Chapter Forty-One
Chapter
Forty-One
“So,” I said to the assembled residents of the castle.
I was standing in front of them all in the main hall, several days after our confrontation with the Wardens, with the gargoyles lined up motionless as statues behind me.
“In conclusion, the gargoyles here are real, yes. They will move and talk and things. They’ll also help defend and protect everyone here in the event of danger. I mean, if there’s a fire or whatever.”
The kids, including Maggie, were all sitting up front. Hands went up like in a classroom.
“Uh,” I said. I pointed at a boy who was about ten, one of Matias’s kids, whose name was Jorge. “Jorge, yes?”
“Can we climb on them?” he asked brightly.
“Uh,” I said. “Maybe treat them like you would teachers at school. They’re not really playground equipment.”
Jorge took this in with a frown. “Will they give us rides?”
“Only if it’s an emergency,” I said, “and they need to keep you safe for some reason.”
Maggie waved her hand. “Do they turn to stone in daylight? Like in that old show?”
“They’re kind of stone all the time,” I said. “No, it doesn’t work like that.”
The kids were all leaning forward curiously.
“Look,” I said. “Most of the time they’re going to be in the rock of the walls and floor and so on, out of sight, because there’s enough people out there who are freaked out about supernatural creatures.
” I nodded in the direction of the protesters.
If you listened hard, you could hear them when they got going.
“If the gargoyles come out, it’s because I’ve got them doing something, or because there’s some kind of problem or danger.
So if one of them shows up and tells you that you need to go to your room or get outside or whatever, just know that they’re good guys, and they’re on our team. ”
“They can climb on us,” Basil said calmly in his resonant voice. He turned his leonine features to Jorge. “We have a number of graspable outcroppings. We like children, though they often make little sense.”
The littlest of the gargoyles, Cinnamon, with the head of a monkey and the body of a cat, nodded vigorously in silence.
Thyme, who had the head of something very like an owl, and the body of something more like a humanoid bear, spoke in a light tenor and a very English accent.
“If any of us are to be treated like a teacher, I believe that should be me. If you provide me with the relevant texts, I shall be pleased to offer my services as a tutor for any students here, as well as providing scholarly context from the brightest minds of a number of centuries.”
Mouse, who was sitting beside Maggie, made a pleased chuffing sound, wagged his tail, and walked up to sit at Thyme’s feet like an eager student.
“Oh,” Thyme said. “Yes, certainly, Temple dog. That includes you.”
Cardamom, whose head was a boar and whose body was like that of a squat, hugely muscled man, said, “I shall be pleased to officiate in athletic competition and any tourneys here. You will find me completely unbiased in such matters.”
Parsley and Sage both had the heads of birds of prey, sort of vaguely, and the bodies of lean and powerful men in loincloths. They spoke in the same voice, at the same time, in eerie stereo. “We clean. We mend. We build. We are glad to help.”
Bay shook his hound-dog head and yawned. He had an apelike body that looked like it would be most comfortable in quadrupedal motion, and said, “I like to keep people company.”
“Oh,” I said. “We’re doing introductions, I guess.”
Jorge popped to his feet and walked up to Basil. He poked at Basil’s leg with one finger and said, “It’s warm.”
“Yes,” Basil said gravely. “We are living stone.”
“Do you like tacos?” Jorge asked.
Basil dropped down to one knee so that his eyes were on level with Jorge’s. “We are living stone. We do not eat as mortals do.”
“Stories!” piped Cinnamon in a chirping voice. “We like stories!”
“Hmm,” Jorge said. “Do you know the one about the guy with the lightsaber?”
Every gargoyle there focused suddenly and intently upon Jorge, gathering around, while Basil said, “I am not sure. Will you tell it?”
“Yeah!” Jorge said. “Okay, so there’s these robots. Wait, no, first there’s a little spaceship, and it’s running away from this huge bad-guy spaceship!”
I was worried for a minute, that these large supernatural creatures were bunching up around a kid.
But as I watched, Jorge started running through the plot of Star Wars, and the gargoyles settled in and gathered around, expressions fascinated as they watched the boy’s glowing face. He had an audience and he loved it.
Matias walked up to me, his expression bemused.
