Chapter Twelve

Harry strained to move, his fingers trembled with the effort, but that was all. 'Wait! Surely you want something.'

The Green Man turned slowly back to him. A smile twisted his lips upwards 'Be careful, Traveller, that was almost a question. Why should I need or want anything? The simple pleasures are enough for me. Now either ask your question, or I'll leave ye till then.'

'Presume I won't talk. I'm very stubborn. You'd better get on with whatever you have planned,' Harry said. His shoulders were beginning to ache with the enforced posture.

The Green Man flowered, eyes narrowing to slits. 'Dinnae provoke me.'

'I doubt it would make a difference. I bet that if one had some sort of protection against this ... infection, you wouldn't be able to do a thing.' Harry's eyes tracked a patch of air, free of the falling motes of dust, which was slowly moving behind the Green Man. 'Give me five minutes and a cup of tea and I'd be able to get rid of them, I bet.'

'Yeh talk a great deal for a dead man,' the Green Man snarled, running a talon-like finger through the air, millimetres from Harry's cheek.

Harry blinked. 'I don't think you can truly harm me ...' Pain lanced through his hand. Harry screamed, the pain faded, and he was left panting for breath. 'Oh, sure, that hurt, but I'm physically fine.' He wriggled his fingers to prove it, before staring at them.

The Green Man shook himself, skin rippling like water, 'Yeh won't get free. Ye might have the strength to resist for a moment or two, but yeh cannae escape from here, nor will yeh outlast me.'

'Out last, interesting choice of words there, 'Harry panted. 'You might think there was a time limit on this infection. You've spun your web tightly, but I'd wager you could end this, if you wanted to.'

'Perhaps, but boy, what could ye possible offer me? I'm the Green Man of Knowledge, when my creators made me they gave me all mortal knowledge. By the time they fell I had learnt to think for myself. Now I know more than any being, living or created, upon the face of this earth.'

'You have a point, but let's cut to the chase ...' Harry said, and his eyes twitched to the right.

There was a slither of cloth as the invisibility cloak slid off Malvine and she lunched forwards. A stout steel blade glinted in her hands and bit deeply into the Green Man's shoulder. He screeched as she wrenched it free. Folds of leafy flesh rose in crest around his neck. He lurched forward, turning awkwardly as he stumbled. A black spear flickered into existence in his uninjured hand and he drew it back, only to pause as Malvine tickled his throat with the sword's tip.

'Who are ye?' The Green Man asked, taking a small step backwards.

'Don't even think of it,' Malvine warned, slipping to the side so that she stood between the Green Man and Harry. She lowered the sword, letting her arm hang loosely by her side. 'Stop moving. Do not even think of trying to infect me. I doubt, given my physiology that it would work, but even if it were to I have plenty of time left before the three hours are up. I could easily cut you into pieces so small a crow wouldn't bother with you.'

The Green Man chuckled, though his eyes remained hard as flint. 'Ye think a few cuts with that butcher's knife would inconvenience me?' He straightened up and turned his head to them, revealing the wound. It oozed a thick golden fluid. The edges of the cut blurred and melded together as the liquid ran upwards, back inside his flesh.

He sneered and had half-turned back to them when the wound burst open again. It was ragged around the edges now, a deep tear, rather than the clean slice it had been. Malvine lowered her blade, not quite resting its tip against the ground.

'What have ye done?' He spat, almost doubled over as the wound reasserted itself. His spear fell from a nerveless hand, melting away as it hit the flagstones. He knelt on the stony floor, breathing in sharp gasps.

'For the Man of Knowledge you know surprisingly little,' Malvine said mildly. 'Let's see if you can work it out.' The blade leapt upwards and slowly ran over his cheek, drawing a thin line of golden blood.

'There are only a handful of artefacts which can cause wounds of this nature; this is not the Dolorous Blade, nor the Spear of Antioch,' the Green Man said, almost to himself as he pieced together the puzzle, 'it is a fresh blade; the others are of ancient design. Only one method is still known to create such weapons.' He looked up at her, eyes narrowed, 'The lifeblood of a dragon? Who did you kill to make this blade?'

'I killed no-one. It was my Mother's time. She went as all members of my kind should: in blood and fire.'

'Who was she?' He asked, quietly.

'One of the last, great dragons. One who remembered the Before. Her names were too many to list. I could stand here till the sun had risen and sunk thrice and I would only begin to near the end of her names.'

'Give me one of them,' the Green Man said, there was almost a note of desperation in his voice. 'Please.'

'She came here once, as Angharad. Now will you make a deal with me?'

'You are Angharad's daughter?' He shook himself, glanced up at her and nodded.

'Good,' she lowered the blade again. 'First, tell me how to free this man?'

