Fire Star (4 page)

Y
ou did what?” Liz lowered her shopping bags and threw her daughter such a look of deep shock that Lucy felt compelled to pull a tissue from her sleeve and blow her nose to avoid eye contact.

“It was in your drawer — with a stamp on and everything.”

“Yes, and that’s where it should have stayed.”

“But you
promised
you would mail it and I thought you had. Instead, you hid it and you didn’t even
tell
me. That’s sneaky, Mom. David will go mad.”

Liz sank into a kitchen chair, rubbing her brow. “Something wasn’t right about that contract, Lucy. It was tainted with Gwilanna’s magics, I’m sure of it.”

Lucy settled nervously against the workbench. She
thought back to the day that David had signed the agreement with his publisher, then left to go to the Arctic. The ink in his signature had run down the page, which was odd because the pen he’d used had not been “globby.” The ink had run to form a strange kind of sign. This was what Lucy queried now: “Just because of that dribbly pen mark?”

Bonnington leaped onto Liz’s lap. She stroked him idly and quietly said, “Yes.”

On the fridge top, the listening dragon stirred. Within seconds, it had transmitted the information around the house. Dragon scales everywhere nervously rattled.

“I did intend to mail it, but I changed my mind. I was planning to talk it through with David when he came home. It would have been easy for his publishers to draw up a copy contract. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“It’s just a piece of paper,” Lucy protested.

Liz set her gaze into the middle distance and shook
her head slowly, deep in thought. “No, I think that mark’s significant. Gwilanna’s using it to set something evil in motion, something to do with David’s writing, perhaps. Mailing the contract probably represented the final commitment she needed for her spell.”

“But …?”

“Shush, it’s all right.” Liz clutched her hand. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. But we should be on our guard. And David needs to be alerted now.”

Lucy pushed the cordless phone across the table.

“Not just yet. Go and call Gadzooks. I want to talk to him. He seemed ruffled this morning. I want to know why.”

Lucy turned on her heels, then back again. “What about Zanna? She’s got that mark. Is she going to turn into an evil sibyl?”

“I don’t know,” said Liz, hugging Bonnington to her. “Go and bring Gadzooks — and tell Gruffen to keep a close eye on Gretel.”

Meanwhile, on the windowsill in David’s room, G’reth and Gadzooks were engaged in another important conversation — about the origins of the universe. G’reth, by virtue of his gift of granting wishes, had vast experience in the workings of the universe — but as to its origins, there he was stumped. He felt sure that the universe had not always been in being and therefore something had created it. But what?

Gadzooks tapped his pencil against his pad. In his opinion, he said, the answer to the mystery was in the stars.

G’reth raised an eye ridge and glanced into the garden. The sky was barely gray. No stars were visible yet. Why did Gadzooks want to know this, he queried?

The writing dragon chewed on his pencil, making another score in its end. The David was thinking about it, he said.

At that moment, Lucy walked in and asked Gadzooks to come to the kitchen.

Seeming grateful for the chance to cease his pondering,
Gadzooks laid his pad and pencil on the sill and flew straightaway to Lucy’s shoulder.

G’reth blew a smoke ring and rattled his scales. He’d been hoping to assess his brother dragon’s thoughts on this worrying business concerning Gwilanna, but for now the moment was gone. He drummed his claws and looked along the sill. His gaze alighted on the pencil and pad. He had always been entranced by this simple device of writing things down and having them happen. Curious to know just how it worked, he pottered over and peered at the pad. He picked it up and let it fall open. The pages fluttered and came to rest at a relatively simple pattern of stars. G’reth couldn’t help it; he picked up the pencil. He turned the pad left. He turned it right. He looked at its reflection in the windowpane. Then he did something rather odd. He put the pencil onto the pad and began to join the dots in their mirror image. And who knows what force was guiding his paw, but as a shape began to emerge, so G’reth came to have the sudden understanding that the universe was
born from the very same place that Gadzooks received his inspiration. In other words, the force which created words and matter was one and the same.

What’s more, as he continued to draw, he realized with some degree of surprise that his work was not done. Before the David had traveled north, he, G’reth, had granted a wish that his master should learn the secret of the fire tear of Gawain, the last true dragon to inhabit the Earth. David had made a great discovery — about the relationship of ice to fire. But it was not the
whole
story, just a fragment of it. G’reth could see that now. For the David to understand the secret in full, he needed to step back further in time and learn where the dragon’s fire had come from. In essence, that was simply answered: Gawain’s fire had originated at the center of the Earth. But where had the Earth itself come from? And how had the fire been born at its center? That was the real mystery.

