Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits

by Robin McKinley

  I had been looking forward to Dag telling us what you could see when the dragon does whatever it does. There are stories that you can see three thin shiny lines like threads or ribbons or tiny lightning beaming out of the dragon’s three eyes, and where the lines cross is the way in, somehow—although I wasn’t expecting anything too exact since dragons have been Flying through the Firespace for as long as there have been humans to see them disappear and reappear, and still no one knows anything really about how they do it. Except that they need all three eyes. A two-eyed dragon is grounded under the blue sky.

  I’d heard him say his dragon—Hereyta—had only two eyes, but I hadn’t taken it in. I’d maybe half assumed that First Flight was mostly a ceremonial thing or something. Once I understood what he was telling us I was really upset. No wonder Dag looked haunted. And I didn’t even know this (or any) dragon. My mind started flicking through all the stuff Ralas had taught me, because that was what my mind automatically did now whenever there was any hurt or distress around. But nothing I knew could come anywhere near this. I couldn’t help wondering if Ralas could do anything, but she was still only an all-sorts wizard, even if she was a good one, and all-sorts wizards don’t mess with dragons.

  Foogits have three eyes too, by the way, or they did, although it’s getting rare. The third one is usually covered up by the topknot, but it’s ornamental or vestigial or whatever, and a foogit can’t see out of it even if it has a haircut. As I sat there thinking miserably about Dag’s dragon it occurred to me to wonder if maybe that’s another part of the reason everybody treats foogits like an ugly whining poor relation, because they have the gall to pretend to have three eyes like dragons, like the only creature there is who can get in and out of the Firespace—but the third eye’s a fake on foogits. Their habit of silly dancing doesn’t do them any favours either. But why do they have something that looks like a third eye? Nothing else does. Maybe they use it really secretly? Maybe the third eye has an extra eyelid that zooms back when nobody else is around and . . . nah. If Sippy was at all typical—and Ralas seemed to think he was—I couldn’t see an entire species of Sippys hiding something like being able to get into the Firespace.

  At the same time a third eye on a foogit—even though it’s not a real eye and the foogit can’t see out of it—is considered lucky. Sippy had a third eye.

  Mum had been wittering away about how Dag must be mistaken, the Academy staff wouldn’t do what he said they were doing, and Dad was making rumbling support-of-Mum noises, and I wasn’t listening. I started listening when Dag broke in on this well-meaning clatter. ʺHave I told you how she lost the eye? She was in the war with the Srandems fifteen years ago. She took a spear meant for her partner. They were up in the wild lands, up beyond Ogan, and were ambushed. She still got them home, although Carn says he doesn’t know how she did it, since they could only go under the blue sky, and the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding, for weeks, he said, the spear was probably poisoned, so that it kept bleeding is probably what saved her life but even a dragon can only lose so much blood, and he was already pretty out of it himself because the spear-thrower had already had a go at him. . . . Carn’s a tutor at the Academy now. He introduced me to Hereyta himself. Carn’s still pretty lame, and every now and then he turns really grey and has to sit down. You’d think he’d’ve stopped it, assigning her to First Flight. You’d think he wouldn’t care if every Seer ever born stood in a row and told him she had to be assigned to First Flight, after what she did for him, that he’d find a way to stop it.ʺ

  I woke up really early the next morning, thinking about Dag’s dragon and how much she was going to mind what happened, just like Dag said, and eventually thinking about it bothered me so much that I went downstairs to boil some water. I’d decide if I wanted blastweed to wake up or snorewort to put me back to sleep after I had the hot water to do it with.

  I found Dag still sitting by the fire where he’d been when the rest of us went to bed. He looked even worse than he had when he arrived. Coming home hadn’t helped. Usually when you tell somebody else something that hurts, it hurts less after. ʺWant some blastweed?ʺ I said, making up my mind.

  Dag stirred. ʺSure,ʺ he said absently. ʺThanks, Tinhead.ʺ Mum would stop my brothers calling me that if she was around, but since they’d always used it when she wasn’t it came out automatically. I was supposed to call him Geezer back but I didn’t have the heart. I put the mug by his elbow and sat down opposite him with my own.

