SO I TURNED and left that place. I followed down the stream, leaping graceless from rock to rock. Splashing through pools of evanescent purity with their shiny inversions of the gathering clouds. I pulled jagged bronze thorns from my flesh, absent as I went and flung edged pain far from me. Redness ran behind; an easy trail on grey rock and green tussock. I plunged under falling water. Swiftly incarnadine it bore me onwards, down. Struggling through muddy, marshy portal to wider waters. Silt stung my wounds and the swirling eddies were gilded ochre with old mud and fresh blood to obscure my vision.

When one can no longer touch nor see the bottom, it matters not whether one fathom or a hundred. I floated, drifted onwards, lazy strokes towards the far shoreline: dark screes from water's edge, rising up to a lowering cloudbase. I was in no hurry. No sounds of pursuit: move quietly, conserve strength. The rain began, hissing and crackling into the lake, threshing and churning the surface until the boundary between air and water became unclear. Drawing air without water became harder; I feared the density of rain might drown me, but found the thought amusing. Laughing and spluttering quietly, I struck out strongly to keep my head above the rising spatter.

I grounded gently, and lay a moment half in water, half on land. I crawled on all fours, then stood —though a little weakly now. A gap of light appeared above, and the lake was clothed momentarily in soft radiance of sunset. The rain slowed, stopped. The surface shimmered, settled. I perceived that I had polluted it with salt of tears and blood, but that I was to be shriven.

Facing the scree-slope, pondering route. A single windbent tree clung tenaciously to what must be dependable; a projecting shelf of rock, perhaps a hundred paces upslope. A good first objective then. I began. The loose stone skittered and slid from under my feet, rolling and plopping down into the capacious, eternal waters. I noticed how little blood was flowing now, and how pale were my hands as I scrabbled on my uncertain path. No matter; I had already made good my escape, of sorts. My foes could not claim victory without my head to show, nor pyre to shroud deception. Let traitors sleep uneasy with the thought of my return and a vengeful host.

Movement in the tree; an unfurling of great black wings, water droplets scattering from glistening feathers. Like a sentinel, stood poised for an aeon, wings half out but warily relaxed, regarding me with composure; a sharp gaze of souldeep, ancient amber. I gazed back in silent wonder and for just as long. A darkglossed crown seemed to nod in recognition before floating into air. Silent, languid with fluid graceful strokes, and unhurried by my presence: uncaring of royal prerogatives. Gliding on ragged wings spanning greater than my levelled pace; a silhouette held taut outstretched above a moment close. Two heads craning —up —down, thoughtfully regarding opportunity with darkness. Banking slowly around, then powerful strokes lifting high with a whooshing of air decisively displaced. A great dark bill opened, called unmelodious. Three times, imperious, slowly, not looking back – before sailing, breasting serenely into cloud toward some hidden ridge above. Thrice the commanding sound rang out, piercing-harsh, drawn long, yet with a soft resonance that rolled around the bowl of dusk-stilled hills. The echo remained with me unfaded long after all conscious sound had passed. I glanced briefly, uncaring, at a pain-filled path behind. The lake was quiet and shadowed in the moonlight now, not a ripple stirred. I turned to follow. Onward, up.

I never saw that bird again. Though sometimes our shadow drifts within a world that was.

Pwl ~ April 1998 ©
[650 words]