking for some place to land.
The rooftops were nothing like Dublin or London. None of the houses had flat roofs. The only stone or cement buildings were downtown, full of lights and noises. They were all flimsy buildings, and the gargoyle doubted they could hold the weight of a someone atop them. There was no where to hide in this city!
Then, he noticed a small building, a cathedral, with balustrades atop towers at either end, hidden in a grove of trees in the busiest part of Salt Lake City. It was night, and few were about. The gargoyle swooped downtown, to set down there. From a quick glance around him, he did not suspect anyone had seen him. Someone looking from one of the nearby skyscrapers might have only passed them off as fleeting shadows in the night.
Christine whimpered. "Daddy?" she asked, looking blankly and unfocused at the gargoyle. "I feel so strange..."
Was she becoming delusional? "Tell me about how you feel." the gargoyle asked. She did not seem to hear him.
"Pain..." she moaned, stirring in his arms. "the pain..."
"You were just put through something very painful, try to be calm." the gargoyle said, trying to be encouraging.
"It's so quiet..." she rambled in a daze, "...can't see..."
It was possible all her senses had been blinded in the transformation, and obviously she was feeling completely dazed and confused, he reasoned.
Christine appeared to be both deaf and blind.
"Christine," the gargoyle called her by her name, "Can you hear me?"
Carefully laying Christine down on the tiles, the gargoyle brushed aside a few months of dust and dirt left on the roof. Then he propped up the back of her neck, as he had been taught. Her breaths were quick and harsh, while her pulse was erratic and kept changing it's rhythm. Perhaps the transformation on the outside was being followed by a transformation on the inside? The gargoyle had not been prepared for this, though he could not say he hadn't expected something like this to happen...
This human had tried to be friendly toward him. Seeing her being put through this ordeal made him feel some responsibility for her and he rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She seized his hand and clasped it in both her own and her violent trembling eased and finally stopped.
Clearly, internal things were still happening. Blood vessels bulged and then receded. Alternately her skin paled and then blushed. He watched it continue for a few more minutes until it all finally came to a stop and she seemed to be stabilized.
Her eyes, which had been dazed and unfocused, closed, and then reopened, clearer now, their misty haze seeming to lift. Christine looked at the gargoyle for a moment in the dark as her eyes slowly found focus. She gasped once, startled. She could see and hear again.
"You..." she said. Her voice was different than it had been in the cultural hall near the university. It resounded more, had a rich new fullness to it that the gargoyle decided he enjoyed. "It's you... what's happening to me?"
"Whatever it was, I think it is over." he replied simply.
"I feel so weak, so tired." she moaned.
Did she realize it yet? Does she know what has happened?
"What do you recall?" the gargoyle inquired.
"I... I don't know... we were leaving the cultural hall, Mandy came running over... then I blanked out."
Could it be she was blocking it out? The gargoyle had heard of such things before.
Christine tried to sit up, but was not able to hold her balance. The gargoyle extended a paw, offering help. Gingerly, she extended a hand. The gargoyle took it, and helped her to a sitting position, leaning against the battlement.
She did not withdraw her hand though. When the gargoyle let go, she paused, looking at her hand. It was dark out, and the gargoyle did not know if she could see it. She turned her head, and placed the hand between the night sky and her eyes. There was enough light from neighboring buildings for her to see it.
She gasped repeatedly. "What...? My hand?!!! How...?!!! My voice..." Christine touched her throat, as though it were the culprit. She then laid her hands against her face. "What?!!!"
She felt the curves of her cheek bones, and the horns that had grown around the crown of her head. She began to make choking noises, as she ran her hands down her sides in the dark. Her dress was torn badly in the back, however the parts that held the shoulders and the front to it were not damaged. The skirt was little more than torn tatters now.
She pushed on the tiled floor of the roof, and stood up like a newborn colt, unsteadily, with newborn legs trembling and quivering. Christine felt her feet, long and pointed with sharp talons and razor barbed hocks. She felt the barbs on her knees and her elbows. She found the tail she had grown, and ran her hands along it's length with an expression of mixed horror, shock, and wonder. Standing in the light from all of the buildings nearby, through the trees shown through, she could see the massive wings behind her. She felt their weight on her back, and she was stunned. In an almost frightened way, she flexed both pairs of wings, and wiggled the fingers at the apex of the larger pair. She ran her tongue over her rows of sharp, feline teeth and fangs.
"What have you done to me?" she whispered. The gargoyle did not answer, but shifted awkwardly. Christine clasped her hands around her chest like it hurt. "WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?!!! I'm like you! I'M A... A GARGOYLE!!!" She threw her arms back, and screamed like a wild tiger in fury. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!"
