Chasing the Dragon

by Justina Robson

  He paused in the course of his walk now to look out at the only nondisappointing feature. His path traced the edge of the known world, about a mile from the line where the geography and atmosphere of Under broke up and faded away. Beyond it and, he thought, around it, was a starry void not unlike deep space, except that instead of showing vast tracts of black emptiness it was filled with shimmering, endlessly flowing fields of faint light. The stars were not bright, but few, distant, tiny, and remote. The light fields moved in all directions, and sometimes made him dizzy if he looked for too long. He thought at first they were a kind of nebula, clouds of gas illumined by other objects. However, there were no other objects, so that theory hadn't lasted.

  The path under his feet was bare and a little stoney. He put down his two tightly stuffed sacks-this was the way back-and sat on them to take advantage of his own speed. Lily (not her real name) did not need him, well, at all if truth be told. Mina (not her real name either) claimed she had to have a constant supply of materials or else there'd be damn trouble and he mustn't be later than the strike of six. It was 4:30-something. He had hoped to feel better for looking at the light, but he felt sad. To the other side of the strip of land he inhabited there was another zone of breaking and another miraculous spatial vast. He thought Faery must be upwards, where there seemed to be sky. There was no sun. Light came and went but cast no shadows.

  He had sat here at 4:30-something every day for the last couple of decades and stared out into the end of the world, looking for clues. Around him the dull reddish ground was dusty, stoney, and uninteresting as the surface of Mars. It wasn't only figuratively dead, it was aetherically dead as well. He'd tried to find the slightest trace of earth elemental, but nothing had replied to his summons. Tests revealed the entire place to be utterly without power or life. He couldn't understand why the Sisters stayed here. They didn't have to. He'd seen them come and go.

  He looked as far as he could out into the tracts. The light shimmered and waved its spectral colours, all hues, like dissolving rainbows. He tried to imagine them into shapes, but it wouldn't come; they defied shape or else he couldn't make them fit. He wondered how much longer he could stand it, how long he would have to wait. Those two unknowns weighed on him every day. Were they the same, close, far apart? Was it pointless to carry on? Was help about to arrive any minute? Even an attempt to muster a sense of hope or urgency fell flat. He was sure it was a feature of the Sisters, like this place-all of it was them. Since he had been here, there had been no real intention in him, no fancies, and at night no dreams.

  He wondered if Jack the Giantkiller had pounded them out of him. That was possible. The memory was very dim, but it was one of his only ones. He recalled friends, but not much about them. Only a girl stood out in his mind clearly. She had dark hair, with a red splash in it, and robot hands, and a pretty dress. He wondered if she was a figment of his imagination, but he seemed to remember her standing close, alongside Jack, in the snow. Her silver eyes had reflected him and in them he saw himself as he used to be and knew that way that he had once been real.

  He felt convinced they would come, but recently that conviction had worn away and become so threadbare there was about nothing left of it. His heart was heavy and sore. He was lost, and in Faery that meant as good as forgotten.

  He bent down and saw the writing he had made yesterday in the dust. It hadn't changed-no wind-but he regrooved it with the end of his finger now, his hidden prayer to the silver-eyed girl because he was sure that she had been alive at the end. He didn't let himself think that now she may be dead.

  Hurry up.

  That done, he resumed staring at the lights until it was time to go. Then he got up, picked up the sacks, and walked along the path to Mina's house. It was a tidy house, white stone, a slated roof, and a tall chimney. The garden-a span of blue grass-was marked out by a low white fence without a gate. He passed through this opening and looked up to see the sky change. The closer one got to the house the more the illusion of a blue sky or a night sky receded and the light fields against the empty space revealed themselves. Directly above the chimney, so high it must be miles up, was a black circle, almost a dot. Around this the delicate webs of light spun, forming a spiral shape like a hurricane or a galaxy. The light streaked thin, into distinct lines, as it neared the edge of the circle, but the edge was sharp and what lay behind or beyond it was impossible to see. The black hole permitted no escape. The light poured up through it. He knew from long ages of observation and question that this was Mina's distaff, funnelling upwards into the loom of Faery. The sight was utterly enchanting and it filled him with despair.

