A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!)
Rating: G. Spoilers for up through "The Gathering"
Chapter Four: Divergence
"I'm all right, Goliath, don't worry," she reassured him, and turned around to slash at the ankle of another Frost Giant. "Man, these things are HUGE."
"That's why they call them giants, I do believe," said Puck under his breath, and, concentrating, cast a ball of fire at one of the giants. Despite the name they weren't actually made out of snow and ice--they were normal (albeit very large), solid, flesh-and-blood humanoids with white and ice-blue colouring, which made them look as if they were made out of snow and ice, from a distance. However, being used to colder climates, they were still more vulnerable to fire magic than other creatures, and Puck was taking full advantage of this.
The battle was not going that well--so far, nobody on their side had been seriously hurt, but they weren't able to inflict any real damage on the giants either. Not that most of the people in their group wanted to kill the giants...they just wanted to make them stop, go unconscious or something. Puck could have told them they were wasting their time--the Frost Giants had been locked up in that pocket dimension for many centuries and were very, very angry. They weren't about to just surrender.
Not surprisingly, the smaller person who best matched them in ferocity was Demona. She was insane--using all the different weapons she had brought with her, dodging and weaving between the giants' feet--Puck kept expecting her to be stomped on or crushed by an enourmous weapon, but she always dodged aside just in time and kept attacking, never letting up, as if she had gone berserk. Perhaps she had.
The younger Gargoyles fought with great enthusiasm, too--which was perhaps not terribly surprising, as Avalon was the only home they had ever known, and they were fighting to defend it. Snarling, Angela flew at a Frost Giant's face, her javelin out in front of her. The giant whapped her aside with a slow yet powerful flick of one huge hand, and the hatchling careened out of control. Gabriel, the greyish one with blonde hair, caught her before she would have hit the ground. Princess Katherine then took advantage of the giant's momentary distraction to shoot an arrow--and actually scored a hit, in the giant's left eye. It howled with pain and staggered around, disoriented.
"Good shooting, Your Highness!" called out Tom, charging towards the stricken giant with an enourmous broadsword. However, just before he could swing, the giant lurched dizzily towards him. The human knight had to leap out of the way in a great hurry, not really watching which direction his sword was moving. There was a sizzling sound, as of something metal touching an electrical field, and for a second, a shimmering blue bubble of light flashed into view, surrounding the fay's body. Then it flickered out and died, and Puck felt a sharp, burning pain sear across his upper left arm.
He cried out, despite himself. Iron was the one substance that could rip through his magical defenses as if they were naught but wet paper. Clutching his arm, Puck fell to his knees in the snow, his breath hissing between clenched teeth. Tom realised what he had done and, ashamed, led him away from the main heat of battle.
"Are ye all right, sir?" he asked, worried and embarrassed. "Most apologies, I didna mean ta..."
"It's--" Puck started to say it was all right, just a scratch, but then thought better of it. Here's my excuse to get out of the battle so I can go follow Xanatos... "OW! Oh, argh! It hurts..." He ripped a piece off the white blouse he was wearing and wrapped it around the wound. Even though it was superficial, it was bleeding a good bit, and the bandage was soon stained dark green.
As Tom looked down at him with an expression of extreme shame and worry, Puck reassured him, "Don't worry, it's not actually serious. But I will need some time in order to do the healing spell. You go on, go back to the fight."
Tom still looked unconvinced. "I can take ye back to the castle..."
Puck waved him off. "Go! I'll be fine, really. I'm not angry with you. Accidents do happen. Go. They need you back there. You're one of their best warriors." He left out the fact that this was only true because the others were mostly untried civillians. Well, Tom was technically an untried civillian too, but at least he had done a fairly decent job of training himself to use a sword and shield.
Still looking back over his shoulder for a bit, Tom picked up his sword again and returned to the fray. Puck stayed where he was, waiting for him to leave, then decided to get on with his own plans. His magic could only do so much against the Frost Giants...and besides, fixing the whole problem that was currently wrong with Avalon was more important. He had an idea of how to do that--and he also had a feeling that it had something to do with the recent disappearance of David Xanatos. So, ducking behind a tree so as to avoid the gazes of the others, he prepared a spell to take him to the billionaire. He briefly considered healing himself first, but it was only a minor wound. He needed to track down his erstwhile employer first. And he had a feeling he was in the past...
"Make time into a revolving door,
And take me back to what was before!"
The world shimmered and rippled about him, as it usually did during a major teleport spell...but partway through, Puck suddenly felt as if he was being WRENCHED sideways--to both the left and the right at once. By the time he finished fighting off the resulting wave of dizziness and nausea, he was at his destination.
