Page 2 of Rock Hard Alien

A vast green surface rose to meet the pod. He squeezed his eyes shut and sent a prayer to the old gods.

The straps pulled tightly against his skin. The pod slowed just before the impact, but it wasn't enough. The sound of splintering metal was the last thing Cairn heard before darkness took him.

Monsieur Michel Auberge didn't believe in magic. He was an educated man. He had travelled. He knew things. He had a reputation as one of Europe's best stonemasons, which is why he was currently riding through the Scottish countryside. He'd reach Stirling Castle in an hour or two, where he had been commissioned to decorate the palace in the continental style. His saddle bags were full of notes and sketches of grotesques, gargoyles, carvings that he was planning to propose to King James V.

A thin line of smoke caught his eye, rising from behind a low mound to his left. Monsieur Auberge had many faults, but curiosity was his biggest flaw and greatest strength. He dug in his heels and galloped away from the road, towards the smoke.

As he rounded the mound, he wasn't sure what to make of the scene before him. Smouldering grass, black and brown. Strange pieces of metal, silver maybe, but who had that much silver? Smoke rose from the largest piece, shimmering in the dim sunlight. And in the centre of the scorched ground stood a statue unlike anything he'd ever seen.

Monsieur Auberge did not believe in magic - yet he did not find a logical explanation for what he was seeing. He looked around for any sign of another person, but there was nobody. He dismounted and slowly approached the statue. It stood taller than a man. Wings, leathery and extended wide. Pointy teeth in a half-open mouth. A tail like that of a demon. The face was so expertly chiselled that for a moment, he almost thought the statue blinked. A trick of the light.

Until this moment, the Frenchman had thought that he was at the height of his craft. Yet this statue was so lifelike in a way that made him feel inadequate. He was no more than an amateur compared to this craftsmanship. Whoever had made the statue deserved the king's commission more than he did. He should turn his horse around and return to France, where he still had a reputation. If the Scots could create art such as this, he had no chance of persuading their king that he was the expert stonemason he'd thought he was.

Unless...

He ran his hand over the smooth stone. It was strangely warm. If the artist of the statue was careless enough to leave it standing in a field, he ought to be punished for it.

This statue would look magnificent on the high walls of Stirling Castle.

Monsieur Auberge smiled. Maybe all was not lost after all.

One

Georgie

The ladder looked even bigger from down here. In moments like these, I thoroughly regretted my life choices. Learn a traditional craft, they said. Restore our heritage, they said. Get to explore interesting places full of history, they said. But nobody had mentioned the ladders, the vertigo, the wobbles.

“You okay?” Keiran asked. My apprentice didn't mind ladders. I was pretty sure he was half monkey the way he climbed them at breakneck speed. I was the opposite. I took one rung at a time, clinging to the metal, every muscle tensed, my breathing all over the place.

“Aye. It's just higher up than I remembered.”

He joined me in looking up at the grotesque perched high on the castle wall. Most of the other statues and gargoyles were slightly lower, seeming to grow out of the stone walls, but this one had a place of honour at the very top. It had weathered five centuries remarkably well, as far as I could see from down here. But Historic Scotland had tasked me to make sure that there weren't any hidden cracks and, if I did find any, to repair them. It's what I specialised in. If only they'd built the gargoyles on the ground where I could reach them without the need for ladders.

“Remember who built them?” I asked Keiran. Might as well turn this into a history lesson. He was my first apprentice, and I would make sure he got the best training possible. Very few teenagers nowadays decided to learn traditional crafts like stonemasonry. Keiran was a bit quiet for my taste, but he had talent and motivation.

“Michael Auberge, a French guy.”

“Michel,” I corrected. “And who commissioned him?”

Keiran rolled his eyes. “James V. His father had begun the palace but died before he could complete it. But then James V died as well, and his wife had to finish what he'd started.”

“Indeed. Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots. And do you know who James's chief stonemason was?”

I was stalling for time. The longer I could prolong this history lesson, the longer I could stay on solid ground.

“James Nicholson, I think. But it was the French masons who mostly worked on the gargoyles. Are we going to climb the ladder or not?”

Keiran had worked out what I was doing. There was no way around it. I couldn't inspect the grotesque from down here. For a moment, I was tempted to quiz Keiran on the difference between gargoyles and grotesques - the former have a built-in waterspout, the latter are decorative - but I resisted.

I readjusted my tool belt and gripped the ladder tight, the metal cold against my skin. It was fairly warm today, for a morning in late September, but it would be colder up on the walls where there was no protection from the wind. The castle would be closed until noon so we could do our job without distractions, but that was only another three hours, so I had to get this party started.

“Hold the ladder for me,” I told Keiran. “I'll call you if I need you.”

He looked like he was about to argue but then nodded.

I climbed slowly, one step at a time, keeping my body close to the ladder. It was sturdier than it had looked, but it still moved slightly every time I shifted my weight. I focused on my breathing. In. Pause. Out. In. Pause. Out.

I kept my gaze fixed on the ladder, taking in every bit of dirt and rust. Looking down was a mistake I'd learnt not to make. And looking up would only show me how much further I had to climb.