Seven for a Secret

by Clive Woodall

  Traska relished this moment as an expression of his absolute contempt for the law-givers of Birddom. He looked around the circle of mighty oak trees that formed the sacred ring, and smiled malevolently, seeing that atop of each was a black and white body. His magpies now formed the Council that ruled the land. At last he had ultimate power in Birddom! He had swept aside all opposition, and was now king of the world! His Council was a perversion of all that the original Council of the Owls had stood for, a deliberate mockery of all their efforts over the generations. Birddom could look forward to a very different future. A much darker future.

  ‘Brethren,’ he called out to the assembled membership, ‘today we begin to rebuild Birddom in our own image. For too long, the corvidae have been reviled by the rest of Birddom. Well, it is our turn now. We are the new lords of this land. Each coven will now have the freedom to strengthen its resources, and to rule over the lesser birds within its dominion. Rook and crow will hold the power of life and death over them, and it may well be that they will choose the latter. So be it. We have waited a long time for this moment, and we deserve to reap the rewards of our success. The corvidae will reign supreme in Birddom, and we, the magpies, will be the rulers over the corvids.

  ‘For we are the finest of the fine. Our minds are superior, and we are stronger and more cunning. We are braver in battle. We have always been able to dominate and manipulate even those far larger than ourselves. Ravens may have the bulk, but we have the brains. Hooded crows might have enormous individual strength, but their pea-size intellect limits its effective use. Yes, only magpies are fit to rule in this new Birddom of ours.

  ‘I would like formally to welcome our new Council members, who join Smew, Chak, Drag and I as the highest leaders in the land. Sad to say that Retch, fine jay though he was, won’t be joining us. He met with an unfortunate, but timely and terminal accident. Perhaps it is as well. We do not wish to dilute the purity of the Council. We are the true race; the ultimate expression of everything that a bird should be. Look around you and marvel, my friends. Where in all of Birddom, past and present, has there ever been a gathering as fine as this? Be proud of who you are, and what you are. Your ancestors are watching you this day. The dead look upon us, and their chests heave once more with life, hearts beating with pride, that magpies have at last found their rightful place as leaders of Birddom!’

  To the small bird population, it was as if they were reliving their worst nightmare. At first it had seemed so promising. The removal of the netting across Birddom was greeted with elation. More food was instantly available and every bird took his fill. It was timely too, for the disappearance of the insects shortly afterwards had withdrawn a vital food-source from their beaks. But this scarcely mattered when they could feed on an abundant supply of grain and fruit. The spraying had stopped, too. It was a time for celebration. But then rumours began to spread about an atrocity in the north.

  Disbelief was the common reaction. Surely the magpies wouldn’t dare to take such murderous action? But then their own corvidae began to flex their muscles, and every bird feared for his life. It was like living under the tyranny of Slyekin, all over again. And this time, there were no owls to stop them. Only now did the small birds bother to ask the question: where was Tomar? What had happened to their old Great Owl? Inside they knew the answers only too well. They had rejected, humiliated and ousted him, for the sake of a full belly. Besides, could they look to him again to save them? He was too old and too feeble to stand alone against the magpies. No, there was no hope. It was every bird for himself, and survival was once again the only game in town.

  ‘Fellow magpies,’ Traska began, imperiously, at the next Council meeting. ‘What a success we have made in our first few days in power. We have transformed Birddom. It has become a place where the proper order now prevails. The corvidae are dominant and all other bird-life subservient. They exist only at our pleasure. But now we have a different and infinitely more exciting task ahead of us. For if we want utter supremacy over our land, we need to defeat our mortal enemy, Man. And he has never been more vulnerable, or more ripe for the plucking. He has removed his only means of protection against us.

  ‘We all know that the nets were his shield, erected in the sure knowledge of our supremacy, and his weakness. Now his neck is bare to our sharp beaks, and we will strike. How can we not succeed? We have defeated the high-and-mighty owls. None stands against us in Birddom. Even the insects fear us, and have run away to hide. We are invincible and we will prove it. Birddom will love and respect us when we destroy her greatest enemy.

  ‘We must prepare for battle, and the timing will be of the greatest significance. Some of you might have thought that I denied the importance of our heritage when I chose not to honour our dead, by slaughtering those fool owls from the old Council well in advance of the anniversaries that so dominate our minds and hearts. But I had planned all along for a more impressive way of celebrating the time of the Great Feast and the Great Battle. When the moon is full, we will wage war on Man. He will not be ready, and our triumph is inevitable. Man will be vanquished, or will flee like the coward he undoubtedly is!’

  ‘Let us not give up hope!’ Merion exhorted his companions. ‘We have worked so hard, and come so far.’

  ‘I am afraid that it is hopeless,’ Tomar replied, a note of despair in his voice. ‘We have laboured over the meaning of Septimus’ riddles for five full days together, in addition to all of the time that we have each invested individually in solving the problem. It is enough. We have understood much of what the old wolf has told us, and everyone should be proud of their efforts. We know that we need to prepare the rest of Birddom as best we can for something – we do not know what – that will happen on the anniversary of the Great Battle, now only a matter of days away.

