Chapter 10

As the sun rose and baked the XXXX landscape, Octavia woke to a horrible squealing and growling. The noise was deafening, and why was she using Nick’s backpack as a pillow? And why is Gula shouting “Die! Die! Die!” at something? She looked toward the source of the noise and discovered that Gula had something furry pinned to the ground. The little stone gargoyle had a drop bear by the throat, and she was trying to kill the fuzzy little intruder.

“Gula! Let the little bear up!”

“NO! DIE DIE DIE!” (it came out “Oh! Eye eye eye!”)

“Gula please!” Octavia tried to get Gula to release her grip, but the gargoyle was shrieking and crying and all she told Octavia was “Nick say.”

Reluctantly, Gula stopped trying to kill the little bear and loosened her grip around the drop bear’s throat and the drop bear wriggled its way free. With a kick from the drop bear, Gula rolled over onto her back and stopped with her claws in the air, and the drop bear shuffled back to the tree. Gula changed her mind and took off after it, giving Octavia the chance to see the gargoyles “stop action” method of locomotion that amused Nick so much. Smiling at Gula’s motion, Octavia opened Nick’s pack to grab a bottle of water, then she noticed Gula was trembling.

“Gula relax, it was just a drop bear!” She searched Nick’s pack and suddenly realized that except for the water he gave her yesterday as they walked, every bottle of water that Nick carried was untouched. “Why didn’t he drink any?” she asked aloud, and that’s when Gula started whining. It was a piercing klaxon call, ear splitting in its volume and heart breaking in its sorrow.

“Iiik av ii or oo!” (Nick saved it for you)

“What do you mean ... he saved it all for me?”

A gargoyle cannot close their mouth because of the way they were created. A Gargoyle is an ornamental drain vent, and a drain vent with a closed mouth is utterly useless. Gula’s mouth was still open, but it was drawn down in sorrow. Her eyes were leaking tears as she wailed.

“Aw geez, we gotta put up with that again?” whined the walking stick.

“What do you mean “again”?” Octavia whirled on the stick.

“Ick faid a fick wuf ite,” (Nick said the stick was right) wept Gula, “Faid I atta oh.” (said I gotta go) Not having a tongue or being able to close your mouth limits conversations.

Octavia sighed as she tried to comfort the weeping stone effigy. She didn’t understand a word that Gula was saying without reading her mind ... and Nick was able to understand what Gula says with great ease. It’s almost like he’s ... shit. How could she miss that? “Gula honey, did the stick say anything to Nick?”

“Gargoyles are known liars,” said the walking stick.

Octavia ignored that. Although it was handy having a walking stick that could keep pace with you, that damn stick could be such a jealous bitch. “Gargoyles can’t lie, they were never told how to,” said Octavia. Gargoyles interactions with humans are limited, they were only made to drain rainwater away from the sides of gothic structures, not hold conversations, and only the gargoyles of the Unseen University have soaked up enough magical radiation to reach a state of sentience. She asked again, “Gula honey, did the stick say anything to Nick?”

Gula considered Octavia’s question then shrugged her shoulders, “I ont owe.”

“Did Nick ever talk to the stick, honey?”

“Uh huh. Ee uz add.”

“He was sad?”

“Uh huh. Ee had oo owe.”

“He had to go?”

“Uh huh.” Then the sniffling started.

Octavia rose and whirled on the walking stick that was now backing up. “You had an argument with Nick,” snarled the enchantress, “didn’t you.”

“We may have exchanged a few unpleasant pleasantries.”

“The whole time you were exchanging pleasantries with a mundane you didn’t notice that he could hear you?”

The subject here is not telepathy because ESP does not exist on the discworld. The strong magic field on the discworld acts as radio interference to the mind reader. It would cause mental tinnitus. What Octavia was talking about was magical communication, a form of using magic to read over your target’s mental shoulder. This didn’t involve brain waves; this was a feat that only a few very powerful wizards and a depressingly large number of magical items could do. And it’s very rare that a “mundane” a non-magic user, could fathom the process.

The walking stick stumbled as it backed away, having no mouth or ears it could only communicate magically, a talent all items made of sapient pearwood have, but since very few humans have it, the sapient pearwood devices have a highly entertaining life reading any mind they want and ignoring minds that they should pay attention to. The only way Nick could have heard the walking stick was if he were magically well endowed, something only the most powerful wizards are ... or a small child that spent two decades soaking up magical radiation along with the gargoyles. The only thing that she knows about Nick’s life is that he was a street urchin his whole life, and he spent his whole life right there next to UU.

The stick finally said, “The whole time we were walking from Bugarup University to this gawd forsaken place you two didn’t say a word, you need someone supportive of you.” If the stick had arms, it would hold them up trying to shield itself from Octavia’s high voltage glare.

“We had wonderful conversations walking out here, and you didn’t hear a word?”

“I ehinh” (I didn’t) said Gula.

Octavia thought about it, then realized she didn’t hear anything either, she just now realized that their conversations were all silent, they were whispers in each other’s heads, how did she miss that?