Chapter the 16th
Michael flew over the rest of the town where he had just been attacked and then over the surrounding countryside with the protection and encouragement of the blackbirds. Their singing was much sweeter and melodious than he ever thought blackbirds were capable of. Farmers plowed their fields and children were fished and swam in the rivers and ponds. Large forests alternated with the farmland and small towns. Michael’s beak still burned with the fire he had snatched out of the hands of the small boy who was about to be burnt by it. He did not know where he was going, but the blackbirds seemed to, and he was willing to follow their lead.
Suddenly, the landscape below Michael broke apart. There was no other way to describe it. Ribbons of darkness surrounded swathes of forest and farmland and villages like snakes. Suddenly, the world looked like pieces of a gigantic jig saw puzzle where the pieces floated like islands on a sea of darkness. The next time a town came into view, several stores and houses broke away from the rest of the town. These houses and stores collided with houses and stores floating toward them from the opposite direction. After the collisions, the battered houses and stores moved on, Michael knew not where. The singing of Michael’s fellow blackbirds became intense and anxious.
Michael felt on the dark streams try to suck him into its depths. The blackbirds also struggled to pull themselves towards the nearest pieces of one world or another. Michael doubted that he could ever have made it on his own, but the flock of birds together seemed to have just enough strength to pull free of the dark stream and reach a piece of countryside. Even there, everything looked much dark with thick, black clouds covering the sky. Army tanks rolled up and down hills in the countryside. Among the tanks, cowboys rode unicorns and shot up everything in sight with their pistols. Suddenly, Michael and the blackbirds were thrust toward another piece of land where a troop of soldiers with muskets over their shoulders were marching along a dirt road. At the head of the troop, a king wearing his gold crown was marching proudly. Then Michael and the blackbirds were tossed from that scene like tennis balls caught in a storm to another piece of world where he and the other blackbirds were flying above a long train speeding through the countryside. The train had an odd assortment of cars: a passenger car decorated with trimmings one might see in a high-class hotel back at the turn of the twentieth century, a dining car, freight cars, a milk car, a circus car with a wolf prowling inside it, and an old-fashioned caboose. Just up ahead, Michael saw a dark edge to the piece of countryside. He cawed out a warning and the other blackbirds joined in. The wolf in the circus car howled in reply just before the train hurtled into the darkness and disappeared.
Michael and the rest of the flock struggled to stay out of the darkness and ended up flying over a seemingly endless body of water large enough to be an ocean. After flying an endless time without seeing anything but water, they came to an island. A lighthouse stood on the island’s rocky coast but Michael doubted that the lighthouse was doing its job. Although the sun had set, no light shone over the rocks below to warn ships away from them. Michael flew down to the tower. The place was deserted. Luminous lavender cobwebs filled the tower and the living quarters below. On the table in the dining room were some plates with breadcrumbs left on them. Michael quickly gobbled them up. But when he started to fly away, something caught Michael from behind. He tried to shake it off but he couldn’t. The cobwebs had caught him.
“I thought you’d get caught sooner or later,” said a man in black stepping out of the shadows.
“No light will ever shine in this lighthouse ever again,” said a woman in black.
“Surely you need a good long rest after your long flight,” said a younger man in black.
The man was right. Michael was exhausted.
“Everybody has left you to rot in this lighthouse tower,” said the older man.
“Nobody has thought to go after you and find you,” said the woman.
“Now you can get your revenge by lying down in the tower and spreading your wings across it to make sure the light is never lit again.”
Those words jogged something in Michael’s memory and the coal in his mouth burned hot. He could light the tower with that coal. He started to open his mouth to say so but he snapped it shut again when he heard the crows singing outside the tower.
“You will never get away from this spider web,” said the older man.
“Your quest is at an end,” said the woman.
“The only way to escape this web,” said the younger man, “is to burn it with the coal in your mouth.”
Michael was tempted by the thought but the three speakers reminded him too much of a creature named Will, and so he hesitated to follow their advice. The singing of the crows made Michael feel that he was wise to keep the coal in his mouth, much as it hurt.
“Melanie the Web Spinner does not appreciate any misrepresentation of the qualities of her cosmic web,” said a soft but emphatic feminine voice that thundered inside Michael’s ears.
