Black Feathers

64

There is nothing to be done but move on. Packing up takes moments. Megan lets her hand linger on the bark of the tree for a long time before she walks away. The pulse of the tree imparts a kind of strength to her, she thinks, though perhaps she merely regrets having to leave its company.

She sets off in the direction of the opposite side of the clearing. The mist is insubstantial but for several minutes, once she loses sight of the tree, she is surrounded by a nothingness of grey-white. All she can see is the scrubby grassland for several paces in any direction. Above is uniform white. Every point of the compass blurs into indistinct haze. She focusses on a point in the distance where the other side of the clearing will be, in a direct line from where she entered the clearing the day before, but walking a straight line is trickier than she thought.

She stops. Listens into the mist.

The world is silent and still all around her. Not a birdcall or a breath of wind to agitate the branches of the distant trees. She looks behind, trying to penetrate the mist. For long moments she stays this way, not moving. There is no movement and no sound.

When nothing gives itself away, she moves on, making for the forest as swiftly as she can. The mist begins to break up, and by the time she reaches the embrace of the trees, the clearing behind her is devoid of the merest rag of vapour. She can see the tree in the centre and all the way across to the other side.

There’s nothing out there.

The forest yields a few berries and not much more. Megan’s stomach growls, but her pace is strong and determined and she moves easily through the woodland terrain, as though in some way it is allowing her passage. It’s a bright, cloudless day, and the sun penetrates the canopy through a million tiny breaches. Needles of light illuminate small areas of forest floor, bark, moss, branch, thicket and lichen, painting these tiny patches in bright greens and browns. Megan is amazed at how this small touch of colour is enough to raise her spirits.

But for her footsteps the forest is silent. She turns to look behind less often the farther she goes; there’s never anything there, although she catches sight of two wrens on one occasion. To her right the river has returned from the meander which took its course to the far edge of the clearing, but it too flows in silence. The scent of leaf mould and hidden fungi fills her sinuses.

Before the morning is over the forest is thinning, the trees becoming smaller and sparser at its edge. Many of the trees are stunted and unnaturally bent, warped and shrivelled not by age but by disease. She takes out the map for the first time that day. She has reached the area before the map goes blank. Somewhere up ahead is the uncharted place she must enter to find what Bodbran has sent her for. She is more excited now than frightened. Warmth and light radiate all around her, and what could harm her in such golden light, under the watchful eye of the benevolent sun?

The trees shrink to the size of small shrubs, gnarled and twisted, spines broken, limbs bending back on each other. Between them the ground has turned to grey dust. It kicks up around her feet as she walks, finer than sand.

There’s nothing out here.

To her right the river has dropped away out of sight. Beyond it runs a ridge, the same ridge she and Mr Kee–

Megan stops dead still, a small storm of dust rolling on ahead of her feet before settling. She is on a plateau which has shielded her from seeing what lies ahead, but she has an idea of how far she has walked and she knows what she and Mr Keeper saw from the ridge. Putting the shape of the land together in her mind, she knows it’s more than possible that Bodbran has sent her to a place she hoped only ever to observe from a distance.

No.

I don’t know maps. I must be wrong.

She doesn’t move. She can’t.

Far away, Gordon heard rumbling. He sat up and reached for his knife.

Could the Ward have tracked him down to this place? He listened. The rumble’s tone was constant, no strains or gear changes. Not four-wheel drives, then.

The sound had enough power behind it to suggest a squadron of aircraft. Perhaps the wars he’d dreamed of had started and these were the bombers. He moved to the cave entrance but the rumbling didn’t seem to come from above. That made it unlikely to be thunder, even though there’d been enough storms to warrant it. He glanced out. The sky was uniformly grey and drab, no flashes of lightning anywhere.

The rumble became a vibration he could feel through his legs and buttocks. He sprang to his feet.

Please. Don’t let this be what I think it is.

The rumbling increased in volume. The sound came from all around him. The juddering travelled up his legs and his kneecaps twitched. He threw his arms out for balance but it did no good. The juddering became shaking. The noise in his head was like thunder now, except that it wouldn’t stop – one mighty, continuous clap. Unable to keep his footing, he fell against the curve of the cave wall, arms still outstretched, fingers clutching the stone.

The ground bucked beneath him, bumping him into the air as though he was rebounding from a trampoline. The embers of the fire began to scatter. Tumbling coals of burning wood spread out in all directions. Surprised by a sudden kick of movement from the left, Gordon fell onto his face and slid towards the scorching ashes. It was more through luck than skill that Gordon managed to regain his footing.

Before the fire could spread too far across the cave he crouched and hoisted a double handful of coals out of the cave mouth. They hissed in the rain before they even hit the ground and Gordon held his hands in the downpour for a moment to douse the heat. Frantic now, he chased the scattering fire, picking up burning branches and glowing orange embers and tossing them out before they could scald him. A coal lodged between the little and index finger of his left hand long enough to raise smoke from his skin. There wasn’t time to lament the pain. As though bailing water from a sinking boat, Gordon emptied the cave of fire. When it was done, he held his hands into the rain for a few moments but falling debris forced him back inside. Rocks were falling into the ravine.

The shaking caused Gordon and all his equipment to slide into a pile at the centre of the cave. All he could do was lie with his arms outstretched, praying the cave wouldn’t collapse. Stronger quakes, accompanied by deafening booms from deep below the earth, sent him and everything else in the cave three and sometimes four feet off the ground. His ribs, knees and elbows all took punishment but the knocks to his head were the worst. Twice he came down on his chin, rattling his teeth and knocking himself half stupid. Another tremor flipped him over and rapped his ear against the cave floor.

Roaring and shaking, the land entered a frenzy of rage. It sounded as though the planet was tearing itself apart from inside. Gordon prayed to everything he considered holy; all the elements and the creator spirit that formed them, all the creatures and the land they lived upon:

Don’t do this. Give us a chance to prove…

To prove what?

…to prove we care. That we’re still listening. To show you we’re worthy of your abundance.

The hammering upwards of the ground lessened. The massive upthrusts that had thrown him into the air ceased. Now there was just rumbling and shaking, more like a shiver than a convulsion. The sound of underground explosions diminished. There was a sense of settling as the ground fell back into place. Tremors became vibrations, anger subsided like the sound of an engine receding into the distance.

Cease.

Silence. The worst silence.

For all Gordon knew the world outside was dead. Every animal, every person gone. The mountains shattered to rubble and the rivers scattered like droplets. Or perhaps the world had broken apart and he now floated through space on a discarded fragment.

After a few moments he noticed a sound all around him. A whine. It was his own eardrums whistling as they recovered from the auditory assault.

His cave had held. There were no cracks in its walls and none of the falling debris had come through the entrance. Once again he had been saved simply by the luck of being in the right place at the right time. But of course, he now knew, that there was no luck in that. Something was guiding him. Something was protecting him.

And something had answered his prayer – almost instantly. Surely this was proof that he was on the road to the Crowman.

Exhausted and bruised. Gordon lay amid the tangle of his belongings. And, though the world all around him was silent and still, his whole body vibrated like live cable.