The New Death and others by James Hutchings Read Free Book Online

bowed.
    "Feathered ones," he said, "I have from birth
been the plaything of the moon. Yet my responses to her promptings
have ever been incomplete and done with an ill will. I am like a
lone and outlying planet, too distant to feel the warmth of the
sun, too close to escape. I am like a dog which will not allow
itself to be petted, but which cannot break its leash. Therefore I
beseech thee, work your arts upon me, so that I heed not the
moon."
    The owls sat for a time in meditation. Then
one opened its beak to answer. But before the owl could speak a
gargoyle stepped forward, pushing Conwy to one side. It was the
very same gargoyle that had spoken to him previously. The gargoyle
bowed, so low that its horns scraped two lines into the stone
before its hooves.
    "O wise ones, is it fit," the gargoyle asked
the owls, "that we, who meet amidst fragrant clouds of jasmine and
honeysuckle, should receive one who stinks of unearthly slime, as
if he had burst from the womb of yon monstrosity, the Ziggurat of
Tongues?"
    "All shall be received," the owl replied
evenly.
    The gargoyle's face twisted with anger. Since
it was normally twisted in the exact opposite way, for a moment the
gargoyle looked beautiful and serene.
    "Sages unparalleled!" the gargoyle cried in a
shocked tone, "he has crawled before the unclean thing, on his
belly as the serpents which slither! Shall he stand among clouds
offered to the gods, and shall the highest wisdom be poured on
him?"
    "All shall be received," said a second owl,
as tranquil as the first.
    "Mere repetition of a generally sound
principle is no substitute for careful consideration of the
circumstances of a particular case!" the gargoyle cried
angrily.
    The third owl opened its beak.
    "All shall be received," was its only
response.
    "O gargoyle," asked an imp, "do you suspect
this stranger of being a creation of the Ziggurat? Can you not
detect the scent of true animals under that of star-stuff?" The
gargoyle, who like all his kind could smell the difference between
one stone and another, but had almost no sense for the odors of
flesh, glared and said nothing.
    "Or mayhap you feel that the wingless things
of earth should be bound to earth?" drawled another imp. Fearing to
insult the various unwinged creatures present, the gargoyle ground
his teeth together in silence.
    "No doubt," a third imp yawned, "he simply
feels, as he says, that the stench of the man desecrates this
solemn meeting. Theological issues aside, we must have a care for
the delicacy of his sensitive nostrils."
    This insult to his ability to bear hardship,
combined with a second reference to the dullness of his senses,
stung the gargoyle almost beyond bearing. But he dug his claws into
his hands, and counted slowly to three, higher mathematics being
unknown among his kind.
    "O gargoyle," Conwy said, "Before your might
I am as a lowly dog..." He realised that the gargoyle would be
unlikely to know what a dog was. "That is, as a lowly
pigeon..."
    But Conwy never finished his speech. This
reference to pigeons, who are hated by gargoyles for reasons too
vulgar to elucidate, was enough to drive out the creature's reason.
The gargoyle sprang for Conwy's throat, claws outstretched to rend
flesh. Conwy slashed with his machete. The blade struck home, but
steel was no use against stone. Quick as a cat the gargoyle drew a
red wound in Conwy's neck.
    Conwy fell to his knees. For a moment there
was silence.
    "Now I am exiled!" the gargoyle cried. He
opened his wings. While his body was cracked, covered in moss and
worn by weather, his wings were as delicate as a fine lady's fan.
The gargoyle jumped into the air, and was lost in the smoke.
Whether he ever repented of its murderous act, or regretted only
the punishment, no one knows, for he was never seen again.
    "I am wounded unto death," Conwy whispered,
and none were surprised, since his clothes were soaked red. "Yet
still I defy thee, O Moon. The tides of my blood rose and fell at
thy direction.