He must flee. To stay was to die, and he had no wish to die for this motley crew of bird-gods.
Cariña stirred in her sleep and put her arm around him. The warmth of her body was welcome, as ever. Perhaps she loved him, but it was not the love they’d had before.
If he left her behind, she would surely die. And she would die alone, without the companionship of her own kind. Who would dig his beloved’s grave, if not him? They would throw her body on the pyre without ceremony. He would have to live with that for the rest of his days, if he survived the journey home.
Home. If he’d stayed home, none of this would have happened.
He shook her gently. “Cariña,” he whispered. She huffed in her sleep. “Cariña,” he said, “wake up.” Her eyes opened.
“We’re leaving.”
“What?”
“We’re leaving. We’ll die if we stay here. Let these gods handle their own affairs. We must leave, and now.”
“How?”
“I know a way,” said the fisherman. “Bring some water, and some dried fish. We have little time.”
They rose in the darkness, and gathered their few things together. The fisherman rolled up the tarp he’d been using for shade when he worked. His compass and his whetstone were in the pouch that hung from his belt, and his knife was sheathed and slung round his shoulder on a cord. His woman carried a skin full of water and a leather bolsa of dried fish slung round hers.
The frigate bird, standing watch in the snag where he customarily perched, pretended to doze. The Turropsi relied on him to use his best judgment, and in this matter he judged it best to let their fate play out.
The fisherman led her down the beach, their footfalls silent in the sand, their bodies leaning forward in the nighttime glow of the belly of the beast. They strode past the pelican and cormorant sleeping in their brightly painted colors. Past the throne of King Crow, where the congress of crows stirred in their sleep and began muttering, in crowish voices the fisherman refused to hear, kukuld, krook, kukuld, krook, kreep, kreep, krawl, krawl, kukuld. Mammering, clay-brained harpies, he thought, but he held his silence and walked on. Past the canopied bed, where the cursèd crow no doubt lay sleeping. He led her all the way to the foot of the inlet, where the clear waters of the stream from the canyon flowed. They waded across the stream and started up the sand on the other side. The canoe was ahead of them, beached. The fish eagles were busy gathering clams, which they put into baskets, ready to be put on board. The fisherman and his beloved waited in the darkness until the fish eagles worked their way round to the far side of the canoe, and then they scurried forward. In a trice they were aboard, and they crept silently into the prow, where the fisherman pulled the tarp over them.
They laid themselves together, settling in by jot and tittle with great care, for their silence and their stillness were all that would keep them from being discovered. Cariña found a hollow reed beneath her, and then another, digging into her hip, and these she tucked into the top of her sarong, for they vexed her, and she could not risk tossing them aside. Soon enough they heard the thumps of the baskets of clams dropping into the bottom of the canoe. The fish eagles climbed aboard and walked the gunwales, the canoe rocking a bit as they made their way, one to the stern, the other to the prow. There was a thwart over their heads, and it was here that the he-eagle perched, so close they might have reached up and grabbed his foot. The fish eagles began beating their wings, and in the silence of the night the fisherman could hear the air against their feathers. They sang in their high-pitched, keening voices, and the canoe, quickened into motion by their song, slid into the water bow first, and made the turn to the mouth of the inlet.
The fisherman wrapped his arms tighter round his beloved, and she her arms round him. They cleared the mouth of the inlet, the canoe riding high as it cut through the waves of the sea. The seas were stiff, a remnant of the storm that had come through, and the prow rose and fell on each successive wave.
They were on their way to the far shore. ’Tis good to be on the sea again, the fisherman thought, with the briny tang of the salt air sharp in his nose.
§
Now King Crow flew out of the cave behind the waterfall, and behind him came a thousand times a thousand crows. He led them through the canyon, and then they burst forth from the canyon’s mouth and filled the dark night over the inlet. King Crow bade them be silent so that he might exult in the sound of all those wings beating the air. He led them in a great circle aloft, the air riven with their thrumming wings, such a throng of followers as would cow any enemy into submission. At dawn he would surprise the other gods with his host of followers, and none would dare oppose him.