A destination, anyway...
Puck looked around at his new surroundings in confusion. This was...not where he had expected to be taken. Instead of being back in medieval Scotland, he was still on Avalon!--only, Avalon as it should be, all green, warm, inviting, and beautiful. It would have been deeply healing to Puck's soul to see his homeland whole and sound again, if not for the fact that he knew that something had gone wrong with the teleport--and that was NOT a type of magic you ever wanted to hear the word "Oops!" associated with. Confused, he looked around, trying to get his bearings. Can't do another spell of that size just now, I need a bit to recover...
"Mother, what's that?" called a voice from about a hundred yards away, in a meadow beyond the grove of oak trees Puck was currently standing in. "I thought I saw a...a flash of light, from those trees over there."
"Don't be foolish, Avery," came a gentle male voice with a British accent. "Nobody lives here except for the three of us and Tom, and we wouldn't start a fire in the woods."
"But I'm telling you, I saw something." insisted the voice of Avery, which Puck judged to be a young boy. "I'm going to go see what it was."
Whoops! Gotta hide. thought Puck, looking around for good hiding places. He could attempt to turn himself invisible, but "invisibility" spells didn't really hide a person or thing from view entirely--all they did was enhance the possibility that anybody not really looking for the person or thing, wouldn't happen to see them. And the boy was looking for Puck, or at least for where the "flash" from the teleportation spell had come from. So Puck did the next best thing--hide in plain sight.
"Ah, there's nobody here," said Avery, looking around. Puck studied him through his new eyes. The boy was about nine years old, physically, (he would be quite a bit older in normal-Earth years, of course) with pale skin, light brown hair with a white streak at the right temple, worn long in a ponytail, large, slanted grey eyes, and unusually delicate features. He wore a simple green robe, tied at the waist with a length of rope, and a pair of home-made sandals. If Puck didn't know better, he would have assumed the kid was a mixed-blood...there was something...odd about him. Well, besides the fact that, on the normal version of Avalon, he had never been born....
"Oh, how cute!" cried the boy, catching sight of Puck in his disguised form. Puck cursed himself for not having chosen something a little less appealing to humans. Avery picked up the fluffy, long-haired albino squirrel, petting it. "A white squirrel! I've never seen one this colour before. Can I keep it, Mother, please, can I keep it?" He carried Puck in his arms as he walked back out of the trees.
Princess Katherine--looking a good bit younger than she did the last time Puck had seen her--came forward, laughing. "Of course you may, son," she said, "But only if it likes you. If it wants to go free, you must let it."
"I promise I'll be kind to it," said Avery. Then he noticed the wound on the squirrel's left foreleg for the first time. "Awww, he's hurt...I'll get food for him so he won't have to, until he gets better." He gently set the squirrel on the ground.
Now's my chance to get out of this crazy alternate-reality! thought Puck, and prepared to zip off into the woods. But just before he could leap, he felt a strange force binding him and the boy began to chant.
"Twigs of oak and pine lying near,
Make a cage to keep him here."
And before the astonished fay could move, a wooden cage had formed itself around him out of twigs and small branches on the ground. What the? thought Puck to himself. How'd he DO that? That was a fay-magic spell--but this kid's human!
...A human who was conceived and born on Avalon, the most magical place there is, and taught from a very young age by a wizard father...hmmm... Well, at least now I begin to understand what the strangeness was that I was sensing about him. But how to get out of here without breaking character...?
"Now, now, Avery," chided the Magus. "What have I told you about using your magic unnecessarily? You'll wear yourself out!"
"Father," protested Avery, rolling his eyes, "It was just a little spell, it won't hurt me. Besides, how would I keep the squirrel still while I took the time to make a cage the normal way? You know how fast they are."
This is all very interesting, but alternate realities aren't supposed to happen, something is going MAJORLY wrong with Avalon's magic if even time itself is breaking its own rules...GET ME OUT OF HERE! thought Puck frantically. He paced back and forth in his cage, looking for all the world like any ordinary hyperactive rodent.
"Perhaps he doesn't like the cage, dear." said Katherine.
"I think he wants something, but I don't know what..." said Avery, looking into the squirrel's pupil-less blue eyes.
Oh, geez. There it is. The cue for one of the biggest cliches ever. But, well, they do say that cliches are cliches for a reason... Swallowing his pride, Puck sat up alertly and "pointed" with his nose and fluffy tail towards the woods.
"I think he wants me to go that direction." said Avery, staring at the squirrel.
Yes, yes, that's it, pick up on the clue...
