Once upon a time ....it was Winter.
... but not just any old Winter.
NEVER had there been such a Winter, never, ever, never one so cold, never one so wild.
The rivers stood as still as iron. Boulders would have bounced off them. The lakes were as solid as rock. On the branches of some of the trees the icicles had become so long and thick that in many places they were simple sheets of ice, all over them from the base of the trunk to the topmost branches like long, white, glass curtains. They were so thick across the caves of the black hills that not even the trolls could get out.
(Everybody wondered what the trolls were eating. It was generally assumed that they were probably eating each other.)
Snowflakes as large as the palm of your hand fell perpetually from the sky looping and spiralling on the bitter winds and they piled up and up in drifts as high as three trees standing on top of each other.
Incredible storms howled over the land. Their winds were so cold that they shivered at each others touch and hurried to get out of each others way. Even when it was still the air seemed brittle and strange, as if shocked awake by the incredible temperature and everything far and wide for league on league could be seen through it stark and crisp as the moment of now, as if through clear water.
Nobody had any idea why this Winter was so different and among those who were still awake the subject was on their lips at all times. Had something gone terribly wrong? Had some terrible curse fallen on them, had a foolish sorcerer made an embarassing mistake and now a magical calamity had befallen the entire world that no-one had told them about? All were disturbed by this freezing ferocity but nobody had the least idea what to do about it, and you should know that they were far more worried than we would be for this was an ancient time of long seasons.
Night and Day were not as they are now. In fact, no-one knew what Night or Day were, and would simply have called them Winter and Summer, because Night was unbroken in Winter and all of Summer was one long Day without a hint of darkness. The Sun would not rise for even a brief glimpse during Winter, she lacked the courage to shine in the cold times for this was the time of her mother, the Moon and the Moon, for her part, hated happiness and wouldn't so much as blink in the Sun's warm season of laughter and delight...
And in this most unsympathetic Winter the Moon shone so bright and cold you'd have thought she was set on cracking the sky right across.
There was, at that time, living in a little cave, a fox, called Kitta, Kitta the Fox, and in the middle of this winter he sat in the middle of his lair as close to his fox-fire as he could get and shivered - frozen to middle of his bones.
"This is UNREASONABLE!" he cried aloud. "What is Winter THINKING?" His words echoed around him. "I'm so cold I can barely sneeze!" he added, and covered his poor, cold nose with his paws.
No-one answered him. This was unsurprising as his lair, comfortable as it was, was entirely without company.
"I shall complain!!" shouted Kitta. This made him feel better briefly but the reassurance faded as he would have considered it more convincing had he any idea of who to complain to.
He was beginning to regret his solitary nature and feel lonely. This was irksome to him, for Fox, although he is no stranger to self-pity, does not like to dwell on unpleasant thoughts.
"This is ridiculous," he said, and he got up and shook himself with greater deliberation, fluffed out his tail, pushed out his chest, threw out his apathy with a loud bark and came to a resolution.
"I shall go outside and explore," he said to himself, and, by way of a quick, chattering, foxy spell he picked up the heart of his fox-fire and put it in his tail, in which it snuggled and danced happily, and his fox-flute, which he placed on his back, and he set off outside at a fox-trot.
"Perhaps Cat is about, or Wolf, or Bear," thought he, choosing to forget that these three were hardly friends of his. "It would be diverting, at least, to meet someone. I can't sit in this hole all Winter. Misery and Death!"
Kitta's lair was on the side of an old hill dotted with many trees. Against the white of the snow and the blank faces of the rocks each one seemed surpassingly tall and stern, shrouded in mystery and deathly silent. None spoke to him as he passed them, as they might in more convivial times - their slumber was deeper than the deepest pit. Although they ordinarily slept through the whole Winter (they became intensely bored with the incessant dark and cold, being unable to walk about and involve themselves in the world to take their minds off things), on occasion some of them would remain alert enough at least to make a sharp remark but this Winter was so extreme that even the bad-tempered old holly tree at the bottom of the hill had lost interest and not one spiky word rustled from her unfriendly leaves.
"I'm not surprised," thought Kitta.