His congress of crows rose from where they slept by his throne, and they came to him. “Kukuld, kukuld,” they said, “kreepy kreepy kukuld, krawly krawly aw-aw-away,” they said, and they pointed far out to sea. There, in the darkness before first light, the crow with his keen eyesight saw the canoe of the dead, making its way to the far shore, he now knew, with that pustulant gob of walking guano, the fisherman, on board. Was his simpering coquette with him?
“And the woman?” the crow asked.
“Kaw, kaw, Kariña,” they said, “kreepy krawly away.”
So they thought they could simply steal away, did they? No one was allowed to leave the Isle of the Dead save by the King’s leave, and he had given them no such leave.
“Follow me,” King Crow cried, and the great horde of crows did follow, his congress of crows now beyond numbering. Over the open sea they flew, and King Crow cried “Ka-kill, ka-kill.”
“Ka-kill, ka-kill,” the great horde did answer, “ka-kill, ka-kill.”
“Vengeance,” crowed King Crow, “is Mine.”
§
They had fallen asleep, Cariña and the fisherman, beneath their tarp, but as the western sky lightened toward dawn, Cariña roused herself, careful to keep as still as she could. The canoe of the dead sliced through the swells on its way to the far shore, and for that she was glad, but somewhere in the distance, a croaky, grating sound approached.
She put her hand over the fisherman’s mouth and brought her lips to his ear. “Listen,” she whispered. “Please, just listen.” Her lover’s eyes opened, and he gave her the barest of nods.
Gulls? he wondered. But there were no gulls here.
“Crows,” he mouthed, and Cariña nodded.
Crows it was, a great ruckus of them, and they were coming fast.
Kaw, kaw, ka-kaw, kiaw, ka-kaw, kaw, ka-kaw, kiaw, ka-kaw, kaw, kaw, kiaw! Louder and louder they came, until the air was thick with the chuttering cacophony of their cries, the canoe of the dead surrounded with a whirling maelstrom of crow upon crow upon crow. The fish eagles, alarmed, gave up their singing and ceased the beating of their wings, and the canoe slowed to a stop.
Then Cariña and the fisherman heard the thump of King Crow landing. “Ho there, cousin fish eagles,” he said, his voice thunderous loud, and all the other crows shushed their calls as if on a signal only birds could hear. Cariña trembled, and the fisherman wrapped his arms round her more tightly.
“Ho there, cousin crow,” said the fish eagles. “What brings you here?”
“You’ve something on board that doesn’t belong,” said King Crow.
The canoe was beginning to broach, and the fish eagles flapped their wings to keep the prow headed into the swells. “Clams on board,” said the she-eagle, “nothing more.”
King Crow reached into a basket of clams with his crow foot and tossed a foot-full of them overboard. The fish eagles shrieked at this blasphemy, but King Crow paid them no mind. “I beg to differ,” he said, so beside himself with anger that he forgot, for a moment, to use the royal We. He crow-hopped to the prow of the canoe, where he grabbed the tarp with his crow foot and pulled it aside. “Stowaways!” he cried, and now Cariña and the fisherman could see King Crow standing over them, and the mob of crows perched all along the gunwales, and the greater murder of them swarmi
ng in the air above.
“Swive me,” muttered the fisherman. “We’re caught.”
King Crow brought his fearsome beak down close enough to pluck their eyes out. “I’ve got you, my pretties,” he said. “Now stand up, and face your fate.”
They stood together, hand in hand, and face to face with the crow. “You,” said King Crow, fixing an eye on the fisherman, “shall burn on the pyre, though first I’ll have the pleasure of ripping your still-beating heart from your miserable chest. And you, you ripe little skainsmate,” he said, fixing an eye on the woman, “shall return to the Isle of the Dead, where you may yet win back your once favored position”—and here the crow bent forward and rubbed his lascivious beak between Cariña’s legs—“in my bed.” He straightened himself and winked his crowish eye at her.
“And if I refuse you?” the woman said.
