Dragonborn

by Toby Forward

  The people watching could never agree on what they saw. Some said Glassmere just disappeared. Others, that arms reached out and took him. Others said that he was still there and that he walked away in silence and was never seen again. Yet others said that when the air had settled and the door had closed, Glassmere was no longer there, but where he had been standing there was a stone, slender and tall, and not in any way shaped like a man, with the base buried in the forest floor. To this day, people go to the stone when they are in need—especially those who are wounded or lost in love. They leave flowers and gifts of food at the stone, or sometimes wine and oil. The flowers die and rot, returning to the earth. Wild cats come at night and eat the food.

  A new wizard must be prepared well to conduct his first Finishing, and must always be assisted by his apprentice master. Otherwise, to look through the door to the Finished World is too dangerous. To step through is death.

  A weaver’s cottage

  stands open to the sun and a weaver’s day begins early. Though it weave the most delicate fabric, a loom is a dangerous machine. Weavers rise early and work as soon as it is light; they do not weave when twilight comes, but sit and drink beer and tell stories.

  Martin the weaver had been at work for two hours by the time he saw the boy and the roffle break through the line of trees and walk down the hill toward his cottage.

  “He’ll want food,” he said. “And more.” He pedaled a little quicker and made the frame dance, anxious to finish the next piece of the pattern before he was interrupted. The red yarn he was using was almost gone, and he didn’t like to finish before the last of it was woven into the design.

  He broke off as they were halfway down the hill, stretched his legs, and tromped downstairs, before he had the chance to see Starback fly over the forest and settle on the tip of an ancient elm, watching the two small figures as they approached the cottage.

  Ash muttered and spat, scratched the walls and broke her fingernails. She tore her gray robe, ripped a square of cloth from it, tossed it high in the air, and watched it float down and settle on the cold floor. Bakkmann huddled in a corner, hoping to avoid attack.

  Ash threw herself down and pushed her face against the cloth. She grabbed it with blood-smeared hands and tied it around her eyes like a blindfold.

  “They’re tracking the boy,” she said. “The wizards.”

  Bakkmann clattered.

  “I’ll dazzle their way, hobble their feet. They’ll never find him.”

  She grabbed the soles of her feet and rolled over and over, banging into the wall, blind and confused.

  Bakkmann slid away, leaving her writhing and screaming.

  “I’m not having that boy in my house. Not like that.”

  Martin knew better than to argue with his wife. He shrugged his shoulders and looked apologetically at Sam.

  “You can’t blame her,” he said.

  Sam’s face flamed. He had never known he was dirty; now everyone said he was.

  “How about it?” asked Martin.

  “All right,” Sam agreed. He was very hungry and didn’t want to be dirty anymore. Mrs. Martin tossed him the soap, a hard, yellow, lumpy, smelly stone, and then she went inside, for modesty. Sam took off all his clothes and Martin made a fire of them; they burned up nicely, though with a nasty smell, not like the fragrant apple-wood fires that Sam made for Flaxfield in the winter. Many buckets of water later, and after making his eyes sting so much he thought he would go blind, Sam found himself folded in towels and sitting at the kitchen table, hair damp and feet cool on the gray slate floor, eating toast and marmalade and bacon. He didn’t like to say so, but he quite liked the feeling of being clean. He looked up from his plate and tried to work out what sort of people these were. Martin was an old man, at least forty-five, with gray streaks in his sandy hair and the beginnings of wrinkles around his eyes. Mrs. Martin was about the same, but a little plump and with her hair tied back in a bun, except for the strands which had the nerve to disobey her and dangle down, sometimes falling in front of her face—which was stern, but not unkind. Even when he was sitting still Martin moved his fingers and hands in a nimble, sweeping fashion, as though to emphasize what he said, but really in memory of the motion of the loom and the shuttle, which he missed whenever he was away from them. He smiled often and laughed easily.

  “This is a very tidy house,” said Megatorine, between mouthfuls of bacon.

  The Martins looked at each other.

  “Very tidy. Do you have a girl who comes in to help?”

