by Garth Nix
I knew nothing of human love then, or I would have demanded still younger boys, who had no knowledge of the girls who came to my hill the year before. The scabbard did make the bearer proof against a multiplicity of wounds, but it also called to the sword and held it like a lover, refusing to let go. Only a man of great will could draw the sword, or a sorcerer, and there were few of those in Lyonnesse, for I disliked their kind. Many a would-be hero died with Excalibur still sheathed upon his belt. Even a hundred lives is not enough against a hundred hundred wounds.
Each time, the sword and scabbard came back to me, drawn to the place of their making. Each time I returned them to the good folk of Lyonnesse, as they continued their largely losing war against the barbarians. Not that I cared who won one way or another, save for tidiness and a certain sense of tradition.
Many people came to me in those times of war, foolishly ignoring the pact that spoke of the days and seasons when I would listen and spare their lives. Consuming them, I learned more of humanity, and more of the magic that lurked within their brief lives. It became a study for me, and I began to walk at night, learning in the only way I knew. Soon, it was mostly barbarians I learned from, for the local folk resumed the practice of binding rowan twigs in their hair, and they remembered not to walk in moonlight. Once again children were given small silver coins to wear as earrings. Some nights I gathered many blood-dappled coins but garnered neither lives nor knowledge.
In time the barbarians learned too, and so it was that a deputation came to me one cold Midwinter Day, between noon and the setting of the sun. It was composed of the native folk I knew so well, and barbarians, joined together in common purpose. They wanted me to enforce a peace upon the whole land of Lyonnesse, so that no man could make war upon another.
The price they were prepared to pay was staggering, so many lives that I would barely need to feed again for a thousand years. Given my new curiosity about humankind, the goal was also fascinating, because for the first time in my long existence, I knew not how it could be achieved.
They paid the price, and for seven days a line of men, women, and children wound its way into my hill. I had learned a little, for this third time, so I gave them food and wine and smoke that made them sleep. Then as they slept, I harvested their dreams, even as I walked among them and drank their breath.
The dreams I took in a net of light, down through the earth to where the rocks themselves were fire, and there I made the Grail. A thing of such beauty and of such hope began to form that I forgot myself in the wonder of creation, and poured some of my dreams into it too, and a great part of my power.
Perhaps some of my memory disappeared in the making of the Grail, because I had forgotten what my power meant to the land of Lyonnesse. All that long climb back from the depths of the earth I gazed at what I had made, and I thought nothing of the rumbling and shaking at my feet. Down there the earth was never still. I did not realise that its mutterings were following me back into the light.
I emerged from my hill to find the deputation gone, panicked by the ground that shook and roared beneath them. I held the Grail aloft, and shouted that it would bring peace to all who drank from it. But even as I spoke, I saw the horizon lift up like a folded cloth, and the blue of the sky was lost in the terrible darkness of the sea. The sea, rising up higher than my hill or the mountains behind, a vast and implacable wave that seemed impossible—till I realised that it was not the sea that rose, but Lyonnesse that fell. And I remembered.
Long ago, long ago, I had shored up the very foundations of the land. Now, in my making of the Grail, I had torn away the props. Lyonnesse would drown, but I would not drown with it. I became a great eagle and rose to the sky, the Grail clutched in my talons. Or rather, I tried to. My wings beat in a frenzy, but the Grail would not move. I tried to let it go, but could not, and still the wave came on, till it blocked out the very sun and it was too late to be flying anywhere.
It was then I knew that the Grail brought not only peace but judgment. I had filled it with the dreams of a thousand folk, dreams of peace and justice. But I had let other dreams creep in, and one of those was a dream that the white demon that preyed upon them in the moonlit nights would be punished for the deaths she wrought, and the fear she had brought upon the people.
The wave came upon me as I changed back to human shape, crushing me beneath a mountain wall of water, picking me up, Grail and all, for a journey without air and light that crossed the width of Lyonnesse before it let me go. I was broken at the end, my human form beyond repair. I took another shape, the best I could make, though it was not pleasing to my or any other eyes. It is a measure of the Grail’s mercy that this seemed sufficient punishment, for only then could I let it fall.
