“Praise Umalgeath, may the dark lord guide us to worship his venom,” Pronaxen said, holding his pendant and bobbing his head toward his supervisor.

“Praise him, and may the lord watch over us,” responded Butazal in a sing-song tone. He peered past Pronaxen, and frowned at Zicosin who ducked into one of the dark ritual bays.

The Progenovate shook his head, dipped a quill in red ink, and resumed scratching at a parchment and leafing through his ledgers. If these supplies did not add up, and they really did have the Dark Lord himself come to visit, heads would roll.

The balding man straightened up in his chair to peer at the bays. All that lot would be first to be separated from their noggin. Zicosin was keeping out of sight and Pronaxen had slunk off too.

Literally. That’s what happened. Heads rolled.

The Progenovate chewed his quill, and furrowed his brow. He’d been through the figures twice and something was off. He had to nut it out before the Dark Lord came and heads literally rolled.

Butazal was a lowly Goth when it had happened in Lower Garf ten years ago. The Lord, his retinue, and his personal guard corps arrived, and ate a nice banquet of local specialty dishes at a elaborately stage managed welcome. Dextropan had just started there, and she got some nice organza tablecloths, and silver candle sticks. And then the Dark Lord killed two dozen of the highest ranks at the Lower Garf Temple.

Their heads fell off their shoulders with a spurt of blood as they sat on benches at the top of the temple steps for the welcome. The heads just rolled across the plaza like coconuts and fell into the slave pits.

Butazal swung around in his chair. He straightened a one in a row of small framed certificates he had hung on the wall to his left.

Damndest thing to watch, rolling heads. He and Dex had gotten transferred as far from the Dark Lord as possible in the months after that. Wound up here.

It was all because big delivery from Godek’s Necromancy Supplies had been left outside the temple to spoil in the sun over a long weekend. No-one would own up to it, so the Dark Lord paid a visit and just killed everyone in upper management. Chilling, but effective.

Butazal had been quick to study the new management technique. So far had not had a chance to put it into practice. He eyed the current object of his suspicions, Zicosin Goth.

In the second bay of the conjuring suite, Zicosin stood next to the exsanguination table, his head hung in exasperation. He straightened as his fellow Goth walked past him from the Progenovate’s desk. Zicosin ran his hand through his silvery-white hair, the widow’s peak more prominent than ever, and deep bags under his eyes.

“Pronaxen! Listen, have you noticed something is up with the unicorn blood lately?” he whispered.

“Hmm? No?” Pronaxen said. He kept walking, to his spot in the sixth bay in the suites. Zicosin went after the lanky necromancer. He’d have to answer to Butazal, no putting it off. But Pronaxen might know something, anything.

“Come here Zicosin,” Butazal called. “You too Pronaxen.”

Zicosin looked around the room, touched his chest. No, there was no-one else in the rituals suites named ‘Zicosin’. His face started reddening. Pronaxen looked no happier.

As they reached the moon-faced high necromancer’s dais, he blotted the last entries he’d made, closed the covers of the ledger and slid it to one side.

Zicosin straightened his robes, and walked haltingly the last pace to the Progenovate’s desk.

“Sir? The subject has gone in the direction of the mission. I’m monitoring. We are on track. I should get back…” he began.

“Pronaxen, I want you to supervise this Goth’s work,” the moon-faced supervisor said. He ignored Zicosin’s spluttering protests. “Watch every ounce of Unicorn blood he uses.”

“But since last month I’ve been checking my quantities three times for every binding! Its correct!”

“Shut up Zicosin.” Butazal brandished a sheet of parchment. “If you’re so correct, why are these dates all wrong?”

“Pardon?” Zicosin said. “Dates?”

Zicosin flicked his eyes toward Pronaxen, who gave the red-faced Goth at his side his best ‘sucks to be you’ shrug. Zicosin was short, and had a tight paunch, which Pronaxen theorised was from too much sherry drinking.

“That’s your signet and mark, yes?” Butazal said, flipping open a ledger and spinning it around to face the embattled man. The Progenovate stabbed a finger at a recent entry. “The materials are dated three days older than the others. Three days, man. Why are you using old materials?”

