The Color of Darkness

by Ruth Hatfield

  “No fear!” She grinned at him, and shoved the little book into the waistband of her jeans. And then the wind picked her up off her feet.

  Cath wheeled out her arms and legs, fighting against the punching gust, spinning and struggling up into the air. Danny had only a moment to think that he really didn’t want to go the same way himself, before the wind caught him, too, and he was sucked into the air, reaching out to hold on to anything he could touch, feeling the world under his toes and fingertips vanish away. He tried to get his hand into his pocket, to take hold of the stick and beg the wind to stop, but his arms wanted only to stretch themselves out and flap, as though somehow his sticklike bones might steer him with the same grace as the golden eagle’s feathers.

  Below, he saw Barshin leap into Tom’s strong arms, and then Tom was yanked off his feet, too far away to shout to over the whining moan of the wind.

  I should have talked to the wind first, Danny thought. I should have made sure I was holding on to the stick. I should have known what I wanted and asked for it.

  But whatever he had done, it was too late to worry about it now. For the first time in months, he felt both terrified and full of fight. He struggled to keep his head higher than his body. Blood rushed to his toes, then surged back to his ears, filling his vision with tiny spots. Far below him, he faintly made out the lake that they had left, and then the wind rolled him over to hang on his belly for a second, just long enough to see a lone figure reappear on the lake’s shore.

  Even from this distance, he could see how still Sammael stood, and how that stillness made the air around him grow darker, full of tightly restrained hate.

  Sammael raised his face to the sky. Danny caught the narrowness of that black-eyed face for a single moment before the wind flipped him over again, then spun him and spun him until he began to feel so sick that he was sure he was going to vomit.

  And then he heard a cracking, spitting sound above the grating sighs of the wind, and he felt a breath of warmth against his shoulder. He couldn’t turn to see it but he smelled pine resin and ashes and toast all mingled together, all climbing into the sky behind him, and he knew it was fire.

  Fire. But a fire of Sammael’s making, surely? Then he was safe from it. Cath was safe. Barshin and Tom were safe. They were all their own people; not even Tom belonged to Sammael yet. No fire made by Sammael could hurt them. Besides, they were so high in the air that they must be beyond the reach of any flames.

  Then the wind turned him over again and pulled his head back and his shoulders back, as though forcing him to look at something outrageous he had just done. It held him still and rigid, and he could not turn his face away.

  Below, the sheet of flame bristled. On the ground, he saw Isbjin al-Orr and Teilin fleeing for their lives, heading away from the burning scrub and up to the high hills. For a second his heart choked him, for that was surely the last time he’d ever see them—how would he know where to find them again, so far from home? But at least Cath was safe, well away in the sky to his right, hanging upside down and flapping about like a puppet. And Tom, a little farther away, clutching Barshin up to his face, keeping the hare tucked away from the currents of wind.

  Then Tom’s arms opened and Barshin was dragged free, the hare’s light little body spinning away in a mess of limbs and ears and bony feet.

  Tom’s arms spread wide and his legs kicked out so quickly that he looked like he was dancing. But he wasn’t dancing. He was trying to kick away the flames, whose soft orange tongues lapped toward his feet. He was trying to lift himself into the air, to swim higher, to push away, but orange fingers were catching at his ankles now, poking up toward his knees.

  The fire can’t get him, thought Danny. It can’t get him. That isn’t how it works. I know it can’t get him. Sammael can’t kill him, not yet—that’s what everything’s told me. They can’t all have been lying. It must be true. He must be safe—

  And then Tom’s legs stopped dancing and he threw back his head in a choke of fear, and he was trying to say something to Danny, trying to shout out against the fire and the wind and the vast space of air between them, but whatever the words were, they were too faint for Danny to hear.

  Tom stopped moving. The wind released its hold on him and he dropped through the clear air and fell into the sheet of flames.

  He must be safe, thought Danny. Sammael can’t kill him. He must be safe …

  From the flames rose a streak of dark fire, purplish-black, with streams of green edging its pointed leaves, and Danny heard the last call of Tom’s deep voice, roaring out a terrible scream of pain and fear and sadness.

