The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (40 page)

“The child,” she said. “You think about

that.”

But all he did was click his fingers andsay, “Do you want to play a game?” Hegave her no chance to reply or refuse. “Isay a word and you tell me the first thingthat comes into your mind. Bacon.”

“
 
What?
”

“Bacon. Henry. Next-door neighbour. Drove you crazy for fifteen years. Clever man. Total curmudgeon, but heart very much in the right-shaped… place.” He made a poor drawing of a heart on his chest. “Bacon.”

Lucy stared at him hard.

“Okay. Not Henry, then.” He pushed ahand through his hair. “What about thelibrary? The clock tower? The gardens?

You must remember the library gardens?”

For the first time, she gave anencouraging jolt.

“That’s it, the library gardens,” he said. And as the wind blew a shower of

raindrops across them, he lowered his voice to a captivating whisper, “It was a blustery autumn morning in—”

“Shut up,” she said, reaching for her bow. “Shut up or I’ll—”

Suddenly, she dropped her gaze and looked down at the space in front of his feet.   A   small   grey   squirrel   had materialised there. It sat up and chirruped, flagging a tail as delicate as a dandelion clock. It lifted a paw and twitched its whiskers. One of its eyes was matted and closed.

The darkling on the ledge above David

snarled.

Lucy gave a violent shudder. A veinnear her elbow began to pulse. One of thecoils at her temples blanched. A thin filmof moisture clouded her vision. The raven

beside her paddled its feet as though it ought to be doing something about this. A gust of wind rippled its feathers, which persuaded it, finally, to tip its beak and squawk.

“Conker… ”    Lucy    whispered,

narrowing her gaze.

“Just hold on to his memory,” said David. He manoeuvred his feet, getting ready to stand.

The shadow of a darkling swept across the cleft.

In a flash, Lucy had an arrow in herbow. She tensed the string and trained thearrow at the squirrel’s heart. But with asudden upward movement she changed heraim and the darkling fell with a thump tothe ground, skewered on a shaft of woodand steel.

The raven squawked and took to the air. David jumped up. “Great shot. Let’s—” “Don’t move.”

Lucy already had a second arrowprimed. The imagineered squirrel fadedaway. The arrowhead glinted at David’schest.

“Lucy, what are you doing? The bird

will warn Voss. I need to find Rosa. We

haven’t much time.”

“I was told to guard you. That includes

against darklings.”

David stepped forward. She drew on the bow. “Lucy, listen to me, please. I can bring you back. I promise I can make you human again. The squirrel came from your head, not from mine.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “The Shadow is everything. We’re going to take the nexus and break into the core.”

“No. Together, you and I can stop this.” She shook her head. “I know a better

way.” Her arrow flashed through the air and bedded itself into the hollow of his

shoulder, knocking him onto one knee. He gripped the shaft and looked at her in horror.

“You come to us,” she said.

12. Unlocking Ki:mera

Although there was nothing much out atsea, it was not uncommon for a solitarydarkling to fly across the water in searchof something worthy of torment – a fish,perhaps, that the Shadow hadn’t reached. Or better still those galumphing brutes thatgathered  in  piles   on  any   shallowlandmass. ‘Walrus’, men called them. They were always fun to bully.

So it came to be that on the day that Lucy fired her arrow at David, onedarkling was skimming the water when itnoticed something extremely unusual.

The waves had stopped rolling.

There was surf and ripples, troughs and

peaks, but it was all suspended. No

movement.

None.

The darkling knew what it ought to do. It ought to hasten back to the island andreport. But curiosity had gripped its
shade
. It wanted to investigate.

And so it did.

Slowing its wingbeats back to a glide,it tentatively touched down on the surface.

The sea was
 
absolutely
 
still. Not asingle bubble was rising. The darklingextended a claw and prodded the glassy

cover.   The   sea  responded  with  a

satisfying
 
ching
, the chime fissuring out in several directions. The creature prodded harder.
 
Ching, ching, ching. Ching, ching, ching, ching…

Clink.

The last noise was either an echo, or…

The creature looked around.

And then it saw the child.

She was sitting on the water somewingbeats away. A human girl, untouchedby the Shadow.

The darkling sped towards her. As itcircled her it saw she was not alone. A

disgusting excuse for a dragon was standing in the cup of her outstretched hands. Its paws were huge and offensively green. Its oval-shaped eyes were tightly closed,   suggesting  it  was   deep   in concentration.

The darkling landed, using its retractoryclaws as anchors. It bared its teeth and

tilted its horns.

This, it thought, would not take long.

Surprisingly, the girl showed no signsof fear. “Go to your master,” she said.

This made the darkling chatter andscowl, for the child had spoken in perfect Ix.

“Tell him that my wishing dragon has frozen the ocean and opened the way to Ki:mera. He’ll know what that means.”

The darkling spat a glob of oily blackphlegm. “Wat is yaar… ?” Its ability withspeech  was   confined  to  rasps;  itsvocabulary almost minimal.

“I’m Alexa,” the girl said, tossing backher hair. “And this is G’reth. He grantswishes that benefit dragonkind and anyonewho cares for dragons. He’s come to helpme free Gawain. If I were you, I’d set off

now, darkling.”

The creature pulled back. Was this pathetic pink human speaking a threat? It flicked two poisonous stigs from its neck.

“It’s going to get very cold,” said Alexa, “and very crowded very soon. Go to your master. Tell him he must free my father and let the dragon go.”

A snowflake floated between them. The

darkling tried to snatch it out of the air, but one blow from Alexa’s lips sent it dancing away to land well out of the creature’s sight. At the same time, the surface of the water groaned. The darkling lifted a leg. The sea had hardened further – and

cooled.

