فصل 21

21.

In Which Fyrian Makes a Discovery

“Luna, Luna, Luna, Luna,” Fyrian sang, spinning a pirouette in the air.

Two weeks she had been home. Fyrian remained delighted.

“Luna, Luna, Luna, Luna.” He finished his dance with a bit of a flourish, landing on one toe on the center of Luna’s palm. He bowed low. Luna smiled in spite of herself. Her grandmother was sick in bed. Still. She had been sick since they returned home.

When it was time for bed, she kissed Glerk good night and went to the house with Fyrian, who wasn’t supposed to sleep in Luna’s bed, but surely would.

“Good night, Grandmama,” Luna said, leaning over her sleeping grandmother and kissing her papery cheek. “Sweet dreams,” she added, noticing a catch in her voice. Xan didn’t move. She continued to sleep her openmouthed sleep. Her eyelids didn’t even flutter.

And because Xan was in no condition to object, Luna told Fyrian that he could sleep at the foot of her bed, just like old times.

“Oh, joyful joyness!” Fyrian sighed, clutching his front paws to his heart and nearly fainting dead away.

“But, Fyrian, I will kick you out if you snore. You nearly lit my pillow on fire last time.”

“I shall never snore,” Fyrian promised. “Dragons do not snore. I am sure of it. Or maybe just dragonlings do not snore. You have my word as a Simply Enormous Dragon. We are an old and glorious race, and our word is our bond.”

“You are making all that up,” Luna said, tying her hair back in a long, black plait and hiding behind a curtain to change into her nightgown.

“Am not,” he said huffily. Then he sighed. “Well. I might be. I wish my mother were here sometimes. It would be nice to have another dragon to talk to.” His eyes grew wide. “Not that you are not enough, Luna-­my-­Luna. And Glerk teaches me ever so many things. And Auntie Xan loves me as much as any mother ever could. Still.” He sighed and said no more. Instead he somersaulted into Luna’s nightgown pocket and curled his hot little body into a tight ball. It was, Luna thought, like putting a stone from the hearth in her pocket—uncomfortably hot, yet comforting all the same.

“You are a riddle, Fyrian,” Luna murmured, resting her hand on the curve of the dragon, curling her fingers into the heat. “You are my favorite riddle.” Fyrian at least had a memory of his mother. All Luna had were dreams. And she couldn’t vouch for their accuracy. True, Fyrian saw his mother die, but at least he knew. And what’s more, he could love his new family fully, and with no questions.

Luna loved her family. She loved them.

But she had questions.

And it was with a head full of questions that she cuddled under her covers and fell asleep.

By the time the crescent moon slid past the windowsill and peeked into the room, Fyrian was snoring. By the time the moon shone fully through the window, he had begun to singe Luna’s nightgown. And by the time the curve of the moon touched the opposite window frame, Fyrian’s breath made a bright red mark on the side of Luna’s hip, leaving a blister there.

She pulled him out of her pocket and set him on the end of the bed.

“Fyrian,” she half slurred and half yelled in her half sleep. “Get OUT.”

And Fyrian was gone.

Luna looked around.

“Well,” she whispered. Did he fly out the window? She couldn’t tell. “That was fast.”

And she pressed her palm against her injury, trying to imagine a bit of ice melting into the burn, taking the pain away. And after a little bit the pain did go away, and Luna was asleep.

Fyrian did not wake up to Luna’s shouting. He had that dream again. His mother was trying to tell him something, but she was very far away, and the air was very loud and very smoky, and he couldn’t hear her. But he could see her if he squinted—standing with the other magicians from the castle as the walls crumbled around them.

“Mama!” Fyrian called in his dream-­voice, but his words were garbled by the smoke. His mother allowed an impossibly old man to climb upon her shining back, and they flew into the volcano. The volcano, rageful and belligerent, bellowed and rumbled and spat, trying to hock them free.

“MAMA!” Fyrian called again, sobbing himself awake.

He was not curled up next to Luna, where he had fallen asleep, nor was he resting in his dragon sack, suspended over the swamp, so he might whisper good night to Glerk over and over and over again. Indeed, Fyrian had no idea where he was. All he knew was that his body felt strange, like a puffed-­up lump of bread dough right before it is punched back down. Even his eyes felt puffy.

“What is going on?” Fyrian asked out loud. “Where is Glerk? GLERK! LUNA! AUNTIE XAN!” No one answered. He was alone in the wood.

He must have sleep-­flown there, he thought, though he had never sleep-­flown before. For some reason he was unable to fly now. He flapped his wings, but nothing happened. He beat them so hard that the trees on either side of him bent away and lost their leaves (Did that always happen? It must, he decided) and the dirt on the ground swirled up in great whirlwinds as he heaved his wings. His wings felt heavy and his body felt heavy and he could not fly.

“This always happens when I’m tired,” Fyrian told himself firmly, even though that wasn’t true, either. His wings always worked, just like his eyes always worked and his paws always worked, and he was always able to walk or crawl or peel the skin off ripe guja fruits and climb trees. All of his various bits were in good operating condition. So why weren’t his wings working now?

