Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Extreme Flight
We spent the night in the tree, two black birds far from their roost. We didn’t speak, which gave me time to digest the reality of what I had done, who I had become.
I was a murderer. I had killed a man to protect a Monster.
Had Camazotz been responsible for the skulls on the hill?
Did it matter? And what now? Could I go back to life as a human?
To face someone good and pure like Mindy?
Did I want to? The more I tried to figure it out, the less I knew what I wanted, what I deserved, until finally, worn out, I succumbed to sleep.
I hardly slept, the discomfort of the perch, the chill of the wind, and my guilty conscience all adding up to a miserable night, but I must have slept some.
For a moment, when I woke, I basked in the beauty of the pale pink sky, the colors revealing themselves in layers, until I remembered everything, and the horror of what I had done came rushing back.
Camazotz was still there, only a few inches away from me.
I let out a breath and fluffed my feathers.
The beauty around us had no power over me.
I felt scooped out on the inside, hollow.
Unsure of my place in the world, I forced myself to look at my companion, as ready as I could be for whatever he had planned.
Look at the nest.
Mimicking him, I stayed still, only my eyes moving up to the massive nest on the facing cliff. Perched on the edge were three brown eagles. Golden eagles?
Bald eagles. Those are the young. They will not grow their white head feathers for a few years.
I focused on the youngsters. They seemed restless, squawking and trying out their wings.
We were a good hundred feet away, but if they were clear in our crow sight, then they could definitely see us too.
Probably why we were so still. At least our dark feathers helped us blend with the bark around us. Did eagles eat crows?
A piercing cry sounded from high above us, followed closely by another. I tilted my head to see the parents, so high they looked like specks against the lightening sky.
One speck lunged toward the other, but instead of dodging, they attached somehow, becoming one creature.
As they fell toward the ground and us, I saw they were connected by one talon, tied together leg-to-leg as they spiraled toward the earth.
My breath caught, my guilt momentarily forgotten, as I watched the magnificent creatures plummet in a crazy spin.
That is how well you will need to be able to fly if you hope to convince me to take you with me.
Wasn’t it enough to kill for you? Will the tests ever end?
There are no more tests, Corvus. I need to know you can survive when facing extreme circumstances. So, quiet now, watch.
Another command. Still, this time he had explained himself, and that counted for something.
It helped that I couldn’t look away even if I wanted.
The pair of adult eagles untangled themselves long before crashing and had flown away.
It was the youngsters who were next to play in the sky above us.
The largest one held something in its beak: a stick.
He burst out of the nest and caught an upward draft.
His siblings stayed on their perch, watching him as he circled higher.
At some point, he released his grip on the stick, throwing it down and flying even higher.
The two perched on the nest lunged for the stick in a blink, brawling with one another to get to it.
The winner let out a jubilant cry, soaring in a celebratory loop before returning to perch beside its siblings on the cliff’s edge.
I felt his gaze and turned to him almost involuntarily.
Ready?
For what?
To play with the eagles?
I looked over at the young raptors. They appeared to be preparing for another round of catch the stick. When I looked back at Camazotz, he had already transformed into a large, brown-feathered eagle.
Despite him saying earlier he wasn’t testing me, he was. I needed to be able to change into more than just a crow. And besides, it would be beneficial to know how to be an eagle. He hadn’t turned into an adult for a reason, not one he’d shared with me. No, that would’ve been too much to ask.
Focus, Corvus.
I folded my black wing in front of my face. I didn’t have a middle finger, so I rustled my feathers at him instead, hoping he would get the insult. He just hopped onto a different branch, ready to leave me behind.
I did my best, asking my body to transform itself into a carbon copy of the first young eagle who had dropped the stick.
I grew a few inches, the most obvious change in my feet.
Instead of slender black crow's feet, I now had beefy talons.
I clicked my beak. It was hooked. I gave myself a mental high five and hopped down to the branch below me, testing the strength in my new wings.
