by Toby Forward
He was slipping through. And once you step into the Finished World there is no way to step back. The door closes.
He stepped forward. He was in her hands. And another hand seized his shoulder and pulled him back. It was December. She looked through the gap to the Finished World.
“No,” she said. “Not this time. Not Sam. Not now.”
The gray figure shimmered with hatred and fury.
“Go,” said December.
“I’ll kill you.”
The voice was not a voice. Yet the threat was clear and real.
“No,” said December. “You won’t.”
Her hand grew hot. The half of Sam that was though the door burst into flames.
The gray figure laughed and pulled again.
“I know you,” she said.
December looked hard. Shook her head.
“No,” she said. “No, you don’t.”
December raised her other arm, made a circle with it in the air. The flames died in an instant. She pointed. The gray figure froze. Froze and stopped. All strength gone. White crystals of frost formed on her lips, her eyes.
December pulled, and Sam fell back into the mine and sprawled on the floor next to the body of Bearrock.
The door closed.
The roffles turned and walked away, taking Tremmort with them. Bearrock’s son rubbed his eyes and shook his head as they made their way back to the surface. Whatever he had seen was already slipping from his memory.
December leaned over Sam. His eyes were closed. He trembled more than before. He lay curled up, his knees against his chest, his mouth half-open.
“Enough,” said December. “You have done enough. More than you should.”
Sam stopped shaking.
She put her hand to his head and rested it there.
“Wake up,” she said.
Sam’s eyes began to open. December stepped back into the shadows, waited till Sam stood up, looked around him, and put his fingers to the point where the opening had been, dropped his hand to his side and shuffled toward the mine entrance. December darted away ahead of him.
Sam emerged into the starlight and found his direction in the sky. He followed the music, stumbling on the uneven ground in the darkness. December watched him, hidden. She made no move to help him, to show him the path, letting him stumble.
The music was slow, sad, with a strange, rhythmic thumping underneath that Sam could not understand.
Children crowded around tables set with food. The men and women sat talking and eating on the ground, or stood in small knots of friendship with mugs of beer and cider, beakers of wine.
Sam walked through them, ignored yet not unseen. He knew they were choosing not to recognize him.
No one stopped him taking a chunk of bread and a slice of warm chicken. He folded the bread around the meat and raised it to his mouth.
He could not chew it, could not swallow. His mouth was still too dry, his tongue too big from the days without water, the lack of food. He spat it into his hand and didn’t know what to do with it.
There was water in rough clay jugs. He didn’t bother with a beaker. Finding the edge of light of a torch, he sat in half darkness, sipping slowly, watching.
The water was making him light-headed. For a moment everything became blurred; then he was high above the crowd, looking down at them. He was a dragon again. Hunger gone, thirst forgotten, he soared above it all, rejoicing in the splendor of the air. No longer black and white, in dragon’s eyes the scene was rich in color. The dance now was a pattern of precision and grace.
He saw a small procession returning from the mines—Greenrose, Temmort, the girl Goldengrove, the four roffles. He saw December, and, seeing her, faltered in his flight, dipped down, unsteady, confused. Regaining his wings, he lifted and steadied. He could see himself, the jug on the ground beside him, the bread and meat in his hand, uneaten. He looked defeated.
Thinking of himself sent him back into himself, and he looked around, the images becoming blurred, fading to black, then reappearing with bright clarity, dreamlike detail.
The music began to change, to speed up; the notes slid from sorrow to settled. Sam tried to stand, faltered, and slid back down the ground. He tried and failed to raise the jug to his lips. And then he was up in the air again, looking down.
The small procession had reached the crowd. Sam felt the music take him and he darted through the air in time to its beat. Women joined the men, took their hands, and together they danced the night clear of sadness.
December moved toward Greenrose, leaned her head to the other woman’s, whispered, and drew back.
They were talking about him. He could hear them.
“I must have him,” said December.
Greenrose shook her head again.
“He’s worn out,” she said. “And he was here for my husband while you were missing. He can stay with us.”
“With me,” said December.
Tremmort spoke to his mother, too quietly for Sam. But it was clear what he meant. He looked at December. “Take him,” he said. “There’s no room for him with us.”
Sam smiled. It did not matter to him what they decided. He was not staying at the mines. Whatever happened, he would get away from there as soon as he had eaten and slept.
The dancing was changing again. The jigs were giving way to other tunes, slow, solemn, joyful melodies. The men and women wove intricate patterns of steps, always returning to the place where they began.
Sam flew higher, letting the music rise to him, watching the undulations of the figures below, like patterns in rich brocade.
If only he could be a dragon forever.
Greenrose danced with Tremmort. The boy was surprisingly strong in his movements and graceful in his steps. Something of the sorrow of his father’s death left him, and Sam could see a new certainty wrap itself around the boy like a cloak.
The night was nearly spent. Parents picked up children and carried them, half-asleep, their heads resting on strong shoulders, through the dark town, home to bed. Sam tried to remember if anyone had ever carried him like that. He was sure they had not. His had been a walking life.
Greenrose stooped to pick up Goldengrove, but the girl refused, taking her mother’s hand and walking by her side.
