Dragonborn

by Toby Forward

  “He’s too old to go apprentice to any other trade,” said Khazib.

  “And too dangerous,” said Caleb, “after what he’s seen here. Who knows what Flaxfield let him share? He was getting forgetful in his age. Some time down the mines will make him forget all this.”

  “They don’t last long down there,” said Khazib.

  Caleb grinned. “I’ll lock him in under the stairs when he gets back.”

  “He’s not coming back,” said Axestone. “There’s enough wizard in him already to know when to run.”

  They looked at each other, knowing Axestone was right.

  “Then we must find him,” said Caleb. “Before he does damage to us all.”

  Pages from an apprentice’s notebook

  TAILORS AND TAILORING. Tailors are best avoided, except when you need a new suit of clothes or a waistcoat. They present themselves as soft as cloth, but they are as sharp as needles. Never trust a tailor. A tailor’s job is to disguise his customer: to make a fat man slim; to make a weak man look strong; to take a peasant who has found a fortune and transform him into a landowner or a merchant, at least until he opens his mouth. Tailors are deceivers—and worse.

  A tailor’s shop is a very pleasant place to spend time, and a good tailor’s shop is a joy to the eyes as well as to the touch. Bolts of worsted wool, linen, and silk. Bobbins and shears. A wide window set in a thick stone wall, to let the customers see the true color of the cloth before they order the tailor to cut it to shape. And, most important of all, the table. A real tailor’s table is made of cedar wood, as are all the shelves and the cupboards. Moths do not like cedar, so it protects the cloth from them. The table is long, at least three times as long as its width, and it must be wide enough to take a bolt of cloth.

  The tailor’s table has three purposes, but it is never used for food or eating at. Even a small amount of food or drink is enough to ruin a length of cloth worth a year’s pay for a working man.

  First, the table is for display. Watch a tailor seize bolts from the shelves and throw them onto the table, letting them unroll, ablaze with color and rippling with rich folds. One, two, three, more and more lengths fill the table, until the customer thinks himself a king or a merchant prince. How people will respect him when he appears dressed in this! How they will listen to him when the tailor’s shears and needles have worked their magic, snipping and tucking, lining and turning, hemming and cording!

  The second use of the table is for the tailor to sit on. Slipping off his shoes, the tailor jumps onto the table, crosses his legs, picks up the cut pieces, and, turned toward the big window for light, begins to sew. It would be foolish to sew away from the light. The thread tangles, the needle misses its mark so that the seam is crooked or the tuck is in the wrong place, the natural grain of the cloth is ignored and the coat seems twisted. Now, anyone with a thick needle can stitch a shroud or fasten a sack, even by lamplight, but that isn’t sewing. The tailor’s needles are thin and sharp and nimble and fast. And the finest tailors of all sew the cloth so that all the stitches are folded inside, hidden, and the garment looks as though a needle has never touched it, as though it grew from the earth, like an ear of wheat or an orchid, complex, detailed, with shades and hues that blend and complement each other, never betraying a maker’s hand. This is the sorcery of the tailor. This is what he conjures up, cross-legged on his cedar table.

  The customer thinks he has bought a coat, as he would buy a horse or a cupboard, but it is not like that. For the coat, or the cloak, the worsted suit or the breeches, have been made for him and him alone. Anyone can ride the horse, anyone can put his dishes in the cupboard as well as anyone else—but the clothes will only properly fit one man. The tailor has entered into a pact to transform him into whatever the clothes will make him. And it doesn’t end when the customer walks out of the shop.

  That’s two of the three uses.

  Memmonts don’t like tailors. And tailors are frightened of memmonts. Memmonts are straightforward beasts, and they do not trust the skill of the tailor to transform the customer.

  Tailors sometimes work at night, with the shutters closed. At two or three in the morning, there is a blade of light around the edge of the tailor’s window, as he sews a special garment for a particular customer who needs it in a hurry, perhaps, or who has made a special request. This is sewing that does not need daylight.

  Now, dressmakers are a different thing altogether. And weavers are another yet...

  Sam looked around for Starback,

  but the dragon had disappeared.

  The roffle slipped his bag from his back and sat on it.

  “Start at the beginning, but be quick about it,” he said. “What’s a Starback?”

  Sam forgot about being punished for using his magic and shook his head.

  “Is it a book?”

  Shake.

  “A snake?”

  Shake.

  “A cake?”

  Shake.

  “Is it a long piece of string with a bottle on the end of it?”

  “Why would it be that?” asked Sam.

  “Why would it be anything?”

  “It would be something sensible.”

  The roffle wriggled on his bag. “Ah, but why? You don’t look sensible. You look lost and dirty.”

  “Stop calling me dirty,” said Sam.

  “I’ve only just started. You see, you’re not very sensible. I’m not going to bother with you.”

  He stood up, dusted the back of his trousers, and picked up his bag.

  “Please stay.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m alone. And I’ve never been here before. And it’s dark.”

  “Three sensible things,” said the roffle with a frown. He sat down again. “What’s your name?”

  “Sam. What’s yours?”

  “Megatorine.”

  “Are you looking for a memmont?”

