It was a fine spring morning and the road to Ussher was full of peasants, serfs, and freemen all on their way to the market with goods to sell. 

By the side of the road, under the extensive branches of an ancient willow tree, sat a raggedly dressed boy, no older than nine or ten. He had a narrow face, with miserable-looking eyes that were no stranger to tears, and a mop of badly-cut hair that looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb for months. Seated beside the boy was another figure. And if the boy was still, this one was stiller still.

It was a gargoyle. A gargoyle carved from mottled gray soapstone with a faint green sheen to it so that it looked as if it should really be underwater. 

The boy looked up as Lord Gelvin reined in his horse. 

“D’you fancy a gargoyle for your manor house, my lord?” he cried in a wheedling tone of voice. “Excellent workmanship as you can see, sir. Ten $trands to a gentleman like yourself, sir.”

“Ten $trands!” exploded Lord Gelvin. “Do I get the gargoyle and all his brothers for that amount? I’ll give you ten ßrazes and count yourself lucky I don’t give you a whipping for your insolence, knave!”

“Ten ßrazes, my lord,” replied the boy, stifling his dismay, “but that’s only a week’s wages for a single man. My master—who took six weeks to carve this—has a large family to feed.” 

“Your master, eh?” sneered Lord Gelvin. “And where is he? I don’t see him—or his family. I think you’re a villain who has stolen this gargoyle and you are hoping to fence it to honest folk on their way to the marketplace.”

“Sir, my master’s wagon lost its wheel at this very spot and he has gone on into Ussher to get it mended, but he knew that he would have to leave me to look after it. It’ll bring luck to the gentleman who buys it, that I promise.”

“Very well,” sighed Lord Gelvin. “A $trand. A fair price I think. I will go no further. I have a new temple on my estate, and it needs a worthy ornament such as this to set it off.”

“A $trand?” The boy looked woeful. “How can I face my master with a single $trand? He’ll beat me for selling it or else he’ll think I’ve kept back the rest of the price. Five $trands, my lord, and the more good luck it will bring to you.”

Lord Gelvin weighed his purse and looked at the gargoyle again. It was an incredible piece of good luck. Such a statue would be worth twenty or thirty $trands if he could get it to an auction in a large town—Deepweir, say, or Gayomart. Begrudgingly, he opened the strings on his purse and counted out the thick golden coins into the boy’s open palm. 

“Thank you, sir,” stammered the boy, bobbing and saluting in respect. “You’ll not regret passing this road to the market.”

Almost before Lord Gelvin could blink, the boy turned and was lost in the milling throng.

Lord Gelvin looked down at his new property. His first problem was how to transport it. A family on a bullock-drawn cart were passing by, murmuring a respectful greeting. Lord Gelvin ordered them off the cart and told the farmer to load the gargoyle on. He tossed him a copper ßraze. “And here’s a coin for your trouble.”

The boy, as soon as he was out of sight, doubled back to the wagon into which the gargoyle, with much huffing and puffing from the farmer and his two husky sons had been loaded. Lord Gelvin rode on, bawling at the commoners who slowed his horse’s way.

“I was lucky,” thought the boy. “For by rights my master’s broken-down wagon should have been nearby. Methinks the grand lord was blinded by his greed.”

The boy kept one eye on the sky, keeping a lookout for watching spies in the form of birds. He had been kidnapped from his home far away by a wizard named Wolfram. This Wolfram was extremely clever and learned in magical arts. One of his many skills was the ability to enchant a mortal animal, such as a cat or a dog or even a bird. When he sent them out into the world, he was able to view secrets hidden from normal human vision. When the boy escaped from the wizard’s castle, most of the time had been spent hiding from these secret agents.

Between the laughter of the young maidens and the hammering of the farrier, there was quite a commotion. The boy hunkered down under the wagon and kept a look all around him. The  young maidens were eating pastries and pigeons and sparrows flew down to peck at their fallen crumbs. One maiden caught a glimpse of him under the wagon and thrust a seeded roll into his hand.

“When was the last time you ate?” she asked. 

But the boy simply grabbed the roll and ran away, casting a hasty “Thank you!” over his shoulder, for a thrush had been among the sparrows and pigeons. He felt uncomfortable within the gaze of its curious black eye.

He ran in a crouch beneath the horses’ legs, until he came to a water butt with a copper ladle. There he hid, munching his roll and taking sips from the ladle.

A black cat hurried by with a stolen fish in its jaws. No, not a familiar, otherwise it would have settled down beside him in apparent friendship.

Looking out from behind the water butt, he saw the thrush quartering the courtyard of the market. Now, that had to be a familiar, he thought.

As the day passed and hunger grew in him, he thought of spending one of the golden $trands, but he knew that his beggarly appearance would only arouse the suspicion of any pie-man with his tray of baked goods.

At least the thrush had moved on. 

When the girls had passed on from before the fortune teller’s tent, he returned to his station under the wagon. The long afternoon was drawing to its close, and even the line of horses had shrunk down to a priest on a donkey.

That evening as dusk drew on, the town of Ussher throbbed to the sound of revelry as the market moved on from its business of business to its business of pleasure. 

As the moon rose over the merry-makers of Ussher, the spell that turned the gargoyle into a statue by day wore off. It rose in the cramped confines of the wagon and spread its wings as it opened its mouth wide in a cavernous yawn and stretched like a cat.

A ripping sound alerted it and the face of the boy appeared in the hole he had cut through the cloth of the wagon.

“So, Stevyn,” said the gargoyle, in a rumbling voice like stones shifting in a wall, “you sold me again? Or was I stolen this time?”

“A sale,” replied Stevyn in a low voice, “and, Shax, unless you really do want to decorate a wall on a country estate somewhere, I think it’s time you should leave.”

“How much did you get?” asked Shax. 

“Enough to pay for our passage on a ship to Deepweir,“ replied Stevyn. “You’ll be going as cargo, of course.”

“Just as long as it’s not the figurehead,” grated Shax, smiling and tousling the boy’s hair. 

Shax rose to his full height and tore the roof off the wagon, his wings glinting greenly in the moonlight. 

“Climb up between my wings, Prince Stevyn,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s a long flight to Deepweir, and a longer voyage to Ystonia, where you’ve a kingdom to claim.”

He shouted down to Lord Gelvin as Shax swooped overhead, “Don’t worry about your money, sir! Consider it a loan!”

Shax gave a great, deep-throated whoop of joy to be flying once again. 

All along the street heads turned to see him silhouetted against the moon. 

Lord Gelvin stood transfixed in the market square. 

“Is that really a boy,” he wondered tipsily, “waving to me from the back of a flying monster?”

From that day on, he never touched another drop of drink.