Creedy's Legacy

A/N: Thanks, Outlawblue, for pointing out a few inconsistencies which have since been fixed.

After the flames cooled I looked for you in the rubble, called your name, tore my hair, shook my fist at the sky. The stones smoked where the morning's dew fell upon them. The sky devil had left our home a glowing ruin. In the well house the children huddled around Jared, so young, so thin.

"Where's Creedy?" I asked. "Who's seen him? I can't find him anywhere." One little girl started to cry. Jared said nothing. I walked over to him and said, "Where's Quinn?"

"Gone to London, Kate," he muttered. "With the Americans. Van Zan and Alex."

"What for? How could he leave?"

"They went to kill the dragon Van Zan told them about, the big male."

I snorted. "Zan is an arrogant liar. Some general he proved to be, when he took a hundred men out to find this mythical male dragon, and got all but three of them killed. Why would Quinn go to London? It makes no sense."

My legs suddenly wobbled, and I sank to the stone floor of the well house. "Jared, where's Creedy? What happened?"

"He's gone," he replied, shaking, and would say no more.

Then the children told me, as they wiped with little fists their burning, tear-stained eyes. I saw you as vividly as if I had been there myself. You had to play the hero, didn't you, Creedy? You had to let Quinn stay, but he didn't stay. He ran off to London to get himself killed. Now you are gone, and what am I going to do without you?

I held in my own tears as long as I could. The oldest boy looked so sorrowfully at me. There was a faint dark blush on his upper lip. He picked something up from the floor and handed it to me. I looked at it uncomprehendingly at first, turning it over again and again.

Then I put the cylindrical object to my breast and keened loud gulping wails. You and Quinn liked to act out for the children the epic Luke of the Silver Hand. This little toy which expanded into a wand of light you called a "light saber," although it didn't look like a saber at all. I held it close because your hand had been around it, because the children had loved you, because you were gone.

Slowly, methodically, still clutching the prop, I began to beat my head against the stone floor until my vision swam red and then dark, until hands pulled me up and away from the floor.

They kept me in a little room adjacent to the children's shelter, down in the lowest basement of the wrecked abbey. When they tried to take the little light saber away from me, I screamed and howled until they returned it.

"She can't hurt herself with it," Jared said to the women who looked after me. "Let her have it; it calms her."

That night the dream came.

I walked down to the cellar shelter, moving through rock as if it were water, and it had become a cave cool and mossy. There was no hot dust and glowing rock, no scorched, savaged door of iron that separated your poor burned flesh from that of the children and the man who should have died in your place.

There you sat serene, clothed in some kind of soft and tender fabric we had not seen in many years. You stood up to greet me, then folded me in your arms with your chin hooked over the top of my head, as you so often did. You kissed me on the forehead and then turned away from me, to pick up a small child.

She nestled in your arms, the child we hadn't yet had, the child we would never have now, the child resting in the dream of your arms like so many children had rested there in waking. Then you slipped and faded from me with a movement so wrenching, so aching, that I awoke with my face wet with tears.

From underneath my pillow I took the saber, put on my clothes, and called to the woman watching the door. "I'm ready to come out now."

She looked me full in the face and said, "It's what he would have wanted."

I went back to our small niche carved out of the rock on which the old abbey rested. There was so little there - a small cot where we had lain body to body, night after night. A shelf with a few old nursing books collected from what remained of the old world dissolved in flame. Your volume of Robert Burns' poetry, and a novel by George MacDonald. A small chest for our clothing, and when I pulled out your old black sweater and inhaled, the tears rose up with your scent.

You left no papers or letters. You left no scars on my body where I most wanted them.

As the days went on, we set up crude shelters, replanted our gardens, tended the wounded. We looked at the increasingly clear skies, and waited, for what it was impossible to say. The oldest boy of that group from the shelter who had watched you die followed me about, not speaking. His name was Richard. He had loved you too, and I was his connection to you.

I put him to work in the medical tent. He boiled bandages, cut herbs, and I taught him to stitch on old scraps of plastic, or a chicken if we were lucky enough to have one. He sewed up the long gashes I slashed through skin and muscle, and then the bird went into the pot.

On a bright afternoon we held a memorial for all those who had died that night. One by one the children came forward to offer little pieces of you in the form of stories, one after another.

I wept from shame as well as grief, because while I had the fierce animal need for your child, you were the one who loved them. They were not yours but you held them, listened to them, acted out stories for them, prayed with them, comforted them. Mine was the desire, yours was the doing. Every little story reminded me that while you lived, I shared none of this with you. Your life was poured out before me like water into the dust, but I had drunk so little of it. And there would never be enough of the waters of your life to quench the flames of your death.

One day the Watcher in his rebuilt tower shouted out to us, "He's coming! He's coming back! Quinn's returned!"

