The Fire and the Fog (31 page)

The book had blamed the church, the military,
not Ragn, and if the book had, couldn’t she? Could she blame what
had happened to her on the military, on the people who had hurt her
and her family? And if she could blame them, and not Ragn, then
maybe Ragn didn’t have a hand in everything. All the lessons she
had had, all the scriptures she had read, they had said that Ragn
had a hand in all that happened, but what if they were wrong?

‘Girl’

Erris found herself standing in the middle of
the road, book in hand, wishing she could write, wishing she could
put her thoughts down on paper, line them up and organize them,
have them flow and make sense like they had in all the books she’d
read; all the stories they’d told.

‘Girl’

It took her a moment to break out of her
reverie, to realize that someone was calling for her: the old man.
Startled, she looked at him.

He was sitting on the front bench of the
wagon, holding Marmot’s reigns. The boy was sitting in the back,
looking at her over his shoulder and glaring at her.

‘Hop on,’ the old man said, patting the
wooden bench beside him with one hand.

Erris looked at him and the boy, at Marmot,
at the books in her hands. She looked around at the village around
her; the empty houses, the lifeless bodies of church soldiers lying
in the street. She looked at her brother, lying broken, battered,
and unconscious in the street.

Erris shrugged, nodded, placed her books on
the bench beside the old man, and hopped up, turning to sit on the
bench, the boys jacket now loose around her shoulders, and open at
the front.

The old man smiled and clucked at Marmot,
‘Lets go horsey,’ he said as he tugged on the reigns, pulling
Marmot into a turn, pulling the wagon back the way Erris had come
not an hour earlier.

She was about to ask why they were headed
back; where they were going; when she spotted something on the
ground.

‘Wha!’ she exclaimed wordlessly, jumping off
the wagon and running to the object in the road. She picked up the
soldiers’ sword, still in its scabbard, the sword that Marmot had
carried all this way; the sword that had caused so many problems,
and ran back to the wagon holding it to her chest.

She hopped back onto the wagon wordlessly as
the old man clucked at Marmot again, and they set off on the road.
She didn’t know why she grabbed the sword; it should be something
terrible, something that brought about horrible memories. But
somehow, it reminded her of her family, and she wasn’t going to
lose that.

The three of them; Erris, the old man, and
the boy, were all silent as Marmot hauled them and the cart through
the barricade and out of the village.

***

Silence reigned for the first few minutes of
travel. It wasn’t until the cobblestone road changed back to hard
packed dirt, ‘till Erris’ stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten in
days, that she spoke up.

‘Do you…do you have any food?’ she asked
timidly.

‘There should be some in the back of the
wagon with Gel,’ the old main said, pointing back over his shoulder
with one thumb. ‘There should be some bread and cheese in the
canvas sack back there. If not, let me know, and I’ll get you
some.’

Erris was confused about where he would get
food as they headed slowly away from the only town within hours,
but said nothing as she turned and knelt, leaning over into the
wagon bed to find the canvas sack the old man had pointed out.

The bag wasn’t hard to find. There were only
two things in the back of the wagon, and it was the only one of
them that was a bag.

The other being a boy.

Erris glanced at him out of the corner of her
eye as she grabbed the bag and started to rifle through it. It
seemed full of parchments, paints and brushes, but she ended up
finding and dragging out a napkin wrapped around some bread,
slightly stale, and a piece of cheese.

She watched the boy, Gel she supposed, as she
began to throw the bread and cheese into her mouth as quickly as
she could swallow it.

He sat with his back against one of the sides
of the wagon, a lute in his arms. He was clearly trying to
do…something…with it, but she couldn’t tell what.

‘What’re you doing?’ she asked in between
mouthfuls.

He looked up at her, glaring, ‘I’m trying to
fix this stupid thing,’ he said, hefting the lute, ‘it broke when
your brother threw me.’ The rise in his voice at the mention of her
brother laid bare what he thought, laid bare his anger.

