Epilog

A World Regained

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower.
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
—William Blake—

The air was raw, but in it a hint of warmth and the promise of the countless wildflowers now budding from underneath the melting snows. It had been a hard winter as was usual to this place. Mara has much time. But now, just as there is that time when mortals must depart, so now was the time for Mara’s retreat. For many months Mara had been free to range over this land. The strengthening sun shrinks the Death Lord’s realm. Soon only those seven pinnacles would remain, so cold, so under Mara’s spell, that even the might of the sun failed to warm them to bring life.

As she crossed the ridge dividing fertile lands from barren, the bird could mark Mara’s gradual retreat up the nala. In the far distance was panoply of color signaling life, green grasses, purple, gold, red, white flowers marched upward. The bird was hungry; she hadn’t eaten for many days. It was good to leave the high desert lands to the east. At this time of the year all that could be eaten had been eaten, and only the richness of the lands west of the mountain barrier could save her.

She wasn’t disappointed for now was the time when the young drin first emerged from their holes under the great ice wall. They were so ignorant and foolish as to the ways of the world. The bird almost felt sorry for them, but of course could not. Why were they there after all if not to give her sustenance? She had her own work to do. She must build a new nest for it was that time to replenish her kind.

There was something that she held in that place behind the eyes with which she saw the world. It was a vision, but while it was like when she looked at something with her eyes, it remained even when her eyes were shut. Yet it was so dim, that even though she tried, she couldn’t quite focus on it. “Maybe later it will come,” she thought. “I have so much to do to get ready. Soon the other one, the one who is my mate, will arrive. I must be ready.”

For several days the bird labored, burrowing through the snow in likely places to find bits of material for her nest. Down below in the valley where the two streams of water flowed together was the nesting place of the human. It was still too early for their arrival, so the bird could wander freely, taking twigs, bits of string and thread from their dome-shaped nests. “How strange were the human’s nests,” the bird thought, “almost like my own but much larger and upside down. How strange to want to hide from the sky. No wonder humans were such miserable creatures.”

Somehow, in all the thinking about the nest building, trying to remember what place might have the best materials, trying to figure out the safest site, that unfocused vision began to sharpen. Perhaps what brought it back was the swath of orange flowers, appearing one morning on the hillside, poking out from the melting snow. “That human! Yes, the one I saw just before the storm; the one whose color was like the flowers below.”

It must be here; certainly it cannot be alive.” Pictures from that time came flooding back. She remembered seeing that one climbing, climbing, and then disappearing into a small pile of stones in the level place where the glaciers meet. “I will fly there and see what happened,” she thought. But first she needed more strength. “Is that the squeal of a young drin?”

It was several passages of the sun and moon before the bird could carry out the exploration. Storm returned and she was forced to find shelter. She wasn’t surprised for such weather could always come to the high nala, even in the time when the sun was strongest. For the bird it wasn’t much of a problem. She could fly in that direction taken by the sun, down to where the air was warm and the hillsides green. True, that was the place of the human and there was much foulness and danger. But the bird knew it would be for only a short time.

While she was in these warmer parts, she saw that the humans had already begun to move. There were long lines of them moving like the creatures with no legs, coiling along the contours of the earth. Not only were there humans but their four-legged slave creatures as well—the thunder of their footsteps filled the valleys, choking them with dust.

“I must get back, back to the high nala. It is only there that the human halt; it is only beyond the meeting of the two water streams that I can be free of this pestilence.” The bird took wing. As she was returning to her nest in the shadow of the seven pinnacles, she saw more humans coming up the nala. They were past the place of the meeting waters and thus had left the slave creatures behind. They did carry those sticks as the ones before the snows—the same sticks that had made the noise that brought down the mountain.

The following morning was clear. The bird was well fed from her foray below. The nest was complete and it might be days before her mate would appear. What better time to check on that pile of stones. “If the human is there, I can cut up his carcass and bring the pieces one at a time to my nest. These rocks will hold the joints quite nicely. By the time the chicks arrive they will be well thawed.”

It was quite some work to rise up to the heights. “This must be the place,” she thought, “yes, just below the ridge where the two ice rivers divide; there is the slight hillock; there peeking out from the snow must be the rocks.” Inside the rocks was some strange flapping thing, like the stuff humans cover themselves with but different. It had a strange, unnatural taste. Whatever it had been, it was now ripped into many pieces. The flapping thing scared the bird, but from the stench inside she knew there was promise. That smell was definitely human, and although it was almost too much to bear it also encouraged her. She knew from experience that where there was this smell, there also might be food.

Yet all she found was inedible—all those human things that, for the life of her, she couldn’t understand. The one thing that did catch her notice was a pile of snow-bark like things. They were thin, like the leaves on trees, but unlike the things of the gods with pleasing rounded, unpredictable lines, these had those squared, even lines favored by humans. On these leaves were all manner of dark scratches, as if some other bird had marked them. About these the bird did not mind thinking that the leaf –like things would be useful for making her nest warm.

She was about to take the in her beak when she heard the crunching of snow, the shout of the human. There was an explosion, first in sound followed by one of pain. She struggled to escape, escape the rocks, the human stench, and the pain that throbbed so in her breast. She thought of the sky and of how free it was to soar above the land.

“Oh how I wish just once again to feel the wind. Oh how I wish to see that sea of mountains just one more time.” In her mind was that sea, stretching to all horizons, North, South, East, and West, in endless waves. She was flying now, so high, so fast, the vast crag-flecked sea far below. She saw that, though seemingly endless, it was not. There was a world beyond the icy crests with great waters, verdant jungles, and sandy wastes. Far out on the edge of a vast, tawny moonscape, she saw an almost perfect ring of snowy mountains. These rose like sentinel towers, guarding a valley of deepest green, set like a sparkling emerald within. Despite the valley’s great distance, a call-like sound floated up to where she drifted so effortlessly among the clouds. It was light and lilting.

But if it emanated from a crystal bell, golden horn, or angel’s voice, the bird couldn’t tell. Yet somehow, perhaps through some innate understanding, she knew the call’s meaning. Within its sonorous modulations, comprehensible only to the bird, it held that most elusive of invitations: “KaLaGiYa, KaLaGiYa, KaLaGiYa," over and over until the bird was no more.