  He tore his gaze away from it, the only route out of the place and far beyond his reach, and hoisted the sacks through the door. Inside Mr. V was cleaning. At least he was supposed to be cleaning, but Mina's house rarely saw either her or a visitor so there was almost nothing to do day by day and he was, as usual, sitting in the front room in the armchair beside a roaring fire, his feet up. His feet had to be up because he was a dwarf and the chair seat was large. A book was open in his tiny hands, his glasses at the end of his nose. His pipe was lit and resting on its stand, the graceful curve of its stem almost as long as one of Mr. V's arms. The smoke had already quietly perfumed the room. Zal took a deep breath and smelled cherries, and toasted plum brandy, and cinnamon and old roses. He said hello and Mr. V smiled his whitebearded Father Christmas smile that made his eyes crinkle and almost entirely hide their light green sparkle.

  "Master Zal. Got the day's allotted thread?"

  "No, it's those people I murdered the other day. The rats dug up the bodies and now I thought I'd put them down the waste disposal in the sink."

  Mr. V beamed. "Excellent." He picked up a feather duster from the seat next to him and waved it around idly. "I'm working hard myself."

  Zal couldn't dislike Mr. V, for all that he had tried to haul any kind of sense out of the little old guy and never had managed to. The dwarf was round, good-humoured, endlessly patient, and even kind.

  "Come and look in the fire." He often said that.

  Zal went over and looked. It was easier to do what Mr. V asked because he'd keep asking until you did. The flames were roaring heartily on a bed of coals. Zal was careful not to get too close. It was extremely hot.

  "What do you see?"

  This was a difficult question. Zal knew that Mr. V was hoping he would see something, but so far he hadn't managed to see anything but flames. He'd tried lying a couple of times, but the dwarf had always chuckled and called him a wee fiend of a fibber, a tinkus-minkus, a par- celler of verily old ropies, and other such silly names. For a reason he didn't understand Zal wanted badly to please Mr. V and see something. Mr. V seemed to have nothing at all in his tiny life except dusting Mina's knickknacks, cooking the odd meal, and perusing an infinite variety of small journals out of which he would read tall tales to Zal, if it was late and Zal was particularly miserable. Also, apart from Mr. V, Modgey the horse, and Tubianca the cat there was nobody to talk to at all and nothing to do. Fire-staring was really quite appealing.

  He looked into the fire. Nothing happened. He tried to create shapes, figures, monsters from the id, but all he could see was flame leaping on the glowing rock, dancing merrily, never repeating, quite without meaning. If there was more to this than providing a bit of hackneyed light entertainment for Mr. V, it was not obvious to a naked elfin eye.

  Not that he had one of those to throw around. He saw quite well as it happened, and he could move all right, so much so that he was still surprised sometimes to look down and find that he was made of cloth.

  A glance in any mirror-and there were many at Lily's houserevealed the truth of his current existence. He was shorter than he used to be, but with the old proportions so that his limbs were long and lean, his torso verging on skinny, his face squared at the jaw with a chin that had been difficult to sew and had ended up pointed when Lily pricked her finger on the needle and lost her temper. His ear
s were satin with fringed edges, supported by fine wires that ended somewhere in his head. His hair was combed-out horsehair, flaxen but as thick as straw. His eyes were stitched in brightly coloured thread with a painted black slash in each centre that somehow functioned perfectly as a pupil even though he had never seen it move.

  The shadows of his true form showed as purple-black ink stains on the surface of his white cotton body, giving the illusion of contours. His hands were thick fingered and heavy and his limbs bent where they were stitched at the joints. That was what came of being stuffed with Mina's old ends. She had quite a lot of these unused bits of lives that she said just couldn't be fitted in-the whole subject was guaranteed to make her cross-but she hated just burning them up on the fireplace and had been glad to spend a few years' collecting in order to find enough of them to pad him out and make him useful. For that's what he was at the end of it all, a servant-a toy who had ceased to be terribly interesting about thirty years ago and was now passing the remnants of eternity doing little jobs that he was fit for. They didn't intend to be unkind. Lily had promised, after all, to mend him if she could.

