Talbot returned from inside the shack carrying a heavy, wooden barrel. He cracked the filthy lid, revealing stagnant water. A thin film of green algae clung hopefully to one rim. The water shimmered with the rainbow coating of oil that stagnant water gets after a time. Small, wriggling larvae bounded up and down in the liquid, forever within their static realm.
“What is he doing?” Lucy whispered to Talbot after he placed the barrel under the Elder.
“He’s going to cast a vision for you,” said the faun, in a hushed, reverential tone. “That’s a great honour.”
“I don’t understand. What is casting a vision?”
“Casting visions is why we both live out here in the desert. This is the venerable elder, Ravel Magi. He is a seer. He sees things in the water.”
I can see things in the water too, interjected Conscience, horrible, squirmy things.
“The water is a gift from God,” continued the faun. “It is part of The Being. Therefore, if the water is part of The Being, then it too must be omnipotent. Do you understand?”
Lucy, who at the best of times had a quasi-distrust of all religions, gave Talbot a confused look and could only nod. It clearly couldn’t work, but she thought she should hear the faun out before shooting great holes in his belief structure.
“So,” he smiled and continued, “if the water is omnipotent, then all you have to do is tune yourself to the water’s words, and you will have a direct audience with The Being. It’s a way of speaking to God.”
“Uh-huh,” said Lucy, “and you are here because?”
“He is the seer—he has the visions. I take care of him. I keep him alive. To make him see the visions he has to be starved almost to death and left in the sun. Then, he can properly tune into the way the water speaks. Once he has his visions, I write them down, and we send them to the market town of Marsh.”
The faun seemed so earnest that Lucy for half a second was swept up in the illogic of the idea. Then, her more scientific mind gave her romantic brain a sharp kick in the cerebellum.
“That’s stupid! For a start, isn’t it incredibly dangerous to starve someone to death just to talk to a God?”
“Oh yes,” said the faun, and his infectious smile beamed down on Lucy like a ray of sun on a cloudy day, “it is very dangerous work, but it is also very important. It is prophecy.”
That word again—the word that sent her on this quest, forced her on this quest. It was prophecy. Flip-it, she hated prophecy.
“Prophecy is very important. To know the mind of The Being is to almost be as he. Ravel Magi can foretell earthquakes, floods, famine, dragon attacks—anything really. We save people’s lives with our work.”
Ravel Magi stared at the water as if in a dream. His lips, chapped and cracked, held a small string of drool a few centimetres from the surface of the liquid. The light reflected from the greasy water shimmered across his wizened face. It played over him like a ballerina on a stage, dancing and swirling through the deep fissure wrinkles of his skin.
Finally, he shouted at Talbot, “Enough! Take it away!”
Talbot did as he was instructed. Replacing the lid on the precious water, he dragged the barrel back into the relative cool of the shack.
“Well, Miss Lucy,” said the Elder, focusing once again on her with his magnified eyes, “you are a most important visitor. It is you who are prophesied…sized…wise. It is you who carry the amethyst key.”
“Ye…yes I do,” said Lucy, a bit taken back by the fact that staring into a barrel full of water worked for prophesying. It had to be magic, something for nothing, again—flip-it all!
“Talbot! Talbot!” cried the old man, as he bucked up and down on his wheel, “She carries the key: the key, the key, like a temporal flea. Three for the key, what must be, must be. And what shall she choose? We shall see. She must go to the Falls of Wanda. All three of her must go.”
Ah, the Falls of Wanda. That’s where we’re meant to get to. That’s where we’re supposed to go.
“Only at the Falls of Wanda,” continued the Elder, prosaically, “can she fulfil her quest. The quest, the quest—the best quest is always a test! Talbot, you must accompany her, her, her, like soft musk fur. She will need your courage.”
“But I can’t go with her,” protested the faun. “I have to stay here and look after you. If I go, who will oil you?”
“You don’t understand. She will need you! I am relieving you of your duties.”
“It would be something to go on an adventure,” Talbot said, his eyes losing focus as he went into the daydream. “I might see magic, real magic, and do heroic things.”
“Of course, my boy, of course you shall. You have more important things to do than oiling me. Take her to the falls. Go via the town of Marsh and pick up some supplies there, but first we shall feast. Build a fire. Get the guitar and sing camp songs. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. Kill the fatted calf. Fill the horses up with three gallons of hay and don’t skimp on the potted shrimps!”
With these words Ravel Magi began to bounce up and down on his cart wheel despite his restraints. He clicked his tongue and sang a song about a bandy-legged spider called Old George.
“Is this part of the vision?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I have walked the lonesome hills and heard a distant cry, Old George did say, on a summer’s day as the ravens did fly by,” sang Ravel Magi.
“No, no,” said Talbot, “Ravel Magi may be a venerable Elder and a great seer, but he’s also a looney. Completely barking mad. It’s the desert. It does it to all the seers eventually. Well, you heard him, we shall feast. Would you like your cracker with or without weevils?”
Talbot reached inside his waistcoat and pulled out a small tin of dried biscuits. Lucy took one and tried to ignore the tiny black beetles scuttling over the surface.
