Mon May 02, 2016 10:47 am
The following happens in the mind's eye of Fionnuala, after falling prey to the knife of a madman.
The Wood was grey. Color had been leeched from it, slowly and surely, from a sight dimmed - not by blood-loss or wounded agony; but instead from a drug, a subtle coating of a doctor's blade. You will hear, he said, but there was nothing to hear from a Wood gone still, color and light and life gone. Slowed to an unliving state.
When it began, then, it could be attributed to a hallucination, for the grey felt stronger, was stronger, than any normal color; the silence more deafening than any sound. But it was Song, it was color, it was a beating heart. A smoke of color among the trunks, ocean-blue and beetle's wings, an iridescence that resolved into a creature; a peacock; a bird of living tapestry, sweeping a river of tail behind him, green as grass and gold as precious stone. It walks, uncaring, song trembling from it - though its throat never rattles, and its beak never parts.
It comes to Fionnuala, unconcerned, unafraid. It pauses in front of her, and as solemn as a judge he strikes the ground three times with his beak. The beak makes a sound like the cracking of bones as it hits the scattered stone. His salute complete, and with a twist of his neck, he unfurls the glory of his tail, a woven sunset of color. In the depths of the mountainous fan of feathers, a multitude of wet, mismatched eyes blink, human eyes of blue-grey, and inhuman ones of amber.
"A cancer must be cut out," says the peacock, a familiar female voice to his male appearance. The colorful creature turns from Fionnuala, and he paces away, as if he wishes her to follow; but the following is not her choice. His footsteps turn a wheel, and forest and sky and world turn with each graceful step, stars familiar and unfamiliar flashing through the sky, the Sun a quick blink before it is put away. "They'll call the growth a God's curse, a fatal flaw in a man's character, an imbalance of the humors. You will know better. A cancer is the body turning against itself. There is no reason for it, but if the body is to be saved, then the cancer must be removed."
As it walked, as it spoke, the eyes watched Fionnuala with bland malevolence, a generous disregard. The peacock shook his tail as he traveled, and in the thread-spun feathers lay cities of gold. They rose with abundance, and then she could see the cancer, hear it; a Song, a Song that thrummed in the throat of a friend, a familiar non-tune. I cannot Sing, it whispered in her ear. I am not allowed. The cancer grew, feeding the Cities, growing them hale and strong on it's flesh, until Golden City and Silver Song became one. At those moments, the Song from the peacock's presence was unbearable; it rattled bones and tore through teeth, the eyes blinking shut, opening, blinking again. The sound of it tore the cities, the Cancer bleeding to death, filling streets and houses with blood and screams. It did not matter; from green cities of Magic to a scorched empire under a Crawl Moon, they Ended, they burned; in the tapestry of feathers, Myrken and Song began their winding, silver fingers set in root and fruit, root and fruit settling in the flesh and in the blood of men. They Sang, then. Each small voice made a song, building, ever and ever louder -
"Can you cut it out, now?" the peacock asked, twisting his head on his long neck, and his eyes were wide, mismatched eyes of blue and black. "The only cure, sometimes, is a gentle, sleeping death..."