Peter & Max

by Bill Willingham

  “Welcome back, Peter,” she finally said, in a way that made him feel anything but welcome. “We’ve missed you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to greet you right away when you’d arrived, but I’ve been ever so busy with my lambs. See how pretty they are?” Peter started to say that he did, but she spoke quickly to cut him off. It seems there was more to her speech. “All except the black one of course. He’s sickly and doesn’t eat well. He’s also stubborn and doesn’t know how to mind like the others. I don’t know why I keep him. One shouldn’t become fond of stupid and stubborn things.”

  By then Peter knew exactly what was coming next.

  “I named him Peter,” she announced.

  Of course.

  “After you,” she added. She didn’t need to. He’d fully understood her intent. Some of this play was still being written by an uncertain little girl. “I’m positive I’ll win all of the prizes this year with my lambs, don’t you think? I won’t enter Peter the Lamb though. He couldn’t win anything and would make me look bad just for having him. He’ll have to stay here when we go to the fair, where he’ll likely be chopped up for our dinner some night.” This year, for the first time that he could recall, Bo wasn’t dressed in the rough and tumble, good-to-get-dirty-in sort of clothes that she’d always favored in the past. Now she wore a pale green and tan summer dress, which should have been put away by this time of the year, but she’d probably insisted on it, and the days were still warm enough. Her long blonde hair, a bit lighter than that of her five golden-haired sisters, was tied behind her with a pretty blue ribbon. She held her own miniature shepherd’s crook, made just to her size. All in all, she looked very much like a pretty little girl, and not much at all like the Bo he’d known in the past.

  When enough time passed that Peter was sure she’d finished everything she’d memorized to say, he said, “I’m sorry I made you cry.”

  “What do you mean, Peter?” she said. “Made me cry? When?”

  “Last year at the end of the fair. You kissed me and I wiped it off, and you cried.”

  “I never did. You just don’t remember right.”

  “You did and I felt bad all year,” he said.

  “No, no, no,” she said, angrily tapping the end of her crook in front of her, like a blind man tapping his cane. Little tufts of grass were torn out with every stab. “I didn’t cry because of anything you did. I think a bee stung me that year, and it hurt. That’s all.”

  “I’m still sorry and I’d like to be friends again, and that’s all I had to say.” Peter turned to walk back to the house, a little hurt and a little confused, because it looked like this had indeed become one of those talking-only kinds of friendships — if they were still going to be friends at all. Bo had truly turned into one of her sisters. But after a few steps, Peter paused and faced her again. “I like the little black sheep and I hope you never chop him up for dinner. And if you ever kiss me again I promise not to wipe it off this time.” He went inside then, leaving her out in the meadow with her sheep.

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER DINNER, the Pipers played again, as they did each year. But this time everyone agreed that they’d outdone themselves. Their music touched on things that were impossible to describe and seemed entirely outside the province of what mankind should ever hope to grasp, much less attempt.

  When the concert ended and the last dregs of wine and beer had been swallowed, or mopped up, or poured out, and everyone had been properly wished a good night with pleasant dreams, Johannes asked Peter to tarry behind. The others were already heading up to their rooms, with candles in one hand and bed warmers in the other, the covered pans newly filled with fresh hot embers from the dying fire.

  “Walk outside with me for a minute,” he said, “and let’s look at the stars before turning in.”

  They did.

  “No stars tonight, Father,” Peter said. “Just clouds covering the entire sky.”

  “That’s all right,” Johannes said. “I didn’t really want to gaze at stars. I wanted to talk to you alone about something important.” Johannes had carried his flute out there with him, as he always did. While all of their instruments were valuable enough, Mother’s precious xylophone being a good example, Father’s flute was a pearl beyond price. It was the single most important treasure the family owned. They never left it packed away in the caravan with the other things, where someone could come along and steal it. Father kept it with him always. Usually, when he wasn’t actually playing it, he’d immediately put it away in its protective sheath of hard-boiled leather, lined with soft satin, which he wore on his belt, like a knight’s great broadsword, or slung over his shoulder, like a royal courier’s dispatch pouch. Tonight Father hadn’t put it away, but carried it openly, and a little bit reverently. It wasn’t very big — barely thirteen inches long, which was almost piccolo sized — though it played a full octave lower than a piccolo. It had a slightly flared cone at one end, eight holes in between, and a whistle-style mouthpiece at the other, which was carved so flat and thin that it looked like the blade of a knife. The small flute was pearly white, having been carved from a single piece of ivory, and then polished to a lustrous sheen that could reflect even the dimmest starlight, had there been any stars out to provide it. And like all truly important things, it had a name, which was Frost.

  Johannes held Frost out where Peter could see it. He said, “How many times have I told you Frost’s story?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said. “Lots.”

  “Well, I’m going to tell it again, one last time. And this time pay very special attention, because there’s more to the tale that I never included before. You’ll want to remember every detail, so that some night many years from now you can say the same things to your own son.”

