Rain & Fire (13 page)

 

The machine asks Rosa whether she wants it to absorb the collected energy, but instead she hurls the pad across the room and runs to the nearest shelf of books. She pulls one down and opens it —

 

For one moment nothing happened. But as she tilted the book, the periods, the commas, the question marks, and eventually the words themselves all began to slip from their places on the page until they were falling like ash around her feet.

“No,” she wailed. She sank to her knees, clutching the book to her heart.

They were dead, all of them. She knew it at once. Their auma taken. Their power destroyed….

Rosa looked tearfully over her shoulder. The Aunts were waking. She narrowed her gaze.

Good.

 

A tussle follows and the machine accidentally disgorges its auma into a strange three-lined scratch on Rosa's arm. Not only can Rosa now read dragontongue, the language in which the mysterious
Book of Agawin
is written (maybe Agawin is not just a legend, after all?), but she can also understand the firebirds when they communicate. Invited onto the upper floors by them, she and David discover an egg (which looks as
if it is ready to hatch) and a tapestry allegedly made by Agawin. They get a huge surprise when they discover that they (or rather, their Earth counterparts) are among a group of people depicted on the tapestry, along with a small dragon, holding a pad and pencil…. This is Gadzooks, of course, as you will know if you have read
Dark Fire
. The tapestry shows a scene from the
Battle of Isenfier, a vision from Agawin's distant future. Eventually, David and Harlan discover that Gadzooks has stopped the battle by suspending time and that a beacon or distress call is being sent out across the universe — to them.

Tapestry of Isenfier

Meanwhile, by her usual devious means, Aunt Gwyneth has gotten hold of the dragon's claw which Harlan found in the Dead Lands. Taking the form of a katt so that she can enter the librarium undetected, she commingles with a firebird infected by the Ix and learns it was they who came through the rift in search of David.

 

We will answer your questions,
they said weakly.

“Very wise. Tell me more about David Merriman. How can he have the auma of a dragon when no such thing exists on this world?”

The Ix paused.
He is between worlds,
they said.

“There are
three
Davids?”

Negative,
said the Ix.
There is one entity, varying at quantum speeds between the time points. His auma
alternates across the planes. This is a primary condition of the nexus.

“Is his life on Earth different — when he's
there?”

Yes, but his purpose remains the same. Only the connections vary.

“Connections? What connections?”

The Ix took a moment to consider this question.
The mammal in the book is one.

“The squirrel? Why would an insignificant creature mean so much to someone like him?”

On Earth, he has resonated strongly with them. We do not know what their function is.

“And where do I, Gwyneth, fit into this?”

You are another connection.

Suddenly, the tic around the eye was back. “Are you telling me that I have another life — on Earth?”

We must Cluster to answer that.

“Do it,” she snapped, flashing the katt's tail. “Try anything and I'll neutralize you all.”

We accept this,
said the Ix.

She let them regroup. After several moments of neural activity, they reported they had an answer.

“Well? What is it?”

At the time of Isenfier, Gwyneth does not exist.

“What?” The katt's teeth began to chatter fiercely.

On Earth, you are called Gwilanna. You die before Isenfier begins.

“How? In what circumstances?”

Fear,
they said, buzzing around her brain.
Fear of the Shadow. Fear of the Ix.

 

Gwyneth instantly decides she must change the timeline so that “she” does not die after all. But by doing that, she will change not only her own life on Earth, but also those of everyone else in the tapestry.

Will she succeed? Who or what can stop her? Will Gadzooks's message be picked up? And who is the young boy who has suddenly appeared in the tapestry? — and what hatches out in the aerie? It certainly doesn't seem to be a firebird….

The seventh and last book in the series follows what happens when Gwilanna dramatically attempts to save herself by altering the Earth's natural timeline. Her actions cause ripples back through history, enough to change history itself, including the legend of Gawain.

The Fire Ascending
begins on Earth, in the era when the last twelve dragons decide to give up their conflict with humans and isolate themselves on mountaintops all around the world. One of them, Galen, comes to land in an area called Kasgerden. This is observed by a young goatherd called Agawin, who is apprentice to a seer named Yolen.

It is traditional that a pilgrimage takes place to honor and pay last respects to a dying dragon, in hope that sparks of its fire tear (known as fraas) may be spread around and bring benefit and healing to any who experience its energy. However, Agawin's excitement at
taking part in this event is disrupted by an unexpected commotion.

 

Those at the rear began crying out a warning. I looked back and saw people stumbling and falling, children being picked up and rushed aside. The ground rumbled to the sound of galloping hooves. Horses were upon us. Arriving at high speed. The crowd parted like a flock of startled birds and I saw an old man knocked brutally sideways by the leading horse. It was as black as the unlit cave, with a mane that flashed around its neck like a blaze. Its eyes were full of blood and anguish. In the center of its forehead, at the level of the eyes, I thought I saw a stump of twisted rock, rough hewn at its point and oozing a kind of syrupy fluid. But my gaze was mostly on the rider, not his mount. Astride the horse sat a thumping brute of a man, with hair as long as the children of Horste. The menace in his eyes was as dark as the fists that gripped the black reins. And though I had no reason then to be afraid of him, a fateful chill still entered my heart.
For even I, a boy of twelve, could tell he was mesmerized by the prospect of the dragon. He was hunting more than fraas, I was sure.

