Tears of the Salamander

by Peter Dickinson

  After a while Toni stopped playing, put his recorder down, rose and took a hesitant step toward her. Still dancing, she held out her hands to him. He walked across and took them and tried to copy the movements of her feet, clumsily at first, but then well enough for it to count as dancing. She linked arms with him and they whirled round each other, or she spun beneath his upstretched hand. Gradually Alfredo quickened the tune and they tried to keep pace, faster and faster, until they got into a tangle and collapsed and lay laughing and panting on the ground, while Alfredo applauded their performance and joined their laughter.

  Before he’d even recovered his breath Toni came crawling back for his recorder, obviously ready to play on all day. He gave a disappointed shrug when Alfredo shook his head and rose, but then settled down and started to play softly to himself. Annetta was sitting up, watching him. This looked like as good a moment as any. She rose as Alfredo crossed toward her and pointed at her son with a gesture of questioning wonder. Toni was already improvising his own variations on the tune they’d been dancing to.

  “He’s really good at it, isn’t he?” said Alfredo. “Much better than I am. …Annetta, there’s something I’ve got to talk to you about. …I think my uncle is planning to kill Toni.”

  She jerked with the shock and stood rigid, then gently nodded her head three or four times. She had been startled by his saying it but not by what he’d said. She raised her eyebrows.

  “It’s going to take a long time,” he said. “Shall we have our lunch while I tell you?”

  She fetched the saddlebag and opened the food she’d brought and laid it out on its wrappings, then settled opposite him. Toni joined them and ate with his usual intentness, but Alfredo did so in snatches, chewing while he put the next bit of his story in order. Annetta took only a few unnoticing mouthfuls.

  He started right back at the beginning with his uncle’s name-day gift, pulling it out from under his shirt and showing it to her. He left nothing out. Now for the first time he told her of the strange and wonderful moment when the Angel of Fire had appeared before Toni in the rose garden and affirmed his right to be numbered among the di Salas, and to inherit, when the time came, their long Mastership of the Mountain. He finished with his decision to talk to her now. The only things he left out were his own half-formulated plans.

  “I’ll know a bit more after tomorrow,” he said, “when I’ve seen what happens in this test. And then with luck I’ll know if I’ve got to try and fix it so that I can’t help him on Monday—that’s why I wanted those leaves you gave me. I don’t think I can do anything unless I’ve got the mountain on my side—mine and Toni’s—and the best way of doing that is to get the salamander back where it belongs. I don’t know why—I just know. It’s a bit like knowing when your fire’s out of balance. But what I really want to know now is whether you’ll let Toni help me. It’s a risk, a terrible risk. If my uncle finds out…Look what he did to the Bonaventura.”

  She glanced at Toni, once again intent on his tussock, and then sat with her head bowed, rubbing one hand slowly over the back of the other. She straightened and nodded decisively. There were tears on her cheeks.

  “Have you got a spare key to the furnace room?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “You mean there’s just the one my uncle wears round his neck? Then we’re going to have to break down the door. I can’t do it alone—I’m not strong enough.”

  She shook her head decisively and made a that’s-no-good gesture with her hands.

  “You mean the door’s too strong? Or there’s something else—a spell or something?”

  She nodded. That was bad news. Perhaps there was a way to undo a spell like that—he could ask the salamanders. But it might be one of the things they didn’t know, like they didn’t know what was going to happen. In which case…could he burn the door down somehow? There was probably a spell against that too. …

  After a while he gave up trying to think of answers and went and fetched his recorder. Toni instantly leapt up and hurried over to join him. They spent the whole afternoon in the quiet shade, playing and resting and playing again, and only went back down through the wood when the sun began to move behind the mountain.

  “Eat well,” said Uncle Giorgio as they sat down to supper. “There will be no breakfast tomorrow. We fast until the rite is over. Come to my office as soon as you are dressed.”

