Ka

by John Crowley

  There were gaps in the floor whose underside he looked up at, where the tree’s thickest arms or fingers went through. As soon as he could trust his wings, Dar Oakley arose again, and by arrowing through a gap he came out into the land above.

  For it was a land.

  That double-speaking black Eel had said, In a vast land far down under. By which words he’d named a tiny land high up.

  In the mist beneath the shadow of the Beech’s immense crown lay the land’s little hills and woods, dwellings from which smoke arose. Dar Oakley glided over them, feeling enormous. There was one dwelling larger than the others, a palisade around it, and within the palisade a little black Dog and a fat black Pig. The Pig slept; the Dog looked up at Dar Oakley and seemed to know him, hate him too. The Crow didn’t care. He descended over the dwelling, and without a wing beat alighted on the reeds and thatch of the roof. No smoke came from the smoke-hole, and Dar Oakley climbed up and looked down in. There was the Crow of this world, sweeping her floor with a twiggy broom.

  It was as though he’d done all this before, how he knew who this was, that this was the form she would take: it cost him not even a moment’s thought. And there on the ledge that ran around her house was a basket full of straw, and in the straw was laid a large green brown-speckled egg, a Crow’s egg.

  The Crow of this world now seemed to suspect something was amiss, or at least was new, of which there had been none such in aeons. She leaned her broom against the wall, went around the cold fire pit to the ledge where the egg was; she bent over it tenderly, tapped it with her black fingers, and put her ear to it, as though to know if it spoke or made a sound. She looked up sharply then with one eye, but before she saw him, Dar Oakley had flown.

  He banked sharply this way and that down over the yard, the palisade and walls tilting in his sight, and landed square on the back of the black Pig. With his strong bill he bit down hard on the Pig’s long, veiny ear—the Pig awoke and squealed in rage. The little black Dog raced around the house at that and charged at Dar Oakley, barking fiercely in an unbroken string of curses, eyes red as coals. But Dar Oakley, spitting pig-bristles, was gone again up to the housetop just as the Crow of this world rushed out the door, broom in hand, to see what was the matter, who’d intruded.

  Dar Oakley dropped down into the house.

  The egg was bigger than any he’d ever seen a Crow lay, bigger than any egg he’d ever broken with a mad mother on the attack. But the green speckled shell gave way at his first dag, and fell gently in two. He heard a queer moan. There was nothing at all inside.

  He thought of the Eel: It’s nothing. He thrust his bill within the empty shell, and took hold of it, of nothing. Nothing took hold of him, resistant and refusing. Dar Oakley had the sensation of a squirming, thrashing thing, though looking down along his bill as best he could, he saw only nothing.

  Holding tight to it, he rose up to the smoke-hole. He heard below him a sound, a screaming such as he had never heard any being make even in death, and as he fled out the hole and away from the house, he knew he was pursued. A blackness only, but flapping, snapping, like a People’s banner in a sharp wind. He couldn’t look back, wouldn’t have if he could, but he knew the blackness was close behind him and growing larger as it overtook him, darkening the dull sky. He spied the hole in the land that he had come up through, almost overshot it, fell toward it in a sudden dive, trying to guess how fast he could go and have any chance of not breaking his neck on the lip of it (though what would it mean to die here, where all were dead?), and felt, as he went down through, his wing brush the edge—he tumbled as much as flew down and out below.

  The blackness didn’t pursue, or couldn’t.

  Fox Cap, pale face turned up, waited at the tree’s foot, growing larger as he came down. He wanted to cry out, tell her he had it, he had it, but to cry out in pride would be to let go of it—every Crow child knows how that story goes.

  She stared at him in wonderment as he flew around her head, shaking his bill and making a faint meaningless groan from his throat, but she seemed frozen, until he flew nearly into her face with it—and she backed away with a look he couldn’t grasp, horror, doubt, amazement, fear, what was it? Anyway she understood now what he had, and tried to think what to do; she searched herself—for what? This thing he held on to would be off and gone in a moment! She took out the only thing she had: the little metal cup that fit on the tip of her finger.