  The blastweed started exploding through my veins and the silence got too loud to bear. ʺWant to come out to Ralas’ with me?ʺ

  It took Dag about two minutes to come back from wherever he was and answer me. Was it his life he was looking at being wrecked before it got started—even I knew that if you failed First Flight you were pretty well doomed—or was it the dragon? That took about two seconds to decide. Dag and I don’t have much in common but we’re both nutty about animals.

  ʺOkay,ʺ he said. ʺThanks.ʺ

  Sippy always knew when I was coming. Don’t ask me how; he usually met me halfway between the village and Ralas’ which means he has to have got started almost as soon as I did. Ralas said she always knew when I was coming because Sippy disappeared. He rushed up to us and cavorted like a puppy the way he always did, except unlike puppies foogits are green(ish) and don’t wag their tails. If you didn’t know about his leg you probably wouldn’t guess; he’d adapted really well, although his run was a little strange. But foogits all run a little strangely. Dag actually smiled.

  I knew Ralas would take one look at Dag and know something was badly wrong but being Ralas wouldn’t ask. She just took him on a tour. There was someone coughing in the back of her house but we all ignored it. I knew it was Moga, the cooper’s son, who was allergic to wood dust. Ralas was trying to talk his dad into apprenticing him early to get him away from home, but Gakan was a stubborn old so-and-so, and since Ralas couldn’t actually say what she meant outright—including that she’d be happy to do the tricky negotiating for an underage apprentice that didn’t include any mention of the crime of illness—poor Moga was still coming out to Ralas’ to cough pretty regularly. Ralas would load him up with gil berry tincture and he’d go home and be okay for a few weeks. And then he’d start to wheeze, and then he’d start to cough, and then he’d be back to Ralas’ again.

  I let the tour get ahead of me. Sippy wanted to play his charging game, which involved running at me full tilt and at the last minute swerving aside and leaping straight into the air. I guess it was some kind of variation on the foogit dance, maybe because Sippy didn’t have any other foogits to do it with. Fortunately he’d begun teaching me this game when he was still small and unsteady so I was willing to stand still while he charged me because he didn’t go that fast and wasn’t big enough to do either of us much damage if the purpose of the game was to slam into me after all, like maybe when I wasn’t expecting it. Except it wasn’t. So I held my ground as he got older and bigger and cut the last-minute swerve till I almost had to shut my eyes, and the breeze of his turn would hit me instead, and maybe the tickle of the end of a flying ear.

  I’d asked Ralas if he ever charged her, or anyone else, or maybe a tree or something, or if he ever just leaped in the air and did his trick out of nowhere, and she said she didn’t think he ever did.

  So I stood there so Sippy could play his game, and moved around a little to go on facing him when he charged, which seemed to be what he wanted, and thought some more about Dag and his dragon. When Sippy got tired—which didn’t take long; this was a very high-energy game—we went off to find Ralas and Dag.

  I could tell he was telling her about his dragon. People do tell Ralas things. I suppose we were both secretly hoping that she’d say, ʺOh, your dragon is missing an eye? Why, I had a case like that last month. Apply this night and morning for a week.ʺ But she didn’t of course. She just looked really sympathetic. I wondered if maybe she could give a two-eyed dragon a home but she didn’t say anythin
g about that either. And a dragon does take up an awful lot of space (and food) and the woodland where Ralas lived isn’t that big and Birchhome is on one side and Twobridge on the other side.

  Dag was just finishing when Sippy and I arrived. We sat around (in Sippy’s case lay around) in silence for a few minutes drinking Ralas’ tisane (Sippy had most of a bowl of water) and then Ralas said to Dag, ʺWhy don’t you take Ern and Sippy with you when you go back to the Academy?ʺ

  She said it in this really reasonable voice like you might say, ʺBe sure to pack enough sandwiches, and don’t forget your oilskin because it’s going to rain some more.ʺ Dag opened his mouth and closed it again. He may call me Tinhead but he’s not a bad guy. So since he wouldn’t say it, I did.

