Lenna and the Last Dragon

by James Comins

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Cathedral in the Cliff

  or, We Had the Same Eyes

  “They’ve taken Wicklow from me.”

  There was a terrible sound, like a mechanical horse and a pumpkin-wheeled carriage plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. Then it was the slow wash of waves and an old woman’s crying.

  For a moment, Lenna lay back on the gravel and felt too many things. She took off her red witch’s hat and sunglasses. They vanished.

  Darkness took the sky; color went from the world. A shadow slid over the ground, and the sun was cold upon her. The grass shrivelled and the spring flowers turned brown and it felt like there was no warmth left.

  Annie Morgan was impossibly huge, and on her back stood Pol, Emily, Andy, Brugda, Kaldi, Talvi and Aitta. Emily carried a massive hammer with a heavy gold brick at the end, held loosely from her one hand. Andy had his harp. As they passed overhead and circled, the deathly freeze left and spring returned.

  “Did I miss the battle?” asked Annie, landing. “It felt like it ended before I could make it. I don’t think I’ve ever--”

  “Please don’t talk for awhile,” said Lenna.

  Annie transformed, her spine snapping over and over beneath the ragged cloth. From her back the crowd came forward. They stood silent, trying to understand.

  “The cart,” said Annie at last. Lenna nodded up at her. Brugda kept away, bundled into an ill-fitting pink and white dress. Her sequined bonnet was strung tight around her thin-lipped jowls. Andy helped Lenna stand and hugged her when she hugged him.

  “My Wicklow,” Mo Bagohn said lostly.

  “Mom?” came a voice.

  “My only friend in the world.”

  Kaldi tentatively stepped forward. “Mother Bagohn?”

  Creakily, the red shawls backed away from the rim of the cliffs. “Yes,” she said at last. “But I’m not as Bagohn as I was a moment ago. They’ve taken my horse from me.”

  Kaldi knelt beside her, his blue-gray eyes examining the sniffling woman, his thinly-bearded mouth open in wonder. He put out his hand, and she looked down at the hand, then up to his face, which she touched gently with the tips of all her fingers, as if she were blind.

  “Mother, I’ll find you a new horse.” Kaldi spoke in murmurs, leaning over the woman. “This I will do. I promise.”

  “It wouldn’t be Wicklow.” Mo Bagohn took her hand away and lay down, slid, sprawled, staring over the edge of the cliff at the ocean far below.

  “No. It wouldn’t.”

  “All my spells. My cards. All gone.”

  Kaldi took his mother in his arms. Lenna watched them. Mo Bagohn let him draw her away from the roaring seas. She faced Kaldi once again, looked up into his eyes, afraid, and rested her hand on his cheek.

  “You have my eyes,” she told him.

  “People said they were my father’s eyes,” said Kaldi.

  “We had the same eyes.” She closed hers and shuddered. “When one door opens, one door opens. It is good. Yes. Good to meet you. My son.”

  “You too, mom.”

  Lenna and Andy waited and watched as careless seagulls wheeled and called above them. The brown rock they stood on was a desert, and deserted. The air was clear with a touch of salty spray from far below. The world was new and timeless. The air was clear for miles, and in the middle distance were placid automobiles, distant voices, a few piston trees, a windy sigh lasting until all the sadness was spent. The sea growled and spit. A painting of a samurai slid faintly over the clouds.

  Mo Bagohn hefted herself to her feet, leaning on Kaldi’s arm. “By the arrows of my tongue, I pronounce a curse upon them that fooled my wits and took from me everything but these old rags. It is a hard day will be theirs. By its end, I’ll take everything from them. I’ll strike them.”

  Lenna whispered “eek” to herself.

  “Let’s go,” said Mo Bagohn.

  Brugda stopped her with a hand. They exchanged a long look, measuring one another. Brugda stooped and picked up a blue pebble with two fingers. Murmuring to it, the old woman flicked it into the air. It plinked forward.

  “Hurry after it,” said Brugda, huddling in the sleeves of her pink dress. “It’s a lead-me-along.”

  It led the ten battlers along the cliffs to a line of stairs. The jagged stairs were hidden in a broken crevice at the top. They wound down the plummet of the Change-polished stone cliffs, and from there, across the face of the sheer wall. The pebble bounced down the small crooked steps in slow motion.

  They followed the pebble in a tight line down the steps. The wind struck against the height of the cliffs, buffetting Lenna, pushing her toward the roaring void. Hunkering, she kept a hand on the perfect slick-smooth wall of the cliffs. The polished stone felt like a mirror. Andy walked backwards just ahead of her, ready to catch her if she fell. Each step was a sliding struggle of offset feet and hands. Many of the steps were slanted downward, and the polish of Joukka Pelata’s crystal magic land had made them smooth and impossible to hold on to. Each step was a slide, and any skid would send her cascading off into the far sea. She felt her boots twist involuntarily on the surfaces of the narrow steps, and sometimes she had to quickly cross one foot over the other to balance herself.

