T H E C H A N G I N G Chapter one of: TREASURES ...a parable of two dreamers. by Dasha Ariel DeMeredith Starting Date: December 14, 1996 Current Date: January 11, 1997 Summary: Alone and fighting to survive against impossible odds, a boy and girl find each other, and the strength to keep fighting. Three young girls find themselves utterly dependant on one another, in the midst of a fight that could change the lives of everyone they care for, toward a terrible fate that awaits them if they fail. Time and Place: In the far future, where jungles are deserts, and deserts are jungles. Where magical creatures are beginning to thrive once again, and all myths are true. A place where there is magic in places where living things let it grow. Note: A parallel can also be drawn here between our two main gargoyle friends, and two kids in a normal, everyday life, who struggle their hardest to escape the cruel tyranny of reality. Part One: Prologue June, 2379 The sun was shining through a clear sky that day, filtering through the canopy, illuminating the shelter with a brilliant light. There, a diverse congregation quietly lay upon the grass, with their attention sharply focused upon the circle of white robed figures at the head of this leaf-covored glade, deep in the darkest of the forests. One speaker spoke the long, lilting, musical words, in a language of almost musical qualities. To the ear, these words were gently understood; "...and may you have wisdom throughout your life, may your heart be strong and your ideals bright. When you come of age, may you find a loving husband, and may your love for him and your children be strong. The name by which you shall be called shall be Leyanara. May you always keep it a name of goodness..." When the one speaking had finished, there was a murmur of agreement among the listeners, and in unison they spoke a single word in this same language, softly. The men in white stood aside, as the one who had spoken raised up the bundle of white cloth in his hands, to the view of all assembled. From within the folds of the white oilcloth, there was a tranquil newborn face, peering curiously out at all the strange faces looking at her. They were all admiring the beauty of the new child, her delicate face and beautiful, small, pointed ears. The young one looked at her company in white, twelve men, some men with pointed ears, others with antlers or small stubby horns, others with oddly colored hair, no hair at all, or a mane and fur covoring their heads. The speaker, a tall man with largely pointed ears, and slightly green skin like hers, carried her gently to the arms of the other woman, her mother, who softly cradled the young child in her arms as the two parents shared an affectionate and loving kiss. The white robed figures disassembled, returning to their individual families among those assembled, as a man with goat's legs and hooves now stood up to address them. Aug, 2392 "Leyan! Leyan! There you are!" came a light voice. Leyanara stopped moving, and stood, looking up from the forest path she had been walking, hearing the call, as well as the soft sound of light, limber hooves brisky picking their way crosswise through the ferns and brush. Leyanara did not answer, as the one rushing up to her had already seen her and was aware of where she was. "Aury wrote me a note to give you! It says Young Women's is at Meril's today." Leyanara nodded. "We still have half a day until we need to be there. We must both shortly be to Darian's." The other, the half deer, half human shaped young girl of slightly less age than her own, nodded with that happy excitement of which she appeard to eternally be filled. Giddy, she followed Leyanara as she continued along the path, as the newcomer's small tail obviously twitching beneath her dress. The dress was a light, bright white cotton dress that billowed around her four legs and hung on her withers and shoulders in all the right places -- one of her better outfits. She had all her curly auburn hair set atop her head, braided around her antlers. She was a much larger Deer halfling than the others in their congregation, because her family were Caribou halflings, and the girls and boys alike bore antlers upon the tops of their heads, whereas the other Whitetail's boys alone bore antlers. "Why does she write things, Leyan?" "Aury? That's because she's mute, Cara." Cara titled her head to one side, a little bewildered. "But I have heard her make sound with the voice. Can't she talk?" "No. She grew up alone without anyone to teach her. She has a system of hand signs, and she writes." Leyan nodded thoughtfully, speaking short and concisely. Cara made one of her funny little skip-hops on her legs, a sign of anxiousness, or sometimes hyperactivity. Cara was always hyper and talkative, and didn't always jump around like that, so she must have been anxious. "I don't see how she can write with those large talons." "Aury's talons are deceptive. She always had a lot of talent in them, and she learned to write out her signed language very quickly." "Does Aurima always travel alone?" "She lives deep in the forest, and she has no family." "But she always comes to class every week?" Leyana nodded, and Cara was silent for a while. They were quickly coming upon the small grass hut which stood not far from the sanctuary glade, the small meeting place of Darian, the father of the family of Naiads that lived near the lake. He was a very simple person, but he was always kind. It was true that most of her community was composed of very quiet and soft spoken people. It was almost as if all of them bore a special reverence for the lands. Leyanara remembered she had asked her tutor once why they all measured their ages by the human standard. She had told her that, first of all, it was the system everyone was used to, but also because their had been far more of them for a long time before the Federation of worlds. The Elven were human like, because they aged the same. Her tutor had once shown her a chart. Birth, Childbearing, Menopause, Death -- all labelled for the humans, the Elven, the Gargoyles, the Deer halflings, Goat halflings, Horse halflings, the Unicorns, Pegasus, and their halflings: the Eaglicorns, the Great Fire Dragons and the Great Ice Dragons, and many of the thousands of smaller, minor subraces that had sprung back to life in the world over years since the Great Third War, the rising of the magic, and since the Reawakening of the Gargoyles. There were other world where the other races like them had surfaced, although alien, still found kinship among the forests of the Earth on the so called "Savage Reservations", and the magic had grown still at their coming. By the human scale, Leyanara, Cara, and all the others of their class were of the same age; the were class 13, taught by Brother Darian. There, standing before the hut, Aurima had her great soft fur wings draped gracefully around her shoulders, her white smock visible beneath, waiting for them. The smock was the only thing she wore. Although no one had really ever visited Aurima during the week between classes, Leyanara suspected that the rest of the week was spent without