Gloranthorgth tightened the muscles of her eyelids, straining her gaze, and at the same time stretching her neck out until her throat bobbed and snatched with each word. “We met before. In the boggart-holes.” A gentle wave of claws. “With these others.”
He nodded.
“I didn’t see it then. And yet, and here, I see it now. I was not attentive before. I missed all manner of things, it seems. This. That. Some other things here are doubtful, and there are also changeful things too.” She shot a glance at Dapplegrim then, but immediately returned her gaze to the boy. “Here, now that we are in a place of old stories, and old names, here under the stars: every one of them with their own names, endless thousands upon thousands of whispered knowings. Names upon names upon names: sparkling alight in the the sky-black above. But you. You do not have a name.” Now she cocked her head, curious. “Or at least–not a name that you know enough to speak. I think you were named, once. I can sense it wriggling deep inside you. It wants to come out. It needs to, perhaps. I wonder?”
“I did have a name, at some time. I’m sure I did. My mother would have given me a name.”
“Does you mother like to keep secrets then?”
He shook his head, looked down, scratched at the dirt with one shoe-tip. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. She huffed and wheezed out a long breath. “Ah. It’s like that is it? I see.”
He gave a small bare inclination of the head to indicate that it was indeed like that.
“Come close to the fire, little human-folk creature. Come closer. Step nearer.” Her voice at the end had a menace to it, but perhaps that was just the depth and agedness of it. It occurred to the boy that perhaps she could not take the menace out of her voice. It might have been always there, stuck forever.
All the same, he followed her instruction, and edged himself close enough for the heat of the blaze to imprint itself against his exposed skin. He felt it press into him, hot and with a sensation of mass behind it. The smell of smoke was stronger here too. The wind turned and blew a whole choking cloud of it into his face, before moving again so that the air became clearer.
“Well?” said Gloranthorgth.
“Well, what?” asked the boy.
“Well, what name will it be?”
“I don’t understand.”
The creature rolled her eyes. “You don’t need a name to be anything fanciful, and any such naming rite don’t need to be anything more than a bestowing, and a so on, and a so on… but you ought have a name, and it ought to be one you like. Or, at least can stand the sound of. You very much do not want to die without one.” Her expression darkened. “Hasn’t your magician friend explained it?” She jabbed a knot-knuckled finger in Caewen’s direction. “The wizardess-pup ought to have explained this. It’s a bad thing, to die namelost. Bad. Bad. Bad. You wouldn’t like it. Not one bit. You’ll get lost in the hiddendoms between here and death country. Not good. No.” She performed a long, slow blink of her yellow predator’s eyes. “And the paths you are treading–well–I’d have said there is some risk of a bit of dying–now and now–here and there–don’t you think?”
“But it’s been useful,” he said. “I mean… it’s saved me more than once. It seems like no one ought ever to have a name, not if there’s evil magics about.”
“And yet, if you observe the world carefully: no one has no name. Why is that, do you think, my little human-folkling. You say: useful. Useful? Yes.” She shrugged and pursed her lips. “But you’re not listening. Fire is useful. Fire is a weapon. But I don’t want to carry fire in my apron. It is dan-ger-ous. Very, deeply dangerous to be nameless. You want to end up a skulking ghost, not even knowing who you are, in pain, in cold, in fear, for all of time? Conjured by evil magicians? Made a slave by every two-penny hexmonger with a rune-writ skull atop their staff? Eventually, a shade like that withers down to a thing that is nothing but a chasm of emptiness and pain. Then, you’ll fade beyond even the sight or senses of necromancers. Gone into aloneness, forever. That sound good to you? Shifting, formless? Pained? Afraid? Until the end of days when the skies burn and the third great goddess arises again from her grave?.”
“No. Not really,” he conceded.
“Well then,” she replied, sharply, “let’s have a name then.” She spoke now directly at Caewen and Dapplegrim. ” It was reckless of you two, letting him go on like this.”
“I didn’t think it was as bad as–” started Caewen, but the boggart-witch cut her off with a hard, “Shush! None of that now. Apologise later. For now, a name.”
The boy felt himself curl deeper inside his own shyness and uncertainty. “I don’t know if I want to just make up a name. It feels wrong.”
Gloranthorgth mulled this. “A name is better if wanted and desired.” After a few half-mumbled murmurings, she said, “But you were given a name once, a proper name? You don’t know it.”
“That’s right. I think so.”
“Anyone else know it? asked the boggart.
“My father maybe, but he never let on if he did remember. Always just called me ‘boy’ or ‘you’, ‘worthless’ or ‘wretch’, or something. My mother of course, but…”
“Then, it is to the mother we will turn.” The unspoken meaning was clear enough. The darkness thickened about the circle. In the time it took to breath in and out three times, the fire grew redder and hotter and angrier. Winds rushed and strengthened. The airy darkness was playing with the fire now, stoking the rage in the flames. Gloranthorgth stared at the conflagration, for a moment seemingly distracted. There was abstraction in her red-lit, flame-dancing eyes. “Fire,” she said with disapproval. “Always hungry. Always angry. Always devouring. It is no coincidence that dragons are fire-things.” Reflected flames twisted still brighter in her two eyes, like twin pupils of flame. “You think she’s dead? You feel it in your heart?”
He nodded.
