Fool on the Hill

  “Far as I go, partner,” Ragnarok said, stopping the bike just beyond the Campus Store and the Straight, just short of Uris Library. “I think you know your own way from here.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?” George asked him.

  Ragnarok rubbed his eye. “I think . . . I think I will. Not far. Good luck, George.”

  George only nodded at this. Ragnarok set his hand back on the throttle and drove off into the fog.

  “Well,” George said, when the Black Knight had gone.

  Lightheaded, as in a dream, he hiked the last stretch to the place of his trial.

  ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

  I.

  The dank gloom ended at the entrance to the Quad. Curls of fog wove in the grass like restless vines, but for the most part this battleground was clear, the view hazy but unobstructed. Like the hall of a great king, the Quad stretched long and north, and there, at the far end, lay the Dragon.

  It was big.

  It was very, very big.

  Oh, they’d built it big, its makers, bigger than any Dragon before it, but if Larretta or Curlowski could have seen it now, they would have been shocked at how it had grown still larger, and even more life-like. Folded in upon itself as if in slumber it resembled a small mountain, and a mantle of darkness surrounded it, giving it yet more substance. Behind it, Sibley Hall could only barely be seen.

  “Wait a minute,” George said, an expression on his face as if he’d just been dipped in ice water. The Spear in his hand felt suddenly very small. “Just wait a minute . . .”

  A laugh rang out from the roof of Goldwin-Smith on his right. On his left, in the belfry of McGraw Hall, there was a second laugh, too tiny to be heard.

  “Wait,” George said. “Wait.”

  It did not wait.

  With a flare of blue light and a bustle of unlimbering wings, the Dragon came to life. It unfolded like a flower of gargantuan proportions, wings spreading in a slow explosion of dark canvas. Shadow girded it and made it a giant black silhouette, a blue fireball-eyed shape, unreal and real at the same time. But will it bleed? George wondered. If I stab it with the Spear, can it feel pain? Or fear? And how do I kill it?

  The Dragon beat its wings to test them; George’s hair was tousled by the rush of air, and all at once he was very aware of the empty space at his back, temptingly fog-filled avenues into which he could run and hide. Only it would find him. He knew that as surely as he knew that heroes never run; it would find him.

  Fighting the mounting fear, George brought his foot forward, took a step toward the Dragon. The Dragon replied in kind, reaching forward with one claw, then the other, gouging grass and earth like clots of flesh, wings beating like tremendous fans above, churning the air. It did not actually look as if it were stalking toward him; it looked as if it were turning the Earth beneath itself, dragging George closer with each tug of its talons. Its tail beat the ground like a felled oak striking a drum of soil and stone.

  Light-headed and -hearted with terror—the Dragon was huge, impossibly huge, and it might not even bleed—George forced himself to keep moving with a Fool’s resolve, holding the dragon kite before him like a shield.

  When half the distance between them had been closed, the Dragon dropped its jaw open, and the storyteller prepared himself for a lunge and a snapping of mammoth teeth. That the Dragon intended to burn him where he stood—he did not even think to expect that. Instead he raised his Spear high and hunched his body low, ready to jab at the thing’s snout when it tried to bite.

  “All right, here we go,” George said.

  And marched straight into his own barbecue.

  II.

  Ragnarok drove through the abandoned tangle of Hooterville. He rode alone but the fog around him was haunted. Coiled within its muting dankness he thought he could hear the whisper of old sounds: the light thump of a robe in a gift-wrapped box; the tear of razor sharp mirror shards on skin, a noise rarely heard above the clamor of breaking glass but there all the same. If the fog had suddenly resolved itself into a dozen threatening white shapes, thinned out into smoke from a guttering cross around some nearby corner, Ragnarok would not have been surprised.

  But if it was haunted, it was also enchanted, woven with strange possibility. Along with the dark fantasies it also occurred to him that he might through some sleight of hand reach inside himself, grab that part of the past that he carried with him and tear it out. Leave it behind; lose it in the gloom.

  Unfinished business . . .

