Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
The voice of Mother Hawk emanated from the deep below. It came in a ghostly pained and shrill moaning that wavered and rose up in high-pitched waves of anguish over and over again.
It was all that Father Hawk could register in the darkness. He could see nothing.
Then it hit him. The weight of roaring, gurgling water shaking and pushing down on him. Dark viscous bubbles, almost as dark as the black water seething from below, rose up in torrents that rumbled collectively.
Many neared Father Hawk, grazing him, burning him. They warped and bent, molding around Father Hawk’s body before rising above him, folding outwards, back into their original spherical matter.
They all fizzed and joined in a clustered hissing, echoing from the surface, filtering pale grey light. Father Hawk’s head lolled as he grew limper, his gurgling for breath became lost to him in the thunder around him.
The light filtering through cast a dim glow on the bubbles closest to the surface. They looked like dull grey planets clustered against a black expanse of space. But the light faded to the darkness around Father Hawk, the farther down it reached.
The sound of endlessly bursting bubbles at the surface was a cacophony of pounding thunder. It coalesced with the fizzing bubbles around him and the rumbling from deep below.
The further Father Hawk sank, the closer to the sound of his wife’s wailing he got.
It came in warbles, sometimes by bubbles, but always returning in faint trills that reverberated through the waves and torrents of water. It was a sad and torturous song, grieving Father Hawk with a constricting pressure in his chest. The feeling overwhelmed and choked him alongside the constricting sensation of drawing in volumes upon volumes of soaking water.
A soft ball of yellow glowed to life at the bottom of the lake. It became the focal point of Father Hawk’s attention in his glazed eyes. He lost control of his body as water continued to seep into him and constrict him in his drowning.
He wound up focused on the pulsing light that radiated pale yellow and periodically shaded to a darker pulsing orange before reverting back. It breathed in different shades, pulsing from paleness to darkness.
Father Hawk flet consumed by the light, despite it and the ball’s shape being warped by nearing rising bubbles of dark matter.
The anguished wailing seemed to pulse through from the heart of the light. The ball’s corona of surrounding edging rays of light wavered with each dimming and then expanded with ever colored brightening, drawing the size of the ball out with it.
The dimming drew it inwards. It slightly receded in size, but every brightened expansion drew it outwards. The ball’s breathing of light and hugeness was slowly turning it into a pool of unexpected warmth in the cold of the Shadowlands.
No matter that it receded with each dimming. Each inevitable drawing out and expansion created a larger sun at the center of Father Hawk’s descent.
The closer Father Hawk descended, the slower the rising bubbles of dark matter became.
The water rumbled, almost quaking. The glowing ball shuddered and the darkly rising balls vibrated in their slow flight.
The wailing seemed to emanate from directly below the ball’s surface.
It inflated directly below Father Hawk, bent and warped outwards, turning into the molding of a creature, coated in the hot glowing magma of light. It stretched and dripped over the wailing creature as it protruded out of it.
Slowly, the light washed over and sank back into the sun. Mother Hawk emerged out of the liquid cocoon of light.
Hers was a charred body; her feathers were crisped, bloodied and bent. Her beak oozed molten light and her eyes were reddened and clamped shut in agony.
Her screams were deafening.
Flames danced over her feathers, charring them and they turned into dark wisps of heat that fell down, floating and descending until they reached a small sphere below, where they became the sulfurous clouds of a new planet.
Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
Father Hawk nearly jumped when he noticed the twelfth shadowsnake. It was a speedy creature that tore through the water, practically galloping. It drove itself down and below the lake, arching its back before diving in. Then, it would almost immediately thrust itself back up the water, moving through the air in an arc, before crashing back below.
As it did this, the water exploded and flattened in thick curls of foam, thicker than any caused by the other snakes. The water seethed with quick repetitive movements, louder than the other snakes.
The snake appeared for mere seconds and disappeared as soon as it had appeared.
“Now!” said Sunjata, louder than before and more urgently, no longer whispering. Father Hawk looked at him, moving his eyes away from the lake. Sunjata was looking at him intently with frowning eyes. He raised a wing and nudged Father Hawk gently. He didn’t remove his wing. The six other Eagle comrades stared at Father Hawk expectantly with calm faces. Their eyes slightly squinted, as if they were curious as to what Father Hawk would do.
“It is time,” said Sunjata. He spoke in a level voice, quietly, but no longer whispering. “We walk to the edge of the treetops and you will dive forth as soon as you spot a snake emerging. You mustn’t hesitate for the snakes. Do not stay above water for long. Though they can swim underwater for long, they cannot keep going without periodically rising above water for air. These are fleeting moments and as soon as you spot an emergence, do not hesitate. Dive forth and soar quickly to snatch the creature. As soon as it is in your claws, fly up and we will follow behind and intervene if the snake gets close to biting you. You must be firm and wrestle it to submission. The creature will grapple with you to try to escape. You mustn’t let it. If it does, we will fly back here and move to a different treetop on the perimeter.”
Sunjata paused and a silence ensued, broken up by rustling leaves in the trees.
“Are you ready, Hawk?” he asked, eyeing Father Hawk with his intensely frowning eyes.
Father Hawk opened his mouth. He looked back at the lake. The fast snake was gone, but he spotted the thin dark tail end of a snake disappearing below far away. For all he could see, the lake was a placid oasis of grey stillness.
“Yes,” said Father Hawk with an air of thoughtful decisiveness, ending off at a high pitch, as if he was wondering at his own decision.
“Then move!” ordered Sunjata. He pushed Father Hawk forward and Father Hawk followed the movement, rushing to the edge on his claws. There was the rustling sound below of the other Eagles following behind, their claws brushing the leaves.
When Father Hawk reached the very edge of the treetop, he constricted his claws, clamping on the leaves bordering the edges. They were held up by wooden branches that snaked around below.
His eyes widened and he scanned the lake intently once again. His eyes strained under the tension and weight of his own eyelids, folded in frowning concentration.
He looked all across, noting the slow ripples and wavering in the water and their thickness, height, duration. He looked at folded white lines, shining under the faint sun, cloaked by grey clouds. He noticed how it was the line edging the top of a crest that shone brightest. He saw how the glow dissipated as the thin crest flattened, sunk. Then, the glow split apart, highlighting newly formed crests of thin grey waves.
They could have just been the breeze or wind. Or the slow and rarely lapping waves of the water itself. Most of them probably were one of those two just because most of them were slow and quickly melted away, almost as quickly as they had appeared.
But Father Hawk had paid enough attention to the lake to know that there were going to be ripples large and long lasting enough to be signs of snakes.
He spotted a crest emerging to the far right, larger than the rest. It was towards the right, but stayed close to the center, far enough from the lake’s bank.
Father Hawk leaned over ever so slightly, so as not to fall over and peered intensely. The crest, bobbed, waved. But it didn’t waver. Didn’t melt away. Suddenly, the beginnings of a black line emerged from the end in front, squirming out as its body rose up, cutting through the edge of the crest.
Father Hawk’s eyes widened and the soles of his feet pushed up, making his claws clamp down harder, tearing a few leaves off their branches.
Sunjata’s breath moved right behind Father Hawk and his wing lightly touched Father Hawk’s back. But by then, Father Hawk decided to push off. Sunjata’s wing moved on Father Hawk’s back with his fall, but in seconds, Father Hawk was plummeting far below Sunjata’s touch. The air and wing rustled him in his plummet. Father Hawk spread open his wings, riding on the propulsion of air.
He tucked his head and tilted his wing, turning their front below, and their back up. He tilted his whole body to the right, eyes locked on the snake above the water.