  ʺWhy?ʺ

  Ralas laughed. ʺI don’t know,ʺ she said, in that maddening wiz ardy way of hers. ʺIt feels like a good idea.ʺ

  It’s true that when your wizard suggests you do something—especially a local wizard who usually gives pretty good advice and who furthermore has done your family a good turn or two already—you tend to do it. However useless or insane it sounds. Even so, when Dag looked into the bottom of the mug he was holding and sighed and said, ʺAll right,ʺ I wondered what she’d put in his tisane.

  I could think of about six buts immediately and, give me a minute, I’d think of six more. But I looked at Dag with his big shoulders all slumped staring into the bottom of his mug with his hands cupped over the brim like the answer was in there and he was trying to prevent it from jumping out and running away, and didn’t say anything after all. No, that’s not true. After a little while I said, ʺWhen do you want to leave?ʺ

  ʺTomorrow,ʺ he said.

  Mum blinked once or twice when Dag told our parents what Ralas had said, but Dad didn’t even do that much. He was polishing a fancy carved chair leg he’d just mended and neither sons nor wizards were going to interrupt his train of thought. Mum tried to get him to pay attention by repeating the news but all he said was, ʺAh? When’re they leaving then? Maybe you can get Jardy to do some of your deliveries.ʺ But when he came in from his workshop he gave me a very clear, sharp, paying-attention look, and then nodded. I knew that nod. It was the nod he used when he’d been going around a craft fair or something looking at all the other carpenters’ work and found something he really liked. It rattled me, that nod, but it also made me feel good, although I wasn’t going to risk it by saying anything like ʺWhat do you mean?ʺ

  But it was even stranger, later on, when I was doing the washing up, and Mum came up behind me and said, ʺErn.ʺ Dag had already gone to bed; he’d had no sleep last night. I braced myself. Mum tended to know everything and to be generous about spreading her superior intelligence around. Or maybe I just wasn’t cleaning the dishes well enough. But she didn’t say anything for so long after she’d said my name eventually I turned around (dripping water and soap-suds) and she was standing there with her face all screwed up with worry.

  ʺMum—?ʺ

  ʺTake care of him, won’t you?ʺ she said. ʺYou’ll take care of Dag.ʺ

  This was more worried than I’d ever seen her. I tried to look taller and older. She didn’t even say anything about the dripping when I put my arms around her. ʺOf course I will.ʺ

  In more of her usual manner she said, ʺDon’t patronise me, young man,ʺ although she didn’t shake me off. She added, ʺBut you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and Dag has . . . temporarily mislaid his. I don’t suppose Ralas can do anything about the dragon?ʺ

  I shook my head.

  ʺBe careful,ʺ she said. She hesitated and then said, ʺMaybe I should—ʺ and stopped. ʺYou’re dripping on the floor.ʺ

  I turned back to the dishes, trying not to let her see me grin. She put her hand on my shoulder. ʺWe’ll talk about your future when you get back.ʺ

  And then I bent lower over the dishes so she couldn’t see my face.

  ʺYes, I know, we should have done it before.ʺ She added, ʺWe haven’t forgotten you, Ern.ʺ

  I didn’t say anything, and she patted my shoulder and left me.

  It was sunny and clear when we set off the next morning (but we had our oilskins because it would rain later, and lots and lots of sandwiches because Mum always believed her sons were about to starve to death). If it had just been Dag he could have stayed a week because he’d be able to find a dragon to hitch a ride on; there were always dragons going to Clare, which is a big town in its own right as well as being the Academy town. Even the smallest, slowest dragon doing hop-stops (which is all you find around here) is still days faster than human feet. But cadets aren’t allowed to bring their little brothers let alone their little brothers’ foogits when they hitch. So we were going to walk.

  I tried not to sound like I was looking for a way out when I asked Ralas if Sippy could walk that far on his leg. But she said immediately, ʺHe’ll be fine.ʺ And she gave me this enormous pot of liniment in case he seemed stiff. ʺGood for everybody,ʺ she said smiling. I hadn’t thought about that; I spent nearly all day every day walking somewhere. And Dag—Dag was my oldest brother and a dragon academy cadet. They don’t get stiff, do they? It’s probably forbidden in the rulebook. It wasn’t till a lot later that I thought about what she’d meant by ʺeverybody.ʺ

  Sippy was obviously a bit puzzled when Ralas made a slightly more than usual fuss over him when she sent him off with me that morning. Since we were going to Twobridge it seemed easier to pick Sippy up on the way than get into a flap with Mum. She preferred to know about Sippy from a distance. (Although occasionally after a long day delivering candles I brought Sippy with me, and smuggled him upstairs to my bed which is conveniently tucked way in under the eaves. But I didn’t do it very often. And as long as I didn’t do it very often Mum gallantly pretended not to notice.)