“Three days? That’s within bounds. But… that is so weird,” Zicosin said. “I just wrote in the ledger exactly what was on the label.”

“Are you saying we have three day old unicorn blood, baby fur seal eyes, and panda bear paws in our chill stores?” Butazal pounded the desk. “Why is it just your stores?”

“Sir…” Zicosin stuttered. “Do you think that is why the latest binding is off?”

“Why are you asking me! Fix this, or I am telling you, heads will roll! And Pronaxen, I want to see you stuck with this Goth every moment you’re on shift. Do you hear me?” Butazal shouted. “Get out of my sight!”

“Curse you Pronaxen! I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Zicosin spluttered, as he dragged Pronaxen along by his elbow. “It’s not like I want you looking over my shoulder.”

Pronaxen had been hiding in the break room when Zicosin found him, and dragged him back to the conjuring suite. He wrapped the remaining half of the sausage roll he’d been eating in greaseproof paper and stuffed it in a pocket, just in time as Butazal lifted his big red moon face from his ledgers at the end of the long hall.

The Progenovate shook his head slowly in mock despair, pointed to the clock on the wall, and returned to his ledgers.

“I’m running out of time. Heads will roll, right? You heard what he said,” Zicosin said.

“He doesn’t mean it,” Pronaxen, said folding his arms. He peered around the edge of the bay toward the progenovate.

“You think? I’ve seen him practising the spell! He knows the Dark Lord’s spell!” Zicosin gesticulated and got close enough his spittle landed on Pronaxen’s face. “He took the head off a monkey, clean as a whistle!”

“Ok, sorry, sorry. I was hungry,” Pronaxen said.

“For two hours? Got hungry after the loading work did you? Anyway, where did you get that? Looks delicious!” Zicosin said. “Wipe your hands though, you’ve got something on there.”

“Tomato sauce,” Pronaxen said. “Oh, and these? The Cracked Quoin has these. I — I get one of the suppliers to buy them for me. Delicious.”

Zicosin wasn’t listening. He’d unlocked and then started chanting from his copy of “Umalgeath Unleashed”, a huge leather-bound, copper trimmed tome. This one he kept in the bay, as did all of the Goths that worked here. Damn thing was too heavy for anyone to ‘borrow’ anyway.

Zicosin flipped open his valise, unrolled a velvet cloth with various markings on it over the top of an altar in the second bay, the one he normally used.

Pronaxen leaned against the exsanguination table. They almost never used it these days — so easy to get top quality supplies flown in. And the animal husbandry side of it was so demanding. The amount of marigolds and mugwort those wretched unicorns could eat was astounding. Ventanide had done a goat in her bay two months ago and made a hell of a mess.

At the back of the bay two thin columns reached floor to ceiling two feet from the wall, with ominous looking hooks just above head height. Zicosin drew a lumpy-looking cord from his valise and draped it over the hooks so it formed a three-sided frame. He produced a jar, cork stopper, red wax, the ‘Godek’s’ symbol on the top. With a brush he deftly painted the cord. Nary a drop was wasted. Pronaxen raised his eyebrows and nodded appreciatively.

“You know I pour the unicorn blood into a tray and draw the lambs intestines through it, when I make my portal,” Pronaxen said. He wiped his hands on a towel, but the red would not come off his hands.

“Wasteful,” Zicosin said, without turning. He resumed chanting.

Pronaxen shrugged, and put the towel back on top of the pile of clean towels.

“For the Dark Lords sake, don’t put that there,” Zicosin growled. Again without turning, he pointed to a wicker basket with dirty towels in it. Pronaxen rolled his eyes, and did as he was asked.

He settled in to watch.

“Alright, you’ve got him?” Pronaxen leaned toward the space between the two columns, framed by the gory blood drenched cord. Zicosin slid a pair of baby seal eyeballs up and down the cords, and muttered under his breath. An image had formed in the framed space, like looking out of a cave through a waterfall. It became clearer and clearer.

Two large hands with flat fingers resting on a pair of large knees occupied the foreground. They were looking out of the boundsouls eyes.