  Zal was fed up with what they intended. He watched for a few more minutes and then straightened up. "I don't see anything but the fire."

  Mr. V nodded brightly and rested his book on his legs so that he could pick up his pipe and take a draw. "Just humour an old man and look again, would you? I used to love seeing things in the fire. Can't really do it so much now. Bothersome."

  "Mina needs her stuff," Zal objected weakly. Mr. V rarely asked for a second go. He wondered if something was troubling the old guy.

  Mr. V beamed at him, rosy cheeks like small red apples. He had a winning smile and perfect teeth, despite the amount of tobacco he got through. Only the whites of his eyes had taken on a slightly nicotinic colour, like the uncleaned ceiling of an old-time inn. He patted the pockets of his tweed waistcoat and found his tobacco pouch, showing no sign of impatience as he began the lengthy ritual of emptying and refilling the pipe bowl.

  "Okay." Zal let his slight rebellion leak through but moved back for another look. He felt that it was good to still have resentment. At least it was something.

  "There's a good lad," Mr. V said, scraping the pipe bowl out with a little tool from his pocket.

  "I wish you'd tell me what I'm supposed to see." One of Zal's regular complaints.

  "Oh but I can't, or you won't see it." Mr. V's standard reply. "You'll see something like it made up by your mind."

  "I'm not psychic, you know." One of Zal's standard grumbles.

  "If you were it would be very surprising because you have lint for brains, my dear fellow. But I have high hopes for you." One of Mr. V's under-the-top-ten answers.

  "Are you sure you aren't called Gepetto?" A standard Zal shot across the bows.

  "I am very sure." Mr. V chuckled and paused in his pipe deconstruction to lift and wave the duster. "I've never had the hands for carpentry." The light gleamed off his perfectly buffed nails. They were thick and as yellow as horn, a sign, he claimed, of his extreme old age.

  "What does V stand for?" Zal sometimes asked this.

  "Well," Mr. V mused amiably. "Not Vendetta."

  "Venice?"

  "No."

  "Veronica?"

  "No."

  "Verifiably insane?"

  "No."

  Zal had run out of Vs for the time being but then some more came at him in a rush. "Verisimilitude, victory, vanquish, vivify, viper, vector, vehicle?"

  "No. I do like Vanquish though."

  Zal stared at the flames. They danced, mindless and evanescent. "This is so pointless."

  "No, no it isn't. You must never say that!" Mr. V cried, sitting forward and reaching out to close his book and put it to one side. There was an almost desperate tinge to his voice.

  "Yes, it is. I am stuck here forever until I moulder, or fray, or rot, or get forgotten by them, or even by you," Zal felt a surge of anger, but it quickly died back into misery. "There's no way out. I might as well ..." And then he stopped.

  "You might as well ... ?" Mr. V said encouragingly, as if to a sobbing child.

  "I might as well throw-"

  "Don't say it." Mr. V held up a stubby finger quickly to stall Zal and then used it to point upwards, upstairs, to the main room where Mina was working. Then he pointed towards the kitchen, where it was possible that Tubianca the white cat was lurking.

  Zal sat back on his heels and stared at the dwarf. He'd never thought Mr. V had a nasty bone in his body, but suddenly he wasn't sure.

  "Now you know," the dwarf said quietly, his emerald stare intent on Zal, holding him in place. He smoothed his long silver white beard and curled it around his fingers. "You know something important. So don't forget it."

  "But I'll die," Zal said.

  "Will you?" Mr. V bounced forwards a little more until his feet in their soft striped socks overhung the edge of the chair. He was serious. "I don't think so."

  "Easy for you to say." Zal felt an urge to move away from the chance of being pushed into the flames. He would certainly go up in smoke in seconds.

  "Don't forget where we are," the dwarf said, and winked. His cherubic smile returned. "Now," he said, pulling his book forward. "Now that you understand one thing, I need you to do me a little favour. Maybe afterwards you will understand another thing."

  "Oh." Zal was curious, in spite of what had just happened. He felt strangely lightheaded, so much so he almost forgot to be wary and listen carefully to the words. He didn't forget to wonder why Mr. V was being so apparently kind, though he wasn't about to ask right out.

