فصل 45

45.

In Which a Simply Enormous Dragon Makes a Simply Enormous Decision

“Glerk!”

“Hush, Fyrian!” Glerk said. “I’m listening!”

They had seen the Sorrow Eater make her way up the side of the knoll, and Glerk felt his blood go cold.

The Sorrow Eater! After all these years!

She looked exactly the same. What kind of tricks had she been up to?

“But Glerk!”

“But nothing! She doesn’t know we’re here. We shall surprise her!”

It had been so long since Glerk had last confronted an enemy. Or surprised a villain. There was a time that Glerk was very good at it. He could wield five swords at once—four hands and the prehensile tip of his tail—and was so formidable and agile and huge that his adversaries would often drop their weapons and call a truce. This was preferable for Glerk, who felt that violence, while sometimes necessary, was uncouth and uncivilized. Reason, beauty, poetry, and excellent conversation were his preferred tools for settling disputes. Glerk’s spirit, in its essence, was as serene as any bog—life-­giving and life-­sustaining. And, quite suddenly, he missed the Bog with an intensity that nearly knocked him to his knees.

I have been asleep. I have been lulled by my love for Xan. I am meant to be in the world—and I have not been. Not for Ages. Shame on me.

“GLERK!”

The swamp monster looked up. Fyrian was flying. He had continued to grow and was yet again larger than when Glerk had last glanced him. Astonishingly, though, even as he became larger and larger, Fyrian had somehow regained the use of his wings and was hovering overhead, peering over the rim of the trees.

“Luna is there,” he called. “And she’s with that uninteresting crow. I despise that crow. Luna loves me best.”

“You don’t despise anyone, Fyrian,” Glerk countered. “It’s not in your nature.”

“And Xan is there. Auntie Xan! She is sick!”

Glerk nodded. He had feared as much. Still, at least she was in human form. It would have been worse if she had been stuck in her transformed state, unable to say good-­bye. “What else do you see, my friend?”

“A lady. Two ladies. There is the lady who moves like a tiger, and a different one. She doesn’t have any hair. And she loves Luna. I can see it from here. Why would she love Luna? We love Luna!”

“That is a good question. As you know, Luna is a bit of a mystery. As was Xan, ever so long ago.”

“And there is a man. And a lot of birds are gathered on the ground. I think they love Luna, too. They’re all staring at her. And Luna is wearing her let’s-­make-­trouble face.”

Glerk nodded his broad head. He closed one eye and then the other and hugged himself with his four thick arms. “Well then, Fyrian,” he said. “I suggest that we also make some trouble. I’ll take the ground if you take the air.”

“But what are we to do?”

“Fyrian, you were only a tiny dragon when it happened, but that woman there, the one who is all hunger and prowl, is the reason why your mother had to go into the volcano. She is a Sorrow Eater. She spreads misery and devours sorrow; it is the worst sort of magic. She is the reason why you were raised motherless, and why so many mothers were childless. I suggest we prevent her from making more sorrow, shall we?”

Fyrian was already in flight, screaming and streaking flames across the night sky.

“Sister Ignatia?” Antain was confused. “What are you doing here?”

“She’s found us,” whispered the woman with the paper birds. No, Luna thought, not just a woman. My mother. That woman is my mother. She could barely make sense of it. But deep inside her, she knew it was true.

Xan turned to the young man. “You wanted to find the Witch? This is your witch, my friend. You call her Sister Ignatia?” She gave the stranger a skeptical look. “How fancy. I knew her by a different name, though I called her the monster when I was a child. She has been living off the Protectorate’s sorrow for—how long has it been? Five hundred years. My goodness. That’s something for the history books, isn’t it? You must be very proud of yourself.”

The stranger surveyed the scene, a small smile pressed into her mouth. Sorrow Eater, Luna thought. A hateful term for a hateful person.

“Well, well, well,” the Sorrow Eater said. “Little, little Xan. It’s been ever so long. And the years have not been kind to you, I’m afraid. And yes, I am terribly glad to see that you are impressed with my little sorrow farm. There is so much power in sorrow. Pity that your precious Zosimos was never able to see it. Fool of a man. Dead fool now, poor fellow. As you will be soon, dear Xan. As you should have been years ago.”

The woman’s magic surrounded her like a whirlwind, but Luna could see even from a distance that it was empty at its center. She, like Xan, was depleting. With no ready source of sorrow nearby, she had nothing to restore her.

Luna unhooked her arm from her grandmother and stepped forward. Threads of magic unwound from the stranger and fluttered toward Luna and her own dense magic. The woman didn’t seem to notice.

“Now what’s all this silliness about rescuing that baby?” the stranger said.

Antain struggled to his feet, but the madwoman put her hand on his shoulder and held him back.

“She’s trying to draw out your sorrow,” the madwoman murmured, closing her eyes. “Don’t let her. Hope instead. Hope without ceasing.”

