Dragon's Green

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘Oh yes. Scholar. Your secondary ability, like mine. They call it your art; the thing you dabble in. But your true nature, your kharakter, is engraved on your soul. You are a mage, boy, perhaps even a powerful one.’ Levar paused. ‘I can smell dark magic on you now. Yes . . .’ He sniffed the air. ‘Toffee apples and rust and smoke. Peculiar, but distinctive. I never took an Apprentice,’ he said. ‘But perhaps now is the time. Come back with me. I can make you powerful.’

  ‘I would never go anywhere with you.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  Maximilian felt an odd pang. For a few moments he imagined himself as Levar’s Apprentice. He saw a dark but comfortable town house full of beautiful artefacts and ancient relics. He heard complicated piano music playing on an old-fashioned record player. He saw a room full of glass jars full of interesting powders and liquids, because he had no idea that mages don’t in fact use such things. He saw room after room of rare books that he could study whenever he liked. He saw Mrs Beathag Hide and Coach Bruce and Mr Peters – and a few other people who had been mean to him lately – all locked in his own private torture chamber. Coach Bruce was stretched out on some sort of medieval rack. Maximilian crept forwards and turned the wooden handle that meant . . .

  ‘Stop it,’ he said to Levar. ‘Whatever you’re doing to my mind, stop it.’

  It was the same feeling he’d had before. The monument falling on him, but not really falling. The fantasy disappeared. He had somehow resisted Levar’s magic.

  ‘I don’t know how you keep blocking me, boy,’ said Levar. ‘But all you do is make yourself more interesting. Join me. I know how much you want what only I can give you.’

  ‘Why do you want me to join you?’ said Maximilian, suspiciously. ‘And why would you be trying to help me when you only want the books? It doesn’t make any sense. You meant to kill me up there anyway. Why would you be rescuing me now? If this Underworld is so dangerous, why don’t you leave me here? I was just about to be taken across the river. Why didn’t you let me go?’

  Levar said nothing.

  ‘It’s something to do with the books,’ said Maximilian. ‘But what?’

  ‘You know full well,’ Levar said. ‘You can’t be so stupid that you don’t understand the power of the book you are in, and what reading it for the last time means. But perhaps, on the other hand, you are just as stupid as I first thought. What do you think would happen to a Neophyte who tried to take control of the Underworld? You would go over that river and into a complex web of darkness from which you would never return. You would remain lost and confused for all eternity. I am saving you.’

  ‘You are not saving me from anything. I’d rather be lost in the Underworld than dead, anyway. No. I think I understand,’ said Maximilian. ‘You want to take control of the Underworld. Whatever I’m doing is ruining it somehow for you.’

  ‘You know full well you are inside the book,’ said Levar. ‘And that over on the other side of the river is the character you will release, whose place you will take. I have wanted to own this book for a very, very long time. And I, not you, will be its Last Reader. It’s clear that the universe has not yet decided. That is why we can both be here, on the same path, suspended like Schrödinger’s Cat . . .’ Levar started speaking in some sort of incomprehensible scientific language that made Maximilian feel a bit sleepy.

  ‘Come with me, boy. I’ll give you the spectacles. And your own beautiful athame. I will give you an Apprenticeship, as I promised. I will teach you how to be a truly gourmet Book Eater – but you will need to begin with simpler volumes than this one. A nice detective story. Or something with a lot of romance. Would you like to fly, boy? There are books that will enable you to do just that. Would you like to rule over great lands? You could do magic beyond what you can even imagine now. Just come back with me. You will see wonders, have riches, know great beauty . . .’

  Maximilian had not realised that while he was talking, Levar had been leading him slowly back up the pathway towards the hole through which he had entered this world. Before he knew it, they were both standing in the cave storeroom again, with Levar holding the blue cloth-bound book that Maximilian had chosen: Beneath the Great Forest.

  Maximilian yearned to be back in the book again. He so desperately wanted to know what was across that river. Even if it was dark and confusing, he felt it would be important and worthwhile. But now Levar had taken the book from him, and Maximilian felt lost, sad, and as if he had failed in some dreadful way.