  ‘We comprehend that Avia is very different to our own blessed homeland, and that getting there is far from straightforward. We know that each bird must achieve a state of mind that will prepare him or her for whatever test comes. And test there will be. We do not know the “peril” at “Avia’s gate”, but we understand that only the courageous will be able to face it, and still go on. We also realise that those who lack that courage, or are false to the needs of Birddom, will not pass the gateway, and will, in all probability, die a horrible death. We have some ideas about the tunnel that Septimus speaks about, but we do not know of its whereabouts. It is frustrating!

  ‘I cannot see how we can achieve our aim of saving every good bird in Birddom if we do not know where to find this tunnel, which Merion has described as a living, breathing thing. And even if we succeed in locating it, it is simply impossible to gather all of Birddom together in one place. So the talk of the tunnel must be nonsense, or must have a different sense and meaning altogether. But I am at a total loss as to what it might be.

  ‘So we are left with this. We have failed our land and our brothers and sisters in their hour of need. But we must do the best that we can. We must go out among them, and make them ready for a journey that we cannot describe, prepare them for a peril that we cannot name. It seems hopeless, but it is the best that we can do.

  ‘Oh Septimus, in my vanity I thought myself wise. But you have taught me a great deal about my limitations. I am but a single bird, and age has revealed less to me than I believed. Your path – no, our path – is still “one that only a wolf might know.”’

  ‘I have been brilliant!’ Traska cawed, at the top of his voice. The remaining eleven magpies sat silent, awaiting the revelation that was surely to follow this pronouncement. When it came, they were shocked to the core.

  ‘We are preparing for our greatest battle. I have no doubt that we will succeed. Man, however, is a fearsome enemy, and has weapons at his disposal which could severely deplete our armies. But why should we fight him at all?’

  The question seemed an extraordinary one to every single bird there. Only Traska seemed to know what on earth he was
talking about.

  ‘We have our own weapons, or soon will have,’ he continued grandly, to the utter bewilderment of his colleagues. ‘Man has delivered them into our wings, and we will turn them back upon him with devastating effect. For those that once loved him are now his deadliest enemies. Man rejected them and threw them out of his homes, to survive or to starve. And, in doing so, Man unleashed one more threat to the survival of Birddom.

  ‘But survive we did, and prospered, too. And now the time has come to ally ourselves to those outcasts. Cats and dogs will become our instruments to strike a massive blow against our greatest enemy. They will submit to our superior intellect, and we will train them for battle. I have already prepared the ground in this, by speaking to these fine beasts myself. They are as eager as we are to rid Birddom of our mutual enemy. I am sure that revenge against Man is uppermost in their minds – whatever limited minds they possess. It will not be hard to persuade them to serve us.

  ‘And that will be your task, my friends and loyal followers. Each of you is to go out, and gather up a battalion of strays for war. You will talk to their leaders. Promise them power, if you have to. When this is all over, and the battle is won, we will renege on those promises. I will not share Birddom with a pack of wild brutes. No, we will deal with them in their turn. But not before we have made use of them, for our own purposes. Do not delay. Go now, and bring me back the weapons that I need for total victory!’

  Smew and Zelda were very worried magpies. They had chosen so secret a meeting place for fear that their discussion might be overheard and reported back to Traska. That would indeed be fatal for both of them. But that fear paled against their deep unease about the state of mind of their leader. Oh, they knew that he had achieved a great deal, and had given them Birddom on a plate – just as he had promised. But these latest plans stretched their loyalty and belief in his abilities to the limit. To wage a war on Man, and to use cats and dogs in the process, was a monumental task, and one that they were not sure Traska could pull off – brilliant though he had always been in the past. It was as if his recent successes had stripped away any fear of the possibility of failure, and had left their leader dangerously over-confident.

  ‘But what can we do about it?’ Zelda asked. She, being so new to the Council, was looking for reassurance from her more-experienced colleague. But none was forthcoming.

  ‘I’m not sure that there is anything that we can do. If we challenge Traska in his present mood he will just have us killed and replaced with two others who will carry out his orders. And, anyway, who’s to say that he isn’t right? He has never failed us yet. Perhaps we really can defeat Man. It seems impossible, but then so did a Council made up entirely of magpies. Using the cats and dogs is a brilliant idea, in theory. Maybe we can do this. We have no choice, anyway, but to go along with Traska’s wishes. Let’s just hope that he really is as invincible as he thinks he is – and that some of it rubs off onto us!’

  The logistics of emptying a whole country of its population were quite staggering, and yet every man, woman and child in the land co-operated without complaint. They began at dawn, packing whatever final belongings had not already been stowed into the waiting vehicles during the preceding days. Every form of transport was put to its fullest use. Trains overflowed with passengers and their luggage. Buses and coaches heaved with bodies, and yet the highest of spirits prevailed. Singing and jollity buoyed everyone enormously. After all, they knew that it was only temporary. They told themselves that it was like going on an extended holiday. The government had promised them that it would only be a matter of a few months, and then they would be able to return home to a safer, cleaner, insect-free country.

