by Robert Cely
despair. He flew closer to the ground. He ate more of the bread of the earth-bound. He slept more and more, much of it during the daylight hours, flying by himself under the cover of night.
On one particular night, a dark night with no moon, when Oberlain soared alone, he landed upon a barren rock crag to rest. He sat alone for a moment, his obsessive thoughts continually returning to his brother, and just as he was about to take to the air again, the flutter of wings arrested his attention. A vulture landed on a dead tree above Oberlain.
“Brother flyer,” the vulture croaked out. “How goes it with you this pleasant evening?”
Oberlain didn’t answer the vulture. All Lethe tended to avoid their kind. At this point vultures didn’t eat carrion yet. Like all birds of prey they had a share of the kill that was rightfully theirs. It’s just that they were dirty, and unlike the other hunter birds they never cleaned themselves enough. So they stunk of meat, an odor as offensive to the sensitive Lethean nose as anything.
Not to mention, vultures are notorious liars, as everyone knows. They will often lie just for the sport of it. In fact, the vultures held a yearly contest to see who could come up with the most incredible, unbelievable lie, and then convince another living creature it was true.
This particular vulture, who had perched on the dead tree above Oberlain, was a three-time champion prevaricator by the name of Ichabod. Now Ichabod had just lost last year to a young upstart named Memnon, and was high sore to reclaim his title. Especially considering the poor quality of the canard that Memnon employed – convincing an ant that if he ate a bite of bee pollen at the full moon he could mate with the grey squirrel and start a super race of ants – caused particular pain to Ichabod. He was convinced that if it weren’t for Memnon’s colorful description of the hoodwinked ant trying to carry out such a preposterous scheme, which had the entire Liar’s Council fallen over in laughter, Ichabod would have snagged four in a row.
Now what made Ichabod so gifted was not that he told particularly convincing lies. Rather, he had a gift for finding creatures ready to believe something incredible. He could smell bitterness and pride miles away, like a corpse rotting in the desert sun. And no one, he knew, was more ready to believe a lie than someone who believed he had gotten less than he deserved.
Ichabod had caught a whiff of Oberlain weeks ago and could hardly believe his good fortune. No vulture in memory had ever convinced one of the legendary Lethe of a lie. So if Ichabod could reel this one in he would win for sure. He may even be remembered in fibber’s lore as the greatest liar of all time. He smiled at this thought, for he had never smelled pride and bitterness quite like what reeked from Oberlain.
“Now don’t fly off there,” Ichabod implored as he saw Oberlain spread his wings. “I just wanted to hear you sing for a little while. I hardly ever get to hear the Blessed Ones sing.”
“Why would a bald head want to hear a song?” Oberlain asked, feeling a bit superior to the vulture.
“Now you don’t have to go on with the name calling do you?” Ichabod put on his best mock offense. “Why do you have to go and hurt a vulture’s feelings like that?”
Oberlain shrugged his shoulders, not sure how to answer. They had always called the vultures bald-head. He had no idea it hurt their feelings.
“All I want is a little song,” Ichabod continued. “Is that too much to ask? Just a few notes? I’ve heard you Lethe have such heavenly voices.”
Something unfamiliar tugged at Oberlain. No one had ever asked him to sing before. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity Oberlain complied, hesitantly at first. He sang an old lullaby to the vulture, one of his personal favorites, and the singing filled him with an almost unbearable sadness, recalling to his heart happier days before the shadow had fallen over him.
“That has got to be the most beautiful thing that has ever passed the lips of man,” Ichabod wept when Oberlain had finished, dripping great big vulture tears. “It’s all true what they say about your kind. A Lethe’s voice could melt a rock, they say, and it’s true. Thank you so much for that. I will remember this moment forever.”
Oberlain swelled and that something pulled at him again. Maybe, he thought, this vulture isn’t so bad after all. For certain no one had ever complimented him on his singing. Oberlain thanked the vulture graciously for the compliment.
“You know, I can tell you’re not like the others of your kind,” the vulture slyly observed. “You’re not so high and mighty as are a lot of your folk. I can tell you don’t think it some act of charity to hang around with old, regular fliers like myself.”