Snap!
G’reth gave a startled
hurr
and looked down anxiously at the pad. His concentration had been so deep that the pencil tip had broken beneath the weight
of the pressure he’d applied to it. Yet to his surprise, the joined up star dots had formed a message. Not much of a message, it had to be said. But an interesting one. Just a single letter:

G

L
ights. Not high in the sky, but lower down, twinkling on the far horizon. Thoran slowed to a halt and tipped his glistening nose toward them. “That is the dump town, the place that men call Chamberlain,” he said.

Ingavar drew up close alongside, testing the strength of the ice underfoot. Since dawn, their pursuit of the pulsing yellow star — which Thoran claimed he could sense in daylight — had been hampered by stretches of open water, steadily increasing in number and size. Several times they had had to change course, so that Ingavar would not need to swim between floes. Now, even that was not an option. The ice was fragile here. With one stout lunge this loose foundation would
splinter and crack and they would sink to their necks in ice-cold water. Ingavar’s shoulder could not take that.

“What do we do?” he asked, his voice tarred deep with pain and frustration.

“We wait for the sea to sleep,” said Thoran.

Ingavar pushed his face into the wind. It was bitterly cold, so cold that his snorts of vaporizing breath were turning to frost as they blew back against his thinning snout. The description of the forthcoming freeze amused him, but the sight of so much water did not. All he could see between himself and the lights that marked the edge of the land were several miles of undulating peaks, dotted with chunks of unfused ice. “It might be days,” he said, thumping the surface again to be sure.

“Then why waste your energy pushing and prodding like an ignorant cub? Everything has its time, Nanuk. The stars travel slowly. So will we.”

Stars. To the amber eye of the ordinary bear they were hidden in the reddening dusk of nightfall and the knotted clouds lying dormant overhead. Almost a day had passed since Thoran had spoken of following a
“sign.” Ingavar had spent a large portion of that time walking alone and pondering this. Was it simply coincidence that he should be seeking out the tooth of Ragnar when there was a new star above the dump town? No, not a new star, a
returning star,
if the old Teller was to be believed. Ingavar growled and blew away a sigh. He scraped the ice into a ridge below his paw, feeling its wet bite soak around his claws. His mind had been dizzy with fragments of myth and legend all day. The ice, its texture, its coldness, its ubiquity was all that was keeping his sanity intact. The same could not be said of his patience. He trod the mound flat and swung his body sideways, limping back and forth along the jagged waterline, never taking his gaze off the lights.

Thoran, watching him, stretched out his paws and allowed his body to sink to the ice. “Your injury is growing worse,” he said. “And still you are anxious to walk, not rest.” He yawned and looked across the water at Chamberlain. “For every light you see, there
are at least four men. It must take a quest of great importance to risk surrounding yourself with them.”

Ingavar breathed in, tightening his jaw. Thus far on their journey, Thoran had not pressed him for information regarding his purpose in Chamberlain. To hear it voiced now, when they might be stranded for a number of days with only words and the wind for company, made Ingavar very uneasy. The old bear had cleverness wrapped around his tongue. No doubt he would have some reproving words to say about a settlement made with a changeling raven. But that trade was hidden in Ingavar’s heart, as sealed as a mother bear in her den. He dared not let it out, nor, despite Thoran’s kindness through the blizzard, drag him into potential danger. So, with a false air of severity, he said, “When we reach the town, we go our own ways.”

Thoran responded with a courteous nod. “Do you know what they will do to you, when they catch you?”

The young bear stared ahead in silence.

“They will shoot you down again, Nanuk. This time
with a potion to make you sleep. Then they will cage you and ridicule you. If fortune is with you, they will use their machines to fly you back to beyond where we met. Or they may cage you for the rest of your days. Tell me, son of Ragnar, where would be the honor in that?”

The wind coursed through Ingavar’s fur. He flexed his shoulder so the cream hairs rippled. “I will be stronger in the town,” he said.

“You speak like a bear with vengeance in his heart.”

“All bears have a score to settle with men.”

“So you know the legend of Oomara?” said Thoran.

But Ingavar fell into a brooding silence and Thoran decided he would press him no further. “Rest,” he said. “Before morning, the fire star will guide us across the water.”

“How?” Ingavar demanded grumpily.

But by then, Thoran was asleep once more.

W
ow,” said a voice. “So that’s what you get up to when you sneak in here …”

“Thank
you,”
said David, clicking his mouse. The story of Thoran, Ingavar, and Chamberlain vanished to a box on the toolbar at the bottom of the computer screen.

