Chapter Seven

The Cathedral

Stone World

“So Mistress-Who-Must-Never-Be-Insulted,” the red jasper gargoyle said, “are you certain this is the direction you wish to go?”

Dorotea frowned up at him, struggling not to let his height intimidate her. “Of course I’m certain.” Three passages joined to the Cathedral, the nearest from Stone Heart Cavern, so they were retracing her earlier steps.

She walked another few paces before thinking to ask, “What makes you think I’m going the wrong way?”

He shrugged. “Three people are walking down this tunnel toward us. But perhaps they are your friends coming to meet you?” He mocked her with his lifted eyebrows, yellow eyes cruel.

Her heartbeat accelerated. She could not be caught with him! “Hide,” she commanded.

“As you wish.” A flash of fang.

He laid both hands on the tunnel wall and melted—no, not melted, shaped –the stone with his fingers as if it were clay or water. The excess stone was pushed to either side, thickening the wall. He created a recessed niche, then stepped inside.

She could hear footsteps now. “Hurry,” she urged.

The excess stone flowed back out and across the opening. The wall had almost closed over when Dorotea realized her own mistake. “Come out as soon as they’re past”—but he wouldn’t be able to see them—“or if I knock three times.”

A snarl twisted his face as she evaded his trap, and then the wall smoothed over, leaving only a bump in the tunnel wall.

Hearing male voices approaching, Dorotea pushed her father’s slipping left bracelet back up past her elbow so that it was hidden in her sleeve.

“In all likelihood, the alarm was caused by a boulder disturbed by yesterday’s earthquake finally falling down. Still, I think it prudent to check it out.” The man’s fancy speech made her think he might be an Elect. “And, of course, the tunnel will need to be drained. My servant Burt will take care of that. He’s done it before.”

“And a right ornery pain it is, too,” another man, presumably Burt, muttered.

They rounded the curve and came into sight. Dorotea pressed herself against the wall, politely getting out of their way.

Two men walked abreast—a short Elect, identifiable by his green robes and tinted eye-shields, and Gerhardt, the broad-shouldered, leather-clad leader of the Stone Heart Clan. A third man followed two steps behind. He must be Burt. Dorotea would have known him as Unskilled by his large callused hands and weathered face, even without the black U tattooed on his cheek.

“Poor Burt hates the water trap.” The Elect sounded amused.

Burt spat on the ground. “That’s cuz the lever to open the drain is way down in one corner. Always takes me four dives to find the bloody thing.” A little gray threaded through his curly hair, but the Unskilled servant looked wiry and tough.

Dorotea sagged, relieved that she hadn’t permanently damaged the passageway and that false alarms were common.

“If you’re so sure the alarm was set off by a falling rock, why do you need me along?” Gerhardt objected.

The Elect tugged at his greasy goatee, looking annoyed. “Likelihood and probability aren’t the same as certainty. These alarms are usually false. Let’s say the alarm itself implies only a 5 percent chance something disturbed the gargoyles. But when you factor in the 50 percent probability that the two recent blackouts were caused by sabotage from that crazy woman Above, then the chances of something drastically wrong with the gargoyles rises to 25 percent.”

Sabotage? What crazy woman?

“That’s where you come in,” the Elect continued. “Unless Stone Heart Clan has lost all ability and wishes to change your clan name to Miners?” he needled.

Dismay made her stomach lurch. If they gave the Cavern of Traitors more than a cursory glimpse, they would see the empty spot in the corner. So much for her plan to quietly return the gargoyle to the cavern afterward.

One problem at a time, she coached herself. First save Marta, then worry about getting away with your crime. Hopefully, the time they spent draining the tunnel would give her a chance to reach the Cathedral.

Gerhardt stopped swearing when he saw Dorotea ahead. An awkward silence fell.

Pass me by.

But she wasn’t that lucky. The Elect held up his hand, and they all stopped. He frowned. “Girl, why are you wet?”

Gerhardt rumbled with amusement. “This pathway also leads to the hot springs.”

