Icefire (22 page)

In the morning, Lucy couldn’t stop snuffling.

“It’s only six weeks,” David said, hugging her.

“The house won’t seem the same with you gone,” said Liz. She folded a dish towel and left it on the drainboard.

David smiled and shook his head gently. “I am coming back. Don’t rent the room out. Promise me, now — or you won’t get your presents.”

“Presents?” Lucy perked up at once.

“Yep. I got you going-away presents. Let’s put my luggage in the car, then you can have them.”

“Um, no, we’re not taking you to the airport,” said Liz. “I couldn’t face a good-bye there. We’ve arranged a taxi. Should be here any minute.”

“So I’ll have my present now,” smiled Lucy.

David laughed and made them sit at the table. Gretel, who’d been perching quietly on a stool, plaiting hairs from Bonnington’s tail, flew over to watch. “Well, it’s not much, but it’s meaningful, I think.” David opened his jacket and pulled out a sheet of
printed text. He gave it to Lucy. “There; it’s the start of my polar bear book.”

Lucy scanned it quickly and handed it back. “Read it,” she begged.

“I can’t, not now. What if the taxi turns up?”

“Don’t worry, the taxi will wait,” said Liz. “Go on, read it. I’d like to hear it, too.”

“And the dragons,” said Lucy, springing up on her chair.

Hrrr!
went the listener on the fridge.

“Transmitting,” said Liz. “We’re all ears, David.”

“All right,” he said and laid the script out. “It’s going to be an Arctic saga. Lorel will be in it. And so will Ragnar. But it starts with a mother bear, talking to her cub. They’re sitting on an ice floe, looking across the ocean at Gawain’s island. This is how it goes:
‘Over there is an island the bears call the Tooth of Ragnar,’ Lono said to her daughter, Svenia, as they settled together at the edge of a lead.

“A lazy second passed. Svenia watched as the
stiffening breeze swelled the waters of the cold black ocean. Yawning noisily, she lifted her head and squinted across the creaking ice. The island her mother spoke of was away to their right, a hard and permanent giant on a fragmentary plate of white. It shimmered moodily under the pale Arctic sun and cast a blunted shadow that was long and unending. Splashes of snow marked its innermost contours. Birds circled and returned like flying chips of stone. Beyond it, dimmed by distance, lay a thin smear of land.

“ ‘Islands,’ said the cub with a disparaging grunt, ‘they’re all the same, islands.’ And raising a bloodstained paw to her mouth, she began to gnaw at the shreds of blubber that had lodged between her claws from an early morning feed.

“Lono raised her wise old head and stared absently at the high-pointed rock. ‘There was a time,’ she said, ‘when the ice was ruled by nine bears, and one of these was a bear called Ragnar.’

“There was an odd blend of vagueness and secrecy
in these words, enough to cause Svenia to interrupt her grooming and give the Tooth of Ragnar another protracted glance. It really did look just like a tooth, a dark and jagged canine tipped with snow. At its peak, it was snarled and slightly hooked, and not unlike the two island-shaped protrusions that hung down prominently from a bear’s upper jaw. But that was as far as the imagery would stretch. Any cub could see it was nothing but the usual crag and stone. She was about to turn away when her mother spoke again.

“ ‘He was a fighting bear. He sat to the right of the Nanukapik, Aluna. You remember what Nanukapik means?’

“ ‘Great bear,’ said Svenia, dibbling her fighting paw in the ocean. The waters moved with a satisfying ripple. ‘Can I go and see where Jorn is now?’ Slowly she rose into a begging position, scanning the ice on the far side of Lono for any sign of her truant brother. As usual, he was nowhere to be seen.

“ ‘Greatest bear,’ Lono corrected her.

“ ‘Hmm,’ the cub grunted, still raised, still looking. A fast-moving black-speckled cloud had caught her eye and was threatening to topple her if she lowered her concentration. The cloud quickly resolved into a small flock of buntings. The fold of their wings against the crisp edge of morning cut loud into the silence that suddenly surrounded the two female bears. Lono glanced up and followed the birds’ flight path. For a few seconds they described a perfect diagonal between herself and the Tooth of Ragnar. They careened and dipped into the north face of the rock and were swallowed up by distance and the backdrop of stone.

“ ‘You are a daughter of his line,’ said Lono.

“Svenia’s forepaws thumped onto the ice. ‘My father? You’re going to tell about my father?’ There was shock and surprise now in her voice. ‘But you always said you wouldn’t. You said a bear never needed to know about that.’

“‘Aluna was not your father,’ said Lono. ‘He was your ancestor.’

“The young bear wrinkled her snout. Ancestor? She, a daughter of some ancient, groggy bear? ‘You mean he’s old; dead even?’

“ ‘Many seasons ago,’ Lono replied. She stretched her neck to let the wind cool her throat, then looked across at the Tooth once more. ‘But here his spirit is always alive….’ “

“Gosh,” said Liz, “that’s very exciting. And quite a bit different from
Snigger,
too. Where did you get those lovely names?”

“Oh, the usual source. Plus one from Henry’s books. Anyway, what do you think?”

“I like it,” said Lucy. “When will you do the rest?”

“Ah,” went David, with a twinkle in his eye. He pulled the contract from Apple Tree out of his jacket and turned to the final page. “When I sign here, I’ll have to write the rest.”

“Sign,” Lucy urged him.

But Liz raised a hand. “Wait. Have you read through this?”

“Sort of. It’s just … legalities and stuff.”

“Exactly. You ought to know what you’re signing. Perhaps Henry could check it for you?”

