Article by Nikos Kakagias
Cover photo by Tasos Papazios
Edited by Harrys Pourouzidis
He steadied himself, spreading his wings into the morning sun, and, sliding sideways into the downward current, he plunged. From high above, he watched the mountain mass below, dark and shapeless at first, begin to take form. The rocks sparkled in the morning light among the dark, slender silhouettes of the fir trees, and between them the road coiled like a snake. For some time he had been watching two vehicles cutting through the bends, and their purpose at such an early hour puzzled him, since it was plain enough that they were not hunters. He saw them stop here and there, scatter while holding strange black boxes in their hands, then gather again after a while, only to repeat the same ritual farther down the road.
He climbed higher, and the long, dark silhouette of Belasitsa opened before him, with Kerkini lake gleaming to the south. He thought then of the misery written into the fate of those creatures below: condemned to crawl through the lowlands, unable to gaze upon, let alone embrace in a single glance, the grandeur of the whole.
He played for a moment with a passing cloud, then set his course for familiar coordinates to the north, where the Vardar holds sway. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them again in the shadows of Belasitsa, entering those strange formations that look like spiderwebs and spread like a cancer across all creation. He knew they called the place Petrich, in that way only the wise know such things.
Klyuch (Ключ) Samuel’s Fortress
He liked this game of hide-and-seek, since it was the first time he had tried it, and he decided to follow them as they headed west, toward the river. He knew the place well, for he had always hunted rabbits there.
For an instant, he saw them stop among the alders and plane trees, then move toward the clearing. Curious, he beat his wings above them, until his gaze met the despairing, pleading eyes of that stone figure. The elders used to say that it had turned to stone from grief when it saw death descend among those sorrowful two-legged creatures. Before surrendering his spirit, they said, he had lived long enough to see the remains of his army blinded, led by one-eyed men down the road of ruin.
He had never believed the old ones when they told such stories — no young creature ever does. But now, seeing it from so close, he understood what the mind alone cannot grasp.
“These are not matters for me,” he thought. “These human habits are no concern of mine. Their lives do not touch me. After all, what can one expect from creatures who kill their own brothers for a strip of earth?”
Petrich (Петрич)
It was the first time he had truly observed Petrich in this way, perched on the highest bell tower. He watched his peculiar little company wander through the almost empty square, which the early, cold northern wind had stripped of its noisy crowds. He caught sight of them entering the most garish building in the square. Then, with one strong thrust, he was back upon the highest ledges of the sky.
“I will find you again,” he said, and those below heard only his distant cry.
Petrich Museum
Heraclea Sintica (Хераклея Синтика)
The day was bright, and the morning haze quickly withdrew from the stage, giving way to the magnificent view of the enclosed plain, held by the mountains of Belasitsa to the south, Pirin to the west, and Rila to the north.
His gaze tore through the ether, and he soon spotted the group he had been following out of whim as they entered a place of ruins, where only two or three columns remained upright among the scattered stones.
“Bones standing upright, whitening in the sun,” he thought.
He rose high, spiralling inside the upward current, and with an astonishing glide began to slip downward, locked on a collision course with the hairless skull that shone blindingly in the light. The man below, as if by instinct, turned and looked up, until their eyes met.
He did not know how the eyes of birds could resemble the eyes of men, but this gaze carried within it the same flame that burned inside him. Something like respect flooded through him. Startled by this revelation, he diverted his descent and settled on the crown of a poplar.
“What can they possibly be saying,” he wondered, “about ancient Heraclea? What can those old stones say to them? Nothing survives between the millstones of time except the dust of illusions, you fools.”
Certain of the immovable power of fact, he lifted his beak and hurled himself toward the thicket where he had seen a careless snake basking in the life-giving sun.
Bansko (Банско)
He caught up with them as they turned east, heading toward the western side of Pirin, with its deep-shadowed spruce forests and the snow-covered summit of Vihren flashing in the morning light.
“I’m pretty sure they are going to Bansko” he thought. “Well, of course they are. They’re Greeks, aren’t they? They all climb up there. And yet winter has not come. Strange. Curious creatures.”
He had seen Bansko many times before, with its multitudes of people sliding down the slopes on snow, balanced on those long strips of wood. They seemed ridiculous to him.
“Do not laugh at them,” his grandfather had once warned him. “Fear them. And keep your distance.”
He amused himself by mocking a crow that dared to rival him in flight, until the full stature of Pirin appeared from above, majestic in all its breadth, up where the air begins to thin. To the south and east, the shadow of the Rhodope hid the horizon like a colossal wall.
On the bank of the ravine that cut high into the mountain slope, he found them again. They were circling about, often lifting their gaze as though searching the infinite.
Then he saw it — or rather, heard it first. It made the sound of an angry swarm of bees. With fearless curiosity, he plunged toward it.
“I am the master up here,” he cried, and his call echoed through the ravine.
Another cry answered him from below, full of desperation and misery. He drew closer and saw a strange vulture buzzing furiously. He steadied himself above it and opened his talons for the final strike, when he noticed its single eye.
Motionless. Without the warmth of life inside it. Dead, it seemed, and without any fear of what was coming. It was nothing like the final flash he saw in the eyes of his prey, that last trembling spark which had often made him revoke his own irreversible verdict. This thing was soulless, terrifying in the way it looked at him, boldly, as though daring him — him, the king.
He remembered his grandfather’s words.
“Fear them…”
He wavered for a moment. Then, as the desperate cries below became screams, he decided it was not worth the trouble. With a thrust of his wings, he rose to where not even a hawk’s eye could distinguish him.
After his customary circling, he had time to see them buried in the shadows of the forest and among the clear-running ravines where the wood pigeons and hares nested. But he did not worry. He knew they had lost all ability to observe the deep history of the forest, much less to feed from it.
He left them when the sun sent him its final farewell before disappearing from the stage.
Vichren (Вихрен)
Ognyanovo & Leshten (Огняново & Лещен)
He had not intended to follow them on the third day. That would have been too much honour for them.
He headed south, toward the darkening Rhodope, painted in the warm, saturated colours of autumn: orange beeches and golden-leaved birches. He had not expected it, and was startled when he saw the familiar vehicles in the mists of Ognyanovo, there where the water carries its scent, moving about mysteriously with the black boxes in their hands.
He did not see them undress, as thousands of others did, to sink into the breathing waters. Instead, they wandered around searching for who knows what. He marvelled at their obsession and followed them when they took the winding road upward, toward the heights where the falcons nest among the old stone houses. Lately, he had seen those houses recovering from the death of oblivion, at least some of them regaining their former handsome face.
He too hunted in Leshten when the heat rose, searching among the ruins for snakes and rats.
“Well now,” he muttered, “they are not here for that. More likely they will roam the cobbled lanes with those black boxes pressed to their eyes, searching, as they have done all these days.”
He was not proven wrong. Bored, he changed course and descended eastward.
Pirin (Пирин)
The sun was already on its downward path when the two vehicles stopped for fuel shortly before the border. The group stretched their legs lazily in the sunlight and surrendered to the aromas of coffee and recollection, when the bald one among them lifted his head toward the sky and exclaimed:
“Hey, you lot — that eagle has been following us the whole trip. I bet it is the same one that went for our drone in Pirin.”
They all raised their eyes with curiosity, which quickly turned into puzzled suspicion about the old man’s powers of perception. Almost at once, Dani’s teasing question was heard.
“Where did you see an eagle, Nikolas? Maybe it’s your imagination that’s flying, brother…”
