This Lost Love

The present ...

        The land was more familiar now.
        Jethro smiled to himself as he breathed deeply of heather and
salt spray, the damp green smell of the marshes, the secretive scent of
the forests.
        The moon raced ahead of him half-cloaked in clouds, and his
shadow trailed behind, skimming over the rough, rugged earth.
        At any moment, he knew, the towers and battlements and high
walls would come into view. The thought both saddened and exhilarated
him. Saddened, for he knew that the crumbling rubble would still be there,
the walls pitted by catapult shot, the piles of broken stone that was all that
was left of his clan and his kind. But exhilarated, for, right or wrong, he
had come home.
        The glasses perched upon his nose brought what had once been
a green/brown/grey blur into sharp focus. He sent a silent message of
thanks to the magical sprite that had given him the lenses.
        His arms still ached from the countless needle-sticks he'd
suffered at the hands of the mad scientist who had held him prisoner in
the hold of his ship. Bad enough the man knew of gargoyles, but when
dawn came with it the left-handed blessing that turned him human
instead of stone -- Jethro hadn't missed the avaricious gleam in the
scientist's eyes. The next few days had been a nightmare of poking, and
prodding, humiliating tests and examinations.
        What a relief it had been to escape that ship! And a joy to find he
had gotten to Scotland after all, though the idea of that scientist being
here on some sinister purpose made for an uneasy dread lurking in the
pit of Jethro's stomach. He supposed he should have done something
about it, but first things first. He was home.
        He certainly should have been seeing the tower by now!
        Perhaps his newly-corrected vision was somehow interfering?
But no, that didn't make sense; he was supposed to see _better_ now,
not worse! If the tower was visible before, it should be all the more so by
now!
        A wide track, a rutted road, had been cut through the forest.
Jethro glided over a tangle of stumps that had been yanked out of the
ground like old teeth. There had been machines here, large machines,
many of them.
        Worried now, he caught an updraft and soared high. At that
moment, a wisp of cloud unraveled from the face of the moon, and the
pale silver light revealed all.
        Jethro veered to one side as if struck, but the blow had been
internal, shock at the sight that his glasses revealed in unrelenting detail.
        He landed quickly, not trusting his wings, barely sure he trusted
his legs. He clung to the wizened bough of one lone surviving tree for
balance.
        One surviving tree. One surviving gargoyle.
        The hope that had buoyed him all the way here now left him in a
sudden desolating rush.
        The castle was gone.
        Only a great gaping hole in the headland showed where it had
been. An empty socket of sheared stone, the very living rock cut away.
        A vise clamped around Jethro's lungs, making his breath whistle
faintly in eerie counterpoint to the ceaseless wind.
        He looked around desperately. If the castle had been destroyed,
where was the rubble? Where were the huge tumbled chunks of masonry
that should have been piled nearby? But no, it was gone, just gone.
        "What's happened here?" he asked, barely aware that he spoke.
"Where is it?"
        He wasn't expecting an answer, but one came nonetheless.
        "If you're awake, my friend, the castle must be 'above the clouds,'
as was foretold."
        The voice was female, and as familiar to his ears as the land had
been to his eyes. How could it not be familiar, when it was engraved upon
his heart?
        He hardly dared turn. "It can't be ..."
        "It is."
        Slowly, sure that there would be nothing, he did turn. And there
she was, standing before him as real as could be. Tall, only a few inches
shorter than himself, with skin the color of rich cream, eyes green as a
new leaf, and hair like the blazing sunset.
        He was even gladder for the tree to which he clung, because now
his legs did betray him and would have spilled him to the ground if he
hadn't held on tight.
        She looked just as he remembered, with her hair falling nearly to
her hips, her halter and loincloth of brown wool showing off her supple,
athletic shape. The only thing that was different was the trailing end of a
scar mostly concealed by her halter.
        "You ... you haven't changed at all!" he finally said.
        "I can't say the same for you." She indicated his clothing with a
smile that lit the night.
        He tugged self-consciously at the tail of his blue plaid shirt, which
had come untucked from his torn bluejeans. "A priest gave them to me.
He didn't think I should be going around in just a loincloth. He even
named me ... I'm called Jethro now. But ... this is impossible, this is
incredible! You're here! How? After all this time --?"
        "Does it matter how?" She held out her arms, laughing merrily.
"We're together, at least for now!"
        Hesitantly, not able to believe it, he stepped forward and opened
his own arms to her. She folded her satiny wings around him, and he
brought his dark ones forward to envelop them both.
        "Oh, I have missed you," she sighed, resting her head in the
hollow of his shoulder, her hair whispering like silken fire against his skin.
        "I thought I would never see you again! I thought I was done for!"
        "You very nearly were. You were wounded, dying. And the spell
... he put the same spell on you that he did on the others --"
        "The same spell I begged him to cast before, and he refused,"
Jethro cut in, the old bitterness flooding back as he though of how close
he'd come to putting his hands around the human's neck and twisting.
        If it hadn't been for the women and the boy, and the precious
burden they carried, he would have done it. But he couldn't leave them
without their only protector. The man might not have been a warrior, but
his magic would at least keep them safe. And so, although he had
desperately longed for the eternal sleep of the spell, he had kept that
murderous urge to himself and even accepted when they pleaded with
him to join them.
        "The next thing I knew," he told her, "I awoke in a strange shop.
How was I to know how much time had passed? Or where I was? Frankie
--" he broke off and patted the pouch tied to one of the belt loops of his
jeans, "-- used the last of his magic to help me escape. But I wasn't
anywhere I knew. I was in a city, an unbelievable city ... and I had to find
my way home, find out what had happened to the others."
        "Now you have come home."
        "And found you. But I don't understand --"
        She held a finger to his lips. "There's nothing to understand, my
sweet Jethro --" the sound of his name in her dulcet voice, combined with
the light touch of her hand, made him close his eyes as a shiver swept
him, "-- just as before, I've longed for the company of other gargoyles,
and knew I had to see you again. It all happened so fast, I never had a
chance to say good-bye."
        "_Everything_ happened so fast," he agreed. "It seems like only a
few nights ago that we met. You're as beautiful now as you were then.
Did he put the spell on you, too?"
        "Come and glide with me!" she invited. "We can talk of other
things later."
        He readily agreed, turning from the devastating emptiness where
the castle had been. The past was past, a thousand years past. There
was nothing for him here, except to find a new future.
        But as they glided, as they played hide-and-seek among the
trees and swam in the cool river and splashed along the rocky shores,
the pages of his mind turned back and back, and he remembered ...