Would they go back to work tomorrow, these sturdy miners, after a night of dancing? Or did a death bring a holiday? Sam knew nothing of the rhythms of life and work. Flaxfield never took time off.
December had not danced. Nor had she spoken to anyone save the family of Bearrock. Now she was making her way toward his sleeping figure. Greenrose saw her, and crossed in that direction, too.
Another confrontation. Another argument about where he would sleep that night. Well, he would settle it himself. Go back, wake up, and go with Greenrose. Tremmort would have to accept it. One night should be enough, two at most. He could repay them with a little magic to help them in these first days of loss.
They stood over him now. He must hurry to wake. He altered his wings to swoop, but they wouldn’t obey his mind. Instead of lowering, he rose. Instead of finding himself, he lost the sense of who he was, down there. Ears sharp with dragon sense, he listened.
Greenrose reached down and shook his shoulder. She turned to look up at December. Sam could see the panic in her face.
“Please,” she said.
December stooped down, put her palm on his forehead.
The women looked at each other.
“He’ll come to me,” said December.
“He helped us,” said Greenrose. “We should take him now.”
“No,” said December. “You know that wouldn’t be right.”
She beckoned to the roffles, who approached.
“What is it?” asked the little girl.
“He’s dead,” said Tremmort.
Sam screamed down at them. “No! I’m here. I’m coming back.”
Their heads jerked up.
“What was that?” said Temmor
t.
“Thunder,” said December. “There’ll be a storm before morning. See the clouds.” She draped Sam’s cloak over him and laid his ash staff across his chest, folding his cold fingers around it to keep it steady.
Dense gray clouds rolled overhead, churning and changing.
“No!” shouted Sam. He tried to dive, but his wings flicked and held him up. “No!”
December whispered to the roffles. They laid Sam on their planks and lifted him to their shoulders.
Greenrose leaned over and kissed his cheek.
The rain started, slow, fat drops at first, then a sheet of water that drenched the small body as it was carried to December’s house.
Leaving the castle
behind him, Starback flew toward the mines.
He just needed to be with Sam again. Sam was in danger. Starback knew he was.
Flaxfield had told him to take care of Sam, but it hadn’t seemed to matter while the old wizard was around. Nothing bad ever happened to Sam, and there was nothing for Starback to do. In fact, it was more as though Sam looked after him. Sometimes, Starback thought he had never really known what it was to be happy until he had come to be with Sam.
And now Sam had gone.
Starback had seen something, in those moments when he was being dragged down into the castle. He had seen through Sam’s eyes. He had felt Sam’s dry mouth, his desperate hunger, the tearing at his throat as he tried to eat. The fear of someone. Starback felt light-headed, dizzy. He saw a face. A woman with a dark shawl covering her ugliness, hiding her lips, her cheeks. Only her bright eyes looking straight at him. Looking with recognition.
This woman wanted to get hold of Sam.
Starback’s wings sliced through the night, hurling him forward, cutting through the miles. He would reach the mines soon. It had always been the mines for Sam. Sam could not escape them. They had been drawing him ever since the first day he had arrived at Flaxfield’s house. Now he was there. Starback knew he was.
His flight had taken him very high. Now he plunged down, angled from the sky, rushing toward Sam.
His dragon eyes saw the dancing, the torches, the roffles with their heads bowed low. His eyes saw the people leaving the scene and making their tired way back to small houses, the narrow town.
He flew faster than he had even known he could, dropping like hail from the sky.
He saw the woman’s face.
“No!” he shouted. “Not you!”
He was close now.
He saw another woman, a boy, a girl.
“No!” roared Starback.
He saw the small body laid out.
He was close enough to hear clearly.
“He’s dead,” said the boy.
Starback screamed down at them. “No! I’m here. I’m coming back!”
Their heads jerked up.
“What was that?” said the boy.
“Thunder,” said the face. “There’ll be a storm before morning. See the clouds.” She draped Sam’s cloak over him and laid his ash staff across his chest, folding his cold fingers around it to keep it steady.
Dense gray clouds rolled over their heads, churning and changing.
“No!” shouted Starback. He tried to dive, but his wings flicked and held him up. “No!”
The face whispered to the roffles. They laid Sam on their planks and lifted him to their shoulders.
The other woman leaned over and kissed his cheek.
The rain started, slow, fat drops at first, then a cloak of water that drenched the small body as it was carried to the face’s house.
Starback wheeled around, lifted high and heavenward. He flew straight into the castle of clouds and sped through, his face wet with rain, traveling far and fast.
The tapping confused Sam
and frightened him. It was the tapping of the miners’ picks. It was the rapping of strangers on the door. It was the tapping of the ash tree against the window. It was the tapping of raindrops from the eaves.
Voices came and went. The boy, Tremmort: “Is he dead?” The mother, Greenrose: “Why did you let him?” The woman with the twisted face, the puckered skin, the hand that dragged him free: “What use am I?” she asked. “Do you think it’s time, Sam? Are you ready?”
Sam sensed that she was near him, stroking his forehead. A door slammed.
