A Darkness in My Soul

jutted upwards like broken teeth. I saw what seemed to be stretches of impenetrable jungle, black flowers blooming on the dark green foliage. I saw endless miles of sand, burnt white beneath a relentless sun, columns of the dried earth stirred upwards into the sky and winding erratically across the barren landscape. There was a land of broken ebony mountains where sunlight was reflected from polished Stygian surfaces and came back brown.
        It was clear that I would have to explore all these places if I were ever to find the way out-if there happened to be a way out. I rose from the earth and left the four stone pillars, began the trek down the mountainside once more.
        I was a third of the way down when the dark-winged creatures descended through the fog, swept by me, cutting the air with a sharp and unpleasant whine. I looked down where they had disappeared through the lowest layers of the mist. As I watched, they reappeared, rising gracefully toward me. There was a smooth coating of black down over their large, batlike bodies, giving them a warm, smooth, gentle look. Set in each of their faces were two wide eyes, deep brown things which looked back at me with an almost unbearable melancholy.
        They settled onto the trail before me, their wings curling in on themselves, rolling into closed scrolls on their backs.
        Distorted, many-fingered hands reached on tiny arms from the point where their shoulders and wings connected: useless arms.
        "Where do you go?" the largest creature asked me.
        "To all the lands," I said.
        "They are wide. And many."
        "I have time."
        "That is true."
        "Where do you come from?" I asked. I knew they were creatures fashioned by Child's mind, just as he peopled all the landscapes with animals of eerie forms. I was intrigued by their seeming intelligence.
        "We are from-from the place where he is trapped."
        "Where Child is trapped?" I asked,
        "Yes," the smaller one said.
        "Why doesn't Child come himself? Why must he take the form of birds?"
        "He is trapped. He wants out, but there is no way but except through the dumb animals of his landscapes. He can reach into us and make us more than we once were and thus monitor this land through others' eyes."
        "Can you take me to where Child is trapped?" I asked.
        "We don't know."
        "He can tell you."
        "He doesn't know either," the smaller one said.
        "Yet both of you are Child," I said. "In essence, you are your master." The wind buffeted us, but we did not mind it "I suppose," the larger bird said. "But there's really very little we can do about it. We can help him as he wishes. But he can only impart his general intelligence and psychic power to us. He cannot fully acquire us and speak through us in the direct manner he might wish."
        The smaller bird stepped forward and bent conspiratorially. "You are aware, of course, that he is mad. And being mad, he has become separated from total control of this inner world of his. It remains, and he keeps it functioning.
        But he does not share the harmony of it any longer."
        "I understand," I said. "But why did you come to me?"
        "We live in the mountains," the larger one said. "While you were here, it was our duty to speak with you about your journey."
        "Speak," I said. It was raining slightly, a warm rain.
        "We don't know what to say," the large bird said. "We have his general urgency in mind. We understand that he wishes us to say something to you concerning your idea to travel. But we cannot say exactly what he feels about it.
        We think, ourselves, that he wants you to continue, that he wants us to urge you on. Perhaps he feels that you will find the place where he dwells and will liberate him."
        "Possibly," I said.
        "We know the place is dark. It is cold and there are things crawling on a blue floor, crawling all around him so that he does not have a moment's peace. That is the sum of our impression."
        "I will watch for it," I said. "Now, I must be going."
        Without a word, they leaped over the chasm, fell through the mists until their wings buoyed them up, then soared, beyond me, and were gone, making chattering noises like dice rattled on a felt table.
        I went down, past the entrance to the inside of the mountain out of which I had come earlier. I walked for another