“It’s OK,” he said, grinning.
Sam grinned back and opened her hands wider, until finally, in a sudden burst of fur and feathers, the gryphon came flying through the portal, braking hard with its wings to keep it from crashing headlong into the wall.
“You did it!” Ammu exclaimed, switching to his native tongue for several excited moments before returning to English.
“I am sorry,” he said finally, trying to compose himself. “I have believed in you all from the very beginning. It is important to me that you know that. I just can not tell you how much it means to me to be witnessing a summoning within my own lifetime—to be the one to see it, after so many generations…”
Ammu wiped a tear roughly from one eye with the heel of his hand.
“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Sketch said, grinning up at him.
“Yes,” Ammu confirmed, laughing now. “It is very ‘cool’ indeed.” Ammu reached out a hand and playfully rubbed Sketch’s head, making the boy giggle.
Throughout this interaction, the gryphon cub had flown back toward them and landed on all fours, folding its wings and sitting on the floor, looking back and forth with apparent interest from one human being to another.
“Will it come to us, do you think?” Ammu asked of no one in particular.
Sketch had been about to answer him when Mackenzie interrupted by answering first.
“Let’s find out!” she exclaimed cheerfully, looking Sketch directly in the eye for just a moment before meeting Ammu’s excited gaze.
Oh, right, Sketch realized. Ammu thinks we’ve never seen it before. He made a mental note to be careful about anything he said for the rest of the morning.
“Come here, buddy,” Mackenzie called to the gryphon, mimicking the calm, gentle tone Rush had used in the workshop, but the gryphon just stared at her, cocking its head to one side and chirping at her inquisitively.
He’s not here, Mackenzie thought. Trust me, I’m not happy about it either. But at least we’ve still got each other, right? So do me a favor and work with me, OK? Make us look good.
Mackenzie took a cautious step toward it, and the gryphon took a step backward in response, eyeing her warily.
“Come on, little guy. It’s OK,” Mackenzie said, trying again. “We’re not going to hurt you.” She took another step toward it, but it only moved backward again, placing itself unintentionally within Kaitlyn’s reach.
“I can get it,” Kaitlyn said brightly.
“No, Gears, wait—”
But it was too late. Kaitlyn had already grabbed it around its waist, trying to pick it up like a cat. The cub immediately spread its wings and started flapping them in a wild panic, trying desperately to get away, hissing and screeching at the top of its lungs.
“Hey!” Kaitlyn exclaimed, as the gryphon managed to wriggle its way through her grasp—literally. Her hands pulled slowly through its body and then through its legs, at last falling uselessly to her sides.
“Well, that’s not promising,” Sam commented, and Ammu gasped in amazement.
The gryphon was not at all pleased with this new turn of events, flying high up into the air and turning to watch Kaitlyn warily as it hovered near the ceiling, well out of reach.
“Please come down,” Ammu tried, his voice warm and inviting. “We will not hurt you. You are such a magnificent creature. Please…”
He reached one hand toward it—not to catch it, given its current height, but only to coax it back down. Apparently the gryphon decided that this was the final straw and that it had had quite enough of humanity for today, thank you very much. Quick as a wink, it dove for the portal, moving so rapidly that its head and shoulders were already through before Sam, still sitting beneath it, could react.
But its own resistance against the substance of the portal slowed it down. Sam watched from below, giggling at first and then laughing out loud as it waved its rear legs in the air over her head, wiggling its butt theatrically from side to side, scrabbling ridiculously with its feet until it finally managed to grab onto the portal’s edge with its rear claws, gaining purchase and shoving itself the rest of the way through. Only its tail remained suspended impossibly in midair for one final, dramatic moment before finally disappearing after the rest.
43
Instructor Report
“They did it!”
“So it would seem.”
“Is that really all you have to say? They summoned a living creature from another plane of existence! Even if you are not impressed by the feat itself, I thought you would at least be pleased. You will finally be able to study the process.”
“Study it? We can’t even see it!”
“But surely, at least one of the instruments—”
“Nothing. Visible, ultraviolet, infrared, audible, ultrasound, infrasound—”
“Excuse me, Colonel, but do you mean to say it was inaudible as well as invisible?”
“Did it make any noise while it was in there?”
“It was quite loud, in fact.”
“Then, yes, that’s what I mean to say.”
“Fascinating.”
“That’s not the word I would have chosen.”
“At least we are finally making progress. Whether or not you were able to record the event, I can assure you—”
“Yes, yes, I believe you. We couldn’t record… whatever it was… but we could triangulate your lines of sight as you all watched it. I have been assured that no group of actors in the world could pretend to follow the movements of an invisible creature with that much accuracy.”
“I see.”
“But that doesn’t help me with my bigger problem. I was hoping to find a way to block the whole process, but that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. Unless we know where they’re doing the actual…”
“Summoning.”
“The actual summoning, I’m not seeing a way to stop it before it happens. Are you?”
“No.”
“And once it’s here, I can’t shoot the thing down if I can’t track it. If it eats something, can I at least still see what it ate? Can I spray it with a tracking agent? We need to keep working. Bring it back tomorrow, and I’ll set up the experiment.”
“They can not do so tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, are they scheduled for a damn massage? Whatever you have planned, it can wait.”
“That is not what I mean. They are not busy; they are exhausted. The very process of summoning something from another plane takes a toll on the unconscious mind. The longer it is here, and the more control it requires, the longer the recovery time.”
“So you’ve said. But there has to be something you can do. I don’t care if you use sugar or caffeine or raw, unadulterated adrenaline. Just get them back in there.”
“It will not be of any use. They will need a week, at least—”
“They have two days. I want them back in that room in two days if you have to prop their eyelids open with piss-damn toothpicks.”
“You can not be serious.”
“Whatever it takes, Professor. Whatever it takes.”
44
Changes