Chapter 1
Drystan
It's raining again today. Although I guess we shouldn't use the word 'again', because it implies that it ever stops raining. It is still raining, it has been raining since the day I arrived. It has been raining for three years.
Actually, it has been raining since the birth of the world, but I'm not that old; even if three years in this hellhole does feel like an eternity.
"Still, Drys me boy," I murmur to myself, picking a careful route through the bones, "better than being dead. Better than the stomach of the Wyrm." I shrug noncommittally, a small smile flickering across my lips. "In theory."
Looking up, I catch the irony of my words, and laugh. I'm standing in a giant ribcage, the great bones arching up around my head like some nightmarish prison. For a second I just shake my head, blinking away the crystalline patter of the rain. From this perspective the sky seems to curve out around me. It's nice to remember, every now and again, that there's an entire world out there... not that I can see anything other than grey cloud.
Patting the bones almost fondly, I ignore the way they suck weakly at my skin, step over the beast's jumbled spine and out into free space once more.
The Dawnlight mountains. I can't even remember how I got here, this place reserved for the dead; it has been a long and unfortunate journey, that's for sure. And the only thing I'm really certain of is that it all leads back to the Wyrm.
I kick at a stone, shaking the moisture from my damp hair, and sidle through the gap from a missing fang, into the brief darkness of yet another giant skull, before walking out along the knobs of an old spine. It's the same route I have taken every day: direct from A to B, and it's such a well worn path that my footsteps have begun to carve themselves into the ancient bone.
My hair's getting in my eyes again. It's too long, and ever damp. I can barely remember a time when it was dry, when I was dry, when it would sparkle, red and gold, in the sunlight.
I can barely remember sunlight.
They call it the Dawnlight because that's as far as it ever gets. The sun rises in the early morning, with its thin, tentative light, and for the rest of the day there is nothing more. Nothing. Nothing but rain and grey and dead dragon bones. Nothing lives in the Dawnlight. Bare rock and bodies. It's dark and wet and empty. It's fog and sickness and death.
And then, for the past three years, it has been Drystan Beddoe, the world's unluckiest cretin. It has been Drystan Beddoe and it has been the Wyrm.
I wonder if she will be there again today, just outside the boundary. But then, of course, I know she will be. She's always there; waiting until she wastes away. Waiting until she wins.
I've got no other option but to face her though. If I want to eat, I have to leave the Dawnlight, I have to find the places where life returns to the world.
Trailing my fingers over yellowing bone, a Drake so ancient that the rain has slowly begun to warp the shape of his remains, melting them down together into a single formless boulder, I allow my feet to bring me to a reluctant stop. And there it is, the edge, an invisible barrier between her and I, between myself and the freedom she guards.
The rain pushes up against the edge of the Dawnlight as though it's trying to spread this nothingness across the whole of existence. There's something completely unnatural about this place, about the way sunlight suddenly begins again. There's no natural spread, from rain to dry. It's just the Dawnlight and then the rest of everything.
I can't help myself, can't help the smile that spreads across my face at something so simple as the sight of dry land.
"Get a grip, Drys." I murmur, shaking a head at my own tiny folly, and push through into the dry.
It's instant, the pressure that lifts from my shoulders. Not just physically but everything. I can think clearer without that constant drip, drip, drip on the top of my head, I can breathe deeper.
And, what's more, she's not here yet.
Oh she will be soon enough. She'll come slinking over the bounders with her slimy skin and her sunken eyes. And she'll look at me all forlornly as though I am to blame for her meaningless vendetta, as though I have wronged her just by not dying quick enough, and I'm the reason she looks like she crawled out from under a rock.
She's all I think about these days, all that seems to matter. It disturbs me how much I obsess about her, how familiar a fixation it is, like a young boy and his first love. She's always in my head, in all her different forms. I remember her from the first day I ever saw her, where I could not help but find her beautiful. And I think of her as she is now, scales bleached white. They are no longer that vibrant jade green, they've turned soft, like limpid frog's bellies or dead limbs.