  Away to the east, a figure stood on the crest of the hill. For a second, Danny thought it was Isbjin al-Orr, and then he saw that it was a human shape: the old woman with straggly gray hair and red eyes he’d seen in Chromos. “What did I give you?” she’d asked him. He hadn’t understood. But here, now, he recognized her for who she was. She’d given him life, a year ago, although he hadn’t been aware of it at the time. That had been a one-off though. She wasn’t a mysterious creature with strange and fantastical powers.

  She was Death.

  And she was here for Tom.

  CHAPTER 25

  DEATH

  Danny’s heart stopped beating. Oblivious to the rages of the wind, he hung in space and stared into the flames below. He thought over and over on that sight of Tom vanishing into the flames. Couldn’t he have reached down and pulled him out? Couldn’t he have got his hand to the stick and begged the wind to carry Tom upward?

  The terrible knowledge came to him that if he hadn’t used Kalia, then Sammael wouldn’t have been so angry. He might not have tried to kill Tom.

  But he shouldn’t have been able to kill any living creature that didn’t belong to him: Death would refuse to take them.

  And yet she was here.

  “I don’t understand…,” said Danny, letting the words dribble out of his mouth. “I don’t understand.”

  And he couldn’t even put his hands up to his face to hide the shame of his tears. He was crying—a soundless gape of horror because Tom was dead, marvelous, brilliant Tom—and he would have to tell Aunt Kathleen that Tom was never coming home, and she would die of sadness, and his parents would never speak to him again. The world was over.

  Then the wind was still and the old woman was walking toward Danny, up a broad beam of air that had laid itself flat underneath her feet. Her gray hair lifted gently about her tired face and her red eyes shone as softly as the embers of a dying fire.

  “Hello,” she said. “You saw me. I generally avoid talking to you lot, but since you saw me, I thought it would be less frightening if I said hello.”

  Danny gulped. “You’ve come for Tom,” he managed. “Please don’t take him.”

  “I’m not going to. I can’t. He belongs to Sammael, and Sammael will take him now. I came here because I thought Sammael was making a mistake, but alas, he isn’t.”

  She smiled regretfully and held out a hand to Danny.

  “B-b-but he is. He must be. Tom didn’t learn all that stuff, he said he hadn’t finished—”

  “Take my hand,” Death said. “Don’t worry, I’ve no business with you. I saved you, remember?”

  Danny took her hand. It was warm and dry and it felt like his grandma’s hand, old and wrinkled and rough from work.

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “But I know you did. If you saved me, can’t you save Tom?”

  Death squeezed his hand with both of hers. “I can’t,” she said. “He chose Sammael—it was his own wish. It’s possible that you’ll never understand that—to you, Sammael must seem like an evil, cheating destroyer of light. But I can’t take Tom from the death he chose.”

  “No!” Danny pulled his hand away. “You’ve got to! He can’t die! Sammael’s cheated him—it isn’t how it works. You’ve got to stop him!”

  Death put her hands up to the breast of her worn old cloak and fiddled with the pin.

/>   “I don’t like how he goes about things,” she muttered. “But I did come here, and now I see that there’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”

  “Why not?” Danny wanted to grab her, shake her until her red eyes rolled.

  “I just can’t. Some things are beyond the understanding of humans. I am Death—I have one job, and I can’t interfere with the schemes of other creatures. If you want an answer, you’ll have to ask Sammael.”

  She half turned to leave.

  “I’m not going to ask him anything!” Danny yelled. “I’m going to kill him!”

  Death turned back. “I doubt it,” she said. “But listen. I dislike Sammael’s kind of unfairness. I presume you have some plan in mind. For you, I’ll pretend I haven’t understood about Tom. I’ll go and argue with Sammael over him for a short while. If that helps you with anything, then all to the good. If not—I am sorry for it. Sammael has indeed been unfair, but it is not my job to redress the balance. Farewell, Danny. I hope we do not meet again for a long time.”

  She turned and walked swiftly back along the air to the hilltop. As soon as her feet touched the wiry heather, the wind sprang back into life.

