Sky Lands: The Gift Stones Page 5

The placid woods materialized. Golden leaves reflected in the stream and a lark whistled in the sky. Although I perceived myself standing there, I couldn’t see my body. When I walked, there was no crunch of leaves; I took a step, and it was as if I walked on air. I stared at my own nothingness. I touched my chest but felt only wind and space. All around, throughout the trees and shafts of sun, there was a sense of myth that I couldn’t explain – a depth of history, an ancient texture.

  In the distance, a dirt road twined through the trees. Between the lines of the forest, I saw a pair of oxen pulling a cart around the road’s bend.

  I found myself beside the path, near a hollow in the unpaved street where the previous night’s rain had worn it into a trench of mud. Close by, an old man stood alone, supporting himself on a knotted staff. He clutched at his ragged cloak, looking up the path at the approaching cart, waiting to cross.

  As the cart neared, I saw it was driven by a dwarf, tapping the oxen with a stick as he sat eating an apple. He was humming to himself through large mouthfuls when his cart wedged in the mud. The dwarf frowned and drove the oxen harder. I could see the strain on his face, his mouth twisting angrily, bits of apple flying. Sweat ran along the sides of the oxen, trickling down the animals’ necks.

  A wheel snapped off, tipping the cart and spilling its contents into the mud – an array of pearls, of every color, slid onto the ground in a heavy heap, a few splashing high, soaring above me into the leaves, while others rolled into the forest grass. I felt a shock as several shot through me, like gasps of air. The pearls landed at the feet of the old man, rolling around his gaunt sandals.

  The dwarf stumbled off the cart, cursing loudly, throwing his half-eaten apple into the trees. He surveyed the damage with a hand clutching his hair.

  The old man stole a look at the dwarf before stooping to the pearls and clasping a few into his bony hand. Quickly he rose as the dwarf walked to the oxen. I watched with amusement as the dwarf heaved at the animals’ reins, straining for them to pull the cart. The oxen tossed their heads and lifted the dwarf kicking into the air as he screamed furiously.

  Beyond them, the old man slipped into the woods and disappeared unnoticed into the shades of trees.

  • • •

  Down the path, another similar cart was curving around the bend. When the dwarf saw it, he dropped to the ground and ran up the road, waving his arms. I wanted to see if he got the help he needed, but I was pulled over the road into the forest on the other side.

  I saw the old man walking slowly, his movement making a crinkle of sound on the leaves. I followed him across rocks in streams and beneath an archway of white boughs dripping with leaves. There were hills sloping with trees, their roots reaching out through the dirt, curling white like the branches overhead. The old man struggled up the hills, relying heavily on his staff. I put up a hand to steady him, although I doubted I could catch him if he fell.

  We arrived at an ancient building of grey stone. The ends of tree branches tapped against its roof and moss clung to the walls at its base. Stone pillars were carved into its tiers, crumbling into dust. The structure was gradually collapsing into the forest. But some engravings could still be seen, elaborate as they spiraled up the sides. Rusted copper disks adorned the topmost tier, their surfaces tilted to the falling sunlight.

  Two statues of women flanked the only entrance, facing each other in perfect symmetry – an arm stretched above the doorway, the other bent at the side, palm up as though presenting the doors. One woman’s hair had crumbled away, and the back of the other had cracked deeply. The doors between them were rotting; near the hinges, flecks of gold paint lingered. The entire structure resonated with the feel of a decaying religion, and I could only think of it as a temple.

  The old man climbed the steps, sending bits flaking off in a fine powder. He stepped through the entrance. As the hem of his cloak curled around the closing door, I was siphoned like air into the waning crack of the doorway. The temple walls rushed towards me, the rotting doors looming abruptly. I threw up my hands and cried out, my voice deafening.

  Then all was dark. In the silence, I heard the door shutting behind me. I was inside the temple.

  The air was thick with a damp odor. As my eyes began to adjust to the dimness, I saw the ground sloped steeply, lined with rows of seats that faced a circular altar. A flame burned inside the altar, smoke rising through the amber light. It was the only light in the room and touched only the first row of seats.

  Before the altar, the old man stood, his cloak draped over him in deep folds. His cane was beside him, gnarled like the ancient hand that clutched it. He was looking at something in the shadows beyond the reach of the flame.