“Yes.” Dorotea bobbed her head in agreement, aware of her pounding heart. “I’ve been to visit the hot springs.” It was what she’d always planned to say if questioned.

“Why?” the Elect persisted. “It’s the middle of the day. Shouldn’t you be working, helping your parents?”

“I—I—” Dorotea stumbled over her tongue, searching for an excuse.

Gerhardt crossed his arms. “Elect, look at her. She’s a pretty girl. I imagine she was meeting a boy. The hot springs are a popular trysting place.”

Skinny-dipping in the hot springs with a boy? Dorotea blushed crimson, but held her tongue.

“That doesn’t explain why her clothes are wet,” the Elect said peevishly. “Bathing naked is the whole point of the hot springs, is it not?”

Dorotea cringed, caught between the twin horrors of being apprehended and being thought promiscuous. “I—I changed my mind about—about the boy, and he pushed me in. That’s how my clothes got wet.”

“You see?” Gerhardt said to the Elect. “Can we go now?”

The Elect pouted, an odd expression on a grown man. “Not yet. You’re Artisan Clan, aren’t you, girl? Who is your father?”

Would Gerhardt recognize her father’s name as former Stone Heart Clan? “My father’s name is Martin,” she lied, giving him her stepfather’s name instead. “Please don’t tell him.”

“I will judge if it’s appropriate to tell him or not,” the Elect said coldly. “Let us proceed.”

Go away. Dorotea studied her feet, so they wouldn’t see her expression.

Burt lingered a moment, frowning. “He didn’t hurt you, did he? The boy?”

Dorotea shook her head, letting her wet hair fall forward over her face. Under other circumstances, she might have appreciated his concern, but right now, she was wild for all of them to just leave. “I’m fine, I promise. Just wet. I want to go home and change my clothes.”

“Burt, hurry up!” the Elect called from five paces ahead.

Burt jogged off.

Dorotea walked in the other direction until the curving wall hid her. She waited, breathless and sick.

She’d made a terrible mistake. She shouldn’t have given them Martin’s name. It would lead them straight to her once Gerhardt discovered the missing gargoyle, and they would demand to know the name of the fictitious boy to corroborate her story.

She was doomed.

Don’t think about that. It will be worth it if you can save Marta.

If the Goddess listened to her plea. If the Goddess was angry enough to cause the quakes, would she care about the life of one little girl?

Dorotea inhaled on a sob, then clenched her fists and lifted her chin. She couldn’t afford to think about this now. Time to retrieve the gargoyle.

Finding the bulge in the wall was harder than she’d expected, but on her third knock, the stone opened up, and the gargoyle stepped out.

She fought a shudder at the sight of stone behaving like living mud. She backed up a step, still daunted by how tall and broad-shouldered the gargoyle was.

“Visitors gone?” he rumbled.

“Yes,” Dorotea said shortly. She didn’t want to talk about how much potential trouble she was in. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

The hair on the back of her neck rose at the not-so-veiled menace in his tone. She wished she’d made him precede her; she disliked not being able to see what he was doing. But it would smell like weakness if she reversed their order now.

“Tell me if you hear more people approaching,” she commanded him. He had a vested interest in avoiding recapture, but she didn’t trust him.

Fortunately, the passage was seldom used, and the gargoyle only had to hide in the wall one other time. Dorotea pretended to be picking a stone out of her shoe as an elderly couple shuffled by on their way to the hot springs to soak their old bones.

She grew more and more anxious as they approached Stone Heart Cavern. She needed to cut across it to reach the passage to the Cathedral. But people would be gathering for the noon meal. The gargoyle would be seen. Why hadn’t she thought this out better, realized the gargoyle would need to go to the Cathedral, and woken him when everyone was sleeping?

Because doing something, anything, had been better than sitting at Marta’s bedside, waiting for her to die.

Should she tell the gargoyle to hide and then return for him at False Night?

