Birds

A Story by Gabs

Just a short story I wrote, about birds that can travel between worlds.

Isidore believed in the good of Science and the nonexistence of magic. Therefore, he found himself quite surprised the first time - and the subsequent times also - someone jumped to another world, and came back to tell the tale. He remembered it perfectly: sitting on his study, a book on his lap, when the butler announced a message from the king. He got up immediately. This was not the kind of message you could afford to ignore.

As a royal scientist, Isidore had visited the king's private meeting chambers often, but never the pristine white room he found himself that fateful night. The queen slept on the bed. Word had it she hadn't woken since the turning of the season - three weeks before, that was.

"Still, we hear her voice in our thoughts, and often feel her will move our limbs like puppets on a string," said the king. Isidore frowned. He couldn't believe he felt it too. He regained control of his face only a heartbeat too late.

"Strange happenings have plagued us in these last few months, I'm afraid," the king sighed. "Days ago, people spoke of vanishings, now they speak of reappearances. They speak of other worlds."

"That can't be right."

It was. "It has never been seen before," Isidore insisted. He was wrong.

"The birds." The king stated bluntly, and the scientist's face darkened.

"What about them?"

"They hold the key to all of this," he gestured to his slumbering wife. "I am certain. It is your duty as my most treasured personal scientist to unlock this mystery before any harm can come of it."

The king was a slight, forgettable man, intent on conquering the world through sheer courtesy. Not fit for the grueling weight of the throne, his detractors claimed. This was as close to an order Isidore had ever seen him demand.

Thus, Isidore marched dutifully back to his laboratory, and got to work.

�"

The creature didn't remember what had preceded the first blink of their eyes. They - for they were many even when in the body of one - knew only that there had been something, and that that something was good. They longed for it. Because they did, they blinked, and reappeared in it. Another world, that is.

When they came back, a week had passed, and their parent had lost hope. Isidore slouched over his desk, his head in his hands, his frail body swallowed by his massive robe. "I was so close," he muttered. "What did I do wrong?"

"I am here." The creature made him hear. One of their bodies hopped on his head, chirping playfully and beating their wings, while a newly acquired one studied the scrolls littering the room. Two small, raven-like birds. Isidore decided to name the creature Flock.

"You speak!" They didn't, not really. They conjured images into others' minds, while their tiny beaks remained shut, their posture that of a statue, many statues, cold and collected, eerie and mysterious, perhaps dangerous. Flock didn't think of themselves in these terms.

"I am not a thing," they said, or forced Isidore to think, "I am not an animal, not a pet. You might have hatched my egg, but that makes you my parent, not my owner."

"We are equal," Isidore completed, though a glint in the birds' eyes betrayed what might not have been suspicion, but disagreement instead.

Isidore had two siblings: a younger sister who had departed from their homeland in search of the great jungles - she was as much a scientist as he; as a child, she had loved plants and disdained play -, and an older brother, at first unreachable but now long dead. Isidore had never taken a lover, and was at best an acquaintance to the many colleagues who visited his austere cottage. He considered himself plain, uninteresting, unimaginative, and completely, utterly, absolutely, devoted to his studies. He hadn't realized how lonely he had been until Flock came into his life.

The birds' presence, whether it took the form of enthusiastic chatter or of brooding, thoughtful silence, enlivened his late evenings. The two discussed chemistry and astrology, they disagreed on philosophy but somehow agreed in taste for books. Flock spoke with indulging innocence, when not with feigned superiority. They hid the true depths of their many beady black eyes - six pairs and counting.

"How many will you grow into?" Isidore asked once, and felt a sigh echo inside his skull.

"I am always as many as I need to be."

Sometimes, Flock disappeared into another world. On these occasions, Isidore found himself pacing in his laboratory, book in hand but not even pretending to read. He scribbled some notes, knowing that when he came back to read them, his cramped, rushed handwriting would prevent him. When sleep didn't come, he replayed songs in a machine of his own making. He created new discs for it to play for them.

"Can you take me with you?" He asked days later, after Flock returned.

"I cannot," and would they, if they could? "Your soul belongs only to one place." And that place was there. This world. This Earth with its rules and its marvels, its clear skies or its stormy night, its moon and the sun that was something else in and of itself. This was what Isidore had studied his whole life, and it was a prison. He, who had never believed in magic, wanted to break free of reality just as his friend could with a mere blink. Flock had changed him.