Christine took her claws and began to scratch at her chest, as if trying to tear her very skin off her body. She tore the dress wide open in the belly. The gargoyle was afraid she would soon draw blood.
"No, don't do that!" he interceded, seizing her hands and holding onto them.
"Get it off me! Get it off me! I'm not a creature... I'm not a monster..."
"CHRISTINE, STOP IT!" he commanded forcefully. Christine stopped, and stared at him with a look of terror. For some reason his gaze held her attention. The gargoyle stood, holding her wrists in his stone-like grip. Christine fell to her knees, burbling and about to cry.
"Please..."
"I don't know what has happened, but I am not going to let you hurt yourself." he said.
"I'm... I'm not like this..." she said, tears starting to well up from the wells of her eyes.
"Do you believe I am nothing more than a monster?" he asked, gentler now.
Christine said nothing, only looked at him, eyes wide with narrow, crescent-shaped pupils. The blue and grey gargoyle knelt next to her.
"Did you think I am a monster? Did you think that you were never one to me? You need to see the truth behind appearances, Human."
Christine just shook her head with her mouth open for a moment, then corrected him. "I'm not human, not anymore..."
"There is more to the world than just humanity."
"An animal, is that what I'm being reduced to?!!! I'm never going to go to school again, I'm never going to be able to show my FACE in public again... everything in my life is gone!" Christine cried bitterly, the tears dripping down her face heavily now. "MY LIFE IS RUINED!"
"Perhaps... perhaps it only begins. What good are those things if they can be lost to you so easily?"
Christine did not reply. He was wrong, wasn't he?
"I thought you hated trying to be social - hated being around other people. Were there not times that you called all people fools? I know you hated trying to put on a face for the kids at that party?"
"How... how did you know that?"
The gargoyle sighed. "I've been watching you... ever since I met you, I've been watching you at night."
"But, why?"
The gargoyle shifted nervously. "Because... you were willing to make peace with me... you weren't afraid of me, you didn't want to kill me. It seemed a strange thing for a human to do, and so I was curious." he stammered, trying to explain the feeling.
Christine watched him for a moment, trying to decide if he was telling her the truth.
"I can't tell you if you were better off before or now, because I don't know. No one in this world that I know of has the power to do something like this except for a very good reason." he said.
"You mean those three weird women at the party?"
"Possibly. They were Fay Folk, certainly powerful enough to do this, and I know you've never met anyone like that before tonight."
"Why would they want to do this to me?"
"Good question."
Christine drew in a breath. The gargoyle watched her, concerned. "I'm all right." Christine said, taking a deep breath. "I'm calm." She walked to the edge of the parapet, looking out. "I'll survive."
"I'm sorry." the gargoyle apologized. Christine shifted nervously, but nodded to him.
Experimentally, she spread her wings wide behind her, and stepped up onto the rail atop the ramparts. For a moment she looked doubtful. What was wrong with her? Hadn't she always wanted wings? Why was she so frightened? However, the old Christine had never backed away from a daring new challenge. She would not back away now. The gargoyle stepped up beside her, and together they leapt into the air beyond. "I'll never get used to jumping off rooftops."
At first, Christine's flying lessons were simply going from one parapet to the other on either end of the building. She was quick student, and soon they began a second lesson, gliding across the city, hand in hand (for stability).
Their courses were in slowly widening circles, high above the lights below.
"You know..." Christine began.
"Hmm?" he replied, staying near her.
"I gotta have something to call you. You can't go on being 'hey-you' or 'that gargoyle.' You need a name."
"A name? Gargoyles do not use names."
"Too bad, you need one." She thought the problem through for a moment. Christine and him, she pondered. Her thoughts turned to her tattered wedding dress and what she could possibly wear in this form. She suddenly laughed.
"Why do you laugh?"
"Phantom. Your name is Phantom. Phantom -- of the night." Christine announced, banking her wings slightly east. The gargoyle was puzzled, not understanding her meaning, but followed her glide.
Christine glided more steadily down toward the university on the east side. Phantom, as she called him, followed.
Her landing left a few things to be desired perhaps, as skidding across the lawn on her back, totaling the last of the dress. She muttered something about needing to work on her landing as Phantom came to a perfect perch atop the outside wall.
"Showoff." she accused him. "I'm going in to..." she sighed, realizing the drastic change her life had now taken, "tie up a few things."
"I will stand guard over you." Phantom said.
"Fine, but don't let anyone see you."
|
||||||