Scoured

Something pulled me up away from the ironghyll sea. I looked up and saw it was the moon. Surrounded by rock, I could still see the moon. It lifted me like a tide, back to freedom. Back to the place where it all began.

That’s where I am now, trying desperately to cling to my thoughts before they all leak away. It’s all so clear now. The bones in the ceiling – the giant skeleton belongs to my poor son, Fleogan. He escaped me, even to the end. Who knows – perhaps he’s running from me still. Bones aren’t all we are. And the faery skeleton is poor Kathy, of course. Tiny now. The tunnel of all ends has played its tricks, and slipped them through time, turning them into something they never were, but which my human friend always wished she might be. I watched her precious faery bones dance again, the way I watched them before. I watched Kathy dance.

And me? Have I achieved my dream? I achieved it a long time ago, I think: to search. That’s the desire the tunnel drew from my mind, long ago, when we first met. So that’s what I do, still. And have always done.

Time drifts, and makes its last critical jump.

My name is Monajjfyllena, and I am the last dragon left in all the turned world. That’s all I remember now. Soon even that will be gone. I’ll be scoured again, and chasing my dream once more.

I stretch my wings; they feel like stone. There's stone all round me. I can't move. But there’s light ahead. Perhaps there I will find the answers. But not today. Today I’ll rest.

Tomorrow, let the journey begin.

Empty dreams

My son looks just as I remember him. But he’s made from steel, a metal giant, too big for this or any world. I fly into his shadow and he eclipses everything. His dragon wings wipe out the sky. He’s motionless, but his skin squirms. Soon I saw why: every scale is an ironghyll, writhing against its neighbour even while the hive-mind maintains the body whole.

‘It looks like a statue,’ says Kathy, breaking me out of my reverie. ‘A statue of a giant dragon. Is it him, Mona? It can’t be him, surely.’

‘It was him,’ I say as we swoop beneath his upstretched tail. ‘But he’s gone.’

The ironghylls must have heard me, because the statue suddenly breaks apart. Each scale swims on its own course through the coppery air, chaos transforming my son’s shell to moving dust. Inside the shell is nothing at all.

‘It delivers your dreams,’ Kathy says. She tightens her grip on my neck, leans round to speak directly into my face. ‘That’s what the tunnel of all ends does. It makes your dreams come true!’

‘What are you talking about?’ I say. ‘He’s gone. The very thing I came all this way to find is gone.’

‘Exactly. Think about it, Mona. When I asked you what you dreamed of, you said it was finding your son. And that’s what the tunnel’s enabled you to do … and it’s still doing it! You’re still finding him, Mona, even after you’ve found him.’

‘I don’t like the way this conversation is going.’

‘It’s the same for your son,’ she goes on. ‘You said it yourself – Fleogan was always running away. Well, I’ve got news for you – he still is!’

Now that they’ve released the image of their former prisoner, the ironghylls are swarming again. They rise up, a steel tsunami, ready to bring us down.

‘I think we should continue this discussion elsewhere,’ I say.

As I veer away from the onrushing ironghylls, I think about dreams. I try to remember what Kathy said she dreams of. But I can’t remember. I try harder – it seems important – but it’s too late: the ironghylls are already upon us. Their teeth are barbed and strong. I fling myself sideways. Kathy slips from my back. Her hands are slick with sweat. She falls into the metal tide, screaming. The ironghylls tear the flesh from her bones. And my human companion, after all we’ve been through together, is gone.

Metal ocean

... until we’re buried beneath an avalanche of living metal. The ironghylls surround us, their limbs like steel whips, their jaws peeling open until their bodies are turned inside-out. They fold over themselves, constantly unwrapping to reveal the hidden dimensions within. Kathy and I cling to each other, waiting for them to tear us apart … but they hold back.

I’m flying over a sea of steel, under an iron sky. Far ahead, something huge and familiar breaches the waves: a dragon, rising like an island from the depths. I gasp, because it’s a dragon I know by name: Fleogan. My son.

Into the swarm

... with Kathy’s arms tight round my neck I dive towards the ironghyll swarm. They seethe like the surface of the ocean, billions of fluid metal beasts swimming over and around each other. I can hear the thoughts of the hive-mind – they billow over us like clouds.

‘You never told me your mother’s name,’ says Kathy. I pump my wings, trying to slow us down, but it’s too late.

‘What does it matter now?’ I say.

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘Her name was Kythe, and she was the first dragon to open her wings on the world.’

