The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (20 page)

like a smudge than a drawing, was something else. I put my finger on it. “What’s this?”

David   said,   “That’s   probably   afirebird, arriving too late to protect thetimeline.”

“Firebird?” Guinevere looped her hair.

“They monitor the time continuum,” he said, making no attempt to simplify his words. “I was telling Agawin about them earlier.”

“Are they colourful?”

“Very. Though some of the early ones were almost translucent, like moving wisps of light.”

“Gideon,” she said. She slapped her knees and sat up smartly.

“Gideon… ” Rosa muttered.

“Search your memories. You’ll find him,” David said. “You’ve met him, Guinevere?”

“Yes,” she said. “He flew here with the egg Gawain was hatched from. He came to us an eagle, but his body was changed by a fire the like of which I’ve never known before. He rose from his ashes and

disappeared into the shimmering sky.”

“Portal?” said Rosa.

David hummed in thought.

“Do you know where he went to?”

Guinevere asked.

“He was taken to our world,” David said, though from the set of his features he wasn’t sure why. “Every firebird there is descended from him.”

“But he was an eagle, first – on Earth?”

Rosa repeated.

David nodded. “According to thelegend, he was in the air for several dayswith the auma of Gawain between his

claws. He was always going to be changed by it.”

“He had tufts, like an owl,” Guinevere chirped. “His colours were amazing.”

“Once seen, never forgotten,” David said. He looked pointedly at me.

“Only   Guinevere   witnessed   this change,” I insisted, desperately trying to save my blushes. I knew it would make little difference now. David would be

wondering why I hadn’t mentioned Gideon when we’d talked about creatures who

travelled through time. I hastily turned him back to the tapestry. “What does this

picture actually tell us? Why is a battle happening here?”

He took the drawing out of my hands and spread it by his feet, using stones to hold the corners in place. “This is a place called The Vale of Scuffenbury, though its name might be different in your present day.” He waved his hand above the cluster of hills. “In the foreground is Glissington Tor, a smaller hill than the rest but still large enough to hide a queen dragon. Gawain’s mother went into stasis here after giving up her fire to her unborn sons.”

“That must be very recent,” Guinevere

said. “Two seasons at most.”

I glanced at Gawain and grunted inagreement. A dragon’s egg, once laid,

took six and one half cycles of the moon to

hatch.

“The Tor is a long way south of here,” said David, “but word about dragons travels fast. It won’t be long before you start to hear rumours of a betrayed queen dragon sending her surviving egg north, guarded by a trusted eagle…  Shall I go on?”

“Yes. I want to hear all of it.”

Guinevere reached down and rested a

soothing hand on Gawain. He gave a quiet
 
graark
 
and wrapped his spiked tail across his back.

David said, “The Isenfier tapestrydescribes events much further down the

timeline. Thousands of years after the queen goes into stasis, for reasons that

would take too long to explain, her sleep is unlocked and she rises again to do battle with the Ix. After a bitter struggle, she forfeits her life in an effort to defeat

the Ix:Cluster for good. The sacrifice, though brave, is only partly successful. A unicorn sent mad by the dark forces at Scuffenbury plunges itself into the fire eternal and infects Gaia, the Earth spirit, producing the Shadow you see emerging from the hill.”

“The dragons are losing?” I asked. Galen’s auma stirred uneasily. I had to work to keep him under control.

“Yes,” David said. “And Gadzooks is aware of it. He knows if they surrender the fight to the Shadow, the Earth and every species on it will fall under its spell

and the Ix will become the masters of a

force called dark energy. They would use this force to create or imagineer a dark fire from the unseen matter of the universe

and set it in a physical form they call a darkling. These darklings, a kind of antidragon, will attempt to invert the very nature of being. Imagine a life that is a mirror of this one, where evil dominates every thought and goodness is crushed at every turn.”

My mind raced back to the ledge on Kasgerden and the transformation I’d seen in Voss. I pictured a flock of the darkling creatures and began to feel very sick at the prospect.

David went on, “So Gadzooks does the only thing he can. Using every spark of his

creative power, he inscribes the unicorn symbol on his pad. This has two effects: time stops and a beacon is transmitted across the universe, even into worlds you could barely imagine. In one of those worlds, a place called Co:pern:ica, I – or a version of me – hear his cry for help. That sets off a course of events which

culminates in me and Rosa travelling here. This is difficult to understand, I know. But it is the truth.”

Guinevere puffed her cheeks. “And all

this is because of
 
Gwilanna
?”

“More her equivalent on Co:pern:ica.”

“Her what?” I said.

David steepled his fingers for amoment, seeking a way to explain. “Do

you   understand   what   I   mean   by

‘imagineering’?”

“Yes,” said Guinevere and I together.

This seemed to surprise Rosa. “Really? This early in Earth’s history?”

To which David replied, “It was a limited, but natural ability once.” He turned to me and said, “Co:pern:ica is an imagineered world, very similar to Earth, but not quite identical. Some… copies of the people here exist there. Gwilanna is one of them.”

“A world?” said Guinevere, leaning forwards “Who could imagineer a
 
whole world
?”

A Collective
,
 
such as the Higher,
 
saidthe Fain. My head tingled as they vibratedfaster.

Explain ‘Higher’.

A multiple gathering of Fain beings
 
.

