Dragonborn (21 page)

The women looked at each other.

“He'll come to me,” said December.

“He helped us,” said Greenrose. “We should take him now.”

“No,” said December. “You know that wouldn't be right.”

She beckoned to the roffles, who approached.

“What is it?” asked the little girl.

“He's dead,” said Tremmort.

Sam screamed down at them. “No! I'm here. I'm coming back.”

Their heads jerked up.

“What was that?” said Temmort.

“Thunder,” said December. “There'll be a storm before morning. See the clouds.” She draped Sam's cloak over him and laid his ash staff across his chest, folding his cold fingers around it to keep it steady.

Dense gray clouds rolled overhead, churning and changing.

“No!” shouted Sam. He tried to dive, but his wings flicked and held him up. “No!”

December whispered to the roffles. They laid Sam on their planks and lifted him to their shoulders.

Greenrose leaned over and kissed his cheek.

The rain started, slow, fat drops at first, then a sheet of water that drenched the small body as it was carried to December's house.

behind him, Starback flew toward the mines.

He just needed to be with Sam again. Sam was in danger. Starback knew he was.

Flaxfield had told him to take care of Sam, but it hadn't seemed to matter while the old wizard was around. Nothing bad ever happened to Sam, and there was nothing for Starback to do. In fact, it was more as though Sam looked after him. Sometimes, Starback thought he had never really known what it was to be happy until he had come to be with Sam.

And now Sam had gone.

Starback had seen something, in those moments when he was being dragged down into the castle. He had seen through Sam's eyes. He had felt Sam's dry mouth, his desperate hunger, the tearing at his throat as he tried to eat. The fear of someone. Starback felt light-headed, dizzy. He saw a face. A woman with a dark shawl
covering her ugliness, hiding her lips, her cheeks. Only her bright eyes looking straight at him. Looking with recognition.

This woman wanted to get hold of Sam.

Starback's wings sliced through the night, hurling him forward, cutting through the miles. He would reach the mines soon. It had always been the mines for Sam. Sam could not escape them. They had been drawing him ever since the first day he had arrived at Flaxfield's house. Now he was there. Starback knew he was.

His flight had taken him very high. Now he plunged down, angled from the sky, rushing toward Sam.

His dragon eyes saw the dancing, the torches, the roffles with their heads bowed low. His eyes saw the people leaving the scene and making their tired way back to small houses, the narrow town.

He flew faster than he had even known he could, dropping like hail from the sky.

He saw the woman's face.

“No!” he shouted. “Not you!”

He was close now.

He saw another woman, a boy, a girl.

“No!” roared Starback.

He saw the small body laid out.

He was close enough to hear clearly.

“He's dead,” said the boy.

Starback screamed down at them. “No! I'm here. I'm coming back!”

Their heads jerked up.

“What was that?” said the boy.

“Thunder,” said the face. “There'll be a storm before morning. See the clouds.” She draped Sam's cloak over him and laid his ash staff across his chest, folding his cold fingers around it to keep it steady.

Dense gray clouds rolled over their heads, churning and changing.

“No!” shouted Starback. He tried to dive, but his wings flicked and held him up. “No!”

The face whispered to the roffles. They laid Sam on their planks and lifted him to their shoulders.

The other woman leaned over and kissed his cheek.

The rain started, slow, fat drops at first, then a cloak of water that drenched the small body as it was carried to the face's house.

Starback wheeled around, lifted high and heavenward. He flew straight into the castle of clouds and sped through, his face wet with rain, traveling far and fast.

and frightened him. It was the tapping of the miners' picks. It was the rapping of strangers on the door. It was the tapping of the ash tree against the window. It was the tapping of raindrops from the eaves.

Voices came and went. The boy, Tremmort: “Is he dead?” The mother, Greenrose: “Why did you let him?” The woman with the twisted face, the puckered skin, the hand that dragged him free: “What use am I?” she asked. “Do you think it's time, Sam? Are you ready?”

Sam sensed that she was near him, stroking his forehead. A door slammed.