Light and dark. Day and night. Voices and silence. And a song. She sang to him, songs of the mines, the dark tunnels and deep diggings. Songs of the sky, and the stories the stars told when no one was listening. Songs of the hearth, the fire glowing behind the iron bars, the embers cooling as the night shrugged off the dark and turned its face to morning. Songs of the woods, the shady corners where the rare herbs grew, the broad oaks and the silver birch, the rivers of bluebells and the green seas of ferns. Songs of books and baking bread. Songs of fishing for trout and swimming for joy. Songs of sorrow and loss. Songs of old men, long in years; songs of women, wide in wisdom.
Songs and silence and the cool cloths on his forehead.
Silence and searching. Her voice, over and over, asking him, calling to him.
“He won’t ever wake up,” said Tremmort. Sam agreed that was the best and turned his heart inward to the longer silence.
He felt her hand grip his arm, tight.
“Where are you?” she asked. “Where are you?”
He opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of a tapestry on the wall above his bed. Perhaps he could go there instead. He closed them again.
December missed the moment. She was staring into the needlework. Her eyes caught a shape she had not seen before. Emerging from a forest, still half-hidden by trees, obscured by shade, was a wolf.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “Where have you come from?”
She thought she knew every detail of the picture, yet she had not noticed this gray figure bounding forward. The colors were soft, the wolf was in shadow, yet, even so, not to have seen it before.
“A wolf, then?” she said.
December put her hands on Sam’s face and she breathed deeply, closing her eyes.
“Is that it? Is it a wolf?”
She began to sing of a wolf.
The rain spattered against the window. The wind whistled down the chimney. The ash tree tapped against the eaves.
December stopped.
The wind clenched and jabbed hard against the house. A rush of soot fell from the chimney, scattering wet and black on the tiles, rising up in gray dust.
“What is it?” asked December. “Tell me.”
She moved to the hearth, dragged her finger through the soot, scooped some into her hand.
“Tell me.”
The soot struggled in her hand. It curled around on itself and lifted up, forming a shape, clumsy and crude, like a cloud picture, but clear enough.
December laughed.
“A dragon. It would be.”
She cleaned her hands, checked the tapestry. There was a dragon, a Green and Blue, in front of a small group of houses and an inn, with trees framing the picture.
December took Sam’s hand again and began to sing. She sang of dragons.
As she sang her face grew tense. Her hand shook. She hesitated, breathed deeply, and continued, her voice clear and strong, beautiful, as she was not. Another voice, and another, joined hers. From outside the house, a howling. December heard, and ignored. Her eyes went to the tapestry. Not to the scene of houses and the inn, but to the dark fringe of forest and the shadowed wolf. Had she made a mistake? Was it wolves, after all?
Their voices joined with hers. The wolves ranged themselves in front of the house, barking, yelping, and howling.
The sudden, sharp stink
made the dragon turn his head and look. The fox slunk past, head drooping, sly and secret. The dragon lay still in the midnight forest, his long flight over. No stars broke through the canopy of thick branches.
He was quiet, as only a dragon can be quiet. The fox did not see or hear or scent him, a l
ame shadow by a stump.
The dragon needed the shelter of the forest, the company of animals and growing things. He could not be where there were people. Here, beneath the trees, he found something deeper than the darkness. Something in himself.
He slept. And he lay, awake, unblinking. Beetles and woodlice, earwigs and mayflies scrambled over him, buzzed past his face, tunneled beneath him, sheltered in the shade of his scales. He was a log, or an ancient stone, covered with moss. Part of the forest floor.
He enjoyed these ticklings and scratchings. To him, the creatures, with their crooked legs and jointy bodies, were as beautiful as a crinkled leaf or a folded petal.
He remembered other forests, other nights. Sometimes he dreamed, and sometimes he thought he dreamed but he was awake. Sometimes dreamed he was not a dragon at all, but a boy. And sometimes, when he was awake and not dreaming, he thought he was a wizard.
But always, he was tired. Too tired to move. Too tired to eat or drink.
The fox stopped and sniffed the dragon’s foot. Two fox eyes met two dragon eyes.
Then the fox was gone, curling into the night forest.
A moth with a fat black body and gray powdery wings flew in through the slit window and danced in the lamplight, diving and swooping near to the flame, then settled on the desk, spread its wings, and came to rest.
Ash finished writing the sentence she had started, wiped the pen nib on a speckled rag, and looked at the moth. She pushed the blunt end of the pen against her cheek to calm an itch, then leaned back in her chair and waited.
The moth unfolded. Its wings flipped over and over till they opened out into a single sheet of notepaper. The black body trickled away into lines of writing.
Ash picked up the note, stood up, and walked to the window. The castle was high, and she was in the tallest turret. From the slit she could see for miles, across the meadow to the forest, and over the tops of the trees into the distance.
She read the note. Read it again, though she did not need to. Placing the paper on her palm, she turned it back into a moth. The lamp needed trimming and smoked a little. She lifted the glass chimney, the heat not seeming to affect her, then held the moth over the flame, watching its wings scorch then flame for a moment before turning to ash. The fat black body bubbled, dripped, and dissolved. She wiped her fingers on the ink rag. Her lips curled in distaste.