‘And you’re the last?’

‘I think so.’

We plunge into the swarm. The ironghylls open up a gnashing metal mouth and admit us into a long metal throat. The throat closes over us, and scrabbling steel claws close over my dragon wings, and time hurls us forward on another of its long liquid beats ...

Extreme sports

Kathy falls towards me, soft arms wide and useless against the air. I blink, and time skips, and she falls another mile. She’s screaming, but not through fear. I flatten my dragon wings, slowing my descent. Kathy hits me square in the centre of my back. It knocks the wind out of us both. She clings on, laughing, as I flounder.

‘I told you I like extreme sports!’ she shouts.

I blink again, and time skips once more ...

Dreams

We’re at the chasm’s edge. Each breath I take lasts a day. Years pass in a single heartbeat. Gaps are opening up in my thoughts – sometimes I’m just not here. Time is skipping, the way I used to skip. It’s the tunnel. The tunnel of all ends. Last time I was here I wasn’t ready. Now I am, and the tunnel knows it, and it’s playing with my mind. We’re detached from everything now, beyond everything. I think it’s just dawning on Kathy how strange this place is.

‘What do you dream?’ she said to me as we entered the tunnel.

‘Of finding my son,’ I said at once. ‘For a long time now that’s all I’ve dreamed of. If you were a mother you’d understand.’

‘And your son? What do you think he dreams of?’

It was an odd question. I stopped, flexed my wings to release the cramp, and thought. Then I laughed. ‘He always used to like running away,’ I said. ‘When he was tiny I could never keep track of him. When he grew older, he told me he dreamed about flying beyond the world.’ I paused. ‘What about you? What do you dream of?’

‘Of being the dancer I never was. Of not growing up big-boned and clumsy.’ Her face flushed and she turned away. ‘It’s a silly thing really.’

‘Dreams are never silly. They’re at the heart of us.’

We traipsed on. We were both hungry, and Kathy finally remarked on how little we’d had to eat during our travels. I explained about the air – it’s filled with charm, and the charm sustains us.

‘I thought the days of charm were long gone,’ she said.

‘They are,’ I replied. ‘But this is the tunnel of all ends, which goes everywhere. Somewhere it opens on that golden age, and on other worlds where charm delivers nourishment. I suppose the magic just sort of ... leaks through.’

After that we said no more, and now here we are at the precipice. This is the place, all right. Down there in the dark, the ironghylls are chattering. Hidden in their hive is my son – or whatever is left of him. I have no illusions about my quest. The idea that he may be alive is a tiny flame in a vast black emptiness. But it burns all the same.

I want to say goodbye, but in the end I can’t do it. I suppose that makes me a coward. I launch myself off the edge, tuck in my wings and dive into the abyss. Goodbye, Kathy. I’m nearly at the end of my path – good luck finding yours.

The air scrapes my face and flanks. It’s hot and sharp. I’m falling fast. The hive hurls itself towards me. I hear a cry from above. I twist my neck. Some pale in the dregs of the light from tunnel entrance. Something jumping after me, following me, falling without wings. Kathy!

Mercurial

Time’s definitely flowing strangely. Breaths takes forever, yet days vanish in an eye-blink. I can feel the moon, pulling at me. My thoughts run like mercury. That weird feeling’s back – the sense that my thoughts are being drawn into the rock, that they’re soaking out into the world, maybe even beyond the world. It’s the tunnel doing it to me. We’re in the tunnel now, retracing our route to the chasm where Kathy so nearly fell. I know what the things at the bottom of the chasm are now – they’re ironghylls, of course. This tunnel – the tunnel of all ends – is many things, but I keep coming back to what my mother once told me, back in the days of charm. She said the tunnel of all ends goes everywhere, all at once. It’s the spine about which the meat of all the worlds is wrapped. There’s a way in, and a way out, and between the two are all the ways that ever were. It’s full of souls, the tunnel of all ends: those who have roamed here forever, and call it home; those who are lost. I don’t care about them. I just care about the way down to the ironghylls, the way to my son. Once he’s free again, then I’ll rest. I’ve come a long way to get here – I’m not going to stop now.

I’m rambling, I know. I can’t help it. It’s the tunnel, eroding my mind. I was here before, and lost my grip on reality. I won’t let that happen again. Once we reach the chasm I’ll be free to fly. Then there’ll be no stopping me. There’s just one problem: I’ll have to leave Kathy behind.

I haven’t told her that yet.

