The Shepherd

“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.”

It is late. It seems it has been late for a very long time — but then, is time stretched when one is lost? Are not all people lost, at one time or another? And when one is lost, does time pass slower, or has the warm summer sun truly been just below the horizon for hours upon hours, bathing the sky in its rosy hue?

No. Not rosy.

To be rosy is a pleasant thing, charming, calming — la vie en rose is to see all things as lovely. This dusk, this strange parody of evening time, it is not at all lovely. There is something wrong, some edge to the sky that causes discomfort.

It is warm, and the lingering heat from from the day is pleasant, soaking into the bones and remaining there. Ah, so relaxing. The thought of sleep is impossible to suppress, as that lulling haze sinks over everything.

It is like the exquisite background hum that comes from a little good wine: yes, it is like intoxication.

But the sky is too red, too wrong, to sleep beneath it. It is not the dark blanket of night: it is something else, some odd purgatory that will not allow for sleeping nor waking — dreaming, perhaps. Perhaps this is all a dream. A beautiful dream soaked with red — but not a rosy red.

If that colour is not rosy, what is it instead? It is too light to be as autumn leaves, too dark to be as the soft pink of cherry blossom. The cherries themselves, perhaps, red with summer’s sweet, sweet blood?

Blood. Yes, that is what that colour is akin to, decadent, inviting, with a promise of warmth — it is wrong.

It is so very wrong.

The path is well-used, and yet every step under this blood-red sky feels like a disturbance, as if the countryside about is hallowed ground. A thin place, yes, where once a thousand years ago red, red sacrifices were made.

Stop.

There is a spatter of rich liquid on the ground, sinking slowly into the dirt of the path as if to sate its thirst for wine, but this cannot be wine — it is blood.

This is so very, very wrong.

A thousand years ago? Perhaps that was wishful thinking — la vie en rose. How long ago had those thoughts been? The sun hovers still, below the horizon, not yet sinking down completely and letting the rural land go dark. How long is this path? How many steps have been tread on its brown flesh?

The path must be continued: there is no other. To walk the golden fields and stray from the track when every crop is bathed in the sky’s blood reflection seems wrong — the path is hallowed, but those fields are truly sacred, pure.

They must not be touched.

Each footstep is heavier than the last; a sleepy haze surrounds everything now, and even the field crops of barley seem to sway to it, as if these golden ears are tipsy too. But sleep would still be wrong — the lull, at least, creates a pleasant rhythm.

A heavy step. Another. Two more. Ten more. So many steps, one after the other, rhythmic, like the beat of some tired drum. Were drums once played here, long ago? How long will it be until drums are heard again?

The sky is still so very red — it has been too long now. Does the path go on forever? Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly.

More blood on the ground. It is fresh: it has not yet had time to seep into the dry, parched earth to be tasted. Strange, how sights so simple can cause the heart to speed, the lungs to expand, the chest to feel so strained, so tight, so tight, so-

There is a shepherd.

The shepherd wears a brown cloth, over the head, hiding the hair, shrouding the body — it is the same colour as the parched, thirsty ground. There is a silent imperative — walk to the shepherd. Kneel before the shepherd. Sleep at the shepherd’s feet, and be at peace.

Let the shepherd’s thirst be sated.

But the shepherd is in one of the fields, in the centre of a sacred, sacred plot of brown earth and golden crop — every strand of barley lies flat upon the ground, as if the shepherd had come from above and landed with such tremendous, divine force that all the crop had been thrust away.

Perhaps that is what happened, but the past is the past and the shepherd was the only witness. No one will ask the shepherd if that was so — this fact is certain.

A step from the path onto grass that is yellow. It is yellow for want of hydration that water is too thin to remedy. This thought is somehow calming, although it ought not be.

Another step.

Why is the field uncontained? There are no hedges betraying its edges. Perhaps there are no edges as there are no hedges for fledglings to roost in, and with no fledglings no pledges are necessary from farmers not to disturb the hedges, or the edges of the hedges. Light-headed. Airy. It is like wine.

Perhaps the golden, blood-bathed field goes on forever.

That is not a calming thought: infinity is, by its very nature, unsettling. The shepherd is infinite: this is certain fact. Where does this knowledge come from?

The shepherd beckons.

More steps. So many steps. They are like a drumbeat — no. There is a drumbeat, distant, rhythmic; every step is fitted to its loud, clear metre. The shepherd’s face is visible now, for that hood has been drawn back.

The shepherd is beautiful. Dark skin, handsome brown eyes, such plump, inviting lips. Beautiful. Divine. Those lips undoubtedly taste as good as wine, and are as intoxicating, even by sight. In one hand, the hand that is held out in a gesture to move to the floor, the shepherd holds nothing, but the other holds a thin, shining blade, light with a plain curve.

A scythe for the harvest.

Knees to the floor. Worship. Prayer.

A bowed head. Fealty. Sacrifice.

The shepherd does not move, not yet. The pause is heavy with blood and heat and warmth and the sun is still not sinking further when it ought have, when it ought be deep into the night by now — so many hours walking, walking, and now the drum is beating and it is louder, pounding through the ear drums, reverberating in the chest cavity.

The shepherd’s left hand raises, the hand with the blade clasped in dark fingers, and then it comes down with a whistle through the air.

Pain. Wet heat on the neck, heavy, gushing: the world goes dark.

Above those two bodies, the standing shepherd looking down with the beginning of a smile on those beautiful lips; the other slumped on the floor, still, bleeding, to the horizon, where the sun is beginning to rise, flooding the sky with sweet gold and washing the blood away.

The shepherd laughs, but then the thin place becomes a thick place again, the world becomes real: those bodies fade.

“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.”

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Johannes Evans is a writer, photographer, and bug enthusiast from the South of Wales, now living on the West Coast of Ireland. He loves playing with humour, contemporary fantasy ideas, and fae lore.

His first book, Heart of Stone, is an 18th-century romance between a vampire and his personal secretary, and can be purchased here.

You can find him on Twitter and follow his Tumblr.

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