He continued glaring at her, picking idly,
absently, at the lute in his lap as she swallowed another mouthful
of bread.

‘How’s it broken?’

‘The head’s cracked,’ he said angrily,
holding up the lute so she could see, ‘which means the pegs don’t
stay tight, which means the strings won’t stay in tune, which means
I can’t play.’ He tossed the broken instrument at the other side of
the wagon, a hollow thumping note echoing from it as it landed.

Erris was going to try to apologize, or say
something, when the old man spoke up, ‘Don’t worry Gel,’ he said,
looking back over his shoulder, ‘I’ll draw you a new one when we
stop.’

Gel crossed his arms and slouched against the
side wall of the wagon as Erris turned back around and sat on the
front bench again.

‘What do you mean you’ll draw one?’

‘You’ll see when we stop,’ he said, pulling a
pipe and a box of matches out of his long jacket, striking them as
Marmot continued to plod along.

Erris supposed she would have to wait till
they stopped. She had questions, sure. Where were they going, what
he meant when he said he’d draw a lute; how he had pulled fireballs
out of his jacket earlier.

Important questions, she knew as she picked
up the book of dissertations that had so distracted her earlier,
brushed off its cover, and folded a few bent pages back to normal,
but important questions could wait. She had nowhere else to go
anyway.

I

As the three unlikely companions sat around
a fire that night, the setting sun slowly lighting tendrils of
smoke across the darkening sky, the colours of the sky and of the
fire in front of them matching eerily, one lighting up the night as
the other disappeared, Dan’r drew.

Erris had waited patiently, distracted by her
books during the day as they travelled, distracted by the worlds
they created; the thoughts they espoused. But now Marmot was
unhitched from the wagon, grazing quietly, and the three travelers
sat and watched as the old man drew.

He was hunched over his parchment, his left
hand scratching rapidly with the piece of charcoal held between his
fingers, his brow furrowed and his eyes squinting as the last of
the daylight slowly disappeared. His vision depended more and more
on the fitful, flickering firelight. Both the old man and the boy
had been recalcitrant about what he was going to draw; about why it
would matter, and Erris found herself curious.

The boy, he lounged on Erris’ right. His feet
were stretched towards the flames; ‘His shoes will burn,’ she
thought, though she said nothing. It wasn’t her place. Besides,
stretched out like that, his arms angled behind him, forming a
triangle with his back and the ground; his head bent back, staring
at the sky; he looked peaceful. His hair fell back away from his
face when he sat like that. In profile, the scar over his right eye
was hidden, and…and he seemed almost normal, and Erris couldn’t
take that from him.

Erris herself had pulled her knees in close
to her chest, pulled her shift down to her ankles, and she sat;
Gel’s jacket folded underneath her, her legs drawn up with her arms
wrapped around them, her chin rested on her knees, watching. She
wriggled her bare feet in the cold, hard grass, and just breathed
The smell of the wood burning, the crackling of the fire as pockets
of sap spat and burst, the scratching of the old man’s charcoal
against the rough parchment, it was wonderful. The red of the fire,
the sky overhead a war, half a bright, wavy orange, half a deep,
dark blue, with soft specks as the stars came out. It was
beautiful.

For a while, Erris was glad no-one spoke. For
once, she felt no desire to read herself to sleep in the flickering
candlelight. The night was too peaceful.

‘I’ll start with clothes for the girl, then
food’ Dan’r said to no-one, ruining the perfect, silent moment, and
snapping Erris from her reverie.

Erris watched as the old man took the
parchment he had been working on, folded it to a smaller size, then
crumpled it in between his hands. She wondered why he would destroy
something he had drawn without even showing her them what it
was.

She saw Gel sit up, cross legged, and lean
forward, a grin starting to split his face, and then Dan’r
grunted.

And something happened.