But because of her stupid slip with Martin’s name, the Elect might come looking for her. She only had a slight lead on them. She had to keep moving, get to the Cathedral now. Maybe if they just ran for it?

No. People in other caverns might scream and get out of the way of a gargoyle, but Stone Hearts had been the gargoyles’ masters. Someone would try to stop them, and then she’d either have to surrender or order the gargoyle to hurt the person. Unacceptable.

Which left only one option: she was going to have to let the gargoyle out of her sight.

She turned so abruptly, she almost hit her nose on his stone chest. “You said you can move through the rock?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Then I want you to swim through the floor of Stone Heart Cavern and meet me in the tunnel that goes from there to the Cathedral.” She frowned, struggling to think of a landmark. She hadn’t taken the passage from Stone to Cathedral since she was a child. Since her father died and she and her mother moved to Artisan Cavern. “I’ll be ten strides from the entrance.”

“I won’t be able to tell where the entrance is without poking my head up to see,” the gargoyle objected. “It would be faster if we just arranged to meet in the Cathedral itself.”

Dorotea frowned. He was trying to trick her, of course, but the risk of meeting in the Cathedral wasn’t that much greater than in the tunnel. And it did have landmarks. She just had to be careful how she worded her command.

“Agreed. You will move through the rock, silently and out of sight. You will take the most direct route and move at a speed no slower than walking.”

A flicker in his expression told her he’d intended to make a detour.

“Do you know where the grotto is?” The grotto was a small alcove off to one side of the main cathedral and had the added advantage of being out of sight.

He nodded.

“When you arrive at the Cathedral, position yourself in the stone three feet to the left of the grotto, thin the wall to the Cathedral so you can listen for my knock, then emerge at my signal.” What else, what else? “If I don’t arrive within a day’s time, you will return to the Cavern of Traitors—formerly known as the Cavern of Gargoyles—at a good pace and surrender yourself. If you disobey me in any of these things, you will suffer terrible pain.”

The gargoyle scowled down at her.

She smirked, quite pleased with herself.

“What do you want me to ask of the Goddess?”

She didn’t want to tell him about Marta yet. It seemed too much like begging for pity. “The earthquakes are getting more and more frequent,” she said instead. “The caverns have grown unsafe. I need you to ask the Goddess why She is angry and how to stop the quakes.”

He snorted. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Why?” Sudden suspicion filled her. “You can do it, can’t you? Talk to the Goddess?”

He crossed his burly arms. “Oh, I can. But why should I?”

She blinked. “Didn’t you hear me? The earthquakes are growing stronger. Soon they’ll pull the caves down on our heads, and everyone will die.”

“Every human will die,” he corrected, his eyelids shielding his gaze.

A bolt of fury sizzled through her at his callousness. “You will relay my message because I order you to,” Dorotea said harshly. “Go now!”

Without another word, he sank into the tunnel floor.

She yelped and took a step back. The hairs bristled on the back of her neck. There was something deeply disturbing about watching the stone swallow him up. Bury him alive.

A flash of memory: Her father’s dead body being pushed down into the stone, buried.

No. That was wrong. That had only happened in her nightmares. Her father’s body had been carried Above to be covered in the shifting sands. She remembered the cloth-wrapped body at his funeral.

The gargoyle vanished, leaving her shaken. She shoved away the dream memory and started walking. Within moments, she reached Stone Heart Cavern. She kept her head down, her expression placid, as if she often visited. She had her excuses about the hot springs ready if anyone should ask why she was damp—but no one did.

Once she reached the passage to the Cathedral, she hurried her steps. By now, the tunnel leading to the Cavern of Traitors must’ve been drained, and Gerhardt would know one gargoyle was missing. By now, the Elect would have remembered, with growing suspicion, the girl with wet skirts. Pursuit would be on its way.

She hit the Cathedral at a fast clip.

The cavern was the largest one in the entire cave system, easily four times as large as either Stone Heart or Artisan Cavern. Artisan Cavern was…homey. Panels of fabric hung from metal stands, creating the illusion of rooms. The ceiling averaged fifteen to twenty feet high, seldom dipping lower than twelve feet high.