Behind the knees and hands, their immediate surrounds were a wooden cage-like structure hung from ropes that stretched far above. Beyond the bars of the cage cloud-covered mountain ranges stretched into the distance. The cage jostled and clunked, descending slowly.

Zicosin moved the eyeballs a little. “You seeing this, Pronaxen? He’s on his way down the cliffs.”

“I’ll get a volpinbird out there,” Pronaxen said. He strode to a crucible on an iron frame that sat on a bench at the side of the bay. He rummaged through supplies in a row of terracotta jars.

“Look at this Pronaxen! Look!” Zicosin said, pointing at the image.

A small winged beast sat there to the right, and as the image sharpened, it growled. Then it yapped. The owner of the hands and knees slowly stood and then a hand passed in front of their view, making it dark for a moment. The owner of the hands was rubbing his face.

Brark!

A big hand reached out and scratched the gargoyle between its ears.

What’s up Gary?

The sound came through distantly, as if down an old metal pipe.

“Oh! Look at those hands. He’s big isn’t he!” Pronaxen said, turning to look over his shoulder. He turned back and worked at the crucible. “Did we just wake him up?”

“Not him! The gargoyle! Why has he got a gargoyle with him? Like a damn puppy?” Zicosin said.

Pronaxen moved a glass retort off a burner and moved closer to the floating image.

The right hand then went to the left wrist, where a copper band circled it. The hand tugged at the bracelet, but it was welded to his flesh. The band came closer. It had diamond shaped markings and the symbol of Umalgeath — the snake face with drops of venom on its fangs.

More rubbing of the face from the owner of the hands.

“Oh Dark Lord save me! That band! See it?” Zicosin said.

“He’s levelled up Zicosin! As if he wasn’t dangerous enough before. What in the Dark Lords name!” Pronaxen said, voice raised. “I thought you said he failed in his mission!”

“Oh my,” Zicosin groaned. He clapped a hand to his chin, and stared at Pronaxen, jaw hanging open. “Its because he killed the other gargoyle. Must be! It died after he smashed it outside the front door. Its not the mission, but it counts as a high level kill!”

“Can’t you turn the level-up off? Talk to Butazal!” Pronaxen said.

“The scryb are soul-linked to the dark-minds on level thirty, and it all runs automatically. I have no idea. Not sure even Buto could turn it off. Not without shutting down all our other projects,” Zicosin said. He gestured with his hands a ladder of increments. “After the kill, as soon as he rests, up goes the level. Just like clockwork.”

“Killed it? A gargoyle? He can’t! That’s not possible! That’s our front line temple defence!” Pronaxen said, as he added a bird skull to the crucible. “They have the ‘voice’! They’re threat sniffers. He’d be out cold before he got within ten feet of it.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Zicosin said. “I’m going to try giving him his orders again.”

The shorter Goth, ran a hand through his silver-grey hair, and sighed deeply. He pulled a tray of gore soaked manuscripts down from a high shelf at the side of the bay. He put it on the exsanguination table, and set the jar from Godek’s next to it.

The manuscripts in the tray were black ink on parchment, painted red with blood. The top one read ‘Time to go, Ryan.’

“Have a look at those, and tell me if you see any problems with my necromancy,” Zicosin said. He picked out a quill from his valise, uncorked a bottle of ink and penned short script on a new piece of parchment.

“Why are you using his old name?” Pronaxen said. “We’re not supposed to use any information from acquisitions, right?”

“Trying to get through to him! Soon as he started behaving weird I pulled his file,” Zicosin said, with an upturned palm and an exasperated look. He took a sheaf of papers from a table by the vacuum tube, and dumped them on the table in front of Pronaxen. “What would you do?”

“Volpinbird’s on its way. Tune in with this,” Pronaxen said. He held out to Zicosin a blood soaked black scale on a small earthenware plate.

“You do it,” Zicosin said. He turned back to his parchments.

Pronaxen added the flyer scale to the gory strands of guts and baby fur seal eyeballs. The image went black, then grey. As he slid the scale up and down the shimmering grey resolved into clouds of mist, which then cleared to show a vast cliff face.

