Neverland's Library: Fantasy Anthology

by Mark Lawrence

  Olivar had left to run several errands, so I was alone in the shop. “I am,” I said as I set a broken chair aside.

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  She entered cautiously. “Lucia told me that you are the best carpenter in the village. The treadle of my loom has broken. Can you fix it?”

  I never forgot a voice but the memory of any conversation with this woman remained elusive. Where had I heard her before? “Tell me where you live, and I will come to you tomorrow, señora…?”

  “Adriana,” she said. “I live outside the city, on the promontory.”

  Her name meant nothing to me—I recalled no Adriana, nor had Olivar or Lucia ever mentioned her. Perhaps she was new to Pueblo Blanco. I stared at her shadow and detected a rim of purple around her form as if the sun shined behind her and created an aura. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but when I looked again, the color remained.

  “I know you are a busy man, señor, but my loom is my livelihood.” She moved closer and stopped just before me. The scent of rosewater drifted with her and tickled my nose. “Is there any way that you can come now?”

  The strangeness of the color around Adriana’s form changed from purple to red, and I made out the faintest outline of her features. My heart beat faster. After all this time was my sight returning to me?

  She cocked her head. “Did you hear me?”

  “Of course,” I mumbled and gathered a few tools to place in my satchel. “I can come and examine it today. I will measure the treadle. As soon as Olivar returns, we will leave.”

  “I had hoped we could go now, so that I would be home before dark. Perhaps your wife can help you?”

  “I have no wife.” I snapped the words at her. None of Pueblo Blanco’s women wanted the liability of a blind man for a husband.

  She took no offense from my abruptness. “Such a shame,” she murmured. “You are very handsome.” She touched the back of my hand. “I will lead you there and back.”

  Unlike the short and stout women of Pueblo Blanco, she was tall and slender like me. She leaned her face close to mine. Her breath touched my cheek like a kiss. She smelled sweet as a summer night, lonely as the wind. Desire flooded my veins. The compulsion to be with her overwhelmed me.

  “Very well,” I said and was sorry when she stepped away. I yearned for her to touch me again, so I quickly took up my hat and cane.

  She placed my calloused hand on her arm and led me into the street. Beneath my fingers, I felt the quality of her linen shift was tightly woven and fine. Yet I knew that no lady would ever run such an errand for herself. I sensed I had found a kindred soul, another like me—someone who was different than the coarse, boisterous people of Pueblo Blanco.

  We walked through the quiet streets and she chatted to me of mundane things, the weather and local gossip. The familiarity of her voice distracted me. I barely noticed that Pueblo Blanco’s usual clamor was absent.

  She walked slowly and navigated me through the streets as if she led blind men every day. “You are not from here?” she asked as we passed the last of Pueblo Blanco’s houses and moved along the rutted dirt road.

  “No, I am an orphan.” With that, I told her the story of how Bernardo found me on the beach.

  As we walked, my sight began to sharpen. Instead of a field of black, I distinguished the vague shapes of flowers in the field. The sharp odor of pine alerted me to the fir forest, which stood on the promontory that jutted into the sea. A squirrel ran before us and leaped onto a low-hanging branch. Although the animal’s shape still lacked color, I clearly saw its bushy tail and delicate paws.

  Adriana hummed a tune, soothing as the velvet of night. I joined my voice with hers, surprised and delighted by the melody we created.

  A cool breeze lifted our hair and carried the scent of the sea. I remembered …

  …crystal…

  Crystal glittered sharp and bright like tears of loss and sorrow while a warm voice murmured a song into my soul. Be vigilant. She is never what she seems.

  That long ago warning stripped Adriana’s spell from my eyes. I glanced to my left and she smiled up at me, but a scrim of ice seemed to cover her features. Her image wavered and, for one terrifying second, I saw a thousand, glistening eyes cover her face, then the image fled, and she became a beautiful woman once more.

  “Is something wrong, Alejandro?”

  Unnerved by the sight, I glanced away. “I smell the sea,” I lied. “It makes me remember that first day when my mother abandoned me.” I lowered my head until my dark curls shadowed my face.

