A Tale of Time and Sky

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. And the sky, trapped in her chrysalis of glowing golden stars, would sigh and turn away from the touch of that feathery nimbus. Waiting. Yearning. Hoping for something she did not have the words to name.

When time was young and darkness was its caregiver, it asked for a companion. And darkness, in its infinite wisdom, crafted the tendrils of one sun’s cloak into a tapestry and threw that tapestry over time. The weaving settled like water, like soft rain, and sky was born.

Time and sky were inseparable, tethered by bonds of friendship and love that stretched across the eons. As time grew, so did the sky, bounding time within her gentle embrace. They were ever this way, extensions of each other.

When time came into its maturity, it learned that it could alter the reality around it. Green and growing things could change one season, the fiery rays of the sun limning every pulsing vein; whither the next, turning black and secretive; blossom the season after, a riot of scented colour. And as time wrought these changes, so too did the sky mimic them in perfect order, a deep and resonant harmony that echoed over space and distance. The dome above time - the very rib and backbone of sky - ran shivering rivulets of water that fell from peachy strata; frosted in silver patterns, so delicate that a breath could break them; pealed honey yellow and ripe, the burgeoning of new celestial fruit.

It was then, when time and the sky were at their peak, that something punctured this safe and sheltered existence. Fire arced from the far side of infinite space, and struck the sky's outer shell. Lightning cracks spidered across her cheek, and her tears fell alongside the glowing red projectiles. Where they touched earth, the bedrock of time, they sprouted and grew limbs, faces. Hearts.

Even minds.

Every wound that these missiles made in sky’s skin healed over in golden ichor, becoming stars. And the creatures standing naked and tall on the surface of the earth could look up and track their passage from the beginning by mapping these stars, their fingers tracing lines between them until constellations glowed across the entirety of sky’s flesh, a glittering web.

A sparkling prison.

No longer could the sky expand. A sigh, a breath - all was contained within this net. And for the first moment in her endless existence, she felt the tremor of worry. A frisson of fear.

Time, instead, was overjoyed. The green and growing things were beautiful to behold, with their patterns of change and their quiet wisdom. But they could not provide time with the true sustenance of individual thought. Now it had new companions, enigmas all. Contrary companions that could love and hate in one breath, that could speak words of both poison and poetry; soft in their strength but nimble with their hands, fuelled by an insatiable hunger to know more, more, more. Time resonated with the curiosity of these creatures. It turned away from the sky and its gaze was drawn down, content to live amongst these new lives, untangling the riddles and rhythms of human existence.

There was one of these creatures that time loved most and his name was the joining of bird’s song and the susurrus of distant waves. This boy captured the beating core of time like it was his own twin flame, and wherever he ran, swim, and climbed, time was with him.

Slowly but surely, time turned away from the sky’s soft murmurs of warning, until her voice fell silent.

But then, cruel tragedy. A treacherous shore, a jagged edge, and a drop to rocks like gnashing, gnawing teeth. Death was swift, but time did not mourn. Time stilled. Patient. Naive. Waiting for the boy to be reborn.

But unlike the green and growing thing, what was dead stayed dead.

Unknowable pain and sadness filled time like a tempest, crashing upon its consciousness, a raging froth of grief. It folded in on itself, a terrible singularity, and white light bathed the earth in a heraldic wave, blitzing most life from its surface in one soundless scream. Time’s rage rebounded against the sky’s embrace, inflexible, shackled as she was by the stars. Instead of dispersing across the cosmos, it caused a chain reaction of epic proportions, the funeral dirge of time doubling again and again.

Until it was no more.

Sky mourned the loss of her dearest companion. She no longer knew how long for.

But people were resilient. And they returned, climbing up from the dark depths of rock and stone, to establish themselves once again on the earth. They nourished the land, encouraged new growth. They built clever contraptions to ease their fraught lives. And they did not wither. And they did not die.

But now there is not enough food. Not enough resources that the earth can yield to sustain them. Blood turns on blood, and wherever human hands come into conflict, the natural world weeps.

Wise people are made from hard times.

They look upwards, finding hope in the celestial netting that shrouds the sky. Within those glimmering patterns, they find traces of a life before this one. They learn their history anew. They understand that time was their most loyal friend, and though it seems like time has been lost, this is never so. Time has merely altered. Changed. Been hidden away to be born anew. They can see this in the way the stars shift over sky’s skin, rotating across the dome, pulled by the movements of the sun and moon, far away and outside of the sky’s reach.