Despite this silence his earlier melancholy was lifting. The snow was beautiful, like wide sheets of white silk holding soft, grey shadows and crested with tiny diamonds, for the Moon was shining like the greatest silver lantern ever set alight, the stars shone hard, clear and sweet, their fascinating music only just audible and all together they made the sky seem full to the brim with unmentionable secrets.
Fox looked up at them and his heart filled with nameless feelings. He was grateful for this, the Winter blessing.
But just as soon as he had slipped into this reverie he heard a high, whistling sound like one of Man's arrows but louder, and a slippery flash slid quickly over the sky and fell to the horizon, where it bloomed and then died.
"A falling star!" shouted Kitta, and, both melancholy and reverie entirely forgotten in the light of this new sport, he tore off over the hills towards the spot where it had fallen. "I haven't spoken to a falling star in years!" His imagination filled with the stories he might hear of the Surpassingly Distant Lands beyond even Eagle's reach, and were he not running as fast as he could he would have wriggled in the snow with glee...
But when he got there he saw several things.
Firstly, it was not a shooting star, it was something else entirely.
Secondly, he wasn't the only one to have noticed it, others had too.
Thirdly, it was quite obvious that neither of these unanticipated interlopers had any more intention of relinquishing claim on the whatever-it-was than the other, despite their apparent ignorance of its nature, for they were arguing over this very subject.
It was Mizzigig the Cat and Valendrin the Wolf, both staring intently, first at one another, then at the ground where something far too strange to be a star was glittering in a hollow of light, in fact it seemed to glow of it's own accord.
"I do believe it's a sort of petrified mouse," said Mizzigig in his lazy drawl, although his never-changing smile strongly suggested that he believed this no more than anyone with eyes to look on it - certainly it was not a mouse of any kind, petrified or otherwise.
"Were I fed to my to my want and my strength tempered accordingly I'd have your tongue for that quip," muttered baleful Valendrin, his voice as grey as gravel on the empty air. "Any simpleton can see that this is the beak of a dead crow." This was no more convincing than Mizzigig's theory.
"Hello, chaps!" said Kitta, sauntering up to them, feeling boundlessly enthusiastic and determined to get the better of either or both (the latter being preferable and more than likely in his own estimation, which was emboldened by his irritation at having to deal with them in the first place). "What-ho! Tally-pip! Goodness, what have you got there?"
Cat and Wolf turned to look at Fox. Puss-Cat yawned and lay down on the snow, stretching, and Mr Wolf sagged visibly.
"Oh," said Valdendrin. "It's you." He sniffed, scratched himself behind his ear with his hind leg, fixed Kitta with the kind of sullen glare that only Wolf can summon and said: "Go away."
"Kitta, my dear Fox," said Mizzigig, his gaze scarcely less hostile. "What an extraordinary surprise. I wondered whose nimble, interested little legs I could hear pitter-pattering all the way over the snow. 'I wonder if it is his most elevated intellect, Kitta, the delightful Foxy' I thought to myself, imagining your querulous nose finding its way through the thorny brambles. And here you are. Whatever can it be that has secured your attendance?" He framed this last transparently rhetorical question with an aversive twitch of his long whiskers.
"Oh, nought and nothing and less than their sum," declared Kitta, "I was out for the most refreshing stroll admiring the sky and happened to wander over here quite without aim, I assure you. But how Fortune has smiled on us three dear, close friends to deliver such a bauble!"
Cat's tail flicked in annoyance and Wolf licked his chops, exposing numerous and very strong teeth.
"Let's have a look at it, then," said Kitta.
Cat and Wolf, possibly wondering if he could put any mind to the matter (or, more likely, attempting to convince each other that this was their desire), made a little space for him and Foxy examined the thing-from-the-sky very closely.
There was no question whatsoever that it was a tooth, nor any question that it was the tooth of a dragon, nor any question that Mizzigig and Valendrin knew this perfectly well, believed each other fools and were feigning the same themselves to keep it that way. Who does not know the great magic that can be achieved with a dragon's tooth?
"But which dragon?" thought Kitta, carefully keeping this thought to himself.