  This time Levar doubled the unconsciousness spell, and the monument really did fall. Soon Maximilian was asleep next to Wolf, dreaming of a very long, very wide river that he couldn’t seem to cross, however hard he tried. And on the other side of it, waiting patiently for his chance to be back in the Realworld, was a man he was sure he knew.

  26

  Effie’s room in Truelove House smelled of clean sheets and very old wood. There was a big bed made up with blue and white striped linen, and the walls were covered with pale blue wallpaper with a pattern of silver birds and stars. There were no signs of electricity anywhere. The pale wooden desk had a beautiful lamp – a fresh white candle in an intricate brass holder with a glass dome around it. Next to that was a ceramic jar filled with quills, a pot of ink and a stack of pale blue writing paper.

  There was also a peculiar kind of silence, quite different from the creepy quiet of the greyouts at home. This new silence sat softly under all the other sounds of birdsong and summer insects and, from somewhere not so far away, the sounds of croquet mallets hitting balls and the clinking of ice cubes in glasses. In the Realworld there was a constant hum of machines and cars that existed under every other sound. Here, there was nothing.

  Effie looked at the square turquoise box that Clothilde had given her. Fourflower Creams, it said on the front in gold leaf and pink foil. She untied the ribbon and lifted the lid to reveal three layers of mauve waxy paper. Nestling at the bottom of the box were six chocolates. Each one was round and black with a turquoise candied petal on the top. Effie picked one out. It was strangely heavy. She bit into the thick black chocolate, which made a low cracking sound as she did. Inside was a pale white fondant that tasted like sweet flowers of a sort that didn’t exist in Effie’s world. It was delicious.

  Effie took off her studded boots and lay down on the bed. But she was not at all sleepy. She twisted her silver ring on her thumb. Was she a true hero in real life now? Or was that just within the story? Rollo had said that she wouldn’t have reached the end of the story at all had she not been a true hero. But what did it all mean? Effie shuddered when she thought of other ways the story could have gone. She could have been trapped in the book for ever – or worse, eaten by the dragon.

  Effie sat up and got off the bed. She felt restless. Perhaps her cousins wouldn’t mind if she explored the house a little, maybe went downstairs to get a glass of water. It was still very warm, and the sound of ice cubes in glasses was making her thirsty.

  Her room was one of several surrounding a sort of gallery from which you could look down the grand staircase to the entrance hall below. The drawing room had been off to the right, but Effie had no idea what other rooms there were. And how far up did the house go? There were more stairs at the end of the gallery to the left of Effie’s room, leading to a smaller landing and then the beginning of a thin spiral staircase with worn purple carpet and wallpaper with faded golden moons all over it.

  The stairs seemed to go on for ever; up, up, up, they wound and coiled and twisted. Effie realised she was almost certainly in one of the circular towers she’d noticed when she’d looked at the house from outside. At the very top of the stairs, Effie found an oval-topped wooden door with intricately carved details of plants and animals on it. Something told her she should knock, so she did. When there was no response, she knocked again, more loudly.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said a gruff voice from inside. ‘I’m coming.’

  The door opened and there stood –
Effie gasped – her grandfather!

  ‘Grandfather . . .’ she began, her voice catching in her throat.

  ‘Hush, child,’ said the man, patting her on the head as she rushed to embrace him. ‘There, there. It’s all right. You are safe here.’

  He reached inside his long purple robes and pulled out a very large white handkerchief, as if he were expecting her to cry. But she didn’t.

  ‘Grandfather?’ Effie said again.

  ‘No, child, no. I am simply his cousin. My name is Cosmo Truelove. And you, I believe, are the famous Euphemia. I hear you’ve had quite an adventure reaching us here. Clothilde told me everything. Come in, child. Sit.’

  Cosmo Truelove did look like Effie’s grandfather, but, as they say, even more so. In fact, if Griffin Truelove had grown his beard another foot, doubled his eyebrows, tripled his wrinkles, quadrupled his moustache, painted his fingernails silver and then put on a wizard’s costume, this is exactly what he would have looked like. Cosmo’s robes were slightly too big for him, or perhaps there were just a lot of them, because he seemed to be around 60 percent swirling robe and only 40 percent man. On his head he wore a soft grey hat with a pattern of silver stars and gold crescent moons. It was pointed at the end, like all wizards’ hats. His eyes were the brightest green and sparkled in his face like two moonlit emeralds.