Down the cliff face a wooden contraption lowered on ropes. It was the lift up from Nothville to the Acropolis. The image of the wooden contraption got closer. There in the wooden cage was the biggest, dumbest looking stone soul-bound Pronaxen had seen in years.

“This is the genius that has been evading you, Zico?” Pronaxen said, jerking a thumb at the figure.

Zicosin took the script he’d worked on, painted it with unicorn blood, and uttered a short incantation, carefully tracing with a finger the words in his book.

The script glowed red. The watery image in front of them took on a fiery red glow as well. In the image, the owner of the hands looked around.

‘You must kill Cletus of Nothville. Or heads will roll.’

He pounded his fists against the thick planks of the temple door. The planks, each as thick as railway sleeper, bound in iron to the doors hinges, shook violently but held. A shower of dust and debris fell from the arch above the door. “Pool maintenance! Hello!!”

To the left…

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In fact, it was exactly like that. He lay curled up inside a large copper vessel, it’s inside cold and hard against his right shoulder. A curve of metal blocked his vision in all directions. It all checked out with the singing bowl theory.

What in the hell was this? Breaking news: Australian pool maintenance man abducted by Yoga cult?

About to push himself upright, Ryan explored the floor of the vessel and found something sticky. A clicking noise intruded, but just as he noticed, it faded away. Ryan reached for his memories but it was like fog intervened.

This must’ve been a heck of a bender. A huge night out. That was it, right?

He’d tied one on, but Ryan always pushed himself out the door to work. Rely on Ryan. He even had it sign-written on his truck. And whatever this was would be no different.

Grasping onto the rim of the copper vessel — the size of a small and very badly maintained jacuzzi — Ryan dragged himself to his feet. He blinked and tried to make his eyes focus. It was like nothing was working. And that odd half-heard clicking noise came and went again.

It was as if his brain had been an internet subscription but he didn’t pay the bill and got busted down to dial-up speeds. He rubbed his eyes with his fore arm. The arm didn’t feel right. And the eyes didn’t either. They didn’t feel like his.

And this place: it had a mountain range design around the walls. Pink, purple, red-orange, mauve and blue.

No wait, a bird flew, then a small flock followed it. Black letter ‘v’ shapes shrinking as they flew into the distance. Not a painting, a real mountain range, with streaky red-orange clouds moving slowly. And a building.

Ryan squinted. Why is it so bright? The sky red?

One large red-orange orb and a smaller yellow one, hung in the sky.

Ryan gripped the rim of the vessel with both hands. Ok, ok. Ok.

Two suns. That is not a thing. You can’t - there’s some kind of law. Physics.

Miranda would say that if she was here. He climbed out. He tried walking but the gut punch of the two suns doubled him over. The sky spun and the ground yawed.

The vessel still sang as chill winds gusted down the valley. Doubled-over like this the acrid, wet smell grew stronger the closer Ryan got to whatever had been in the vessel.

Ryan stepped shakily a few paces but turned back to lean on the copper vessel. He breathed in short gasps. He had nothing, no clothes, no phone.

Two suns. There’s two suns. Breathe, Ryan. Don’t freak out.

If he did things he wasn’t supposed to with his work boots, or forgot to buy milk, it was like Miranda’s voice popped into his head.

He needed to get back home. There was something really important he had to do. Crawl back in there. Lie down. Go back.

Ryan ran his finger-tips around the rim of the urn. He tested the sides, rapped the bottom with a knuckle. The sticky stuff spread up the sides. It stuck all around the inside of the vessel and a gob adhered to his fingers. Ryan wiped it off on the back of his other hand.

The patch of goo disappeared. Like it had been absorbed. Oh shit.

More clicking. Ryan put his hand over his mouth, and bit his lip just to feel something. Some of the goo lay glistening in the bottom of the urn.

His dad had taken him pig hunting at age ten, to toughen him up. Everything about that trip was awful and that glistening goo bought the memories back, of the gore in the back of his Dad’s truck that night. Ryan held his mouth, and gagged so hard his throat hurt.

