A Legend of Starfire

by Marissa Burt

  Coeur ignored her, despite Wren’s frantic kicking and pulling on her lead feathers. Instead, she calmly lit on the spongy earth and waited patiently for Wren to dismount.

  Wren shut her eyes tight. How long before the animachines attacked? And when they did, would Coeur finally see what was going on and fly out of here? Even if Wren could work the stardust, she didn’t have any more, and all of a sudden she felt completely vulnerable. What use were her hands and feet against monstrous machines?

  Wren spent several seconds imagining a horrible death before she realized something. If the animachines were going to attack, they would have done so already. She began to hope that perhaps she and Coeur had somehow miraculously escaped their notice, because nothing was happening. There wasn’t any awful metallic attack cry. There wasn’t the sound of huge paws crashing toward them. Instead there was quiet and the trickle of running water, and then the last sound Wren had expected to hear.

  “Wren?”

  “Simon?” she squeaked in the direction of the familiar voice. “Is that you?”

  “Excellent job, Coeur,” Simon was saying to the falcon in the crooning way he had with all animals. “Very well done.” Wren stared. Her ears weren’t deceiving her. Simon was standing there, a Simon who looked remarkably ragged with his grubby clothes and dirty face, but it was definitely Simon, and he had a handful of treats, as if this were a perfectly ordinary day back at the Crooked House falcon mews.

  “Simon!” she said as her wits came back to her. She didn’t have any idea what her friend was doing all the way out here, but it didn’t matter. They were in danger. “There are animachines! Very close!” She scooted forward on the bird. “Hop on, and will you please tell Coeur to get out of here?”

  “Coeur knows what she’s doing.” Simon grinned and laid a hand on Wren’s arm. “Climb down, and I’ll show you.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? Animachines!”

  “I know,” Simon said distractedly. “And they’re probably ready for their evening meal. If you hurry, you can help feed them.”

  Wren gaped at him. “Are you crazy? If we get close to those things we’ll be their evening meal.”

  Simon rubbed his forehead as though working out a puzzle; then his eyes widened as he landed on the solution. “You think—?” he laughed. “No, Wren, you’ve got it all wrong. Those are my animachines; they won’t hurt you. Come here, and I’ll show you.”

  With much persuasion, he led Wren around one of the rocky outcroppings and closer to the animals. “The Magicians are mistaken,” he said. “The animachines aren’t interested in attacking people; they’re only trying to defend themselves.” He whistled and one of the giant creatures loped toward them.

  “A hovercat?” Wren gasped. “Simon, you saw what one of those did to Auspex.”

  “I did,” Simon said gravely. “And I saw what you did to the prime cat.” He offered his hand, palm up, to greet the beast, and then began scratching behind its ears. The cat gave off a huge rumbling purr that sounded like a car engine. “The animachines would rather live in peace with humans than be hunted by them.”

  “The animachines think the people are the ones hunting them?”

  “What else would you call it?” Simon moved over to a thick pile of what looked like palm leaves. “People attack their habitat and hunt them in the forest. You know the rain shield over the city of Nod? When an animachine flies into it, it gets electrocuted.” Simon began throwing the leaves toward the herd, and the animachines came over, pulling the fronds between their paws and gnawing on the ends contentedly. “There are hostile animachines, of course, but humans are not their natural prey. It is possible for us to coexist in peace, especially once we understand one another.”

  While Simon tended to the animals, Wren thought about this new perspective. Even if she didn’t quite believe it, here was proof before her very eyes. Simon showed her several herds of different species, all equally content to leave them alone.

  Later that night, Simon started a fire. Wren noticed that he didn’t use stardust. Instead he gathered kindling and dry grasses, rubbing sticks against each other as a Boy Scout might. The growing twilight was calm, filled with a gentle breeze and the soft sound of contented animachines, but Wren felt increasingly agitated inside. Now that the terror of being hunted by the animachines had faded, the thrumming of Boggen’s summons was growing loud again, drawing her eastward. Wren tried to block it out, but every effort only increased her anxiety. Talking seemed to help. “You’ve been living here, Simon?” she asked. One of the rocky spires had a cave at its base, and Simon had created a shelter there. He had fashioned a few rotting tree stumps into stools, woven a thick pallet of palm fronds for a bed, and neatly wedged his brightly colored notebooks against the rocky wall. “For how long?”