  * * *

  The wind shook Danny until his neck made a thousand tiny tearing sounds, and he tried to keep his head still for fear it would fall off. Then something came cannoning into his ribs, reached out, and hooked itself onto him, and he struggled in panic for a moment until he realized that it was Cath’s twiggy arms gripping tightly to his sweater. She was trying to speak, but the screaming wind dragged the sounds from her mouth as fast as she could shout them. Her hand crept down his sweater, reaching for his pocket, and he kicked her viciously away.

  “No! No! Don’t!”

  She shouted something more and tried to reach again, but Danny brought his foot up higher and shoved her in the stomach and she was snatched free of him by the wind. Thank God she hadn’t got to the stick. But if Cath could wheel all that way through the air toward him, surely he could get his own hand into his pocket?

  With an effort so great it nearly split his shoulders in half, he pulled one of his arms down to his side. More by accident than anything else, his fingers got caught in the material of his trousers, and then they were brushing the top of the stick and the howling of the wind turned to a stream of swearing.

  “Please,” Danny begged, “please put us down. We’ll die … we can’t—”

  “Hmph!” snorted the wind. “More than you could chew, eh? Told you, didn’t I? Told you.”

  “Please!”

  The wind grumbled and coughed like a bronchial horse and then chucked Danny high into the air, cackling as he turned a pale shade of olive.

  “Heh-heh! I heard about you and the storms. Thought you could tame me, did you? Thought that taro—that little stick—would have me at your beck and call?”

  “No,” said Danny, tears still streaming from his eyes. “No, I never thought that. Please put us down! Please!”

  “Hmph!” said the wind again.

  It dashed him against a pile of rocks and vanished.

  * * *

  Danny held on to the earth, his cheek pressed into the gravel around the rocks. There was nothing around but emptiness, and he was the smallest creature that had ever existed.

  He closed his eyes. This wasn’t his earth. It was a new earth, a world without Tom. Danny didn’t know what he was supposed to do in it. He didn’t trust the way it felt so solid and reassuring.

  A thump and a few painful curses made him aware that Cath had landed too. At least they were still together. Except—if it hadn’t been for her, he’d never have started on all this; he’d never have tried to trick Sammael, and Tom would still be alive. If it hadn’t been for Cath, he’d be safely at home and so would Tom.

  He kept his face turned away from her and watched the far horizon. Sea, again, though whether it was the North Sea or an east sea or a west sea, he had no idea.

  “Where’s Tom?” said Cath, making scrabbling sounds as if she was sitting up.

  Danny couldn’t answer her. How could she be so stupid? Her and that wretched hare. He hated them both.

  “Danny? You okay?” Cath reached over to shake him.

  He jerked himself away from her. His ribs and stomach hurt. He wished he had broken into a million pieces.

  “Oi, weirdo, where’s Tom?” she repeated.

  Danny didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to give her anything, not even a word. Why hadn’t she been the one to fall into the fire instead of Tom? Nobody would care about her being dead.

  “Oi, you freak. Answer me!” Cath chucked a pebble at him. It bounced off his shoulder blade.

  He grabbed the biggest stone that came to his hand and swung, launching it toward her face. She got a hand up to it, but not before it had hit her on the cheek, splitting open the skin under her eye.

  She swore, wiping the blood with a filthy cuff. “Jeez! What’s up with you?”

  Danny was surprised she didn’t make more of a fuss. The cut was bleeding freely. He shouldn’t have done it. Seeing Cath bleeding didn’t make him feel any better.

  Still, he couldn’t say sorry or tell her what had happened to Tom. There was only one thing he could do now.

  “I’m going to kill him,” he said, pushing himself to his feet.

  “Tom?” said Cath, looking around in confusion.

  “Sammael,” said Danny, spitting out every syllable. “Where’s Barshin?”

  The hare appeared from behind Cath, treading a little gently as though his paws hurt.

  “Can I get to the ether through Chromos?” Danny demanded. “Is it linked to it? It is, isn’t it? It must be if Sammael goes that way.”

