“When you were a baby, I rescued you from a terrible fate. And then I accidentally offered you the moon to drink—and you did drink it, which exposed you to yet another terrible fate. I am sorry. You will live long and you will forget much and the people you love will die and you will keep going. This was my fate. And now it is yours. There is only one reason for it:”
Glerk knew the reason, of course, but it was not in the letter. Instead, there was a perfectly torn hole where the word magic had been. He looked around the floor, but he didn’t see it anywhere. This was one of the things he couldn’t stand about magic, generally. Magic was a troublesome thing. Foolish. And it had a mind of its own.
“It is the word that could not stick in your mind, but it is the word that defines your life. As it has defined mine. I only hope I will have enough time to explain everything before I leave you again—for the last time. I love you more than I could possibly say.
Your Loving Grandmother”
Glerk folded up the letter and slid it under the candlestick. He looked around the room with a sigh. It was true that Xan’s days were dwindling, and it was true that, in comparison to his excessively long life, Xan’s was no more than a deep breath, or a swallow, or the blink of an eye. And soon she would be gone forever. He felt his heart ball up in his throat in a hard, sharp lump.
“Glerk?” Fyrian ventured. He buzzed toward the ancient swamp monster’s face, peering into those large, damp eyes. Glerk blinked and stared back. The dragonling, he had to admit, was a sweet little thing. Bighearted. Young. But unnaturally so. And now was the time for him to grow up.
Past time, really.
Glerk pulled himself to his feet and his first set of arms, bending back a bit to ease out the kinks in his spine. He loved his small swamp—of course he did—and he loved his small life here in the crater of the volcano. He had chosen it without regrets. But he loved the wide world, too. There were parts of himself that he had left behind to live with Xan. Glerk could barely remember them. But he knew they were bountiful and life-giving and vast. The Bog. The world. All living things. He had forgotten how much he loved it all. His heart leaped within him as he took his first step.
“Come, Fyrian,” he said, holding his top left hand out and allowing the dragon to alight on his palm. “We are going on a journey.”
“A real journey?” Fyrian said. “You mean, away from here?”
“That is the only kind of journey, young fellow. And yes. Away from here. That sort of journey.”
“But . . .” Fyrian began. He fluttered away from the hand and buzzed to the other side of the swamp monster’s great head. “What if we get lost?”
“I never get lost,” Glerk said. And it was true. Once upon a time, many Ages ago, he traveled around the world more times than he could count. And in the world. And above and below. A poem. A Bog. A deep longing. He could barely remember it now, of course—one of the hazards of so very long a life.
“But . . .” Fyrian began, zooming from one side of Glerk’s face to the other and back again. “What if I should frighten people? With my remarkable size. What if they flee in terror?”
Glerk rolled his eyes. “While it is true, my young friend, that your size is—er—remarkable, I believe that a simple explanation from me will ease their fears. As you know, I have excellent skills at explaining things.”
Fyrian landed on Glerk’s back. “This is true,” he murmured. “No one explains things better than you, Glerk.” And then he threw his small body against the swamp monster’s great, damp back and flung his arms wide in an attempt at a hug.
“There is no need for that,” Glerk said, and Fyrian drifted back up into the air, hovering over his friend. “Look,” Glerk continued. “Do you see? Luna’s footprints.”
And so they followed her—the ancient swamp monster and the Perfectly Tiny Dragon—into the wood.
And with each footprint, Glerk became increasingly aware that the magic leaking from the young girl’s feet was growing. It seeped, then shined, then pooled on the ground, then spilled from the edges. At this rate, how long would it take for that magic to flow like water, move like streams and rivers and oceans? How long before it flooded the world?
How long, indeed?
29.
In Which There Is a Story with a Volcano in It
It is not an ordinary volcano, you know. It was made thousands and thousands of years ago by a witch.
Which witch? Oh, I don’t know. Not the Witch we’ve got, surely. She is old, but she is not that old. Of course I don’t know how old she is. No one does. And no one has seen her. I hear she looks like a young girl sometimes and an old woman sometimes and a grown lady other times. It all depends.
The volcano has dragons in it. Or it did. Time was that there were dragons all over creation, but now no one has seen them in an Age. Maybe longer.
How should I know what happened to them? Maybe the Witch got them. Maybe she ate them. She is always hungry, you know. The Witch is, I mean. Let that keep you in your bed at night.
Every time the volcano erupts it is larger, angrier, more ferocious. Time was, it was no bigger than an ant’s hill. Then it was the size of a house. Now it’s bigger than the forest. And one day, it will envelop the whole world, you see if it won’t.
The last time the volcano erupted, it was the Witch that caused it. You don’t believe me? Oh, it’s as true as you’re standing here. In those days the forest was safe. There were no pitfalls or poisonous vents. Nothing burned. And there were villages dotting this way and that through the forest. Villages that collected mushrooms. Villages that traded in honey. Villages that made beautiful sculptures out of clay and hardened them with fire. And they were all connected by trails and small roads that crossed and crisscrossed the forest like a spider’s web.
But the Witch. She hates happiness. She hates it all. So she brought her army of dragons into the belly of the mountain.
“Heave!” she shouted at the dragons. And they heaved fire into the heart of the volcano. “Heave!” she shouted again.
And the dragons were afraid. Dragons, if you must know, are wicked creatures—full of violence and duplicity and deceit. Still, the deceit of a dragon was nothing in the face of the wickedness of the Witch.
“Please,” the dragons cried, shivering in the heat. “Please stop this. You’ll destroy the world.”
“What care have I for the world?” The Witch laughed. “The world never cared for me at all. If I want it to burn, well then, it will burn.”
And the dragons had no choice. They heaved and heaved until they were nothing more than ash and embers and smoke. They heaved until the volcano burst into the sky, raining destruction across every forest, every farm, every meadow. Even the Bog was undone.
And the volcano’s eruption would have destroyed everything, if it hadn’t been for the brave little wizard. He walked into the volcano and—well, I’m not entirely clear what he did, but he stopped it right up, and saved the world. He died doing it, poor thing. Pity he didn’t kill the Witch, but nobody’s perfect. Despite everything, we must thank him for what he’s done.
But the volcano never really went out. The wizard stopped it up, but it went underground. And it leaks its fury into the water pools and the mud vats and the noxious vents. It poisons the Bog. It contaminates the water. It is the reason why our children go hungry and our grandmothers wither and our crops are so often doomed to fail. It is the reason we cannot ever leave this place and there is no use trying.
But no matter. One day it will erupt again. And then we will be out of our misery.
30.
In Which Things Are More Difficult than Originally Planned
Luna hadn’t been walking for long before she was very, very lost and very, very frightened. She had her map and she could see in her mind’s eye the route that she should travel, but she had already lost her way.
The shadows looked like wolves.
The trees clacked and creaked in the wind. Their branches curled like sharp claws, scratching at the sky. Bats screeched and owls hooted their replies.