"He lives in the forest, it's only natural he'd be happier there," said Katherine.
Puck pointed towards the grove again. The boy picked up the cage. "Can I have a picnic in the woods?"
"Don't climb too high up any trees," advised the Magus. "And if you see Tom, tell him to get back to the castle by sunset for dinner, okay?"
"I will." Avery headed off into the trees.
From a short distance away, unseen by all, Tom watched the scene unfold, and sighed. Now the physical age of approximately twenty years, he had had a crush on the Princess for a long time. But she had married the Magus--unofficially, of course, since there weren't any priests around--back when he was just a child, and now...well, he cared for them both deeply and couldn't bear to think of hurting either of them. It was just...he wished things could have been different, somehow...
The young man shouldered his fishing pole and went back to the river.
The moment they were sufficiently out of sight and sound of the others, Puck decided that enough had been enough. He stretched, and kept on stretching, breaking apart the flimsy wood of the small cage easily. Avery's jaw dropped in astonishment as, within seconds, his pet white squirrel transformed itself into a short white-haired man, with a bandaged cut on his left arm. Well, probably a person--pointy-eared, but close enough. Avery had grown up seeing only three other people, so he didn't have much basis for comparison as to what was "normal" for a human or not.
"Who are you?" he yelled, backing up several paces. "What did you do with my squirrel?"
"Look, kid, I'm not gonna hurt you." said Puck, holding out his hands to show he came in peace. "And as for your squirrel...there never was one. It was me."
"Amazing." The boy blinked, then looked up at Puck with shining-eyed admiration. "Can you teach ME how do to that?"
You? Specifically? I probably could. thought Puck. But it would only work here on Avalon, wear you out terribly, and last but not least, I'm just...not going to. "I'm afraid not," he semi-lied, "It's something only my kind can do. Your parents taught you about us, I assume? The Third Race? Children of Oberon, all that?"
Avery nodded. "Yes. They said that when they first came here, there were only three of you...Children of Oberon here, three women who look almost the same..."
Puck nodded. "That would be the Wyrd Sisters."
"They wouldn't let my parents land because they were carrying the Grimorum, and the...sisters said that only Avalon's own magics could be here. But then my father turned them into birds and chased them away with his staff!" The boy grinned mischeviously--it was obvious this part of the tale was his favourite. "But they still had to leave the book. My father was really sad...until one day, when Tom, who was a kid like me back then, fell out of a tree and my dad used his knowledge of herbs to heal him. That made him realise he was useful after all so then he felt brave enough to tell my mother he loved her." The kid stuck out his tongue at this. Like all young boys everywhere, it seemed he had a very low tolerance for "mushy stuff" in a story.
"This is all very interesting," Puck interrupted, "but the point is, I'm another...being like them, like the Wyrd Sisters, and we're just born with powers that humans can never have. I'm sorry, but I can't teach you how to change into a squirrel."
The boy seemed disappointed.
Puck suddenly had an idea--why not take the kid along? If I'm right, he mused, once we fix whatever the problem is with Avalon's magic, time-travel will go back to normal--which means these alternate realities will no longer be accessible. So...unless I take this kid with me to the normal time-line...nobody, not even the most powerful of my kind, will ever be able to see him again. And ya know, I just kinda like the idea of thumbing my nose at the Rules of time itself. He grinned.
"I can't teach you how to turn into a squirrel..but I can show you something truly amazing!" said Puck in a sprightly tone, causing Avery to look up again, "I am about to go on a great journey--we're going to go back in TIME!, and see the castle where your parents grew up, back on Earth. Won't that be fun?"
"Travelling through time?" Avery was wide-eyed. "Is that even possible?"
"Yes, it is," said Puck, bending down to look at the kid on his own level--although he didn't have to bend very far. "But you've got to promise me something. You've got to promise me that when we get there, you will be quiet, stay out of sight, and don't do ANYthing unless I tell you. You might mess up history otherwise, and that would be bad. Very, very bad."
"How bad?" Avery didn't much like being told to stay quiet and not move around, so he wanted details as to why such an unfair restriction was being placed on him--by someone who wasn't even a parent, too.
"You might accidentally wipe yourself and your mother and father straight out of existence--make it as if they'd never been born." explained Puck. Actually, history was more or less immutable, as various tests with the Phoenix Gate had proven--yet here he was, in an alternate history, and according to all the theories these things weren't supposed to exist...
Avery gulped and went even paler than he already was. "I...I'll be good. I promise." he said solemnly.
