‘I’m sorry,’ Bily said, for tears had started falling without him even knowing he would cry, and he did not seem to be able to stop them.
Zluty came at once to sit by his brother and put his arm about his shoulders.
‘Our lovely cottage, Zluty,’ Bily sobbed. ‘I can’t bear that it is ruined.’
‘We will build it again,’ Zluty said stoutly, though his heart quailed at the amount of work it would take. They had built the cottage over such a long time. Each task had been small in itself, adding to the complex whole that had been their home. To do it all again would take years and all the while there would be that horrible feeling of redoing something that they had done before, rather than of making something new.
‘I will never be able to grow the garden the way it was …’ Bily sighed.
‘The birds will bring more seeds, and you can replant it. And you saved some of your seed collection, didn’t you?’
Bily nodded wanly. ‘But so much else was lost. Most of the flour and rice got wet. And what about the lovely chairs and tables you made and all the plates and cups that were broken. Oh, Zluty, how are we to live while we rebuild and replant and remake things? And what about Winter …’
Zluty had no answer for that. Yet Winter must be thought about, Bily knew.
‘Tell me about finding the monster,’ Zluty asked, giving them both another plate of mushrooms.
‘At first there was a great crash. That was the monster breaking into the cellar, only I did not know it then,’ Bily said.
His grey eyes lost their haunted, frightened look as he told Zluty how he had gone down into the cellar only to see the monster’s eyes staring at him. Zluty listened with horror even though he knew it had not eaten Bily. It was the first time Bily had ever had such an exciting tale to tell his adventurous brother, and he was surprised how much he enjoyed it.
Then Zluty told the story of his journey and it was Bily’s turn to be enthralled as he heard about the bee Queen and marvelled over her foretellings, though his face fell when Zluty spoke of the vale of bellflowers, for the delicate blooms had been destroyed along with all of the other flowers in the garden. He would have liked to speak to the bees, but they were still deeply asleep in their jar.
Zluty went on to tell about the wall he had found as he explored while trapped in the forest by the falling stones. He described the great metal egg he had found in the burned place and Bily shivered when Zluty described the white bones he had seen by the light of the shining stone. Finally he brought out the little metal egg he had found.
Bily took it and held it reverently, wondering if there was really some tiny creature inside it. He had never seen another egg like the one they had come from before, and it was very strange to think that great and small things might come from the same sort of egg.
At last Zluty told of the rain and of the diggers with their flooded burrow. Bily smiled at the image of them sitting about the fire, entranced, while outside the rain fell and fell. But when Zluty got to the part where he had looked down at the cottage, he broke off suddenly to ask Bily if the monster had said where it came from.
‘It came from the West, like the red wind,’ Bily said. ‘It told me its people call it the arosh.’
‘Its people,’ Zluty echoed, knitting his brow. ‘There are more of its kind?’
‘It didn’t talk much about them,’ Bily said thoughtfully. ‘It said it was alone in the desert when the storm came and it had to run.’
‘What is a desert?’ Zluty asked.
‘I am not sure but the monster said nothing can live or grow there because there is no water. Not a single spring. Beyond the desert is something called mountains. I think that is where the monster lived.’
‘Why did it go to a place where nothing grows or lives?’
‘It said it went there to decide something,’ Bily said. He glanced back down the hill in the direction of the ruins where the monster lay sleeping, watched over by Redwing, who seemed to have taken a particular liking to it. ‘It is very weak. We must take care of it.’
Zluty said nothing.
‘You must be very tired travelling so far,’ Bily murmured after a little while. ‘Sleep and we can talk more in the morning. I will keep the fire alight.’
‘What about you?’ Zluty asked.
‘I am not tired, and when I am, I will bank the fire down and sleep,’ Bily promised. Zluty nodded and stretched out with a sigh, closing his eyes. That he did not argue told Bily how exhausted he truly was. ‘Everything will be all right, now that we are together,’ Bily added softly. But Zluty was already sound asleep.
Instead of getting sleepier, Bily became gradually more and more wide-awake as the moon tracked across the sky. He sat cradling the small egg and thinking about Zluty’s adventures. Finally, he pushed the little metal egg back into his brother’s pack next to the bee jar and searched for a comb to groom his filthy tangled fur.
Zluty had said nothing of it yet, but Bily knew very well that there was a dangerous and precarious time ahead for them. They must begin work immediately on the morrow. They would first need to bring out everything that could be rescued from the cellar and the ruins of the cottage. They would dry out what could be dried out and repair what could be repaired. It was too late to plant anything now, and so they would have to concentrate on gathering food until the water in the cellar was absorbed and they could turn it into a Winter home. It would be a grim refuge but it was the only possibility of Winter shelter for it was far too late to build even the smallest cottage in the time that remained before Winter. They would both need to spend all of their time foraging for food if they were to have enough to survive until Spring.
Bily might even have to do some of the journeying that Zluty had always done before, if Zluty was right about the wild crops being damaged. But after all that had happened to Bily since the red wind had come, this no longer seemed such a terrifying prospect.