“It’s all right,” said David. “It’s just boring blurb. Don’t spoil my big moment. Pen, someone?”

Lucy grabbed one off the countertop and handed it over.

“Signed … David … Rain,”
David muttered, scratching his name on the line marked “author.”

Immediately the doorbell rang.

“Me!” cried Lucy, and shot down the hall. As she unlatched the door, a wind tunnel formed between the hall and kitchen, sucking cold air from the open kitchen window. The pages of the contract fluttered wildly. Gretel jumped back, staring at it.

“What was that?” said Liz, listening intently to the dragon noises circulating round the house. She glanced at Gretel. The potions dragon blinked.

David covered the contract and reached for the tooth. “It’s nothing. Just the wind. And the dragons do
seem a bit hyper this morning. I opened that window at breakfast time because Gwillan was hurring so much he was steaming it up.”

“Yes, they’ve been ‘fluenced,’ ” Liz muttered quietly. “They’re sad, as well, to see you go. We don’t want any fire tears shedding.”

“Quite,” said David. “I’d better get going. Will you do me a favor and post this today?” He pushed the contract across the table. “At least then, when I come back from the trip, I can pay you back all the money I’ve borrowed.”

Lucy hurried in. “The taxi driver’s here.”

David hiked up his case and carried it to the door. A large black car had backed into the drive. Its trunk was already open. To David’s surprise, another suitcase was taking up half one side. He peered at the label …
Martindale, S.

“Zanna!” he yelled, and she stepped into the open. She was plainly dressed in blue denim jeans and a gray college sweatshirt. Her bangles and Gothic makeup had gone. Her hair was tied back in a long, thin braid.

“Wow, you look amazing,” said David.

“No, Rain, I just look different,” she sighed.

He dropped his case and hugged her tightly, so tightly that Lucy was heard to say, “Mom, he’s going to break her in a minute.”

Zanna didn’t seem to mind. Resting her forehead on his, she breathed, “When you’re done saving the world, do you think there might be a small place in it for me?”

“Always,” he said, and kissed her three times, on her forehead, her nose, and finally on her mouth.

Everyone was hugging each other after that.

When it came to David’s turn to throw his arms around Liz, he took the opportunity to speak a quiet word. “I didn’t forget your present, by the way. It’s not much, just a message — from a bear called Thoran. He wants you to know that Guinevere didn’t drown.”

Her hands clutched at the back of his jacket. “Thank you,” she whispered and kissed his cheek. “Promise me you’ll be careful up there.”

He drew back, nodding. There were tears in her
eyes. “Look after the dragons, won’t you?” he said. He kissed his fingertips and waved toward the house. From the upstairs windows, dozens of small green paws waved back. He put away his case and closed the trunk. “North?”

“You bet,” said Zanna.

And they were gone, in the briefest screech of tires. Hand in hand, Liz and Lucy walked back to the house.

“What shall we do now?” Lucy asked.

“I need to mail David’s contract for him.” Liz picked it up off the kitchen table. For a moment she stood there reading a chunk, then she began to quickly flick through it. At the final page, she stopped and stared. “Lucy, you know that pen, the one David used to sign his name. Does it leak?”

Lucy drew a few lines with it, on her hand. “A bit, yes.”

“As much as that?” Liz turned the page around. From the lower curves of David’s signature, three long trails of ink had formed.

Lucy tilted her head … and shuddered. “They look like Zanna’s scratch.”

The heart of the house stopped beating for a moment.

“Where’s Gretel?” said Liz, looking toward the countertop.

But Gretel wasn’t there. She was in the Dragons’ Den, hurring a lullaby and standing over Grockle. In her paws was a lock of Liz’s red hair.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

H
i, I’m Chris d’Lacey. Thank you for reading
Icefire.
I hope you found it interesting and exciting and even funny in places. It was certainly quite an adventure for me and Gadzooks. I had no idea when I began to write the book that I would end up discovering how the Arctic came to be. Wow. He’s one smart dragon.

It’s ten years now since I began writing books for children and I have to confess I never thought I would end up writing books for children about dragons. Polar bears, for sure. I’ve always been fascinated by them. Children sometimes ask me, “Chris, if you could be any kind of animal what would it be?” And I always say, “A polar bear!” I mean, they are seriously cool, aren’t they? No one messes with a polar bear. I’ve always wanted to visit the Arctic, too. This is kind of strange when you consider that, as a boy, I was always hopeless in the cold. When it snowed, my pop would take me out on a sled, and I would be fine for the first half hour. Then my fingers would turn blue and frost would form on my eyebrows and I would feel a little nauseous and want to go home. It was such a disappointment. But later in life I found a way around it. I discovered the incredible power of stories, just like David did in my first dragon book
The Fire Within.
In a book, there are no barriers. You can place a character anywhere you like. You can travel to the Arctic and imagine the cold, but you don’t have to be inhibited by it. Worlds you never thought possible are suddenly available to visit and explore. You can speak to a dragon who will grant you a wish (so long as it’s beneficial to dragonkind, of course). You can stand in awe before nine white bears and never be in doubt that they truly ruled the ice. You can be a hero. You can be a villain. You can fall in love with a girl who looks like a licorice stick. It’s fantastic. Best of all, you can dream ahead. If you really enjoyed this book, for instance, you can peer into the moonlit sky and know that one day a
Fire Star
is coming….

Until then, happy reading, happy
adventuring.

So long from me and my zany dragons,

(and Gadzooks,
hrrr)

Visit www.scholastic.com/LastDragonChronicles to learn more about Chris d’Lacey’s books.