Danny risked one last glance over his shoulder, and saw Aunt Kathleen’s hand fall to her side. Her toffee-colored hair and the weather-beaten red of her face faded to gray, and her head tilted toward the ground. But Shimny began leaping over hollows in the track, and he had to turn and concentrate on keeping himself balanced before he saw any more.
He did not need to watch to see Aunt Kathleen fall to her knees and sink face-forward into the mud. He felt a tearing pain in his heart, and he knew it had happened. And he could only promise to the rushing air and the scrubby grass and the thudding of Shimny’s flying heels that he would save her somehow.
CHAPTER 7
A BARGAIN WITH DEATH
They ran until they broke out into the clear yellow sunshine of late afternoon, and the fading light spoke only of the natural ending of day. Hangman’s Wood had disappeared far behind them; they were in countryside Danny didn’t recognize. Ori was panting so hard that her body lurched with every breath.
Shimny came to a halt, tripping over her hooves and sinking to her knees. Danny leapt from her back and tugged at her mane, trying to get her to rise again. The horse didn’t look as exhausted as the dog: her nostrils were stretching to suck in air, but her flanks were only gently blowing in and out. Still, she refused to get up.
They were on a road at the bottom of a shallow valley, and although Danny couldn’t see beyond the low hills to the north and south, his view was broad and far-reaching. If the shadows came, there would be plenty of time to react, as long as he kept his wits sharp.
He knelt on the cold road, cradling Shimny’s heavy head in his lap for a moment and stroking her cheek. Her eyes were closed. Danny wasn’t alarmed. She was just a little out of breath: she’d recover in a minute or two. Tough old horse.
Ori came to stand beside him, her long pink tongue hanging from her jaws. He took hold of the stick in his pocket.
“The shadows are bad,” she said.
Danny nodded. He felt Tom everywhere about him now—in the earth, in the wind, and especially in the shadows. “I know it’s Tom,” he said. “He’s all around me, like the whole air is made of ghosts. He’s not letting me forget anymore.”
“Can’t we go to him?”
Danny looked up at the darkening sky. “I don’t know how to get there. The only ways I know to the ether are through the moonlight on the sea, or through Chromos. And to get to places in Chromos, you have to want to get there, and think hard about where you’re going. I never knew how to think of the ether so that I could get there by myself—Cath was always with me. She was the one who knew what to do.”
“Where’s Cath, then?” asked the dog, sitting down alongside Shimny’s steaming bulk, either to steal the horse’s warmth or to lend it some of her own.
Danny shook his head. “I don’t know. Well, I know that she’s in a little house next to the sea, but we got there through Chromos too. I’ve no idea how to get there on Earth.”
“Well, then,” Ori said, simply. “We must go to Chromos, mustn’t we? If you don’t know the way to the ether, the only thing to do is to go and ask this Cath. Don’t you think so?”
Danny’s heart leapt into brightness. Of course they should find Cath. Cath was brave and strong. She would take him by the hand, and her strength would flood through him, and the way forward would be clear.
And Chromos—when he’d come home through Chromos, that last time, on Zadoc’s disappearing back, he’d raced over the great green plain and seen how wide the world was, how endless its possibility. He’d believed in himself. He’d believed he could do anything. If he went back to Chromos, he might be able to feel like that again.
But darkness crept inside him. There had been other times in Chromos. Times of terror. It had taken him several attempts to learn how to leave his fears behind him and travel with hope. Now he saw that the lesson had been only a temporary one. Right now, he was afraid of the shadows, afraid of how much he was to blame for them. If he went to Chromos this night, he would take all the old hopelessness and fear with him, and it would come alive in there.
The light grew dimmer, and a damp chill set into the air. Eventually he had to tell Ori the truth.
“Chromos was amazing, but … it frightened me,” he said. “I wasn’t good at traveling in there.”