  Peter felt a sudden thrill of excitement, as if he was kneeling at a lost treasure chest that he’d just unburied and was about to open. He knew instinctively that he was on the cusp of something life-altering. But it was a disturbing sensation too, and even a bit frightening, like that moment just before a dreadful lie is about to be revealed.

  “Long ago,” Father said, “when the world was still young, terrible frost giants ruled the far north. The worst of the lot was named Bryn the Thunderer, who’d kill and eat anyone who wandered into his domain, and would also plunder and raid down into the kingdoms of man, stealing cattle and gold, reaving and slaughtering wheresoever he went. No one could stand against Bryn, until Jorg the legendary warrior bard swore powerful oaths that he’d go north and write an end to Bryn’s depredations for all time.

  “Now there was magic back then in the early songs and therefore in those who could sing them. Every great hero at the age was also a musician. Jorg traveled north and stood outside of Bryn’s great tower, and he called to the giant to come out and do battle.”

  “Which the giant did!” Peter said, too excited to keep from interrupting. This was part of the story he knew very well.

  “Yes,” Father said. “The frost giant came out and they did fierce battle with each other, a battle that lasted four days and three nights and shook the ice-covered lands all around them. But Jorg couldn’t prevail, and the giant finally repulsed him. But that night Jorg wrote a song about the great battle and sang it to the earth and the moon and the stars, and the earth and the moon and the stars listened and took note.

  “The next day Jorg went to stand again before Bryn’s dark tower, and again called him out to battle. And this second great and thundering battle also lasted four days and three nights, before Jorg was repulsed once more. That night Jorg wrote another song about the second battle, and the earth and the moon and the stars listened again and took note. But Jorg was as clever as he was brave and mighty. This time he added a verse to his song wherein he promised that on the third time they battled he’d win a decisive victory and overthrow the giant, taking his head and all of his treasures. And the earth and the moon and the stars pondered this and conferred together and decided that this must indeed come to pas
s, for it’s been written in a song. Before that day — and remember that this happened during the early days of all things — nothing untrue had ever been written into a song.

  “So Jorg and the frost giant battled a third time and it also lasted for four days and three nights, but this time Jorg won. He overthrew Bryn and took his head and all of his treasures. Now we can never know if Jorg defeated the giant solely by his own strength, or if his song convinced the earth and the moon and the stars to help, or even if the very fact of the song was itself enough to conjure powerful magic that determined the battle’s outcome. But what we do know is that Jorg the Clever cut off one of the giant’s fingers to roast over a fire for his dinner that night.”

  “And the finger was bigger than the biggest suckling pig,” Peter said, jumping in with another part that he knew.

  “Yes, it made a fine meal,” Johannes said. Despite the interruptions, he couldn’t help but smile at his son’s obvious enthusiasm. He continued, “So, Jorg ate the giant’s finger down to the bone, and then he took Bryn’s white finger bone and carved this very flute out of it and called it Frost.” He held the flute out again for his son to see. “And it had great magic in it.

  “Jorg was our distant ancestor. Diluted though it may be over the generations, the blood of heroes runs in our veins. When he grew old, Jorg gave Frost to his son, Alban, who passed it on to his son, Albrecht, who passed it on to his son, and so on and so forth, for a hundred generations or more, until I received it from my father, your grandfather. We’ve always owned it from almost the very beginning of time and — this is important — Frost must never be lost, or allowed to be stolen, or given away to anyone but those of our bloodline, or a dire curse will befall us from now on and for every generation to come. That’s the bad part of the magic that’s in this thing, and part of what I never told you before. Do you think you can remember that, Peter?”

  “Uhm … Yes, but …” That’s when Peter began to suspect what was about to happen, and he realized something was very wrong. He knew the part about the generations and that Frost was handed down from father to son for more years than he could ever begin to imagine. And he knew this moment would come someday, but not so soon, and not to him. “But Max …” he began to say.

  “No,” Johannes said. “Not Max. This is for you. Max may be the oldest, so if I had any lands or high titles to pass on, those would rightly go to him. But Frost doesn’t get handed off to the oldest son, it goes to the best musician. And that’s you. I’ve known it for some time, and suspected it even longer. And tonight, when you played the way you did, I realized it was past time to hand Frost over to the next Piper to own it. Remember that it isn’t a gift, it’s a responsibility and a sacred trust, and sometimes even a burden. You can already play better than I ever could, or ever will, and that was while I had Frost to play and you only had your ordinary pipe, made of ordinary wood. In the days and years to come you’ll discover notes you’d never imagined before and find new tunes to play that are so simple and perfect, you’ll wonder how you never thought of them before.

  “And there’s one more thing you need to know, and this is part of the good magic that’s left in the flute, even after so many ages. Because Jorg battled Bryn three times in that long-ago day, then three times — and only three times in your entire life — you can call on Frost’s powers. You can use it to play a tune that will make any danger, great or small, pass you by.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Johannes said. “Three times only though. Remember that part. Then that particular bit of magic won’t work again, until you pass it on to your son.”

  “And you did it, Father? You made danger pass you by?”

