Killbird

moved and the eyes showed the killbirds and I wondered, but it was still a game. I was good at the game. I did not miss a move. Not once did the game make that wail like a dying lion and force me to begin again. It was a long game and there were times when, in a voice of deep and unnatural quality, I was told, «Hold.» And in those times I sat and looked at the eyes and was amazed for they were constantly changing. There would be sort of a blink and the killbird shown there would be viewed from another angle. There was one eye which interested me more than the others. I know not what it was, for it was a fanciful thing. It was as if an eye had been taken aloft on the wings of man or a killbird and looked down from a height not attainable by man, even if he could fly without the danger of being punished by the gods of man. But it was not real, I knew, for the ever-extending earth, if man could see it from so great a height, up with the gods, would be as it is, flat, and this fanciful thing showed a falling away, and there were mountains below which were tiny and the entire scene was lovely, with white clouds drifting and the earth below green with a dot of blue showing now and then. I know not how long I played the game, but it served to take my mind away from my unbearable sadness. And it was follow the lights and the voice and push and punch and wait and then I knew from our former games that we were nearing the end. Only a few more moves and then I would push down on a little thing which was as red as blood—and that thought put my mind back into its sadness and I almost failed to see the light which told me my next move. I mused about my edict banning death from my valley and I felt foolish, knowing how God laughed, for death comes to all things. However, I could abolish death in my own life. It came to me as a revelation. I could block the plate leading to the outside. There was food and water, and I could live the rest of my days in my cave, never seeing death, not so much as an insect, for there was something about the place which kept insects out. Ah, to know no more sorrow. But then a curiosity came. What of my children? My own Margan. Ouree's sweet little one. My sons and daughters by the other widows and my sons and daughters to come as I did my duty and serviced—and what of a pairmate? Oh, Mar. Mar. I will never have another. No one could replace you, my loved one, my all, my Mar. Yes, I would have to go out. I would be family head. I would tell the evil of death and, in times of plenty, I would journey into the ranges of other families and make alliances and preach the evils of death, which in violent form save from dragons or animals is rare. I would preach so that no man in my mountains would ever have to know my sorrow, for death is the most useless of all gifts which a man can give another. It solves nothing which could not be solved by peaceful means. Take Yuree the Mad. What gained she by death? Only her own. Thus she did not live to enjoy the pain she gave me, if that was her plan. I would speak with all family heads. I planned my speech as the voice said «Hold» and the lights were still and there was a quietness in my cave of games. «My people,» I would say. «I know the horrors of war. For Logan the Unwise donned the bearclaws and came to raid my family and gained death, and I do not rejoice in his death, but know a deep sadness that the hills are depeopled and a family is in disaster. So heed my words. I ask all to toss the bear claws of war into the campfire and dance joy while they burn and thus banish the thought of war, of man killing man, from our customs forever and forever.» With my pain, I felt, I could make them see. But now I was playing the game and coming to the end, and the eyes were blinking and showing picture after picture of tall and silent killbirds, and there came to me a feeling of goodness. I thought that I had begun to divine a meaning to this game. It was, after all, a gift from God and not something left by a mythical race of giants, and God was telling me something by showing me images of so many of his messengers. He was saying, the earth is for man, Eban the Hunter. It is for man to live upon and feed well and bear and rear his children, and in the end there is purpose, for if there were not would I, your God, be showing you my power in the form of the killbirds? And so God spoke to me and I played the game and prayed, and miracle of miracles I knew and understood. God was sending me messages. The last of the game came, and with a sigh I pressed the little blood-red thing and there was a click and the voice began to wail like a dozen dying lions and on the eyes there was movement. The eyes blinked wildly and in image after image the sleek and deadly killbirds began to move. Fire swirled from their tails and the movement was upward, slowly, so slowly, as the eyes blinked and switched and killbird after killbird lifted. And I looked at the fanciful eye which looked down upon a fanciful earth and lo, there were lances of fire reaching upward. It all happened with a swiftness which stunned me and left me in awe. There were so many things to see. Eyes showed my valley as if I were flying over it and the valley was falling away, and one eye which caught my notice showed a white streak in the sky, and I shouted, for there was a killbird of the type I knew, and it came with the speed of an evil thought, and other eyes showed the white streak, which became a gleaming and fatal killbird closing on one of the killbirds which I'd been watching, and they came together and there was a