Daniel recoiled as the light stabbed into his eyes like pins.
“Who are you?” he asked the golden rider.
“I am Dreams of Life,” the golden rider answered, although Daniel could not hear the words spoken. He felt them, somehow, and it warmed him. “And I have sights to show you.”
“And you?” he asked the silver rider automatically.
“I am Dreams of Death.” Daniel felt a chill roll through him. “I, too, have sights.”
Daniel pushed away at the silver rider and the rider fell into the distance.
The golden rider dismounted and came nearer.
“What do you wish?” he asked in a honey-thick voice.
Daniel did not know, and this uncertainty made him worry that the rider would leave him then, in the cold and uncertainty. But the rider was there, mounted again, with his yellow steed galloping alongside him.
He turned his head to the other side and saw, far off and very distant, no more than a star twinkling in the distance, the silver rider, and again he felt a chill. He turned back to the golden one.
“What do you wish?”
“What do I wish?” Daniel asked himself, and it seemed to him that he was being offered a gift, a single gift, whatever he desired.
His father is before him, and his mother. He is a child again, just thirteen, and his parents are back together, and they are eating a meal at the table. It is quiet, but a comfortable, contented silence. Daniel makes eye contact with his dad and he smiles.
There is a pounding on the door. His father’s face blanches.
“Don’t answer it,” his mother whispers. “Leave it.”
“They know we’re here,” his dad explains, rising. “They always know. You can’t fool them.” He walks to the front hall.
“Do we have enough?” his mother asks.
Father doesn’t answer. He opens the door a crack. Daniel peers into the hallway and sees a very tall, very thin man in a black suit and bright orange and yellow tie. He tips his hat, showing wolflike ears, and displays a hungry grin. “Good evening, sir,” he lilts. “Collecting tribute.”
“We gave less than three months ago. They wrote it down. I got a receipt-”
“Entirely different sort of tribute, sir. Here’s a pamphlet. This is the head tribute-for the children? You do have 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.
What do you wish?
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.
What do you wish?
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.