Icefire

  “It was me.”

  “It was not. You must learn to be aware of distant impressions, particularly when they are tainted by bears.”

  “Bears! Was it Lorel?” Lucy ran to the window. Aunty Gwyneth looked at her with piercing contempt. “For a daughter of Guinevere you can be very foolish.”

  Lucy lowered her chin into her chest.

  “Bears are pathetic creatures, girl. Were it not for bears, we would have the fire of Gawain in our possession.”

  “But we do,” returned Lucy. “That’s why we’re special.”

  Aunty Gwyneth sighed as if this was such a trial. “What you and your mother possess is a spark, a mere cinder of the dragon’s true essence. With every new generation that spark becomes weaker, which is why I find it particularly odd that your mother is so talented with the clay.” She smiled and sidled up closer to Lucy. “It is an intriguing fact that your mother appears to have inherited far more of the dragon’s auma than most other female descendants of Guinevere. Do you know anything about this, child?”

  Lucy shook her head and looked a bit puzzled.

  Aunty Gwyneth turned away with a disappointed humph. “No, I don’t suppose she would tell even you. Still, we mustn’t mind that. One day I — or rather we — will have the true fire, and then …”

  “Then what?” asked Lucy, sounding a little frightened. Aunty Gwyneth was wringing her hands together and a hint of wickedness was present in her eyes.

  “Nothing,” she snapped. “Continue packing.”

  Lucy sighed and tugged on the wardrobe door. She frowned at the sight of the dragon, Grace, tucked away alone in the darkness and the dust, but she did not report this to Aunty Gwyneth. Instead, she blew Grace a lingering kiss, dragged a couple of likely-looking shirts off the hangers, stuffed them in the bag, and closed the wardrobe again. “Aunty Gwyneth?”

  “Yes, what is it now? Do hurry up, child. I don’t want that irritating boy in here any longer than is absolutely necessary.”

  “It is his room.”

  At this, Aunty Gwyneth brought forth a glare that made Lucy close up like an overnight flower. She tucked the loose arm of a shirt into the bag, zipped it up quickly, and dropped it by the door. “I was just going to say that no one knows where the tear is, do they?”

  Aunty Gwyneth made a snorting sound in her nose. “Bears do,” she hissed, stepping forward and crooking a finger under Lucy’s chin. “Bears are keeping that knowledge from us.”

  Lucy, on her tiptoes now, asked, “W-why?”

  “Why?” Aunty Gwyneth’s sneering bark almost ruptured the ceiling plaster. She whisked away, throwing a hand into the air. Lucy thought she saw sparks jumping out of the nails, but it could have just been a glint of anger in Aunty Gwyneth’s coal-black eyes. “Has your mother never told you the story of the tear?”

  “I know about Guinevere catching it.”

  “After that, child. After that. Don’t you know that Guinevere betrayed Gawain and sided with bears to keep the fire from us?”

  Lucy sank on to the bed. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Hah!” Aunty Gwyneth spun away again, the heels of her shoes nearly grinding through the carpet. “It is time you were properly educated, child. You know that the stubborn red-haired girl went to the dragon and caught his tear?”

  “Yes,” said Lucy. She wanted to say, “I just told you that,” but she didn’t dare risk another hard stare.

  “And having caught the fire, supposedly hid it?”

  “Yes, Aunty Gwyneth.”

  “It is a fable, child. Tittle-tattle. There is more to the legend than you know. When Guinevere caught the tear of Gawain it consumed her body with a cleansing fire that even she, for all her righteous devotion, could not hope to restrain or endure.”

  “You mean it was like having dragon pox — but worse?”

  Aunty Gwyneth laid a tired hand on her hip. “Compared to this, dragon pox would be an ant-sized snuffle. She was overtaken, child. Seized by a fire that boiled her blood. It was all she could do to release the tear into the body of a hollowed-out bone, which she used as a vessel to carry the fire back to the only one wise enough to know how to manage it.”

  “Gwilanna?”

  “At last, we seem to be getting somewhere.”

  Lucy smiled, glad that she wasn’t being barked at for once. Then she made another error of poor judgment. “I don’t like Gwilanna.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Lucy shrugged her shoulders. “When Mom tells stories about Gawain, she always says Gwilanna was horrid and sneaky.”

