A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!)
Rating: G. Spoilers for up through "The Gathering"
Chapter Three: Frozen
Nervously, Katherine turned to Tom and the Magus in an attempt to make conversation. Anything was better than just sitting here in the dark, waiting for...whatever, to happen. "So..." The word made the other two jump, even though she had spoken in a quiet tone, "Er...so this is what it's like to see storms on Avalon. The clouds must be very thick indeed to block out the sun like that, right?"
"Yes." said Tom, unable to think of anything else to say, and laid his head back down on his arms in another futile attempt to catch a bit of sleep.
Nervously, the Magus cleared his throat. He had that expression on his face that people get when they're about to say something that will upset the other person, but the other person has to know. "Actually, Your Highness...that blank darkness? It's...not caused by clouds."
"Then...why can't we see the sun?" Katherine blinked in surprise.
"There..." here the Magus looked as if he was struggling with himself to complete the sentence "...isn't one."
At this, Tom sat bolt upright. Guardian and Princess stared at the magician as if he had gone completely mad.
"At least, that's my theory, anyway," said the Magus, backpedalling quickly rather than look into their eyes. "If Avalon really has been cut off entirely, then it is in its own seperate pocket universe. With nothing else around. Don't you get it? That means...no sun. No moon. No nothing."
"So..."
"Unless whatever this problem is is fixed soon, we'll all freeze to death. Well, us mortals will. I'm not sure about the Sisters."
At this, the Wyrd Sisters momentarily roused themselves from their lethargy.
"We Daughters of Oberon are indeed long-lived and can withstand many things you mortals cannot, due to our magic..."
Luna trailed off.
"...but some things can still harm us. A land without sunlight will kill us the same as you." Phoebe went on.
"It will just take longer..." concluded Selene, in a barely audible whisper.
Then, as if somebody had hit their "off" switches, the three fell back into their sleeping poses in unison.
The three humans just stared for a moment.
"But if there's no sun, how come the hatchlings are asleep?" wondered Katherine aloud, after a moment.
"Yes, that's a very good question. Tell us, Magus, do you have a theory about that?" asked Tom, who was now too unnerved to even attempt sleep.
"I think..." the Magus had been wondering about this matter himself, "I think...that time is now...frozen. When the island was cut off, the sun was just beginning to rise. So now, with no sun, there are no cycles, and we will stay in eternal 'dawn' until Avalon's shores are opened again. That means that the Gargoyles will never wake up...for however long we have left..."
And they'll be the lucky ones, thought Katherine morosely. No need to say it aloud--the others were all thinking the same thing.
Outside, the stinging rain turned to snow.
In her office--or rather, Anastasia Renard's office--at the Australian division of Cyberbiotics, Queen Titania looked up with a sudden jerk. For no reason at all, she felt cold...so very, very cold...even though it was summer in the southern hemisphere. Her first thought was to go put another lab coat on over "Anastasia's" outfit, but as soon as she thought of it, she had the feeling that that would do no good--the cold was coming from within, not without. But just to make sure, she put down the portable game system--with "Fantasy Quest XII" still running--and peeked out the window, being careful not to let any of the mortals see her face.
Bright sunlight greeted her eyes, green grass, people were walking around outside in t-shirts and shorts...it was a perfectly normal December day.
Yet still she knew that something was terribly wrong.
"And tell Bradley in Research that I want his report on my desk by tomorrow morning, Darlene, or..." Fox Xanatos put a hand to her head, suddenly feeling dizzy, but she didn't know why. "Or...." She shook her head and looked around, as if just now seeing the room for the first time. "What was I just saying, Darlene?"
The short, somewhat pudgy secretary pushed her cats'-eye glasses back up her nose and prompted her employer, "Bradley's report...tomorrow...?"
"Oh, yes." said Fox, shivering. Why was it so cold all of a sudden? She knew Darlene wouldn't dare mess with the thermostat settings in her office--not if she knew what was good for her. "Yes. Tell him to have it on my desk by tomorrow morning, or..." She shivered again.
"You all right, Mrs. Xanatos?" said Darlene solicitously, in her nasal Brooklyn accent. "You don't look so good, if ya don't mind me sayin'."
"I don't...feel so good," admitted Fox. "Tell you what, Darlene, I think I'm going to call it a night and go watch an old movie on cable. You can knock off early too."
"Gee, really, Mrs. Xanatos? Thanks! Now I can catch up on my Christmas shopping!" The secretary started to gather up her things.