He set aside the comb and took the pot of heated water and a rug down to the monster in the hope that its fever might finally have broken.
He was quite close to it before he realised that the monster’s great bright eyes were open.
‘Are you in pain?’ he asked it gently.
‘I am thirsty …’ the monster said in its thick rough voice.
Bily lifted the bowl of water and held it so that the monster could lap from it. When it had drunk its fill, he set the bowl down and offered food.
‘I am not hungry,’ it said.
‘You ought to try to eat anyway,’ Bily told it. ‘You will never regain your strength otherwise.’
‘I fear that food will not give me back my strength,’ said the monster.
There was a grim note in its voice that made Bily feel uneasy. ‘It is only a matter of time before your strength returns,’ he said.
The monster’s eyes, which had turned to the West, now returned to him, and there was sadness in them. ‘I wish that were so, my little friend, I truly do. But I fear that I have finally come to the bad end that was always foretold for those who shirk their duty.’
‘I am sure you did what you were supposed to do,’ Bily said stoutly.
‘There are many kinds of duties,’ murmured the monster with a sigh. Again its eyes turned to the West. ‘There was a … thing I was meant to be given. I did not want it and that was why I was in the desert. In truth, I was so busy trying to come up with reasons why I ought not to have what I was to be given, that I did not see the signs of the stone storm. Some of my people say that the arosh comes only when change is needed. Others say it comes to destroy what is unworthy. Maybe it came to drive me away …’
‘Are you so important, Monster, that a whole wind would rise and gather up stones just to stop you from having something that you did not want in the first place?’ Bily asked, laughing a little.
The monster looked at him for a long moment, and then a flicker of humour came into its eyes. ‘You are right, small one. I am not so important. It is go
od to be reminded of that.’
‘What happened to you was an accident,’ Bily said firmly. ‘And when you have healed, you can simply go back and get whatever it was you were supposed to have. In the meantime, I will take care of you.’
The monster made no comment and Bily removed the bandage and set about bathing its paw. He was elated to see that some of the redness had faded, as well as the swelling. ‘I think the honey helped,’ he said.
‘Among my people, there is not much kindness to creatures of different kinds,’ said the monster thoughtfully, and his eyes flickered to Redwing, who was perched on the edge of the fragment of metal egg, watching them with her bright eyes. The monster turned back to Bily. ‘You saved my life. I will not forget it.’
The monster looked away again and Bily followed its gaze. It was looking at the little glow of the campfire Zluty had made. ‘I should like to hear more about this Northern Forest your brother visited. There are tales of a forest told among my people, but I had never imagined it was a real place.’
‘You must ask him to tell you the story of his journey,’ Bily said eagerly. But now I will go and bring you some food. You need to eat a little and then you should sleep.’
‘Thank you,’ said the monster.
Bily understood from its grave tone that he was being thanked for more than his advice and his offer of food, and he felt himself blush as he hurried away.
16
Zluty woke just before dawn feeling very stiff. He opened his eyes and saw Bily lying sound asleep, his cheeks pink from the ruddy glow of the embers of the dying fire. Despite all that he had endured in the last few days, Bily’s face was serene in sleep and Zluty felt a rush of love for his brother. He must have spent hours grooming himself the night before, because his fur was as white and soft as ever.
Zluty got out of his bed and padded away from the fire to give himself a good brush. Then he gathered some more ground cones and crept back to build up the fire, trying to be quiet so that he would not wake Bily. The bees were awake and the three males flew out of their jar to accompany him when he walked down to the pool of water beside the cottage. It was a murky colour but it smelled clean enough for him to wash his face in. It was definitely deeper than it had been and he thought of what Bily had told him about the crack in the floor of the cellar cave, and the water rushing in even after the rain had stopped. The combination of the stone storm and the heavy rain must have changed the ground so that what had been a trickle of water from deep underground had increased to a strong gush with more than one outlet.
If he was right, there could be no hope of rebuilding the old cottage. They would have to build a new one on higher ground. For now, the best they could do for a shelter was to use the stones from the broken wall to make a small hut. The bits of the old egg house in the cellar would have to serve as a roof. It would have to be a very small hut though, because they would need to spend every moment gathering supplies for the coming Winter.
Zluty decided that since he was awake he might as well start bringing up anything that could be salvaged from the cellar. He did not like the idea of getting wet again, especially when he had just combed himself, but it would have to be done sooner or later and at least there was now a fire waiting to warm him.
He climbed over the broken wall and found himself right alongside the pallet where the monster slept. It was panting slightly and Zluty wondered if it was thirsty. He took up the bowl on the ground, only to find there was water in it.
Suddenly the monster woke and reared up to snarl terrifyingly at him, showing all of its sharp teeth.
Zluty’s fur fluffed with fright, but already the monster was sinking back.
‘So it was not a dream,’ it rasped.
Zluty swallowed hard, thinking how much bigger it appeared in the daylight. He told himself that it only looked that way because its long thick fur had dried and fluffed out. But it was not only its size that daunted him. The monster had long sharp claws and pointed white teeth. Even its ears were sharply pointed. Everything about it looked dangerous. The previous night when they had brought it out of the cellar, it had looked so ill and feverish that Zluty had felt sure it would not wake again. But the eyes fixed upon him now were bright with life and intelligence, and he was within easy reach of its paws if it had recovered enough to use them.
