When the Birds Fly South

When the Birds Fly South by Stanton A. Coblentz

Daniel Prescott, an American geologist traveling with an expedition in Afghanistan, becomes fascinated by a colossal stone figure of a praying woman atop a mountain called the Mountain of Vanished Men. Afghan guides claim that the image was made by the Ibandru, mysterious winged mountain people who can become invisible, and warn that climbers vanish on the peak. Prescott disregards them and ascends with his reckless companion Jasper Damon. A sudden fog engulfs the mountain, separating the two men. Prescott hears Damon calling and firing his revolver but becomes lost while trying to reach him. He falls down a slope, breaks his arm, and is left helpless on a narrow ledge above a precipice. Members of the Ibandru find and rescue him, carrying him across the mountains into their secluded home, the Valley of Sobul. The Ibandru nurse Prescott through fever and injury. Among them is Yasma, the auburn-haired daughter of Abthar, a respected vine-grower. She gives Prescott water, food, flowers, and patient lessons in Pushtu, allowing them to speak. Prescott learns that the Ibandru have lived in Sobul since ancient times and worship the stone woman, Yulada, believing she blesses obedience and punishes disobedience. Yasma warns him never to approach Yulada: men who have dared to do so have met disaster. Prescott discovers that Damon survived the fog. At their former camp he finds a note explaining that Damon and the expedition searched for him unsuccessfully, then departed believing him dead. Unable to find a route back to civilization, Prescott accepts that he must remain in Sobul through winter. Abthar urges him to prepare a sealed, provisioned cabin, though the rest of the village makes no visible preparations. The Ibandru evade Prescott’s questions about winter, often referring him to Yulada. Prescott and Yasma grow increasingly attached. She is lively, sensitive, and solitary in spirit, finding beauty in birds, plants, mountains, and clouds that others neglect. Yet she repeatedly becomes fearful when he speaks of winter, the stone image, Hamul-Kammesh the soothsayer, or their affection for one another. Hamul-Kammesh had made a dark prophecy at Yasma’s birth, and after Prescott’s arrival he announced new ominous signs, though Yasma refuses to reveal their meaning. In autumn, flocks of birds fly south, provoking intense excitement among the Ibandru. They hold a bonfire ceremony of prayer, songs, dances, and tales of people vanishing in Yulada’s mists or traveling to a warm southern land. Soon villagers begin disappearing overnight. Yasma explains that they have gone “the way of the birds that fly south,” escaping winter in obedience to a powerful inner call. Prescott tries to follow departing villagers but loses them in the woods. As snow arrives, Yasma bids him farewell, saying she must go where the flowers are and cannot show him the way. By the next day, Sobul is empty. Prescott spends a harsh winter alone, sustained by his supplies, his labor, and hopes of Yasma’s return. He explores the valley, fishes, gathers wood, and records his despair in a diary. He repeatedly attempts to climb to Yulada, breaking his promise to Yasma, but ice, storms, and an injured ankle turn him back each time. With spring, birds begin flying north. Karem, Yasma’s brother, returns first with other men, who uncover stored tools and food and begin preparing the fields. They refuse to explain where they have been. Eventually Yasma returns, and she and Prescott reunite passionately. Yet she still cannot accept his proposal of marriage. She says the Ibandru’s southward migration is not a choice but an irresistible law of their nature; she must leave every autumn, while he cannot share the journey. She also fears the prophecies of Hamul-Kammesh and Yulada’s wrath. Abthar tells Prescott that Yasma’s birth prophecy foretold that, after seventeen summers, a stranger from beyond the mountains would come and bring grievous ill connected with her fate. He warns Prescott that Yasma would perish in permanent exile from Sobul, while Prescott would eventually suffer if he remained cut off from his own world. Karem, however, dismisses Hamul-Kammesh’s predictions as convenient manipulations. He devises a scheme: reports of a dream of two white clouds, traditionally signifying a coming marriage, pressure the soothsayer into declaring that Yulada commands Prescott and Yasma to marry. At the next full moon, the Ibandru celebrate their wedding with a day of feasting, drink, prayers, games, dancing, songs, and speeches. Hamul-Kammesh proclaims that Yulada has ordained the union, embraces both bride and groom as part of the rite, and instructs them to revere Yulada, keep her secrets, heed the call to follow the southward-flying birds, and never approach too closely to the goddess.

By Stanton A. Coblentz · First published 1931 · Genre: Lost World Fantasy, Adventure Fiction, Fantasy · 24 chapters · 72,433 words

First lines

High among the snow-tipped ranges of Afghanistan, there is a peak notable for its peculiar rocky crown. Unlike its lordly neighbors, it is dominated not by crags and glaciers, but by a projection which seems almost to bear the impress of human hands. From the southern valley, five thousand feet beneath, the traveler will observe a gigantic steel-gray figure carved in the image of a woman; and he will notice that the woman's hands are uplifted in an attitude of prayer, and that she stands with one foot slanted behind her and one foot slightly upraised, as though prepared to step into the abyss. How this lifelike form came to be perched on that desolate eminence is a mystery to the observer; but he assumes that it is a product of some prank of nature, for it is far too large to have been made by man. Yet he must be unimaginative indeed not to be awe-stricken at thought of the forces which gave that colossus birth.

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lost-world fantasy · early science fiction · adventure fiction · romantic fantasy · weird fiction · Afghanistan · Himalayan mountains · remote mountain valley · early 20th century · geological expedition · hidden civilization · mysterious mountain people

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