Below was the stillness, interrupted by a whirlpool of the snake’s movement. The water gurgled, frothed and rippled around its path.
Father Hawk swooped, diving headfirst for the snake.
He neared the snake and its slimy thickness revealed itself. It was actually a very dark shade of grey and under the faint sunlight, tiny spots of reflected light danced all over its wriggling body.
Father Hawk soared within mere inches of the snake and caught soft susurrant whispers that, despite their low volume, pierced Father Hawk’s ear with their repetitive sing-song pattern.
Father Hawk’s concentrated frown wavered for a bit and his eyes widened warily as his descent seemed to slow in time. The hissing whispers were eerie, unsettling and venomous in their weakening hold on Father Hawk, entering his body like fumes, breaking his concentration.
The sounds stopped as the grey snake dipped its head into the water and began slithering back under.
Father Hawk could hear the flapping of his Eagle comrades above him and that broke him out of his uncertainty. Animals behind him. For him. Supporting him. Father Hawk had them. He could do this.
Father Hawk dropped his claws and dipped them into the water, clamping down on the tail end of the snake which was still on the water’s surface.
The lake was chilly and its sloshing frigidity swamped his feet. But his claws were quickly back up in the air.
The water below splashed excitedly and came up in foaming spurts above the bent, rippling surface due to the snake’s ceaseless writhing, twisting and slapping on the water.
“Hurry!” screamed Sunjata. “Wrestle it to submission! Flap! Flap! Fly away!”
Father Hawk clenched harder on the wriggling snake, feeling it grow limp in return. He flapped harder and he swung his body to and fro, rising substantially with each thump of his wings.
At this lake and amid these trees where all was quiet and mostly still mere seconds ago. Where critters sulked behind bark and under plants. Where creatures of the water bathed and dominated below a still surface only interrupted by the most momentary of gentle ripples.
Here, the scene caused by Father Hawk was a thunderous storming ruckus. Waters splashed and churned where the shadowsnakes had attempted to escape from Father Hawk.
Determined, he flapped as hard as he could and lifted his head to the sky, only allowing the jagged tips of leafy green treetops to enter his vision.
The shadowsnake’s hissing returned. It arched its neck around from below, bending its neck to look at Father Hawk and began flicking its tongue.
Father Hawk panicked and held the shadowsnake down, clenching harder on its scaly grey body. He pressed as hard as he could with his claws and inadvertently, pushing his claws forth, away from himself, his flapping wings moved backwards.
By the time he noticed his backwards movement, it was too late. His second of hesitation brought on by his observation cost him flight and Father Hawk immediately flapped frantically. His wings beat speedily, but in a shorter depth.
He dug his claws into the flesh of the shadowsnakes and shook his feet, trying to disorient it. The snake’s head jiggled in stiff movements. In the shaking, the hissing blared in intervals, whenever the snake’s head whipped towards Father Hawk.
Nevertheless, the hissing was deafening and earsplitting. It consumed his hearing, penetrating it. Father Hawk could hear the shouts of his Eagle comrades, but their language was unintelligible to him over the noise of the hissing.
When the hissing practically became a gushing, overwhelming sound, the water beneath the ripples repeatedly and then suddenly burst into arrays of bubbles, fizzing, popping and always reappearing. From underneath came a gurgling sound. Seemingly thousands of spuming bubbles dotted the water. They were steaming grey warts and heat emanated from them.
His vision fuzzied, first at the edges, then slowly centering across. Eventually, he was rendered sightless except for blurry masses of sifting colors. Black and white objects danced and waved across his vision around a thin writhing black snape. The Eagles were wrestling with the snake which appeared to be in a wild dance for a bite of Father Hawk.
Father Hawk writhed almost as much as the snake he clutched. He jerked, twisting his limbs and torso and flinching every time the snake’s head bent towards him, whether it bent up, around or under. However, with time, Father Hawk weakened and slowly grew tired.
The bubbling turned to a deafening roar and the hissing to an electrifying, overwhelming crackle.
One of the black and white masses of the Eagles screeched and opened its beak, baring it at the shadowsnake. The snake hissed and flinched, turning its head back. As soon as its head was positioned away from the Eagle, he grasped at the snake’s body.
The heat below grew stronger and more immediate. Father Hawk was flapping, slower and slower. The weaker and less forceful his wings became, the closer to the boiling water he got. And the closer to the water, the weaker he became, befuddled and scorched.
The hot wave baked his back and shooting droplets of froth seared his feathers, inflicting a burning sensation that crawled all over.
Meanwhile, the Eagle who’d grasped the snake had managed to tighty clutch it, squeezing it. She was supported by two other Eagles, one who had grabbed hold of its middle, and the other who squeezed its neck. They were all positioned to the right, keeping away from a flailing and trashing snake head that hissed through a wide open mouth. The hiss was high pitched and coarser in its helplessness.
The Eagles flapping around the three Eagles pulling at the snake, yelled something to Father Hawk, but it was completely drowned out by the desperate and frantic hissing of the snake and the roar of the nearing water.
The battle was blurring to Father Hawk every second. He made out a long red bar flicking out of the snake’s head, but what he identified as its tongue soon narrowed to a thin red blur.
Panic. Fear.
“What am I doing?”
Father Hawk barely flapped his wings. The lower part of his body slumped, nearing his proximity to the water.
The hissing snake and roaring water seemed to be fumes for his ears, wrapping around his mind and intoxicating him with melancholy and vexation.
“I knew I couldn’t do this.”
He was being immersed in a bath of hot air. And the more he bathed, the more fearful he became. The closer he got to the water, the angrier he became. The more helpless he felt.
He hated Mother Hawk for pushing him away with her misery and anger. The winged shapes and the squirming line of the snake turned into nearly indistinguishable blurs. Finally, the frenetic shapes of the black and white Eagles lifted off with the snake, wrangling it out of Father Hawk’s claws. He had finally let go when he grew tired of the Eagle’s tugging.
A series of barking noises pierced the day, breaking through the clamor around Father Hawk.
He knew he couldn’t resist. Who was he? Not an Eagle trained from birth.
He was nothing but a foolish god, broken of his goodhood.
The bubbling water and its roar overtook everything else, cutting off the barking.
Father Hawk fell.
The world above him washed over. Flying water covered the edges of his sight and singed the bottom of his body.
And most of all, Father Hawk decided, he hated the Huntsman.
The shadowlake’s frothing waters of darkness submerged him.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is a refreshing action movie in the era of the Disney blockbuster empire. It pulls from the cult classic original Blade Runner (1982) to revitalize the art in action movies. 2049’s director Denis Villeneuve is among today’s best filmmakers and science fiction storytellers. His follow up to Ridley Scott’s original lives up to its legacy and succeeds on every level.
Every element of this movie is awesome and masterful: The production design. The acting. The cinematography. The sound design. The editing. And of course, the story.
Ryan Gosling takes a challenging “unhuman” role and makes it sympathetic. Like Harrison Ford in the original Blade Runner, he’s charismatic, but portrays a cold and hardened masculinity resulting from a dystopian noir cyberpunk world.
Blade Runner launched cyberpunk, the subgenre of sci-fi which portrays worlds and stories of technological and scientific advancement that are simultaneous with social decay. Blade Runner 2049 expands on the cyberpunk aesthetic and themes of the original while staying true to its origins.
Like its predecessor, 2049 is a detective story—gone wrong. On the job, officer K (Gosling) discovers a world-changing truth about the state of humans and replicants, synthetically created humans. He begins to question his authorities and his own existence following the discovery of a replicant skeleton who did what only humans were thought to be capable of: give birth.