“But surely that doesn’t matter?” said Ori. “We have to do it, don’t we? I’ll be with you.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Danny, and despair kicked numbly at his shoulders. “You have to want to go to Chromos. And once you’re in there, you see what’s strongest in your mind. I saw good things sometimes, but right now I’m scared, so I’d just see all the things I’m scared of. I’m a coward, and Chromos knows that.”
“I see,” said Ori thoughtfully, and was silent for a while, as the evening shadows grew long around them and the night drew in.
Danny stared hard at Shimny’s sweat-soaked coat, stroking her crinkled hair flat and pressing it down to her neck. Goose bumps prickled on his arms.
He wanted to howl.
The dog dipped her golden snout and nudged at his arm, huddling closer to him. “You’re not all coward, you know. When I first met you, you nearly drowned. The next day you were back on your feet. And you don’t fear the sea, do you?”
“No.” Danny shook his head. He didn’t fear the sea, it was true. Whenever he thought of the sea, he still thought of riding Isbjin al-Orr into the waves, and the stag’s power and strength and shining happiness. “But I am scared in Chromos,” he insisted. “I’ve been there before, and I know I am.”
“No, my friend.” Ori laughed, wagging her feathered tail. “You must make yourself brave! We must find Cath and get into the ether, so that we can restore Tom’s haunted soul to a place of rest. You know we must. It is the only thing to do.”
The last of the light was disappearing, and the cold night clenched about them. Another night outside, finding a hedge to shelter under. It didn’t bother Danny; when he’d been traveling to the sea with Cath, they’d done plenty of this.
He felt a flash of courage. Loads of people would be scared, outside on a winter’s night. He had Ori and Shimny, and he knew he’d be fine.
“Okay then, how?” he asked, feeling Shimny’s fur grow clammy in the evening dew. She would soon be recovered and on her feet again. “The only way to get to Chromos is to call the guardian, Zadoc, and he’s gone. So who else is going to take us there? You?”
“I rather think,” said Ori, pushing her head underneath Shimny’s body and closing her eyes, “that we might have some other ideas in a minute.”
Through the edge of darkness, the figure came up the lane toward them, and although there was hardly any of the twilight left to pick out her features, Danny could see that her hair was silver-gray and her eyes were red. The air that came with her was full of forgiving warmth, and she walked with the steady tread of a person who has a job that cannot be rushed.
What was Death doing here? Nobody had died.
Then Danny realized with a terrible stab of pain that no matter how hard he pushed his hand into Shimny’s skin, he could feel no heat from it at all. What he had thought to be calm, shallow breathing had been nothing more than the breeze picking at her patched old coat.
He couldn’t bear it. Was every creature around him to die? First Tom, now the gallant Shimny—everything he touched seemed to shrivel with the poison from his fingertips. The horse’s head in his lap was as heavy as a slab of stone. She had run for his life, and she had died for him.
No tears came to him. His sorrow was the blade of an ax, twisting itself around inside his chest until it was raw and bleeding and begging for peace. And it was a peace that could never come now. Shimny was older than his entire world; for all he knew, she might be older than the land itself, and he had taken her from it, and knelt with her head on his lap as the last stream of life flowed from her.
He wanted to leap up and push Death away, but the old woman came to stand before hi
m, and her red eyes defied him to touch her.
“We meet too often, you and I,” said Death, smiling gently. “I’m sorry for it.”
Danny tried to breathe, tried to find his voice. “Please don’t take her.”
“But she’s gone already. I’m just collecting what is owed to the earth. It’s not a sad thing—I will return her sand to peace, back into the cycle of the world. That is my one task, and I do it. Always.”
“I need her,” said Danny.
Death shook her head. “You have all you need. You have a bright, shining heart. You have courage. You even have a dog now, it seems. You cannot claim this horse as well. She deserves better.”
And Danny knew she was right. It wasn’t his place to ask for Shimny’s life. She had belonged to herself, and she alone was setting off with Death. He couldn’t hold her back to make himself feel less guilty.
