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[A placeless space in-between the cracks of darkness]

The falling was not so much a descent, I suppose.

It could not be said that I was falling down, nor up, nor any specific which way. In fact, direction had lost its meaning. Was it falling? Drifting, perhaps. Fading away even. All was circumference with no centre, which is no circumference at all.

What may be called my “I-ness” began to break apart and there was no solid ground on which I could take firm mental footing. Of the self-forgetting I had previously experienced this sensation was now an intensification thereof. A whole world-crafting incarnation of an amnesiac inner-egragore.

I walked now as a ghost, an airy thing, or no-thing at all.

Around me gathered stone giants. Not living stone were they, as the menhir who once communed at sunset hours with the wizened folk of yore. Nor as the ancient rock folk of forest and desert and seashore, but something wholly other, as though manufactured, they were, given a kind of life, in imitation only, from the bones of those aforementioned stalwart and steadfast sage-stones.

Their crowns were adorned with sharpened javelins that reached the very sky. They did not reach out in order to seek communion with the heavens, however. And not for the sake of dreaming rest did they lay their heads amongst the clouds, but they wore them as a conquering folk takes trophies of the conquered. As certain hunters might fashion a cap of fox-skin, not for warmth but as a mark of dominion. As they might crown their living space with the heads of their fallen prey.

Many-eyed, each of them, though behind glazed soul-windows there was, in fact, no soul only desolate chambers, empty yet filled with boredom and oppression. Hard-breasted titans, subduers and usurpers, they invaded the firmament as ones hell-bent on storming the heavens and taking it by violence. Amassed as one, they were the grinding and gnashing teeth of a colossal and gaping monstrous mouth seeking to satiate an eternal hunger for all that is good and true and beautiful; seeking to consume the very sky in scorn of the earth.

And upon her face they spread blankets deathly grey and more and more of her beauteous face did they cover so that nevermore could she look upon that bright lord of the sky, her ancient companion and lover, and feel his warmth. That deathly grey they lay down was as an ugly and inverse scattering of rose petals at the feet of royalty. Rather it was the procession of mad tyrants they heralded.

They would not walk upon the earth. Always they desired to avoid the soil under their feet, these hulking behemoths, for they knew that the Black Maiden’s waters would crumble them to rubble.

Ungodly beast from the abysmal pit! And I, a noxious and putrid gas swirling about the depths of its belly.

Others there were also, ghosts the same, passing by, this way and that, unrecognizable as anything human, except as a turbid haze. A grimy, sullied aura. A light polluted with an air of anguish and unrest. Ever swept along by a foul wind. Ever did they suffer it in revulsion. Ever did their revulsion add to the putridity.

If only they had faces the despair that would be upon them. If only they had eyes they would be weeping. If only teeth, gnashing. Insanity was their lot. The lunacy of a dark moon-spell.

There is a chaos that must be, as part of a greater order. This was not that chaos. This was a chaos and only chaos. For not all purity is good and this was pure chaos. This was the dispersion and confusion of all things into more things, and more things into no things. I felt myself being pulled apart unto a myriad of directionless directions. And yet …

No. Not pure chaos. Such a thing will not be allowed. For she was there. Small in the shadow of giants, unnoticed by the whirling insanity, she sat weeping. Not the faceless weeping of a confused and demented soul in a pitiless self-pity, pitiful to behold. Her sorrow was tears shed for the hellishness around her. A penance for the souls here. Not ugly but beautiful it was, such that you could not conceive of anything more beautiful save that, hope upon hope, one day her tears would be wiped away and she would smile. A smile that would surely make lilies grow in the desert and water break from stone. Turn winter into spring and make all of heaven stop to catch stolen breath.

I desired more than anything to know her name. I thought perhaps that I could be that one who wipes away her tears, but I could not reach her. The whirlwind had me, tearing, dissolving. All here would fade. I prayed desperately that she be spared such a fate.

Behold! Men arrayed for battle. Spartan-Esque. All wearing armour of bronze chest plates over crimson tunics. Spear and shield in hand and atop the head, feather-crested helmets.

No.

Not helmets. Their feathered crests sat atop bird heads! Piercing the whirlwind chaos as if they were themselves the tips of the spears they were armed with. They came from all around, these birdmen. In a moment they were upon me, jabbing and jousting. Or was it the pain of perpetually pecking battle-hardened nose-peaks? Beacons of hopelessness. A grim gospel delivered from mouths far less genial than the previous aviangelists of the forest.

Little matter.

Despite the brief struggle I put up I was soon overcome. They took hold of me and now growing large wings from their backs they took flight unto the four winds, the seven planets and the twelve celestial kingdoms, and I, indeed was torn asunder.

With one last desperate gaze in her direction, I could see before her and from out the desolate grey around her, the green of a sprouting shoot growing, clambering up through the fabric of that unending death blanket. Its tiny form being nourished and strengthened by the light of her eyes and its thirst quenched by her tears. Its spiralling growth a dance to the song of her silent prayer.