Michael turned about in the web, surprised he could move so much, and saw a giant spider looking down on him with piercing yellow eyes. The three people in black were gone as if they had never come.
“Melanie the Web Spinner does not want Michael the Crow to worry about her, as she does not eat crows,” the spider reassured Michael, although Michael did not feel very reassured. “Melanie the Web Spinner recommends that Michael the crow fly away as this is not the time to tarry in this place.”
Michael tried again to shake off the Web but he could not.
“Melanie the Web Spinner will have Michael the Crow realize that her Web will not hinder him from flying away; it will only guide him.”
Michael did not believe that he could flap his wings and fly off but he decided to humor the spider and try it. To his surprise, he found himself flying out the window before he knew it. The crows greeted him with a happy song and lead him further. Looking back, Michael could see the spider's web trailing behind him and wrapping itself about the other crows, but the web did not prevent their flying into the night.
Michael flew over more patches of choppy water surrounded by patches of darkness until he spied a sailing ship with a pirate’s flag flying from its mast. The other crows burst into a happy song as they flew over the ship. Several pirates and a group of boys were swabbing the deck and singing lusty songs that went well with the crows’ singing. A girl among the boys and pirates looked familiar. Michael tried to get a closer look. A parrot jumped off the shoulders of a pirate and flew up to the flock of blackbirds.
“Mozart is the most art, Mozart is the most art,” chirped the parrot and then it flew back down to the pirate’s shoulder.
The water grew darker and rougher. Looking ahead, Michael saw the waves dissolve into another patch of darkness. Fearing that the ship would sail off the edge of the ocean, Michael cried out a warning. The boys raised their voices in reply. This time, the darkness was too strong for Michael and the blackbirds with him and they flew straight into it. All sense of direction was lost. The only reference point was a thin, purplish thread-like line from Melanie’s Web that glowed dimly for some distance downwards. Michael and the blackbirds followed that line, hoping it would lead somewhere. One point in the line seemed to swell. Michael flew lower to check it out, hoping it would be an island, but all Michael could see was a treasure chest moving along the thread as if it were a cable car. Michael passed it by and stayed on course until the thread led him and the other birds to a small, rocky island. Then another patch of darkness snatched him and the flock of blackbirds.
Once again, the thread from Melanie’s Web gently pulled Michael and the blackbirds over many fragments of land until they reached a mountain silhouetted against the stars. Michael slid down the thread as if it were a slide and landed on the mountaintop. Instinctively, Michael perched himself in a sleeping position. The blackbirds formed a circle around him, singing all the while. Their song became more soothing, the tones clearer and purer. Michael closed his eyes and relaxed. Some of the blackbirds flew away while the rest remained to sing to him. The returning blackbirds brought twigs and sweet-smelling sticks that smelled like cinnamon. Breathing the scent made his throat feel hot. Swallowing a hundred cigarettes would have been cooler.
Once the birds finished making the nest, the birds’ song became so beautiful that Michael opened his mouth to sing along with them before he knew he had done it. Not even one note escaped Michael’s lips before the flame he had carried for so long leaped out and set the nest on fire. The light blinded him and the flames engulfed his body. Even as he burned, Michael could still hear the blackbirds sing a lullaby as gentle as the twinkling of the distant stars. Unafraid of the fire that was consuming his crow’s body, Michael melted into a sleep with dreams filled with the blackbirds’ songs.
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Scott Simpson fell with Princess Mona for such a long time that it almost felt like flying. Gradually his fall slowed down, as if he were parachuting in the cold, strong wind. By the time they saw a mountain below them, he and Mona were floating more than falling and they landed gently high up the side of the mountain on a cushion of pine needles.
“Are you okay?” Scott asked.
“Of course, I am,” said Mona, energetically brushing pine needles off her night gown.
“That wasn’t the most reliable turtle we were riding,” said Scott.
“Oh, but Sylvester is the most reliable turtle in the world,” Mona insisted. “If he wasn’t so reliable, the world would have fallen off his back centuries ago.”
“He doesn’t really carry the whole world on his back, does he?” asked Scott.
“Of course he does,” Mona replied. “That’s one of the first things you learn in school.”
“Not in my school, it isn’t.”
Mona opened her mouth to make an unkind remark about Scott’s school, but seemed to think better of it.
“At least now you know that Sylvester carries the world on his shell.”
