Where Gods Tread

The clouds were doing something strange today. Well really, the clouds were not doing anything, it was the wind; but the clouds and the wind are very good friends, so one can really just lump them together. When I looked up, as I spend most of my time, I saw a crow flying high on the wind. The wind obliged the crow just as happily as it did the clouds, and in fact the two flew in unison; when the crow banked right, the clouds changed their course; when the crow dove, the clouds grew larger in the sky; as the crow cawed, the wind howled in my ears. I watched the weather mock the crow for hours, until gray clouds pushed the crow’s friends from the sky. Now these clouds did not fly with the wind, but rather roiled across the sky with a power their own. The wind made way, as did the crow.

I chased the corvid as it ran from the clouds. I could hear the caw, which was met each time with thunder. Keeping up with such an agile bird sent my heart racing, not for effort but for beauty. I did not fear the storm as the crow did, but I was desperately afraid of missing the spectacle unfolding in front of me. This crow was obviously special, as most crows are, and I was especially curious, as most young boys are.

The crow dove into the tree line, finding refuge from the storm in the dense forest. I slowed my pace, as I did not want the crow to get the wrong impression; while I was chasing it, I was not in pursuit of it, per se. At least, that’s what I was going to tell him if I got the chance. There’s no telling if he’d believe me, but I think it’s best to be plain with one’s intentions.

As I sauntered into the forest, I started by asking the trees if they knew which of them the crow was in. Regrettably, I lost him as I approached the forest boundary, missing the tree for the forest and whatnot. I was sure the trees had to have seen him enter one of their kin, but as I asked around, they seemed to have no recollection of a crow. They had apparently seen a dove just two days ago, but that was of no help to me. I thought of calling after the crow, but a reasonable being would not answer the call of a stranger in the woods. I neglected to think how reasonable it was to chase a stranger into the woods and expect them to be found, but then I likely would have given up my quest, an unthinkable tragedy

I switched my tack, and instead set to tracking the crow. My nose flared as I tried to find the bird’s scent, but it filled with the smell of ozone. The storm clouds now loomed just on the other side of the tree line, though they seemed to have slowed their approach. Perhaps they were asking the forest permission to rain on it, very polite clouds are, even when roiling. This gave me time to do my work, as I scanned the ground and the forest canopy.

There. My eyes fell on a fresh trauma in the canopy the size of a small black bird. Halfway up the nearest tree, I found a shimmering black feather. I thumbed the base, still warm, and closed my eyes. My sight took on a hazy veneer, and I floated down the tree, weightless. A strange tingle buzzed in my mind and grew stronger if I went one direction, and waned if I went the other. Using this, I searched, occasionally looking up to my body, which sat on an oak branch. I shouldn’t worry about it falling, as balance is in the body not the mind, but I still held some anxiety about leaving my body in precarious situations.

My hair, chin length and pin straight, framed my face. The frame was not terribly well kempt, as if the framer were in a hurry and any four corners would do. To call my face art would have made me laugh. It was sharp, and harsh, and unnerving. There was many times I would have liked a kinder face, but such is the nature of faces. Changing a face takes a great amount of energy and is not very sustainable nor fun.

My consciousness continued this game of hot and cold for a time until a shiver shook my entire consciousness. My mind’s eye found a hole in the side of a nearly dead tree. I approached, but instead my eyes flew open, and I was back on the branch. No longer incorporeal, I gripped the branch underneath me as I clambered down the tree, thanking it. I held the image of the tree hollow in my head as I dashed through the underbrush, glancing to the sky to track the clouds. They had breached the tree line but had not gained enough mass over-head to make water. I had time but not much.

My mind buzzed again. I stepped into a pile of leaves, and beheld the exact image I had captured in my mind’s eye; a yawning black hole carved by decay into a tree, gnarled branches holding no leaves. I looked down and found myself in the center of a circle of brown and red mushrooms. I walked towards the void in the tree, the wind howling in my ears. My body pushed through the wind as my mind fired in all directions. I reached the boundary of the mushroom circle, which was a person’s length away from the tree hollow.

I stepped over the mushrooms and the howling wind vanished. My mind eased; I had gotten used to such head rushes, and so thought little of it as I walked towards the hollow. As I peered down into the room in the tree, I caught the glimmer of something very shiny. What exactly it was, I could not tell, for the opening of the hole was filled with a large squawking black bird.