“It’s good,” said Zanna, looking over his shoulder. “Put it back up. Let me read some more. How much have you done?”

“Four chapters — nearly enough, if I hadn’t been interrupted.” He closed the laptop shut. “I think my ice samples call.”

“No, they don’t,” she said, and plopped herself in his lap.

“Zanna, cut it out. This is Bergstrom’s office!”

“Oh, getting picky now, are we?” She tossed her long black hair aside. “You didn’t complain when I came to keep you warm last night, author boy.”

“That was different.
That
was private. Come on, Tootega might be in the lab.”

Pouting, she reached out and pushed the door shut. It settled in the frame, displaying a poster of an Arctic landscape bathed in a dusky, purple light.
“Blurghh
to Mr. Inuit grumpy guts,” she said, sticking out her tongue and waggling it. “Have you seen that necklace he’s wearing today? It’s a shaman’s charm, full of bones and pouches and hanks of fur.”

“I hear they’re all the rage up here.”

“You can joke,” she said, “but it’s not funny for me. He thinks I’m an evil spirit.”

“Don’t be dumb.”

“I’m not joking. You’ve seen how he avoids me. He clocked this yesterday and flipped.” She pushed back the sleeve of her chunky knit sweater. On her arm was the legacy of her fight with
Gwilanna. Three sticklike lines, climbing in a curving ragged stroke from just behind the elbow to halfway down the forearm.

“That’s a mess,” said David, screwing up his nose.

“Thanks. You look great in the mornings, too.” She pulled her sleeve back down to her wrist. “I saw Manorski, the medic, yesterday, to try to find out why it won’t heal over. He thinks the lacerations are infected, that’s all. He’s given me some antibiotic cream. I have to rub it in three times a day until the sibyl Gwilanna goes up in smoke.”

“Good,” said David, hoping the metaphor would prove correct. Zanna had always refused to accept that the marks were anything more than deep-lying scratches. So why, David wondered, was Tootega so very jumpy around her? And why had he himself been so unnerved when he’d seen that near-identical arrangement appear in the head of a bear on a poster in Henry Bacon’s study? He glanced at the laptop. The sign had driven his urge to write, about Ingavar and Thoran and the history of the Arctic. But that was just a story, a saga
in his head. Imagination coinciding handily with reality. A spooky synchronicity, nothing more.

Wasn’t it?

Zanna caught his eye and looked back at the machine. “What?” she queried.

And that was one good reason she should not go reading his story yet: If she knew he’d based his “mark of Oomara” on her injury she’d go totally ape. “Nothing,” he said, tugging her around with a fistful of her sweater. “You look good like this, all kind of … homely.”

“David, I look like a seal,” she said. “Arctic clothing is not very flattering.”

He had to smile at that. Back home, she would have been midriff bare, bangle heavy, head to toe in purple and black. What a change a climate made.

“Story,” she said. “Tell me something about it. On the flight over you said it began with a mother bear and cub sitting on the pack ice near the Tooth of Ragnar, talking about their ancestry and stuff.”

“It did,” said David, “but since we’ve been up here
I’ve had some new ideas. Everything I’ve written has been about these two male bears — one old and wise, the other young and aggressive — crossing the pack ice.”

“Migrating north?”

“No, that’s the twist. They’re coming in to town, not away from it. They’re following a star. Well, the old one is.”

“Whoa, the baby Jesus lives in Chamberlain?”

“In an igloo next to the inn. Try again.”

“Um, the star’s a comet on a collision course with Canada? It’s going to wipe out all the bears unless someone stops it?”

“Surprisingly, no. And that wouldn’t be too kind to our hosts now, would it?”

“Sorry, Canada,” she said, saluting the flag on Bergstrom’s desk.

“That’s the flag of Norway,” David groaned. “The clue’s in the missing maple leaf.”

“Never in the Girl Scout guides. Flags are not my strong point. OK, why’s the other one coming?”

“Other what?”

“Bear, knucklehead. If one is a wise pack leader from the East, what’s the other guy’s agenda?”

“Oh, Ingavar. He’s been shot in the shoulder. He’s coming because … he wants to be healed.”

“By the good kind fair-haired Dr. Bergstrom?”

“Something like that.”

“Really? Is Bergstrom in it?”

David glanced at the laptop again. “There might be a character based on him.”

“Don’t be cagey. Zannas like truth.” She tugged a finger at the neck of his sweater.

He told her a partial truth: “I’m waiting for Gadzooks to decide.”