Light and dark. Day and night. Voices and silence. And a song. She sang to him, songs of the mines, the dark tunnels and deep diggings. Songs of the sky, and the stories the stars told when no one was listening. Songs of the hearth, the fire glowing behind the
iron bars, the embers cooling as the night shrugged off the dark and turned its face to morning. Songs of the woods, the shady corners where the rare herbs grew, the broad oaks and the silver birch, the rivers of bluebells and the green seas of ferns. Songs of books and baking bread. Songs of fishing for trout and swimming for joy. Songs of sorrow and loss. Songs of old men, long in years; songs of women, wide in wisdom.

Songs and silence and the cool cloths on his forehead.

Silence and searching. Her voice, over and over, asking him, calling to him.

“He won't ever wake up,” said Tremmort. Sam agreed that was the best and turned his heart inward to the longer silence.

He felt her hand grip his arm, tight.

“Where are you?” she asked. “Where are you?”

He opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of a tapestry on the wall above his bed. Perhaps he could go there instead. He closed them again.

December missed the moment. She was staring into the needlework. Her eyes caught a shape she had not seen before. Emerging from a forest, still half-hidden by trees, obscured by shade, was a wolf.

“Where have
you
been?” she asked. “Where have you come from?”

She thought she knew every detail of the picture, yet she had not noticed this gray figure bounding forward. The colors were soft, the wolf was in shadow, yet, even so, not to have seen it before.

“A wolf, then?” she said.

December put her hands on Sam's face and she breathed deeply, closing her eyes.

“Is that it? Is it a wolf?”

She began to sing of a wolf.

The rain spattered against the window. The wind whistled down the chimney. The ash tree tapped against the eaves.

December stopped.

The wind clenched and jabbed hard against the house. A rush of soot fell from the chimney, scattering wet and black on the tiles, rising up in gray dust.

“What is it?” asked December. “Tell me.”

She moved to the hearth, dragged her finger through the soot, scooped some into her hand.

“Tell me.”

The soot struggled in her hand. It curled around on itself and lifted up, forming a shape, clumsy and crude, like a cloud picture, but clear enough.

December laughed.

“A dragon. It would be.”

She cleaned her hands, checked the tapestry. There was a dragon, a Green and Blue, in front of a small group of houses and an inn, with trees framing the picture.

December took Sam's hand again and began to sing. She sang of dragons.

As she sang her face grew tense. Her hand shook. She hesitated, breathed deeply, and continued, her voice clear and strong,
beautiful, as she was not. Another voice, and another, joined hers. From outside the house, a howling. December heard, and ignored. Her eyes went to the tapestry. Not to the scene of houses and the inn, but to the dark fringe of forest and the shadowed wolf. Had she made a mistake? Was it wolves, after all?

Their voices joined with hers. The wolves ranged themselves in front of the house, barking, yelping, and howling.

made the dragon turn his head and look. The fox slunk past, head drooping, sly and secret. The dragon lay still in the midnight forest, his long flight over. No stars broke through the canopy of thick branches.

He was quiet, as only a dragon can be quiet. The fox did not see or hear or scent him, a lame shadow by a stump.

The dragon needed the shelter of the forest, the company of animals and growing things. He could not be where there were people. Here, beneath the trees, he found something deeper than the darkness. Something in himself.

He slept. And he lay, awake, unblinking. Beetles and woodlice, earwigs and mayflies scrambled over him, buzzed past his face, tunneled beneath him, sheltered in the shade of his scales. He was a log, or an ancient stone, covered with moss. Part of the forest floor.

He enjoyed these ticklings and scratchings. To him, the
creatures, with their crooked legs and jointy bodies, were as beautiful as a crinkled leaf or a folded petal.

He remembered other forests, other nights. Sometimes he dreamed, and sometimes he thought he dreamed but he was awake. Sometimes dreamed he was not a dragon at all, but a boy. And sometimes, when he was awake and not dreaming, he thought he was a wizard.

