The Eternal Raven

A cold wind swept through the valley of harsh rocks and stirred nothing.  This was a place untouched by the hand of man, where no sun shone.  A place out of time with no beginning and no end.  It stood before creation and will remain after Ragnarok.  A place of unending moonlight, where no thing dwelt.  A forgotten template for the nine worlds of Yggdrasill.  

An eerie, mournful music echoed from the very rocks, groaning its way over dust and stone and around blackened gnarled trees that had never lived.  On a rock in the bowl of the valley the raven croaked: it was time to begin.  His end was near - almost a millenia from when he was called into being at this very spot.  He lifted his heavy bill and croaked again, black feathers ruffling.  His deep voice rose up to the Great Spirit (that even he did not fully comprehend), resounding his melancholy of centuries past and his awareness of near-completion.  The raven stretched out his huge black wings, holding the position awhile like some awesome Odhinic totem and, turning to the silvery face crying down to him, he sailed up and was gone.

The raven had been to the realm of men many times before.  Searching through the centuries he had become accustomed to certain places; familiar haunts where he had left something of his essence merely by being there.  A fleeting thought, a question, came to him: Could this essence of spirit help them find him? or each other?  Then the thought dissipated like an unremembered dream.  Now he was flying to one such familiar place.  Down from the moon he glided, bathed in her gentle light, toward the ancient wood crawling slowly up the moorland slope.  He croaked his return and was echoed by nine crows flying west, brothers of the wing.  A bay in the wood-edge created a glade        surrounded by twisted, stunted oaks and moss-covered granite boulders.  The moonlight glistened on the damp moss and verdant grassy glade.  This was his place.  

He alighted onto the pedestal - an oak stump carved into a sundial by some child of nature many years before.  Now it told the lunar time.  Darkness enveloped the wood and the sky above but the raven could see - the moon, almost full, lent him her light and it sparkled silver on the grass and trees in the night gloom.  He cocked his head and looked about.  There was the tree where he had once built a nest, naively thinking that he could use some of his time to share with another; to raise his own.  But that life was not his to have.  The nest still stood - empty, no eggs would be tended there.   A sound broke his train of thought - a snail was silver-sliming its way up the stump.  The black, gelid eyes of the raven turned and watched.  Why did they do it?  He did not like the taste of snails (no blood) and they left a sticky feeling in his throat.  But; who was he to defy the ways of nature in her own realm?   If they came sliming their way to their corvine god in self-sacrifice, he must obey.  The raven picked up the snail in his bill and deftly cracked it on the moondial.  Then, using his age-old talons, prised the shell off and swallowed.  The moss-covered boulders of granite sat motionless amongst the trees somehow reminding the raven of his task.  They were not here, he knew they would not be, but he had been here before - in a dream if not physically.  The raven did not understand how he knew this, he just knew.  An owl hooted from inside the wood, urging the raven on - the web of wyrd was working strong now.  Breathing in the cold night air and catching their smell across the miles, the raven rose once more and headed southeast.

High above, the raven soared from tor to tor: primeval rock-giants pushing their way out of the earth.  They were there even when the raven was young.  At times he glimpsed carrion far below.  But this was not the time for feeding.  He would leave it for his brothers of this world (perhaps some of them had their own quests?).   At last the lonely night sky brought him to the place - a grassy mound beside a conjoining of three streams: a tryst.  He stopped at the last tor to wait.  From here he could see the spot - though, again, did not know how he knew.  A small fire flickered its yellow-orange light against the trees on the bank - they were here.  After so many centuries, so many lives and so much waiting and searching - he had found them, and they were together.  The raven watched, a deep longing rising in his heart, brief half-perceived glimpses of his true purpose fleeting by.  A fire of emotion overwhelmed him, threatened to drown him, but instead made him feel sick with grief and with love.  Unobserved, the moon turned to full.  The raven faltered - what was he to do now?  The unquestioned intuition that had guided him on his quest seemed to have deserted him, leaving him empty and alone.  Had his search led him through the centuries in what seemed an endless flight of uncertainty only to bring him here?  He leapt from the rocks and rose once more.  Circling the spot, the raven croaked, and his voice echoed throughout the ages, penetrated the Earth and the stars.  It carried with it his tale of loss and sorrow, and of a binding not to be broken.  The man and woman below looked up, feeling something, but not yet fully realising.  To the raven, the silver thread of the web of wyrd that joined the lovers was glowing brightly.  Then came the reply:  Higher still in the night sky two dark shapes approached.  A piercing yet gentle cry split the air.  One buzzard flew off - a bird of this world.  She remained, circling above.  Instantly the raven knew her.  He rose on the warm thermal of the fire below to meet her.  As he neared her, memories came to him.  His ragged black wings flapped awkwardly.  Her graceful flight seemed to mock him.  Would she know him? why they were here? what they must do?  The raven came to the buzzard.  He matched her flight.  Momentarily, he was almost afraid: a corvine dread - two rivals of earthly existence.  But it vanished.  That was a feeling for earthly souls.  His black eyes met hers.  A peaceful serenity engulfed him - she knew.  For once the king of crows felt humbled.  She cried out again and her voice touched his heart, setting it ablaze.  His deep, throaty croak belied the love that overwhelmed him.  Together they turned toward the tor.  Above, a heavy cloud darkened the night sky as the moon shrouded herself from the dread fulfillment of the pact.  Suddenly, a loud crack ripped through the air and an acrid smell of gunpowder blew through on the wind.  The raven wheeled in mid-flight, turned, saw: she was plummeting to the ground below.  His horror exploded in his mind and sent him back, far back....

AD 1073.                          The warrior queen charged her white horse toward the Norman enemy, the invaders, usurpers, persecutors.  Her long dark hair raged in the wind, eyes aflame.  Naked but for her wolfskin battledress, blue woad streaked on her face, and a blood-spiral on her chest, she rode to her death.  Her 'other heart' - her sorcerer, was with her brother far away, unaware.  Together, shaman and warrior, they hunted the forest, learning the ways of the Great Spirit - yet unaware.  Their grief upon their return was ultimate and rent the skies.  Afterwards came the pact:  The sorcerer stood with the warrior on a grassy hill looking eastwards, towards the enemy.  Their home was no more and the path to their doom lay ahead, through the forest below them.  The warrior let an arrow fly, high - towards Asgard.  The shaman cried out to Odin - the name he gave to the Great Spirit (did he really believe it was a man?  a god?).  His cry was hoarse with anger, with grief, with shame.  His sorcerer's voice came to him and he spoke the pact:  They would be given new lives in each age until they could rejoin that which cannot be broken.  But there was a price - they would forget.  As all life must, to begin again, they would forget.  The sorcerer and the warrior spurred their mounts on and entered their doom, and the pact was sealed with the blood of their enemy.  

           ....the raven turned about in the air.  The buzzard lay below him on a rock in the stream.  Her lifeblood seeped through her brown mottled feathers and trickled ominously into the swirling cold water.  The raven spared no thought for the unseen, unlikely night hunter (was there even one? or was it all part of the plan?).  He rose up above his love and then fell into a courtship tumble.  It was a display he had performed many times before, on his long search throughout the ages, but this time there would be no last-second recovering swoop back up into the air, this time it was final.  The raven's body lay awkwardly atop the buzzard, their blood mingling as it swirled into the cold river water.  The pact was fulfilled.  The man and the woman opened their eyes.  The flames sent orange light flickering on their faces.  Inside, their souls awakened.  They stared into each other's eyes and began to realise, began to remember.