  ‘Well, come in,’ he said again. ‘Sit down.’

  His circular room was almost entirely lined with bookshelves. They were only broken by a black cast-iron fireplace with two armchairs and one rocking chair in front of it. In the centre of the room was a desk and a very old-looking wooden chair. A large hardback book was open on the desk. It seemed like some sort of atlas. A black cat was asleep on the rocking chair, so Cosmo gestured to Effie that she should sit on one armchair, and he then sat down on the other.

  ‘Water, dear universe,’ he said quietly, and a glass of water appeared on the table next to Effie.

  ‘You said you were thirsty,’ Cosmo explained.

  ‘Oh, I was sure I just thought it, but, well, thank you . . .’

  ‘Oh dear. Forgive me for reading your thoughts. Such an invasion of privacy.’

  Effie didn’t know what to say. This person was not just dressed as a wizard, he appeared to actually be a wizard. Despite all those years asking her grandfather, Effie had never actually seen magic happen before, right in front of her, so casually. She picked up the water and sipped it. It was, it was . . .

  ‘Lemonade,’ she said. ‘Well, still lemonade. Thank you.’

  ‘But I asked for water! Oh dear. Never mind. This happens – you’ll get used to it. I must have said water but thought “lemonade”. It is a very lemonadey sort of a day, which is probably the reason. Maybe I actually fancy lemonade and that’s why . . . Lemonade, dear universe,’ he muttered, and a ceramic jug appeared with liquid so fizzy you could hear it cracking and popping. Bubbles were bursting out of the top of it as if they were full of joy and longing for exercise. ‘Oh my, I really was thinking of lemonade,’ said Cosmo. ‘Perhaps you’ll join me? I fear what I ordered for you may be neither quite one thing or another.’

  Cosmo flicked his hand and Effie’s glass of flat lemonade disappeared. Instead, he poured her a glass of the most fizzy, lemony, refreshing lemonade she had ever tasted.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Cosmo. ‘Now. You knocked on my door, which means you must have some questions. People without questions do not go knocking on strange doors.’

  Effie didn’t know where to begin. Her mind filled with things she wanted to know about her grandfather, and her recent adventures, and being a true hero. But one question quietly pushed all the others away and put itself right there in the front of Effie’s mind.

  ‘What happened to my mother?’ she asked.

  Her eyes pricked with tears as she remembered Aurelia dancing in the kitchen with Orwell and chatting so happily with Griffin. Effie knew now that her mother must have come here, too. She had been magical as well. But what had gone wrong?

  Cosmo said nothing.

  ‘Did she come here on the night of the worldquake?’ Effie asked. ‘Did she get lost somehow? My father always says she’s dead, but at first he said she’d run away. I heard him telling my grandfather. I just want to know the truth. Is she still alive? And if not – what happened?’

  There was a long silence. Cosmo blinked and frowned.

  ‘I suppose I should have realised you would ask the most difficult question first,’ he said. The old wizard pushed his fingers together to make a sort of triangle of his hands and sighed. ‘Unfortunately, it is the one question I cannot answer. Nor can I explain why. Not yet. In time, perhaps.’

  Effie felt a single tear slip down her cheek. She wiped it away.

  ‘There, there, dear child,’ said Cosmo, offering her the handkerchief again. ‘Have faith. You will know everything you need to know, but all in good time. There are more pressing issues at hand. We must try to find Griffin, if he is out there somewhere. The Diberi will be stronger as a result of their attack on him. I hear they have Griffin’s books, too. If they are not stopped, the Diberi will be able to derive great power from them. Possibly even enough to launch a serious attack on us here. Perhaps you already know, but here at Truelove House we are Keepers of a very, very great library that must be protected at all costs. The Trueloves have always guarded and maintained this library, and in time you will learn how to help us. But before that, you will need to go back and rescue your grandfather’s books. They are not important in the same way our books are here, of course. But they are a potential source of power for the Diberi. I wish it were not so. You are still too young to be involved in all this. But once the books are safe, you will be out of danger. For a while.’

