Peter Dickinson - Tears of the Salamander

Slowly his shudderings eased, but he still lay clutching the rock. There was a kind of comfort in it. Once it had flowed molten in the heart of the mountain, and the salamanders had swum in its currents. Even now, he discovered, it was not truly inert. It was still, as it were, veined with the memories of fire. And along those veins, faintly, from far away, he could hear the salamanders singing. They were singing to him, showing him something. Somehow he forced his inward eyes, so far screwed tight shut, to open and look.

He saw through the eyes of a boy sitting in the vestry of the cathedral, less than a month gone by, full of the kindly heat of Father’s ovens and the glory of the music he was about to sing. He felt as that boy had felt, felt again the appalling eruption into that peace of the full madness of fire. This was no mere memory. He saw and felt it in the same fashion as with the salamander’s help he had just now watched the scene on the mountainside. The cathedral walls were dimly transparent, as were the houses beyond, so that through this cloudy mass he could make out the very street on which the bakery stood, and the inn a little way down on the other side. At an upper window of the inn stood a known shape, a manlike thing, too large for a man, and darkly glowing with inner fire. The Master of the Mountain raised his arms. The fire burst from his fingers and streamed across the street. The bakery exploded into flame.

The vision faded and the singing of the salamanders dwindled away.

“If asked they will tell you the truth.”

“…the truth that the salamander tells you will be contaminated with apparent meanings, which are in fact no more than echoes of your own hopes and fears.”

Which? Hadn’t he just been thinking of what might have caused the fire, so the vision was only the echo of that thought?

And how could the salamanders know what had happened in the bakehouse, eight days’ journey away to the north?

Oh, for some proof, something outside himself, something the salamanders hadn’t told him, something he could see and touch!

There was a movement close beside him and a hand fell on his shoulder, and at the same moment he heard a soft, bubbling sound, anxious and querying, a voice from a human throat, but meaningless. Whoever it was moved sharply away as he pushed himself over. Toni was standing a few feet from him, clearly worried and puzzled, but still poised to run.

Alfredo pulled himself together and managed to smile, but Toni backed off as he rose.

“Would you like to try the recorder again?” said Alfredo, miming the action of playing.

Toni nodded eagerly, so Alfredo led the way back to the house with Toni following in little hesitant rushes behind. Just before they came out of the wood he gave an anxious mutter, and gestured to his right when Alfredo turned to see what the problem was. Apparently he preferred to use a barely visible track that led off through the trees toward the back of the house.

“All right,” said Alfredo reassuringly. “I’ll get the recorder and meet you in the rose garden. Like yesterday.”

Again he mimed playing, and pointed south beyond the house. Toni nodded even more vigorously and darted off along the track.

The recorder was one of a set of four. Alfredo tried another, whose A was painfully sharp, but the next one was in tune, so he took it with the one he’d played yesterday. Toni was already waiting for him in the rose garden. He put one of the recorders down on the bench and moved away round the fountain. Eagerly Toni rushed in, grabbed the recorder and came and faced him across the empty basin. So they stood and played, each for the other and both for the music.

Alfredo started with the song they had played yesterday. Toni joined him, in unison for the first few bars, but then, and without any apparent effort, harmonizing as though he had known and played the music all his life. It was the same when they moved on to other songs and even suitable bits of cathedral music, some of it difficult enough for Alfredo himself to have trouble with. When that happened Toni stopped him and confidently played the notes as they should have gone. Clearly he had no need of a salamander charm around his neck. He had been born with the gift of music in him, already unlocked.

After a while Alfredo paused to rest, but Toni played happily on, only stopping when he saw Alfredo put his recorder to his lips again. Cautiously, ready to stop at the first flutter of a fiery wing, he started on the music of the Persian chant. Stumbling several times, he played it right through. Toni watched him, frowning. What kind of weird music is this? he was thinking, as obviously as if he’d spoken.

All at once his face cleared, and before the last note faded away he had his recorder to his lips. He played the chant easily, without any mistakes. Under the touch of his fingers the music began to make sense. Before he reached the first repetition the air beside him shimmered, and one of the Angels of Fire was standing at his shoulder, visible in the glare of midafternoon as a kind of solidifying of the strong sunlight, an immense presence, an elemental power.

Alfredo opened his mouth to shout a warning, but stopped himself, afraid to interrupt the music now that the thing was there. Toni must have seen his reaction and, still playing, turned to face the Angel and stared up, seemingly unafraid, into its lightning-loaded eyes. The Angel bowed its head in a gesture of respect, and waited until the chant ended. Then it reached out with a flaming finger and traced what might have been a series of symbols, or fiery letters, in an arching line above Toni’s head. That done, it moved back a pace, bowed and vanished.

Toni stood staring at the place where it had been and began to weep. He didn’t seem to have changed, as far as Alfredo could see. He had the same hesitant stance of an idiot, the same lopsided down-drawing of the jaw. But then he turned, blinking through his tears, saw Alfredo, and with his half-crouching gait came round the basin toward him. When he stopped he didn’t seem poised to run. Instead he held out his recorder to Alfredo and withdrew it, clutching it against his chest.

Please, please may I keep it?

Why not? Why cause the poor man yet more misery? It wouldn’t be missed, surely. The recorder case hadn’t been opened for years.

“Of course,” said Alfredo, nodding and gesturing toward him with outspread palms. He hid his own recorder behind his back, pointed toward the house and put a finger to his lips.

“Don’t let my uncle know you’ve got it,” he said. “Don’t play it near the house. I think we’d better not play any more now. I’ve got to go and sing to my uncle soon.”

Toni nodded and hid the recorder under his shirt. Alfredo started off toward the house, with Toni shambling along only half a pace behind him, but as soon as the buildings came in sight slipping off along one of his private paths. Alfredo guessed he had a cache somewhere for his special treasures. He himself went round by the courtyard and into the kitchen, wondering whether he should tell Annetta what had happened. Not yet, he decided; not until he knew a bit more.

The wind had shifted, altering the draft in the flue. It wasn’t serious, but for something to do he put a small oak log on the fire and fiddled with the damper in the door. Before he’d finished Toni came in and, ignoring Alfredo, settled at the table. Annetta stopped what she was doing to give him some food, and Alfredo took advantage of her absence from the stove to get at the flue damper. He turned back to the room already raising his hand in greeting to Toni, but the gesture stopped, half made. For several thudding heartbeats he stood staring.

Toni was already intent on his food, but this time wasn’t crouched protectively over it. He sat sideways at the table, straddling the bench, tearing a piece off his bread to dip in his bowl. Oh, how well Alfredo knew that pose! That was how Father sat, and Uncle Giorgio, too. Normally, of course, they used chairs, where the oddity wasn’t so obvious, but he’d often seen Father sitting like that in inns and other places where there were only benches.