The monster kicked away the guards, and they sprawled against the buildings, knocking over fleeing people and capsizing pedestals. The monster charged forward. Each step slammed into the ground and caused the buildings to sway. Tiles fell off roofs. Chimneys toppled.
They ran, and the monster chased after them, pounding through the streets.
“Find a place to hide!” Jacklo called.
“He’s too close!” Garit said. “He’ll see!”
“Then we must first lose him with speed,” Kisonan said, and ran faster. His wings pumped up and down. He wasn’t able to fly, but the wings seemed to propel him forward. With his cat legs, he leapt onto a low roof and then to the next and the next until he was running from building to building over the rooftops. The monster lagged behind, forced to either navigate between the buildings or crash through them.
Soon they had a lead. And in a moment, whipping around a corner, they’d lost him.
Kisonan dropped to the ground with the others and scanned the street for a hiding place. “Over there!” one of the lizards cried, and Kisonan ducked into a shed filled with gardening tools and crouched down, facing the street. Everyone piled in with them.
Mayka recognized where they were—not far from the inn where Ilery was staying. If the monster followed them . . . “We have to get out of the city. Too many can get hurt here.”
“Like us!” Jacklo said.
They listened as the monster stomped through the neighborhood. The guards were still chasing him, but to no avail. Every so often the monster would swat them away as if they were nothing more than irritating flies.
“Mayka’s right—we have to get out,” Si-Si said. “We can’t just wait for him to find us.”
“He knows we are nearby,” Kisonan agreed. “It will not take long before he begins to pull the roofs off houses, in search of us.”
“At least people don’t think the obedience mark is working,” Jacklo said. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Master Siorn has never been so humiliated before,” said Kisonan. “We did, perhaps, too well. The worry comes, though, if the guards realize the monster is obeying Master Siorn.”
“So what do we do?” Mayka asked. “Can we get out of the city?”
“He will see us in the open countryside,” Kisonan said with a shake of his eagle head. “I believe Master Siorn wishes to destroy us. He will take drastic measures, as you can tell, to reclaim his reputation. But the worst will come when the monster stops hunting us, when Master Siorn’s rage cools and he proves to the city, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he can control the monster. Even if he is punished for the devastation he caused, all will know the obedience mark works.”
They fell silent, listening to the monster’s destruction in the city beyond. People were still screaming. Rocks were crashing onto the streets. Calm down and think, Mayka told herself. Stone is calm.
Except nothing about any of this was calm.
Maybe I don’t need to be calm, she thought. Maybe I need to be brave.
“There’s one solution,” Mayka said.
All the creatures turned their heads to look at her.
She listened to the crashing and the screaming, and she felt herself flinch with every new crack and thud. “I change the monster’s mark.”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“That’s a terrible idea!” Garit yelped. “It’s a giant, rampaging monster! The obedience mark and Master Siorn’s command might be the only thing keeping it from crushing the city entirely.”
Mayka listened to the monster smashing through the city. He has a point, she thought. Still . . .
“It doesn’t deserve to have the mark any more than any of us do.”
“Yes, but I don’t deserve to be stomped on,” Si-Si said.
Clustering around her, the otters bobbed their heads. One of the mishmash creatures, the half hedgehog, half lizard, had curled into a ball and was rocking back and forth.
“You don’t know it will choose destruction,” Mayka said.
“It has only one story,” Kisonan said. “That is all it can choose.”
Crash—that could have been a building. Crash—or a chunk of a wall. Crash! She heard more screams. He could be crushing people right now, she thought. I have to do something!
“Master Siorn created it to fight and destroy,” Kisonan said. “He intended to present it to the city leaders as a guard, to battle our enemies as the Great Defender of Skye. Without the obedience mark, that is all it is. That is all it knows how to do. That is its story: violence.”
Jacklo piped up from the basket. “So give it more stories!”
“Yes,” Mayka said, seizing on the idea. “I’ll give it a story that isn’t about destruction. Give it choices.”
Garit shook his head. “You won’t even be able to reach his marks—they’re on his neck, near his left shoulder. And even if you do, you won’t have time to carve much of anything before he swats you off.”
“The boy is right,” Kisonan said. “You’ll be caught and broken before you finish.”
“Then I’ll need a story that’s quick to carve but open to interpretation . . .”
It was so hard to think while the monster was careening through the city. Every rock that crashed down made her feel as brittle as a flesh-and-blood creature. She was more aware than she’d ever been of the fact that she could be broken, her friends could be shattered, and they could all be gone. Is this how flesh people feel all the time? How do they do it, face every day knowing they could break? She tried to take deep, even breaths, as if she needed them. The act of breathing like a flesh person calmed her a little. “Anyone have an idea?”
Mayka glanced at Garit. He was blushing so hard that his neck was red. “Um, well, when Master Siorn showed me the monster yesterday, there was a mark that I wanted to add, but he said no. It was simple—”
“What was it?”
He picked a stick off the ground and drew in the dirt. “That’s his name, and then I just wanted to put . . .” He added a few additional lines.
“‘Monster is awesome,’” she read.
Kisonan sighed. “You are such a child.”