  ‘Is my grandfather still alive?’ Effie asked.

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ Cosmo said. ‘From what you told the others, it seems that he found a magical surgeon to help him try to cross over permanently. But we fear that even if he did make it here, he may be thousands of moons away.’

  ‘Moons?’

  ‘Days of travel. Your grandfather may be out there on the plains somewhere, safe enough, but by himself he might not reach us for hundreds of years. This world is vast. And we are deliberately very difficult to get to, because we must keep the Great Library concealed.’

  ‘But won’t everyone be . . . I mean, in hundreds of years . . .’

  ‘Oh, dead? No, child. We try not to die here.’

  ‘Then . . . You’re . . .’ Effie tried to remember the word for never dying.

  ‘Immortals? No, not quite. But we do live for a very long time. The worst that can happen if we die here is that we have to begin again in your world. Although we try to avoid that, because it means becoming a baby again and learning everything from scratch – and trying to remember that we belong here. It’s a long hard road back.’

  ‘Have I come back?’ Effie asked.

  Cosmo frowned. ‘What do you mean, child?’

  ‘Like you just said. Did I start here and end up in the Realworld by accident? I feel like I belong here. Much more than I do at home.’

  Cosmo shook his head. ‘Your spirit did not originate here,’ he said. ‘You’re a traveller, though, which means you can spend time in both worlds. And your kharakter is a very rare one. It should be very interesting finding your art and shade and working out what to make of them. But your true home is the Realworld. For now, at least.’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t my world,’ said Effie. ‘I want this to be my world.’ Effie had only been in this house for a few hours, but already she ached to stay. She wanted to remain here and learn to do magic and help her cousins and Cosmo. She wanted to sit in the sunshine and feel that the people around her truly loved her.

  Cosmo nodded wisely and then sighed.

  ‘I do understand. But most travellers from your world simply don’t have enough lifeforce stored up to remain here for very long. The problem for you islanders is that you don’t s
tore life-force as easily as we do. You can get better at it, of course. And with the Ring of the True Hero . . .’

  ‘My ring?’ Effie said, looking at it.

  ‘Your grandfather did well to see that you are a true hero – we haven’t had one for a very long time – and to find the ring . . . I believe it will help you to generate and store lifeforce. You’ll need to work out how. You only truly learn the complexities of what a boon does by using it.’

  ‘If I got enough lifeforce I could stay here for ever?’

  Cosmo smiled. ‘No one stays anywhere for ever. But once you’ve secured your grandfather’s books you’ll need to find ways to generate enough lifeforce to visit us regularly.’

  There was suddenly a loud miaow from the rocking chair. The black cat stood up, stretched, shook, miaowed again and then jumped down onto the floor and up again onto Effie’s lap. It turned itself around in about five circles one way and five the other before settling down on her lap and purring like a lawn-mower. Not that they probably even had lawnmowers here. In all likelihood they mowed lawns – and did everything else – with magic, just as Lexy had said.

  ‘Moonface agrees,’ said Cosmo. ‘Ever since we heard you’d been born and that you showed, well, the right signs, we’ve all been tremendously excited. But Griffin kept telling us to be patient, that you weren’t quite ready yet. And then . . . Well, here you are. You must have more you want to ask, but we must be conscious of not overloading you. You may ask me one more thing, and then you really must rest before tea.’

  Effie stroked the cat. Her head was still full of questions.

  ‘What is the Great Split?’ she asked.

  ‘Aha. Good question.’ Cosmo sipped on his lemonade. Some bubbles got caught in his beard and fizzed and popped there for a while. ‘Well, a long time ago our two worlds were one. Magical creatures roamed the Earth, which was, at that time, quite flat. The Earth was flat because it was infinite – well, almost infinite, but we can’t go into all that now. In any case, there was magic and adventure and, well, I suppose it all looked a lot like this world does now, but with the beginnings of the world you come from buried within it. History is always hard to get a proper hold of. For one thing, it’s usually the victors that write it. For another thing, people in power tend to lie a lot. Then there are the Diberi, who will have hidden whole volumes of true lore . . .’