But the Cathedral was grand and majestic.

The ceiling sloped from low enough to graze Dorotea’s head steeply upward to the sixty-foot-high wall that made up The Goddess’s Face. Looking at the flowing, weeping wall of stone, subtly colored with pinks and grays, chips of mica, and rich wandering veins of gold and quartz, always made Dorotea feel dizzy and small.

It always took her a moment to see The Goddess’s Face as more than a random collection of bumps and hollows, but once she did, the Goddess was impossible to un-see. Her face was at once ageless and wise, Her brow proud and unwrinkled, Her chin square and firm. She was womanly but somehow beyond beauty and impossible to describe.

The Goddess’s eyes were closed, but She frowned in Her sleep. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and Her brows were drawn together. Dorotea stared at Her immense face and shivered.

This had to work.

Unfortunately, there were more people in the Cathedral than she’d anticipated. Dismay knotted her stomach as she counted them. In addition to four white-robed priests, several petitioners scooped dippers of water from the pool and poured them down over a portion of The Face. The whole wall of the Goddess was a trickling veil of tears, the water piped up from below in some arcane Elect-known-only fashion and then sprayed from tiny holes in a pipe.

Something new that Dorotea didn’t remember were the barrels of water close to The Goddess’s Face. Were they there in case another blackout caused the piped water to fail? Was that why the Goddess had woken the first time?

Worst of all, one priest was directing a children’s choir off to one side. It was far from the all-but-deserted scene she’d envisioned. What was she going to do?

Save your sister.

Praying not to be seen, Dorotea hurried toward the grotto on her left.

Like the inside of a geode, the tiny grotto sparkled with crystals—rose quartz and sprays of amethyst longer than her fingers; a fringe of white bubbles the size of her hand. The quiet corner was Dorotea’s favorite place in the Cathedral.

Yet another white-robed priest knelt there, praying. Dorotea started to back up, but he’d obviously heard her because he shuffled over, making room for her. She couldn’t knock for the gargoyle as long as the priest was there, and if she just stood there, he would ask what she was waiting for. Reluctantly, Dorotea came inside and knelt beside him, then stiffened when she recognized the wizened priest Martin had dragged to pray over Marta.

Go away, Dorotea prayed. Please don’t recognize me. A heartfelt plea, if not very pious.

The priest finished his prayer, then turned to her with what was probably meant to be a kindly smile but struck Dorotea as smug. “Come to pray for your sister, have you? A good thought, but next time”—he patted her shoulder—“tell your mother where you’re going. She was quite distraught.”

Dorotea swallowed her pride. She hated to ask anything of someone so self-righteous, but… “Did you see Marta? Is she any better? Did she wake up?”

“Your parents and I prayed together over her for an hour.”

“And did it help?”

“Prayer always helps. Your father was much more at peace when I left.”

Stepfather. She didn’t care two straws about Martin. “I meant my sister. Did she improve?”

“Her face is free of pain. She is at peace in the arms of the Goddess.

Disappointment crushed her chest. Anger rushed in, displacing her despair. Her fists clenched. “Don’t speak of her as if she were already dead!”

“Calm yourself, child. I only meant to reassure you that if the worst happens, your sister will go to a better place.”

Dorotea pressed her lips together to keep from shouting that he lied. The Goddess was sleeping and couldn’t hear anyone, much less rock them in Her arms. And she suspected the priests were deliberately keeping Her in a false sleep, just like Marta.

It was time to wake Her up.

Waiting until the priest had ambled away, moving at the speed of an ant, nearly killed Dorotea. Finally, when he was thirty feet away, she exited the grotto and knocked on the hard stone on the left side of the grotto three times. Her teeth gritted in impatience when nothing happened. Surely, she couldn’t have beaten the gargoyle here? He was probably dawdling just to annoy her—

The sound of stone scraping against stone made her turn her head. Of course: from behind the wall, the other side of the grotto would be his left. She glimpsed red jasper.

