Lupus Rex

by John Carter Cash

  “This is the order! All hear,” he cried. Jackdaw, who had up to this point been inciting celebration, silenced immediately, the last words of the song echoing with the proclamation from the rook.

  “The time of Reckoning has come!” called Ophrei, raising his wings into the air. And as suddenly as their silence had settled, the birds burst into chaotic applause and screeching.

  Ophrei quieted them with a lift of his wings. “I require all, prince and soldier alike, to follow my exact order during this Reckoning. This is the order: You will abide by the call and do as led. The General will guide when needed. All birds will respond immediately. Now,” he said, “I command a word from each and every one of you, all except the brother princes. Their words I will hear later. But from each of you now I command a word of life. These words are the beginning of the Reckoning, and with it, I will hear the steps.” He walked to the edge of the circle and glared at the General. “Fragit will be first.”

  Fragit looked to the rook, and though it was clear he did not truly understand, he put forward a word. “War,” he said.

  The rook made no response but went on to the next in the circle. The crow said, “Tomorrow.” The next said, “Mouse,” and the next, “Forget.”

  This took a long time for the rook to go around the whole of the field, taking a word from every crow. When he had finished, he walked back to the center of the field, the middle of the circle. The rook sat down in the field and closed his eyes, still now, with the words filling his head like a tall cloud carrying a storm.

  “I will now listen to the wind,” he said. “The words were within your bodies and beneath your feathers and from your very beaks, crows, but also from the breath of the wind.” As he sat he repeated the words the murder had given aloud, occasionally pausing and tilting his ear to the sky as if listening. Finally, he raised his aged head. “The wind has whistled and laid out the path of the Reckoning. In this I have heard the order,” said the rook. “General, with you I must hold council.”

  Fragit walked to the old bird and the two talked for a while, keeping their voices low, so that none other could hear their words. Then, with a determined strut, the general returned to the edge of the circle. He looked to the brothers. “Princes,” he called, “you must go to the rook now. The Reckoning has begun.”

  And when the words of the General reached his ears, Nascus felt a nip of fear strike his belly like the stinger of an enraged wasp.

  THE QUAIL DID not go to the nest, as they felt certain the little ones would not be there. Instead they moved through the thickest of the brush, always wary and careful. Cotur Ada felt that every crow in the murder would be in the field, with none patrolling the surrounding woods, but he knew they could not be too careful. Their very lives depended on taking absolute precaution.

  They had found no sign of the two young birds. They passed an old groundhog’s den and Ysil peered inside, whispering, “Erdic! Anur! Are you there?” but there was no response. Monroth chanced a swift flight up into an old oak where in a rotted hole the two often played, but they were not within. Cotur Ada felt he knew where the two were: hiding on the edge of the field, beneath and within the dull green of the stinging nettle. Why come so far and not be watching the crows? And though the black birds were certainly consumed with their Reckoning, they were always wary and would be watchful for any intruder. They checked each hiding spot they knew of just to be sure.

  The nearer to the field they came, the more Ysil’s anxiety grew. With each careful step they grew closer and closer to enormous danger. The crows in the field had grown perplexingly silent. The three quail scurried beneath a blackberry bramble, and, shifting their bodies between and beneath the thorny branches and browning leaves, they moved forward until the Murder’s Field came into view. Cotur Ada motioned for the two to be silent and still. The quail lay prone within the recess of the bush and observed, listening intently for any sign of the two young birds they were seeking.

  IN THE FIELD, the King’s sons hopped toward the middle of the circle. The crows in the vast ring were fatally silent as the three approached the old rook.

  “This is the order,” called Ophrei. Then he turned and stared intensely at the three princes. “You are birds of strength and, to an extent, all rightful by birth. You are the entire one, and still none of you are the whole without the other. One of you will remain in flesh, and the other two will offer their own so that it may become something else.” He came close to Sintus, who tendered back an apprehensive eye. “I am the voice and you are the motion. I give form to your word and will hear the telling of the order on the wind. Now, a word of face to each of you. This word is to mirror my own, as your reflection in the still water. Listen carefully and take heed before you speak the word given to you. Listen to it in your heart before you move your tongue.” Then he moved his beak to within striking distance of Sintus. “Elder one, you will respond to my word of face with your own. Then, in turn, the other two. This word will determine the order of the Reckoning. Your word is take.”

  Sintus made a slight chuckle under his breath and kept his eyes on his supporters. “Wheat,” he said. Ophrei gazed into his eyes for what seemed a long time but was only a brief moment. The rook moved on to Milus.

  “Your word is remove,” said the rook to the youngest bird. To this Milus responded after some deliberation, “Storm.” And he broke into a fast breathing, his eyes darting around the field in disquiet.

  Then it was the turn for Nascus to offer his word. The rook came close to him, a mirror of sparkle between the two birds’ eyes. “The words will tell the order and the words only,” said the rook, seemingly to no one in particular, though he did not look away from Nascus’s eyes.

  “I will claim no preferred,” the rook continued. “Though your tears for your father hold a strong message.” Nascus had noted the other brothers had not cried at all. He did not divert his gaze from that of the rook’s and presented no claim or answer. The rook did not seem to require one. “However,” said the rook, still in his low and measured tone, “I will not allow any acumen to guide the Reckoning.”