                *       *

One thousand years ago ...

        They traveled by night. They had to, both for concealment
against their enemies and because their wagon was already heavily-
laden and the addition of a stone gargoyle would have pushed the horses
beyond their last endurance.
        But by night, the darkness gave them cover, and he could move
under his own power, could use his wings and talons to defend himself
and the humans against any dangers.
        The man kept his distance, and the gargoyle who would
eventually come to be known as Jethro was glad. What a fate the man
had condemned him to! The last of his kind, alone in the world, his clan
destroyed, his home sacked and in flames! All he'd sought was to share
the fate of the others, those few survivors transformed by magic. Was it
so much to ask? Yet he'd been denied, forced to live.
        If only he hadn't been in the stable when his rookery brothers
were taunting the humans! He never would have been kicked, never
buried in bags of grain and broken shelves. He would have been on his
perch with the rest of the warriors when the invaders came on the heels
of daybreak.
        Death, or even enchanted sleep for all time, would have been
better than this! If not for the contents of the wagon, he would not have let
the man refuse his demand. But those contents gave him hope to hold
onto, thirty-six thin shreds of hope.
        He glided ahead of the slow-moving wagon, scanning for threats.
He had never been the best scout; others always seemed to see things
before he did.
        But even he, poor scout though he was, could not miss the sight
of a winged form flitting between two pillars of rock.
        Bright fevered joy leaped up inside him. He cautioned himself
that he had only seen a large bird, a bird that had in the tricky light taken
on a shape suggestive of a gargoyle. Even so, he could not ignore it, and
headed swiftly in that direction.
        He circled one pillar, finding nothing, and inwardly berated
himself for letting himself believe, even for a moment. A bird, a wraith of
mist given life by the moonlight. That was all. Nothing more than that.
        He began a wide loop around the other pillar, preparing to return
to the wagon before he got lost, and nearly ran right into her.
        Both of them cried out in surprise and they fell away from each
other several yards before recovering.
        He stared helplessly. A gargoyle, a female, a beautiful flame-
haired female of his own age! It was too much, a dream, too good to be
true!
        "Where did you come from?" she gasped. "I didn't think there
were other gargoyles in this territory!"
        "I didn't think there were other gargoyles at all!" he blurted. "I
thought I was the last!"
        "What are you doing here?" Her emerald eyes narrowed
suspiciously.
        "My clan was destroyed, all of them, slaughtered as they slept,"
he said, telling her the name of the castle, the name of the clan. "Only a
few survived, and they've been enspelled. Now it's just me, and the
eggs."
        Her suspicion eased into sympathy. "I'm sorry."
        "You should warn your clan."
        "I have no clan," she said shortly.
        "Oh," he replied, crestfallen and nonplussed. The thought that
there might be another clan, a place to stay and warriors to help raise
and protect the hatchlings ...
        "I've been on my own for a long time," she elaborated, seeing his
disappointment. "My clan ... they're far from here. I have no home."
        "Neither do I, now," he said. They perched atop one of the stone
pillars, and he couldn't help noticing how lovely she was as the wind
tossed her hair over her shoulders. What was a female like this doing
alone? "You ... you could join us."
        She regarded him for a long moment, and he blushed and
fidgeted under her steady gaze. "It has been rather lonely," she finally
said. "And I am tired of traveling with no clear purpose. I could help you
guard these eggs."
        "I'd like having a friend to glide with. I ... sometimes I get lost,
when I go out by myself," he admitted, blushing more deeply. "Not that I
really have anyplace to go."
        "Me either," she said with a sigh. "But what of these humans?
Wouldn't they mind if you brought me back?"
        "No, of course they wouldn't mind," he said with a confidence he
didn't entirely feel. Wouldn't they? Ever since the massacre, the humans
had seemed sincere in their remorse, sincere in their desire to make up
for their parts in the fates of the gargoyles. Would that extend to taking in
a stranger? He wasn't sure, but knew that he couldn't just let her glide out
of his life.
        "Then let us go and meet them!" She rose from her crouch and
leaped into the night.
        Grinning, happy for the first time in many nights, Jethro leapt
after her.

