Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr

by John Crowley

  But she said to him as he tended her: What if you could? What if there was a way that a Crow could have more, could grow backward, start again? Because there wasn’t just one of the stones; there had to be more, she knew it, she didn’t know how many, maybe one for each of the Small People, because they seemed to live so long; she’d seen and been cursed at by the same ones, the same horrid little ones, for time out of mind, in every place she’d run to. One stone had certainly been given away: the one she stole. So if he went to them, he might be able to get another. And with another, a Crow might begin again.

  “How do you know that?” Dar Oakley asked. “How do you know there’s another?”

  “Because you touched one yourself.”

  “Did I?”

  “Just say you’ll do it. When spring comes, you’ll go and find them, and do this. I’ll tell you how. I’ll tell you all I know.”

  It had begun to snow: they hadn’t noticed. Winter, come early so far North.

  “Remember when we courted?” he said. “You used to demand that I do impossible things. Knock a Dog on the forehead and get away. Take food from an Eagle’s nest. Then you’d make fun of me when I refused, or failed.”

  Of course she remembered; he saw it in her stance. “This isn’t impossible,” she said. “It’s not. It’s what I want.”

  He knew how it would be: he would go into Ymr, and the farther in he went, the farther there would be to go. It was never the same place twice, and the Thing wouldn’t be the same thing, nor how to get it. It was a stone once, but now it’s a coat like People wear or it’s a bone belonging to no known being or it’s nothing at all though it talks to you and tells you lies. Once there you have to get it, can’t refuse it or spurn it or you’ll never get out or be free of it, which is all you want. And however it all comes out, it isn’t what you thought, or what you asked for.

  He had thought the story was theirs, People’s, that he was in it by chance, somehow impelled into it by reasons not his, that it was a thing torn out of Ymr that shouldn’t be in Ka at all. But Kits was right, it was he who’d been in it, not People, however much they’d wanted to be and he had not. It was his story, and the stories about the story were his too. He was girdled in story, trapped in story, and the only way out was to go through. Perhaps if he did so, if he went on through to the other side, she would be healed and he done with Ymr and death for good. And he could simply be alive for some number of seasons with her in the plain world.

  He lifted his eyes. A great Snowy Owl far off cruised the air, white against the white sky. The plain dangers, they stayed the same and could be learned; any smart Crow could make his way through them. Take care of a mate, raise young, live long. Pretty long. It would have been enough. It would be enough.

  “All right. I’ll go,” he said.

  “You will?”

  “For life, Kits,” he said. “You and me. Life, long or short.”

  The first thing he’d have to do, he thought, was to learn their language, so he could begin to bargain somehow with them. Before that first thing, though, he’d have to come close enough to hear them speak, without being driven off or killed. And before that he’d have to find them.

  Kits believed that the Small People had pursued her in hatred wherever she went, she and whatever group of People nomads she and her flock followed. But Dar Oakley was pretty sure her thievery had drawn her into a demesne or neighborhood of Ymr, where Small People had always been, and—hardheaded Crow that she was—she’d wandered there not knowing what or where it was: Ymr, which wasn’t far from anywhere in Ka, as near to her as she was to herself. Now she was always partly in Ymr, as People were: as he was too.

  When he did reach their land (and for all the things he can remember, in greater detail than it seems possible so small a head could hold, he can’t remember how he did), it seemed not different from the country round about it. The sun came up when and where it should, and went down again the same; beings that don’t speak in Ka—Snails and Moles and Snakes—were speechless there, too. But as he caught and lost sight of Small People on the mountain paths and along rushing streams, hairy-faced males and unsmiling females, he was less certain that he knew where he was.

  They wore clothes: that was one thing. They wore broad-brimmed hats on their heads and coats on their backs. Dar Oakley knew what clothes were; he recalled them from his times among People who wore such items, unlike the People hereabouts, who didn’t.

