The Wind Through The Keyhole (29 page)

He hurried back, fighting the wind for every step and shivering all over. By the time he crawled back beneath the magic sheet and into the blessed warmth, his teeth were chattering. He wrapped his arms around the tyger’s heavily muscled body without even thinking, and had only a moment’s fright when its eyes and mouth opened. A tongue that looked as long as a rug runner and as pink as a New Earth rose emerged. It licked the side of his face and Tim shivered again, not from fright but from memory: his father rubbing his cheek against Tim’s early in the morning, before Big Ross filled the basin and scraped his face smooth. He said he would never grow a beard like his partner’s, said ’twouldn’t suit him.

The tyger lowered its head and began to sniff at the collar of his shirt. Tim laughed as its whiskers tickled his neck. Then he remembered the last two popkins. “I’ll share,” he said, “although we know thee could have both if thee wanted.”

He gave one of the popkins to the tyger. It disappeared at once, but the beast only watched as Tim went to work on the other one. He ate it as fast as he could, just in case Sai Tyger changed its mind. Then he pulled the sheet over his head and drowsed off again.

When he woke the second time,
he guessed it might be noon. The wind had dropped still more, and when he poked his head out, the air was a trifle warmer. Still, he guessed the false summer the Widow Smack had been so right to distrust was now gone for good. As was the last of his food.

“What did thee eat in there?” Tim asked the tyger. This question led naturally to another. “And how long was thee caged?”

The tyger rose to its feet, walked a little distance toward the cage, and then stretched: first one rear leg and then the other. It walked farther toward the edge of the Great Canyon, where it did its own necessary. When it had finished, it sniffed the bars of its prison, then turned from the cage as though it were of no interest, and came back to where Tim lay propped on his elbows, watching.

It regarded him somberly—so it seemed to Tim—with its green eyes, then lowered its head and nosed back the magic sheet that had sheltered them from the starkblast. The metal box lay beneath. Tim couldn’t remember picking it up, but he must have; if it had been left where it was, it would have blown away. That made him think of the feather. It was still safely tucked in his belt. He took it out and examined it closely, running his fingers over its rich thickness. It might have been a hawk feather . . . if, that was, it had been half the size. Or if he had ever seen a white hawk, which he had not.

“This came from an eagle, didn’t it?” Tim asked. “Gan’s blood, it
did.
”

The tyger seemed uninterested in the feather, although it had been eager enough to snatch it from the breath of the rising storm last evening. The long, yellow-fuzzed snout lowered and pushed the box at Tim’s hip. Then it looked at him.

Tim opened the box. The only thing left inside was the brown bottle, which looked like the sort that might contain medicine. Tim picked it up and immediately felt a tingle in his fingertips, very like the one he’d felt in the Covenant Man’s magic wand when he passed it back and forth over the tin bucket.

“Shall I open it? For it’s certain thee can’t.”

The tyger sat, its green eyes fixed unwaveringly on the tiny bottle. Those eyes seemed to glow from within, as if its very brain burned with magic. Carefully, Tim unscrewed the top. When he took it off, he saw a small transparent dropper fixed beneath.

The tyger opened its mouth. The meaning was clear enough, but . . .

“How much?” Tim asked. “I’d not poison thee for the world.”

The tyger only sat with its head slightly uptilted and its mouth open, looking like a baby bird waiting to receive a worm.

After a little experimentation—he’d never used a dropper before, although he’d seen a larger, cruder version that Destry called a bull-squirter—Tim got some of the fluid into the little tube. It sucked up almost all the liquid in the bottle, for there was only a bit. He held it over the tyger’s mouth, heart beating hard. He thought he knew what was going to happen, for he had heard many legends of skin-men, but it was impossible to be sure the tyger was an enchanted human.

“I’ll put it in drop by drop,” he told the tyger. “If you want me to stop before it’s gone, close thy mouth. Give me a sign if you understand.”

But, as before, the tyger gave no sign. It only sat, waiting.

One drop . . . two . . . three . . . the little tube half-empty now . . . four . . . fi—

Suddenly the tyger’s skin began to ripple and bulge, as if creatures were trapped beneath and struggling to get out. The snout melted away to reveal its cage of teeth, then reknit itself so completely that its mouth was sealed over. Then it gave a muffled roar of either pain or outrage, seeming to shake the clearing.