  “Yes, and I don’t mind telling you that it saved me from a nasty turn or two. But that was all in my brash youth, when I was full of pepper and aching for adventure. I don’t want to scare you with the details of the first two occasions, but the third and final time I had need of Frost’s powers was when I was courting your mother. I wasn’t the only young bravo who’d caught her eye back then. My rival was the grown son of a landed baron, who liked nothing so much as taking offense at every imagined slight, shooting at folks with his arrows, stabbing folks with his spears and chopping with his sword into pretty-near any unwary skull that had the bad fortune to cross his path. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was out riding on his chargers, at the head of armored columns, making war on his many unhappy neighbors.”

  “So what did you do?” Peter said.

  “What could I do?” Johannes answered. “I was determined to wed your mother and that made the baron’s son awfully prickly. So I played him a sweet tune and he went away to pick other fights. If I can offer you any advice on how to make use of your three gifts, now that you own Frost, I’d caution you to choose wisely how you decide to spend them. Sometimes a situation turns out in retrospect to be not nearly so dire as it may have seemed at first, and only three turns at anything can go by surprisingly fast.”

  Without any further words, Johannes handed Frost over to Peter, who took it in both hands and couldn’t tear his eyes off it. He’d held it many times before, but it never felt quite as heavy as it did now. For a long time no one spoke a word, until Johannes finally said, “It’s grown late and we need to make an early start of it in the morning. Time to go to bed, son.”

  Peter had many dreams that night and all of them involved wonderful and dangerous adventures, where he had to fight valiantly against impossible odds. And Bo was in every one of them, always nearby, always waiting for him to win her from horrible barons’ sons and other deadly monsters.

  In which Bo captures

  Peter and then releases

  him again.

  AFTER A BREAKFAST SPENT MOSTLY IN strained silence, Peter rode with Rose Red back to the main village area, where he dropped her off before taking over the Range Rover and turning it northeast again, then east, navigating around the Farm’s Great Wood, giving it a wide berth. This was the deep forest where tiny but doughty mounted knights of the constabulary rode valorous mice on patrol. Under these dark canopies Kaa lurked in the treetops, proud Bagheera prowled in the night, and the vast and barbarous Bandarlog host cavorted and pestered and performed their secret rituals, away from the sight of man.

  True to his father’s instruction, on that fateful evening so many ages past, Peter had the flute named Frost with him. It sat in its small carrying case on the truck’s bench seat beside him. This was a new case, of course, made of modern high-impact plastic and reinforced steel. The original leather case had worn away long ago, as had many successors since. But Frost remained, unchanged by time. It looked as new today as when he first saw it, and probably the same as when fabled Jorg first carved it.

  Eventually the gravel road turned into little more than an overgrown footpath, and in time disappeared altogether, so Peter had to take the truck overland, avoiding the bigger boulders he could see above the tall grass, and bouncing over small ones he couldn’t. He maneuvered around stands of trees and any number of hidden culverts, ditches and sinkholes. A trip that would have taken minutes on a good road took most of an hour cross country. He kept the truck aimed more or less east, and a bit north, towards a notch between the lowest of the rugged hills girdling Wolf Valley. From a distance at least it looked like the easiest route over to the other side.

  The grade got steadily steeper the closer he approached the hills, and the number of trees, rocks and other obstacles increased. Finally, when the accumulating hazards were more than the vehicle could safely handle, he parked it to get out and walk. He zipped the flute case into a daypack, added a few bottles of water, and a light rain slicker, in case the weather turned, and set out at a brisk pace. He passed a hand-carved wooden sign that announced he was about to leave the Farm. A few feet beyond that, another sign warned him that he was entering Wolf Valley, even though he was still at least one long ascent away from anything remotely valley-like. The slope increased as he went, and
in scant time he was doing as much actual climbing as hiking. He pulled himself upwards, grasping branches and rocks overhead, or anything else that looked solid enough to take his weight without dislodging. There were some evergreens here, but most of the trees were still broadleaves, and this high up they’d already turned every possible variation of red and orange. The overhead leaves stained the blue ceiling of the sky like dried blood spatter.

  After some time Peter finally crested the top of the hill, only to discover that it was a false summit — a ridge that looked like the top from below, but which turned out to be just another step along the way. The rest of the hill continued upwards, following a short tease of gentle down-slope. He decided it was a good time to take a break, so he found a fallen log to sit on. No sooner had he gotten comfortable than a deep bass voice surprised him from somewhere nearby, though its owner remained quite concealed.

  “You made good time,” the hidden someone said. “I was just heading overhill, to meet you at the edge of my property. I thought I’d save you the tough climb.”

  “Bigby?” Peter said, standing up to look left and right, not entirely certain from which direction the voice had come. Then, with a soft rustle of leaves, a huge shape detached itself from the concealment of rock and root, and padded forward through intervening trees, resolving into the form of a wolf as it did so. And such a wolf it was! It was a monstrous thing, as tall as a grown man at its shoulders. Its coat was black on top, shading to gray under its belly. It had yellow-white fangs as long as daggers, and its eyes reflected the filtered light coming through the overhead canopy, amber one second and then dark red the next. This was Bigby, the legendary monster, the subject of countless nightmares, the Lord of All Wolves.