Iron Hearted Violet (7 page)

“Auntie,” Nod said, screwing up his forehead to force the words to stick in his memory. “Worser. I’ll do my best to remember.” He hesitated. “You’re not coming with me?” A note of pleading in his voice.

“I’m following that girl. Everything’s…
wobbly
. Wobblier than I seen it before. And that thing’s been bump, bump, bumping around and slithering and mucking about, no matter
what
Auntie says. And getting worser all the time. I
seen
it. With my own eyes. Just yesterday in the mirror, there it was, looking as self-satisfied as a full-bellied snake is what. If it thinks it can pull one over old Moth here, it’s got another thing coming.” Sighing deeply, he reached into the pocket of his furry brown coat and pulled out a pipe. He gripped it thoughtfully in his teeth. “Go get Auntie,” he said. “And tell her I was right.”

After the runty god’s unintended creation of three whole and distinct universes, and after the inevitable grumbling that followed, the Old Gods discovered that the new worlds were stable and
whole
. They didn’t wobble. They didn’t jitter or bend. And so twelve of the Old Gods set about making universes of their own. They built universes based on mathematics and universes based on magic and universes based entirely on whimsy. They built worlds clustered together and worlds scattered apart and worlds
within
worlds, fitting inside one another like nesting dolls. Each world shimmered
like bubbles in a surging sea. And they were beautiful and unique and
loved
. The gods loved their worlds and they were loved in return.

However, while the twelve Old Gods were creating the many worlds of the multiverse, the thirteenth god—the Nybbas—made nothing. It couldn’t be bothered. It pursued its own pleasures instead. It spread malaise, division, mistrust, and despair. It fed on unhappiness and pain.

But soon it longed for more. Power. Control. It saw how the other gods were venerated in the universes they made. Cherished. Adored.
Loved.
The Nybbas was loved by no one.

And it seethed and seethed.

And in its seething, it concocted a plan: The Nybbas began to follow the dragons.

Long ago, you see, dragons were the only creatures of the multiverse who were able to travel from world to world. They could press themselves against the skin of one universe and pass into another as easily as through water. They were bold fighters, long-lived and resilient, but they lived in fear of one another. Indeed, their fear was so great that even their own reflections terrified them. And so they spent their lives alone.

Fully grown dragons, you see, do not have hearts in
their bodies. How could they? Hearts are tender, breakable things and would be burned to cinders in the terrible fires blazing inside the dragons’ chests. When dragons reach adolescence, they remove their hearts, encase them in scales and dragon tears—a substance that when dry is as luminous as pearls and as hard as diamonds—and cleverly hide them away. They must keep the location of their hearts a secret, lest they be found and stolen. Whoever controls the heart controls the dragon.

The Nybbas knew this, of course. It also knew of my world—its mirrored sky was the perfect prison for the fearful creatures. And so the Nybbas, using trickery and cunning, stole the heart of every dragon in the multiverse. It brought the hearts to my world and waited for the dragons to come looking. Once they arrived, the dragons were unable to face their own reflections, and could not leave. And so it was fear, their own debilitating fear, that gave the Nybbas the key to their enslavement.

AN ARMY OF DRAGONS
, the Nybbas whispered.

THE MOST POWERFUL SLAVES IN THE MULTIVERSE
, the Nybbas crooned and crooned.

AND SOON I SHALL BE POWERFUL ENOUGH TO INVADE WORLD AFTER WORLD AFTER WORLD. EACH SHINING UNIVERSE
STRUNG AROUND MY NECK LIKE BEADS ON A STRING. AND EVEN THEIR GODS SHALL LOOK UPON ME AND TREMBLE!

The rule of the Nybbas was short by a god’s standards, but for us it was many generations of slavery and misery and subjugation. It was a dark time for my world, a miserable time, until one day the groans and pleading of my world were noticed by the stubby, runty god.

And he roused his brothers and sisters from their godly dreaming and prepared for war.

Now, I don’t suppose that you have ever seen an attack led by an army of gods. I myself have not, but there are surviving accounts of what happened that day. The seams along the western edge of the mirrored world stretched, then bulged, then split like a melon, and the gods rained down.

The Nybbas fought but lost. A god cannot kill another god and so, after conferring, the Old Gods decided to imprison the Nybbas inside the very mirror that once corralled the dragons. The dragons themselves were to remain in my world to stand guard and ensure that the Nybbas never escaped.

“You will,” the runty god said to the Nybbas, “watch the world that you will never control. You will be forced to mimic and reflect, to display only what the world shows you and nothing more. You will be forced to do as you are
told, that you may know the pain of subjugation. The creatures that you once enslaved—the dragons—hold in their power the key to your destruction. Pray they do not use it. Furthermore, we shall transform your heart. We shall give it use and purpose. It will be stones and corridors and rooms. It will bear witness to birth and death, love and treachery. It will be protected, guarded,
loved
. And your magic will never touch it.”

Then the gods returned to their worlds. Remembering too well the perils of distraction, they spread themselves widely throughout their universes. They touched and loved and
knew
each rock, each plant, each living cell. They became wind, breath, and dreaming. They coursed through rivers and rumbled in stone and felt the pounding beat of every heart in love. They became everything and everywhere and nothing and nowhere.

And in time their worlds forgot them.

