Tales from the Perilous Realm: Roverandom and Other Classic Faery Stories. Alan Lee
the moon like a golden umbrella bursting into a thousand silver tassels, and it caused an unpredicted fall of shooting stars on the world not long after. If it was a guide to the poor dogs, it was also meant as a warning to the dragon; but he had got far too much steam up to take any notice.
So the chase went fiercely on. If you have ever seen a bird chasing a butterfly, and if you can imagine a more than gigantic bird chasing two perfectly insignificant butterflies among white mountains, then you can just begin to imagine the twistings, dodgings, hairbreadth escapes, and the wild zigzag rush of that flight home. More than once, before they got even half way, Roverandom’s tail was singed by the dragon’s breath.
What was the Man-in-the-Moon doing? Well, he let off a truly magnificent rocket; and after that he said ‘Drat that creature!’ and also ‘Drat those puppies! They will bring on an eclipse before it is due!’ And then he went down into the cellars and uncorked a dark, black spell that looked like jellified tar and honey (and smelt like the Fifth of November and cabbage boiling over).
At that very moment the dragon swooped up right above the tower and lifted a huge claw to bat Roverandom—bat him right off into the blank nowhere. But he never did. The Man-in-the-Moon shot the spell up out of a lower window, and hit the dragon splosh on the stomach (where all dragons are peculiarly tender), and knocked him crank-sideways. He lost all his wits, and flew bang into a mountain before he could get his steering right; and it was difficult to say which was most damaged, his nose or the mountain—both were out of shape.
So the two dogs fell in through the top window, and never got back their breath for a week; and the dragon slowly made his lopsided way home, where he rubbed his nose for months. The next eclipse was a failure, for the dragon was too busy licking his tummy to attend to it. And he never got the black sploshes off where the spell hit him. I am afraid they will last for ever. They call him the Mottled Monster now.
The next day the Man-in-the-Moon looked at Roverandom and said: ‘That was a narrow squeak! You seem to have explored the white side pretty well for a young dog. I think, when you have got your breath back, it will be time for you to visit the other side.’
‘Can I come too?’ asked the moon-dog.
‘It wouldn’t be good for you,’ said the Man, ‘and I don’t advise you to. You might see things that would make you more homesick than fire and chimney-stacks, and that would turn out as bad as dragons.’
The moon-dog did not blush, because he could not; and he did not say anything, but he went and sat down in a corner and wondered how much the old man knew of everything that went on, and everything that was said, too. Also for a little while he wondered what exactly the old man meant; but that did not bother him long—he was a lighthearted fellow.
As for Roverandom, when he had got his breath back, a few days later, the Man-in-the-Moon came and whistled for him. Then down and down they went together; down the stairs, and into the cellars which were cut inside the cliff and had small windows looking out of the side of the precipice over the wide places of the moon; and then down secret steps that seemed to lead right under the mountains, until after a long while they came into a completely dark place, and stopped, though Roverandom’s head went on turning giddily after the miles of corkscrewing downwards.
In complete darkness the Man-in-the-Moon shone palely all by himself like a glow-worm, and that was all the light they had. It was quite enough, though, to see the door by—a big door in the floor. This the old man pulled up, and as it was lifted darkness seemed to well up out of the opening like a fog, so that Roverandom could no longer see even the faint glimmering of the Man through it.
‘Down you go, good dog!’ said his voice out of the blackness. And you won’t be surprised to be told that Roverandom was not a good dog, and would not budge. He backed into the furthest corner of the little room, and set his ears back. He was more frightened of that hole than of the old man.
But it was not any good. The Man-in-the-Moon simply picked him up and dropped him plump into the black hole; and as he fell and fell into nothing, Roverandom heard him calling out, already far above him: ‘Drop straight, and then fly on with the wind! Wait for me at the other end!’
That ought to have comforted him, but it did not. Roverandom always said afterwards that he did not think even falling over the world’s edge could be worse; and that anyway it was the nastiest part of all his adventures, and still made him feel as if he had lost his tummy whenever he thought of it. You can tell he is still thinking of it when he cries out and twitches in his sleep on the hearthrug.
All the same, it came to an end. After a long while his falling gradually slowed down, until at last he almost stopped. The rest of the way he had to use his wings; and it was like flying up, up, through a big chimney—luckily with a strong draught helping him along. Jolly glad he was when he got at last to the top.
There he lay panting at the edge of the hole at the other end, waiting obediently, and anxiously, for the Man-in-the-Moon. It was a good while before he appeared, and Roverandom had time to see that he was at the bottom of a deep dark valley, ringed round with low dark hills. Black clouds seemed to rest upon their tops; and beyond the clouds was just one star.
Suddenly the little dog felt very sleepy; a bird in some gloomy bushes nearby was singing a drowsy song that seemed strange and wonderful to him after the little dumb birds of the other side to which he had got used. He shut his eyes.
‘Wake up, you doglet!’ called a voice; and Roverandom bounced up just in time to see the Man climbing out of the hole on a silver rope which a large grey spider (much larger than himself) was fastening to a tree close by.
The Man climbed out. ‘Thank you!’ he said to the spider. ‘And now be off!’ And off the spider went, and was glad to go. There are black spiders on the dark side, poisonous ones, if not as large as the monsters of the white side. They hate anything white or pale or light, and especially pale spiders, which they hate like rich relations that pay infrequent visits.
The grey spider dropped back down the rope into the hole, and a black spider dropped out of the tree at the same moment.
‘Now then!’ cried the old man to the black spider.
‘Come back there! That is my private door, and don’t you forget it. Just make me a nice hammock from those two yew-trees, and I’ll forgive you.
‘It’s a longish climb down and up through the middle of the moon,’ he said to Roverandom, ‘and I think a little rest before they arrive would do me good. They are very nice, but they need a good deal of energy. Of course I could take to wings, only I wear ‘em out so fast; also it would mean widening the hole, as my size in wings would hardly fit, and I’m a beautiful rope-climber.
‘Now what do you think of this side?’ the Man continued. ‘Dark with a pale sky, while tother was pale with a dark sky, eh? Quite a change, only there is not much more real colour here than there, not what I call real colour, loud and lots of it together. There are a few gleams under the trees, if you look, fireflies and diamond-beetles and ruby-moths, and such like. Too tiny, though; too tiny like all the bright things on this side. And they live a terrible life of it, what with owls like eagles and as black as coal, and crows like vultures and as numerous as sparrows, and all these black spiders. It’s the black-velvet bob-owlers, flying all together in clouds, that I personally like least. They won’t even get out of my way; I hardly dare give out a glimmer, or they all get tangled in my beard.
‘Still this side has its charms, young dog; and one of them is that nobody and no-doggy on earth has ever seen it before—when they were awake—except you!’
Then the Man suddenly jumped into the hammock, which the black spider had been spinning for him while he was talking, and went fast asleep in a twinkling.
Roverandom sat alone and watched him, with a wary eye for black spiders too. Little gleams of firelight, red, green, gold, and blue, flashed and shifted