__The Bird Bone Flute__page 6
By Blackmare



A front moved into the area overnight and Giles woke to the sound of rain on the slate roof. He prodded the coal fire awake, made tea and drank it standing by the window, enjoying the soft light and the businesslike manner of the rain. Female rain, he remembered, the rain that nurtures, as opposed to male rain that rampages. For the first time in many years his day was entirely his own. He had a trove of new books to explore, a cozy place to do it, and no one else's schedule to dictate his choices.

"I must be getting old," he spoke quietly to the rain, "I don't want to waste a moment of it in mere delinquency."

While Giles dressed, he noticed his guitar case in the corner. Even knowing the humidity would play hell with his strings, it had been so long since he had been able to practice without the nagging sense of having to steal the time.

Poking his nose out the front door, he was pleased to find that the air was warm in spite of the wet. He settled himself on the porch bench and tuned his guitar, loving the feel of it under his hands. This instrument was his sole item of self indulgence since he had submitted himself to the Council's rigid, demanding agenda. He had squirreled away a fraction of each week's meager stipend for three years until he could afford to buy a truly fine guitar. That purchase and his brief but regular practice time flew in the face of the Council's contempt for anything not directly related to its mission. Fuck 'em, he thought, grinning as he stroked the first warm chord.

He began with structured classical exercises. Being left handed had given him a tremendous advantage in chording, but finger-picking had never come easily to his right hand. He had schooled himself symmetrically in the gym and dojo so his musculature was well balanced, but fine motor control was quite another matter. It had taken years of careful work and some expensive lessons with classical and flamenco masters to develop the skills he wanted.

He flowed from the orderly progression of exercises into the largo from Vivaldi's Concerto in D Major for lute. The lilting melodic line perfectly matched the steady fall of the rain and the slower, stronger pulse of water dripping from the roofline. From Vivaldi he drifted into "The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter" by Ackerman. Near the end of the piece a flicker of motion caught his peripheral vision and he looked up.

The wolf paced back and forth about thirty feet away, her thick coat matted into dark prickles by the rain. She watched him intently, clearly focused on the sound of the instrument. He met her eyes and kept playing, following her sweeping progress parallel to the porch. She didn't look away even when she reversed direction.

"Good morning, beautiful," Giles said softly, "I'm glad you're here." He concluded the piece and paused to tweak the tuning of the E string. "You just come on up here when you're ready. I'm not goin' anywhere." He strummed idly, considering what she might like to hear. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin didn't seem appropriate choices so he rummaged around the back corners of his memory to find traditional songs. He found a fair list of melodies but distressing gaps in their lyrics. Yet as soon as he started humming along to the guitar, she drifted closer to the porch and her pacing slowed. Giles glanced up at her only briefly, not wanting to pressure her in any way. When he changed keys his fingers happened upon a sequence he remembered from a Steve Goodman album, so he pursued it, and found to his delight that the entire song came floating up once he gave it a good tug. It had just the kind of invitation he wanted to offer her.

Would you like to learn to dance?
Well I can show you that,
gotta book here with all you need to know.
We can draw the Arthur Murray patterns right here on the floor.
and all ya have to do is follow.
And then we'll dance around the room awhile,
you can lead now if you want to, I don't mind.
Nothin' I wouldn't do to see your smile
Go dancin' 'cross your face in perfect time,
dancin' 'cross your face in perfect time.


With a jolt of joy he saw her respond to his voice, stepping up to within a few feet of the porch and halting there, poised and attentive, although the lines of her body betrayed her anxiety. He looked up at her and sang the next verse directly to her:

Would you like to learn to sing?
I can teach you that
Here's an old tune that's good for a start
you can sing all the high parts if you really try
And I'll play along the tune on my guitar
And we'll sing together for a little while
Let the harmonies go ringin' in your mind
And you sing so much better when you sing with a smile
All the notes come out so sweet and high.
All the notes come out so sweet and high.


He looked back down during the long, lovely instrumental bridge between the second and final verses, remembering why he had learned this song so many years ago. Then he caught her eyes again and offered her the last verse:

Would you like to learn to love?
Well, that's somethin' else again.
I can show you how to sing and smile and dance.
Oh I have no keys to open your heart,
and no way that I can make you take the chance.
And so we'll dance around the room again,
and we'll sing a tune or two to pass the time,
and smile a lot, and if you really want to,
we can try a little lovin', I don't mind,
try a little lovin', I don't mind
I don't mind


By the end the wolf stood at the edge of the porch, her head low and stretched toward him. To his surprise, he found he could smell her: almost spicy, a touch of anise seed, with a wonderful undertone like perfectly ripe pears. He smiled at her and said gently:

"Must be a perk of celestial dignity. Can't have you reeking like just any ol' wet dog now, can we?"

He could have reached over and touched her, but he did not move, continuing to strum softly while he adjusted his tuning to fit Eric Clapton. Then he looked at her and asked:

Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong and carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
here in heaven.

Would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand if I saw you in heaven?
I'll find my way through night and day,
'Cause I know I just can't stay
here in heaven.