  Mr. V cleared his throat lightly and whispered. "Yes. I want you to take this book over to Lily's house next time you go there and when she is busy you are to take it into the attic."

  Zal pulled a face. "Oh I've been there, it's full of-"

  The dwarf's finger was suddenly pressed against the stitches of his mouth. He stopped. The green stare in Mr. V's merry eyes was sud denly firm and not a little hypnotic. It would have been comical, except nothing in Zal wanted to laugh.

  "The book will show you where to go. When you get there, pick up what you find to bring to me and put the book in its place. Come straight back and do not speak to anyone on the way, no matter what happens. You promise me?" His eyes became mild again, almost rheumy.

  Zal looked at the book. It was very ordinary, hardbacked, covered in a moss-green canvas, without any lettering on the cover. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

  "What? No. No, lad. I just mean to borrow something for a little while and I need to put something in its place you see, so as it isn't missed. We'll put it back after. I promise you won't be in any trouble."

  Zal had heard promises of this kind many times. They were the kind of promise that set peals of alarms ringing. They were scurvy and called to the pirate in his spirit. He was intrigued, and that was as much of anything interesting as had happened to him since he had been here. He was cheered. "All right." He took the volume and slipped it into the inside pocket of his long felt jacket.

  "Excellent!" Mr. V bounced back in his seat, happy as a spring lamb. He resumed cleaning his pipe. "Now there's no rush. But don't forget, no talking on the way back. No matter what."

  "Sure." Zal could go days without speaking to anyone anyway. "I have to get the sacks...."

  "Yes, yes! To the mistress. Lovely. You're a good lad."

  Zal frowned and went to do as he had to.

  Mina was in the upstairs apartment. Zal opened the door after knocking and went inside. There were no dividing walls up here, just the one door, and then a large open space of scrubbed wooden boards and plain walls beneath the open sky. In the centre a large fireplace supported the glowing form of the most curious firedogs. They were in the form of serpents and shone hot from the fire, but each one a different colour and unique shade. Atop their backs there were no logs or any fuel, just a ball of white-hot flame, bobbing lightly as an apple in a water ba
rrel. Zal had long figured this for a fire elemental of a high order, but its shape and particularity were confusing. Around this fire Mina paced.

  She was a small girl of about seven years. She wore her dark hair in two ponytails at the sides of her head, where they stuck out like floppy hound ears, held fast by pink and gold elastic bands. Her skin was tea coloured and her eyes as black as black could be so that it seemed like they had no pupils at all. She was wearing, as usual, a party dress in dazzling blue and pink, with silver stars and a small red cape at the back. She'd been at work a while, and the cape was hanging off one shoulder and her hair was frizzing where strands worked loose around her face. In one hand she had a fistful of brightly coloured strands of thread. With the other she worked a strand loose, examined it, talked to it, twirled it in her fingers, and then tossed it into the fire.

  There was no smoke, but after a moment a dart of light would shoot upwards into the tiny black eye above them in the sky and be lost to sight. Then she would start working on another one. Beside the wall near Zal were two baskets. They still had threads in them, but he emptied the sacks and topped them up again.

  Mina noticed him and paused. She frowned and put her hands on her hips in a scolding manner. "Oh Zal," she said. "What happened to your leg?"

  He looked down but he didn't see anything; then, just below the hem of his trousers, he noticed the end of a green thread.

  "Come here," Mina ordered. She pushed her handful of lengths into the pocket of her dress.

  He went there, reluctantly, and pulled up the leg of the trousers. What he saw made him feel sick. Mina gasped, and her hands flew to her face.

  Something had nibbled his leg, made a hole in it, and pulled out the stuffing until it was hanging in a gout, some strands dangling all the way to his ankle.

  After a second Mina regained herself and pushed Zal over onto his back-a gesture that cost her nothing but would have been impossible for him to resist had he tried to. She pulled him to her by the ankle and peered more closely. He tried to see what she was doing as she poked about, but he felt no pain. Obviously that was how it had happened. His body did not feel pain, or much of anything. To realise that it could be easily damaged like this, chewed, savaged, was horrifying. To realise there was something here that was ready to chew even more so.