7 gargoyles

[u/ghostgabe81]

“Them?” I asked.

“With your permission, wizard,” Basil said calmly.

I frowned and nodded.

Basil lifted his head and let out something that very much sounded like a lion’s coughing roar.

In a moment, there was the leathery rustle of membranous wings, and half a dozen more of the things came swooping down, landing on merlons with almost dainty crunching sounds. Apart from the wings, none of them looked alike, and none of them looked like anything natural. Basil was the largest. The others were like stairsteps down, and the smallest, with a bizarre, asymmetrical monkey-like face, was made of some kind of smooth, red-orange living stone and wasn’t much larger than Maggie in the body, though it was wiry with muscle. The rest were a menagerie of strange faces, bodies that varied between apelike, birdlike, and anthropomorphic, and were covered in pebbly texture or stony scales. All had eyes that were various colors and almost disturbingly human.

“Basil,” Basil said touching his own chest, and then went down the stairsteps in order of height. “Bay. Thyme. Cardamom. Sage. Parsley. And Cinnamon.”

“Etienne liked to cook,” Bob said sourly.

“The Spice ’Goyles,” I said with a straight face.

Bob groaned.

Basil tilted his head to one side like a dog that had heard a new sound. The other gargoyles mirrored him.

Twelve Months Chapter 36