  And he could understand—almost—their speech. They’d stay far from him without seeming to flee or hide, catch him looking and turn their faces away to mutter with others, or make themselves scarce somehow, like a spotted Toad vanishing on a pile of dead leaves. But soon he could hear them as clearly as though he were near them, and in the language they spoke to one another he felt the language of People he’d first known returning to his throat from far away.

  Mostly they talked about the weather.

  Winter had come now, and as far as Dar Oakley could perceive—staying at a careful distance—they had no fire, and unlike Crows, People can’t live through winter without it. What he’d later learn would make him doubt that the Small Ugly People were People at all: when the cold deepened, they went down under the ground into caves and holes, and there, in piles and heaps, covered in the mats and rugs they wove, they slept.

  Dar Oakley spent that first winter alone, for whether this was Ka or Ymr or someplace neither of these, there were no Crows here that he ever heard. He heard Ravens, and Wolves, but saw none. Just the white mountains black with great firs, the waterfalls frozen in mid-fall. He feared starving; he thought often of quitting. He’d just found his first good meal in days when he saw that the Small People were coming forth, like Bears or Woodchucks, slow and weak and blinking in the sun, their hair and beards grown long enough almost to clothe them.

  So there they were, and here he was, and now he must ask them to give him a thing for which they’d ceaselessly pursued the Crow who’d stolen it. It was impossible—he’d told her so.

  It turned out to be simple. The Small People offered to give it to him. Actually, they offered to give it to her, because that’s who they thought Dar Oakley was: Kits. No more than any People could they tell one Crow from another.

  What did they want in return?

  In the summer forest Dar Oakley on a low limb above a brook discoursed with an old, old, bearded being, his face shaded by his ragged hat, white beard spreading over his breast and shoulders like a Snowy Owl’s neck plumage. Of all the Small People, he was one who didn’t vanish when Dar Oakley came close and called, and Dar Oakley somehow knew his speech. It was like the soft gurgle and clatter of the brook he paddled his big pale feet in, but it was speech, and clear to Dar Oakley.

  We hate it here, he said.

  Dar Oakley becked; the Small One understood little or nothing of the Crow’s speech, and supplied Dar Oakley’s replies himself.

  We’re sorry we came here, he went on. Three things we lack: Barley, to make beer. Bees, who make honey. And gold in the earth and the streams.

  Dar Oakley becked again. He now remembered or believed that the Small One had said this many times in his hearing. If he said it when other Small People were near, they shook their heads sadly, or wept a little. It had taken a great work of memory for Dar Oakley to be sure that yes, nowhere he had traveled this side of the sea, in any of its reaches, was there the grass they called Barley, which People he’d once known had grown and tended. Nowhere were there Bees: never in this country had he seen a hive in a hollow tree full of wax and grubs. And since everywhere he’d been the People loved gold, Dar Oakley could be sure there was none here, or People would wear it and display it. He’d known that but hadn’t known he knew it.

  Bring us those things, the bearded being said, and we will give you what you want. Barley. Bees. Gold.

  I will, Dar Oakley said, not knowing what else he could say.

  Also, the being said, we will give you what you want even if you fa
il to bring us those things.

  Oh, Dar Oakley said. Well. All right.

  That thing you want will take one year to grow. When that year is gone, bring us the three things we lack. The Barley for beer. The honey of Bees. The gold. If you do, we’ll rejoice. And you will have the thing.

  Dar Oakley becked with all the certainty he could, lifted his wings, and called a call of fierce resolve. The Small One slid beneath the waters of the brook like an Otter and was gone.

  Oh stories! Oh People! In all his centuries, how many stories had People told Dar Oakley, and how many about a poor fool charged with getting some ungettable thing—no, three ungettable things—who does get them, or seems to, or doesn’t? Very well: he’d think. He told himself to think, think, for stories always contain the answers to the puzzles they set. Barley for beer. Honey. Gold. How could he get them, or seem to get them, or get them by not getting them? For a year he studied the Small People as they came and went, though it was clear they didn’t want him looking at them, and now and then one would shake a fist at him, or—he guessed—at Kits. He thought and thought, tried to think even when high winter made his brain so cold no thought would come except about hunger. And when summer came again he had no more idea of how to get the Barley, the honey, the gold than he had before.