                *       *

The present ...

        Jethro folded his wings tight as he dove through the waves, the
cold and slightly salty-rough water scrubbing, cleansing.
        He surfaced, flinging his brownish-blond hair out of his eyes. A
few yards away, she did the same, sending a spreading sheet of droplets
at him. Her laughter was a musical trill, all the more precious because
he'd heard it so seldom.
        Her survival had to be as miraculous, as magical, as was his
own, and he was consumed with curiosity. Bit it was plain even to him
that she didn't want to talk about the intervening centuries.
        Well, there would be time enough for that later, he supposed.
And questions were driven even further from his inquisitive mind as she
splashed a huge fan of water into his face. He retaliated by ducking
beneath the churning surf to grab her by her high, arched feet. One quick
pull, and she submerged.
        That wasn't the end of it. She twisted in his grasp, got ahold of
his tail. A rolling swell picked them both up and tumbled them head over
heels, then deposited them on the crescent-shaped beach carved from
the base of the cliff.
        Drenched, sputtering, but still laughing, they fell easily into a
companionable embrace. The water coursed up, hissing and foaming
amid the sea-worn pebbles, bathing their legs.
        "What happened after?" he asked. "What became of the eggs,
the humans?"
        She averted her eyes. "I don't know. When last I saw them, they
were well."
        "When was that?" he pressed.
        "Not long after you were enspelled." She turned away from him,
moving so that their bodies no longer touched. "Please, can't we talk of
other things?"
        "It's important. To me. A sprite came to me, gave me riddles and
hints that he said would help me find my clan ..." he trailed off, unsure if
he should tell her the rest of the matter, the spell that changed him by
day. What would she think if she knew he spent half his life as a human
now?
        "I said I don't know!" She rose in one smooth motion and walked
a few paces away, arms crossed around herself, hands cupping her
elbows.
        Females, he thought. He'd never understood the moods of his
rookery sisters either. He stood, moved hesitantly toward her.
        "I'm sorry," he offered.
        "Oh, Jethro." She put her hands over her face, muffling her
words. "I'd just rather think of the happier times, wouldn't you?"
        He touched her shoulders, drew her backward into his arms.
"Like the feast, the revel? That was a happy time, though it was a short
time."
        She leaned against him, rocked her head back so he could press
his chin and cheek into the damp mass of her hair. "I'd never danced
before."
        "Neither had I," he said, smiling, remembering ...

                *       *

One thousand years ago ...