There was a great clamor, and Jared pushed his way out the gate ahead of everyone else. Up the road stumbled Quinn and the American woman, Alex.

A madness worse than that on the day of your death seized me. Instead of hot it started out cold and grew colder, if ice were liquid and could be poured. I looked for a rifle but there were none around. Never mind, an arrow would be better. I could let it fly at close range and watch him die.

Then a waking dream came upon me. From deep inside me you rose, warming me from the inside. I became wood for your fire as you burnt up all the rage I held towards the one whom I blamed for your death.

Listen to him, you seemed to say. Hear him out.

The crowd engulfed Quinn and Alex as they came to the threshold. I stood apart, holding myself up against the broken stone wall, and the children who had been in the shelter that night gathered around me.

A tiny girl held out her arms and I picked her up as you would have. Somehow you lived inside my skin and animated my movements. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I felt with your thoughts, saw through your eyes, and the murderous hand of my anger was restrained by your hand.

Quinn spoke rapidly, breathlessly, and the American woman nodded in agreement. Then she interrupted. He had killed the male, she said. There would be no more dragons, ever.

"Ever?" I called out. "You know that of all those eggs that still remain, one doesn't contain a male? That's your typical American arrogance, to think you know these things."

Everyone turned to me and stared. The children grabbed my jacket and pants legs. Quinn broke from the crowd, the American woman following at his heels, but he waved her back and approached me with his hand extended.

I said to the children, "I have to talk to Quinn. No, you can't come with me. I'll be all right; I'll come right back."

We walked a little distance away from the crowd, but the children didn't melt into it. Instead they stayed separate, holding each other, holding Richard who stood tall in the middle, a head above most of them.

I looked at Quinn coldly. "Don't force me to say anything in front of these people. Creedy's people, the ones he died intending to save, even if it was fruitless."

"He died a hero, Kate. Even though he never made it up that staircase."

I turned away from him to hide the crumpled despair in my face.

He needed to appease me. "Kate, we killed it. It's over. Do you think Creedy would have gone to London, to try and kill it? He hated the Americans. He never believed anything they said. You didn't hear his remark on the parapet when they first arrived - he said that there were two things he couldn't stand, dragons and Americans."

"Yes, Quinn, he told me that story. You were not the only person he ever talked to. You were not his only companion. You didn't see him at night, when he no longer had the strength to be brave and confident, to put a good face on everything, to try so hard to make you laugh so it would ease your burden a bit. You didn't see the hurt when you named Jared as your successor. I saw all this, I lived with it, and I never complained. He brought to our bed all the burdens you laid upon him with your weakness."

Quinn hung his head, saying nothing.

A little boy's voice pierced the silence, crying out, "Creedy's not coming back, is he?"

I looked over, and one of the older girls was attempting to hush him, but then the younger ones started a chant together, crying, "Creedy! Creedy! He's dead, he's not coming back. No, no," and so on, and I thought I would go mad with sorrow right there, but then Quinn's white and stricken face stayed my thoughts.

The crowd was very silent now, watching us.

"It's what they did earlier," he muttered.

"Earlier when?" I snapped. "You tell me what happened. I have a right to know what happened."

He swallowed hard and waved his hands around. His American woman started to come forward, but he shook his head and waved her back. I motioned to Richard, so visible in his clump of children, and he came forward to stand by my side.

Quinn said, "We knew there were people on the upper floors. The male was devastating the castle, blowing fireballs everywhere. Creedy had brought as many children as he could down to the largest shelter. Kate, he was so strong - I think he had six or seven clinging to him at one point."

"I know how strong he was," I said bitterly. "Get on with it."

"I was in some kind of shock. He was in control of everything. I wanted to go up and get those still above, but he fought me. He was determined to go, Kate. As he headed for the stairs, I threw him the fire extinguisher. He ran to the stairwell, and just as he put his foot on the stairs, a huge ball of fire exploded at the top. He turned around to look at us, and then the fireball rushed down the stairs. The draft slammed the door shut, and … "

"Oh, you hero," I cried, "You gave him a fire extinguisher. To use against a dragon. Couldn't you have opened the door? Couldn't you have dragged him out? Couldn't you have done something?" He flinched under the slap of each question as the crowd murmured.

Quinn's gaze darted around, lost. "It had to stay shut, Kate. The fireball would have rushed into the shelter and killed us all."

"Is this true?" I asked Richard, and he silently nodded, but said nothing, not wanting to directly challenge Quinn.

We were both silent, and Quinn went on. "It got hot, so hot that I knew he was gone. Then I held my hands out to the children, but they softly began to call out his name, over and over again. I said the prayer, the prayer he taught them, but that he always wanted me to lead. You don't think I hear that prayer in my head every day? That I don't hear those voices chanting his name? You don't think it was in my mind all the way to London and all the way back? That it's not there now? You're not the only one who loved him, Kate. He was like a brother to me. I loved him too."

