It could be, couldn’t it, that there was such a realm as that within Ka—the Ymr of Ka, in a way—even if it was closed to Crows until death. Of course there was! Where else had he been, in all those summers and winters when he wasn’t among the living? He couldn’t remember anything of it, and for all he knew had just slept there, as oblivious of himself as any Crow with his head on his breast and his eyes closed and his feet locked in sleep around a branch. For all he knew. But what if it wasn’t that way? If he could go there dead and return, why couldn’t he go there alive and return? They were there, Na Cherry and all of them, or they would be if he could believe they were.
He squeezed his eyes tight shut, as People did when they wanted to see what wasn’t there. How did they do it, make a country out of their desire for one? He knew he would never see Kits again in any realm. But he wanted to see those he’d lost, he wanted to see his mate again, he wanted it with all his heart. If he couldn’t have this wish, he wished himself to be dead, dead as dead, if that alone would take him to where Na Cherry was.
In the darkness of his closed eyes he felt a presence, soft yet large, come behind him. His eyes opened and he saw the snow and the hills and the far houses from which smoke came. All unchanged. Only this presence.
In a sudden fear he changed his stance on the rock and looked behind him. A great Snowy Owl stood near enough to smell. There was no way to escape it, and Dar Oakley couldn’t fly anyway, paralyzed. The huge yellow eyes. The white ears, big as a Sparrow’s wings. Motionless. Dar Oakley supposed the Owl was about to kill and eat him, and in that way he certainly would be borne to that land, wish answered. He lowered his head. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt.
You, said the Owl. You have summoned me. Why?
I summoned you?
With all your heart.
Dar Oakley looked up. It was hard to believe the great bird had spoken. Hard to believe, also, that he himself knew what to answer to the Owl’s question.
My mate, he said (tilting his head up to meet its gaze), is dead. I want to go to the land where she is and see her once more.
Yes, said the Owl. I will take you if you want to go.
You will?
It is my realm, the Owl said, and I know it.
Dar Oakley had seen Snowy Owls rarely. On the bare island of the Terns. In the land of the Small Ugly People in winter, big enough to carry one of them off. The only Owl that hunts by day: a night bird in the day.
Listen to me now, the Owl said. If I am to take you, you must do everything exactly as I say and do just as I do, or the ways to that land will vanish forever for you.
Why? Dar Oakley asked. Why will you do this for me?
He looked into the Owl’s eyes, so large he could see plainly the pupils dilate and contract, and he saw his answer; or rather he saw that the Owl was his answer, and he’d get no other.
Remember, it said (though the narrow black beak, seeming too small for the huge head, never opened). Exactly as I say, all that I do.
Yes, said Dar Oakley, who knew that he himself had not spoken words aloud either. Yes, I will do all that you do and all that you say to do.
We’ll fly, said the Owl, and opened its white wings, so broad that Dar Oakley for an instant could see nothing else; then it was in flight, and Dar Oakley followed.
Had she sent this Owl to him? he wondered; had she heard his call and dispatched it? He had opened an Ymr in Ka; anything was possible.
This is fine country, he heard the Owl say in its strangely thin small voice.
In fact, the country they flew over, the country Dar Oakley had been looking out on when he made his wish, seemed to be losing qualities. The dark clumps of forest, the streak of pink cloud, the far-off People village and its smoking chimneys, were gone.
Yes, indeed it is, he said. Fine country.
We’ll fly over the river, the Owl said, and rest in that grove of trees.
There was nothing beneath them but snow.
Yes, we will, Dar Oakley said. Good.
After a time the Owl pulled up, spread and beat its wings as though to take a perch, and settled on the ground. Dar Oakley did the same, flying down and then stalling, to settle as on a branch beside the Owl.
See down there? the Owl said. A Mouse.
Dar Oakley studied the surrounding empty waste. Yes, he said. A Mouse.
The Owl lifted its wings slightly—and then closed them, strode across the snow a few steps, and leapt on something that wasn’t there. Lifted a huge foot to its mouth and ate nothing. It turned its head far to one side and then far around to the other side—that motion of Owls that makes some Crows believe that they can turn their heads all the way around. Then it took another brief run and leapt on prey again, lifted an invisible something to its mouth, and returned to Dar Oakley. With one foot it took nothing from its mouth and held it out to him. Eat, it said.
But, Dar Oakley said.
Eat, the Owl said.
Dar Oakley cautiously plucked the invisible Mouse from the fearsome talons and smacked his bill, clack clack. Good, he said. Nice and fat.
Refreshing, said the Owl.
Oh yes, Dar Oakley said. Hits the spot.
We’ll go on, said the Owl. Through that broad pass and into that valley.
They flew over a bare white world under a white sky. After an unknowable time (flying where nothing changes above or below can’t be measured), the Owl fell back beside Dar Oakley.
That big Hemlock grove ahead, it said. There we will find her, among the others.
Yes.
We’ll stop at this Oak, and prepare.
Prepare, yes. We will.
No grove, no Oak, but once again they settled on the ground, Dar Oakley doing his mediocre imitation of stalling to take a perch on a branch. The ground now seemed made of nothing at all.
I will go see if your mate flocks with the others there, the Owl said. Tell me something of her that I can recognize her by.
Well, Dar Oakley said, she’s a Crow. She’s on the small side.
The Owl only blinked its great eyes. It could blink them one at a time: this one, then that one.
She’s had many young, Dar Oakley said. All mine. Well, except one brood. Or two.
The Owl waited.
She likes cherries, Dar Oakley said, feeling a hot constriction in his throat. Or she did.
Very well, the Owl said. I will go into that grove and seek for her. At night I’ll return, and you’ll go in.
At night?
Here night and day aren’t as they are where you come from. You’ll see. Now watch how I go.
It lifted away. Dar Oakley watched carefully as it flew a distance, then made a series of complex motions that suggested a big bird entering a tight space, like a Hemlock grove. Then it vanished.
All through the day Dar Oakley sat on the not-earth and waited. It’s difficult for any active being to sit and wait, but for a Crow to do so, on the ground, unmoving, with nothing to look at or listen for, was nearly unbearable. Dar Oakley felt his thoughts detach and fragment like cloud.
What was it that had happened? Perhaps the Owl hadn’t taken him anywhere at all. Perhaps he was indeed dead, killed and eaten by a Snowy Owl. If so, then it was Dar Oakley alone who had gone on, propelled by his last living thought or wish, guided by the image of an Owl who was actually back there right now tearing Dar Oakley’s plumage from his flesh. And now that image was gone, and here he was in the Crow land of death, which consisted of nothing at all; and here he must wait until by means he couldn’t conceive he would once again find himself a living Crow among living Crows. It made a horrid sense.
He turned in place, lifting his eyes. The Owl was proceeding toward him from out of the place or point into which it had vanished.