Diana Wynne Jones by The Game

Author:The Game [Game, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

8

« ^ »

Hayley froze, with her arm up and her fingers curled round ready to pick the apple, and simply did not dare to move. She hardly dared breathe. She was too scared even to think.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the dragon said. His steamy breath wafted round Hayley as he spoke. It smelt like a wood fire, sooty and woody at once.

Hayley thought she had lost her voice. It took a real effort to whisper, “Please, sir, I need a golden apple.”

“You can’t have one,” said the dragon. “Do you think I’m going to let you loose in the mythosphere with something that precious?” He rolled an eye at her, while his breath coiled up among the leaves of the tree, filling it with fog. Hayley stared at his eye. It was like looking into a far distant sun deep inside a glass ball. “Don’t I know you?” the dragon said, filling the tree with fog again. “A tasty morsel—lots of hair and a body that’s half red?” His long face left the tree trunk and began to stretch out towards Hayley. “Didn’t you come with a friend and steal one of my old scales the other day?” The tip of his nose was nearly on Hayley’s chest by then.

He’s going to eat me! Hayley thought.

The realisation unfroze her mind, and she remembered Erytheia’s advice. “Yes, I was there,” she said. She managed to bend her stiff body and jackknife herself away to the outer edge of the mythosphere.

Everywhere was stars suddenly.

At least that meant that the dragon was quite a long way off. Hayley could see his starry jigsaw puzzle shape drifting in the distance, just beyond the huge starry woman, who seemed to have turned herself round to watch him as he glided towards the mighty weighing scales. Beyond the weighing scales, an enormous starry insect with an arched-up tail was just coming into view. When Hayley looked the other way, she could see the lion, and a crab receding into the distance beyond the lion.

I suppose it’s better to be safe and not have an apple, she thought sadly.

Something rustled tinnily above and beside her.

Hayley was sure the dragon had somehow crept up behind her. She froze again. But when she managed to make herself turn slowly round towards the noise, she discovered it was made by starry leaves rattling on a silver tree. It was the wood where she had come with Troy. She was still in an orchard of sorts, except that this one was made of stars. Trees stood all around her, gently quivering in the solar wind, each one heavy with round, moony fruit. Some of the fruits were blue, some silver-white, and some gently shining a faint, peachy gold.

“Heaventrees!” Hayley whispered, and wondered who had told her or where she had read of the trees of heaven.

It doesn’t matter, she thought. Moving very slowly and gently, she carefully chose the nearest, most golden looking of the fruit and crept her hand out towards it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.