Whether it was a trick of the air, Erris
didn’t know, but the air around his hands, it…shimmered. It
shimmered and grew longer; grew translucent.

And then it stopped, and the old man was
carrying a bunch of fabric in his arms.

Erris didn’t know what to say as he breathed
deeply, shook his head, stepped over to her, and held the fabric
out to her.

‘Here, get changed,’ he said as she took the
offered material from him. ‘I have to start on food before the
light goes completely.’

‘Isn’t it awesome?’ she heard the boy say as
Dan’r sat back down, pulled out another sheet of parchment and
started to draw again, and she finally looked at what she held.

A green, long sleeved dress, and white
leggings.

‘Magic?’ she asked, looking at Gel, who was
still grinning.

‘Art!’ he said, grinning wider.

‘Just go change behind the wagon, girl,’ the
old man said, not looking up from his parchment, ‘I’ll explain when
you get back.

And she did, getting rid of the old, soiled
shift; pulling on the leggings, tugging the green dress that
somehow fit over her head, hidden from the fire by the wagon. In
seconds she was back by the fire,

And then he did.

‘I come from far away,’ he started, taking
pauses between his sentences to sketch more on the parchment. The
sounds of the charcoal scratching against its rough surface lent a
gravity to his words somehow. ‘Where I come from, well, Art is
magic. Some of it anyway. Writing, Music, Art…they can all do
something, for some people. Me? I Draw. And the things that I draw,
well, some of them I can bring them to life; make them real. Like
that dress.’

He put down the charcoal pencil, shook his
hand out briefly, then knelt.

‘I can also make,’ he grunted, and the air
shimmered in front of him again, ‘food.’

And then on the grass in front of him was
bread, cheese, some chunks of what looked like dried meat, and a
water-skin.

He sat back down again, pulling out yet
another parchment, and motioned to Gel, who hopped up, grabbed the
food from the grass, and parceled it out, some to Dan’r, some for
himself, some for Erris.

She stared at the food that sat in her lap
for a second, unsure, then glanced over at Gel. He was in the
middle of ripping a piece of meat apart with his teeth, and when
she caught his eyes, he shrugged, and continued.

Erris smelt at the cheese, then took a small
bite, as Dan’r continued. It tasted…normal. There was nothing
special about the cheese; anything she would have eaten back home
would have tasted better.

‘I can’t make everything,’ he continued as
she swallowed. It was…it wasn’t great, but it was food, ‘Some
things are too complicated, or too big, and if I try to make too
much I get exhausted.’

Erris started to eat more voraciously. The
meat and bread were the same as the cheese. Edible, but far from
delicious.

‘That’s what Artists do; we create.
Musicians, they change things…’ The old man was interrupted by Gel,
his mouth full of bread, ‘I’b a busician,’ he said, small bits of
bread flying from his mouth before he shot up a hand to cover it,
his cheeks quickly reddening from embarrassment.

‘Yes, well, Gel’s right, ‘Dan’r continued,
still sketching, ‘He can change the weather, change how people
think, with his music. Musicians change.’

‘And writers?’ Erris asked, her eyes wide. It
all seemed so…so fantastical, so magical, but…but she had seen it
happen. Dan’r had pulled a dress, and food, edible food, out of
thin air. It couldn’t be real, everything she had grown up knowing
said it couldn’t, but…

‘Writers, well, writers are a bit more
difficult to explain. They…I suppose they modify things,’ Dan’r
said before he stopped, putting down his charcoal and eating some
bread before continuing, ‘They can tell things how to be. I, I
suppose I never paid much attention in school, but…think of it this
way. I can’t make anything that’s alive. If I draw an animal, I can
make it appear, and it will look right, but, well, it won’t live.
If I draw a seed and plant it, it won’t grow. Art imitates life, it
can’t create it. A writer though; a good enough writer can give
something a form of life. A good enough writer could take a puppet,
and make it speak, or walk, at least briefly. Writers give life to
things, to ideas.’