Quicker than she could blink, the gargoyle placed a hand over her mouth and pinned her against the wall. He spoke into her ear, his voice a grating whisper: “You ordered me not to harm you, but you said nothing about keeping you from speaking.”

Cold terror poured through her in an icy cataract. She froze, unable to move.

“Do you think I can’t guess what will happen after I make your little request to the Goddess? You’ll order me back to the Cavern of Gargoyles and condemn me to that living death. Well, I won’t go. If you want me to petition the Goddess on your behalf, then you’ll have to meet my price: I want my freedom.”

Dorotea pulled at his stone fingers to no avail. She rammed her palm into his chin, boxed his ear, even scratched at his stone eyes. He stood impervious to it all. Her terror swelled at her own helplessness. She kicked his shin and stubbed her toes. Tears of pain streamed from her eyes.

One splashed his hand. He flinched but didn’t release her.

“I’m not asking that much.” His golden gaze bored into hers. “I know you’ll never agree to free my brothers and sisters. I’ll even promise to go away, far away, and never bother another human again, on fear of the collar. Just don’t send me back to stasis. I won’t go back.” His voice rasped.

Through the haze of her own fear, she realized that he was scared, too. Terrified of being made a statue again. And who could blame him? It was an awful fate.

Her nose started to drip. She sniffed, but it didn’t do any good, and she suddenly struggled to breathe.

His collar flared. Panic widened his eyes. “Promise me my freedom! Nod your head!”

But she didn’t, and in moments, he was forced to release her or risk killing her and living in perpetual agony. Quickly, before he could cover her mouth again, she gasped out, “Never do that again. Never cover my mouth or stop me from speaking again. That’s an order.” Another loophole closed, but how long until he found another?

Nobody had ever told her gargoyles were so infernally clever. She’d expected him to be as dumb as a rock.

Foolish of her. If they’d been that stupid, the gargoyle rebellion wouldn’t have almost succeeded. And that cleverness meant she couldn’t free him. She stomped down on the guilt she felt. If she released him, he’d find some loophole and liberate his brethren, and more people would die in another rebellion.

She scrubbed away her tears then took a deep breath. “Answer me truthfully: how close do you need to be to the wall in order to speak to the Goddess?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to Her. Since She’s sleeping, I suspect the closer the better.”

Dorotea chewed unhappily on her lower lip. It would be all but impossible for the gargoyle to get close enough to The Face without being seen by one of the priests or worshippers.

On the other hand, what priest would dare get in the way of a six-foot-tall brute with fists of stone?

Given time, Dorotea might possibly be able to come up with some clever way to distract the priests, but she didn’t have much time before the Elect came looking for her. Time to take a chance.

“When you wake the Goddess, I want you to ask Her why She is angry and what we can do to convince Her to stop the earthquakes.”

“Truly? You can’t think of any reason why She might be angry?” The gargoyle gestured to the trickling veil of water and the children’s choir. “Look. They’re using the running water and the singing of hymns to keep her asleep.”

His words made sense. The priest had said that the last earthquake had been the Elect’s fault. During the blackout, the water had stopped trickling, and the Goddess had started to rouse from her slumber. But… “You have it the wrong way around. The Goddess was angry before the priests lulled Her to sleep. That’s why they did it.”

He studied her. “I can tell you why She’s angry.”

Dorotea blinked at the unexpected offer. “You can? Why?”

He shook his head. “There’s no point in telling you. You’ll need to hear it directly from the Goddess to believe it.”

Dorotea opened her mouth to command him to tell her, then closed it. He was right. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, trust a word he said. The plan would have to proceed.

“Tell Her I’ll do whatever She wants if She heals my sister, Marta.”

He stared at her. “The Goddess can’t heal. It’s not in Her power.” His gentle certainty was like a slap in the face.

“You don’t know that,” Dorotea said sharply. “She is the Goddess of Mercy.”