Luna took another step. She felt a bit more of the tall woman’s magic unspool and draw toward her.

“Such a curious little thing,” the Sorrow Eater said. “I knew another curious girl. So long ago. So many infernal questions. I wasn’t sad when the volcano swallowed her up.”

“Except that it didn’t,” Xan wheezed.

“It may as well have,” the stranger sneered. “Look at you. Aged. Decrepit. What have you made? Nothing! And the stories they tell about you! I’d say that it would curl your hair”—she narrowed her eyes—“but I don’t think your hair could take it.”

The madwoman left Antain and moved toward Luna. Her movements were slippery and slow, as though she was moving in a dream.

“Sister Ignatia!” Antain said. “How could you? The Protectorate looks to you as a voice of reason and learning.” He faltered. “My baby is facing the Robes. My son. And Ethyne—whom you cared for as a daughter! It will break her spirit.”

Sister Ignatia flared her nostrils and her brow darkened. “Do not say that ingrate’s name in my presence. After all I did for her.”

“There is a part of her that is still human,” the madwoman whispered in Luna’s ear. She put her hand on Luna’s shoulder. And something inside Luna surged. It was all she could do to keep her feet on the ground. “I have heard her, in the Tower. She walks in her sleep, mourning something that she lost. She sobs; she weeps; she growls. When she wakes, she has no memory of it. It is walled off inside her.”

This, Luna knew a bit about. She turned her attention to the memories sealed inside the Sorrow Eater.

Xan hobbled forward.

“The babies didn’t die, you know,” the old woman said, a mischievous grin curving across her wide mouth.

The stranger scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course they did. They starved, or they died of thirst. Wild animals ate them, sooner or later. That was the point.”

Xan took another step forward. She peered into the tall woman’s eyes, as though looking into a long, dark tunnel in the face of a rock. She squinted. “You’re wrong. You couldn’t see through the fog of sorrow you created. Just as I had difficulty looking in, you couldn’t see out. All these years I’ve been traipsing right up to your door, and you had no idea. Isn’t that funny?”

“It’s nothing of the kind,” the stranger said with a deep-­throated growl. “It’s only ridiculous. If you came near, I would know.”

“No, dear lady. You didn’t. Just as you don’t know what happened to the babies. Every year, I came to the edge of that sad, sad place. Every year, I carried a child with me across the forest to the Free Cities, and there I placed the child with a loving family. And to my shame, its original family sorrowed needlessly. And you fed on that sorrow. You will not feed on Antain’s sorrow. Or Ethyne’s. Their baby will live with his parents, and he will grow and thrive. Indeed, while you have been prowling around the forest, your little sorrow fog has already lifted. The Protectorate now knows what it is to be free.”

Sister Ignatia paled. “Lies,” she said, but she stumbled and struggled to right herself. “What’s happening?” she gasped.

Luna narrowed her eyes. The stranger had depleted almost all but the last remnants of her magic. Luna looked deeper. And there, in the space where the Sorrow Eater’s heart should have been, was a tiny sphere—hard, shiny, and cold. A pearl. Over the years, she had walled off her heart, again and again, making it smooth and bright and unfeeling. And she likely hid other things in there as well—memories, hope, love, the weight of human emotion. Luna focused, the keenness of her eye boring inward, piercing the shine of the pearl.

The Sorrow Eater pressed her hands to her head. “Someone is taking my magic. Is it you, old woman?”

“What magic?” the madwoman said, stepping next to Xan, curling her arm around the old woman to keep her upright, and giving Sister Ignatia a hard look. “I didn’t see any magic.” She turned to Xan. “She makes things up, you know.”

“Hush, you imbecile! You have no idea what you’re talking about.” The stranger wobbled, as though her legs had been turned suddenly turned to dough.

“Every night when I was a girl in the castle,” Xan said, “you came to feed on the sorrow that seeped under my door.”

“Every night in the Tower,” the madwoman said, “you went from cell to cell, looking for sorrow. And when I learned to bottle mine up, to lock it away, you would snarl and howl.”

“You’re lying,” the Sorrow Eater croaked. But they weren’t—Luna could see the awful hunger of the Sorrow Eater. She could see her—even now—desperately looking for the tiniest bit of sorrow. Anything to fill the dark void inside her. “You don’t know a single thing about me.”

But Luna did. In her mind’s eye, Luna could see the pearly heart of the Sorrow Eater floating in the air between them. It had been hidden away for so long that Luna suspected the Sorrow Eater had forgotten it was even there. She turned it around and around, looking for chinks and crevices. There was a memory here. A beloved person. A loss. A flood of hope. A pit of despair. How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.

It’s awful to be cut off from your own memories, Luna thought. If I know anything, I know that now. Here. Let me help you.

Luna concentrated. The pearl cracked. The Sorrow Eater’s eyes went terribly wide.

“Some of us,” Xan said, “choose love over power. Indeed, most of us do.”

