Before Rilke, horrified at what he had done, could make another move, Korman was on his feet, limping from Bootnip’s bite.
‘Put the sword down!’ he commanded. The light in the crystal blade faded as Rilke obeyed, then backed away, his heart pounding. Korman picked up the sword, and it glowed briefly blue in his hands before he sheathed it and said, ‘Pick up the bird, Rilke! Feel what it is like to have killed an innocent creature for sport.’ Rilke picked up the warm downy body, its eyes closed, beak half-open. Tears sprang to his eyes. He looked up at Korman.
‘I didn’t mean to…’ he began, but his voice faltered as he met Korman’s calm but knowing gaze. He knew that in a way he had meant to hit the bird. Now he felt the warmth ebbing from its body, and he repented of his violence.
‘Now you must pluck the moonbird, and gut it so that we can cook and eat it, and so avoid the added sin of waste,’ said Korman.
‘I… don’t think I want to eat meat any more.’
‘The bird must not be wasted.’
‘Must I pluck it, Lord Korman?’
‘Yes.’ Korman took a thin knife from under his cloak and sharpened it on a stone while Rilke plucked the bird. It was about the size of a wood pigeon. Its back and tail feathers gleamed with iridescent peacock greens and blues in the moonlight. There were soft white feathers under the throat. Rilke had seen his father pluck and gut the little grouse that ran under the olive trees, and once the big goose that had been kept for the feast of the summer solstice Blue Moon; he had even helped. But this was different. He felt sick. The berries in the bird’s crop looked crimson in the moonlight, and stained its white throat feathers, and also his hands.
As he was finishing, with Korman’s help, the moon sank below the hills. Korman said, ‘Take some of the tail-feathers, Rilke, to remind you of this night, and to use for decoration. Did you see how they gleamed in the moonlight?’ Rilke took five of the long silvery-blue feathers, and Korman took one for his silver helmet. Then they carefully buried the rest of the feathers and the head and innards, and Korman wrapped the little plucked body in leaves from the tree in which it had been singing.
‘We will call this place “Moonbird Hollow,”’ said Korman, ‘in honour of the beauty of their singing tonight and the sacrifice of this little one for your learning, Rilke.’ He remembered his own first lessons far away, long ago on the Guardian World when his father was still alive, and he was young, innocent and fierce, just like Rilke. And he remembered the song of the Moonbirds in the orchards of the Vale of Applegate, when he saw the Lady all in blue with a clasp of golden apple blossom, walking in Faery beneath the Blue Moon. The tears that might have come to his eyes were sent back to the deep lake of sorrow he kept within. A Guardian did not cry. That was one of the first lessons…
They washed as best they could, in a tiny pool of water under some long grass at the bottom of the hollow. Then they went back to bed. Shelley stirred a little but stayed fast asleep. Korman went to sleep sadly pondering the events of the night and wondering if he had been too hard on the boy. ‘How did he manage to draw my sword without waking me? Was there a Dreamcaster at work on my mind as well? I must be more vigilant.’ And he made sure the dreamcatcher net was fully spread over the children.
Rilke lay awake for a long time, seeing the sword killing the bird over and over in his mind, and finally fell asleep. He dreamed he was running through endless thickets pursued by a pack of Aghmaath, led by an angry Korman who had turned into an Aghmaath, his sword slashing with deadly beams, seeking to cut him in half.
They woke with the new day’s sunshine slanting in through the dew-drenched door flap.
‘I will risk a little fire to roast the moonbird for breakfast,’ said Korman. Rilke, and Shelley when she heard what had happened, didn’t want to eat any meat, but as it cooked over a cheery fire of dry twigs, the aroma sharpened their hunger, and they shared the meal of roasted moonbird and bread with olive oil from Pebblebrook, and enjoyed it in spite of themselves. Korman pronounced a thanksgiving over the meat before they ate, and Rilke looked solemn and wide-eyed as he took his share, reluctantly at first, then greedy for more. Shelley became annoyed at him.
‘You’re a typical boy! Cruel and violent, no thought for consequences,’ she growled. ‘You deserve to choke on it.’
But Korman said, ‘Peace, Shelley! He has learned his lesson. And Rilke, now that you know the cycle of sacrifice, do not be hasty to draw any sword – least of all one that does not belong to you.’
‘I don’t believe in sacrifice,’ put in Shelley, still annoyed at Rilke. She hated to see anything killed for no reason.