"But not enough to go up in his place. Your place."

"Kate, if I would have been the one killed, he wouldn't have gone to London, and if he hadn't gone to London, he wouldn't have killed the male."

I stared at him, barely able to speak. "Are you saying this was 'destiny?' Some kind of plan? You've made up some fairy tale to justify your cowardice. Yes, Creedy probably did fight you. But he was loyal to you, Quinn. If you would have told him to stay firmly enough he would have stayed. Van Zan knew that about him. Why do you think he didn't include Creedy in that doomed group? You don't think Creedy was one of our best? He knew Creedy was your right hand and would stay true to you always, even if you did give the command over to that boy."

Quinn looked at the ground.

"The answer's not down there. The answer's here," and I poked his narrow chest, hard. Richard flinched; Alex came over, and I saw with delight that she wanted to take my head off. Then I felt you in me with deep certainty and you said clear as if you stood right there, Yes, that's what I would have done then, but now it's different. Now it has to be different.

Why, I asked silently. Why is it different?

Because of the kids, you said. Because if Alex kills you, who will take care of them for me? Who could do it better than you?

"I accept Jared," I said loudly, so that everyone present heard me. "Everyone knows that I have, from the day you left. But I do not accept you."

With that I turned away, blinded with new tears, because I knew that you would not have wanted this. But I could stand the look of his weak, baffled face no longer. I accepted that he had killed a dragon, even a male. I accepted his successor. But I could not forgive him. Perhaps in time. But not now.

I had walked halfway to the ruin before I noticed that Richard followed me, joined by a silent contingent.

"I need to learn your names," I said. "Creedy knew all your names, didn't he?"

They babbled off a string of names, which I hoped soon I could fit to the faces.

I stopped, and the sun glared in my eyes. The sun, after so many years of fog, and mist, and thick smoke. You would have liked it, warm in the blue. We were both old enough to remember so much sun, unlike the little ones.

"Pay attention, all of you," I called out, and they stopped, one body with one mind. "Richard, I have something for you, something very important." He stood before me, silent, and while his face had the softness of a boy of only thirteen or fourteen, I saw underneath the silhouette of the man he would become.

We stood face to face. I took off your old black sweater and wrapped it around Richard's shoulders like a cape. Then I grasped the light saber in both my hands, and held it out to him solemnly. He took it with a little bow before closing his hands around it.

"I give this to you because you are the oldest, and because you have the heart of a lion," I said, and he blushed. "Of all the others here, you will remember him the best. Let that memory be the honey inside the lion of your heart. That's all I ask, just please don't forget him."

Then a little boy, Percival, I think it was, said, "Creedy taught us prayers. Do you know any prayers?"

"Yes, I know some prayers. But I want to hear the ones Creedy taught you first," and together we walked back to the tented, ruined hulk that had been our castle. Little Percival chattered beside me, and this time Richard led the way all draped in your black as I and the rest of the children followed behind.

Quinn and I avoided each other for the next few weeks. Gradually we spoke kindly to each other again, but something peculiar had happened in the meantime. The children from the shelter avoided him unless he addressed them, and then they answered in the most polite, reserved tones. They formed a little nucleus of their own, keeping to themselves, talking quietly among each other and then falling silent when he passed.

Richard wore your sweater always now, and kept the light saber in a woven holster around his belt. Wherever he went, a little blonde slip of a girl went with him, her fingers laced in his.

The adults kept their distance from Quinn and it puzzled him. Then guilt struck me and I attempted to speak to him, to show him recognition, but the damage was done. Even though two months had passed without any sign of dragons, and even though the sky shone clear and blue, people still remained nervous and unsure.

Quinn came back a hero but when we held the welcoming celebration, something was missing. No tall man stood in the center of the room's life and drank too much, sang old bawdy Scottish songs, whirled a little boy and girl in each arm. That night I went to our cot, my cot now, but no warm man lay with me in the center of my night's life. He was gone, really gone. Then I cried in sheer, bitter loneliness, for I was still young, and we were so few on this earth, and life would go on for many years, and each year would be another without him.

The next day Quinn announced that he and Alex were leaving. The land was safe from dragons, so they thought, and they were going to settle on a farm outside the ruined village about five miles from the castle. Some begged them to stay, but most of the adults quietly divided up their supplies and gave them a portion from each. The day they left, the children from the shelter stood like a silent contingent, saying nothing, giving nothing away. Jared would take over, Quinn announced, and his eyes pleaded with me as he said it, but I looked only at Richard, who nodded silently.

So off they went, to their little farm. But the children and I still say your prayers, and we still watch the sky.