The adventure: Le Thal is led down a dark path, and Hope’s birds fight back.
The time: September 1987
The place(s): Dunster, Somerset
Prompt: renegade #vss365 (view original tweet)
Le Thal was still fuming when he reached the village.
“Stupid pigeon!” A can clattered fury down the road.
“Dumb Dr Hope!” Angry spit slapped the pavement.
“What did you say, my young #renegade?”
The lad gasped, caught on the dark hook of words, cast from a doorway.
stubborn #vss365
“I… I didn’t say nothing.”
An angular, cloaked figure oiled its way out of the shadows.
“Come, boy, don’t be #stubborn. You’ll feel better with it off your chest.”
Two cavernous eyes watched Le Thal’s tongue loosen.
“I said, um, ‘dumb Dr Hope’.”
“That’s my lad!”
explosion #vss365
“Now, son,” the man drawled, “tell me about Dr Hope.”
An #explosion of pride rocked Le Thal’s chest. He’d not been called son since before he could spell the word.
“Yes, sir! And about the crone and the bee and the pigeon and…”
“Slowly, lad! You’ll outrun your own story.”
confess #vss365
Five minutes later, Le Thal’s distorted #confession ground to a halt. “…So then Dunster thanked me and I left. Then this American in a dumb hat wanted directions but I was too busy to stop.”
He awaited his reward.
It came. A dark smile. A nod.
“Fascinating, son, fascinating.”
fragile #vss365
Le Thal’s eyes shone. “Was I helpful? Really?”
The stranger nodded again, sinking his talons deep into the boy’s #fragile ego.
“I need a bright chap like you. An important mission. If you’re not too scared?”
Le Thal puffed his narrow chest. “Oh no, sir, I’m very brave!”
somewhere #vss365
A long silence later, in a tunnel #somewhere below Dunster village, thin sconces inhaled as a tall, caped figure swept by.
Le Thal scurried in the stranger’s wake until, pausing at a bolted door, they were greeted by a muffled, vexed “Corfe! Corfe!”
“Birds, sir? Down here?”
gloaming #vss365
The stranger clawed a key from his pocket. It turned stiffly in the lock. The door swung open and he nudged Le Thal inside.
“Corfe!” There was that bird again. A crow? Underground?
Then, out of the #gloaming crawled an obsequious voice. “Is that you, my Lord Melkor?”
love #vss365
“Umm, hello?” Le Thal thrust a hand in the direction it might be shaken.
“Who’re you?” A crumpled figure shuffled from the gloom, tailed by a soft new song.
“This is #love…This is love love love.”
“Oh, shut up!”
A clash of fist meeting metal.
“Damn mistle thrush!”
horizon #vss365
Le Thal peered into the darkness and saw steel bars. They fountained from the floor then curved, forked, like a brutal tree.
Trapped beyond were dozens of birds: Stretching, preening, preparing to greet the false dawn formed by torches on the #horizon of half-open door.
daybreak #vss365
Soon, a robin joined the chorus behind the thrush. Then a wren, her whole body trembling at the tumble of notes.
“Oh, stop it! Stupid birds. It’s not #daybreak!”
“Now now, Japes, calm down.” Melkor strode into the room. “Let them have their ‘hope’.”
Both men chuckled.
comet #vss365
With Melkor distracted by his own wit, a flurry of conspiracy blurred the cage.
Amidst a commotion of tweets, a tiny bird with a blazing crown squeezed through the bars and shot, like a #comet, out of the room.
“The firecrest, My Lord!” Japes squealed. “He’ll burn us!”
soul #vss365
Le Thal watched, wide-eyed, as Melkor swooped down the tunnel, his cape flapping like… no!… was it… wings?
Closing on the firecrest’s tail, he seized a torch and began swiping. But the bird flew left and right, hustling to save the #soul of every story ever told.
smoke #vss365
The end of the tunnel loomed. A sealed door ahead. The firecrest glanced up, swung 90 degrees, and shot through an air vent.