“Who are you and why have you come here? CAW! How did you get past the wards? CAW! Do you realize there’s a storm coming? CAW! What sort of maniac chases a bird? How did you even find me? CAW! Where are your parents? I’m going to tell them how rude you have been! CAW! CAW CAW!”

I stared back blankly at the very loud bird, thinking what it must be like to have parents. From all I’ve heard, they sound dreadful, but perhaps it would be nice to have someone you’re at least half like. I can barely manage close to a fraction of that ratio as it stands, and you get two close relations from having parents! Maybe I should try and find some parents, at least for a time, just to see how it was.

“Are you even listening to me? CAW!”

“My greatest apologies, sir.” I bowed, flourishing the cloak which draped over my leisure wear – a white cotton shirt tucked into black trousers, cuffed at the ankle. I’m not sure why they are called leisure wear, since it is all I ever wear, but maybe that says something about how I spend my time. “I meant not to frighten you; I can assure you I mean no harm. You see, I was walking in the meadow, as I usually do in mid-morning, and I saw the most peculiar clouds, which I usually see only at mid-night. Indeed, I saw two peculiar fliers, the clouds and you, flying all alike…”

“CAW! Get to the point!”

“Yessir, I simply wished to ask you if you knew the clouds. Personally, that is. You see, I am a huge fan of their work, I wanted to know how you felt about them, being so close.”

The crow untensed, and finally shut its beak. Standing in the hollow, the corvid began picking at its feathers, straightening them, for they were very unruly after his panic attack. It would surely take a whole day of pruning to get them straight and clean again.

“Yes, indeed, I’ve known the clouds for some time. I do not know them terribly well; “personally”, as you say, but I have enjoyed flight with them for as long as I can remember. They seem to remember me and give me nice sun coverage as I fly through the meadow. You see, too much sun is very bad for crows.”

“I see,” I replied, furrowing my brow. It seems the clouds are a private lot, keeping business relations business. “If you are not friends, then why would they provide you this service? Seems a good amount of work for just one crow.”

“CAW!” the crow replied indignantly. “I am not just 'one crow'! And in fact, I would call the clouds friends, just not the kind you sit and talk with. There is mutual respect, which you seem to be desperately lacking!” The crow thrust his beak at me, his two beady eyes pointed at my throat.

“I suppose I do have a knack for predicting the weather,” the crow continued between pruning his rump. “And a rain cloud is a very troublesome thing for most.”

Just as he said that, a symphony of thunder played overhead, vibrating the ground. The crow, in his surprise, plucked one his tail feathers clean out, eliciting a new string of caws. Now I didn't speak crow, but I would guess they were not words for polite company.

“I very much enjoy the rain,” I said to the hole in the tree, which was now unoccupied. The crow peaked his head out, little black eyes full of fear.

“You don't spend your time in the sky, lad,” the crow replied, looking hesitantly at the clouds. “Now you must leave, and so must I.”

I waited a short pause for the crow to make his departure, hoping we could travel together and talk more of the clouds. They really were quite the celebrity to me; I never missed a show in the year I had spent in my uncle's cottage. My uncle would be livid if he learned I neglected my training to watch the clouds, but if he saw the clouds do their dance I'm sure he'd be just as big a fan as myself.

“Well? LEAVE! CAW!” The crow flapped his wings at me, as if to blow me away. I caught a glimpse past his small frame into the tree hollow and saw a glimmering orb. Within it swirled a dark mist, and electricity arced wildly, lighting the shadowy crow-hole. The crow caught me gawking, flying in my face.

“Leave! Leave! CAW!”

I know when I am unwelcome; I had not lost that social grace in my year spent at the cottage. I made a gesture of surrender, and went to leave back the way I came. As I stepped backward, still showing the crow an apologetic face, I felt something squish under my heel. I was barefooted and so immediately recognized what I had stepped in: a red-capped mushroom. It dangled from my heel as the crows eyes went wide, if they could get any wider.

My apologetic expression turned to one of pleading.

“I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-”

Thunder interrupted my ineffective apology and lightning lit up the ground behind me. I've never been so close to a lightning strike, and I instinctively leaped out of my body. My disembodied consciousness regarded my lobotomized body, still with the mushroom dangling from its heel. I saw behind my body a man.