Sometimes I wonder if I'll be lucky, if she'll go first. Perhaps, I think, she's already dying. My stupid poet's heart soars at the concept... And then there are other times when I awake from a slumber where I have dreamt I am alone in this world, where I have dreamt I am free from her eternal presence, and my body is sticky with clammy terror sweat. I never know why.
My first trap is near. I always set one or two that are almost too close to the Dawnlight to bear success, but I need something that I can check quickly. I need something that can guarantee me the opportunity, at the very least, for food. If I set too many too far out and she's there waiting, I cannot check them. And then it doesn't matter whether I catch anything or not: by the time I get there, it has turned to rot.
But today I am lucky. The earth is showing fresh signs of struggle.
I round a rock, coming up towards my hidden contraption, and a beautiful sight begins to reveal itself. A rabbit has caught itself in the snare: young, tender, and really, truly, there.
My stomach rumbles appreciatively at nothing more than the concept of food, but I can't help myself.
"Patience Drys," I murmur but even as I say it, I'm throwing a final hasty glance over my shoulder and rushing forward.
My desperate fingers tear at the ground, ripping out stones, catching soft flesh on the harsh metal wire. Before long my hands are in almost as much of a state as my prey but I don't care. I'm just so hungry. So mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly starving.
Nothing can live in the Dawnlight.
And then the rabbit comes free. It seems so much smaller now, now that I have it securely, unquestionably, in my palms. But it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. My stomach's so tiny and this here, this right here, is food.
I chuckle light-heartedly at how little it seems to take to get me excited these days and clutch the rabbit to my chest, turning back with my spoils.
The grin freezes on my face. Freezes into ice and then turns to rock.
She shuffles her feet almost awkwardly and it actually irritates me. Have we really been together so long that this situation has lost its menace? Has she really forgotten what it is that she wanted to do?
And then I laugh. Because the answer, undoubtedly, is yes.
"Mornin' love," I murmur, still clutching that tiny scrap of fur to myself. The rabbit's legs swing ever so slightly as I try and turn, gauging the distance back to the safety of the rain. I'm pretty sure that with a good sprint I can make it but it's going to take a moment or two of stillness to build up the courage.
I stick to talking; it's something I'm good at.
"So...." I mumble, drawing out the sound of the vowel. "You're looking good: sort of... slimy."
The Wyrm shuffles her feet a second time, peering down at me. She likes to hover above, finding some point of vantage from which she can crane that ridiculous neck over until she gets too close. Today her claws draw deep lines in the rough pile of rocks that shelter my snare. As her damp tail slips down between the cracks of two large craters, like the slow progression of sickness, I realise I haven't had the time to reset the trap.
Her big eyes blink, almost three times larger than they used to be, or so it seems, growing everyday as they sink back into her skull.
"You could die you know," I murmur, "I would like that. If you died."
A small sound escapes her lips. I remember a time when she would hiss, a great wave of sound that washed across the senses like the wind on empty desert sand. But now she's broken. Sure I'm wet and cold but, sometimes, I have to think I'm winning.
And then she pads a gentle foot forwards, always so feminine, always so delicate, so dangerous.
"Steady," I breathe, rocking nervously back.
She freezes.
Our gazes catch.
And this is what I hate the most, these moments where she almost feels human. I could fool myself if I wanted to, I could pretend I know her mind. Because I look at her, and she looks at me, and we've been together so long that I feel I can feel her. She's not just tired, she's weary. She aches. She's cold. She's sad and empty and alone.
She blinks and I'm free.
My mouth is dry, my eyes scratchy. An icy droplet of water slips from my saturated hair, running slowly down my spine. For some inexplicable reason, I just feel like giving up.
"I'm bored of this," I murmur, looking forlornly down at the swinging rabbit. "Can't we just go home?"
Some sound rumbles in her chest. It's almost encouraging, welcoming. I'd like some contact, something warm. I'd like....
All it takes is a kiss of icy wind, drifting from the Dawnlight and into the real world with sudden, shuddering clarity. It snaps her magic, frees the dream, and I recognise her presence once more. I recognise what she is, what she wants.
Her nostrils flare with a single, gentle breath.
I run.