His dream had left an ache in his heart. His mother had been a beautiful dragon. Impossibly beautiful. Her eyelids were lined with tiny jewels, each a different color. Her belly was the exact color of a freshly laid egg. When Fyrian closed his eyes he felt as though he could touch each buttery-­smooth scale on her hide, each razor-­sharp spike. He felt as though he could smell the sweet sulfur on her breath.

How many years had it been? Not that many, surely. He was still just a young dragonling. (Whenever he thought about time, his head hurt.)

“Hello?” he called. “Is anyone home?”

He shook his head. Of course no one was home. This was no one’s home. He was in the middle of a deep, dark forest where he was not allowed, and he would probably die here, and it was all his own stupid fault, even though he was not entirely sure what he had done to make it happen. Sleep-­flying, apparently. Though he thought maybe he had made that term up.

“When you feel afraid,” his mother had told him, all those years ago, “sing your fears away. Dragons make the most beautiful music in the world. Everyone says so.” And though Glerk assured him this was not true, and that dragons, instead, were masters of self-­delusion, Fyrian took every opportunity he could to break into song. And it did make him feel better.

“Here I am,” he sang loudly, “In the middle of a terrifying wood. Tra-­la-­la!”

Thump, thump, thump, went his heavy feet. Were his feet always this heavy? They must have been.

“And I am not afraid,” he continued. “Not in the tiniest bit. Tra-­la-­la!”

It wasn’t true. He was terrified.

“Where am I?” he asked out loud. As if to answer his question, a figure appeared out of the gloom. A monster, Fyrian thought. Not that monsters as such were frightening. Fyrian loved Glerk, and Glerk was a monster. Still, this monster was much taller than Glerk. And in shadow. Fyrian took a step forward. His great paws sank even deeper into the mud. He tried to flap his wings, but they still wouldn’t lift him off the ground. The monster didn’t move. Fyrian stepped nearer. The trees rustled and moaned, their great branches shifting under the weight of the wind. He squinted.

“Why, you are not a monster at all. You are a chimney. A chimney with no house.”

And it was true. A chimney was standing at the side of a clearing. The house, it seemed, had burned away years ago. Fyrian examined the structure. Carved stars decorated the uppermost stones, and soot blackened the hearth. Fyrian peered down into the top of the chimney and faced an angry mother hawk sitting on her frightened nestlings.

“Sorry,” he squeaked, as the hawk nipped his nose, making it bleed. He turned away from the chimney. “What a small hawk,” he mused. Though it occurred to him that he was away from the land of giants, and everything was of regular size here. Indeed, he had only to stand on his hind legs and stretch his neck in order to look into the chimney.

He looked around. He was standing in a ruined village, among the remains of houses and a central tower and a wall that perhaps was a place of worship. He saw pictures of dragons and a volcano and even a little girl with hair like starlight.

“This is Xan,” his mother told him once. “She will take care of you when I’m gone.” He had loved Xan from the first moment. She had freckles on her nose and a chipped tooth and her starlight hair was in long braids with ribbons at the end. But that couldn’t be right. Xan was an old woman, and he was a young dragon, and he couldn’t have possibly known her when she was young, could he have?

Xan had taken him in her arms. Her cheek was smudged with dirt. They had both been sneaking sweets from the castle pantry. “But I don’t know how!” she had said. And then she had cried. She sobbed like a little girl.

But she couldn’t have been a little girl. Could she?

“You will. You’ll learn,” Fyrian’s mother’s gentle, dragony voice said. “I have faith in you.”

Fyrian felt a lump in his throat. Two giant tears welled in his eyes and went tumbling to the ground, boiling two patches of moss clear away. How long had it been? Who could tell? Time was a tricky thing—as slippery as mud.

And Xan had warned him to be mindful of sorrow. “Sorrow is dangerous,” she told him over and over again, though he couldn’t remember if she ever told him why.

The central tower leaned precariously to one side. Several foundation stones on the lee side had crumbled away, allowing Fyrian to crouch low and peer inside. There was something, two somethings, actually—he could see them by the tiny glimmer at the edges. He reached in and pulled them out. Held them in his paws. They were tiny—both fit into the hollow of his palm.

“Boots,” he said. Black boots with silver buckles. They were old—they must be. Yet they shone as though they had just been polished. “They look just like those boots from the old castle,” he said. “Of course, these can’t be the same. They are much too small. The other ones were giant. And they were worn by giants.”

The magicians long ago had been studying boots just like these. They had placed the boots on the table and were examining them with tools and special glasses and powders and cloths and other tools. Every day they experimented and observed and took notes. Seven League Boots, they were called. And neither Fyrian nor Xan was allowed to touch them.

“You’re too little,” the other magicians told Xan when she tried.

Fyrian shook his head. That can’t be right. Xan wasn’t little then, was she? It couldn’t have been that long ago.

Something growled in the wood. Fyrian jumped to his feet. “I’m not afraid,” he sang as his knees knocked together and his breath came in short gasps. Soft, padded footsteps drew nearer. There were tigers in the wood, he knew. Or there had been long ago.

