notes/disclaimers
It was a nightmare. Surely, it was only a nightmare brought on by too
much ice cream and cake, and not enough warming up before playing
kick-the-cabbage.
He was in the North. He was in Chicago. It was nightmare-land, tundra
and mountains overlaid skyscrapers and filthy alleys and slums. It was
both worlds. He was there, and he was transfixed.
He faced eyes like lightning, piercing straight to his heart, eyes that
glared down over a beak that could split a killer whale. Feathers like
lodgepole pines glimmered dull gold. Talons dug into a mountain and
turned it to rubble.
Not an eagle. Not simply an eagle, this one. This was Eagle -- the
brother of Old Man Above, a First One who flew out of the fishing hole
First Man chopped at the very beginning.
"Krabloonak!"
He shook with fear at the contempt in that booming voice, as he was
addressed by the insulting Inuit word for white people, rather than the
more polite gossik. He could not move from that piercing glare.
"You gave a feather that would have tied you to your soul forever," Eagle
called, his voice echoing over the tundra and making the distant white
mountains shake. "But you did not give it to your soul. You gave it to a
man with no knowledge of manners, no reverence for our ways, no
understanding of what that feather meant to you and your soul. That man
insulted the eagle who gave that feather, and you, and your soul, with his
deeds.
"He acted out of ignorance. But you did not. For the insult you helped
perpetrate upon my children's sacred plumage, I will curse you.
"Krabloonak. You will forget your past, your lifeline, your very tether
to your soul in this evil place. You will wander lost as any of the
people you saw and pitied here. Their darkness will seep into you, till
you are indistinguishable from them. You will act like them and talk like
them and think like them. You will forget the one you love, the one for
whom you sought the feather; I give you to the ignorant and irreverent
creature, as you gave the feather to him.
"I have spoken! I! I! I!" Eagle screamed, and vanished, along with the
snow and the white mountains. He was alone, in the darkness of a filthy
city alleyway, cold towers of stone looming over him and whispering
creatures crawling at his feet.
***
Nightmare. Jeez. So much for that stupid dreamcatcher that freak gave
him.
A big bird sitting on the Water Tower, a really big bird. Scary-looking
thing, too. Brownish feathers instead of the white head and brown body
he'd have expected from a bird that looked like that.
"Gossik," the big bird sneered.
He didn't know what the hell it was saying -- it was probably some stupid
Eskimo word, he'd have to ask the Mountie when he woke up -- but it sure
didn't sound like a compliment.
"Ignorant and irreverent krabloonak, who has so little knowledge he
treats a sacred object like a child's toy, I curse you," the big eagle
called, and the skyscrapers swayed from the power in his voice. "Shadow
of the man who would have revered my child's feather, stay that shadow!
Walk in shadow, talk in shadow, be talked to as a shadow! Step away from
that shadow to speak in your voice, to walk with your feet, to be seen as
yourself, and the giver will not see you. He will only look for the man
for whom he sought a feather. And he will fail. You will stand beside
him, and you will not be seen by him.
"I! I! I have done this!" the bird screeched, and was gone.
***
Ugh. Too much buttermilk. Why the hell did this Bookman guy have to like
that sour crap? Weird dream, strange dream.
He was home. There was his house, there that beloved, ratty slum
apartment. The familiar skyline, the rattling els, the figure in red
stock-still outside the ornate stone building.
And the biggest damn eagle he'd ever seen in his life perched on the
precinct building, wings outstretched to cover all of the city. He was
terrified, in a good way, as only someone can who recognizes the presence
of a god before him.
"*Gossik,*" the eagle said, dark shining eyes fixed upon him.
That word. Benny had told him what that word was. It was the Eskimo --
no, Inuit, "Eskimo" was an insult word -- Inuit word for white people.
"Gossik. You have wandered far from home to fight a terrible enemy, and
you may die. You know this. You have left all your loved ones behind,
and your heart is sore. You feel this. You pine with grief for the touch
of your beloved, and your soul is sick. You understand this."
He nodded, and let the tears splash down on the ground. Better to weep in
a dream than anywhere out in the world he lived now.
The giant eagle stretched out one immense wing. "This is a gift from your
beloved."
A feather fell from the wing, turning lazy loops and rocking on its way to
the ground. He held out his hand and closed it on the plume.
He smiled at the feather. This wasn't the big proud plume that would have
adorned a Plains Indian war-bonnet -- this was a tuft of down, as big as a
feather fan. A bit of fluff -- but fluff from an Eagle was worth more
than the best plumes off any other bird. It was soft and warm, and it
smelled like Benny. His aching heart didn't feel so empty. Benny didn't
feel so far away any more.
"Keep this feather safe in your dreams, gossik," the Eagle said, and
even his kind voice was a boom that rattled his house and made Francesca
yelp in distress from within. "When you sleep, hold it safe in your
heart's journeys. Deal with your foes by day, and survive them if you
can.
"When you return home, if you live, find the one you love. Tell him about
the feather. It will be his only hope of regaining himself, if he
remembers for whom he got the feather, and why, and returns to what he
once was. It will break the other one free of your shadow forever, and be
who he truly must be. For now, let this feather comfort you and keep your
dreams good.
"I, Eagle, say this." And Eagle was gone even as the skyline blurred and
became sun-baked prefab palaces and casinos in the middle of the Nevada
desert.
And he woke up.