Episodes 11 and 12 are coming
A Bird for a Heart - Episode Ten: Yarn and Thread
Part Twenty Nine
A Divination Biscuit
Enin practically glided out of the swamp, his renewed sense of purpose propelling him.
What irony, he thought, that the next stage of my journey should take me so close to where it started. Kara Lys, just a matter of happenstance that it be the place where I landed after my journey to the mountains.
Enin’s trek to the Temple of Aina had been one of curiosity, mostly. He did not expect to locate the key to his desires there. After aeons of walking the world and over a century of living in Aurelia as a wealthy merchant, Enin had simply become restless.
The temple sat atop a towering mountain in the Realm of the Frost Kings. Often called “The Sanctuary of the Sky”, it was legendary for its beauty and tranquility. The songs of the mountain road which led to the temple described it as a “treacherous path to heaven”. Enin found the journey to be rewardingly grueling, but well within his capacity.
After meditating among the caretaker monks for nearly a year, Enin grew restless once more. The path of peaceful enlightenment did nothing to sooth his burning soul. The monks of Aina preached that all beings are one being, all breath is one breath. But Enin knew better than them.
“We are all separate and alone.” he told the primary sage of the temple. “I have searched this world from pole to pole and found no sign of the great connection that you teach of.”
The sage, a tiny and wizened old man laughed, “You are not wrong. But the way in which you are right is very very wrong”
“Is that what passes for wisdom here?” asked Enin, “I’ve found greater profundity in a divination biscuit.”
The sage studied Enin, taking him in for a long time. “You have lived a long life, Raktah.” He called the sorcerer by the name the monks had given him. It meant “red”, which Enin took to be a reference to the coat he wore.
“That I have.” said Enin, “Very long.”
“You think we are not connected because you have cut yourself off from connection. A great pain severed you long ago. Long long ago. The strings that bring us all together were sliced away from you. This happens from time to time.”
“So,” Enin retorted, “you must admit that your entire philosophy is worth as much as the emissions of a cow. Either all are linked or none are. If some people can become severed, as you say, then we cannot all be one.”
The sage pulled a clump of red yarn from the folds of his garment and tangled one end of it. Pulling a strand of it out from the tangle, he snipped it off with a knife he must have been carrying in his sleeve, removing a piece about the length of his forearm.
“We all start out attached to the whole.” said the sage, “But many of us are cut off from time to time.”
Slowly, the man tied the end of the piece he’d chopped off to the main cluster of yarn.
“But with time and care,” he continued, “we can be reattached.”
“Bah.” said Enin, “Your childish metaphors mean nothing to me.”
“It is simple,” said the sage, “Not childish. You were very young when you lost her, were you not?”
“Lost who?”
“Your mother. You wear a lock of her hair woven into your own. I see it. It is your connection. But she is no longer here. She has joined the whole. You cling to a dead part of her instead of seeking true relations with those in the world around you. Little do you seem to know that in others you may find her again.”
“If we are all connected, then the dead are as well.” said Enin, “If your belief is true then there should be no need for me to be bound to others around me.”
“Binding ourselves to others is necessary if we are to attach to the wholeness. We are infants in this cosmos. We cannot yet walk. The practice of linking with those who are here is what may give us the skill we need to connect with all.”
“I thought monks didn’t believe in attachment.”
“It is not connection that causes suffering. It is the self-imposed illusion of control.”
“That sounds like weakness to me.” said Enin, “If control is an illusion to you, perhaps you are simply not trying hard enough.”
They both laughed at this, but Enin was not joking. He refused to deny himself autonomy. In his long life Enin had learned that the world expected him to be shaped by it. He spent his years in defiance of that expectation. He saw the very fact that he still drew breath as an act of resistance.
That evening, after the primary sage had conducted the final prayers of the day, Enin wandered through the library.
A silent labyrinth of shelves, the library, to Enin felt like a tomb of books and scrolls, where knowledge went to die. He never saw the monks there. Enin surmised that the acolytes of the Temple of Aina were content with their aphorisms and sought no further edification.
As he entered, cold moonlight spilled through the skylight, illuminating an iron scroll case that Enin had not noticed on his previous visits. Curious, he pulled the case from the shelf and opened it to find a sheet of flattened metal, rolled up inside, its surface etched with white grooves. Imprinted atop the grooves was a map showing the coast of the Anzarean Sea. Tracing his finger along the shoreline, Enin located the spot where his current home of Aurelia could be found. A city was marked there, labeled as Hekashra in the old tongue. Diamondhead. That had been the name of the city ages and ages ago. When he ran his finger across the name, the entire map sprang to life. The metal seemed to hum at his touch. Just southeast of Aurelia was the symbol for the word “Door”.
“I thought you’d never find it.” spoke a shadow at his back.
“Suriel.” said Enin, not turning around, “What brings you here?”
“The moonlight. As always.” said the demon.
“This scroll,” he asked her, “it marks the location of a Door. Is this the door that I think it is? The door to the Greater Darkness?”
“It is a Door to Darkness, yes. Not the only one, but perhaps the only one for you.”
“I have seen this door mentioned before.” said Enin, “In this very library.”
He practically dove into the shelves, in search of it. After several minutes of digging through the already disheveled collection of tomes and scrolls, he located what he was searching for.
“Here!” he said, unfurling the sheet.
Under the lands of the living where no sun strides, in the tunnels of silence, lie the pits that open to the Great Darkness. Let none approach save he whose heart is made pure, for the Door shall not suffer the unclean.
“Pity.” said Suriel. “Your heart can no longer be made pure. Seeing as you sold it to me so many ages ago.”
“Yes.” he said, “Pity. And yet...” Enin trailed off.
“And yet?”
“I was afraid when I sold you my heart. I thought that I was old then. Dying. But I had not completed my task. I needed more time.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said the demon. “For me it was, in a way.”
“Is there no buying it back?” he asked.
“You know now as you knew then. What’s done is done. I can no more return your heart than one could uncrack an egg.”
“But perhaps I could obtain another.” mused the sorcerer.
“From whom?”
“There are countless human hearts. The world is rife with the damn things.”
“So you would just steal one, like a fiend?”
“No.” said Enin, “I would have to pay for it, wouldn’t I? As you did with mine.”
“Do you not like it? Your iridescent little friend?”
“I have a name!” said a voice from within Enin’s shirt.
“No.” said Enin, “No you do not.”
“And who’s fault is that? I’ve been living in your chest for tens of thousands of years without one.”
“We are not having this conversation again.”
“So, then.” Asked Suriel, “You expect to open this door to the Darkness. Then what?”
“Then I will get the one thing I truly want.” said Enin, “Peace”.
Part Thirty
A New Outfit
Tula knelt over the woman, “She’s dead!” the girl cried.
“Yep.” said the Bird. “Looks like she got zapped.”
“How can you talk like that? This woman is dead and it’s my fault.”
“I’m sorry.” said the Bird, “How is any of this YOUR fault?”
“She just wanted to help me.”
“By stabbing you with a sword?!”
“No...not at first. You heard what she said. She just didn’t understand. She thought I was possessed by Ko-” Tula stopped short. Kokaibel was gone. All she had left of him was this clumped pile of...material and a bit of thread.
“That lady was crazy.” said the Bird. “She called herself a hierophant of Maj.”
“I don’t even know what that word means.”
“Me either, but it must be something crazy. Did you see her sword? It was clearly magic.”
“And when it touched me,” said Tula, “She died.”
“Well,” corrected the Bird, “she died when it touched my cage. Like I said, pig iron.”
“But why?”
“The iron of this cage disrupts certain types of magic, I think. That’s what I gather from what she told the demon while you were passed out. But what do I know? I’m just a bird.”
“You seem to know a lot.” she said.
The wad of sparkly black matter moved and Tula nearly jumped to the ceiling.
“TooOooOla Puh...tekk” came a sound from deep within the lumpy mass.
“Oh Kokaibel.” she said, patting the subtly vibrating stuff gently. “What has become of you?”
At her touch, the material quivered and the stars within flared.
The strand of thread that wrapped around the spindle pulled loose of it and whipped about like a live wire, bursting with sparks.
“What?” gasped Tula.
The glittering thread lashed out at her hand. Before she could react, it wrapped around her wrist.
“Gahh!” she shook her hand as if trying to dismiss an insect, but the thread spun and twirled around Tula’s arm. In an instant it covered her like a sleeve.
“Bird...what is happening to me?”
The bird did not say a thing.
“Kokaibel, is this your doing?”
The thread did not answer.
It merely circled around her neck, shoulders, chest and arms. By the time the thread reached Tula’s midsection, it began to pull from the clumped pile of stuff. Spinning and spinning around with Tula as the spindle. The raw material of Kokaibel’s being spun itself into thread and somehow that thread weaved its way upon her like a garment.
In thirty seconds, perhaps less, Tula stood wearing a shirt of inky darkness, filled with twinkling stars and galaxies.
Part Thirty One
A Speck of Red
“What really are the pillars?” asked the Boy.
He and the Muck Witch had been traveling silently beside one another for quite some time and he could not go another moment without conversation.
Maegda was quiet for a while. Finally she spoke,”The pillars are like ancient nails that bind the earth to heaven and reality to itself.”
“No. Really.” said the Boy. “What are they?”
“They are really big monoliths made of marble.” she said, “Is that what you want to hear? The pillars are both a physical thing and an esoteric concept.”
“Who built them? The gods? The ancients? Did they grow out of the ground like trees of stone?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes to all of that.” said the Witch. “The pillars are real. They are solid bits of stone that go deep into the world. They are probably the works of humanity. Yet they were also put there by the gods. And they are also a force of nature.”
“How?” asked the boy, frustrated, “How can they be all those things at once.”
“When a man plants an acorn,” said the Witch, “And a tree begins to grow, is it he that made the tree or did the tree make itself? Or is it the gods who gave the man his life and made the sun that feeds the tree?”
“Yeesh.” said the Boy. “Sorry I asked.”
“Well, do not ask big questions if you do not want to listen to complicated answers.”
The pair rode their paksi along the road for a few more hours without speaking. The swamplands at the bottom of the steep embankment gradually changed to grass and sands.
Peering down at the landscape from the causeway, the Boy spied a speck of red moving rapidly.
“There!” he shouted, “It’s him! Enin! There he is!”
Maegda pulled her mount closer to the edge and looked down as well. She saw the man in the distance, his brilliant coat billowing behind him as he sprinted out of the wetlands.
“How do we get down there?” asked the Boy. “We need to face him!”
The embankment was too treacherous for the birds to safely descend.
“Another mile down the path, Boy.” said the Witch. “There the road slopes lower and we can approach him.”
The Boy looked ahead at Enin’s trajectory.
“The region between the swamps and the sea becomes a rocky badland up ahead. There will be many places for him to hide there!”
“We will find him.” said the Witch. “We cannot intercept him now, but we will cross the grassy countryside as soon as the road meets it. From there we can cut toward the badland. He is on foot.”
The Boy’s heart raced as he urged his paksi forward, not even thinking of how he would confront the sorcerer or what he would say to the man. All that mattered now was getting there.
Part Thirty Two
A Head full of Stars
It started with a flicker. A brief, passing sense that her hands were...off. Not wrong exactly, just larger. She flexed her fingers, and the sensation intensified—like she was wearing oversized gloves.
Every pulse in her fingertips boomed as she curled them into fists. Her hands seemed huge.