  “How’s your bacon, Sam?” asked Mrs. Martin. “There’s more if you like it.”

  She bent over the frying pan on the range and turned a thick, salty-sweet rasher.

  “How far have you come?” asked Martin.

  “Or do you do it all yourself?” asked the roffle.

  “No, thank you,” said Sam.

  Mrs. Martin forked the bacon onto her husband’s plate, not offering it to Megatorine.

  “I’m quite full, thank you,” said the roffle, taking two more pieces of toast and spreading them thick with marmalade and butter in that order, getting marmalade in the butter dish and butter in the marmalade pot.

  “I was traveling all night and half of yesterday,” said Sam.

  “Together?” Mrs. Martin put the pan to one side.

  “Very tidy,” said the roffle.

  “Do we still have any clothes?” asked Martin, keeping his head down and not looking at his wife.

  “I should think it takes a lot of time, tidying and sweeping and scrubbing and suchlike,” said Megatorine.

  Mrs. Martin nodded, grimly. She disappeared through the kitchen door into a shady back hall, and Sam could hear cupboard doors and drawers.

  “It’s dangerous to sleep in the forest,” said Martin to Sam, but looking at the roffle. “You never know what might happen, or who you might meet.”

  “I looked after him,” said Megatorine.

  “Did you?”

  “And I’m going to look after him again, till we get him safely to school in Canterstock.”

  “Here,” said Mrs. Martin, emerging again. “Try these.” She handed Sam a neatly folded pile of clean clothes. “Now,” she said to the roffle, “we’ll keep him here and look after him. You can be on your way.”

  Sam hurried out of the room to get dressed. There was a handkerchief on top of the pile and he blew his nose and dried his eyes. Where was Starback? And why had Flaxfield died like that, without telling him, without letting him know what to do? He had never been alone before. He pulled on the fresh clothes, enjoying the sense of being clean, the softness of the fabric, the sweet smell of the linen. His old clothes had been stiff with dirt and rough to the skin. Everyone wanted him, the wizards, the weavers, the roffle, and he didn’t know who to trust, where to go.

  “I’m going to be a wizard, though,” he whispered.

  A pair of green eyes opened at these words and looked at him through the half-light of the back hall.

  Tamrin didn’t interrupt Vengeabil. He hated being interrupted. Not that she minded doing things that people didn’t like, but she hated to be interrupted as well, so she respected his mood.

  When he had finished writing, she said, “He’s on his way.”

  Vengeabil put down his pen and folded his arms.

  “Is he now. How do you know?”

  “I don’t know how I know. But I know he’s on his way.”

  “Here?” asked Vengeabil.

  “I think so.”

  “So it’s chosen him,” said the man. His thin face creased with pleasure.

  “How do I know?” asked Tamrin.

  “Well, you would, wouldn’t you? You’re linked.”

  “Are we? I suppose we are.”

  She walked out without another word. Vengeabil watched her go and watched the door she left through for a long time.

  Sam’s blue eyes

  gazed at the green ones. Green, with gold flecks, eyes twice the siz
e of a cat’s eyes, unblinking and intelligent. Sam tugged on the waistcoat and was dressed, which made him feel safer, less easy to attack. Raised voices the other side of the door told him that a battle was being fought, and he guessed it was about him. He stepped back, away from the eyes, but the hall was narrow and his back brushed against the wall. The eyes drew nearer. Sam thought of a spell he could use to push the creature back, to hurt it, make it run away, kill it, perhaps. His own eyes blinked while the green eyes stayed wide and watchful. With nowhere else for him to back into, Sam watched the creature draw ever closer. He raised his left arm, pointed a finger and began to say something when the door opened, light rushed in, and he clearly made out the form of a memmont with glowing green eyes.

  Mrs. Martin looked at Sam, his arm raised to strike the memmont with magic. Her eyes filled with tears. Sam let his arm fall to his side. The memmont drew back behind a dark oak dresser, carved with intricate figures. Mrs. Martin stepped forward and put her arms around Sam, folding him to her, his face against the starched cotton of her apron. He remembered the day that Flaxfold had left, and that she had hugged him, too. The only other hug he could remember. He wanted to push her away, but more than that he wanted her to hold him for a very long time.