"Will you?" The birds continued.

"I… what do you mean?" The temperature in the room dropped.

"Do not play games with me. I know you visit the city in secret."

For ingredients. There was this rather reclusive shop in Strum Alley, near the Old Town. He enjoyed the walk up there, even if the steep stairways and cobbled streets tired him in ways they never had in his youth. No, if he went to the capital, it was to prepare for his next condition, and to buy spare parts in the open markets. Oh, yes, and to report to the king.

Flock sounded truly hurt. "Am I just another experiment, to you?"

No. "They could hurt." He said instead, and meant it. The fact was that the common people didn't trust magic, not in the slightest. They shunned those among them who breached the barrier between worlds, those who come into others' minds, and more peculiar cases too: shapeshifters, firecallers, shadow-walkers who could jump from shadow to shadow, namely without occupying the space in between. Mostly a rumour was enough to earn others' hostility, often not even that. "And you are a being of magic."

"I am just myself." Flock said, as if the two were mutually exclusive. Isidore's heart wrenched. They cut him out before he could mumble an apology. "I find that as long as I live in this world agreeing to your rules, I am living in a cage of my own making."

"I've never prevented you from leaving." And they thanked him for that, they truly did. But it wasn't enough, was it? This world was theirs just as much as any other. The scientist held his hands to his chest, but raised his eyes decisively. "I… how far can one of you travel before you, er… it…"

"Before the body dies out?" The birds hesitated before replying, "Far enough. I have never tried anything like what you appear to be suggesting." But they intended to try.

Isidore waited at the gate, checking his pocket watch ever so often. Where was the coach? He had never been late to see the king! His thoughts whirled but his heart settled, feeling the warmth of the raven peeking curiously from his case. Neither of them enjoyed the bumpy ride. As the carriage parked at the palace yards, he didn't hesitate to stretch his legs, while Flock miserably combed their ruffled feathers into place.

"Can you see the other yous?" Isidore asked as his gaze wandered the hedges and fountains before him. It was a mild spring afternoon and sparrows sang among the branches. The lightest of breezes blew the dew off the multicolored flowers speckled throughout. To the right, a few curious visitors lost themselves in a maze of rose bushes and stone statues.

"Yes." They didn't elaborate further. Perhaps something in his nature prevented them from admiring there were truths of their existence not even they could put into words.

"Welcome, Doctor." Said Doctor - Isidore, that is, though he never did get used to the title - turned to face the king. As the two walked towards the queen's room, Isidore expanded on his budding theories. The soul, he claimed, must be real. If it had gone unnoticed before the awakening of magic - so much that even he had labeled it pure religious superstition and popular nonsense, in those early days - it was because it had been so coupled to the human body as a singular and whole entity, entirely contained in itself, that it didn't allow any opportunity for observation, much less study.

When the two reached their destination, the king, more bent and more tired than even their previous meeting, nodded gravely to the guard, who unlocked the door after a curt nod. As before, the queen slept. None of her had aged, and her hair remained bright red, marked by the scent of incense and honey. She was anything but small, though she appeared agile in her immobility, like a too-thin glass threatening to shatter.

"Tell me, you who have dedicated your life to the pursuit of knowledge and reason, is there a point in keeping up hope?" The king asked this every time, and, like every time, Isidore assented out of principle. He, too, wanted to believe his efforts weren't in vain. In fact he believed he had found the principle behind the queen's plight. To put it simply, her soul had been torn from her body and, unable to return, it latched itself to those around her in desperation. As to the mechanics of it, souls remembered the shape certain thoughts took in their original body, and reproduced them in another.

"That cannot be right, not completely. How would you then explain those who speak into others' minds while awake? Moreover, one need not share a language or any common life experience to link with another mind. Indeed, it should be possible to bond with most animals through these means."

"Who is that?" the king asked, and Isidore paled. "It isn't her."

Suddenly, Flock hopped from his hiding place, perching on the end of the bed. "It is me." And no, he couldn't wake the queen, no matter how much the king insisted, how much he pleaded, how much he begged. Dropping down to his knees wouldn't change the limits of their abilities. Although… They were limits so distant they were never trodden, and it could be that one day that would come to change. They wanted it to, deep down, didn't they?