Well, calling him a man would be an understatement. He was cloaked in steel gray robes trimmed with gold. His face was sharp and gaunt, making my own features look soft by comparison. White hair fell past his shoulders, and he carried himself like royalty. His eyes narrowed on my stiff body, fingers pointed at my head. My ethereal form rippled, and I felt the arc of lightning before I saw it erupt from his fingers. I gasped, or came as close to a consciousness can.

My body sprung to life, jumping over the bolt of lightning with a spin. The blue thunderbolt collided with a tree, splitting it and setting it alight. My body landed just where it leaped from, landing softly on the balls of its feet. Another charge of lightning flew through the air, my body narrowly dodging it with a roll in my (meaning my consciousness's) direction. I felt the leaves under my hands and the strain from such physical exertion, and I realized I was back in my body.

The man was about to send more lightning, but the crow came to my rescue. Flying in the man's face, a flurry of feathers sent the lightning arcing into the sky. The man swatted away the crow, who hit the ground with a thud. He was back up in an instant, flying towards the tree hollow.

“You thought these simple wards and an acrobatic body guard would keep me from what's rightfully mine?” The man spoke with practiced diction, as a seasoned orator. His voice rumbled and growled like a far off thunder.

More lightning crackled at the tips of his fingers, this time pointed at the crow-hole. I was ready to jump at the man, to redirect the lightning, but he loosed it before I could reach him. I beset him regardless, aiming a few quick punches at his head. He dodged them effortlessly, more lightning crackling around his fist as he readied a counter attack. The lightning bolt had reached the tree, but dissipated on its gnarled branches. That sent a wave of relief through me, which was replaced by the familiar sensation of disembodiment. My consciousness was behind the regal man, my body left to dodge the crackling punch. I watched my hand reach for the mans shoulder, and in a flash my body vaulted over his head, sending the lightning charged punch screaming into the open air. I set to my own work, finding a hand-hold in my opponent's psyche.

It had been over a year since I'd infiltrated another's mind. I felt nauseous, but without bowels the sensation waned quickly. I found myself awash in storm clouds, floating as one can only do in a dream. Lightning jumped from cloud to cloud, and soon I saw figures among the flashes of light. A man in a dark cloak, which rippled as he darted through the air, clashed with a familiar form draped in silver robes, cloaked in lightning. Lightning-man held something in his hand which flashed in time with the lightning, and I realized it was the orb I had seen in the tree hollow.

The battle raged, the man in the black cloak faster than lightning. So fast he was, in fact, that soon he had the orb in his hands, despite not coming close to the man wreathed in electricity. Like a street magician, he produced the orb from the sleeve of his cloak, thumbing the perfectly round sphere of storms. The man in the black cloak let out a series of familiar caws which sounded like gloating. In a flurry of black feathers, the crow-man was gone, leaving lightning-man staring at his empty hand where the orb once sat, screaming with rage.

Leaving someone's psyche is significantly more stomach turning than entering, especially when forced out. My vision was once again of the mushroom circle, my mind's eye fuzzy from its adventures. The white-haired man stared at me, not my body, as if he could see my incorporeal consciousness. His expression said I'll deal with you later and he began walking towards the tree hollow.

I was back in my body, this time feeling sick to my actual stomach. My vision swam, and I realized how strong this being in front of me was. I had no chance of fighting him, but I knew I couldn't run. I had a feeling that if he got his hands on that orb, I'd have a lot more trouble than my uncle's disappointment.

My trousers suddenly sagged off my narrow hips. I had to grab them to make sure they didn't fall around my ankles. I reached into the bulging pocket which I could have sworn wasn't bulging a second ago and pulled out the very orb I had seen in the dream and the hollow. My eyes went wide. The feeling I had earlier evolved into a knowledge; this orb held worlds of unfathomable power, and that man was the last person who should be wielding it.

Reaching the tree hollow, lightning crackled on the man's fingers again. He peered into the hole to find a damp nest littered with shiny trinkets and bird droppings. Evidently no orb and no crow, he snapped his head back in my direction, eyes, full of lightning and rage, falling on the sphere in my hands.

“You're quite handy,” the crow's voice sounded in my ear from behind. When I turned to meet the voice, I saw a man in a black cloak. His face was shadowed by a cowl, but I could have sworn I saw a beak poking out of the shadows.

“I think I'll keep you around.” The air rippled with lightning, and as I turned to see the eruption of electricity heading our way, it vanished, replaced by the view of my own cottage.

“Grab your things,” The crow said in an even tone. “You won't be back for a long time.”