clothing, and that this was her special tribute to God and the Goddess every week. As Leyanara approached the hut with Cara at her side, she put up her paw with the sign the Vulcans made. Aurima matched the sign with one of her own -- she did not have enough fingers. As a threesome, they entered Darian's hut. Their class, about a dozen girls of the human maturity of thirteen years were chatting with Darian about various subjects. "Aurima! Come in, we were just speaking about you!" declared the small gelfling girl Sariah, who was Cara's only match for chatter and smalltalk. Aurima's horned brow furrowed. The word "What" was on her paws. "The gargoyles!" Sariah nearly burst. "Have you heard, Aurima?" Darian asked in a soft, gentle tone. "Kara's clan -- the big one that roosts in a castle in Manhattan? They announced this week past that they are building ships, and have purchased a world. All the gargoyles are going to go live there." Aurima seemed disturbed by this. Cara slid her hooves underneath her and sat down on the soft dirt floor. "The humans can protect themselves fine now, they say, with all their new weapons and technology. They can destory whole world, and make barren ones come to life." "Not any longer." Darian stated. Leyanara found a neatly rolled carpet on one side of the room, scattered a few of her classmates to one side, and laid the carpter down across the floor. Together, the class all sat in a circle on the mat, facing inwards. "I would too, if I were them." "In a year or two, they say. They have built a transport station there in Manhattan, and are shipping supplies to the three ships they are building in orbit." Darian reported. "Will you go with them?" Sariah put in suddenly. Aurima looked at them, a bit pained at first, and concerned. "Our help? What's the matter?" Leyanara put in. "Really! Wow! Who?" Sariah added. "Why, Aury! That's wonderful!" Cara said, in a congratulatory way. Aurima still appeared nervous. There were some surprised blinks -- so that was what was worrying her. The girl that lived utterly alone six days of the week, roaming and whatever else she does in her forests up north. Aurima continued once the idea was settling into their eyes. She fingerspelled the word like something that needed to be emphasised. Leyanara spouted something in Elven, angry and frustrated. Leyanara origonally spoke Elven, the language of the long vanished fairies, and so the human's English was a second language for her. She only spouted like that when she was upset. Leyanara felt Aurima's paw upon her shoulder, almost as if she seemed to say, "It's alright -- we can handle them." The "freak shows" were of growing popularity in zoos and small towns where the law was not as tight. New Salt Lake City was a dirty, slumish city built in place of the beautiful one blown off the face of the earth during the Great Third War. It had once been known as a safe haven for the Gargoyles at one time, long ago before the war, but now it was an eternal headache for enforcers of the Interstellar Law. Leyanara had heard of some sort of gelfling slave ring that had been busted there not too many years ago, and so this sort of thing was exactly what she expected to hear out of the extreem far north of New Salt Lake. However, it was at that moment that the remaining other boys in the class entered the hut and sat down, completing the class, a prayer would be given, and the lesson would begin. Leyanara could still feel Aurima's paw on her shoulder. She touched it carefully, flickering a sign on her hand. Aurima returned rather hasitly. Quickly, Aurima made an underarm "L" sign, and turned to the lesson Darian was presenting. is what it meant. Aurima didn't appear the following week -- we'd guessed she might be ill today, so we thought to visit her. How does one visit a vagrant gargoyle who really doesn't live anywhere but in the northern forest? I wished once more that I knew where Aurima made her roost. She didn't return the next week either. Or for a month. After two months we were worried about our dear friend, and our class organgized a search to try and find her. However it was getting later, and we had a lot of difficulty as the year was progressing onward, the snows fell at home in the south, and then it was impossible to go north where it was warm and look for her. It soon became apparent that Aurima was gone, and that she wasn't coming back. Whether killed by hunter or haters, gone off with the Gargoyle fleet, or committed suicide, not one learned for many years. I fell into dispair, and mourned her loss... Part Two: A game of Charades 2422 The plains of Ayrilli were anything but plain. They were a massive expanse of mountains and canyons twisting together like a maze. Hills, jutting vertically from the land floor, made of black, jagged stone, with vertical cliffs and flat topped mesas. The canyons were just deep ditches, long and no more than a hundred meters wide. Ayrilli was a land teeming with life. It received an enormous amount of rain each year -- it was not uncommon for the sun to be absent for months at a time. Green carpeted the canyon's floors with a thick umbrella of lush foliage. The region was constantly filled with the squawk of the herons and the macaws, the chirps of small red tree lizards, and the hum of the Cicadas. Rivers, warm and swift, ran at the bottom of every ravine, slowly deepening and widening the canyons. Inside the mountains too, water cut caverns, lacing the stone with pools and eddies. Mineral gems sparkled here in the dim phosphorescent light. It was here that I came into the world. I pushed my feet through the shell, cracked the top, and pushed open the place that had been my world for the past decade. I was met without ceremony, or reception. I wailed, flailing my arms and legs about. I was hungry! My noise must have carried far, for soon the mother jaguar heard my weeping, and fed me. I was certainly not her child, but she took me by the scruff of my yneck, and carried me to her home. I learned the ways of my jungle and how to survive in it. I learned to hunt when I grew old enough, and what to eat and what not to eat. Once I was ready, I spread the wings I had been given, and taught myself to glide on the winds and explore my country, miles and miles of wetland canyons filled with rivers. When stripes began to appear in my fur, my jaguar-mother licked my whiskers and told me that I was grown too old for her cubs, and I needed to take to my own. I thanked the only mother I had ever known and left her with a heavy heart -- to venture into the jungle -- alone. My way was treacherous, and the first thing I learned was how to fight. I found myself to be the prey of other animals now, enormous beasts of cunning and rage. They all called me that one word, "Monster". Before, I had asked my jaguar mother what a monster was, and she had told me that "Monster" meant a shining, beautiful little child. The magical beasts which crossed my land who called me a "Monster" never made very much sense to me. Then the day came that I learned what a monster truly was. They entered my lands in the belly of a large dragon with circular wings that