Neither K nor the viewer gets an answer to the first movie’s question about Ford’s character Rick Deckard’s possible replicant identity, retaining its ambiguity. Los Angeles is still a dystopian city with an oppressive and congested atmosphere. Only, it’s snowier, and the distracting neon apparatuses, looming architecture and flying cars have all been made sleeker and more sophisticated to reflect the 30 years that have passed. In 2049, neon entertainment and news holograms are projected onto fog.
K’s survival often depends on his quickness with a gun and his cold cruelty. Luckily for him, he was designed to strictly obey orders. Gosling is expressionless for much of the movie. Many early scenes indicate discomfort, stress or tension through slight facial contortions and tightenings.
Various socioeconomic demographics and geographies of 2049 are presented in K’s work, taking him throughout the city and its outskirts. The world is bigger than the original’s.
Of the most visually striking and atmospheric parts is the remnant of Las Vegas where a dirty bomb went off. K slowly walks through a deserted land choked with orange gas. Out of the gas appear large erotic statues. It’s eerie and haunting, one of many visuals that linger in your mind as it tries to parse through the images and understand them.
2049 is thought provoking, immersive and warrants more than one viewing.
Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
Father Hawk finally had a place to eat and rest. A place he could sleep in every night without having to change it as he was constantly on the move. It would have been more relaxing, except for the fact that Father Hawk went to sleep in his cot completely exhausted.
Sleep was his only real refuge from training and adapting to the world of Eagles on most days. For every morning, the battle of his will and body would begin anew.
He spent countless hours in the air, soaring alongside Eagle trainees and sparring partners, circling each other. They would interlock claws, wrestling over fresh fish. They would be locked in combat, wrestling over food in a tug of war where their wings would be spread out, folded at the end. This allowed them to put all of their energy into tugging the morsel.
As they descended to the trees, one would inevitably tear the fish away when both creatures had to flap their wings and break free to safety land.
“This will strengthen your legs and claws!” Sunjata, the Eagle trainor had told Father Hawk before his combat flights. Sunjata was an older Eagle. Despite how burly he was, his feathers were thinned, greyed and crumpled with age.
“Flight will give you advantage,” he had said the first day in his gruff, aged, but rather high-pitched voice. “but when you need to eliminate your enemies, you can’t keep flying away from them! You must drag them into the air in your flight! From there, your enemy is in your realm, encumbered by what you have and he or she doesn’t: wings! From there, you can either beat the enemy while he or she is helpless, or if the enemy is still too strong, fly high enough to drop the enemy at a dangerous height! Either way, especially if you’re going to wrestle in the air, you must gain endurance and strength for combat in the air! You must get used to dealing with external weights in the air and flying at the right time in a wrestling plummet!”
Father Hawk went on many flights where he was instructed to drag heavy boulders or sometimes wolf corpses across long distances at extremely high vantage points. At the abrupt whistle of an Eagle trainer flying below, Father Hawk would have to immediately let go of the carried object and also maintain composure with his wings in flight.
The first few times, Father Hawk was more likely to get tired quickly by both carrying a heavy object with his claws and consistently flapping his wings in between soaring with the wind.
However, with more training, each session saw improvement. Soon, Father Hawk was able to pace himself effectively and stay at it, flexing his wings out and flapping vigorously while also maintaining a strong solid grasp on his heavy object.
When he was trained over and over again in flight combat and weighted flight, he developed senses for imbalance and cues in his environment for receding heights and oncoming landmasses. He grew comfortable with the motions of combat and weighted flight.
Spinning around ceaselessly in the air had once disoriented him and he had found himself lost at when to let go. But later, he could quickly identify where to land while wrestling or let go of his opponent, simply by the appearance of a line of trees and its certain thickness.
His wings and feet hardened and grew stronger— more accustomed to the weights and exertion.
Eventually, Father Hawk would reach the middle of training sessions, his heart hammering, his body warming under the frigid airs and the cool wind tickling his feathers to make sure the warming never became burning. He would confidently beat his wings to a powerful rhythm, consistent and always forceful. The ripples in the air, no matter how strong, would beckon to Father Hawk’s path for Father Hawk was now stronger. When his beating wings had lifted him high enough, Father Hawk would soar on a tide of air. As he soared, the world below zoomed past him.
The Shadowlands that had once overwhelmed Father Hawk now zoomed away under Father Hawk, small and unimportant.
No square of the Shadowlands were stuck in time to Father Hawk. It was always fleeting, forever passing under Father Hawk’s speedy path.
When these days and training sessions came, Father Hawk felt in control. These were the days when his flight exercises finally became more exhilarating than confusing and overwhelming.
Once Father Hawk had mastered the basic training regiments and frankly, bored by them, he was moved to the more challenging training.
“The Shadowlands are filled with many creeping and prowling creatures,” said Sunjata. “They will lurk in the darkness, feeding on each other for sustenance and competition. They are monstrous animals. They will not rest in their pursuit to dominate and consume. The Shadowlands feed on their dark negative energy. They will latch onto almost anything, especially the susceptible and distracted.”
“The Shadowlands make us all susceptible and distract us all from our intended path. That’s why you must learn to dance with these creatures, tame them and eventually safely consume them so that they won’t consume you.”
“We will begin with exercises in safely capturing some of the more elementary shadowspawn: snakes.”
Father Hawk followed other Eagles up to treetops and across the forest until they reached an overhand pass where trees gave way to a hazy expanse of grey water, shrouded by darkened mists and expanding into more haziness.
“Listen closely to the waters,” whispered Sunjata after everyone had silently settled. “Observe them and any of their disturbances.”
They all stilled. They were done shifting their feathers.
Of course there was the constant sound of forest leaves rustling and whispering because of the wind. However, beyond the forest and the wind were soft rushing sounds. They were ripples cutting through the placid grey stillness of the lake.
The sounds were noticed first by Father Hawk. He couldn’t quite locate where they came from and who or what caused them. He eventually caught glimpses of splashing water exploding in small bursts across the water. But they were just that: mere glimpses. And they were just the fleeting entrails of splashes, already beginning to melt back onto the water as faint ripples and lines, spreading, then wavering back into still water.
Father Hawk squinted his eyes and carefully scanned the waters, peering around and sometimes through their shifting blankets of mists. He never looked elsewhere. His vision was encompassed by watery grey and papery, shaded mists.
He spotted a faint rippling to the far left where there were soft and small bubbles forming and dissolving in between rippling lines that bent the water before wavering.
Father Hawk squinted his eyes and followed the path of bending water closely. He watched very carefully as the arc receded. The water stilled again in that area.
Father Hawk’s eyes wandered only to the immediate surroundings of the stilling ripples.
No.
Father Hawk retained his eyes on the same spot, frowning in an intense concentration that made his face ache.
Without warning, a thin snake emerged out of the water a few feet ahead. Most of its writhing dark body rode above a crest of grey water, curling with thin foam.
Father Hawk gasped. His eyes widened as he watched the dark thing worm and slide over the water and then disappear into the depths with its tail squirming down, almost as soon as it appeared.
The water splashed, roiled in its small crescents of motion before settling to a flat stillness.
“You’ve spotted your first shadowsnake,” whispered Sunajta. Father Hawk didn’t look up at him.”
“Now, keep looking. Do not get caught in your excitement. Do not look in the exact same place. Follow the same patterns, but look for them in different places. If you become totally and absolutely fixated on one location to the point where you ignore all others, you will miss out on opportunities. In doing this, you will actually starve. There will never be enough shadowsnakes to clean out a lake or fill your belly. They are in many places.”
