be bleeding into a small pool and you will hear a very low and slow thumping. You and your friends must try to find this rock.”
Zair looked around and saw his friends waiting for him and instructions from the Omach. “But why can you not look into your orb Omach?”
“At the moment my body is not working and we have little time before the Ozure wakes. You must help me to do what I thought I did many, many omz ago. I am certain that by the time you and your friends locate the rock I will be able to move as before.”
Zair hopped off the Omach’s chest and onto the ground. “Alright Omach, I will go and tell my friends what we are looking for and we will find it!”
The little bird stopped quickly, turned and asked the Omach… “What do we do when we find it?”
The Omach thought for a moment before telling Zair; “It is very dangerous! You can not touch it and do not… Zair I am deadly serious. Do not get one drop of its blood on you! Do you understand?
Zair nodded his head up and down.
“Good,” the Omach continued, “Somehow you must bring the rock here where we can destroy it in the fire. I do not know how you… you will find a way’”
“Okay Omach,” Zair said and ruffled his feathers shaking off his nervousness and fear.
“If you listen closely you might hear it before you see it,” the Omach suggested.
“I will tell my friends.” Zair said and flew off.
The Omach sat in solitude, remembering the day he and his brother set out on their quest. His father had told them of the evil released upon their world by Tabeuiboo and what they must do to destroy it.
The Omach pictured his father that night, his face glowing mystically in the firelight. His voice soft and deliberate; “You must seek the blood red rock that hurtled from above, crashing into the planet and taking root in the soul of our world. You must be careful not to get the blood oozing from its cracks upon your flesh. It will become absorbed and soon after your soul will no longer be yours.
“Take care to cover the rock completely with dirt which will soak up the blood and keep it from dripping. You must then wrap it in the leaves of the zappletree; they are thick and their sap will seal in the blood-drenched mud.”
Zair and his brigade of birds flew high into the sky spreading out and circling in a familiar pattern. This time though, the birds were not looking for food; they were looking for the blood red rock. They circled over the deadwood grove first and when they saw nothing they then moved to the south.
“Look down there,” a large colorful sturdily built bird that went by the name of Zaaxim said to Zair. “That is where the water bubbles up from the ground and the babbling brook begins.”
“I see that.” Zair answered looking at the marvel.
“Hey Zair, look closely,” Zaaxim said dropping closer. “I think I see what we are looking for… Come and look closer with me.”
The two flew down nearer to the bubbling up spring and spotted the blood red heart shaped bleeding rock. It was not nearly as big as they thought it would be but it was truly blood red and bleeding.
“It is bleeding into the water,” Zair said to his friend who darted off to gather the rest of the birds. As he circled lower and lower, Zair could her the low thumping that the Omach told him he would hear. “Oh my,” he said to himself, “it sounds like a heartbeat!”
Zair flew down and landed in the branches of a dead and crumbling tree that extremely close to the bleeding heart shaped rock. He looked closely and wondered how he and his friends were going to get it back to the Omach.
“Have you regained movement yet?” the Ozure asked coming out of his hut. “No need to say anything… I know how long the effects last!”
The Ozure kicked the Omach’s legs… “Go ahead and untangle yourself from the evilines.”
“Brother,” the Omach said to the Ozure softly as he pulled the evilines from around his legs. “What has happened to you, do you not remember any of our youth?”
“Brother…? Our youth?” The Ozure sneered at the Omach; “we have not been brothers since that day you left me to die. And of my youth… all I remember about that was that Father loved you more than me and you took great pleasure in that! You grew closer to him everyday; I grew more and more bitter.”
The Omach started to get up, his legs were shaky and his knees wobbled. The Ozure pushed him back down with his foot and pulled another handful of the paralyzing red dust out of his pocket.
“I never said you could get up!” The Ozure said loudly and waved the dust in the Omach’s face.