buzzed over it's head like an insect. They frightened away my prey, grunting loudly and traipsing through the undergrowth. They were truly ugly things, with only a little fur here and there, mostly on the tops of their heads -- but not in a mane. It grew in a tuft or ring around the crowns of their heads where their horns should be. With sickly white skins, they were tailless, wingless, with flat feet and wearing animal skins and plant fibers around themselves. They carried sticks on their shoulders, and always seemed to be looking for something. Lithe as a cat, as I had learned to be, I followed them for three days. They would kill with their sticks, spitting fire and death from the end. Their killing was meaningless, senseless. So, I determined that they must be removed from my lands. With a snarl like my jaguar-mother had taught me, I leapt at them. I extended my claws, prepared to take them, but they were cowards and ran from me. "Curses! There was one behind us the whole time!" "Well shoot it, stupid!" "Man... i'was _female_..." "Ah shut up, will ya' Paco?!" "Let's go at it again. Look, there it is in the tree." "Tricky li'l witch." Such strange noises these creatures made! I motioned with my talons to the birds in the trees. They were my sisters and understood my sign. They fluttered down from the trees and distracted the foolish creatures, allowing me to slip quietly into the trees to attack them again. "Where's sh'go?" "Everybody stay together and keep an eye out for her." "I hate this." "Then why'd ya'come, you cow'd?!" "I said SHUT UP!" I leapt from the tree as they barked at one another; and swept down on them, claws extended, prepared to take a piece of them with me this time. I came straight at their leader, hissing at him, and intending to gut him down the middle, but my claws came away with other... things. The creature moved to bat me aside, but I was quickly out of his way. Scampering into the woods a few steps, I hid myself in the brush to examine what I had come away with. The creatures made noises of astonishment, and began their strange gibbering again. "She took my cel phone!" "Le's git 'er!" "No, stupid, let's go back and get some bigger guns." And then they left, good riddance to me. My booty was of very little use to me. Most of it was some poor animal's hide stitched together into new shapes, but there was one small object that made strange and bird-like noises when I touched it. I stomped it into the ground until it sparkled with anger, and I was satisfied. And so my life went on, and I explored my lands wider and wider, and I grew taller and taller. In all my travels I never saw another just like me. I wondered if I were just a single strange one in all the wide world. Yet, I seemed convinced that if I circled wide enough, I would find another just like me. * * * The human's little beady eyes watched me with exhilaration, throwing rotting scraps at me in my cage. The display out in front of the handrail read "Savage Amazonian Gargoyle -- Endangered Species." It always puzzled me when they came to gawk at me, instead of my fellow captives in the other cages, the Lions, the Tigers, and across the way were the Horses, the Deer, the Eagles, and all my friends also taken from somewhere beyond. Something cold and wet hit my face, and I slung it out of my whiskers. "You no throw at me!" I signed in fury. I glanced down into my water dish -- already full of dirt. "Clean! Clean!" I shouted again. The zoo keepers only began to take notes on those "odd hand gestures" again. Snarling, I dumped out the water all over the audience outside the bars. Take notes on that! They refilled it with fresh water, and I washed the mud from off my face. I didn't know what these pale, wingless creatures were, but they were the cruelest family I had ever known. Especially the one with the whip. He stood over in the corner puffing smoke from the thing in his mouth. Every day, the whip-master would enter my cage and if I refused do the things he demanded, he hit me with the whip. He enjoyed his work -- and especially enjoyed knowing that he frightened me. "Mommy? Do gargies have sisturs too?" a youngster asked outside my cage. It seemed like a rhetorical question for them, but I stopped for a moment, and thought. Did I? You could consider the meaning of life all you wanted, but the fact of life was I had to have come from _someone_, every living thing in the world came from a mother and a father -- no matter what it was. As difficult as it was to admit it, even these disgusting pale things with guns and whips did. I looked down at the young human child and human mother, and felt a pang of remorse. To have a family... anyone like me to be close to... like a family... that would truly make living in any cage worth the trial. It was during my depressed mode of thought on this matter that the whip master entered my cage to make me do tricks for the day's show: "Terror of the Gargoyle". He was laughing at something, his smoke was all about him, and his stench was revolting and making my nostrils curl. In a sudden rush of fury, before he could raise his whip or close the cage door again, I curled my fist angrily, and swung at his exposed head. The whip master fell back, and I took up his whip. The audience of humans fell back, but did not leave -- they thought it was part of the show, and that I was still eating from their hands. I didn't! I'd show them! I took up the whip, and lashed it at the zoo keeper. He winced under the crack of his own whip. I spread my wings, towering over him. I beat him again, and he cried out -- as I had done many times without so much as a show of mercy from my captor. In heated anger I hit him again, again, and again. No, I thought. This isn't right! I must have mercy -- I am a gargoyle. I curled the whip back, and tucked it under my arm, and turned to the audience. They were wide eyed -- frozen in place by terror. I could have terrified them out of my way by roaring at them, but instead I just walked into their midst. The crowd parted. I went to the cages of my brothers the deer, the eagles, the lions, and all my other friends, and released them. The locks on their cages were easier for my talons to tear off than the one on my own cage would have been. All of them flew and ran free, past the humans, past the cages, into the wild of the world beyond. "Go, my brothers!" I signed, "You free! Free! Free!" The whip master, angry and hurting, hit me from behind with the back of his laser-pistol, and I toppled forward for a few moments. In pain, I turned, grabbed at the pistol, and wrenched it from him. I'd seen him use it before, firing it as demonstration once or twice, making great bolts of red light burn into cement barriers. Now I took the weapon, and pointed it at him. Alas, again I was weak and showed the pitiful thing mercy. I took this new weapon in my paw and moved to the wall at the edge of the compound. "No! Don't let it escape back into the forest!" Carefully, I placed my talons against the wall, and with a slice, they cut in. I took hold of the cement, and climbed. Ripping at the material with my talons, I moved higher, and higher. When