Long passages of song, and the music of a plucked string instrument known as the lyre, which gave even the crude English their term for lyrics, or words to a song, came to him across Time, echoed through The Sunken Star, even as the dropping of stones in a lake might come to the far shore in the form of rippling water lapping at the bank. Weather he laid for moments, days or moons he could not know, because he perceived only the song, not even the warmth of the sun or the waking of the moon creatures at night. He felt the melody of the lyre and pining of the feminine voice.
As words perceived but little came to him across the ages. The words came more as a lover’s touch than as the understanding of crafted sounds. But he and Mother had been creatures of song, and some lyrics came to his mind’s eye whole…
…So the Heliads wept
Turned to trees in their woe
Their tears congealed to amber,
Washed down the River Po;
Tears for the Sun,
The sorrow of the Sisters of The Shining One…
…we are women born,
Unapt to manage men; and, being ruled,
By mightier than ourselves, must hear
Hard words—and worse. For my part, I shall ask
Pardon of those gone below, for what act
I need commit, but yield obedience
To those in power; to exceed
Is madness, and not wisdom…
…All the same, the rites are due
To the deep departed…
…I gaze upon the last light of day
That I shall see;
The Ender of all, is leading me,
To the far bank Beneath
Alive; to me no bridal hymn belong,
For me no marriage song
Has yet been sung; for the Ender instead
It is, whom I must wed…
…Wherefore the late-avenging punishers,
Furies, from The Ender and The Beginner, lay wait for thee…
…Come quick, I pray;
Let me not gaze upon another sorrowful day!
…He could not return to the living bound as he was now so deeply with the Oneness within. A hand had reached for him though—no a voice—through The Sunken Star.
Father, what is it I hear?
He heard the dipping of the serene paddle of WhiteSkyCanoe into the troubled waters of his soul, and the waters calmed.
My Son, a friend of Sunset, rider of the thunder like you, is sung for by a woman of Sunset Past, and her words whisper to you through the leaves of the One Parted Tree.
Father, I must summon Mother, yet I am weak. Please stay.
As the deep waters of his now bottomless soul began to stir he could hear them lap against the walls of the Perfect Canoe, and it calmed him.
One could hear her hips swish through the waters and the rippling surface of his soul catch in the endlessly entangling strands of her night-black hair.
Yes, My Sweet, the Old Ghost is correct. One of my kind of ancient Hellas calls out through an activated portal. The Division Core echoes her plight and calls all who would listen. Not you alone shall hear. Prequel operatives shall be listening in. Let us hope they lack the bio-resources to commit a retrieval team.
Mother, I must go to her—I recall, when last I was upon Mother Earth—a certain soldier who DeathSong crippled. This man called DeathSong ‘Achilles’ and I ‘Daedalus’—a good trick I thought this to be…
Her smile was so wide he could feel the light reflecting from her bright teeth as her calming hand stroked his cheek.
Quiet, My Sweet. I shall recite to you the Hymn of Icarus and The Rage of Achilles. When you wake access my full Homeric database—you should do well.
The Hymn of Icarus and The Rage of Achilles echoed in his depths for what seemed an eternity, and then two perfect lips kissed him between the eyes and silence reigned in this cavernous place within.
He felt her drift off, her palms gliding across the surface of his depths, her feet somehow striding across a bottom that should not exist. Though her hair dragged enchantingly across the white birch of Father’s peerless canoe the stern old ghost of the One Prophet resisted her charms in rigid silence. If she would have been a natural woman her mirth should have cackled across the cosmos. But she was the malevolently flawless creation of the medicine-women of the Dark Companion Society of Further Sunset, and her laughter chimed like spring water falling into a clear pond…
Light filtered through his shut lids. He was not yet suited for concourse with men, but he had Mother’s information to access. He read the Iliad, paying particular attention to Sorrow-of-the-people called Achilles by the forgetful Whites. He then reviewed the works of Victor Davis Hanson considering the war-making of the Helen-speakers. As he did this the people about him seemed to take on a good frame of mind and call others to his side. An elder demanded he be taken out to recline beneath the sun. This he thought was the cue to action.
Once he felt the sun bathe his face Three-Rivers opened his eyes and sat straight up, speaking his native tongue in a commanding tone, “Bring me Bawdry Moore of the English and Elzear of the Black Robes. I have need of their Whiteman skills.”
Now, reclining before him, in the palms of Moon Beaver, cupped like the hammock made for a chief of all squirrels, was Mister Gerald Hicks, smoking cannabis from a tiny calumet made to fit his little claws. For all of the mood-calming pot that Gerald must have been smoking, he still seemed vexed, “Witout even no nevamind fo yo four-legged friend! It were I dat cured yo thankless ass boy. You re-a-lize how much pot I done smoked while dese fools pray fo yo dumbass? Sheeee, I smoked maself straight boy! Now ged yo ass up!”
“As you say my mighty totem. Oh, and I see that you have acquired the services of my disciple Moon Beaver. I trust you have been getting along well.”
“Dat’s why yo ass need ta ged up boy—dis dummy don’ speak no squirrel. He need ta be taught how ta brew beer en…’
“Yes Gerald, as you say. Beer and its brewing shall come in its own time. First though, we are headed into a world of wine—which I thought you much preferred over mere beer.”
“Sho, a course boy—bud if we goin’ to a angray wine drinkin’ whorl den we need some muscle…”
“Again, as you so wisely say Gerald. Now, being as we are headed into danger, which of my—excuse me, our—warriors do you suggest I summon?”
The squirrel set aside his pipe, propping it on the thumb of his tireless human disciple and scrunched up his snout in thought, “Well, you got yo scary ass Poto Rican—bud his ass owe me money, en if he ged kilt I cain’t collect. Den you got you big cornfed country sombitch en he a brutha, so we don’ want his ass gettin’ kilt. Den you got dat evil Nazi sombitch, en fo all I knows it migh’ be National White Boy Day celebrated wit smoked-squirrel-on-a-stick—naw, naw, keep ‘is ass ad home watchin’ da Hitlar channel.”
Gerald then sprang to his hind feet waving his tiny forelegs over his head—barely reaching above the ears—in a state of revelation, and exclaimed, “I gotz dis shid, gotz id fo you ‘ere; dat crazy White-fool-fighta’ a yerz dat too stupit ta know when he beat! Datz da shit dere boy; bring his dumbass along!”
“As I have so often said, Mister Gerald Hicks, you are a totem to heed, wise beyond belief in the ways of ass-kicking and name-taking.”