Garit squirmed. “I know. It’s just . . . he’s so enormous and powerful, and I wanted . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. Never mind. Bad idea.” He kicked at the dust, blurring the mark.
“It might be enough,” Mayka said. She took the stick, knelt, and redrew the mark. She studied it. Yes, it could work. I could use this.
“Enough to do what?” Jacklo asked.
“Enough to make him more than what Master Siorn thinks he is,” Mayka said. “We make our stories our own. It all depends on how the monster chooses to use its tale.” Standing, she laid her hand on Garit’s shoulder. His flesh felt soft and warm through his shirt, very different from her.
Garit still looked embarrassed, but he nodded as he scuffed his feet on the ground, next to the redrawn mark. He didn’t disturb the lines.
“Only question left is how do I reach it? You said the marks are on its neck. The monster isn’t going to let me get close enough to climb it, at least not willingly.”
“He needs to be distracted,” Kisonan said.
One of the otters scurried forward. “We can bite at his feet! It won’t hurt him much, but it might help.” The other otters bobbed their heads up and down.
The creature with a deer’s head said, “I can poke him with my antlers.”
“I can squeeze him,” the octopus said.
“I can scratch,” the hedgehog-lizard said.
“I can peck his eyes,” Risa offered.
“We both can,” Jacklo piped up.
“But your wing!” Mayka said. “You haven’t even tried it yet. What if the strain of launching yourself is too much?”
“Throw me,” Jacklo said. “Once I’m airborne, it will be easy.”
“Absolutely not,” Risa said to Jacklo. “You stay here. I don’t want to hav
e to worry about you.”
“It’s my choice, not yours,” Jacklo said. “I am the hero of my own story. And I say I help.” He met Mayka and Risa’s astonished gazes unwaveringly, first one then the other.
Mayka wondered how his new story had changed him. Or had he always had this strength, and they were so busy thinking of him as silly Jacklo that they hadn’t seen it?
“We’ll all help,” another of the mishmash creatures said, and the rest raised their voices in agreement.
The octopus unraveled his tentacles and rose up on four of them. “Let us help,” he said. “He’s making a mess of the city. I do not like mess.”
The griffin surveyed Mayka. “You will not be able to climb quickly enough with your puny human hands and feet,” he declared. “You will ride me, and I will take you up to the monster’s marks.”
“What about me?” Garit asked.
“Go to the flesh-and-blood people,” Mayka said. “Tell them we’re trying to stop the monster. Keep them from stopping us.”
“I don’t know if they’ll listen to me, but I’ll try.”
The crashing continued—the monster was still nearby. Mayka peeked out and saw his feet. He was headed toward the Inn District. There was no more time for plans or discussion.
“Now!” Mayka cried. The creatures charged out of the alleyway. Carrying Jacklo, Mayka climbed onto Kisonan and shouted, “Go!”
The griffin ran out of the alley, and Risa flew above them. Behind her, she heard Garit running too. She didn’t look back.
Only ahead.
The monster was tearing off roofs—looking for them. When the first of the stonemason’s creatures reached it, it halted and howled. Kisonan stuck to the shadows, and Mayka clung to his back. She had the hammer and chisel she’d taken from the stonemason’s house.
We have to stop it, she thought. I can do this, she told herself. She’d helped the stonemason’s other creatures—her stories had worked. This was the same. Just larger.
Closer, they ran past the guards, who yelled at them to stay back. The monster began to turn toward them. “Ready,” Jacklo said. He curled tightly into a ball.
Sitting up straight on Kisonan, she hurled Jacklo as high and as hard as she could. He soared toward the monster’s face, then unfurled talons first and slashed at his eyes.
The monster swatted at him, but Jacklo dodged.
Jacklo’s doing it! Mayka thought. He’s flying!
While the monster was distracted with Jacklo, Risa struck, diving for his eyes and pecking. He flailed, swinging at her, and it was Jacklo’s turn to strike again. The otters and lizards swarmed over his feet.
Kisonan sprang up. Higher and higher, from rooftop to rooftop. He ran and jumped over alleys and streets, racing toward the monster, along the roofline of the city.
“Now!” Mayka called.
Kisonan leapt onto the monster, landing on his torso.
The monster cried out.
But the birds both pecked at his eyes, the otters and lizards attacked his feet, the mishmash creatures pounded at his ankles, the octopus squeezed his knee, and the monster didn’t know where to strike. He flailed wildly, knocking his arms into spires and towers, as Kisonan leapt up from boulder to boulder toward the monster’s shoulder.
“He’s distracted,” the griffin said. “Carve quickly!”
Mayka slid off his back and clung to the monster.
She saw the mark in front of her, large and clear.
Kisonan scrambled across the rough-hewn boulders that made up his torso. Whacking at his own body, the monster tried to hit the griffin. The monster stumbled, crushing the side of a building.
Mayka clung to his shoulder, trying to stay on. How could she carve when she was in danger of falling? Hugging the stone, she inched forward, crawling toward the mark.
One thing at a time, she told herself.
Reach it, then carve it.
