Fire Star (3 page)

H
e had been walking alone for six whole days when the old bear came to join him. Ingavar had paused to slake his thirst when the air behind him rippled with the clammy scents of another male. Lazily, he turned his head. There was rarely any sense of impending threat to an adult bear of his size and age, and though his foreleg was wounded, his nose was still sharp; the scent would be coming from many paces back.

Or so he thought.

As he turned, he immediately saw that the animal was half as close as he’d expected, almost as if it had landed from the sky. He swung around to face it, taking care not to show any hint of pain or impaired
movement. But the old bear displayed no signs of aggression, and continued to pad belatedly forward, following Ingavar’s tracks in the snow.

To the younger bear’s amazement, it stopped within easy reach of a charge. Then it, too, bent down and slaked its thirst. “You have walked a long way,” it said, snow falling out of the side of its mouth.

Ingavar squinted darkly at the bear and raised his head in a threatening stance. After what he had seen six days before, he was not prepared to take risks with strangers. “Move on,” he growled, and flicked his snout in a bearing south of his chosen tracks.

The old bear dipped its head to acknowledge Ingavar’s physical dominance. Then it grunted and ate more snow. “Why would I want to walk that way when it would bring me into the clutches of men?”

This, of course, made Ingavar twitch. It was many years since he had visited the dump town and his pathway there was admittedly unclear. And now here was this potbellied, straggle-haired lump giving him rough
directions to it. He stood, paralyzed by indecision. If this bear was right, how could he think of changing course without invoking meddlesome questions?

The old bear settled down, tucking its hind paws under its belly. It yawned and turned a paw, raking its tongue between the outstretched claws. “You seem confused, Nanuk.”

Ingavar ground his teeth. This visitor was bold, he had to give it that. He had not been spoken to as “Nanuk” in years. Although it was a word which described all bears, it was only ever used when an adult spoke down to a younger one, usually in a scornful manner. This bear had used it in a friendlier sense, and that made Ingavar strangely unsettled. “Why were you following me?” he asked, letting the words rumble out of his throat.

“I was curious,” the old one said. “The pattern of your tracks suggested you were limping. Now I see your wounds and I understand why. What I don’t understand, when the sea ice is freezing and the seal grounds will soon be full, is why a bear so strong in tooth and
claw is heading toward land when every other bear will be eager to leave it.”

“Who are you?” said Ingavar, swiping the ice, his ego now as ruffled as the fur on his back.

The old bear continued to groom in peace. “My name is Thoran,” he said.

Ingavar turned his snout away and gave a swift, derisive snort. He might have guessed this bear would carry the name of the first white bear to walk the ice. Some mothers would never understand the ridicule they put their offspring through. He swung his head again, north this time. “Move on, old bear. Go to the seal grounds, while you still have the strength to catch one.”

Thoran shook his head and yawned. “I am tired. We should rest awhile.”

“We?” Ingavar barreled his chest.

“There is a blizzard approaching. What point would there be in battling the wind on three good legs and a scratching limp? If you have sense as well as strength, you will lay your injured shoulder against me and let me protect you from the cold.”

Blizzard? Ingavar pricked his ears. From the north came the faint but definite whistle of an angry wind. Not only that, a few loose crystals were racing across the surface of the ice. The visitor was right, a blizzard
was
coming. Ingavar blew a throaty sigh and forced his canines into his lip. Once again, this heap of old fur had surprised him. “Why?” he said to Thoran. “Why would you protect me?”

Thoran laid his head down flat. “In Ragnar’s time, bears thought nothing of sleeping in packs. You are a son of Ragnar, are you not?”

Ingavar narrowed his gaze.

“Lie down, Nanuk. You need to rest.”

The wind moaned and clipped the tips of Ingavar’s ears. What could he do but give in and accept the older bear’s wisdom? Blowing the pride from his overworked lungs, he buckled his knees and let himself flop, pressing his injured, aching shoulder into Thoran’s warm, dry flank. And as the grazing edge of the blizzard came upon them and the snowflakes began to number and stick, he drew himself up in a
bulging heap and pushed
his long snout deep into the pit between Thoran’s open foreleg and belly. He was exhausted and had no wish to speak, but as his eyes grew heavy with the prospect of sleep, he used his throat to rasp four words. “My name is Ingavar,” he said.

And then he slept.