  Further down the winding stair, they reached a line where sea spray transformed the steps into dire, greased ice cubes, each one a different slanted shape. She felt herself sliding away, gliding off toward the water far below. She scrambled up against the wall of the cliff, but her feet pulled her down toward the edge, again and again. To make matters worse, a strange bell would toll infrequently. She wondered whether there was a giant clock inside the cliffs, tolling every minute. The bell shook the stone and distracted her. She kept both hands on the stone as she took each step forward. On one side of her, the sheer slimy polished cliffstone was covered with butterfly-symmetric orange lichens like paper snowflakes. There was an occasional clinging purple flower wagging in the wind. On the other side of her was a roaring grid of ocean cut with a few far-away snippets of island. As the stones got slipperier and slipperier, Lenna found that it was impossible to close her eyes without tipping. Even blinking made her wobble. Ahead of her, Andy kept his hands up like a ninja, watching over her. And the bell tolled again.

  At last they descended within sight of the waterline itself. The water had Changed like everything else: it was perfectly flat like glass, smooth and waveless. It was vibrating like the ending of a struck gong, however, humming. Where the water met the bottom of the cliffs, a set of concentric standing waves grew stronger and stronger, throbbing up through the stone until the waves matched phase. Then the bell sounded, and a gust of spray broke through the glassy surface tension and slopped across the lower face of the cliff in a shower of diamonds. Lenna found herself trying to predict when the vibrating tension would break and flinching when it did.

  The pebble bounced around a corner into a split in the cliff face. It danced into a sundered blackness with no ledge to stand on. As Lenna turned the corner after Andy, she found that there was only a narrow crumble of wet rock, a thin walkway along the cliff face. The walkway narrowed over a chasm of white water below. They edged with their full bodies pressed to the stone, edged and edged with their feet shuffling under them, a train of circus acrobats on opening night. The thin rock broke under Kaldi’s boot, and he slipped and caught himself. Mo Bagohn’s clothy form muttered imprecations as her son pulled himself back to safety.

  The footholds tapered away and vanished. Luckily the opposite side of the rock was close. Stretching, they braced themselves hand and foot against the two sides, shimmying along. Below Lenna was empty air and shaking water. The gong-vibrations resonated through the stone, stronger and stronger on either side. She flinched and shut her eyes and pushed her hands and feet as hard as she could into the V of rock. She held her breath. The wave broke and saltwater spat. Breathing again at last, she discovered that she was still there, and continued onward.

  At
the junction of the V was a tunnel mouth leading into the stone. Thankfully it had a floor, and they swung like monkeys into the cave. The entrance stood just above the dark watermark of high tide. Around a dark corner they all arrived, above water and in one piece. The cave was hidden away from the froth by the wet lip of rock behind them, and they rested in the basin of the cave mouth, breathing hard. The pebble had vanished into the heart of the cave.

  Kaldi led them into the dark, looking for the bouncing pebble. Inside, the air was still and cool. Lenna tripped on some stupid barnacles. Andy caught her arm and hauled her back up.

  “At least ye waited till you got inside to fall down,” he said.

  “Mm-hm.”

  There was no light in the cave. Lenna wanted to magic up some light, but she was worried about asking for a flashlight and winding up with wild monsters. It wasn’t fair: Brugda’s magic never did anything creepy, other than kill a pig or scratch a tree. It just made things happen.

  “Brugda?” she asked.

  “Yes, Little Len?”

  “Can you make the cave bright?”

  “That’s witch’s magic,” said Brugda.

  “Why?”

  “Ask a witch, child.”

  Lenna turned. “Can you light up the cave, Miz Bagohn?” she asked.

  “Haven’t--haven’t got my--”

  Mo Bagohn started to cry, and Kaldi held her. “Find me a glowworm, Annie,” she sniffled.

  A bare foot with talons stepped forward into the lightless cave. “Come with me, Lenna,” the goddess said. “I can see in the dark, but I’ll need someone to carry the worm back. I’ll guide you. We can talk on the way. I’ll tell you about magic, if you like.”

  “Okay,” said Lenna. “But I thought you didn’t know about magic.”

  “I do so!” Annie exclaimed. “It was the thing you did to the potato salad that I couldn’t see. Come on. There’s bound to be a glowworm here somewhere. Follow my voice.”

  The voice had already begun moving into the darkness.

  “Watch your left side,” said Annie. “There’s a toe-stubbing rock.” Lenna put her foot on it gingerly and turned a gloomy corner and then there was no more light at all. She closed her eyes and opened them again and couldn’t tell the difference. Annie touched her hand, and she shrieked at the cold fingers. “Don’t be afraid. This’ll be easier,” Annie said. “All right. So magic comes in lots of flavors. Duck.”

  “What’s duck magic? OW.” Her head cracked into a rock.

  “Maybe this isn’t going to work,” said Annie.

  “No no no no no no. Tell me.”

  “Turn left. It smells mustier there. Okay. So for instance, Mo’s flavor of magic is nature magic. Living things are normally full of magic. But they only use a little of it at a time.”

  “So they don’t run off cliffs?” said Lenna.

  Annie stopped. “Um, yeah. Phroooo. You have this way of saying things, Lenna?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Duck again.”

