Link to part one: here Wordcount: 1,749 Part: 4/9
Synopsis: The thunderbird touches down and takes on a strange new form.
If I called Tormaigh right now, would he show up in a couple of seconds? Maybe there was something about space around here I didn’t know. For that matter, the bird might be an arm’s reach away at any given time, as well. Maybe right behind my back. I stopped and turned around. I wind came out of the west, dark and wet. A shadowy wall of cloud soared miles high, and below it the land was smeared like a watercolor painting. Lightning crackled through the cloud-mass. I had been going the wrong way.
My hair whipped against my face as I looked back toward the clear east. I assumed if the wind was coming at me, the storm was too. I’m not sure that’s always true but when I looked back at the west, it was already visibly closer. I zipped up my jacket and started back in the direction I’d come from. He must be there. I would go and meet him. Maybe he could see me from where he was. Not running away from him might be a good first step in becoming friends.
That was a truly amazing storm. As the thunder rolled through the ambient atmosphere, I could almost feel it slam against me on its way by. I could taste the rain in the air. It was raining hard under that massive storm-cell. I wondered what it would be like walking on glass ground in a downpour. The clouds had spread over two-thirds of the sky already. High above, cumulonimbus fingers reached for the east, clawing through the smoky blue, and blocking out the daylight. Purple lightning spread across the western horizon.
I stopped and waited, the wind buffeting at my ears. A spray of rain came against my face. I knew he was there. My eyes curried the underside of the cloudbank. I could see light glowing inside the billows—leaping and zigzagging—coming to a head. And then a huge dark wingspan lashed through the murk.
In the next instant, there was a massive pulse of energy and the bird’s silhouette was lost behind a bolt of light the size of a LEARjet. I stepped backwards. He was half a mile away, but really too close to be playing with that kind of firepower. Leastwise, he surely wouldn’t hear me if I called to him now. I would have to wait until he let go of it and came in closer. I couldn’t tell if he had even noticed me yet. My hands rose to my ears as the bird skipped like a dolphin in and out of the cloud-cover. He dropped the lightning bolt and it shattered to the ground. It sounded like someone had dropped four tons of sheet metal in a cathedral.
As the sound cleared I whipped my hands away from my ears and scowled into the sky again, searching for the bird. He was above the clouds again. My eyes were drawn directly overhead. Light pulsed in the clouds, and there, just above me, the shadow of a huge pair of wings unfurled. My breath hauled in and I lifted my hands to my mouth. “Hey!” Rain washed down against my face and the downpour surged in full-strength over the land. “Can you hear me?”
Lightning flashed again and the shadow was gone. I turned and gazed around at the storm that enveloped me. Lightning dropped far away. All Echoland vibrated with a profound bass note. The rain made my hair stream down the contours of my face and blurred my vision. Talk to the thunderbird.
I looked straight up again into a strobe of bluish lightning. The clouds gave and the bird tumbled down fifty feet in front of me. The wings opened, dark luxuriant feathers spreading over the sky. I could see its face clearly for the first time since I had arrived in Echoland.
The flight-feathers—each one as long as I was tall, spread as the wings drew upward against the raging rain. The feathery horns twitched back along its neck and the toothed beak opened. I would have been scared–I probably should have been scared—but the eyes were so tranquil, so deep—orbs of summer night sky. And the song was lush and echoing, almost like a mammoth whip-poor-will. I had expected a rough scream, like a hawk.
As it approached, the near wing dipped, and the bird swung into a wide circle. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but I think it was watching me. The uniform darkness of the eyes made it hard to know exactly where they focused. They seemed so still. It beat the rain off its slate wings as it swooped back around and called again. It wasn’t gathering lightning, but I was beginning to think its huge bulk was driving a tornadic wind.
Without warning, it called, flicked its wings and dove into the clouds again. “Hey!” I called after it. I should have said more while I had to chance. The wind died around me and the rain came down straight. Thunder clapped against my ears and another mass of lightning dropped out of the clouds a quarter-mile away, heading away from me. I could see the capricious bird dragging it along.