Fox just nodded vaguely; she had other things to worry about. But since I'm probably not going to figure it out any time soon, I might as well just go rest and see if that helps any. she thought. Turning on her heel, she left the room.
"Wow, so this is Avalon..." Elisa shivered and pulled her coat closer to herself, now really wishing she had thought to bring warmer clothes. Memo to self: Buy a parka as soon as you get home. She stared around at the snowdrifts, the black sky criss-crossed by clouds of dark reds and greens, and the strange, unearthly aura that seemed to be coming up from the ground itself. The pale glow was just enough to make you wish you couldn't see anything at all--it just made the shadows seem that much darker. "It's not how I imagined it, though...did we arrive in the middle of a storm?"
Xanatos said nothing, just scanned the landscape, storing away as much detail as possible for later.
Puck was experiencing a very strange and disorienting mixture of feelings. Physically, he felt an almost scary euphoria--power, power surging back into him in great waves, power which should feel wonderful but instead was writhing, twisting inside him, chaotic...as if struggling to get out of control...it made him light-headed and giddy, and he had to fight to keep his wits about him. Emotionally, he felt both happy to be back home, a place he found intolerably dull and would normally go out of his way to avoid--and sickened with worry at the same time. This was Avalon--a changeless paradise, the Summer Country...it was NOT supposed to look like THIS! Or feel this cold... His low-level defense spells had kicked in automatically, but even shielded as he was, he still felt cold...and that meant the temperature would soon be lethal to the humans.
He was about to say something to this effect when suddenly a gasp came from behind him and he, Elisa, and Xanatos turned around to stare at Demona.
Clutching her head in her hands, the female Gargoyle began to...change. First, the white stripe disappeared from her hair and the wrinkles from under her eyes, but that was only the beginning. The skin changed from pale blue to peach, the features softened, she became several inches shorter, the form less muscular, the feet flat on the ground, the talons and fangs became ordinary fingernails and teeth, the bony spikes on knees and elbows retracted into smooth flesh, and the tail and wings dwindled into nothing. The entire time this was happening, she writhed about, in obvious pain but even more obviously determined not to cry out in front of others.
When it was all over, a normal-sized human woman stood there, wearing simple white rags that were suddenly FAR too skimpy for this climate.
Goliath, meanwhile, had turned to stone.
"Well, I guess that answers the question of whether it's day or night..." mused Puck, leaning against Goliath's stone shoulder as if it were a convenient wall. "And also the question of whether or not the spells would re-activate if the 'power' came back on."
Elisa just stood there, stunned, staring at the redheaded human woman in disbelief. Xanatos was surprised, too, but he covered for it by taking off his trenchcoat and gallantly offering it to the shivering ex-Gargoyle. She looked as if she would like nothing better than to toss it on the ground, but thought better of it and wrapped the garment around herself.
"So, now you know my secret," said Demona, trying her best to speak in her usual haughty tone, but it lost some of its effect due to the fact that she was still panting with exhaustion and shivering at the same time. "I asked THIS one--" here she minced barefoot through the snowdrifts to Puck "--to cast a spell that would keep me from turning to stone during the day. He thought it would be--" and here her voice took on more of its proper sneer "amusing to make it so I turned into a HUMAN, the race I despise most, during the day, instead."
Puck shrugged. "Well, you can't say I didn't deliver. Look, it's daylight--sort of--and you're not stone, are you?"
Demona reached out a hand and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, yet again. She had gotten into the habit of treating him like that from the first time they met...it hadn't quite seemed to occur to her, yet, that not only was he not in chains this time, but she was also nowhere near as tall and strong as normal. "But now the magic is back, and I am going to get out of you what I originally came to Xanatos's tower for. I want you to change my spell---make it work the RIGHT way. NOW!"
Puck said nothing, but his eyes started to glow an unearthly bright green, his long silver hair writhed around on non-existent breezes. The were-human didn't seem to think much of this, but it was not lost on the other two, and they stepped away from the pair. Elisa, who had seem him go like this once before but it was when he was helping, not because of anger, suddenly found herself shivering for a reason that had nothing to do with the cold. Suddenly instead of looking almost like a small, harmless little almost-human, he seemed to be some wild, feral demon-creature from the Shadow Realms. I've gotta stop reading those cheesy fantasy books Matt keeps reccomending to me, she thought.
Xanatos looked a bit unnerved, too--he had known that his assistant was not human since...before he was his assistant, but the businessman had never seen him looking quite so...inhuman, before.
It seemed as if Demona had finally pushed her luck that one millimetre too far, that Puck was going to do something really horrible to her...but instead, he just mentally flipped her into the nearest tree.