Tim scooted away on his bottom, terrified.

The green eyes began to bulge in and out, as if on springs. The lashing tail was yanked inward, reappeared, was yanked inward again. The tyger staggered away, this time toward the precipice at the edge of the Great Canyon.

“Stop!”
Tim screamed.
“Thee’ll fall over!”

The tyger lurched drunkenly along the edge, one paw actually going over and dislodging a spall of pebbles. It walked behind the cage that had held it, the stripes first blurring, then fading. Its head was changing shape. White emerged, and then, above it, a brilliant yellow where its snout had been. Tim could hear a grinding sound as the very bones inside its body rearranged themselves.

On the far side of the cage, the tyger roared again, but halfway through, the roar became a very human cry. The blurring, changing creature reared up on its back legs, and where there had been paws, Tim now saw a pair of ancient black boots. The claws became silver siguls: moons, crosses, spirals.

The yellow top of the tyger’s head continued to grow until it became the conical hat Tim had seen in the tin pail. The white below it, where the tyger’s bib had been, turned into a beard that sparkled in the cold and windy sunshine. It sparkled because it was full of rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds.

Then the tyger was gone, and Maerlyn of the Eld stood revealed before the wondering boy.

He was not smiling, as he had been in Tim’s vision of him . . . but of course that had never been
his
vision at all. It had been the Covenant Man’s glammer, meant to lead him on to destruction. The real Maerlyn looked at Tim with kindness, but also with gravity. The wind blew his robe of white silk around a body so thin it could have been little more than a skeleton.

Tim got on one knee, bowed his head, and raised a trembling fist to his brow. He tried to say
Hile, Maerlyn,
but his voice had deserted him, and he could manage nothing but a dusty croak.

“Rise, Tim, son of Jack,” the mage said. “But before you do, put the cap back on the bottle. There’s a few drops left, I wot, and you’ll want them.”

Tim raised his head and looked questioningly at the tall figure standing beside the cage that had held him.

“For thy mother,” said Maerlyn. “For thy mother’s eyes.”

“Say true?” Tim whispered.

“True as the Turtle that holds up the world. You’ve come a goodly way, you’ve shown great bravery—and not a little foolishness, but we’ll pass that, since they often go together, especially in the young—and you’ve freed me from a shape I’ve been caught in for many and many-a. For that you must be rewarded. Now cap the bottle and get on your feet.”

“Thankee,” Tim said. His hands were trembling and his eyes were blurred with tears, but he managed to get the cap on the bottle without spilling what was left. “I thought you were a Guardian of the Beam, so I did, but Daria told me different.”

“And who is Daria?”

“A prisoner, like you. Locked in a little machine the people of the Fagonard gave me. I think she’s dead.”

“Sorry for your loss, son.”

“She was my friend,” Tim said simply.

Maerlyn nodded. “It’s a sad world, Tim Ross. As for me, since this is the Beam of the Lion, ’twas his little joke to put me in the shape of a great cat. Although not in the shape of Aslan, for that’s magic not even he can do . . . although he’d like to, aye. Or slay Aslan and all the other Guardians, so the Beams collapse.”

“The Covenant Man,” Tim whispered.

Maerlyn threw back his head and laughed. His conical cap stayed on, which Tim thought magical in itself. “Nay, nay, not he. Little magic and long life’s all
he’s
capable of. No, Tim, there’s one far greater than he of the broad cloak. When the Great One points his finger from where he bides, the Broad Cloak scurries. But sending you was none of the Red King’s bidding, and the one you call the Covenant Man will pay for his foolery, I’m sure. He’s too valuable to kill, but to hurt? To
punish
? Aye, I think so.”

“What will he do to him? This Red King?”

“Best not to know, but of one thing you can be sure: no one in Tree will ever see him again. His tax-collecting days are finally over.”

“And will my mother . . . will she really be able to see again?”

“Aye, for you have done me fine. Nor will I be the last you’ll serve in your life.” He pointed at Tim’s belt. “That’s only the first gun you’ll wear, and the lightest.”