Back to the beginning

We’re back where we started. The fires have died away. All the northern realms of this wooden land are ash, dotted with plumes of smoke. I wonder if it will rain in the turned world?

The tunnel entrance looms before us, a gaping black mouth. The sun’s low, moving strangely. Time is awry here. In front of the tunnel mouth, Kathy is dancing. As a child, so she told me on the flight back from the remains of London, she studied ballet. But her bones grew to big for that delicate art and so she took to caving instead. I asked her why – don’t big bones get in the way when you’re underground? She said it didn’t matter, because underground was where she fitted in.

So why dance now? I didn’t ask, but then I didn’t need to. Tonight we’re going into the tunnel. For Kathy, that means leaving everything behind. With the world turned to wood, maybe that doesn’t mean much. But it means something to her. I think she’s dancing to remember. And dancing to forget.

It’s an eerie dance, all long limbs and slow turns. The sort of dance that could change the weather. It’s beautiful, and that’s one reason I can’t take my eyes off it. The other reason is that I’ve seen it before, performed by a tiny heap of faery bones in the depths of the tunnel we’re about to consign ourselves to.

I wonder how the bones knew.

As for the tunnel … it scares me more than I can say. I crossed worlds and times to reach it, and the instant I found it I couldn’t wait to get out. Will it even let me in again? I have no choice but to try, because somewhere in its depths, my son is held captive.

So here I am, the last dragon left in the world, with a human companion whose ancestors once wore wings and who is dancing her dance of departure in the last light of the failing sun, in a world that has turned to wood, about to enter the tunnel of all ends. All I have to carry with me is my name: Monajjfyllena. It’s precious little, but it may be enough.

If not, you won’t be hearing from me again.

London

We didn’t spend long in London, in the end. The fog lifted early, exposing a city of wood. Kathy was having second thoughts about going in.

‘It’ll be full of people,’ she said. ‘And they’ll all be …’ She left the rest unsaid.

So, once she’d climbed on my back, I flew to the place where she said her parents would be. On the way, we crossed the river. The water was still water – that’s one substance that’s remained unchanged by the turning of the world – but the rest of the city was transformed. The towes and cathedrals were vast edifices of timber – oak and ash, beech and mahogany. Likewise the bridges. The streets were crowded with wooden vehicles. And people, of course.

Kathy’s parents were buried beneath a grave marker made of cherry-wood. Once it would have been sandstone. I left her with her memories and wandered through the cemetary. A curious human ritual, the burial of the dead. Dragons used to see their departed into the next realm with fire.

When she was done, we flew north, back the way we’d come. There was no debate – we just went. Tomorrow we’ll be in what used to be Scotland. We’ll stand outside the entrance to the tunnel where we met and make our decisions: to part company, or stay together. To enter or not.

I’d thought the choices would be simple. Now I’m not so sure.

Driftwood on the shore

We’ve made camp on the outskirts of London – at least, Kathy’s pretty sure that’s where we are. The way ahead is hidden in a great bank of fog. Maybe tomorrow it’ll clear.

It was strange, flying here across this bleak wooden world. Fly high enough and looks much the same as any human landscape – roads and fields and bridges and towns. Except most of the colour has gone. It’s a world of browns and grey, timber-toned. Fly low and the changes are more obvious. The roads are great planks of teak set between hills of solid oak. The fields are sheets of sycamore and beech. The bridges arch like mangrove roots, their hard engineered angles gradually melting into organic curves. The towns are like forests of geometry.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,’ said Kathy not long after we took off. ‘Will it ever change back?’

‘The world only turns in one direction,’ I said. ‘It never goes back.’

‘But what about us? Can we go back? You said you could travel through time.’

‘I said I could skip over time. That’s different. And I’m not sure I can do it any more.’

She must have heard the hesitation in my voice, because she said, ‘But you think you might, don’t you? And I saw how you reacted when he … when the wooden man said – what was it? Something about a “tunnel of all ends”? What did he mean?’

For a long time I didn’t answer. I just beat my wings and let the wooden hills roll past beneath us. Kathy’s limber human hands were warm against the scales of my back. The sun was warm too. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine things were all right. But they weren’t. Because I had finally remembered how I came to be here.

‘The tunnel of all ends,’ I said. ‘Once – many aeons ago – I set out to find it. Something was taken from me, you see, and hidden there. Something very dear to me. So I went in search of it, and vowed I wouldn’t rest until I’d found it again.’