“That was the first one,” Alexa said.

First one? First one
 
what
? The darkling

snarled. It was tired of this. It splayed its claws and prepared to strike. But as it reared, something unexpected happened. The dragon in Alexa’s hands changed shape. Not by much, but enough to stall the darkling’s attack. The new dragon was even stranger than the first. It had a weapon of sorts, some kind of flattish object. The ‘weapon’ was actually a book of instructions, wielded by a brave, if frightened, ‘guard’ dragon. The darkling watched  it  flip  through  the  pages, eventually stopping at the letter ‘P’. There

was   one   instruction   written   there:

‘POINT’.

The dragon slammed the book shut…and pointed.

The darkling turned around.

Towering over it was a huge whitebear. In the background, more and moreflakes were falling. Everywhere theylanded, more bears appeared.

The darkling bared its teeth. Knowingno instinct other than conflict, it issued athreat, which had scarcely grazed the backof its throat before the bear brought downa mighty paw and flattened it into a messof ooze.

“Hate those things,” the bear said gruffly.

A younger bear, sleeker than the first, drew up. “We could have captured that and questioned it, Kailar.”

“You talk too much already, Teller.” With a wallop, Kailar punched through the surface and washed his paw in the water

beneath. “Which way to Ingavar, child?”

Alexa looked down at her hands. Once

again the dragon changed shape, into noticeably softer lines. “Have you found David’s auma, Gwendolen?”

The dragon blew a smoke ring and watched it drift. She pointed towards the setting sun.
 
Hrrr
.

Alexa nodded. “Go quickly, Avrel. Surround the island. Remember your training when the darklings attack. Don’t let them into your mind.”

The Teller grunted. “Did the dragon say anything else?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Alexa said, though it was of deep concern to her. Now that they were settled in the crucial timepoint, Gwendolen and Ganzfeld were

using the field to search for traces of recognisable auma. Gwendolen’s first report had been quick and heartfelt.
 
They’re hurting Lucy
.

Avrel nodded and drifted away to join the pack.

“Why?” asked Alexa, when he was out of earshot. “What has Lucy done?”

Again the dragon changed shape. This time Gadzooks appeared. He was shaking and sweat was pouring off his neck. His green scales were turning black near one shoulder.

Alexa parted her hands. Gadzooksstayed on her left palm and Gretelmaterialised on her right.

Hrrr!
 
went the potions dragon.

“Yes, they’ve infected him,” Alexa

said.

Gretel immediately reached for her

flowers.

“No,” said Alexa. “Let it build.”

Hrrr?
  
said   Gretel.
 
And   watch

Gadzooks invert?

“It’s a form of dragonpox,” Alexa told her. “And what do we always do about that?”

We call upon the auma of Gawain totransform it.

“Mmm,” said the child. “And Davidwill do that. But
 
we
 
need to find a way tospread it.” She closed her right hand and Gretel disappeared in a spark of light. Then bringing Gadzooks up close to herface, she politely asked, “May I?”

He gave her his pencil.

“Don’t be frightened,” she said in a lullaby voice. “Joseph will be here soon.” And she wrote one word on Gadzooks’

notepad: ‘KISS’.

13. Hands

“You liked me once, didn’t you?”

Like David, Rosa was being held in a small indent on the high outer edges of the Tooth of Ragnar. More a scoop out of the scree than an actual cave, but slightly better protected from the wind and continuously warmed by the work of Gawain. She was comfortable enough, though fretfully aware of the setting sun, the   dwindling  curtain  of  light  that measured the remaining hours of her life. She had to fill those hours somehow, and talk was cheap.

“Is this what you do when you write your poems? Just stare at the sea until

inspiration comes?” Tam had his back to her in a silhouetted ‘A’ shape. He’d been looking at the ocean almost since they’d arrived, as if his previous life was rowing in on a boat. “I wandered lonely as a darkling. You might as well talk to me. I’m not gonna bite.”

“Poems?” he said. He half-turned. In

profile,   with   the   horns   and   coils concealed, he was deeply handsome. Almost human.

Rosa shuddered – and not just becauseher head was throbbing, though it had beensince he’d brought her here. A swarmingspiral of intense pressure that seemed tobe chasing the blood around her skull. “You were creative, weren’t you? Thememories are patchy, but she liked that

about you. The way you expressed yourself in verse. The way you read. The accent in your voice. She liked that a lot. Liked you a lot, really – until you betrayed her.”

“Who?” he said. “Who are you talking

about?”

“
Her

,   who   else?   Zanna.   Your

‘Pri:magon’. The one you’d happily die for. Ohhh… ” The pain again, as if something … wild… was trying to connect to her. Rosa pressed both hands to her head.

“I told you to stop that,” Tam said coldly.

“And I’d tell you to go to hell – except I think you’re already there. I have a headache, okay?” She tapped her temple.

“Probably this toxic… stuff in the air. It feels like the dragon is blowing its
 
smog
 
straight in through my ears. The real Tam would have tried to help me. Don’t you feel anything for her now?”

“I’m here to guard you, human. And whatever you think you know about me, I would never betray my Pri:magon.”

“Hmph,” went Rosa. She gathered her knees under her chin and rocked. “Does it

hurt to know she’s marrying Voss?”

“Be  quiet,”  he   snapped.   “If  the Pri:magon orders it, I will gladly throw you off the cliff at dusk. Think about that before you open your mouth again. It’s a long way down to those points of rock. Pray you reach them before the darklings snatch you out of the sky.”