He shook his head. “She is the Goddess of Stone.”

“Enough.” Dorotea’s voice shook. “I won’t hear another word.”

“Typical human,” he muttered.

She reviewed the instructions she’d given him. Had she missed any angle he could exploit? “Don’t say anything extra, anything I haven’t approved, or you’ll be punished.”

He sneered. “That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Threaten me with pain.”

Hot words rose in her throat. “That’s because pain is all an animal responds to, and that’s what you are: a beast.” Except doubt crept in. He wasn’t like one of the cavefish in the river or mice that scurried in the fields. He could think and speak. He was as smart as she was. The way he kept finding loopholes in her commands proved that.

“I’m the beast?” he scoffed. “All I did was hold my hand over your mouth. I’ve never hurt you, but you can’t say the same to me. How many times have you tortured me?”

“I didn’t harm you; the collar did. You keep hurting yourself by disobeying,” Dorotea retorted, but the words sounded weak. He’d scared her, but he’d never assaulted her. Because the collar constrains him.

The sound of excited voices rose above the children’s singing and attracted her attention to the Stone Heart entrance to the Cathedral. Her skin roughened with chills at the sight of the Elect with the goatee and eye-shields. Worse, he was accompanied by his burly Unskilled servant, Burt, and Gerhardt, the Stone Heart Clan leader.

“They have mauls,” the gargoyle said uneasily.

The heavy mining sledges could break bones or stone. They were the only weapon with a chance against a gargoyle.

The sledges alarmed the priests, too. Two white-robed priests hurried to intercept the visitors, including the wizened old man who’d joined her in the grotto. And he knew her name.

Sandstorms, Dorotea swore inwardly. She froze. Run and fight another day? Or gamble it all?

She turned to the gargoyle. “Tunnel underground to The Face as quick as you can. Surface and repeat my message to the Goddess.”

“What about them?” He nodded toward the Elect, Gerhardt, and Burt.

“I’ll distract them. Go!”

Obligingly, he sank into the stone. Shuddering, Dorotea averted her eyes so she didn’t have to watch. Buried alive. She kept her gaze trained on the Elect’s group. Any moment now, the wizened priest would point toward the grotto—

On cue, all the heads turned her way. Gerhardt and Burt advanced toward her. Now she just had to keep their attention.

Dorotea picked up her still damp skirts and made a dash for the Elect entrance, which lay directly across the semicircular hall from her. The Cathedral had the capacity to hold the entire population of the cave system. During ceremonies, everyone brought their own blankets and sat on the floor and listened to the priests. Right now, the cavern was just open space, except for the choir right next to The Goddess’s Face.

“Stop!” the Elect yelled.

Dorotea kept running, swinging wide in an effort to avoid Gerhardt and Burt. They swerved, trying to intercept her, but their heavy mauls slowed them down. She squeaked past them and sprinted full out. Her lungs were on fire before she’d covered half the distance.

She dodged Gerhardt’s lunge, only to be caught and spun around by Burt’s grip on her arm.

He held her until Gerhardt arrived, gasping and red-faced. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her so hard, her teeth rattled. “Where is the gargoyle? What did you do with it?”

Dorotea clamped her jaw together.

“Little idiot,” he said. “Elect Harmon is panting to banish you for this. You have one chance for leniency: tell me where the gargoyle is right now.”

She shook her head, defiant.

“If you don’t care about yourself, think about your family. They could be banished with you,” he threatened.

“No,” she gasped. She felt dizzy with horror. “You can’t do that! My mother and sister have nothing to do with this.”

“You’re a traitor. Even if they aren’t banished Above, they’ll be tarred with the same brush as you. Shunned, spit upon.” Every word was a dagger in her heart. Gerhardt continued, painting a harsh picture. “No one will buy your parents’ crafts. Soon they’ll be reduced to Unskilled labor, tattooed, and sent to work the fields.”

Guilt descended on her in a suffocating cloud. He couldn’t be right, could he? People couldn’t be so cruel. “I’m trying to save my sister!”

