The Lamp at the Top Stair

"Who warms the lamps up here?" Idris asked the wind. The wind only pushed his hair about and hurried on. He was standing halfway up a stair made of cloud, soft as a pillow under his feet. The air was cool. His pockets were warm. Below him the kingdom lay in folds of grey and blue, waiting. Above him the stairs went up and up, and every lamp along them was dark.

"Then I will go and see," he said, and he climbed. On the next step sat a round grey bird. She held something between her wings, and it glowed. It was a little flame, no bigger than a berry. The bird was shivering. "I cannot fly higher," she said. "My wings have gone cold." She looked at Idris. She looked at the long stairs above. She held the small light out to him.

Idris cupped both hands and took it. The flame did not burn. It sat in his palms like a stone left in the sun, warm all the way through. Warmth went up his wrists and into his elbows. The bird tucked her head down and sighed. "The big lamp is at the top," she said. "It has been cold since morning." Idris looked up. The stairs above him were dark and narrow and thin.

That part frightened him a little. He said so, quietly, to nobody. Then he put one foot on the next step. It held. He put the other foot beside it. That held too. "Hold it close and go slow," he said. He went up like that, one step and then one step, counting them under his breath. The flame stayed steady in his hands. The cold air moved past his ears and did not take it.

At the first landing the wind came around in a big soft circle. Idris turned his back to it and curled over the light. He felt it glow against his chest. A cloud hare was sitting there with her ears flat. "Oh," she said. "Warm." She came close and held her paws near his hands. They stayed like that a moment. Then Idris stood up, and the hare moved aside to let him pass.

The stairs grew thin and silver. His breath came out in small white puffs and floated away. His legs went slow. He did not mind slow. He watched his feet instead of the long drop, and his feet knew what to do. "Hold it close and go slow," he said again. A lamp hook passed by his shoulder, then another. Each one was cold and empty. Each one was nearer the top than the last.

Then there were no more stairs. There was a wide round floor of cloud, and in the middle of it a great glass lamp, dark inside. Idris walked to it. He had to stand on his toes. He opened his hands and tipped the little flame in through the gap at the top. It wobbled. It caught. Light spread through the glass and out across the floor, soft and gold, and the cold went away.

One by one the small lamps down the stairs woke up. The grey bird came flying, warm again, and landed on the rim. The cloud hare came too, hopping up into the light. Idris touched one finger to the lamp and carried a spark across to the little lantern by the hare's door. It lit. He sat down. The floor under him was warm as a blanket from a line. "Hold it close and go slow," he said.

The bird settled against his knee. The hare lay down with her ears up in the glow. Idris lay back and looked at the dark sky, which was full and quiet and did not frighten him at all now. He felt his chest go up. He felt it go down. He counted a few breaths and lost count. Somewhere below him, every lamp on the stairs was burning. The clouds breathed slowly in and out around him.