He didn’t even look me over before launching into the sky.
I jumped after him, enjoying the new power of my wings.
This bird body handled completely differently from my crow one, a higher-performance version, like I had upgraded from a Jeep to a BMW.
I was large, and my wings were powerful, but still maneuverable.
We headed toward the giant nest, where three brown eagles watched our approach.
It didn’t take much to convince them to play, especially since Camazotz had prepared by bringing his own slightly larger stick.
He simply flew by the nest before gaining some loft and then dropped his stick.
I watched as the three young birds flew to grab it.
The victor earned the right to drop the stick next.
I joined in but quickly realized I had a lot to learn before I could claim the prize.
Being up close to skilled fliers, expertly snatching the stick with their sharp talons, was thrilling—but not for the faint of heart.
My Monster didn’t go easy on me, either.
He preferred the sink-or-swim method of teaching, but eventually, I improved enough to finally seize the stick.
The others fell away from me as soon as I had it, and I climbed high with great satisfaction.
I hovered momentarily, the trees and mountains shrinking to toy sizes from my view from the clouds, and dropped it for the others to fight over.
Instead of plunging for the stick, Camazotz joined me in the sky.
Come, let us leave them before the parents come back. You ready to go back?
He wanted to know if I was ready to return to reality. I was nowhere close. Since I didn’t want to remain an eagle for the rest of my life, I told him, Ready.
We were both quiet that evening back at the house.
No stew waited for us on the stove, and I got to witness my Monster as he prepared tomorrow’s dinner.
I offered to make something for us to eat.
I was hungry, and neither of us had eaten since the morning before, but he brushed me off, producing a side of smoked meat, a side of venison, some fresh vegetables, and yesterday’s loaf of bread.
Otherwise, we kept our own counsel. I retreated far inside myself, so deep, I didn’t think even he could hear me.
Maybe he could, but he chose not to comment. That was fine too. He was welcome to share the worst of my torment.
I had put the last piece of meat into my mouth that I could stomach when he finally spoke. “Come with me, Corvus.”
My first instinct was to shy away—hadn’t I been ordered around enough to last me a few years? But when I looked up to see him standing patiently above me, I caved. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to discuss our upcoming trip.”
I almost smiled but then the impulse faded.
He grabbed the leftover venison bones, and we headed to his room.
He excused himself for a few minutes, explaining how he always gave our leftovers to the wolf pack who shared our mountain, and flew off with the stinky carcass before joining me back at his desk.
When he returned about a half hour later, he poured us each a glass of mead.
“With each new generation, your civilization has been putting more and more value on human life.” He began his lecture after a long drink of mead.
I had no idea where he was going with this at first. “It has now reached a ridiculous height of farce and hypocrisy. You put your elders who have all but ceased functioning on life support systems that keep their hearts beating, no matter what kind of pain they are in, and do all you can to save the fruit of unwanted pregnancies when the world’s population is overflowing, choking on its lack of resources.
At the same time, you hand out firearms like toys, giving extra to the most demented and trigger-happy, when most of the people who buy them no longer hunt their own prey and buy over-bloated, chemically altered meat pre-frozen at the megastores. ”
He paused, eyes warm as he considered me and my mental state. Good gracious, was he trying to comfort me for killing Darryl? Was this twisted rant the result of actual compassion I was sensing from the ancient creature?
“Thanks, Camazotz, but I don’t think valuing human life is necessarily wrong.
If that’s even what you’re trying to tell me.
Then again, to you and your kind, we must not seem any better than the animals.
” Did he actually expect that explanation to cheer me up?
If I felt better I would have brought up declining birth rates and challenged him, but then he kept going…
“Humans are more highly evolved than animals; otherwise, we would not have such an interesting and complex civilization. Then again, it has taken a nosedive lately, in my opinion. Take the Wolf, for example. But to your point, Corvus, it is not wrong to cherish human life. But after you have seen a few hundred generations pass by, you will appreciate how fleeting they all are.”