"Rule Number One," he said, walking over to her very slowly, hands on hips, "Never pick a fight with someone on their own turf. Rule Number Two: Avalon does NOT give refunds. If you are dissatisfied with your service, it's your own fault for forcing one of us to give it to you against their will!"
Demona stood up, dizzily, and opened her mouth as if she was about to argue, but Puck gestured again and she zoomed about 50 feet into the air. He then held her there and continued talking as if nothing unusual was going on, swinging her around in circles a few times just for fun, first.
"I made it so you would turn into a human partly out of my sense of dramatic irony, yes." he continued. "After all, how could I resist? People with no sense of humour are always the easiest ones to make fun of. But it was partially for a real reason, too. You see, to change something in a way that goes against its fundamental nature is far more difficult than to change it to something it's already sort of like. For example, it is easier to make an evil person commit murder, than a good one. A Gargoyle's tendency to turn to stone during the daytime is built into them at that deep, fundamental level. It can only be changed by a spell of great power, and by the end of that night, I was nearly drained. So, rather than just give up entirely, I...side-stepped the problem. You don't turn to stone because you turn into a race that doesn't NEED to turn to stone. It was the only solution at the time--aside from having you turn into a dumb animal, of course, and I doubt you would have wanted that."
Demona, after struggling against the invisible force that held her in the air for a moment, grudgingly listened to what Puck had to say--and something occurred to her. "Wait! That's not true. There is another option."
The three on the ground looked at each other...then the implication hit all of them at once. Puck's eyes went wide. "NO." he said flatly. "Absolutely not. No mortals may be turned into members of the Third Race--and for a very good reason. They would have the powers without the long lifetime's worth of learning how to use them--ultimate power with absolutely no restraint or knowledge. We can handle this level of power because we are used to it; we live our entire lives fighting against the temptation, learning to control ourselves. A mortal would not have that benefit of experience--the feeling would be too overwhelming, possibly even unhinge their mind. Such magic is forbidden--do not speak of it again."
"But..." began Demona, almost pleading. "I wouldn't abuse my powers--I've been around for..." she cut off as she realised that she had been about to give away personal information that she would rather Elisa and Xanatos did not know, "....longer than most mortals, anyway. I could handle it! All I would use it for would be to look human while not actually having to suffer their weaknesses, change shape to fit in, look just like everybody else..." But you shouldn't HAVE to. came a bitter little thought from somewhere deep inside.
Puck lowered her slowly most of the way, dropped her the last ten feet into a snowdrift, and shook his head. "No. Even if I could do such a spell--which I can't--no."
Meanwhile, wheels were turning within Xanatos's mind, as always. Forbidden magic, he mused. "Forbidden", NOT "impossible". Interesting...very, very interesting...
"Well, I think we should try to find some shelter or something," said Elisa, whose lips were now almost turning blue. "Man, is it ALWAYS this cold here?"
"It's not supposed to be cold at a--" began Puck, but was cut off as, with a sudden lurching sensation, all five members of their party--including Goliath--disappeared from the frozen landscape.
"-ll" he finished, and the group stared about themselves in confusion. They were standing on a large wooden table--or what was left of it, anyway--in a stone-walled room--a kitchen, from the looks of it. It was small enough that its fireplace could keep it at least warm enough to be liveable, and that was more important thing to the castle's inhabitants at the moment than grand, ostentatious decor. Three humans and three almost-identical women who looked human except for their eerily pupil-less blue eyes stared back at the group, seeming almost as startled as they were--perhaps because the arrival of Goliath's extremely heavy stone form had smashed the table into kindling.
Puck recovered first. "Sisters!" he exclaimed, leaping backwards from them involuntarily. Oh, they are NOT gonna be happy that I brought mortals onto the island without permission... "Er, thank you for teleporting us here, but..."
"We did not cast the spell," said Luna, shaking her head solemnly.
"It was the human magician," said Phoebe, inclining her blonde head towards the Magus.
"We did not know he was capable of such a thing." finished Selene.
The four conscious members of the party turned to stare at someone they hadn't noticed before, possibly because he was so quiet--a thin, elderly man with a beard and long white hair. Demona's eyes went wide with shock as she recognised him and the Princess. "YOU!" she yelled. "I remember the two of you, very well indeed! But how are you still alive after all these centuries?"
"One could ask the same of you, my dear," said Xanatos gently, raising an eyebrow at her. "But enough of this touching little reunion--I'm more interested in hearing how this talented gentleman pulled off such an impressive spell."
