Page 1 of Suncatcher

1

A Lost Sunset

Driz had never seen the sun. She witnessed its aftermath, when the pinks and golds bloodied the sky, and its coming, when it turned her body stiff with stone. Day after day, year after year. But she never saw the sun, and she never would.

She stretched her dusty wings, a shudder running through her as she woke for the night. The red dirt shifted, soft beneath her claws, as she stalked to the edge of the cliff. A canyon and basin lay before her, the twisted skeletons of trees watching over pockets of a greener generation. Even the plants cared for their young, in their own way. Driz envied them.

She tilted her face to the darkening sky and inhaled. The hint of rain drifted to her, along with a quiet call she barely heard. A bellow reduced to an echo. Rare excitement filled her limbs.

It was time for a Meeting.

She leapt from her perch, scattering debris down the sheer cliff as she took to the air. Her wings extended, catching her descent and pushing her back up through the sky, creating her own path as always. But tonight, she had a set destination.

The eroded landscape fell beneath her as she flew higher. Sharper mountains jutted from the north and far west. Pillars and canyons sporadically gave way to gentler plains and bluffs toward the east, some made of nothing more than cracked red earth, scorched and cursed from the Sundering War, and some untouched and rustling with fertile life. Splashes of lights burned as the world darkened. A few lone fires sparkled here and there, but the brightest lights were the towns and communities of humans. Fascinating.

On another night, Driz would have dropped lower to observe them from a distance. But not tonight.

She let herself soar and drift toward the tallest segment in the spine of towering outcroppings that ran along the mountainous region to the west. As she drew closer, she noticed others approaching as well, more of her kind drawn to the bellow. Driz’s excitement grew.

She landed on the edge of the open, flat crest of the formation. Her thighs contracted to absorb the impact, bringing her down to one hand in a crouch. Beside her, the thuds of several others reverberated as she furled and folded her wings behind herself, standing to join the crowd.

A mix of slickrock skin in tans and reds blurred with more purples and grays of granite and limestone. Sinewy wings twitched as the crowd shifted, none of them easy around so many others. Hardly anyone spoke.

Driz’s eye was immediately drawn to a large gray gargoyle with white quartz speckled across her face, named Mist. Driz’s heart started beating faster. Driz had first noticed her about ten Meetings ago.

When Driz took a step closer, Mist glanced toward her and edged quickly away.

As they waited and their number grew from a few dozen to around one hundred, Driz scanned the faces, but no one met her gaze. So she walked over to her mother, Torrent.

“Drizzle,” Torrent greeted curtly, her voice gravelly and eyes skittering sideways.

“Hello.”

At Torrent’s side stood a youngling, the tops of his growing horns only reaching to Driz’s ribs. He would be on his own after tonight too. Mothers raised young until their fifth Meeting. Then they moved on. Driz had considered offering for him to stay with her for a while, but that wasn’t done.

“Hello, Gully,” she said instead, smiling at him, and he tentatively smiled back.

“I know what you did,” Torrent snapped, her wings jittering. She grabbed Driz’s wrist. “Take it back.”

The physical contact startled Driz so much, it took her a moment to realize what was pressed into her palm. Three glass beads on a shortened string glinted in the moonlight. Driz had given it to Gully at the end of the last Meeting. “I thought he might like it.”

“We have laws, Drizzle. Do not encourage him. Do not speak to him.” Without another word, Torrent shuffled Gully to the other side of the crowd.

Driz didn’t follow. She had known Torrent might find the broken bracelet but had hoped one simple gift would be fine. Apparently not.

When no more shapes flew through the air, the designated speaker stood on the raised nub. She was large even for a gargoyle, her coloring of deep basalt. She cleared her throat, dark wings rustling.

“Welcome to the three-hundred-and-twenty-fourth Meeting.” Her voice carried over the silent crowd, all somber at the reminder of the passing time. Even though none of them were old enough to remember the events that caused the first Meeting, neither could they forget the death of their god. And with her, the purpose that bound them together.

When Garga had fallen in the war, the original gargoyles—those crafted by her hands—had been left without a charge to protect. Fragmented instincts turned into destructive obsession. The goyles who survived learned to avoid attachments, and created their laws to keep them safe.

Now things like gifts were forbidden because they led to treacherous emotions and connections.

“Does anyone wish to speak?” the speaker asked.

Silence hung for long moments. “The rumblings grow louder. More metal beasts. More humans arriving.”

The deep voice came from an old goyle, his age showing in fine hairline fractures through his face and skin that the stone sleep had stopped repairing. It wouldn’t be long until he crumbled. Perhaps another winter or two.