  Sippy was even more puzzled when we got to Twobridge and went over the river to Waysmeet and then kept on going. Waysmeet was my candle-delivery limit. But he followed me like he always did even if his eyes and ears seemed to be whirling in five different directions at once, taking in all the new sights and sounds. Not that the village after Waysmeet looked much different. But the next day, after sleeping not-as-uncomfortably-as-it-sounds under a hedgerow, you could start to see the landscape getting flatter and more open, and for days after the towns were still small and there were plenty of fields and hedgerows and streams. Once we camped by the edge of a little forest and collected enough dead wood to have a (slightly damp and sullen) fire. When it spat and fizzed at us Sippy hid behind me.

  When we got to Montuthra we turned right instead of left and then I was on new territory; the big craft fair my parents went to every year was in the other direction. And after Montuthra was West Cross and then East Cross, and after that Leton.

  Dag and I didn’t talk much so I stumped along beside or behind him like nothing was a big deal. I don’t know if he knew I’d never been this way before. He was getting more and more shut in on himself as the road disappeared under our feet and out behind us in the wrong direction, and the towns got bigger. As he got closer to the Academy, to Hereyta, and to First Flight. With a runty little brother and a lame foogit at his heels.

  It was like he was waking out of a trance the last day at sundown. We were getting to what looked like the end of the town we’d been walking through (Sippy so pressed up against me I kept tripping over him; the only other town this size he’d seen was the one I’d found him in with a smashed leg) and I was wondering if I should say something before we walked past what might be the last inn we’d see before midnight. I didn’t think much of the local hedgerows, and I didn’t feel like walking till midnight, and in spite of picking up some food at markets on the way we’d eaten all of Mum’s sandwiches by then (she didn’t realise, because I’d been careful not to let her realise, how much Sippy eats). And we were short of sleep.

  Last night’s hedgerow had been a little too well populated and the family nearest us had a crying baby. Eventually I put on my best harmless-an
d-reassuring manner, although it works better in daylight, and went over there. I could see the mum in question was trying not to snap at me—if I was going to complain, I was also going to force her to admit that her child wasn’t perfect. She said, ʺI’m sorry, but he’s teething. He can’t help it. I can’t help it.ʺ

  ʺI know,ʺ I said. ʺBut this will help. Just rub a little on his gums.ʺ I wasn’t sure she’d try it—I’m good at looking harmless, but not so good at looking like I know what I’m doing—but she was desperate. The baby was asleep before I got back to Dag. He said, ʺYou should have gone over earlier.ʺ

  ʺYeah,ʺ I said. But I knew he was saying ʺwell done.ʺ

  I prepared to take advantage when he stopped and looked at the inn sign hanging under the lantern—looked at it like he was paying attention to something outside his thoughts for the first time that day. A girl in an apron was coming out of the inn with a long spill to light the lantern.

  ʺSippy and I’ll sleep in the stables, if you’ll bring us some supper, ʺ I said quickly. I had my hand in my pocket for the coins Dad had given me; most inns would give a cadet in uniform free room and board, but Dag wasn’t wearing his uniform. And sleeping in the stables was cheaper, but I also knew that no respectable inn would have a foogit indoors, and I didn’t want to imagine what Sippy might do locked up all by himself in a little dark box in a strange town.

  Dag wouldn’t take Dad’s coins and when he found us in the stables later on he was carrying a big tray with enough for three, and threw his pack down beside mine. He seemed almost cheerful. I’d already piled up straw so high that it was going to be a much more comfortable bed than we’d had the last several nights, and was feeling relatively cheerful myself. ʺHope you don’t mind if I join you,ʺ Dag said. ʺIf I sleep in one of their rooms I’ll just lie awake and . . . think. I find Sippy’s snoring soothing.ʺ