  Megatorine crinkled his forehead.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Everyone knows that’s what roffles do.”

  “No they don’t. They think we come up for food.”

  Sam shook his head. “No, you’ve got lots of food. You look for memmonts.”

  “So,” said Megatorine, “you’re a wizard, then?”

  “Who sealed this door?” asked Khazib.

  They had each tried their strongest spells to open the study door, but all had failed.

  Caleb had started, grabbing the handle without thinking to unlock it first, and he pulled his hand back, screaming in pain as the handle glowed red to his grasp, burning him.

  Axestone smiled.

  Caleb swore and said bad things about Flaxfield that an apprentice should never even think about his old master.

  Sandage was more cautious, but used his best magic, and the door remained firm against him.

  Khazib straightened his shoulders, held his head erect, and pretended not to know that this was a trial of power between the five of them. Now it was a challenge, and the one who won would gain in authority. He ran his fingers along exactly the same line that Sam had followed, moved his lips in a language none of the others knew, and commanded the door to open.

  He bore his failure with dignity. Axestone allowed a time for magic to settle before he stepped forward to try. His face was not one that permitted the thought of failure. He braced himself, and asked the others to stand back. “This will be violent,” he warned them.

  Eloise hung back, waited for Axestone to fail, which he did.

  Her magic was softer, more intimate. She seemed to beguile the door into being one with her in the desire to open, and, for a moment, it yielded a little, then slammed shut, fast as ever, locked against them.

  Her eyes were wide and her breathing deep, but she gave no other sign of the great expense that the attempt had cost her.

  “He had lost none of his power in his age,” said Khazib.

  “Indeed,” said Axestone. “A spell as powerful as youth itself.
Who would have thought he had such strength left in him?” And he walked away quickly.

  “I’m not a wizard,” said Sam, “but I will be one day.”

  “You are already, or you wouldn’t know the secrets of the roffles. That’s wizard work,” said Megatorine, in a voice so gentle and friendly that Sam told him everything, without stopping to think whether it was a good idea or not.

  “Well that’s easily settled,” said the roffle.

  “Really?”

  “You don’t need a master,” he said. “That’s old-fashioned. You can go to a proper place to learn to be a wizard, with lots of others. Besides, there’s lots of bad magic about these days. Magic that will eat you up if you’re not trained.”

  Sam leaned forward, surprised to hear the roffle saying what the wizards had been talking about.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Roffles know lots of things. The tunnels in the Deep World link up all over the place. We move where no one sees us.”

  “Where does the bad magic come from?” asked Sam.

  “Ah, now you’re asking.”

  “And what’s the answer?”

  “Most things begin with one thing,” said the roffle.

  “What was the one thing?”

  “A cat with a silver knife is one thing.”

  “No, it’s two things,” said Sam.

  “So it is.”

  “A silver knife shaped like a cat is one thing.”

  “Is it?”

  “It’s a knife,” said Sam. “That’s one thing. But it’s a sort of cat as well, and that’s another thing. So it’s two things.”

  “Two things can be one thing.”

  Sam thought about that.

  “What was the one thing that started the magic going bad?” he asked.

  “It was a wizard,” said the roffle.

  Waterburn, thought Sam.

  “And that’s why you’ve got to go to College, to learn properly. You need lots of wizards around you.”

  “But wizards live alone. They guard their secrets. They don’t share them like that.”

  “Oh, it’s secrets you want, is it?”

  Sam wished Starback was with him. Somehow, when the dragon was nearby, he seemed to know what to do. This was the longest time they had ever been apart.

  “Do you really want to be a wizard?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll take you, if you like.”

  “Is it far?”

  “Day and a half. And if you see a memmont on the way, give me a shout.”

  “All right.”

  The night was so far on that the road was invisible; even the short path back to it through the trees had curled up on itself and hidden.

  “We’ll sleep here first, though,” said Megatorine. “Make us a fire.”

  Sam had been longing for a fire, for warmth, and for protection against any creatures of the forest.

  “I can’t. I’ve no flint.”

  “Magic one up for us.”

  Sam shook his head. “I can’t use the magic for myself,” he explained. “It would go wrong.”

  “That’s all right. The fire isn’t for you. It’s for me.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. No fire, no help. Find the wizard school yourself. I’m off.”

  Sam flicked his fingers and a crackling fire sprang up in the clearing. Megatorine gave him an orange grin. “That’s more like it,” he said. “I knew it was my lucky day. My own wizard, eh?”

  And he curled up tight like a hedgehog and was snoring before Sam even had time to worry about who the fire was for.

  Starback had flown back to watch the five wizards leave the house and search for Sam. They all set off in the right way, following the boy’s footsteps as though they were glowing in the dark. Wizard sight sees what has been as well as what is there. But when they reached the first fork in the road, the footsteps went in both directions.

  “What’s this?” said Khazib. “Did he double back? Go both ways?”

  Caleb ran along one path, then along the other, as far as the turn in each direction. “They go both ways for miles,” he said. “He couldn’t have doubled back, there wasn’t time.”

  Eloise looked long and hard at each trail.

  “I think this one,” she said, pointing left.

  Sandage put his hand on her arm. “Are you sure? Is there some magic we have not used?”