I reached the top, I flared my wings with sudden exhilaration! FREEDOM! With a burst, I leapt from atop the wall, and came to rest on the land below. It was covered with all manner of living things. With a burst of energy gathered from my new freedom, I launched myself on all fours into the trees. I ran and ran, all day and into the night. I ran until I was sure they would no longer find me to place me in a cage any longer. * * * It was the last full moon of the season when the animals in my land began making noisy motions of "new wing-cat.". Curiosity flared, I followed their signs towards the cold of the north. He lay up that way, their motions whispered. Now I moved with trepidation. This land received less rainfall, the life was not as abundant, and the magic not as strong. I had to be extremely careful here. I found him hanging in a tree, high above some rather vicious looking dogs. I disposed of the dogs quickly, cleaned my talons, and then looked up into the tree. My first reaction was that he was simply some kind of intruder into my lands. He looked odd, somehow. He was shivering, with his wings wrapped about him, on a branch high up the tree. He appeared simply terrified. Dogs were terrifying creatures. I sank my claws into the tree's trunk, and began to scale my way up to the branch where he crouched. When he felt me touch the branch, he parted his wings slightly, and I saw his face. His whiskers were quivering as he stared at me. I don't think it fully dawned on him at first that we were the same. He bore the same hi-spiked mane, hi-ridge horns on his brow, high pointed ears, large leathery wings, and whiskers that I did. His color was was black from head to foot, with orange and white highlights, where mine was white with blue and tan highlights. I approached him slowly, as not to frighten him away. He backed along the limb he perched on, as though he were backing away from the eyes of a predator. I stopped moving forward, before he would most certainly have tumbled out of the tree. He made a sign with his paw, "No!" I paused, thinking. He made signs? "You speak?" I asked him on my paws. "No hurt I." His paws shook, and his motions were small. "I no hurt you. Friend?" It was possibly the smile that crossed my lips that stirred him out of his fear. "I no fight you." It was a start, at least. "You, me, same." I pointed out. He did not reply, so I went on. "You hatched near here?" "No." "Who mother/father yours?" "None." "We same. I live here. I alone." "I alone. Live in human cage." "Why humans cage you?" "Know not." I paused for a moment, to make sure there was a good balance of silence in the conversation. He signed to me then, perhaps driven by curiosity now. "What you name?" "My name Auriana. Jaguar-mother give me. What you name?" "I name Reiga. What you eat here?" "I show." I reached out my paw, with a hopeful expression, slowly he accepted it, as though afriad at first I would try and catch him. "I not glide." "Why?" "Not know how. Heights scared." A winged creature afraid of heights? I almost laughed, but contained myself. Had he lived in that cage his entire life? There were multiple marks of rust upon his fur, well cleaned wounds all over his skin. His arms and legs bore cruel marks of bonds. He'd seen a lot of abuse, little wonder he was so frightened of me. Peering out from the tree, I exended my paw to him. "You trust me?" He shook his head violently. "No." came his sign. "I trust none now." I nodded. "Then you stay." With that, I leapt out of the tree, into the air beyond. As I glanced back he appeared to be longing to follow, but clung to the branch in terror, more of his height above the ground now, than of me. I paused in the air by the tree, sort of asking him if he was sure. Clearly, he was afraid of launching into the open and crashing to the ground, so he chose instead to reach for me. In desperation he leaped across the distance from the tree to me and huddled tightly around my neck, hanging on for dear life. "Your wings spread." I motioned, I heard him open them with a snap of hide. I then slid his arms over my neck and head, and took his paw in mine, as I led the course in our first glide. At first, our distance from the ground, surmounted only by the projections on his shoulders, was something he was still coming to terms with. It seemed like he had never been this free to test his wings before. They were horribly out of shape, and would need would need a great deal of work to strengthen them, but I had strength enough to support both of us for now. I took him across the forest lands for a long while, until his smaller wings began to ache. We touched down in the glade in the middle of the forest that I called my home. Here is where I slept. The journey out and back had taken our hunting time, and it was now closing on time to sleep again. I showed him the basics of hunting for his meals, and told him of leaves and roots to cure ails, like his cuts and wounds. It was quick becoming a cold night. Many cold nights had passed, and I knew many must come before the night air would warm again. We kept eachother warm as the night passed on. I lay with my back to the earth, and he atop me with his back to the sky, so that we could keep out warmest sides together. With our heads over each other's shoulder, we passed signs until sleep came upon us. I told him of stars, of the moon, and sweeping streaks of light that darted across the sky. Days passed. Strength began to form in his wings, and marrow in his bones. He became more and more independant in his glide, and his knowledge increased. In return, he began to tell me of the things he saw from his cage. Strange lands, strange creatures, all dominated by these horrible pale creatures who made weapons because they were not born with them. I didn't understand it. It seemed so wrong. If they were not born with weapons, they should not be so evil. How was it possible they could be so cruel to him and the other creatures? Yet, I had my own experience to confirm the truth of his words. He told of writing and speaking, and told me stories passed down from the animals, and ones he'd gleaned from his reading when he could steal it. "I want see world you sign about." "I want show you world I see, but I fear pale humans." And so the desire burned within us, to go out together and see these strange and marvelous things, only the threat of the pale enemy standing in our way. So we hunted together, and shared our stories. So preoccupied we were sharing our tales, that we missed our warnings when they came. We missed the scent of humans on the new morning's air. Reiga was the first to be hit. When he dropped to the ground, I thought he was hurt, being frail and all, but found him oddly asleep, with a large thorn-like thing sticking from his arm. Perhaps something on the thorn had put him to sleep? I cast it away from him. However, as I did so, I also began to hear a noise, like sharp yapping in the distance. Dogs. The pale ones had returned! Snarling in frustration, I took Reiga over my shoulder to quickly carry him away into the wood. However, as I hurried over the land with my burden I suddenly knew