        The meeting had gone well, as well as he could expect. The
humans hadn't been overjoyed to accept another gargoyle into their
company, but they masked their discomfort well. And as the nights went
by, as the female made herself useful as a huntress, the tensions among
their mixed party grew less.
        One night, after long and weary hours of travel, the female
spotted a village ahead. After some discussion, the humans elected to
seek shelter there, hopeful that they would be able to add to their
diminishing store of food.
        The gargoyle who would one day be named Jethro wasn't sure
what to make of the village. It was just a collection of hovels, each one a
large single room. People and animals slept separated only by a trench in
the earthen floor where their wastes mingled. The thatched roofs were
acrawl with insects and wasps. The castle had been chilly, drafty, but at
least it had been a grand and stately place.
        Few humans were awake at such an hour, but those few
villagers who were came rushing out to gawk at the travelers. Their
gawks turned to gapes when they caught sight of the gargoyles, and the
gapes were on the threshold of turning into fearful violence when the
younger woman, a princess of the realm, explained their identities and
purpose.
        This news turned superstitious dread to awed welcome. Within
moments, the entire village had been roused -- men with weathered skin
from working the fields, gangly youths, plain but kindly matrons, plump
maids, and a swarm of children.
        Like the boy who traveled with them, the children were first to
approach, first to ask eager questions, first to try and touch a gargoyle
wing or tail. Jethro and the female tolerated it, sharing bemused glances.
        To honor the sudden appearance of royalty in their midst, the
villagers decided then and there to hold a feast the very next night.
        Dawn came, and the gargoyles took up their protective poses,
one on either side of the wagon.
        Many hours later, Jethro awoke with a snarl, casting off his stone
skin. Across from him, the female did the same. And then both of them
stopped, staring, at the transformation before them.
        The village was still only a collection of hovels, but wildflowers
and sprays of herbs were bound with twine and hung above every door
and window, on every post and pole. Bonfires burned brightly, dancers
made lines and circles to the lively tunes played by the pipers, and
everywhere, humans were eating and drinking and making merry. Shy
village girls had made gifts of ribbons and other adornments to the
visitors.
        The crack and shower of stone as the gargoyles awoke paused
the festivities, but only briefly. Jethro and the female found themselves
surrounded, offered food and drink, drawn into the celebration. Jethro
smiled wryly as he thought of something he'd once heard the castle bailiff
complaining about -- that peasants would seize upon any excuse to revel
and get out of their days' work.
        He and the female didn't hesitate long. The smells of so many
different kinds of morsels, after so long living on what they hunted
themselves to supplement the sparse rations of preserved food, brought
their appetites swiftly to the fore.
        Thick, dark maslin bread, slathered in honey. Chicken and leeks
baked together in golden-crusted pies. Eels roasted whole with the dark
skin flaking off to reveal chewy pale meat. Stewed fruit. Mead and ale.
        When they had eaten their fill, Jethro noticed the female intently
watching the dancers. "Would you like to try?"
        "Oh, that's not for the likes of us, I'm sure!'" she said.
        But he saw how her talons tapped to the music, and took her by
the hands. "Let's try. Just this once, why not?"
        She laughed and acquiesced, letting him pull her into the circle.
The humans parted to give them room, though not without some startled
looks. The ones on either side of them looked askance, but then gave
their hands over to the grip of the gargoyles as the pipers struck up a new
tune.
        Step, together, step, together -- moving around the circle to the
left.
        Then step, together, step, together -- to the right.
        Then left again, a series of three -- step, together, step, together,
step, together.
        And then three rapid bouncy kicks, their feet arcing out a few
inches in front of them.
        It took Jethro and the female a few tries to get it right, but the
humans encouraged them without mocking. Then, when they had it
down, the tune began to speed up. Step, together, step, together, around
the circle, and then back, and then kick-kick-kick.
        Faster now, both of them laughing as they tried to keep up and
not tread on each others' tails, their hips bumping and jostling when one
of them didn't start going the other direction swiftly enough.
        The pace increased, the pipers' fingers moving in a frantic blur.
Now everyone was bumping into one another, stumbling, roaring with
mirth and delight.
        The dance's end left Jethro gasping for breath. He and the
female retreated from the circle, noticing the pleased smiles on the faces
of their human companions. Such frivolity was beneath the man's
scholarly dignity, and so he did not dance, and because he did not, the
princess stayed by him in a manner of noble reserve.
        The female twined her arm through his, her wing-caped shoulder
brushing against him, sending thoughts of humans far to the back of his
mind. She tipped her head toward his, their brow ridges just lightly
touching, and he heard her contented sigh.
        "Once we've seen the humans and the eggs to their destination,"
she asked softly, "what will you do then?"
        "I hadn't really thought about it," he said. "The eggs won't hatch
for a few more years ... I'd like to see more of the world, try to find other
gargoyles. Meeting you has given me new hope."
        She smiled. "Meeting you has restored my faith in our kind. I'd
like it if we could go on together, you and I."
        "I would like that too." And be a fool not to, he silently added. He
put an arm around her, and she adjusted her wings to permit it. Her tail
crept to curl around his.
        "Look at them," she murmured, watching a youth in pursuit of a
giggling maiden. At the edge of the firelight, the youth caught his prey,
sweeping her up and kissing her soundly.
        "We tried dancing ..." Jethro hinted warmly.
        She tipped her emerald eyes up to him. "Are you suggesting we
try other human customs as well?"
        He brushed a long coil of hair behind her ear. "Or similar
gargoyle ones."
        "They might notice if we slipped away ..." her voice was so low
now it was barely above a whisper, her body leaning toward him in a
supple curve.
        "So they notice," Jethro shrugged. "I'll chance it, if you will."
        By way of reply, her tail coiled more snugly around his, and she
slid one hand beneath the cloak of his wings to brush ever-so-gently
along the sensitive spot where his wing membrane joined the flesh of his
back.
        Those who did notice as the two gargoyles left the circle only
grinned knowingly and indulgently at one another. Jethro paid them no
attention. All of his thoughts were focused on the female, on how
fortunate he was to have found her.
        Beyond the village was a plot of land bounded by a meandering
creek and a ridge of stone, the land sloped too steeply for the humans to
plant and harvest. A wild meadow, fragrant with flowers, lush with deep
grass. They could still hear the music and revelry, still see the leaping
glow of the bonfires, but at the same time a silent comforting darkness
surrounded them.
        There in the darkness, Jethro pulled the female close. She
molded her body to his, skimming her hands over his chest and
shoulders. He stroked her hair, her back, feeling her tense and then relax
meltingly as his fingers caressed between her wings.
        The grassy meadow reached up to enfold them, the high
whispering stalks concealing everything except the stars above.

                *       *

The present ...