Tim looked at the four-shot, but it was his father’s ax he took from his belt. “Guns are not for such as me, sai. I’m just a village boy. I’ll be a woodcutter, like my father. Tree’s my place, and I’ll stay there.”

The old mage looked at him shrewdly. “You say so with the ax in your hand, but would you say so if ’twas the gun? Would your
heart
say so? Don’t answer, for I see the truth in your eyes. Ka will take you far from Tree Village.”

“But I love it,” Tim whispered.

“Thee’ll bide there yet awhile, so be not fashed. But hear me well, and obey.”

He put his hands on his knees and leaned his tall, scrawny body toward Tim. His beard lashed in the dying wind, and the jewels caught in it flickered like fire. His face was gaunt, like the Covenant Man’s, but illuminated by gravity instead of malicious humor, and by kindness rather than cruelty.

“When you return to your cottage—a trip that will be much faster than the one you made to get here, and far less risky—you will go to your mother and put the last drops from the bottle in her eyes. Then you must give thy father’s ax to her. Do you understand me? His coin you’ll wear all your life—you’ll be buried with it yet around your neck—
but give the ax to thy mother.
Do it at once.”

“W-Why?”

The wild tangle of Maerlyn’s brows drew together; his mouth turned down at the corners; suddenly the kindness was gone, replaced by a frightening obduracy. “Not yours to ask, boy. When ka comes, it comes like the wind—like the starkblast. Will you obey?”

“Yes,” Tim said, frightened. “I’ll give it to her as you say.”

“Good.”

The mage turned to the sheet beneath which they had slept and raised his hands over it. The end near the cage flipped up with a brisk ruffling sound, folded over, and was suddenly half the size it had been. It flipped up again and became the size of a tablecloth. Tim thought the women of Tree would much like to have magic like that when beds needed to be made, and wondered if such an idea were blasphemy.

“No, no, I’m sure you’re right,” Maerlyn said absently. “But ’twould go wrong and cause hijinks. Magic’s full of tricks, even for an old fellow like me.”

“Sai . . . is it true you live backwards in time?”

Maerlyn raised his hands in amused irritation; the sleeves of his robe slipped back, revealing arms as thin and white as birch branches. “Everyone thinks so, and if I said different, they’d still think it, wouldn’t they? I live as I live, Tim, and the truth is, I’m mostly retired these days. Have you also heard of my magical house in the woods?”

“Aye!”

“And if I told you I lived in a cave with nothing but a single table and a pallet on the floor, and if you told others that, would they believe you?”

Tim considered this, and shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t. I doubt folk will believe I met you at all.”

“That’s their business. As for yours . . . are you ready to go back?”

“May I ask one more question?”

The mage raised a single finger. “
Only
one. For I’ve been here many long years in yon cage—which you see keeps its place to the very inch, in spite of how hard the wind blew—and I’m tired of shitting in that hole. Living monk-simple is all very fine, but there’s a limit. Ask your question.”

“How did the Red King catch thee?”

“He can’t catch anyone, Tim—he’s himself caught, pent at the top of the Dark Tower. But he has his powers, and he has his emissaries. The one you met is far from the greatest of them. A man came to my cave. I was fooled into believing he was a wandering peddler, for his magic was strong. Magic lent to him by the King, as you must ken.”

Tim risked another question. “Magic stronger than yours?”

“Nay, but . . .” Maerlyn sighed and looked up at the morning sky. Tim was astounded to realize that the magician was embarrassed. “I was drunk.”

“Oh,” Tim said in a small voice. He could think of nothing else to say.

“Enough palaver,” said the mage.
“Sit on the dibbin.”

“The—?”

Maerlyn gestured at what was sometimes a napkin, sometimes a sheet, and was now a tablecloth. “That. And don’t worry about dirtying it with your boots. It’s been used by many far more travel-stained than thee.”

Tim had been worried about exactly that, but he stepped onto the tablecloth and then sat down.

“Now the feather. Take it in your hands. It’s from the tail of Garuda, the eagle who guards the other end of this Beam. Or so I was told, although as a wee one myself—yes, I was once wee, Tim, son of Jack—I was also told that babies were found under cabbages in the garden.”

Tim barely heard this. He took the feather which the tyger had saved from flying away into the wind, and held it.