something was wrong... very wrong. I was no longer carrying a gargoyle, but a human on my back! I set Reiga down in the grass when I realised it, and gasped. How was it possible? He'd been just fine only mintues before! How had this happened to him? The thing stuck in him arm? Dark sorcery by the humans! The dogs were getting closer now. Unsure what to do, I left the human body there in the grass, and raced onward, trying to reach some means of escaping them before they overcame me. There was a crashing noise, and something whistled past my ear. I pulled up short, and pricked up my ear. There were two humans hovering in the bushes nearby. I leapt to one side to avoid another firing from their thunderstick. Snapping my tail in frustration, I began bounding forward, gaining on them, hoping they would stop, scatter, and fall back. Suddenly drowsy, I hissed loudly as I felt a sharp pricking in my wing. No! Not me! I wouldn't let them take me! It was only a matter of time before they found Reiga in the grass... Many strange sensations swept over me then -- feelings of sinking down and floating up -- and of my skin falling away... * * * July, 2426 Ever since I first met him, he seemed somehow disturbed. Once I found sketches in the dirt of girls with thoraxes, eight legs, fangs, and beady multi-celled eyes, where he had drawn it not long before. When I returned later, he had wiped it away completely. I'll admit I didn't know him all that well -- he just always seemed so far away. My friends and I traded rumors of him being some sort of monster. He never cared, and even encouraged such rumors, as though he wanted all of us to fear and dislike him. All I really knew for sure about him was his name, Reiga. I suppose he didn't know that much about me either. He knew my name was Auriana, and that we were of the same age group and village. He ignored all of them but always had a cool, introspective eye whenever he saw me. It was almost as though he were remembering things I couldn't see. He didn't say much, but I could tell he knew something that I didn't. Our village was one of a struggling few still remaining in the jungle region. The Zoo had been the major thing drawing people here. It's major attraction -- the living gargoyle, had escaped with many of the other animals long ago, and the zoo had closed. Now it seemed there were becoming less and less of us in our world. As the great, distant cities pulled more of our people farther away, the remaining villages became smaller and smaller. It had become increasingly difficult to get a safe caravan through the jungle to New Los Angeles to the south, so people had begun to jokingly consider using magical wings instead of airplanes to fly the routes; especially since the air had become so strangely filled with odd currents that could dash an airplane apart. I remember a particular day when Reiga and I ran into each other. It was after classes were over and I was on my way out of the compound into the outskirts of the village. I saw him sitting there by a tree, looking skyward, and I could have sworn I saw tears on his cheeks. "Boy! Why are you crying?" I asked. "Just... dreaming." he replied. "Dreaming? What about?" He shifted uncomfortably, as though the question was something he feared. "Well... uh... this village. They are making me leave soon." I'd heard about this from someone. They'd said that they were going to take him away to a mental institution, although it probably wasn't true. "Why do you stay here? Why don't you run away?" "Running away from a problem won't solve it -- I learned that a long time ago. Besides, the only reason I've stayed here all these years..." "Yes?" "...was you." I was quiet for a moment. Could that calm look he'd always had for me, have meant something that I had simply been too blind to see? "Why...? Why me?" "A long time ago... we shared something special." I sensed something there... as though he were right, if only I could remember it. I searched for some way to change the subject. "Well, hey, me and a couple of friends are going Gargoyle-hunting tonight. Would you like to come with us?" He gave me that cool, measures gaze again. "Yes, I would like that very much." Since he didn't have a gun, I took him over to the local shop to find something for him, and to pick up the rest of what we needed for our trip. Adults all had their lasers and photon guns carefully restricted from our hands, but there was one man in the village who made a killing off these kids who bought old- fashioned projectile guns. Of course, bullets weren't made anymore, and the law wouldn't let him sell them. However, someone still made tranquilizer darts of the right size somewhere off- world, and the retailer knew just how to special-order some very potent combinations. "I really think we should bring more food with us." "Is there not food out there already?" he asked. "Not unless you like to live off the land." He was silent for a moment. "Where do you get your money?" "From sales. I've had a few good nights." I could almost feel his skin go cold. "You're a hooker?" "There are too many girls already out on the streets in the big cities." I replied. "I stick to just this village." It's not like I really knew what I was supposed to do, anyhow -- but I couldn't let him see that I didn't know anything. At least here in the villages I had less competition than in the big cities. "Huh! Everyone of these villages is a melting pot of money- lusting low lifes. Everytime a girl is *born* in their village, everyone celebrates the money that she will one day earn in *prostitution*!" This last was sneered in my direction. "Hey! I don't have any choice! They told me this is what I had to do in order to make money for myself!" "Money... why should we *need* money? Are we not free of such shackles? Look at me. Am I bound by such shackles?" "I'm surprised you're still alive. You can't do anything without money. You'll wind up on the streets, starving." He grumbled to himself and said nothing, but turned back to the weapons display. There was a new display I had never seen before on the Tranqs rack. It was a new formula that claimed it could make anything easier to handle, bring it down to your level. Reiga asked the shop keeper about it. "What happends if you prick your finger with *that* stuff?" "Well, I do have some reverse formula cartridges for emergencies, just reprick your finger with this stuff." the shopkeeper answered. Reiga nodded, and bought two. "Just for safety." he told me, as we picked out the rest of the materials. * * * The fact of the matter was that no one had seen real gargoyles in years, and the worst we could possibly run into on our trip was a jaguar or mountain lion. Reiga was clearly upset somehow when I said he had to sleep over in the boy's tent. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked. "No... you're just a boy..." He nodded. "Yet any man that pays enough..." I scowled at him. Who did he think I was, anyway? The next day the hunt began. Reiga had taken sole charge of his cartirdges, including the two reverse-formula ones. It took us many hours to get deep inside the forest. I noticed, once the group split up and spread out, that Reiga was always somewhere close by me. He'd taken his tunic off in the heat, and wore just a pair of denim shorts and his sandals. He seemed completely at home hunting here, moving without a sound, breathing the humid air, and sniffing to distinguish jungle scents. After another hour, before high noon, I lost track of him altogether. Not long after, I became aware someone was hunting me -- a jaguar maybe. I worked my way around in a large circle, hoping to come upon whatever it was. But it stayed close behind me. So I made a three-point turn with it, and began to move downwind, turning backwards. I heard something in the bushes, and knew I was getting closer. I looked carefully from my crouched position toward the thing I had been tracking, a mother jaguar with some marks of age. She was almost blind to my shot... ...all the kids heard the rifle go off. When they arrived there was confusion. It had not been my rifle that had fired, but Reiga's! Somehow he had followed me as well. I was found passed out with a shot in my arm. Reiga held off the others with his weapon, threatening to shoot anyone who got close to me or him. They all watched. Amid the roaring in my ears and the wild, painful sensations of pushing, pulling, stretching, and tearing in all my limbs, I knew they were witnessing -- something. He hadn't shot me with the bullets, but with one of those mutagenic packs! Only when my quivering finally stopped and I could stand and stretch and spread out my wings did I realize... Reiga had been right... not the strumpet from the village... but Auriana to gargoyle... I _WAS_ A GARGOYLE! I screamed with triumph at my discovory, and Reiga smiled. * * * I still was not prepared to see Reiga take the second reverse-tranq, and stab himself in the arm with it. The effect was nearly instant, and he fell to the ground at my feet. I picked up the rifle he was holding, and inserted a set of shots into it. The other human children were looking at me with the strangest eyes -- a combination of fear and awe. I fired the dart into the air. Startled at being shot at, the bird in the canopy overhead scattered. I remembered my signs, and told them what to do. The human children tried to fire their shots at the birds diving at them from the trees without much success. I bounded on all fours once more, and slung my tail under their feet as they tried to hit me with the butts of their guns. Using the standard sleep-tranqs, and put the kids all to sleep by pricking them. The birds settled as they all lay at my feet. I knew they had to die, for they would most certainly return. Yet, I had been one of them. I could not seem to find the strength to do it. Reiga, lay on the ground, breathing heavily, but covered in black fur once more. Restored to his black feline grace again, he took up position beside me. "How you know?" I signed. He shrugged. "I knew, I acted." He smiled, using his gargoyle's voice for the first time, now that he knew how to speak. "Did you know you can kill someone with a tranquilizer gun?" he asked, taking one of them, levelling it at the base of one of my previous-friend's necks, and pulled the trigger. His aim was deadly accurate. The needle stuck itself in his neck, and he died. One by one, he shot each of them. Somehow, I could not move to stop him, and he murdered each of them. I felt no sorrow. I had learned over the last twenty years how much men would pay for furred Amazon Gargoyle pelts. If they went home and told anyone about us we would never be safe. "Why do they hunt us?" Reiga asked, disturbed by how attached they had become like the young humans. "It is all they know how to do." I sighed regretfully, dropped the guns, and turned back to vanish into the forest. Part Three: The Trueness of the Treasures November 21, 2392 I remember the readout said it was big, and it was hot. I had my old merchant's standard-issue disruptor hidden in my blouse when she knocked at my door. It has been raining all day, and rumors that... something had been seen in the area were very vivid in my imagination. I had begun to open the door slowly at first, and caught a single glimpse of two great bulging eyes, and that was about all I needed to know. I opened the door in a rush, pulled my weapon to bear... ...on a frightened young girl. Startled, Amberlee sprang with all she had in her legs, backwards onto my rain-soaked lawn, slid a few meters, then she scrambled to her feet, and began to scurry away as fast as she could manage with her great bulk. Her face had been one of complete and utter terror. I threw out a sign on a pathway of power, and used the magic to touch her. She found herself paralyzed, unable to move. Quickly, I bounded through the wet brush under the drenching summer monsoons, up the hillside, and moved to face her. Her face was still stricken with fear, and her enourmous compound insect-eyes were lolling about in her head with fear. "Please don't be afraid," I coaxed, "I'm sorry, I was just worried..." A crash of thunder and a burst of light in the clearing interrupted me. The poor thing appeared more frightened than ever. Carefully, I placed a thought on another line of power, connecting her with the space around her. Her eyes relaxed, and her eyelids closed, and she fell asleep in my magical paralysis. With a sigh, I took a look at what I had just, in essense, captured by mistake. She was twelve to fifteen feet long, but hardly taller than my shoulder. Her body was laid out in the strangest configuration, I knew she could not be any natural creature. It appeared that she had tried to at least wear a shirt over her shoulders, but it had long since been tattered and torn away to threads. What moved me, though, was looking at her face. Although her face had been offset with large insectile eyes, and some ostentacious five-inch fangs that jutted out of the top of her mouth, there was still her plainly young female face -- just like my little Jinla's... "Stop it!" I rebuked myself. Little girls are a simple disguise for an evildoer... I was not convinced. The pain in that expression I had seen earlier was so evident I could almost touch it. So, using the lines of magic in the air, I pulled her through the air, and into my house. I laid her out on the examination table. I knew it probably wouldn't tell me anything, but found myself pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was. There was a lot of dangerous dark magic surrounding her body, and I decided to learn as much as I could with logic and science before I tried to pry away that darkness - - truly an all-day task. I laid her on her back, which was no easy feat, given her bulk and length. I carefully removed the remain of the shirt she wore, and ran a sonic cleaning tool over much the length of her body. I injected her with about a dose of standard sedative, and moved as much magic as I could from around her before I began scanning. I started by making a log of her, determind to write down everything I could find out first. Besides her altered eyes and teeth, there really seemed to be little very uncommon about her head. She had a lot of long black hair which