None of where this was going felt good. Time to move.

A building lay a short distance away. It was like a Greek temple. It looked big and well kept, has to be someone there.

Ryan had a Greek client, Mr Xanthopolous, who had a gated mansion and his pool house was decked out like a greek temple. Ryan had cleaned his pool a few times after big parties.

Ryan rubbed his palm against his leg and tried not to think of what it might mean. The goo. What he saw. Nothing good.

This is some mistake, a wrong turning. Someone did something to him. Get some help.There’s got to be a way out of this.

Shading his eyes against the harsh light Ryan scanned the area. And breathed.

❖

Clarity came in small increments. Breathing helped.

The copper urn, waist high, stood at the edge of a set of broad steps that led down from a featureless plaza the size of a football field. The steps went down to a plain that stretched around the plaza to the hills. High in the centre of the plaza, a hundred yards away on a raised area lay that building. It was made of light-yellow stone and sat sphinx-like at the top of a set of steps.

Acropolis, Ryan. High city. Fortress.

Miranda was a walking History channel. After Ryan got the contract for Mr Xanthopolous’ place, and he’d proudly showed her the photos, she’d lectured him for an hour about how fake the themed pool house, barbecue and change rooms were.

Miranda — virtual or not — needed to lay off. This time he had a good reason for being late and forgetting the milk. He did not ask to be abducted.

This yoga cult has a big budget at least. Mr Xanthopolous’ pool house was nowhere near as big as this… temple, or whatever it was.

Ryan massaged the back of his head. There was no hangover, just this fog, which had almost lifted. Last time he’d been out and got legless, he woke with a horrendous furry taste in his mouth and a shocking headache to go with it. But even with that bender he’d gotten close to home before passing out. And not gotten to any place as strange as this. None of this was Ryan’s fault.

Okay, plan.

He stood up straight and blocked the glare from the two suns with his hand.

From the valley floor beyond the plaza low hills with sparse scrub rose up to higher peaks with a dusting of snow. High on one side of the valley at the top of a cliff, a grey stone structure clung, a dot in the far distance. Another small flock of birds flew, black darts against the blue sky.

All lay barren in the valley. Like a giant box canyon, the mountain range and foothills swept around in an arc, bounding the plain that the temple lay in. There was not a farm, nor a tree, nothing to break the sweep of dull ochre. It felt frozen in time. Like a dream.

So, three sides had mountains that looked impassable. Ryan walked the other way to where a rail ran along the edge of the plaza. The foundations of the plaza projected out over a precipice. The plaza and the plain it was built on lay at the top of a cliff.

A waist high stone balustrade, nearly a foot thick, was all that stood in the way of plunging down to a very bad day. A carpet of cloud lay below. A bird of prey circled lazily in the purple sky above. Ryan peered over the rail, but tree tops were all that could be seen through the mist. In the distance shapes peeked through the murk, possibly rooftops.

Ryan returned to the copper vessel and sat next to it on the top step. He’d had a valium once, for a muscle strain. Never again. How did Lucy’s mum chug those things on the daily. He’d felt like a zombie. Right now, it was like that. Things that should be panicking him to his core, hardly broke through. But they were starting to. Hoo boy, they were.

Ryan looked over his left shoulder at the two suns. Still there. One hung a bit lower in the sky now, the other had moved quite a distance. This place felt exposed and whoever owned it might be along soon.

That temple pediment, the triangular piece above the front, featured morbid reliefs in stone of skeletal chariot riders and giant winged beasts that sprayed fire. Staring at it was giving Ryan a headache and not improving his mood. Maybe there’s options for how to get out of here that don’t involve talking to whoever is in that temple.

Now the glare of the sun had lessened - thanks clouds - the front of the temple looked downright foreboding. Ryan shivered.

His gaze traced the cliffs edge, away from the jutting plaza to where the plain met the low hills in the distance. A small structure sat almost hidden in the shadow of a rocky outcrop. A rutted trail from the bottom of the steps Ryan sat on right up to it.

Maybe that hut provided a way down the cliff and out of here.