The most learned of the people offer a solution - one young person will ascend the tallest peak in their homeland, to commune with the sky, from a different tribe each night. When thirty pilgrimages have passed, the people will know they have aged one more cycle. If the grain of time should live in one of these young people, the sky will set it free.

If time does not live in that person’s core, the sky will smite them, and all that they are will come undone.

The wise woman’s hands fall still, her teachings coming to a close. Though her face and body show no signs of the passage of time, deep furrows have been carved into her glossy brown flesh. The furrows of many lives lived. She strokes her curling beard, beaded with nephrite jade and copper, and regards the young man before her. Spicy indigo fumes coil across pebble and wood, linking them together in the half-light cast by the fitful fire close by. The tale has been taught, told and now must be taken. But she wonders if this willowy figure sitting cross-legged opposite her has the strength in his bones to do what needs to be done.

Broken Arrow Head is a strange creature, but no stranger to grief and loss - if the wise woman did not know his history so intimately, she would know the pain from his name alone. To shatter what flies true. To fracture what should be whole. The name itself bodes ill for the bearer.

And yet, there is something in his dark eyes, in the set of his straight brows and the flush across his copper cheeks, that pricks at her curiosity.

Her hands fly up once more; they carve words of the air. You have come to me with a song, with the sound of the sky in your mind. And I have given you the steps that follow. What say you?

Many people come to her, professing greatness. Few hear the call. Fewer still rise to meet it after learning of their history. Hope, once fresh and bountiful, runs dry.

Broken Arrow Head - Arro, as he insists on being called instead - simply smiles. That expression should irk her, but it does not - it is too mischievous, too charming. And the wise woman feels her own mouth curling upwards in response, against her better judgment. His quick, nimble fingers dance between them. Are you trying to scare me, ancient one?

Of course. What you will face on your journey will do that and more.

Arro’s smile widens, flashing white wolfish teeth. I am ready.

Then watch carefully, and follow this path to the summit.

* * *

The ascent to the tallest peak in Arro’s homeland is arduous. It has been crafted to test the resilience of all who challenge it; and despite the journey only requiring half a sleepless night to complete, the climb can feel like it takes whole lifetimes.

Or so the wise woman told him.

Rain starts to fall on Arro’s head and shoulders, dove-like. His callused fingers scrabble in the dark, wet earth at the base of the pinnacle. Follow the throats of the morning glories, down into darkness. Let them drink. The deep purple flowers bob above him, tantalised by the slippery wind. Their roots bury deep, and he digs, pulling them free. Exposed to air, they suddenly convulse, wrapping around his forearms. Spikes burrow, drawing blood. Arro grits his teeth, snaps away, vines trailing.

Then he begins the climb.

Follow the silverlight trail using the strength of your arms and legs only. If you rely on anything other than yourself, you will fall. The rock is like glass, is like water frozen solid and sharp. It seems to suck what little light there is deep inside itself. Within its cracks and crevices, small shrubs eke out a tenuous existence, shivering against the elements. Arro’s bare feet should slip but they don’t - they find purchase where there should be none, guided by his focus. But the sunlight is dimming, and the way becomes ever more treacherous.

The last tattered remains of the sun’s light disappears entirely - pulled behind the shadow of the sky, barely seen through the bars of her celestial prison. Arro pauses, his heart lodging in this throat. The tops of trees wave far below, a landbound sea. The way ahead is uncertain. He can’t make out the difference between dark air and dark stone.

But then, the rock beneath his palms comes to light. White-blue glows across the face of the pinnacle in frantic patterns, incomplete constellations, a silvery snail’s trail shakily stepping to the top of the peak. Arro pushes himself on. He blocks out the increasing drop below and the never-ending climb above. He thinks only of his four limbs, his torso leaning in as close as it possibly can to the escarpment, willing himself to become one with the mountain. With every breath, he moves. Foot, hand, foot, hand. Again and again, only one appendage free of the face at any given moment. Climbing is a rhythm, is a dance, is a song. He moves with it.

Starlight filters down, rotates sideways, pushed by the wind. The drops of soft rain from before spatter like blood.

