Leering Gargoyle, Creature
Illus. Dermot Power

Ritual of Steel, Enchant Creature
Illus. Mark Poole

Waiting worked for Mwani, and it works for me. For example, now there is a thing of some sort that has landed on the roof of the hut. I cannot see the thing, but Chouri's barking confirms what my other gifts tell me. I hear the scrape of its rock-like claws against the thatch, and the beat of its small wings. Because the hut leans, I know the thing to be a heavy thing. And I hear no breath from above, so it is not a natural thing. This sorcerer Bwire, the assassin's master, he must have sent this thing to kill me, just as the assassin killed the wise woman.

Earlier in the day, I would run from this thing. But running cost me eight of thirteen goats. Now I stay put, petting my cursed little goat, Five of Five, who suffers from the Yellow Rock in his stomachs.

"The sorcerer, he covets this rock you have, and I know you would give it up in a heartbeat."

"Maaaa," my goat coos.

Now the thing is leaning over the edge of the roof, looking down at me. I see its reflection in the spring where I filled my water gourd, a horrid grey thing with pebbles for skin and wings of goathide. It sees that I see it, and makes its move.

I brace myself as the monster leaps up from the roof and falls like a stone towards me. Five of Five braces too, so much so that his wool and horns become shiny and solid like that assassin's knife.

Clannng!

A jarring vibration goes through me as the thing ricochets, impaled and stunned, off Five of Five. It seems to turn to solid rock as it hurtles through the air toward my--

"Oh, come now!" I shout to the sky. "That was not even original! Someone falls from the sky, crushing one of my goats. Twelve of Twelve went that way, and now Four of Five? Surely, fates, you can do better than that!"

The thing dusts itself off, and turns to face me. Flashing its arrowhead talons, it grins at me with lust in its eyes. "Fight," it says in a voice of gravel.

"No," I say.

"Fight," it urges. "It has been commanded by my master."

"Not to Jojo, it has not. If you want to fight, rock-thing, go ahead and kill me. My father's bone knife stays at my side." I continue petting my goat, who has returned to his normal plush texture.

"But--"

"Elsewise, go tell your sorcerous master (whoever that is) that I stay here, by the hut of my ancestor. And my goat, now Four of Four, he stays too."

The rock-thing shrugs its stony shoulders and advances on me. His smirk of stalactites and stalagmites would terrify me on any day but today. Today I stand--well, sit--my ground.

"I HAVE ERRED," says a feminine voice from the heavens. "GARGOYLE, COME BACK. THIS ONE IS NOT OUR FOE."

And with that, the thing vanishes, just like the assassin before him.

I straddle a war of wizards. The war must come to me. I have now four goats. What could possibly go wrong?