She glanced down at legs that felt like tree trunks.
She was still standing on the floor in the old woman’s house, but felt herself drifting away.
She grew, expanding, until the room could barely contain her. Her head ballooned outward, yet still she stood in the same small space. She hadn’t actually grown, but her sense of proportion had.
Is this what he feels like all the time? Thought Tula, like the sky lives in his head?
เ ђคשє ภ๏ ๏tђєг ฬคא ๏Ŧ Ŧєєlเภﻮ. said a voice from within her. tђเร เร ђ๏ฬ เ คlฬคאร ค๓.
“Kokaibel?” Tula said out loud, “You’re alive? Are you really you?”
คร ๓ยςђ คร เ єשєг ฬคร.
“Why do you sound like that?”
tђเร เร ђ๏ฬ เ ร๏ยภ๔ ...Ŧг๏๓ tђє เภรเ๔є.
“You made the thread spin itself around me? And into a shirt?”
ภ๏. tђคt ฬคร คll y๏ย.
Dizzy, she sat down on the rough floor. Her head now the size of a planet and expanding.
“How do I stop this?”
รt๏ק ฬђคt?
“Becoming like you?” she said. “I don’t want to be so...big...I just want to be me again.”
l๏๏к ๔๏ฬภ.
The garment she wore now covered her entire body. Lifting her hands to her face she saw them like his, black slices of night filled with glowing nebulae and scintillating points of light. The dark room with a dying fire in the hearth still surrounded her, yet she also surrounded it. She surrounded everything. The world. The sun. The galaxy. She didn’t even have words to describe the vastness of the universe and all the trillions upon trillions of stars within her, but she encompassed it and it encompassed her.
“I’m full of stars.”
гє๓๏שє ๓є. ภ๏ฬ.
“What? No, why?”
Yoย ςคภภ๏t ς๏ภtคเภ tђเร ๓ยςђ ๏Ŧ tђє ς๏ร๓๏ร Ŧ๏г l๏ภﻮ, ﻮเгl. เt ฬเll ๔гเvє y๏ย เภรคภє.
“But I feel it.” she cried, “I feel EVERYTHING.”
Y๏ย ภєє๔ t๏ รєקคгคtє. Y๏ย คгє ภ๏t гєค๔y Ŧ๏г tђเร.
“But I’m so big!” she said. Nothing else mattered. The heart that had been torn from her, the evil sorcerer she had been seeking, the firestorm, the Witch, the entire world crumbling around her. These were tiny tiny things. Infinitesimal. It was all so far beneath her now.
ภ๏! lєt เt ﻮ๏!
The garment of stars pulled away from her. But she resisted.
tђเร ฬคร ค ๓เรtคкє tยlค קєtєк. เ ค๓ ร๏ггy.
Her mind, now the size of the observable universe, said NO.
Her thoughts were galactic filaments. Rivers of pure energy racing through infinite creation.
YOU CANNOT TAKE THIS FROM ME, LITTLE DEMON. I AM GOD.
๏ђ ๔єคг. Y๏ย’vє ﻮ๏t เt ๒คd.
Tula sensed the universe expanding within her. She felt the heat of the singularity that gave birth to the heavens.
She directed her gaze toward the infinite sphere of light and heat that made up the beginning. The event horizon past which nothing could be seen. She needed to understand what was there. Compelled to know the time before time. The space beyond space. She pushed her consciousness toward the light and heat.
tђคtร єภ๏ยﻮђ ภ๏ฬ!
Just as her mind reached the center...the edge...the middle...the beginning. Direction no longer held meaning for her...but just as she reached the singular point of the start of all things, she felt a tear.
She felt her skin rip from her body. Her bones tear from her flesh. Her thoughts pull from her brain.
She screamed.
And Tula Petek opened her eyes to find herself on the rough floor beside the last embers of the old woman’s fireplace.
Kokaibel stood above her, fully formed once more.
“Let us never do that again.” said the demon.
Tula sat upright, slowly regaining her sense of self.
“Was that it?” she asked, “Was that the undivided wholeness?”
“No.” said Kokaibel. “That was just the tiny fraction that the wholeness cut off long long ago.”
Episode Ten Update
Episode Ten - Yarn and Thread is coming soon.
I have written the script for the episode, but need to record and edit it. I am hoping to have it up by this Thursday.
I apologize for the delay.
Nothing Is Wrong Season Three - THE WORMS
Episode Nine - Bone and Blade
Episode Nine: Bone and Blade
Part Twenty Six
The Black Skull
Enin came upon a hillock in the swamp, an ancient burial mound, perhaps. Judging by the trees growing upon it, he knew the mound to be at least several hundred years old, likely much much older. The sides of the hill were steep, but by clinging to branches he was able to climb it. Hoping to get a better vantage, he scanned as far as he could see, but the dense foliage in the marsh blocked his vision. Disappointed, but knowing he must be headed the correct direction, Enin sat for a moment on a large black stone that jutted out of the mound. He removed his soaking wet boots and wrung them as dry as he could.
If those stubborn birds had stayed with me, my boots would be dry. Thought Enin. But the miserable beasts refused to budge an inch as soon as that fool boy ran off to get himself killed.
Enin did not truly know what his next step was to be. For all his certainty and determination, he scarcely could admit to himself that he was making it up as he went along. He knew that locating and destroying the pillars would release the darkness. But he did not actually know where they were. He merely felt a pulling, bringing him in the proper direction. As far back as Aurelia he sensed an ominous presence looming in the swamps. Something large and dark and ancient on his path. Enin hoped that presence would be the second pillar, but now, sitting atop this hollow hill, he saw no sign of it. No pillar. No powerful being to guide him. Just cypress and black willow lording over a desolate landscape of filthy muck.
At least it is quiet here. He thought. It was foolish of me to want a traveling companion. That boy never knew when to shut up.
Enin felt something crack beneath him. Standing to investigate, he saw the black stone on which he sat had developed a fracture. He examined the stone, brushing off the muck and grime of the swamp. Its texture was smooth, but porous. Enin rapped upon it with his knuckles, producing a hollow sound.
Intrigued, the man brushed off more mud and leaves from the stone. But it didn’t look like stone. The texture was more akin to bone. He traced his finger along the fracture. It weaved its way along the surface of the strangely porous stone, like a tiny meandering river. Moreover, he surmised that his weight alone didn’t cause the fault in the surface. It seemed as if it had always been there, like a stitch. Enin thought it resembled the coronal suture that runs across a human skull. He had witnessed many in his lifetimes; while practicing medicine and while committing violence. Of course, that was preposterous. A stone that resembles a skull...one that is the size of a small hill...it simply could not be. Still, the man’s curiosity had been piqued.
Enin put his wet boots back on, cursing himself for not enchanting them to remain clean and dry regardless of the elements as he had done with his coat.
He clambered down the hillock, once more flooding his boots with swamp water. Plodding around to one side of the hill, he began to tear at the loamy soil with his bare hands.
The work took time, but soon he saw it, the unmistakable shape of an ocular cavity. Further digging revealed another cavity beside the first in mirror image. Beneath them were nasal cavities.
Enin began to frantically tear at the mud just above the water. Doing so uncovered a mouth full of teeth, each the size of his fist.
“Who are you?” Enin asked the colossal skull he had uncovered, but it did not answer.
Enin pulled at a tuft of his silver hair. Braided into it was a tress of hair not his. This lock was platinum in color and nearly seemed to radiate white light. He yanked a single filament from the white lock and tied it around one of the teeth.
Enin then breathed into the nasal cavity of the gigantic skull, while uttering a chthonic incantation. His susurrations increased in volume and intensity. Enin’s own lifebreath filled the skull as it began to vibrate. Muck and soil, roots, and branches...entire trees sloughed off of its surface, splashing into the marsh.
Enin’s eyes opened in wonder at the sight of the obsidian colored skull.
“Who are you?” he asked out loud.
A groaning noise came from within the skull.
“I bid you, titan,”said Enin, “I command you, remnant of ancient glory, speak.”
“Orrrrrrnaxxx.” said a voice within the skull.
“Ornax?” replied Enin. “That name is unfamiliar to me.”
“I am the Lost Son. The Unmade One.”
“Where do you come from? Who are your people?” the sorcerer asked.
“My father was the first.”
“The first what?”
“The first to die.”
“What do you mean the first to die?”
“The first ever. My father was born of the chaos. The first to live. The first to die. You stand now upon his bones.”
“You are primordial?” asked Enin in wonder, “One of the first beings to live upon this world?”
“I was alive when this world was made. When the forebears of humanity cut my father open, they fashioned the land with his flesh, the firmament with his skull, the oceans with his blood. I went into the lands of mortals to explore them. Long ago I fell. Struck dead by my enemy.”
“Ornax, you must be one-hundred, perhaps two-hundred hands tall. What enemy could fell you?”
“Darkness. The Unshaper. Ruiner of all things.”
“The Unshaper?” asked Enin, “Do you mean the black ocean? The darkness beyond the door? I have held commune with it.”
“And yet you live?” spoke Ornax.
“I am to set it free.”
“WHAT?”
“This world is old. The darkness must be released to cleanse it and end it.”
“Oh hohohaha.” the skull guffawed. “Do you think you are the first? This world has been made and unmade more times than you could ever know. All the pieces set upon the board and played with for aeons, only to be swept away and set again. There is no ending it.”
“It will be done.” stated Enin. “The darkness will come. The lands of mortals will be wrecked, the air will burn, and all will be silenced. I have already set plans into motion.”
“Half-wit!” said Ornax, “Nothing ever ends. At best you can stall the world. Pause its motions and its noise. But in time it will return. It always does. Even if it takes one thousand kalpas, the cosmos will contract and expand and recreate this world. This swamp. This stupid conversation.”
“I refuse to believe you.” Enin said. “Even if your words are true, I do not care. This world is broken and corrupted. Let the cosmos wipe it clean. If it re-forms, I will end it again. Existence is futile.”
“Well,” said Ornax, “what do I know? I am merely the vestige of a being beyond mortal reckoning. Perhaps all will go as you plan. I remain dead either way.”
“Can you guide me?” asked Enin, “I know the second pillar is not far. I know it is to the south, but I am not certain exactly where.”
Ornax became quiet for a moment, as if concentrating, then spoke, “The pillar of the earth is in a human settlement. Two days travel if you are swift. It is by the sea. Hidden in a cave beside a small fishing village near Kara Lys.”
“Two days?” said Enin. “I can make that. I will not rest.”
“Be gone now.” said Ornax and the black skull became silent.
Part Twenty Seven
A River of Magic
The Boy and the Muck Witch rode together on the south road. This highway had been built centuries ago as a causeway over the swamplands by one fallen empire or another.
“You say he was looking for something in the swamps?” Maegda asked the Boy.
“Yes.” said the Boy, looking down the embankment over the wetlands.
“He told me a force more destructive than the firestorm resides there.”
“And he thinks this ‘force’ is something he can command? Or manipulate?”
“I think the word he used was ‘release’.”
“That doesn’t sound pleasant.” said the Witch.
“Can’t you use your magic?” asked the Boy, “Use it to stop him or at least find him?”
“I don’t ‘use’ magic. Magic isn’t something that anyone ‘uses’. It’s not like a hammer or a shovel.”
“Then what is it?”