  Barshin was silent, his eyes wide with alarm.

  “Tell me!” Danny snapped, grabbing at the stick in his pocket.

  But the hare only gulped and shivered.

  “Oh, what the hell,” said Danny. “Get Zadoc.” And to Cath, “Give me that book.”

  She gave Tom’s little book to him without argument. Danny didn’t look at it. He turned on Barshin, his eyes hard.

  “This is something of Tom’s, right?”

  Barshin crouched low on the stony outcrop, dipped his nose to the rocks, and stared up at the book, his ears twitching.

  “I know Sammael made it,” snapped Danny. “But it belongs to Tom, doesn’t it? It will protect us against the fire.”

  “I don’t know,” said Barshin. “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s the moon?” said Danny, peering up into the sky. But it was still daylight, despite everything that had happened. The moon wouldn’t be around for a while yet.

  Blood sang in his ears. No matter, he thought. This was no time for holding back.

  “We could wait?” tried Barshin, but Danny wasn’t listening anymore.

  “I’m going up there,” he said to Cath. “I’m going to get into the ether and I’m going to steal his boots. And if that doesn’t kill him, I’ll find out what will. Maybe if he’s dead, they’ll all be brought back to us—all the creatures he’s taken. All those people—”

  But he couldn’t say any more. Instead, he made a grab for Barshin, but the hare jumped backward.

  “Get Zadoc!” Danny shouted. “Get Zadoc now!”

  Barshin cowered against the stones, and Danny yanked the stick out of his pocket.

  “Wind!” he said, deliberately out loud so that Barshin could hear him. “It’s this hare that thinks he can control you. He’s got a taro of his own. Don’t believe me? Pick him up and chuck him in the air and throw him against a rock, and it’ll burst out of his stomach when he dies. Go on, try it! He’s been telling me all about it for days!”

  “No!” yelled Cath, leaning over to take hold of Barshin.

  The wind stirred again. It wouldn’t take much to shift the tiny hare.

  “Get Zadoc!” Danny bellowed, his white face turning purplish-red. “Get Zadoc or I’ll kill you!”

  This was noth
ing like the terror he’d felt for his parents. This was a blinding, white rage. He would do anything. He would get Zadoc by himself if he had to. Chromos was there for all of them, wasn’t it?

  The wind snatched angrily at Barshin, trying to tear the small creature from Cath’s grip. She slipped against the stones and nearly fell backward.

  Barshin struggled. “Stop it!” he squeaked. “Let me go!”

  “I can’t,” said Cath. “The wind’ll get you.”

  “No, no, I’ll do it! I’ll call him.”

  The hare leapt down from her arms and glared at Danny. Danny kept his mouth shut, crossed his fingers behind his back, and told the wind that he’d made a mistake, he was sorry.

  Zadoc came. He was so transparent that the whole landscape was visible through his body, and he had taken on only the colors of the earth this time, the purple of the heather, the iron-gray of the rocks, and the bitter dark green of the undergrowth. Danny scrambled up onto his back first, and then Cath, neither of them talking, neither of them looking around.

  Cath held out a leg to Barshin, but the hare shook his head. “I can’t go there again,” he said. “I’ll see you back here on earth.”

  “No—” Cath tried to say, but Zadoc was trying to take off, his legs slipping on the stones beneath him. He came crashing down onto his nose.

  “I’m sorry…” He gasped, and he tried to right himself. His creaky limbs flailed on the loose gravel, and he fell again.

  “You’re … much … heavier…” He panted. “Much heavier than last time.”

  His fading coat was damp with sweat as his legs tried to straighten and again buckled. Danny wanted to kick him.

  Cath grabbed at his arm. “It’s the book!” she said, pulling his sleeve urgently. “It must be. He can’t carry the book! You’ve gotta leave it behind!”

  “Don’t be stupid!” hissed Danny. “We need it to get past the fire. It’s the only thing we’ve got left of Tom’s.”

  “Well, tear it up! Take a little bit of it! He can’t carry it—look at him.”

  Zadoc was down on his knees, nose squashed against the ground. He was gasping.