did not appear to have seen a brush in many months. However, that was where the similarities about her ended. Her chest appeared to be beaten, like she had been purposefully abused, and it was scarred in many places. Her breasts had been duplicated down her chest twice, totalling in six. Each appeared to have been working and producing large quantites of milk sometime in the past few months. Her arms -- if they could be termed such -- had been changed radically. They were still jointed the same at the elbow, but had an extra elbow midway between the normal elbow and shoulder. The muscles were very thick and the bones very large, and were built as legs, not arms. Her hands, as we know them, did not exist, but instead there were two finger-like projections on the end of each foot that served as little footpads and fingers at the same time, built to support her whole body weight. Her chest was attached at the belly to an enourmous round -- balloon was what I called it when I first saw it. It was oblong, rather flat, six feet across, and the rest of her entire length. It had six more of the arm/leg like projections attached to it at equal intervals down her length. At the very tip of the end was a small orifice covored with a bit of hair. On her underneath side (now facing upward) there were small opening, through which her every breath was exhaled, taken in the mouth, and exhaled. Experimentally, I stopped her mouth with a cloth, and sure enough, the small "Book Lungs" kept breathing for her like gills. It was an enourmous thorax, like any insect would have. Breathing, reproduction, and all other internal functions going on inside. All of her skin was a tan/pale color, but all human flesh. On the scanner I found she had laid eggs in the past, and could spin silk to cocoon them with the spinerette in the small orifice on the tail end of her thorax. She was a human girl rebuilt to immitate a spider. Initially, all she did was look absently ahead, as though either she were blind, or she was trying to clear her vision. It didn't look like a normal person trying to clear her vision, but I suppose that was because her unique eyes must clear in a very different fashion. It was several minutes after the medical computer had notified me that she was concious before her head swiveled in my direction, where I sat by the medical diagnositic taking some final notes in my notebook. I imagine she could see my screen -- I'd scanned her eyes before and discovored every single one of those little mini-eyes had the range of a hawk or an eagle's eye. I was typing in some observations about unusual cells being emitted into the pathways of endocrine glands, when I noticed her turn her head out of the corner of my eye. "And she has very good vision." I typed into the screen once more, adding finally, "Good morning, young one." There was a moment of surprised silence, until she finally spoke. It was a raspy sound, like there were something stuck in her throat. (Her voice had been changed too.) "Buh... but it's evening." There was a slight motion toward the window. "The sun is nearly down." I turned to her, flattening the wrinkles out of my dress. "It's morning for you, the sun is just starting to appear in your life, starting a whole new day." She blinked a moment. "Who are you?" "I am your friend. And you, young one, are very hungry." It was true. I'd noted it from the medical readouts. "I really don't know why, from the looks of this it looks like your system could break down a rock if it had to." "Are you a friend of hers?" she asked, with a sound of sudden tension. "I take it 'her' is in reference to the one that did _this_ to you? No, I am not a friend of hers. You are my friend. I will take care of you." That made the tension go away, at least. There was no look of terror now, but instead something else just as bad, if not worse. "Can you help me?" "Certainly, within reason." "Can you make me normal again?" she asked with a hope lighting up in her eyes. I sighed. "No, not yet. It may take a while. You'd best make yourself at home until then." She let out a long, harsh, dissapointed breath. "I'm gonna be like this forever, aren't I? She cursed me, now I'm gonna be a freak forever." I sat there, taking very careful stock of what I knew. "How long has it been for you, exactly?" "I don't know. I lost track of time." she said curtly. "When was the last date you remember?" "My birthday, I turned thirteen." My brain did a double-take. Thirteen? Impossible! She had to be older! Except for the spider-like characteristics, she had all the physical maturity of a girl who had come completely out of adolescence, say about seventeen or eighteen. "What was the date?" "February ninth," she said automatically, paused, and then added for good measure, "1941." That flat-footed me. Great Goddess! I looked at her with my mouth hanging open. "Are you sure?" "Yes. I was born thirteen years before then." she said with an unmistakable "Du, stupid!" look. I began typing emphatically on my notes again. "What? What is it?" "Do you know what Carbon-dating is?" "No." "It's a technique for using the actual composition of something to find it's age. Like the remnants of your shirt, here." I pointed to a tray I had under the examining sensor, which had her tattered remains of shirt sitting on it. "It's more the four hundred years old." She blinked again. I was amazed she took it so well. "So, it's not 1941?" "2392." She nodded. "She said I would live for a long time." "Well you're about eighteen, as far as growing up. It seems you grew a year for every hundred that passed." "I don't remember it." "What do you remember?" "Being under *her* control! Doing *her* work!" she began to spout with bitterness. Her front pair of small two-toed arms came up to her face and covored her eyes as she started to cry. The notes could wait. Judging by her at first neutral behavior, then this outburst, I was beginning to get that feeling again, of a soul in trauma. I knelt down by her side, and touched her arm. She glanced at me. "Do you have a name?" "Amberlee." I nodded. "Would you like something new to wear, Amberlee?" For the first time, it seemed, she realised that it was her shirt on my scanner tray. "It's alright. I'm a doctor. I can get you something that will fit." She appeared very pale, but nodded. I went over to the replicator, pulled in the sizes that the scanner had taken of her, and fit her something. I played with it a few times, and finally came up with a tank-top shirt made of a stretching material and gathered around the bottom. The replicator chose something shiny, of a blue color. I took the shirt to where she lay. She pulled it down over her massive chest with her two- fingered feet/hands, and the material covored her to her satisfaction. I picked the material to be tight, so that she could have at least a superficial feeling of contact, more secure perhaps. It only went down as far as her thorax, where it was gathered, but I didn't think she cared about covoring it -- she hadn't when she came in. Using her legs on her side near the wall, she pushed herself over and onto the floor, braced her legs under her, and