  He seemed even edgier than he had that morning, and said nothing else throughout the meal. Nor did he read, but simply ate, silent and preoccupied, and left without another word. Alfredo had felt too nervous to eat much, but he dutifully filled his plate and then found he was hungry after his day on the mountain and polished it off without noticing. When he’d finished he went up to his room and sat in his window trying to read until it became too dark for that, then went to bed, but lay awake far into the night turning his problems uselessly over and over.

  HE WOKE FEELING HAGGARD AND EXHAUSTED, dressed and went downstairs. Uncle Giorgio was in his study, and rose as Alfredo entered the room.

  “One! Two! Three! Four!” shrieked the starling. It was answered by an angry chatter, and Alfredo saw that the brazier beneath its cage was gone and the other starling had now been brought down from upstairs and its cage was standing on the floor where the brazier had been. Uncle Giorgio ignored them both.

  “Good,” he said. “First we must robe.”

  He handed Alfredo a yellow garment stitched with red and green symbols. Alfredo put it on over his head and found that it reached almost to the floor. The sleeves were long too, with a tassel at the end. Uncle Giorgio’s robe was an even more elaborate version of Alfredo’s, and he wore a tall golden hat rising to a point and with a stiff upturned brim. Alfredo was bare-headed.

  Uncle Giorgio picked up a crystal decanter and poured a little pale yellow liquid into two silver goblets. He spread his fingers over them, muttered briefly and handed one to Alfredo.

  “Do as I do,” he said. “What we are about to attempt is only a test, but involves mighty powers and must be performed with due solemnity. Now, first, three sips, and then three sips, and then three sips to finish the cup. Say the words after me. This is the First Purification. We begin.”

  He intoned a few syllables and waited for Alfredo to repeat them. The words were strange but sounded Persian, like those of the chant. A longer pause and he raised his goblet to his lips. Alfredo did the same. The liquid was intensely sweet in the mouth but fiery in the throat. Alfredo managed to judge his sips right and finished his goblet on the last one.

  “Excellent,” said Uncle Giorgio. “Bring the other bird and follow me.”

  Holding the cage high in front of him and moving as solemnly as a priest at Mass, he led the way along the corridor, round and down to the furnace room. He unlocked the door and locked it again behind him. The room had changed. The table beside the furnace where Uncle Giorgio kept his implements had been moved back to the wall, and some other objects had been shifted aside, leaving a clear space at whose center stood the brazier from upstairs. It was empty. Beneath it was a large tray spread with an even layer of fine sand, in which a single continuous groove had been scooped, making a five-pointed star enclosing the brazier. There was a lit lantern on a shelf beside the door.

  Uncle Giorgio placed his cage on the lid of the furnace and took the other one from Alfredo. He opened its door, reached in, caught the shrieking bird, withdrew it and handed the cage back to Alfredo, pointing to show him he was to put it down against the wall. By the time Alfredo turned back Uncle Giorgio was holding the bird in a grip that caused it to gape upward. He picked up a small dropper, dipped it into a bowl and squeezed a single drop of liquid into the bird’s throat. He then put it into the cage on the furnace, caught and took out the first bird and did the same, and put it back in the cage with the other one. The two birds, which had screeched at each other almost continuously till this moment, fell silent. Uncle Giorgio picked up the cage and balanced it on the bra
zier, then took Alfredo by the shoulder, led him across to a point about three paces from the brazier and turned him to face it.

  “Do not move from that spot and you will be quite safe,” he said. “Watch me. When I raise my right hand, sing the chant. Here are your dark glasses. You will need them later.”

  Alfredo waited, his heart beating heavily with a mixture of wonder and terror, and the fierce excitement of being on the edge of strange knowledge. He watched Uncle Giorgio unstopper a large flask and very carefully, gripping the brazier for support and leaning out over the sand so as not to mark its surface in any other way, fill the star-shaped groove with glistening dark red granules. Finished, he restoppered the flask and stood back opposite Alfredo with the brazier exactly between them. He spread his arms wide, raised his head and began to speak.