  He turned, drove up between Day and Stimson Halls. Coming out on East Avenue he slowed the bike, listening, pausing long enough to pluck the black-handled mace from its tube rack. His eye prickled in warning.

  “Where are you, Jack?” he called out, moving north down the Avenue at a steady fifteen miles an hour. Three heartbeats later he had his answer as the sledgehammer simply swung out of nowhere, clotheslining him, a single thought—Not supposed to happen like this—flashing through his mind as the oak handle cracked across his chest like a baseball bat, toppling him over backwards while the bike rode itself to a wreck a few yards beyond.

  “Here I am,” Jack Baron said, standing over him. “Here I am, you fuck.” Ragnarok had lost his grip on the mace and he groped for it with his left hand, but Jack swung the ‘hammer with crushing force, shattering four of the Bohemian’s fingers. For only the second time in his life, Ragnarok screamed.

  “Here I am,” Jack repeated, driving a foot into Ragnarok’s side, flipping him over on his back. “Looks like I might have sprung a rib there, partner, are you frightened yet?”

  He aimed another kick but this time Ragnarok risked his other hand, catching the foot in mid-swing. They strained against each other, Jack struggling to bring his foot all the way down, Ragnarok trying to throw him off balance . . . and then Jack jabbed at the Bohemian’s groin with the butt of the sledgehammer, breaking the deadlock.

  “I could kill you now, partner,” Jack Baron said, as the Black Knight curled himself into a protective ball. “I thought about that all last night and today, how good it would feel to kill you. But I think I’d like a game of tag first, how does that sound, eh, partner?”

  One more kick, a fresh bruise in the small of Ragnarok’s back, and then the Rho Alpha Tau President was moving away, footsteps and laughter retreating off to the left, toward Goldwin-Smith.

  Not far away, on the Quad, a wind was rising.

  III.

  The fire seemed to come out of the Dragon’s mouth in slow motion.

  George had time, more time than should have objectively been possible, to see it coming and react. Mentally react; for physically he too seemed to have slowed down, leaving only his mind to race, stretch out the event.

  Two bursts of emotion he felt, one after the other. The first was simple surprise, for approaching the Dragon to attack was like approaching a black fortress; it was imposing enough at first glance, overwhelming enough, that any further enhancements seemed unnecessary. It was so much bigger than George that he could not help but be shocked that it needed to breathe fire. Tooth and talon should have been sufficient.

  The second emotion was less rational, and therefore saving: indignation that he should be overmatched in this way; he had no fire to breathe. Angered, with the bolt of flame jetting down at him, he forgot the limits of possibility and let instinct take over. His mind gripped the air around him like a matron grabbing the corners of a sheet, and tugged. All at once the wind was with him, turning the flames so that they encircled him in a cyclone but did not touch him.

  The firestream cut off; the Dragon’s mouth snapped shut. Unharmed, George struck with the Spear, tearing a gash across the monster’s snout. The Dragon cut easily and bits of material scattered into the rising wind, but it did not bleed. Nor did it seem to feel pain.

  “Wait,” George said, “wait just a minute here . . .”

  A claw reached for him, seeking to mash him down. Near panic, George swung the Spear like an ax,
leading with its sharp edge, at the same time concentrating, trying to Write with his mind: This must hurt you, this must hurt you.

  The Spear edge neatly lopped off a talon; the Dragon’s wounded claw hovered in mid-air, not bleeding, no, but had the blue glow in its eyes dimmed a bit? A touch of pain, perhaps? The Dragon drew back, seemed to reappraise the situation.

  “Got you!” George cried triumphantly, too quickly. “I got you! I got you!”

  “Ego,” Mr. Sunshine whispered, shaking his head.

  George had forgotten the tail. The Dragon only seemed to hesitate. It brought its long tail around like a whip, and George’s elation was shattered abruptly as it thundered across his back, hurling him to the ground, ears ringing like dinner gongs. His arms stretched out before him like a diver and his face ploughed grass and dirt.

  It felt as though his spine had been broken. Trying to push himself up, for he knew the Dragon would be on him almost instantly, his body was a cord of pain. No time to lie and suffer; he heard a roar behind him and rolled to the side, grunting at what this did to his battered back. A line of flame shot past him with no room to spare.