        "Yes," she said. "The meadow ..."
        Jethro closed his eyes, wishing he could stop the flow of
memories as easily as he shut off his sight. "But then --"
        "Don't," she said. "Just think of what we had, or almost did. What
might have been, not what really happened. Why dwell on that, when we
have so many better things to think of?"
        "Because it was the end, the end of everything!" he said,
anguished. "Just when I'd found happiness again, the invaders stole it
from me!"
        "Don't think of it!" she urged.
        "How can I not?" He sank onto a flat boulder, buried his head in
his hands. "We could have had so many nights, years of them, decades!
We could have been mates, together for always. But the invaders had to
pick then, that night, that moment! And all was lost!"
        "We're here now," she said, sitting beside him, turning his chin so
that he had to face her. "Here, and together. We have tonight, Jethro."
        He looked at her wonderingly, touched her smooth cheek.
"Tonight?"
        "Tonight, to finish what we started, to know what was taken from
us." She brought her lips to his, a sweet, delicate kiss like the brushing of
a petal.
        "Tonight," he repeated, more surely, a promise that he meant to
keep.
        She took his wrists, moved his hands from her waist upward. "I
believe here was where you left off ..."
        "Yes ..."
        "But you didn't have this shirt before," she continued, unbuttoning
it in a series of deft flicks.
        He paused, partly from the wave of longing that went over him as
her palms slid familiarly over his chest, and partly from something
unexpected, unremembered, that his own questing hand found.
        "What?" she drew back defensively from his sudden scrutiny.
        The scar. He'd noticed it briefly before, the end of it just visible
beneath her halter. He'd thought nothing of it -- what warrior, even a
gargoyle, didn't boast a scar or two? Stone sleep could work wonders,
but some wounds never did mend quite right.
        But this ...
        A gnarled, knotted rope of tissue marred the otherwise flawless
skin. It was the length of his forefinger and nearly as thick.
        "What did this?"
        She tugged her halter down. "An old wound. It's nothing."
        "It's not nothing. When did it happen?"
        "Long ago. Please, Jethro ..."
        "I have to know," he said, although the words dragged painfully
out of him as if they had barbs. He didn't _want_ to know, the knowing
would be terrible, as bad as the devastating understanding he'd had
when he realized his clan was gone. He sensed this as surely as he could
sense the currents of air. And still, he could not leave it alone. He did
have to know.
        "The battle," she reluctantly said. "It was during the battle ..."

                *       *

One thousand years ago ...