'He must drink from the waters of the lake beneath this tower mixed with the ashes from rowan, oak and pine. Then he will be free from the infection. This must be done before sunset three days from now, or the infection will come to possess him completely,' the Green Man rasped. 'You have my word upon it.'

'I will also have your word that you shall not harm or seek to harm either this sorcerer or me,' Malvine said.

The Green Man nodded slowly. 'Upon the memory of those who created the intelligence whose form yeh see before yeh, I swear that I shall neither harm nor impede either of yeh.'

'Then I swear that once the infection is gone I will command your wound to close,' Malvine said and turned to Harry. 'Ask your last question.'

'I think I'll hold it in reserve, just in case,' Harry said weakly. 'You don't think you could get him to allow me to move?'

Malvine raised an eyebrow at the Green Man who, chagrined, waved his uninjured hand in a lazy wave. Harry wobbled for a moment and collapsed. The Green Man looked up at Malvine. 'Good enough?'

Malvine looked at Harry and gave a short nod. 'I require a balcony, or a way out.'

'Follow me, though I could move faster if yeh were to allow me to heal,' the Green Man suggested as he struggled to his feet. He bowed his head in submission as Malvine glared at him. 'Can ye walk, Traveller?'

'I think so,' Harry said with a groan as he pushed himself up. Malvine caught his arm and pulled him to his feet. 'Do you trust his word?' He whispered to her, she nodded and let him go. He stumbled as he followed them from the chamber, putting his hand against the wall as they went. The way was blessedly short and before long they came to a long herb garden which ran around a fold of the tower's rock.

'You will, I expect, be free of your wound by this evening,' Malvine said, wiping the sword on an overgrown patch of thyme before sheathing it. 'Remember though, if I come back I will not leave a stone of this place standing.'

The Green Man chuckled, 'Ye will never find this castle again, bairn.'

'For your sake I hope so.'

Harry sighed, lowering himself onto the balustrade. 'Tell me when you've finished, and no, that isn't my question.'

The Green Man drew his mantle more tightly around him and looked over at Harry speculatively. 'I know something you will care about.'

'I'm sure you do. You are the Green Man of Knowledge,' Harry said, lying back on the damp stone. 'Can we get going, Malvine? Only my breath is a little tight.'

'Of course …'

'Wait,' the Green Man interrupted. 'If you go to Trewalder, you will die.'

'Everyone dies in the end. If I didn't go, I'd still die. You might as well say that if I go there the Sun will rise,' Harry pointed out. 'Try a new trick.'

'You will die there, as a direct consequence of going. Surely you want to know how to avoid this?' The Green Man said. The wind from the lake swept over them and a brown leaf was whipped away from his beard, it danced upwards over the castle into the steel-grey sky.

'And if I did I might well walk into a worse fate.'

'Ye'll regret this in time, Traveller.'

'We'll see …' Harry murmured as the blackness rose up to claim him.

Harry awoke to find himself lying between a fire and the lake. Night had fallen and the pebbles around him were beginning to glisten with dew. He drew a breath and fell back coughing, wincing as the stones dug into his back. Strong hands appeared, pulling him up into a sitting position and thumping him on the back until the coughing died away.

'Malvine?' He asked weakly through the pounding in his skull.

'So, you are awake then? Good. Everything is prepared,' she said.

Harry blinked, trying to focus and realised that she had wrapped him in her own blue cloak with the invisibility cloak as a cushion for his head. She wore only a thin robe, almost black in the firelight.

'Sit up. Drink this.' She held a shallow bowl up to his lips.

'What is it?' He croaked.

'The counter to the infection, of course. Drink.'

He obliged, opening his parched lips. She tipped the thick, ash flavoured water into his mouth. He grimaced and swallowed the gritty liquid. A little dribbled down his chin, but he managed to choke down most of it. The change was not, to his disappointment, instantaneous. She set him back down.

'Sleep. We will decide what to do tomorrow.'

'We?' Harry asked.

'We,' she said and there was no room for argument in her voice. She began to hum as he closed his eyes. The tune was strange to his ears. It was slow and soothing, in the woods around the lake the night birds fell silent as they listened to the dragon's song.

They walked slowly along the narrow track. Harry had fashioned himself a rough staff after they had decided to press on to Trewalder.

'Are you certain you cannot fly?' Malvine asked again.

Harry shook his head wearily. 'I'd fall from the sky before we got a mile. I doubt I could even hold onto you if you were to allow me to ride. I need to rest.'

'What if I carried you in my talons?'

'I'd rather not,' he said, setting down his back and leaning against a rock with a sigh. 'Any idea how far we have to go?'

