Creatures of the Dawn
Cyril often thought about his past life down in the Mourning Vale, perhaps more often than was good for him. Still, everybody he knew had been born there, many of his friends and kin still dwelt there, and Cyril knew--partly from the voice of the Stones, partly from his own inner voice--that he’d always carry a haunting kind of love for Mourning Vale in his heart.
Especially during the molting season, when his scaly hide was sliding off him and more of his body was being covered with downy white feathers, Cyril pondered the sharp contrast between that old life in the Vale and his new one here on the peaks. Today, for instance, when he woke up under his high sheltering crag on Mount Clement, smelled the clean smell of the rain that had fallen during the night, ate his fill of the sweet moss that sprang up between the rocks, and quenched his thirst from the pool in the cleft just below--today, he reflected on how alone he often felt since he left Mourning Vale. How numerous and natural-feeling his kinships and friendships had been then...before the Neubith had come.
“Good morning, Cyril.” A deep, pleasant voice hailed him from a patch of mist just up the mountain. He looked up toward the voice and smiled. Out of the mist emerged his friend Charisse, her remaining scales glistening with moisture in the brightening dawn, her feathery wings fluttering delicately, shaking her free of the dew. She approached him on thick muscular legs ending in clawed feet that expertly picked their way along the rocky hillside.
“You look well this morning,” she told him as Cyril stretched and swallowed a final mouthful of moss. “Are you ready for our journey today?”
“I suppose so,” Cyril yawned thoughtfully. He humped his back and flexed his own claws so they clicked like centipedes against the ground. Opening his eyes after his yawn, he looked deeply, honestly, into Charisse’s eyes--uncommonly large eyes that were a piercing blue shot with gold.
“Hmm,” she murmured in the soft purr that always made him warm to her. “Someone has been deep in thought already this morning. Aren’t you going to ask me to account for myself? You haven’t noticed I’ve been away?”
“Of course,” Cyril said shaking his head with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Charisse, of course I missed you and you, too, are looking very well, and yes, I’m so looking forward to our journey today. I’ve hardly thought about much else since we planned it!”
“Easy, easy, Friend Cyril, I was only teasing you. You’re a deep thinker and have no reason to apologize for that. It’s one of the many things I enjoy about you.” She grinned as she stood next to him and bumped her wide head against his playfully.
“I...I guess I was thinking again about...about...”
“...about your family down in the Vale?” she prompted.
“Uh-huh,” Cyril admitted. “Last time I visited them, my sister and my father barely would speak to me. Even Mother became impatient when I urged them to begin listening to the Stones up the hillside.”
“Yes,” Charisse nodded sympathetically. “Yes, my family acted the same for many years before Neubith came to them.”
Cyril became animated and began moving about nervously. “Sometimes, Charisse, I just feel so helpless. I just miss them so much I could tear off these wings and go back there and forget that I ever lived on the peaks. Do you think I’m terrible? That I’m crazy? I frighten myself when I have thoughts like that.”
His friend returned to his side and placed a paw lovingly on his. “When I have those feelings, Cyril, I try hard to remember the message of the Stones I heard before I left the Mourning Vale: it said that Neubith was unbelievably wonderful--sweeter and more fulfilling than any dream of the most fanciful Vale-dweller. Yet the Stones also promised bitter memories and dangerous adventures before the final Shaking takes place. Before Daystar rises.”
“I know, I know. And I remember the message, too--at least, while I’m doing my echoing at the canyon. At those times, Daystar just seems so much closer...so much more real.” Cyril sighed a deep, deep sigh in his barrel-like chest and squinted at her comically. “So, you don’t think I’m awfully bonkers or anything?”
She poked him and nearly made him topple as she leapt away. “As bonkers as they come! Daft as a loonie-bird! Come on, slug-a-bed! We have a long way to go today and the sun is shining!” She was in the air with enormous wings unfurled, catching the mountain updrafts and smiling like a rainbow. He craned his neck, following her takeoff with his heart skipping a beat and his mind suddenly casting off its cares.
Cyril shook himself and forsook the crags with a mighty bound, his own wings whipping outward and down, propelling him into the wind. The currents were fetched up into his wings like billowing sails and he swept into a graceful arc in pursuit of his companion, now nearly a league away. Cold bracing air flattened his feathers and scales as it slid past him and tickled his folded limbs with icy joy. Freedom seemed to reach down from above and gather him into an awesome, exhilarating embrace.
