Page 53 of The Guardians of Dreamdark
It had been possible for faeries and imps to hide their existence, but for dragons there was no hiding, and humans had gloried in the slaying, written ballads, epics, as if they were doing great deeds! And sure the eejits believed they were. They thought dragons were predators! The dragons were the first life the Magruwen dreamed—how could they be predators, when they had existed before prey? In fact, they fed on something quite different than meat, though mannies would never guess what golden goose they’d slaughtered.”
Dragons ate ore. They smelted it in their fiery bellies and excreted luminous molten metals, gold, silver, copper, that would harden into veins in the earth. This they had done since the beginning, but it was over now. There would be no newgold made ever again. Countless humans would lose their lives clawing what was left from the ground, and they would never understand what they had done.
Magpie knew it wasn’t the last thing they would erase from the earth without thought or understanding. A terrible bitterness swelled in her. “They’re worse than devils!” she said passionately. “If there were bottles enough in the world to capture them all, I would do it!”
Bellatrix smiled sadly. “In truth I’m glad I didn’t live to see them. But Magpie, there’s a strange twist to this story, and it’s why I’m telling it to you. You see, the day the living world lost Fade, something was born, too. A hope.”
“Hope for what?” Magpie asked.
“For a new age. It came down to dreams. That’s how everything begins. If you don’t know it yet, you will. Magpie, if humans hadn’t massacred the dragons, there would have been no way to reach the Magruwen, and we would all have suffered the unweaving until the very end.”
“The unweaving?” Magpie asked, puzzled. “Lady, what is it? It seems I’m hearing that at every turn.”
Bellatrix gave her a quizzical smile and said softly, “Iamsorry. How strange it must be for you, not knowing. Come, child, sit with me. You look so tired. Drink some tea.”
Magpie went and sat beside her on the bench. Her eyes were huge and solemn in the moonlight, looking up at her hero. Bellatrix handed her a cup and reached out to trail her fingertips tentatively over Magpie’s hair.
“I’m some mess, I fear, Lady,” said Magpie, blushing.
“Life can do that to you,” said Bellatrix. She asked hesitantly, “May I brush your hair?”
Surprised, Magpie could only nod and be glad Snoshti had made her wash it a few days ago. She took a gulp of tea while Bellatrix unloosed the pins that held her hair in place and fanned it out over her back, taking care not to jostle her injured wings. Snoshti brought Bellatrix a brush, and she began at the ends, gently unworking the tangles.
“I couldn’t help imagining you as the child I’d have liked to have,” Bellatrix said.
“Me?” asked Magpie again, shocked that the huntress would have been imaginingher. Why, indeed, had she been brought here?
“Aye, you, Magpie. Fierce, cunning, loyal, sweet.”
“Thank you, Lady,” Magpie said, growing bashful. Then, thinking of Vesper’s claims, she asked, “Youdidn’t...have any children?”
“Nay. My life...took a turn,” she replied quietly. Magpie wanted to ask her what had happened so long ago, but Bellatrix said, “But this isn’tmystory, Magpie. It’s yours.”
A shiver went through Magpie, and she looked at Bellatrix over her shoulder. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I’m coming to it, child,” Bellatrix answered. “For thousands of years after I came here, I had contact with the Magruwen. The hedge imps came and went between us, bearing messages. Those years were stretched so thin with longing and remorse, they passed very slowly for me. And the change was happening very slowly, too. If one wasn’t a...captive...of the past, one might not notice. But I was, and did. From faeries crossing the river I saw how far our folk had fallen. Their magic was paler and paler all the time. The old folk who arrived told of young faeries with no gift for their clan’s ancient ways. There was talk of a new species, humans. And the Magruwen was changing. There was a hardness and weariness in his messages. Even before the dragons began to die, it worried me. And after? After Fade was murdered there were no more messages at all. Not even a farewell. The Magruwen destroyed Issrin Ev, and my imps couldn’t find him. I heard nothing more of him. It was Fade, later, who told me he slept.” She pulled the brush slowly through Magpie’s hair. “That was when the idea came, a little sparkle of an idea, wild...maybe impossible. But like a scavenger imp, I couldn’t get it out of my mind!”
Magpie smiled at that.
“The faeries needed a new champion, and it wouldn’t be me. Even if I could somehow go back—and Ihadtried—there was little I could have done. The Tapestry was falling apart, and darkness was waiting on the other side, and the Djinn were sleeping through it. The faeries—the world—needed a new kind of champion...” She paused. “So I imagined you.”
Magpie started, stunned. “What?” she gasped.
Bellatrix pulled the brush through Magpie’s hair and went on, her voice rich with feeling. “Don’t you see? The dreams, the shared dreams of the dragon and the Djinn King. At last, their dreams brought new life into the Tapestry.”
“The Tapestry,” repeated Magpie. “The Magruwen spoke of it. What is it?”
Bellatrix shook her head sadly. “That faeries have forgotten the Tapestry; that is the greatest tragedy of all. It’s the fabric of all creation, and it’s woven of dreams, the dreams of the Djinn. Dreams are real, Magpie. They’re seed and water and sun. They’re everything.” She paused, let Magpie’s hair run out of her hands. “That is what you feel, child, what faeries have lost the power to feel, and what you’ve begun to see in glimpses.”
Magpie turned to look at her. “The pulse? The light? The—the living light?” she stammered.
“Aye. Dreams spun in fire in the minds of Djinn. It’s how they shaped a world out of nothing. But the nothing is still out there. You see it through the stars, the blackness of night. The world is just a tiny thing afloat in that sea of nothing, and the Tapestry is all that protects it. Now it’s falling apart, and the Djinn are letting it.”
“But why?”
Bellatrix shook her head again and said, with an edge of frustration, “I don’t know. Something happened. I believe Fade knows, but he keeps his master’s mysteries close. Whatever it was, the Magruwen had forsaken us. I had no choice but to trick him.”
“Trick the Djinn King?How?”
