Wintersmith (28 page)

When Tiffany went to call him in, she met him staggering up the path, much disheveled, and carrying a fish that looked as if it weighed at least half as much as he did.

“It’s the big one!” he shouted as soon as he saw her. “Abe reckoned it was tucked in under the fallen willow, you know? He said they’ll snap at anything this time of year! It pulled me over, but I held on! Must weigh at least thirty pounds!”

About twenty, thought Tiffany, but fish are always much heavier to the man who catches them.

“Well done. But come on in, it’s going to freeze,” she said.

“Can I have it for supper? It took ages to get in the net! It’s at least thirty-five pounds!” Wentworth said, struggling under the load. Tiffany knew better than to offer to carry it. That would be an insult.

“No, it has to be cleaned and soaked for a day, and Mum’s done stew for tonight. But I’ll cook it for you tomorrow with ginger sauce.”

“And there’ll be enough for everyone,” said Wentworth happily, “because it weighs at least forty pounds!”

“Easily,” Tiffany agreed.

And that night, after the fish had been duly admired by everyone and found to weigh twenty-three pounds with Tiffany’s hand on the scales helping it along a bit, she went into the scullery and cleaned the fish, which was a nice way of talking about pulling out or cutting off everything that you shouldn’t eat, which if Tiffany had her way meant the whole fish. She didn’t much like pike, but a witch should never turn up her nose at food, especially free food, and at least a good sauce would stop it tasting of pike.

Then, as she was tipping the innards into the pig bucket, she saw the glint of silver. Well, you couldn’t exactly blame Wentworth for being too excited to extract the lure.

She reached down and pulled out, covered with slime and scales but very recognizably itself, the silver horse.

There should have been a roll of thunder. There was just Wentworth, in the next room, telling for the tenth time about the heroic capture of the monster fish. There should have been a rush of wind. Barely a draft disturbed the candles.

But he knew she’d touched it. She felt his shock.

She went to the door. As she opened it, a few snowflakes fell, but as if suddenly happy to have an audience, more began to pour down until—with no sound but a hiss—the night turned white. She held out her hand to catch some flakes and looked at them very closely. Little icy Tiffanys melted away.

Oh, yes. He had found her.

Her mind went cold, but crystal wheels of thought spun fast.

She could take a horse?…No, she’d not get far on a night like this. She should’ve kept that broomstick!

She shouldn’t have danced.

There was nowhere to run to. She’d have to face him again, and face him here, and stop him dead. In the mountains, with their black forests, endless winter was hard to imagine. It was easier here, and because it was easier it was worse, because he was bringing winter into her heart. She could feel it growing colder.

But the snow was inches deep already, in this short time. She was a shepherd’s daughter before she was a witch, and at this time, in this place, there were more immediate things to do.

She went into the golden warmth and light of the kitchen and said: “Dad, we must see to the flock.”

T
hat was then. This is now.

“Ach, crivens,” moaned Wee Dangerous Spike, on the roof of the cart shed.

The fire went out. The snow that had filled the sky began to thin. Wee Dangerous Spike heard a scream high overhead and knew exactly what to do. He raised his arms in the air and shut his eyes just as the buzzard swooped out of the white sky and snatched him up.

He
liked
this bit. When he opened his eyes, the world was swinging beneath him and a voice nearby said, “Get up here quick, laddie!”

He grabbed the thin leather harness above him and pulled, and the talons gently released their grip. Then, hand over hand in the wind of the flight, he dragged himself across the bird’s feathers until he could grab the belt of Hamish the aviator.

“Rob says ye’re old enough tae come doon intae the Underworld,” said Hamish over his shoulder. “Rob’s gone tae fetch the Hero. Ye are a lucky wee laddie!”

The bird banked.

Below, the snow…fled. There was no more melting, it simply
drew back from the lambing pen like the tide going out or a deep breath being taken, with no more sound than a sigh.

Morag skimmed over the lambing field, where men were looking around in puzzlement. “One deid ship and a dozen deid lambs,” said Hamish, “but no big wee hag! He’s taken her.”

“Where to?”

Hamish steered Morag up in a big wide circle. Around the farm the snow had stopped falling. But up on the downs it was still dropping like hammers.

And then it took a shape.

“Up there,” he said.

All right, I’m alive. I’m pretty sure about that.

Yes.

And I can feel the cold all around me, but I don’t feel cold, which would be pretty hard to explain to anyone else.

And I can’t move. Not at all.

White all around me. And inside my head, all white.

Who am I?

I can remember the name Tiffany. I hope that was me.

White all around me. That happened before. It was a kind of dream or memory or something else I don’t have a word for. And all around me, whiteness falling. And building up around me, and lifting me up. It was…the chalk lands being built, silently, under ancient seas.

That’s what my name means.

It means Land Under Wave.

And, like a wave, color came flooding back into her mind. It was mostly the redness of rage.

How dare he!

To kill the lambs!

Granny Aching wouldn’t have allowed that. She never lost a lamb. She could bring them back to life.