“I hope he’s doing a better job of that than he did of carrying us to our destination.”
“Oh, I’m sure Sylvester did a perfectly good job of carrying us to our destination, even if it doesn't look like it,” said Mona. “He always knows what he's doing. He would never have flipped us off his back if there was a chance we would get hurt or land in the wrong place.”
“Are you saying that Sylvester had us fall here because this is the place we’re supposed to be?” asked Scott.
“That is exactly what I am saying,” said Mona.
“I thought Sylvester was supposed to take us to a rocky shoreline with a lighthouse up ahead that your brother was going to,” said Scott.
“But once Sylvester realized we gave him the wrong directions, he corrected them for us.”
Scott grunted, sat up and rubbed his bad foot.
“I hope I can walk on it okay,” said Scott.
“Got a bad foot?”
“Yea.”
“I hope I don't have to carry you. I'm not big and strong enough for that.”
“I don't think you are either.”
“Thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
Scott stood up and tried a few steps and winced.
“No go?” asked Mona.
“It's a go,” Scott replied, “but we'll have to take our time.”
“That’s assuming we have to get somewhere other than where we are,” said Mona.
“Hmm.”
Scott looked at the bleak twilight landscape. There were a few craggy mountains around them. The rest was a rock desert. He could see no lights that suggested the presence of civilization for as far as he could see.
“What should we do?” asked Scott.
“Look around, I suppose.”
“I've done that. Do you know where we are?” asked Scott.
“Not really. We could be in the Caragonian Mountains, but knowing that doesn't help because the Caragonian Mountains could be anywhere.”
“Nobody taught me how to locate the Caragonian Mountains on a map,” said Scott.
“You don’t locate the Caragonian Mountains on a map,” said Mona, “you locate the Caragonian Mountains by locating them in the place where they happen to be.”
“And how do you find out where they are when you land in the middle of them?” asked Scott.
Mona shrugged.
“We probably don’t have to know where the Caragonian Mountains are if we’ve already landed on the mountain we are supposed to climb.”
“And what do we do when we get to the top? Look around?”
“I suppose we will want to look around when we get there. I suppose there is a chance that we will be able to figure out what we’re supposed to do when we get there.”
Scott scooped up some pine needles in his hands and sifted them through his fingers. Mona stared into space.
“Are there any wild animals around here?” asked Scott.
“Not necessarily,” Mona answered. “Scared?”
“I don't think so. I'll protect you if they attack.”
“That's most kind of you,” said Mona archly. “I don't usually need protecting, but I'm rather glad I am not completely alone.”
Scott massaged his foot and shivered from the cold
“I wish I had my jacket with me. Then I could give you that to keep you warm.”
“I wish you had it, too,” said Mona, “but a princess must bear what must be born for the sake of the kingdom.”
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The ride through the murky depths on the turtle's back seemed endless to Mark. Dornal helped pass the time by playing his harp to pass the time. The music was comforting to Mark as he found himself questioning his life much more than he was accustomed to. For as long he could remember, he had assumed he would walk in his father's footsteps and become a priest. But in the darkness of this journey Mark wasn’t so sure.
“You don’t really believe what your father believes,” a man spoke into Mark’s ear.
“You’re just making the motions of prayer when you think you’re praying,” said a woman into his other ear.
“That is to say, you aren’t really praying at all,” said another man.
Mark was starting to nod in agreement when a melody Dornal was playing caught his attention. Suddenly the voices sounded more empty than the darkness.
“You aren’t going to let a little tune like that decide what you believe, are you?” asked the first man.
“A melody like that doesn’t mean anything,” said the woman.
“You can’t put your faith in music,” said the second man.
“I know you can’t,” said Mark. “That’s why I put my faith in God.”
Suddenly Dornal and Mark bounced around the turtle's back. Mark grabbed at to one of the lumps on the turtle’s back. But that didn’t give him any security. The motion on the turtle’s shell suggested that Sylvester was walking along on an uneven surface. Mark heard the sound of the sea's surf pounding the rock and then freezing water poured around him. Mark held on for dear life as the water fell away from him.
“We're almost catching up with him,” said the turtle. “Let us hope they don’t slow down without warning.”