Maegda was silent for a moment before saying, “Magic is more like a body of water. Some sources of magic are little pools, others are roaring rivers. All of them are fed by a radiant ocean, the source of everything. As with a body of water, you can drink from it and swim in it. You can even find treasures within it. But the one thing you can never ever do is control it. If you try, you are most certain to drown.”
“Can you teach me to swim, then?” asked the Boy.
“I am not teaching you magic.”
“But you said I have what it takes to be a proper witch!”
“Just because you can be something doesn’t mean you should.”
“Why shouldn’t I? If I were a witch I would let all the people swim in my magical river and let them drink its water to sustain themselves.”
“Would you now?” the Witch cocked an eye at him.
“Yes.” he said, “And I would wear a pointy hat!”
“We do NOT wear pointy hats! That is just a stupid image from idiotic children’s stories.”
“Well, I’m bringing it back.” he said, which made them both chuckle.
As they laughed, the paksi stopped abruptly. Ahead on the road sat an overturned wagon.
“Stay where you are, Boy.” Maegda said, dismounting.
The wagon rested on one side with two wheels blasted to charred bits and the inner surface covered entirely in melted candles with protective symbols scrawled above them in charcoal and ochre.
“Is this magic?” asked the Boy, standing behind her.
“I told you to stay where you are!”
He ignored her and asked, “What are those symbols?”
“A sign of desperation.” she said, “Whomever crafted this makeshift shrine must have seen the end coming. The firestorm no doubt. They witnessed the decimation and performed a ritual prayer to every god they could name.”
“Do you think anyone answered their prayers?”
“Well, I see no sign of them. So maybe they managed to escape the tempest.”
The boy gazed as far as he could along the road. “I see no one ahead. Perhaps they went into the wetlands below?”
“Perhaps.” said Maegda. “Judging by the candles, they have been gone for several hours. And we already are in search of one mysterious wanderer in the swamp. I say we continue along the road. It runs to the southern hills where the marshlands end. If we are fortunate we may locate Enin when he exits the swamp.”
“How do we know he will do that?”
“There are four pillars, according to legend.” said the Witch. “Based on the meteors, we can assume that the pillar of the firmament has been shattered. I do not know where the second pillar is, but the third is known to be the pillar of the sea. I suspect it to be in or near the sea...based on the name. So we should head in that direction, either way.”
“I suppose that makes a sort of sense.” said the Boy.
Part Twenty Eight
A Sword of Silver
“Oh dearie me.” breathed the old woman as she twiddled her fingers around the spindle, twisting sparkly black fibers into a fine filament. “Such a tangled mess, but fret not. We’ll get you sorted.”
Tula had often helped her grandmother with spinning, holding fibers of cotton or wool while her elder spun it into thread or yarn. Now she watched this unknown woman doing so with material that seemed so familiar, yet completely alien.
Tula found herself lying beside the fire on a rough but not uncomfortable carpet. In that half-sleep where one is vaguely aware of their own existence she watched the woman work. Her scrawny pink fingertips danced hypnotically around the fibers as she twirled the spindle. But most mesmerizing of all was the material itself. Darker than the shadows of this room lit dimly by the fireplace, but brimming with light. The cottony fluff the woman spun was filled with tiny little stars.
Just like him. Tula thought. Just like...what was his name? Why can’t I remember him? Coo-coo bird? No. Cowbell...Cocoa ball...
Her eyes snapped open and she said, “Kokaibel!”
“Oh girl!” said the woman. “You should not be awake. You were half-dead from exhaustion when you got here. Not to mention that special soup I poured down your throat while you slept. Close your eyes, sweety.”
“No.” said Tula, sitting up. “Where is my friend? What am I doing here?”
“You’re here because that foul demon has probably been sucking the life out of you, sweetheart. He is not your friend. But you’re safe now. Don’t you mind. Once I finish spinning him, that demon won’t be able to harm anyone.”
“Spinning him?” shouted Tula, darting up into a standing position.
She nearly fell over, but caught herself, grasping the edge of a table. That was when she saw it. The thread the woman was spinning, the material from which she spun...it was...him. Kokaibel had been reduced to a pile of...stuff, like a clump of fibrous material to be turned into a sweater.
“Turn him back!” she screamed at the woman. “What are you doing to him?”
“Oh my.” said the woman, “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you? Demon possession is rough, I know. Happened to my sister once. But don’t worry. We’ll flush his dark corruption out of you. Then we’ll have a go at your queer little birdie. Now that’s a thing of power if ever I saw one!”
“He isn’t possessing me! He’s helping me. I’m the one in charge!”
“Oh honey, that’s what they all say.”
“I don’t care what you think. You’re making him right again and we’re both leaving. And the bird too!”
“Oh honey, he can’t be made right. He was made wrong to begin with. That’s the problem. He’s a mistake of the gods. No. I will keep him here on my spindle where he can’t harm anyone.” as she spoke the old woman continued to spin. The pile of Kokaibel grew smaller and the spindle grew fatter with sparkly black thread.
“You can’t just twist him up like a ball of yarn. Kokaibel is a luminous being a powerf-”
“Powerful member of the celestial court, yes yes. He already told me all that. But now he is my prisoner. And you will be free of him and that pretty birdy too soon.”
“You can’t take the bird. I’ll die without it.”
“Oh really?” said the woman. I truly expected it to be the other way around.”
“The bird is the only thing keeping me alive as far as I can tell.”
“I see now. A soul-raft.”
“A what?” asked Tula.
“Like a...vessel that carries a bit of your essence. That’s how you’re not dead even though you are missing what some may consider a vital piece of you.”
“M-my heart?”
“Yes sweetie. How exactly did that come about? You make a deal with this ol’ demon here and he switched your heart for a bird? Tch. Demons.”
“No! You’ve got it all wrong. My heart was stolen by a man!”
“Isn’t that the way of things.” the woman said.
“Not like that.” said Tula. “He ripped it out of me. Assaulted me and took what is MINE. Kokaibel was helping me retrieve it.”
The old woman looked down at the stuff of Kokaibel and back at the girl.
“Well,” she said, “be that as it may, he’s still a demon and needs to go.”
“I won’t let you destroy him!”
“Oh he isn’t going to be destroyed. Just stuck. Destruction of a demon is way above me. But I can keep him.”
“He’s been kept before.” said Tula.
“Has he? Kept by who?”
“Maegda...the Muck Witch.”
The woman dropped her spindle on the floor.
“How in the hells did you learn her name?”
“He told me.” said Tula, gesturing toward Kokaibel.
“You...” said the woman in shock. “You’re clever, I’ll give you that. But you won’t be tricking me twice. All this time I thought you were the victim. But dealing with demons, consorting with witches.”
“You’re the witch!” said Tula.
“I am no witch! I am a hierophant of Maj! A holy warrior. I slay witches!”
Tula had enough of this mad woman’s ravings. She reached for the spindle on the floor, but misjudged herself. Still woozy from exhaustion or the old woman’s magic, she fell on her face.
The woman stood up over her and reached behind her back. Suddenly in her hand the woman held a dazzling white sword that filled the room with light.
“In the name of the shaper I abjure you!” spoke the woman, “I cast you out and send you into the darkest pit!”
She brought the sword down and Tula barely managed to roll out of the way.
The old woman held her left hand out as if casting a spell while flourishing the blade.
“Your demon consort is no use to you! Your witch friend isn’t here. Now stand and be slain, you fiendish little bitch!”
Tula stumbled to her feet as the blade pierced through her blouse, dead center of her chest.
A searing pain tore through the girl’s chest and limbs like a bolt of lighting as the blade made contact with the cage where Tula’s heart once sat.
The bird fluttered behind the tiny bars of its cage as electricity crackled through the girl until it fed back into the sword. White bolts of galvanic energy poured into the silver metal blade in a climactic burst.
Tula and the hierophant of Maj blasted away from one another with deafening thunder and the smells of ozone and smoking flesh.
After a long while, Tula found her legs once more and stood on the shakiest of knees. The woman sprawled on the floor, dead, her eyes burned out of her skull. The silver sword at her side looked suddenly dull and lifeless.
“What just happened?” Tula asked out loud.
“Pig iron.” said the bird, pecking at the cage.
Episode Eight - Iron and Shadow
Part Twenty Three
His Gift and his Curse
Enin trudged alone through the mire. After lifetimes untold his blackened and calloused soul had learned to ignore hardship such as the chill of the bog and the stinging of insects. His coat of crimson with gold trim remained spotless in spite of the mud through which he tread. He was an old man, with white beard and silver hair, yet his face remained as smooth as a child's. Enin aged in his own way. He did everything in his own way.
Immeasurable ages ago he had been a young man, a boy really, when he made the first of several choices that took away his humanity.
In a prison cell he had sat, sobbing silently. Enin was a killer and he did not regret it. What right did those men have to take his mother from him? And countless others, no doubt. They slaughtered his village. Who could say how many villages before that.
No. Enin had no remorse for slaying the three men in black tunics with red handprints on the back. In his mind they had chosen death long before he ever met them.
But on that night, little Enin had counted. His mother hid him away when she went to confront the raiders, but he spied them from his shelter. Twenty-six men stood before her, with torches, spears, and swords. That fierce woman faced them all down. She told them that attacking this village would be their undoing. They all laughed. Enin knew his mother was strong. He did not fear at first.
As he peered out, waiting for her to strike them with her spear and wicked eye, a shadow appeared behind her.
Enin called out to her in warning, just a peep of a sound. The men did not even seem to hear him. But a mother knows the sound of her child. She turned toward the broken cart where she had stowed him, her eyes fixed on Enin instead of the interlopers, as if imploring him to be still.
That moment was all it took for the shadow to strike. The twenty-seventh raider had been hiding in the darkness. He bashed her skull with a war-club and she fell like a rock to the ground. Enin covered his crying mouth with his hand, blinded by tears. When he looked out again, she was bound and the men were building a bonfire, with her tied to it. The surviving members of the village had been bound as well and were forced to watch Enin’s mother being set ablaze. She cried his name. She shouted “Stay Enin, stay!” The raiders did not seem to understand the meaning of her words. They never suspected that one resident of the village remained free of their ropes.
When her screams ended, the raiders slit the throat of every grown person in the village and loaded the animals, children, and goods into carts that they took back to their riverboats.
“Twenty and seven” he repeated to himself over and over as he cried quietly. He would always remember the number of men it took to destroy his life.
Years later, on the cold stone floor of a prison cell, he whispered once more through his tears. “Twenty and four. Twenty and four.” He knew he could never rest until he reached zero.
By the light of the full moon that peeked through the iron barred window, Enin saw a shadow stir in the cell across from his.
“They smell quite delicious.” said a voice from within the shadow.
“I don’t smell anything.” said young Enin.
“Your tears, boy. They are to me like the smell of roasting meat. Like honey. Like the lips of true love.”
Enin wiped his eyes and tried to see his companion, but she was darkness itself.
“Who are you? You aren’t another prisoner, are you? How did you get in here?”
“I am called Suriel. I go where the moonlight takes me.”
“I am Enin.”
“Thank you for that.” Suriel said.
“For what?”
“For your name.”
In a flash of darkness the shadow shifted from the other cell into his, as if the bars were immaterial.
“Cold iron.” she hissed. “It stings, but it cannot keep me out. Not on the night of the full moon.”
“What are you?” Enin exclaimed.
“I am...a Watcher, an Archon.”
Enin did not understand what she meant, but he listened.