"One more thing." At this, Puck took hold of the child's shoulders and looked him straight in the face. "When we get done time-travelling, you might see two people who look a lot like your mother and father, only much older. You absolutely must NOT tell them who you are, or act like you recognise them. Because, you see...they're not really your parents. They are from...a place where things went differently, and you were never born. In this other time, the Magus never told Katherine that he loved her, and Tom won her love instead. If your...alternate father found out who you were, it would only make him feel even more. So please, don't say anything when you see them."
Avery didn't quite understand all of this, but he did know that he didn't want to make his parents unhappy. "Er....all right, I guess. I won't say anything."
Puck looked the boy in the eye again, then, seeing only truthfulness in the grey depths, stood up and raised his hands into the air to chant a teleportation spell--this time, one that was meant to take him to Xanatos directly, rather than just trying to go to a certain time-period.
This time, he got it right.
"The Phoenix Gate may be able to take you anywhere--but it seems it can't dress you for the occasion," he muttered to himself, holding the talisman up so that it caught the light. He had palmed it from Puck's blazer pocket while the fay was distracted during that conversation on Avalon earlier. Xanatos didn't know about the restriction that the Gate had to be given willingly to work for its owner, but perhaps the Gate considered everybody who had travelled to Avalon to be part of the same "group" and was therefore interchangeable between them until the trip was over--perhaps this was just another side-effect of the way Avalon's magic was now warped. Whatever it was, Xanatos intended to use it to his advantage.
"He won't need it for a while--not as much as I do, anyway," muttered David, looking around, trying to figure out exactly where he was. It was so strange to be in a place that he thought of as his, yet at this point, wasn't. "Where would they keep them, I wonder...?"
He continued to explore the castle, and at one point, came across the empty bed-chamber of some minor noble who was evidently out carousing that night. He searched through the man's closet and came up with a tunic, hose, tights, cloak, and boots that weren't too bad, fashion-wise...unfortunately, not everybody was as tall as David Xanatos, especially back in the middle ages, so the clothes were rather an awkward fit. Still, it was better than nothing, and as long as he kept the cloak closed he looked fairly normal. It helps me blend in around here better than an Armani suit, at least, thought the businessman to himself.
Just then, he caught sight of a narrow spiral staircase leading upwards...a dusty, neglected staircase that seemed somehow forbidding. Aha! he thought. This looks promising...
Suddenly, a young page-boy walked out of an intersecting hallway and straight into Xanatos, spilling the bowl of water he was carrying all over the billionaire. The boy went sprawling, the man was merely knocked backwards a few steps. "Oof!" said Xanatos, shaking his head.
The boy started apologising, seeming terrified that this great noble would punish him for such an impudent blunder. "I'm sorry, sir, really terribly sorry sir!" babbled the boy, standing up and bowing as long as he could. "It was an accident, sir!"
"Quite all right," smiled Xanatos, turning on the charm. He looked at the boy--a small one, about nine or ten years old, with light brown hair in a ponytail and rather delicate features. "I'm not angry. What's that you've got there?" He pointed to the small white squirrel the boy was carrying.
"Er, that's, er, that's Lady Knox's pet," said the boy, nervously, still backing away. "I was taking it to the castle herbalist to get its paw healed." Indeed, the squirrel had a tiny bandage around its left front leg. "Shall I fetch a towel to dry you off, sir?"
"No," said Xanatos, who wanted to have a look up that staircase--but not when anybody else was around. "That's quite all right. You go help the Lady's pet--I'm sure she'll be grateful to you."
The boy tugged his forelock and bowed again. "Thank you, sir!" And he ran off around the corner.
"Charming lad," muttered Xanatos, and headed up the stairs.
"Rather overdoing it, wouldn't you say?" said Puck, as he and Avery stood in a corridor in one of Castle Wyvern's upper floors. The boy had been recostumed--by magic, of course--into a passable page-boy outfit, and Puck looked more or less like himself except his hair had been turned golden-blonde, his ears smaller and rounded, and his eyes less slanty. The fay wore the green, brown-trimmed robes of an Earth Mage, because he might need to use his magic in public while they were here and wanted a disguise that would give him a realistic excuse to do so. He also walked with a tall wooden staff, carved all over with what appeared to be arcane runes. (In reality it was just a stick of wood--but it wouldn't do for the humans to think he was casting spells without any proper wizardly apparatus.) "I mean, really, all that 'Oh, no, great sir!' and even tugging your forelock." The fay rolled his eyes. "Come on."
"You told me to stay in character..." Avery pointed out.
"Yeah, but it seems you've got a lot to learn about acting, kid." He stopped and considered something for a moment. "Then again, considering the way you were raised..."