“Harry,” he said.
“How you doing?” I asked him.
“Well,” he said. “Last year, my world fell to pieces when those things came here. Creatures, tearing apart the city.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Lot of that going around.”
“Evil things,” he said. “Not simply predators. Dark. Evil. Like demons in the Bible.”
“More of that going around than any of us would like,” I confirmed.
“When the government started talking about HBGB, I wanted to believe them. That I had been poisoned and it had given me hallucinations. But here, day after day, I see things. Things that tell me that the world is not the way I thought it was.”
I frowned at that and turned to listen more intently.
“I do not think that is so,” he said quietly. “And it frightened me for a long time.” He lifted his hands and spread them open. “I saw terrible things happen.” He nodded and looked at me. “And I saw good men fight them.”
I swallowed and kept listening.
“You and that huge ape came to my home and fought them and saved my family. And you led us to shelter and forced the man who owned this place to let us in. Things from old stories stood with you. And I was terrified.” He smiled.
“After a while, I realized. If the monsters from the old stories are true, if beings of evil run wild in this world, then it stands to reason that the opposite is true. The old stories are full not only of bad things. But good things, too. Good wizards.” He nodded at the gargoyles.
“Protectors. The Little Folk we see sometimes. Powers of light that fight the darkness.”
I nodded my chin up and down quickly and held back tears. “That’s true. I don’t know if I’m one of those.”
“I do,” Matias said calmly. “I have seen you do it. I do not say that it is easy for you. Or anyone. Doing the right thing is sometimes difficult. Sometimes frightening. But I see your little girl’s dog is more than just a dog—and he is good.
I see Michael Carpenter and he walks like there is always light around him.
” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “And I see you, with them gathering around you. I know you lost someone. I know what that looks like. I know you have been going through pain. Grief.”
I nodded again.
“Good men hurt. And they heal. And when you heal, when the pain has dwindled, it can make you harder, more bitter, more rigid. Or it can make you more…gentle. Understanding. Yes?”
“Gentle…” I smiled faintly and shook my head. “Not what I’d call me.”
“Then you are wrong,” Matias said quietly.
“Gentleness is power that chooses to restrain itself. That is under control. Gentleness is someone strong who makes the choice to be careful with that strength. And that is you.” He exhaled through his nose and smiled at his son telling stories to things that most people thought were purely imaginary. “That is you.”
—
Later that night, I got out Backup, Murphy’s old pistol, and put it on the shrine I used to summon her shade.
Sometimes it’s very hard to do the right thing.
I performed the spell that summoned her shade.
“Hey,” she said, cheerfully enough. “What’ll it be tonight?”
I stared at Karrin’s face. The shade looked like she had when I’d last held her, kissed her. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Features that could look cute or tough as needed. Opinionated and smart and stubborn and often wrong but always trying.
“I, um,” I said. Tears wet my cheeks.
She tilted her head slightly, eyes warm and suddenly sad, and in complete understanding. She waited for me to speak.
“I just wanted to tell you goodbye,” I choked out finally. “I…I won’t be calling you after tonight.”
“Seems about right,” she said gently. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here. Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry. For all the things you never got to say to each other.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, and wept a few tears and smiled at her through them.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said gently.
I nodded and said, “I want to be. I’ll get there.”
“Things take time,” she said.
“Time and sometimes friends,” I said.
“Sometimes them, too.”
—
The next day, Mort Lindquist showed up and asked to speak to me. His head was shaved smooth, his suit fit him well, and he’d brought me a couple of beers from McAnally’s.
“You knew,” I said gently. “You knew I was calling her shade.”
“Happens sometimes,” he said. “She was kind of trapped around you, even before you started making a conscious effort. Sometimes it takes people time to let go.”
“And that’s why you brought Fitz to me,” I said.
“Fitz needed and needs your help,” Mort said. “But if he could keep an eye on things, talk to her shade sometimes, make sure it didn’t get unhealthy for either of you while he was getting helped…” Mort shrugged. “Two problems sometimes make a solution.”
“Damn,” I said quietly. “That’s…some real wizard stuff there, Morty. You’ve come a long way.”
He grinned at me. “We both have.”
He passed me a bottle. We clinked them and drank.