Once In a Blue Moon (25 page)

“Ah,” said Hawk, sounding perhaps not quite as regretful as he might have, “that’s part of the bad news. There aren’t going to be any replacements.”

“Strictly speaking, there never were,” said Fisher.

“Sorry,” said Hawk.

The Administrator looked pleadingly up at the heavens. “Give me strength! Give me strength, a battleaxe, and a sympathetic jury; they’d never convict me! What are you two talking about?”

Hawk produced a small magical charm, just a beaten metal disc, with a complicated design stamped on it. Afterwards, the Administrator was never sure whether Hawk had the thing on a chain round his neck, or took it out of his pocket, or even if the metal disc just suddenly appeared on Hawk’s outstretched palm. The disc looked ordinary enough, until the Administrator examined it closely and realised the design stamped on it was so complicated and intricate he couldn’t get his head round it at all. A design so . . . deep that just looking at it made his head hurt. It was like looking into a pond and realising that underneath the surface it just fell away forever.

“What is that?” said the Administrator. He sounded and felt far away, his brow creasing in concentration and puzzlement. “I know that. Don’t I? You’ve always had that, haven’t you . . . Why didn’t I remember it until you showed it to me?”

“This is the Confusulum,” said Hawk. “A very useful item. It manipulates people’s perception by confusing the matter on every level you can think of.” He closed his hand over the charm and the Administrator jumped, just a little, as though abruptly roused from some vague but disturbing dream.

“Where did you get it?” he said, because he felt he ought to say something.

“On our travels,” said Fisher. “While we were taking care of some unfinished business.”

“We won it, on a bet,” said Hawk. “Or perhaps it won us. It’s hard to be sure about anything where the Confusulum is concerned. It’s supposed to be the physical presence in our world of some other-dimensional entity. It shouldn’t be messing about in the material plane at all, but I think it just likes to play. But now, Confusulum, time’s up, if you please. No more illusions.”

Oh sure!
said a cheerful, mischievous voice inside everyone’s head at once.
No more illusions it is!

Hawk opened his hand, and it was empty. The disc was gone. The Administrator blinked a few times.

“Is it still there?”

“Maybe,” said Hawk.

“Who can tell?” said Fisher.

“Look at us, Administrator,” said Hawk.

The Administrator looked at Hawk and Fisher, and cried out in shock. The middle-aged pair he was used to seeing were gone, as though they had never been there; they’d been replaced by two entirely different-looking people, both of them barely into their thirties. Hawk was tall, dark, and handsome enough in a hardbitten sort of way. His face wasn’t actually scarred, but there was something about it that suggested it ought to be. Hawk was lean and wiry rather than muscular, with long dark hair pulled back and fastened at his nape with a silver clasp. He wore a simple white tunic and trousers, with a heavy dark cloak and functional knee-length leather boots. He wore his axe at his side with the ease of long habit, and there was a calm, easy, dangerous air in the way he carried himself.

Fisher was perhaps a few years younger than Hawk, easily six feet tall, with long blonde hair falling down her back to her waist in a single thick plait, weighted at the tip with a solid steel ball. She was handsome rather than beautiful, the high-boned harshness of her face contrasting with her deep blue eyes and generous mouth. She wore the same basic outfit as Hawk, though her shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing arms corded with muscle. Her boots had steel toe caps, all the better to kick people with. Fisher wore a sword at her side, and you had only to look at her to realise she knew how to use it.

The Administrator looked down at Chappie, half expecting to see him changed too. Into a wolf, perhaps. But Chappie remained just a really big dog, with lots of grey in his dark fur and silver round the muzzle. He grinned at the Administrator, showing lots of teeth, and the Administrator looked back at Hawk and Fisher.

“It’s you,” he said dazedly. “I mean . . . it’s always been you! All the years I’ve been here, every Hawk and Fisher I’ve served under has been you! I thought you were different people, but it was always you, under a series of disguises! Why didn’t I notice? Why didn’t anyone else notice?”

“Remember the Confusulum?” said Fisher.

“We’ve always been in charge,” said Hawk. “Right from the very beginning. We came here from the Forest Kingdom, founded the Academy, and decided very early on that we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. The Academy was what mattered, not us. So after we got the place up and running, we left; and then we came back as someone else. It’s all worked out rather well, I think.”

