Connie leapt away from the ground where stone sprites lurked and then looked back to see how the other captives were faring. Tree roots had just freed Mack, and he was now pulling Cassandra clear as the last hand holding her was destroyed. Clouds of choking dust floated on the breeze, leaving them all covered in a thin film of the white grit, as if they had been fighting each other with flour.
“Right,” Mack gasped, taking deep breaths into his starved lungs. “What are we going to do to save Col?”
Connie reached out in thought for a moment, trying to sense what was happening above them. She could feel Kullervo’s hate spilling out across the skies like a dark miasma. The pursuit was still on.
“We need a weapon to use against him,” she said. “Kullervo’s still hunting them.”
“You defeated him last time,” Mack said looking at her with new-found respect. “Simple—you can do whatever you did then again.”
“I can’t—not unless he turns his anger on me and at the moment it’s directed at Col and Skylark. I have no power of my own; I can only use the power of others.”
Silence fell. The three of them turned to the gorgon.
Skylark came out of his swerve to see that his sudden move had thrown Kullervo off-balance. The dark pegasus had crashed his hooves into the topmost branches of a beech, sending showers of splinters into the air. Skylark had gained some ground but did not know what to do with it.
Where should we go? he asked his companion.
We must draw him away from Connie and toward help, Col replied. Let’s head for the moor.
What about the procession—they’ll see us!
I really don’t care. My plan’s failed. The Society will have to come into the open now.
Skylark kicked north but even he, one of the swiftest of his kind, was too slow to dream of outpacing Kullervo. Their enemy had shifted shape to that of a weather giant. He loomed in front of them, cutting off their escape—a storm cloud crowned with a thorny wreath of lightning that flickered with savage barbs.
“Not good,” Col muttered.
The weather giant opened his dark mouth and howled at them, blowing Skylark back in the gale so that the pegasus was standing in mid-air on his hind legs, wings flapping desperately to stop himself from tumbling backward. Col flung his arms around Skylark’s neck, clinging to stay on.
Hold tight—Athenian dive! Skylark panted.
Retracting his wings abruptly the pegasus allowed the wind to flip him head-over-hoof, then he fell headfirst toward the ground, twisting and turning like a sycamore seed. Once out of the slipstream of the wind, Skylark unfurled his wings and struggled to convert the spiraling plunge to a controlled glide. Col could do nothing, as all his energy was absorbed in trying to stay on the horse’s back. Finally, Skylark’s wings took control and his spinning slowed. He pulled out of the dive, but not before he had crashed his knees into the branches of a pine tree and scored his underbelly with deep gashes.
His mount injured, Col looked desperately for a place to run.
We’ll have to return to the clearing and land—try to lose him on the ground! Col said.
Skylark did not reply as he fought his pain. He turned to head back the way they had come. But they had not lost Kullervo so easily. A dragon with scales glistening like wet slate emerged from the storm cloud, sucking the dark matter up in a long tail behind it—Kullervo had taken his new shape. Thwack! With almost lazy ease, the dragon’s tail curled around and hit Col squarely on his back, gouging into the chainmail like a knife through butter. Col was catapulted over Skylark’s head and fell between his striding hooves, narrowly missing being struck. He landed with a splintering crash in the branches at the top of the old oak. The impact of his fall smashed the frail bough to which Connie had clung, and he slid down to rest at a fork in the trunk, winded, bruised, and bleeding from numerous cuts.
The dragon’s tail whipped around for a second blow and hit Skylark’s right wing. Col caught a glimpse of Skylark tumbling out of the sky—in a sickening repetition of what he had done to the kestrel—the pegasus’s broken limb trailing helplessly as he plunged from sight. One enemy down, Kullervo turned to concentrate all his malice on Col.
Cassandra and Connie followed the line of a thick tree root to reach the gorgon in safety. Kneeling beside the creature, Cassandra gently stroked her snake-hair, more of which were moving now as their host fought her way back to consciousness.
“Get out of the way, Mack,” Cassandra called over to him briskly, “she won’t be in a good mood when she wakes up.”