T
rue to her word, on the same day that David’s letter arrived, Lucy sat down at the kitchen table and spent the next few hours penning a reply. There was much sighing and clucking and frantic crossings out, coupled with balls of crumpled paper flying hither and thither around the room. Bonnington had to paw one out of his dinner bowl, Liz closed the washing machine door on another (Lucy’s white school ankle socks came out a shade of gray as a result), and the listening dragon on top of the fridge narrowly escaped being clouted by a bundle that also contained a lot of pencil shavings (Lucy liked to write her letters out in pencil first).

But eventually she settled with a bright blue pen and a notepad with a picture of two red squirrels. In her
neatest, most confident handwriting she put:
This is Hermione. Her friend’s name is Crispin. They are the king and queen of the pine forest. They used to be gray and nobody liked them until a magic owl turned them red. I think you could do a good story about them. Then she got on with the proper business of reporting all the news from Wayward Crescent.

She mentioned first how quiet things were, mainly due to the fact that their annoying neighbor, Mr. Bacon, had decided to go on a three-week cruise to somewhere called the Gulf of Mexico.
He says he will bring me some jumping beans, she wrote, but I would rather have a stick of rock from you. I told Mom you promised to bring home some rock with ARCTIC written all the way through it. Do not let me down!

And so it went on. By midafternoon she was starting the fourth and last quarter of the notepad when Liz announced she was going shopping and did Lucy want to come? Lucy was deeply engrossed in telling David about the colors of the trees in the library gardens, and how she had gathered a variety of leaves and pressed
them in her copy of
Snigger and the Nutbeast,
and here was a small horse chestnut leaf she had found right over Conker’s grave, which she was sending to him to remind him of Scrubbley. No, she didn’t want to go shopping, thank you, but was it OK if she ran to the post office just up the road and delivered her letter before they closed?

Liz said she could, as long as she was careful and came straight back. Oh, and would she mail the letters on the bench in the den?

Lucy finished off by writing,
Gadzooks is missing you lots, but not enough to shed his fire tear, don’t worry!! He’s making drawings of stars, Gwillan says. Isn’t that funny, you talking about stars and him drawing them? I will go and have a look at his pad when I have done this. I will tickle his scales until he goes tee hee hee like you do when you laugh. Have you told Zanna you do that? He does, Zanna, honest! It’s very embarrassing. He snores, too. I have to run now or I will miss the mail. Oh, I nearly forgot. Your money hasn’t come, and Mom says Gretel is …
She paused to chew her pen and think. What could she say, truthfully,
about Gretel? Bending her head again, she wrote …
pining for Zanna, but we are keeping an eye on her. I think it will be good when you both come home. Please send another letter if you have time. Lots of love from Lucy xxx

“Now, I need his address,” she said to Gwillan. “Fly upstairs and get the letter, will you?”

Hrrr,
went Gwillan, shaking his head. The letter, he reminded her, was put into a drawer. G’reth or Gruffen might be able to open it, but not a little puffler dragon like him.

Lucy tapped his snout. “OK, I’ll go.”

In the Dragon’s Den, she picked up two letters her mother had left by the pottery turntable, then opened the workbench drawer. At first she didn’t notice the large brown envelope underneath the white one, franked with a picture of Apple Tree’s famous award-winning character
Kevin the Karaoke Kangaroo.
But as she grabbed David’s letter and went to close the drawer, a dragon’s voice rumbled and she hesitated and turned.

It was Gretel, holding tight to the bars of her cage.

Lucy went over and crouched beside it. “You know I can’t let you out.”

Gretel shook her head.
Hrrr,
she said.

Lucy frowned. “What do you mean, you know why Gadzooks is unhappy?”

Gretel rolled her eyes toward the drawer.

The guard dragon, Gruffen, fluttered back there to investigate. Scotch tape, scissors, and some envelopes, he hurred.

“I know, I’ve just seen them,” Lucy said.

Hrrr,
said Gretel, meaning she hadn’t seen
everything.

So Lucy went back and had a proper look. And that was how she discovered the stamped and sealed envelope addressed to Dilys Whutton, Apple Tree Publishing. “That’s David’s contract,” she muttered. “Mom’s forgotten to mail it. That’s why he hasn’t got his money yet.”

Hrr-rrr,
Gretel said, crossing her paws behind her back as if she had done the house a great service.

Lucy said, “Does Zookie know?”

Gretel raised her shoulders.

Lucy hummed and dented her chin with a finger. “Perhaps he sensed it and that’s why he can’t properly write things for David?”

Gretel gave her a wide-eyed look.

