The Book of the Crowman (21 page)

There was silence between them for a long time and Gordon thought:

Thank fuck he can’t see me.

By the flickering of candles, he watched Grimwold. He studied him. The pockmarks were the scars of a thousand blackthorn needle wounds. The bent limbs and fingers were the result of dozens of broken bones; none of them set back into their natural forms. Grimwold’s eyes looked like milky glass, hammered until it shattered and then painstakingly reassembled.

“Sometimes I’m glad I can’t see myself,” said Grimwold. “But most of the time I don’t care.”

Gordon wanted to apologise but there were no words that could make amends for this. All he would be doing was salving his own rotten conscience.

“And don’t ever say sorry to me, Gordon. There’s much more to this than action and reaction, crime and punishment.”

Is he reading my mind?

“Meeting you brought the Crowman into my life. That night on the river bank, my world changed forever. I met him, Gordon. He came to me as I lay smashed and bleeding under the thorn trees and he gave me a kind of sight. It’s like radar for the future or something. I have visions and I share them with the people. Everywhere I go, people come to me and I tell them the things I’ve seen. Sometimes a droplet of the Black Light awakens within me and I’m able to do something for the sick or the wounded. You made me, Gordon. You fashioned me this new body and the Crowman saw value in it. He gave me an opportunity to make a difference. So here I am.”

Grimwold made it sound inconsequential, like the story of a hitcher who’d ended up in the wrong town and then decided to stay because he liked it. But Gordon had made Grimwold pay for things he hadn’t even done, he’d punished him for all the pain in his own life; all the pain he had space to comprehend on that particular night. Such had been his rage. Such had been his… insanity.

There were no words.

No words.

“I followed you across this land, Gordon. Touched the hedgerows, woods and caves where you’d slept. Walked in your footsteps through cities living and dead. As I followed, I was healed. Slowly my new sight came to me. After a while I had no reason to follow you any more. I could see you whenever I wanted just by thinking about you.” Grimwold chuckled to himself. “The things you done, boy...”

Gordon stared through the glassless window into the night for a moment, remembering; weighing up the dark deeds against the light. Grimwold, however, had concerns too pressing to afford him the luxury of such reminiscences.

“I have something for you, Gordon.”

Grimwold reached between the twisted ropes of rag covering his torso and brought out an object, held in both hands. For a moment Gordon glimpsed more scarring behind the torn curtains of cloth and then the old wounds were hidden once more. Grimwold seemed to be quivering with excitement.

“Put out your hand.”

Gordon hesitated.

“Do it.”

Gordon extended his arm, his palm upwards.

Grimwold placed something cool and black in his hand.

A jolt leapt from the object and seized his arm in a coil of icy current. The surge spread through his chest and into his entire body, paralysing him as he sat on the milk crate. The Black Light rose within him like a tide, more powerful than ever before, blinding him utterly. In the cannibals’ clearing, trying to save the unnamed girl, he thought its force had deserted him but here it was again, stronger than ever.

Grimwold! He could use it to repair the damage. He reached forward with both hands but the Rag Man backed away.

“Don’t you touch me, Gordon Black. Don’t ever touch me again. There is no remedy for the deeds of the past. I have no regrets for the changes you wrought upon me. You moulded me like clay, like a creator. You brought the Crowman to me. There is no undoing his will.”

Gordon sat back, trying to blink away the blindness. Whatever charge he’d received from the black object in his hand, the flow now reversed and the tide of raw Black Light was drawn into the artefact, filling it up until he thought it would explode into a thousand fragments. The reaction ended and the black stone warmed to the touch of his hand, as any stone would left next to the skin for long enough.

Gradually, Gordon’s sight returned and he inspected the object resting in his palm. It shone under the candles, reflecting dozens of pinpoints of gentle ivory light. It was a crystal of some kind, black as obsidian but carved with symbols. Two crows facing away from each other in a stylised tree and one crow with its wings spread over the whole image. The tree’s roots met the uppermost crow’s wings, forming the circle which encompassed the motif. A black feather had been bound with thread to each of the four compass points of this outer circle. From the top of the stone extended a black leather thread.

“You need to wear it, Gordon.”

Gordon gazed at the thing, entranced. Grimwold became agitated.

“Put it on. Put it on!”

Gordon kept staring at it, turning it in his fingers, tracing its fine workmanship. It almost felt as thought the stone were the Black Light made solid. He placed the necklace over his head and let the stone rest against his chest for a moment. Within seconds his fingers were exploring it again.

“Where did you get this?”

“I made it.”

“Made it?” Gordon looked at Grimwold’s crooked fingers, many of them without nails, his blind eyes. “How?”

“The Crowman gave me the design in a vision. Not long after, he gave me the stone too. Told me it comes from somewhere near the heart of the world. It was just a lump of cold crystal when I first held it in my hands but day by day I worked it, cracking away the crust which hid the design. It was as though the shape of it already existed inside the crystal. All I had to do was take away the dross without breaking it. Easier said than done. It’s taken me two years to make it.”

“It’s incredible.”