After a pause, he finished with:
“Prepare to be surprised. Life is the same as a lake of shadowspawn.”
Father Hawk kept an eye out for the beginnings of forward moving currents and ripples, scanning the whole lake.
Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
This is the corrected version of Chapter 37. The previous version actually contained the contents of Chapter 36.
The Eagle below Father Hawk caught him and moved in a uniform march down the circular platform to the right. Injured and weak, Father Hawk was unable to resist.
He only saw the crowds of tree branches up above.
“Training?” he muttered faintly. “Where are we going?”
The female Eagle who had carried him to the nesting place of the Eagles hovered over him, flapping under dense thickets of interweaving leaves, clustering against each other, leaving only small pockets of the dark sky.
“We are going to teach you how to be a bird in the Shadowlands!” she said while beating her wings, keeping her voice loud enough to be heard over the flapping and her heavy breathing. “The lands are stacked against you. You can’t survive doing what you’ve done. The Shadowlands use a force of fear and complexity to suffocate and overwhelm you. The moment you choose to give in, it becomes harder to move outwards.”
Father Hawk was silent for a while.
“Who are you?” he finally croaked. “Do you know………….” He coughed. “……………….the Huntsman?”
“We Eagles are the bridge between the earth, substance and life of Huntsman’s souldom and himself. Our natural habitats are here, the highest of the woodlands where treetops meet the winds of the sky. We ride the heavens’ winds, soar on them to survey what we can of the Shadowlands for Huntsman. We speak to Huntsman, tell him as much as we know. But we cannot walk on the Shadowlands themselves. The winds do not allow it, for they do not travel there.
The sky cannot bless the earth there, for the Shadowlands’ darkness is too strong.”
Father Hawk could hear the movements of other Eagles around the pack that was carrying him. There were the soft scratches of claws walking on the nest and whenever an Eagle made a landing or a flight out of the corner of his vision or otherwise, there was the sound of wings folding inwards and their feathers shuffling against each other.
In the background was the whistle of winds, louder than those on the ground, always faint, but forever omnipresent.
There was some rustling, followed by someone feeding Father hawk morsels of meat that were soaking wet. Father Fawk nibbled and the liquid dripped into his throat. Slowly, his strength returned.
“We do our bidding from the skies and the treetops,” said the female Eagle, “only risking travel below for unique circumstances,” and with a pause, she said, “like yours, Father Hawk.”
Father Hawk’s eyes widened.
“You know my name,” he said, more noting than asking.
The female Eagle smiled, the line across her beak stretching upwards. Her eyes crinkled, her eye-lids grew closer.
“The Eagles know many things about the comings and goings about the Shadowlands. We must. We are the watchers. Although, we do not know all. Father Hawk relies on us for information, but he cannot depend on us entirely. There are many things we miss.”
“Which means you, Father Hawk, mustn’t rely entirely on us either. We can guide you today, tomorrow and the day after. But only you can take action. Only you can ask for help. And one day, today, tomorrow and the day after will be no more. Then it will all be up to you.”
The female Eagle looked ahead to where they were all heading. She looked back down at Father Hawk.
“So, tell me, Father Hawk. Is there anything you need or would like to know?”
She and Father Hawk were silent for a few seconds.
“Well,” Father Hawk said, “what’s your name? You know mine. I guess we’re only on even ground if I know yours too.”
The Eagle’s eyelids moved closer and she gave a sly smile— almost a smirk.
“Sathi,” she said. “Good start,” she added, nodding her head. “We Eagles won’t baby you. We don’t believe in that.”
Suddenly, the Eagles carrying Father Hawk slowed down.
Confused, Father Hawk frowned and looked in the direction of his clawed feet, where the carriers were moving. The first line, pulling Father Hawk’s feet, descended. One by one, each of the three rows of the silent Eagles moved down as well, bringing Father Hawk down with them. Despite the disorientation, Father Hawk could now see more of where they were moving towards. The scenery had changed from a density of thickly interwoven leaves on branches within an immediate vicinity to a clearing atop a hill bordered by trees that provided a canopy that shaded the area.
Below, the land was sloping up and then down to rolling treetops with a gap.
They went down the steps, gaining speed and moving faster every second. After a while, when each row in the pack of Eagles stepped down, Father Hawk’s body shook, jostled by the plummeting rows.
He strained his neck to look behind him. The large walkway up above where they’d come from was disappearing behind the levels of steps, as the group walked. The traffic of Eagles on the walkway and their bobbing feathered heads disappeared as well.
The lower the steps went, the longer and wider they got. Sathi flew ahead and swerved overhead to the left, disappearing into the border of thick descending trees.
The steps grew into the lower edge of the hill, losing consistency. Along their far end, and moving closer to the center, the carefully interwoven twigs and sticks turned to mounds of grass and dirt, edging up the hill. Spots of ingrown grass popped up everywhere down the steps until finally, the steps of sticks completely disappeared.
The pack changed elevation: the front started moving up the face of the hill and Father Hawk felt his blood rush to his head.
They walked over the hill and once they reached the peak, they charged downhill. Father Hawk jangled and shuddered violently in the movement.
They bolted towards the gap. Father Hawk looked down at it during the charge. The wall of trees shook around it and the view beyond the gap shifted with the perspective of the pack’s movement. Murky cliffs and hills of darkness appeared and disappeared in the corners.
Beyond the gap, hills of green stretched downwards until they became washed over in the mists and shadows of darkness.
At the lip of the gap, when its view was most expansive, the Eagles grunted, lugging their arms back and chucking him over.
The first thing he felt was the winds ruffling him in the plummet. The view of the treetops disappeared and the long stalks of tree bark blurred around him, before descending into a steep rock face. Panic engulfed him when he saw the sharp rocks jutting out of a narrow river below him, dividing the bottom of the cliff face at the bases of the trees.
His eyes widened and momentarily, his vision blurred. He began to flap ceaselessly. He squeezed his eyes shut, daring not to witness his own plight.
He bounced up in the air, hovering for a bit, but the winds pressed him down eventually. Strong gusts pushed him down and forward, then rose back up again, ruffling the feathers on his underbelly.
So, in desperation, he beat with the wind, flapping away from their direction. To his surprise, Father Hawk felt a propulsion. He felt himself get pushed purposefully several feet ahead of himself.
Father Hawk’s eyes opened in surprise, wide and alert. His heart hammered inside of him. He stayed with the wind, stiffening his wings and tilting towards the downwards movement of the gusts behind him.
Could it be?
Father Hawk felt the final thrusts of the wind behind him and he took advantage of them before he would have to wait for the next set of gusts to arrive. He tilted upwards, keeping the bottom of his body flat against the stream of air he floated on.
He was flying.
He’d done it.
Father Hawk swerved to the left, to where the hill face stretched down alongside the gurgling ravine.
Darkness and ashy smog choked the world beyond, but the hill face was beautiful. Tufts of deep green shrubbery, dark and bristly. stuck out of the careening landmass. Around the shrubs was a sea of light green grass checkered by islands of brightly colorful flowers and stark underlayers of crusty rocks and stones.
Father Hawk leaned his body backwards and his wings up. Newborn gusts pushed him up, closer to the top of the hill where trees stuck up.
He was flying.
Father Hawk had found his old ability again.
He couldn’t shoot up like the rockets and hovercraft of his progeny.
But for now, he could ride the winds, soaring on them.
A high-pitched warble called from the cliff face. From far away, in the thicket of trees capping the rock, Father Hawk could hear an Eagle’s call.