“Hm.” The fire grew and grew, spiralling out cinders and embers into the night sky above. “Let us see. Give me a bit of your hair, nameless one. The fire is hungry now. I have stoked it with my will. It is desperately hungry. Through its hunger we shall reach out to your mother. Alive or dead. It does not matter for magic of this particular hue and tint. Either way, her spirit is not beyond the summonings, the spells and the chants of one such as me. I walk alone in the darkness. I walk alone in light. I carry old spells in my heart and in my chitterlings. I can fetch a spirit for you.” She smiled, and great yellow-ivory fangs gleamed in the light. “Give me a hank of your hair.”
The boy glanced over his shoulder at Caewen. Although she was worried around the eyes, she nodded all the same.
So he took hold of a tuft of his hair, drew out his eating knife, and cut a small chunk of it away. He moved closer still to the she-boggart, holding out the little mass of mousy brown. He was close enough that her wet-dog reek was all but overpowering.
She held out one clawed hand, waiting.
He dropped the lock into the outstretched palm, then immediately retreated.
She curled the fingers tightly, clutching, until she made a fist that was as thick and as shapeless as a stump of old damp bog-oak.
And then her voice rose, suddenly. A thin, high wail that peaked with a scratchy note, before descending into a low murmuring of forgotten names of forgotten powers.
She muttered words over the flames, as if she were digging into shadows with her tongue: going deeper and deeper in her spell-delving, rolling the sounds around behind her puckered lips–allowing he chant to run its own wild course. To grow and grow. To swell as a stream is swollen by rains and trickles. The words became faster. Her breath more hurried. Her eyes were faraway now. Her skin looked feverish. The she-boggart started to sway as her face flushed, gathering sweat in beads. When she reached a sort of second crescendo in the chant Gloranthorgth’s eyes snapped wide open, revealing blood-speckled whites. At the same moment she blew the hair into the white-hot logs and flames. Thin smoke curled from where the hair burned: coiling upwards, filled with embers that seemed almost like a network of veins beneath the skin. In a moment, the red-hot cinders formed a shape. It was a woman’s form, with plaited hair of smoke, and eyes of glowing ash. Her face was kind, but worn with lines of worry and fear.
She looked around, confused. In a voice like the distant call of birds, like the wind on a lost summer’s day, she said, “I have been sleeping. I was resting. Forgetting life. Forgetting pain. Why would you call me? I am no one important. I know no secrets. Let the dead rest.”
“You know one secret,” rattled out the she-boggart. Her eyes were losing their scarlet colour now, fading back to a more natural hue.
At that the ghost-in-the-smoke lit her eyes on the boy. She shuddered visibly: but not with loathing or distaste. It was a shudder of shock–disbelief, and then a sudden jolt of joy. A smile spread on her face. “Son. Son. Yes. I do know you. You are my precious little babe. Son. You’ve grown. You’re so big now. So strong. Let me look on you and know a moment of happiness. I never–“
“Did you name him?” said the she-boggart, cutting off the last words. “If you gave him a name before you were lost to him, what was it? Be quick. This spell will not hold you here long. Be quick, if you value your child.”
The ghost seemed to have to think on this. “I have forgotten so much. So much. But I do remember you. I do. And I did name you. Ode: I named you Ode, for stories, because you loved it so much when I told you stories, even before you could speak. You loved the rise and lull of the story, ever so.”
“Thank you,” said Gloranthorgth. “You may depart.”
“No, wait” said the boy. “Wait! “I miss you mothie. I love you! I do. Please, don’t–“
In the hair-breadth moment before she vanished, she was able to say, “And you.” And then she was gone: faded into the smoke. A fraction of a second later, and a new change in the wind blew the smoke-shaped ghost to tatters, carrying it all away like so much dust and ash.
He felt the departure deep in his chest and stretching right down into his stomach. He felt his throat fill with ice. Shivers ran through him. “Why? Why did you send her away so soon. It’s been so many years. I… I just wanted to–“
A hard shake of the head answered him. “No. To each of us is measured out a thread of hours upon this weary Clay-o-the-Green. To each of us is given some time with those we love, and those whom love us, my humanfolk boy. To you and your mother I have gifted a little more of the living world. A tiny bit of golden thread stitched onto the end of her tapestry, and yours. Do not pull at the thread. Do not worry it. Lest it undoes the whole of your other weavings.”
“But– I just–“
Now she gave out a derisive sort of snort. “You wish to dally with the dead? Then that is simple enough: go and find a way to die. Do not ask of me what I cannot give.” She fell quiet then, and silence sketched itself into the air around them. “Well and well,” whispered the She-Boggart, at length. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you that it would be only quick. Just a brief bit of a glimpse. I am sorry. I ought have said.” She was quiet for a time before continuing. “S’pose we might was well make the name stick proper-like now, eh? Might as well set it down in a little a naming-rite.” She picked up a heap of the hot ash, and though it ought have burned her hand she didn’t so much as wince. With a few harsh words in a language the boy didn’t recognise, she threw the ash in an arc, across the flames and right into his face. Enough of it reached him to make him cough and blink. “Go on. Name him,” said the boggart, turning to Caewen. “A name from the dead don’t count for much, I’m afraid. It’s been said once or twice, or even a hundred times, long ago–but it ought be said again, by a living tongue, just to settle it upon him, if nuthin’ else. A living person who has some care for him.”
“Alright,” said Caewen. She stood up tall and addressed him. “Ode. You are named Ode.”