But always, he was tired. Too tired to move. Too tired to eat or drink.

The fox stopped and sniffed the dragon's foot. Two fox eyes met two dragon eyes.

Then the fox was gone, curling into the night forest.

A moth with a fat black body and gray powdery wings flew in through the slit window and danced in the lamplight, diving and swooping near to the flame, then settled on the desk, spread its wings, and came to rest.

Ash finished writing the sentence she had started, wiped the pen nib on a speckled rag, and looked at the moth. She pushed the blunt end of the pen against her cheek to calm an itch, then leaned back in her chair and waited.

The moth unfolded. Its wings flipped over and over till they opened out into a single sheet of notepaper. The black body trickled away into lines of writing.

Ash picked up the note, stood up, and walked to the window. The castle was high, and she was in the tallest turret. From the
slit she could see for miles, across the meadow to the forest, and over the tops of the trees into the distance.

She read the note. Read it again, though she did not need to. Placing the paper on her palm, she turned it back into a moth. The lamp needed trimming and smoked a little. She lifted the glass chimney, the heat not seeming to affect her, then held the moth over the flame, watching its wings scorch then flame for a moment before turning to ash. The fat black body bubbled, dripped, and dissolved. She wiped her fingers on the ink rag. Her lips curled in distaste.

“So late. Stupid,” she whispered. “You've already let him slip away.”

Sitting back down at the desk, she began to write her reply.

when Smedge burst into flames and fell over.

“You lost him?” said Frastfil. “Oh dear. Do you think—”

What Frastfil would do stayed a mystery to Smedge. The boy was on fire. Flames flowed over him. His hair was a fiery torch, his finger ends, candles. He rolled over and over in his frenzy to put the flames out. Nothing made any difference. He blazed like a beacon. Frastfil screamed for help, the swift onslaught of fire taking him by surprise and driving all thoughts of magic from his mind.

Smedge shouted a dousing spell. The flames hesitated, shrank back, then flared up, more powerful than ever. The words jerked Frastfil into action. He dragged a curtain from the window, wrapped it around Smedge, and shouted a spell of his own to stop the flames.

Duddle's face appeared in the doorway.

“What's—” he started to say, then, seeing the flames, pulled back.

“Come and help!” shouted Frastfil.

Duddle sidled in, keeping close to the wall, his hand against his face to shield it from the fire.

Smedge shrieked in pain. Then, as though it had never been, the fire disappeared. He hugged his arms to himself, rocking back and forth, moaning.

Frastfil knelt beside him. The boy was completely unhurt. No burning of the skin. His hair was as neat and tidy as ever, his clothes unscorched. The room, too, was unmarked by the fire. Not even a smell of smoke.

The Professor helped Smedge up from the carpet, moved him to an armchair.

“Does it hurt?”

He shook his head.

“Not now. Not anymore.”

His hand was clenched into a fist. He opened it. He was clutching a fat white moth. The moth fluttered its wings, stopped, then unfolded into a note.

I know you've lost him already. Find him. Follow him. Or it will be worse next time.

“What's this about?” asked Frastfil.

The wolves fell silent.

The swell of a soft song stood alone in the small room. December searched Sam's face for a response. The rain had eased. The heavy drops from the roof splattered in slow procession.

Sam's lips straightened. The curve of his mouth tensed. He grimaced.

December's song faltered. A solitary wolf yapped. She began again, stronger, singing of a dragon's flight. She stroked Sam's forehead. Some warmth there, perhaps?

She lifted a potion to his lips. He made no response. Dipping her fingers in the cup, she put them to his lips, parting them gently. A few drops made their way into his mouth.

A wolf bumped against the door, nosing the wood. Claws scratched.

December rubbed Sam's hands between her own. He returned a feeble grip. She dabbed more moisture through his lips. A third time, his tongue reached out for it and she lifted the cup again. He swallowed a little, turned his head, and the potion ran down his cheek. He coughed, gasped, then lay still.

“No!” said December. “No. Don't go now!”