  He came upon the white-bearded one sitting on the same rock by the brook and paddling his feet in the water, and told him this. The old one fetched a sigh, though he seemed neither surprised nor very saddened. Never mind, he said. In a month, when the moon is again full and sets at dawn, come to the mountain cave and the thing will be yours.

  He came. In the dim light between night and dawn he couldn’t see well, but it seemed that the Small People were bringing out from the fissure in the rock one of their number who was hurt, or ill, and in great pain. He was supported by a male and a female on either side, who helped him stand, which he seemed hardly able to do. As the mist lifted Dar Oakley could see his gritted teeth. Water trickled, nearly squirted, from his tight-shut eyes. The People saw Dar Oakley there, but none of them paid him more than a glance. They brought the suffering one to a stone seat and let him down—sitting caused him to fling up his head in agony. Then one brought a pot that she placed between his big feet and spread knees, while others pulled away the trousers he wore.

  The day brightened. Dar Oakley saw the old one who had made the bargain with him come forward and squat before the sufferer. Dar Oakley could see the slug-like organ that depended from his cleft, through which male People passed water; it was what everyone was looking at. For a long time—till the sun was high—they watched and waited, the one on the stone seat also looking down anxiously at his own part as though it might rise up or turn on him. Finally a small amount of dark water came out of it; the old one made a groan Dar Oakley couldn’t interpret; more water, mixed with blood, as the seated one’s thighs shook and he gripped his friends’ hands and cried aloud in pain.

  Then—Dar Oakley could hear it—something solid came from him, and struck the pot with a tiny clink.

  That was the stone.

  The old one picked up the pot, swirled the contents, and reached in to pull out the stone; shook the blood and fluid from it, and brought it to hold up to Dar Oakley on his branch. All those not attending to the sufferer watched.

  No, Dar Oakley said. I won’t touch it.

  No, said the old one. He put a hand in his clothes and brought out a little sac, a skin thing that looked like a scrotum, empty and limp. He put the stone (plain and yellowish) in it, and drew the strings tight. Then he held it up again.

  Go, he said. Take it. Have it. Never come back.

  So it was that Dar Oakley went and returned, though not by the same way, and bearing the thing in its pouch, to the Beech now in blue-green leaf by the darkwise shore of the blue Beautiful Lake. It was good to see Crows again. The Servitors seemed to know he’d been successful and escorted him in, calling out announcements of his coming.

  On a depression in a broad limb of the Beech he placed what he had brought before her, Kits. She sidled along the limb, eye cocked at the little skin bag, silent: as though (only later did he think it) wondering if she was glad, after all, to have it. Dar Oakley told his tale: the Barley for beer, the golden honey, the gold.

  “They always stole the Barley for their beer from People,” Kits said, her eye not leaving the bag. “Not the gold. The People stole that from them.”

  “The honey?”

  “Yes, I’ve missed that, too,” she said. “I’ll miss that.” She nudged the bag with her bill and then gestured toward Dar Oakley to say You open it, and after a moment’s hesitation he did, holding down the bag with a foot and tugging at the string till it fell open and disclosed the thing inside: not aglow, not fearsome, as close to nothing at all as anything at all could be.

  “This,” she said. Her head bent to it, close and closer. Her bill opened, her cheeks drew back: the face of any Crow, any Raven, approaching a cadaver in caution and desire. Dar Oakley’s head was near hers, looking in too.

  Don’t, said a voice. A tiny, an infinitesimal voice.

  They knew that voice, both of them, and backed away.

  You’re making a big mistake, said the Stone.

  “Oh, no mistake,” said Kits. “Not this time.”

  I’m not what you think I am, the Stone said. Tell her, you!

  “You are just what I think you are,” Kits said, bending nearer.

  Don’t let her! the Stone said. She’ll be sorry. You’ll be sorry.

  The Stone had begun to roll side to side within the bag, as though to get away or hide. There’s a rule, it said. Trust me on this. The rule applies.