“You’re just going to leave like that?” Lucy indicated the Elder as he bucked and sang. “No worries about the future or your past with him?”
“I can’t disobey him. He told me to go with you, and besides, I want to have an adventure. I’m bored with writing stuff down and oiling him. I want excitement, to go to strange new places—to seek out new life and new civilizations.”
To boldly go where no one has gone before, she thought.
Lucy, don’t do that, said Conscience.
Do what?
Whatever it is you’re doing. It’s making your brain light up again in that weird way. Stop it.
Her stomach rumbled, so she put the whole biscuit in her mouth and chewed. She didn’t comment on the fact it tasted like it had been in a tomb and was unpleasantly meaty.
“And if you fly into my web, I will drain you dry. Old George did sing, as he played his string, as the ravens did fly by,” Ravel Magi sang.
That tastes disgusting, said Conscience.
It’s a good job you can’t taste it, isn’t it? she replied.
Are you going to trust this faun fellow?
Well, we could do with a guide and Ravel Magi has kind of assigned him to us. I don’t think I’m going to get a lot of choice in this. Besides, we have to go on with this quest.
She felt Conscience sulking at her acceptance of the faun’s help. She didn’t quite know what to say to him to make him feel better. She guessed it was probably to do with Conscience being broken. His feelings were hurt, but she couldn’t find any words of comfort. The spell in her chest took up most of her attention as it thumped on like a second heart. Get going—on with the quest—use the key—save the world.
“From the sea’s abyssal bottom to the very top of the sky, Old George did talk and proudly walk, as the ravens did fly by.”
Talbot eventually shut the seer up by shoving a cracker into his mouth.
He munched, contentedly on it, his virtually toothless mouth contorting into incredibly ugly shapes as he gummed his way through.
Talbot handed Lucy a tin mug with some water in it. She drank it greedily. It tasted like leather, but she didn
’t care. At least, it washed away the taste of weevil.
“Right,” said Talbot, “I’ll just get my stuff together, and then we’ll be off.”
“Take the seven-league boots, my boy,” said Ravel Magi, spraying everyone with a thick stream of half masticated biscuit.
Talbot returned a few moments later carrying an over-the-shoulder, leather satchel. It bulged with whatever oddments the faun had deemed necessary for a long and possibly dangerous journey. Lucy hoped the faun was bringing some cooking equipment.
“Right, I’m ready. Now, before I go is there anything you want?” he asked the Elder.
“I’ll be fine, just turn me up the other way,” replied the Elder.
The faun leaned a ladder up against the cartwheel and climbed it. He loosened the bonds holding the seer and turned him over. As Talbot moved him, the Elder’s limbs fell limply. Soon, he stared face up into the baking, desert sun, and his bonds were secured back to the wheel.
“What are you going to do about food? Shall I bring the biscuit tin out for you?” the faun asked, as he descended the ladder.
“The humming-birds shall feed me,” said the Elder, tossing his head from side to side.
Humming-birds? I can’t see any humming-birds, said Conscience, woken from his sulk by his love of ornithological matters, all I can see is a dirty great flock of vultures circling overhead.
“Ah! See? The humming-birds have come,” said the Elder, focusing up on the vultures. “Look, do you not see? They will bring me ambrosia from The Being himself. My task is done. Go now, Talbot. Your new quest has my blessings. Leave now, my boy, and do not turn back.”
“Very well. Farewell, Elder Ravel Magi—may your humming-birds bring you peace.” Talbot’s voice was almost cracking with saying goodbye. The faun turned on his hooves and walked away.
“You aren’t going to just abandon him there?” Lucy said, following the faun around the shack.
“I am going to abandon him,” he replied. “It’s what he said to do, and I have always followed his instructions to the letter. You are now my ward, and I will take you to the Falls of Wanda.”
“But it’s cruel,” Lucy protested. “We can’t just leave him there in the desert to starve to death.”
“Yes we can. It is what he wants. We have a much more important task, he even said so himself. Your quest concerns the whole world.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said, folding her hands under her breasts in protest.
It was stupid, and it didn’t make any sense. Why should they just leave the Elder tied to his wheel—staked out to die? Why couldn’t they take him with them? What was the purpose of this sacrifice? Why was it so important to go to these Falls of Wanda?
She held herself firm. The coercion spell in her chest thumped wildly like a caged beast.
No, no! On with the quest—you must go forward! On to the road—travel the path—fight the good fight—use the key—save the world!
Lucy ignored it.
“You’re not going?” asked Talbot, in disbelief.
“I’m not going to just leave him—it’s not right.”
“Whoever said anything was right? It is what he instructed, nothing more, nothing less.”
“I’m going back to talk to him,” she said.
Talbot sighed, but did not offer any resistant as she turned back and headed to the cart wheel.
The spell in her chest fought like a madman against the move. It felt as if she were having a heart attack. Her blood boiled, and her chest thumped with its protest.
No! Turn around! Forwards—not backwards—go onwards—onwards to adventures new—to the Falls of Wanda—not back to the cart wheel.
She pulled herself back. Trudging doggedly over the footprints she had just made in the sand. It was like fighting her way uphill, in a gale, with a heavy backpack on. Everything screamed at her to go onwards and not turn back, but she did it anyway.