  Her hips swayed and accidently bumped against mine. Normally, the feel of a woman so close would send my blood racing, but Adriana’s movements were merely pantomimes. She imitated gestures the way a mockingbird mimicked voices and turned them into pretensions without emotion or warmth.

  The urge to run almost overwhelmed me. Yet by the sheer force of will, I remained at her side, for I sensed that if I ran, she would hunt me with ferocious speed. The path we followed was narrow; the firs hovered around us and brushed our hair with prickly fingers. Within a few yards on either side of us, I saw nothing but blackness—not the usual shadows indicative of my blindness, but a deep void that spread and engulfed the trees.

  I remembered all of the tales about the people who had disappeared over the years. No one ever saw them leave the town; no one knew what became of them. I tried to recall a single voice that might have spoken as Adriana and I left the city, and all that surfaced was the unnatural quiet that had surrounded us.

  Whatever evil haunted Pueblo Blanco now walked beside me, I was as certain of this as surely as I knew the tools of my trade. The world grew more unnatural with every step that we took. The birds ceased to sing, the insects fell silent. The breeze grew stronger and resurrected the memory of razored whispers that once haunted my dreams.

  Adriana continued as if nothing was wrong. She led me to a ruined tower that rose above the trees, an ancient beacon to keep the ships from crashing against the rocks. The door was rotted and hung slightly askew; weeds grew wild around the threshold.

  The firs rocked and groaned in the wind. Clouds roved over the sky, fleeting ships of black that sailed on courses unknown.

  Adriana pushed the door open. I ignored the wailing admonition of the hinges to follow her inside. I tripped over the lip of the doorsill and almost fell into the dim interior. She steadied me, then left to light the lamps.

  The room was circular and filled with rubble. I smelled rats, the iron scent of rust, and the sour odor of ashes from fires long dead. In the center of the chamber stood a loom, the tapestry that it held was almost complete. Even in the frail light, I could see with my new vision that the treadles were not broken. The loom was in perfect condition.

  Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. “There is nothing wrong with your loom.” I blurted stupidly. I sounded like a fool.

  “No.” She ran her hand over the threads, which thrummed like a guitarra’s strings. The vibrations produced a familiar drone that I felt in my teeth. For all its subtlety, it was a violent sound, ominous and threatening as a storm. My face must have belied my thoughts, because she said, “You recognize it.”

  I didn’t argue. She was right. The sensation of that sound revived a memory buried deep within my subconscious. I rode the back of a great dragon that raced through the tunnels beneath the earth, her urgency spurred by her fear. Jeweled blue-green scales lined the beast’s back and her great horned head bobbed before me. She plunged through a stone labyrinth filled with crystals—I rode her through her lair and I was not afraid, because this was my home too. She was my mother.

  I remember the dragon touched my mind with a song and in those notes I heard my name, my one true name. Be vigilant, sang the dragon. She is never what she seems.

  I gripped the head of my cane until I thought my hand would break. My mother rose from the past to speak to me, but her voice was comprised of distant sighs, ashes and dust on
the wind.

  The tapestry’s note faded and when it ended, I could see again, not completely, not clearly, but with the first vestiges of my song swirling in my memories, my vision cleared and color invaded the room. A streak of sunlight filtered through one window and turned the air white-gold. A broken pot made of brown and red nestled in one corner. Beside the pot was a child’s toy, a wooden dragon carved from driftwood. The dragon’s scales were tinted blue and green; yellow crystals made the eyes of the great horned head shine in the dim light. It was my dragon, the one Bernardo had carved for me; I recognized a chip beneath her chin.

  Sorrow made my heart heavy. Tears burned my eyes at the sight of my long forgotten toy buried in Adriana’s debris. Unlike all the objects that surrounded it, the dragon was unbroken, untarnished by the filth.

  “I have been looking for you, Alejandro,” Adriana said.

  I tore my gaze from the toy and focused on the woman. Her gown was ivory and trimmed with green embroidery. Her hair was black as her eyes and her flesh the color of cream, milky-white.

