a child.” His eyes find Daniel’s, gazing at him like a cat would a canary-patiently predatory.
The pamphlet shakes slightly in his father’s hands. He puts it down on the cabinet top by the door. “Yes, yes. I remember reading about this. Of course. I have something in here. I put it aside when I. .” He bends and opens the door of the cabinet, rummaging around amongst some metal objects. “Yes, here it is. A silver spoon. One of my wife’s heirlooms.”
“Ah, yes, very nice,” the tribute collector appraises. “Yes, this would do quite nicely. . if your son were twelve or younger.”
“He is, he is,” his father chirps.
“Come, sir, we both know that boy is thirteen and three months if I’m a day.”
“Yes! Yes, of course, how could I forget? Here, take this bowl instead. Silver also-see the mark just here? We can just. .”
His father holds out the bowl and reaches for the spoon. The tribute collector with the wolf’s ears takes the bowl but still grips the spoon. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll keep both,” he says, then tosses them into a black velvet bag that he grips under his arm. The objects vanish with a clinking rattle. “I’ll make a mark here to say that you’re up- to-date on the head tribute, and give you a voucher for the spoon.” He produces a black, padded folder and unzips it, then starts scribbling in it. “And that way, the next time one of us comes knocking, you just whip out the voucher, we make the tick, and Bill’s your auntie, the job is done. What do you say?”
“Well, I think I’d rather-”
“Only I have just accepted the spoon, technically, just by holding it. If you want I could summon my troll; he’s just there at the end of the road, see? And we could all go down to the offices and sort this out. Quite frankly, though, all that hassle is more than my job, or your life, is worth. Wouldn’t you say?” He holds out a chit of paper in front of his father’s face.
“Yes, fine, fine. That’s fine,” his father says, taking the voucher.
“A pleasure.” The tribute collector smiles, tips his hat again-his soft, grey, triangular ears peeking out. He turns, and the door closes behind him.
“Ian?” his mother, above Daniel, her hands on his shoulders, asks.
“Fine, fine. It’s fine-I’ve got a voucher,” he explains, waving his hand.
“What voucher?” There is nothing in his hand.
“Never mind,” his father says with a forced smile. “Let’s get back to dinner, eh? Fish! I love fish! It’s not every day you get fish.”
They resume their meal.
“Mum?” Daniel asks. “When can I go back to school?”
“Quiet. Finish up.”
“Where’s my sword?” Daniel, age thirteen, asks.
“You never had one,” his father replies. “Remember? Remember how you never had one?”
“Shall we watch TV today?” his mother asks.
“I don’t know if we can risk it,” his father replies.
Daniel looked away, and the scene winked out of existence. He was falling again, the golden rider beside him.
Freya floats before him, and he sees, as if from a great way away, but with every detail up close, the life they could have together. Quiet, warm, lovely. A terraced house in the city, drive to work, drive home, dinner, an evening on the sofa. They sit, arms around each other, the TV illuminating them and the room in a pleasant glow, issuing a chorus of gentle laughter.
A sound from the other room, a cry, almost a squeal of discomfort from a tiny throat. “Every night,” Freya said, rising, her body softer now, plumper, climbing over him. “Why won’t he stay down? Even for just this night?”
She exits and he, the he he could be, sits for a stretch, but becomes uncomfortably lonely. The squeals can still be heard from the next room, growing louder, more piercing. He rises.
The next room is an infant’s room, but there was never an infant in it, he realises, somehow. Freya stands in the centre of the room, not holding a baby, but holding his sword, the blade he received in Ni?ergeard-Hero-Maker. The squeal, he knows now, upon passing into the room, has turned into a cry of torment, of alarm.
“I can’t put him down,” Freya says, gripping the sword by its blade. “Why won’t he stay down? Even for one night? Here, you try-you try putting him down.” She holds the sword out to him and he grasps its blade, which bites him.
A blink of the eye, the scene disappeared.
This time it was a deliberate desire of his, something he almost didn’t dare to ask, a desire that had consumed his life for the past eight years.
His face is scarred and raw from battle, but he is wearing royal finery from an age that has past and at the same time an age that has never been. He wears a jewelled crown and on his lap is his sword, Hero-Maker, sheathed, to represent peace. Beneath him is a chair constructed from stone, iron, and gold. The throne is standing atop a mound, much like Gad’s, but not made from the ruins of beauty, but a thing of beauty in itself. Many ridged steps in many colours of marble fall beneath him, trimmed with gold and lit with a hundred candles and silver lanterns set into compartments in the stair structure. He is sitting on a platform of stone and light, and from around every side there are people of the nation, every man, woman, race, and creed, cheering and praising his heroism and bravery. Behind them rise the buildings of Ni?ergeard, restored, and the tree-carved outer wall, rebuilt, but with open arches between the trunks instead of blank stone. Children run and spin beneath the stone boughs, which glitter with silver light.
“How did he do it?” a little girl asks her mother. “How did he become the king of Ni?ergeard?”
“He killed all other claimants,” the girl’s mother answers. “He alone was victorious.”
Ni?ergeard would never be fortified again. The awakened knights would not be put to sleep. There would never be a need for them again.
He raises his eyes and sees a crack in the darkness-the ceiling tears and the sky is visible. Ni?ergeard is rising and will soon appear in the open air, and it will carry him upon his hero’s throne.
He stares into that sky and it becomes larger and larger in front of him, until whiteness is the only thing he sees.
But now there are shadows, and the sun is the golden rider.
“I wish for victory,” he told him.
“Wish for pain,” a voice said behind him.
Daniel turned. The silver rider, Dreams of Death, was standing before him. “No.”
“Pain will save you. Pain is your future.”
“Pain is not an end-or even a means,” agreed Daniel. “Pain may be unavoidable, but surely it is not necessary?”
“You say that, but true sacrifice is rarely voluntary-very few would ever take the pain that leads to true victory willingly.” He shook his head mournfully in an odd, lurching fashion.
“Certainly. But I’ve given so much up already.”
“Would you give up what you most desire?” the silver rider asked.
“Anything.”
“What is the most that you would sacrifice?”
“Everything,” Daniel replied.
“What is victory worth to you?”
“Everything,” Daniel replied.
“What is the most that you would sacrifice?”
“Anything.”
“Would you give up what you most desire?”
“Certainly. But I’ve given so much up already.”
The rider inclined his visored head. “You say that, but true sacrifice is rarely voluntary-very few would ever take the pain that leads to true victory willingly.”