“It’s more than that, Gordon. It’s alive. The Crowspar is conscious. I guess you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”

“What am I supposed to use it for?”

Grimwold slapped his knees with both palms and sat back.

“Ho! Well. Now you’re asking. It’s a compass. A focal point. An oracle. A doorway. A talisman. An icon. A chronicle in crystal. I could go on and on. It’s whatever you need it to be, Gordon. But it’s much more than that too. No matter how long you hold it for, you’ll never understand everything about it. It’s a grail but it’s absolutely real; more real than you or I perhaps. Long after you and I are gone, the Crowspar will live on. And yet you are able to hold it in your hand. It’s a gift, Gordon. From the Crowman to you. It will take you the rest of the way.”

With the Crowspar resting against his heart, Gordon felt serene. There could be no firmer sign that he was in the right place at the right time, that everything he’d done and all that had happened along his way was somehow correct and unavoidable. He'd made all the right choices so far and they had kept him on the path. But then…

“Grimwold?”

He knew his voice sounded like the voice of a boy, a boy with so many questions he’d bring a smile to the face of any adult.

“What is it?

“Do I… have a choice? In all of this, I mean. Can I change it? Go against it? Can I back away?”

Grimwold scratched at something within his rag robes. Whatever inhabitant he liberated with the tip of his finger went into his mouth before Gordon could spot what it was. Grimwold chewed and something tiny crackled between his remaining teeth.

“Well, I hoped you wouldn’t ask me that. But then, I suppose, I knew you would. You do have a choice. We all do. But to shy away from what you know you were born to do is to spend the rest of your life asleep.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It is bad. It’s terrible. Imagine if the Earth decided not to spin. If the trees and flowers decided not to grow. If farmers decided not cultivate the land. If lawmen decided not to keep the peace. What do you think would happen?”

Gordon shrugged.

“Isn’t that a bit of an oversimplification?”

“It’s a serious question, Gordon. A relevant question. The least you could do is consider it.”

“Well… I suppose everything would stop?”

“Life would be pointless. It’s the path to uncreation, Gordon. Worse than Armageddon, it would be the unmaking of the world. Our lives are a gift and they come with responsibility, not only to ourselves but to the land, to everything that has life around us. We must be ourselves with great commitment and energy. It’s our privilege and our duty.”

Grimwold reached out with unexpected speed and accuracy, seizing Gordon's hands in his. The touch of his pitted skin and unnaturally angled fingers was repulsive.

“Look at me, Gordon Black. See what you did with your rage, with your need for justice and vengeance. You made me what I am. But I chose the path that led me to you, and you chose the one that converged with mine. So, in a sense, I created you. We adhered with great energy to who we were born to be and it has brought us both a long way. A terrible path it was, yes, but the correct one.”

Grimwold let go and Gordon found he was sweating even though the air swirling through the bus’s upper deck was almost freezing. Where Grimwold's hands had touched his there was a lingering sensation, a burn like frostbite. Grimwold sat back against the damp, ruined upholstery of the back seats.

“You could choose to avoid all this, Gordon,” he said. “You could go back… or at least go no further. You could hope that someone else would take up your cause and find the Crowman so that he might be brought to the people, so that he may guide them. But it is not another man’s job to do. It’s yours. Even so, you could make yourself scarce in some valley somewhere far away where no one would ever find you or even bother to look. And perhaps the world would survive without you fulfilling your purpose in it. Let’s face it, Gordon, this isn’t just about you. There are others out there trying to do what’s right to protect the future. So you could just say ‘no’ and forget about all this. But you would live the rest of this life in uncomfortable slumber and one day you would return to this world to finish what you started. And you would return and return until you fulfilled what you first came here to do.”

Gordon laughed.

“So, you’re saying that ultimately I have no choice.”

Forlorn and without humour, the laugh died the moment it left his mouth. Grimwold leaned close and pointed a crooked finger in Gordon’s face.

“You have the same choice we all have. And you should be grateful for it.”

Grimwold sat back again, his breath seemed to come in laboured gulps now, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort of each gasp.

“Are you alright?” asked Gordon.

Grimwold shook his head.

“I’ve done all I can for you, Gordon Black. I think you should go now.”

Gordon’s body wouldn’t obey the command.

What more do I want from this?

Despite Grimwold’s assurances, perhaps no words would ever absolve him. Gordon stood from the milk crate. He took a breath ready to speak but Grimwold cut him off.

“There’s enough between us now, Gordon. Enough for a lifetime. Our paths have converged twice and now they split forever. This much I have seen. So don’t say any more. Not another word. Not even goodbye. Leave me in peace. Go and make your choice.”

Gordon stood in the aisle for a long time. The sounds of voices from outside the bus were indistinct murmurs. Fires flickered in the darkness in every direction. Grimwold’s head lolled back against the grimy cushion of his seat. His eyes were open but for all Gordon knew he could have been asleep already. He could have been dead.

Gordon wanted to speak. He truly did. But his mouth would not open. He had no words for this. Gordon ran from the rusted double-decker; home and pulpit to a Rag Man of his own creation.