“The Confusulum kept everyone from noticing,” said Fisher. “Just as well; I’ve never been any good with wigs and makeup. You have figured this out before, Administrator, but you kept forgetting.”

“We needed to disappear from the world,” said Hawk. “So we hid behind ourselves.”

“You’re the original Hawk and Fisher?” said the Administrator, almost breathless with shock and wonder. “The founders? The ones in all the songs and stories?
The legends?
But . . . how can that be? You’d have to be over a hundred years old! And you don’t even look half as old as I am!”

“We were exposed to a lot of Wild Magic, during the Demon War,” said Fisher. “And we have bathed in the Rainbow itself. We stopped ageing in our thirties. Imagine our surprise.”

“No, I mean, wait just a minute!” said the Administrator, hanging on to common sense and sanity with both hands. “The Rainbow? During the Demon War? That was never any part of the Hawk and Fisher legend; that was . . . oh my God.” He looked at them with wide eyes, like a child. “You’re
them
, aren’t you? You’re Prince Rupert and Princess Julia!”

“Don’t worry,” Hawk said kindly. “You’ll forget all this once we’re gone.”

“I don’t know what to do,” the Administrator said numbly. “I feel like I should hug you, or get down on my knees. You saved all humanity from the Demon Prince.”

“We’re still the same people you’ve always known,” said Fisher. “The ones you shouted at on a regular basis.”

“Yeah, trust me,” said Chappie. “They’re no one special.”

“Does anyone else know?” said the Administrator.

“I’ve always known,” said Roland the Headless Axeman. As he appeared out of nowhere, standing quietly but very solidly beside them. In his blunt, functional armour, with nothing but fresh air above his shoulders. “It’s hard to fool the eyes when you haven’t got any. I never told anyone. Never thought it was any of my business.”

“Are you secretly someone special, too?” said the Administrator just a bit wildly.

“I think you’ve had enough shocks for one day,” said Roland. Which wasn’t really an answer. Everyone let it go.

The Administrator looked at Chappie. “You’re
that
talking dog? The original? I thought you were just a descendant.”

“Rube,” said Chappie, not unkindly. “There’s only ever been one dog like me. I’m not sure the world’s ready for another. I could have stayed with Allen Chance, Questor to Queen Felicity of the Forest Land; but after his wife, Tiffany, started pumping out kids like a steam hammer, they didn’t have time for me anymore. So I made my way here and joined up with these two. They’re always fun.”

Hawk smiled down at the dog. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about us.”

“Don’t get used to it,” growled the dog.

The Administrator considered the dog thoughtfully. “All right,” he said finally. “How?”

The dog shrugged. “I was raised by the High Warlock, in his Tower With No Doors. You hang around a crazy magician long enough, you soak up a load of crazy magic. I don’t just talk, you know! I am wise and wonderful and death on four legs! And I can eat
anything
.”

“And you do,” said Fisher.

“I may not be quite as fast as I used to be,” said Chappie. “Unlike the Rainbow divers over there, I have aged. Gradually. Though on me it looks good. Distinguished.”

“How long are you going to be gone?” said Roland the Headless Axeman. Possibly in self-defence.

“As long as it takes,” said Hawk. “We have a long way to go, and a lot to do when we get there.”

“You’re going back to the Forest Land?” said the Administrator. “Why? And why now?”

“Unfinished business,” said Fisher.

“Right,” growled Chappie.

Hawk looked steadily at Roland and the Administrator. “Guard the Academy while we’re gone. Protect the students. As far as the staff are concerned . . . tell them we’re on a sabbatical. And we’ll be back when we can.”

“Or at least somebody very like us will be back,” said Fisher.

They turned away to start their long journey, and then stopped as the Administrator cried out after them. They looked back. The Administrator tried to smile. His eyes were full of tears.

“I just wanted to say . . . Thank you, Prince Rupert, Princess Julia. For all you did, and for all you suffered, on our behalf. Thank you.”

“I’ll go along with that,” said Roland. “Thank you, for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” said Hawk.

“But don’t believe everything you hear in the songs and stories,” said Fisher.

