Rainbow's End - Wizard (15 page)

*

They were interrupted by a boy who came bursting through the warehouse door. He had an impish face and a shock of coal-black hair, and stopped when he saw Big John and Thomas in front of him - about to leave the storehouse themselves.

‘Frieda said I would find you here,’ he panted.

‘Yes, Gary,’ asked Big John, and then remembered his manners.

‘Thomas,’ he said, ‘this is Gary. Gary,’ John put his hand on
Thomas’ shoulder. ‘This is Thomas.’ Both boys nodded and Gary blushed with pleasure when John stepped forward, rested his other huge hand on the boy’s black hair. ‘Gary is the other children’s unofficial leader. Their spokesman, sort of…’ He ruffled the boy’s hair playfully. ‘Self-elected, of course.’ They laughed together, and then Big John asked: ‘Is something wrong, Gary?’

The boy, who was
Thomas’ age, shook his head and grinned. He said, ‘Nothing wrong, no. We just need some money.’

John laughed again
and asked, ‘Another ice-cream man, huh?’

The boy shook his head. ‘Ice-cream
van
,’ he replied. ‘
And
a hot-dog stand.’

*****

It was one of those cheap narrow fold-out mattresses, thin and folded into four squares; meant for one-day outings more than anything else. Frieda opened it on the large slab of rock fronting the cave’s entrance, and then stood looking at it for a long few seconds - concentrating hard. It changed into a thick, luxury, double-bed mattress.

She went back inside
the cave and opened the dining room door, just in time to see Arnold spoon the last bit of custard-covered peach into Maggie’s waiting mouth.  He made the spoon fly and swoop and glide, captivated and enchanted by the little girl’s giggles.

*****

Izzy was
staying another night. The footstool had been converted again, but the sliding door was gone. So was the dog. Tessie had fled for the night, and the two old friends sat in quiet, companionable silence. And relatively fresh air… They had just finished a meal of mashed potatoes topped with two large tins of bully-beef and pepper sauce, and were watching an old episode of Mr. Bean - without the sound. Orson had opened a bottle of Chateaux La Fitte, and half of it was in his beer mug. The other half stood on the small table at his side - breathing…

Izzy wasn’t drinking. Orson and he had started talking about Thomas the night before, but not much
had been said, and even less absorbed, before they had both fallen asleep. (Passed out sounds so undignified…). And when he saw Thomas that morning - before he could ask the boy about himself, had found himself relating his
own
life story. Clever boy, that Thomas. And a good listener…

He thought the television off and Orson glared at him and croaked, indignantly
- ‘The best part’s just about to come up…’

Izzy interrupted him. ‘Who is he Orson? Where did you find
this boy? This Thomas?’

The ugly little man drank some
of his wine to keep it from spilling, then shrugged and told about Ariana’s summons, and what had happened in the woods between Fir-and Rockham after he got there. (The reader should keep in mind that while people at Rainbow’s End don’t lie, Orson is a past-master of exaggeration).

He told Iz
zy about how the mongrel excuse for a dog had almost gotten them killed, and about the snow that fell until it lay almost a metre thick; about finding the half dead boy only because he’d heard him cough in the pitch dark and about starting a fire - the warmth saving all of their lives… Told about their near-death episode with the Night Walkers, (and when Izzy said, “little bastards”, agreed); and about riding the Rainbow and Thomas staying awake; and Ariana - who humiliated an old man like him by landing him in the water yet again…

He
saw Izzy’s raised eyebrows, and reminded him, that by rights, in Earth time, he, Orson, was almost forty years the elder. The two held another long companionable silence and then Orson started lamenting about his ruined coat and shoes and…

Izzy interrupted again. ‘He has good manners,’ he said. ‘And he is intelligent’ - remembering
Thomas’ well-disguised sally of that morning. He told Orson about it.

‘I had a terrible hangover and he knew it
. He asked me if I had been visiting with you, and all the time he wanted to kill himself laughing…’ Izzy smiled quietly to himself. ‘I know: I saw behind those green eyes of his.’

Orson grunted and gave
, what passed with him as a smile, waiting for more.

‘Those eyes,’ Izzy
continued, ‘I’ve never seen their like, Orson. They look right through you… and when you expect it least, into you.
Deep
into you.’ He paused, reflecting. ‘He’s honest, this boy. No nonsense. And I think he’s strong - very strong.’

Orson upended the half-empty bottle into his mug and it gurgled and glug
ged as it transferred its contents. He took a large swallow before setting down the mug, and then, still holding the empty bottle, rolled out of his recliner. He was still sober enough to land on his feet, and skirted the loose carpet on his way to the kitchen. The opened fridge exuded a large cloud of vapour and he took another bottle of La Fitte (£ 170 each) from it. With the expertise of a sommelier, he uncorked and placed it on the counter behind him to “breathe”, then began rummaging in the cupboard next to the fridge; after some muted swearing and a lot of clinking glass turned and squinted, with a supposedly surprised expression, at the label on the bottle he held. It was a bottle of Laphroig, 25 Year old Scotch.

Orson eyes were hooded and Izzy’s bulged
; said the squat little man to the lanky one: ‘You’re sure you won’t… Not even a splash?’

Izzy
began shaking his head vehemently, but it slowed - like a clock winding down. He swallowed dryly and his big Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Only a hundred of the twenty-five year old bottles were ever bottled…; his voice was hoarse and he whispered, ‘Well… just a little one, maybe?’