I did let it go, but never from my sight. For now, even waking, I dreamed of all the folk of Lyonnesse who died under the wave, and only the Grail would give me untroubled rest. Years passed, and I slithered from sea to river to lake, till at last I came here, following the drifts and tumblings of the Grail. I was not surprised to find that Excalibur awaited me, still sheathed and shining, despite its long sojourn in the deep. It seemed fitting that everything I made should lie together, both the things and the fate. Even the Grail seemed content to sit, as if waiting for the future I could not see.
I cannot remember when Merlin first found me here, but it is not so strange, given our birthing together so long ago. He has studied humanity with greater care than I, and used his power with much more caution.
There! I have left his spell behind with my drowned past, and now we shall bargain in earnest. He will give me back my human shape, he says, in return for the sword. He knows it is an offer I cannot refuse. What is the sword to me, compared to the warmth of the sun on my soft skin, the colors that my eyes will see anew, the cool wind that will caress my face?
I will give him the sword. It will bring Arthur triumph but also sorrow, as it has always done, for his victories will never be his own. The scabbard too, will save him and doom him, for a man who cannot be wounded is not a man whom a woman can choose to love.
Merlin is clever. He will not touch the sword himself, but will tell me when I must give it up to Arthur. Only then will I receive my side of the bargain. It is curious to feel expectation again, and something that I must define as hope.
Even the brightness seems less wearing on my eyes, or perhaps it is Merlin who has chosen to be kind. Yes, now he talks of the Grail, and asks me to give it up. Merlin does not understand its nature, I think, or he would not be trying to get it for himself.
The Grail will wait, I tell him. Go and fetch your king, your Arthur. I will give him the sword, the scabbard too, and may he use them well.
Merlin knows when to wait. He has always been good at waiting. He leaps upward in a flurry of light and I slide back into my cave, to coil around the hollow that contains my treasures. The Grail was there yesterday, but not now. If I thought Merlin had stolen it, I would be angry. Perhaps I would pursue him, up into the warmer, lighter waters, to see if his power is as great as what remains of mine.
But I will not, for I know the Grail has left me without Merlin’s tricks or thievery, as it has left a thousand times before. I have always followed it in the past, seeking the relief it gave. Now I think time has served that same purpose, if not so well. Time and cold and depth. It slows thought, and dulls memory. Only Merlin’s coming has briefly woken me at all, I realise, and there lies the irony of our exchange.
I will give the sword to Arthur, but without the Grail I do not think I will long remain in human shape. The Grail taught me guilt, but it also drank it up. Without it, I shall have to think too much and remember too much. I will have to live with a light that blinds me, until at last I have used up all the lives of Lyonnesse that lie within my gut.
No. The Grail has gone. When Excalibur is likewise gone, I shall return to the darkness and the cold, to this place where a dull serpent can sleep without dreaming. Till once again I must obey the call of st
rength and sorrow, of love and longing, of justice and of peace. All these things of human magic, that I never knew till I made the sword and scabbard, and never understood until I made the Grail.
CHARLIE RABBIT
INTRODUCTION TO CHARLIE RABBIT
‘ CHARLIE RABBIT’ WAS WRITTEN WHILE the (second) Iraq war was brewing but before it had begun, specifically for the War Child charity anthology Kids’ Night In. War Child (www. warchild.org) is a network of independent organisations working across the world to help children affected by war. The royalties donated by the authors from the Kids’ Night In anthology have been used to help children in all kinds of war-torn areas to get schooling, medical attention, and much more.
In ‘Charlie Rabbit’ I wanted to tell a story, of course, but also to communicate a snapshot of some small children caught up in a war. A nonspecific war, because the children suffer no matter what the war is about, or where it is, or who is fighting it. Often children in a war have little or no idea of what is really going on. They simply suffer the consequences.
