Demona sat on a stone wall overlooking waves of sage and heather on the moor. She watched the scene with complete fascination. She had grown up on this land, but the sun made it strange to her as she had only ever seen it illuminated by moonlight. The swift, rolling clouds above cast ever changing shadows on the undulating landscape, creating whole pallets of color and texture. The hills seemed so much deeper and wider than she remembered, and the sky, somehow, much grander above her. It must have always been this way, she reasoned, but her kind were never meant to see it.

But the wind was still the same, she noted. She closed her eyes as it caressed her and she longed for her wings to lift her high over the confusing but beautiful scene before her. Yes, the wind felt the same, smelled the same, and made the same ancient, powerful sounds it always had. It was a comfort to her as she rested there.

For the third time, she pulled the guiding wand from her belt and whispered a request.

"Show me how to find Goliath and the others!"

But the magic now slept, and the silver wand bore only a single leafy bud at the end. She felt like a complete fool. She should have stayed in the village, watching the stranger so she could have seen where he went. Instead, she fled in fear and confusion, and perhaps even in shame.

The man who the guiding wand had directed her to follow had borne every possible resemblance to Luach, the son of Macbeth. She knew, of course, that King Luach had died centuries earlier, slain by Canmore, the very enemy from which she had sworn to protect him when he was but a lad. She reasoned that the foolish vow she had made to his father had long since been broken when he fell by Canmore's treacherous hand. Still, his death grieved her, though she couldn't really say why. Perhaps it was some residual shard of the protective force that Goliath always insisted was part of her nature? She didn't really believe that though. She reckoned that any such benevolent impulses she might have once felt toward humanity had long since been beaten out of her by a cruel world. She suspected it had far more to do with Luach's nature than her own.

Demona sighed in frustration, unable to put these old thoughts out of her mind. What good did it do her to dwell on them? Luach was dead and had been for centuries. The man in the village had an uncanny resemblance to him, and that was all. Now she needed to put her efforts into finding Goliath, Lexington, and Ophelia so they could return to Avalon and try to find their way back to New York. The sun had gotten lower in the sky, and she guessed she had a few hours to make her way back to the cliffs of Wythern. She should have some time to look around, but if she couldn't track the other gargoyles before sunset, she reasoned there was a good chance that the three of them would find their way back to where they had left her on their own. With any luck, Goliath had been delayed by something unexpected and none of them were ever in any trouble whatsoever.

She rose from her perch on the wall and made her way through the grasses to the gravel road that had led her up from the village, taking care to keep an eye open for any sign of where the others may have rested for the day. She knew the road would take her through the woods and back to the cliffs, where she'd left the skiff. She had wandered a long time, and the evening was approaching. As she walked, she became aware of an unexpected feature of the shoes her halfling friend had gifted her. Perhaps it was because of the soft feathers he had fashioned them from, but not only were they soft and pleasant on her feet, but they left her footsteps completely silent. She must have been too preoccupied with her own intentions to notice before, but even if her feet slid a bit on a steep gravel incline, there was no sound! Impressed and grateful, she stealthily continued her hike.

Before long, she found her way into the woodland that had once bordered the grounds of Castle Wythern. The cliffs, crags, and moorelands were ancient, but everything that grew in the forest was wild, new, and always changing. She might have lost her way but for the gravel road and even that wound so much around the hillside, switching back often as it ascended, that it kept her guessing as to the direction she was heading and how much further it might be to the cliffs.

As the road made a sharp turn up a hillside, something caught her attention. There was a strange marking on the rocky ledges on the side of the road. The ivy on the relatively smooth face of the rock was disturbed with long, deep indentations. She swiped the remaining moss away and a wide smile spread across her face. They were claw marks. She had found them! But then, her smile wavered in confusion, for she discovered several more marks, ascending the rock in the same direction. She glanced up the side of the steep ledge, seeing nothing that would explain why her companions might have chosen to scale the face of it multiple times in one night. Still, she carefully climbed a short way up the precipice and tediously slid across the face of it, putting herself at risk of a considerable fall.

