A Fine Black Sky
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Right where the trees were thickest, coniferous evergreens shook and shivered.
From the Watchtower, the young man looked on in awe, and something of a life-gained fear gripped him tightly to the crenelated wall, sucking him safely into the secure, solid stone. But much as the forest did shake, so too did the young man, from his marrow to his jerkin, much in the uncontrollable way the trees began to part - not the sudden animation of trees upon a warpath of venerable nobility, an army of thick foliage laden trunks marching on toward the destruction of progress in all its manifestations, first the barriers that man created to keep the world from within, but what left the tree line was far worse. It was a Giant.
Oh, a Giant was something of myth perhaps? But this one appeared very real. Even as it strode intentionally across streams and pastures, the young man squinted to make sure it was no abhoration of a sleepless night, nor some strange gas blended together into a manifestation of growing anathema. The darkness could play so many tricks upon the uninitiated and latent somnambulant.
The young man reached apprehensively for the knotted rope that in turn was spun upon the cloca to its clapper, which once struck, connected with the mouth, across the sound rim, up the waist to the shoulder, head, crown and eventually vibrating the yoke it was tied to, all in a deep resonating boom that was quickly picked up by the other Towers, peeling rapidly in a diatonic scale to a warning of impending danger. The bell was only to be struck in dire crisis, so the Watch Commander came to the young man, for admonishment of an insolent, inexperienced fool, too quick to rush the calling of the Warning Bell. Once the danger was pointed out to him, he rang the bell all the more vigorously. And yet the Giant kept coming. By the time it had reached the City wall, there was a small army to greet it.
Unrelenting, the Giant began to climb the wall, not too steep, as it was never intended for creatures of myth to climb its foothold-heavy facade. Each second of effort was accentuated by a strong attack by the partially disorganised army, troubling that it was becoming, attacking a mythical creature, as training had been remiss of such an outcome, even in an impossible event, like what was manifest before their eyes right now. And yet, though the attack was painful and unremitting, the Giant made no effort to crush, kill or retaliate against the onset sortie it found itself harried within. Instead it perpetuated myth by finishing its climb, coming respectfully upon the ground the other side. The Giant was within the City, and the people revolted.
And yet the Giant continued, over houses, cautiously through streets, tiptoeing delicately around immovable objects, always and forever pelted first with the honed weapons of the army, followed rapidly by the home made implements of the people of the City, crying out with fear, despair, anger and abuse. They called for the monstrosity to leave, to vacate the City, lest it be mortally wounded and fall where it walked. But the Giant continued, until it reached an area of greenery, deep inside the City - the place called Fallen Roam. The Giant looked cautiously about it, until it was sure, as it took to a seated position, with legs crossed. It sighed as the army surrounded it, unable to open its mouth more than a tiny amount before the attacks came more frequent, yet it wanted to open it. No one suspected it was because it wanted to talk. Mythical beasts didn't talk. They ate, if they indeed existed. And one could not kill a myth, no matter how many slings and arrows one fired upon it. The people came, with jibe and jeer, calling it names and giving freely of abuse. Then they began to throw things once more, regularly striking the Giant about the body and face. And it sighed once more.
Eventually the Giant was beaten into apathy through weakness, and the army was replaced by the modicum of bored troops, desired of sleep but forced to enclose the curiosity within a less than attentive cordon, as people could still get close to the beast and ineffectually strike it. Hate had many faces, all of them cowardly.
And the girl, Caleo, watched from her window, saw as the Giant came, settled and began to die, right in front of her. How the people jeered it, in its failure to gobble them up, failed to claim the City as myth demanded of it?
See, the girl Caleo had been badly burned in a blaze once, causing her to retreat into herself and her home, until she could no longer leave, and be assured of anonymity outside her house, much pilloried like the Giant who hunched in stupor, simply waiting for - what? Perhaps death? Perhaps her.
It wasn't just that Caleo became badly burned. She had also become malformed because of the injury the fire had caused, and she was scarred over the one side of her body, looking like the manifestation of a hideous monster. At least that was how she had perceived herself to be thusly marked by the people of the City, without any real proof, but an assumption from evidential examination of the reaction given to the Giant. But as she watched the giant blink and open its mouth ineffectually, sighing once or twice, she felt compelled to do more than simply watch the demise of a myth. She manifested a strength that should have been beyond her, given her circumstance. But it did not deter her.
Not for herself she made to leave her house, something once unthought of, not caring what people would say. And they jeered her much as they had the giant, calling her monster, or reeling from shock.
Caleo calmly walked right up to the Giant, recumbent on its own bulk, barely a flicker of life within. The guards tried to prevent her egress, but a compulsion moved her ever onward despite the protestation. She climbed the mass of the Giant, soft as it was with a hidden might below, until she could plant a delicate kiss upon the beast’s forehead, comforting it with soothing words and a promise that she would remain with it until it no longer needed her. Her speckled hand glided over the bulk, smoothing down the soft brown hair where it poked out of the mottled skin of the Giant, eliciting a satisfied last sigh form it, a deep-down mournful expelling of air from the bellow-like lungs of the creature, sounding for the first time, perhaps since coming from the line of trees like it was wanted - loved.
And slowly it built the energy, opening its mouth cautiously, forming attentive fear from the guards that surrounded the Giant, and simply waiting with idle curiosity for it to swallow the girl whole. Instead there came a deep, resonant voice captured from an echo once sounded upon the vast mountains beyond sight, mellow and lackadaisical in its false supposition of disinterest, like a roar of a mighty beast tamed and formed in the vast chamber-like mouth of the Giant. There was a thick accent to it also, speculating it came from a far off land beyond imagination. The words, as they came out of the Giant’s mouth, blew back Caleo’s hair, “I am Vastus of the Forest, and I come in peace.” he said. The message was, however, lost - as was the Emissary of the Forest, right there, right then. Oh what could have been?
But even now, if one was to venture into the City and search for that little place called Fallen Roam, they might yet see the bones of the Giant in that same green place, now overgrown, untended and bleak. But only if one was brave enough to search them out.
Because some things were worthy of attention, whatever their perception.
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