The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (23 page)

“Then he died naturally?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She paused for a moment and let her gaze shorten.

While she mused, I quietly extended my foot and dragged the ice chunk closer to my hand.

Unwise
, said the Fain, guessing my

intent.
 
It will be hard to pick up or throw accurately from the glove.

We must try. She has to be stopped. I mean to stun her and steal back the

tornaq. I will need all the power Galen

can offer.

She looked up suddenly. I had no time to pull my foot back, but flexed it as if I needed to stretch. Her gaze narrowed a little but she made no threat. “You were

telling me – about Gawain?”

Her lips were blueing, showing the cold, but they still had the power to drone. “He gave up his fire tear because he was alone. This world, with its ghosts of dragons gone by, had nothing to offer a solitary beast. In the end, he was simply tired of the struggle.”

“Struggle?” I said, to keep her talking. Again she looked away. Long enough to let me drag the ice within reach.

“He wanted to be loved, not feared, by men. In the final days, only Guinevere

remained a friend to him.”

“And me?” I asked, before the pause grew too great. “Was I not also a friend to the dragon?”

“You weren’t
 
there
,” she said harshly, close enough for me to smell the fungus on her breath. “You somehow disappear out of the timeline before Guinevere reaches

the island.”

I let my fingers loosen in my glove. Ihad a chance there and then to make mystrike, but her words had made me itchwith curiosity. “Why do I disappear? Is itbecause of you?”

She made a sound like a skogkatt andsat well back. “For once, I had nothing todo with it – though that will change whenour lesson is over.” She drummed her

stick-like fingers on the chair. “There’s something rather
 
odd
 
about you. You’re a freak. A hiccup in the waves of time. Your name pops up all over the future, but no legend ever speaks of the heroic cave dweller, running to the aid of the last known dragon. You weren’t even on the island the night Gawain died.”

“Were you?”

“No. But Guinevere was. She would go to his eyrie and sing to him when the moon came up. It was his only comfort in his final days.”

“She helped him sleep,” I muttered, remembering the time I’d collapsed near the goats, listening to Guinevere’s lullaby.

“She calmed the beast, yes, when it shed its tear.”

“But… she must have been close to

him.” The danger was immense. “Was she consumed by the fire tear’s flame?”

“Questions, questions, questions,” she whined. Nevertheless, she gave me an answer. “No, Guinevere did not die then. She spread her hands and caught the tear.”

“Caught it?” My mouth fell open in shock.

“Some silly desire to preserve the auma of dragons on Earth.”

I remembered us walking away from the caves, talking about my encounter with Galen. Her words of awe came swimming back.
 
You
 
caught
 
his fire tear? You
 
held
 
a

dragon’s fire?
 
Now, on this island, she had done the same. I was at once excited

and terrified. Twelve dragons. There, in

the cup of her hands. I forgot about attacking Gwilanna for the moment. This I had to know more about. “She was

exposed to him then? To all Gawain’s power?”

Gwilanna sighed. “This is tedious, boy.”

Not to me. “She must have his auma.

She must have absorbed some, just like Gideon. That makes her kin to the bird –

and to David.”

The sibyl immediately tightened herstance. “Do
 
not
 
mention that name. Whydoes everything come back to David? Thefire tear had no effect on the girl. It simply

… spilled from her hands and went back to

the Earth.”

“You’re lying,” I said. It was clear

from the way she’d broken her words.

“Oh, very well. What is it going to matter that you know?” She pinched her lips together in a line. “The tear was carried here, across the Great Sea.”

“By Guinevere?”

“Yes.”

“She took out a boat?”

“No, not a
 
boat
 
. She was aided by that lump of blubber and fur that led her toward the island in the first place.”

“Thoran?”

“Yes… Thoran. Whatever he’s called.

Somehow, she managed to extract mythorn and save his miserable, grunting life. He swam, with Guinevere on his back. Out to sea. Far out to sea.”

“Why?”

“Never mind why!” she snapped.

But I had to know. “What happened to them, sibyl?”

“This did,” she snarled, pointing at the ice. “She was carrying the tear in a drinking vessel. When the bear grew tired and could swim no more, she opened the vessel and poured Gawain’s fire tear into the water. This is the result. Here. All

around you.”

The ice sheet formed from his fire
 
,

said the Fain.

And we, in effect, were sitting on hisgrave. “Did Thoran drown?”

“Unfortunately not.” She ground hermisshaped  teeth  in  annoyance.   “Heclimbed onto the ice and his fur turned

white. His kind have been a plague to me

ever since.” Ice bears. Now I understood.

Thoran, like Gideon, had been altered by Gawain, creating a brand new species ofbear. “And—?”

“Stone,” she interrupted, “before you

ask. Gawain’s tear did not return to the

fire eternal, therefore his body turned to stone. For once, the old myths were actually correct.”

I vaguely knew something of this. In my boyhood fantasies I had often imagined climbing up the tail of an old dead dragon and sitting on its back as though I might fly. But Yolen had quashed this in a few words.
 
When a dragon’s tear falls upon the Earth
 
, he had said,
 
its body dissolves into the stuff of the Earth, there to replenish the spirit of Gaia
 
.

