‘Travel has soured your mood, Crone.’

‘It is not in my nature to grieve. I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?’

‘I have no such intention,’ he replied. ‘Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?’

‘Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers. We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.’

‘And?’

She ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. ‘This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.’

‘So it does.’

‘I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.’

‘And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.’

‘I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compassion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters-listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.’

‘You are most poetic this day, Crone.’

‘It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?’

‘Endest Silann is at the deep river.’

‘Hardly alone, I should think.’’He must return.’

She was silent for a moment, head cocked. Then she said, ‘Ten bells have sounded.’

‘Ten.’

‘I shall be on my way, then.’

‘Fly true, Crone.’

‘I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.’ He smiled. ‘There is no need for that.’Who are you to judge whether she is old or young, and if she is lifting the bucket or lowering it down into this well? And is she pretty or plain as undyed linen, is she a sail riding the summer wind bright as a maiden’s eye above waves of blue? Does her walk sway in pleasure and promise of bracing dreams as if the earth could sing fertile as joyous butterflies in a flowered field, or has this saddle stretched slack in cascades of ripe fruit and rides no more through blossomed orchards? Who then are you to cage in presumptuous iron the very mystery that calls us to life where hovers the brimming bucket, ever poised between dark depths and choral sunlight-she is beauty and this too is a criminal exhortation, and nothing worthwhile is to be found in your regard that does little more than stretch this frayed rope-so shame! Dismissal delivers vicious wounds and she walks away or walks to with inner cringing. Dare not speak of fairness, dare not indulge cruel judgement when here I sit watching and all the calculations between blinks invite the multitude to heavy scorn and see that dwindling sail passing for ever beyond you as is her privilege there on the sea of flowers all sweet fragrance swirling in her wake-it will never ever reach you-and this is balance, this is measure, this is the observance of strangers who hide their tears when turning away.

Young Men Against a Wall Nekath of Onl Eye CatNo purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment’s thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each facade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear.

To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch-all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia’s bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter-dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing.

Pity these ones? Nay, never, never so long as they drive on hordes of children into grisly labour, then sup languid of air upon the myriad rewards.