The Crippled God - Page 464/472

Ralata caught up a short time later, just before Icarium happened to glance at the pottery fragment Ublala had taken out to admire again, and then halted to face one last time the low hill they’d left behind. Icarium frowned and was silent.

Ublala was ready to turn away when Icarium said, ‘Friend, I have remembered something.’

EPILOGUE I

Perched upon the stones of a bridge

The soldiers had the eyes of ravens

Their weapons hung black as talons

Their eyes gloried in the smoke of murder

To the shock of iron-heeled sticks

I drew closer in the cripple’s bitter patience

And before them I finally tottered

Grasping to capture my elusive breath

With the cockerel and swift of their knowing

They watched and waited for me

‘I have come,’ said I, ‘from this road’s birth,

I have come,’ said I, ‘seeking the best in us.’

The sergeant among them had red in his beard

Glistening wet as he showed his teeth

‘There are few roads on this earth,’ said he,

‘that will lead you to the best in us, old one.’

‘But you have seen all the tracks of men,’ said I

‘And where the mothers and children have fled

Before your advance. Is there naught among them

That you might set an old man upon?’

The surgeon among this rook had bones

Under her vellum skin like a maker of limbs

‘Old one,’ said she, ‘I have dwelt

In the heat of chests, among heart and lungs,

And slid like a serpent between muscles,

Swum the currents of slowing blood,

And all these roads lead into the darkness

Where the broken will at last rest.

‘Dare say I,’ she went on,‘there is no

Place waiting inside where you might find

In slithering exploration of mysteries

All that you so boldly call the best in us.’

And then the man with shovel and pick,

Who could raise fort and berm in a day

Timbered of thought and measured in all things

Set the gauge of his eyes upon the sun

And said, ‘Look not in temples proud,

Or in the palaces of the rich highborn,

We have razed each in turn in our time

To melt gold from icon and shrine

And of all the treasures weeping in fire

There was naught but the smile of greed

And the thick power of possession.

Know then this: all roads before you

From the beginning of the ages past

And those now upon us, yield no clue

To the secret equations you seek,

For each was built of bone and blood

And the backs of the slave did bow

To the laboured sentence of a life

In chains of dire need and little worth.

All that we build one day echoes hollow.’

‘Where then, good soldiers, will I

Ever find all that is best in us?

If not in flesh or in temple bound

Or wretched road of cobbled stone?’

‘Could we answer you,’ said the sergeant,

‘This blood would cease its fatal flow,

And my surgeon could seal wounds with a touch,

All labours will ease before temple and road,

Could we answer you,’ said the sergeant,

‘Crows might starve in our company

And our talons we would cast in bogs

For the gods to fight over as they will.

But we have not found in all our years

The best in us, until this very day.’

‘How so?’ asked I, so lost now on the road,

And said he, ‘Upon this bridge we sat

Since the dawn’s bleak arrival,

Our perch of despond so weary and worn,

And you we watched, at first a speck

Upon the strife-painted horizon

So tortured in your tread as to soak our faces

In the wonder of your will, yet on you came

Upon two sticks so bowed in weight

Seeking, say you, the best in us

And now we have seen in your gift

The best in us, and were treasures at hand

We would set them humbly before you,

A man without feet who walked a road.’

Now, soldiers with kind words are rare

Enough, and I welcomed their regard

As I moved among them, ’cross the bridge

And onward to the long road beyond

I travel seeking the best in us

And one day it shall rise before me

To bless this journey of mine, and this road

I began upon long ago shall now end

Where waits for all the best in us.

Where Ravens Perch Avas Didion Flicker