The monster bent to swipe at an enemy on the ground, and Mayka was flipped off the rock—only holding on by one hand. A scream ripped out of her. Risa and Jacklo called to her:
“Hang on, Mayka! You can do it!”
Struggling, she pulled herself back on.
The monster swiped at his shoulder, and she fell again, this time under his armpit. She pulled out her chisel and dug it into a crack between the boulders. She used it to pull herself up.
Before her was his story. As Kisonan had said, the monster had marks that said he’d been made to defend the city. “Defender of Skye,” the first marks read. “Strong, fierce, and merciless.” And following that was Master Siorn’s obedience mark.
Mayka brought the hammer and chisel up to the mark. She knew what she had to carve. She pictured it in her mind.
She didn’t have time for fancy swirls. Instead, she added simple lines that changed the mark into past tense so that it read “Monster used to obey Master Siorn.” And then she added “And then he was free.” And to that, she added the mark that Garit had drawn: “Free to be awesome.”
In the middle of swinging his massive arm at Kisonan, the monster hesitated.
“That’s right,” Mayka called to him. “You have a new story now. Your story! Once upon a time, a stonemason named Master Siorn wanted to achieve greatness. He believed if he carved the largest, most wondrous creature his city had ever seen, he’d be revered. But he was wrong, because the greatness didn’t belong to him. It’s yours. You’re free to be whatever you want to be! You were made to defend the city—you can still do that! You can stop this destruction and protect the city and save everyone, both flesh and stone, if you choose. You can be the hero of Skye, strong and fierce! It’s up to you to take control of your story and be awesome!”
He turned and began to stomp back through the city.
She saw Kisonan running beside them, on the rooftops. “Jump when I say to jump!” he called.
I can’t! I’ll fall! I’ll break!
“Trust me, as I trusted you!”
She readied herself.
“Now!” he cried. “Aim for the purple!”
She jumped off the monster toward a purple awning—and landed, cradled by the tough fabric. Kisonan leapt down to her, and she scrambled onto his back. She held on as he ran to the next building and up to the peak of its roof, where they could see.
Together, they watched the monster lumber toward the Festival Square. Buildings shook in its wake. Roof tiles tumbled to the street and shattered.
“Did you succeed?” Kisonan asked.
“I think so.”
“What will he do?”
“I don’t know.” She hoped she’d made the right choice. She’d done her best with the story, but now it was up to the monster. Below, she saw a great swarm of flesh-and-blood people had gathered, both guards and ordinary men, women, and children. They were shouting and pointing, both at the stonemason’s creatures and at the monster. Garit was with them.
Standing for a better view, Mayka watched as the monster tromped toward the Stone Quarter. Master Siorn was a tiny figure on top of the building.
The monster approached him.
Stopped.
Picked Master Siorn up in his rock hands.
And then walked out of the city.
As the monster passed, Mayka heard the stonemason screaming, “Stop! Put me down! Obey me!” The people of Skye heard him too, and they watched as the monster did not obey.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
He did not return.
Not the monster, and not the stonemason.
Mayka waited on top of the roof for a long time, watching the horizon, while people swarmed below, tending to those who had been hurt by fallen stone, clearing the debris from the street, and comforting one another. Several blocks had been damaged by the monster, in a swath that led from the Festival Square to the Inn District.
The two birds perched beside her, and Kisonan stayed as well, holding himself still and watching the horizon with them. When the
first few stars began to appear, Kisonan spoke. “I do not think he is coming back. Strong, fierce, and merciless, the monster defended Skye.”
Far below, in the square, the owl was wailing about curfew, but Mayka ignored him. Let them come up here, if they wanted, and drag her down. She wasn’t ready to leave yet.
They waited through the night, watching the stars march across the sky.
Only when sun rose again and the monster did not return did Mayka and Kisonan come down from the arch—it wasn’t an easy climb, since they hadn’t gotten up there in a normal way. But she used her chisel and hammer to make handholds for herself, and Kisonan had his claws. The two birds, of course, flew.
The Stone Quarter was a disaster. Master Siorn had marched his monster through the wall to the Festival Square. Mayka saw stone creatures out cleaning with their stonemasons, going through the rubble looking for what was salvageable.
At Master Siorn’s, the house itself was standing, but the back was torn open—the monster must have stomped out through the back wall of the workroom.
She hurried toward the door, and the otters came out to greet her. “You did it!”
“We all did it,” she said, examining them—all of them seemed whole, though one had a chip in its tail. “He’s gone, and I don’t think he’s coming back. The monster carried him off. Is everyone okay? Is Garit here?”
“Inside,” they said, and then they clambered over Kisonan, greeting him.
She found Garit in the workroom.
The wall had been shredded, and the roof was ripped off. Sunlight poured in, and stone dust twinkled in the air. Jacklo and Risa flew in from above.
Garit was still dressed in his apprentice gear, but he had a bandage around one arm. He was cleaning up rubble around the worktables.
“It worked,” Mayka said.
He smiled, a broad happy smile, as if his home hadn’t just been destroyed. “It really did. And no one blames me for what he did, or what he tried to do.”
Mayka smiled back.