  Persian again, in a deep, strong voice, every syllable clear and exact. The room rang with the sound. It went on for a long while, but still the tension grew and grew. At last Uncle Giorgio fell silent. He drew his hands together before his mouth in a gesture of prayer. His lips were moving but the words were silent. He glanced at Alfredo, briefly raised his right hand and returned to his praying. Alfredo filled his lungs and sang.

  He’d expected he might be too nervous to hit the first few notes, to have to steady himself into the chant, but the sound came strong and true. The air in the chamber prickled, and filled with a snowstorm of glowing flecks that swirled themselves into two tall fiery shapes, two Angels of Fire standing opposite each other one either side of the brazier, so that the four of them, two Angels and two humans, stood at the corner-points of a square. None of them stirred until the chant ended.

  Then Uncle Giorgio spoke, two grating syllables. The Angels half-raised their arms. Fire streamed from their fingertips down toward the feet of the brazier. The pattern in the sand became a fiery star. Its flames were not red but an intense violet. They wavered as flames do, but did not spread and thicken. Instead they retained the precise outline of the star they sprang from, growing and growing until their tops bent inward and poured themselves into the bowl of the brazier beneath the cage and filled it.

  The starlings showed no sign of being perturbed, but stood side by side on the single perch. One raised a foot and scratched under its chin. Then the flames shot up and enveloped the cage. There was no squawk from the birds, no sudden stench of burning feathers, only a faint odor, peppery but sweet, filling the chamber. The flames held the shape of the cage, increasing in intensity until Alfredo was forced to use his dark glasses. He could hear Uncle Giorgio’s voice now, a steady mutter, the same dozen words over and over but becoming louder and louder as the light intensified. Despite the protection of his spectacles Alfredo could scarcely see Uncle Giorgio through the glare, but he made out a movement of some kind and at the same moment the Angels stretched out their arms toward the brazier, so Alfredo followed suit. At once he could feel the power being drawn from him, down his arms and out through his fingers. The light blazed stronger than the sun. He had to screw his eyes shut, despite the spectacles. Uncle Giorgio’s voice was a harsh cry of triumph that suddenly snapped short. The light faded away and Alfredo could open his eyes.

  Even without the spectacles he was blind. All he knew was that the Angels were gone.

  “Stay where you are,” said Uncle Giorgio. “It is not yet safe to move.”

  He started to pray again, different words, but again many times repeated with his voice dwindling away. Alfredo waited. Gradually his eyes adapted to the light of the single lamp. Now he could make out that there was only one bird on the perch. The other was lying on its side on the floor. He was unable to think about it. He felt extraordinarily tired and listless.

  Uncle Giorgio’s voice faded into silence. His lips stopped moving.

  “It is over,” he said in a weak and shaking voice. “Follow me. Bring the lantern.”

  He picked up the cage with the birds in it, unlocked the door and led the way out, locking the door behind them as before. He used the hand rope to haul himself up the stairs, and stopped to rest halfway. Alfredo’s legs felt so weak that he could scarcely climb at all. It seemed a very long way back to the study. Uncle Giorgio hung the birdcage on its hook and fetched a different flask and two fresh goblets and poured some of the potion into each. While he waited Alfredo studied the birdcage. Yes, it was as he’d thought, but he hadn’t been able to see clearly enough in the furnace chamber. The bird on the perch was the one from upstairs, the smaller one with the mottled breast. The one that could count was lying on the floor. It didn’t stir. It seemed to be dead. Uncle Giorgio turned, and saw what he was looking at.

  “Do not be alarmed,” he said. “They are only birds. This was a test of my powers, not theirs. The older bird lacked the strength to receive what was given it. I do not. For me, perhaps, there is still some risk, but the prize is worth it. For you, none. The younger bird, as you see, is physically unharmed.

  “Now the Second Purification. Copy me as you did before.”

  He handed Alfredo one of the goblets. They faced each other, intoning the words and sipping from the goblets. The warmth of the potion seeped through Alfredo’s body, making him feel a little less feeble.