"In regards to magic among the populace?..." Isidore sighed. He didn't - he couldn't - agree, not even condone, the king's so-called preventive measures. What an overly formal way to spell out repression and imprisonment of those whose magic manifested, those who prided themselves in it, who explored it and practiced it or simply those who dissented. Who, like Isidore himself, dared to comment on the situation, be it through print or at public gatherings. Because he was not a man of politics but of science, Isidore's pamphlet, brimming with metaphors, tangents and sheer naiveté, fell into obscurity within days of its release. From the tension in the atmosphere, even Flock could tell it was the first of many.

"I intend to visit the internment camps before the end of the month," said Isidore, to which the king nodded. That day, the scientists left the palace with turbulent spirits, and - who could tell? - maybe a spark of anger too fleeting to be directed at anyone in particular. It was there, however. That it was.

He didn't take Flock with him to the internment camps, not the first time. Was he trying to spare his friend, or sparing himself from having to explain. The tightness of the camp was oppressive from the moment one locked eyes with the guards, armed and waiting at the gates. The rows upon rows of desperate faces were only the logical next step. They weren't miserable. Well, they weren't exactly miserable. The rooms were spacious enough not to be called cells, and the people in them were free to roam within the compound, even if most chose not to. Instead, they sang country songs and told stories. Some wrote with borrowed pens in borrowed paper. Some stitched, some weaved, and the children played with magic.

Yes, there were children. Isidore's heart froze at the sight of them, swallowed hard, and set down his suitcase next to a lopsided wooden bench. Could he have been foolish enough to think that he could waltz into this place, conduct his interviews, gather his observations, and leave unchanged? Sighing, he observed as the girl in front of him drew two loops of neon blue light in the air above her, while a second child commanded their pet parrot to dive through.

There was something profoundly right about what they did. Logically, Isidore knew that years before, such acts were the stuff of legend, but they felt like they shouldn't have been. So, why was the king afraid? He had to be, otherwise how to justify this… this afront, that was what it was….

"What is your name?" Isidore asked the child with the parrot. At first, he misunderstood their reply, so softly had they spoken, like the breeze on a summer day. Thi, a single syllable, no more. "And what is your power?" Later, such a direct question would come to be considered an indiscretion, though Isidore can be forgiven, insofar as one considers ignorance a valid excuse.

"I can see through their eyes." Thi answered, pointing at where the parrot had been. Where they went to, Isidore could guess. The creature was what Flock was, and traveled between worlds just the same.

"And what do you see?"

"I see that you should be able to answer the question yourself." Laughter. Not even that: only a pair of stifled giggles. The child refused to elaborate, but, honestly, did they need to?

Before the end of the day, Isidore met with a few other inmates, his brow slick with sweat at every guard he crossed. He left suspecting he belonged to the other side of the fences that towered menacingly behind him.

When Isidore arrived back at his cottage, he could tell he had made a grave mistake. Up until now, he had been weak and sloppy, wandering about as if in a haze: no method, no science, his fourth years of service eclipsed by the fantastic, the new, the wonderful, the magic that had him hypnotized. This would have to change. Thus, it was almost feverishly that he scoured through his papers, discarding half of them as unsuitable, packing the other in folders and said folders in shelves. While he tidied his laboratory, the facts played out in his mind. This is what he could be sure of: that people had, without warning, developed abilities which implied that human thought could influence the world around them, a phenomenon only ever seen in a single, rare and relatively unknown species of bird-like entities. Seldom did these creatures bond with humans, afterall.

Flock said no word of greeting, and nothing of their friend's behavior. To be fair, Isidore didn't address them either. And he had promised he'd play them a song in his machines, which he didn't deliver.

"Flock, I have come to realize that the relationship between the two of us has been improper. I am a scientist, and you are my object of study. I truly don't know what went through my head!..."

Flock could have been offended. They should have been offended. Somehow, they found themselves asking, "What happened?"

"From now on, I am the one who asks questions, and you who must answer them. Our delay has already deprived countless individuals of their freedom, and placed many others at risk of a force for now misunderstood. We must test it, determine its limits, and you must help me!"

