Eric--Part Twenty-One

Splog # 101

Twenty-One

 

   But the sounds of the two voices went back and forth without resolving themselves into words. Eric stood with the sword upraised before him and listened to what might have been two birds calling to each other. Except that, though unintelligible, the sounds were being made by recognizably human voices. And the voices were the voices of people that he knew. Mae's was a voice of wishes being tossed into the wind and carried over the sea. While Cor's voice was the sun pouring down through the leaves of a forest and producing shade and sparkle.

   Something impelled him to raise the sword higher and, as he did, the voices chimed together into a single clear note created from the fusion of the two different tones. The wind rising on the rays of the sun. The sword was a rod pulling home the lightning of the voices. Eric could now tell the exact direction from which the voices were coming. He started walking away from the fountain. The sword became a compass leading him to Mae. He lowered it and pointed it forward. Its brilliant glow had by this time become a steady, but not overly bright, shine that came from somwhere within itself, as if there was nothing for it to reflect. Now the sword was composed of light made solid by the hum of the voices that it was drawing into itself. And the closer it got to the voices, the more strength and solidity it would assume.

   No one moved as Eric passed through the clearing, except to absent themselves if they happened to be in the path he was taking. There was no need to seek a direction by aiming the sword various ways. The sword simply led toward the voices and Eric followed it.

   Just as Eric was about to step out of the clearing, the sword pulsed red for one brief moment. And then green for another. And he stopped. His vision suddenly back to normal, he turned to the fountain and looked at the tiny specks of light shining in the sheep's eyes. Again they started to pulse, one color gleaming as the other faded, back and forth, back and forth. The colors getting brighter and larger before they started to cross-fade. Soon, the colors were becoming so bright that he couldn't see anything else in the clearing around him. The trees, the people, the fountain and the statue were all being absorbed into the one bicolored light. Everything was either green blazing into red or red bursting into green. Finally, he had to close his eyes against the radiance that seemed it would burn out his pupils. At first, he could still see the green and red suns flaring on the inside of his eyelids. But they gradually softened and lessened in intensity until he decided it would be feasible to reopen his eyes.

   He expected it would be pretty dark in the clearing and that he'd see mostly the shadows of the fountain with its odd statue and the people scattered around him.