  She held it out to him. He alighted near her, and she knelt and held it close to his bill. He thought her hand trembled. Certainly his bill did; the cup was so small, and how could what he held fit into it? Because it was nothing, that’s why, and could fit anywhere. It slid from his bill as though still desperate to cling there, but in it went. Fox Cap set the tiny cup on a knee of the great Beech, and they both looked in, heads almost touching. The pebbled bottom of the cup could be seen just as before, but there was no doubt that it was in there, the Most Precious Thing; no doubt at all.

  “I couldn’t touch it,” she said. She was still trembling. “I can’t.”

  “It’s caught,” Dar Oakley said. “It can’t get out of that—that—”

  “Thimble,” Fox Cap said, for that’s what it was—Dar Oakley would see many, and steal one or two, in later times. A thimble.

  It seemed they had done that which they had come to do. Hadn’t they? Now and then Fox Cap would raise her eyes to Dar Oakley, and now and then Dar Oakley would raise his eyes to her. Her hands rested on the Beech-root, but never took up the thimble.

  “I’m so tired,” she said. “So tired.”

  Dar Oakley sensed a stirring, far away, so far it was maybe not in any place at all, but a stirring, as though something or many somethings were awaking troubled.

  “So tired,” Fox Cap said. She drew away from the Beech and sat, then sank, hands on the forest floor.

  “No!” Dar Oakley said. “No, don’t.”

  “A little while,” she answered. “It’s done.”

  Dar Oakley wanted to speak again, but he could see it would do no good. With weary slowness Fox Cap drew her mantle to her chin and pillowed her head on her arm and drew up her knees—like the man of the barrow, like any of her kind.

  Sleep? That’s what they were to do now? It was indeed dark in the Beech-wood, as though the furious Crow of this world had overspread the whole land. Reluctantly he took a stand on the knuckle of a Beech root where it rose to join the trunk—at least it wasn’t the bare ground. He supposed he wouldn’t sleep, and even when he awoke he felt uncertain that he had. How long had he roosted there? It was day again, or still day.

  What had waked him?

  You, he heard. That was what had waked him, a word.

  He looked around. Fox Cap slept. The Beech-wood was as empty as before.

  You, said the voice again. Then: Listen.

  In growing dread and certainty, Dar Oakley turned his head to where Fox Cap’s thimble had been put. It was clear: nothing had spoken.

  Crow, said the voice from within the thimble. Listen to me.

  Dar Oakley couldn’t do otherwise. The feathers of his head and neck rose, his ears opened.

  Take me away from here, it said. Quick, before she wakes.

  Take you where? Dar Oakley said, looking sharply with this eye and then the other at nothing, speaking to nothing, awed by the impossibility. Who are you?

  You know who I am. I am who you think I am.

  Then you are hers.

  No! No. Listen to me. I belong to the one who finds me, you see? That’s you. You found me, not her.

  I don’t want you, Dar Oakley whispered—perhaps he made no sound at all, yet he knew he’d been heard. I don’t want you; you can’t do anything for me. For my kind.

  Wrong, said the Most Precious Thing. Trust me. A Crow was my mother. My foster mother anyway. She’s lived a thousand years.

  Dar Oakley couldn’t respond to that, the little of it he understood. It was absurd, arguing with a thimble. He looked to whe
re Fox Cap lay, thinking he’d wake her now.

  No, don’t! said the Most Precious Thing. Take me away. Pick me up quick and put me in your pack.

  I don’t have a pack, Dar Oakley said.

  No? I thought you would have a pack.

  I can’t carry a pack. I’m a Crow.

  Never mind! said the Most Precious Thing. Pick me up now and carry me how you can. I’m good for Crows! I promise. It’s your chance! You!

  That strange surge of alertness Dar Oakley had heard gathering far off had grown stronger. He thought, Why shouldn’t it be? And why shouldn’t I? Didn’t I bring Crows the flesh of People, the news about battles, all that wealth? This would be the last gift, the best gift. It would pass from Crow to Crow, he didn’t know how, but somehow it would make the whole of his kind glad. He would make them glad; glad forever.