The thing is, Flock did try. It was not their nature: they were a free being, unconcerned even by the limitations of physical space. They were powerful, they were magic. And, for many days, they cawed utterances that couldn't help to be cryptic, "you were right that there is no soul, but there is the fabric of the world, and it is flexible, under the right conditions". Or, perhaps, "I am in many places at once, but all those places are one, in the way that I am one." Then, afterwards: "the queen sleeps and lies awakened both" and "you have to accept that the world can be many opposites at once". "You call it magic because you do not understand it, I do so to humour you, for one, and to have myself understood."

One day they couldn't bear it any longer. Isidore woke to find his laboratory empty, as much as his room, his kitchen, his study or his rather neglected garden. Despite the diminutive size of his lodging, he combed through it a second time, albeit to conclude that he missed nothing, and Flock had disappeared.

For the following nights, sleep eluded him. Was it the fragments of light and colour that pierced the dark fog of his usually dreamless mind. Just by closing his eyes, he saw.

Great lakes of ice, around which cold blue fires snaked towards skies that were solid. Pillars bent under their weight. Sparkling crystals consolidated on the whirling fog, solid enough not to part as he dove through it. This world was beautiful, and then it was gone. No, not gone. It was still there, but so were others. Reality tore itself apart, it stitched itself back together, and he heard no noise at all. Why the silence? The flapping of wings didn't count. Neither did the rustling grass - could it be called so, if it was red - underneath. Eventually, he glimpsed a desert, under a starry sky. Afterwards, a waterfall, then a bottomless pit, like a series of paintings on a museum's walls. Except he felt the cold drops of water on his feather, the sun shining in his eyes, and its warmth, he smelled flowers or fires or salt, more than he felt his body - the real one - shivering and in a bed he might not have left for days.

This, whatever it was, was destroying him. He was helpless, adrift. A primal, hidden part of him recoiled from these sudden jumps, it saw the strain in the strings behind the worlds, it saw some of them snap, it saw some already snapped. There was magic in it, somehow. He understood it clearly, now: there is a danger, an unraveling. It could spread - it was spreading -, and if unchecked, it would bring the worlds together in one. In simpler terms: chaos.

Isidore wasn't alone, was he? Even if the other presence was swallowing him whole, even if he had no guarantees it would aid him, if only he could reach out… In truth, he had no other choice. He reached out to Flock.

"Am I one of you?"

Time itself held its breath. "Do you want to be?"

He wanted to be himself. His old, imperfect self: too shy and solitary, too sensitive, yet paradoxically too rigid, too set in his ways. He wanted to love his inventions, watch the strange mixtures he prepared burst into flame. So, because he wanted to be himself, fear crept into his tone as he replied, "because I could be, couldn't I?" Flock noticed it.

Hours later, they were back. "I apologize for waking your magic before its time." They were right to do so, even if the why of it escaped him. "In doing so, I stole from you the opportunity to comprehend yourself on your own terms."

“I’m the one who should apologize.” Being scared - of himself and what could be done to him -, it was no excuse. “I treated you poorly, and broke my own word. It wasn’t my proudest moment, let’s leave it at that.”

The now twenty-six birds - Isidore counted - claimed every free surface of his bedroom: the lamp, the windowsill, a dust-covered telescope with a shattered lens, a coat hanger, the wardrobe door. The door opened to let a couple through. They returned with a cup of tea in their talons, which Isidore gulped down gladly. When he finished, all of Flock stared at him.

“What are we going to do now?”

The truth was that, mostly, he was powerless against the task before him. The world was breaking. That was it. Enough to convey the immensity of it, the impossibility of success. But Isidore had ideas. Far more practical ones: immediate and human, perhaps inconsequential, likely a product of his judgements and sense of morality rather than an actual plan. His favorite concerned the internment camps. Namely, that the people within them deserved to learn what was happening to them, to control their powers, to integrate back in a society not yet ready for such change. The image of Thi and the other children passed before him then. A school for them, could that much be his gift?

�"

After a meeting with the king - fiery, to his chagrin, but brief as a consolation - Isidore secured access to the underground shelters of All Saints Asylum - so the place came to be titled -, not without warranting suspicion. In the gaslight of the unofficial meeting rooms, disapproval creased the lines on the king's face even further. "A waste of time and resources, on a lot unfit for a peaceful, orderly society," he mumbled as he signed the scientist's permit of passage.