‘What was it that was taken?’ said Kathy.

‘My son.’

It happened shortly after the destruction of Cylderak by the trolls. Ten of us survived. I was one. My son was another. We fled the battle, never looking back, until we reached the ocean. Then we spread our wings and flew on over the water. Only when we had found another land would we begin to feel safe.

This was back in the early days of charm, when the troll lords ruled and dragons were just vermin beneath their feet. The world had only recently turned, and there were many echoes of the previous age: the age of metal.

It must have been like this, that earlier time: a world made of metal, with rivers of mercury and mountains of gold. When the world turned to charm, few of its denizens survived. Those that did were bitter, jealous of their heirs. The trolls were too mighty for them to challenge. Dragons, however, were easy prey.

They were called ironghylls. Hive-beasts – shining, swarming things. Mindless alone, fearsomely intelligent in company. They prowled the post-turning landscape, much as we now prowl this world of wood – which exists, perhaps, as a counterpoint to that ancient land of metal earth. Their collective mission was simple: knowing they would not survive the changing of the ways, they resolved to wreak havoc among their charmed successors. In short, while the trolls battle each other with their heads in the heavens, the ironghylls waged war on the dragons.

Halfway across the ocean we flew straight into an ambush. From a distance it looked like a reef. As we flew over it, its true nature became apparent: it was an ironghyll hive, rising from the sea bed until its back broke the waves.

We split up. Multiple targets are harder to take down. But the ironghylls were fast. They built towers of steel, swarming up each others backs until our little company of dragons was dodging and weaving through a living metal lattice. Silver teeth snatched at us as we flew past. We lost three in the first few breaths. I only escaped by the width of a wing.

We rallied, and the ironghylls faltered. The hive structure was flimsy, and began to collapse back into the waves. In the same instant, a whirlpool opened up in the ocean. But it was no ordinary whirlpool – it was a portal into the tunnel of all ends.

‘Which is what the man in the farmhouse was talking about,’ Kathy interrupted.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘When the world turns, things from the old world get left behind. Like driftwood on the shore. Like the ironghylls.’ I paused. ‘Like us, Kathy. Now, the world doesn’t like driftwood, so it does everything in its power to clear it away.’

‘By sucking it into whirlpools?’

‘By taking it somewhere from which it can never escape, and where it will never be found.’

‘The tunnel of all ends?’

‘Yes. That’s where my son went, along with that entire ironghyll hive. The whirlpool took them down into its hidden heart, and closed its eye, and my dear Fleogan was lost. I and the other five survivors flew on, distraught. The instant my claws touched the sand on the other side of the ocean, I swore I would dedicate my life to finding him.’

‘And you’re still looking,’ said Kathy quietly.

‘Yes. The world has turned twice since then, and I’ve skipped over more centuries than I care to remember. But in the end, I came close.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I found it – the tunnel of all ends. I found it, but not him. I lost my way in there – and my mind for a while – until things changed, and I remembered who I was. It’s where we were, Kathy, when the world turned. Those caves, that tunnel where we met – that’s it. The tunnel of all ends. I had the chance while I was in there to stay or to leave, and I chose to leave, because I’d forgotten why I was there in the first place But now I’ve remembered, there’s only one thing I can do.’

She must have known what I was going to say, but she asked anyway: ‘What do you want to do, Mona?’

I curled my neck round to face her. ‘Go back.’

Man of wood

We’ve been inside the farmhouse. It was just before sunset that the wooden man waved to us again, just once. It was enough to spur Kathy into action. She crept up the stairs. I followed close behind. It’s a tight squeeze, fitting a dragon into a human home, but we’re not as big as legend would have you believe. I could tell Kathy was scared by the way she gripped the stair rail. I was scared too. Still am, if truth be told.

He was waiting in the bedroom. Somehow he’d managed to turn round. I held back and let Kathy do the talking.

‘Who are you?’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Are you all right?’

The wooden man’s mouth creaked open. A big black weevil crawled out. Kathy screamed and shrank back against my scales. The man lifted his hand, seized the weevil and flicked it through the window. All his movements were painfully slow, and accompanied by a terrible splintering sound.

‘Leave,’ he said. His voice was low and shivery. His breath smelled of sawdust.

‘But you called us,’ said Kathy. ‘Isn’t there something we can do to help?’

‘No ... thing,’ said the wooden man. ‘Time ... turns ... go ...’