'I am not sure. Perhaps thirty miles as the crow flies, maybe forty as the wolf runs. It has been a long time since I came this way.'

'A couple of days then. We can afford that.'

'Can we? He said you need to get there within the week. What does that mean? Are you to get there within seven days, or by the week's end?'

'It's enough time either way. I can't push on faster than this,' Harry insisted quietly. 'I've got a trick up my sleeve which will get us there faster, but I need to be rested for that to work, and we need to be closer.'

'What trick?'

'It's called apparition, or at least a variant of it. We used to be able to travel hundreds of miles in an instant with it, but I've only managed to get as far as a day's walk, and it takes its toll.'

'Teleportation? I thought that was a myth.'

'It's a work in progress. In the place I came from magic was,' Harry hesitated, trying to think of an appropriate simile, 'it was like a plain. There were places it was difficult to go, but it was fairly even and those could be removed. Magic here feels as if you're walking ice. One wrong step and you go crashing down.'

'You are not filling me with confidence. It may be that magic was that way here once, if the stories my Mother told me were true, but the Dreaming Wars changed that. Whether you can do this or not though we ought to press on.'

'Do we have to?'

'I think it would be for the best. Look to the North,' she said. He turned, following the line of her finger. On the horizon huge black storm clouds loomed. 'We ought to find shelter.'

Harry levered himself up with the staff and began to plod down the track. Malvine glanced towards him and cast a last look back at the clouds, beneath which she could make out the first flickers of lightning. She barely paused to look at them though, jerking her head back to Harry, a frown wrinkling her brow. 'Who was that?'

'What?' He asked, turning back to her.

'There was another walking beside you. Mantled and hooded, I could not tell if it was a man or a woman, but who was it? Did you see them?'

'There's no one here, just the two of us,' Harry said, a little more roughly than he intended.

'You walk with strange companions,' she murmured and left it at that.

The storm was snapping at their heels when they came to an old stone bridge across a river. At other times the water might have been inviting, but now it was a frothing torrent which clawed away at the banks on either side and dashed into an abandoned mill chase. The mill itself, a low grey building of slate, hunched by the side of the river, its wheel unmoving. The roof was partially collapsed, holes showed here and there. The door was rotten, hanging from its hinges and covered in thick wet moss.

'I fear this is the best we will find,' Harry shouted over the wind.

'It's better than nothing. Go inside. I will hunt for food, though it is likely that any game has fled to its den,' she replied.

'You'll be soaked to the skin. We can share some of my supplies,' Harry yelled.

She threw her head back and laughed, tilting her face upwards into the first fat drops of rain. 'I am of the dragon's blood. Getting wet is not going to be a problem to me. Now go inside, but take the sword for me,' she said unfastening it and tossing the sheathed blade to him. He caught it awkwardly in his left hand.

'Wait, take this,' he said, fishing the invisibility cloak from his pack. 'You might need it.' She nodded her thanks and he watched as she strode into the woods around the mill, her form blurring as she went.

He shook his head briefly and dodged in out of the rain. A few small spells and the ground was dry and clean. There was a pile of wood in one corner, left by someone for a fellow traveller in need and he set himself to building a fire. He crouched down beside the pile of wood and dug through his pockets for flint and tinder. He drew it out, and his sleeve caught something else which slipped out onto his palm as he prepared to strike the flint. It was a small black pebble with a design upon it of a triangle, surrounding a circle and bisected by a straight line. He looked at it curiously for a moment, 'Where did I get you?' He asked himself, 'It was that night on the moor wasn't it? When Tom was still around. You do keep popping up don't you, like a bad penny.'

He grinned and flicked it up like a coin. It spun, once, twice and then he caught it. There was a tension in the air, and for a moment he shivered before a blast of thunder roared overhead and the spell was broken. He lit the fire and made himself as comfortable as he could, drawing out a blanket from his pack for bedding. The rain hammered down on the slates, forming puddles on the uneven stones of the millhouse floor. Harry fidgeted, pulling out the small black pebble and examining it. It had been deliberately shaped, the stone was surprisingly warm under his fingers as he turned it this way and that as he peered at it. He flicked it into the air again, feeling its weight. It spun lazily, once, twice and then, halfway through the third spin, a hand flashed out and caught it.

Harry jumped with a yelp, scrabbling backwards until his back was against the rough wall. On the other side of the fire just beyond the range of where his peripheral vision would have caught him sat a figure with skin like parchment. His eyes were like little shards of jet in the firelight and a deep cowl shadowed his features. He held the stone in one bony hand before flicking it across to Harry who caught it reflexively.

'I'm sorry,' Harry managed, 'I didn't see you. I hope I didn't wake you. I suppose you must have been in the corner before I arrived. Please warm yourself by the fire.'