  When she finally let him go, he kept his head down.

  “Was that a memmont?” he asked quietly.

  “Shh.” She wiped away her tears.

  “I’ve never see one before.”

  She took him further from the kitchen, through another door and into a sitting room.

  “Tell me,” she said, “quickly. Who are you and where are you going, and why are you with the roffle?”

  He hesitated.

  “No time,” she said. “Quickly.”

  Sam told her everything, from the day Flaxfield had died. He explained that he was learning to be a wizard, and that he had no master now.

  “These others,” she said. “Won’t one of them take you on?”

  Sam paused and tried hard to explain why he did not want to go with any of them, why he did not trust them, but he didn’t really understand it himself.

  “They said I was a liar,” he said. “That I was no apprentice. That I was making it up. But then at the same time, they seemed to know that I was telling the truth. I can’t explain.”

  “Are you telling the truth?” She looked directly at him. “Or were you a houseboy who meddled with things you shouldn’t know about?”

  Sam glared at her.

  “Don’t take offense,” she said. “The world is full of liars and cheats. I don’t know you yet. But I think you are telling the truth. Help me to be sure.”

  “How?”

  “Do some magic for me now.”

  “I can’t.”

  She sat back and sighed.

  “I can. But I mustn’t. It’s not there to play tricks or to show off with.”

  She nodded. “Good. You got that right. All right. This chimney smokes and we can’t use it. You clear it for me, in return for your breakfast and your clothes. How’s that for a wizard’s work?”

  Sam thought about it. It was the sort of thing that Flaxfield did all the time for the people who called on him, so it seemed all right. Of course, he wasn’t a wizard, and strictly speaking could not take on work, but he had more than enough magic for this.

  “All right,” he said.

  He took a candle from the mantelpiece, and a tinderbox. Striking the flint, he made a flame. Lit the candle, placed it in the hearth, and held his hands close to the stem, cupping the flame. He raised his eyes; the candle lifted, rose up the chimney, and disappeared. All the air in the room seemed to gather into a fist and rush up the chimney, punching its way through. Mrs. Martin gasped for breath. Outside, the chimney erupted into a volcano of soot and ash and smoke, which paused, clenched, and then swirled high, high above the house, until it formed a small black fist of cloud. The candle hovered above the chimney stack, sank slowly down and placed itself neatly on the mantelpiece before sighing and giving up its flame, like a cat closing its eyes.

  In the distance, Starback watched the smoke and ash, scratched a disappointed ear, and waited. After a few minutes the air above the chimney began to shudder, as though heat were rising from a fire below. Starback waited for it to die down, but it continued. He watched, carefully.

  Sam’s face was the gray of the dead ash in the grate. His fingers twitched; he breathed unsteadily. He stared at the ash and felt it was looking back at him. Mrs. Martin sat in silence. He smiled uneasily at her, and she nodded.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  “You’d like a drink?”

  He nodded. His eyes stayed on the grate, on the ash. He took a poker from the fireplace and stirred the gray dust. He felt as though he had brought something into the house. The magic had called to it. He leaned nearer.

  The roffle put his head around the corner.

  “Very good fit,” he said, pointing to Sam’s new clothes. “Do you have a son, Missus?”

  “Not now,” said Martin, following him in.

  “Tidy in here, too,” said Megatorine.

  “What’s to do?” asked Martin.

  Sam sipped the water, his hand trembling still.

  “Stay here, do,” said the weaver’s wife.

  “You’ll learn a trade,” Martin promised.

  “Not the right trade,” said the roffle. “Let’s be off, boy.”

  “You don’t make wizards in schools,” she said. “You need a proper master. You need to be an apprentice, not a schoolboy.”

  “Magic’s magic,” said the roffle. “He’ll learn well enough.”