  “Sit now, and rest,” said Uncle Giorgio. “You are tired?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “I too. All exercise of power takes strength. No, on second thought, go to your room and lie down. Annetta will bring you some food.”

  Alfredo staggered to his feet and left, closing the door behind him. But rising again so soon after sitting down seemed to have taken all strength out of him. He paused, leaning for a while against the wall to let his muscles recover. Behind him, through the door, he heard a scraping sound, and then the shriek of a starling. “One! Two! Three! Four!”

  The final shock of understanding flooded his mind. It was like a sudden, fierce blow on the head, blanking out everything else. But for the wall he would have fallen to the ground. At last he pulled himself together and tiptoed away to his room.

  He didn’t go to bed, but sat in his favorite place in the window, sorting the whole thing through in his mind, fitting his new knowledge in with the old. By the time Annetta arrived with a tray of food he had it all pieced together, a single clear structure, a working machine with one terrible purpose.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” he said. “Have you got time now? It’s important.”

  She nodded and he told her what had happened that morning in the furnace room and the study, finishing with the cry of the starling.

  “That was the young bird from his bedroom,” he said. “I heard him pushing a crust into its cage, and it did what the old bird always did and counted up to four. It couldn’t count before. Now it can. What he’d done, you see, was put the old bird’s mind, its soul, what makes it it, into the young bird’s body. That’s what he’s going to do on Monday—put himself into me. He ought to be dead, you see. The emanations from the furnace should have killed him long ago. He didn’t know about that when he started. It’s only the tears of the salamander that have been keeping him alive. But after Monday it won’t matter because he’ll have a new young body.

  “That’s why he’s been so careful about me, seeing I had good food, shielding me from the furnace. And it’s why he pretended to be ill when he took me to make his will. He didn’t want people to be surprised when he died suddenly. And he wanted to make sure that Signor Pozzarelli was afraid of me, so he won’t try and cheat him when he thinks he’s only got this kid to deal with. And it’s why he had to keep Toni around when really he hated him, in case he couldn’t use me. There wasn’t anyone else with the Mastership in his blood. But he didn’t want to use him if he could possibly help it, in case what was wrong with Toni’s brain meant that his own mind wouldn’t work properly in it.

  “And perhaps there’s something wrong with Toni’s seed, too, because he got it from my uncle—that’s important, because he wants to have a son later on who’s got the
Mastership in his blood, so that when he’s an old man again he can put himself into a new body again. That’s how he’s going to live forever, you see. That’s the Second Great Work. But now he won’t need Toni anymore and he can get rid of him.

  “Only I think we might be able to stop him. My uncle’s told me how to get into the furnace room. He doesn’t know that, but he has. But I’ll need Toni for that. And you, too, for other things. All right?”

  She didn’t hesitate, but nodded firmly.

  He told her his plan.

  “I know it’s dangerous,” he said. “He’s so much stronger than me. He’s still Master of the Mountain. But we’ve got to try.”

  She thought grimly about it, sighed, and nodded again. She patted his shoulder encouragingly before she left. It will be all right, she was telling him. And Thank you.

  When the day began to cool he took his recorder out to the rose garden. Before he reached the sunken garden he heard the sound of Toni’s playing, a long, complicated phrase, repeated and repeated, but each time with small unexpected variations. For a while he stood and listened, astonished yet again by the ease and subtlety with which Toni performed. And all his own invention, utterly untaught. It was as if music was the air he breathed, and all he had to do was draw it into himself and breathe it out again as audible sounds, just as the salamanders did with their element of fire. And when Alfredo joined him and they played together there seemed to be no doubt in either of their minds who was the master and who the pupil.

  Uncle Giorgio still looked tired at supper that evening and spoke little, but ate steadily and watched to see that Alfredo did the same. As he rose from the table he said, “Tomorrow I must again make preparations, and it would be better for you and Annetta and the idiot to be elsewhere. Do not climb the mountain again—that will overtire you.”

  “I could go out along to the rose garden and read. It’s nice there, and there’s some shade from the cypresses. Annetta could bring me some food.”