The two of them had both fulfilled their current roles for more than half their lifetime. Cooperation was the rule, and respect mutual. Ever since the plague epidemic of the fifth year of his reign, the king introduced Isidore as a friend to most foreign emissaries, and rightfully attributed to him the advances in production and agriculture that propelled the kingdom into worldwide notoriety. Isidore liked to think that they were more than allies. So, was this why it was so difficult to admit, even to himself, that the king's words had hurt?

"Your Highness, I have reasons to believe that our world - not our kingdom, but our world - is quickly approaching a precipice - supernatural in origin but in no way caused by magic-folk - and no amount of preparation will ease the fall." Then, because perhaps convincing took the form of enlightenment, when suspicion and reticence sprouted not from conscience, but fear: "The universe appears to be constituted of many overlaid strings of energy, each superimposed layer capable of housing a different physical plane governed by scientific principles characteristic of it. It is possible, however, for these strings to dissolve into each other. The energy this releases is not lost, and instead manifests through paranormal phenomena, in which magic is included." What can one fear more than the unknown, afterall?

"That is your working theory?" Yes, and, though a scientist can't afford to succumb to dogma, he was profoundly convinced it was the correct one. Either way, his formulas could now correctly predict Flock's world-hopping patterns. Yet these he couldn't for now present to his first students.

All hunkered down in too-small tables, in near lines between the concrete walls of what one could more accurately call cellar, the children tested their wavy handwriting in thin, yellowed sheets of paper. They lacked the basics, first of all: the numbers and the alphabet, History and Philosophy, and Biology and Physics.

Under Flock's watchful gaze, they copied the shapes Isidore drew on the blackboard. He had needed the birds' help to carry it from the storage room. Part of him knew he should at least pretend to hide his magic, the other silently giggled everytime a rowdy student accused him of having an extra pair of eyes on his back.

Within the first week,the place felt like a second home, though one where something was missing. What could it be? Such was a question that haunted him every time on his way back home. No, not something. Someone. Where was Thi? Regardless of where he searched - the cells, the cellars, the interrogation rooms, the barren courtyard - he met only the perplexed faces of prisoners unaware of the child's very existence.

Still, looking back, he had to admit that the day he visited the sick bay was revolutionary. Namely because someone vanished before his eyes. Among the creaking metal beds, the stained sheets and sickly gaslight, a woman babbled on and on without end, words whose meaning perhaps not even she knew, words that perhaps weren't words, but mere sound. As Isidore passed, she sat, stopping at once, locked on to him as if to pounce. Reality rippled before she could move. It dilated and contracted, sparked then froze, opened up like a great maw to swallow her. He felt more than heard something snap. He glimpsed fire.

Now it was over, and he had discovered why the queen slept. Her string had snapped, and she could no longer be whole. In fact, it was a small miracle she was still there at all. “But, oh!, I’ll have to tell the king!” Why had he exclaimed his realization out loud? And what half-baked deception would he have to conjure up to explain it?

�"

In the end, the meeting ended fifteen strained minutes after Isidore kneeled before the throne. He read cold contempt in his face, followed by a hint of forced denial throughout the report even as his nose twitched with impatience - or anger? Isidore hoped not -, and his brows furrowed.

“Have you ever heard her?” The king interrupted him.

“I figured I either can’t, or she isn’t willing. I felt no need to press the issue.” The other gifted also couldn’t, could they? Such was his luck…

“What about the birds?” He pressed.

“They’ve shown me - figuratively speaking, of course - many things.” Isidore gulped, then added, “As you asked, my king. You were right that they hide many mysteries, these creatures.” Resorting to flattery couldn’t save him now.

Stripped of his position as royal scientist, and the privileges it entailed, he returned to his hut much humbled. Impossibilities invited themselves into the dark corners of thoughts, those nooks one usually remembers to overlook: the future the prisoners of the internment camps wouldn’t have without his teachings, the knowledge that would never be found from the experiments he wouldn't be able to fund, the many people who would wait in vain for the machines he had promised them. For once, he locked the gate as well as the door, shut the curtains -was he being followed? How exactly could he tell? -, and sunk onto a threadbare armchair. A single curious bird skittered over to his feet. “Flock, my dear, I still don’t believe he let me go free.” Isidore giggled almost madly, until a quivering overtook him. “What are we going to do now?”