 

The rider of the violated black unicorn turns out to be a man named Voss, who, with his men, mounts a further attack on the pilgrims. He wishes to kill Galen and take control of the whole area, although he himself is controlled by the Ix. In league with Hilde, the local sibyl, he uses the broken-off portion of the unicorn's horn as a means of gaining and wielding power.

Agawin and Yolen are invited to take refuge with a local villager, Rune, and his family. Rune's daughter, Grella, sees visions of dragons, and makes them into tapestries, at which she excels. When Agawin is invited to try his hand at starting a tapestry picture, he finds himself drawing a small dragon holding a notepad. He has no idea that this is Gadzooks or what the significance of his drawing might be. Meanwhile, the men of the village are invited to a meeting to decide what to do about Voss, and Agawin takes a walk. He stumbles across a tumbledown
dwelling, wherein sits an old man. This is Brunne, a blind seer, who seems to recognize Agawin's importance and tells the boy that he needs to know the secrets of time. Brunne is about to explain further when …

 

He swiftly raised a hand and some force pushed me back into the shadows of the krofft. He gave out a groaning sound like nothing I had heard from man or beast before — a rasp that rattled every bone in his chest, followed by a shudder that seemed to expel something more than air from his lungs. I gasped and covered my face. Whatever Brunne had concealed within his body was now in mine and sheltering there. The last thing I heard him say to me was this: “Keep Galen within your sight.”

 

Within seconds of this transfer, Brunne is murdered by one of Voss's men, and the building is set alight. In the meantime, Agawin hurries back to Rune's krofft. He finds the men drugged and learns that Grella has
been taken by Hilde to Voss's campsite on Mount Kasgerden. He follows, with the intention of rescuing Grella, but walks into a trap and is captured himself. Strangely, Voss is in possession of Agawin's tapestry — which now has a young girl pictured in it, a figure that Agawin did not draw. It later transpires that the tapestry is being imagineered by Agawin's own memories and future visions. But who is the child in the picture, and what is she trying to tell Agawin before he is sent hurtling off the mountain by one of Voss's henchmen …? Amazingly, Agawin survives the fall and to his surprise reappears in a distant valley, in front of a striking young woman who introduces herself as none other than Guinevere — the girl who, in legend, will catch Gawain's fire tear.

Guinevere takes Agawin back to the cave where she lives with a local sibyl — Gwilanna. Each is immediately suspicious of the other. Agawin learns that the sibyl was brought up by Grella (whom Gwilanna falsely believes to be her mother), but Gwilanna will not
talk about her. Similarly, Gwilanna distrusts Agawin because Grella always told her he had died in his fall. During a tense dialogue, Guinevere rushes into the cave to say that an eagle has appeared carrying an egg between its claws. The eagle is Gideon, and the dragon, about to hatch, is none other than Gawain.

Once he is out of his egg, Gwilanna is not thrilled by the new arrival, even though he is the last-known dragon in the world.

 

Gawain threw out his wings and went
hrrr!
in her face.

A gobbet of spittle landed on her cheek and fizzed along one of her many wrinkles. “Little monster!” she squealed, pulling back. She rubbed her face dry and swept toward the cave. “Bring that inside. Put it by the fire. When the sun goes down it will need more warmth than
you
can give it.”

I looked down at Gawain. He was indeed shivering. But it would not be long before his scales began to show, before he would get the insulation he needed. Dragons grew fast, if I remembered Yolen's teachings
correctly. He might look surprisingly vulnerable now, covered in juvenile pimply skin, but in just a few days he would be battle-hardened. “Plated” was the term the old ones used.

So I did as Gwilanna instructed. I went inside and set him by the fire. Right away, he scented the stewing rabbit and leaped into the pot, devouring every chunk, using his tail to skewer pieces up. To Gwilanna's annoyance, he lapped up all the juices as well. Then he licked his feet and isoscele clean and settled in the pot with his tail curled around him, unconcerned by the heat from the flames.

 

Gwilanna decides that Agawin and Guinevere must leave with the dragon because it would attract too much attention and bring danger to them all. She sends them to an island along the coast, where they believe Gawain will be protected by a nearby tribe called the Inook. Not long into their journey, however, they come upon two unusual riders, a man and a woman, dressed like no one they have ever met before. The woman is
riding a white unicorn; the man, a horse. It soon becomes clear that Gawain recognizes the man, and he rushes out of hiding to greet him. After a tense encounter, the man identifies himself as none other than David Rain. His companion is Rosa, Zanna's “alternate” from Co:pern:ica.

David reveals that they have stepped through a fire star on Co:pern:ica, in response to a distress call sent out by Gadzooks. They are here, he says, to seek out Gwilanna. When Guinevere asks why, David explains that in the future, Gwilanna has learned to Travel through time, creating havoc. He goes on to say that the fire star has brought them to early Earth so that they might discover how Gwilanna has gained this ability, and hence find a way to stop her. Agawin pledges his allegiance to the quest and swears he will do all he can to aid them. But Gwilanna, as always, proves to be a difficult and cunning adversary. Before long, she has concocted a plan to abduct Agawin and take him back to Mount Kasgerden. There, using one of Gawain's
claws, she rewrites the timeline in her own favor, and sends Agawin over the cliff edge again….