  The Spear lay on the grass ten feet to his right, too far. He got halfway up and went for it anyway, but the Dragon was over him and with another explosion of pain he went flying again, the undamaged claw batting him this time. The storyteller landed in a tangle of hurt, tried to move, and couldn’t.

  Rasferret’s turn to be triumphant: Have you, have you, HAVE YOU NOW—

  Concrete beneath him, not grass. Fighting the paralysis, uncertain how many seconds he had left before the Dragon either tore him in half or burned him to ash, furious that he should be losing so quickly, so easily, George realized that he had fallen on the walkway between the statues, the two statues of Ezra Cornell and Andrew D. White. His mind grasped at legend for salvation.

  What time is it?

  He turned his head toward the Tower, sought out the near Clock face.

  Fog would have hidden it from him but again the wind came to his aid, clearing it for half a breath.

  Both hands were still frozen, still stuck at twelve; and though that had meant noon when the lightning first struck, it was midnight that George thought of.

  At midnight, if a virgin passes between . . .

  He was seven years beyond virginity yet still he tried, bringing all his remaining strength to concentration, willing it: Get up, get up, Ezra, Andrew, help me!

  Then the Dragon was there, poised for the kill, pausing indecisively as it sifted through the various ways it might finish him. Rasferret exulted in his hiding place.

  And there was a third figure moving on the Quad, not Andrew White, he sat tight on his bronze chair, but near the pedestal where Ezra had stood for so long. It held some long and slender object in one hand, and even as the Dragon/Rasferret made the decision and opened wide for a breath of fire, the figure raised the object to its shoulder, pulled a trigger.

  A sound like an explosion, and buckshot punched a hole in the Dragon’s hide, just below the neck. It forgot George and turned with fresh outrage to face this new antagonist. Searchlamp eyes picked out the intruder.

  It was not Andrew D. White. not Ezra Cornell.

  It was Nattie Hollister: master shotgunnist, mannequin slayer extraordinaire, and last waking member of the Ithaca City Police Force.

  At the moment, she was seriously considering a transfer to Cleveland.

  IV.

  Wishing for once that he could be as burly and hulking—and as long-legged—as one of the Big People, Puck raced through the fog with as great a speed as he could muster toward the Tower. If only he had his biplane! A touch of the throttle and he would be up there, ready to fight at Zephyr’s side. In his mind Puck pictured her, fighting alone against dozens of Rats. . . .

  Come on, come on, come on! Puck recited in his head as he raced along. And though Mr. Sunshine’s attention was focused on the Quad, it might be that some other Power with a sense of humor saw his plight and decided to throw him a reckless chance. He had gone only a few more yards when an object appeared on the asphalt in front of him: a wood-frame paper diamond, dropped by a fleeing Parade-goer, its green tint appearing almost black in the fog.

  Puck saw it and stopped short, immediately grasping the possibilities.

  But he had never flown a kite before.

  V.

  “What!?” Mr. Sunshine cried from the roof of Goldwin-Smith. “What sort of deus ex machina crap is this?” He glared at the sky. “Somebody’s going to be very sorry if I find out there’s been Monkey-business at my Writing Desk. . . .”

  Hollister looked at the Dragon and felt she must surely go mad. Walking mannequins were one thing, that she could almost handle, but this . . . this defied both law and order in a way that had nothing to do with the justice system. Fairy-tale monsters such as this simply could not be.

  She had not succumbed to sleep downtown after finishing off the Rubbermaid; struggling harder than ever to stay awake, she had dragged herself back into the police car, forced it to start, and driven up The Hill with the black-and-white dog perched on the lap of the still-unconscious Doubleday. Stalling out just beyond the Quad, continuing on foot, the dog had ultimately shown more sense by choosing to wait in the car. But not Nattie Hollister; driven by duty and drawn on by an unshakable certainty that something of great importance was taking place here, she had charged in, weapon reloaded and ready, only to come face to face with impossibility.