The man took a step towards us. When he did so, part of the floor came with him. He was rooted to it, I realised, by hundreds of little tendrils. Many of these burst, spraying amber resin up his legs.

‘Dra ... gon,’ he said, staring at me with smooth ebony eyes. ‘Tun ... nel ... of ... all ... ends.’

Then his head snapped back. Briars burst from his mouth, his ears, his eyes. Thick brambles climbed his legs and enveloped his waist. He jerked, then writhing creepers choked him into stillness. Finally he just hung there, suspended in a nest thorn and berry, hardly recognisable as a man at all.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Kathy. ‘Before the same thing happens to us.’

On the way down the stairs, she said to me, ‘Do you know what he meant? About time turning?’ I shook my head. ‘And what on Earth is the tunnel of all ends?’

My hesitation gave me away. As we crossed the wooden farmyard – which was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by creepers – she kept asking me about it. I said I’d tell her as soon as we were safe in the air. So we’re on our way to an open field, where I can get a clear take-off without worrying about some rogue plant life taking us down. Once we’re airborne, I’ll tell her what I know.

The farm

It was Kathy who spotted the orchard. My wings were getting tired – it’s been too long since I flew any distance – so I’d dropped below the cloud cover. The apples blazed like tiny red stars against the deep green of the trees.

I swooped low, warning Kathy to hold tight. There are short spines on my back that she can hold on to, but dragons were never really built to carry passengers. I landed near the orchard, and we crossed a meadow to the first line of trees. The ground felt strange: the grass looked like grass but felt stiff and coarse. When I pulled some up, it splintered in my claws.

‘Even the fields are turning to wood,’ I said.

‘Those apples look real enough,’ said Kathy. And they were. In fact, they were delicious. We wolfed down as much fruit as we could – neither of us had eaten for days. When I couldn’t eat any more, I took a tour of the orchard, and found it was completely surrounded by water. An old mill stream split in two and ran past it on either side.

‘It’s an island,’ I said. ‘I wonder if that’s why it hasn’t been transformed yet.’

‘There’s a farm,’ said Kathy, pointing across the meadow. ‘Maybe there’s someone who can tell us.’

From a distance, the farm buildings looked normal – well, they were mostly made of wood after all. Up close, it was different.

In the farm entrance stood a vehicle with massive tyres and a digging arm on the front. Experience told me it would originally have been made from steel. Now its wheels were discs of oak, and the arms supporting the digging blades were willow poles. Where rubber hoses had once connected the machine’s working parts, thick vines now snaked.

‘There’s a dog,’ said Kathy. ‘Oh ...’

The beast looked as if it had been carved from a single block of ash. It was frozen in mid-stride, caught in the act of chasing chickens across the yard. The chickens were wooden too, with feathers like dry autumn leaves. Their eyes were dead acorns.

The whole farm had turned to wood.

‘It’s incredible,’ said Kathy. ‘Creepy but ... sort of beautiful.’

‘We should go,’ I said. A cold wind was blowing through the farmyard, and I was keen to reach London before nightfall. Then Kathy cried out.

‘There,’ she said, ‘in the upstairs window. Somebody’s watching us.’

It was a man, broad-shouldered and tall, standing at the window and staring down into the yard.

‘He’s wood too,’ I said. ‘Like everything else. Come on, Kathy – we should go.’

‘I suppose so.’

I turned to leave. It was then that Kathy cried out again. I looked at the wooden man in time to see him raise his arm. The arm moved in stiff little jerks, but there was no mistaking the gesture. He was beckoning us. He did this twice, then his arm juddered to a halt.

‘You don’t really want to go inside, do you?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Kathy. ‘Let’s just wait, and see if he moves again.

I argued with her. Nothing about the farm felt right, and I was keen to get away. But she’s a stubborn woman. Eventually I decided staying around was preferable to losing my only companion. So that’s what we’re doing now: waiting in the wooden farmyard, while the sun rolls behind the orchard and the sky grows dark around us. We might as well resign ourselves to staying here for the night. Staying here and waiting.

Waiting to see what the wooden man wants.

New turning

We’re flying south. Above the clouds, you can almost believe the world hasn’t changed. Duck beneath them and it’s a different story.

All the land to the north is either burned to ash or burning still. Kathy reckons it’s only the chain of lochs and rivers stretching across the whole country that’s stopping the flames following us. ‘The Highlands are burning,’ she keeps saying, over and over again. ‘I can’t believe it.’ But she needs to believe it – she needs to believe everything – which is why I’ve told her the truth.

