“He was always such a soft boy, Sam’s friend. I always thought he had the soul of a poet. They were so different, him and Sam. It’s so terribly difficult to imagine he would do all that he did to save Sam’s life. That the place they were in could have made him such a fearsome . . .”
She is silent for a long time, overcome with sorrow.
“Warrior,” she whispers, turning the page of the photo album.
Elsa doesn’t need to see the photo to know who it’s of.
It’s Sam. He is standing somewhere in a desert, wearing a uniform and supporting himself on crutches. Next to him stands Elsa’s granny with a stethoscope around her neck. And between them stands Sam’s best friend. Wolfheart.
25
SPRUCE
It was the cloud animals that saved the Chosen One when the shadows came in secret to the kingdom of Mimovas to kidnap him. For while Miamas is made of fantasy, Mimovas is made of love. Without love there is no music, and without music there is no Mimovas, and the Chosen One was the most beloved in the whole kingdom. So if the shadows had taken him, it would eventually have led to the downfall of the Land-of-Almost-Awake. If Mimovas falls then Mirevas falls, and if Mirevas falls then Miamas falls, and if Miamas falls then Miaudacas falls, and if Miaudacas falls then Miploris falls. Because without music there can’t be any dreams, and without dreams there can’t be any fairy tales, and without fairy tales there can’t be any courage, and without courage no one would be able to bear any sorrows, and without music and dreams and fairy tales and courage and sorrow there would only be one kingdom left in the Land-of-Almost-Awake: Mibatalos. But Mibatalos can’t live alone, because the warriors there would be worthless without the other kingdoms, because they’d no longer have anything to fight for.
Granny also stole that from Harry Potter, that bit about having something to fight for. But Elsa forgave her because it was quite good. You’re allowed to nick stuff if it’s good.
And it was the cloud animals that saw the shadows stealing along between the houses in Mimovas, and they did what cloud animals do: they swept down like arrows and up again like mighty ships, they transformed themselves into dromedaries and apples and old fishermen with cigars, and the shadows threw themselves into the trap. Because soon they didn’t know who or what they were chasing. Then all at once the cloud animals disappeared, and one of them bore away the Chosen One. All the way to Miamas.
And that was how the War-Without-End began. And if it hadn’t been for the cloud animals it would have ended there, that day, and the shadows would have won.
Elsa is in the Land-of-Almost-Awake all night. She can get there whenever she wants now, as if it had never been a problem. She doesn’t know why, but assumes it’s because she has nothing to lose anymore. The shadow is in the real world now, Elsa knows who he is, and she knows who Granny was and who Wolfheart is and how it all hangs together. She’s not frightened anymore. She knows that the war will come, that it’s inevitable, and the mere fact of knowing it makes her strangely calm.
The Land-of-Almost-Awake is not burning as it was in the dream. Wherever she rides, it’s as beautiful and tranquil as ever. Only when she wakes up does she realize that she has avoided venturing into Miamas. She rides to all five other kingdoms, even the ruins where Mibatalos used to be before the War-Without-End. But never to Miamas. Because she doesn’t want to know if Granny is there. Doesn’t want to know if Granny isn’t there.
Dad is standing in the doorway of her bedroom. At once she’s wide awake, as if someone had just squirted menthol up her nose. (Which, just as an aside, works insanely well if you want to wake someone up. You’d know that if you have the kind of granny Elsa had.)
“What’s the matter? Is Mum ill? Is it Halfie?”