I’ve thought a lot about war and conflict and read a lot about it, from military history to personal accounts. I served in the Australian Army Reserve for four years (a part-time force like the American National Guard), so I have a little understanding of what it means to be a peacetime soldier. Back then, there were a lot of Vietnam veterans still serving, and I listened to them, and I thought about what might happen if I had to go to war, too, and I have thought about it since.
But until I sat down to work out what I was going to write for the War Child anthology, I had never considered the particular horror of being a child in a country at war: totally powerless, totally vulnerable, and totally innocent.
‘Charlie Rabbit’ is my attempt to help other people think about the actual children who are affected by war, even if they survive. Children just like your own, or the kids next door, or the children at the school across the road.
Children who would like to have two parents, peaceful lives, and a Charlie Rabbit.
CHARLIE RABBIT
ABBAS WOKE TO THE SCREAM OF SIRENS . Half asleep, he tumbled out of the upper bunk and shook his brother, who was asleep below.
‘Joshua! Get up!’
Joshua opened one eye, but he didn’t move any other muscle. He was six, and unruly. Abbas, who was eleven, felt practically grown up by comparison.
‘I don’t want to go down the hole,’ complained Joshua. He still hadn’t opened his other eye.
Abbas pulled the bedclothes back and dragged Joshua onto the floor. Charlie Rabbit, who had been under the blankets, fell out too. His long floppy ears sprawled across Abbas’s bare feet, till Joshua grabbed his constant companion and hugged him to his chest.
‘It’s a cellar, not a hole, and we have to go now!’
Joshua lay on the floor and shut both eyes. Abbas hauled him up into a sitting position, but Joshua was as floppy as Charlie Rabbit’s ears. As soon as Abbas let go, Joshua slumped down again.
‘Mum!’ shouted Abbas, a touch of panic in his voice. He could feel a rapid, regular vibration through the walls and floor, and could hear something like distant thunder beneath the shrieking sirens. But it wasn’t thunder. The cruise missiles were hitting the south side. The next wave would strike much closer to home. He had to get Joshua to the shelter.
‘Mum!’
There was no answer. Abbas, still half asleep, felt a sudden pain of memory. Their mother had been wounded in a daylight air raid that afternoon, and had been taken away. To a hospital, Abbas desperately hoped, if there was one left. His grandparents were supposed to come over, but they hadn’t arrived by nightfall. Abbas had put Joshua to bed and then, much later, had fallen into an exhausted sleep himself.
He tried not to think about what might have happened to Grandpa and Gramma, in the same way he tried not to think about his father, who had been drafted eighteen months before. The single postcard they had gotten from him was still pinned to the wall of their room, its edges curled, the ink fading.
No one could help him, Abbas realised. He had to look after Joshua by himself.
‘You stay, then!’ Abbas shouted. He snatched Charlie Rabbit from Joshua and ran to the door. ‘Charlie Rabbit will come with me.’
‘Wait!’ squealed Joshua. He jumped up and reached for his rabbit. But Abbas held it above his head and ran for the stairs. Joshua followed, pleading and clutching at his brother’s pyjamas to make him stop. Somehow they made it down the stairs together, without Abbas losing his pyjamas or his temper.
The cellar was entered through a trapdoor in the kitchen that led to a long, narrow ladder. As Abbas flung the trapdoor open, there was a terrible booming crash outside. The whole house shook, and a storm of dust and pieces of plaster rained down from the ceiling. The light near the stove sparked and went out, leaving them in darkness. Joshua lost his balance and fell over, almost rolling into the trapdoor. Purely by luck, Abbas got in the way, and they lay tangled together on the floor.
‘Down the ladder!’ shouted Abbas as Joshua started to howl. He wrestled the little boy around and lowered him down by feel.
‘Charleeee! Charleeee!’ screamed Joshua. He hung on to the ladder with one hand while he clawed at Abbas with the other, trying to grab Charlie Rabbit.
‘Charlie’s coming too! Climb down! Down!’
Another missile hit nearby. Abbas felt the impact through his whole body. It took a moment for him to realise that it had knocked him senseless for a few seconds. He was still on the kitchen floor, but he couldn’t feel the trapdoor—or Joshua. He couldn’t hear anything either, because it felt as if a school bell was going off deep inside his ears.