flash of fire and, oh, there was so much to watch. I could not see it all. I had views of my valley falling away, views of a sky which soon began to go black, and I could see on some eyes the huge array of killbirds climbing on lances of fire straight up and the action was so swift that my head was jerking from side to side as I tried to take it all in, tried to see all the eyes at once. What was the message? It came to me in a flash. God had heard Eban the Hunter and, although he had chosen to punish his servant by taking away the woman he loved most, was now rewarding his servant with a gift. God would not give man wings unless he intended man to use them! God was sending his giant killbirds to destroy the gods of man, the sleek and small killbirds who lurked in the clean skies lying in wait to blast man on his wings. «Thank you, thank you,» I prayed, still watching. «Would it be too much to ask you, to beg you, God of all, to pull the teeth of all the dragons?» I could not then count the vast number of huge killbirds which went aloft to do battle with the gods of man. I estimated sixty, seventy. The battle was a great one, God's killbirds smashing and destroying each other there high in the skies, and although I knew that it was not real, that it was a fanciful creation for my benefit on the eyes of the game thing, there was a feeling of joy in me, for it was God's way of telling me that now the skies, as the earth, were man's to enjoy. I longed to leave, to join my family and to tell Yorerie and Cree to start building wings. We would fly! Oh, how we would soar and not fear the swift and deadly dart of a killbird, for God was destroying them. So many died at the meeting with God's giant killer killbirds that there could be none left to harass man in his feeble attempts to fly. And now the view on the eyes was of a great blackness and a few stars and a funny ball below with mantles of stuff which seemed somewhat like clouds and a vast blueness. Another sign from God. He was showing me an image of the field of endless waters which his spirit warnings had prevented me from seeing during our travels in the far east. Of course it was not the real thing, for it was so far below and so tiny and curved on that funny ball. Things remained the same for a period, and I stayed with my eyes on the many eyes. Then the views started to change and the ball below began to fill the eyes until the field of endless waters was lost from view and there were, below, mountains and plains, and they came toward me on the eyes, and then I looked at the eye which, throughout it all, had remained static and saw streaks moving downward, as if seeing the flight of killbirds from out in the heavens where God lives. And other eyes showed the killbirds as their noses grew red with anger and then split and out came dozens of little killbirds which left little tails of white as they flew. Had I been wrong? God's giants were giving birth to little killbirds? Had his message been misunderstood? But no. God gave me still another sign. The small killbirds flew down, down, and then the fanciful land shown on the one eye which did not change bloomed with light and perfectly formed clouds swelled up from the earth in a blossoming of such beauty that my eyes stung with it and I wept tears of joy as I saw God's sign that all was well. He was creating chaos, which He loves, to show me that I had understood His message. And then I watched as one by one the eyes went blank, leaving only the unchanging eye which showed the clouds climbing, climbing, and then God spoke to me. His voice was deep, and sometimes I could not be sure I was understanding, for a mere man is not expected to, nor can he hope to understand everything God says. Afterward, I tried to use what I had learned in the read game to record the words of God in the symbols, but I was unsure, and so I depend mostly on memory. God said something like this. «Now it is truly ended,» God said. Ah, I thought, I was right. «Now we have won.» God and I, fighting the killbirds? «Your presence here, man, your ability to follow instructions, shows that we have won, but your actions now have assured it. If you survived, some of them could have survived, and now your actions, well done, have made it possible to strike the final blow. Now the earth is yours, man. Now you must go forth, leave this place, for it has served its purpose. Go forth and populate the earth and tell your children of this time when you struck the final blow which gave victory, for if they did survive, they cannot come back, not in ten thousand years, from this final and devastating blow. And now, from the past, I wish you well, man. Remember us, your ancestors, and do not repeat our mistakes.» I waited. There was nothing more. I puzzled. God was my ancestor? I didn't know. I knew only that God had spoken and had left us one fine gift, the gift of the skies. I watched and the final eye went dead and the game things went to sleep and I left the room. The plate closed behind me, never to open again. I went into the valley to find my family still in mourning, but there was an air of excitement, and, indeed, great fear. They ran to me. «Killbirds, killbirds,» Yorerie yelled. «By the countless numbers.» It took me a long time to calm them down. And as they told me their stories I began to realize that it had not all been a creation of the eyes, but that God had actually come to earth and moved and that the death of the killbirds was not fanciful but real. «I was walking,» said Roden, pairmate of Cree, «with my children and the ground suddenly shook beneath my