He choked, unable to breathe past the spines in his throat. Muddled thoughts came flooding into his head: the great plain of Chromos, Shimny flying across it, the solid earthiness of her. She should return to the earth, like all other normal creatures. It was what he wanted for himself, for Tom, and even Ori, one day. They should all go back to the earth they had come from and stay a part of it, to be eaten by worms and sung ballads about.
But Shimny had given him wings. And he knew suddenly what he had to do.
When he was on Shimny’s back, the world shone for him, whichever world he was in. If he could get into Chromos on Shimny, he’d feel as brave as a lion in there.
“She had a mighty heart,” he said. “She was brave and fast, and her heart was the biggest. She didn’t think she was special. But she does deserve better, you’re right. She should be guardian of Chromos.”
Death raised an eyebrow, sharp even through the darkness.
“I have nothing to do with Chromos,” she said.
“But maybe you know how it works? Zadoc’s gone, and Chromos needs a guardian.”
“Chromos is Sammael’s business. Are you trying to play his game now?”
Danny shook his head. “Never. But I did something wrong—I left someone behind somewhere, and now he’s in torment; he’s pulling shadows over the world—you must have seen the shadows. I have to get back to Chromos—there’s only one person I know who might be able to help me put things right, and Chromos is the only way I can get to her.”
Death was silent for a moment, and then she said, very quietly, “I wonder what I did to you when I fed you the Book of Storms. I wonder what Sammael has done to you. But perhaps the question you should ask is, what are you doing to yourself?”
“I’m trying to win,” said Danny. “It’s really hard.”
Death threw back her head and laughed to the sky, and the stars trembled. Then she knelt down on the other side of Danny, sinking slowly to the ground as if her back was stiff and causing her pain. She put a hand on Shimny’s cold neck.
“And you think I should help you win. Is that right?” she said, looking Danny squarely in the face.
Her red eyes burned into his own very tired ones. It hurt to hold her gaze, but he held it.
“Yes,” he said. “I only want what’s right.”
“Careful,” said Death. “I am no judge of rights and wrongs. My interest lies in seeing that the world is tidied up according to my own standards.”
And Death considered, until the road was so dark that Danny began to worry about passing cars, although none had come along in the hour or so they’d been there. Then he began to worry about the shadows. What if they came over in darkness, too? There’d be no way to tell except by listening out for the silence.
An owl hooted in the distance. Danny strained to hear more.
Ori cuddled against him, and he listened to her breathing. Her steady patience was as comforting as her warmth.
Then Death took her hands away from Shimny’s neck and looked at him shrewdly.
“I can’t make this horse the guardian of Chromos,” she said.
Danny’s heart drained with despair.
“But I can leave her soul alone,” said Death. “She will not be at peace. She will wander over the earth and through Chromos, looking for a place to lay her head. She will know nothing of the peace she deserves. It is the worst of fates. But lost souls may travel in the lowest part of Chromos, because they are immune to both fear and hope. They certainly can’t fly in Chromos, or reach other worlds through it, if that’s what you’re hoping. But they can stumble along the floors of both worlds for eternity, grazing their knees against all the broken hopes that they’ll never have. Is that what you want for this horse?”
Danny shook his head. “When we’ve gone—when we’ve gotten there—couldn’t you come and take her soul then?” he asked.
“No,” said Death. “I could not. If she is to be of use to you, I must forsake her entirely. If you wanted her to find peace, you would have to find a way to bestow it yourself.”
“But if you took her now?”
“If I took her now, she would return to the earth and be free.”
And I would have to find another way to get into Chromos, concluded Danny.
He let himself think once more, briefly, of what Shimny had done for him—how she had carried him on her back, saved his life twice, at least.
The horse’s cold head lay heavy as an anchor in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to do something awful to you. But when things are right with Tom, I’ll put them right with you, too. One day. I swear it, on my whole life.”
He looked up at Death. Her red eyes were patient and kind. She looked, for a brief moment, like a harmless old woman, about to invite Danny into her home and offer him a cookie from a rusty tin. But Danny wasn’t fooled.