Spiraling gleefully to freedom, he broke the surface beside a cottage on Dunster Hill, a wisp of #smoke trailing from his slightly singed tail.
floodwaters #vss365
In the rocky half-light, Japes clutched Le Thal’s arm. His mouth gaped like a trout, his voice was lost in a cacophony of delighted birdsong.
The boy caught only one word before Melkor, surfing #floodwaters of fury, washed through the door.
“Run!”
It was too late.
somersault #vss365
Melkor was hurling out expletives like grenades. Le Thal’s stomach #somersaulted. Japes quaked.
“My Lord, I checked the bars. I swear. The stories must’ve got thinner. They won’t eat the words that grow down here.”
“No excuses! Find that bird! And you, boy, come here!”
euphoric #vss365
A #euphoric memory ambushed Le Thal: The moment Melkor had called him ‘son’.
Maybe it’d just been a superficial smear of affection. But the word had left its mark. Swallowing his fear, the lad strode towards the dark wall of rage.
“Yes, My Lord, I am at your command.”
infatuated #vss365
“So, my brave lad, is your mind as broad as your shoulders?”
Melkor had read the #infatuated Le Thal like a sundial. These few light words caught the boy at the perfect angle. He proudly stretched to his full, skinny height.
“Yes sir!”
“Good. It’s got a lot to carry.”
devour #vss365
“What must I carry, My Lord?”
Melkor pointed at the vast, branching cage.
“I… I don’t think I’m strong enough.”
“Oh, you don’t need muscles. Just imagination. And I know you can tell tales.”
Le Thal greedily #devoured the compliment, missing its sour aftertaste.
garden #vss365
“We must hide the birds now. That firecrest is dangerous.”
“Won’t Japes stop it, My Lord?”
“Oh, he’ll never catch that cunning flame. He couldn’t catch the heron in his #garden. And that’s made of iron.”
Melkor chuckled at his own joke. Le Thal offered a dutiful echo.
sinew #vss365
Melkor grasped his protégé’s shoulders.
“I need you to focus, son. Those birds are just stubborn words. You must hide them in your head.”
The boy nodded solemnly. “But how do I…?”
“I think you know.”
Le Thal glared at the cage, straining every #sinew of his mind.
consume #vss365
Sheer force of thought wasn’t working. The birds wouldn’t move. Except the vulture, who was busy #consuming Melkor’s expletives.
Then Le Thal recalled how, when grass was eyebrow-high, he’d lured smug Red Monarchs to sticky deaths with sugar syrup.
He would lay a trap.
universe #vss365
Le Thal scattered the dry floor of his mind with words the birds could not ignore.
Faith.
Hope.
Charity.
The tempting seeds of their whole #universe.
He opened the cage door. The squawking and preening subsided. One by one, the inmates hopped hungrily into his head.
night #vss365
The birds soon realised they’d been tricked. Even on her darkest days, Hope’s mind held the faint possibility of dawn. Le Thal’s was pure #night.
As the gulls led a shrieking charge towards his skull, the boy clutched his head.
“Help, my Lord! Their beaks are daggers!”
murder #vss365
Melkor scowled. “Oh, quit whinging boy!”
“I… I’m sorry, Sir. It’s just…”
“Why do you think it’s called a #murder of crows? Come on, we must go!”
Le Thal moaned and leant his pounding head against the cool wall. The incessant pecking thrummed through bone to stone.
away #vss365
Le Thal staggered down the tunnel in Melkor’s sweeping shadow.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere they’ll never think to look.”
“Isn’t underground a good hiding place for birds?”
“That cover’s blown. No, we’ll stash them #away in plain sight.”
“Where?”
“In the sky.”
demon #vss365
At the word ‘sky’, Le Thal was once again sure he saw the fierce beat of wings straining Melkor’s cape.
Maybe it was the migraine; the angry birds turning his head into a false nest of cuckoo thoughts.
Or maybe he really had tied his loyalty to the tail of a #demon.
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