  Yes! said the Most Precious Thing from within the thimble. Now you’re thinking right. But quick! She’ll wake!

  Dar Oakley’s heart all in a moment grew huge, as in love or at mortal threat. He leapt, grasped the thimble, felt nothing grab hold strongly of his bill.

  Now run, said the Most Precious Thing, but Dar Oakley couldn’t perceive a way to run that was better than any other way. He turned to what might be the opposite of billwise, and winged that way. The thimble he carried, the nothing within it, had begun to feel strangely heavy.

  While we go, he heard the Most Precious Thing say, I’ll tell you a story. It will pass the time.

  Dar Oakley couldn’t object without opening his bill, so he only flew on.

  I was not always as I am now, said the Most Precious Thing. Once I was an herb growing at the bottom of the sea. All was peaceful there for eternities. But then there came down through the waters a thing I had never seen before: white as a fish’s belly, with a squinty eye, limbs going all which way. The next thing I knew I had been plucked up out of the eternal mud by the creature’s ugly hand! Imagine my distress. . . .

  Dar Oakley longed to tell the thing that he didn’t know what the sea was, and wanted no more stories, but of course he couldn’t open his bill. The thing grew heavier the farther Dar Oakley carried it. With every wing beat its weight pulled him closer to the ground. He labored to rise, his wings feeling numb and powerless. But now he saw that ahead as he went the trees were different, were smaller, were Birches rather than Beeches. That way led home, surely.

  So after all it was the Snake that swallowed me, he heard the Most Precious Thing say, as though from far away. So Snake lives forever, not People. A shame.

  Lying thing, Dar Oakley thought: it had said Crows live forever. Or was it another who’d said that? He could go no farther. He pulled up and settled on the ground.

  No, no! said the Most Precious Thing. Go more! She’s coming!

  Whether that meant Fox Cap or the Crow of this world, Dar Oakley didn’t know. He let the thing he held fall from his bill, shaking it off when it tried to hang on.

  I can’t, he said. You’re too heavy.

  Then hide me. Hide me quick. Where no one but you can find me.

  A rushing wind had arisen fast in the windless forest, blowing from behind him. Turning, he saw Fox Cap, far off; the wind tugged at and tossed her mantle, stirred her hair. He thought he could see her face.

  What had he done? Oh what?

  Hide me from her! said the Most Precious Thing. She’ll steal me from you.

  Where?

  Here, said the thing.

  Dar Oakley was at the foot of a Birch. It had a peculiar twisted root poking from the ground, that made a space where something could be hidden—indeed the tree seemed to display it welcomingly. A place like a place where a Crow might hide a thing, if he could do it without being seen.

  You’ll run away, he said to the invisibility.

  No, it said. I will stay here in this place under this tree.

  You’re lying.

  Don’t be silly. I can’t lie.

  Dar Oakley cried aloud in awful bafflement, but there was nothing else to do. Scuffling with his feet and bill, he pushed the thimble toward the place, and when he thought it was concealed, he tossed up leaves over it.

  Remain with me, it said in a woody, earthy voice—or was that the Birch that spoke? Someone had once told him to trust the Birch, or not to trust it. He dagged sharply at the Birch’s bark, cutting a mark. He hopped back and lifted off, turning to where Fox Cap was coming.

  Soon he could see her face clearly, see her mouth form a word: Crow. But he couldn’t hear it. He seemed to make no progress toward her; it was as though he flapped away stone-still in the middle of the air while the trees rushed around him, changing places, and Fox Cap grew ever larger. Behind him he heard a weird commotion, a threshing of leaves and branches.

  “Crow!” she cried. “Did you steal it, Crow?”

  “No, no,” he called. “No! It ran away. I was chasing it.”

  “You lie!” she said. He was too high for her to strike at with her staff, but she tried. “You stole it. I knew you would!”

  “No!” Dar Oakley cried. “Don’t say that! I know where it went. I do. I know where it is.”

  Fox Cap looked at him in despair. She seemed older than the Beeches.

  “I know where it is,” Dar Oakley cried again. How could she not trust him? A Crow would never forget where a thing was cached. “Come, come!”