“I still can’t let you out,” said Lucy, feeling an awful pang of guilt as Gretel dropped her wings and shuffled out of sight.

“I’ve got to hurry,” Lucy told herself, glancing at the clock. And without ever thinking that her mother might have had a very good reason for keeping the contract hidden from the world, she put on her hat and coat and gloves, and hurried to the post office to have her letter weighed. Then she put all the letters in the mailbox.

And that was when the trouble began.

W
hen Ingavar woke, the moon was out and he was coated with a shallow crust of ice. Thoran had already risen and was sitting not far away, staring fast into the dome of the night.

“It is time,” he said, without turning his head.

“For what?” said Ingavar. He raised himself clumsily and shook away the snow.

Thoran began to walk.

“Hey, hey, where are you going? Come back.” Ingavar’s voice was suddenly taut with a mixture of anxiety and irritation. Thoran had moved off along the route he claimed would lead to Chamberlain, the dump town.

“Ragnar was never one for stars,” he said. “He was guided by impulse, and that was his downfall. I pray that you and I will be more fortunate.”

Ingavar ran on ahead and turned. He walloped the ice, forcing the old bear to stop and sit. “Go back, Thoran. We are not together.”

Thoran looked deep into the younger bear’s eyes. “I am following a sign,” he said. “It seems it may take me into those territories overrun with men. If that is your intention, too, son of Ragnar, you may do well to keep me at your side. Men fear bears. That you know. And what they fear, they sometimes kill. In the dump town, they will be tolerant of us. I am old and easily pitied. But any men with knowledge of the ancient legends might not be so generous to a bear with the mark of Oomara in his head.”

At this, Ingavar started wildly. He swept away, looking for a mirror, for water. The lying, sniveling, cheating raven had said that none but the girl would see the mark!

Thoran continued on his way. “Do not vex yourself,” he called. “The scars are only clear to those, like me, who can read them in your auma.”

Auma? Ingavar had heard this word, but knew nothing whatsoever of its meaning. Once again he loped on ahead, shuffling backward to make sure Thoran had to face him. “You talk in many riddles, old bear.”

“The path to wisdom is not always straight,” said Thoran.

Ingavar blew a cloud of vapor. “What is auma?”

“Your spirit; the fire inside you.”

Ingavar narrowed his eyes in confusion. He had never been one for talk of spirits. What he couldn’t hit, he was wary of. “You said you were following a sign. What did you mean by that?”

Without breaking the rhythm of his stride Thoran said, “Look up, Nanuk, what do you see?”

Ingavar glanced at the widely spaced dots. “Stars,” he grunted.

“Can you read them? Do you use them to find your way?”

Ingavar snorted low between his paws.

“No. A true son of Ragnar, then?”

“And what are you? A Teller’s cub? A dainty son of Lorel?”

Thoran, if he was angered by this, did not growl or stoop to show it. Instead he said chillingly, “One day, Ingavar, you will know. Look between the three stars that point down like a snout and the cluster just to the right of them. What do you see?”

Frustrated, Ingavar turned and squinted. Had no one ever told this waddling fool that bears used their noses, not their eyes, for distance? Nonetheless, he singled out a pulsing, yellow star.

“Good,” said Thoran. “That is the sign. Watch it carefully. Let its auma join with yours.”

“It has fire?” asked Ingavar, who had never thought that stars were anything more than the eyes of his ancestors watching over him.

“It
is
fire,” Thoran replied. “All of them are. But the one that I am following is special. It has not appeared for many, many turns of the ice.”

Curious now, Ingavar walked a few paces ahead as if he would like to put out his tongue and swallow the star up whole, like a snowflake. “How do you know this?
Are
you a Teller?”

“Of a kind,” said Thoran.

More riddles. Ingavar shook his fur. “Then what does this
fire star
mean for us?”

Thoran slowed down and padded to a halt, raising his gaze in reverence to the sky. “You and I and all that we are, came from the center of these lights, Nanuk.” And while Ingavar continued to stare and wonder, Thoran let his auma join with the fire star. His claws reached deep into the pure white ice as if he was searching for a long-forgotten memory. Into his mind came thoughts of an island. An island far away where a giant creature lay sleeping in stone. “Gawain,” he whispered alone to the sky. And it may have been a trick of the changing moonlight, but his forehead was suddenly ablaze with fire, and three deep scars that men and bears called the mark of Oomara were alive, then gone, in the blink of the night.