I should never have left here in the first place, Tiffany thought. Perhaps I should have stayed and tried to learn things by myself. But if I hadn’t gone, would I still be me? Know what I know? Would I have been as strong as my grandmother, or would I just be a cackler? Well, I’ll be strong now.

When the killing weather was blind nature, you could only cuss; but if it was walking about on two legs…then it was war. And there would be a reckoning!

She tried to move, and now the whiteness gave way. It felt like hard snow, but it wasn’t cold to her touch; it fell away, leaving a hole.

A smooth, slightly transparent floor stretched away in front of her. There were big pillars rising up to a ceiling that was hidden by some sort of fog.

There were walls made of the same stuff as the floor. They looked like ice—she could even see little bubbles inside them—but were no more than cool when she touched them.

It was a very large room. There was no furniture of any sort. It was just the sort of room a king would build to say “Look, I can afford to waste all this space!”

Her footsteps echoed as she explored. No, not even a chair. And how comfortable would it be if she found one?

She did, eventually, find a staircase that went up (unless, of course, you started at the top). It led to another hall that at least had furniture. They were the sort of couches that rich ladies were supposed to lounge on, looking tired but beautiful. Oh, and there were urns, quite big urns, and statues, too, all in the same warm ice. The statues showed athletes and gods, very much like the pictures
in Chaffinch’s
Mythology
, doing ancient things like hurling javelins or killing huge snakes with their bare hands. They didn’t have a stitch of clothing between them, but all the men wore fig leaves, which Tiffany, in a spirit of enquiry, found would not come off.

And there was a fire. The first strange thing about it was that the logs were also of the same ice. The other strange thing was that the flames were blue—and cold.

This level had tall pointed windows, but they began a long way from the floor and showed nothing but the sky, where the pale sun was a ghost among the clouds.

Another staircase, very grand this time, led up to yet another floor with more statues and couches and urns. Who could live in a place like this? Someone who didn’t need to eat or sleep, that’s who. Someone who didn’t need to be comfortable.

“Wintersmith!”

Her voice bounced from wall to wall, sending back “ITH…
Ith
…
ith
…” until it died away.

Another staircase, then, and this time there was something new. On a plinth, where there might have been a statue, was a crown. It floated in the air a few feet above the base, turning gently, and glittered with frost. A little bit farther on was another statue, smaller than most, but around this one, blue and green and gold lights danced and shimmered.

They looked just like the Hublights that could sometimes be seen in the depths of winter floating over the mountains at the center of the world. Some people thought they were alive.

The statue was the same height as Tiffany.

“Wintersmith!” There was still no reply. A nice palace with no kitchen, no bed…. He didn’t need to eat or sleep, so who was it for?

She knew the answer already: me.

She reached out to touch the dancing lights, and they swarmed up her arm and spread across her body, making a dress that glittered like moonlight on snowfields. She was shocked, then angry. Then she wished she had a mirror, felt guilty about that, and went back to being angry again, and resolved that if by chance she did find a mirror, the only reason she’d look in it would be to check how angry she was.

After searching for a while, she found a mirror, which was nothing more than a wall of ice of such a dark green that it was almost black.

She did look angry. And immensely, beautifully sparkly. There were little glints of gold on the blue and green, just like there were in the sky on wintry nights.

“Wintersmith!”

He must be watching her. He could be anywhere.

“All right! I’m here! You know that!”

“Yes. I do,” said the Wintersmith behind her.

Tiffany spun around and slapped him across the face, then slapped him again with her other hand.

It was like hitting rock. He was learning very quickly now.

“That’s for the lambs,” she said, trying to shake some life back into her fingers. “How dare you! You didn’t have to!”

He looked much more human. Either he was wearing real clothes or he had worked hard on making them look real. He’d actually managed to look…well, handsome. Not cold anymore, just…cool.

He’s nothing but a snowman, her Second Thoughts protested. Remember that. He’s just too smart to have coal for eyes or a carrot for a nose.

“Ouch,” said the Wintersmith, as if he’d just remembered to say it.

“I demand that you let me go!” Tiffany snapped. “Right now!” That’s right, her Second Thoughts said. You want him to end up cowering behind the saucepans on top of the kitchen dresser. As it were…

“At this moment,” said the Wintersmith very calmly, “I am a gale wrecking ships a thousand miles away. I am freezing water pipes in a snowbound town. I am freezing the sweat on a dying man, lost in a terrible blizzard. I creep silently under doors. I hang from gutters. I stroke the fur of the sleeping bear, deep in her cave, and course in the blood of the fishes under the ice.”

“I don’t care!” said Tiffany. “I don’t want to be here! And you shouldn’t be here either!”

“Child, will you walk with me?” said the Wintersmith. “I will not harm you. You are safe here.”

“What from?” said Tiffany, and then, because too much time around Miss Tick does something to your conversation, even in times of stress, she changed this to: “From what?”

“Death,” said the Wintersmith. “Here you will never die.”

At the back of the Feegles’ chalk pit, more chalk had been carved out of the wall to make a tunnel about five feet high and perhaps as long.