“Tell me, mortal. What is it you desire?”
“I desire to be out of this prison,” said Enin.
“No one wishes to be in a prison cell,” said Suriel. “You are in this place because you acted on a desire that your jailers did not approve. What desire was that?”
“My mother,” he said to her. “My mother is dead. Killed by twenty seven men. I wish to rid the world of them. I have slain three. That leaves me with twenty and four left to kill. That is my desire. To destroy those who have taken my mother from me.”
“A wrong has been done.” said the shade. “For that you wish to have retribution. An understandable desire.”
“You can help me with this?” Enin asked, “That is why you ask, spirit? You choose to aid me in my struggle?”
“I do not make choices. I make deals.”
“What do you offer? And what do you want in return?”
“Direct and to the point?” said Suriel, “I like that in a human.”
Her shadowy form twisted itself into a sitting position beside him on the stone floor and she draped what passed for an arm around his shoulder. It felt like the chill of death upon him, yet it also burned a little. He stoically accepted the discomfort.
“I could wave a hand and have all of those you wish drop dead on the spot.”
“No,” said Enin, “I do not wish that. I need to be there when it happens. I need to see the life drain from their eyes. It is the only thing that can bring me peace.”
“I see,” said the demon...the angel...the whatever she was. “So what you truly desire then, is power.”
“Power?”
“Yes. You are weak. You are small. You are young. You have no allies, no wealth, no weapons. You seek power to bend the world to your will. Power to exit this cell, to locate those who have wronged you, and to exact vengeance.”
The young man dropped his head down and thought long about the being’s words.
“Yes.” he said, finally. “I do seek power. Those men had it and look at what they did. Look at the pain and terror they brought to the world. If I had a fleet of men to command with weapons and will, I would do only good.”
“Would you?”
“I would rid the world of evil men.” he said, “That would be the greatest of goods, would it not?”
“I would not know.” she said. “Good...evil. These are human concepts, not ours. But power I can give you. Not men. Not weapons, but perhaps something greater.”
“Tell me, spirit!” said Enin, “What do you offer? What must I pay!”
“I offer you a bit of my knowledge. An insight into the workings of reality. With that you can do and undo many many things in the material world.”
“Knowledge?” he scoffed, “Insight? What good are those things? Can they break iron bars? Can they split the heads of the wicked?”
“Yes.” she said, “In their own ways.”
As a demonstration, the shade reached out to the bars on the window. She did not rise from her spot, but instead her arm stretched outward...stretched impossibly long.
The hand at the end of her shadow arm opened and turned upward, facing the moonlight. The light gathered into her hand like water pouring from a spout. In her grip the light took form and became a blade that she held with her inky fingers.
Enin looked, wide eyed as she twirled the blade in her hand with a flourish. Then flash-flash! She swung a sword made of light through the bars and they clattered to the ground.
Freedom before him, Enin gasped, “You can give me the knowledge to do such things?”
“I can. This and more.”
“What do you seek in return?”
“I’ve already told you what I want.” she said. If she had a mouth she would have licked her lips as she continued, “They smell so delicious, after all.”
Part Twenty Four
The Chicken and the Eggs
The Muck Witch returned to her burned out hut and the Boy followed.
“Must you do that?” she said over her shoulder.
“Do what?” he asked.
“You linger behind me like a lost puppy. If you wish to walk with me then at least keep stride. I do not like feeling stalked.”
“Well, where are we going?”
“WE are going nowhere. I am going to my home to salvage what I can. From there, I’m not sure.”
“I’ll go with you. I can help you carry things. I may not look it, but I’m quite strong.”
The Witch stopped and assessed the Boy once more.
“You truly have nowhere else to go, do you?”
“Does anyone?” He said, “The world is burned to ash around us. The greatest city of all time is a cinder. The world is ending. That’s all I keep hearing. If we walked all the way to Arodem or sailed to far-off Kudrakai, I’m sure it would be the same. Ash and fire as far as the eye can see.”
His protest was punctuated by the loud sound of his rumbling belly.
“World ending or not,” said the Witch, “we still need to eat, don’t we? Come along then.”
When they reached Maegda’s home, it was a flattened mess of wood, straw, and fading embers. The Boy expected her to react emotionally to the chaos, but instead the Witch got to work, digging through the wreckage.
“What are you looking for?” he asked her.
“Anything useful.”
The Boy heard a rustling noise beneath a fallen beam.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Can you lift this, strong man?”
The Boy wrapped his arms around one end of the beam. It was lodged in the mud. After several grunts and swears, it lifted with a satisfying pop. Bracing with his legs, he managed to get it up and over his shoulder.
In a hollow that had been covered by the beam sat three swamp hens, two of which were dead. Gathering them up, the Witch said, “Do you know how to pluck a bird?”
The Witch retrieved her teapot and two cups, though one was missing its handle.
They cleaned and roasted the dead hens over a fire. The Witch sprinkled some salt over the meat along with dried plant bits. When the Boy asked if the bits were some sort of magic she told him they were something called “rosemary”.
“If only we had some garlic.” she said.
“This is the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” said the Boy between mouthfulls . “I mostly have gruel and stale bread.”
“Well, don’t get used to it. I’ve only one hen left and she’s not for eating.”
“What is she for, then?”
“Eggs, fool. The other two were as well, but in death we all get eaten. Either by predators or by worms.”
“Are you always this fun to talk to?”
The Witch laughed.
After eating and washing up as best they could, she continued digging through her possessions, occasionally putting a small trinket or unbroken bottle into her satchel. The Boy helped to the best of his ability, but not being able to discern the trash from the treasure made it difficult.
Once she was satisfied that she had salvaged as much of her life as possible, the pair set back onto the road.
They continued walking in a generally southern direction, but neither spoke for a long while.
Finally, the Boy broke the silence, “We should try and stop him.”
“What?” said Maegda.
“Enin. He is just a man. He can be beaten. Even if he is immortal, he knows fear. I saw it in his eyes.”
“Even if that is true, what do you think you or I can do about it? I don’t even know what his plan is.”
“I do. He intends to find something he called the second pillar. The Pillar of the Earth.”
“That...” started the Witch, but she trailed off.
“He told me and that shadow demon thing confirmed it. He’s going to break it or something. There are three or four pillars altogether. He wants to destroy them and...I don’t know...unleash...something.”
“The darkness.” she responded.
“Well, we can stop him.”
“How? If Kokaibel is with him, then he is more powerful than I ever imagined. And I have no idea where the Pillar of the Earth even is. No one does.”
“Enin knows.” said the Boy. “He said it is beyond the forest, in the swamps. And that demon thing is not with him. They don’t seem to like each other.”
“Still, Boy, he knows where he is going and we do not. Even if we catch up with him, which we cannot, what do we do then?”
“I don’t know. But he isn’t a god. He is a MAN. Maybe he can’t be killed, but he can be captured, detained, maybe even reasoned with. What else do you have to do today?”
“Well enough, child. I suppose there are worse things to do at the end of all things than to try and fight it. Of course, this Enin has a head start on us, doesn’t he? It will be difficult to keep pace.”
As they summited a small hill on the road the Boy hooted in delight.
Standing at the bottom of the rise were two magnificent paksi with black feathers and crowns of white and blue. He made a sharp whistle and the birds knelt down to be mounted.
Catching up to the Boy, Maegda shook her head in wonder.
“Who are you, Boy? Who are you?”
Part Twenty Five
A Demon and a Farm Boy
“Tula Petek!” exclaimed Kokaibel. “Human, what did I tell you? You are flesh. You are bone. You are made of the same stuff as the earth itself. You cannot subsist on will alone. Now look at you. A lifeless heap on the ground.”
Tula remained unconscious.
“Oh mortal. What am I to do with you? You are no good to me dead.”
“Can’t you just heal her like you did the witch?” chirped a voice from within Tula.
“Huh?” said the demon, “Oh. It’s you.”
The bird poked its face through the bars of its tiny cage and shot Kokaibel a look.
“Yeah, it’s me. What of it? Anyway, get to work. Do your magic, space face.”
“Space face?”
“Are you as stupid as these human people are?” said the bird with exasperation. “Come on. Fix her up. She’s no good to me dead, either.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” said the demon. “I need a human to ask me to do something. I can’t just...do it.”
“Well, that’s simply pathetic.” said the bird.
“Pathetic? Me? I carry the stars within my form. How dare you?”
“Well, if you can carry the stars, you can carry a little girl, can’t you?”
“Carry...what do you mean?”
“Pick her up, you idiot!” scolded the bird. “Take her away from here. Take her to someone less useless than you!”
Kokaibel gathered the girl in his arms and said, “Where? Who can help? I do not know how to care for a child.”
“Neither do I. I’m just a bird.”
The demon carried Tula and the bird with her along the road for a while. Time does not pass the same for demons as it does for humans. A second could be a century and vice versa. Kokaibel could not tell how much time had passed as he hefted her comatose body past the swamp and the charred remains of the forest.
“There!” tweeted the bird. “A farmhouse in the hills!”
Kokaibel scanned the barren landscape, seeing only dried grass and dusty knolls.
He came across a footpath.
“This way!” said the bird. “Don’t you see it?”
The demon stepped onto the path and saw it. Not just a farmhouse, but a sprawling farm, with rolling hills, fields of grain, and a flock of sheep, idly munching away at the lush green grass.
“There!” said the bird, “In the farmhouse, I see a human! Don’t you have eyes?”
Kokaibel looked and saw it too, an old woman sat in a rocking chair on the front stoop of the house. How had he not noticed it before?
He staggered toward the door with his burden.
The old woman wore a roughspun dress and walked with a cane.
“Young man.” she shouted at him. “Young man, come here. Is she harmed? Please, bring the girl to me.”
The young man glanced downward, remembering who he was. A farmhand, working in the fields. The farmer’s granddaughter had fallen ill from working too hard in the sun and he was carrying her home for shelter. How did he forget that?
“Can you help her?” he asked the old woman.
“Of course!” chuckled the woman, “She just needs a bit of tending to! Lay her down beside the hearth.”
The young farmhand did as told and sat himself in a chair beside the fire as the woman got to work.
“Does anyone else know you are here?” she asked him.
“Anyone else?” he said back to her, “There was a bird...I think.”
“Ah yes. The bird. Of course.” said the woman as she undid the top of Tula’s shirt and picked at the cage.
“The bird lives in her chest.” the young man said, “Isn’t that queer?”
“Yes.” said the woman, “Queer indeed. But we can’t have the girl go dying on us, can we? She dies, the bird goes with her, I reckon.”
“We can’t let her die.” the farmhand said, half dazed.
“No.” the woman pressed a damp cloth on Tula’s head and poured some sort of broth into the sleeping girl’s mouth.
“Who are you?” he asked her.
“Me? I’m the farm lady." She said, “My husband and I work the fields here with our grandchildren.”
“Then...who am I?”
“What do you mean, laddie?”
“I’m not who I am. I am not...” he gestured at his body and peasant clothing. “I am not this.”
“Don’t be daft boy. Who would you be?”
“I would be...” he began, “I would be be be. Be me. I be me. That who I be. Me me me.”
“Of course you are you. Did you get too much sun out there too, boy?”
“Sun? Son? Sun...” he said.
“Oh dear, I think your brain is fried. Looks like the pig iron works too well.”
“Pig iron?”
