Stardust

She walked over to the goats and whispered a word of power to each of them.

Where the goats had been stood a man with a white chin-beard, and a boyish, dull-eyed young woman. They said nothing.

She crouched beside her chariot and whispered several words to it. The chariot did nothing, and the witch-woman stamped her foot on the rock.

“I am getting old,” she said to her two servants. They said nothing in reply, gave no indication that they even understood her. “Things inanimate have always been more difficult to change than things animate. Their souls are older and stupider and harder to persuade. If I but had my true youth again . . . why, in the dawn of the world I could transform mountains into seas and clouds into palaces. I could populate cities with the pebbles on the shingle. If I were young again . . .”She sighed and raised a hand: a blue flame flickered about her fingers for a moment, and then, as she lowered her hand and bent down to touch her chariot, the fire vanished.

She stood up straight. There were streaks of grey now in her raven-black hair, and dark pouches beneath her eyes; but the chariot was gone, and she stood in front of a small inn at the edge of the mountain pass.

Far away the thunder rumbled, quietly, and lightning flickered in the distance.

The inn sign swung and creaked in the wind. There was a picture of a chariot painted upon it.

“You two,” said the witch-woman, “inside. She is riding this way, and she will have to come through this pass. Now I simply have to ensure that she will come inside. You,” she said to the man with the white chin-beard, “are Billy, the owner of this tavern. I shall be your wife, and this,” pointing to the dull-eyed girl, who had once been Brevis, “is our daughter, the pot-maid.”Another crash of thunder echoed down from the mountain peaks, louder than before.

“It will rain soon,” said the witch-woman. “Let us prepare the fire.”

Tristran could feel the star ahead of them, moving steadily onward. He felt as if he were gaining ground upon her.

And, to his relief, the black carriage continued to follow the star’s path. Once, when the road diverged, Tristran was concerned that they might take the wrong fork. He was ready to leave the coach and travel on alone, if that should happen.

His companion reined in the horses, clambered down from the driver’s seat, and took out his runes. Then, his consultation complete, he climbed back up, and took the carriage down the left-hand fork.

“If it is not too forward of me to enquire,” said Tristran, “might I ask what it is that you are in search of?”

“My destiny,” said the man, after a short pause. “My right to rule. And you?”

“There’s a young lady that I have offended with my behavior,” said Tristran. “I wish to make amends.” As he said it, he knew it to be true.

The driver grunted.

The forest canopy was thinning rapidly. Trees became sparser, and Tristran stared up at the mountains in front of them, and he gasped. “Such mountains!” he said.

“When you are older,” said his companion, “you must visit my citadel, high on the crags of Mount Huon. Now that is a mountain, and from there we can look down upon mountains next to which these,” and he gestured toward the heights of Mount Belly, ahead of them, “are the merest foothills.”

“Truth to tell,” said Tristran, “I hope to spend the rest of my life as a sheep farmer in the village of Wall, for I have now had as much excitement as any man could rightly need, what with candles and trees and the young lady and the unicorn. But I take the invitation in the spirit in which it was given, and thank you for it. If ever you visit Wall then you must come to my house, and I shall give you woolen clothes and sheep-cheese, and all the mutton stew you can eat.”

“You are far too kind,” said the driver. The path was easier now, made of crushed gravel and graded rocks, and he cracked his whip to urge the four black stallions on faster. “You saw a unicorn, you say?”Tristran was about to tell his companion all about the encounter with the unicorn, but he thought better of it, and simply said, “He was a most noble beast.”

“The unicorns are the moon’s creatures,” said the driver. “I have never seen one. But it is said that they serve the moon and do her bidding. We shall reach the mountains by tomorrow evening. I shall call a halt at sunset tonight. If you wish, you may sleep inside the coach; I, myself, shall sleep beside the fire.” There was no change in his tone of voice, but Tristran knew, with a certainty that was both sudden and shocking in its intensity, that the man was scared of something, frightened to the depths of his soul.

Lightning flickered on the mountaintops that night. Tristran slept on the leather seat of the coach, his head on a sack of oats; he dreamed of ghosts, and of the moon and stars.

The rain began at dawn, abruptly, as if the sky had turned to water. Low, grey clouds hid the mountains from sight. In the driving rain Tristran and the coach driver hitched the horses to the carriage and set off. It was all uphill, now, and the horses went no faster than a walk.

“You could go inside,” said the driver. “No point in us both getting wet.” They had put on one-piece oilskins they had found beneath the driver’s seat.

“It would be hard for me to be wetter,” said Tristran, “without my first leaping into a river. I shall stay here. Two pairs of eyes and two pairs of hands may well be the saving of us.”His companion grunted. He wiped the rain from his eyes and mouth with a cold wet hand, and then he said, “You’re a fool, boy. But I appreciate it.” He transferred the reins to his left hand, and extended his right hand. “I am known as Primus. The Lord Primus.”

“Tristran. Tristran Thorn,” he said, feeling that the man had, somehow, earned the right to know his true name.

They shook hands.

The rain fell harder. The horses slowed to the slowest walk as the path became a stream, and the heavy rain cut off all vision as effectively as the thickest fog.

“There is a man,” said the Lord Primus, shouting to be heard now over the rain, the wind whipping the words from his lips. “He is tall, looks a little like me, but thinner, more crowlike. His eyes seem innocent and dull, but there is death in them. He is called Septimus, for he was the seventh boy-child our father spawned. If ever you see him, run and hide. His business is with me. But he will not hesitate to kill you if you stand in his way, or, perhaps, to make you his instrument with which to kill me.”A wild gust of wind drove a tankardful of rainwater down Tristran’s neck.