It was many meters away close to the bend in the rock face.
Father Hawk tilted to the left, moving his right wing up and his left down. He flapped, gaining higher altitude in quiet bursts, moving higher and higher up alongside the trees.
Novel gusts pushed from behind. The tops of trees lowered in their adjacence to Father Hawk until he was soaring slightly higher than them.
The face of the cliff grew narrower in perspective as he moved closer to it and the trees were more visible. Their leafy tops expanded in his vision. He could see with more breadth.
The Eagle warble continued in constant tones. As Father Hawk swerved closer and closer to the treetops, the bigger they became and eventually, he passed over the cliff face entirely.
The call grew louder. He was getting closer. He was now directly over the treetops. The green leaves stuck out thickly, without gaps in between, and they rustled in the winds like dense seaweed swaying in constant dance-like motions at the bottom of a seafloor.
The warble became louder, closer— more imminent. Father Hawk folded his wings, allowing himself to plummet forth. When the leaves neared him enough, Father Hawk spread his wings behind him, diving through the treetops.
His body rustled the leaves and he swooped across the trees, bucking his neck and torso as well as tilting his wings to fly around branches and tree trunks.
The warbling called to him from behind shrubbery below, bordered by enormous trunks.
Father Hawk perched on a tree branch near this scene. He folded his wings and studied the sounds. The forest was quiet. There was the panoramic sound of rustling leaves, together sounding like a faintly roaring waterfall in the distance. There were distant interspersed sounds of chirping and snapping and crunching foliage and sticks. Nothing immediate. Nothing else close by.
The warbling reappeared, booming from behind the jagged line of shrubbery. Father Hawk immediately jumped from where he was perched, diving forward and spreading his wings. He swooped over the shrubbery, hovering over its thickness for several seconds. Afterwards, he saw the white heads of Eagles waiting in the gaps in between the dense leaves and branches at the edge of the shrubbery.
He passed over the edge and then over four Eagles who turned their pale-feathered heads and dark bodies to follow his flight.
Father Hawk lowered his neck, diving to the musty brown earth. He slowly brought his legs down and flipped his wings ninety degrees so that it would resist the air instead of cutting a trajectory. He planted his claws on the dirt, scraping and finally planting his whole feet on the ground, halting to a complete stop.
The earth was mostly flattened and its dry musty scent emanated up from old cluttered leaves that crowded out a few thin plants. More fat trees crowded the border of the clearing and the distance beyond.
Father Hawk turned around to face the four Eagles. They all wore solemn expressions. Above their glinting piercing yellow eyes, their feathers were furrowed.
But the edges of their beaks were slightly upwardly cocked, betraying suppressed smiles of satisfaction.
Father Hawk grinned widely, still feeling the euphoria and exhilaration of flight.
“Congratulations,” spoke the second Eagle from the left in a deep commanding voice. “You, Father Hawk, have completed our first initiation. You can now soar alongside our Eagle brethren. If you continue to push through in the face of fear and dive into risks, you will grow.”
“Although, let me assure you: the hard part is not over. The easiest has been completed. You will feel failure in our trials, but you must persist. The Shadowlands are unforgiving and deadly as are the wolves that inhabit them. You have learned how to fly with the wind. When the winds cannot aid you, you must know how to fight.”
On March 8th, a typed version of chapter 27 was available for online publishing, but when it came to the actual blog post, I accidently copied and pasted the contents of chapter 36 which has already been published in my blog post titled 2200 Blues Chapter 36 (Early Draft). This resulted in the contents of chapter 36 being published AGAIN under the name of Chapter 37.
This was an honest mistake and I only realized I’d made it when I started to make a scheduled post for Chapter 37 tomorrow.
The previous blog post has been removed from my website and will be replaced tomorrow with the correct version.
For future reference, anyone can please feel free to comment below a post on any and all such publication errors. It will notify me me sooner and I also welcome constructive criticism on the writing itself.
Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
For hours and hours he walked and hour by hour the light of the outside vanquished. A cool humidity settled over Father Hawk in the woodlands the farther on he walked. The farther on from the water he walked, the lesser the power of the gusts became.
It was a long walk that soon turned into a trek. Father Hawk’s desire to embark to the light and exact vengeance on the wolves who hurt him, dissipated as soon as he got to the thickness of the darkness where even the tiniest fragment of light rays from behind him had been stolen by the distance he traversed. It was the middle of the woods where left, right forward and back were all equally as expansive, equally as disorienting and equally as relative. Father Hawk didn’t know where any of those directions began or ended in the sea of vegetation, dirt and thick crowding tree bark.
It was also here that Father Hawk felt he could no longer ignore his injuries. His eyes twitched rapidly, beset by bruises and battering. Where feathers had been ripped out and bare flesh was exposed, the raw bumps of the skin throbbed, burned and felt as if it was being stabbed by the icy daggers of the cool and dank forest air.
Upon entering the woods of the shadowlands, Father Hawk had found the moist, fresh scent rising up from forest soil and foliage refreshing, natural and even soothing. However, now having spent enough time in here and having traversed deeply enough, he found the musty odors rising below his feet suffocating, moldy and blighted. The darker the shadowlands, the more sickly the vegetation was. The courser it became. Starting out, Father Hawk’s feet had simply squished or flattened the plants he’d stepped on. Now, his feet crunched them and they crinkled and scraped under his feet.
He slowed to a still, overwhelmed by the deathly atmosphere, putrid aroma and endless darkness. Standing still, he could hear the faint buzzing of insects he hadn’t noticed before. They were few in number, but could be seen flitting lazily in the distance, buzzing and when they flew away from surfaces, they let vegetation crinkle as it released and extended without the weight of the critters.
There had been a piercing pain shooting up Father Hawk’s legs and biting in at every cut and bruise checkering them. Standing still, he could feel the pain seep in like it never had before.
Above his legs, his underbelly heaved and prickled with the pain of his injuries there. Father Hawk’s heart beat faster and his vision swam in blurriness. He inhaled sharply, but felt like his exhalation was caught in his throat.
The shooting pain in Father Hawk’s legs became too piercing and unbearable. They gave, loosening at the middle and letting Father Hawk fall down. In the dimness, Father Hawk could make out the darkest of all shapes; the black masses of tree lees, spinning above him.
For the first time in a long time, gusts broke through to this dense and deathly midsection of the shadowlands. Icy, shrieking winds sliced through the leaves, making them scrape against each other.
The spinning world above Father Hawk seemed as if it was going to close in on Father Hawk. Spinning around, it appeared to be on an inward path towards Father Hawk as the focal point. It threatened to suffocate him.
“No. No. No. No. No. No.”
He couldn’t die here. Not after everything he’d been through. And everything he’d accomplished. What would it all have been for if he’d just died here and failed?
“EAGLE!” he shrieked over the noise of the roaring tsunami like winds. “EAGLE!” He mustered every last receding breath. “EAGLE, HELP!”
He hadn’t seen her eyes yet, but if he wanted to be saved, she seemed like his only chance.
“HUNTSMAN, WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS EAGLE?”
The winds suddenly died and the spinning trees slowed down. They were just slowly spinning edges. The vortex that had been closing in on him now widened.
As the winds quieted and then receded, the clamor of howling wolves replaced them. The howls were distant, faint, but ever omnipresent, fierce and collective. The trees were no longer whipped and reverted to swaying.
Replacing the frenzy of overwhelming winds was a frenzy of footsteps. Thundering beats of wolves’ paws rushed across the land from far away.
Panic engulfed Father Hawk and he tried to get up, only to slump back down on his stomach and face.