"What happens now?" asked Avery, fascinated. "Do we follow that man you told me about, to see what he does in the magic library?"
"No need," Puck waved his hands as if to brush that idea aside. "That water you spilled on him--great job, there, by the way, it really did look like an accident--was no ordinary water. I cast a spell on it, so that as long as it is on him, I can see and hear everything he does. So, we can find out what he's doing without danger of being seen ourselves. Let's go find an empty room where we won't be found for a while, and watch."
By the time he reached the top of the stairs, David Xanatos was very glad indeed that he kept himself in as good shape as he did. Most people would be panting and sweating something fierce by the time they made it to the top of this thing--David himself was still short of breath, as it was. Man, how high up AM I, by now? he wondered. I must be in one of the towers. Well, nothing for it but to enter the room and see... He pushed on the heavy oaken door. To his relief, it swung open with a creak and the businessman entered the room.
It was a surprisingly large room, with a stone floor adorned with colourful woven rugs, tapestries on the walls, and some simple yet functional furniture--a wooden table with matching chairs, a few cushioned armchairs and it was...somehow familiar. David stopped with a jolt as he realised where he had seen this room before--it was the room in the tower where he had been talking with Fox and the others before leaving on this journey! Only, it had something his tower room didn't--rather, many somethings. Books. Hundreds of books, on shelves all along the walls. Xanatos's stared in amazement at the number--in this day and age, what was in this small room represented great wealth and effort indeed. It looked as if finding what he wanted would take a bit longer than he thought...
"Excuse me, sir?" came a quiet voice, and Xanatos looked up, startled, to discover that the library had not been as empty as he had expected-- hoped, actually. A slender, pale young man with strikingly sharp features and waist-length, silver-white hair came striding towards him, white robes flying out behind him as he moved. Xanatos guessed that the man must have been sitting in one of the chairs that was turned away from the door when the businessman first came in, and that was why he hadn't noticed him at first. "I'm afraid you must have taken a wrong turn--you're not supposed to be in here. Only those who are skilled in the mystic arts may enter this library."
Xanatos studied the man while he concocted a response. Upon closer inspection, he realised he knew this person--it was the one who had been introduced to him as "The Magus", who had teleported them inside the castle back at Avalon. But his hair is white even back at THIS age, he noticed, somewhat surprised. What with the odd colouring, the "elvish" face, and the magic talent, I almost wonder if he's entirely...? "I am a wizard," he lied quickly. "An apprentice, I mean. I was sent here by my master to fetch a book for him."
"What, the Archmage?" The Magus looked at Xanatos suspiciously. "He has no apprentice, other than I. And I graduated from his tutelage a few years ago."
"No, no, a different wizard," said Xanatos, trying to sidle past the man and into the room so he could look more closely at those fascinating shelves full of old books. Old, already--even though they were in the year 994 A.D. "One from very far away, across the water." Might as well throw in an explanation for the accent, too, while he was at it.
The Magus looked askance at Xanatos's ill-fitting, wrinkled finery. Must be a spoiled lordling who decided to dabble in the occult merely for something to do. Hmph. People like that just make me so... "No offense, sir, but aren't you a little...old to be an apprentice? The study of magic is very difficult, and is best started in childhood."
"Well, I wanted to be a knight, but it turns out my father's name wasn't influential enough to get me reccommended to the king, so I decided to switch over to studying magic instead," shrugged Xanatos, still trying to get past the young wizard. "Better late than never, eh?"
The Magus was still staring at him with unnerving intensity. "What is your father's name, anyway, my lord?" he asked, looking sideways at the tall American. "I've never seen you around here before, nor yet heard anyone who speaks with a dialect like yours. From whence do you hail?"
Xanatos rolled his eyes. Oh, boy. He's NOT going to let me through anytime soon, is he? Technically I do have all the time in the world, but I am still losing patience with this. "Look, great wizard...may I shake your hand?" Xanatos held out a hand, and, a bit confused, the Magus took it. "I would be honoured if you would teach me, sir," he continued, squeezing the young wizard's hand. As he did so, the little needle filled with knock-out drops he had put between two of his fingers pressed into the Magus's hand and the wizard fell over unconscious.
I knew those little knicknacks Dr. Sevarius worked up for me would come in handy sometime thought David, who routinely carried various odds and ends, never knowing when they might become useful. "Sorry about that," he said, stepping carefully over the unconscious young man. "But you'll recover, and I really do need to look around here without being watched." Staring around with satisfaction, Xanatos entered the library. All around him were books of and about magic, herb lore, legends, ancient history...surely, one of them would have what he needed.