  “Since we got separated in the forest. While you fought the prime cat, I began talking to one of the subordinates.”

  “Talking to it?”

  Simon nodded matter-of-factly. “How else do you think I know their side of things? It’s actually more telepathy than it is talking, though.” He flushed a little when he saw Wren gaping at him. “Mary did say once that my Fiddler talent might be an affinity with animals.”

  Wren shook her head, stupefied. She wasn’t sure what was more surprising: that Simon was claiming to be able to telepathically communicate with alien creatures or that he had survived this long on his own. “Where did the food come from?” She pointed to the collection of dried fruits and hard bread heaped in a mound on one of the stumps.

  “Oh, are you hungry?” Simon asked, offering her some. “Vulcan brought these.” Simon explained that he had summoned his falcon, Leo, and used him to send messages requesting supplies to Vulcan. “Most days Vulcan himself comes to make deliveries. He says that I’m his responsibility, as a sort of honorary Scavenger, but I think he really likes flying on the falcon.” Simon smiled conspiratorially.

  “Wait just a minute,” Wren said. “So you guys have all been one happy family visiting back and forth, and I’ve been stuck on my own in the Outsiders’ camp, which wasn’t easy for your information, trying to figure out a way to get back to all of you? I risked my life trying to do a Dreamopathy rhyme so I could talk to Jack.” Wren knew that was a slight exaggeration, but Maya had been very angry. “I—” Wren stumbled over the words. Surely she could tell Simon about the encounter with Boggen. She had told him everything else all along, hadn’t she? Simon was her best friend! But shame held her tongue. She hadn’t been strong enough to fight Boggen off. She had knelt before him. She hadn’t even been able to say a word in his presence. Wren slumped under a cloud of defeat.

  “I knew you were okay,” Simon was saying. “I concluded that you were making valuable alliances with the Outsiders and should be left to it.” He rearranged the palm leaves so that there were two pallets near the fire. “Coeur was watching you the whole time. How else do you think she was right there when you needed saving?”

  This made Wren feel a little bit better, but only a little. “Well, that would have been nice to know,” she said grumpily as he prepared her makeshift bed. She knew it was wrong to be upset with Simon. It wasn’t his fault Boggen had overpowered her. If only there was someone who could save her. She lay back and looked up at the starscape of Nod in all its glory. “I would do anything to be free of him,” she whispered to the unfamiliar stars. If only Simon or Coeur could have somehow been there when Boggen had come for her. She knew Simon would have tried to help. Simon always looked out for her. The leaves were surprisingly comfortable, and their faint herbal scent made her even sleepier than she’d been before. “Simon,” she said after a few minutes. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “Any time, Wren. Any time.”

  Wren opened her eyes and sat up. The air smelled different, spicy-warm this time, and the space around her swirled with infinite shadows. Purples, blacks, and grays blended together in a smoky cloud. She gasped. Had Boggen found her again? She
braced herself for a nightmare, but instead the shadows grew more distinct, coming together to form a familiar shape until they loomed large, and Wren recognized them.

  Wren. The Ashes didn’t speak, but somehow Wren perceived their intent. It had always been that way when they communicated with her—their thoughts resonated someplace deep inside her being. Maybe Simon talked to the animachines the same way. The Ashes’ wings rippled in shadows that shifted and swayed with the movement of their flight. Wren. The Crooked Man waits.

  “The Crooked Man?” Wren asked feebly. The Scavengers thought he meant to destroy Nod. The Outsiders seemed sure of it. Wasn’t it enough that Boggen had control of her? What could this other powerful Magician possibly want with her now?

  It is time. He summons you. The Ashes spread their massive wings, and then they were carrying her in what must be their claws, though they, too, were covered with feathers, propelling Wren forward into a warm amber light. It was not the cool blue-green of stardust, but the effect was very similar to her flight in the aurora. Yellow and gold and orange leaped and played about her, swirling thicker and brighter until she had to shut her eyes against the brilliance. A part of her brain told her she should be worried—that energy this powerful could consume her like fire—but the rest of her knew deep inside that she would be okay. As they carried her farther in, the panicked beat of Boggen’s mark flared to life. She felt as though danger was all around, and Boggen’s chains of fear pulled tighter.