The Omach slapped the Ozure’s hand up from the bottom causing the dust to fly into the air. Then with a powerful blow, he blew it right into his brother’s face. The Ozure tried to wave the dreadful dust from going up his nose but was unsuccessful. He dropped to his knees and then to his face.
“I am sorry brother.” The Omach said kneeling over the Ozure’s stiffening body. “But I can not let you go on like this. You are my brother and our father would wish things to be different.”
The Omach gently rolled the Ozure over and leaned him against the rock.
Zair looked down at the water bubbling out of the ground and noticed that as it flowed downstream it carried with it the reddish hue of the blood that dripped into it. The other birds soon started landing all around him in the dead trees and bushes that surrounded the bubbling water and the bleeding heart.
One of the nearest birds asked him how they were going to get the rock back to the Omach. Zair shook his head and said he was thinking about it. Another bird, Aires dropped down on the nearest dry rock and explained to the others his idea…
“You see that crack that goes down the middle of the rock? What if somehow we could force a stick in it… then it could be carried safely back to the Omach.” The little bird looked around to see the response from the other birds.
Zair agreed that it was a good idea but questioned, “What if the rock is too heavy to be carried? What if the stick slips out of the crack? What about the blood that would drip all the way back to the Omach?”
Zaaxim said with confidence; “I could carry it! I know I could.”
“I have a better idea,” a small yellow and red bird announced. “We should build a nest around the rock. A very strong nest that we could layer with leaves so that the blood did not drip all the way back.”
The birds all agreed that it was a much better idea. It would be easier to carry and there would not be any chance of the rock slipping away.
“Okay… lets get started!” Zair shouted with excitement.
The Ozure struggled to move but the dried and powdered bleeding heart dust left him helpless. The Omach sat next to him and leaned slightly against his brother’s shoulder. Sitting in silence the two remembered back to a time of love and family. They shared the memory of their Mother, how she would sing every morning waking them with the soft notes dancing through their ears.
The two brothers could see in their memory her shadow on the wall as she prepared the family meals. Her movements often times played tricks on their eyes… they would make a game of it. They took turns guessing what she was doing as the gray moved mysteriously before them.
“It still hurts,” the Omach said in a broken voice. “The day she died still hurts.”
The Ozure turned his head and looked into the eyes of his older brother. A tear formed slowly, slid down the crack of his cheek and dropped onto his weathered hand. “We still feel each other when we touch,” he said softly.
“The bond between us has never been broken,” the Omach acknowledged. “Ever since our father taught us the way of trutouche’, we have shared memories and feelings. Even now my brother, after all that has happened it remains so.”
The Omach put his arm around his baby brother and pulled him close. The Ozure was moved to such a depth of emotion that he could resist no longer his advancing torment. Soon he was sobbing from the pit of his soul and a torrent of tears poured down his face. At first the tears were c
lear, then they slowly turned red.
“Oh my brother look,” the Omach whispered lifting his hand to catch the colored drops. “It is the evil blood of the bleeding heart… the love we are sharing, the bond of brotherhood is forcing the tainted blood from your body!”
As more and more of the evil left the Ozure’s body, so did the effects of the blood dust. Soon the brothers were holding each other in a strong embrace, both feeling emotions they had not felt for many lonely omzs. Feelings of love and devotion… feelings of brotherhood.
“Oh Omach I have missed you and longed for your company. I am so very sorry for the miserable past I have caused you.”
“It is fine my brother,” the Omach responded re-assuredly. “It was miserable for the both of us… I think in many ways more so for you. It is fine… it is over.”
Zair along with the other birds worked franticly to build an exceptionally strong nest that in essence would be a basket to carry the bleeding heart rock in. The larger birds brought the materials they needed while the smaller more agile ones wove the twigs, grass and stems in and out. They even decided that it would be prudent to have two birds carry the load so they shaped it like a nabanna…
“This way,” Aires the little bird with the great ideas said. “One bird can carry the front and the other the back, much safer!”
Zair smiled at their finished work telling them all what a good job they did. Then it was time to