  “Why?” I edged toward the loom, and though I could see, I feigned the movements of the blind. I struggled to piece together the memory of chords that began high, then trembled to a lower melody. Within those notes was my name.

  Adriana’s voice broke my concentration. “We are different from the mortals, you and I.” She walked across the room and stopped in front of me.

  My vision sharpened even more, and I noticed white specks floated in her irises like a thousand points of light…or a spider’s eyes. A shudder ran through me. “You are not human,” I whispered.

  “And neither are you.” She trailed her fingers down my chest.

  A wake of agony erupted on my flesh. I pushed her away and ripped open my tunic. A thin line of scales protruded from my skin, shiny with blood. “What have you done?”

  “Your mother hid you well,” she murmured.

  It was then that I recalled when I first heard Adriana’s voice—in the dark, on the night I almost killed Bernardo, she had whispered to me.

  …strike… he seeks to rid himself of you…worthless child…

  “You whispered in my dreams.”

  She smiled. “I whisper in all their dreams. I need their hate, their sorrow, their regret. I build my tapestry with the dark sounds within their souls.” She reached for me again.

  I lifted my cane and knocked her hand aside. My head ached; my skin prickled and burned.

  “Stop fighting, Alejandro. Let your true form shine through!”

  Thin lines of blood ran down my fingertips. Claws pushed through my flesh. I released my cane. Agony burned white-hot over my body from my hair down to my toes. A howl—halfway between rage and fear—tore through my throat. A high note followed by a lower pitch, then deeper once more.

  “Do you know my true name, Alejandro?” Adriana asked, her grin revealed row upon row of fangs.

  I searched my memories until I envisioned myself riding the dragon’s back once more. I knew Adriana’s one true name. My mother had sung it to me in a world of crystal and stone. “Skelis,” I intoned the name through clenched teeth. Adriana’s true name was Skelis, but mortal tongues would never pronounce either her name or mine.

  “Very good, you are remembering. My true name is Skelis. My husband’s name is Abezethibou.” She sang the syllables of their names in long clear notes, ethereal as the stars. She continued to advance.

  I backed away. My hip bumped the edge of the loom. Dark colors, blues and blacks and purple shades of grief, leapt from the threads and into the air. A small, misshapen hand rose from the tapestry before sinking back into the morass of hues. The image of Salvador’s deformed child rose to my mind.

  “You’ve trapped them here.” The words hissed through my lips. My tongue felt thick, my teeth too large for my mouth. “The souls of the murderers, the suicides, the lost ones of Pueblo Blanco—you lured them to their deaths and trapped them here. Why?”

  Adriana paused beside a long table and rummaged through the trash. “Long ago, my husband Abezethibou and I decided to return to our home beyond the stars. We wove a tapestry from the souls of the dead and threw it over the moon. On that blind night, Abezethibou passed through the tapestry, but unbeknownst to me, a young woman from Pueblo Blanco had discovered us. She sought her brother’s soul and, in an effort to save him, she caught a thread. Her heart was pure and her arms were strong. Before I could follow Abezethibou, the girl unwound my work and freed the souls.”

  Adriana advanced toward me with a knife held close to her thigh. “Entombed in this realm without my beloved, I rewove the tapestry alone. The mortals do not die fast enough, so I invade their dreams and entice them to their destruction. I will take no chances this time. Tonight, I will use a soul that cannot be touched by mortal hands, the soul of a dragon.”

  A cramp seized my stomach, and I doubled over.

  The memory of my mother’s song suddenly filled my heart. Be vigilant. Skelis and Abezethibou seek to rule the earth as gods. If she seals her spell with our souls, no mortal will be able to undo her magic. We are the last guardians of the earth, Emmanouel. Be vigilant, my son, my heart.

  Those were my mother’s last words to me. My human voice shifted through the scales and continued to change. My voice was not my own.

  I remembered now. My mother disguised me in mortal flesh and left me on the beach. That is why I cried and screamed. My voice was not my own anymore. I knew my mother would not hear me, because we no longer sang the same language. She didn’t want me to hear her die, so she went deep within her caves, down into the cavernous earth until she found a lake of fire and there, she threw herself into the flames.

