The Color of Darkness (16 page)

“To begin with, the great sun only glowed warmly. But of course gradually it gained heat and strength, and as it grew hotter, Phaeton's back began to burn. Crying out in pain, he dropped the reins and clung to the front of the chariot, trying to cower away from the sun's great flames. The stags, free from any restraining hand, at once doubled their speed. With no charioteer to guide them, they galloped closer and closer to earth, the flames roaring out in their wake, and the mountaintops began to scorch and shrivel as they passed overhead.

“Closer still they came. Trees caught fire, the grass crumbled, and the hillsides became barren. The seas began to steam. The creatures on earth screamed in fear at this terrible sight, but what could they do? They ran away, they tried to hide, but there was no escape. Soon the world was ablaze.

“One creature wasn't affected by the fire, though—a creature new to the world, who bore the name Sammael. He had an affinity with the skies and came to the world's aid by gathering together a great storm. This storm sent out a sleek thunderbolt that, with one sharp
crack
, knocked Phaeton from his perch and sent him tumbling down to the earth below. He fell onto the horns of the Great Ox, Xur, and was so deeply pierced that all his blood drained away into the earth and he died.

“The stags, their load lightened, let the skies draw them upward again and continued their way back to Apollo's stables. But when Phaeton did not return with the chariot, Apollo went searching for his son, hoping despite everything that he might find Phaeton alive. Alas, he found only his son's bloodless corpse, with Xur standing beside it.

“Now, nobody knew much about Xur, save that he was the Guardian of the Earth, and the gods had all sworn never to harm him. But Apollo was seized by grief and rage, so he killed Xur with one blow of his battle-ax, then carried Phaeton tenderly home to receive the last farewells of his mother.

“Sammael, who had been following these events, came in search of Xur's corpse. He regarded the huge body with interest.

“‘That's a fine ox,' he said to himself. ‘And intriguing. It'd be a shame to let it go to waste.'

“So he skinned the ox and cured its hide. In time he made himself a pair of boots out of its skin. These boots had powers that no other creature could have foreseen. Various legends began to spread across the world: that the creature who wore them could control minds, that he could control the moon, the stars—even the course of the very sun itself. Some legends told how, when the race of humans came to cover the entire earth, the wearer of these boots could walk between all of them in a single stride.

“Who knows whether any of these stories are true. But one story above all was told and retold, countless times: that over and beyond the earth there exists a land called Chromos, where all the wonders and disasters of hope live in a thousand colors wrapped around the things of the earth itself. And those boots gave Sammael dominion over that endlessly colored world.”

*   *   *

Danny's blood had run as cold as his pinched skin. The rustling of deer in the cow parsley became louder, and faint chewing sounds scratched at the air.

Sammael's boots. Made from a legendary ox killed in the first days of the world. There was no way he'd be able to steal them, use them to get into Chromos, take Kalia, and try to make a bargain with Sammael for Tom's sand. It was a crazy idea.

But if what the grass had said about Chromos was true, then simply getting Tom back wouldn't be enough. Danny would have to stop Sammael as well. Getting his boots would be the perfect way to do it.

Once Sammael couldn't travel through Chromos, he'd have to stay up in the high ether, where he belonged. All this would stop happening—Sammael controlling people's minds, making them sell their souls, making them try to kill each other. All that fear would be gone.

Danny saw it—the ending to his story. Sammael banished, Danny O'Neill free. No more trees struck by lightning. No more Toms with guilty, secretive faces.

“How could I get the boots?” he said abruptly, forgetting that he was speaking out loud.

The rustling sounds stopped immediately, as did every other sound in the forest except the hissing wind.

Isbjin al-Orr stayed still, as though the sound of Danny's actual voice was not much of a surprise to him.

“It's only a story,” he said. “Sammael doesn't exist. If he did, he'd be hundreds of thousands of years old by now. Millions, even. Or billions.”

Danny shook his head. “Something exists,” he said. “And it calls itself Sammael, and it wears boots just like you said.”

“I have always known that humans were strange,” said Isbjin al-Orr. “But stranger still are you. I tell you, child, it is a story. It has been repeated so much over the entire length of the existence of deer that its origins must have been different entirely. I told you the story we have now, at this moment in time. It is not the same story as it was when it began, that is for certain. So it cannot be the whole story. It is only our version, for our time.”

“Did you know that grass talks?” said Danny. “It's so sharp that anything one blade says can get repeated millions of times by others, and it stays the same. How do you know your story is wrong? It sounds right to me.”

“Because I have seen time,” said the stag, and as if to confirm this, the sunlight glinted on the gray hairs gathering around his nostrils and mouth. “I have watched the days rise and set, and the moons come and go, and the seasons turn by in their endless change. Nothing is ever the same as it was the previous year—I have seen the woodlands shrink and the crops grow tall. I have heard the voices of my sisters and brothers, and I have seen them appear, live, and die. I have seen the world, and I know that words are never true.”

“Yeah?” said Danny. “But you've never seen Sammael, have you? And I have.”

“You have?” The stag lowered his head, and Danny saw that, despite the gray hairs around his muzzle, his eyes were deep and strongly black. “Tell me, then. Tell me your story.”

So Danny told him, in as few words as he could manage, about the summer before. He left out the part about the sycamore tree but told all the rest—the hunt for his parents, the discovery of the Book of Storms, the great storm in which he'd battled Sammael—as though it were he, not the stick, that had the magical power of speech with all nature. He knew, as he told it, that he was recounting a legend with himself as the hero. It was easy to make yourself sound heroic if you left out the parts about feeling alone and scared, and never really being all that sure of what to do.

