Stardust

Septimus walked away from the body to piss against a grey boulder. Then he walked back to Primus’s corpse. “If I had killed you, I could leave you here to rot,” he said. “But because that pleasure was another’s, I shall carry you with me a little way, and leave you on a high crag, to be eaten by eagles.” With that, grunting with the effort, he picked up the sticky-fronted body and hauled it over the back of the pony. He fumbled at the corpse’s belt, removing the bag of rune stones. “Thank you for these, my brother,” he said, and he patted the corpse on the back.

“May you choke on them if you do not take revenge on the bitch who slit my gullet,” said Primus, in the voice of the mountain birds waking to greet the new day.

They sat side by side on a thick, white cumulus cloud the size of a small town. The cloud was soft beneath them, and a little cold. It became colder the deeper into it one sank, and Tristran pushed his burned hand as far as he could down into the fabric of it: it resisted him slightly, but accepted his hand. The interior of the cloud felt spongy and chilly, real and insubstantial at once. The cloud cooled a little of the pain in his hand, allowing him to think more clearly.

“Well,” he said, after some time, “I’m afraid I’ve made rather a mess of everything.”

The star sat on the cloud beside him, wearing the robe she had borrowed from the woman in the inn, with her broken leg stretched out on the thick mist in front of her. “You saved my life,” she said, eventually. “Didn’t you?”

“I suppose I must have done, yes.”

“I hate you,” she said. “I hated you for everything already, but now I hate you most of all.”

Tristran flexed his burned hand in the blessed cool of the cloud. He felt tired and slightly faint. “Any particular reason?”

“Because,” she told him, her voice taut, “now that you have saved my life, you are, by the law of my people, responsible for me, and I for you. Where you go, I must also go.” stardu

“Oh,” he said. “That’s not that bad, is it?”

“I would rather spend my days chained to a vile wolf or a stinking pig or a marsh-goblin,” she told him flatly.

“I’m honestly not that bad,” he told her, “not when you get to know me. Look, I’m sorry about all that chaining you up business. Perhaps we could start all over again, just pretend it never happened. Here now, my name’s Tristran Thorn, pleased to meet you.” He held out his unburned hand to her.

“Mother Moon defend me!” said the star. “I would sooner take the hand of an—”

“I’m sure you would,” said Tristran, not waiting to find out what he was going to be unflatteringly compared to this time. “I’ve said I’m sorry,” he told her. “Let’s start afresh. I’m Tristran Thorn. Pleased to meet you.”

She sighed.

The air was thin and chill so high above the ground, but the sun was warm, and the cloud-shapes about them reminded Tristran of a fantastical city or an unearthly town. Far, far below he could see the real world: the sunlight pricking out every tiny tree, turning every winding river into a thin silver snail-trail glistening and looping across the landscape of Faerie.

“Well?” said Tristran.

“Aye,” said the star. “It is a mighty joke, is it not? Whither thou goest, there I must go. Even if it kills me.” She swirled the surface of the cloud with her hand, rippling the mist. Then, momentarily, she touched her hand to Tristran’s. “My sisters called me Yvaine,” she told him. “For I was an evening star.” “Look at us,” he said. “A fine pair. You with your broken leg, me with my hand.” “Show me your hand.”

He pulled it from the cool of the cloud: his hand was red, and blisters were coming up on each side of it and on the back of it, where the flames had licked against his flesh. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. “Quite a lot, really.” “Good,” said Yvaine.

“If my hand had not been burned, you would probably be dead now,” he pointed out. She had the grace to look down, ashamed. “You know,” he added, changing the subject, “I left my bag in that madwoman’s inn. We have nothing now, save the clothes we stand up in.”

“Sit down in,” corrected the star.

“There’s no food, no water, we’re half a mile or so above the world with no way of getting down, and no control over where the cloud is going. And both of us are injured. Did I leave anything out?”

“You forgot the bit about clouds dissipating and vanishing into nothing,” said Yvaine. “They do that. I’ve seen them. I could not survive another fall.”

Tristran shrugged. “Well,” he said. “We’re probably doomed, then. But we may as well have a look around while we’re up here.”

He helped Yvaine to her feet and, awkwardly, the two of them took several faltering steps on the cloud. Then Yvaine sat down again. “This is no use,” she told him. “You go and look around. I will wait here for you.”

“Promise?” he asked. “No running away this time?”

“I swear it. On my mother the moon I swear it,” said

Yvaine, sadly. “You saved my life.”

And with that Tristran had to content himself.