They hadn’t done much, now that he considered it. The world was falling apart, and there was so little hope of stitching it back together that he hadn’t dared try. He wasted it with frivolities. No, not frivolities - the wellbeing of his fellow humans would never amount to that -, but close.

"I suppose I only wanted to feel good about it." He sighed. "It's difficult business, facing your own insignificance."

"My friend, there is something I must show you."

�"

There was a hole in the garden, and it was not a hole in the ground. It was in the air: one could see the desert on the other end, a circle of desolation framed against the shrubbery and the hillsides.

"I advise that you do not attempt to cross it," Flock advised as Isidore approached the anomaly. "It is not natural, it is an abomination." The birds shivered as they recalled crossing it, but, if anything, the accident taught them that this portal felt nothing like the seamless art of their world-jumping. It fought you, repelled you, where it should embrace you, and let you slide through. It would have destroyed a lesser being, and we all know how fickle, how fragile, human flesh can be.

Shaking his head, Isidore circled the house, while they, overlooking him from the cottage roof, lowered their heads as he shook his, already aware of the realization dawning on his face. The house was surrounded, and there was no way out.

"How could it move this fast!" He exclaimed, as if he hadn't solved the equations himself, as if the results hadn't shown exactly this. "But there should be a way through. There should! Shouldn't it?"

"I know a way." They wouldn't do it. Out of self-respect, on one hand, for they refused to submit themselves to the perverse energy of these portals, and plain respect, on another. Their father was their father, and would remain so. This weakness that was singularity was somehow important to him. It was not theirs to take.

Defeated, Isidore returned inside.

�"

"What do you figure the future will be like?" This came from Isidore.

"I had the impression that your job is to answer such questions."

"I'm just so tired, Flock."

"Then why do you not sit and rest. We can hope that your notes will stay here until tomorrow."

"But I'm close. Close to… something. We don't have until tomorrow, but I'm sure I…"

"I, myself," Flock interrupted. "Foresee great migrations, as the most vulnerable beings seek the areas where the lattice-work that is the universe is at its most stable. Perhaps they will build great cities from the rubble, perhaps they will satisfy themselves with the here and now, and farm the land for survival. Stray energy will kill, distort, or otherwise punish those who venture too far. As it will some of the others, either way."

Isidore sighed.

�"

A distant bell tolled, ushering in a new day, though the sun barely casted any light. Isidore had but an idea and he lacked more than time to implement it: tools and materials, as well as any real shard of hope. Even if he could beckon for the king's support, the aid would be as wavering as the ashes that their friendship had burned down into. But, if it was too late to succeed, it was also too late to back down.

"I will cross the portal," he decided, as his garden sparked and fizzled around him, in waves that not even the violent gusts of wind could dispel. "If I die, I die. If I survive, I can guarantee nothing at all, but-"

"I could carry your message for you," said Flock. Isidore turned to them. "If anything, you have taught me that there are some purposes for which it is sometimes worth sacrificing our own sensitivities. So I will do it. I will cross."

Isidore smiled. Why? Why now? Even now, both knew Flock would not return in time. "If you consent, and only if you consent, I could take you with me." By making him one of them.

Isidore considered it, then, "yes". Once, the hesitation would have been longer, and the answer different. Once, he, like most others, would not trust a creature so fundamentally different from himself, something little more than an animal, and infinitely more dangerous. And cunning, intelligent, passionate, considerate, curious, well-meaning, those qualities that require time to uncover. He didn't have time to consider any of this. He didn't have time to even notice how frightened he was either.

He felt, with a visceral detachment, all parts of him adjust to a different rhythm. He saw from a hundred eyes the moment his body broke apart. A heartbeat later, the birds looked at the other worlds, and took flight.

�"

All that is left to say is that they did as they said, and the ones who for so long distrusted them were better off from it, although these terrified humans did repel them at first.

The world wasn't saved. Its unraveling wasn't stopped. But humanity wasn't destroyed, and as an ending, that is certainly better than the alternative.