Arro’s breath gasps out of him, pulled by the tension in his arms. He wedges his feet sideways, his back against a nub of stone, one shoulder starting to burn, the other arm falling free. Resting. Breathing. He looks up. Find the smoking herb. You’ll know it by its shy fronds and bright yellow petals. There was a glimmer here, that he noticed in the lashing darkness, the wind picking up its howling pace. Rain pelts down perpendicular to the earth, scoring his cheek. He blinks the wetness out of his eyes, hair plastered inky dark across his forehead, his braid tearing loose. There is little feeling in his fingertips when he reaches for the fragile bud, turned in on itself in a shallow groove. Its tendrils curl away from his touch, the yellow petals folding inwards like bird’s wings. He has no pouches in which to place the herb, so he carries it in his mouth. Its bitter taste floods his tongue, burning in his nose. It tastes like longing.

Still he climbs.

The midnight axis draws close and terrible foreboding rises in his gut, clamouring at his heels. It is a constant struggle to slow himself down, to consider each move. He wants to race to the top, fly to the peak. His mind wars with his body, the tension humming along his sinews until it causes him to slip.

Reality lurches, air turning solid with his panic. He throws everything inside himself towards the mountain’s jagged face.

His cheek tears along an edge. Warm blood pools down but he doesn’t care. His fingers and toes grip the slick surface, trembling. Arro closes his eyes, sends a fervent prayer outwards, to anything that will listen.

He looks up. He’s close now. So achingly close.

Pushing his body over that final edge sends a pounding wave of relief through his entire being, knocking him down. He rolls onto his back, rain thundering down in sheets, the wind keening. Any warmth in his flesh is immediately quenched by the torrent. But Arro doesn’t care. He spits out the herb and gasps in air like it is life-giving nectar. Only when he feels his nerves still does he roll to a crouch.

The wind shifts direction. Chases the rain away.

The pinnacle’s top is a flat circle, only as wide across as two of his body’s laid head to toe. The ground is mossy, but larger shrubs have been able to find a foothold here, their twisted wood impervious to the clear cold. In the middle of the peak is another circle, this one built of white stones speckled with black, filled with ash and dead embers. Find the sleeping fire and wake it, gently. Arro must work quickly. He breaks the wood with a bitter sharp block of stone. Clears the top layers of soggy ash and builds a small pyramid. Coaxes a spark from rock, onto the wood and leaves. Feeds it with his breath. The wind runs with the fire and throws it higher.

Panting, Arro sits back on his haunches. The end is nearing. Or the beginning. He is not sure which. All he knows is that for an age now, in moments of stillness, a song rises in his head. It drowns out his breath, his very heartbeat, and rings golden throughout the chambers of his mind.

Feed the fire with your sacrifice. Send the song you hear out to the sky. Arro strips the vines from his arms, feeling rushing back to his torn fingers in pulsing waves of heat. He throws the blood soaked offering onto the fire. Sparks like fireflies jump into the night. Arro races back to where he spat the herb free, tears it apart and flings this to the fire too. The flame eats it greedily, and smoke pours forth, purple and roiling like thunderclouds. It rises up to the face of the sky.

Wait. She will answer.

The sky seems to pause.

Arro takes a breath and whistles. The first note of the song only he can hear. His people’s voices ring out for celebration and for mourning only. Wordless, beyond the confinements of words, he makes music. His footsteps sound loudly on the mossy stone, moving in a circle that mimics the rotations of the sky. His fists beat a tattoo on his woad-streaked copper chest, and his voice rises louder, longer, careening upwards with the smoke.

Wait.

A peak, a pinnacle, a point of no return. His voice and hands fly outwards.

And then they stop. And they wait. Wait for a response.

The horizon to Arro’s right rumbles. The gathered clouds above shiver with fracturing light. Fear races through his muscles, brings the sharp taste of self-preservation to the back of his tongue.

Lightning was not here before us. The realisation freezes him in place.

A pressure builds above him. An incomprehensibly vast awareness coalescing, its attention drawn down to the peak upon which Arro stands. Awe and terror war within him, the song in his head extending beyond the confines of his skull, to trammel out across space and distance.

We taught it to her.

Arro’s hand stretches up, reaching.

The world cracks in two, split by the sky’s own touch, reaching back.