Mark opened his eyes and saw that Sylvester was plodding along the rocky shore at sunset. He was barely skirting the incoming tide that continued to send its spray over Mark and Dornal. Sylvester’s lumbering steps were so slow that Mark didn’t think the turtle could even catch up with a firmly planted tree. Dornal played three lengthy songs on his harp but even then, Sylvester hadn't climbed over more than two or three rocks. The tide receded and Mark saw a figure up ahead. He was wearing a cape that flapped in the wind and holding a naked sword against the sky.
“Thought so,” said the turtle. “There he is, Dornal. There he is, Scott.”
Prince Moroch the Pickled was still quite some distance ahead of them and walking very fast, but the turtle continued to plod at his same slow pace that seemed certain to be losing ground.
“Uh—turtle,” said Mark.
“Sylvester at your service.”
“Uh—Sylvester. My name is Mark Clement. Scott is somebody else.”
“Oh—well—really—you don't say. What are you doing here?”
“That's what I'd like to know,” said Mark. “That's what I've wanted to know for a long time. I'd be glad to let Scott take my place if I could.”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Sylvester. “A previous appointment took Scott elsewhere. You will have to take his place.”
“And where is the place I’m supposed to take?” asked Mark.
“Inside of Prince Moroch,” Sylvester replied. “He needs company just now, but he doesn’t know how to listen to anybody. That means that the only way you can keep him company is to go inside him.”
“I know the feeling,” said Dornal.
“I know the feeling myself,” said Sylvester, “having tried to talk to the Crown Prince of Carelin many times in my day. That is why I was going to bring you and Scott here.”
“But Scott was gone already when I woke up,” said Dornal. “Only Mark was left, so I woke him up and asked him to come with me.”
“It's funny the way things get mixed up,” said the turtle. “We'll just have to make the best of it.”
“Sorry,” said Mark, feeling like a leftover.
“Sorry Mark,” said Dornal hastily. “We didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure you’ll do fine as the ideal replacement for Scott.”
“How do you know?” Mark asked.
“Because you’re here, that’s why.”
“They don’t really think you can do the job inside of Prince Moroch,” said a man into Mark’s ear.
“They know you’re hopeless for such an important errand,” said a woman in Mark’s other ear.
“You will find only darkness inside of Prince Moroch,” said another man.
“My father says that God can make anyone be the right person at the right place if you let God do it,” said Mark.
“If you gently sink into my shell,” Sylvester explained, “you will find yourselves inside of Prince Moroch in less time than it takes me to run a coastline.”
To Mark's alarm, Dornal, harp and all, started doing just that. He shrank until the shell absorbed him, leaving Mark all alone.
“You haven't done it yet, Scott—“ said Sylvester, “—I mean Mark, the son of a priest.”
“How do you know my father’s a priest?” asked Mark.
“I get around pretty good for a turtle who is always holding up the world,” replied Sylvester. “You don't have to believe me, and you don't have to join Dornal inside of Moroch if you don’t want to, but you might get tired of riding on my back forever and ever, and you might be able to help Dornal more than you think you can, if you give it a try.”
Mark felt a hand start to dissolve into Sylvester’s shell before he noticed it. In a moment of panic, he pulled it back out, relieved that he did that as easily as slipping a hand in and out of a mud.
“I don’t think you have to be afraid of going inside of Prince Moroch,” said Sylvester the Turtle. “I carry the weight of 36 million people who are worse than he is, not to think of the weight of millions more who aren’t as bad as the Crown Prince of Carelin, but who still weight something and add to my crushing burden. If I can bear all of that, you can whatever is inside of Prince Moroch. Another thought, Mark, the son of a priest: You need Dornal’s help and he can’t help you if you aren’t with him.”
Mark was feeling quite ashamed of leaving Dornal with the whole burden of being a presence inside of Prince Moroch when the turtle thought that the spoiled brat needed two people to go inside him. Much as he feared losing his own self, he remembered the words his father had preached on often: He who loses his life will find it. Hoping his father knew what he was preaching about, Mark let himself go and he dissolved into the turtle's shell. The sound of Dornal's harp, first faint, and then louder, greeted him. He gradually became aware, as if in a dream, that he was walking steadily along the coast, on the lookout for the light he would bring back to Carelin.
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“Company, halt!” barked the commander.
The soldiers clicked their heels and stood at attention. King Perezvon XXVI whirled around. It was still the middle of the night and he could hardly see his troops, neither could he see where they were.
