Dragonborn

by Toby Forward

  At the same time, Flaxfield had taught him to read and write. Later, he also taught him how to tell his numbers, which plants in the forest and fields were poisonous, where to find the best berries and mushrooms, how to catch a trout with a rod and line, not to touch fire, but how to light one.

  On his sixth birthday, Flaxfold said, “I’m off now,” and gave Sam the only hug he ever remembered having from anyone.

  “Wait,” said Flaxfield. He went to the old oak dresser that took up nearly one whole wall of the kitchen. Opening a door, he took out a loaf of bread, some figs, a small bottle of cordial, and a bag of silver coins. They had been put there recently, because the bread was fresh, and there was nothing else in the small cupboard.

  He handed them to Flaxfold. “You have done all things well,” he said quietly. “Go where you must.” To the boy’s astonishment, the old man kissed her cheek and smiled.

  She said nothing more, but closed the door quietly after her.

  “Go and get me a trout,” said Flaxfield.

  That was the first day that Sam cooked their food on his own. He had done it every day since then for six years. When he came back with the trout, Flaxfield said, “Now, wash your hands and look at this. Read it carefully.”

  Sam read it.

  “Do you understand it?”

  “No.”

  “It says that if you sign it at the bottom of the page,” he pointed with an inky finger, “then you will be my apprentice for twelve years. I will teach you everything I know and then you will be able to go and work for yourself. It will make you rich if you want to be.”

  “Are you rich?” Sam asked.

  “I said,” Flaxfield repeated carefully, “if you want to be.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want to be my apprentice?”

  “I don’t know. What if I say no?”

  “You can stay here as my servant, or you can go away and do whatever you want. I’ll pay you thruppence a week as my servant, or I’ll give thirty shillings to take with you if you go away.”

  “I’ll be your apprentice,” said Sam.

  “That’s right. Now, sign your name here—S-A-M—and then after it, on the next line, C-L-O-U-D.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Sam is your everyday name, but Cloud is going to be your secret name. That’s your first lesson as my apprentice: never tell anyone your secret name.”

  Sam nodded.

  Flaxfield frowned at the paper. He tapped his fingers against the table, put his hand into his pocket, hesitated, took it out again, and smiled at Sam.

  “Is that it?” asked Sam.

  “Usually,” said Flaxfield.

  He put his hand back into his pocket in a rush, pulled out a stubby piece of metal, and put it on the table.

  “Perhaps we should seal it,” he said. “Make it special.”

  He found a lump of hard red wax and lit a candle. Sam watched as he held the corner of the wax over the flame and it melted, dripping onto the paper below the two signatures. When there was a small pool of soft wax, Flaxfield took the metal and pressed it in. When he took it away it had left a mark, and the wax was dry again and hard.

  “There. That’s sealed,” said Flaxfield. “Do you like it?”

  Sam peered at the wax. The metal had left an indentation, like a coin, with a picture of a bird in the center.

  “Can I see?”

  Flaxfield handed him the metal.

  “You like it?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You should have it, then.”

  He found a leather thong, threaded it through a loop in the metal, and tied it around Sam’s neck.

  “Is it mine?” asked Sam.

  “You look after it for me.”

  Sam liked the weight of it against his neck.

  “But can I keep it?”

  “Will you?” said Flaxfield. “Will you look after it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, go and cook that trout.”

  And that was how it had all started.

  From time to time Sam looked secretly into the cupboard, to see if it was where the bread was kept, but it was always empty. Once, when Flaxfield was there, he opened the door to put a loaf of bread in, but the old man said, “That’s not where it goes. Leave that door alone.”

  When he was ten, he learned a hard lesson. He conjured the fish because he couldn’t be bothered to dangle a hook any longer, and he knew he was doing a bad thing. Which was why he shouldn’t have been surprised when Flaxfield was angry with him for doing it.

  “Put it here,” said Flaxfield.

  He put the fish on the desk.

  Flaxfield looked into its mouth.

  “Where did the hook go in?” he asked.

  Sam kicked his toe against the leg of the desk and mumbled.

  “Eh?” Flaxfield put his hand to his ear and leaned forward. Although he was old, he could see like a hawk and hear like a dog.

  Sam owned up.

  Flaxfield nodded and walked out, waiting at the door for Sam to follow him. When they reached the riverbank, he handed the fish to Sam.

  “Make it swim.”

  He dropped it into the water where it floated, belly-up and dead.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t know how to.”

  “Why not?”

  Tears ran down his face, making patterns in the dirt.

  “You never showed me.”

  Flaxfield nodded.

  “Remember that,” he said. “If you can’t undo by magic what you have done with magic, then don’t do it. And stop crying. That won’t make it any better.”

  Sam wiped his nose with his bare arm.

  Flaxfield scooped the fish out of the water. He closed his eyes and began to hum. After a while, he leaned forward, dipped his head in the river, his long hair spreading out like a cobweb, and filled his mouth with water. He put his face close to the mouth of the trout and sprayed the water straight between its jaws. The trout flickered. Flaxfield shook it. It twitched. He lowered it gently into the running current. It hung for a second, motionless, then darted to life and swam off.