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Out of here to where, exactly, was the issue. There was the two suns. This is not Earth.

Better off at the bottom of the cliff, or worse? Need answers.

“Hello? Hello!” Ryan yelled.

Hello, hello.

His voice echoed back from the temple.

The building was much bigger than it seemed at first sight. Like a three or four story office block size, back home.

Home. On Earth. Where there’s only one sun. Right?

Ryan got to his feet. He jumped a little. And, OK - that is weird.

Then he tried harder but still his feet would not leave the ground. Totally weird. A few weeks ago he’d met up with his old friends from school to shoot hoops. Ryan could always jump and make fadeaway shots, over the top of his buddies defence.

Now he was heavy. He felt really heavy actually. Ok, so maybe this is not Earth.

No shit Sherlock.

Faint sounds of industry came from the direction of the edge of a cliff. There were banging noises like someone working on something in the distance, near those rooftop shapes down there.

Aliens?

❖

“Hey in there!” Ryan yelled, hammering on the doors of the temple with his bare fists.

The temple looked like a place people would be. Ryan found himself at the temple, looking for windows, any sign of familiar activity. Human activity.

The dark, weathered hardwood timbers of the door remained steadfastly unmoved. Bound with iron and riveted, their mass towered over Ryan, even though he was over six feet tall. The stone lintel and the portico above him seemed much more fortress like this close up.

A few memories began nudging at Ryan now. He’d been on a job on a really big pool that was empty. Sealing cracks and fixing the filter pumps.

And then, after that job, he had to do an important thing. But it would not come. He had to get home. Ryan stopped banging on the hardwood, as it had splintered slightly and you don’t want splinters.

Ryan looked at his hands but they were unblemished. Not a mark, despite the damage he’d done to the door. He turned them over front and back. Odd that the finger he’d broken aged 16 in a Tae Kwon Do tournament looked perfect. And those fingers, looked big and flat.

He ran his palm over his forehead.

Where he had no hair, at all. OK, this is not happening. No hair?

All of this felt so weird, like it was his limbs but not his. Distant somehow. And vague, that wooly-headed slightly nauseated feeling.

Out of the corner of his eye Ryan saw a movement. Two columns stood either side of the door and on top of them gargoyles crouched, all in the ubiquitous yellow-ochre stone. They watched him. Which was mad since they were all stone, like all of them. Their stone eyeballs rasped in their sockets as the drilled pupils swivelled innocently to the front.

Mr Xanthopolous had CCTV and it worked like this. You could aim cameras remotely. He had it everywhere too, the pervert. That’s what this was. Just some trick camera tech.

“Hey!!” Ryan said, grasping the pillar on the left and shoving it. He could reach the gargoyle but didn’t want to damage it so he beat against its perch with his fists. “I know you’re watching me! Screw you! Talk to me!”

The column wobbled and a graunching sound issued from behind it where it knocked against the wall. Chips of stone and dust rained down. Ryan steadied the column and backed off.

He moved away from the entry to the temple, into the light and looked at his hands again. Flat, strong fingers. Compared to the steps, the handrails and now these doors, everything seemed small.

And he could almost reach these gargoyles which must be like over six feet off the ground.

It was like a bad body-swap movie but instead of being Miranda, winding up as a giant Uncle Fester.

“Pool service! Hey!” Ryan yelled at the gargoyle. “Pool service!”

Worth a try.

“You can’t keep me here! I want to go home!” Ryan shoulder barged the left-hand column and the thing moved violently. The gargoyle came loose, rocked back and forth and then toppled.

Ryan instinctively reached out as the figurine, as big as a bread box made of stone, tumbled from its perch into his arms.

Ryan sunk to his knees with the weight. The thing he’d caught and now held in his arms had to weigh as much as a stack of barbells. Ryan set it down, dusted his hands. Not a scratch.

He eyed the doors.

The gargoyle on the right hand column moved to regard him, rotating slightly on its pedestal. Its eyes went wide.

And that was when the lights dimmed.