“Yeah,” Mack said, backing away. “It would be just my luck to escape freezing to death only to be turned to stone by your friend here.”
Cassandra bent her head over the gorgon, closed her eyes, and pressed her hand against the creature’s forehead, summoning her. The snake-locks slithered toward Cassandra’s curtain of hair, winding around her ringlets, enmeshing themselves in an embrace with each blonde strand. At the same moment, the blue eyes of Cassandra and the dark eyes of the gorgon snapped open, and they stared deep into each other. A perfect connection had been made and Cassandra was now immune to the killing power of the gaze. They stayed like this for some minutes, Connie fretting at every second that passed, worrying about Col, but knowing that this could not be hurried. Dazed and angry as the gorgon would be on waking, it was by no means certain that she would agree to help them against Kullervo, not even to save the offspring of her companion. Finally, the snake-locks unwound themselves, and the pair broke off their silent communion.
Cassandra turned to Connie. “I’ve pleaded with her to save my hatchling. She…she didn’t want to at first, but I think she now understands how important it is to me. She said she’ll help. But you must bond with her as you saw me do.”
“Okay,” said Connie bravely. “But how are we to get up there together? Can she carry me?”
Cassandra shook her head. “Her wings are for gliding only. She will climb. You’ll have to do the same.”
“Right.” But it was far from “right” as Connie trembled at the thought of leaving the ground again.
Mack, who had been listening some feet away with his hands clasped firmly over his eyes, called over to Connie.
“I’ll help you climb, Connie. Just hurry up, will you!”
Connie knew he was right. She must hesitate no longer. “So do we bond or climb first?” she asked Cassandra.
“Climb.”
Cassandra helped the gorgon to stand up. A large, black bruise on the creature’s scaly chest showed where Col’s lance had struck. Wincing with pain, the gorgon turned to the tree as if to embrace it.
“Wait!” Connie cried, hurrying forward. “We must ask permission from the oak.” Concentrating for a moment, she rapidly sought out the wood sprite. It was not far away, watching events as they unfolded beneath its boughs.
Climb, it said and bounded up the trunk ahead of them.
Connie nodded to the gorgon, and the creature began to ascend, winding herself around the branches, not climbing but slithering up the tree.
“Is she gone?” Mack called out, still afraid to look.
“She’s gone,” Cassandra confirmed.
“Right then, here you go,” he said to Connie, “I’ll give you a leg up.” He cradled Connie’s foot in his cupped hands and hoisted her up to the lowest branch. Connie swung her leg over and looked up, bewildered by the crisscrossing black boughs amid green and yellow leaves. Which route should she choose? The gorgon was already high, gliding smoothly through the leaves, barely disturbing them with her passage. Connie reached up to the nearest branch on a fork in the trunk to the left, but then she heard a creaking squeak to her right. The wood sprite was sitting on a higher branch, chattering urgently at her, clearly telling her that her choice was bad. She reached her hand out toward the limb it was sitting on, and it ceased squeaking and bounded up to the next level. The branch she should move to next, however, was too far for her to reach by stretching. How co
uld she possibly make this climb?
Then Mack pulled himself up onto the bough beside her.
“All right, darling,” he said cheerfully, seeing her terrified face. “I told you I’d lend a hand. Lean out and I’ll make sure you don’t fall. Can’t go losing our universal after all the hassle we’ve had saving you, can we?”
For the second time that morning, Col lay on his back looking up, but on this occasion the prospect was much grimmer. His vision was filled by a blue-black dragon slowly gliding down toward him out of the gray skies, its eyes contemplating him with cold joy. Would it burn him or bite him? Col wondered vaguely. His only hope now was that the end would come swiftly.