  “You can’t exist,” she told the Dragon, which seemed unimpressed with her claim. It took a first step toward her and she cracked off another two shots, punching a pair of holes in the Dragon’s chest that hurt it not at all.

  The Dragon paused, once more deciding whether to bother wasting a breath. Mr. Sunshine, who had Meddled to save Hollister’s life on New Year’s Eve, concluded that he didn’t want her mucking up his Climax. He acted before the Dragon could, glancing again at the sky, which flickered in answer.

  “You’re under arrest!” Hollister shouted hysterically at the Dragon, pumping the last shell. “Got that? You’re under arrest, motherf—”

  Lightning lanced down from the clouds, blew her off her feet. The shotgun shell exploded in the barrel, destroying the weapon; Hollister crashed in a heap at the base of Ezra Cornell’s statue, eyebrows singed off, jacket smoldering. Out cold.

  “Nothing personal,” Mr. Sunshine said. “You’re a wonderful Character, but this is storytellers only. Sorry.” He turned his attention to George, crawling across the grass toward the Spear, still unable to stand. “How disappointing. How very disappointing. For all your talents I think you lack the proper motivation, George.”

  Then a smile played at Mr. Sunshine’s lips. A terrible, mischievous smile, more Faustian than Greek. “Look here, George,” he said.

  Stephen George, one hand on the Spear, heard the voice and turned to look. His heart nearly stopped at the sight: a bed had materialized on the walk in front of Andrew D. White’s statue, a hospital bed like a bier for the perfect sacrifice, and on it Aurora Borealis Smith, still locked in slumber, wreathed in enchantment. Defenseless.

  “No,” George said. “No, you bastard, that’s not fair, not fair. . . .”

  The Green Dragon, momentarily spellbound by the felling of Nattie Hollister, now took notice of this second woman. The corners of its fireproof mouth pulled back in a parody of Mr. Sunshine’s smile; like the Greek Original before it, the Dragon focused its concentration, and its magic, at the sky, seeing if could repeat the trick it had seen. Electricity flickered across boiling clouds of black, gathering at a central point.

  “No!” George roared, and function returned to his legs, to his feet, lifting him up, sending him pounding across the Quad. Without losing its grip on the sky the Dragon fired a blast of flame at him, withering the grass at his heels, toasting his backside. Feeling the searing heat George ran all the faster, intent on reaching Aurora, uncertain whether his hair had caught fire yet or
was only about to.

  Then the sky opened, firing a huge blue bolt at the Earth. With a last desperate bound George sprang to the bed, spent a precious half instant gathering up Aurora, and leapt away. A brilliant flash, a thunderclap breaking directly behind him like a wave, and the storyteller landed hard at the base of Andrew White’s statue. Stars swam in his head, but he still had the Spear in his hand and Aurora unharmed in his arms. The hospital bed was a burning, melted wreck; the air was sick with ozone.

  And the Dragon was coming. It bore down on them like a juggernaut, but George took the time to give his Princess a brief kiss. She did not stir, but the kiss gave him the strength, the steel, that he needed.

  The Dragon came on, dragging shadow with it. Its jaw dropped open as it came in range, and George sprang up to meet it, whirling around once, twice, three times. “All right then, fine,” George shouted, “come on, COME ON!” and hurled the Spear up and out. Fire welled in the Dragon’s mouth and the Spear flew straight to it, thrusting between the massive jaws, sticking fast at the back of the monster’s throat.

  There were two sounds. The first was the disconsolate thuk-thuk-thuk of the broken valve on the Dragon’s fire tanks, unable to dispense more fuel.

  The second was a cry like a sonic boom fed through a bad amplifier: the Green Dragon, screaming. Impossibly stung, it jerked its head back in anguish; in the McGraw Hall belfry, Rasferret the Grub convulsed, feeling an invisible spike at the back of his own throat.

  “Does it hurt?” George shrieked at it. “Does it hurt, you bastard?”

  The Dragon, whipping its head around in anguish, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the Spear. The force of its cry rebounded the length of the Quad, shaking buildings, shattering windows.

  As the beast reared back, George looked and saw his kite lying in the grass by the Dragon’s tail. And all at once he knew how the Story should end.