The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (19 page)

Kasgerden could have heard it. Rosa didnot look pleased. But David merelygrunted and gestured me to lead the way. We said nothing more as we stepped intothe thick, strong shadows of the wood.

In a clearing, I set out a circle of stonesand kindled a fire from dry moss andtwigs. As it began to draw and take light, Inoticed   the   visitors   in   hushed

conversation. I glanced at Guinevere. She was busy keeping Gawain amused. Like any young creature, he liked to play. My gaze drifted back towards David and Rosa. It was wrong, I knew, to listen to their talk, but Galen was constantly reaching out to David and almost by accident I heard Rosa say, “Why, though? Why do I feel like this?”

“It might be a side effect – of the

transition.”

“ A
 
side effect
?” She didn’t sound satisfied with that. “David, every time I look at him I want to cry. Even me, naïve librarium orphan, knows that isn’t a normal response. What’s he even doing in Guinevere’s time? Zanna has perfect memories of the legend and he’s not there, in any of it.”

Not
 
there
? I wiggled my outstretched

fingers.

“Agawin? Are you all right?”

I looked up. Guinevere had noticed me wiggling. “Just a little cold,” I said. I bowed my head and tended the fire, pitching my hearing back towards David. “I’ve tried to read him,” I heard him say.

“It’s clearly him, but his pathway is

hidden.”

“Hidden? How?”

“I don’t know. It’s very strange.”

Rosa pushed her dark hair behind one ear. “But you read
 
The Book of Agawin
 
before we left the ark. He must have

recorded something about this?”

Write?
 
The Book of Agawin
? Now I

was confused.

“I only browsed a few sections. Stuff about Co:pern:ica. And it’s a living book, remember. It could keep things to itself if it didn’t want me to read them.”

Rosa sighed heavily. “This can’t beright. What’s he doing in a place where hehas no history?”

“The history could be wrong. Much of

what we know has been verbally passed down from generation to generation. Stories alter. That’s why bears have a Teller of Ways, so that their legends are faithfully recorded. It’s too easy to embellish them with stuff that wasn’t

there. Maybe the jolt in the timeline brought him here.”

“Time,” she tutted, as if she’d like to wrap it up and throw it away. “It still doesn’t explain why he’s making me weepy or why I keep sensing Alexa’s presence.”

“Yes, that is very odd,” he admitted.

“Is she involved somehow? In this, our quest?”

He took a moment to think about that.

“Alexa is always involved,” he said.

Leaving the horse only loosely tethered,he strolled towards the fire. At the same

moment,   Gawain   fluttered   out   of Guinevere’s hands and dug himself a shallow pit close to the flames. He settled there, content to fall asleep again. Thoran, still a little grumpy from the fight, had already stalked off into the wood to look for the trail that would lead us to the bay. The unicorn folded its knees and set itself

down at the side of the horse. And that, I thought, was all of us. Until something began to kick and punch inside the bag at Rosa’s hip.

I was reaching for a stone when Rosa said, “Looks like the spell’s worn off. Had to happen eventually, I suppose.”

David said, “It’s all right, let her out.”

Rosa turned a clasp and lifted the flap.

Out of it popped another dragon.

It was small, no bigger than a handful ofpine cones – and every bit as spiky asthem. Such a peculiar arrangement ofscales. Such a strangely-shaped snout andnostrils (wide, a little too big for theface). Such oval-shaped eyes. Such flatback feet (it sat upright on them, balancedby its tail). And
 
such
 
a furious scowl. Iwould have said I had never seen anythinglike it. But I
 
had
 
seen something like it. Itwas almost the image of the dragon on thetapestry. It had no writing tools orparchment, but carried a cluster of flowersin its paws and a quiver on its backcontaining more. It was the oddest ‘dragon’ I had ever set eyes on, but

definitely one of their kind. As Galen turned his attention to the thing, I detected a spark of their auma at its heart.

“This is Gretel,” said David, breaking my thoughts. “A female dragon with the power to do magicks. She was made by the woman I described to you.”

“Made?”

“From clay.” He spoke to the creature, inviting it to show me what it could do. It huffed for a moment, then took a slight bow. Guinevere laughed out loud as it blew rings within rings of smoke. Then it performed its best trick of all: in the blink of an eye, it made itself solid.

With David’s permission, I picked it up and turned it in my hands. The body was firm, even the soft places like the eyes –

they made a quiet ‘clink’ when I tapped them with a fingernail – and the scales reflected the light of the fire. Suddenly, the dragon became ‘real’ again and flew from my hands to land on the row of stones nearest Guinevere. Like David, it reached up and touched the red hair. Guinevere was enthralled by the thing.

A remarkable species
 
, the Fain said, buzzing.
 
A unique combination of dragon auma, clay and physical imagineering.

Which posed one obvious question: “How did this… Elizabeth… give it life?”

David looked at me thoughtfully. “I can’t   tell   you,   Agawin;   it   could compromise your future.”

“Like Thoran – and the ice bear?”

He   smiled   at   my   attentiveness.

“Something like that.”

I was desperate to know what an ‘ice bear’ was, but he was clearly not going to say. “Why did you bring this… flower dragon here?”

“You try keeping it away,” Rosa muttered, a slight edge creeping into her voice.

David said, “Gretel was drawn to thisplace, like we were. We don’t knowexactly how she got here or why. But shemay be able to help with our quest.”

I watched the dragon rearranging itscrop of flowers. It flipped them neatly intoits quiver. A skilful trick, but whatpossible use could it have for flowers? “Will you tell me, now, the nature of yourquest? You said when we met you were

searching for someone.”