Why would they imagineer a wholeworld?

We do not know. We are an isolated

cluster.

And all David would say to Guineverewas, “Just go with it, Guinevere. Underthe right circumstances, it can be done.”

“And Gwilanna exists in this place?”

“Sort of. As a result of what she did

there, Gadzooks is now struggling to maintain control and Gwilanna, as you can see, has put herself into the Isenfier scene. If the battle restarts according to this picture,   or   Gwilanna   attempts   to manipulate the outcome, there will be serious  repercussions   all   along  the timeline.”

“People will die?”

“Or simply fade out of existence.”

“How you can stop this?”

David shifted his position to look me in the eye. “There are options involving the firebirds. Ways we might nudge things in our favour. But that would involve a

confrontation with the Shadow and many birds could die as a result. It’s far better

that we undo Gwilanna’s influence – here, at the earliest stages of the timeline. Gwilanna is what we’d call a spoke in the wheel. She acts impulsively, for her own ends. We know she’s gained awareness of the way time works, but what she may not know is that any distortion of the forward timeline causes an echo back through history. All our knowledge points to the

fact that the seed of change begins at the dawn of Gawain’s birth. We think she’s

acquired an advantage on this timepoint that she didn’t have in the original legend. If we can find out how she learns to

meddle, we can restore the timeline, keep the legend secure and save a lot of needless suffering.”

Guinevere hummed in thought. She crossed her legs and pulled her robe over her knees. “But I don’t understand why she’d want to do this. She seemed content

with a life healing others. What ambition could serve her so well that she would

risk the lives of so many people?”

“She wants illumination to a dragon,” said Rosa. “She’ll do anything she can to get it.”

“But there
 
are
 
no dragons now,” I said,

“except—”

And we looked at Gawain, snoring

gently. In him was Gwilanna’s entire

purpose.

“All right,” Guinevere said with a sigh.

“She lives in a cave not far from here. I’ll

guide you to it, but I will not bear any prejudice against her until I know for certain she’s a threat to Gawain. A

meeting will prove her charity, perhaps. If she wants what you say, to be part of him, why would she send us by night to the sea to put him on an island where he’ll be safe? Why didn’t she just… take him from the cave. Or slay him and be done?”

“Because she’s plotting something,” Rosa said. “Whatever you think of

Gwilanna, think again.”

“May I ask a question?” A curl of woodsmoke rose from the fire and twisted

slowly beyond my face. I let Galen enjoy its charred grey scent, then I reached over and picked up the drawing. “Who are the other people in this picture?”

“The tall man looking on is called Tam,”   said   David.   “A   friend   to Elizabeth’s family. The young woman with him is Lucy, Elizabeth’s daughter.”

“And  who   is   the   child  holding

Gadzooks?”

Rosa took a breath. “That’s… David’s

daughter.”

“Your daughter?” Guinevere looked at

him, stunned. “This girl is your
 
child
?”

The one I’d heard them talking about.

The one whose voice I had heard in myhead. This little girl was David’s
 
kin
?

Rosa fixed her gaze on the child. “She’sthe one in real danger if we don’t stop Gwilanna.”

David shook his head. “We don’t know

that for sure.”

“Look at her,” Rosa snapped at him. Her dark eyes flared and she was suddenly more spirited, more like a sibyl. The bands of metal on her wrist clanged together. “Her face is vacant. There’s nothing in her eyes. And Zanna remembers her with wings – doesn’t
 
Daddy
?”

“Wings?” said Guinevere, echoing my thoughts.

The Fain said,
 
The child must be a new breed of human.

Why do I sometimes hear her voice?

We do not know. This is unclear. Your

link to this girl always ends in a paradox.

Explain ‘paradox’.

An absurd twist in the layers of time.

“She’ll be nothing like the girl we knew,” Rosa said. “She might as well be dead to us, David.”

“Us?” said Guinevere.

The wind gave a long, low moan.

Rosa turned her face away.

“She’s ours – in a manner of speaking,”said David. “Her name is Alexa. She’s

very… special. For some reason we’re not quite sure of yet, Rosa feels her presence strongly.”

I was about to ask how a child so young

could ever be involved in the heart of a

battle, when Rosa unexpectedly turned on me. “You.” Her dark eyes swooped into mine.

“What?” I blustered, leaning back a

little. “What have I done?”

“Who are you, exactly?”

“He’s   Agawin,”   said   Guinevere, protective and perplexed. She sat up and shook her long red hair. Gretel, still plaiting, huffed in annoyance and snatched back the strands she’d been working on.

“There’s something weird about you,” Rosa pressed, as if we were the only two people present. “Something you’re not telling us. Something… deep.”

“Rosa,” David cautioned, but she wouldn’t stop.

“You know about her, don’t you? You

know about Alexa.”

“He can’t,” said David.

“What are you hiding?”

“Me?” I cried. “What am
 
I
 
hiding?” I stood up and threw the parchment down. It slipped towards the flames and one corner took light. Guinevere cried out, “Agawin! What are you doing?” She immediately bent forward to save the drawing but David held her back and said, “No, let it burn. Its job is done. Let Agawin speak his mind.”

His increasingly guilty mind. I knewwhat I should be telling them. Gwilannawas filled with unicorn auma; I had atornaq   hidden   in   my   robe.   The ‘enchantments’ of time were all around