Orson broke the bottle
’s seal, and Izzy turned pale as the golden liquid splashed over the sides of the cut-glass tumbler into which it was poured. He returned to the waiting Izzy and that personage briefly closed his eyes at the perceived sacrilege, when more of the precious liquid sloshed over the glasses brim while Orson navigated his way around the carpet. The drink was pushed into his hands and the bottle unceremoniously plonked down on the small table at his side; then Orson returned to the kitchen for his own bottle, which he placed more gently on its own little table before crawling back into the familiar comfort of his chair.

He picked up his beer mug and
sat silently gazing into the depths of its purple-red contents. When he spoke again, it was very soft, and Izzy strained forward to hear him.

‘I think he is the one, Izzy,’ Orson said, then, ‘
I hope he is. I truly hope he is…’

*****

They were lying on the mattress and watching the stars and Frieda had just finished telling Maggie about her mother’s death. The girl lay with her head in the hollow of the woman’s shoulder, her small fingers unconsciously plucking at and unravelling one of the many small braids that Annie had earlier made of the younger woman’s blonde tresses.

Her fingers went still and Maggie asked, ‘
I’ll never see her again?’ Her small voice sounded smaller still, and she smelled of peaches and little girl, and Frieda gave her a long hug before answering.

‘
I don’t know, Maggie,’ she said. ‘
Nobody
knows for sure…’ They lay looking at the glittering sky for a long minute before Frieda spoke again. ‘Some people believe that when a person dies, he or she becomes a star, and in that way, stay with us forever.’

Maggie lifted her head and looked
down at Frieda, searchingly. Her eyes seemed very big in her small face, and she asked, with the innocence only a small child has, ‘Do
you
believe that Frieda?’

‘I do,’ Frieda lied, and Maggie asked, ‘
Can I choose one?’

‘
Of course you can,’ the woman said.

‘
Any one?’

‘
Just any one you want - or like.’ There was a catch in her voice and a frog in her throat and Frieda said, ‘Who knows, you may be right…’

Above them, the Milky W
ay and a million other stars flickered and twinkled and shone in the indigo sky, and Maggie lay looking at them for a long, long time.

Then she turned and hid her face in
Frieda’s neck, and hugged her with all her little strength; and Frieda held her tight while she cried.

11

He was a third as big as centuries ago, but still three feet tall
and big for a dwarf. He still wore a white robe with a belt of braided golden thread, and still talked and sang to the plants and trees and rocks; they still leaned to one side and pulled their roots deeper, or rolled out of the way to make his passage easier.

Even so
, it took him more than an hour to pass through first the Petrified - and then the Magic Forest; and he had to brush away and shout “Bad Fairy!” to at least three of the little sprites, who tried distracting him into mischief, or worse.

But at
last, he was at the forest’s edge, and with love in his ancient eyes, stood looking at the silver-green and darkly-golden meadows of Rainbow’s End, stretching away into the night. The grass and sleeping flowers waved gently in the slightest of breezes, the moon painted all an ethereal, ghostly glow.

He greeted them in the
language of life, which was also that of the Magari: he sighed and breathed and whispered, and their stalks and stems seemed to bend a bit more - a bit deeper.

And then he cupped his hands in front of his mouth, and the sound he made was long and shrill
. It was the sound of a mare in oestrus, but also of life and time itself. It encompassed a multitude of its noises and sounds - some slumbering only in memory. The call of the Golden Eagle; the grunt of a tortoise; the warbling of a Sandgrouse; the challenge of a Mustang… He went still, and the whole world, even the crickets around him, followed suit, waiting…

Then - s
uddenly, after what seemed like only seconds, the air was filled with a rhythmic beat that seemed to shake the earth beneath his feet: it came rapidly closer, and then, like a great grey ghost materialising out of the dark, a huge horse appeared, and almost on its haunches, slid to a stop in front of him.

It
was Rainbow’s End’s reigning stallion; he snorted and tossed his head up and down and to the sides, and stood prancing in place - waiting for the dwarf’s command. The children called him Pegasus - after a flying horse that had lived on the Earth before the human race had slain or banished all of its gods and demi-gods. (No matter that only a very few of them were evil. What mattered, was that they were different).

The small man
called him by a different name - like nothing the human ear has ever heard. It was another sigh, but at the same time a song and a caress, and the great steed folded his front legs under his massive chest, allowing the dwarf to swing one of his legs over its thickly muscled neck. It stood back up, and when his passenger started singing again, took off. The dwarf clung to his flying mane with both hands, and the song he sang was not just for the horse, but for the moon and the trees and the grass and the flowers flashing by, as they thundered and tore across the length of Rainbow’s End.

They travelled fast and the trees and rocks made way as best they could. The several small streams they passed through, turned the sta
llions flying hoofs to flashing wet chunks of onyx, and when they raced through Orson’s bit of forest, the two old Travellers stirred and moaned and grunted in their wine and whiskey induced slumber.

It seemed like only a few short minutes before they reached their destination, and the horse went down on its knees again
, allowing his rider to dismount.

He
thanked the stallion in its own language and asked it to wait, and the huge animal, not tired in the least, walked to the single willow tree growing nearby; with as little noise as possible folded its legs and lay down, doing its best not to disturb the yellow-coloured dog already sleeping there.

*

The protruding flat rock was already occupied. By a young woman. She stood and turned to the dwarf, and gave him a very beautiful and welcoming smile and said, ‘I bid you welcome Joshi, Last Master of the Magari, and Keeper of the Keys.’

He was very old and very wise and had known her for centuries
, and he saw, and felt her loneliness. The hairy dwarf bowed to her and said, ‘I greet you Ariana, my friend… and my queen.’