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The dragon circled above the castle, its bone-shaking roar rattling inside Sir Aziraphale’s helmet. He clung to the shadows beneath the glowering tree outside the gates, watching, waiting, holding his breath until the sound of beating wings and streams of sparks faded along with the bulk of the dragon, into the circling clouds of fiery oncoming night. Now was his chance. Leaving his champing horse tied to the tree, Aziraphale pelted across the neglected drive and through the gates standing crazily on their hinges, into the domain of the dragon.
All around was the evidence of past knights’ failures: scattered weapons and armour and bones. Aziraphale ignored them, pressing on, towards the tallest tower. He consulted the scrap of parchment that was his hard-won map of the castle as he moved through its echoing halls. He ignored, too, the mounting whispers that curled about his wrists and ankles, voices from Elsewhere. The deeper he moved into the castle the louder they became, and here and there strange-coloured pools of steaming liquid arose; odd sounds, shimmering mirages, and all manner of things that seemed designed to distract him from his quest. Sir Aziraphale pressed on, not knowing when the dragon might return, only what he might find in the tallest tower, where he might triumph where all others had failed.
The demands for Aziraphale’s skill were many, the rewards offered him ever more rich, as he star rose in the world of knight-errantry, while the kingdom lived in peace. But this quest was his and his alone, despite the king’s longstanding promise. Now and then, a castle and the tallest tower. Now and then, a brief flash of hope, followed by a hasty denouement into disappointment. But this time, just maybe, this time his work would as last be finished—
As he mounted the stairs, it seemed to Aziraphale that he moved through deep water, or thick mud, something invisible that pulled as his body, seeking to keep him from his goal. He pressed on. A skeletal figure descended from further up the stairs with a clatter. Aziraphale drew his sword without a second through and cleaved it in two at the waist, whereupon it dissolved into sickly smoke. Its sword rang against the stone steps as it fell though, as real as Aziraphale’s own. More figures came, a seemingly endless stream of them, but Aziraphale dispatched each with the same dispassionate efficiency.
“Aziraphale!”
Every hair the knight possessed stood on end, and he was running, sprinting up the stairs in spite of the voices, the unseen restraining force, the mirages, laying about recklessly with his sword until he broke free of the last of the skeletal apparitions.
“Aziraphale!”
The voice was closer now, muffled only by the heavy door that came into view at the top of the stairs, and Aziraphale’s heart was thrumming inside his ears. He seized the iron ring upon the door and pulled, and to his astonishment it swung open. Aziraphale rushed in, and there, within a round chamber richly furnished stood his prince, turning towards him with delight upon his face, those bright and shining eyes that filled Aziraphale’s dreams, as beautiful as the day they’d last said farewell, his lips parting to cry,
“Aziraphale!”
But the end of the words was drowned by a screeching roar. A gout of fire flooded through the tower window, engulfing Crowley setting all aflame, even as Aziraphale screamed, lunging forward with hands outstretched.
“Well, that was a foolish thing to do.”
Aziraphale looked up. He was splayed upon his knees on the floor, its stones cold, hands still outstretched, but now to nothing. The room was quiet; the castle was quiet, and empty, no sign of any of the mystical things that had dogged him; no sign of the dragon, or of any of the room’s furnishings, or of Crowley; not so much as a charred corpse. The room was empty, growing dark now with the sinking sun, but for Aziraphale and his whirling mind, and the darkly wrapped column of the sorceress that stood over him, her enchantments now released.
“You,” he croaked, unaware of the tears that had escaped down his face, or the pain in his chest.
“Me.”
“It was all you,” Aziraphale craned back his head, as if to recapture the sight of his prince, casting about for any sight but that of the only foe he had never managed to defeat, “all you. Why? How?”
“We have unfinished business, Sir Aziraphale.”