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees.
Time can break your heart, have you begging please,
begging please.

Beyond the door there's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more
tears in heaven.

Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong and carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
here in heaven.


As he strummed the last chord, her moist nose touched his left wrist lightly. She stood entirely on the porch, still tense but definitely calmer than she had been earlier.

"Sometimes it is nice to come in out of the rain, isn't it?" The wolf reached up and sniffed along the neck of the guitar. He kept his hands and body quite still.

"Your timing is good, my calluses have pretty much had enough for today. If I'm gonna play for you tomorrow, I need to stop for now." Very slowly, he leaned back on the bench and put the guitar into its case. She flinched, but did not step away. After stowing the instrument, he sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He spoke to her in Latin.

"You are very welcome in this house, m'lady. I realize this is really hard for you, but we have to find a way that you can be in an enclosed space, even if it's only for a few hours. I can't help you get where you need to go if you can't tolerate being inside buildings. We'll take this as slow as you need to, but you'll have to help me by doing this."

She looked away from him and began to investigate the porch with her nose. She explored the bench, coal bin, and lingered on the wall under the game hooks. Then she worked her way around the door frame, rearing up on her hind legs - in that position Giles noted she was considerably taller than he was - to do the top. She sniffed the threshold, leaned over it, and for a moment he thought she might cross it, but she shuddered and stepped back, glancing up at him. He smiled at her.

"Hey, that's pretty good. I'm going in now to start work on those books, but I'll leave the door open for you, whenever you're ready." She scooted back when he stood, but did not leave the porch. He saw her peering inside when he put the guitar away. Humming happily, he poured another cup of tea and made himself some beans on toast.

Several hours later he had sorted the gate-related materials into stacks by type. The majority consisted of personal diaries of various monks and abbots. A smaller pile contained demonaries, the "field guides" that Amos had mentioned in their first conversation. Giles smiled wryly at the image of a hiker whipping out one of the heavy leather-bound tomes trying to determine whether he was being confronted by the venomous K'nath female or the larger, but non-toxic, K'nath male. The least orderly pile included several bundles of private correspondence, and a few volumes of bound letters between various persons at the abbey and persons throughout Britain and Europe experienced in these matters. He spotted the Council's seal on one set of envelopes tied with linen tape; the postmarks were from the 1870s.

Giles made himself a sandwich for supper, opened a Guinness, and settled back into his chair with one of the newer demonaries. He looked up from the rich nineteenth century prose sometime after eleven and decided to call it a night. A glance out the open door showed only the wet meadow, though the rain had cleared and there were stars in the eastern sky. He got ready for bed, debating whether he should close the door or not. In the end, he chose to leave it open.

* * * * *

He recognized only the lay of the land at first: this hillside, that river valley, the gray forest against the horizon. But what lay over the bones of the earth was dying. Giles hunkered down against the rank wind, crouching low in the rattling grasses. The sky was flat white and stagnant, untouched by the flight of birds. The wind was the only voice, accompanying itself by beating dry artifacts: curled leaves, broken branches, the matted grassy pelt of the hill. Occasionally the wind flaunted the smell of burning - not the pure, brown scent of wood smoke, but a caustic brew of scorched wreckage that made Giles' eyes sting.

Standing brought a wave of dizziness. His legs seemed unreliable, his balance dodgy at best. But these were insignificant compared to the thirst. Giles had never known thirst so severe that it hurt. This was not dryness: this was being strung out, beaten, and twisted until everything that made him supple, round, and viable had been wrung out.

He knew he had to get to the river. The dry grass exposed all the trails made by those who once lived here: the subtle path of the badgers, narrow trace used by deer; the wider, well-beaten way the horses took down to water. He took this last because the footing was clear, and it angled gently down the steepest places. Giles saw for the first time that there was a rabbit warren at the base of the hill, at least a dozen doorways facing the direction of morning. There were no signs that it was inhabited, though. The wind rolled the prickly ball of an abandoned birds' nest along in front of him before kicking it up higher, arrogant and casual, and tangling the remains in a bramble's arching skeleton.

Crashing through the leafless alder thickets that lined the riverbed he saw that this was not just a dry season: drought had possessed this land for years. The river had vanished utterly. Giles stepped carefully over the sharp lip of the bank and slid down into the empty channel on his rump, dislodging stones and liberating a cloud of dust into the still air. The spine of the river lay exposed to the taunting sky. Giles stepped from one soft sandbar to another, picked his way across the deeper, stony channels. He rolled some of the stones aside hopefully, but the shadows beneath them held only detritus and once, the desiccated body of a mouse, its whiskers and exquisite, tiny feet perfect and undisturbed.

Just past the center of the channel he found what had been the deepest part of the watercourse. Where skiffs of sand had settled among the great stones, he saw the tracks of horses, heading upriver. They were not fresh, but the wind hadn't yet blunted the crisp edges. The horses would know, he thought, I should follow the horses.