  Sam shrugged and gave Mrs. Martin an apologetic look.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “But if you ever need somewhere to go, this is the place, remember.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sam and the roffle made their way through the kitchen, back to the door. Martin took Sam’s arm, half turned him, and spread a cloak on his shoulders.

  “Keep you warm at night,” he said.

  Mrs. Martin gave him another swift hug and walked away quickly.

  Sam turned his head at the bend in the road for one last look at the little cottage.

  “You broke your promise,” said the roffle.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you to let me know if you saw a memmont. I’ll have to watch you.”

  In a tower high above a field that stretched to the forest, a slim, dark figure sat with closed eyes at a plain table. Her ash-gray robe flowed in soft folds from her shoulders. She leaned back, raising her arms and putting her hands to her hair.

  “He’s on the move again,” she said.

  She looked at the black figure that loomed by the closed door.

  “Where?”

  The question was no human voice, but a clacking as of snapped bones.

  “I didn’t see the place. He used loose magic, and I slipped in. I think he saw me, but he doesn’t know yet. He’s on the run.”

  The clacking noise indicated laughter.

  “I have people ready,” she said. “One of them will see him soon enough. Then we’ll know.”

  “Can I have him?” the creature clattered.

  “Eventually. Once I have the seal from him and I can leave this place.”

  Bakkmann spat a black gout of bile.

  “They’ve found them.” Ash sniggered. “My beetles have found them.”

  She scrambled on the floor, fingers trying to crawl between the slabs. She licked the stone. She tapped it with her knuckles. A black beetle poked above a gap and she grabbed it, jamming it into her mouth. She scuttled over to the window and looked out.

  “Bring them here,” she whispered, fragments of beetle spraying from her mouth as she hissed. “Bring the wizards here. I want them.”

  Yellow slime from the beetle oozed pleasantly down her chin.

  Pages from an apprentice’s notebook
>
  A WIZARD’S NAME. Everything has a name, even down to the smallest singling, which is so small that no one has ever seen one. Most things only have one name. A wild pig is a pig, a beetle is a beetle, and grass is grass. But the closer things grow to the world of people, the more interest people take in them, and the more names they get. So, a pig is a pig; but he may also be Snuffler, while another pig is also a pig, but she may be Snout. And a takkabakk is a beetle, but not a beetle. So it is with a mountain. This one may be Mount Marlew, while that one is the Peak of Terrim. Grass is always grass, but in a field of horses it is grazing, while once it is cut and stored it is hay.

  People have this way of giving more and more names to the same things. But once you have given a thing a new word it becomes a new thing.

  If you keep hens, for eggs and for the stew pot, never give a hen a name, because it is harder to kill and eat Clucker or Doofy than it is to pull the neck of just another hen in the yard when you want your holiday dinner.

  When an apprentice comes to serve a wizard, he has a name, the one his parents gave him. This is the name he will always be known by. It is what he writes when he signs a letter or buys a piece of land. But one name is not enough for a wizard. Just as a pig may be a wild boar or a bacon pig or a family pet, so there is more than one thing to being a wizard, and so a wizard needs more than one name.

  It takes many years for a wizard to discover the name of the apprentice, but it is the most important thing he will ever teach him.

  There have been stories of wizards who have lost their way, turned to magic for their own gain, and tried to be greater than the magic itself. One wizard, Slowin, whose magic name was Ember, stole the name of his apprentice. Slowin had misused magic over long years. He started looking over his shoulder when he walked in the streets. At night, he heard creaks and groans like floorboards and hinges. When storm clouds gathered and ordinary people took in their washing, Slowin took himself down into his cellar and bolted the doors and sealed them with a spell. But his magic was growing weaker and weaker because he had not used it well, and the spells would not have kept a rat from getting in. Morning by morning, the magic he had wasted and had gained profit from was coming together. All the tiny spells were joining up, and all the great acts of wizardry he had performed were gathering together, until they formed a mighty army of magic, ready for revenge on the weak and frightened Slowin. He blamed his name. He saw Ember as a sign of dying and weakness, the glowing coals of a fire that has once blazed away and is now still and sullen in the grate, waiting for more coal or wood.