"Well!" he said brightly after he'd taken what seemed like a sufficiently stupefied time sniffing at it, and he sat up, waving his tail. "If that isn't a puzzle swimming in a mystery wrapped in a conundrum steeped in riddle juice and well seasoned with a adventurous sprinkle of I-haven't-the-slightest-idea, who knows what is?!"
A profound silence descended on Fox, Cat and Wolf.
"Quite," said Mizzigig. Valendrin snorted.
"I suppose it *could* be a mouse," said Kitta, narrowing his gaze at Mizzigig. "Why don't you eat it?"
"I'm not hungry," lied Mizzigig, and he managed to puff up slightly, disguising his slender frame, which was scant for the lack of a hearty meal.
"And a crow's beak, you say, Isengrim?" Kitta said, staring at Valendrin, knowing that this name would secretly infuriate the grey stalker. "No meat on it, of course. Wouldn't you be nosing around for the rest of it, my old pal?"
"Said carcass is likely rotted to scraps unpalatable even to you, Kitta," said Wolf, his eyes wicked with quiet rage. "Taken by his brothers, a season ago or more, and only bones left now, whiter than the snow."
"What do you think it is, Kitta?" said Mizzigig, and his eyes became yellow slits.
"Heavens! I haven't the least notion!" said Kitta, although he was highly amused and didn't put much effort into making this claim persuasive.
"Come, come, Foxy," said Cat, "Who could imagine a more suitable scrutinizer than the celebrated Kitta the Cunning?"
"Indeed," said Valendrin. "Far and wide are the wonderful tales of your perception's allegedly excessive sharpness put about. P'raps the cold is making you a tiny bit sluggish?"
"Quite the opposite, old chum, au contraire! These frosty times bring a wiry wide-awakeness to life, I'd say, an appreciation of the significance of things, I'd propose, and doubtless be debated and win the point yet!" said Kitta, bristling. The only thing he was foolish enough to be vain about was his extremely clever brain.
"Well, then," said Mizzigig, gesturing emphatically with his tail. "The question stands. We are all a-quiver in anticipation of your well-considered view."
"Obviously it's a thorn from a tree," sniffed Kitta.
"What utter balderdash," said Mizzigig, "Whoever saw a thorn that size?"
"Wouldn't be wanting to cross that tree's magic," sneered Valendrin. "Glowing thorns, eh? Well there you go."
"Neither of you have heard of the Great Knife Tree, popularly yet erroneously supposed to call the land over the Great Ocean it's domicile? It's family puts roots down here in the Wild, too, oh yes. There's a grove of its daughters beyond the mountains to the west. Something's picked a thorn off one of them and carried it here, dropping it because of its great weight. How this conspicuously apparent fact could have escaped the notice of either of you would be beyond me were your benighted brains not sadly typical of folk hereabouts these days."
"Describe this Great Knife Tree," said Valendrin. "I don't know about Mizzigig but the a-quiveringness of my anticipation threatens to overwhelm me entirely."
"The Great Knife Tree," began Kitta, sitting down and poking his nose in the air, "is the tallest tree known in the Land of the Other Sun. It only ever has four, six or eight branches and is made entirely of iron and triangles. Members of its race carry lightning through threads from tree to tree, thus its leaves and thorns glow with sparkly light and it never dies. It is horribly poisonous and deadly. Obviously you've never heard of it. I'm amazed."
"I'm amazed, also," said Mizzigig. "Whence comes the appellation 'knife tree', the absence of knives in your colourful picture leaves a curious gap?"
"Why, to touch one is to experience the most powerful agony, exactly as if one were cut by a terribly well-honed knife!" exclaimed Kitta. "Ziggy, I would have though you knew such things, at least. Now, for sure, you'll enlighten me as to the nature of the enormous, silvery sort of mouse that could become simultaneously so petrified and so animated as to fly through the air and land in this spot between us without leaving any footprints."
"Much snow has fallen since the poor thing's fate befell him, certainly," said Mizzigig. "I'd suggest that he is the victim of a particularly virulent strain of basilisk's magic, in particular, the magic of that most sinister of beasts, the One-Eyed Basilisk."