“Eagle?” he called, breathing heavily. He moaned.
There was a sharp fluttering of leaves in the treetops above. It occurred in spurts, inconsistent, but present and becoming closer. Short periods of fluttering leaves were followed by softer ruffling.
Father Hawk tilted his head up, but to no avail. He couldn’t move much and he couldn;t spot the cause of the clamorous leaves.
What if it was—
“Eagle?” whispered Father Hawk.
As if in response, a soft, but firm and berating feminine voice spoke:
“You fool!”
A flurry of shaking and snapping branches overhead to the left in the encircling treetop was followed by a large dark and feathered body with outstretched wings swooping across.
But it was only a blur. And as soon as it appeared, it disappeared into the trees opposite whence it came from.
Father Hawk’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes darted around he staggered to swivel his head in all of his pain.
The barking grew closer— louder. So did the wolves’ footsteps which sounded like raindrops, pattering on the forest floor, growing more incessant every second.
There was more ruffling in the treetops, but now a few feet away to the left. The bird broke through. Its wings were outstretched, dark and menacing. They were flexed and allowed for descent. Its head was a shocking white contrasted with the darkness of its lower body. Inset above a sharp, angular downwardly curved yellow beak were brighter and piercing eyes of the same hue.
Underneath her body, from feathered tufts came large orange claws, bumpy and with razor sharp nails protruding.
In a motion swifter than its descent, the bald eagle clenched Father Hawk from the spots in between his winds and his body and lifted his ailing body off the ground, battering some injuries more as she had to drag his limb limbs off of the ground first.
In seconds, he was airborne. The Eagle’s claws dug into his body painfully. The trees around him seemed to slide away under him. They receded and the treetops turned into decreasing masses of leaves. Broccoli heads. The air screamed around them and whipped Father Hawk with cold.
Father Hawk wailed incoherently.
“Shut up!” commanded the Eagle in a shrill voice. “You’ll alert the wolves to our location! The shadowlands want you to give in and surrender and that is what you have done.” She tucked her wings in momentarily and tilted to the right. Father Hawk writhed helpless underneath, folding to the right. Diving for a few seconds, she extended her broad wings, slicing the air around them and carving a smoother trajectory far away from the movement and clamor of the wolves.
Father Hawk only moaned, yet his noise was muffled by the screaming rippling force of the two of them soaring above the woods. The Eagle began furiously flapping her wings, gaining altitude as well as distance away from the wolves who were thundering below the dark and distant treetops.
She flapped her wings even harder, beating at the air. Father Hawk jiggled dangerously, the movement befuddling his senses.
The air roared and pushed Father Hawk’s lower body backwards, causing him to feel as if he was being dragged through the currents of a forceful ocean of darkened air.
The treetops blurred underneath them. The dark grey havens and their smoky clouds grew ever more omnipresent as they soared closer to them. A circular glowing patch of sulfurous wisps hovered amidst ashy colored clouds. It was a reminder of a sun that traversed a sky above the shadowlands.
The Eagle whistled in a high-pitched warble. She whistled once loud enough to peirce the roaring air. Then, she whistled repeatedly, so loudly that Father Hawk cringed at how much it hurt his ears.
Similar whistling warbling sounds returned her call in repetitive patterns. More and more beaks responded, now seemingly more than a dozen. They all sang in high-pitched voices from far away.
Suddenly, rolling hills appeared out of the horizon. They were oncoming like a huge tidal wave in an ocean. Father Hawk’s eyes widened in fear, but the Eagle did not slow down. She persisted, still flapping furiously and heading forth on the same trajectory.
Rock formations appeared out of the elevated humps of treetops. Cliffaces and rocks were adorned with vines and crowned with more trees.
The closer they got, the more visible dozens of hills and rock formations became, all fading into the background where, wrapped around in smog, was the tallest structure of all: Coyote Rock.
The immediate hill beckoned over them as they zoomed closer, opening up like a hand closing in on them.
The Eagle did not hesitate. As the treetops emerged from green masses to the arms of green leaves, she simply zipped over them.
When the hill rolled over underneath them, the Eagle tucked her arms to her sides, plummeting. Before Father Hawk’s les could graze the treetops, the Eagle extended her arms, swooping downhill and around the bend to the right in a graceful glide.
A leafy roof as wide as an entire hill emerged to the side of the hill they passed. The Eagle passed under it, emerging over a ginormous nest of bark, twigs, sticks and branches as wide as a plateau, encircling a monolith of a trunk.
Here many Eagles milled around, spotting every visible side of the nest. Below them awaited three rows of Eagles, staring directly at them.
“Your training begins!” shouted the Eagle carrying Father Hawk. She swung him back and tossed him to the rows.
Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
It was the first real fight of his life and Father Hawk wasn’t ready for it. He flailed around, kicking with his claws and stabbing with his wings, both of which had strengthened in his rebirth. However, his newfound strength was no match for his inexperience.
And his inexperience was barely a match for the wrath and ferociousness of the wolves. They struck at him with their sharp teeth as their jaws opened wide and clamped down on Father Hawk, attempting to shred his feathers off of his body.
Many times, they did manage to. Father Hawk wriggled free many times, but feathers ripped and blood spilled in places he was either blind to or was too slow to move away from.
But he did move. He moved as much as he could. Coordinated as much as he could. Every blow he tried to land with a wing or claw. Every blow from the arched claws protruding from the pounding paws. The adrenaline. The frenzy. They both addled him. Fuzzied his peripheral vision. First, they drove him to strike back at the cascade of clawed paws swinging at him from every possible angle. He lurched to the right, dodging a leg hurling down from above to the left. Only to have to meet the oncoming punch of a paw with a hand quickly raised and quickly clenched, all the way up the leg to hold strength back with strength of his own.
All the while, he had to fight. He couldn’t only defend.
He had to take a few kicks and punches in order to throw some of his own. When he was busy kicking, he abruptly swung his left wing across and outward from him. There were three wolves in that direction. The two closest to him dodged out of the way, but the third was taken by surprise and fell back, clutching his eyes and howling in pain.
Father Hawk drove forward, ignoring the impacts of other wolves pounding him from the sides. He reached for the staggering wolf that he’d hurt, attempting to wreak fracture in the gang of wolves where a few cracks had already been formed. Attack the weak link. The wolf with the hurt eyes continued to howl and waddle back blindly. Within mere seconds, the hurt wolf moved his paws away from his eyes, revealing that they were watery and fuming with anger and Father Hawk lunged forwards, moving his right leg up. His left was outstretched behind him, having bent and pushed off. As his right leg was about to land down and his left leg left the ground, a wolf behind Father Hawk grabbed his left leg.
Father Hawk wobbled and as he twisted his body and reached for his left leg, he plummeted, falling on his beak, wings and chest. His right leg slammed painfully on the ground and searing pain shot through his claws. His left leg hung above him, still clutched by a wolf.
The adrenaline that had driven him now weakened him, stressing and disorienting him. Unable to find a recourse in his circumstance, Father Hawk was ambushed in just a few milliseconds.
It was a storm of incessant obtrusive barking and a rapid hail of kicks, scratches and punches. In time, after Father Hawk had been beaten to the point of immobility and even numbness in some places, some wolves tore out tufts of his feathers.
The barking was so maddeningly loud that Father hawk couldn’t hear his own screaming. He felt like he was in a state of perpetual panic, unable to comprehend what was happening to him after a certain point, let alone do anything about it.
So, helplessly he endured the barking and repeated spots of hot pain on his back. His eyes saw black. Father Hawk didn’t know if his eyes were closed and he had long forgotten if he had closed them.
