A short piece I wrote on Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book after reading it. I don't own anything; Gaiman owns the copyright. References Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, especially the last stanza from the poem -

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! in a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

Danse Macabre

They sent the wolves out of Ghûlheim the other day.

We could see the shapes on the desert floor: the flickering, translucent, wavering shapes of those half-formed ghouls and slithering night-mares. We were in our forts and within the walls of our city, armed, fingers tensed with the anticipation of a bloody battle, our hearts thump-thump-thumping, and the unheard cry snaking among us – We are ready.

'Do you think we should head west instead?' went the murmur among the skeptical. I was among them, this little group who thought we should abandon our city to these terrors and horrors of the darkness. And how early and frequently did darkness come these days – our sun, once so small, and yellow, and insignificant, was now freakishly large and red, a weird bloody behemoth in our dusty day-time sky. And night, now, with the moon and its younger sister rising in the east, obscuring the sun before dawn – we should have known the signs when the smaller moon appeared fifty years ago over the horizon, a small white boil on the dark night-sky.

A shriek rose from the dust plains below, more chilling than the wind that blew into the city on all sides.

'We should wait for the Lady,' another murmur whispered, treading hesitantly among us. 'She will know what to do.'

'We have the wolves,' came the reply, sounding reassuring, but we were not deceived. 'The wolves will take care of the ghouls.'

'What about the night-mares?' A lone voice this time, almost drowned beneath its fear of speaking to us, the disbelieving ones. 'We can hold off the ghouls, but the night-mares are beyond us.'

'We have weapons.'

'We have men.'

'And women and our wits and wiles.'

'But they're tricky, these night-mares.'

A pause, during which we shifted uneasily in our positions and took a firmer hold on our weapons.

'We can hold them off for a long time,' said a voice, loud with determined confidence. 'We will. The climb will get them.'

We watched as the first ghouls leapt up the stone steps to Ghûlheim, their tattered rags for clothes streaming behind them in the wind. We heard the shrieks, the cries, the undeadly wails from them, these spirits who were not of this world and yet not of theirs.

Where did ghouls come from?

'I could play the Danse Macabre,' someone spoke up, shyly at first. I saw a thin arm raise itself above our heads, and a flute was clutched in child's hand. 'The Danse Macabre,' the voice repeated, sounding more sure of its words this time. 'We could call the Lady using the Danse Macabre.'

'A summoning does not work this way,' someone countered heatedly. 'By calling the Lady, we are risking defeat, do you not see?'

'I have come here over the plains on my own,' the boy with the flute said quietly. 'I have seen the ghouls, and the night-mares, and the wolves that you insist on trusting to defend you. I have spoken to night-gaunts and seen the shapes of those who are destined to wander where we cannot touch them. I have danced with voiceless ones, and played the Macabre, and I think that we should summon Her.'

'Go on then,' another voice laughed. 'Play that little stick in your hand and save us and Ghûlheim.'

He set the flute to his lips and began to play.

I heard the skirling melody of the Danse; I saw the ghouls falter on the steps; I watched as my companions fell to their knees, their hands to their ears.

I heard the soft patter of unseen feet running up the steps to Ghûlheim, weaving their way among the ghouls, among the night-mares, among the invisible terrors of our imagination. And I saw the figures outside our city walls, dancing to the tune of the boy's flute, a wild, reckless dance of skeletons and rattling bones.

Howls rose from the plains below, howls from the wolves who had sworn loyalty to us. And here went the ghouls now, their screams drowning out all sounds from below the city.

'Dance,' said the boy. His flute dangled from his fingers, but the melody continued all around us, twirling and skittering over the confused tangle below and around us. 'Dance the Macabray.'

'You lied to us,' I shouted over the din. 'You said it would save us.'

'I did,' he said, quietly, 'by not leaving you to the ghouls.'

A soft touch on my shoulder made me turn, and I looked up into the face of the Lady on her horse.

'Will you join the dance now?' she said, in gentle tones. She slid off her horse, gracefully, and held out a hand to me. 'Dance the Macabray.'

I put my hand in hers, hesitantly, and she guided me over to the boy.

'But I'm one of the living,' I protested, as he tucked his flute into his pocket and took my hand.

'Not any more,' he said, smiling a little secret smile. And he led me into the dance – la, la, la, oomp, la la la, oomp – and twirled and pulled me among the other dancing couples.

'Who are you?' I said as I skipped through the lines of waltzing dead and living. 'Where did you come from to Ghûlheim?'

'Over the borders,' he replied. 'Past the camps of the ghouls, through the packs of wolves, among the night-mares, over the plains with the night-gaunts, and in the company of the Lady.'

'But why?'

'Hush-a-bye,' he said, still smiling that little secret smile. He released my hands and stepped out of the dance, a slender, untouchable figure among the madly whirling dead and living couples. And he set the flute to his lips and blew the last dying refrains of the Danse Macabre.