The Ghosts of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

cusp of light,
    beyond which is pure magic blackness.
    She is the one who goes ahead,
    when others fall behind.
    She has been in the deep cave once,
    and made magic,
    as she made the stag on the wall.
    She has dreamed her whole life of what lies in the inmost cave
    and she has no fear of what that might be.
    But they do.
    They stop at the mouth.
    They are not magic men.
    They have magic on their skin,
    but that was made by another’s hands.
    Theirs is to hunt and kill,
    to swim and fish,
    to run and trap,
    but out in the sun-bright day,
    not here.
    Not here, in the cold, wet dark
    where time doesn’t move.
    It’s here that the magic comes
    from out of the world,
    from the deepest part of the dark,
    and they are afraid.
    Hearing no sound behind her,
    she stops and turns.
    She sees them
    outlined against the day-bright light.
    She knows why they have stopped,
    and that is enough to give her heart some strength,
    and yet to fill her belly with fear.
    They stand that way for an age,
    here in this place where time barely moves,
    and, with every step, deeper into the blackness
    moves more slowly still.
    For deep in the darkness,
    in the inmost cave,
    lies the prize,
    the secret.
    The two stand,
    then step a step,
    then stand.
    Back away.
    Come forward again,
    and she makes to run into the dark, past the black hands
    and her red-black stag,
    when the world shakes.
    The world moves.
    The world thunders and the sky outside burns a thousand times more brightly.
    Something rips it apart,
    pounds the mountain,
    and the rocks around start shaking so hard she falls to her knees.
    A sound louder than a thousand suns
    tears through the sky and into the earth.
    The shaking world begins to crumble.
    The two,
    fear-frozen in the cave mouth,
    fall.
    Above them, the rocks crumble,
    collapsing.
    So easily,
    they die.
    She watches.
    Light flickers through the rock fall.
    Dust and debris obscures her view,
    but as silence returns and the world stops shaking,
    the light, and the world outside with it,
    has gone.
    She is alone.

 
    XXIV
    The last of the people
    lies on the floor in the darkness.
    Choking clouds of dust roil back to her,
    and she lies, heaving her lungs and spluttering her throat.
    Around her is nothing.
    She can see nothing.
    She is nothing.
    But rebirth.
    She feels for the floor,
    wet clay and water pools,
    and waits for the choking to stop.
    When it does, she laps at the water and washes her face.
    She shivers.
    She stands, if only to know one thing;
    which way is up.
    The cold skitters across her skin again, and water drips from her hair
    and her fingertips.
    She will die in the cave.
    That part is easy.
    But before she does, perhaps,
    there is something else.
    Something that’s been lying in wait for her,
    and her alone.
    She kneels, and finger-sees her way across the floor.
    She fails.
    She starts again, more slowly,
    moving in an ever-widening circle,
    turning and growing,
    not knowing that above her head
    a spider is spinning a giant web,
    turning and growing, in a line that will not end.
    Then,
    she finds them; the torch and her fire sticks,
    resting on dry rock.
    She does not find the fire bow,
    but it can be done by hand,
    and, though it takes a little longer,
    a red glow appears in front of her between her flying fingers.
    She pushes on, spinning the stick between her palms,
    and the glow becomes brighter,
    and flicks into flame,
    and soon the torch is alight once more.
    She lifts it close to her skin,
    feeling its warm breath on her breast.
    Fire flickers in her eyes.
    She’s alive.
    She walks.
    There, at the cave mouth,
    the way is blocked. It will never be opened.
    So she walks
    into the heart of the mountain,
    hunting for that final understanding.
    She walks past the black hands, past her red-black stag,
    and she keeps on walking.
    She walks where time never moves,
    so there is plenty of space for her thoughts to come.
    She climbs over rocks, and scrambles up slopes,
    lets herself jump deeper and