Gerhardt leaned close enough for her to smell onions on his breath. “How did an Artisan free a gargoyle without a collar and bracelet? Tell me.”

She blinked. He didn’t know. He hadn’t yet pieced together who her father was. “I just want to save my sister and stop the earthquakes!”

Elect Harmon and a priestess puffed up. This one was female, fatter but younger, dressed in the red robes of an underpriest. Dorotea appealed to them. “We all know the earthquakes are getting worse, that it’s only a matter of time until the caverns fall on our heads. Keeping the Goddess asleep isn’t working. We need to find out why She’s angry. I’m just trying to fix the problem,” Dorotea pleaded. Surely, they could see she was right?

The priestess avoided her gaze, ashamed, but Elect Harmon sniffed. “Foolish child, to meddle in matters so above you.”

Just then, the children’s singing faltered. “Look, a gargoyle!” a girl shouted. Then a boy screamed, and they fled en masse.

Burt released her shoulder. “I see it!”

He and Gerhardt set off for the wall at a run. The Elect tried to restrain Dorotea, but she wrenched free, following them.

The sea of children hindered her progress, but her gaze locked on the gargoyle. He stood beside the weeping flowstone wall, his hands placed on the Goddess’s chin.

Either the chamber’s natural acoustics or some magic of the Elect, the same that made the priests’ words audible during ceremonies, brought the gargoyle’s speech clearly to her ears. “Mother of all, your grandson respectfully requests your attention. Hear me.”

Disappointment stabbed Dorotea when nothing happened.

He repeated himself. “Goddess, Grandmother, wake and hear my words.”

The immense stone wall rippled and flowed. The Goddess opened Her glorious crystal eyes and spoke in a voice that shivered the walls: “I hear you. Speak.”

“Grandmother, the humans wish to know why you are angry. Why do you send the earthquakes?”

“I am angry because my children bleed out their lives.”

The underpriestess caught Dorotea’s sleeve. Horror bleached her skin pale, giving it the look of a corpse. “Stop this! We only just sang Her back to a deep sleep.”

Dorotea ignored her. “What children does She mean?” she yelled. Not that it mattered. She would promise anything to save her sister. “Tell Her I’ll save them if She heals Marta!”

The gargoyle obeyed. “The human begs you to heal one who was injured in the last earthquake and promises to help your children.”

“They bleed them and bleed them, until they stand on the brink of death,” the Goddess said, eyes blazing.

The floor began to tremble. Another earthquake! Dorotea looked up and saw the Goddess’s wrathful face and knew her crazy plan had failed. She didn’t want to hear Dorotea’s pitiful bargain. The Goddess was full of wrath.

“What have you done?” shrieked the fat priestess. “You’ve doomed us all!”

We were already doomed, Dorotea wanted to say, but she hadn’t meant for this to happen. She’d just wanted to talk to the Goddess. She hadn’t expected the Goddess to cause another earthquake.

The wizened priest began to sing a hymn in a cracked, but loud voice: “Goddess have mercy.” More voices joined in, but the Goddess seemed disinclined to listen.

“Mercy? What mercy have you shown My children?”

Another tremor almost bounced Dorotea off her feet. She lurched sideways and fell to one knee. Gerhardt and Burt likewise slipped and slowed. The gargoyle alone kept his feet, riding out the tremor with ease.

“He’s wearing a collar,” Elect Harmon yelled as dust sifted down onto his hair, turning the brown strands gray. “The gargoyle is under her control. Seize her!”

Burt rushed at Dorotea. The ground heaved under them, sending them both sprawling. Dorotea bruised her hip. Ominous creaks came from overhead, and cracks appeared in the stone ceiling.

A rock the size of a child tumbled down and shattered on the Cathedral floor thirty feet away. One of the white-robed priests cried out, stung by rock chips. A dark-haired girl around Marta’s age screamed, though she seemed unhurt.

The Goddess snarled in anger. The cavern shook.