“Refuse Me?” said King Crow. “Refuse King Crow?” He sent a snort of air through his nostrils, lifting the fine feathers there. “Refuse Us and die,” said he, “in the selfsame manner as your scurrilous consort here. We shall dine on both your hearts, and We shall gobble down your puny little souls, and that will put an end to your line, the both of you. We shall throw your lifeless bodies on the sacred fire and roast your flesh,” he said, “and We shall eat your nipples, and your lips both hither and nether,” he said, his carrion breath now hot in the woman’s face, “and We shall dine on your pitiful willy-spigot,” he said, the sharp point of his beak a finger’s width from the fisherman’s eye, “and We shall eat your danglers like oysters roasted in their own shell.”
The crow glared at them both, and then, crow-hopping a step away, showed them his back, raising his tail as if he were about to drop a gobbet of guano in front of them, though he did not. Cariña put her lips to the fisherman’s ear. “Forgive me my trespasses,” she said, “and follow my lead.”
The fisherman squeezed her hand. All the sorrow that had passed between them mattered not a whit to him in the face of their imminent deaths.
“I do,” said he. “I will.”
King Crow turned, ready to berate them yet again, but to King Crow the woman said, “Kiss my bleeding arse, you poxy pumpion,” and with that she leapt overboard, her body knifing into the water and disappearing. King Crow’s beak fell open in astonishment as he reached a wing after her in vain. The fisherman, only slightly less astonished, leapt overboard on the other side of the canoe.
“After them!” King Crow thundered. His rabble of crows flew to answer his call, wheeling and turning in the air, skimming the surface of the sea, screeching and squawking, swooping in mobs and gangs, King Crow himself taking to the air to lead them. A thousand times a thousand crows watched the sea, waiting for the lovers’ breath to run out. But they could not swim, these crows, not a one of them, and Cariña and the fisherman did not surface.
“Let us be on our way,” the she-eagle said, as King Crow flew by. “They are drowned.” He wheeled round the stern of the canoe and found a perch on the gunwale.
“Drowned, yes,” said the crow, “but where are the bodies?”
“Drowned bodies sink,” said the he-eagle.
They do? thought the crow. But then he realized that if bodies floated, they would not drown, so of course they sank. Still, he wanted the bodies to burn on the pyre, and so they lingered on, he and his army of crows, hoping to find them. Though soon enough it came to him that he had no way to raise the dead bodies from the water to the canoe.
And so the fish eagles were allowed to continue their journey to the far shore, and King Crow led his army of crows back to the Isle of the Dead.
§
The pelican, asleep beneath the cormorant, dreamt that her head was so weighty that she could not wake herself. Her bill lay heavy on her breast, as if it were made of ironwood. Try as she might, she could not lift it. The crow was laughing at her—aw aw aw aw aw—the sound so loud it seemed to come from inside her own head. Something wet and sticky dripped down the back of her neck. Wakefulness was a slippery silver fish swimming around the tip of her bill, but she could not open her neb to swallow it.
At last she managed to open an eye. She saw a crow’s foot gripping her bill. She opened her other eye, and yes, it was true, a crow perched on her bill. She was awake, the cormorant’s feet gripping her shoulders, and there was the inlet in front of her. The calls of crows came from everywhere. There were crows on the beach, hundreds and hundreds of them. She croaked from deep within her throat and shook her bill from side to side, and the crow there cawed and flew off.
From above her head came another caw—ka-kaw aw aw aw aw—and she stretched out her neck and looked up. Another crow sat atop the cormorant’s head, and the cormorant raised a wing and swatted at it. The crow flew off with an angry kiaww, but not before dropping another gobbet of crow guano right on her bill.
“How rude,” said the pelican. The cormorant hopped down from her shoulders, and they both looked about. Thousands upon thousands of crows filled the air above the inlet, flying in great flocks, the ruction of their caws and cries drowning out the sound of wind and sea. Thousands more strutted around the pyre, the boldest amongst them braving the heat to dash forward and tear bits of flesh from the bones. The sand was littered with their guano.