  Sam felt sick. There was something in the air around them that frightened him. Flaxfield’s face was gray and his hands shook.

  “Go away,” he said.

  That night, even though it was a Friday, Flaxfield ate cheese.

  Sam thought the old man would be angry with him, and he hid. But Flaxfield called him gently and they ate together, more companionably than usual.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sam.

  Flaxfield smiled at him.

  “Everyone does it, sooner or later,” he said. “You did it sooner than I expected.”

  “I knew it was wrong. But not very wrong.”

  “It was as wrong as you could make it,” said Flaxfield. “You used the magic you have inside you without thinking, and you did something you couldn’t undo, and you did it to save yourself trouble. Three things,” he ticked them off on his fingers, “and every one of them serious.”

  Sam lowered his head.

  “No more tears. Have an apple with that cheese.”

  The next day, the dragon arrived, and Flaxfield gave Starback to Sam to look after.

  “He isn’t yours, mind,” the old man warned him. “He belongs to himself—everything does. But he’s your responsibility. You must feed him and take care of him.”

  There was more about the right use of magic. Looking back, now that it was all over, Sam realized that he had learned more about how not to use magic than he had about how to use it. He didn’t know much about that at all. And now Flaxfield was dead. And Sam would never know any more.

  He was twelve. His apprenticeship was only half over, and he didn’t know what would happen to him.

  Did he know enough about magic to live by it? He didn’t think so. He really didn’t think he knew enough to make himself rich. And he thought he would be very lonely on his own in Flaxfield’s house.

>   The shivering of the wands as they fell from the willow disturbed the air, disturbed the spaces between the air, disturbed the steady stillness. A gray-robed figure, pacing on a smooth floor, stopped, turned her face to a window, and held her breath. She felt the shivering of the falling willow branches, felt the magic that had stripped and piled them, felt the sorrow and the loss of the figures on the riverbank. She crouched, sniffed, paused, smiled.

  “Flaxfield’s dead,” she said.

  “That’s very good.” The reply was a clatter of claws.

  She drew her robe to her head and wrapped it around her like a shawl, half hiding her face.

  “Now it starts,” she said. “Now it starts.”

  She dropped to her knees and licked the floor, a snail trail of saliva glistening against the stone.

  “I can taste it,” she said. “I can taste the magic rising up.”

  She lay flat and licked, pressed her cheek against the cold stone. A black beetle clawed its way up between the slabs. It tilted, tottered, settled, walked toward her. She darted her head forward, snapped her teeth together, splitting the beetle. She flicked her head to one side, tossing the beetle into her mouth. Crunched it once, swallowed, licked her lips, sticky with the beetle’s soft insides. More black beetles clambered up, crawled over her.

  “They know,” she whispered. “They know the time’s starting.”

  “What else can you see, Ash?”

  She screamed at the clattering shape and it shrank back into a corner.

  “Give me time. Let me enjoy this.”

  She slithered toward it, her gray robe rippling like smoke.

  Bakkmann stepped away.

  “Can we leave the castle now?” it clattered.

  Ash rose up, stood close.

  “I’ll snap your legs off,” she said. “One by one. Snap. Snap. You hear me?”

  Bakkmann clattered yes.

  “With Flaxfield dead,” said Ash, “we can do anything. We can leave this place.”

  She hugged herself.

  “At last. At last!”

  She ran from the room, around and down the spiral stair. The robe billowed behind her like smoke. Through stinking corridors, pushing aside anything that got in her way, she found the great door. It stood open. It was always open. She paused, moved slowly, stepped up to the threshold, and walked through.

  As her foot passed through the doorway she stopped and screamed.

  She fell back, away from the door. Her foot snapped off at the ankle and hung in the air outside.

  Ash snarled, lunged forward into the doorway, hands outstretched. Again, she froze as soon as she crossed the line. Her arms had gone through as far as the elbows, then stopped. Her weight sagged. She fell to her knees and her forearms snapped off.

  Bakkmann found her, bleeding and slumped on the floor.

  “I should have killed him,” she moaned. “If he had lived longer I would have been able to.”

  Bakkmann clattered.

  “What went wrong?” she asked. “Why am I still a prisoner here?”

  “Can you see anything?” Bakkmann clattered.

  Ash closed her eyes and sank down again, crouched. Her foot was beginning to grow back. The stumps of her arms had stopped bleeding.

  “Nothing. They’re at Flaxfield’s house. That’s protected against us. All I felt was a stupid slip of wasted magic. It opened a door just enough for me to feel what was happening.”

  She doubled over, put her face to the floor. One hand was restored. The other was nearly complete, except for the fingers.

  “I can get in,” she said. “Just for a moment.”

  She pulled the robe so that her face was hidden.

  “Figures on a riverbank,” she said. “A dragon. And a boy.”

  She hugged herself, moaning.

  “What is it?”

  She ignored the clattered question.

  Bent double with pain, she dipped her head below the window, pulled her robe away, and looked around. Her eyes were bleeding. Her mouth was twisted into a snarl. She said something. Almost.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a boy,” she said. “Flaxfield’s boy.”