Dear Gordon

Are you OK? God, I wish so much that you would write back to me. It seems like so long since I started sending you these letters. Bossy says you will have got some of them by now, even if they didn’t all make it through. In spite of everything, he’s always very nice to me, really. Was very nice, I mean. You won’t believe who I saw yesterday. It was Skelton and Pike from back when... Oh, heavens, Gordon I still can’t think of it even now. If you were here and you’d seen them and you had Dad’s knife with you, you’d have… well, you know. God, I’m crying now. Smudged my bloody writing. I’m sorry. They scared me so much when I saw them. I’ve never forgotten what they did to us. How they came in and, oh dear God in heaven, Gordon. When I saw them in the doorway I peed myself. Skelton was laughing and Pike just looked dead in his eyes like a statue or something. Skelton’s voice was awful. He sounded more like a girl than ever. He said they’re going to move me somewhere better, away from the other prisoners. He said they’re going to give me some food to fatten me up and find me some nice teeth so I look like a young lady again and not some old trout. That was what he said, the bastard. Bossy stood in the corner looking really angry. When they left he said I should do a little something for him, give him a special cuddle and a special kiss. He said it was hard luck because I wouldn’t see him any more. He said he wouldn’t be able to send any more letters for me. He came and sat next to me and I stabbed him in the neck with a tiny screwdriver I found in someone’s old clothes. I’ve been hiding it in my latrine bucket where no one would want to check. Stupid Bossy. He looked so surprised when I did it. I got him again and again before he even put up a hand to stop me. I even managed to get him in the eyes. Then I did one in side of his head and it got stuck so I stopped. I said to him as he sat back on my bunk: “You never sent any of my letters, did you?” and he shook his head. I know that means you won’t get this one either, Gordon, but it doesn’t matter. I know one day I’ll see you again. I know it. And then I’ll tell you everything. I love you, Gordon. Jude.

Needing to be far from the throngs of gathering troops and their families, wanting the solitude of the countryside and unable to find it in the city, Gordon fled along uninhabited streets into the night. He pounded up a hill, passing women selling favours for food. Without his pack, he had no blankets or shelter.

When he came to a twin monolith of tower blocks, he entered the lobby of the nearest and ran up the stairs. Feeling along the walls of the corridors, he found doors either hanging off their hinges or missing on every level. Sometimes he passed silent figures crouching in the darkness – asleep or dead he couldn’t tell. He didn’t know what he was looking for; only that height would give him some sense of remove from all that he had witnessed. He needed time alone, time to think.

The farther he climbed the more intact doors he came across. With the lifts long since abandoned, it seemed few people had the energy to come this high up when they wanted a place to sleep. If he’d been in the wilds, it would have been a hill or mountain Gordon would have climbed. In the city, this high-rise was the best he could do.

When there were no more flights of stairs he explored the last, uppermost corridors more carefully. On this level here all of the doors were still in place. A few of them were open. He listened for a long time at every door until he was certain the whole floor was uninhabited.

The locked doors were the ones that beckoned. He walked up and down the passages running his fingers over unopened front doors until he found one that felt right. Pushing off from the opposite wall he smashed the sole of his boot into the wood, as near the handle as he could. The impact sent the flimsy door crashing inwards where it connected with the wall of the inner hall and then bouncing back. Gordon stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him, finding a chair to wedge under the handle.

There were rooms to either side of the hall, all of them tiny, and at the far end a door led into what would once have been a small living area. The sofas and chairs were still there. Gordon went to the window and looked down. From here he could make out tiny fires in every direction, most of the centred around the old bus station and car park.

The air in the flat was old, dead and undisturbed. Gordon unclasped and opened as many of the windows as he could. The air that came in was smoky and cold but it was better than the stagnant air within. For a while he stood, watching the flickering lights far below. He was high enough that there was only silence to accompany them and the occasional whine of the wind as it swept around the edges of the tower block. Only now did his energy wane as the pace of his journey and the lack of food began to catch up with him.

He found the tiny kitchen and checked the cupboards. Whoever had lived here before had been well-prepared for what was coming. Perhaps when they’d left, they’d been in too much of a hurry to carry anything. Or maybe they’d simply gone out one day and never come back. How many millions of people that had happened to, he could only imagine. Whatever the case, most of the cupboards were stacked with tins and dried goods. The rest were full of glass jars.

In the almost complete darkness, it was hard to tell what the tins contained so he used their shapes as guidelines. Spam was obvious, as was corned beef. Smaller cylinders might be tinned fruit. When he had enough of what he hoped he wanted, he found a fork, two bowls and even a can opener. Near the kitchen window, where a small emanation of clouded moonlight came in, he prepared a main course of cold spam and tinned spaghetti. Dessert was a tin of strawberries.

He took his bounty back to the living area, sat down on the sofa and began to eat, as slowly as he could discipline himself to. Even so, fullness crept up swiftly on his shrunken stomach and the meal was far too quickly over. Hauling himself with great effort from the couch, he returned his dishes to the kitchen and went in search of a bed and blankets.