Embarrassed at the attention, the Magus babbled, "Well, you see...normally I couldn't do this. The power of this place is...enhanced, right now, because of the way Avalon's magic is...turned in
upon itself."
"I noticed," said Puck quietly, his eyes flashing green for a moment. All his life, he had used magic...now, he had to fight to keep magic from using him.
"Er, yes..." the Magus agreed. "It's enhanced, but erratic. I don't have my book of spells with me anymore, but I remember my training, and I've had a theory that maybe I could use it to pull upon the power of Avalon itself for a while now..." He gulped, waiting for someone to interrupt him. When he realised that they were still hanging on his every word, he went on. "Well, even though I knew it wasn't a good idea, when I saw you out there, freezing to death, I thought, I just CAN'T let them die, but how do I get to them through all that blinding snow, and--"
"--We came to you." said Xanatos, standing up and walking over to shake the Magus's hand. "Very good work, mister...?"
"They just call me the Magus," he said, looking into the smiling face of this intimidating stranger--a smile that did not reach the eyes. "I...I've been 'The Magus' for so long, I've forgotten my real name."
"How long HAVE you guys been here, anyway?" asked Elisa, accepting the fur robe that Tom silently put into her hands. "Those clothes aren't exactly cutting-edge fashion, back in the real world--unless you're going to a RenFest."
Katherine handed fur robes to Demona and Xanatos. "Over a thousand years," she answered.
"But...but I thought you guys were human!" Elisa was bewildered.
"Time does not flow on Avalon as it does in the real world, child," said Luna.
Puck waited for the other two to chime in, and was amazed when they didn't. Wow, things must be REALLY bad he thought, dryly.
"They're not the only mortals here!" shouted Demona, pointing out the window at the battlements across the way. "Look!"
Sure enough, various Gargoyle statues were perched atop the stone walls. "You think they're real?" Elisa asked, staring at them. She couldn't tell until they actually moved, herself.
"I just know." said Demona. "Those are my own kind, not statues. I'd almost bet my life on it."
"And ye'd be right, though ye won't see them wake up any time soon," sighed Tom, turning around as he finished stoking the fire. "According to the wizard here, this island is frozen in eternal 'daybreak'--but with no sun--until we can...rejoin the world again. The air is still here because it belongs to Avalon, but the sun, that belongs to the 'mortal realm.'"
"No sun?!" demanded Demona, whipping around to stare at the others. "What do you mean, no sun? You mean it's behind a cloud, right? How can it be day without any sun?"
"No moon, either," said the Magus, folding his hands into the long, flowing sleeves of his white robes, "or stars. Nothing. Avalon is now in its own seperate universe, floating in space, as far as I can tell... Even with the Wyrd Sisters' protective spells working at full power, we still have only...the equivalent of three days here left before we all freeze solid. Humans, Gargoyles, and Fair Folk alike."
And if Avalon dies, then so will all my brothers and sisters on Earth. thought Puck, miserably.
"Is there anything we can do to--" Elisa began, but was cut off by a huge, shuddering CRUNCH from outside. Even though it seemed to come from a long way away, it still made the floor of the castle shake. A pause. Then another impact, from closer. Then another, even closer and louder.
"It is as we feared!" cried Luna, as all three stood up.
"The weakening and twisting of Avalon's magic has caused one of the prisons to open, and the creatures inside have escaped!" continued Phoebe.
"They're back! Avalon is invaded!" shrieked Selene. The three joined hands and began to float off the floor as an eerie green aura surrounded them.
"Who? Who's back? Who's invading?" Demona wanted to know.
"THE FROST GIANTS!" shouted the three sorcoresses in unison.
Elisa tried to remember what she remembered hearing about Frost Giants...oh, no, not..."They're here because it's 'the end of the world', right?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"Actually, they're here because the pocket dimensions are starting to...leak into each other, but it's also the end of a world." said Puck, standing up slowly and looking at the wall as if he was seeing straight through it, watching the giants' progress--which he probably was. "Close enough."
"We must stay here and guard the castle," said Luna.
"But we will give you magical protection against the elements," said Phoebe.
"And weapons," said Selene.
"Fight for Avalon, please! Save our homeland!" they chorused. The three sisters raised their hands over their heads in unison, and a sprinkling of glittering green dust fell down over the humans.
Elisa immediately felt warmer, as if an invisible shield was all around her body, keeping the cold out. But how am I to fight a giant--frosty or otherwise--without any weapons? she wondered. They said they'd give us some, but I don't see any. This would have to happen on the one day my gun is in the shop...