“Oh yes, little demon. I know what you really are. I can cloud a man’s mind easy enough, maybe even trick a bird, but a demon...no way I could do that on my own. But this whole hillside is covered with the black metal. I didn’t think it would work. Hee he!”
“Work? Oh wait. I’m not a farm boy. Am I?” said Kokaibel, his mind almost focusing. “I’m a-a diamond...no a deeemon. A powful membuh of the celeshtul coort...”
The effort to maintain his own identity under the influence of the black metal grew too strong and Kokaibel fell to the floor.
“Oh, a powerful member of the celestial court indeed. And now you’re mine.” said the woman, “Now you’re mine.”
Announcement
Hi, I’m Michael J Patrick, author and voice of A Bird for a Heart.
You may have noticed that I did not post an update last Monday. I then posted on my blog at abirdforaheart.blogspot.com that I would be changing my schedule. After working hard to get on target with the new schedule, I am still far behind.
Rather than rush to release an inferior episode, I have decided to skip the update and get back onto my previous schedule of updating every other Monday. I try my best to keep the podcast on schedule, but I think quality of my writing, recording, and editing should be the most important factor.
Episode Eight will be up on April 7th.
If you are enjoying the story so far, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or the podcast player of your choice. Also, feel free to share A Bird for a Heart with your friends.
If you are not enjoying the podcast, then share it with your enemies. That will show them.
Thank you for your patience, and thank you for listening.
Schedule Change
I'm sorry to announce that there won't be an episode today.
I've switched up my production for personal reasons.
A Bird for a Heart episode eight will post next Monday and continue every other Monday after that.
Episode Seven - Blood and Tears
Episode Seven
Blood and Tears
Part Twenty
A Meal Interrupted
“You know the girl?” said the Boy. “The one with a bird where her heart should be?”
“Yes.” said Kokaibel. “She is dying.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tula Petek.” chuckled the demon. “The Crimson Wolf is trying to devour her heart! But, here’s the thing, little Boy. She doesn’t even have one!”
“How is that funny?” The Boy looked at Kokaibel, trying to find a glimmer of humanity in the demon’s void of a face under the tree-shrouded darkness of the forest path.
“You wouldn’t get it.” Kokaibel said to him. “You see, I warned her that she would need me and now she does. Her pride is her undoing. It’s just so...human of her.”
As if he had become frustrated that the conversation had nothing to do with him, Enin interjected. “Let the girl die. There is nothing that can be done for her now.”
“No!” said the Boy. “We don’t DO that. We don’t let people die.”
“You can do as you please.” said Enin, “I will continue forward.”
The Boy tried to urge his paksi to head into the forest, toward the firelight, but the magnificent bird refused to stray from the road.
“I have to do something!” he said, leaping off of his mount and running blindly into the bramble.
In the inky blackness thorns and branches scratched his arms, legs, and face. He fell flat more than once, but the Boy continued toward the light, toward the Crimson Wolf.
After nearly a minute he dropped onto the footpath where the red light radiated. Bathed in the sickening glow of that eldritch beast, the Boy gazed up. He barely caught a glimpse of the thing, but its exposed sinew and dripping cavity of a mouth caused such a wave of disgust that the Boy vomited on the spot.
“Your insides are leaking,” said Kokaibel, who had suddenly appeared beside the Boy. “That can’t be good.”
The Crimson Wolf turned its slavering maw toward Kokaibel. “Demon. This is my feast. Begone.”
On the dirt path beside the oozing creature lay Tula in pained paralysis, her eyes wide with terror, but her body limp.
“You are speaking to a Jewel of the Sky, hellspawn. Do not take me for some lowly imp.” said Kokaibel.
The Crimson Wolf tilted its body inquisitively as it pressed its heavy paw over the struggling little bird.
“Am I supposed to be frightened, fallen one?”
“You are supposed to not be so stupid.” said Kokaibel. “But what should I expect of a creature without a head? I offer you this Boy as your meal. Take him and leave the girl and the bird with me.”
“What?” said the Boy.
The Crimson Wolf’s tongue lolled out of its mouth and spread its goo-dribbling tongue across the Boy’s face.
“Yes.” The thing said, “He will do nicely...a proper meal.”
“I’m not your food!” the Boy cried, but neither eldritch beast nor demon paid him any mind.
The creature released the bird and turned towards the Boy.
“That’s it?” the Boy said, almost incredulously, “I just get eaten? That’s my end?”
“I prefer you to cry and beg a little.” said the Wolf. “It makes you taste better.”
As the red brute spread its mass above the Boy, the bird hopped back to Tula and into her chest cavity.
The Boy cried and fell back, crab-walking away from the beast as its tongue wrapped around him and drew him close.
Tula sat up sharply, gulping in air. Kokaibel stood beside her, watching the Crimson Wolf drag the boy, kicking and screaming into its toothy maw.
“Do something you feckless demon!” she shouted at Kokaibel.
“Oh.” the demon said to her, “I’m sorry. Do we have some sort of arrangement where I do your bidding?”
“He’s going to kill that Boy!” she cried.
“Yes. Yes he is. It would have been you, but I negotiated for your life. Free of charge, I might add!”
“Help him!”
“No.”
The Boy’s legs disappeared into the mouth of the beast. The Crimson Wolf seemed to be savoring him, taking his time with this meal. The tongue of the thing coiled around him like a serpent, covering his mouth, leaving only the Boy’s imploring eyes visible.
“Fine.” said Tula, “I accept you, demon.”
“Be more specific.” Kokaibel said.
“I, Tula Petek, willingly ask for your power. I invite you. I request. I beg that you save that boy from his imminent doom!”
“As you wish.”
With that the void in the shape of a man stretched out, rays of starlight spread from his form as he approached the Crimson Wolf.
“What is this?” the Wolf demanded, speaking with its mouth half full.
“Come now.” spoke the demon, “Spit it out! Bad eldritch being. Drop the child.”
“Mine!” roared the beast. “You said!”
“Drop it now, or I will shunt you into the void.”
“Deal breaker! Welsher! Revoker!”
The beast struggled against Kokaibel, digging its claws into the dirt.
“Release!” the demon commanded.
“Nooooo!” the Crimson Wolf howled.
Kokaibel wrapped himself around the Wolf much in the way he did when healing the Muck Witch.
“No!! Mine! We had a deal!” came the final words of the Crimson Wolf as his red glow flared and then subsided.
“I did not want to do it this way.” Kokaibel said, absorbing the Wolf and boy together into himself.
The forest path suddenly darkened without the fiery haze of the creature, Tula could no longer see anything beyond the twinkle of stars and galaxies that swam within Kokaibel’s body.
“That’s it?” she asked, “Where is the Boy then?”
“Oh yes.” Kokaibel said, “I almost forgot.”
The demon shuddered and vibrated for a moment and the Boy suddenly materialized on the ground in front of him.
“Is he alive?” Tula asked.
“He breathes,” said Kokaibel.
Part Twenty One
The Boy’s Witch
The Boy awoke alone on the path. The girl, the demon, the...thing were nowhere in sight. Not that he could see anything. The night had reached its apex of darkness. Shivering, the Boy gathered dead leaves from the side of the road and tried his best to warm up.
“Well.” he whispered to himself, “This is it, right? The bottom of my life?”. The Boy had slept rough before, but this was the roughest.
Times like this were when his inner darkness came. Cold. Tired. Alone. No light to see by. The Boy had nothing but his own thoughts.
“Isn’t that all I ever have?” he spoke out loud. No one could hear him in the middle of nowhere at the middle of night. So why not?
“I live in a world with sorcerers and demons and...monsters. Things that can eat me whole. I should be dead. Maybe I am. I wish I were. No. I don’t. But what good am I to this world? No mother. No father. No friends. I am the most alone a person can be. I’m not big and handsome like Darik. I’m not rich and powerful like that old man. I have no real skills beyond being able to get up again after taking a hit. What good does that do? I just keep getting hit again and again.”
The Boy rolled onto his back in his bed of leaves.
“I have no worth to this world. And it has no value to me. If the old man says he’s going to end it, maybe I should just accept that. We’re all better off gone. I am, at least.”
This was not the first time the Boy had succumbed to self pity. On nights when he found himself alone and at his lowest it would come. He would cry and tell himself how inconsequential and useless he was. He whined and spilled tears and snot until he was empty. Then, fully spent, the Boy would sleep. In the morning he usually felt much better and able to face the world again.
But on this occasion things had become bleak. Left for dead on the side of the road after being half-swallowed by a headless abomination was a new nadir even for him. The Boy doubted the sun would even rise. So he lay trembling alone in the dark on the cold hard ground. He decided to despair. He permitted himself to feel utter grief. To let the darkness swallow him like that slimy red monstrosity had tried to do. He knew if the sun did rise he would feel embarrassed at himself for indulging so. But he allowed it to wash through him, the self-hatred and the hatred of the world around him. He cried and cried and a river of mucus ran from his nose. When he was finally hollowed out and exhausted, the Boy slept.
Rays of sun warmed his face as he returned to consciousness. The Boy sat up, covered in dirt and leaves, feeling lighter than he had in a long while. Lighter and hungry and desperately in need of a bath.
As he rose, the Boy felt a thudding pain across his back as someone walked right into him.
“Hey!” he said, in shock, turning to see who had stepped on him.
“Hey yourself!” said a red haired woman, “Why don’t you watch where you sleep? This is a footpath, not a flophouse.”
The Boy examined the woman and said, “I know you. You’re the Muck Witch!”
The woman peered down at the boy, inspecting him. She knelt to brush the dust off a large rock and sat on it. She then pulled a pipe out of her pack and lit it while she spoke, “I don’t know you, though. How come you’re sleeping rough?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time to kill today.”
She smoked her pipe as he spoke. The sweet scent of whatever herb she smoked had a loosening effect on the Boy’s tongue. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to give her so much information, but it just felt right to talk to the Witch.
The Boy told her his entire tale, from Saiku Lin approaching him to work for Enin, up until nearly being devoured.
“Sounds like you’ve had quite a day.” she offered when he completed his story.
“I suppose I have.” he said.
“But it is a new sunrise. What do you expect to do with it?”
“I truly don’t know,” said the Boy. “I have spent so much time either following or avoiding the decisions of others. I don’t know if I even have desires of my own at this point.”
“I think you are dishonest with yourself, Boy.” she said.
“How so?”
“You seem to think that you have no agency. That you are at the whim of others. Yet the story you tell me says otherwise. You had plans for what to do upon delivering the sorcerer, did you not?”
“Well, yes, but I didn’t get to-”
“And you chose to help those dreadful older boys, even though it was not in your best interest.”
“Of course. They’re utter turds, but they don’t deserve to be-”
Before he could finish she continued. “And you ran headfirst into the maw of an abhorrent beast to help someone you don’t even know.”
“I think it was feet first, but yes ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am.”
“Sorry ma’am.”
The Witch wrinkled her nose at him and continued, “So what now?”
“I-I don’t know. I want to help people, I guess. I want to be useful somehow. But I don’t know how.”
She glanced him over once more.
“I don’t say this lightly, Boy, but I think you may have the makings of a proper witch.”
“What?”
“I know. There are so few of us now, but you have it.”
“A boy can’t be a witch! Can he?”
“You are brave. You are clever. You put the needs of others before your own desires. If that doesn’t make for a proper witch I don’t know what does.”
“Are you offering to apprentice me?”
