Few creatures are more pitiable and less worthy than the Gargoyles of the Rooftops. Mean in intelligence, winged yet too heavy to fly, and generally brutal, the probability is that they will render themselves extinct. This can only really be considered a good thing.
Raydan grinned as he skipped the small pebble across the slates. One, two, three, four… The slates formed the perfect skipping point, and then, in a beautiful arc, the stone left the Roof to fall towards the ground. A rainbow showed where the river surged over the edge, and the voracious mists swallowed the stone.
“I got it, Papa. It went all the way into the clouds!”
“Good one, lad. Keep trying, and you’ll be able to do it every time.”
Raydan glanced at his father, who watched him back with half an eye. Most of his fathers attention was on the sheep that the hands were shearing. The big fluffy clouds were dragged into the pen, rapidly shorn, and the fleeces added to the cart stacked high. This was the last shearing of the season, and the farthest point the shearers would need to come.
“I’m going down to look at the river, Papa.”
“Fine. Just don’t swim. The current is strong here, and you don’t wanna get pulled out over the edge.”
At the river’s edge, a beach of sorts had accumulated. Black sand, scoured from the slates of the Rooftops, and little shells prinking the black with glistening white. Raydan ventured closer to the Edge, where the river leapt so merrily off into space, joining the hungry clouds in a deafening torrent. A big fish, sluggish and careless, obviously caught in the current, broke the surface. It was trying to swim against the current. It was failing.
Something skittered in the sand behind him, and Raydan turned quickly. A greyish animal, in shaggy, almost mossy hair, was dragging itself through the sand. It squawked, like a bird, and moved back. It seemed to move on overlong arms, knuckling along the ground. Once a safe distance, it dug itself into the sand, and the legs suddenly became arms, lifting pebbles from the sand and hurling them with surprising accuracy at Raydan.
Raydan responded alike, throwing nearby stones back, which only seemed to delight the creature more. Suddenly, they were playing a game, each trying to get the closest to the other, without hitting them. What the creature was, Raydan had no idea. But it knew how to play. That was all that mattered.
As the sun moved across the sky, the shearers finished their business. The naked sheep went back to their heather on the hills. As Raydan played, a larger stone hit the creature, which swung its head round. A herd was standing, and now he was shouting at it too,
“Get away, you stone bastard. Leave the lad alone.” He hurled another rock at the creature, which cracked across the top of its head. The beast knuckled backwards, suddenly afraid. With a loud whistle, the herd summoned the dogs, three large black sheepdogs, who were now balls of teeth and anger. The herd brought down the heavy shepherds stick on the creature’s head, and it fragmented into a dozen pieces.
Things were blurred.
“The beast attacked the lad, sir. odd that there should be one in these parts. Thought we’d wiped them out years ago. We’ll make sure no nests are in the region. Looked like a young male. Probably on the long walk from the pack.”
“Look, lad. Nothing was killed. It’s just stone, see. Just stone twisted and turned into the semblance of life. No blood. No life.”
But the chunks of stone seemed to move in the black sand, to struggle against inevitable death.
Remember, all things strive. From the skylark of the air, to mankind, to the poor despised gargoyle. All things strive to life. And all life is precious. Blackmane of Attica, prophet of Cellardoor.