        His senses were full of her -- the soft pearly glow of her body
against the grass, the clean scent of her hair, the purr and sigh of her
voice, the mingled taste of mead and fruit on her lips, and the warm satin
caress of her skin.
        He should have been lost in her, lost in the moment, but
something nagged at the corners of his awareness, prevented him from
fully succumbing to the passion.
        Something ... something that wasn't right. Something stealthy,
menacing.
        Jethro raised his head, ignoring her faint snarl of protest, and
looked around.
        Shapes moving through the shadows.
        Aha! So he and the female weren't the only ones sneaking off for
some privacy! And yet ... and yet he wouldn't expect young lovers to
move with such stealth and purpose.
        Then his ears twitched at the slow, deliberate sssshhhhiiiiiiing! of
a blade being drawn from a sheath.
        Beneath him, the female tensed and her dreamy half-lidded eyes
flew wide.
        As quietly as possible, they disentangled their limbs and Jethro
rose to his knees, peering over the nodding, waving grass.
        The shadow-shapes were creeping through the light forest,
moonlight glinting on breastplates and helmets. Blond braids and
bearded faces ...
        "The invaders!" Jethro hissed.
        "They're going to raid the village!"
        He stood and socked one fist grimly into the other palm. "No,
they're not! I might not have been able to protect my clan, but I'm not
going to sit back and let them keep killing!"
        "I'm with you." She quickly tied her hair back with a leather thong,
and flexed her claws. "But we have to warn the humans!"
        "Easy enough!" He jumped to the top of the rocky ridge, in full
view of the invaders. Flaring his wings, he roared as loud as he was able.
        In the village, the music and dancing quit abruptly, and human
voices babbled in confusion and alarm. The nearest invader hurled a
spear at Jethro.
        He seized it from midair, snapped it in two, and threw the pieces
back at the man. Then he charged into their midst, dodging a sword,
using his tail to knock the feet out from under a crossbowman.
        The female snarled, eyes flashing red, and tackled another
invader. His cry of alarm turned into one of pain, counterpointed by the
brittle crack of breaking bones.
        "Attack!" bellowed the leader of the invaders, whom Jethro
recognized as having been one of the under-commanders in the battle at
the castle.
        His men obliged, swarming toward the undefended village where
the humans were still milling about, uncertain just what was going on.
        Jethro put an end to their uncertainty by grabbing an invader and
hurling him with all his strength. The man sailed with arms and legs
flailing, helm flying off, and bounced into the circle of firelight, where his
head fetched up against a mead barrel. The barrel split open, the golden
liquid gushing out over the unconscious man.
        Now they knew, and exploded into panic. Some village men had
the presence of mind to take up weapons.
        The leader of the invaders shouted orders, gesturing with his
sword. His men regrouped, presented an organized force racing toward
the hovels where an unsteady line of terrified villagers awaited them with
hoes and picks.
        Jethro and the female loped on all fours and brought down two
invaders, then two more, but couldn't stop the charge. The line of
villagers gave way, routed by the first lethal sweep of an invader axe.
        The leader snatched a brand from the fire and tossed it onto the
thatched roof of the nearest building. At once, the dry material went up in
flames. Screaming women and children burst through the doorway, right
into the middle of the fray.
        The female was swept away from him on the tides of battle. He
saw her silhouetted against the burning house, locked in combat with a
fierce invader while two children tugged desperately at their dazed,
injured mother.
        Strange radiance lit the night. Jethro wasn't the only one to look
that way, toward the robed form of the princess' companion, a thick book
clutched to his narrow chest, his extended hand gloved in blue-white
energy that shot from his fingertips, striking invaders and making them fly
backwards with their booted feet barely dragging on the ground.
        A great bear of a man came at Jethro from behind, arms like
treetrunks encircling him, squeezing. Jethro coiled his tail around the
man's legs and jerked. The man fell, but rather that release his prey, held
tight, so that they crashed to earth together. Jethro twisted, drove the
heel of his hand into the man's nose. The blow stunned him so that he
loosened his grip, enabling the gargoyle to pull free.
        He picked up the nearest thing at hand, a heavy jug of ale, and
was about to bring it down on the man's head when a new scream
snared his attention. Just one more scream amid the chaos, but in a
voice he knew.
        The princess!
        He glanced toward the robed man, but he was too far to have
heard, and beset by many foes.
        "Go!" the female cried. The tide had swept her close again,
ringing them with enemies. "I'll deal with these!"
        "I don't want to leave you!"
        "Go! I'll be right with you, I swear!"
        A second scream, this one of sheer horror, decided him.
        Still carrying the jug, Jethro dashed toward the source of the
terrified cry. It had come from within one of the hovels, and he burst
through the doorway to see a human male dead on the packed-dirt floor,
split from crown to collarbone by the blow of an axe.
        The wielder of the axe now towered over the princess, whose
back was pressed against the wall. Her gown was torn, her eyes
enormous in her fear. In her prior captivity, her fate had been ransom
rather than ravishment; clearly, this invader didn't care about any ransom.
        He was a huge man, taller even than Jethro, and the bearskin
cloak hanging from his massive shoulders only added to his menacing
size. He held the dripping axe at his side as he reached for the princess,
meaning to hook his fingers into the collar of her gown.
        Jethro threw the jug. It shattered in the middle of the man's broad
back, soaking bearskin with heady ale.
        The man whirled with a catlike speed that belied his size and
slow-witted appearance. His mouth curled into a sneer of anger.
        "Come on, then, monster! I'll destroy you waking or sleeping!" He
hefted the axe.
        Jethro feinted to the left, and the man swung. The blade bit deep
into a beam and wedged there. Jethro drove his fist into the man's belly,
then, as the man bent double, Jethro helped him along by clutching a
handful of hair and bringing the man's head down while he brought his
knee up.
        The two met with a broken-crockery sound and a hail of
smashed teeth. The man dropped like a sack of meal, and Jethro hopped
backwards on one foot, cradling his knee and biting his lip and thinking
that perhaps that hadn't been the best of actions. Effective, but oh! did his
knee hurt!
        The princess came to him with a shining smile of gratitude,
supporting him as he limped to a bench and sat down.
        A looming shadow blotted out the firelight. The leader of the
invaders filled the doorway, staring at the fallen body of his comrade.
"Hrothgar! Brother!"
        Forgetting the pain that shot in spikes up and down his leg,
Jethro stood and swept the princess behind him.
        "Now you die, gargoyle!"
        A greatsword, as long as a man was tall, sliced through the air.
The leader barely had room to wield it without striking the walls. Jethro
ducked under, realized that he was leaving the princess exposed, and
kicked back with his good leg. She cried out in surprise as she landed
bottom-first in a heap of straw.
        The blade passed over them. Jethro's sore knee buckled and he
fell on his side, grunting as the breath was forced from his lungs. He
gritted his teeth grimly and popped back up, favoring that leg.
        His talons raked down the man's face, first squealing across the
metal of his helm, then gouging flesh and tangling in the knotted mat of
his beard.
        The leader reversed his swing with amazing speed.
        At first Jethro didn't even realize he'd been hit -- there was no
pain, just a biting, bitter cold. He looked down, saw the blade embedded
in his right side. Deep. A few inches above his belt, just below the cage of
his ribs. Then the sheet of ice gave way to an inferno, and an agonized
scream burst from his throat.
        Grinning cruelly, the leader pulled the sword free. Jethro
collapsed again, sucking in shallow sips of air, his right arm and leg and
wing shivering in uncontrollable spasms.
        He realized someone was cradling his head. The princess,
looking up defiantly at the invader as he raised the blade for the killing
stroke.
        Brilliant white light outlined the invader from behind, beamed
around and through him, revealing bones and organs. His cry of triumph
turned to a howl. The light flared brighter, unbearably bright. It engulfed
the man, consumed him.
        Empty armor clanged in a pile, and fine white dust sifted all
around it.
        Jethro, the world seeming at the other end of a very long and
cloudy tunnel, saw another man step into the doorway. A robed man, with
a book in his arms, his face drawn with weariness and dread that turned
to desperate relief when he saw the woman and the gargoyle huddled on
the floor.
        They were talking to him, talking about him, but Jethro couldn't
make sense of their words. Dying? What did they mean, dying? He would
never do such a thing, not when he had so much to live for! Had he
longed for death? What had he been thinking? Life was so infinitely
precious!
        Dying. Nonsense!
        The robed man pointed at him, reading from the book. A
cobweb-fine thread of blue light unspooled from his finger, forming itself
into a spiral, a cone, that swirled around Jethro.
        What? he thought as he felt his flesh grow heavy. What? Dawn
already? But it's the middle of the ...