“We’ve been invaded,” said the cormorant. He had to shout to be heard. He pointed with a wing at the trees, where every branch had crows perched on it.
The shadow of King Crow passed over them, and in a trice, he was there, strutting back and forth on the sand.
“Kiaww!” he shouted. “This is the best day of my life!” He passed a wing in front of his face, and made himself a cubit taller. He spread his wings and turned in a circle, taking in the great multitude of his fellows. “Ko, ko, ko,” he thundered, and they gathered around him in a great horde. They covered the sand and turned the beach black.
King Crow folded his wings and stood tall. He hopped forward until he was beak to bill with the pelican and the cormorant, his sharp neb close enough to pluck out their eyes.
“Either you are with me,” said the crow, “or, kiaww, you are against me. Which is it?”
The pelican and the cormorant looked at each other, and they looked at the mob of crows, their beady eyes upon them, and they trembled.
“We shall stand behind you, as is our custom,” said the cormorant.
“Good,” said King Crow. He turned his back on them, and he began to speak in the language of crows, rattling and croaking, rasping and cawing, screeching and squawking. Their time had come, he told them. They were his army, and he would lead them to victory. Soon he would rule the material world and the spirit world both, and all things crow would be paramount. Never again would he wear the shape of man, for that was a shape inferior to the shape of crows. This was his true nature, to be black and feathered, to be sharp of beak and loud of call, to be King of the Dead and the Living alike.
“The Great Age of the Crow is dawning,” King Crow cawed. Their enemies were falling before them—look at what had just happened to that hairless blue turd the fisherman, and his featherless hag of a woman, drowned at sea. There remained only the last of the lesser gods. “Find them,” he cawed. “Find that salt whore of a goddess, that three-penny upright, may she choke on her own quail-pipe. Find that frigging frigate bird, her whore’s bird of a consort, may he smother himself with his own throat pouch. Find them and peck the feathers off their wings. Find them and peck out one of their eyes.”
“Bring them to me, alive,” cawed King Crow, “and I will gobble down their nether parts while they watch with their one remaining eye. And then I will crack open their skulls and feast on their brains.”
The congress of crows kiawed their approval, King Crow, ka-kill, King Crow, ka-kill. They rose up, thousands upon thousands of them turning the sky black with the enormity of their flock, and as they did so, the pelican and the cormorant stepped back, and back, and back. King Crow spread his wings, exulting in the power of his flock.
“The congress of crows,” he cawed, “is invincible. Nothing can stop Us now.” Back and back and back stepped the two bird-gods while crows flew all about them, the flapping of their wings like wind blowing in all directions at once. Back and back and back they stepped, until they turned and flew off toward the middle of the island, where they found a quiet bit of shade beneath a giant of a fir tree.
“What do we do now?” said the pelican.
“We must warn the others,” said the cormorant.
“There are too many crows,” said the pelican. “Not even the goddess can resist this many crows.”
“It’s true,” said the cormorant. He stared over the tops of his spectacles into the place where he would have a thought if he had a thought, and he considered. The pelican was silent while he thought, but in the distance she heard the raucous cries of the invaders, and she was afraid. The cormorant, too, trembled, but at length he gathered himself together, and stilled his shaking body. He must rise to the occasion, lest they all die.
“Perhaps,” said he, “there is a way.”
§
They pulled themselves ashore on their hands and knees, the fisherman and Cariña, coughing and retching up sea water, so tired they collapsed on the sand where the last of the waves still washed over their legs. They lay there a long time, letting the fact of their survival sink in.
“How far?” Cariña asked.
“A league?” the fisherman said. “Two? Farther than I’ve ever swum before.”
They had found each other beneath the canoe of the dead, and they swam along the keel until it rose to the prow, and their heads broke water. They could hear the crows above them, the racket of them harsh, and they saw them flying by just above the water, and they sank their heads beneath the surface. The fisherman stuck his knife into the keel, so that they would have a purchase on the boat. And Cariña pulled the hollow reeds from the top of her sarong so that they were able to draw air into their lungs. So did they survive until King Crow left.
The Alehouse at the End of the World Page 32
