Hills Like White Basilisks

A sense of rain heavy on the tiles and shingles of roofs, spilling
with fat splashes off the mouths of gutters and drainpipes. The smell
of it, a fresh bitter taste thin in the back of your throat and nose,
coming in with a fine mist of spray through the open window. Down the
streets the thin rivers rushed and made the stones wet and the
pedestrians grumpy and the horses miserable.

"Watch how it carries everything away with it," the girl said.

"It's not carrying us away."

"It is. We're moving along with it. Like it's a dream. Isn't it?"

"It's anything you want it to be."

He reached across her to close the window. His arm was bare and the
skin smooth and black. The girl made a noise and swatted it away, her
face screwing up, a child making a face. "Leave it be. I like
it."

"You'll catch cold. There's water coming in."

"I'm strong," she said, grandly.

"You don't like catching cold."

"That was wintertime. That was different. Anyway if I caught cold I
wouldn't die from it because you would be there and you would make sure
I didn't die."

She said the word 'die' so easily and every time the word tripped out
she did not see how his face changed, under the white hair trailing
long over his eyes. She was very young and she did not understand
things like this yet. He left her at the window to rummage through
clothes in the bag. Above the sound of him moving so carefully was the
clatter of hooves on cobbles and smacking through puddles, the
raindrops falling on the roof of the rest-house, and, through the
floor, a desperate sort of music thin and wailing off the strings of a
violin. In the wooden boards underfoot you could find a beat to pick up
and tap a foot absently to. It was all very different.

"When are we going to get there?" she asked.

"Soon."

"I can't wait," she said. "I can't wait to be there. I feel bad
thinking about how I left and how I didn't even say goodbye properly,
but then I think of where we're going and I feel good again. And I
don't even feel bad about that."

He put the coat around her. It was coarse and warm and too big. The
ends of her hair lay on the collar, curling and slightly damp already,
and in her fringe, on her eyelashes, fine droplets of rain, tiny
crystals hanging on her.

"You shouldn't stand here too long," he said. "You'll feel it,
tomorrow."

"I don't care."

"Tomorrow, you'll care. You need to convince them that you are strong
enough."

"I am strong enough. And if I'm not, then you will definitely be strong
enough."

"But what you want to learn from them, that's something I cannot help
you with."

"You can do some magic, like the purple fire, and the black round
ball," she said. "The magic that they're going to teach me is like
that, too. You heard what they said, didn't you? They said I could be
so good if I wanted to learn from them. And we're going to see them
now. So you see, you've already helped me."

She was smiling, and he always liked to look at her when she was
smiling, because when she did not smile, there was so much tragedy in
her face. The tragedy came from the eyes, which were too big, and the
mouth, small and full and sad. Her face was not very pretty except for
the smile and then it was beautiful, but that was only what he thought.
Many other people thought her attractive with or without the smile. But
those people were all miles away and none knew that he was here with
the girl, or where they were going. That was his secret, and
hers.

"What will you do when you have learnt all the magic that you can
learn?" he asked.

"I'll make you the most beautiful and powerful scimitar in the whole
wide world and also make you a most beautiful scabbard to put it in and
when we are being married you'll wear the scabbard and then you'll take
out the scimitar and do something clever with it to make everybody go
oooh and ahhhh over you."

"Especially the women."

"But I won't mind, because I know you'll be doing it for me."

"And you must make yourself a very beautiful dress. To match the
scabbard."

"And after that I'll be able to help you when you go around trying to
make people stop fighting each other and repair the places in the earth
that the fighting destroyed. And we'll make it a nice place to live in
again."

"I think that's the best use of magic that I've heard of so far," he
said.

"And all we have to do to make this happen is just wait for me to learn
enough magic from them."

She leaned back into him because he was standing right behind her now
and he was right about the rain being cold. It was quiet, in his arms,
when he stood silent and strong and she turned her head to listen to
his heart beating and the blood flowing as thought it would flow
forever in him. She could not know how he was feeling exactly the
opposite, how very fragile and sparrow-like and transient her life felt
when he held it all close to him, only to feel it slipping by.

"Don't you like it?" she asked him.

"Like what?"

"Well... what we were talking about, a moment ago. All the things we'll
do when I've learned enough and I can do things, great things, the way
you do great things. You had to go somewhere to learn how to fight the
way you do, didn't you?"

"Yes..."

"So I have to go to them, and learn how to do this. I've got the gift,
they said. But they didn't want to force Mother to let me go. They are
so polite, don't you think?"

"I think they were sensible," he said, dryly. "I would not like to
force your mother to do anything."

"She liked you, you know."

"No."

"A bit. She said you had done a lot of nice things in your life. But
she didn't like me talking about you all the time. I don't know why.
She didn't like you in that way, like she likes some boys when they
came to look for me."

"She must not like me very much any more, now."

"Oh, that wasn't your fault," the girl said, and her mouth was no
longer sad but laughing with the silliness of his guilt. "It wasn't you
taking me with you, it was me taking you with me. Anyway when I've got
my magic properly I'll make the most wonderful wedding dinner she could
have imagined and put her at the head of the biggest table and she'll
see. They'll all see."

"Why don't you think wizards have grander wedding ceremonies? You would
think someone would have had an idea like this before."

"They got too busy wanting power. Magic doesn't make you think about
power, does it? I won't think about power. I have more important
things. We have more important things. That's it! They forgot the
important things. That's why."

It sounded very right and simple when she said it like that, and he
wished it could really be as easy as getting to the place where the
wizards were, waiting for her to learn magic, performing a scimitar
dance of joy for wedding guests beneath confetti rain. Over the top of
her head he looked out at the roofs sloping crazy and the water falling
constant on everything, drowning the city and the streets and the hills
like white basilisks in the distance.

"What if we forget our important things?" he asked, softly.

The words only moved his lips. All she heard was the falling rain and
his beating heart and the dreams in her head.