Blinded and deafened, he was so disoriented it took several seconds of panicked reaching around before he realised he was backed up against the fridge. That meant the trapdoor should be over to the right. He crawled in that direction and felt his probing fingers drop into the open trapdoor. But where was Joshua?
There was an electric lantern at the foot of the ladder. Abbas realized he had to get it before he could look for Joshua. He lowered himself through the trapdoor as another missile hit nearby. This time Abbas saw the flash, which meant the blackout curtains over the windows were gone. Or perhaps the whole wall had fallen over. Hastily he stepped down, dragging the trapdoor shut behind him, though it did little to muffle the sound of explosions.
Abbas’s hearing started to come back before he reached the foot of the ladder. A distant, piercing voice penetrated his aching ears. Joshua’s voice.
‘It’s dark! Where’s Charlie? Charlie!’
‘Stay still!’ instructed Abbas, far too loudly, over the ringing in his ears. ‘I’ll find Charlie after I get the light.’
He felt around behind the ladder. The emergency box was there, and the large electric lantern they used to take camping. Years ago, when there were still holidays and you could leave the city without a special pass.
Abbas switched the lantern on. Nothing happened, and a sob began to rise in the boy’s throat. They had saved those batteries especially, kept them for exactly this sort of emergency. They couldn’t have gone dead . . .
A faint glow appeared before the sob could leave Abbas’s mouth, and slowly grew till it became a bright, white light. Abbas turned the sob into a cough and looked around. Joshua was already picking up Charlie Rabbit. The little boy was dirty but otherwise seemed unhurt, though he must have fallen halfway down the ladder.
‘Nothing hurts?’ asked Abbas.
Joshua shook his head and hid his face in Charlie Rabbit’s ears.
Abbas looked around. The ‘hole’ had been an ice cellar, long ago, and was really only a cave dug into the thick clay below the house. Where the ice blocks had once been stacked, there was now a makeshift shelter, an A-frame made from two heavy tabletops with the legs cut off, bolted together at the top and sandbagged at the bottom and each end.
Another missile exploded close by, the ground shivering from the impact. More d
ust fell from the ceiling.
‘Into . . . the shelter,’ gasped Abbas, as he pushed his brother toward the wooden A-frame. For once, Joshua did as he was told, even taking the lantern from Abbas, who turned back and picked up the heavy emergency box. It contained a couple of old blankets, some food, and a bottle of water.
Abbas had taken only two steps toward the shelter when a cruise missile hit the house next door. The explosion shattered the whole street, smashing every house like a sledgehammer coming down on matchstick models.
The earth under Abbas’s feet rolled, and all the air around him was sucked up with a terrible scream. He was lifted up, then thrown forward, almost to the shelter. He landed hard, on his side, but had no time to think about the pain. The scream of air dissipated, but in its place came a terrible groaning noise, an almost human expression of pain, though it was far louder than any human sound.
It was the house. Abbas looked up and saw the floor above bulge down, every beam protesting under a terrible strain. The whole building was about to collapse.
Without hesitation. Abbas threw the emergency box toward the shelter and flung himself after it, an instant before the space where he’d been was hit by a huge ceiling beam.
As the beam fell, the floor above gave way and the ruins of the house came pouring down, a great dumping of broken wooden beams, floor planks, plaster, roof tiles, and chimney bricks, mixed in with furniture, books, even the bathtub.
The wooden walls of the shelter boomed and shook as the cascade of ruin continued. Abbas pushed Joshua all the way to the back as debris began to flow in through the shelter entrance, preceded by a thick wave of dust; cloying, sticky dust that made it almost impossible to breathe and dimmed the light of the lantern.
Joshua screamed as debris continued to crash down. Abbas was about to tell him to shut up, when he realised he was screaming too. Abbas forced himself to stop, shutting the scream inside as he crawled to the far end of the shelter, dragging his little brother and Charlie Rabbit with him.