‘The world doesn’t always stay the same,’ I told her before we set off. ‘Every so often it changes. Every so often it turns. I come from an age before yours – an age when the world was ruled not by nature but by charm, which you might call magic. But then the world turned, and the buried bones of trolls became the bones of different beasts, and the creatures I knew as faeries lost their wings and turned to grubbing in the soil. Became you.

‘If that’s hard for you to believe, I’m sorry. But it gets harder. Because, you see, these moments of change – these turnings – extend far up and down the river of time. Before my age – the age of charm – was an age of metal. Before that was another age, and another. Turnings stretching endlessely back into the mist. And in the other direction, the future: all the countless turnings to come.

‘I think that’s what’s happened to the world. The day has finally come for it to turn again. And so it has. The age of charm is long past. The age of nature has come and now, at long last, gone. So we’re into something new. Something the world has never seen before. And we’ve survived it.’

All through this, Kathy watched me. After weeping her way through the night, she’d woken up stronger. She didn’t flinch from my words.

‘So what is it?’ she said. ‘This new age of the world. If it isn’t nature, and it isn’t charm – what is it?’

‘Look around you,’ I said. ‘The answer’s obvious.’

Kathy picked at the floor. It splintered under her flimsy nails. ‘It’s wood, isn’t it? The world’s been turned to wood.’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘What does it mean?’

It was a question neither of us could answer. But we agreed, woman and dragon alike, that we should get as far away from the flames as possible. In a world made of wood, fire isn’t your friend.

‘I want to see London,’ Kathy said. ‘I want to see what’s happened to my home.’

So south we went.

It’s the first time I’ve carried a human on my back. It makes flying hard but not unbearable. My mother did it a few times, both in the world of her birth and in this one. The last time she did it was in what Kathy would think of as the Stone Age, when she carried a pregnant woman to safety when her clan wanted to kill her and eat her. That’s a story for another day, but one I remember well – because I was there.

Kathy. It’s a nice name. It reminds me of my mother’s, somehow.

I’ve lived a long time, you see. Partly that’s the charm I carried through with me last time the world turned. Partly it’s this knack I have for cheating time. It’s stood me in good stead through the aeons and will again, I hope. If I ever get it back.

But for now I’m content just to fly. Mostly I’m staying high, keeping the clouds between me and this strange new world of wood. Altitude makes the air thin, so I have to work my wings harder, but I’d rather that than have to face what’s happened on the ground. It sounds simple when you say it: a world of wood. But, as worlds do, it will have its share of perils, none of which I’m ready to face just yet. I’m just glad Kathy’s mission coincides with mine, at least as far as direction is concerned.

You see, I want to go south too, for reasons of my own. The fresh air is clearing my head. I’m beginning to remember what happened to me before the turning of the world, and why I was down in those tunnels. The memories aren’t happy ones, but they’re ones I have to face. I did things, the consequences of which I’m going to have to face.

And, perhaps, atone for.

The beetle

We’ve found a cave. Not a tunnel like the one we were in – just a hollow in the rock-that-isn’t rock. The river’s keeping the fire at bay and this evening, for the first time, the flames seem to be dying down. The sunset was glorious – gold and tawny light melting through thunderheads of ash and smoke.

Kathy’s been telling me about where we are.

‘It’s a mountain range called the Grampians,’ she said as the sky darkened to silver-blue. ‘You know where Scotland is?’

‘I find it hard to keep human names in my head,’ I said. ‘But I think I know where you mean.’

‘But I’m not from Scotland originally,’ Kathy went on. ‘I’m from London. I’m due back at the weekend. Was due back, I should say.’ She stared into the twilight. ‘Mona – I’ve got this awful feeling in my stomach.’

‘You’re probably hungry. I know I am.’

‘No. Well, yes, but that’s not it. I’m beginning to think … Mona, I haven’t woken up yet.’

She was shaking all over. Her soft hands trembled in her lap.

‘That’s because this isn’t a dream,’ I said, as gently as I could.

She hid herself in a corner of the cave. She’s there now, still shaking, and sobbing a little. I don’t think there’s anything I can do for her. She’ll either deal with this or she won’t. It’s out of my control.

So I’ve turned my attention elsewhere. To this cave or, more specifically, the stuff it’s made from.