  He turned over in air and flung himself back the way he had come. It wasn’t far. Where the Birches began, where the ground lifted, where a green land and sky could be seen far off.

  But there was no such place there ahead. There were Birches in plenty, but all crowded together, almost no room between them to fly through, all regarding him smugly. He went in among them, searching.

  “One with a mark,” he cried to Fox Cap. “With a twisted root at the daywise side. This one!”

  He settled at its base. The tree wasn’t where it had been, the place he had committed to memory. Was he wrong? Maybe it was not this one but that one there, with a similar twisted root poking from the ground.

  The same twisted root.

  As though a Hawk’s foot clutched his breast, he saw. Each one of them, every Birch, had a twisted root at its base, a place where something might be hid. Each had a scuffle of leaves thrown up there, to hide something. And each had the mark of a Crow’s beak in its slim shaggy trunk, each mark the same.

  Dar Oakley couldn’t see the end of them, rank on rank. He hadn’t been lied to: the thing lay where he’d put it.

  “Fubun, Crow!” Fox Cap cried to Dar Oakley. “Fubun for stealing it. Why were you so wicked, why? Fubun!”

  The word—he didn’t even know what it meant—felt thrust within him like a locust’s thorn. Fox Cap fell, defeated, at the tree’s foot. Dar Oakley thrashed at the leaves that hid the spot where the Most Precious Thing could be but wasn’t. If they spent a year and a day searching, they wouldn’t have begun. He ceased, and stood by her there where she lay in grief.

  Why, why had he done it? How could he have been so foolish? He should never have done what he did. He ought to have seen through that trick, how could he not have? He searched in thought for the right thing he should have done and hadn’t and now never could. A storm of bitter feeling darkened his mind. Dar Oakley, first among all Crows, felt the sting of remorse.

  “It’s done,” Fox Cap whispered.

  The day that had begun not long before sank away; the trees ceased their agitation, the forest grew still and dead and dark.

  When the darkness was utter, a wind of their former world sprang up, a little wind, a real wind, touching them.

  Then all the trees went away, and stars could be seen.

  Then the hollow in the barrow where they sat became clear, even to Dar Oakley, in the last light of the sinking moon.

  Then he and Fox Cap looked down to see the basket that the shepherd and his boy had left for them, with a clay bottle of water and something in a rag of cloth.

  The whole of a winter night had
passed, but not more than that; the moon had crossed the sky darkwise, and now the sky daywise was lit red by the sun not yet risen. They were where they had been.

  For a time they sat and nothing more. Even the Crow was still. As the daylight grew he could see that Fox Cap wasn’t as she’d become in the Other Lands, was no older than when they had set out, if they ever had; pale in the dawn light, but her hair red and full.

  “The story’s over,” she said. She looked around her at the hill and the sky and the sun, and laughed, or wept—it was often hard for a Crow to tell. She undid the cloth, which held oatcakes, and broke them and shared them with Dar Oakley, and when they’d eaten she rose, took up her staff, and started down the path. The Crow winged ahead to lead her homeward from the North, the only North of this world.

  In later times, in centuries after, when the tales of Dar Oakley were known by Crows in many places, this one of how Dar Oakley nearly brought the Most Precious Thing to the Crows so that they never needed to die would be one of them. It would be said (though it wasn’t so) that the way Crows everywhere find and hide glittering and shiny things in secret places, how they’re always on the lookout for them wherever they go, the way they steal them from the People to have for themselves—all that’s because Dar Oakley lost the Most Precious Thing that he stole and made off with, and Crows ever after have been looking for it.

  What would he tell Kits of what he had seen and done? There was no other Crow that he could imagine telling it all to—if she believed him, she’d laugh in delight at his misadventures, and also if she didn’t believe him. But as he made his way back to the lake and the Crow’s demesne and thought of recounting it all to her, she appeared to his inward eye to be far off, not near and listening; unable to hear or understand. He told the tale over to himself as he went, though not as he tells it now perhaps; as he told it then he was perhaps wiser in it, and braver, gave good advice, wasn’t fooled. He doesn’t remember.