began to cry on. I was noticing the setting sun. "It's nice and warm, but it doesn't change anything." she gasped between her sobs. "Change anything?" "I'm still an ugly freak." "You are not ugly." I reassured her, trying not to laugh at the irony. "Look at me!" "I see you. You look just fine." She seemed to give up on me, but I didn't give up. Whatever this was she was thinking of, it had to come out. "Come, Amberlee. I'd like you to meet my friends." With a slight hint of curiosity in her eye, she started to follow. Even though her mass was probably three or four times my own, she still managed to move quickly on her four legs. I made a mental note to feed her -- right after she'd met the clan. I began to walk up the twisting stairwell up toward the roof with a determined air. Surprisingly, Amberlee could follow right behind me. They were awake, and chatting, waiting for me to make my appearance. It never made much sense to me, why not start the eveing run without me? They could eat when they returned! "Mala?" The gargoyle leader, the slim green female dressed in the purple smock, turned to me. "Ah. Your eminence..." she began to bow, but I put my hands out to stop her. "You have a new clan member." I said straight up. All was silent for a moment. I stood to one side, to allow Amberlee to enter the rookery. She was incredibly shy, peeking around the corner. She gasped when she saw them, winged, horned, with claws and odd colored skin. I could see wonder in her face... truly the gargoyles lay testament to beauty even amongst the greatest of terrors. The gargoyles of Mala's clan were curious and appeared very curious about her. Another mark for Mala -- not one of them appeared to be afraid of her. Once standing fully before their midst, I put my hands on her to give her a feeling of security, and spoke to Mala and her clan. "She knocked on my door, and I have taken her in. It may take me quite a while to help her -- she was the unfortunate tool of Iliria's." There was a supressed snarl at the mention of the dark sorceresses' name, not much to my suprise. "Please watch over her, and most of all protect her." "As we protect all, Wyndia. I will send down today's pair to help with the meal." I nodded, and left them to talk. "And so, what are you saying?" I inquired, getting a little frustrated with Mala's avoiding my question. "She shows all the signs of a victim of a sexual assault." Mala stated with a great deal of discomfort. "She will need much help." "Well, better now than never. Just how much of her story could you learn?" "I will have her tell you herself." "Well, you don't have to ask her to..." "No, Wyndia. She will tell it for herself." "I remember there was rain -- like today, only not as much. I was lost, in a back alley, far from home, and with no place to go. She found me. She offered me wings, gave them to me when I asked for them. Everyone I knew thought I was posessed, or that I was just a monster or a freak. I asked Ilira to take them away and make me normal again. She said she would, but she needed my help first for something. I said I would help -- I had nowhere else to go. That was when it began." I nodded, thoughtfully. "Agreeing to a sorceress's plans is a dangerous thing. She may be thinking you are agreeing to more than you know. That's all some spells need, like metamorphosis." "I don't remember much after that, except that one day I found myself running away from her, and I was... was... like this. I had to get away from her! I was so afraid! I went away and came here. I got so hungry running, I couldn't go on. Then I found this house." I nodded. "I don't know exactly what happened during that intervening time, but I think I have a vague idea. I found some odd compounds are fed into your milk, and injected with your fangs. I think your fangs were designed to inject something inte people, and that was what she used you for." Her face fell, but I had to finish. "It looks like it's a natural mutagenic compound created by the body and combined magic. It's supposed to change others..." I glanced at Mala, who stiffened as I said it. "...like yourself." "We've been fighting her magical clan of monster spiders for years, but we've never gotten even close to them. They're smart as people, and very sneaky." one of the clan males put in, as if it were a discussion. "Something in your milk is designed to sustain them." I added, finishing my report. Amberlee nodded. "I... I think I'm starting to remember now... They all had to drink from me, but she'd only let her loyal ones near me... She called me their mother." I reached over and swept away the tears on her cheek, trying to console her. "I came out of it, somehow. I realised I'd been changing normal people into this horrible creation... she tried to explain, but I wouldn't listen... then I ran away..." Mala's brow furrowed. "Ilira will pay dearly for this. She uses the innocent as her engines of destruction and perversion." "Aren't you forgetting something?" I inquired. "The trek, Mala." one of the other gargoyles said. "To go join Kara?" Mala considered it. "As ungrateful as humans are, there are the innocent ones still who mean us no harm, and must be protected. I will not stand in the way if any wish to go, but for now Ilira and her creations must be dealt with." "Starting with helping me be normal again?" Amberlee asked hopfully. "Now, hold on a minute." I said. "Those spells Ilira put on her are four hundred years old, and hacking into them will be very hard. If what Amberlee has told us already is true, then we have already beaten Ilira -- her creations cannot milk her, and will perish without her nourishment." "Then let us leave to join Kara now! Then take her with us!" "No." I cut in. "There is a problem. I found this in her reproductive system." I handed a note padd over to Mala. She thumbed through it. "What does this mean?" "She was created with a certain number of ova -- eggs to lay in her life. Some are missing -- laid." "How many?" "Three." The eyes turned to Amberlee. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't remember." I went on. "Her direct offspring could have her ability to feed Ilira's minions." "_IF_ they are female." one of the males pointed out. "I have little doubt Ilira has the power to force any developing egg to turn from a male into a female -- perhaps even on a fully grown person." I turned to Mala. "It's your decision." Mala paced to the window. "There are good humans here." she began, considering as she spoke. "Wyndia is one of them, Amberlee is one of them. Ilira may be limited to the Sanctuary, but she will not remain so for long. Her minions are growing in strength, not declining." Turning, with the rising moon shining through the window behind her, she turned to the others. She clenched her fist, raising it with determination before her. "To stomp away after a human gives us grief is one thing, but to abandon others who need us is quite more. We can do more than protect eachother from the humans. We can protect them from themselves. That is what we will do. Who will stay?" All of the clan shouted "Aye!". Mala nodded with a slight smile forming on her face.