  Annie poked a huge forefinger onto the ribbon in Lenna’s hair, and she crouched.

  “Does duck mean hunch?” asked Lenna.

  “Yes,” said Annie. “Yes it does. Okay. So. Hush and let me explain. Um. Mo Bagohn’s magic breaks through the limits of how much magic a living thing can use at once. So with her spells, living things become superpowered. They use up more of their life at once and grow really fast. Is this making sense? I don’t think I’m very good at explaining things.”

  “I see. Tell me more please, Miss Morgan.”

  “Right. Watch your feet.”

  “I can’t even see them. Woop!” There was a dip in the cave bottom, and her foot plunged into it. Annie provided an arm for Lenna to lift herself up with. She picked her leg back up and stepped around the dip. They walked on. Water dripped distantly, plink plink.

  “That’s why she can grow a squash the size of a carriage. She can cut through the barriers in its DNA that stop it from growing so big. Witch’s magic can do crazy things with the right herb or tuft of hair or whatever she needs. The glowworm will probably glow as bright as the sun when she’s cast her magic on it. But it definitely isn’t healthy for living things to get pushed too far past their limits. I mean, if she’s telling a sick person to heal faster, that’s one thing. But the glowworm will probably die. Which is fine. Nature has a lot of dead stuff in it. You see a lot more dead foxes than living ones. Climb up this ledge.”

  This time she put her hand out and patted around in front of her until she found it.

  It was a tall ledge, and Annie had to give her a boost. There was also soggy moss at the top.

  “Ick ick slime!”

  “It matches your boots.”

  She stood, and with a whoosh, Annie was on the ledge beside her. “What about Brugda’s magic?” asked Lenna, wiping her slimed hands ineffectually on her leather dress. “She told me that the chant asks and, um, the magic answers,” said Lenna. “I think. Or something.”

  “That’s the dumbest explanation I’ve ever heard. Brigid’s order magic is all about cutting things up. Everything in the world has a certain way it’s supposed to look. Like, um, a frog. A frog has big eyes and four legs and it’s green, right? That’s the way it looks when it’s full of order magic. When things are orderly, when they haven’t been messed up or screwed around with, they look just right. Then, if you cut the frog open so it doesn’t look right, the order magic leaks out of it and you can use it to do all sorts of bizarre things. A disorderly world lets you break through reality itself a little bit, based on how much damage you’ve done to reality, and also if you know the right words. Words have their own magic. Creep around this puddle.”

  “I have tall boots. I can walk right omigoodness.”

  “It’s pretty deep,” Annie said, pulling her out with a slosh. “I’m just guessing, of course.”

  Lenna shook her boot, but water had gotten inside. She had to stop, unbuckle it and pour the sludgy water out. “Miss Morgan, do you see the Changes?”

  “The whats?” said Annie.

  “Nevermind. Go on about Brugda’s magic.”

  “Righty. So. Brigid’s magic is all about screwing things up just enough to see the way things aren’t.”

  “What?”

  “Hum. Okay. Let me try that again. So the world is made up of secrets. They’re hidden below the surface of things. Brigid cuts things open to find out the secrets. She can find out the future by killing let’s say a frog, but she couldn’t make the frog hop unless it was already planning on it. She could choose a future where the frog wanted to hop, though, by killing a second frog--nevermind. I’m starting to confuse myself.”

  “She can choose the future? Could she choose a future where we find a glowworm?”

  There was a blue glimmer.

  “Oh. Here’s one. Let’s go back.” Lenna picked up the wiggly blue bug.

  “Okay. Other side of the puddle this time,” said Annie.

  “Tell me about church magic, Miss Morgan.”

  “Mmmm. Right. Church magic. Hm. So church magic is about good decisions and bad decisions. The trouble is, they’re equally powerful. Only, if you make good decisions, good things happen to you afterwards. And if you make bad decisions, bad things happen to you.”

  “Uh oh. What if you made a really, really bad decision?”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” asked Annie, crunching across a patch of gravel in her crusted bare feet.

  “I cursed Brugda in a church. Because I was mad at her.”

  “And magic happened while you were there?”

  Lenna nodded above the blue bug. Annie seemed to see her in the darkness.

  “You’ll get paid back for the magic. Always,” Annie explained. “The good and the bad return to you, no matter what sort of church you do the magic in.”

  “But nothing bad happened to me! It’s Binnan Darnan and Mo Bagohn and Brugda and all my friends that bad things are happenin
g to!”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Awful,” Lenna whispered.

  “That’s how you get paid back. Jump down.”

  She landed on the ground below the slime ledge.

  “Oh. So why couldn’t you see my magic?”

  “Dunno. Maybe it’s a secret kind of magic. Here we are.”

  They could see peopley shadows in the light of the cave mouth. Lenna waved the wiggly blue bug. Mo Bagohn took it and shook it and filled the cave with light. A gaping chasm of stalagmites and matching stalactites shone blue.

  “On,” the red-shawled witch breathed. And on they went, in the shady blue light of the bewitched bug.