The Flower Crusher
By Oscar S. Cisneros [Author Info]
The silent click of the bat-hound’s nose. The baring of black teeth and purple gums. The frozen pose, like a deep gnome mimicking a rock. All these signs from my companion’s taut body said someone, something was near. Through the leaves and brush, my eyes sensed the heat of some creature lying against a tree, a monolith in the darkness. The sonar senses of the hairless canine by my side always proved true, but surely this could not be the telepath…
Decades had past since my master had seen the human wizard. Their parting occurred at the great steps of the Academy where, after bidding each other an uncomfortable adieu, the telepath was taken away by young darkelven warriors. A bond had formed betwixt the two -- she was a slave kidnapped from the surface for her powers of telepathy. My master, meanwhile, was also a wizard -- one of budding strength and tempered wisdom. Together they formed a secret "friendship," to use the dwarven word (‘Friend,’ after all, does not exist in our tongue). Their intimacy was borne of mutual understanding and given wings by the emotive transfer of thoughts and feelings. Although he spoke of little of her throughout his life, I knew their tale through the filtered abstraction of Lucentio’s dreams. When he had learned what he needed, my master arranged for her safe passage back to the surface. The telepath was blind in our echoing caves and without his word a lifetime of slavery awaited her.
The illusion my master had conjured of the sleeping wizard’s countenance vaguely mirrored the mound of a man I now saw before me. But only in the face, for his sprawled form displayed thighs that matched the circumference of tree trunks and a head like the numerous boulders lying about. Where was the telepath? I had followed Lucentio’s map meticulously. From our dark city to this moonlit surface night, I had walked the same steps that those darkelven warriors had taken so many years ago. But the wizard’s cabin was not to be found. For now, we’ll let this sleeping giant lie.
* * *
Sun again. And the pecking of bird-friend. Sweet sparrow who eats me fleas. And where is fur-tail? Come for morning food, my small friend. Shake tree, nuts fall. Click and chitter, fur-tail says, click and chitter. I hear and fur-tail speaks, I hear and fur-tail speaks, I hear… worry, alarm, strange-creatures-not-from-trees.
* * *
The beast’s steps roused me into painful sunlight. With each dull thud the white light burned into my skull and I longed for the darkness of my caves. He was searching for something, looking. I crouched in the relative darkness of a bustle of budding pines and waited for him to pass. How curious: A rodent scurried about his back and shoulders, eyeing my way, nervously. And what of the bird who pecked at his coarse, balding hair?
When the beast had past I searched about the clearing of trees, commanding my bat-hound to motionlessness through a bonding spell. The dwelling of the telepath was perched in the trees above. After a short levitation past morning-dewed branches, I stood on the outer deck of the home. Death greeted me there. The splintered, dry remains of a human lay crushed by a chest-sized boulder and I found another cadaver on a bed nearby. Its skeletal arms were crossed over its skull in final agony, its legs spread wide as if birthing. The place had been pounded, pummeled by rocks and boulders from below. The hill giants had been here and what was left of this scene acted out years ago had long since been reclaimed by nature and the tree in which it hung.
But that creature had not been one of them. His stature was not slight, but nor did it reach the height of the vicious hill giants I had fought in my youth. What manner of creature was this beast? A faded painting of a human female on the wall told a tale I cared not to hear. It was the telepath, that being whose powers had touched my master’s iron-defended heart long ago. It was all there. The resemblance, the cheek bones. She was a delicate being laid down on this canvas by elven hands. He was some crudley fashioned imitation. But what hands had sculpted him from her? Could he be an abomination? I stared back at the dried corpse on the bed.
From my height I saw him lumbering through the woods in the far distance. Would his eyes match those precious orbs put down in ink and paint? I had to know. I sped off after him. But tracking the heat of footprints in the Underworld’s caves was far more familiar to me then finding a trail through the dirt, snow and brush of this land. I stumbled on, now oblivious to the sun’s rude assault on my eyes. In a small clearing a flower lay crushed amongst ice and rock – the crude feet of beast had lumbered by this way. Finally, I was upon him. His back was turned and I floated up amongst the trees to see over his massive shoulders. By brute force he had pulled down a tree limb and was slowly studying a nestful of tiny colored eggs.
I laughed. Surely, he did not wish to dine on such small fare. But my slight chuckle triggered the frantic chirpings of his rodent. The nest fell to the ground. He stood there, motionless, while the tree limb snapped back in place. Slowly, one hand formed a fist almost larger than my head. So shocked was I at the force of his bellow that I was knocked from my perch and fell violently to the ground, landing with several broken ribs. He too was grounded and moaned deeply as he pawed at the shattered nest.
I approached, walking without the usual caution employed in the back-stabbing caves of my home. A twig snapped and he turned to face me. There was no anger there. Only remorse. I saw a grotesque face furrowed by slow tears. Delicate, feeling eyes betrayed something softer, something his gross exterior would never give light to. What was this thing? Only moments before I was repulsed and now I stood an enraptured by his delicacy. And then it came. His gentle eyes had led me astray from hate but now that feeling was replaced by something more. I felt the pain of a creature enamored with beauty and with the sparrow on his back, with the scurrying squirrel and its colored tail, with the tiniest of leaves and flowerpetals of his land ... and yet in all of this there was a suffering borne of an inability to touch without destroying. Clumsiness cursed this giant to a life of watching the things he loved, but never coming into the sweet-soft intimacy of touch. He turned again to his nest.
Is this the ‘touch’ that Lucentio felt? So cold it seems, ‘telepathy’, but how wondrous in practice. How can I return? How can I dwell amongst a people so impaired that they own no meaning for ‘friend’ much less ‘trust,’ much less ‘love’. And yet methinks it must be otherwise. That other darkelves must feel, however encompassing the traps they set about themselves.
The giant had left but I still sat there by the shattered nest, spent and vaguely aware of the physical botherings of a few cracked ribs. A sparrow sat patiently on my knee.
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Copyright © 1999 by Oscar S. Cisneros. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v.04 1998 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
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