  Adriana’s voice broke through my anguish. “Your mother died before I could find her. Her soul escaped me, but I knew that you lived. And now, I can go home.” She raised the knife, ready to strike.

  And bring the others of her kind here to earth. My voice deepened, and I found myself in control of a range that my mortal body never possessed. I sang a syllable and it seemed so right, I sang another and another, until the name Emmanouel burst from my lips. Emmanouel. My name is Emmanouel.

  I cried out again and shaped a note, conceived in passion, birthed in sorrow, dark as love, but all these things, they were the same. I released a wild undulation that shook the air and drew thunder from the sky.

  My mortal flesh gave way to my serpentine form in one final burst of agony. My scales were the color of sea foam, all pale and green. My body was large enough to encircle the wide room at least three times. I possessed a fine horned head and whiskers that trailed to the ground. I lashed my tail and brought down the tower’s southern wall. The ocean wind engulfed us; the setting sun blistered my back.

  Adriana flung the knife aside. She shrieked her own name and took her true form. Her arms and legs elongated until she changed into a giant black spider, almost twice the size of me. She lunged at my throat, but I twisted neatly to the side. Her blow glanced off my scales. My respite was brief, and I knew that I was no match for her speed and agility.

  The souls of Pueblo Blanco’s damned shrieked and cried for release. The tapestry. I couldn’t leave it behind. I snatched the loom in my massive jaws and bit down hard. Splinters flew through the air and pierced my mouth. The threads burned my tongue, but I held on, determined to cheat Adriana of her dream.

  She charged me, her fangs gnashing spit and fire. Instead of facing her, I turned and fled. She followed me into the forest. We pushed the ancient firs aside as if they were twigs. My powerful legs propelled me forward with Adriana in pursuit, red-eyed and full of hate.

  My only hope lie in the sea. I sped toward the cliff. Branches glanced off my face and the ground blurred beneath me. Freed of the constraints of my human form, I moved with supernatural speed.

  The tapestry shrieked and howled between my lips. Adriana landed on my tail and bit through my scales. The venom of her fangs turned my blood into molten fire. A groan rolled up
from my belly and into my throat. I lashed my tail left and right, but I couldn’t dislodge her. She chewed on my flesh. I rolled sideways. She screamed beneath my weight but her treacherous legs would not let go.

  I ran faster. The firs thinned until there was only rock, hard beneath my claws. The salt-breeze washed me clean of the remnants of Alejandro’s flesh. The mortal man was gone—I was wholly Emmanouel and, in spite of the demon hanging on my body, I was free.

  Ahead, the cliff ended and there was only the sea, spreading like a blanket, ready to receive me.

  Adriana released her grip on my tail just as I flung myself over the ledge. She rolled and stopped just shy of the crag.

  The air embraced me as I plunged downward with the tapestry in my mouth. I might die from the fall, but I would die whole, as Emmanouel. Then the water rose to greet me and the twilight sky disappeared beneath cerulean waves.

  I dived deep and followed the current to the caverns, the secret pools. Soon I found my way into the labyrinths, into the private places where my mother had nurtured and loved me.

  I carried the tapestry past the jeweled walls into the heart of the earth. Although I heard her claws tapping the earth’s crust, crystal and stone temporarily deafened Adriana to our sound.

  In a cavern ridged in flowstone and umber, I ceased my frenzied descent and placed the tapestry on the floor. The souls reached for me, their suffering vibrated through the rock and threatened to reach the earth’s surface where Adriana paced and schemed.

  I had to find a way to quiet them otherwise Adriana would be drawn to their discordant cries. I sang to them the lullabies of my mother and the joys of remembering, but their misery did not ease. They were mortal and I was not; my dragon experiences meant nothing to them.

  Then I recalled Bernardo, his rough, kind hands and his warm cinnamon eyes. I composed another melody and sang to them of Bernardo’s love, unconditional and free. I sang to them of miracles found by the sea.