  “Sneaky?” Aunty Gwyneth screeched so hoarsely that a pin shook loose from her bun. She looked quite comical with a curl of hair bouncing out above her ear. But Lucy knew better than to risk a laugh.

  “I taught your mother everything she knows! And this is how she repays me? By calling me a sneak?”

  “Not you,” defended Lucy. “I said …” But here she stopped, afraid to use the words lining up on her tongue. She lifted an ear to the Dragons’ Den and thought she could hear a few younger scales rattling.

  Aunty Gwyneth snapped her fingers and the pin leaped sweetly into her hand. She fixed her hair and in a low voice said, “I meant, of course, Gwilanna and her kind — the sibyls, the ancients — of which I consider myself one. Now, apologize at once.”

  “But —?”

  “Apologize, child.”

  Lucy skimmed the floor again. “Sorry. May I go now?”

  “No, you may not. You are being taught. No school could provide you with the knowledge I dispense.”

  “No,” Lucy mumbled, wishing for once she could be at school, or that midterm had come a little later that year. She was desperate to obey her mother’s wishes and do everything to please her newfound aunt, but the woman was as welcome as an angry bee. Lucy pulled up a sock and waited.

  “Now, where were we?”

  “In Gwilanna’s cave.”

  “Ah yes, with the witless girl and her even more witless love for the dragon.”

  Witless? Lucy frowned again. That didn’t match up with her picture of Guinevere. She opened her mouth to query the meaning, only to receive another rebuke.

  “Oh, do stop interrupting, child. Listen and learn. If Guinevere had listened to Gwilanna’s advice, things would not have happened the way they did. The girl would not release the fire. All Gwilanna wanted was to harness its power for … well, never mind what for. There was supposed to be an understanding, a trade. The girl would be given a child to foster; a child born of clay and hair and scale; and Gwilanna, in turn, would be the keeper of the tear. But at the final moment the girl refused to give the tear up, and when Gwilanna did her best to reason with her, the foolish creature … ran into the hills, where she was aided by a meddlesome bear.”

  “Was it Lorel?” Lucy couldn’t help herself.

  “It was not,” said her aunt. “It was a brown bear, the worst and most stupid kind. She had befriended it once before. It protected her while she … escaped … to the mountain.”

  “Mountain? What mountain?”

  “Oh! The resting place of Gawain. She was trying to return the fire to his deathbed — to release it to the earth near to where the dragon lay.”

  “So … she didn’t hide it, not properly?”

  Aunty Gwyneth humphed and turned away. “There were … disturbances. Great winds. A plague of dust. The earth quaked. The old land broke in two. The island where Gawain lay collapsed into the ocean. The abyss was covered by flooding waters, then by a layer of freezing ice.”

  “But what happened to Guinevere — and the bear?”

  “Drowned.” A tiny measure of self-satisfaction creased the line of Aunty Gwyneth’s lips.

  Lucy gripped her arms, a little lost for words. “But what about the fire? Did it go out in the flood?”

  At this, Aunty Gwyneth wrung her hands so tightly that Lucy could hear the small bones cracking. “That is a mystery, child. Soon after this … catastroph
e, call it what you will, the white bears came, claiming that the fire was under their protection.”

  “They found it? The ice bears found the fire?”

  “Ice bears,” Aunty Gwyneth sneered. “Their word is as slippery as their seal-smeared paws. They speak in riddles about the fire. The only true link to Gawain was the girl.”

  “Guinevere?”

  “Oh, bones and spittle! Are your ears made of blubber? Guinevere was lost! I am speaking of the daughter she left behind, Gwendolen.”

  “And I’m speaking as one of her descendants,” said a voice. Liz entered the room with a look of disapproval on her face. “I trust you’ve given Lucy all the facts, Aunty Gwyneth? I wouldn’t want my daughter growing up with any misconceptions about her ancestors.”

  “I am tired,” said Aunty Gwyneth, fluttering a hand. “You may leave now, both of you. And take the boy’s bag.”

  Liz frowned at the bag but made no comment.