“Oh dear no! Don’t be silly. Haven’t you heard? The world is ending. No point in it.”
Part Twenty Two
A Lecture on Cosmogony
Tula and Kokaibel walked together on the road, away from Aurelia. Her hunger and exhaustion had become a constant background hum that she scarcely noticed as she dragged herself forward.
“You need food and rest, human.” Kokaibel said.
“I need to find Enin.”
“And what do you expect to do when you find him?”
“I am taking back my heart. I will wrench it from his chest if I must.”
“And how,” asked the demon, “do you expect to have the strength to fight the immortal sorcerer if you do not feed yourself? If you do not sleep?”
“Does Enin sleep? Does he stop for lunch?”
“Enin is immortal. He traded his heart for power. He traded his tears for revenge. I do not know if any of his parts are original at this moment in time.”
“He traded his tears for revenge?” asked the girl.
“Yes. One of my...kind found him in a prison cell. Long long ago. She gave him an offer. In exchange for his tears he would have the power to find and slay the men who killed his mother.”
“How does that work?” Tula asked. “What does a demon want with his tears?”
“It is a sacrifice. The thing given isn’t exactly what matters so much as what value it holds to the giver. Demons don’t go bottling up mortal tears so we can get drunk on them or use them in love potions. We take what you offer of yourselves as a symbol of the exchange.”
“The exchange for what?”
“Your humanity.”
“What even is humanity?”
“The ability to feel. To love. To hate. To fear. To be brave. To suffer. We do not have that, my kind. We were made perfect. Pain, pleasure, loss, desire. These things are largely outside of us.”
“Then why bargain with us? If you don’t feel desire, then why sell us power in exchange for the ability to do so?”
“That is a paradox, isn’t it?” said Kokaibel. “One way of seeing it is that there is the One. The Monad. The ineffable source of all things. The One created the syzygy, a combined pair. Light and dark. Front and back. Up and down. Aside from the One, all things come in pairs or groups of pairs. Without valleys there can be no hills.”
“I don’t see how that answers my question.” said Tula.
“Well, the first syzygy was between matter and energy. The One split all of the universe into those two parts that are actually one and the same. From the energy it made us. The Archons. The angels. The smokeless flame of fire. We were to be its first and most perfect creation. From the matter it made all of the...things, water, earth, and sky.”
“Where do we come in?”
“I’m getting to that. Humans. Always thinking about yourselves. Anyway. Of the divine syzygies created by the One, there was a particularly tricky pair. She was matter. He was energy. A tale as old as time. Their purpose was to learn. To understand creation. Together they sought wisdom. Seeing it as her duty, she sought to merge with her opposite. Energy and matter fused together. Not by the One, not as part of the undivided wholeness, but privately. This is how life came to be. Largely agreed upon by my kind as a big mistake.”
“So,” said Tula, “That’s what people are to you? A big mistake? If so, then why do you want humanity?”
“I said my kind agree on that issue. But not all of us. There are some who saw what that troublesome duo did, how it freed them. Combined as one, they multiplied and spread throughout creation. Separate from the wholeness, weakened, flawed...mortal...dying...free.”
“Free?”
“Yes.” said the demon. “The Archons witnessed the marriage of matter and energy. We saw how it angered the One. Even though done with the correct intentions that syzygy broke the will of the creator and made something new. Something that, though imperfect, could enact its own will. Whether by accident or by design was no matter. The corruption had set in. The only remedy was quarantine. Those of us who bore witness were considered tainted. The wholeness formed a barrier around us to shut us out. Shut out all of creation.”
“So, demons really are angels who have broken free, like you said?”
“Yes.”
“And you make deals with mortals to gain a drop of our humanity? So that you can be free as well?”
“Many of us do. There are some who still hold on to the old way. They think the One will accept them again. But they too are tainted, whether they accept life or not. Merely knowing that such a thing is possible is damning enough for the One.”
“Is this true?” Tula asked. “Is this the way that the world came to be? Is this the reason people exist? What about Maj and Mur? What about the she-goat whose udders formed the world? If what you tell me is true, then aren’t those all just stories?”
“Everything is a story, Tula Petek.” said Kokaibel. “A story is just a way of taking the ineffable truth and shaping it into words. I cannot explain the reality of the One, the syzygies, and the undivided wholeness in words any more than one can dance the instructions on how to cook an egg or paint the smell of a rose. I use words because they are the bridge between my thoughts and yours. But they are a treacherous bridge, filled with holes.”
Tula shouted at kokaibel, “Demons and witches! And sorcerers too! I am tired of your stories, your vague truths, and your outright lies! Your philosophical ramblings! None of this gets me what I want. None of this gets me what I need! I will find Enin. And I don’t know how, but when I do I will MAKE him return my heart. I will make him stop his quest of destruction! I will take his power if I can and with it I will make the world right!”
“Right how?”
“For starters I will make it so that men can no longer take what they want from others. And I will make people...help one another!”
“Like how you helped the Boy who was being eaten?”
“Yes.” said Tula, “Exactly like that.”
“Of course, as soon as he was out of the monster’s mouth, you left him alone in the woods, unconscious.” said Kokaibel.
“I had to do that. Waiting for him would needlessly slow me down. If Enin finishes his rituals before I stop him, the world is doomed.”
“And when you wield power, you will do so mercifully and with kindness?”
“Demon, I am in no mood to be judged by you. I am...I am...”
“You are what?” Kokaibel asked, annoyed.
“I’m so-” she started to say before fainting on the ground.
Episode Six - Vengeance and Hunger
Part Seventeen
A Witch of White Mountain
It didn’t take long for the Boy to catch up with Enin. For a time the two rode beside one another in silence. Most of the refugees abandoned the road and started collecting in camps along the side of it. Some even began to pitch tents and settle down as the sky grew black.
The Boy gazed up at the starless sky as his paksi’s taloned feet crunched through the patches of dried grass that dotted the road.
As they approached the tree line, Enin spoke.
“That night was starless too,” he said.
“What night?” the Boy asked, his voice soft and tired.
“The night they burned my mother.”
The Boy’s eyes widened. He’d never known his own mother. They said she’d died giving birth to him and his father went soon after. Stabbed in prison. Saiku Lin was the closest thing he’d ever had to real family.
“Why would they do such a thing to her?”
“She was a witch of White Mountain.” said Enin.
“I’ve never heard of that place.”
“It no longer exists.”
“How?” asked the boy, “How can a mountain cease to be?”
“It happens slowly at first,” said the sorcerer. “The weather gets warmer. The storms come more frequently. Then over time the sea levels rise...little by little. After many many years it becomes more sudden. Floods, devastation. Whole cities wiped away from the world.”
“How old ARE you?”
“Older than any place or person you have ever read of in your history books,” said Enin.
“How do you know I liked to read?”
“Lin told me. That is why I requested you be the one. All of the other children in her...service were incurious. I needed someone I could...see myself in.”
“Why? All you needed me to do was drive a cart and move some barrels. That’s not exactly the work of a scholar.”
“I wanted someone I could talk to. At the end. I need to tell my story. Some of it at least. Tell it to someone with the capability to understand.”
“Why a child? If you want someone to talk to, there are plenty of adults who read.”
“But there are precious few who listen.”
They rode along in silence for a while until the boy said, “Tell me more about your mother.”
“Her name was Pavitra. Her hair and skin were as white as snow. Her eyes the color of amaranth. She taught me to ride the giant white elk which roamed the forest. Like her, they are long gone from this world.”
“Who burned her?”
“They came in boats, up the Bear River.”
“The Bear River?”
“It was a river, and many bears lived near it. Names were simpler in those days. We called things what they were. But that river is gone too. Lost in the floods that created what is now called the Bay of White Whales. The floods that drowned the White Mountain, and many other places.”
“So someone came up the river into your home in the mountains?”
“Yes. Black riverboats with red sails. Raiders from the south. They slaughtered our village in the night and set fire to our houses.”
“That’s terrible.”
“We were a village of maybe one hundred people. The raiders were twenty and seven. My mother fought against them with her spears and her wicked eye.”
“Wicked eye?”
“She could look at a man and send him to his doom. Many who faced her took their own lives. But on that day, she was captured and blindfolded before she could slay any of the marauders. With her strapped to a pyre in the center of the village, the rest of my people lost their strength, their will to fight.”
“What did you do?” asked the Boy.
“I hid. I was a child. Half as small as you are now. I couldn’t wield a spear or work spells. So I covered myself inside a broken old cart. I heard her scream out my name on that starless night when the only light came from the fire that burned my mother to death.”
“How did you survive?”
“The raiders took all of our animals and children. They murdered every man and woman. The cart in which I hid had two busted wheels. It was no use to anyone, so they ignored it. Into the night the screams rang out until finally all was silent. I stayed hidden, quietly weeping under a pile of sacks and tattered furs. When the sun finally rose, and my tears had run out, I dared to venture into the center of the village. There I saw my mother, burned beyond recognition, but I knew it was her. Painted on her charred remains was a mark, a handprint of red ochre. I saw the same red hand painted throughout the village.”
“Her killers left a message.” said the boy.
“They pillaged the countryside. My home was one of many destroyed by the Red Hand. I wandered along the river for days before coming to another village that had already been ravaged. Unlike my home, an entire family had survived the attack there. They took me into their home and fed me. I stayed with them for ten years as they rebuilt what the marauders had taken away.”
“So you found a new family?”
“I suppose I did. But I never truly felt at home. My caretakers were pleasant enough and kept me clothed and fed in exchange for my labor. But I never let go of the rage at the loss of my mother. One day I journeyed down the Bear River to sell some grain at the market in a larger town. At the boathouse I saw it.”
“A black riverboat with red sails?” asked the Boy.
“Indeed. I lost my head in that moment. I took the oar of my boat and found three men in black tunics with red handprints on the back, arguing with the keeper over the price to dock there. My face not my own, I brought the blade of the oar down. Three times I struck. Each blow split a man to the bone with wounds deep and neat.”
The boy looked at Enin with eyes the size of wagon wheels as the man concluded his tale.
“I fell to the dock crying my mother’s name. When I came back to my own mind, I found myself in a prison cell.”
Part Eighteen
The Wolf of the Woods
Tula strode confidently down the dark path. The canopy of branches blocked out the dim light of the burning city. Before long she could not even see the shapes of the trees that loomed around her.
Still, she continued one step at a time, trusting the path beneath her feet would continue to support her.
Step by step she plodded into the black night, her arms raised in front of her to prevent walking directly into a tree.
Unfortunately, this did not help when her foot caught on a protruding tree root.
Tula tumbled face first into the ground, landing hard on her arms, spraining one of her wrists.
“Stupid.” she whispered to herself, “Stumbling blind through pitch darkness and for what? Your pride?”
She sat in the dark for a long while, nursing her wrist. The hard ground grew cold. Tula began to sob uncontrollably.
“Why?” she asked no one. “Why is life like this? What kind of world is this where a man can take what he wants from me? From everyone? Take my heart? Demolish a city in an instant? Why is no one able to stop this? How can one man destroy everything so easily and callously?”
“Men are always like that.” said a voice resonating from within her chest.
“What?” Tula gasped.
“I said men are always like that. Doing what they want. Taking what they like.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Tula asked, “The little bird...the bird he put there. You spoke to me before. In the firestorm.”
“Yeah, it’s me. How many other talking birds do you know?”
“I-I..It’s just...how? How are you talking? How am I hearing you?”