“It’s Gwilanna, isn’t it?” Guinevere

said.

Fssst
, went Gretel at the sound of thename. She splayed a row of claws andstarted weaving the ends of Guinevere’shair into a series of short red twists.

Giving away nothing in the tone of hisvoice, David asked, “Do you know whereshe is?”

Guinevere picked up a broken twig andbegan drawing patterns in the soil aroundher feet. “I could take you to her dwellingplace before the sun rises, but how justwould it be to betray a woman who hascared for me since I was a baby girl? What harm has she ever done you?”

“She gave Zanna
 
this
 
for a start.” Rosa

pushed back her sleeve and showed us her arm. At first, there was nothing to see. But as she brought her fingers closer to the skin, a scar began to form in the flesh near the elbow – the same three-lined mark that

ran around the tornaq. “It’s getting deeper,” she said to David. “Taking longer to fade every time. I’m becoming her, aren’t I?”

David chose not to comment. “You

know this symbol, Agawin?”

An owl hooted, making me jump. The night wind played with the tips of the fire and the tree tops all leaned in to listen. David had seen me peering closely at the mark and now I had to give a reason why. “It… follows the pattern of a unicorn horn.”

“To the exact – and infinite – twist,” he said. “You’ll see it wherever dragons have roamed. It’s the most potent and powerful sign in their language. It can work many wonders – when used with the right intent. In these regions you will even hear it given a name. The Inook call it, ‘The Mark of Oomara’.”

“But this is an old scar,” Guinevere said, carefully examining the wound. “Have you met Gwilanna before… in the
 
future
?”

“The witch is as old as these woods,” said Rosa, growing more assured with every toss of her hair. “She keeps herself alive, or so she claims, with the auma she absorbs from a dragon scale – one of his, when he grows.” She nodded at Gawain,

who snorted and rested his snout on a

stone. “She seems to be immune to death.”

Guinevere let that smear go by. “I haveserved Gwilanna all my life and seen herperform many acts of healing. Her powersare strong and she is feared by some, but Ihave never seen her stray very far fromher dwelling place – other than to snarefood or gather water. How, then, can shetravel through time?”

The unicorn auma inside her
, buzzed

the Fain.
 
She must eventually learn how

to harness it.

And I, in a moment of blunt stupidity,had made her aware of what she was. I

had unleashed the sibyl on the universe and sent the dark Ix forward through time, along with the sleeping spirit of Voss.

David saw me shudder. I pulled my robeinto my shoulders and he let it pass.

“That’s the question we’re here toanswer. We have no wish to harm

Gwilanna. We simply need to… alter herplans.”

“Show them the picture,” Rosa said.

David dipped into a pocket of his jacketand  drew  out  a  piece  of  yellow

parchment.   “This   is   a   drawing  of something you might recognise.” He unfolded it and turned it round.

“The   tapestry  picture,”   Guinevere

gasped.

I sat back, stunned.

“It’s called ‘Isenfier’,” David said, still not asking questions of us. Once again he’d noticed my reaction, but for now he

just seemed happy to talk. “It’s the scene of a battle between dragons and a life force known as the Ix. What you see is the battle at a critical stage, suspended over a nexus of time. A clever move by the dragon holding the pencil.”

Guinevere wrinkled her pretty nose. “That little creature stopped
 
time
?”

“Mean crossword solver, too,” Rosa said. To ease our confusion she added, “He’s smart.”

“Is the writing dragon kin to Gretel?” I asked. It looked of her breed, though its eyes were less striking.

“Yes,” said David. “His name is Gadzooks. He, too, was made by the woman, Elizabeth.”

“And she is
 
my
 
kin?” Guinevere asked,

just to be clear about this again.

“If the timeline remains unaltered, yes.”

And if it changes?
 
I asked the Fain. But I knew the answer before they spoke.

The woman, Elizabeth, might not exist. Or any of the dragon breed she makes.

“May I?” Guinevere held out her hand.

David   allowed   her  to   take   the

parchment. Fireflies danced all around her hair as she held it closer to the light of the flames. After studying the drawing for a moment she said, “Gwilanna has a proper tapestry of this.”

“Not the original, surely?” said Rosa, pitching her question quietly at David.

He turned to Guinevere. “How did she

get it?”

“I don’t know, but Agawin claims he

drew it from a dream.”

“Is this true?” asked David, turning to

me. “You had this vision of Isenfier?”

I lifted my shoulders as if it wasnothing. “I was travelling with my seerand we stopped in Taan. A woman thereencouraged me to try their art. I wasthinking of dragons and the next thing Iknew… this was in my head.”

“How is that possible?” Rosa asked.

David didn’t reply. Instead, he asked, “Did you stitch it, Agawin?”

“No,” I replied, looking down at myfeet. “It was finished by a girl I met in Taan. Her name was Grella.”

“Gwilanna inherited the tapestry, then?”

“I suppose so,” I said, which was at least half true. Therein lay the story of

Grella. I still had no idea of her fate, orthe truth about that skull. And I didn’t want

to go into it again.

“It’s not right, anyway,” Guinevere

said.

We looked towards her.

“The drawing, I mean. The mountains and the dragons are exactly the same, and the girl, and the writing dragon. You were on the tapestry, too,” she said to David. “But you’re not on this. And what’s Gwilanna doing there?”

“Gwilanna?” I rudely snatched the parchment from her. Sure enough, the sibyl was on the hillside. But in the place where David should have been standing was a wiggly line, as if he’d been squeezed right out of existence. And in the corner, more