Clouds sped up to meet him and just as quickly were left in his wake. The sun blazed on the rim of the world and made the peaks flame with dazzling white. He and Charisse were soaring high above the mountains of their home, leaving doubt and regret behind in the crevices below, now mere etchings in a fabulous, far-off landscape.
They were alone up here, yet together. They were born creatures of the Mourning Vale...but up here, as no place else, they were creatures of Neubith...creatures of Daystar...creatures of the Dawn!
* * *
“I must be crazy...”
Douron groaned and cracked his neck-bones as he began his daily trudge homeward. This shift had been pretty bad. Maybe the worst, he thought. Felt like it anyway.
Working for the Bosses...working in the pits...working long, dark shifts by torchlight...working for less than he was worth...working to put grub on the slab for a thankless family...working.
Some days he just couldn’t think why he put up with this life at all. He must be crazy.
Well, at least there was his secret stash. In a wood west of town, in a hole in the ground, in a box in the hole, Douron had a secret stash of shiny stuff that nobody knew about. Nobody. Not the Bosses, not his friends, not his wife, nor daughter, nor odd-ball son. Not nobody.
Someday, Douron thought. Someday, I’ll have enough shiny stuff saved up, to up and leave this wretched valley and start a new life someplace else on my own! Yeah...someday.
He coughed up some dusty stuff from this windpipe and spat it out by the roadside, beginning to feel his joints loosen up some after the long shift. The dust was the worst, he brooded. It gets everywhere. Sometimes I get so sick of it I could go crazy. He wallowed into the sluggish stream beside the road as it bent off toward the town. Rolling around in the gloomy water got most of the darned dust out from between his scales at least. He ducked his head in the stream and came up spluttering, then splashed and shook his way back to the path.
Crummy dust! he muttered. Why do I put up with work like this? It’s a flippin’ wonder I haven’t keeled over and died of some crummy disease, working like I do. I must be crazy.
He trudged into town as the twilight was lifting and a shadowy light began filtering in between the rough-hewn dwellings of mud and stone. His own small house was overshadowed by some taller buildings and there were still candles glowing in the window facing the road. Naggeril was out on the stoop beating a rug with the branch of a sticker-bush. She raised the branch in Douron’s direction when she saw him, giving him a half-hearted wave of welcome.
“You almost done beating that thing?” he asked grumpily. “Cuz I just washed in the river and don’t feel like getting all dusty again...Darling,” he added judiciously in answer to her glower, a mixture of hurt and annoyance.
“Just trying my best to give you a decent, clean place to come home to...Sweetie,” she answered, sweeping the dust cloud out of the range of the doorway with her beater. “Go on in and eat something before you go to bed.”
“Rrrrr. Yeah. Thanks, Naggie.” He lumbered through the door, raising his tail up enough to avoid any dust still clinging to the stoop. At least, he mused as he sniffed the aroma coming from the pot near the fire, I’m married to a fair cook. Reaching up with a tentative claw, Douron tipped the pot and deposited some stew into his deep stone dish. Then he slid it across the floor into a corner and lowered his head into to bowl to eat.
Between mouthfuls he inquired, “Cyndi up yet?”
“Early practice today,” Naggeril sang out from the next room. “She was up and out a half-hour ago.” Their daughter was a sludge-skater. This was a new art-form that was catching on with youngsters in the valley. Cyndi had her heart set on getting ‘discovered.’ Douron thought it was a silly waste of time, but at least it got her out of the house.
“Have you watched her doing this sludge-skating thing? I can’t imagine she’s really built for it.” He reached for another bowl and began lapping up the liquid it contained.
“Naw, I haven’t seen her yet, but Mawgeril next door has and she says our Cyndi is doing okay.”
“Well,” he growled, “don’t you let her waste so much time with that that she slacks off her book learning. If she winds up a dummy like some kids these days, we’ll never be rid of her.”
“You just want her out of the house so you don’t have to work as much!” His wife had emerged from the bedroom and was facing him with ‘that look’ that he was not so fond of.
“I just want her to amount to something in this wretched world, Naggs! Oh, forget it. Let’s not fight, I’m too tired. I’m off to dreamland.” He plodded over to the water trough with his dishes and rinsed them off. Then he gave his wife a half-hearted kiss and crossed to the bedroom.
(to be continued...?)
(c) 2014 Mark N. Aikins