❖

When things cleared again, Ryan found himself a distance from the temple, near the middle of the stone flagged plaza. He’d nearly stumbled into a large square water feature, a pool at least two feet deep set into the stone-work of the plaza.

Ryan closed his eyes and sunk to his knees at the waters edge. He cupped some water and splashed his face. If this was a dream, it’d gone on too long. There was work and bills to pay but all of that was welcome compared to whatever this was. If he’d somehow taken something — which he never did by the way — but the guys he shot hoops with one of them was a tweaker.

Ryan reached for the water and splashed again. He’d worked on pools like this too. Mostly he did swimming pools with all the chemicals - his clients hated dealing with the chemicals and you know that is a pain point, so you can make a business out of that. But a few clients in the hills had water features and they’d asked him to do them too, clean them and such.

This pool seemed clean. The sound of a bubbler running under the lip of the stonework indicated that yeah, this one had a good filter to keep the fish happy. That is good.

He sat like that, almost like in prayer for the dream to pass.

❖

Ryan’s face looked wrong. He’d opened his eyes, after a time just breathing. Reflecting in the pools surface, the face he saw now had a slit for a mouth. Holes for pupils just like the gargoyles’. Stone eyes. Stone skin. It was all wrong. So wrong.

A whimper escaped his lips. It was the hair, oddly. Stone cold Uncle Fester, and with no ears either.

“Help me! Help!!” Ryan screamed. “Help!”

He pounded the stone work at the edge of the pool.

A piece of the plaza the size of his fist broke off, landed in the pool and startled a guppy. The tiny fish darted into a hole in an ornamental piece of volcanic rock, covered with moss.

Help. Help. Elp, elp elp.

His voice echoed back again. More deep and guttural than it should be. Despite his height, Ryan’s voice back home was frustratingly tenor pitch. But he had a great phone manner, so his clients said and y’know — win some, lose some. Swings, roundabouts.

“What did you do to me!” Ryan yelled at the gargoyles.

Ryan picked up the piece out of the pool and pushed it against the jagged cracked hole in the stone it’d come from. Of course it wouldn’t stay. That’ll need some sealant.

“Sorry!” Ryan said, turning and holding up the bit of stone, to the gargoyles and the temple. He bent down and balanced it on the edge of the pool. He put up a placating palm, which also didn’t look right. “Sorry, didn’t mean to do that.”

The gargoyle he’d set down near the door sat lop-sided, like it was giving him side-eye. The chiseled snarl on its lips seemed set to make a sarcastic comment.

He didn’t have any of his gear to fix this, it’d be all in his truck. Back on Earth. Which is not here, it’s very far from here.

❖

“My name’s Ryan Crowse. I’m from Australia,” Ryan said quietly, head bowed. It felt like someone might be listening, even though he knelt out of earshot from the gargoyle.

“My address is 1169 Gympie Road, Brisbane, Australia. Send me the bill for the patio, the stone and I’ll just go. Okay?” Ryan spread his fingers, smoothing things. He shot a glance back at the gargoyle, the one still standing.

The gargoyle might have moved when he spoke. It was hard to see, in the shadow of the temple’s portico. It was like it was shaking its head.

As though it’d facepalm if it could.

“I didn’t ask for this! Something’s gone wrong!” Ryan yelled over his shoulder, at the temple. Then he sobbed a bit, though eyes of stone could not cry. That slit of a mouth moving in his reflection as he mouthed the words. “I just want to go home.”

Home? Ryan? That’s what you want? You’re right that something went wrong.

The words appeared on a manuscript, like a clue on a parchment out of an Indiana Jones movie, unfurling on the surface of the pool. And at the same time, a distant hollow voice played, oddly disjointed like the sat-nav in his truck. Then the voice and parchment dissolved.

Ryan’s eyes widened and he spun around.

There along the pediment, above the temple’s portico, where before had been cryptic characters, newly graven stone english letters impossibly marched.

Well, Ryan, let’s see what we can do.

The distant voice lilted, in time with the marching script on the temple. Ryan shook his head and clapped a hand to his ears, as if to shake out a bug. There were no ears there, just holes.

But first I’m going to need you to kill some people. Okay?