The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (39 page)

“You have until nightfall,” Voss said darkly.

“For the last time, I’m telling you the truth!” David barked. “I don’t know where

Alexa is.”

“Then we move to our second option. One that might bring her out of hiding.”

Zanna closed the book. Gawain let out a

roar.

“We put you in the dragon’s
 
den
,” said

Voss, gesturing towards the lava pool.

“We sacrifice you instead.”

10. Particles and Time

They were intrigued by me, that was plainfrom their unified stare. But the one theyclamoured to, of course, was Elizabeth.

“Oh dear,” she sighed. She loweredherself, cross-legged, among them. Shewas pleased to see her dragons, butsaddened, too.

They flew to her, making their hurringnoises. G’reth and Gruffen each landed on

a knee, from where they could reach up and touch her face. Gwendolen flew to the

slope of her shoulder and started making plaits of her hair. Gollygosh picked up the hem of her smock and gently caressed a green paint stain. Gretel and Gadzooks

simply stood before her, stretching their oval eyes to the limit. The other dragon, Gwillan, she picked up and held in the shadows of her lap.

In perfect dragontongue, she said, “You know you shouldn’t be here, don’t you?”

Hrrr!
 
went Gretel. She pointed at me.

“Yes, I know. Agawin shouldn’t be here either. But he’s a special case. It’s not your time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I found Ganzfeld

”

—

Hrrr!

All the dragons ducked.

“Sorry,” I tutted, remembering nowwhat Avrel had said.
 
To speak his nameis to know his power.
 
But I didn’tunderstand his power.

So I asked.

“Very well, I’ll tell you,” Elizabeth said. She signalled Gretel to be quiet. “He was made by the will of Gaia.”

“From stars,” I gushed. “I saw it in a dream.”

G’reth raised an eye ridge. He seemedto like the idea of dreams (and stars).

“He   has   special   significance,” Elizabeth went on, “because he was thefirst of his kind on Earth, the first to betouched by the passing of Gawain.”

Hrrr…
 
Seven little chests deflated.

“Now, now. No fire tears here.” She stroked Gwillan, who seemed the most upset. Gollygosh, likewise, was looking a little moist. With a sad-sounding hurr he put down his toolbox. An asterisk of light

immediately flew out and formed itself into a small handkerchief. He put it to his snout and blew into it hard (leaving two scorch holes at its centre).

“That’s better,” said Elizabeth. She went on with her account of Ganzfeld’s

influence. “The listener, like all of you, had a special power. He could ‘listen’, of course, we all knew that. But if he listened hard, very hard indeed, he could lose himself in the auma of the universe, in the energy field after which he was named.”

I noticed Gadzooks doodling on his notepad. Spiderwebs connected by dozens of stars. His impression of the energy field, perhaps.

Elizabeth   pressed   her   fingertips together. At the same time, a tele:screen

flickered into life. It put up a picture of the listening dragon slowly turning through starlit space. None of the dragons appeared to have noticed.

“You all know about the auma of the

universe, of course.” Elizabeth looked at each of them in turn. “You use it when

Gretel makes a potion from her flowers,or Gollygosh imagineers something fromhis toolbox, or a wishing dragon grants afall of snow.” She smiled at G’reth, whoput his famous paws together and blushed.

Meanwhile, on the tele:screen, the samevoice that had described the evolution of

the firebirds began to babble about something called ‘neu:trinos’, particles so tiny they could pass between the spaces in ‘atoms’. A small animation faded up. It

showed a band of neu:trinos flowing through and around a number of ‘solid’ objects: a kettle, a table, a refrigerator door…

“Hey, did you see that?” I nudged

G’reth. He twizzled his snout and looked

at me blankly.

“Up
 
there
,” I hissed. I pointed at the

screen.

The neu:trinos were passing through apolar bear now.

G’reth looked over his shoulder – and

shrugged. Like the rest of the dragons, he seemed oblivious to the tele:screen, as if the pictures were only in my head.

“Then what?” Gretel asked impatiently. “What happens when Ganz—the listener gets lost?”

Just as Elizabeth started to reply, Gruffen paddled an ear with his paw. Gretel checked it for signs of unusualauma. Finding none, she told him not tointerrupt.

“Gretel, behave yourself,” Elizabethsaid. She stroked Gwillan’s back. He

shivered and looked relieved to be in her

hands. “The answer is very simple really. Once Ganzfeld had entered the energy field he could begin to make connections.”

The listener was back on the screen

again, but he was made up now from thousands of points of coloured light. A swarm of neu:trinos were sparkling inside him, like a host of tiny fire stars. To my annoyance, the screen began to flicker and buzz. Broken lines of static crackled

across it. A scratchy image of an old man burst into view. He was rocking in a chair, saying over and over,
 
Which has more auma, light or fire? Light or fire? Light or fire?

“C-connections?” I asked. My head was spinning.

“To anyone, anywhere, anywhen,” said Elizabeth. “All he had to do was create an

image of where he wanted to be or who he wanted to communicate with and the field

responded.   This   is   one   of   the

enchantments of time.”

Light or fire?
 
the old man said.

The image of Ganzfeld appeared again,but now he was beginning to dissolve intothe field. Arcs of dotted lines, which Itook to be thought waves, were shown

streaming out of his head.
 