The Nybbas contented itself to bide its time. The dragons, it knew, would die out eventually. Everything does. And anyway, the runty god was wrong. Its heart was not beyond its magic. Some magic works very, very slowly.

And what’s more, some magic is patient. Very, very patient.

Though Demetrius missed Violet, he was, truthfully, having the best time of his life.

As the youngest member of the expedition, he was expected to see to his work with the same focus and vigor as any of the grown men and women in the party. Each evening, he would inspect the horses’ hooves for gravel and cracks, check their teeth and gums for the telltale signs of stress and disease. Then he’d rub their muscles with a soft cloth, wringing out the sweat, and brush them till they gleamed.

All the while, he whispered and crooned.

And all the while, his heart said,
Thank you, thank you, my beloved. Thank you for your work
.

And from the hearts of the horses:
Beloved boy, beloved boy. Doubly beloved
.

The Andulan people were particularly known for our deep connection to our animals. We
loved
our animals, and were loved in return. It wasn’t as though we could speak to our animals—clearly, we couldn’t. But we
understood
them. Our hearts called out to our horses and our dogs, our milking cows and our shearing sheep and our hunting falcons—and the animals reached out to us in return. And no one was as adept at this as Demetrius. He had a knack for listening.

The dragon hunt was considered by most—even by members of the hunting party—to be a dubious operation. The King—our studious, bookish, endlessly fascinated King—in his thorough and detailed and
profound
research into the history and biology of dragons, discovered the method by which the ancients had trapped and subdued their dragonish quarry.
Mirrors.

The hunting party—on the whole—grumbled about this scheme. (
Madness!
they groused.
Insanity!
) But they
kept their concerns to themselves. Demetrius, on the other hand, thought it would work—no,
knew
it would work—but believed it to be a terrible idea all the same. He brought his concerns to the King.

“I know it’s not my place,” the boy said, his eyes on the ground. “But I’m here to see to the animals, and the dragon, once it is caught, will be partially my responsibility.”

“No, dear boy,” the King said kindly. “I would never put that kind of responsibility on the shoulders of one so young. The dragon, though hobbled, will still be terribly dangerous. And I daresay it will be more dangerous to
you
than to
most
.” Demetrius waited for the King to clarify this, but he did not.

“It isn’t that I think the dragon will be hurt,” the boy continued. “It clearly won’t. But it is old. And it will
remember
. The dragons were enslaved, and you are capturing it in the same way the ancients did.” Demetrius could barely look up. “I fear that the beast won’t take it well.”

“Nonsense!” the King said jovially, clapping Demetrius on the shoulder. The boy saw a curious gleam in the King’s eyes—like the gleam of someone who has been terribly hungry for ever so long, and has just learned that food is on its way. There would be no reasoning with him, Demetrius
knew. “The beast will be frightened, to be sure, and angry. But if we do not intervene, its kind will be extinct from our world. Indeed, we may already be too late. But we must
try
. Even when hope is lost, we must still
try
. Now, son, I wonder if you’ll see to my horse. He seemed to be treading softly on his front left, and I worry that he might have the beginnings of an injury.” The King paused and gave Demetrius’s shoulder a fatherly squeeze. “I do wish our Violet could be with us! I had so hoped she could come, but her mother wouldn’t allow it. At least she’ll have you to tell her the tale, dear boy. And what a marvelous tale it shall be!” And with that, Demetrius was shooed out of the King’s tent. He walked back to where the horses were tethered, worrying all the while.

For weeks they searched but found nothing, and the hunting party began to despair. Finally, on the twenty-fourth day of the expedition, the falcons began swooping in excited spirals across the sky, screeching a new call to the ground.

Beast
, the screeches seemed to say.
Beast beast beast!

And the company followed.

Demetrius understood these calls. Everyone did.

But Demetrius understood other things as well. He
could hear that the falcons noticed that the dragon’s body was not entirely sound. And while he couldn’t tell what exactly was wrong with it, he could hear the alarm in the falcons’ voices. He could hear their compassion for the creature. And he worried.

On the morning that they finally laid eyes on the dragon itself, Demetrius had gotten up before anyone else. After feeding and visiting the horses, he ate a bit of salted meat and hard cheese and climbed the nearest tree to clear his mind.

Like the other trees on that mountain, it was old, broad-branched, and impossibly tall. Demetrius climbed as high as he dared. He dangled his feet on either side of a thick, sturdy limb, leaned against the trunk, and looked out at the land as it tumbled away down the side of the mountain and rolled and waved toward home. He couldn’t see the castle, but he knew where it was. It shimmered and vibrated in his mind. And somewhere in the center of it was Violet, as bright as a beacon. Demetrius knew he could find his way blindfolded if he needed to.

He climbed a little higher.

In the opposite direction, where the mountains became high and sharp and cruel, lay the castle of the Mountain
King. Demetrius couldn’t see that, either, but he could feel it all the same—and it was as cold and vain as the heart of the Mountain King himself. Demetrius didn’t like how close they were coming to the border—none of them did. But it couldn’t be helped. The dragon must be followed. Never mind if they hadn’t—

Wait.

Demetrius froze.

He was up so very high, and the slope beyond the mountain upon which they were camped dropped precipitously. At the bottom of the slope, the woods gave way to swamp and marsh and flowers. And there, gobbling mouthful after mouthful of flowers, was a dragon.