  Below, a sea of sapphire spread out smooth as glass. In the center was an island of sorts, a constantly moving spot of energy where the amber liquid leaped and danced in infinite loops. The Ashes made for a wide outcropping of jagged shale that was the color of their feathers. Cool, solid rock met the ephemeral light that danced around them, and in the center of it all was the Crooked Man.

  The moment she saw him Wren realized that she had been expecting some kind of alien creature, or at least a superhuman being. Instead, an ordinary man moved toward her. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance. He didn’t seem to be old, but his face looked wise. He was dressed in rough grays and browns, and he came toward Wren with his hands stretched out in welcome.

  The Ashes gently released her, and Wren stumbled forward onto all fours. The Crooked Man reached down and helped her up.

  Come. His words came like those of the Ashes. Internally. Rest by my starfire.

  He led her to what, for lack of a better word, Wren thought of as a waterfall. The amber liquid spilled and leaped over the rocky terrain like a river of fire, orange and red and crimson shooting out like droplets from a rainbow. The Crooked Man beckoned for her to sit in a shallow bowl cut into the rock to form a seat.

  “Is that starfire?” She thought of all the legends she had heard. “Do you mean to destroy Nod with it? The legends say you will.”

  The legends are right, but the great fear they bring is misplaced. That is not the starfire. I am.

  Wren pondered this but could make little sense of it. Was Starfire the Crooked Man’s name? “Why have you brought me here?” she finally asked.

  To make things well. The pulse of his thoughts changed, warmed with fondness and favor. I am the guardian of the pathways through space, a friend to all Fiddlers—Alchemists and Magicians alike. Once, they knew me well, but most have long forgotten my existence.

  “I think they know you by another name,” Wren said, recalling all she had heard of the legends. “Everyone I’ve talked to calls you the Crooked Man.”

  Perhaps it is you who are crooked, and I am unbent, the Crooked Man said, and his voice was like the beating of a thousand Ashes’ wings. He stood and beckoned her over to the living river of fire. The Alchemists and Fiddlers are always on my mind. I have seen how they have taken the gift of stardust and used it to crooked ends. Wars and divisions, slavery and injustice, monstrous destruction of living things. I have seen their suffering and their many troubles. You, also, seem troubled.

  In the Crooked Man’s presence, Wren felt shame and regret fall on her like a heavy blanket. He had once intended her to help cleanse the stardust, and now here she was, captive to Boggen and unable to do anything. She didn’t dare look into that wise face.

  You are weighed down by fears, Little Bird. Why is that?

  His words gave Wren the courage to look up. Her father had called her Little Bird when she was very young and still did sometimes, and the sound of that familiar nickname was so solid in the midst of all the uncertainty of being on Nod and Dreamopathy and whatever it was Boggen had done.

  And like a young child, Wren poured her story out. How afraid she felt—first, when she began to lose her control of the stardust, and then when everything had gone wrong at the gateway, and here on Nod where all her friends were prisoners, and . . . she forced the words out. “Boggen marked me. I belong to him now.”

  The Crooked Man looked at her with kindness. Only if you choose. Boggen’s spell can be broken if you wish it.

  Wren’s heart began pounding. “How?”

  You cannot belong to him if you belong to another. The Crooked Man knelt and cupped his hands, scooping up some of the starfire, which danced in his palms like a living thing. Starfire cleanses. Refines. Purifies. Consumes. He looked at her solemnly. And, yes, destroys. He got to his feet and beckoned toward the river of fire. If you step into my starfire, you will no longer belong to Boggen. You will no longer be a slave to fear. The light from the starfire danced across his features like the rippling of the aurora. You will belong to me.