“Leave her,” he said, his voice breaking. “Leave her behind. I’ll get her back to you, one day.”
“You won’t,” said Death. “You’ll have to find somewhere else for her. Once I forsake her, I cannot change my mind. Do you understand that?”
Danny nodded.
“Then I forsake her,” said Death. “Death forsakes Shimny. Let her wander about the worlds until the end of time; I will have none of her. Her soul belongs nowhere. She came from the earth—she came from the stars and the galaxies. But she shall never return to them again. She is cast out.”
Danny bowed his head over the horse’s body, half expecting it to come alive again in his hands, but it remained stiff and cold.
Death got up slowly, turned, and began to walk away.
“Wait!” croaked Danny. “What do I do with her?”
“Nothing,” said Death. “Go on your way. She’ll find you. You’ll be the first person she looks for.”
Shimny came in the hour before dawn, as Danny and Ori were huddled together in the shelter of a ruined stone shed, trying to keep warm. Even Ori’s long coat was no protection against the wind’s frozen teeth. Neither could sleep.
The dog leapt to her feet, lips drawn back from snarling fangs. She growled.
“What is it, Ori?” asked Danny. But he knew. He could feel it too.
The ghost came charging in, her eyes white with panic. She pawed at the ground, lunged at Danny, struck out at the dog, but her pale hooves could not cause them pain.
“What did you do to me?” she screamed, her eyes flashing gold. “Where am I?”
Danny followed Ori’s lead and backed away, letting Shimny lash out with hooves and teeth until she discovered that there was nothing here she could hit or bite.
At last she stood, head down, in the middle of the ruined hovel, and her eyes faded again to white.
Dying hadn’t been kind to her. Her once-black patches had faded to a mothy gray. Her ears were flat against her lumpy old head, and her back sagged even more deeply than the crescent moon shape it had taken on in her old age. Her lower lip trembled.
“I’m sorry,” said Danny.
“Tell me what you did,” said Shimny.
“I—well, Death—forsook you.�
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Danny got to his feet and went toward the horse. He wanted to put out his hand and touch her neck, but when he tried to, it felt like shriveled snakeskin, and the horse flinched at his touch.
“Death? Why?”
“Because…” Because I asked her to, thought Danny. But he couldn’t say it. “Because it’s the only way you can get into Chromos.”
“Chromos? What is Chromos?”
Danny was going to explain it to her, all about the land of colors and the way you could see your greatest dreams in it, and travel through it to anywhere. But he could see from the state of her that she had no hope left. It wouldn’t be fair to make her think she’d see wonderful things in Chromos.
So he said, “It’s somewhere we need to go. Imagine what it might be like, and you can take us there.”
“I can’t imagine anything,” wailed the horse. “I’m lost.”
“Then you need to imagine the way home,” said Danny, feeling like a traitor as Shimny threw up her head, her eyes flashing gold again.
“Yes!” she said. “Home! I must get home! It can’t be far away!”
Danny jumped up onto her back and held out his arms to Ori, who was still rigid in the corner, hackles risen.
“Deal with it,” he said to her. “If I have to do things I don’t want to, so do you.”
And Ori, stiff-legged and suspicious, obeyed him. She came out from the corner and stepped toward the ghost, rigid with reluctance. When she was close enough, Danny reached down, grabbed her under her front legs, and lifted her onto Shimny’s back. Ori was heavy, and it took a lot of scrambling, but finally she was perched on the broad shoulders in front of Danny, balancing with her paws wide apart.
Danny had a sudden feeling that things had fallen into place: he was on the back of a horse, about to leap up onto the great plain of Chromos. This time he wasn’t going home, leaving the color and the dreams behind him. He and Ori were going in search of Cath. Very soon they would all set out for the farthest reaches of the world again. Tom’s shadows weren’t a disaster: they were a temporary problem. Together with Ori and Cath, Danny knew he could find a way to bring color back to the flooded gray world.
The Book of Shadows Page 5