Feeling was singular; he was being submerged in a sea of pain. He lost his agency. He could no longer direct his thoughts towards actions. He couldn’t move anything or do anything. He could only feel physical pain and the pain of not being able to do anything about it.
Eventually the incessant beating subsided, but the stinging burning pain did not. The impacts and bursts of pain stopped, but the burning did not. The impacts and bursts of pain stopped, but the bath of total hurt remained.
Sound was the only sensory input that was coherent and concrete to Father Hawk. Hearing was the only sense of his that stayed intact.
The wolves abandoned him. Father Hawk could hear their footsteps, growing ever fainter as the stones under their steps jiggled and the twigs crunched and clumps of dirt whooshed, sinking under their weight.
“Stay in your place,” muttered one of them. Father Hawk knew it was for him. Without the constant beating, Father Hawk could find the will and mobility to move, however painful it was. He writhed, trying whatever motion he could to get out of his pathetic hapless situation.
There were still wolves howling far off from the dense deepness of the woods, their visibility clouded to Father Hawk by what he knew were acres and acres of woodlands shrouded by darkness. Darkness, that ever present muddier, coming in the form of blankets concealing the light of the sky and the omnipotent force of darkness, misfortune, trials and tribulations.
Father Hawk ceased moving, struck by utter dejection. Would there ever be light on the other side of this all encompassing darkness?
“You won’t know the answer to that question unless you find the will enough to cross to the other side,” thundered a familiar voice.
Father Hawk’s eyes widened.
“Huntsman,” he whispered. Father Hawk grunted in his effort to roll over on his side. He bared his beak and squeezed his eyes in concentration even as they bulged, flitting to and fro on the horizon and then on the sky that he allowed himself to see by rolling over.
He exhaled in jagged breaths when he lay on his side, looking up at the sky and wincing in his excruciating pain.
He spotted the Huntsman glowing in his pale blue phantom body up in the starry black depths of space.
“Huntsman!” he repeated, drawing in rapid short breaths and softly whimpering. “Why— why would you let me think I was strong only to see myself fail and suffer?”
“I didn’t let you think,” said the Huntsman. “I let you know.”
Father Hawk closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at Huntsman in his pain and try to reckon with and understand the being who coached him and pushed him onto his journey.
“No!” said Father Hawk, still closing his eyes. “I don’t feel strong! I feel like nothing!”
“You are what you say,” said the Huntsman. “I let you face the wolves because I knew you had become strong enough to face defeat.”
“You let me fail?” snarled Father Hawk in a quavering voice. He opened eyes that were already watery. Huntsman was a blurry pale mass. “I don’t know what to believe! The wolf leader told me that you sent me to the shadowlands to do the work you were too afraid to do!”
“Why would you send me to something that you’re better off doing?”
“I can only look within my psyche,” said the Huntsman. “I cannot go inside. What I do in the canyons changes, molds and reinforces parts of my psyche. But unlike you, I can’t move inside the darkness of my soul— the shadowlands — a place you now have access to. You can retrieve the Flower of Life from Coyote King. My indifference and procrastination has allowed my monster, the Coyote, to imprison the gem in front of me that I knew not to guard until it was taken from me. When you ignore your problem, they can become so buried and embedded deep inside of you that it becomes harder and harder to reach for it and solve it. The less you can reach for it, the bigger the problem can grow.”
“I am acting the best I can by sending you forth and guiding you.”
“This isn’t fair,” said Father Hawk, matter of factly in a tone devoid of much bitterness. “But I didn’t have a say in the matter so why bother, right?”
“Right,” said the Huntsman. “I don’t have a say in the matter now either.”
“What do you have to say about this?” asked the Huntsman. “What do you think, Father Hawk/”
Father Hawk sighed.
“I, uh………I think I better get on my way,” said Father Hawk. “The wolves can’t beat me every time, not if I can keep getting stronger.”
“And how do you get stronger?” asked the Huntsman.
“Just like I did before,” said Father Hawk. “By fulfilling and then returning. Subjecting myself. To you and the world around me. No, I won’t die. Not now. I’m going to get back.” Father Hawk’s pain had receded. He slowly stood up, wincing and bracing against some branches that he staggered to on his left to stay balanced. As he moved more, feathers all over his body unclumped and extended, now freer.
The dank and earthly smell of the moist soil edging the lapping waters wafted over and Father Hawk breathed it in deeply. “I grow from my pain as I did in the oblivion of your soul.”
The Huntsman smiled.
“You’ll know what to expect now,” he said. “From the wolves. You’ve faced them and through your failure have brought yourself knowledge.” The Huntsman raised his arms across him and his long beard suddenly rippled to the left. From far off on the horizon the sun of a new dawn was rising over the water; a brilliant white ball with an aura of yellow that pierced the darkness of night, shattering it and letting a lightning blue emerge behind the dissipating shards of black.
The light was seeping into the heavens, causing the stars and the Huntsman to fade away.
“You have been hurt, but our newfound strength is not gone. Reach for that strength and rise above the regret and embarrassment of failure. Do not yearn for me. You have many of the answers you seek. You need just look.”
“Not all the animals of the shadowlands are malicious and the eagle still awaits. You need just look.”
“Wait!” yelled Father Hawk. he staggered forth, wincing, but staying focused on the sky. “That doesn’t tell me everything! The wolf leader! He told me much more! What are—”
The Huntsman had disappeared and many of the stars behind him were gone. The baby blue of morning was creeping over the heavens. Father Hawk sighed and turned around.
Subject yourself. Endure and cross over to the light.
Father Hawk inhaled deeply as he scanned the woodland before him in fear.
Despite the growing light, the woodlands of the shadowlands were, well— shadowy.
Further through the thickness was the darkness of narrowly spaced trees, cramped and blocking out light with their overgrowth.
Subject yourself.
Father Hawk stepped through the trees and began a long walk through darkness.
I know right? It’s crazy when it happens. Especially when it happens to you. Luckily, I was in the 97% of symptoms as opposed to the 3%. I just had cold symptoms and was out of it for several days in the past two weeks, but I recovered in the middle of last week and now I’m all set. It’s weird since I live a pretty safe life and have been since the pandemic started. I only go in to school once a week and now that it’s winter, I’ve hardly left the house.
I have been writing the next chapter, but obviously I was slowed down significantly by sickness. There’s no chapter or article today, but fear not! Father Hawk’s journey is still going on inside of my notebook.
I think I will write a post about my experiences after testing positive for the coronavirus. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, even if you are safe.
Everyone, be safe out there! Wear you face masks and practice social distancing! It can save time and save lives!
I’ve been reading Dune Messiah as of late and it is awesome! It expands on the themes from Dune about the consolidation of power, radicalization and the ability of power to attract the easily corruptible. The writing style and tone remains, however the narrative is drastically different from Dune’s. This is a good thing since this second book’s story takes place in a new period of the Dune universe. Everything is still reeling from Paul’s rise to power and his subsequent Jihad. There’s a TON of new stuff here. It’s not a rehashing of the same stuff. There’s more mystic and spiritual stuff added in that’s a pleasure to read about.
I also finished The Great Hunt, book two of The Wheel of Time while I was out sick. Robert Jordan does not disappoint. This one is bigger and more complex than The Eye of The World. The Dune influences also become a lot more apparent in this second book.
Anyone looking for cool Dune commentary and lore deep dives should check out the YouTube channel Quinn’s Ideas. The guy is an expert on all things Dune.