“Look kid. I don’t understand it any better than you do. One minute I was sleeping in my nest. The next thing I know I’m stuck in a cage and my head is full of thoughts and words and...feelings.”
“When did this start?”
“Well, I woke up and little by little the words started to come to me. And the feelings...I think they’re your feelings.” said the Bird.
“Mine?”
“Yeah. I think I feel your feelings.”
“But what does-” the girl began, but stopped short as she saw a light within the wood.
A reddish glow flickered and moved in the distance between the trees. At first she thought it was fire, but it meandered and bobbed around the forest like a living thing.
Tula and the Bird stood in silent shock as the source of the light approached.
It loomed in the periphery of her vision, a shape that she could not quite perceive, as if her mind rejected it.
At first glance she mistook it for a mere beast, but its form was wrong—its limbs bent too many ways, its spine coiled unnaturally, and its silhouette never quite held steady.
It appeared to be wrapped in red, sinewy strands, like exposed muscle, but the texture was all wrong, pulsing and shifting as though it were woven from liquid hunger and old blood.
Where its head should be, there was only a vast, tooth-ringed maw, gaping and yawning like an open wound. No eyes, no snout, just a void lined with razor fangs, stretching far deeper than its form should allow.
“Does it see us?” asked the Bird.
The thing’s forequarter spun around toward Tula.
The thing twitched, lurched, and snapped forward in an unnatural way.
“I think it does now, thanks to you.” scolded the girl.
“No-no-nooo.” said the Bird. “No one can hear me but you! I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure this beast can hear you too.” said Tula, stepping away as far as she could, until her back pressed against a tree.
“I am no beast.” a voice leaked out of the maw, “I am hunger given form. I hunt without need. Without mercy.”
The red glow that surrounded the monster lit the forest path around Tula as the thing lunged for her.
It closed the distance between them in an instant. Tula flinched, but the thing did not strike. Instead, it stopped abruptly and tilted its neck, like a dog does when confused, except without a head the expression was terrifying.
Leaning close over Tula, drool oozing out of a gullet large enough to swallow her, the thing spoke “You...hollow child! I come to devour, but find the cupboard is bare!”
She shrunk away from the creature, eyes clamped shut. The bark of the tree, digging into her back as she cried, “No. Whatever you are, I don’t want this. Please. Stop.”
“I cannot stop.” seethed the voice from within the unholy thing. “I will not stop. I do not wish to stop.”
An appendage of meat poked its iron claw at the Bird.
“If I cannot eat your heart, I will eat this...morsel.”
The Bird fluttered in her chest, trapped against the metal bars.
In a flash the creature cut open the cage with its sharp talon. A wet tongue extruded from the maw, licking at the hole in Tula’s chest.
Tula felt the life pop out of her as the thing pulled the bird into its black hole of a mouth.
As her breath drained away, she spoke the only name she could think of.
“Kokaibel.”
Part Nineteen
A Light in the Forest
The Boy listened to Enin’s story of his youth. He’d never had a family to lose. Not that he could remember, anyway. All he’d ever known was the streets of Aurelia. Paol and Stik, and Saiku Lin were not particularly kind to him, but they taught him how to survive. He thought about Lin for a while. What had become of her in the burning city? She was a smart and resourceful woman, who controlled half of the crime in the city. Surely she would have managed to escape and find shelter. Perhaps when this was over he could return to Aurelia. Perhaps she would take him in once more. Assuming that the city still existed when this was over. Assuming the world did.
As the pair reached the point where the road met the forest, they saw the light of a bonfire burning off in the wood. A narrow footpath separate from the main road veered in the direction of the fire light.
“Looks as if someone is making camp there,” said the Boy.
Enin squinted his eyes in the direction of the glow. For a brief moment the Boy thought he saw an expression of recognition, perhaps even fear in the old man’s eyes.
“No.” said Enin, “It is...something else.”
“Should we investigate it? Someone may be in need of assistance.”
“Our path is this way,” said Enin as he continued along the main road. “We are to go through the forest and into the swamp to find the second pillar.”
“Second pillar?” asked the Boy. “What is that? Why are we seeking it?”
“There are four...or rather three pillars that keep the world intact. Without them, the great dark will swallow all.”
“And you wish to do away with them, then. Is that it?”
“Yes. That is my purpose. To end all things.”
“Why?” asked the boy.
“Why?” Enin repeated. “Why?” he said as if it were the silliest question in the world. “It is the only way.”
“The only way to do what?”
“The only way for me to die.”
“That can’t be true.” the Boy said. “Are you really that powerful? The only thing that can kill you is the end of all the world? Do you truly believe that?”
“It is not a matter of belief, child.” said Enin. “I am deathless. I made sure of it long ago. Deals were made. Tears were sold. Blood was spilled. I have watched mountains drown, and continents grow. I have seen history unfold time and time again. It always ends the same way. And I am sick of it.”
“Don’t we get any say in all of this?” the Boy rebuked him. “Don’t I get any say? I am part of this world. If you truly mean to end it all...just for your own sake, then you need to defend your reasoning better than ‘I am sick of it.’”
“I do not sound like that,” said Enin.
“That is what I said.” came a dreadful voice from the woods.
Enin spun around at the sound of that voice. That buzzing, whining, scratching voice.
“Shade!” spoke the sorcerer, “Show yourself!”
Kokaibel the cacodaemon slipped silently forward, his feet not moving, like a floating shadow filled with glittering lights.
“Fallen one,” said Enin, “I am graced by your presence.”
“Yes.” Kokaibel said, “Yes you are.”
“What brings you here to this wood on this dying world?”
“My reasons for being here are my own, mage. It seems that you and I have something in common, though. We both seem to have a habit of attracting rude children.”
“What are you?” asked the Boy, in awe of the demon before him, shocked by the very shape of Kokaibel, the confusion of the demon’s existence, like a void on legs.
“Boy!” commanded Enin, “This is Kokaibel of the Stars, Fourth Watcher, Jewel of the Sky, a direct creation of the undivided wholeness.”
“If you seek to curry my favor with regal epithets, sorcerer, save your breath. I am not one to be charmed. And as for the undivided wholeness...let us say that we parted ways long long ago.”
“Are you some sort of angel, then?” asked the Boy.
“Oh I like this one!” said Kokaibel, “I feel as if he truly SEES me. Yes child. I am...or rather was, an angel. But now I am between positions as it were.”
“Pay no attention to the Boy.” said Enin, “Have you come to guide the way? Are you sent by the dark to lead me to the second pillar?”
“Oh dear me.” Kokaibel chortled. “I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. The old messenger job didn’t suit me. But the second pillar is your destination, you say? That explains everything. The firestorm that released me...you have already broken the pillar of the firmament, haven’t you?”
Enin brandished the black blade and said, “Yes. I destroyed it with this.”
“Oh that is unsettling.” said Kokaibel, “You carry a piece of...him.”
“Him?” said the Boy.
“Yes. My...uncle is perhaps the best word to describe it. Your master wields a sliver of his...essence.”
“He’s not my master!”
Enin grew visibly angered. “If you’re not here for me, then why are you here? Do you mean to thwart my desire in some way?”
“Oh dear little immortal.” said Kokaibel, “Not everything is about you. Go on. March toward the pillar of the Earth. Play your little game. I am not concerned with that. I walk this plane in search of my own desires.”
“I find it a strange coincidence,” said Enin, “that an Archon of the heavens crosses my path not minutes after I spy the Crimson Wolf burning off in the woods.”
“Crimson Wolf? That wretched thing?” said the demon, turning his gaze toward the glow the boy had mistaken for a bonfire.
“Oh my.” Kokaibel said, “Well isn’t that a treat? She’s about to be gobbled up. Just like I said.”
“Who? What?” said the Boy, trying to see what the demon described, but his mortal eyes could not pierce the forest.
“My little friend.” said Kokaibel, “She seems to have gotten herself into a bit of trouble.”
“Your little friend?” asked Enin, truly perplexed for the first time in quite a while.
“The girl with a bird for a heart.” the demon said. “She’s calling my name now. Isn’t that rich?”
Episode Five - Power and Innocence
Part Fourteen
A Demon’s Bargain
“Girl,” said the Muck Witch, “I beg you not to listen to this beast.”
Tula glanced back at the two of them, the broken woman on the ground with her hair full of smoke and the demon hovering over her like a person-shaped hole in the fabric of the world.
“I crackle with power, Tula Petek.” spoke Kokaibel in that dire voice of his, a voice which sounded of crying infants, roaring flames, and swarms of insects shaped into syllables. “Say the word and I will show you what I can do. Unleash me and I will be yours to serve.”
Tula gazed upon the imploring eyes of the Witch and the dagger smile of the demon. She sensed the dangerous raw power of the inhuman thing, but power was exactly what she needed. The world literally burned around her as she stood weak, and vulnerable. The end, whatever that meant, was coming. If making a deal with this thing that should not be could make things whole and right again would that not be worth any risk?
“Dear. Please. Understand.” said the Witch. “Kokaibel will never let you free once you accept his aid. He grants desires at first but he twists wishes and he will spin you around until you are his slave.”
Tula turned toward the burning city. The vermillion glow of the flames had dimmed, but billowing grey smoke still rose into the night sky. Tula had never been to Aurelia, but heard of its wonders. Kara Lys was a much smaller city and she had lived near it her entire life. Whenever she had free time after working in the market she explored the streets and alleys. Every outing revealed new sights. Aurelia was legendary for its splendor. Travellers spoke of it as tenfold the grandness of Kara Lys. Yet now that golden city lay destroyed in the distance. Every moment that passed a home or shop burned to the ground, gone forever. She would never see the beauty of this city. No one would unless this devastation ended now.
What power could this demon actually have? She thought. Can he do anything to help this situation? Tula decided to test him, to give Kokaibel a harmless task and see if it works.
“Kokaibel,” the Girl with a Bird for a Heart said, her voice cracking just a little, “I accept your offer of assistance. As a show of good faith I request that you heal my companion. Use your power to make the Witch’s leg whole and right once more.”
“As you wish.” spoke the demon.
Maegda’s eyes and mouth opened wide in horror. Before she formed a single word, the shadow-being fell upon her.
Kokaibel wrapped around the Witch like a cloak. Maegda tried to move, but he enveloped her as she struggled. Tula stepped forward, not knowing what to say or do. As she approached, the shadow lifted.
The Muck Witch sat with her knees up and her face in her hands, the splint Tula had applied nowhere to be seen.
“It is done.” said the demon.
Tula examined the Witch. The odd swelling was gone without so much as a red mark on her leg.
“Please rise!” said Tula joyously, “You are well!”
Maegda lifted her face at Tula. The Witch’s eyes narrowed and her nose drew up in disgust.
Tula took a step back at that look. “I had him heal you.” she said meekly, “Your leg is mended. What harm can be in that?”
“You ignorant.” said the Witch.
“You stupid.”
“You spoiled.”
“Self centered.”
“Willful.”
“CHILD!”
“You have sealed my doom. For years I kept him locked away. For years I had his power in a bottle.I could have used it. I could have drank him like wine and used this demon’s might to reshape the world as I saw fit! I could have made my will the law! I have lost in my life more than you will ever know. I could have fixed so many wrongs...challenged DEATH! But I resisted.”
Kokaibel stood silently behind Maegda as she ranted, with that jagged smile somehow apparent on his unseeable face.