‘Then what do you call this?’ said Korman, indicating the cooked bird.
‘A stupid, pointless accident.’
‘There are no accidents, Shelley. Only the reasons are often hidden.’
‘The reason for this accident is sitting right over there!’ She pointed angrily at Rilke, who averted his eyes guiltily. But Korman replied, ‘There are higher reasons why this accident, or any other, is permitted within the Great Dance. One reason for this sacrifice is so that you, Rilke, even if you become a powerful warrior, will never again lightly take up a sword to kill.’ Rilke cast his eyes down, and murmured, ‘Yes, Lord Korman.’ But then he looked up and said, ‘So, will you still teach me to be a warrior, and use my sword? I am afraid of the Aghmaath. They were hunting me in my dreams.’ Korman looked gravely at him, and replied, ‘I will teach you. Last night you learned one of the first lessons of any true warrior: respect for life.’
‘But the only good Aghmaath’s a dead Aghmaath, right?’
‘No, Rilke, the Aghmaath – even the ones changed into the likeness of vultures and serpents – can know the Concept too, and may turn. I have heard of some that did. One Aghmaath turned to serve Life instead of Death would be worth a thousand slain in anger, and I, like any true Guardian, would defend him to the death.’ Shelley looked at Korman in wonder.
‘Do you mean that?’ she asked. But the expression on his face was answer enough. ‘Also,’ he continued, ‘in the earliest days, before even the Order of the Makers, the Aghmaath were a wise and noble race; but then they were not called the Aghmaath (which means “Darkened Ones”). In those days they were the Zurglimmati, the Sky-travellers, leaping from the high crystal peaks of their world. It is written in the Ennead that the Zurglimmati went far out into the Void between galaxies, and met a being they called the Keeper, and they founded the Order of the Keeper, with three divisions: Wizards, Poets and Seers. They fashioned staves of the wood of the Makers’ World, tipped with crystals from the Crystal World. They were the teachers of the first Guardians. My first staff was from them originally, handed down from father to son.’
‘What happened to that staff?’ asked Shelley. But Korman shook his head, sadly.
‘It is a story of grief and failure. I will tell you one day. But this staff’ – he patted it as he spoke – ‘I cut from a scion of the sacred grove in the Valley of Thorns, killed long ago by the Aghrakeim, the Jeweltree-bleeders, then felled for the precious timber. All with the blessing of the Tenth-worlders, curse them! But one was miraculously growing again, bearing crimson roses. I carved the branches and set within them the triple Lightcrystal which Bootnip found in a ravine near my cave in the Portal Hills. He would not give it up until I bribed him with a whole apple. Since it was triple in form like the mystic horn of the unicorn, I called it Tarazüra. It is almost as good as the one on my first staff.’
‘Where are they now, those good Sky-Travellers?’ asked Rilke, fingering the slightly glowing crystal in the staff, smiling as it began to glow more brightly with the energy of his hand.
Korman replied sadly, ‘I do not know. Some went back to their home world to try to stop their own people from falling to the doctrines of the Dark Entities, but others may still walk undetected on the other worlds.’
‘So some Aghmaath could be on our side, even on Aeden?’ Shelley asked.
‘Perhaps, though
I have not yet met any. Once an entire people falls into great error, few of them return to wisdom until that error has run its course, and its evil seeds have flowered and borne evil fruit.’
They put out the little fire, and packed the tent and sleeping bags. Rilke was extra helpful, and said to Shelley, ‘Sorry for doing that to the bird and making you sad.’
Shelley replied, a little grumpily, ‘Not as sad as the moonbird. But it’s all right now, I suppose. I just hope there’s a bird heaven where it can sing forever undisturbed by little boys.’ She smiled at him, and he grinned back.
‘I think I won’t eat meat any more.’
‘Really? We’ll see. Somehow I can’t see it - Rilke the vegetarian…’
‘Oh no, I won’t just eat vegetables. I’ll eat nuts, mainly, and fruit of course. And cakes, and pies, and bread.’
Korman, smiling at Shelley trying to explain to Rilke what a vegetarian was, dug a hole where the fire had been, and buried the remains of the moonbird along with the saved apple core, and sang a blessing over it. Then they left Moonbird Hollow with a mindweb over it and a blessing, and headed west to the Vale of Applegate, between the Tor Enyása and the southern reaches of Lake Avalon.
Chapter Twenty-four
Ambush at Thorngate