'Thank you,' the man said, stretching out his long limbs. His eyes never left Harry's face. 'You should be careful with that stone.'

'I don't think it's precious,' Harry said, thrusting the pebble back into a pocket. He eased himself back towards the fire.

'Appearances are deceiving.'

'They are indeed. So what brings you out to a place as remote as this?' Harry asked. The fire seemed to be giving off very little heat and he tucked his hands under his arms to warm them.

'Unfinished business.'

'Hmm, oh, by the way I'm known as Traveller,' Harry said, extending his hand towards the man. The stranger hesitated for a moment and then reached out to shake. Harry's hand tightly for a moment as he felt the cold, dry skin under his fingers. Harry held the stranger's hand for a few moments until the hand was deliberately pulled away. 'Now there's something you don't see every day.'

The man looked a little uncertain. 'What is?'

'Did you know you don't have a pulse?' Harry asked, adding another piece of wood to the fire.

'I had not considered the matter, I suppose that was a mistake.'

'What are you?'

'I am Death,' he said quietly. 'And I have been waiting a long time to meet you.' The only sound was the patter of rain on the roof.

Harry blinked, 'Well I didn't see that coming. I don't feel particularly unwell. Should I?'

'No. Most men, when we meet plead, beg or bargain. One or two are too arrogant to cower and instead they try to threaten or cajole. They do not understand my nature. You do not seem to be inclined that way.'

'I rather expected we would meet one day. It's been rather longer than I would have liked, but I guess you have a packed schedule,' Harry said with a small shrug. His blood pounded in his ears and he was beginning to sweat. 'It, you I mean, come to us all. If anything, you're a bit late for me.'

'I have not come for you. Not today.'

'Then why are you here? If you are who you say,' Harry challenged.

'Look at me, you know I am. I have come to tell you something. If you go to Trewalder ...'

'I will die? I got that message from the last supernatural bloke I met,' Harry said, trying to rub warmth into his arms.

'Do not interrupt me, please,' the stranger said quietly.

'Sorry,' Harry said, suddenly shamefaced. 'I meant no offence.'

'You did, but I will take none. No future is set in stone. You may well die if you go, if you do I will be there for you to open the door to you. However, you will have choices. You may choose to live, if you do others will die.'

'Who?'

'You will know when the time comes.'

'I rather thought I was at least partially bound to this life. I don't age, and I have made an unbreakable vow that I won't make any choices to endanger it,' Harry said ruefully.

'An unbreakable vow, it is not a particularly accurate term. Death breaks unbreakable vows. Confidentially,' he said with a small smile, 'I may tell you that events conspired some time ago to free you.'

'Forgive me if I don't put it to the test,' Harry said. 'One question, why come to me now?'

Death give him a long look. 'I could not, until now.'

'Why?'

'Have you ever heard of the Deathly Hallows?'

'That's a fairy story isn't it? I realise that sounds a tad ridiculous under the circumstances,' Harry said after a moment's pause. 'I know the basics, three brothers, you, three gifts which got them killed. Typical death-centric fairytale.'

'Almost correct. The first two perished. The third lived a long, long life, until when his children and grandchildren were grown he decided that the time had come to move on. Do you remember his gift?'

'Let's see, there was a wand, a cloak and stone …' Harry glanced towards the stone in his hand, uneasily. 'Is this, well, you know?'

'Yes. That is the Resurrection Stone. I would caution you not to use it, no happiness has ever been brought by it. That was the second brother's gift. The third asked for my cloak. A cloak of invisibility which would never age and which even I could not pierce. However, you recently gave it up of your own free will. I have no doubt that it will be returned to you in the near future,' Death said simply. The firelight flickered over his waxen features as a gust of wind tugged at the flames.

'The invisibility cloak? Seriously?' Harry asked.

'Deadly.'

Harry raised an eyebrow, 'Did you just ...?' He shook his head. 'Anyway, why do I even have the stone though?'

'Dumbledore left it to you.'

Malvine's voice called from outside, 'Harry? Are you in there? Could you help me with this?' Harry glanced away towards the door and when he looked back there was no-one else there.

'Coming,' he called and stood a little shakily. When he was outside Malvine handed him his cloak and together they dragged a large hind into the millhouse.

She froze. 'Was someone here? There's a scent which does not match.'

Harry drew himself up as he set down his end of the deer, wiping the blood from a puncture wound off onto the slightly scorched pelt. 'Death.'

Malvine flinched, 'Do not call him that, it is not polite. He is the Last Friend. What was he doing here?'

'Just a chat. Why do you call him that?'

'What may the dying man hope for, if not for the care of the reaper?'