A flash of gold streaked across his sight, and the progress of the dragon was halted, distracted by a new nuisance. A tiny creature was darting around its head, too fast to be properly seen, like a fly worrying a bull. The dragon raised a claw to swat it away but then bellowed in pain. A searing stream of fire had shot from the creature’s mouth and burned the dragon’s snout. Furious at this attack, the dragon drew deep on its stores of fire and spouted a blast of flames at the creature, catching it with the full force of its blaze. The creature just danced in the flames, taunting the beast. The dragon drew back its long neck to inhale deeply, then rammed it forward, jaws open wide, breathing a second river of white-hot fire over the strange creature, the tips of the flames scorching the branch near Col’s head, sending up a cloud of sparks. The only reply the creature made was to return its own small puff of fire, singeing the dragon’s forked tongue.
“Argand!” Col cried in wonder, both terrified and impressed by the dragonet’s audacity.
“Col!”
He heard a shout below. It sounded like his father, but he could not tear his eyes away from the unequal combat overhead.
“I’m here!” he shouted back.
“We’re coming for you. Just hang on! Don’t look down—the gorgon’s with us.”
Col did not need to be told twice. He clung to the tree, his knuckles white, watching the dragon being driven into madness by the persistence of the tiny attacker. But suddenly, the dragon disappeared, dissolving into dark blue mist, leaving Argand flying in a bewildering cloud.
“Watch out!” Col called out quite uselessly, as the dragonet would not listen to him. “He’ll take shape again!”
The mist spun itself around Argand, reshaping into the cruel beak, sleek head, wings, and lion’s claws of a griffin. With a swipe of a talon, Kullervo knocked the dragonet from the sky, sending her spinning into the treetops like a Frisbee. With a grating caw, the griffin turned back to its main quarry.
18
Choices
Hauling herself onto a branch two-thirds of the way up the tree, Connie could now see Col’s armor shining above her head. The sparse leaf cover at the summit of the wind-ravaged oak no longer obscured the fight in the air. Connie could also see the flash of gold dancing around the black jaws of the dragon and realized that Argand was doing all she could to buy some time for her.
“This is far enough,” she called down to Mack, waiting on the branch below. “Stay there—I’ll summon the gorgon.” Connie looked anxiously around, wondering where the creature had concealed herself.
“You have to drum on the branch,” Mack shouted, seeing her hesitation, “that’s what Cassie used to do.”
Connie nodded and, gripping the branch with her knees, began to thump on the bark with her fists. Almost immediately, a bronze body unwound itself from a broad limb jutting out from the trunk, and slid along the branch to her. Connie tried to restrain her urge to flinch as the creature approached, but she could not help wondering, even if it were too late to ask such questions, if the creature could be trusted? To whom would the gorgon be loyal: Kullervo or Cassandra? It would be so easy for the gorgon to use her gaze to immobilize Connie, kill Col and Mack, finishing Kullervo’s task for him and earning his gratitude. Would that be her choice?
The gorgon reached out a hand and touched Connie’s forehead with her dry fingers. What would come, would come, Connie thought, and bowed her head forward, eyes closed. She felt snakes sliding over her shoulders, up her neck, and twisting themselves in her dark hair, their skin whispering against her head and their soft voices hissing in her ears. Her bond with the gorgon cracked out of its shell. She felt herself begin to elongate, twisting and turning in a new skin, shedding her old one, which now seemed absurdly irrelevant to the serpentine world she was embracing. Sliding forward, every part of her in contact with this world, snuffing its scent, feeling each feature of its surface ripple under her, she plunged deeper. At the heart of the gorgon lay a core of adamant quarried from the bones of the earth. Here lived the power to sear through flesh and turn it to stone, fossilizing in an instant what normally took the earth eons to achieve. She felt the beautiful simplicity of petrifying enemies so that she could then glide over them with no danger. Connie slithered to greet this power, to touch it.…
Her eyes opened with a suddenness that took her by surprise. She found she was staring deep into the black irises of the gorgon, seeing her own face reflected in them. The gorgon’s lips were curled in a cruel smile; through their bond she could now hear Connie’s doubts and fears.
You will help, won’t you? Connie pleaded.
Perhaps-ss, the gorgon replied elusively, her deepest thoughts sliding beyond Connie’s grasp as the snake-locks released their hold and she parted from the universal.