                *       *

The present ...

        "... night," Jethro said. "But it wasn't. It was his spell, turning me
to stone as he did to the others. It was the only way he could save my life,
and after I saved hers, he must have felt he owed me." He chuckled
ruefully. "Strange how that worked out -- he did it to the others to punish
them, thinking they had been responsible for her death."
        The female stifled a sob, and when she spoke, her voice was
thick with unshed tears. "I arrived just after, and thought he'd killed you,
not saved you. When I demanded he turn you back, and he refused, I
didn't give him a chance to explain. I ... I struck him, and he fell, and
didn't move. And then the woman, the princess, begged me to listen, but
there wasn't time. The invaders ... they saw what happened to their
leader, and many of them fled, but some went insane with battle-fury."
        She paused until he was about to say something, then touched
the scar beneath her halter. "One of them did this."
        He put his arms around her, and she rested her head against his
shoulder. They sat like that for a time, listening to the waves, each lost in
their own memories of that night that had begun so wonderfully, and
ended so terribly.
        "It's all behind us now," Jethro finally said. "We're here now,
together again. The castle might not be here, but if we're awake, the
others must be. They're out there somewhere, alive. And the eggs may
have survived, too. We're not the last gargoyles."
        "Jethro ..."
        "You can come with me, and find my clan. They'll welcome you, I
know they will."
        She shook her head. "It can't be so."
        "It won't be easy, but with you by my side ..." he laughed and
pulled her close. "Even if we never do find the others, at least we have
each other!"
        "For now," she murmured, moving against him.
        "And forever," he said, and those were the last words either of
them uttered for quite a long time.

                *       *
        
A few weeks ago ...

        Stone cracked and fell away, and with it the stiffness that had
settled into his aching body. Before he opened his eyes, he took a
tentative breath, waiting for the searing rush of pain.
        Nothing.
        His forearm was still held tight against his side, and he dimly
recalled how he had pressed it there in a futile effort to keep his life's
blood from pouring out.
        Dust tickled his nose. He sneezed, sucked in more dust, sneezed
again. Then, sure that he had advertised his presence to all within
hearing, he opened his eyes.
        Expecting to see the village, some of the homes in ashes and
corpses strewn amid the wreckage, he at first could not comprehend his
surroundings. A dark chamber, stone walls enclosing him.
        Ghostly forms loomed over him, making him start with sudden
alarm until he realized they were not moving. Not alive. Furniture draped
in cloth.
        He turned his head, taking in the tall cobwebbed shelves and
their burden of leather-bound books and other odd things. A smooth
sphere of crystal, murky within like a blind eye, resting in a golden stand
that coiled with many dragonlike heads -- a hydra. A satiny piece of wood
painted with letters and numbers and images of the sun and moon. Vials
and jars in all shapes and sizes, sealed with wax.
        To the left, a narrow set of stairs ascended to a trap door. To the
right, another door, a lowered solid portcullis of metal.
        He sat up, testing and probing. His wounds were healed. His
stone sleep had healed him. But where was he? Where had the others
gone? The female, where was she? And the humans? The wagon? The
eggs?
        Realizing that he must be in some hidden cellar, he slowly got up
and avoided banging his head on the low ceiling. He could reach the trap
door without much of a stretch, but it did not yield when he pushed
against it. And the metal door remained firmly closed as well.
        Something moved beside him. He looked and saw a diminutive
elfin figure perched in the gloom.
        "Who are you?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
        A muffled, startled voice replied. The gargoyle couldn't make out
the words, but it sounded like a question.
        "Help me, please, I don't know where I am," he said to the elfin
figure. "Where are my friends? What's going on?"
        A grinding clank, a squeal of metal, and the portcullis began to
roll upward. Cool night air drifted in, setting the dust astir and making him
sneeze again.
        "Thank you! Come on, let's leave this place!" He picked up the
figure and emerged.
        A child nearby, dressed in a manner the gargoyle had never seen
before, took one look and fled as if all the beasts of the earth were hot on
his heels.
        "I guess we frightened him," he said to the elf.
        No answer.
        He raised the figure before his eyes, blinking and straining to
focus. And then nearly dropped the elf in surprise and dismay.
        "You've turned to wood! Poor little friend, you used all your magic
to free me! Don't worry, I won't leave you here. I'll find a way to make you
well again, this I vow!"
        He patted his belt, found his pouch still securely tied in place and
just large enough to carry the wooden elf comfortably.
        Only then did he lift his head and look about, and his jaw dropped
as he realized that this was not the village after all. Square towers higher
than trees crowded close together along streets of some hard, black
substance. Steady light in a thousand colors fuzzed and blurred in his
vision.
        No village. No sign of his friends. No sign of his flame-haired
love. What had happened to him?
        He wandered aimlessly, cringing into the shadows when
horrendous machines raced past with tails of choking smoke. Some of
them flashed with pulses of red and blue light, shrieked like demons.
Others brayed and blared with the sound of a thousand indignant beasts.
Everywhere he turned, his senses were assaulted by oily reeking smells,
insanely loud noise, impossible sights.
        Had he gone mad?
        Was this some terrible vision to mark the end of his life? Was he
really dying on the floor of that peasant hovel, unseeing, unhearing the
world that was truly around him?
        Two humans appeared, a man and a woman, and he hurried
desperately toward them in hopes that they would turn out to be the
princess and her robed companion. They ran toward him, too, and he
was so very glad to see them that he threw open his arms and made as if
to embrace them.
        The woman screamed piercingly, and the man did the same.
They veered away from the gargoyle with expressions of absolute horror.
Not his friends, not anyone he knew, dressed as strangely as the child
had been!
        Anguished and confused, the gargoyle turned back the way he
had come. This wasn't his world, everything was torn apart! He vividly
recalled the castle, the invaders, the destruction, and his lonely miserable
flight from the ruins. He recalled the humans who had urged him to join
them, the female, the village -- a swift dart of agony shot through him as
he thought of her, how they had danced, how they had held each other
beneath the windswept night sky.
        He looked up, hoping against all hope to see her, and saw
instead the leering stone faces of gargoyles staring down at him. Just
their heads, mouths open in silent howls. As if someone had plucked
them from the rubble and set them up in this heartless mocking display.
        A huge wordless wail escaped him. He crossed his arms and his
wings over his head, not wanting to see any more, and sank shaking into
a garbage-strewn corner where walls came together at a sharp angle.