  Lucy, unhappy in the midst of this hostility, smiled and attempted to relieve the tension. “Aunty Gwyneth, would you like me to help you unpack?” She hurried across the room and put her hand on the suitcase.

  “Leave it,” said her aunt, almost spitting out the words. “Never meddle with my possessions. You could not open the case anyway. It requires a password, in dragontongue.”

  “Hhh! Will you show me?”

  “I most certainly will not.”

  Lucy gaped at her mom, who beckoned her away. “Come on. You heard Aunty Gwyneth; she’s tired.”

  With a look of disappointment, Lucy walked into the hall. Liz picked up David’s bag. “You should have spoken to me before talking of Guinevere.”

  “The child needs to learn.”

  “I agree. And she will. She’ll hear the truth — when I’m ready to tell her.” And with that, she went out and closed the door behind her.

  Seconds later, there was a fluttering sound at the open window. Gretel landed with a scratching of claws on the sill.

  “Well?” snapped her mistress.

  Gretel, loaded up with a strange variety of seed heads and petals and small feathers and fur, bundled her collection to the end of the sill and let out a negative-sounding hrrr.

  Aunty Gwyneth narrowed her gaze. “Then he must have the dragon with him,” she muttered as Gretel flew across and landed on her shoulder. “The boy knows something. He has gone to the bears. I can feel it in my bones.”

  Hrrr, went Gretel, blowing a puff of smoke.

  “Will you stop doing that in my ear,” said Aunty Gwyneth, scolding and wafting the smoke away. “Tonight you will prepare a special potion. Rose hip with spiderweb, poppy seed, and dill. We need to bring this boy under our … guidance. He is dangerous, unruly. He may be a threat.” And with that strange and faintly chilling instruction, she cast her gaze down at her featherlight case. “Open,” she hissed and let out a guttural hrr-raar-r-aar.

  There was a click and the lid of the case rose up. Spiraling wisps of yellowish mist began to tumble over the front and sides. A cloud of what looked like cotton-wool padding floated gently into the air. Blue sparks fizzed and glittered all around it. Gretel, still on her mistress’s shoulder, paddled her feet in great excitement and was sent to the headboard and told to stay there.

  Aunty Gwyneth snapped her fingers. At once the cloud began to dissolve and the object inside it fell into her hands. It was about the same size and thickness as a roof slate, but curved and tapering at one end. “Yes, we have waited so long,” she breathed, caressing the green, uneven surface. “This time there will be no mistakes. Once we know the truth about Elizabeth’s auma, you will be ready to rise again, under my guidance and my will. Then the tear will be ours for the taking.”

  And with a smile so smug that even Gretel had to wince, the sibyl, Gwilanna, resealed the case, completely unaware that in the darkness of the wardrobe a pair of sail-like ears were doing what they’d been made to do best.

  Listening.

  20

  DAVID MAKES PLANS

  In the grounds of Rutherford House meanwhile, David and Zanna were about to part company.

  “Are you sure you’ll be OK?” she was asking, turning up part of his overcoat collar.

  David, who was looking anywhere but at her, cradled Gadzooks against his midriff and sighed. “I just don’t get this,” he grumbled.

  “Why? What’s eating you now?”

  “Bergstrom. He shows me all this stuff about the Tooth of Ragnar and says it’s my ‘destiny’ to know about ‘the Nine,’ but he hasn’t uttered any kind of explanation. Then he casually lets slip that Gwilanna, the zillion-year-old crone of dragon legend, is sleeping in my bed — and all I’m s’posed to do is go home and treat her like a normal relative!”

  “And watch over Lucy. Don’t forget that.”

  “Oh, yeah. Top of the must-do list. Stay close to Lucy. What’s that all about? While Gwilanna is destroying ‘the fabric of the planet,’ I’m supposed to go merrily looking for hedgehogs? No chance. Not while she’s threatening to harm Gadzooks.”

  Zanna turned her stark white face to the sky. It was darkening early and a rumble of thunder was not far off. “David, it’s for your own safety, you goof. You can’t take on someone who hatches dragon eggs and changes apple colors and has outlived everyone else on the planet. How’s she done it? That’s what I want to know. It’s spooky. How’s she survived this long?”

  “The suitcase,” David muttered, gritting his teeth.

  “Pardon?”