When he had finished, Isbjin al-Orr raised his head again and looked up to the sky.

“It is a good story,” he said. “To hear of such things, I—who have been bound by the earth all my life, tied to its seasons, and its laws—I shiver with delight. To hear that some of our stories have a truth about them, when I have long supposed that they are all fictions for the entertainment of young fawns—it makes my heart sing with wonder.”

Danny smiled, happy to have impressed the stag. It was something, to stand in the bright morning air, next to such a creature, and to hear it sing your praises.

Isbjin al-Orr sniffed, drawing the smells of the green-leaved trees into his nostrils, and continued.

“The world is magical, beyond doubt. I feel it, but I rarely see it. And you have shown another small part of that magic to me. I thank you deeply. If I can be of any further assistance to you, please find me again. I have a strong desire to break out into the unknown and to throw up my antlers against whatever I find there. And as I have not long left in this world, it would be a shame to miss such an opportunity.”

Danny rested his palm flat against the tree behind him, feeling the roughness of its bark. Could he get the stag to help him somehow? The warnings of the grass rang in his ears. Chromos pouring onto earth, humans going mad …

“Can you think of any way I could get those boots?” he asked again. “Now that you know that it's possible.”

“I cannot,” said Isbjin al-Orr. “Nor can I think that such a move would be without severe consequences.”

And Danny knew he couldn't embark on a quest against Sammael without knowing that Tom was safe. Not when Sammael had the promise of Tom's sand firmly in his hands.

Tom first, he decided. Get into Chromos, get Kalia, make the bargain with Sammael, and get Tom. Then stop Sammael, once and for all. Easy.

“I have to get into Chromos,” he said. “I don't suppose you know of any other way? Are there any more stories about it?”

“There is only one other way of which I know,” said Isbjin al-Orr. “And that is to summon up the guide of Chromos and get on his back.”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “I had a feeling you'd say that. Any idea how?”

“Oh no.” The stag shook his antlers gently. “I don't think any mortal creatures know that. I've certainly never heard of one.”

“Oh, I have,” said Danny. “And we tried it. Trouble is, there was something in the way of the guide, and I couldn't get near it.”

“Something in the way?” Isbjin al-Orr looked at him, the black eyes keen and hard. “If you've managed to get that far, surely there can be only one thing getting in your way?”

“Yeah? What's that?”

“You're a human. You're too scared.”

Danny raised his palm to the sky. “I can't help being scared!” he said. “How could I possibly help that?”

“Well,” said Isbjin al-Orr. “You can't help feeling scared, I suppose. But there are three basic responses to being scared, aren't there? One is to flee and hide. The second is to stand the ground bravely, shaking but solid, refusing to be moved.”

“And the third?”

“The third?” The stag tossed up his head and stamped his hoof hard on the ground. “The third is to bring gladness into your heart and run toward whatever you fear, bellowing at the top of your voice. Perhaps that's your way into Chromos, my friend. It seems as though you have no other options left.”

“Run toward it?” said Danny. “But that's stupid.”

“Perhaps,” said Isbjin al-Orr, raising his nostrils to twitch at the breeze.

Danny waited for the stag to finish the sentence, to agree with him, to nod and say that it was right to be cautious.

But Isbjin al-Orr stood and sniffed at the wind, and took in all the scents of the faraway world that drifted through the air toward him.

And his eyes shone with silver.

 

CHAPTER 16

DOWN TO EARTH

As Cath fell out of Chromos, Zadoc's legs hit the ground and crumpled, and his nose banged against a pile of bricks so that his whole body jerked in a spasm of surprise. Cath was thrown into a mess of wire. It snaked into the holes in her sweater and pulled at her as she sat up, seeing the last fragments of Zadoc's hooves dissolve into the air as he leapt straight back into the place he belonged.

Where was Barshin?

The hare was close by, trying to find somewhere solid to put his feet in a mound of broken wood. Deftly avoiding rusty nails and splinters, he managed to balance on the end of a plank and stood trembling, the wood shuddering underneath him.

Cath reached out a hand to steady the plank, sending nervous Barshin leaping into the air. “What was
that
? How did we get back?”

“He pushed us into a gray patch. We fell out of Chromos.”

Cath remembered Zadoc's words, and panic leapt into her throat. “Did Zadoc die? He said he'd die if he went down one of those patches. He can't die!”

“Oh no.” Barshin settled himself uneasily back on the plank. “I think it was quite an old patch—the colors were slow. He'll only have started to die. It will take him a while to finish.”

A swell of sickness rose up Cath's throat, and she tasted sour bile. It was just hunger, she told herself, and closed her eyes to make it go away. Barshin didn't sound that sure, really. He was probably being dramatic. Zadoc would be fine.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that they were in some kind of junkyard, piles of broken stuff all strangled with grass and rubbish. Away to the right there was a fence with barbed wire along the top. The fence was old and sagging, but the barbs were shiny and stretched taut between the posts.

Then Cath knew where she was—the allotments behind the Sawtry, where the old coffin dodgers spent their lives shaking their fists at kids who got through the fences and waged war on their vegetables. Cath had stomped on a rotten old pumpkin here once—her foot had squelched into a pile of smelly mush that stank like ripe old fish guts.

She shook herself off and got up, trying to put away the thoughts of Zadoc. “Can't we—?”

“Oi!” came a shout from behind her. “Oi! You! Ruddy kids! Just you wait…”

Cath ran. There was a gap in the fence at the bottom corner where the plots were overgrown. She dodged around the edge of the rough scrub that passed for the gardens of the Sawtry and ran on, liking the way her legs lifted and her feet touched only lightly on the ground, as though she were flying, just touching the earth to remember that it was still there.