In front of it stood Roland de Chumsfanleigh (it wasn’t his fault). His ancestors had been knights, and they had come to own the Chalk by killing the kings who thought they did. Swords, that’s what it had all been about. Swords and cutting off heads. That was how you got land in the old days, and then the rules were changed so that you didn’t need a sword to own land anymore, you just needed the right piece of paper. But his ancestors had still hung on
to their swords, just in case people thought that the whole thing with the bits of paper was unfair, it being a fact that you can’t please everybody.

He’d always wanted to be good with a sword, and it had come as a shock to find they were so
heavy
. He was great at air sword. In front of a mirror he could fence against his reflection and win nearly all the time. Real swords didn’t allow that. You tried to swing them and they ended up swinging you. He’d realized that maybe he was more cut out for bits of paper. Besides, he needed glasses, which could be a bit tricky under a helmet, especially if someone was hitting
you
with a sword.

He wore a helmet now, and held a sword that was—although he wouldn’t admit it—far too heavy for him. He was also wearing a suit of chain mail that made it very hard to walk. The Feegles had done their best to make it fit, but the crotch hung down to his knees and flapped amusingly when he moved.

I’m not a hero, he thought. I’ve got a sword, which I need two hands to lift, and I’ve got a shield that is also really heavy, and I’ve got a horse with curtains around it that I’ve had to leave at home (and my aunts will go mad when they go into the drawing room), but inside I’m a kid who would quite like to know where the privy is….

But she rescued me from the Queen of the Elves. If she hadn’t, I’d still be a stupid kid instead of…um…a young man hoping he isn’t too stupid.

The Nac Mac Feegles had exploded back into his room, fighting their way through the storm that had arrived overnight, and now, they said, it was time for him to be a Hero for Tiffany…. Well, he would be. He was sure of that. Fairly sure. But right now the scenery wasn’t what he’d expected.

“You know, this doesn’t look like the entrance to the Underworld,” he said.

“Ach, any cave can be the way in,” said Rob Anybody, who was sitting on Roland’s helmet. “But ye must ha’ the knowin’ o’ the crawstep. Okay, Big Yan, ye go first….”

Big Yan strutted up to the chalk hole. He stuck out his arms behind him, bent at the elbows. He leaned backward, sticking out one leg to keep his balance. Then he wiggled the foot in the air a few times, leaned forward, and vanished as soon as the foot touched the ground.

Rob Anybody banged on Roland’s helmet with his fist.

“Okay, big Hero,” he shouted. “Off ye go!”

There was no way out. Tiffany didn’t even know if there was a way in.

“If you were the Summer Lady, then we
would
dance,” said the Wintersmith. “But I know now that you are not her, even though you seem to be. But for the sake of you I am now human, and I must have company.”

Tiffany’s racing mind showed her pictures: the sprouting acorn, the fertile feet, the Cornucopia. I’m just enough of a goddess to fool a few floorboards and an acorn and a handful of seeds, she thought. I’m just like him. Iron enough to make a nail doesn’t make a snowman human, and a couple of oak leaves don’t make me a goddess.

“Come,” said the Wintersmith, “let me show you my world. Our world.”

When Roland opened his eyes, all he could see were shadows. Not shadows of things—just shadows, drifting like cobwebs.

“I was expecting somewhere…hotter,” he said, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. Around him, Feegles popped out of nowhere.

“Ah, you’re thinkin’ o’ hells,” said Rob Anybody. “They tends to be on the toasty side, it’s true. Underworlds are more o’ the gloomy sort. It’s where folks end up when they’s lost, ye ken.”

“What? You mean if it’s a dark night and you take the wrong turning—”

“Ach, no! Like mebbe deid when they shouldn’t be an’ there’s nae place for ’em tae go, or they fall doon a gap in the worlds an’ dinna ken the way. Some o’ them don’t even ken where they are, poor souls. There’s an awful lot o’ that kind o’ thing. There’s no’ a lot o’ laughs in a underworld. This one used tae be called Limbo, ye ken, ’cuz the door was verra low. Looks like it’s gone way downhill since we wuz last here.” He raised his voice. “An’ a big hand, lads, for young Wee Dangerous Spike, oot wi’ us for the first time!” There was a ragged cheer, and Wee Dangerous Spike waved his sword.

Roland pushed his way through the shadows, which actually offered some resistance. The very air was gray down here. Sometimes he heard groans, or someone coughing in the distance…and then there were footsteps, shuffling toward him.

He drew his sword and peered through the gloom.

Shadows parted and a very old woman in tattered, threadbare clothes shuffled past, dragging a large cardboard box behind her. It bounced awkwardly as she tugged at it. She didn’t even glance at Roland.

He lowered the sword.

“I thought there’d be monsters,” he said as the old woman disappeared into the gloom.

“Aye,” said Rob Anybody grimly. “There are. Think o’ somethin’ solid, will ye?”

“Something solid?!”

“I’m nae jokin’! Think o’ a nice big mountain, or a hammer! Whatever ye do, dinna wish or regret or hope!”