The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)(51)
“Ah-huh,” Royce said, dissatisfied.
“Well, there’s another one about the town’s founding. A crazy architect by the name of Bradford Crumin was commissioned to lay out the city. He chose the place for the Estate, Grom Galimus, and most of the old buildings. He was brilliant but also insane. He claimed to hear voices—ghosts, he called them—and the only way he could shut them up was to scare the spirits away. Apparently, they were terrified by scary faces, so he put all these grotesque creatures around.”
Royce didn’t say anything, just folded his arms.
“Okay, so there’s another one. Seems they never used to be here. The city went up and all the buildings were plain, but functional. Then one day this swarm of creatures swooped down and overran the place. The town was swamped, and everyone was afraid to go outside. Didn’t know where they came from, but a few days after the invasion, an old wizard comes hobbling along. He agreed to rid the town of the creatures for a price. The city agreed, and he turned them into stone, but—”
“But the town didn’t pay,” Royce said.
“You’ve heard this?”
Royce shook his head. “No, but stories are all the same, aren’t they?”
Roland thought a second, then shrugged. “Anyway, you were right; they refused to pay. Since the creatures were all dead, their problem was solved.”
“Let me guess: The wizard does something nasty.”
Roland nodded. “He cursed the town. Now every night, usually in the dark of a new moon, the stone creatures come alive and exact revenge.”
Royce frowned. “Never mind, I was expecting something awful, but also believable.”
“We’re talking monstrous faces, here. What would be believable?”
“How about, the stone carvers charged by the hour?”
“Why the sudden interest in architecture?” Hadrian asked as he once more followed Royce back into Little Gur Em.
“Didn’t you notice?” Royce was once more moving quickly, nearly trotting, retracing their earlier trip back to the scene of the crime.
“Notice what?”
They came upon the same square where they’d spilled the tea, and Royce pointed up at the building near where the girl’s body was found.
“What about it?”
“See the gargoyles lining the ledge up there?”
The old building was adorned with regularly spaced creepy monkey-like statuettes along the third-floor exterior. They weren’t really gargoyles, not in the traditional sense. These didn’t funnel rainwater; they were merely decorations.
“So?”
Royce frowned. “See the gap?”
The row of hunched, fanged monkeys leaned forward, holding up the top balcony with their shoulders, but Royce was right, one was missing. The rogue stone-monkey monster second from the left had abandoned his post, leaving the other little monsters to do all the work.
Such a massive weight hitting the ground from that height would have produced a lot of damage, not to mention debris, but the street below didn’t show any signs of an impact. Hadrian’s next thought was that it had been removed, perhaps in need of repair. But doing so would have required scaffolding and a hoist, neither of which was present. And the empty place showed no evidence of excavation, just a space for a carving that wasn’t there. The statue looked to have simply flown away. The most sensible answer, and the one he concluded with, was that the gargoyle had never been installed in the first place. Maybe the builders had been short a figure. Likely, there was some story that went along with it. The kind of tale that people shared to show off their knowledge of local lore. Oh, yeah, Grimbold the Carver dropped over dead when working on it, and out of tribute to him no replacement was ever made. Or maybe something like, Someone miscalculated the number of statues for that wall, and ol’ Pete started installing from the right and Bradford from the left. It wasn’t until they were done that they realized they were short by one. Funds were low, so the missing gargoyle wasn’t made.
The problem with these neat and sensible explanations was the bare spot—bright and pristine. Like a sun-bleached carpet with a square of vivid color where a cabinet had once stood, the wall bore a clean silhouette where a statue should have been. Something had been there, but now it wasn’t.
Royce looked at Hadrian and asked. “Why is one missing?”
Chapter Thirteen
Grom Galimus
Villar Orphe waited where he usually did, on top of a roof. He had several favorites, but that evening he sat on the peak of the Trio Vestments Building, where a tailor, a haberdasher, and a cobbler came up with the idea of a one-stop shop for men’s clothing. Villar had never seen the inside of the Trio V, but he was quite familiar with the roof, which hid his home. Tucked in a hidden niche formed by hips and gables, his abode was less a house and more a tented nest built of canvas and discarded wood that he had dragged up at night like a giant owl. His tiny shelter was filled with the few things he valued: a salifan plant that he kept alive in a wooden cup, a torn bit of tapestry, and a sword left to him by his grandfather. That last item he mounted under the eave, so even if someone found his nest, they might not see it. He also had some food reserves—roots, nuts, and berries that he’d gathered on the outskirts of town. The berries were just starting to appear on the warm, sunny hillsides, and he’d found some mushrooms, as well. He had also hauled in a few treasures uncovered in the trash on Governor’s Isle. Someone down there didn’t like salted fish.