Each neu:trino
, said the tele:screen voice,
 
carries a minute degree of energy. But scientists at the Merriman Institute believe that in

sufficient quantity, and with sufficient intent
,
 
it is theoretically possible for a field of these particles to disrupt molecular structure in one of two ways. They might draw an object into their flow, for instance…
 
With a spectacular whoosh, Ganzfeld was sucked out of sight like a feather in a breeze.
 
…Or, more amazingly, they might rearrange it.
 
Now he was centre screen again, and something odd was happening with his ears. They were feathering, turning into firebird tufts. The screen crackled. The old man

appeared in close-up, leaning forward out

of his chair. The voice of the narrator was

now coming from his mouth.
 
Could this explain the astonishing ability firebirds possess of passing through solid objects, as if they are moving faster than light and travelling ahead of time itself…? Light or fire – which has more auma?

“Fire!” I blurted at him. “Fire is the

answer. The universe is made of
fire
 
!”

On-screen, the old man silently rocked.

My head began to thump. The dragons and Elizabeth were looking at me, waiting. I took a full breath and I said, boldly, “If I wanted to lead one bear to another, how would I use Ganz… the
 
name
 
to do it?”

Elizabeth said, “Do you know the name

of the bear you want to find?”

“Ingavar.”

We all heard a quiet snapping sound. Gadzooks had pressed so hard on his pad that the end of his pencil had broken off.

Elizabeth stood up. She placed a kiss on Gwillan’s snout and snuggled him into a pocket of her smock. “Gwillan is going to stay with me. I must go to my room. My sculpture is almost ready.”

“Please,” I begged her. “How do I find Ingavar?”

She was drifting away, like Ganzfeld had. But I could hear her voice between

the atoms. “Your intent has already been answered, Agawin. Everything you need is right before you.” The dragons blew smoke rings or twizzled their tails. “It takes a particularly powerful being to

draw others across the energy field. Now that the dragons are here, maybe you should show them who you really are.”

The Pennykettle kitchen appeared on the tele:screen. I recognised it right away, just as if a cloud had lifted from my memory. For the first time, the dragons were seeing it, too. They were shown in a group on the kitchen table, watching a young girl draw. She gave a satisfied hum and put down her crayon. “We need to send the polar bears here.” She pinned a finger to the centre of her drawing. An island at the edge of a wild grey sea. Dark creatures peppered the sky around it. An image of the island filled the screen. We saw water crashing, heard   darklings   screeching,   smelled sulphur in the spouts of fire from its peak.

The dragons turned away from it and

looked at me.

Gone were my boyish hands. I couldfeel the soft fall of hair on my face, thereassuring tug of wings at my back.

I was Alexa again and fully aware.

“Time to go,” I said.

Time to find Daddy.

11. A Strange Reminder of a

Library Garden

They hauled David outside and put him inthe company of Voss’s men. His handswere tied and he was marched, sometimesdragged, to a high point of the island. Hewas thrown into a damp and narrow cleft,facing the cold, wind-roughened sea. Thesides of the cleft were too sheer to climb,and any thoughts he had of leaping forwater were dashed when he looked at the

maze of rocks below. Open cells didn’t come much harsher than this. “What have

you done with Rosa?” he demanded. But the men just beat him and kicked him and

laughed. “You so much as pick your nose,” said one, “an’ the watcher’ll call down the fliers, you gottit?” He turned David round and untied his hands, then jabbed a finger at the glowering sky where several scrawny ‘fliers’ were circling. Darklings, eager to drop down and feed. The men filed away, making jokes about ‘pickings’. A solitary raven was left to watch David’s position.

“And if I want to tell Voss what he

needs to know?”

“You tell me,” said a voice. Lucy stepped into view.

The last of the men nodded curtly at her, then scuttled away out of sight.

Lucy perched on a rock, some ten or twelve paces away. Her amazing red hair

was now ash grey and black, tied in a bundle at the nape of her neck. She was wearing  patchy  remnants   of  human clothing, but the sleeves of her top had been torn away to reveal what looked like black tattoos all along the skin from her knuckles to her shoulder. David realised

with some dismay that it was nothing more than the Shadow in her veins. “Sorry, don’t have much to offer you.” He gestured at his bleak surroundings. “Pretty chilly up here, too.” He pulled the lapels of his jacket together. She quickly dipped to her belt for a knife. He lowered his

hands into plain view again. “Thought you might have put me in the cave, at least.”

Her hand relaxed, but only to check the bowstring  running  across  her  chest.

“Cave?”

“You’ve been here before, in another time. You met a female polar bear in a cave. Gwilanna kept you there when she took you from the Crescent. When you were still a cute little girl. Remember that, Lucy, what it was to be cute?”

“Save your breath, Fain. I care for nothing I knew before my inversion.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. He drew up his knees. “You just don’t know how to reach it yet. I can help you with that. It’s what your mother would have wanted.”

“I have no
 
mother
, only the Shadow.”

“The Shadow isn’t going to last.” He cast a wary eye at the darklings all the same. One of them had landed on a ledge above the cleft and was peering down at

him, showing its teeth. A hiss from Lucy stopped it creeping any closer.

“All I want from you is to know about the child.”

“Oh, Alexa will come,” he said. “Though what she’ll find is open to debate.” The wall of rock behind David

shuddered as Gawain resumed his ‘dig’. In its aftermath, a shower of cinders fell. David heard the darkling spitting out the sulphur, though none of it seemed to be affecting Lucy. “This folly with the core will blow the Earth apart. The Shadow won’t want to ‘mother’ you then. The Collective will desert you and simply move on, until it finds another life form to terrorise. You really ought to think about that.”