“Ammu,” Mackenzie interjected, “I’m all about pushing forward, but I don’t know what we’re trying to push forward to anymore. Bullets don’t hurt it. How is the Army going to fight something it can’t hit?”
“Bullets do not seem to have any effect,” Ammu agreed, nodding sagely, “but the gryphon cub did.”
“We can’t use the gryphon to fight something like the thing from the plane,” Rush objected. “It’ll get killed! I mean, battle armor is cool and everything, but it’s just a cub. It can’t go up against a… whatever that thing was.”
“I agree that we should not use the gryphon for such tasks,” Ammu said, holding up a placating hand. “But I must add, while we are on the subject, that the cub, as you call it, might not be as young as it looks. Remember, such beings are not limited in appearance; they prefer the form that represents their true nature. Your gryphon might well be hundreds of years old. I do not know this for certain. I am saying only that it is possible. The fact that it appears as a cub means that it is playful, like a cub, but it does not necessarily mean that it is a cub.”
“Weird,” Kaitlyn said. “So the battle armor—that’s not part of its nature? It’s like… fake?”
“It’s not fake,” Sketch protested, his voice adamant.
“The armor is very real,” Ammu agreed. “It is one aspect of the gryphon’s true nature, just as being protective of your friends is one aspect of your true nature.”
“Then why not use the gryphon?” Daniel asked. “If you’re saying it can take any form, couldn’t it turn into a big gryphon and fight stuff?”
“The farther from its own nature a creature appears to be, the more energy it takes to hold that form,” Ammu said, “but that still might be a possibility someday, given enough work and commitment.
“In fact, I believe the gryphon may have formed a very special sort of bond with Rush. Most creatures are tied permanently to one plane of existence and to that plane only. They can visit another plane through the portals, but this takes a great amount of energy. The summoner’s mind must constantly resist the pull that seeks to return the creature to its own rightful place. The larger it is, and the longer it stays in our world, the more the summoner’s mind is depleted. This is why you all need days of rest, such as today, to recover between summonings.
“But some creatures are able to form connections to people of this world, so that the time they spend here no longer comes with a price. Or so the stories tell me. Such bonds connect them, through the people they love, to this world as much as to the other, so that the creature gains a rightful place in both worlds, becoming free of the pull that I just described.”
“Let’s try it!” Rush exclaimed, pushing himself up straighter. “Let’s bring it back.”
“That would not be wise,” Ammu said, shaking his head. “We need you all to rest and replenish your energy. If I am wrong, calling the creature through and allowing it to remain would tax you beyond an acceptable limit. There are stories also of men and women who lost their minds, and their lives, by attempting a summoning that required too much of them, or by holding a creature here in this world for too long.”
Ammu looked meaningfully at each of them in turn, making sure they had understood the danger he described, but Rush was already remembering the effort it had taken just to hold the gargoyle in place for a few moments against its will. He couldn’t even imagine trying to control something forcefully for any real length of time.
“Can I have a pet?” Sketch asked hopefully, and Ammu chuckled.
“Perhaps! It is said that most of the ancient summoners eventually established such a bond with a creature from the spirit world, but these relationships must be chosen freely by both the summoner and the creature to whom he or she feels drawn. It is not the sort of thing that can be forced, or hurried; it must appear in its own time.
“In any event,” Ammu concluded, “even if we managed to send the gryphon back before any real danger had accumulated, you would still be too drained to continue your training for quite some time, and what we are doing here is vitally necessary if we are to have any hope of protecting innocent lives. The experiment will have to wait for another time, as much as I do, in all seriousness, regret it.”
He said this looking directly at Rush, who nodded reluctantly in agreement.
“So, what are we going to do, oh fearless leader?” Sam wanted to know.
“Fearless?” Ammu laughed. “You give me far too much credit, I assure you. But to answer your question, you are all going to regain your strength for two more days, and after that, we are going to work on new levels of control, by summoning this.”
With a flourish, he pulled the now-familiar book out of his satchel, opened it to a page he had marked with a gold ribbon, and laid it before him on the mat with a grin. Kaitlyn was the first to lean forward, gasping in delight as she took in the large wolf-like creature with intelligent blue eyes, gleaming silver fur, and the most brilliant white wings she had ever seen.
55
Pterolycos
When they reconvened two days later, Ammu ushered them into the conference room rather than the basement. The accordion-like barrier that had been serving as a wall between the classroom and the gaming room had been folded back away into its storage slot, so that the entire space was now one large, open room again, with an expansive, dark foam cushion laid out over the carpet, extending across the room from one side to the other.
The gaming setups that had nestled against the temporary barrier were now sandwiched between the others instead, and the classroom area had been cleared of everything except for Staff Sergeant Miller. The students sat on the floor in front of Ammu, but Kaitlyn kept craning her neck around, trying to get a better look at the cameras, microphones, and other recording equipment that had been mounted high up along the back wall, near the ceiling.
Ammu retrieved the book from his satchel, laying it carefully on the floor in front of him, open to the page depicting the beautiful flying wolf.
“This creature,” Ammu began, “was known as a pterolycos. The word, unfortunately, means ‘flying wolf,’ which is entirely inaccurate. It is not a wolf that flies—just as the gryphon is neither a bird nor a lion—and I would encourage you to embrace that distinction.
“The pterolycos is aligned with the forces of life, so even if we were entirely unable to control it, it would always protect its summoners. Our greatest security measures, therefore, are Mackenzie’s blessing of the circle and Sketch’s ability to screen the creature coming through, to make sure that it is, in fact, what we intend it to be.”