"I know about basilisks," said Kitta. "And every one of them, without exception, is blessed with binocular vision."
"Not the One-Eyed Basilisk, dear Kitta. A truly monstrous creature! Feared by all, not excluding the Common Basilisk, who would run for his life at the mere mention of him!"
"That's a fearsome sounding opponent," said Valendrin. "Although I 'spect the unavoidable difficulties with depth perception might occasionally result in his over or under-reaching his target."
"One might anticipate a radiance of statues from his location, " said Kitta. "Particularly during battles."
"You are too amusing, Fox and Wolf. It is widely understood that the One-Eyed Basilisk hypnotises his prey with a procession of dancing images observable deep in his singular, poisonous orb. Stories of spiritual ugliness, of wisdom mis-shapen, compelling lies that stifle truth, stories that wither the heart - all these writhe in his soul and thus can been seen through its window..."
"Brrr!" said Fox. "Spooky biscuits, eh?"
"Yes," said Wolf. "In fact - gosh. I'm certainly more apprehensive of meeting this creature than I was."
"And rightly so. Clearly the mouse, having discovered said monster's lair and availed himself of whatever sweetmeats could be found, has been fattening his tiny body all Winter to an exceedingly high degree. A basilisk's larder is always well-stocked, I think you'll find. And in a fit of pique the frightful beast has kicked the mouse out of his home at full force, thus propelling him all the way over here through the sky, after turning him solid with a stony look. The One-Eyed Basilisk's anger gives its glare of petricifation a notable side effect - the fossilised victim shines with a cold silver light ever after. You knew all that, of course."
"Of course," said Kitta. "Lenny, it's time for a convincing story about giant crows with silver beaks that fall off."
"You may refute my explanation," said Valendrin, "but remember, Fate flays the faithless."
"I thought the saying was 'Fate fears the faultless'," interrupted Mizzigig.
"And I was quite certain that it was "Fate favours the fearless'," said Kitta.
"D'you wanna hear me out or not?" said Valendrin sulkily.
"Go on, then," said Mizzigig.
"I'm positively vibrating with expectation," said Kitta.
"Said vibrations are soon to be alleviated, Fox, following your recognition of my account's indisputable veracity. You will know of the Giant Silver Crow that flies only in Winter, so elusive and of such private custom that he and our mutual acquaintance Garse the Crow have exchanged fewer than three score words for the whole history of our world?"
"He's sufficiently elusive as to have escaped my attention completely," said Kitta.
"I, too, must confess an absolute ignorance of his existence," said Mizzigig, "An evanescent avian, indeed."
"Well, now you know of him. He's easily as broad across the shoulder as myself and quite the hunter. It's no leap of the mind to see that his beak is the stronger and heavier part of his well-built body - which otherwise must needs be light and aerodynamic - thus the better to rend and tear his tough and unyielding prey, which is the soul of Man. Well ye know that Man fears Garse the Crow much as he fears Ikrayla the Spider - though in a more circumspect fashion."
"How elegant an elucidation you construct," said Mizzigig. "How did the Giant Silver Crow's beak come to be to be here between us?"
"Man has killed him at last. Were we so inclined a brief survey beneath these white drifts would reveal a silver arrow, fledged with the feathers of a phoenix, which is the only weapon that might take this harrower from the sky. His body is scattered over the Wild in a thousand stomachs great and small, and only his powerful yet indigestible beak remains."
"Most evocative," said Mizzigig, "I can almost see him swooping and diving on Man's poor, shivering dreams."
"I can see the arrow piercing his breast," said Kitta. "It's a very dramatic image!"
"He cries aloud in frustration!" said Mizzigig. "The sound is distant and lonely. One might mistake it for the howling of a gale."
"Feathers burst out all over the place!" said Kitta. "Silvery feathers! Light and aerodynamic - one might say soft and insubstantial as clouds."
"Well, where's the legs on this mouse, then?" snapped Valendrin. "Not to mention its whiskers. And why would anyone pick a thorn off a tree? Particularly a tree that delivers agonising jolts of pain? Eh? Elaborate for me, if you would, Cat and Fox, on these engaging topics."