After rounding a corner, she came upon a large piece of the ledge that stuck out from the face. She pulled herself up onto it and crouched there, collecting her bearings. There was a steep, narrow trail leading down one side of the rock to a long boulder that had a deep split carved in it, just wide and tall enough for a person to pass through underneath and she smiled again at the sight, for she recognized the formation. Sure enough, as she passed beneath it, she discovered an open clearing, overlooking the hillside, and sheltered by the rocks above it. It was a perfect lookout point. On a clear night with a good moon, one could see anyone approaching across the moor. Now, in the bright sunlight, Demona could see the entire valley and even just make out the glittering light of the evening sun, reflecting on the sea in the distance.

She turned away from the view, and descended down the narrow trail, delighted to see the familiar shape of smooth, stone wings, peeking out from around a boulder. She sighed in relief, hastening her step, but nearly tripped over the unexpected form of the man in the long coat, who lay asleep in the dust.

"Who's there?!" the man demanded hoarsely as he rose from the ground and looked around. Demona froze. She was close enough that she could have reached a few more inches and touched his shoulder. Slowly she backed up, climbing onto a boulder along the trail so as not to block it, and granting herself a tactical advantage of height, just in case things were about to go awry. The man got to his feet stiffly and walked across the ledge to where Demona saw the stone forms of three gargoyles.

"Well, my dear friends," he said contemplatively, "I suppose that's all the sleep I can tolerate anyway." Demona watched him curiously, emboldened by the certainty that he couldn't see her or hear her footsteps. He drew a canvas shopping bag near him and removed a bottle of water and drank from it. The rest of the bag was filled with tins and packages of food, presumably purchased with the money they had given him.

"At least you won't go hungry tonight," he continued speaking to himself, as she spied on him, "Now we've got more than enough to see us on our next journey."

His voice, his mannerisms, were all so much like Luach's, it chilled her to watch him. She knew it could not be the same man, and yet her mind would not allow her to fully reject that impossibility.

She watched him silently, trying to come up with an explanation for why any man would be living alone in the woods, engaging in conversation with stone gargoyles, and trying to feed them tinned beans. If he wasn't an ancient, time-traveling king, he was certainly one of the more eccentric fellows she'd seen in a while.

His heavy coat had been caked with dust from sleeping on the ground. She watched as he removed it and set it carefully aside, revealing a much less worn-looking tunic as he began preparing the wood for a fire. His clothes also looked historic in style and material, but she noted that he wore a modern-looking blade bound at his side, though it appeared to be more of a hunting knife than a weapon. She wondered when and how he'd come upon her companions and what he could possibly want with them. Had he seen them in their flesh forms before the sunrise?

She saw no sign of malicious intent. There was no weapon by which he might attempt to destroy them before the sun set. Nothing indicated any foolish intention to capture them or a nefarious plan to betray them to someone else. In addition to bringing them nourishment, he referred to them as 'dear friends'. She wasn't sure if that suggested that he was already aware that the gargoyles were real, living beings, or rather, that he was a raving madman with a loose grip on reality, who enjoyed conversing with statues. She was fully prepared to accept the possibility that both were true.

Streaks of pink and orange began to show through the trees above them. It would soon be sunset, and she realized that if the man had not already seen Goliath and the others when awake, it was probably for the best that she postpone a formal introduction indefinitely. She considered the matter, trying to think of the best way to go about unloading this problem. A few years earlier, she wouldn't have hesitated to dispose of a meddling human with remorseless, violent efficiency. Goliath wouldn't thank her for that, she realized, and this man seemed harmless, even if he wasn't operating with a full deck.

She wondered if she might come up with some sort of pretense for coaxing the man down the hillside before sunset. With any luck, he might come willingly and no conflict between them would be necessary. She wracked her brain, trying to come up with a compelling story, for she knew that time was becoming scarce and she was likely to only get one good shot at leading him away from the gargoyles without incident. He had succeeded in starting the small campfire and was not looking in her direction at all. The moment wasn't likely to get any riper. Throwing back the hood of her cloak, she cried dramatically,

"Sir! Please, I need your help!"