Concept sketch of Eagle’s “basement” by G.R. Nanda
“State your business with me!” exclaimed Father Hawk, breaking the nightly calm.
The wolf at the center of the advancing line squinted his yellow eyes and turned to look at the wolves on the left and the right, who slightly tilted and nodded their heads. The center wolf turned his head back to look at Father Hawk. His mouth, curving around his muzzle,upturned. The corner of his mouth to the left of Father Hawk upturned, as if in a smirk.
“State you business and if it puts me in harm, I will have to fight you!”
The center wolf’s eyes widened, appearing like glowing embers in the dark night. He raised his head back, moving the eyes back until they were small slivers of light to Father Hawk. The wolf let out a raucous later. His voice was hoarse and his laughter was grating.
“I will not submit to you,” said Father Hawk, “but I will submit to my safety.”
Father Hawk and the line of wolves both slowly advanced, inching forward bit by bit. The wolves squinted at him with baleful eyes and Father Hawk returned the stares with a threatening frown of his own.
“I’m afraid,” growled the center wolf in a deep baritone voice, “I can’t guarantee the safety of an intruder on our island.”
“Even if I tried diplomacy?” said Father Hawk, cocking his head up and to the side. He also stopped walking and raised his wings in a questioning manner by bending his wings and pointing the bend down.
“That depends on your business,” said the center wolf. He turned his head to both of his sides and raised his right paw. This seemed to indicate ceasing an advance because all of the wolves turned their heads to the center wolf and stopped in their tracks. “I’ve stated ours. Now you state yours.”
“Fair enough,” said Father Hawk. He lowered his wings. “All I seek is a passage that’s as safe as possible to Coyote’s Rock.”
“Coyote’s Rock?” wheezed the wolf closest to the center wolf on Father Hawk’s left. The wheezy wolf scrunched his eyes and left his mouth agape, wearing an incredulous expression. The center wolf continued to stare at Father Hawk, but he narrowed his eyes.
The other wolves made soft purrs and grunts of agitation and alarm as they all looked at each other, frowning, unbelieving.
“Who do you think you are?” roared the wolf farthest to Father Hawk’s right. “We take orders from Coyote King! We patrol for him! What do you expect us to do when you come to us looking for a passage to the place none must enter? His Rock is his fortress! You ca-”
“Enough!” thundered the center wolf. He turned to both of his sides, keeping a still and calm face. “We answer to Coyote.” As soon as he muttered these words to his comrades, a calm seemed to wash over them, melting their angry expressions back into stoic masks of intimidation.
“And why?” the center wolf asked Father Hawk, shaking his head in mock thoughtfulness, “do you seek passage to the fortress where none must enter?”
“Because Coyote King stole something very important to the Huntsman,” said Father Hawk. “He stole a flower that seeds the universe and that can feed……..my wife who is in great peril and pain.”
“It could save her life.”
“And if you have any shred of kindness or empathy,” said Father Hawk, feeling his heart sink at the word of his wife and the subsequent thought of his child. “-you will let me go forth.”
The center wolf let out a low and evil chuckle that rattled on until it became a raucous laugh.
The wolves at his side chuckled as well, staring at Father Hawk with bared jaws and the same old glinting predatory eyes.
“Compassion!” exclaimed the center wolf. “There is no such thing as compassion on this side of the world. We stand in the shadowlands of the huntsman’s psyche!”
“What?” muttered Father Hawk. Shadowlands? He thought that he had been sent out of the Huntsman’s shadow when he’d received a new body. He was in the grasslands! At least, that’s where he thought he was.
“I’m in the grasslands!” said Father Hawk. “The ethereal grasslands.”
“No, you’re not,” said the wheezy wolf. “At least not anymore.”
“Well then,” said Father Hawk, noticing the uncertainty in his voice as his authoritativeness was weakening, “how much do the shadowlands take up the Huntsman’s psyche?”
About as much as the grasslands, kid,” said the deep-voiced wolf farthest to the head wolf’s right.
“The shadowlands are large!” boomed the center wolf. “The shadowlands cover as much territory as there are wolves like us. And to your detriment and to the expansiveness of the Shadowlands, there…… are…………..millions of us,” he snarled.
The line of wolves savored the last words and seemed to slowly advance again and loom over the earth as if on cue.
Father Hawk didn’t want to let the wolves’ words be final.
“Hold on!” he said, trying for a bolder voice. He frowned as well. “Where exactly is Coyote Rock? Can it be found in the Shadowlands? Or the grasslands? Or is it-”
“-somewhere else,” finished Head Wolf. “Your words are not beyond us………………..Father Hawk!”
Father Hawk’s eyes widened and he froze.
“How– exactly do you know my name?” asked Father Hawk in as cool and as low a voice as he could muster.
Head Wolf hung his head back and roared with more of his raucous laughter.
“We are from the shadowlands!” he roared, letting his head loll back to eye Father Hawk threateningly. “We have lived and breathed in the shadows– the shadow of the Huntsman’s soul. We hear his repressed secrets hissing in the dark like forbidden whispers. You’ve only seen the light side of his souldom. The innocence. The infantilism. The lies.”
Head Wolf raised his front legs and stood on his hind legs, hoisting his body up and flexing his muscles. His fur rippled over them.
He raised his front limbs out across him in triumph.
“WE – are the BADLANDS!” he roared. His wolf cronies shuffled their feet on the ground, kicking up tufts of dirt. They opened their jaws, wagged their tongues and bared their fangs.
“We are the hell- the necessary forest fire and it is inevitable that we burn through souldom!” The Head Wolf’s cronies ran and jumped up and down around the head wolf. Their yellow eyes glowed brighter than ever, fuming with fury.
The center wolf turned his head to Father Hawk and looked at him questioningly.
“You don’t know where you are,” said Head Wolf incredulously. “You don’t even know where we are,” he said, pointing his front paws at Father Hawk and then at himself. His cronies moved around less and went back to looking at Father Hawk. They still shuffled around and wagged their tails and tongues.
“This!” said Head Wolf, raising his front limbs back out across him horizontally. “ -is reality! This is the storm that the Huntsman has repressed- tried to hold back. BUT HE HOLDS US BACK NO LONGER!”
His cronies all leaped up and down. Barking, they circled and sometimes started farther away, but always returned to his immediate vicinity. They growled, snarled and barked loud gruff barks that pierced the calm of the night.
“The shadowlands are the Huntsman’s true reality. The dark side he wants to ignore. You see, Father Hawk, you have been deceived. There is no righteous quest for you. The Huntsman sent you to his Shadowlands to do the dirty work he doesn’t want to do.”
“What he fails to acknowledge…”
The barking of the other wolves prompted fainter barks and howls to rise from the thick woods beyond, joining the chorus of ecstasy. Head Wolf was their leader and he was feeding them belief.
“…is that the canyons he roams, hunting after poor animals like us, are the SHADOWLANDS! The real life projection of an inner world he would rather ignore.”
The barking and howling was its loudest now, echoing, deafening. Yet, it still wasn’t deafening enough to surpass Head Wolf.
“His world is ourworld,” he snarled. “Whether he likes it or not. So what do you say?” He pointed his front limbs at Father Hawk. “Join us and chaos will reign, taking its rightful place in the world!”
“My wife,” thought Father Hawk, clenching his beak shut and frowning. He had to hold on to something. “My child………LIFE!”
“No!” shouted Father Hawk. “I’ll never join you!”
With that, he screamed in fury and leaped forward, sprinting towards Head Wolf.
Without Head Wolf moving or saying anything at all, his cronies leaped at Father Hawk and like that, they were upon him.
G.R. Nanda 