As if in answer to her thoughts, part of the wall in front of them wavered into mist and disappeared, showing a small, cramped room. Curious, Elisa stepped inside and looked around. "These are the weapons you're giving us?" she said, coming back out holding what looked like a perfectly ordinary sword in one hand and a mace slung under her other arm. "You're kidding me. Shouldn't they have, I dunno, blades made out of fire or something?"
The Wyrd Sisters flinched as one when Elisa accidentally gestured towards them with the sword while talking. "They are made out of iron, child." said Luna, shuddering. "That is why they were hidden away so carefully."
"The Giants are also of the Third Race," continued Phoebe. "Iron will harm them."
"Our kind have....not always been united, you might say," concluded Selene. "There are parts of our history we're not exactly proud of."
Elisa worked this out. "I get it. You're saying that dangerous as these weapons are, Oberon knows that someday, the Fair Folk will have to fight each other again, so he hid the weapons rather than get rid of them entirely, right?" Gee, why does that sound kind of...familiar? I certainly have never heard of governments in the REAL world behaving that way, no...
"Exactly." said Puck, who winced as Demona strapped on a sword belt at the waist, a longsword at the back, and a dagger to each leg. Remind me to stay out of HER way during this battle... "I myself will be using magic, of course, though I'm not sure how well it will work, around all this iron..."
"Maybe ye should take one of the weapons, too...just in case?" suggested Tom. "Ye could wear gloves or some such."
Puck just looked at Tom, and the knight dropped the argument.
"But even with these weapons, how can we few hope to survive against giants?" wondered Katherine, testing the string on a compact hunting bow.
"You will have help," said Luna, and turned towards the wall of the room. She held her hands out in front of herself at arm's length.
"We shall temporarily release the Gargoyle hatchlings from their stone sleep," continued Phoebe, matching her sister's gesture.
"Join with them, and you will have a chance," concluded Selene. They gestured towards the outside wall and started chanting.
"Creatures who in stone would sleep,
Awaken to guard this ancient keep,
Let no Gargoyle in slumber fall,
'Til this fight's ended, once and for all!"
As they chanted the spell, a beam of green light shot out of each sorcoress's hands. The three beams joined into one large beam in the middle, and went straight through the stone wall without disturbing it.
Only a small amount of what happened next could be seen through the kitchen's small windows, so everybody except the Sisters went outside to look. There was a great cracking sound, and, with many a ferocious roar or snarl, the stone Gargoyles on the parapets came to life, stretching as they did so.
From behind the group came another cracking sound, as Goliath woke up as well. Confused, the huge Gargoyle came up behind Elisa and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around. "Ah. Um. Well, it's kind of hard to explain, but basically...there isn't any sun and we'll all freeze to death soon, the Frost Giants have escaped from some kind of prison, and the Wyrd Sisters woke up you Gargoyles early so you could help in the fight."
"There is to be a battle, that's all I need to know," said Demona, swishing her sword through the air with a flourish. This was her element; it was almost as if this was 10th-century Scotland and she was Goliath's second in command again. "Come to me, my troops!" she commanded the newly-woken Gargoyle hatchlings. "Our enemy lies over that hill!"
The hatchlings looked confused at the fact that a strange human woman--not Katherine, whom they knew well--was ordering them about. "She's a Gargoyle. No, really," said Elisa. "It's...a long story."
One of the hatchlings--an adolescent girl with blueish-lavendar skin and long coffee-coloured hair--came forward and stared curiously at Goliath. She seemed about to ask him something, but then stopped as if she wasn't sure. Goliath and Demona stared at her, too, but since Demona was in human form at the moment--something just...nagged at the back of each of their brains, without snapping into a clear answer.
"My name is Angela," she said, a little nervously. "Can...can somebody tell us what's going on here?"
Another shuddering CRUNCH sounded from off in the distance...but not distant enough as far as Elisa was concerned. "No time for that now! Hurry!" she cried, waving towards where she thought the sound had come from. "We have to do something or we'll all be crushed!"
Goliath couldn't stop staring at the young Gargoyle girl...she looked so familiar...and one of the others--a young male with grey-green skin and blonde hair--brought back phantoms of the past as well...but he shoved these thoughts out of his mind to concentrate on the immediate problem. I hate to admit it, but Demona is right, he mused. The only thing we need to worry about right now is guarding the castle...even if it isn't, technically, our castle. Almost everybody in their group rushed off towards the sound of the giant footsteps, weapons out and ready.
In the confusion, Puck was the only one to notice that Xanatos was nowhere to be seen.