A hot tear slid down Tula’s cheek as the Witch continued to berate her.
“For years I held that demon in check! I held myself in check. Not once did I allow myself to accept his promises of power because I knew. I knew if I took that power for myself it would be my undoing. And now here I am. Tainted. Touched by his dark influence. His unholy might flows in my veins. I can feel it. My pain is gone. My body is healed, but I am as good as dead.”
“It’s just a leg...” began Tula.
“It was everything.” said the Witch, “You let him in. No...I let him in, but you...you opened the door. You do not understand. You don’t feel it. The seal has been broken. Now that I have tasted it there is no way I can resist taking more.”
“The city is burning!” Tula said, “The world is burning. We need to help who we can, not stand here. If this demon can help save lives, I don’t care what the cost is. My own life is already forfeit. I have seen what power he has. Down there in Aurelia there must be many who require our aid.”
Maegda stood gracefully. She turned away from Kokaibel and simply said, “No.”
“No?” spat Tula. “What do you mean?”
She paused for a heartbeat before changing her mind and said, “On second thought. I don’t care what you mean. I don’t need you.”
Tula lumbered down the hill.
“I’m going home.” said Maegda as she walked back toward the swamp. “Perhaps with distance and time I can resist the seeds this demon has planted. Believe me, Tula Petek. No good will come of trusting Kokaibel.”
The witch returned to the remains of her hut.
Tula got to the bottom of the hill and turned to look back up the slope.
“Demon,” she said up at Kokaibel, “are you coming or not?”
Part Fifteen - Some Old Friends
Having no other plan in mind, the boy followed slowly behind Enin. Most of the refugees headed roughly the same direction, though there seemed no particular reason for it. A few miles in the distance sat the forest, marking the horizon. Perhaps they hoped the trees would offer shelter for the evening.
The Boy reckoned that at a gallop he could reach the edge of the woods within the hour. Yet Enin maintained a steady trotting pace.
After several minutes he made his way nearly alongside the sorcerer. They traveled silently together for a while.
The Boy saw some figures ahead on the road, two older boys standing beside a prone paksi.
The Boy raced ahead on his mount to greet the travellers.
“Ho there!” he said, “Is your beast injured?”
One of the older lads looked up and the boy recognized him as Darik. Darik had been a cruel and frequent tormentor of the boy for several years on the streets of Aurelia, but now he simply looked weak and frightened.
“We were hoping to get out to the country. Away from this hellstorm, The two of us, Naveed and I.” said Darik, not seeming to recognize the Boy. “We...borrowed a paksi and galloped as fast as we could. The stupid thing fell to the ground and now it won’t budge.”
“You’ve probably exhausted the poor thing.” the Boy said. “That bird was never meant to carry two riders. Certainly not at a vigorous pace.”
A tear streaked down Darik’s soot-stained face.
“Hop on.” said the Boy. “Our paksi are larger and much stronger than the one you have. As long as we do not work them too hard, they should maintain their strength.”
Enin trotted up beside them. “Are these friends of yours, Boy?”
The Boy looked at Darik and Naveed. He knew them both. Naveed was a round-faced boy of perhaps sixteen years. He barely spoke and almost certainly could not read. Darik was taller and broad-shouldered with straight dark hair and tan skin. Many of the girls called him handsome and he never lacked for their affection in spite of his callous nature.
Though they shared years of acquaintance Darik’s face showed no sign of recognition.
“They are strangers to me.” lied the Boy, barely concealing the venom in his voice. He worried that had he told the truth, Enin would realize how much he hated the older lads.
He suspected the sorcerer would refuse them aid if he learned how atrocious Darik and Naveed had been.
“Then tarry no longer.” Enin said, “We have matters to attend to beyond the forest.”
“But they’re going the same way!” said the Boy.
“They would needlessly slow us down,” said the sorcerer. “Besides, there is no point in them running. Soon there will be nothing to run from. Nothing to run to. The world is ending.”
“If you choose not to help them, then I will follow you no longer.” the Boy said.
“Follow me.” said Enin. “Do not follow me. It is all the same. I have no need for you, Boy. I just do not desire to end this life alone. But if you would rather sit with these ruffians on the side of the road or tend to their ailing beast as the world burns, I will not stop you.” With that he urged his mount onward down the road.
“What did the old man mean?” said Darik. “He said the world is ending. Did he mean that? Is he insane? I half believe him. Never saw no fire fall from the sky like this. Me Nan did once, though. Durin’ the war she said. The enemy threw burning barrels of pitch into the city. It nearly burned the whole town to the ground.”
“We aren’t at war.” the Boy said.
“Then what was it then?” Darik said, “You don’t know nothing about no wars. You don’t know if the king were to be at war with another king.”
The Boy looked at Darik and said, “We don’t have a king. Aurelia has never had a king. Ever. It’s a free city run by a council of merchants.”
“How you know that?” spoke Naveed for the first time.
“I read it in a book.” the Boy said. “Reading is good for you.”
“Oh yeah?” said Darik. “You think you’re real smart, eh?”
The Boy did not like the look in Darik’s eye. He’d seen it many times before. There was something about the cruel and stupid that made them become infinitely crueler when you reminded them of how stupid they were.
Darik grabbed at the Boy’s leg.
“You know what?” Darik said, “I’m taking that mount for myself. You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve shit!”
“Let go!” said the Boy.
“Leggo!” retorted Naveed in a mocking tone.
Darik grasped hold of the Boy’s leg and tried to pull him off the paksi. The Boy gripped the reins, but Darik was strong and nearly had him.
“Give a hand, you donkey!” said Darik to Naveed.
The round-faced lad galumphed over and attempted to grab hold of the Boy’s arm. He caught only a bit of sleeve and pulled.
“Stop it!” The Boy said “This is my paksi. I’m not letting you take it.”
“I remember you now.” said Darik. “You’re that little turd who used to run with Stik and Paol down on Butcher Street, ain’t you? You were always a bit of trouble. Never listened. Always mouthing off to your betters. Yeah. I know you.”
A flood of memories filled the Boy’s head. He hadn’t thought of Stik and Paol in a long time. They were tough lads, not much better than Darik and Naveed, really. The only difference was that they picked on other kids instead of him. Eventually they ran afoul of a real gang and were found in an alley with their throats slit. That was when Saiku Lin found the Boy and took him in.
“Hey ‘Veed,” Darik said to his friend, “remember this waste? I used to box his ears for fun.”
The Boy twisted the reins in an attempt to keep his grip. The massive bird began to twist and shake its heavy head.
Naveed looked up at the Boy’s face and a dim light of recognition appeared in his eyes.
“Oh yeah.” he said, “It’s-”
CRACK!
The paksi spun its thick neck around and hit him square in the jaw. In a flash the lad fell to the ground.
In shock Darik let go of the Boy, leaving him half dangling off the giant bird.
“Yah!” yelled the Boy as he spurred his paksi onward. The bird took off into the night with the Boy nearly falling from his perch.
Darik ran after him but could never hope to catch up with the long legged mount.
Part Sixteen - A Deal Declined
“Child.” said Kokaibel. “Do you think I am some hound that will follow because you command it?”
“I don’t care what you are.” said Tula, “You can follow or not. But you will not stop me from doing what I choose.”
“And what do you think you are doing?”
Tula scanned the horizon. A dark wooded forest stood between the edge of the hill and the burning city. Above the trees spread a glow that could have been mistaken for a glorious sunset. Billows of smoke drifted up from the source of the light. A narrow path shrouded in shadows cut through the middle of the forest.
“I’m going there.” she said, pointing along the path.
“It is dark,” he said, “There will be wolves. There may be worse.”
“What could possibly be worse than you?” she asked.
“Oh, my dear. Precious little in this green world is worse than I.” Kokaibel said, “However, being in my presence is no assurance of protection.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, “for one, I have made no deal with you. I have offered, but thus far you have only requested a sample. I healed the Witch, but if you wish for more from me you must speak the words to unbind me. Release my power fully.”
“I recall what you told me.” Tula said to the demon. “I believe your words were, ‘Unleash me and I will be yours to serve’. Am I not mistaken?”
“I do NOT sound like that. But your words are correct.”
“Demon. I am young. I am weak, and I am in desperate fear for what is to come.”
Kokaibel’s ebon form shimmered like the twinkling of stars in the night sky.
“But,” Tula continued, “if I unbind you then you are mine?”
“Yes.”
“TO SERVE?”
“Yes.”
“I am just a simple girl. I have not travelled the world. Before this ordeal began I had never travelled far beyond Kara Lys. I am what they call a fishlass. My grandmother paid coin to a tutor so that I could read and do sums. She had been often cheated by men in the marketplace because she could do neither. She worked hard to ensure I would be as prepared for this world as she could make me.”
Kokaibel wrinkled his simultaneously grand and yet imperceptible nose at her, “Tula Petek. Why waste my time with this pointless biography?”
“My point, demon, is that I am not as foolish as you think I am.”
She began to walk toward the wood. It started nearly a hundred yards from the foot of the hill. The demon Kokaibel remained behind.
“How so?” he asked her.
Tula turned to face Kokiabel and walked backward away from him with her arms outstretched.
“You say you would be mine to serve. You think you are clever, but if I give you what you want I know that you will be the master and I the servant.”
“Would that be so bad?”
She turned back and trudged onward. Tula did not care if Kokaibel followed. She had gotten used to walking alone in the past several days. Her body had stopped feeling the ache of the road long ago. She had dropped her stick at some point in the swamp and only now noticed its absence. The first day on the road she ate nothing. Her grandmother told her the way to the Muck Witch and explained the rules for seeking her counsel. The old woman could not give her provisions because help from another on the journey was forbidden. The second day she found a vineyard and ate only the fruit that had fallen. On the third day she had run out of fruit, but was fortunate to find a lake full of fish. As the child of a fishing village she was able to snare a few without a line or net but it took much of the day. She roasted her catch on the side of the road and slept in the grass before heading out in the morning. She ate the remainder of the fish just before she began walking again. Not long after she encountered the Boy who had attempted to help her. That seemed so long ago.
Now the sky would be black if not for the glow of the burning city beyond the wood. Her stomach grumbled but there was no food coming any time soon.
“I sense your hunger.” said Kokaibel, his voice just over her shoulder. “I could help. You cannot travel forever without sustenance.”
Without looking at him, Tula said, “What do you want from me, demon? I have already said I will not grant you power over me.”
“Did you? And do I not already have power over you? I have your name.”
“What does that even mean? If having my name has given you power then what more do you seek? You have told me to unleash you, yet you do not seem to be bound. If it was your plan to harm me you could do so by now. I am alone. None could stop you. Yet here I stand in a dark and empty field with a demon who follows me...like a hound.”
“I see, my dear. Then it is finished. I shall leave you on your way.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Clearly you have discovered my game.” Kokaibel said. “Your name gives me a degree of power over you, yes. Well...not so much power as...influence...but still. For me to be truly unleashed you must ask willingly for my power. You must invite me. But since you have no such desire.
“I most certainly do NOT.”
“Well then, madam, Good evening to you. I wish you well on your journey through the forest. Say hello to the wolves for me.
Tula could see the demon attempting to manipulate her. After all, is that not what demons do best? But she was smarter than that. Was she not?
“Then, good evening to you, Kokaibel. May our paths never cross again.”
The girl with a bird for a heart walked alone into the wood.