It seemed as though he stumbled along for hours, the thirst growing ever more demanding. The indifferent brightness of the flat white sky shifted west, andthe taunting wind blew colder. The strange mix of dry silt and large stones made walking very difficult. His knees ached. Giles stumbled often, catching himself on the rocks. His abraded palms were raw but barely bled, although he saw how deeply he had cut them. Once, he licked the sand from a gash and was immediately sorry when the salty blood burned on his tongue.

The main channel grew deeper and narrower so gradually that he did not realize he was trapped in it until it was too late. There was no choice now but to go forward; he did not have the strength to travel all the way back to a place where the banks were low enough to climb. He did not care: only the thirst mattered. Even his memories of this land when it was green and living did not move him anymore. He had no strength left to grieve for it.

The sun had sunk low enough that he was struggling along in deep shadow now. The channel made many small steps uphill, and a few large ones that gave him great difficulty. The soft sand gave his hands little purchase, and he found few holds on the water-smoothed boulders. But he kept going. The pain of the thirst was his only purpose. It was all he had left.

Then he heard the sharp report of stone striking stone ahead of him. Once. Then another. Something was moving up there in the twilight. Giles knew he should drop low, move closer to the cover of the banks, and stay hidden. But he couldn't make himself do it. Another smack, followed by the rattle of smaller stones. Giles found he did not care if the thing was dangerous. There was no fear in him now, only thirst. He reached up the next pile of boulders and dragged himself over it. The top one shifted, tipping him suddenly over the rim of a hollow that had once held a deep, still pool. Unable to catch himself, Giles surrendered to the long fall, curling around himself and bouncing down the rounded shelves of stone before breaking open on the sandy bottom. He looked up and saw the shape of the place, realized that the river went no further up from here: this was spring fed basin where it used to began. He lay very still in the dry dusk. He did not know what to do now. He lay empty under the sky.

"Well then," a parched voice rasped, "look 'ooze come callin'" Giles struggled over, looked up toward the sound. Ripper stood above him, holding a large stone in both hands. "So're ya gonna lie there or're ya gonna help me finish killin' this river?" he hissed. Then he heaved the stone down at Giles.

* * * * *

Giles screamed and rolled, launching himself right off the bed and onto the stone floor. The impact fit so well into the dream that he did not actually awaken until he scrambled up and fell hard a second time, slamming the air right out of his lungs. This time the texture of the rug and the moonlit room registered and he lay still, groaning each time he tried to take a breath.

Suddenly she was there, trembling beside him, her moist nose under his chin and the sweet smell of her all around. Without thinking he sat up and hugged her, panting into her neck fur, fighting tears of anger and shame. Then he felt her shaking in his arms and heard her own soft sounds of distress. Thinking it was his embrace he released her, but she pressed herself hard against him, laying her head against his chest. He realized abruptly that she was inside the cottage. She had come in to him when he screamed, and that loving gesture shattered all his attempts at control.

He sat up and wrapped him arms around her and wept into her coat, stroking her and telling her how brave she was, how beautiful, how grateful he was that she had come. Running his fingers lightly over her face, massaging behind her ears, he whispered his thanks to her again and again. Gradually her trembling subsided and she sat down between his legs, leaning her head on his shoulder. He combed his fingers through the thick mantle on her chest.

Speaking still in a ragged whisper, he told her everything he'd seen. The dying land, the rank wind, the abandoned burrows, the burning sky, the empty riverbed, the terrible scorching thirst. He told her that Ripper was killing the river, that Ripper was going to kill him. In telling it, he discovered that his grief for the land mattered more to him than the assault, considerably more. Compared to the beauty of that place, he felt completely expendable. It was the land that should live. Must live.

"How could that bastard murder the river? Couldn't he see what it would do to the land, to all the other lives there?" His voice cracked with rage. She drew back and met his eyes, her posture suddenly stern.

"What?" he asked, startled. She touched her nose to the tattoo on his forearm and looked at him again. Abruptly, he remembered the first vivid dream, his blood-streaked hands holding that filthy knife. Self-loathing surged over him in a foul, oily wave, making him dizzy and sick. He pulled away from her, curling into a ball of grief.

I am Ripper.

His body tried to sob and retch simultaneously and he choked, coughing up bile.

"Oh, god, I killed the river," he croaked. He crammed his head down between his raised knees and wrapped his arms over it, rocking back and forth.

I am too vile to live.

His rocking got faster. He raked his nails hard along his clenched arms, drawing blood. The wolf slammed into him, knocking him over. She stood over him, caging his body with her legs. He heard her growling, felt it rumble right through his bones. Giles threw his head back and rolled, offering his throat.

"Do it then!" he shouted.

Her teeth closed around his throat and he went completely limp. Neither of them moved. He could feel one of her canines pressing against his carotid pulse. She held him there for a long time.

Then the demon-killing guardian of evening released him. She chucked Giles under the chin with her nose and started licking the tears from his face. He lay still and let her do it, feeling all the anger, all the despair, drain away. When he was empty, the wolf stretched out beside him and tucked her muzzle up next to his chest. He laid his arm over her, heard her sigh. In the slight vertigo at the edge of sleep a question came to him: what is the river, really?

* * *