"Valendrin, I am sure we could spend a year and a day discussing the nature of our find," said Kitta, "but for all that time we would leave out of the equation what is to be done with it, and you are in no position to-"
"Hush, both of you!" said Mizzigig, his fur on end and his ears flat against his skull. "We have a visitor."
Kitta and Valendrin stopped bickering and followed Mizzigig's eyes which were pointing at the crest of a small hill nearby, mere paces away, and it was a good thing they did, for there, standing on it, was Ulkerec, the Stag.
Fox, Cat and Wolf looked quickly at each other and at the ground where lay the brightly shining thing and noticed that they were between it and Ulkerec - he couldn't see it. Moving slowly, they sat down with straight and respectable backs and made themselves look tidy, for Stag is very old and very posh.
They waited for some time until he spoke, Kitta suppressing a cough and wishing very strongly that the stuffy old bore would go away.
"I smell subterfuge," said Ulkerec, his voice mild and even. His breath crystallized into tiny flakes as he stood absolutely still.
"Winter is a carnival of subterfuge, sir," said Mizzigig. "The snow pretends white innocence while smothering the lives of babes, the clean winds promise honesty but bring simple despair, the mountains speak of beauty but their crevasses hold only death and as for the colourless custodian of these times," here he looked up at the Moon,"her motives are incomprehensible at best and malevolent at worst. Her beauty is equalled only by the widely observable destitution in which she leaves her subjects." And every word of this was true, although besides the point, because Mizzigig was nobody's fool and he knew that the faintest whisper of falsehood would be recognised instantly by Ulkerec.
"My reliable senses tell me that the heart of the matter lies here with the three of you," answered Ulkerec, "Not with the snow, the wind, the mountains or *her*," he tilted his antlers slightly at the Moon, not taking his eyes off the three.
"In ancient times we spoke more gently to one another, Stag. Patience and contemplation steered our thoughts," rebuked Valendrin, bowing low, his nose almost touching the ground.
Ulkerec blinked and he seemed almost imperceptibly to change, as if in that moment he had become the ancient Stag that Wolf had called to. His strange eyes became soft and filled with a quiet, complete simplicity. But this brief glimmer of the other time was gone the instant it came and Ulkerec was again only himself.
"In the freezing night of now the world is as old as it was young then," he answered, "and with the passing of ages come the inescapable subtleties of experience."
"Speaking of the freezing night, it is very freezing, isn't it?" said Kitta, "and I'm sure standing there as still as stone won't be good for your poor old legs, you old dear. Haven't you an expansive circle of admirers to keep you warm?" He made a long pretence of looking around the bare hills. "Hm, they don't seem to be anywhere about. I do hope they haven't wandered off somewhere awkward or uncomfortable. Shouldn't you try to find them?"
"My wives have their own ways," said Ulkerec. "I will remain here, Kitta. But what has brought you, O unhappy three? Long whiskers grow on the time you stood as close without falling on one another's throats."
Kitta saw at once that this was a dangerous question inviting any number of lies and he said, quickly: "What an acrimonious bunch you must think us, sir! Anyone overhearing you would suppose we three were the most wilful and resolute of enemies." And each word of this was also quite true and carefully chosen.
"And are you not?" asked Ulkerec. "Assuredly you will not beguile me with fictions of your high regard for one another!"
"Doubtless you are privy to many stories," said Valendrin, cautiously.
"Yea, verily," said Ulkerek, "Not the least of which is the tale of your season in the confines of a well following a certain Fox's embellishment on the sky's circular reflection in the water at the bottom - to wit - that it was an enormous and nourishing cheese."
"I remember the incident perfectly, Ulkerek," said Valendrin, "And dare I say it was quite the most hilariously uncomfortable holiday I have ever spent."
Which was true.