  “No. I just think it,” she admitted. “It could be the other way.”

  Caleb smashed his staff against a tree. All the leaves instantly curled up and fell crackling to the ground, dead. Birds flew up from the branches, and a line of black beetles scrambled out from the roots and disappeared into the undergrowth.

  “How is it done?” he shouted.

  “If Eloise goes left, I’ll take the right,” said Axestone.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Khazib.

  “And I with Eloise,” said Sandage.

  “It is not possible!” said Caleb. “The boy is no wizard, not even a proper apprentice. He can’t have done this.”

  “But it is done, anyway,” said Axestone. “So we must do our best. With us, or Eloise?”

  “With you,” said Caleb.

  “I thought so,” said Eloise, watching them set off. “Caleb will not follow a woman’s lead.”

  “The more fool he,” said Sandage.

  At the next fork in each direction, the footsteps disappeared altogether. Instead of two trails, there were none. They doubled back and assembled again. Caleb raged; Sandage nodded his head slowly. “I begin to admire our young friend,” he said. Eloise silently chose the left fork again, leaving Sandage alone. Khazib pointed at the two clear paths.

  “The boy is clever,” he said, and trudged on alone.

  “Not the boy,” Axestone whispered to himself. “This is dragon magic.”

  “I’ll beat him till his bones shake when I get hold of him,” said Caleb.

  Axestone walked steadily away. He left Caleb slumped at the base of an alder. “He may not be so easy to discipline,” he predicted. But anger had closed Caleb’s ears.

  When he was sure that the five were separated, Starback flew back to the clearing and was not at all happy when he saw the fire and the roffle and Sam half-awake and frightened. He hid above him in the beech tree and waited for morning. While he waited, the small shape of a black, broken dragon circled around, fell to earth behind Starback, found the rough bark of the tree, and began to climb. Not a leaf moved as the dragon rose ever higher. He rose through them like smoke. Then, when he had found a branch above Starback’s head, he shimmered, lost shape, and drifted down onto the Green and Blue and folded himself around Starback’s face. Starback blinked, shook his head, and shuddered as the smoke curled into his ears and disappeared.

  Pages from an apprentice’s notebook

  FINISHINGS. There is Up Top, and there is the Deep World. People live Up Top. Roffles live in the Deep World.

  Roffles are used to coming Up Top; it is easy for them. They are used to the way we do things here. Very few people have been to the Deep World, and those who do find it hard to get on there. Things are different in the Deep World.

  The first time that people go to the Deep World, they often get ill. The food there is delicious and different from food Up Top, and they eat too much too quickly, so they spend the next day alone in the bathroom and come out with sore bottoms. This is why when anyone has a runny tummy it is called “taking a roffle holiday”.

  Then there are the Solstucks. These are small, green, furry things. They can fly, but are not very good at it, so they wander around like bumblebees and crash into things a lot. Roffles are used to them, and they just laugh because it tickles. But most people find that if a Solstuck flies into them it hurts, like a wasp sting. They get a lump that itches and then turns yellow and starts to ooze a nasty fluid. The only way to stop this is to press some fresh cabbage leaves on the place. Roffles don’t grow cabbages, so that�
�s difficult. There are other things in the Deep World that the traveler comes across that are not very nice, but which never trouble the roffles, because it is their world.

  The only thing Up Top that troubles roffles is boiled eggs, so they never eat them.

  Then there is the Finished World.

  There are many doors between the Deep World and Up Top. For people, there is only one door to the Finished World. And they can only walk through it one way.

  No one knows what the Finished World is like. A wizard can see through the door to the Finished World, but he must not step through. To walk through is to die, and to lose all hope of a final, safe journey to the Finished World, prepared and guided by a wizard.

  Everyone knows the story of Glassmere, who fell in love with Skeltring. Wizards do not marry, and Glassmere went away to leave Skeltring in peace so she could marry an ordinary man. He returned after fifteen years, and found that she had locked herself away, waiting for him to come back to her. She lived alone, in the mill house where her parents had died. Her only company was the wild cats who came in from the forest and lived with her, sleeping in the beds and on the armchairs, dragging food into the house that they had caught in the forest: voles and rats, starlings and grass snakes. Skeltring soon forgot how to speak; she made noises like a cat and ate the animals they had killed for her.

  When Glassmere found her he could see her cheekbones through her skin; her fingers sharp as sticks, her wrist bones wider than her arm. She had waited for him, and now it was too late.

  Glassmere cleared the house of cats and their stink. He made it as it had been, clean and fragrant and decorated for a wedding. Taking Skeltring’s hand, he summoned all his power and restored her to the lovely girl she had been the day he left.

  Taking him in her arms, she kissed him, and died.

  At Skeltring’s Finishing, the village came back to her. They surrounded her house, bringing gifts and food and music.

  Glassmere carried out the ceremonies, he gave her the Finishing Goods, he led the procession into the forest, and settled her on a grassy bank in a clearing. Then, when the time came for the Finishing Words, he saw the door open to the Finished World. Skeltring passed through. Just as the door was closing, she looked over her shoulder at Glassmere. He stepped through after her.