THE RELIC GUILD (and other stories) Updated regularly.

CUCKOOS OVER WEST SPIRE (part 6 of 9)

The Sound wasn't exactly music; there was no melody or rhythm, nor could the instrument upon which it was played be identified. It was a chime, or a chord – strummed or hammered or blown – repeated, never altering, and it came from somewhere distant.

Each time the Sound rang, the sweeter it was to Old Doug's ears. It seemed to call to him, to fill him with a desire to hear it again. So content was he to sit in the empty room inside West Spire and listen to the Sound that he even forgot to think of Alice.

Time passed and Old Doug sat in dreamy contentment. So deep and encompassing was his state that he did not register the itch on his shoulder blades at first. But, attuned, it seemed, with the distant Sound, the itch grew more irritating with each chime, until it cut through Old Doug's dreamy state, and, maddeningly, always remained just out of reach of his scratching fingers. The itch soon became a constant ache that flared painfully to the pulses of the Sound. Old Doug groaned and wept as nodules swelled on his shoulder blades and grew into long appendages that prickled with fire as feathers sprouted from them.

Not until the Sound had encouraged the wings on Old Doug's back to reach maturity did the door to the room unlock.

It was not to escape West Spire and return to the world he had known that dominated Old Doug's thoughts. When he exited the room and spread his wings to their full length for the first time, it was finding the source of the Sound that he most desired. Leaping into the air, and spiralling upwards, he flew higher and higher inside the dark tower, up into the shadows and beyond, until it seemed that surely the inside of West Spire must be taller than the outside.

On occasion, Old Doug stopped to rest his wings, perching on the ledges of alcoves in the wall; and there he found food waiting, strange fruit both like and unlike those that he knew – blue oranges, silver bananas, black apples – and he ate them all until his hunger was sated. When the Sound called to him again, he spread his wings and leapt into the air once more.

Upwards his journey continued, until, at long last, he reached West Spire's highest point and could go no further. There, he found a wooden door on the back wall of the last alcove. The Sound, more sweet and powerful now than ever, was coming from beyond it.

Folding his wings upon his back, Old Doug approached the door, and pressed an ear against it. The Sound vibrated the wood, and these vibrations entered Doug's head and induced dreams of distant places.

He saw cities of mist, high in the clouds, inhabited by sky spirits who waged war on the stone giants dwelling in the mountains below. He stood upon beaches of glass dust watching monsters the size of blimps breaking the surface of the ocean before falling and sinking into the depths once more. He found treasure hidden in jungles of trees that fed on flesh and harvested knowledge. He walked grassy plains that stretched further than the eye could see, where creatures made of earth lived in burrows beneath the hills. He rode mammoth animals across desert plains in search of water; and he visited dark palaces carved into the faces of obsidian cliffs.

With all these dreams and visions, the Sound beckoned to Old Doug, called to him, promised adventures of love and courage, wonders and perils. But fear stayed Old Doug's hand, and he did not open the wooden door to reach the source of the Sound. Every instinct told him to do so, that he wanted nothing else; yet, deep in his heart, his fear dictated that he could not pass through this door alone. And with a sudden misery that could only come from loneliness, Old Doug remembered his wife.

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