“Cool. You’ve pictured him?”

“Hmm. Kind of. He sent me a cryptic letter this morning.”

Zanna shook with surprise. “That’s some smart dragon. How much writing can he get on that pad?”

“Not
Dear David, how’s it going?,
you doofus. A letter from the alphabet.”

“Was it Z?” she asked brightly, showing her perfect, dentist-daddy teeth.

“No. It was
G.
No words or phrases. Just a capital letter
G.
I’m still trying to work out what it means.”

“Dragon name. They all begin with a
G.”

“Great, that narrows things down a bit.”

She slapped his shoulder. “Don’t get smart. Maybe he’s trying to tell you something. About Grockle, say — or Gretel?”

“Stop fishing,” said David, shaking his head. “I didn’t get any bad vibes from him and it didn’t feel specific to any one dragon. Besides, he normally only writes when I’m stuck with a story.”

“Are you?”

“Hmm, maybe.” He planed a hand. “I wasn’t planning for my bears to be stranded on pack ice at the water’s edge, but I think I’ve resolved that.”

“How?”

“Not telling you. Wait and see.”

“Howww?”
she persisted, trying to persuade him with a peck on his lips.

At that moment the door swung open and a tall lean figure in jeans and a buckskin jacket looked in. “Hey, lovebirds.”

“Hey, Russ.” Zanna sat up, swinging a leg.

“I assure you, this is not what it looks like,” said David, feeling a rush of color to his cheeks. He patted Zanna’s hip, trying to move her off his lap.

She, true to form, stayed put.

Russ laughed and said, “If I was where you are, I’d be whistling, David.” He winked at Zanna and tipped his battered old cowboy hat. “Got a message from Anders. He’s been delayed a while longer, because of bad weather.”

“Is he stuck on the pack ice at the water’s edge?”

“Huh?”

“Ignore her,” said David. “It’s a dumb inside joke.”

“Whatever,” said Russ. “Anders wants a couple of the team to drive in to Chamberlain and grab some supplies. Naturally, I thought you swingers would be up for it.” He threw Zanna a set of keys. “The pickup?” she whooped, looking out the
window at the long red truck parked across the compound, next to a pen of rusting oil barrels.

“Don’t wreck it,” said Russ. “There’s a big bad desert called the tundra out there, packed with potholes and killer lemmings. Stick to the road and take it slow. Weather flips quicker than a dime up here. If the wind kicks in from the north, it’ll be just like driving through icing sugar. You get stuck, you buzz in on the com, OK?”

“No problem,” said David, pressing his fingertips together in excitement.

“Here’s a list,” said Russ, handing him one. “There’s a trading post in the center of town. You can’t miss it. Sells everything you need from a button to a beaver.” He took out his wallet. “Here’s two hundred bucks. Put it in a pocket without a hole.”

Zanna leaped off David’s lap. “How long can we stay?”

“I want the both of you back in the base before seven, or I’ll have Tootega feed your butts to the huskies.”

“If we get lost,” Zanna said, big-eyed, “will you come and rescue us in your chopper?”

David groaned and slapped a hand across his face in embarrassment.

Russ pointed a serious finger. “This is a treat, girl. Don’t mess up.” He opened the door and backed into the lab.

“Russ?” David called him back.

“Yup?”

“Any chance we’ll see a bear?”

The pilot rolled a piece of gum against his cheek. “Maybe, though most should be up on the headland by now. You know the drill, right?”

Zanna laid her face against her steepled fingers. “Lie down and play dead.”

“Takes a lot of bottle to do that, honey. Better to drop an item of clothing. Bears are curious by nature; they’ll stop to check it out. Back off real slow and keep dropping if you have to, till you reach the nearest house. There’s an unwritten law in Chamberlain that folks don’t lock their doors. No one’s gonna thank you
for bringing home a bear, but they won’t turn you away either.”

“What if you run out of clothing?” Zanna asked.

Russ laughed and tipped his hat at her again. “Better to arrive butt naked than dead. Never run or look a bear straight in the eye. Makes ‘em kinda testy. My advice is, you steer good and clear of those boys. If you’re gonna go sightseeing, shy away from the rocks on the shores of the bay. High season, the bears hang out around there. You wouldn’t be the first to be surprised by a sleepy male dreaming of his next seal supper. You copy that, David?”

“Sure,” he said, fingering the polar bear’s tooth around his neck.

“OK. Get wrapped. It’s like the arctic out there.”

“Cool,” said Zanna.

“You’d better believe it,” said Russ. “Don’t forget the toilet paper or the beans.”