  Ophrei puffed up and seemed to return to his purpose. “And now, your word of order: change,” he said.

  With what was the slightest hesitation, but not looking away, Nascus replied: “Fire.”

  The old bird looked into Nascus’s eyes for some time. The field around was quiet and still, only a gentle breeze made the slightest sound as it moved through the surrounding trees.

  The rook stepped back from the brothers and looked to the surrounding murder. He raised his beak up and called out loudly, the sound of his call piercing the autumnal sky with the certainty of a rattlesnake’s bite.

  He spoke then to the murder. Jackdaw was fidgeting while the brothers were calling out their words, but now he was still and silent. Likewise, General Fragit was motionless but attentive. When Ophrei spoke, it was with a voice not his own, and Nascus had the abrupt thought the old bird had been taken over by his father, or his father’s father, so strong and authoritative was his tone. “You of the murder! Take heed. As it was when the crows gathered in Miscwa Tabik-kizi for the First Atonement, so it is for the Reckoning! This is the way of the order, and though none of you hold this memory beyond your own atonements, it is as deeply a part of you as your black feathers themselves! I will take these words to the wind, and the wind will tell them to my secret heart within.” The rook closed his eyes then, with every bird watching and awaiting his command. “You will all follow the order of the rule, and the order will fall from me to the General and then to all the murder. This is not the time for feeble hearts weedy of burdens! I will tell the General his rule and the murder will follow as one! There will be one of these brothers to give from the heart, the heart to be shared among the many.” The brothers all visibly shuddered at this. Sintus looked to his party, all of whom glanced expectantly back and forth from him to the rook.

  “This is the spreading of the King’s blood within th
e prince’s veins to his murder. There will be another to offer his salt to the earth, so that the salt from the line of the King may go to enrich the soil of the field. These two will be sung of for years untold! Their sacrifice will be of equal gift for the strength of the field and the power of the murder. Their deaths will be only in body. The whole of the King will live on through the growing and the eating.” He looked around the field. “And in the body of the newly crowned!” With that the field erupted in chaotic cawing, heavy black wings flogging the air. “This is the order!” Ophrei screamed above the ruckus.

  “Now,” spoke the rook, “the wind will tell the rule.” And with that he closed his eyes again and began to shake. The murder became quiet, all eyes on the magician. To the sky he opened his eyes—their night’s black was turned to a blood’s red. His feathers seemed to take on a movement of their own, as if the wind were moving through them fiercely, but a gentle breeze was all there was. Then it became as if the wind itself were wrapping in a tiny tornado of gusts around the rook. The old bird stood firm but appeared to be fighting against the wind to keep from blowing away. The rest of the field was still, but the rook was within a storm. Then, as quickly as it had arisen, the wind about Ophrei ceased, leaving the bird tousled but still standing.

  Then Ophrei turned to the brothers and leveled his still-red eyes at them. “Now, in the order I command, you are each to tell the tale of the Day of Creation, then tell the tale of your father’s life.”

  “The Day of Creation?” Sintus laughed at this. “We all know the Day of Creation! What does this have to do with the Reckoning?”

  “You will not question the Reckoning,” answered the rook. “This is the way it has always been. Now I will distinguish the order in which you will tell. The wind has made it apparent to me.”

  Around the field the crows glanced to one another in confusion, but none spoke. Fragit kept his eyes steadily on the rook, attentive to every word. The old General moved a bit closer to Ophrei and out of the main circle. The rook turned his way and motioned for him to come near.

  Fragit moved to the rook’s side. “You will do precisely what the rook commands,” said the General to the brothers. The look he gave them said, I don’t care that you are princes. You will follow the order.

  “Now, I announce the sequence,” said Ophrei. “Milus will be first, followed by Sintus. The final will be Nascus.”

  “What?” Sintus was outraged. “I am the firstborn of the princes, and the rightful in line! What is this treachery?” He looked to his supporters, many of which made calls of agreement.

  “You will do as commanded,” said Fragit, stepping in close to the boastful bird. “You are under the rule of the Reckoning and will follow the order of the rook.”

  Sintus did not respond to this in voice but strutted around angrily, cawing in disgust. All eyes watched him. His court and allies responded loudly to his canting. The General and the rook only watched him warily. After a short tirade, the eldest brother glared at his sibling foremost in line. “Well, then, brother. Go on with it.” Sintus turned to Ophrei. “What will he be giving? His salt or his heart, dear sage?”

  The old rook did not respond, but directed his attention to the youngest. “Now, Milus, the hand of time is to you. Recount the Day of Creation. Then tell of your father’s life.”

  Milus looked around the Murder’s Field for support, but none was found. It appeared as if he was sure this was some trick, and someone was going to offer him the special word that would prove he was the rightful King. In truth, he was not worried about the need to be King . . . except that the one chosen would be the only one of the three to live.

  He sniffled then called around the field, “I will now tell the story of Creation!”