My shoulders dropped. He didn’t care. He had other things he would rather do. Besides, certainly he couldn’t understand me. I hugged myself. I was soaked through now. I’d gotten this far. I remembered a childhood friend who once owned a parakeet. She talked to it all the time. Maybe it didn’t understand, but birds have a definite appreciation for voices. Maybe thunderbirds had something in common with budgerigars…a bit of something.
Thunder exploded and the bird was gone again. I started walking in the direction of the place he had vanished. There he was again. I could see the wing-tips flashing in and out of the clouds, eighteen or twenty feet apart. He was still flying away from me. I picked up my pace, but I didn’t dare run. The ground was slick under my feet. I lost track of him in half a minute and was left turning around in circles, searching the sky.
“Where’d you go?” I asked, too quietly for anyone to hear. Thunder crackled in the darkness. Lightning illumined patches of the cloudbank, but revealed nothing. It didn’t take long for me to suspect I was alone again.
To the north, a city-sized net of lightning dropped to the ground and returned. Then nearer, a mass of fiery veins flowed between earth and sky. I stumbled back. For a minute the world seemed to hum with electricity. Then the universe burst into pure soundwaves.
As the steam started to clear, my eyes widened. There was a grove of low leafless trees there. I hadn’t seen it before the lightning struck. As I approached it, I noticed that all the cracks in the vicinity were converging. In fact, they all radiated from the thicket. The air was warming at an unnatural rate as I walked. A few yards from the trees I stopped and crouched down, touching the wet ground with my fingers. The ground itself was almost hot.
Warily, I proceeded into the wooded area, ducking under the low limbs of the gnarled gray trees. I reached out to sweep a branch aside, and my hand met strange resistance. I scowled and my fingers slowly curved around the hot twigs. My hand slid up the branch and strained to bend it. I let go.
My mouth dropped open and I gazed around at the woodland. They weren’t trees at all. I could see it now. They were fulgurites. This grove really hadn’t been here before the lightning struck. Then, I saw movement.
Between the warty branches of the glassy formations, something twitched. It was dark gray, and moved against the wind. As I moved closer, it sunk out of sight into a lower part of the ground. I persisted through the fulgurite brush-land, keeping my eyes anchored on where I thought I had seen it. It had seemed much too small to be the bird, but I hadn’t seen it well, and what else could it be?
Now I could see that the grove surrounded a shallow crater. The lightning’s heat must have effectively smoothed the sharp edges that you would expect to find at a blast site in a glass world. The depression was about ten feet across, but I couldn’t see the bottom of it yet. I crept silently as I could in all the standing water, up behind a large broken fulgurite at the crater’s edge. Now I could see what was there.
At first, my mind couldn’t process it, but there, lying in the bottom of the glass crater, was the most fantastic creature I had ever seen. It wasn’t a bird at all, but a humanoid being with long graceful limbs and translucent charcoal-gray skin.It was dressed in trailing gray cloth, and though there was a lot of fabric, most of it didn’t actually cover the creature’s body. Down its bare back ran a wind-tossed mass of glossy hair that apparently didn’t absorb water. I could see one long feathery backswept ear, but the face was turned away. It lay still one the wet ground, apparently enjoying the heat.
With all the stealth I could muster, I crept around to see if I could get a look at the face. My eyes fell to the long legs. The shins were armored with dark scales, and the feet, though mostly human, bore long curved talons on the toes and a formidable spur on the heel.
I kicked a smooth chip of glass and it coasted over the edge of the crater.I backed behind the fulgurite. The being pushed itself up with its arms and looked over its shoulder at the piece of glass. The face was angular, and the gray skin darkened and shifted toward blue around the enormous silky black eyes. The ears fanned and leveled, and it looked up toward where I hid. It blinked and tilted its head. The lips parted, showing the very tips of fangs.
I swallowed, a flash of icy heat spreading from my spine. I backed away three steps and then stopped. It was the bird. It had to be. Would it bite? Would it fly away? Would it blast me with lightning?
Talk to the thunderbird…. He can be quite personable when he comes down.