  So the roads began to fill with overburdened cars, all travelling in the same direction – towards the coast, and the embarkation ports. Never had there been such a migration of people. In excess of fifty million individuals were on the move, and all the preparation and organisation in the world could not lessen that astonishing reality. But, to a man, the entire population were models of patience and self-discipline, and the country’s leaders congratulated themselves, and spoke with pride of how no other nation in the world would have been able to achieve this momentous undertaking.

  Temporary refreshment stations kept the people fed and watered. Huge, makeshift latrines, erected specifically for this event, provided for Man’s more basic needs. In all of the coastal towns and villages, every room in every hotel or guest-house was filled with exhausted travellers. But no one made a profit. Altruism prevailed in the national interest. Every private residence also accommodated as many people as they could hold. And those who could not find a room or a bed slept in their cars, or by the road-side, and waited for their turn to climb wearily aboard one of the myriad of boats and ships which chugged ceaselessly back and forth across the sea, ferrying this endless stream of human cargo to a new land, and a new, albeit temporary, home.

  Chak felt somewhat nervous as he landed on the open expanse of scrub-land, and saw the three cats roaming restlessly a little way off to his left.

  ‘Get a grip on yourself!’ he chided. ‘Traska has already spoken to some of their kind, and he came to no harm. You must just keep telling yourself that yours is the superior intellect. These creatures will do anything that you say, as long as you don’t show any fear.’

  But, as he walked towards the cats, the magpie quailed a little inside, covering his anxiety with a swagger. Six yellow eyes watched him approach, and the cats smiled a welcome to their visitor. Only the twitching and swishing of their tails indicated anything other than friendliness. Chak paused when he was about ten feet from them, and began his rehearsed speech, in a rather shaky voice.

  ‘My name is Chak, and I am a member of the Council. We are the rulers of Birddom, and serve Traska, who is both my ruler and yours too. He has parlayed with some of your kind, and has discussed a plan which will be to our mutual benefit.’

  The three cats seemed more than content to listen to what he had to say, and the magpie relaxed for the first time since he had landed. Why had he ever doubted Traska? This was going to work. The Master was a genius – there could be no doubt about it. Continuing more confidently, Chak outlined Traska’s plans for a co-ordinated attack on Man.

  ‘You must hate him for the cruel way that he treated you when he turned you out of your comfortable homes into the cold and wet. Wouldn’t you like to get your own back? You can, you know. Traska has thought it all out. An army of cats and dogs... you don’t mind the dogs joining us, do you?’

  The cats continued to wear their innocent smiles, and even sat on their haunches, as if happy merely to be in his company.

  ‘Good, because the dogs are vital. They will add greatly to our overall strength. They are stupid creatures of course, not like us. But they will understand enough of the plan to do our bidding when the time comes.’

  A soft hiss from behind his ear told Chak that he would never live to see that time – if it ever came. He reacted fast, but not fast enough. A massive weight drove his body forward and down, pinning him to the ground. And there the fourth cat held him with her paws, while the others rose eagerly and stalked over to share the meal.

  News of the mass exodus of Man sent a seismic shock-wave throughout Birddom. Man does nothing quietly, and the enormous upheaval terrified the whole of the natural world. Every creature – bird, animal or insect – feared for their life. Initially it was seen as Man launching a massive and unprecedented attack. But, apart from the noisome and almost overwhelming stench of petrol fumes created by the river of cars which poured out their filth into the already polluted air, no attack came. This was not an act of aggression. Instead, the unbelievable was happening: Man was leaving!

  Word spread rapidly across the land. Bird whispered to bird, breathless with the excitement of such news. Fox barked a message of hope, and his words were carried on by every tongue, delivering the thrilling
new reality to every part of Birddom. Man was going away.

  Then Nature gave voice to its pleasure and the cheering began, creating the sweetest cacophony ever heard in the land since Man first emerged to make his mischief. A song of triumph rang out, mingling with a buzz of excitement, and a roar of disbelief and immense relief. The enemy was removing himself from their home. Not a single creature questioned why. The news itself was sufficient for now. Nature united in its celebration. Innate enmity was suspended as natural foes joined together in a dance of joy, laughing and rejoicing, singing out their uncontrollable happiness and thanking the Creator for their great good-fortune.

  Tomar received the news with somewhat less enthusiasm than had been expected by the thrush who delivered it. She had been careering wildly through the treetops in Tanglewood, shouting out excitedly to every creature that she met. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she called. ‘Man is leaving. Birddom is ours once more. Man is leaving!’

  Flying nearby the crooked fir, the thrush spotted Tomar on the ground beneath its stout trunk, and flitted down to join him. ‘Have you heard the news?’ she asked, bubbling with joy.