  Wren gulped and stared at the river. Her old fears arose and doused the hope she had felt at his first words. Belong to him? If what he was saying was true, she could be free of Boggen, but at the cost of becoming someone else’s apprentice. And who knew what kind of person the Crooked Man really was? Sure, he said he cared about the Fiddlers and was their guardian or whatever, but how could she know for sure? After all, there were those legends . . . the rhythmic pounding at the back of her neck grew stronger, the pulse of fear racing through her veins. Surely there was some other way.

  “Is that it, then?” Wren said wearily, exhausted by the battle within. “I either belong to him or to you. I must belong to someone? Will I never be free?” She was beginning to wish Coeur hadn’t rescued her from the animachine. It had only prolonged the inevitable. Being captive to someone until the end.

  And why is it that you think freedom comes from not belonging? The Crooked Man held out a beckoning hand, and it seemed as though the starfire in his palms had somehow spread, a current of fire running over his whole form, pulsing with life and energy. I am offering you freedom, Little Bird, if you would open your hand to receive it.

  Wren felt something within her respond. Something from before Boggen’s mark, from before her failure at the gateway, from before Jack almost died, from before she was even a Fiddler. Something that was a part of her very nature, her Wren-ness, knew that what he was saying was true. The starfire was the only way to be free of Boggen and his fear forever. She rose to her feet and walked to the river’s edge.

  “Will it hurt very much?” she said in a small voice.

  Do your fears not hurt you? When you have a wound, you must cleanse it. With healing comes a sting that lasts but a moment.

  Wren didn’t think that this was a very satisfactory answer, but she didn’t think she’d get anything more from the Crooked Man. He was already in the river, the starfire in it responding to the starfire in him, sending waves of warmth toward Wren.

  She hesitated for a heartbeat on the edge. She had said she’d do anything to be free of Boggen, and here was her opportunity. She took a deep breath and plunged into the river.

  The world around her disappeared in a blaze of red and orange and heat. Not a heat that burned her flesh, but one that started at the crown of her head and rippled like a wave, kindling every fiber of her being all the way down to her toes. The living river tightened around her, squeezing her core until she thought her ribs might break,
but after a heart-stopping moment she felt herself growing stronger, her very bones filled with the starfire. And then the pain came. The spot where Boggen had first claimed her began to spread and wrapped around her neck like it would choke the life out of her. She screamed in pain, a wrenching cry that came from the gut, and then it was over, the spell undone, the throbbing that called her to the east, the heavy weight of Boggen’s hold on her, only fully recognizable now that it was gone. In its place was the most beautiful sense of peace she had ever imagined.

  She opened her eyes and gasped. The river of starfire leaped around her, not only flames of red and orange but a torrent of rainbows, the essence of living stardust itself surrounding her and strengthening her. Some time later—afterward Wren never could be sure how long her unshackling took—the Crooked Man led her back to the shore.

  “So am I your apprentice, then?” Wren asked, the sound of her own voice surprisingly strong in her ears. In fact everything about her felt strong and new, as though, like the fire of a phoenix, the starfire had unmade and then made her.

  I make all things new. You will not be my Apprentice. You will be my Child, Little Bird.

  He produced out of nowhere a flask of the sweetest water Wren had ever tasted. As Wren drank, all the scratches and scrapes from before, the bruises she had from her training among the Outsiders melted away.

  “That is good water,” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve and studying the flask.

  Indeed. They sat for some moments in companionable silence, the Crooked Man with his hands folded across his stomach, Wren studying the magnificent display of color around them.

  What is it you want, Little Bird?

  Wren didn’t know what to make of this. Her newfound freedom from Boggen had driven everything else out of her mind. But as her thoughts turned toward the present, she realized that there were so many things she wanted: to find Robin, to figure out how to get the Outsiders’ help, to save Mary, Jack, and Cole, to set the captives free, to get back home, even to sort out her own problems with the stardust. And suddenly, Wren knew that was exactly what she wanted. Now that she had tasted freedom, she wanted even more. She wanted to be free not just from Boggen, but from her own plague of magic—the way the stardust taunted her with its fickleness, from the out-of-control spiral of emotions she’d first known as a Weather Changer to the inconstant block she now experienced. The tight box of memories and emotions stuffed deep inside her chest rattled and jumped, and this time there was no ignoring it. She began to cry.