  “Brother, our kind is old.” I thought the old man had spoken, before I realized the voice came from the dark. “This is the beginning of a new time.”

  The voice wasn’t speaking English, though somehow I understood it perfectly.

  “I know you love the form of flesh. We all do; this earth has its enchantments. And we have spent much time upon it, for how many centuries have we come and gone here looking like old men?” With these last words, a tall old man in a robe of white materialized from the dark. His beard and hair flowed over him in a mantle of silver, nearly brushing the stone ground. His eyes were warm; they smiled from beneath a thick line of silver brow. “I’ve come to collect you, Brother. I see by your presence that you knew I would come. You know we could do no more here. Look at you. How frail you’ve become. How unbathed and slender. You barely have the means to sustain your form of flesh. And yet, you cling to it.”

  “I shall miss it,” the old man said. “I am accustomed to it, and I have grown used to that joyous time.”

  “Those days are gone, Brother. The people do not care for our teachings anymore. Look at our temple. When did the last worshipper come here? All things have their time, and ours is in the past. The moment has come for us to let this place be. In the end, time swallows us all. But we have a home in Eternity, Brother. The Sisters will be waiting to welcome you.” He tilted his head to indicate the statues standing symmetrically outside the doors.

  “What if I do not like it there on the other side?” the old man asked. His voice cracked, heavy with strain.

  “Brother, your flesh is dying. You have stayed here too long. You must come before you perish.”

  The old man’s words were muffled in his cloak, and I could scarcely hear him. “I’ve lived so long, I’ve forgotten what it is to die. But I suppose change is also a kind of death.” He sighed before whispering in his unsteady voice, “Let me have a last meal before I go.”

  The white man seemed relieved. “Have you money, Brother? For all our magic, we have not the power to conjure food from air.”

  The old man reached into his cloak, pulling out his knotted fist and laying something beside the flame on the altar. When he took his hand away, three pearls sat on the altar’s rim – a white, a green, and a blue. The colors were pale, shining with a translucence; they reminded me of the ocean. Over their colors, the altar’s flame cast its orange glow. “I stumbled upon fortune today,” the old man said. “This should be enough to buy me a meal.”

  With a thin finger, the other man touched the white pearl. “For how long has my brother been begging and thieving the streets?”

  “Only for a few moments longer,” the old man said, and there was a smile in his words. “Wait for me here. I should not be too long.” With that, he took the pearls. Making his way up the ring of stairs, he passed me and went out into the autumn forest.

  • • •

  The old man left a crack between the doors and a narrow beam fell into the dark. Behind me, the other man was nowhere to be seen. There was only the light of the altar pressing against the shadows. I waited and wondered, if I tried, if I could go back to my academic world, like waking up from a dream.

  Through the crack, I saw the old man descending the last of the temple steps. I hesitated. Then I sprinted after h
im.

  We returned through the golden forest and the sighing leaves, back to the dirt path, curving along its length until the woods broke into a rolling scene of hills and grass.

  The autumn sun was low in the sky. It brimmed over the horizon with the last hints of afternoon gold. The fields shone with autumn, the fair grass swaying in a breeze. Smoke lifted from chimneys while swallows turned in the air, diving through the dusk. A dog’s bark broke the quiet, and every so often came the low of a cow. The wind was heavy with the scent of pasture and farm.

  Travelers passed us as we walked. To each, the old man stretched out his hand and some would drop him a coin or two. I wondered why the old man was still collecting money if he was leaving soon.

  Eventually, the path wound into a wide plain. Streams ran through the grass, and along a river wandered a herd of deer, their bodies lean and brown. Great clouds cast darkness across the plain and a vast line of mountains shaded the grass.

  Dwarfed by the land, we made our way through the plains, the long grasses stretching above our heads. Between the grass blades, I saw the light was fading from the skies. Stars were beginning to poke through the dark, shining into a deepening night sky washed with blacks and blues. Gently, the sun pulled back the day’s light behind the corners of the landscape and drained the earth into a quiet shade.