There was a thunderous crack overhead, and Connie looked up to see Argand falling in a shower of golden sparks through the twigs of a nearby tree, squealing with indignation. It was time! Clinging to the trunk, Connie pulled herself to her feet, and the gorgon slid to the far side, winding herself once more around a thick bough.
Kullervo! Connie called out to the dark presence that was now never far from her mind. She had to goad him, deflect his attention away from Col. You coward—picking on a boy and a dragonet! So brave, so very brave, when you know they don’t have powers to match you!
The griffin hovered above the boy, its talons stretched out to pluck him from the branch. Connie could sense that the creature was listening to her.
Why don’t you pick on someone your own size for once? she called out.
The boy could wait. He was going nowhere. Kullervo turned toward Connie, nimbly gliding down to land on the end of the branch she was balanced on, bowing it so that it creaked in protest.
So the universal thinks she is my match, does she? he screeched, taking a step toward her. What has cowardice to do with me? A feeble human idea. I rip and tear whom I will. Even the universal. Perhaps you need a mark in your flesh to remind you whose you are? He emphasized each word with a flick of his lion’s tail.
Connie reached behind her, groping the far side of the trunk in search of the fingers of the gorgon, but she found only rough bark. The griffin was now only a few feet away. Kullervo paused to contemplate her, his eyes greedily devouring her fear.
You tremble before me and yet you think you are my equal, Companion. He raised a claw and gently stroked her cheek with its razor-edged tip. Where shall I put my mark? Perhaps, here? I would like you to remember me each time you look in a mirror. Connie flattened herself against the trunk, her knees buckling, her hands still fluttering behind her in a last, desperate attempt to find the gorgon. But the creature must have reneged on her promise, because Connie’s fingers met no answering touch.
“You can mark me, but I’ll never be yours,” Connie replied in a whisper, her heart failing.
As I have told you, Companion, you already are mine, countered the griffin and he raised his foreleg to strike her.
At that moment, Connie’s fingers were grasped in a strong fist and she felt a rush of cold fire blaze up her arm, through her neck to her eyes. Her head jerked back and she stared straight into the slit-like pupils of Kullervo, meeting his disdainful look with a new and completely unexpected power. His talons froze in the air, a hair’s breadth from her fa
ce. She could see rage and confusion in his eyes now as he realized that she had tricked him. Pressing the attack further, Connie forced the paralysis deeper into her adversary. Caught by the skin of stone in which she had encased him, he was unable to shape-shift. She could feel the gorgon urging her on; her decision made to protect Cassandra’s hatchling, she was now fighting as if for her own young. Heaviness was overcoming the griffin’s wings and he began to sway, no longer able to maintain his balance on the narrow branch. Connie paused, holding him there with her gaze, knowing that if she pursued the attack further it would cause him to topple to the ground, trapping the immortal part of Kullervo in a tomb of stone.
Mack, who had been watching the combat with horrified fascination, was now distracted by the sound of drums and horns approaching.
“Connie, the procession’s coming!” he called up. “Whatever you have to do, you’d better do it fast!”
His words melded in Connie’s head with the urging from the gorgon to kill, their voices weaving around each other like vipers in a nest. Confused as to what she should do, Connie gazed into Kullervo’s fierce eyes glaring in outrage at her. Didn’t he deserve death? Deserve to be stamped out for being the vicious creature he had proved himself to be? Shouldn’t she be revenged on him for all the pain he had put her through? Why should she show pity? He had showed no pity toward her. Her mind filled with bitter anger against him, and the temptation grew to complete her conquest.
Then, like a match flaring in the darkness, she had a fleeting recollection of how they had flown together, dancing in the air for one wild moment of exhilarating companionship. She then knew that, try as she might, she could not hurt her companion. He was part of her—and she was part of him. The light grew stronger as she remembered how he had saved her life today by catching her as she fell. She could not murder him in cold blood. Godiva had once killed her companion and destroyed part of herself in the process—she would not be like that.