Like I said, it looks like rock but seems more like wood. When I scratch it with my claw, it splinters like the bark of a tree. If I dig deeper, it starts bleeding green sap. The sap has a fresh, sweet smell, like pine. Other parts of the cave floor bleed clear resins, or black syrups. Parts of the ceilng are green and mossy. The air is damp.

Near the entrance is a deep fissure. There’s some kind of insect hive down there. After a lot of probing I managed to dig one of the insects out. It’s a beetle of some kind, with a shiny black shell. Its shell has a fine grain to it, like the grain of split timber. Its legs look like twigs. So strange.

Kathy has stopped crying. I think she’s asleep. Time for me to sleep too. The fire will burn itself out over the next few days, with luck. Then we’ll have a chance to explore properly. Tomorrow I’ll tell Kathy what I think we’re up against, and why our chances of survival are slim. Maybe even non-existent.

I wonder how she’ll take the news.

World on fire

The world’s on fire. I can’t describe it any other way. Of all the things I imagined, this certainly wasn’t one of them. I wonder if there’s any chance for either me or Kathy now.

We emerged from the tunnel this morning. I know it was morning because, for the first time in ages, I’ve seen the sun. But it’s a small, shrunken thing, and the light it gives off is nothing compared to the light of the flames. That’s what we could see all that time in the tunnel: the light of the fire that’s burning up the world.

Stepping out into it was like stepping into hell. The air is caustic. Hot and tarry. Kathy started coughing straight away; I wasn’t so bad, but then dragons have always been good with fire. I sheltered my human companion under my wing and gazed out across the burning world.

It’s fire from here to the horizon. We’re on a mountainside. By the greatest good fortune, there’s a river between us and the fire. Everything on that side of the river is burning. Everything on this side is all right. So far.

The sky is one great smoke cloud. The sun peeks through occasionally, but mostly it’s shrouded in ash. The heat is almost unbearable. So we’ve done the only thing we can do (short of going back in the tunnel, which neither of us want to do) – we’re circling the mountain, trying to put the rock between us and the fire.

It’s hard going. I’m still reluctant to fly, even though we’re outside. The air is filled with embers and the air currents are treacherous. So we walk, and scramble, and climb. Kathy’s good at this, despite her lack of claws. Her fingers are nimble and strong. The more time I spend with her, the more she impresses me.

I still don’t think she believes any of this is real though. Sooner or later she’ll have to wake up to that fact. That’s going to be a tough day.

So we’re trekking, running from the flames, not really thinking, just working our bodies. There’s something good about that though. And we’re outside at last, however hostile the environment might be. We’re out!

At sundown we’ll rest. By then, I hope, we’ll have left the flames behind. I’m hoping I’ll be able to look into yet another mystery that’s reared up before us, which is this:

I said we were trying to put rock between us and the fire. Well, that’s true enough. The thing is, this mountain doesn’t appear to be made of rock at all. It looks right, even feels right. But something’s wrong.

I think the mountain’s made of wood.

Kathy

We’ve been walking all day. We’re very close to the light now. I can’t actually see the tunnel exit – it’s hidden round the last few bends. But the glow from outside is overwhelming. The heat too. The light is constant – day and night, it seems, are things of the past. We’re going to stop here. We’re both too tired to face whatever’s out there. We’ll do that tomorrow. If there is such a thing any more.

We spoke a little to begin with, my new companion and me. She kept staring at me, as if she’d never seen a dragon before. I suppose she hadn’t. I broken the silence by telling her my name.

‘That’s quite a mouthful,’ she said. ‘I won’t even try to pronounce it. I’m Kathy.’

‘Is that a common faery name?’ I said. I didn’t tell her the name reminded of another, one I had almost forgotten.

‘I wouldn’t know. I’m a human being.’ And that settled it. She was no longer a faery to me but a woman. ‘Can I call you Mona?’ she added.

‘If you like. Do you know how you got here?’

Kathy lowered her soft brow in what I took to be a frown. Human expressions are sometimes hard to read. ‘I was potholing. The ceiling came down and we got separated. I don’t know what happened to the others. I had no choice – I had to keep going. The tunnel opened up and that’s when I heard … well, you. I followed the sounds until suddenly I hit a slope, and my legs went from under me and … Mona, if you hadn’t rescued me I’d have dropped into that damn rift.’

‘Why were you in the tunnel to begin with?’

‘I told you – I was potholing.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I explore caves for fun. It’s a hobby.’

I laughed. I don’t think she understood why. Humour doesn’t always translate.

Kathy clapped her hands together. The sound echoed off the tunnel walls. ‘So – d’you think that’s the way out?’ She pointed towards the light.

