Black Feathers

58

He dragged the limp man out into the night, and the darkness filled his spirit like oil in a lamp. It expanded inside him until his body ached with power. He held his hands up into the night, certain that feathers sprouted where his fingers should have been, and he thanked the land and the trees and the sky. As if in answer, a wind came up and bent every tree with its force. Live wood groaned and branches whined for the harsh, dark breeze.

Gordon carried Grimwold to the trees behind his tent.

Gordon sat beside Grimwold until first light. The man still breathed.

When he could see well enough to walk, Gordon stripped beside the river and entered its beige currents. The chill tightened his chest and hoisted his shoulders. Just beside the banks the pull of the river was gentle but insistent, and he planted his feet wide on the reedy bottom. As he washed, rusty stains swirled away downstream and in them he saw shapes, perhaps the shapes of the future. For the thing he had been was dying and the thing he wanted to be was being born. Their forms mingled in the gently churning waters. He saw for a moment a small boy drowning, his hand outstretched for help. He saw for a moment the form of a vast black bird taking flight, its wings unfurling in the eddies. He saw armies of ragged men defeated by sleek grey troops. He saw cities crumbling to earth. He saw blinding light and endless darkness. He saw the bodies of a hundred thousand people strewn across the land and left along the highways. He saw a tall, dark man walking the land, and everywhere the man strode was devastation.

With the last of the stains whirling and melting into the brown of the river water, the visions ceased. Behind the hills was the risen sun and for once the day was cloudless. All around him the birds sang as if this were the first day of creation. The first, or perhaps the last. Gordon submerged himself in the river for a moment to wash his face and hair. When he surfaced he pulled his hands back across his head to squeeze away as much water as he could. His fists closed around the thick uncut strands, driving out the water. By the time he’d climbed back onto the bank, all traces of his deeds had been taken away by the movement of the river.

He stood naked in the cool morning light, shivering and waiting for the air to dry him. He dressed slowly and carefully and returned up the gentle slope to break camp. A bloody human form lay under the thorn trees a few paces away, its solar plexus rising and falling only slightly. Gordon felt nothing for it. When his tent and gear were stowed, he hefted his pack, shouldered it and walked away.

He stayed close to the river, enjoying the comfort of its ever-changing nature, knowing that it knew him and carried his message in its waters. But all the while he searched for a bridge that would take him to the Crowman.