  Bakkmann clacked louder.

  “We have to get him,” said Ash. “We have to. The seal. Flaxfield’s magic. The boy.”

  She stared at the slabs of black that made up Bakkmann’s face.

  “It’s not over,” she snarled. “Not over after all. It’s just beginning. After all these years. He’s found a boy and given him the seal.”

  Pages from an apprentice’s notebook

  THE THING ABOUT ROFFLES is that there are all sorts of them, but they all look pretty much the same. Some are good and trustworthy, while others can be very sly and unpleasant, and there’s absolutely no way of knowing which is which until you have been with them for a long time. They seem to be very helpful, though a little short-tempered. They only ever come above ground for one reason: to look for stray memmonts.

  The memmonts are curious creatures, and they often find gaps in the ground that they can wriggle through to get Up Top. They like the sun, but they have no sense of direction, so once they are here, they find it difficult to get back home. The roffles love the memmonts, and, although there are many of them and one missing wouldn’t matter, they always try to rescue strays.

  Memmonts, of course, don’t belong to anyone, so the roffles are not recovering their property, just doing a kind thing for a memmont.

  They carry almost everything they own on their backs in hard leather cases shaped like barrels that have been sat on sideways and flattened out. Some people say that this is because hundreds of years ago they were put in barrels as a punishment and tipped down the disused shafts of the mines, and then they found the Deep World. Other people say they were miners once, and that they stayed down there and made the Deep World themselves and came to like it better than Up Top. Still other people say that once everyone was a roffle in the Deep World but the people Up Top came through the gaps and liked it here and stayed. No one knows.

  Roffles have pointy shoes and they are just over half as tall as a grown man or woman. Roffle babies can walk when they are seven months old and talk like grown-ups on their first birthday. Every roffle name begins with the letters M-E-G. It is a very rare thing to see a fat roffle, but there was a famous one called Megantople, who sometimes came Up Top to go to fairs and make money from charging people tuppence to see him. He spent the money on gold and jewels and took them back to the Deep World, where he became the richest roffle ever. Even now, roffles who are descended from Megantople are very rich and powerful.

  Everyone knows how delicious the food is that the roffles grow in the Deep World, but they will not bring it Up Top and sell it, so very few people have ever tasted it. Sometimes a memmont, carrying a basket of roffle apples or plums on its back, will break through to Up Top, and then the people who find the memmont can taste them, but this hardly ever happens.

  Roffles love to give advice and help people, which is a good thing, if it is a good roffle, but a bad roffle will give bad advice and false help, just for the fun of it.

  Starback

  was a Green and Blue. No one ever knows how old dragons are, so Starback could have been a youngster of only a few years or a very old and wise dragon indeed. It was impossible to tell. They never looked any different, or behaved any differently, rolling around and scampering like puppies however old they were.

  Starback watched the wizards very carefully.

  They had worked hard to cut the willow. The woman, Eloise, had started the weaving and they had all taken turns until the basket was complete. Then they had carried it to the house and gently lifted Flaxfield into it.

  The old man’s name was Sandage. He supervised it, and he was the one who arranged the herbs around the body, in a very particular order, different from the one that Sam knew. The boy corrected him almost straight away, but Axestone put his hand on his shoulder.

  �
��This is a wizard, boy. No ordinary death. Watch and learn.”

  Starback kept close to his friend while the rites were performed. Sam didn’t look at him. He kept his gaze on the face of the man who had raised him for nine years and given him the only home he had ever known, and who now lay dead.

  “Now,” said Eloise. “It is the boy’s turn.”

  Sam looked at her and, for the first time, his eyes took in the rest of the room. It had filled. Silently, slowly, one after another, more and more people had entered. Over thirty stood there now. All turned to look at him. There were women there, but most of them were men, and, Sam knew, all wizards. He had no idea there were so many in the whole world.

  “What?” he said.

  “Sandage was his first apprentice, and has performed the preparation. You were his last apprentice,” said Eloise. “You must give me the elements to finish this.” She seemed changed by the ritual she had performed, but Sam was used to that. He had seen it many times with Flaxfield. It wasn’t that anything actually changed, but they looked different. The first thing Sam had noticed about Eloise was that she was beautiful. He had seen very many strangers since coming to live with Flaxfield, but not many of them were women; he had no idea what beauty was in a woman, yet the first sight of Eloise was enough to tell him that she was. It reminded Sam of a day when he had been sitting with Starback, looking over the steep hill and the tumbling river that ran down eastward through the forest before changing its mind and doubling back to run past the bottom of the meadow behind the house. The light of the angled sun on the slopes and water seemed to the boy to be the most beautiful thing in the world. And then, without warning, a high, huge cloud slipped over the sun and, in a breath, everything was changed. The shadow changed the beauty, made it more, disclosed depths and mysteries. It was like that after magic. There was always more. Flaxfield had seemed more wise, more stern, more old. Eloise, the words completed, was more beautiful, and, suddenly, frightening.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Sam. “You do it.”