Dorotea’s stomach churned with bile. What had she done? She cowered on the floor, her hands over her head. “Tell Her we’ll help Her children! Beg Her to stop!”

The gargoyle laid his hand on the wall again, murmuring under his breath.

The shaking stopped. “My patience grows thin. Heal my children, or be annihilated when next I wake.” The Goddess’s eyes closed, the crystals once again covered by dark gray stone.

Dorotea drew in a ragged breath.

The underpriestess seized Dorotea’s arm and covered her mouth to keep her from commanding the gargoyle. The woman smelled of sweat. She was terrified of both the gargoyle and her own goddess, which seemed wrong.

Dorotea bit the fleshy part of her palm. The priestess let go with a cry.

On hands and knees, Dorotea scrambled toward the gargoyle. Someone grabbed the back of her dress and yanked.

Across a gap of fifteen feet, her gaze met the gargoyle’s. Dorotea suddenly realized that, in her haste, she hadn’t given the gargoyle any instructions on what to do after delivering her message to the Goddess. He could flee, and the collar wouldn’t stop him.

She should’ve been horrified but found herself oddly ambivalent. If he kept his word and stayed far away from humans, then she didn’t begrudge him his freedom.

Burt hauled her to her feet by the back of her dress. He’d lost his maul somewhere. Dorotea stomped on his feet and kicked his shin, trying to slither free. He ignored the blows and held her fast from behind so that her arms were bound to her sides.

“Get the bracelets off her!” Gerhardt yelled.

The Elect grabbed her left wrist. “I don’t see them.”

Dorotea lifted her legs, knees bunched up and planted her feet on his stomach. She kicked with all her strength. The Elect stumbled back, but her struggles made one bracelet slide down her wrist into view.

“I see it!” Elect Harmon pressed forward again, and this time, she didn’t get her feet up in time. He wrenched at her wrist.

And then the gargoyle shoved him aside with casual, brutal strength. His stone hands squeezed Burt’s wrists.

Burt gasped and dropped her. Dorotea fell on her bottom.

“Any orders you’d like to give?” The gargoyle smirked.

Dorotea screamed as Gerhardt rushed up and swung his maul, hard, at the gargoyle’s head.

Alerted by her warning, the gargoyle twisted and ducked under the murderous swing.

Terror parched Dorotea’s mouth. The maul might shatter the gargoyle. It would definitely split her head open like a ripe pumpkin, and Gerhardt wasn’t taking particular care to avoid hitting her. She scooted backward on her bum.

Gerhardt raised the maul over his head and began to swing it down. The gargoyle caught the handle close to the sledge and held it off with impressive strength.

“The bracelets, you fools!” Gerhardt yelled.

Elect Harmon licked his lips. “Get them, Burt!”

Coward.

Dorotea hid from Burt behind the gargoyle. Ironic, when not long before she’d been terrified of him.

“Still waiting for orders, Mistress,” the gargoyle sang out. He almost seemed to be enjoying himself. He yanked the maul free from Gerhardt’s hands and threw it twenty feet away.

You must never hurt me or any other human, she’d told him. Even if you command me to? he’d asked. Only the memory of the gargoyle’s mockery kept her from ordering him to knock Burt and Gerhardt out.

Dorotea yelled, “Gargoyle! Take me to safety!”

The gargoyle stooped and slung Dorotea over his shoulder. He began to run, bulling forward. Every stride drove his hard shoulder into her stomach, and all the blood rushed to her head. Dizzy, she nonetheless had the presence of mind to hold tight to her bracelets.

Upside down, Dorotea saw Gerhardt and Burt pick up their mauls and run after the gargoyle. A gap quickly opened up. Even carrying her weight, the gargoyle’s longer stride and greater strength prevailed.

They reached the hollowed out space next to the grotto. The gargoyle dumped her on her feet and stepped inside with her. He raised his hands to manipulate the rock.

Dorotea saw Burt’s eyes widen in surprise—and then a layer of stone flowed across the opening, enclosing them within seconds.