  A village lay where the path ended, nestled in the foot of the mountains, the path curving into the cluster of houses like a strand of brown hair. We reached the village as night fell. In the new night sky, a long star shone out from the rest. At the height of the village, beneath the star, a castle stood, majestic though its walls were falling to rubble. It seemed a haunted place, honored as one respects death, for the castle looked as though its soul had left. Its scaffolds were quiet and its stones serene. But a candle burned in a window at its topmost tower and announced silently to the night that its stones held life.

  Lamps were being lit along the streets, unwrapping spheres of light over the dusty roads. Passing windows, I could smell roasted meats, flavored with dashes of wine. At times, the aroma of baked bread filled the air. Families sat around tables, their kitchen ovens opened to infuse their houses with warmth and scent the cold of autumn.

  We turned a corner into a marketplace where a string of lanterns illuminated the alleys. Moths fluttered around the lights, their wings puffing a white powder. The streets were crowded with pedestrians jostling at the counters. A man stepped through me, the heat of his body passing into me as I swept around him. He continued on, as though nothing had happened.

  Many of the stands sold meats, the animals hanging skinned from the booths. Others were cluttered with fruits and vegetables, or arrayed with arts, crafts, and pottery. The old man stopped at a counter that was nearly hidden behind billows of smoke, as if the stand were on fire. The smoke was so thick it completely obscured the vender. Great wafts lifted past the hanging lanterns and disappeared into the strip of stars between the rooftops.

  There was a particularly large crowd huddled at this stand, but the old man waited his turn patiently. Finally, the cluster in front of us thinned and the old man approached the counter. Between the ruffles of vapor, an old woman’s face appeared, peering like a witch over her cauldron. “And what would you like, sir?” she asked.

  “Your famous recipe,” the old man replied.

  “Ahhh yessss.” She withdrew behind the steam and I could only hear her voice drifting out. “Everyone comes for that.” She spoke slowly, her voice crinkled like a ball of paper. I realized they were speaking a different language from that of the old men back at the temple. The language was lighter, more like Audrey’s, but without the breathy air that I had found so alluring.

  “Here y’are, sir,” I heard. The billows parted and her ragged face appeared again, her eyes sunken in their sockets, blood-red veins lining their cloudy whites. “Smoking lamb stew,” she said with her cracked lips. She heaved a clay bowl onto the counter.

  I could hardly see the bowl beneath the steam. I would never have known it was there if I hadn’t seen the old lady struggle to lift it. I leaned over, the heat of the steam shocking on my face. The soup was speckled with pepper and slices of green vegetable. Ovals of golden oil dotted the surface. Rising from the broth was a great leg of lamb, whole and uncut, with fat rippling folds of red skin, crisp and roasted. The entire leg was thickly flecked with pungent spices. The scent was enough to ache the hunger in my stomach. I was surprised to find that, instead of passing through it, I could feel the warm sides of the bowl beneath my fingers. I tried to lift it to my face, but was disappointed when I found it wouldn’t budge. With some difficulty, I leaned back from the rich scent of the mutton.

  “That’ll be threeee silversss,” the old lady rasped.

  “I have something more valuable to give you,” the old man said. He unfurled his fist to reveal the three colored pearls.

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Sir, you pay too much.”

  “I have no use for them.”

  To my shock, a gloved hand grabbed the old man by the shoulder, pulling him back. “Those are the king’s stones.”

  I saw by his attire that the gloved man was a knight. He was clothed in a suit of mail interwoven with fabric depicting a star. The star reminded me of the long star that shone above the city.

  The knight scooped the pearls into his wide hand. “Sir, you know discovered valuables are to be reported and left at the government’s hall. And I know these could not have been given to you.” The knight’s features softened beneath the silver rim of his helmet. “I’m sorry, but my vow is to the law.”

  “I understand,” the old man replied. “When?”

  “Tomorrow night you will be relieved of this life.” The knight led the old man to his horse, helping him to mount before swinging up behind and taking the reins, the old man cradled between the knight’s arms like a child. Thus they wove through the crowds before they were swallowed in the distance.

  As they rode away, I tried to follow, willing myself to move after them. But my feet remained stiffly on the ground. I looked on long after they were gone, staring at the swirling crowds, standing helplessly beneath the hanging lanterns, the fluttering moths releasing powder from their wings like snow.

  Chapter 6