‘You seem very composed for someone who has narrowly avoided death, lain unconscious for a whole day and come face to face with what I imagine you must regard as a creature from myth.’

‘What can I say? I like extreme sports. Besides, it’s a fair bet this whole thing’s a dream.’

That’s when I saw it: the glint of hysteria in her very human eyes. She was in shock then. Stretched to snapping point, with only her inner strength holding her together. If ‘extreme sports’ means what I think it does, inner strength is something she’ll have plenty of. For her sake, I hope that’s true. If my hunch is right, we’ll both need all our strength before this is over.

‘I can’t fly,’ I said. ‘The passage is too narrow here. We’ll have to walk.’

‘Suits me,’ she said brightly. ‘After you, Mona.’

And so we set off, dragon and woman, walking side by side through a dank tunnel that sloped steadily upwards, towards a faintly orange light that never changed. We walked until we could walk no more, and now we rest. Kathy is asleep, her head resting on my tail. Soon I’ll be asleep too.

Tomorrow we’ll be out of this tunnel and back in the outside world. I think I know what’s happened now. The trouble is, that means I have no idea what we’ll find.

Old Earth Dwellers

We must have been here nearly a day. Like I said before, it’s hard to track time in here. The faery’s been unconscious most of that time. Early on I rolled it over – gently, just to check it wasn’t injured. That’s when I discovered it was a female. You can tell the females – they’re curvier. It – or I should say ‘she’ – was breathing all right, and there was no obvious sign of injury – so I left her alone and just waited, and watched. And remembered.

For a long time the world was their domain. In the raw days of charm, while the trolls made war and the dragons skulked in their shadows, the faeries found other places to live. Places between. They conquered dimensions, and diminution. They used charm to delve, to squeeze themselves small into realms which, as soon as you thought of them, became vast beyond comprehension. They even twisted time, and in time became known by another of their many names: Old Earth Dwellers.

For aeons they ruled in retreat. Fragile to begin with, they became more so. They shed their bodies and grew their wings and took to the elements. Corporeal once every hundred years, they moved through spaces you and I can only imagine. Of all the creatures bound to charm, their affinity was the strongest.

The turning of the world hit them harder than any of us. They had felt it coming for many centuries. Inside their elemental forms, hard skeletons had been slowly growing. On the day the magic went away, faery bones became real, and from yet another species of the old world was born something new.

The natural faeries grew thick skins and coarse hair. Their wings failed. They fell in love with fire. And, against the odds, they thrived.

I watched it all. You may wonder how I was able to do that. It’s a long story, one for another day. My vantage changed over the years, although there are huge gaps in even my memory. The biggest gap of all is the most recent past. That’s why I can’t remember how I got here – wherever here is. Nor why I should find myself in the company of an unconscious faery.

Except … she’s not unconscious any more. At last she’s waking up. She raises her head and opens her soft eyes. She speaks. She says a single word:

‘Dragon!’

The rescue

I’ve never felt more blind than on that return trip. The wind from the chasm was stronger. It gusted, knocking me off course. The smell was stronger too, and at last I recognised it: charm. I can’t understand why I didn’t recognise it before. It’s another puzzle.

The cries were coming regularly. I closed my eyes – they were useless in the dark anyway – and tried to recall my future sense. But I was still locked in the present. So I followed the echoes, and eventually found my way to the source of the sound.

I reached the cliff edge. Fragments of light reflected off the wet limestone. I saw something hanging from the edge: a small figure with two arms and two legs and no visible wings. A natural faery. It was calling plaintively. As I approached, it let go.

The faery fell into the chasm. Not thinking, I tucked in my wings and stooped after it. Charm-laden air rushed past my face. The feel of it on my scales brought up old memories of an unturned world, and a parallel realm where the clouds move sideways. But I was not there for the charm.

I caught the faery, gathered it up in my claws, beat my wings against the thermal rising from the chasm and soared aloft once more. As I began to climb, I cast a single glance down into the pit. There was movement down there, an endless scrambling dance of darkness. And charm. There was that too.

Weighed down, struggling to stay aloft, I carried the faery across the chasm and dropped it on the far side. It rolled over the gritty rock, unconscious. I landed beside it. And there I am still. My wings ache; my lungs feel raw. It’s a long time since I had so much exercise! I’m tired, but I’m not sure if I can sleep. I’m waiting, you see.

Waiting for the faery to wake.