•   •   •

A
nd so Hawk and Fisher and Chappie the dog walked out of the Dutchy of Lancre, striding across the miles of featureless plain, leaving their new lives behind them. Heading back into their past, if only partway. They knew they had to return—the Demon Prince’s threat to their grandchildren had seen to that—but they had already decided they were going back as Hawk and Fisher, not Rupert and Julia. The sudden reappearance of two such legendary figures would have raised far too many questions, and complicated an already dangerous situation. And besides, they’d heard most of the myths and legends that had grown up around their time in the Demon War, and they couldn’t help feeling they’d be such a disappointment in the flesh.

They headed straight for the DragonsBack mountain ridges, which formed the boundary between Lancre and the Forest Land. Eventually they left the bleak plain behind them and hit the steep grey mountain slopes with youthful strength and vigour. They were enjoying being their true selves again. Hawk and Fisher chatted easily as they strode briskly up the steep slopes, jumping crevices and hauling themselves up and over rocky outcroppings, occasionally pausing to point out to each other pleasant sights and landmarks they remembered from more than seventy years ago, when they descended the DragonsBack the first time.

All too soon it became hard going, with a cold, blustering wind plucking at their clothes like a sick child, and occasionally beating at their heads and shoulders like a school bully. They clung grimly to boulders and hugged the side of the mountain with all their strength. Chappie was secretly glad of the stops and starts. He didn’t have their youthful energy, though he was damned if he’d admit it. The jagged grey slopes of the DragonsBack were utterly devoid of life—no birds or beasts, no flowers, not even a scrap of moss or lichen anywhere. Hawk and Fisher were barely halfway up the mountain when they stopped to look back. The plain stretched away for miles and miles, and even the Millennium Oak itself seemed a small and distant thing now. Chappie threw himself down at their feet, breathing hard.

“Bounding along like a pair of bloody mountain goats!” he said loudly. “It’s not natural! Or safe. One missed hand- or foothold, and you’d bounce all the way back down to the plain again. And somebody had better have brought a packed lunch, or at the very least some trail food! I am getting quite dangerously peckish . . .”

“Hush, Chappie,” said Hawk, stepping out onto a precarious flat ledge so he could take a good look around him.

“Hush, hell!” growled the dog. “Muscles like mine need refuelling on a regular basis.”

“Our food supply is strictly limited,” said Fisher. “So you’ll just have to develop some self-control, won’t you?”

“Self-control? I’m a dog! If I get hungry enough, I will eat you!” He slumped down flat, resting his great head on his outstretched paws. “I notice we’ve stopped heading for the summit. That we have in fact been going sideways for some time now. You’re looking for something, aren’t you? What is it? A trail? Some secret shortcut through the mountain range, and out the other side?”

“Something like that,” said Fisher. Her gaze moved slowly, carefully, across the great grey sweep of mountainside, with its jagged ridges and great falls and dozens of gaping dark cave mouths. “We are looking for one particular cave, one we haven’t been back to in many years . . .”

Chappie raised his great head and looked around him nervously. “DragonsBack mountains . . . Not a name to inspire confidence, or peace of mind. I really don’t like this place. Some say this is where all the old dragons came to die, when they realised their kind was finally going out of the world. They each just picked a cave, curled up, and let go of life. You won’t see me doing that . . . I’ll go kicking and screaming all the way when my time comes. Some say it’s the strength of all these dead dragons that holds these mountains up. Helps them endure. And that the dragons’ ghosts are still here, haunting the DragonsBack, and that’s why no one ever wants to climb them.”

Hawk looked at him amusedly. “You’re not scared of ghosts, are you?”

“Of course I’m scared! You can’t bite a ghost! Besides, our lives have been far too full of people, and some things not even people, coming back to life after they were supposed to be safely dead!” Chappie brightened suddenly. “Though if there are dragons here, they wouldn’t be much more than bones by now. I don’t know any dog who’s chewed on an actual dragon bone . . .”

He scrambled up onto his feet again, as he realised neither of them was listening to him. They were both staring at a particularly large and especially dark cave mouth, farther along the mountain ridge. Chappie sniffed at the air gusting his way, and scowled suddenly.