Chapter 8 Tears and Tears
You can never go back,
to the point where we first became friends;
To the point where we first took our vows
and made the commitment.
To swim upstream, to fight the flood,
is to move beyond space and time.
You can never go back.
From Poems for My Friend the Mountain
By Ravel Magi,
Year After Ice 20055
Always, we are back to sevens.
Seven dwarves for snow white.
Seven days in a week.
Seven brides for seven brothers.
Seven leagues in a boot.
From “The Wonderful Thing about Odd”
By Wizard Bechet,
Year After Ice 21033
The Elder was still strapped to his wheel. The vultures were a little lower in their circling, but apart from that, the scene was as she’d left it.
“You should not have come back,” said the Elder with a cracked voice. He addressed the sky without turning his head. His scrawny, panting frame shook with the awesome effort of taking each breath.
The vultures ventured lower.
The Elder’s horrible jutting rib cage stuck out like a spit of land his belly substituted for the becalmed, pitiless sea. Lucy couldn’t look at the staked out figure of the man attached to his cart wheel.
The world was not fair! Why should she just leave? Why did he have to die? What was the point of his sacrifice? She had to know, or she wasn’t going to play anymore.
The spell in her chest screamed and railed at her: get on with the quest—onwards—not backwards! She felt it physically pulling at her, like a small dog vying its weight on a leash.
“I am worried about you. I can’t just leave you,” she shouted up at the cartwheel.
“My child,” the old man’s face cracked into a smile. It tore at his papery skin, causing blood to gush from his face. “You are more important than you can possibly imagine. This quest you face is influential. It is the most important thing there is. Nothing can stand before it, and nothing can stand before you—past, present, future, all three of you. You are the alpha and the omega and the mu, Lucy.”
“Why is it so important? What’s so special about this key?” she implored.
“The key, the key like a temporal flea,” gibbered the Elder.
He took a thin breath, and his brittle ribs split in his chest. He grunted in pain as the sharp bones formed horrific, mountain crags on his torso. “If I tell you will you go? No more arguing?”
She shook her head, no. She couldn’t do it; she would not leave him to die.
The spell raged at her, tearing at her heart, forcing her to focus: get on with the quest—move on—to the Falls of Wanda—hurry—hurry—onwards—not backwards!
Lucy, I think we should get going. It’s wrong to stay here, said Conscience timidly. This place feels dead.
Yes, Lucy could feel it too. There was a creeping death, seeping into the surroundings. Like a dullard at a dinner party, it stole the life around her, drinking the last effervescent drops of the living champagne. The sun seemed dim, yet it shone as bright as it ever had. The small breeze had a stale edge. An all pervasive draining death stalked through the landscape, consuming the world just out of view.
She took a calming breath and let it out slowly.
“All right, tell me.”
The old man closed his eyes; a relaxed calm came over him as if her very obstinacy had held him on a knife edge.
“The key brings the magic back. You bring the magic back. You bring life. There, that is one answer. It is said.”
“But that just leads to more questions.”
“As does every answer,” said the old man.
“But how does the key bring back magic?”
“That is a how question. I did not say I would answer a how question, only a what question. Now you must go,”
“But you’ll die if I do.”
“That is a very likely solution to the problem, but y
ou cannot observe the actual answer. That is only for me alone to find out. Think of it as a proof to myself that I exist,” he said, in a raspy, dry breath. “If, when you leave, I still exist, then I must exist. If, when you leave, I cease to be, then it does not matter if you leave. Understand? Understand?”
“No,” she said.
“Don’t worry. You will, in time. For now, you must go and no more arguing. This is a back page.”
“What’s a back page?” asked Lucy, hoping that the promise of answering “what” questions would still be valid.
“It is when you turn a page in a book. This is the other side of the page you turned. It’s finished. And it exists only in the finished. There is no more part for it to play. Get it?”
Lucy shook her head.
“No wonder. Even I don’t understand it sometimes. Stay with Talbot. He scared away the crows and vultures for me, and he will do likewise for you. He is both brave and strong, though not particularly clever,” the Elder said, nodding in the direction of the faun. “He could never understand the question of existence either. I think you will understand it before the end of your quest. Stay with Talbot, but don’t let him get drunk. Now go.”
“We can’t just leave you,” she tried one last time.
“Yes you can. It is very easy. Just turn around and walk away.”
~
The hunter stood in a clearing. The deciduous forest grew green and fat around him. The ravens had left during the night, and he was completely alone. He could still feel her drawing near. She had paused for a moment, but she was on course once again.
He reached deep inside himself and checked his mental prophesying. They would meet here, the crossing of tracks, the parting of flesh, the death of the girl, the end of the prophecy. Slowly, he pulled out his two best throwing knives.
They were weighted perfectly for the length of his palm, the breadth of his forearm, and the mass of his body. Curved, insect steel gave way to dragon horn handles, perfect in all ways. He threw with his right hand and then with his left.
Smack, smack!
The knives buried themselves in the bark of a tree twenty feet away, one on top of the other in a perfect line. Perfect. The hunter retrieved his knives and practised again.
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 8