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Vines lay hold of the door in such a way that it seemed they were protecting it, for they were the sprawling, turning and twisting arms of rambling rose bushes. Their menacing and protruding thorns were enough to dissuade any attempts to move the door that they embraced but if that were not enough the skeletal remains of a man lay caught amongst the bushes and slumped against the door. One particular thorny tentacle had wound its way up the spine of the poor fellow like a serpent and come to rest at his forehead only after circumnavigating his skull three times, as if he were adorned, like our Lord, with a crown. A wholly unnerving sight was this and I now found myself retreating from the doorway, completely absent-minded regarding the reason I had fled here in the first place.

That reason made itself known once more and spoke before I had a chance to retreat a single step.

“He sports a similar crown to mine, wouldn’t you say?” remarked the horned one, who had apparently made his way noiselessly to my side. I thought it useless this time to run as my fear had been allayed by the fact that this fellow could have harmed me already had he intended to. Though, what his intentions were, exactly, I could not say.

“You will surely agree, however, that mine are much grander than his. See how the thorns imprison the skull of this dust shod ’un, yes? Mine branch out and upward, not a prison but a freedom enshrined, toward the Great Shining Lord of the Sky they alight, he whose crown reaches down toward us. Touching us with his light and warmth. Blessing us with knowledge and health. It’s as if I bore his very rays upon my own head in a manner fitting to my own aspect.” He gestured toward the old, dry bones caught in the thicket and continued on. “Had this one still been in possession of his skin those thorns would be shredding it against his very skull. Quite painful, I imagine. Of course, that thorny tendril has only made its home upon his head since he has long perished, so we are merely speculating at this point.”

“Not mere speculation. There is a story.” I started, before pausing, doing my best to hide any fear and show forth as much respect for this being as possible. I composed myself and continued. “There is a story amongst our people, the most important story of our people, in fact, of a man who wore a crown of thorns such as this. He did indeed suffer much, but not only for the thorns that pressed against his temples. We consider this crown the grandest of any in human history.”

He gave me a puzzled look and after a moment, simply replied with a “Hmph.” Followed by, “You are a strange folk.” All this as he began to pack the bowl of a smoking pipe that looked as if it had grown upon a tree fully formed as it appeared now. On reflection I could not recall where he had retrieved this pipe from, he had no carry bag or belt for such things. It was as if it appeared out of the ether. Though perhaps I was simply not paying attention. More peculiar still was that he seemed to be packing the bowl with whatever it was that was loosed from his own skin after rubbing a single hand together for a short length of time.

There was a silence as he continued on the bowl and, as he packed it, the song thrush that had been upon his shoulder earlier was now flittering between the many extruding prongs of his antlers, whistling its song with unending merriment.

I waited, patiently holding my words, though more had I still to say, I could not bring myself to fall upon the delicate song of the little feathered one with the weight of my own voice. Thus far, despite my bewilderment at the current state and situation I found myself, one thing had become apparent; that the birds of this place understood and communicated an ancient language other than mere birdsong. If indeed any birdsong was mere birdsong.

Meanwhile, peculiarity upon peculiarity, the contents of the bowl of fellows smoking pipe, which he had now finished packing, spontaneously began to smoulder the moment he began to puff upon the end of the pipe’s stem, large billows of smoke breaking free of his mouth and rising, partnered hand in hand with the birdsong, patterning and spiralling their duet of praise toward the heavens.

The song thrush in a moment fell silent, hovered in flight before the horned being for a time and then flew off, beyond sight, into the woods.

A short time spent in this contemplative silence ensued before the fellow spoke again.

“You showed an unexpected prudence by remaining silent while the little one spoke, dust shod ‘un. A pleasant surprise. I feared that, had you spoken, I might have had to rip your tongue out.”

I searched his face for any sign that he spoke in jest.

I found none.

I swallowed hard to fight the lump in my throat and forced reluctant words across a tongue which lay safely in my mouth for the time being.

“They seem to speak in a language of such profundity I can scarcely grasp it, except in a sense all to fleeting.”

“Indeed.”

“What did he say?” I queried, looking for confirmation of my bird-sense and a validation of my own sense of pride.

“He said that he had not yet eaten this morning and spoke of the joys of a full belly and a hunger satiated.” Came his matter-of-a-fact reply.

“Oh.” I responded, underwhelmed. A wry smile came upon his face, and he puffed heavily a few times upon his pipe.

Thinking the smile to be an indication of a softness beneath an austere surface I proceeded to a question specifically to allay any fears for my safety, which had been near extinguished until stoked again by his recent threat.

“You would not have torn my tongue from my very mouth simply for interrupting a bird, would’ve you?” I nervously chuckled.

“Of course I would have. I am from beyond the Garden. I am of the wilderness and am full of wildness … as are all folk such as myself. The Wild Folk are wild. Your folk forget as much, more often than not. In fact, curiously, you spend a great portion of your lives building walls to keep out the wilderness, but on the off chance you step foot outside those walls you are often besotted by her beauty.”

“She is both beautiful and terrible, that is certain and so your instincts are true, but you must not get lost in beauty at the expense of your wits. Nor can you wall yourself in, away from the terrible, without your world becoming ugly.”