A Lovesong of Rooks:

Angels and Demons Aren’t Saving the World, So I Guess I Have To

Part I: The Swallow Who Fell in Love with the Moon

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This is a story that ends in mud.

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Perilous System ./ Access Granted

A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing

Enforced Time: September - Holy Moon, 1998

The Final Days

Location: Great Laurentia Deep Wood, Bathypelagic Zone

./Begin Story

Prologue - The Trans-Sylvan Express

A train in the darkness illuminated by a promise. A boy without shoes. A girl without certainty.

Looking up through the pale gloom of the twilight column, the day looked old and tired, despite the fact that it had only just begun.

Demi was up to greet the watery dawn not because she was an early riser, but because she had slept very little. She had been too nervous to sleep, and so had left her sleeping berth some two hours past.

Her guardian had dutifully followed her from one train car to the next, and now they were both comfortably settled in.

It was still a good three hours to the City. She could study the fantastic scenery at her leisure.

It wasn't only nervousness that had driven her from her berth. A trip through the heart of the Deep Wood was a rare pleasure. They had booked a special viewing car at her request. It had wide windows, and part of the roof was transparent. It wasn't glass. It wasn't even tempered glass. — it wasn't safe to use glass on a train that went through the abyssal layer of the Deep Wood. Glass wasn't strong enough. The windows were probably some type of heavy acrylic.

Whatever it was, it was clear, and afforded breathtaking views of the forest where no man walked.

It was a little like being in the deep sea, and staring out the window of the Nautilus.

The special observation car was where she and her butler were now passing their time. They had their own private compartment, and it was very comfortable.

Every once in a while, a roving light from the train would flash out into the gloom, illuminating the scene like falling lightning. When the light passed, she could see all the little motes swimming through the heavy air, the tiny creatures who made up the Deep Wood’s foundational food source. And there were other hunters that were sometimes caught in the light for a moment before they disappeared back into the mists.

But the light didn't flash out particularly often. It was disruptive to the wildlife, and besides that, it was unsafe.

The Trans-Sylvan Express was very secure, belted in steel and titanium and designed to be impact resistant, but it was unwise to draw attention for long in the Deep Wood, no matter one’s precautions. If the light roved too long or too freely, then it might wake one of the sleeping giants. That was an outcome every sane person wished to avoid.

Demi thought it might be nice to see one of them.

She was interested in most everything that lived and breathed, even things that were horrifically dangerous. One day, before she died, she wanted to see for herself the red eye of a balor shining out of the darkness.

If she hadn't already had an unavoidable future laid out before her, Demi thought she might have liked to become a silvologist — a real proper one who did research in the field, who dove into the depths where no others dared — a wraith who moved among giants. She wanted to walk the trackless glades where the light of the sun never penetrated.

She loved the Deep Wood, unspeakable terrors and all.

Therefore, Demi had decided that she would waste as little of her journey as possible sleeping, despite the fact that she had an inevitable and inescapably long day ahead of her.

But she would persevere, and live in the moment. Her mother had taught her that rare experiences should be savored. There was too much to look at for her to waste her time worrying about what awaited her in the City.

And so she had spent good portions of her journey lying on her back in the highest compartment of the observation car, cuddled under a thick, fluffy blanket and staring up through the misty light at the ancient gnarled trees, trees upon trees upon trees — symbiotes, epiphytes, lianas — and at the sometimes amorphous creatures that made their way through the pregnant air above her.

That was what she had most often done in lieu of sleeping.

It was a strange feeling, lying on her back and looking into the swirling darkness, and it gave her a sense of weightlessness and timelessness, as if she were drifting along the surface of a sunless sea. It was looking up to see ocean swells overhead, or looking down to see clouds dotting the ocean.

The train thrummed out its strange machine heartbeat, and she felt it in her body as they all hied along in the darkness together.

Miles and miles above her, past the stratosphere and the exosphere, past the pale moon, and the chain of planets caught in the thrall of the sun, past even the heliopause, and out into the interstellar gulf — there were uncounted numbers of stars turning and turning in the vastness of time and space, revolving, revolving, even as she revolved. In the silence, she listened to the sound of the sky.

She was awash in ancient starlight, a girl made of stardust ground from the bones of giants who now slept in the bodies of others, their days long since passed away.

The knowledge gave her a trembling, full feeling in her chest as she lay there thinking about it: the vast night sky with its infinity of stars, the long, nighted depths of the Deep Wood, where ancient things dwelt, and phantasmal creatures that even now remained undescribed stirred softly through the hazy stillness, leaving tracks behind in what was thought to be trackless.

It was almost enough to induce vertigo.

That was the Deep Wood in essence.

But even she could not stare into the Deep Wood endlessly.

Eventually the chill got into the depths of her bones, despite the heaters set into the floor around her, despite the fluffy blanket and her formidable resolve.

When that happened, she wistfully descended from the heights and returned to the land of mortals, where she occupied herself with warmer pursuits.

She could still admire the dread giants from the comfort of the considerably warmer lower compartment, and she did.

After all, who knew when such a chance would present itself next? In the very near future, her time would no longer be her own, if it might be called such a thing now.

It was better to live and breathe in this moment while it lasted.

One never knew when, or if, the next moment would come.

“Was it so very long ago?” Demi wondered aloud, then shook her head. “It seems like it can't have been.”

Robert Grave looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

“Was what very long ago, my lady?” he asked.

She might have been talking about practically anything: a previous train journey, her last birthday, the last time they’d been out together, just the two of them.

The funeral.

“When I was just a little girl,” she said seriously, her eyes still fixed on the dark shapes that slid by the windows of the train. “And I first went to the edges of the Deep Wood, and was almost lost.” She glanced at her watch. If they were on schedule it wouldn't be long before the train dived even deeper into the forest, crossing into the abyssal layer for the last leg of their journey.

As if on cue, there was the sound of electronic chimes, and a voice announced, “We will be entering the abyssal layer in fifteen minutes. Travel from car to car will be restricted while we remain in the abyssal layer. This is for the safety of all travelers. Thank you for your understanding.”

Robert Grave smiled briefly as he folded his newspaper.

“Indeed,” he said. “For me, it does seem as if it were not so very long ago that you were just a little girl, daring to go where you shouldn't. Not that that has changed particularly in the last ten years,” he said dryly, and she shrugged very beautifully in response, as if to say ‘I can't change my essential nature.’ He looked out the dark window himself and added, “I believe that children perceive time differently than adults. One day, I am sure that the days will fly by you as well, my lady.”

She shivered slightly and he stood.

“I believe you require something hot to drink,” he said as he moved to the door. “Would you like some tea with honey, or with jam?”

Demi smiled and said, “Oh, Mr. Grave, you don't have to go out for my sake. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be better with something warm to drink,” he said matter-of-factly, and she knew then that there was no arguing with him.

“All right,” she said. “With honey, but you best be right back,” she said, flashing an impish smile. “We’ll be entering the abyssal layer soon!”

He graciously nodded his head. “Of course, my lady,” he said. “Do you require anything else?”

“Only your incomparable company,” she teased. “So hurry back.”

“As you wish,” he said with a brief bow, and then was gone, closing the compartment door behind him.

She looked out the window at the dark shapes of the massive trees of the Deep Wood as the train passed between them, bound for the abyssal layer. Bioluminescent creatures flashed from time to time in the twilight, hunting one another for food or procreation. Everything seemed very still as the train hurtled along in the deepening twilight.

The butler had been gone for some minutes when Demi began to expect him at every unusual sound. There was a light footstep in the hallway, and then the door to her compartment slid open.

But it was not Robert Grave.