“Why did you stop?” the king asked the commander.
“Because I have not the slightest idea of where we are, Your Majesty” the commander replied.
“Did I order you to get lost?” asked the king.
“No, Your Majesty, you did not.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I—I—I tried to keep track of where we were, Your Majesty, but the terrain changes every few minutes.”
“Did I give the terrain permission to change every few minutes?” asked the king.
“Not that I know of, Your Majesty.”
“Then why does it do it?”
“I don’t know, Your Majesty. The terrain does not seem to consider itself accountable to you.”
“Get out your map and find out where we are,” the king ordered.
“Yes, your majesty.”
The commander pulled a wad of paper out of his hip pocket and unfolded it. He nodded to a soldier and he stepped forward and held his lantern over it. The rest of the soldiers remained standing at attention, holding themselves as still as statues. A flock of blackbirds cawing at the top of their lungs flew overhead.
“Does the cawing of those birds sound like music,” asked the king, “or is it the case that the music played and sung in the royal court sounds like the cawing of those birds?”
“I think the royal harpist can answer that question better than I can, Your Majesty,” the commander replied.
As the birds flew on, the Caragonian mountains suddenly loomed just ahead of the company of soldiers.
“Does your map now show us to be at the foot of the Caragonian Mountains?” asked King Perezvon XXVI.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Good. We can march through the pass that takes us to Corelee.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Company, forward march!”
The soldiers clicked their heels once more and marched ahead toward the mountains with the king and the commander at their head.
“Are you having a rough journey?” asked an old man, dressed in black, who suddenly appeared next to him.
“It must be hard to carry the kingdom on your shoulders,” said an old woman, also dressed in black.
“You must be proud of your ability to carry such a load,” added a young man, dressed in black as well.
“Of course I’m proud of what I can do,” the king replied.
“And nobody seems to notice the burden you carry,” said the older man.
“Nobody appreciates what you do for the kingdom,” added the woman.
“Everybody takes a king for granted unless something goes wrong,” said the younger man.
“I’ve noticed,” grumbled the king.
“We were just visiting your son, the Crown Prince,” said the older man.
“He has delusions of grandeur now that he is in charge of the affairs of state in your absence,” said the woman.
“He is taking over the kingdom,” added the younger man.
“He thinks he knows how to bring the light back to Carelin,” said the old man.
“But he really only knows how to bring more darkness back to Carelin,” said the woman.
“And he will indeed bring dark delusions back to Carelin if he is given the chance,” said the younger man.
“He needs his father to save him,” said the older man.
“If you run to the lighthouse that he stole from the treasure map drawn by Kevin the Weaver Maker, you might reach him in time,” said the woman.
“Otherwise, there may not be a kingdom left when you return from the war with Correlee,” said the younger man.
Perezvon knew they were right. He should have known that his son would swell with self-importance as soon as he was given the opportunity. His son was going to ruin the kingdom in no time.
“Which way to the lighthouse?” asked the king.
“This way,” said the older man as he pointed to a narrow, winding road off to the side.
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Moroch thrust his sword to the right and to the left as if parrying invisible enemies. The mist was thickening. The shadowy beings who stole the light could be anywhere. A lyrical tune began to run through the prince’s head, a harpist's tune. He could not identify it, but he did not need to know the tune’s name to feel a sense of light in the melody.
“You are only recalling the tune because you are hoping in vain to find the light,” said a man.
“The melody doesn’t mean anything,” said a woman.
“You don’t know where you are going,” said another man.
The fog rolled in so thickly that Moroch could no longer see where he was going. Still, determined to locate the missing light and bring it back to Carelin, Prince Moroch slogged on ahead. He stumbled over a rock here and a rock there, but he did not let that stop him. He kept on going until he stubbed his toe against something hard and plunged forward against a stone wall. Stepping back, Prince Moroch saw the faint twilight reflecting off the whitewashed sides of the lighthouse. He raised his sword to make the top blossom out in a blaze of light, but his gesture only resulted in casting a dark shadow that swelled like a black cloud.
“I’ll bet the light is trapped somewhere inside,” said Moroch.
Something inside him seemed to tell him not to be so sure, but Moroch ignored those voices and rushed inside to find the stolen light.