The man looked up from the fire with an expression that could only be described as horror.

"What are you doing up here, my lady?" he scolded as he rushed towards her, took hold of her shoulders, and backed her up the trail toward the split rock formation and away from the sleeping gargoyles.

"I saw the smoke from your fire," Demona lied, "And I hoped perhaps there was someone up here who could help."

"Please, Madam," the man replied urgently, "You shouldn't be up here. It's almost dark and the trail is steep. Let me help you down."

"Yes!" she replied as pleadingly as she could muster, "Please come down with me and help me look for the little boy. He's run away and no one has seen him for hours! I'm afraid he has gotten lost on the moor!"

The man's anxious expression flashed a quick look of genuine sympathy, but his focus remained firmly on leading her away from the gargoyles' hiding place.

"Come. I'll escort you down the hillside and I'm sure we'll find him," he said gently, attempting to give her comfort as he guided her, but his voice quavered and his clear, honest eyes betrayed his anxiety. He was not at all mad, she realized. He knew the gargoyles were real and the risk of allowing her to see them. Suddenly, she no longer wished to play with him.

"Who are you?" she asked coldly, spreading her arms so he could not force her through the opening of the split rock formation.

Clearly surprised by the sudden change in her demeanor, he replied wearily, "Only a restless voyager."

"That is no answer," she spat, quickly losing patience as she attempted to pull her arms from his grip, "Who are you? What do you want with them?"

"With them?" he repeated uncertainly.

"The gargoyles," she said, making her accusation plain, "What do you want with them?" The man looked even more tired and anxious. Clearly, encountering a strange woman who knew gargoyles were real had not been in his plan.

"Only to deliver them safely home," he explained.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, well beyond confusion, "What business is it of yours? You don't even know them!"

Now it was his turn to look genuinely confused.

"What do you mean? Of course I know them! They are my own warriors!"

Enraged by his outrageous claim, she shoved him backward down the path, where he lost his footing and landed on his back. She leapt on top of him, delivering a blow to his face, while reaching for the blade at his belt. He'd secured it well though, and it wouldn't come loose. He quickly grabbed her arms and turned her on her back.

"Woman, be still!" he pleaded with her, "I tell you I mean no harm."

"I am no woman!" she seethed as he struggled to subdue her, despite her unexpected strength. The cloak had fallen away from her as she fell to the ground, and the man looked at her in shock. Holding her down with one arm, he brushed her hair from her face, looking into her eyes. Recognition slowly spread across his face as his eyes traced her form, her clothing, her jewelry, in particular the brass serpent band she wore on her shoulder.

"Demona?" he whispered in disbelief. She shook her head violently, struggling against him. It wasn't a denial of her own identity as much as a last desperate effort to deny his.

"Demona, do you not know me?" he pleaded as he tried to block her attacks.

"No. It's not possible," she insisted. He gripped her by the shoulders and lifted her.

"Two of Oberon's own brought me here through a fiery gateway," he struggled to explain, "We came here to find you. We've been searching for weeks and weeks. Come! See for yourself!"

Even as she continued to struggle against him, he pulled her to her feet and led her across the ledge toward the stone gargoyles on the other side.

"How dare you?" she snarled, as he placed her on the ledge among their frozen forms, but then she stopped. She gazed at the three warriors before her. They were not Goliath, Lexington, and Ophelia, but three others who she had not seen in centuries. She reached to touch their faces in disbelief. They were the three youngest of the last clan she knew. She turned to King Luach, unable to understand.

"I couldn't save the others," he explained regretfully, "But I sheltered these three from Canmore, and I have brought them to you."

"I don't understand. Why have you done this?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"Did I not give my word that I would protect them?" he asked incredulously.

"But I broke the oath I made to your father. I deserted you," she argued. Luach's eyes narrowed and he shook his head.

"And what does that have to do with me?" he asked.

Unable to supply an answer, she turned away in scorn. Luach reached toward her, as if to touch her shoulder, then thought the better of it.

"Oh, Demona," he cried sorrowfully, "What have they done to you?"