“We can’t all be perfect,” Oberlain spat, for the first time uttering aloud the discontent that had festered silently within him.
“No, indeed we can’t,” Ichabod concurred as he dropped to a closer branch. “But don’t you fret my lovely friend. Not all of us can be naturally great and gifted. But what we lack in nature we make up for with cleverness.”
“How do you do that?” Oberlain asked, fully enthralled by the possibility.
Ichabod dropped down to the ground and landed beside Oberlain.
“You learn secrets,” he whispered.
“Secrets?”
“I guess I could tell you one,” the vulture decided. “You being different and all.
“Listen carefully, because you’re about to hear one of the deepest secrets ever uttered. This one was first discovered by a wise man named Destridus, a man so wise he knew all the names of every creature and could call them so they would gather at his feet. He could even call a feral hog to come lay down and roll over and let Destridus cut his throat. That’s what kind of wise man was that came up with this secret.”
Ichabod leaned in close and whispered low.
“What a lot of Lethe don’t know is that there is high magic power in the earth and rock.”
“What kind of magic?” Oberlain asked.
“All kinds of magic,” Ichabod said. “You see, everything that grows has to come out of the ground. Even your Andor tress have to grow roots deep into the earth. Have you ever seen anything grow in the air?”
Oberlain shook his head.
“Because air isn’t powerful enough to grow anything. True power is in the ground and rock, not flitting about on the wind. Look at the earth-bound, see how much food they get out of the ground, so much that they have leftovers that they leave as offerings for you guys. And what happens when a storm, the mightiest act of the air, runs into a mountain? It goes around the mountain because even a storm isn’t stronger than rock.
“Just think about it. Even you Lethe have to touch ground sometimes. Being in the air all day tires you out. But if you sleep next to the earth you get filled with ground and rock power. That’s why you always feel better after you sleep.”
Oberlain quietly pondered what the vulture said. Sure, some of it made sense, but it didn’t all sound quite right.
“Then why were we made with wings?” Oberlain asked. “If we were made to be on the ground why did the Lord bless us with flight?”
“Oh and bless you our Heavenly Father did,” Ichabod replied. “But we aren’t talking about how we are born. We’re talking about a little touch of cleverness to even out some of the inequities of our natural station. Am I right?
“You do what you want with this, I just wanted to share a little secret with you, you being different and all. Now I’m no Lethe and I can’t say what a Lethe ought to do. But all I can say is I wouldn’t spend too much time flitting about the sky and singing all day. What good does that do? Look at the ground-folk. They got cities and farms and ships that can sail on the ocean. The Lethe got none of that. Why? They got no ground power.
“I bet if you was to spend more time on the ground you would see exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe build you a house and start working with the rocks, for sure you would see. Get out of the clouds. The ground is where it’s at. The ground is where it’s rea
l. Why I bet you might even become one of the strongest Lethe ever.”
Oberlain nodded, in his mind he could see it all playing out.
“Remember, it’s a secret.”
Ichabod winked and took off into the sky.
Immediately a fever sank into Oberlain’s bones. And with the fever grew an obsession. What the vulture said seemed to make perfect sense. The ground did seem much more powerful than the air. He even began to notice as he flew that you couldn’t even really see or touch the air. Even a cloud you could see and fly into turned out to be nothing when you reached out to touch it.
But the ground was different. You could see and feel and walk upon it. Food sprang up from the ground and the wind had to move around it and was cut in two by the mountain. And the ground was hard and thick and heavy, much stronger than air. As Oberlain looked closer at the earth-bound he had to admit the strength of ground. Sure they were ugly, but they had full, powerful bodies.
Oberlain couldn’t get Ichabod’s idea out of his mind. He continued to fly closer to the ground, ate the offerings more frequently and slept more often. His dreams became filled with power, of earth and rock. One smash of his fist would split a chasm into the ground and the Lethe fell into it screaming.
Of course, the dream was a warning. But Oberlain’s bitterness would not allow him to see past his own misery. Instead of
