Thursday, June 25, 2009

Magpie Part 5

High on the mountain, sat a lone shape. Cross-legged, his hands on his knees and eyes closed, Shaman let his thoughts wander, clearing his mind. He had not eaten in several days but he did not need food. Not at this point. He worked on a trick a wise man once taught him. He squinted his eyes for a second and then opened them. Everything that Shaman saw was now different.
The sky was no longer blue, but an iridescent black that glowed white at the edges of the horizon. The sun looked burnt out and a cold rusted brown. The land around the mountain was dotted with pits and craters where blood and other bodily fluids boiled up like lava and fumed like brimstone. The mountain too felt different, like it was made of skin and flesh and bone. As if it were some giant creature sleeping and dreaming, something that Shaman dared not to wake. The sky was filled with terrible winged creatures, forever screeching in torment for somewhere to land but finding no safety.

It was with this terrible vision that Shaman could see how things were connected. Lines glowing with phosphorescence came to and from him and lay their way across the world. He saw the Colonel’s getting fainter. His time was nearly up. He saw another line, glowing bright. Cassandra. Shaman wondered what might happen to his daughter when he was gone. He remembered the joy and brilliance of her birth. Then he felt the cold hard earth of the mountain beneath him. His lungs where filling with blood. A shadow passed over him. He was scared, because he didn’t know if he had the strength now. Because he didn’t know what she might do when he was gone. Would he be gone?

Shaman’s mind shifted back. Time meant little in this place. His future seemed to be present.

Wait, he thought to himself, concentrate. Do not get lost.

These were the words of his master.

Shaman was on this mountain decades ago, before his body was scarred from ink and battle. There he had sought something that no one else would. And his master lived on that mountain. This mountain.

His master was dark-skinned with long black hair, matted with beads and feathers. Just stood there laughing. Laughing at a half-starved Shaman.

- You foolish white man! You’ve killed yourself coming out here. What makes you think I will teach you what the World has forgotten?

Shaman drank from his master skull that night before the valley. When nothing that crossed him lived. The sky then was filled fire that rose so high it would burn the sun and roast the moon. In that moment the world had become like Shaman’s vision, an eternity of terror, lost souls trapped forever, cut and shot and split open, screaming, wanting only to go home.

After that day, everyone had seen what Shaman was capable of. Paris had seen it all in the mountain above, with those special eyes of his. Ichi, Jackson, Clarke and Clara knew what he had done on his own. They all feared him, especially Paris. He took his leave, because he knew it would be his last battle. Though he still provided information over glasses over whiskey from a bottle that survived such destruction that the fire and Shaman brought.

Coming back to the present, he could see that the Colonel’s glowing line was now gone. Cassandra’s nearby still glowed strong. Then Shaman saw something new. Dark and pulsing with power, iridescent like the sky. Shaman knew who this was. There was no separating that line from him. He felt cold, cold as the mountain, a shadow was passing over him. The dark line was drawing closer to Cassandra’s line. He was no longer on the mountain, he was in town, shocked onlookers were all around him. Cassandra felt cold in his arms. A shadow moved step by step to the horizon. No. Shaman was too late. The black steel gun is still smoking in Cassandra’s hands. A pale boy lies dead in bed, red splattered against the walls like some macabre halo. Shaman tries to look at his daughter, but a shadow has passed over her like a mourning veil. The shadow has become her. The ground feels as cold as Shaman’s body…

No. None of this has come to be yet. There is still time. Shaman blinked three times and world of endless horrors had transformed back to a mountain of stone and earth surrounded by what seemed to be an endless wasteland. Getting to his feet, he moved from the summit down to where a cave lay hidden behind a massive boulder. To him the boulder was light as a feather. And with both hands, Shaman shifted it with ease.

A glow came from within the cave, though no fires were lit. Shaman walked inside. The passage spiralled down deeper into the mountain. The narrow passage was warm, and moist, as though Shaman was slowly stepping down the gullet of a giant beast. It smelled faintly of a swamp. A sound of quiet breathing, of slumber could be heard. Shaman made no sound as he slowly descended down, deep into the earth..

Soon enough the passage opened up into a chamber hewn from rock. Into the walls shelves and niches were carved. On each of these was a skull. The light in here was spectral as it moved between a smoky yellow to phosphorate green to an alien indigo. Shaman stood in the centre of the chamber surrounded by the bones of dead men, former wise men and men like Shaman.

- Foolish White Man! You have gotten yourself killed…

It was the voice of his master. Shaman knew where the skull was. He had placed it there. He had killed his master. It was required. It was the final test. Single combat. To prove who was the stronger in will and form. It was a battle that felt like it raged for days, but could only have been moments. And until the very end, his master never submitted, never backed down. Even when Shaman had his hands around his throat and squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter.

- It is not too late to sever the threads. To save yourself. To save all of us.

Another voice, older than that of Shaman’s master.

- You want me to cut and run? Like a coward? And for how long? And to where? To the ends of the earth? The sky? The oceans?

Shaman turned to face the skull that barked out at him.

- Then who will teach what the World has Forgotten and Lost?

Then another spoke, it sounded the oldest of all. A patient voice that barely hid the tone of bitterness towards the potential futures that lay before them.

- How do you think you can defeat him?

To this Shaman did not answer. But every spirit in the chamber knew his plan. And soon they all began to scream and yell at him, calling him obscenities. Shaman turned to leave. His destiny was manifest, only so to ensure others were not. As he began to ascend up the narrow passage again, he remembered what he had said to his master on top of that mountain all those years ago. When his master asked him whether he should teach him his secrets.

A young Shaman looked around the barren wasteland, void of anything spare two men and a mountain. Shaman looked back at the master and said:

- Well I don’t see anyone else here.

It was this that made his master laugh. And he then went on to teach him every beautiful and terrible thing that he knew.

Stepping out of the passage and into fresh air, Shaman stared across the endless desert, focusing on saving his daughter.

And destroying his adversary.

Preceded by Part 4

Continued in Part 6

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