  “Her suitcase. I know what’s in it. So does Bergstrom, I bet. He asked me about it the first time I met him. I think he’s using us to get to it.”

  “David, you’re talking in riddles. Get what?”

  “The scale,” he breathed, drawing close to her now, near enough to see the drifting storm clouds reflected in her wide, dark eyes. “Remember the legend? Gwilanna took Gawain’s scale. She’s got a little piece of the last true dragon. A piece that didn’t go back to the clay. She must have found a way of using it to keep herself alive.”

  Zanna cast her gaze to the ground for a moment. “Maybe she’s developed some sort of elixir? There’s no real agreement on the life span of dragons, but they were always thought to live for several hundred years. She might have tapped into their longevity somehow. Who knows what she can do? I’ll tell you this, too. I think what I said in the gardens was right. She is a midwife — of sorts. I reckon she’s been present at the births of all of Guinevere’s descendants. That would explain how Liz knows her so well. What’s in it for her, though, I wonder — keeping the line of Guinevere going?”

  “I don’t know,” said David, “but I’m sure that scale is the key to her power. It’s in that case. And I’m gonna get it.”

  “Wait,” cried Zanna, hauling him back. “You go for that scale and you’ll be hopping on lily pads before you know it. Gwilanna’s not going to be fazed by the threat of some cavalier geography student. That case is probably protected — by something very nasty. Besides, if you do get hold of the scale, what are you going to do with it? Fold it up and make a nice hat for Gadzooks?”

  “Very funny. I’m going to give it to Liz. She’s the only one of the three of them I trust.”

  Again, Zanna dragged him back. “David, you don’t know what you’re messing with here. If push comes to shove, how do you know Liz won’t side with Gwilanna? You’re just her tenant, remember; Gwilanna probably helped bring Lucy into being.”

  “Then I’ll keep the scale myself,” said David. “Either way, they’re not going to harm Gadzooks.”

  For a third time, he made to turn away. But as he did a bolt of lightning knifed through the clouds making Zanna squeal and throw her arms around his neck. For a second, they remained in an awkward clinch until Zanna freed her mouth from his shoulder and whispered, “Any chance you could move Gadzooks? His wings are digging right into me.”

  David opened his arms, allowing Zanna to close the space between them. He repositioned hi
s arms in the small of her back.

  “Thank you. Lightning frightens me,” she said.

  David raised an unseen eyebrow. For a Goth, that seemed an incongruous admission. “I’ll walk you to the college. Come on, it’s not far.”

  “David?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I know you care about Gadzooks and stuff, but promise me you won’t do anything silly?”

  A drop of rain blotted David’s overcoat. “I’ll call you,” he said, stroking Gadzooks with the flat of his thumb. “Come on. We’re gonna get drenched.”

  “No, wait. There’s something else.” She placed one hand against his chest. “Not sure how to say this, really. It’s been bothering me since I came to your house.”

  David sucked in sharply. Thinking he knew what was coming, he said, “Look, Zanna, I like you a lot. I’m sorry if I’ve treated you like an alien in the past. I was ignorant and stupid, a bit scared of you, I guess. You’re a lovely, funny, caring person. But you know I’ve got a girlfriend. I can’t go out with you, and I shouldn’t really kiss you every time we say good-bye. It’s not fair to Sophie, is it?”

  The wind ripped at Zanna’s skirt, making it swirl around her ankles. “Nice sentiment,” she muttered, “but it’s got nothing to do with what I was going to say.”

  “Oh,” said David, blushing. “What, then?”

  “The egg.”

  “The egg? What about it?”

  “Watch over it. Please.”

  “But —?”

  “Please.” Her nails raked into his chest.

  “Zanna, you’re drawing blood,” he said. “Yes, I’ll watch over it, but what’s the big deal?”

  She shivered then and David instinctively held her. “I quickened it, didn’t I? Gwilanna said so, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, but —?”

  “Quickened means fertilized, don’t you think?”

  David stepped back so he could look into her eyes.

  “I want to know,” she said, clearing hair from her face. A trickle of water ran down her cheek. She brushed it with a knuckle. It wasn’t rain. “I want to know whose child it truly is, Liz’s — or mine.”