                *       *

The present ...

        "I felt so alone," he told her, idly playing with a long curling lock of
her hair as they rested in each others' arms after their long and gentle
bout of love. "I still did, even after the sprite came to me, even after the
priest helped me. I knew I had to find my own kind, if not my own clan.
And now I have. I've found you, and you can be both."
        "Jethro, I cannot join your clan --"
        "We can be a clan together, you and I!" He clutched her close,
gazed into her beautiful eyes.
        Those eyes were filled with sadness. "It's not possible. I wish it
were, oh, how I wish it were! But I must leave you soon."
        "Leave me?!" he echoed.
        She touched his face, as if knowing she were seeing it for the
last time. "We were given this one last night together. And now --" her
gaze flicked to the east, where the rose-golden light of dawn was
creeping inexorably closer. "And now that night is done."
        "No! You don't have to leave! I love you, don't you know that?"
        "I know." She smiled, sorrowful and radiant all in one. "I love you
too, but this is how it must be."
        He opened his mouth to ask her why, why it had to be this way,
but before he could get the words out, the sun slipped over the horizon
and the magic caught him up in its wrenching transformation.
        Jethro bent double, struggling to withhold a cry of pain, as his
wings shrank into nubs, then vanished into the flesh of his back, leaving
only the rips in his shirt. His tail melted into his spine, his feet flattened
and grew five stubby toes. Within moments, he was only a human, a
human in unkempt clothes, kneeling on the pebbly beach with his breath
caught sharply in his chest.
        He pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked to where her
statue would be, knowing he would have to wait until sunset to ask and
have answered his question.
        She stood before him, the wind rippling her wings and hair, as
flesh!
        "What --?" was all he could say, astonished.
        She regarded him with just as much love and sadness as she
had before his change, seemingly untroubled, unsurprised by the fact that
he was a human now.
        He rose, heedless of the stones poking into his tender soles.
"You ... you're not stone! I don't understand ..."
        "One of them did this," she said, putting a hand over the scar. "I
wasn't fully truthful with you before. As you left me, to save the princess, I
leapt upon one of the invaders. I meant to bear him down, finish him, and
follow you. But he raised his sword ... I landed upon it ... in my rage, I
didn't realize how badly I was hurt until it was too late."
        "No ..." he breathed, realizing what she was trying to tell him.
        "And the sorcerer could not save me, for I had struck him down."
She kissed him, a lingering and aching kiss of final farewell, then stood
back. "Good-bye, my love."
        "No!" He jumped forward, but even as he reached for her, she
closed her eyes and tipped back her head, fading, becoming transparent.
        The wind blew her ghostly form away as if dust.
        "My ... love," he said brokenly, sinking to his knees again,
heedless of the tears that overflowed his eyes. "My ... lost angel."

                *       *

The End.

Copyright 1998 by Christine Morgan; based on Jethro's story "The Last Gargoyle."