"And you, Kitta," continued Ulkerek, "Will you deny that a notorious Cat standing not far from this spot has proven his common sense superior to your wiles on at least one very humiliating occasion? I refer to that conversation between you and he on the relative merits of the aforementioned attributes, during which each of you claimed ascendancy for their talent. As I recall you were happened upon in the glade by a pack of dogs, at which point the sheer numeracy of your weighty collection of tricks hampered you in a fugue, Kitta, while Mizzigig's instinct, simply to climb the nearest tree, afforded him the safety as the dogs pleased themselves by making a merry mess of you. One would hardly suppose that this would leave you with fine feelings for all things feline."
"Who could forget it?" said Kitta, "It's a familiar tale and I'm sure all who've heard it consider the irony of my come-uppance simply too apposite for words."
"Why are you smiling, Mizzigig?" said Ulkerek. "Don't answer! You're always smiling. At any rate you will not prevaricate on your long-standing and famous enmity with the Wolf? Your mutual antipathy is possibly the most well-known in all the Wild!"
"What would be the point?" said Mizzigig, "It's obvious you've already made up your mind."
"Disingenuous beasts! Never has my nose been tantalised with such evasive aromas! I do not believe you, no, not one of you!"
"How have we misled you, sir?" asked Mizzigig politely.
"You lie by telling the truth!" said Ulkerek. "You're all hiding something!"
And here is where Kitta slipped up. "I have no idea what you mean," he said, and then: "Blast!"
"A fabrication!" said Ulkerek. "I smell it! As strong as fox-musk! You will reveal your motives to me now, by ancient compact I demand it!"
"DRAT!" said Fox, for Stag was quite right and he knew that if you ever tell a lie to Stag you must then obey any instruction he gives you until whatever matter skulks behind the lie is resolved.
"Nice one, Fox," said Valendrin, and Mizzigig hissed in disgust.
All three parted the way between Ulkerek and the shining thing.
"Spirits of the Black Labyrinth cry aloud for mercy!" wailed Ulkerek. "You have been concealing a DRAGON'S TOOTH from me?!"
"Oh!" said Kitta. "Is that what it is? I thought it was a-"
"BE STILL!" shouted Ulkerek, beside himself with rage. "O wretched things! What would you have done with it? What unimaginable curses would you bring upon us all? Did you think the dragon would not seek the tooth out for itself?!"
This brought Fox, Cat and Wolf up short as none of them had considered any such thing.
"Why would it do that?" asked Mizzigig.
"Dragons cannot grow their teeth more than once in their whole lives! Whoever heard of a dragon with a missing tooth! Is there any monster in the Wild more proud than a dragon? Even the phoenix will lose a feather, but will a dragon go without it's TEETH? Know ye not that each and every tooth in a dragon's skull has its own NAME?"
This was considerably more information than Fox, Cat or Wolf had ever heard regarding dragons and they all felt suitably admonished.
"Blimey," said Kitta.
"Oh," said Mizzigig.
"I knew it was too good to be true," said Valendrin.
"Too horrific to CONTEMPLATE, you mean," said Ulkerek, "Dragons are not gentle things. What will the dragon do when it's found this tooth? Why was it lost in the first place? Who is to say it will not extract hideous payment from one it may perceive has kept the tooth from it?! Which unfortunate individual, I must add, could be anyone near the tooth at the moment of it's discovery, so high will it's claimant's emotional temperature undoubtedly be rising AT THIS VERY MOMENT. What is to be done?!"
"Well, I was only out for a stroll so it's nothing to do with me," said Kitta, "Off I trot like a good Fox."
"Followed closely by a well-behaved Cat," said Mizzigig.
"Me, too," said Valendrin.
"HALT!" commanded Stag as all three were about to scarper at full speed. "Evasive of the truth you may be, but not of your responsibilities! I bind you all by my word!"
"Oh, Stag, not US?" said Kitta.
"Yes, by all that shines in the sky! I charge you with the return of this tooth to its rightful owner and you will begin at once! Do not stay your course until your task is dispatched or suffer my penalty, which is that all three of you will miss your every kill this Winter and every other Winter from now until the end of Time itself! Go, go now and give the dragon back its tooth! Let nothing stand in your way!!!"
So saying he whirled round and sped off over the hills as if all the demons the world has ever known were after him. He was gone in a trice as Fox, Cat and Wolf watched him go silently.
"Damn," said Fox.