  The bird cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “In the first night,” he recited, “the Wind and the Earth were as one, but still each was alone. And during the dark the Earth slept, but the Wind never slept. And the Wind counted all it held within and also below and considered what could be made. And the Wind thought alone and gathered above the Earth and within that night pondered. Then, looking down upon the Earth and seeing the cold rock, the Wind thought to make a companion. And the Wind carried dust, and within the dust were feathers, but upon the Earth only the still black stone. And the dust from within the air settled upon the rock. This is so, as it was and as it is.

  “And come morning the Earth woke and the stones sought to shake the dust from themselves and to create companions of their own, but alone the stones could not move, and the Wind seized them and lifted them up into itself. And within the Wind there was blood, as if red rain, and it took form, and the feathers settled around the stone and the blood gathered beneath the feathers, so the stones became bones and took form to fill the shape. And this meshing of bones, feathers, and blood became a living thing, and the Wind desired to keep the thing as its own. The Earth was greatly angry, for the Wind had taken from the Earth its stones. So the Wind held the thing it had created and called it Crow. This was all upon the first day. And the Earth and Wind have not ceased their battle since. And at night the Wind tears at the Earth, and come light, the Earth stares angrily up to the Wind. And Crow holds allegiance to the Wind, and curses the Earth and steals from it.”

  The field erupted in a chaos of shrieks and caws, the full murder in chorus, their tongues red and their eyes black. Edith, Milus’s mother, looked around at her son’s followers, smiling as best she could. “Eh, now that was quite well told,” she jittered. “What say all you?”

  To that she received a less than enthusiastic response. Still, she kept her smile.

  The rook stared at the youngest brother, cold and certain, giving nothing away. The wind shuffled through his feathers. “Now, Prince. The tale of your father’s life.”

  WITHIN THE BRAMBLE the three quail watched and listened. Ysil had heard the crow’s tale of Creation before. Just as the quail learned the Quailsong, the crows likewise had their educations. He felt a bit confused, although some of this he had seen before when the crows took to field. The tale of Creation was told frequently, passed down from generation to generation, and he had hidden and listened to their tale more than once. The quail, like the crows, held an allegiance to the wind, but the quail heard the songs on the wind—and heard its laughter. He felt that most crows heard nothing but the rake of leaf upon branch and the whipping of grapevine. And though Ysil did not necessarily disbelieve the crow’s tale of Creation, he certainly did not like the idea of a crow being the first creature. Why would the wind have created such an animal as crow before quail, or rabbit, or even hawk for that matter? Crows were annoying and loud.

  Ysil knew the next part of the tale, when the wind made more crows to keep itself moving should it begin to die, in doing so ensuring it never would cease. He had heard the tale of how the earth made the mice and the rabbits next, for it was jealous of the wind and the crows only took from the earth and never gave back. He knew the tale of the first hawk, Gritnim, whom the wind created to take from the earth’s creations, and how the crows had established the order. It was long down the line in the story when the quail were created. Only an afterthought for the wind, really; creatures of its own to gather over the earth and to live upon it. The wind sought to make them allies to the earth, yet obligated to the wind, doubly bound. There was little else about the quail in the crows’ Creation story. Ysil was always let down that there wasn’t more concerning his own kind. Crows were such a self-centered bunch, and arrogant.

  But the bird did not carry on the Creation tale. Milus went into the tale of his father’s life as commanded. This was something Ysil had never heard told, and he had a feeling something significant was about to occur, but what that might be, he had no idea.

  MILUS WAS STAMMERING. He did not know what was expected of him, and he did not like the looks of the birds around him. They were all staring at him with expectation, and not a few of them were openly glaring at him with contempt. Even his few fo
llowers were looking at him questioningly and with suspicion.

  “Come, brother,” called Sintus. “It’s a bit late in season for a locust to be caught in your throat!” There was a hesitant murmur of laughter through the murder.

  Milus cleared his throat again, this time more of a frightened growl. “My father was born to be King! He was the son of a King as was his father before him.” Milus was searching. “My father was the best King in the history of crows! He was raised by his father’s second she-bird. His mother was born of royal blood, but was murdered in the great stone garden for the Atonement. It was a rook that took her life.” He darted his eyes to Ophrei, who stared back, unmoving and without response or change. “She was offered as a curse to man for the good of all crows. My father spent his life as a good King—”

  “Stop!” screamed the old rook without warning. “Silence,” he said, and the youngest prince froze.

  Then the old rook closed his eyes and began to shiver. He spoke first with a quiet tumble of words. Then, as he continued, his voice grew in intensity and volume.

  “The day your father was born has been forgotten by your heart, bird. The day your father died lives stronger within your memory. You are of soundless gizzard, and in your passing your frailties will be totally consumed. Only your strengths will remain. In this you may celebrate.”

  Milus began to step back toward the outer ring. He glanced around in fear and desperation. His few supporters watched him uneasily. The rest of the murder began to caw softly and restlessly. The rook continued.

  “The wind will consume and carry away what is given in dust. You are made of this: forged of dust and now a dispersion of it. You are the fodder for the worm, naught but a scattering of black feathers. You are the flavor for the murder! You will give from the heart!” This last Ophrei cawed in tremendous crescendo.