‘I am sorry if I frightened you,’ said the monster gravely.
Zluty swallowed and said as firmly as he could, ‘Are you hungry? I can get you some food.’
The monster said, ‘I am thirsty.’
Zluty was steeling himself to step nearer to the pallet when Bily touched him on the shoulder. Zluty got such a fright he dropped the bowl, which crashed to the ground and shattered.
‘Oh no!’ he groaned, for it was a bowl that his brother had spent hours colouring delicately with strokes of a feather.
‘Never mind,’ Bily said. ‘So much has been smashed that one more thing hardly matters.’
Zluty stared at his brother in disbelief, for Bily had always set great store on the things he made. He had sometimes even wept when something he particularly liked broke in the firing kiln.
Zluty said, ‘The … the monster was thirsty.’
‘That is a good sign,’ Bily approved. ‘Its fever broke last night.’ He bent down and carefully picked up a broken piece of the bowl that still held water. Zluty watched as he brought it to the monster, marvelling at Bily’s fearlessness as it drank. When it lifted its head, licking drops of water from its muzzle with its long red tongue, Zluty swallowed hard.
‘You needn’t be afraid,’ Bily said, to Zluty’s mortification, setting the broken bowl down carefully. ‘If it was going to eat me it could easily have done it by now.’
‘Right now I am so weak that your bird friend could land on my nose and pull my whiskers out and I could not lift a paw to stop her,’ said the monster.
Zluty blushed but was secretly rather relieved to hear this. He said nothing as he watched Bily examine the blackclaw bite. The monster only winced.
‘It looks much better,’ Bily murmured.
‘It is still very sore,’ said the monster through gritted teeth.
Bily ignored this and went back to the fire to get some warm water to bathe the paw again. Zluty remained with the monster, but neither spoke. When Bily returned, he had brought a bowl of cold mushrooms as well as the water. He set the food down where the monster could reach it and began to wash the paw, saying, ‘It had better be left uncovered from now on. The air will dry it and the sun will be good for it, but you must move it as little as possible.’
‘You sound exactly like a seer,’ grumbled the monster.
‘What is a seer?’ Zluty asked curiously.
‘One among my people who sees things others do not,’ said the monster. ‘So it is said.’
‘What do you mean by “your people”?’ Zluty asked curiously.
‘I mean those like me. My kind. My brothers and sisters and my mother and father and my cousins and uncles but also those that are not of my blood,’ answered the monster.
‘I do not know what any of those other things are, other than brother,’ said Zluty.
‘You have no family?’ asked the monster. ‘There have been times when I have wished it so for myself. But tell me, why do you and your brother choose to live apart from your kind?’
‘There are no others of our kind,’ Zluty said.
The monster stared at him. ‘Something cannot come from nothing. You must have had a mother and father.’
‘We came from an egg,’ Zluty said.
‘You both came from the same egg?’
‘Of course,’ said Bily, who had finished with the paw. ‘Sometimes two birds are born from the same egg.’
‘But you are not birds,’ said the monster.
‘Of course not,’ Bily said. ‘But birds are not the only things born out of eggs. The dusk lizard comes out of an egg, too.’
‘A bird or a lizard lays the egg from
which a bird or a lizard is born,’ said the monster. ‘Where is the She that laid your egg?’
Bily and Zluty looked at one another, for it was not a thing they had ever thought about before. Bily said slowly, ‘I suppose the egg was laid and then whatever laid it left, just as the dusk lizard lays her eggs in the earth and covers them over before leaving.’
The monster opened its mouth, but before it could speak a fit of coughing overtook it.
Bily tut-tutted and drew its blankets over it. ‘You must eat and then rest.’
The monster lay down its great head, and when its eyes closed Bily and Zluty exchanged a look. For the first time, Zluty felt some of the pity that his brother felt for the monster, for clearly it was still very weak.
Several peaceful though oddly makeshift days followed during which the water in the black pool and the cellar did not recede, though neither did it deepen. Zluty wondered if he was wrong about the spring. Maybe the cracks in the ground were closing up and the waters would recede after some time. Then they could rebuild their old cottage in the Spring.
Bily and Zluty began to raise the beginnings of a second wall, for Zluty had pointed out that even if the cellar did eventually drain, it would not do so in time to be used as a shelter for the Winter.
Little by little they brought out all that could be salvaged from the cellar, but to Billy’s disappointment, they had not yet managed to find his precious spindle. Fortunately, they had been able to get the water jugs out because the water in the pool was beginning to grow stagnant.
This puzzled Zluty, for surely spring water was flowing into it through the submerged well, and ought to be refreshing it. The only answer seemed to be that there was something in the stones that had fallen into the well that was fouling it. In time, he was sure the spring would recover, but until then the water in the jugs was all they had besides the pool in the cave by the Northern Forest. Of course, the diggers would always trade diggermilk for food. But food was soon likely to be another problem.