“I am a very fierce dragon!” he called, his voice a tiny squeak. The darkness growled again. “Please don’t hurt me,” the dragonling begged.

And then he remembered. Shortly after his mother disappeared into the volcano, Xan had told him this: “I will take care of you, Fyrian. For always. You’re my family, and I am yours. I am putting a spell on you to keep you safe. You must never wander away, but if you do, and if you get scared, just say ‘Auntie Xan’ three times very quickly, and it will pull you to me as quick as lightning.”

“How?” Fyrian had asked.

“A magic rope.”

“But I don’t see it.”

“Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Some of the most wonderful things in the world are invisible. Trusting in invisible things makes them more powerful and wondrous. You’ll see.”

Fyrian had never tried it.

The growling came closer.

“A-­a-­auntie Xan Auntie Xan Auntie Xan,” Fyrian shouted. He closed his eyes. Opened them. Nothing happened. His panic crawled into his throat.

“Auntie Xan Auntie Xan Auntie Xan!”

Still nothing. The growling came closer. Two yellow eyes glowed in the darkness. A large shape hunched in the gloom.

Fyrian yelped. He tried to fly. His body was too big and his wings were too small. Everything was wrong. Why was everything so wrong? He missed his giants, his Xan and his Glerk and his Luna.

“Luna!” he cried, as the beast began to lunge. “LUNA LUNA LUNA!”

And he felt a pull.

“LUNA-MY-LUNA!” Fyrian screamed.

“Why are you shouting?” Luna asked. She opened her pocket and lifted out Fyrian, who had curled his tiny body into a tight ball.

Fyrian shivered uncontrollably. He was safe. He almost cried in relief. “I was frightened,” he said, his teeth caught on a mouthful of nightgown.

“Hmph,” the girl grunted. “You were snoring, and then you gave me a burn.”

“I did?” Fyrian asked, truly shocked. “Where?”

“Right here,” she said. “Wait a minute.” She sat up and looked closer. The scorch mark was gone, as was the hole in her nightgown, as was the burn on her hip. “It was here,” she said slowly.

“I was in a funny place. And there was a monster. And my body didn’t work right and I couldn’t fly. And I found some boots. And then I was here. I think you saved me.” He frowned. “But I don’t know how.”

Luna shook her head. “How could I have? I think we both were having bad dreams. I am not burned and you have always been safe, so let’s go back to sleep.”

And the girl and her dragon curled under the covers and were asleep almost instantly. Fyrian did not dream and did not snore, and Luna never moved.

When Luna awoke again, Fyrian was still fast asleep in the crook of her arm. Two thin ribbons of smoke undulated from his nostrils, and his lizard lips were curled in a sleepy grin. Never, Luna thought, has there been a more contented dragon. She slid her arm from underneath the dragon’s head and sat up. Fyrian still did not stir.

“Pssst,” she whispered. “Sleepyhead. Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Fyrian still did not stir. Luna yawned and stretched and gave Fyrian a light kiss on the tip of his warm little nose. The smoke made Luna sneeze. Fyrian still didn’t stir. Luna rolled her eyes.

“Lazybones,” she chided as she slid out of bed onto the cool floor and hunted for her slippers and her shawl. The day was cool but would soon be fine. A walk would do Luna good. She reached over to the guide ropes to pull her bed up to the ceiling. Fyrian wouldn’t mind waking up with her bed put away, and it felt better to start the day with the beds tied up. That’s what her grandmother had taught her.

But once the bed was hoisted and secured, Luna noticed something on the ground.

A large pair of boots.

They were black, leather, and even heavier than they looked like they would be. Luna could barely lift them. And they had a strange smell—one that seemed familiar to Luna, somehow, though she could not place it. The soles were thick, and made of a material that she could not immediately identify. Even stranger, they were inscribed with words on each heel.

“Do not wear us,” said the left heel.

“Unless you mean it,” said the right.

“What on earth?” Luna said out loud. She hoisted one boot up and tried to examine it more closely. But before she could, she had a sudden sharp headache, right in the middle of her forehead. It knocked her to her knees. She pressed the heels of her hands to her skull and pushed inward, as though to keep her head from flying apart.

Fyrian still didn’t stir.

She crouched on the floor for some time until the headache abated.

Luna glared at the underside of the bed. “Some watch you are,” she scoffed. Pulling herself back to her feet, she went over to the small, wooden trunk under the window, and opened it with her foot. She kept her mementoes in there—toys she used to play with, blankets she used to love, odd-­looking rocks, pressed flowers, leather-­bound journals densely scrawled with her thoughts and questions and pictures and sketches.

And now, boots. Large, black boots. With strange words and a strange smell that was giving her a headache. Luna shut the lid and sighed with relief. With the trunk’s lid closed, her head didn’t hurt anymore. In fact, she could barely remember the pain. Now to tell Glerk.

Fyrian continued to snore.

Luna was thirsty. And hungry. And she was worried about her grandmother. And she wanted to see Glerk. And there were chores to be done. The goats needed milking. The eggs needed gathering. And there was something else.

She paused on her way to the berry patch.

She was going to ask about something. Now what was it?

For the life of her, Luna couldn’t remember.