  “What rule?” Dar Oakley said. “What is the rule?”

  Oh, she knows! said the Stone in a little whine of despair. She knows. Touch me once, live forever . . .

  “Touch me twice, die forever,” Kits said. With a Crow’s quick stab she had the thing, and with a little lift of her head she’d shaken it into her throat. A tiny screech as it went down.

  “Kits,” Dar Oakley said.

  For a time nothing happened. The two Crows regarded one another.

  “Dar Oakley,” she said. “I want to tell you. I’m sorry I went away that time you were gone into Ymr, looking to find a thing good for Crows.”

  “No,” he said. She had begun to alter; her primaries loosened as if in molt. The edges of her bill cracked. “Kits!”

  “I’ll tell you the reason,” she said. “I was afraid that you’d come back changed; that you’d be like me, and learn to hate your condition. I didn’t want to see it.”

  “Hate my condition?”

  “There is such a thing as too much life,” she said. Her legs sank; her eyes were becoming dull and glaucous. “Thank you, Dar Oakley.”

  “No!” Dar Oakley cried. “Kits, you lied!”

  “I never did,” she said. “I said I wanted help. That I needed this thing; that the first hadn’t been enough. I have it now. It’s enough.” She altered further, more terribly; he could hardly hear her. “I hope you have all the life you want or need, Dar Oakley. And when you want no more—when at last you don’t want anything more at all—I hope there’s one nearby who loves you enough to bring this for you, as you brought it for me.”

  She lost her hold on the branch; Dar Oakley put out a foot to catch her, but she fell away—all but the foot that his foot held—and in a disordered mass fell to the base of the Beech. She was no longer she. She was a skull and a gray mass of under-plumage and a breast fallen in. She might have been lying there for years.

  He couldn’t bring himself to fly down to it. Around him as he stood he heard cries and wings—the Servitors, shocked, crowding the branch he sat on, keening loudly. Dar Oakley couldn’t keep his voice from joining with theirs. The louder the clamor grew, the more Crows of the flock were drawn in.

  Only when the ululation began to die away—and it went on long—did the Servitors fall silent and turn to Dar Oak
ley. He let out the last, smallest of grieving cries, one eye on them. That was their Queen down there, and he was the last to have been near her. They began to call a different call to one another—Who is this among us? What has he done, what should be done to him? This has been seen among Crows, a kind of drumhead court-martial with much yelling and dispute and then suddenly a sentence passed, and carried out: a dead Crow on the ground.

  Dar Oakley let himself tumble from the branch as though shot and fall limply toward the ground. At the last moment he unfolded, landed feetfirst, and leapt aloft. He was gone amid the dense firs before the puzzled Servitors caught on; but through that day till the sun went down they sought him, calling from tree to tree, trying to catch him in a net of sightings.

  He thought they had good reason to hate him. He hated himself. He thought, even as he evaded them every which way, that he should dive into the dreadful Beautiful Lake and drown if he could. Or he’d starve: just never eat again, until he lay desiccated and bony like her.

  But he couldn’t. He was already hungry! So hungry. And that was the Thing inside him too, wanting and wanting forever and ever.

  He flew. He could see in his mind’s eye—for though he couldn’t dream, he could foresee—the Small Ugly People, trooping all together, coming to the place where the remnants of Kits lay. Enjoying their revenge; picking through her bones and feathers to find the new Precious Thing and the old Precious Thing within her, and carrying them both away for good.

  Rivers and streams run down from the lands of the Crow and Turtle and Wolf and Bear clans of the Longhouse People, rising in the great lakes and going down to the Dawn Land. It was the Good Son who made the rivers run so conveniently for traveling, and in the beginning they used to run both ways, toward home as well as away; the Bad Son changed that, and now canoes must toil upstream against the current to reach home. But at least the downstream journey was when the canoes were heaviest with furs and other things to trade for the pierced shells of the Dawn Land, beautiful and rare and valuable but above all sacred, the currency of peace.