Luna pressed her attention into the crack. With a flick of her left wrist, she forced it open. And sorrow rushed out.

“Oh!” the Sorrow Eater said, pressing her hands to her chest.

“YOU!” came a voice from above.

Luna looked up and felt a scream erupt in her throat. She saw an enormous dragon hovering just overhead. It soared in a spiral, pulling closer and closer to the middle. It erupted fire into the sky. It looked familiar, somehow.

“Fyrian?”

Sister Ignatia tore at her chest. Her sorrow leaked onto the ground.

“Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.” Her eyes went heavy with tears. She choked on her own sobbing.

“My mother,” the dragon-­who-­looked-­like-­Fyrian shouted. “My mother died and it is your fault.” The dragon dove down and skidded to a halt, sending sprays of gravel in every direction.

“My mother,” the Sorrow Eater mumbled, barely noticing the enormous dragon bearing down on her. “My mother and my father and my sisters and my brothers. My village and my friends. All gone. All that was left was sorrow. Sorrow and memory and memory and sorrow.”

Possibly-­Fyrian grabbed the Sorrow Eater by the waist, holding her up high. She went limp, like a doll.

“I should burn you up!” the dragon said.

“FYRIAN!” Glerk was running up the mountain, moving faster than Luna had thought it was possible for him to move. “Fyrian, put her down at once. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“Yes, I do,” Fyrian said. “She’s wicked.”

“Fyrian, stop!” Luna cried, clutching at the dragon’s leg.

“I miss her,” Fyrian sobbed. “My mother. I miss her so much. This witch should pay for what she’s done.”

Glerk stood tall as a mountain. He was serene as a bog. He looked at Fyrian with all the love in the world. “No, Fyrian. That answer is too easy, my friend. Look deeper.”

Fyrian shut his eyes. He did not put down the Sorrow Eater. Great tears poured from beneath his clenched lids and fell in steaming dollops to the ground.

Luna looked deeper, past the layers of memory wrapped around the heart-­turned-­pearl. What she saw astonished her. “She walled off her sorrow,” Luna whispered. “She covered it up and pressed it in, tighter and tighter and tighter. And it was so hard, and heavy, and dense that it bent the light around it. It sucked everything inside. Sorrow sucking sorrow. She turned hungry for it. And the more she fed on it, the more she needed. And then she discovered that she could transform it into magic. And she learned how to increase the sorrow around her. She grew sorrow the way a farmer grows wheat and meat and milk. And she gorged herself on misery.”

The Sorrow Eater sobbed. Her sorrow leaked from her eyes and her mouth and her ears. Her magic was gone. Her collected sorrow was going. Soon there would be nothing at all.

The ground shook. Great plumes of smoke poured from the crater of the volcano. Fyrian shook. “I should throw you in the volcano for what you did,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “I should eat you in one bite and never think of you again. Just as you never thought of my mother again.”

“Fyrian,” Xan said, holding out her arms. “My precious Fyrian. My Simply Enormous boy.”

Fyrian began to cry again. He released the Sorrow Eater, who fell in a heap on the rock. “Auntie Xan!” he whimpered. “I feel so many things!”

“Of course you do, darling.” Xan beckoned the dragon to come close. She put her hands on either side of his enlarged face and kissed his tremendous nose. “You have a Simply Enormous heart. As you always have. There are things to do with our Sorrow Eater, but the volcano is not one of them. And if you ate her you would get a stomachache. So.”

Luna cocked her head. The Sorrow Eater’s heart was in pieces. She would not be able to repair it without magic—and now her magic was gone. Almost at once, the Sorrow Eater began to age.

The ground shook again. Fyrian looked around. “It’s not just the peak. The vents are open, and the air will be bad for Luna. Everyone else, too, probably.”

The woman without hair—the madwoman (No, Luna thought. Not the madwoman. My mother. She is my mother. The word made her shiver) looked down at her boots and smiled. “My boots can take us to where we need to go in no time. Send Sister Ignatia and the monster with the dragon. I’ll put the rest of you on my back, and we’ll run to the Protectorate. They need to be warned about the volcano.”

The moon went out. The stars went out. Thick smoke covered the sky.

My mother, Luna thought. This is my mother. The woman on the ceiling. The hands in the window of the Tower. She is here, she is here, she is here. Luna’s heart was infinite. She climbed aboard her mother’s back and laid her cheek against her mother’s neck and closed her eyes tight. Luna’s mother scooped up Xan as tender as could be, and instructed Antain and Luna to hang on to her shoulders, as the crow hung on to Luna.

“Be careful with Glerk,” Luna called to Fyrian. The dragon held the Sorrow Eater in his hands, extended as far from his body as they could be, as though he found her repellant. The monster clung to his back, just as Fyrian had clung to Glerk for years.

“I’m always careful with Glerk,” Fyrian said primly. “He’s delicate.”

The ground shook. It was time to go.