But if the tear had not gone back…

“Where?” I asked her. “Where did it

happen?”

“On the peak of the island. Where do

you
 
think
?”

I glanced at the distant point of rock. It

had to be the ‘Tooth’ that Guinevere had

talked about, the place we’d been heading

for. “He’s there still?”

She snorted, scornful of my aspirations. “Don’t waste your time thinking you canbring him back. I tried once, well into thefuture. That idiot David got in my way. Itwas a particularly
 
chilling
 
experience,which I will take pleasure paying back tohim one day.”

“Gawain is gone, then? Lost for good?”

She licked her lips. Sadly, her tongue

didn’t freeze to them. “I did not say that. There is
 
one
 
way the dragon could rise

again.”

“How?”

A sharp
 
Caw! Caw!
 
split the air.

She smiled, but there was nothingpleasant about it. “I do believe you’reabout to find out.”

I looked at the island again. Four blackdots were on the distant skyline. Ravens. Ireadied Galen for combat. But there was

one more thing I had to know first: what

had become of Guinevere?

“How far along the timeline are we?”

“Far enough,” she sniffed. “What is it to

you?”

“Is Guinevere alive?”

She took this question like a slap in the

face. A noticeable judder troubled her lip.

“What became of her when the ice was

formed?”

“I am not in the mood to speak about—”

“Answer me, sibyl. I want to know.”

“She perished,” she snapped. “There is nothing else to say.”

“Perished?” That seemed an odd word

to use. All the same, it sounded final. My young heart tremored. And even she, Gwilanna, looked bitterly deflated.

“My perfect construct… gone,” she said. “Lost, like a breath of wind, until… ”

“Construct?” I almost fell off my stool. “You mean…  Guinevere wasn’t
 
human
?”

The girl I’d befriended, the one I’d milkedgoats with, had simply come out of Gwilanna’s
 
mind
? My thoughts flashed

back to the moment by the woods when David had touched her long red hair. The sudden look of surprise on his face. He’d read her, and known. “She told me you found her, abandoned, by the sea.”

“A tale, to ease her childhood,” she muttered.    “I
 
made
  
Guinevere.   I

imagineered her.”

“No,” I said. “I do not believe you. Even for a sibyl, how could such a thing be possible?”

“If you had suffered like I had suffered, you would not be asking that question, boy. Auma is energy. It can be shaped like clay. All it takes is extreme intent and some knowledge of the secret workings of the universe. I didn’t understand the

ability myself until I learned I was born

from unicorn blood… ” She gave me a pompous grin of gratitude.

I was still struggling to take this in. “Are you saying Guinevere was born from your grief?”

Mockingly, she clapped her hands.

“From human auma? From the death of

another?”

“Enough, boy. Cease your tiresome prattle. I do not wish to be reminded of this.”

But I was on the tail of an old riddle

now. This time, I wasn’t about to let go.

“She’s Grella, isn’t she?”

“I said
 
guard your tongue
 
!”

Guard it? I was almost chewing it off. “Say it, sibyl. You killed poor Grella and from her auma you fashioned another. A

perfect child who would always do your bidding. What was the skull for? More of your magicks? A charm to control her
 
eye colour
 
by?”

With a whoosh that felt like a kick in

the chest, I found myself landed on my back. I roared in anger – or Galen did – but for all that dragon’s native strength I could not react fast enough to gain an advantage. With a speed so unnatural I did not see her coming, the sibyl reared over me like a demon, holding a spike of ice to my heart. “Guinevere is all that is precious to me. You will not speak ill of her. It’s because of your
 
quest
 
that she dies out here. I visited the timepoint. I watched her body break into fragments and fly away into the northern wind. In the

future I trace those pieces of her and watch over every child they spawn. Elizabeth Pennykettle. Lucy Pennykettle. All the other daughters of Guinevere and Gawain. And what do I get for my knowledge and vigilance? Interfering idiots like you and David Rain.
 
Don’t
… try anything.” She pressed down, denting my clothes with her spear. “This is how David Rain dies in this timeline. Killed by the work of his beloved dragon.”

“Then I would be like him,” I hissed. “In death, I would gladly commingle with Gawain. Kill me, sibyl, that I might be illumined. Kill me, that I might live a better life.”

I closed my eyes.

Her craggy hand trembled.

I said my goodbyes to all I had lovedand prayed that Gawain would ascend intomy heart.

But all that ascended was Gwilanna

herself. With a cry of frustration, she stood up and threw the ice aside. “Get up,” she barked.

I rolled onto my knees, but not in any hurry.

“You think I want another
 
bear
 
ruining

my plans?”

I thought about this as I gathered my thoughts. The broken piece of chair was still within reach. Its appeal now was very great indeed. But my endless quest for knowledge was staying my hand. “You told me David was kin to dragons.”

She sank into her chair, sucking air

through her teeth. “Yes, but his dominant form is a bear. One of them was with him

when he ‘died’. I’ve seen it, in the future. It   calls   itself   ‘Ingavar’.   David commingled with its spirit.”

Out of nowhere, a cold wind stirred.

“Ingavar?” I let the word drift into it.

Ice spicules ran across the space between us. I thought I felt the ice field tilt a little.