Fire Star

  Nothing had ever scared her more.

  She looked to the sky. The star was bright, but not yet shining on the summit of the island. Her calculations were not inaccurate. How, then, had the Fain come through the portal?

  “Why are you here? What do you want?”

  The wind moaned and swept about her feet.

  “Take a form,” she snapped. “Let me see you.”

  The ice creaked. Her skin began to prickle. Commingling. The thing was inspecting her.

  “I am Fain, like you. One of the old ones!”

  The air pulsed, pressing against her eyes.

  “We can help one another! Our purpose is the same. All I want is to bring the dragons back.”

  Her blood surged. Her nerve ends crackled.

  Cold boomed in the tunnels of her ears.

  And then it was within her. One with her.

  The Fain.

  It filled her limbs, raised her hairs, flowed between the crevices of her toes.

  Highly evolved. Superior. A killer.

  Why is the dragon made stone? it said, plugging directly into her brain.

  She had one chance before it finished her: change.

  Its tear was stolen, she said, through thought.

  It paused to consider the truth of this. And in its rest, its lapse of concentration, she became a raven and broke herself free.

  Ten wingbeats. That was all she got. As she banked toward the island her feathertips froze. Her beak tipped and she plummeted down.

  Her bird brain hummed as the Fain returned.

  Where is the dragon’s fire? it said.

  Cark, she snorted. Her last act of defiance.

  Then she was extinguished. Glassy-eyed. Inert.

  Gwilanna, the sibyl of ancient ages.

  Now a raven, sealed in a block of ice.

  50 BROTHER VINCENT’S CELL, TWO DAY LATER

  They had captured the dragon with a dead hare drugged with Brother Cedric’s sleeping pills. It was lighter than expected and two of them, Brother Malcolm and the one-time circus performer, Brother Terence, carried the limp body up to the clifftop. Crudely, with a roll of mailing tape, they had lashed the wings tight to the creature’s body, then bound it with ropes to an open trailer, hooked to the back of the only vehicle on the island, a Land Rover. It woke as they were transferring it to a cobbled enclosure in the disused stable block. Such a scream of anguish did it give that several of the brethren fled from its presence. It was left to Brothers Malcolm, Terence, and Feargal to secure the beast with chains: two around its ankles to stable posts, one from its neck to the crossbeam in the roof. Its wings they left taped. Its tail they caught and wrapped in burlap.

  Its heart they left to break by itself.

  When Brother Vincent heard what they had done, he wept.

  Brother Bernard, in attendance (by his own request), wrung his hands together in despair. “You must eat,” he said. He looked at the tray on the floor of the cell. Red cheese. Bread. A tall glass of water. Twice a day delivered. Twice a day untouched.

  “What will they do with him?” Vincent asked, his voice low and falling apart.

  Bernard coughed into a sweat-stained handkerchief. “The abbot is seeking advice from the mainland.”

  Vincent raised his head from his bed. His face was a picture of torment and betrayal. “Advice? From whom?”

  “I believe there is an envoy coming,” said Bernard, turning his face away. There was such hostility in the younger monk’s eyes that for a moment he thought about calling for assistance. But he gathered his composure and steadied his gaze beyond the window where, of all things, he saw a raven circling in the dusk. “This is good fortune, brother. At least the creature was not instantly killed.”

  “Better that it had been,” Vincent said bitterly. “If you wish to atone for what you have done, take a spear and drive it through the dragon’s heart. The fate that awaits it is worse than death. They will take him away and take him apart. Piece by piece, in the name of science, they will destroy all hope this world ever had.”

  At this, Brother Bernard threw up his hands. “How can you continue to ply such … irreverence!” As he wheeled around, the door of the cell clicked open and a stern-faced Brother Malcolm looked in. “It’s all right,” Bernard said, mopping the blood pressure out of his brow. “We are having a discussion. A private discussion.” Brother Malcolm cast an adverse glance at Brother Vincent, then softly closed the door.

  Bernard brought his hands together in a knot. “By the cavern, you talked about things that had happened to the creature, such as it flying into cables. But when I looked through the latter pages of your story, there was no mention of any misadventure. Did you fabricate this? Or conjecture it because the creature was scarred?”

  “No,” said Vincent. “He told me what had happened — in his own tongue.”

  Brother Bernard reeled. He found the window frame and stumbled against it. “You speak to this thing?”

  Vincent, sensing hope, swung himself into a sitting position. “If this could be proven, would you believe my claims that the creature is more an angel than a devil?”

  Bernard felt for his chest. His heartbeat had doubled its pace in seconds.

  “You have an interest in ancient languages, do you not?”

  “I must leave,” Bernard muttered. “For your health, please eat.”

  “Speak to him, brother. Simply, in any tongue the Inuit people might recognize. His vocabulary is limited. He is only a child, but he will understand.”

  Brother Bernard paused with his forehead on the door. “What you’re asking goes beyond all my levels of faith.”

  “You will find new ones,” Vincent said. “Speak to him, before this envoy comes. He brings danger in his wake. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Danger?” Bernard looked back, startled.

  “A wind from another world,” Vincent said, closing his eyes and concentrating hard. “And where there is a wind, there is sometimes a storm. Help me, brother. Help us all. Go to the barn and speak to the dragon.”

  51 STABLE BLOCK, NEXT MORNING

  Brother Bernard.” Brother Terence rose from his three-legged stool just inside the door of the stable block and bid his fellow monk good morning.

  Bernard dipped his head in acknowledgment. Beyond the taller man’s shoulder he could see the dragon, hunkered to the ground, making what comfort it could of its shackles. Somewhere deep within Bernard’s heart, a shred of compassion wriggled uneasily. “Is the creature calm?”

  “It cries and whimpers like a dog,” Terence snorted. “And stinks of something most ungodly whenever it opens its vicious mouth. What news from the abbot?”

  “He has sent me to feed it,” Bernard replied. He unwrapped a hare from a roll of paper. A droplet of fresh blood fell onto the skin between his sandal straps. He knelt to clean it, noticing the dragon’s head following his movements. Not for the first time, he said a swift prayer.

  “I would rather starve it,” Terence sighed. “Its rancid feces are making me ill.”

  “The abbot needs it alive,” said Bernard. “Go. I will stand by the beast for an hour. Has it shown any signs of making fire?” He looked worriedly about him. There was a great deal of wood in this prison cell.

  “None,” said Terence, pushing back the door. The dragon shied away from the light. “For a fiend from hell, it thankfully gives us very poor value.” He gave an orderly bow and walked away, leaving Bernard alone with the dragon.

  The ghastly yellow eyes rolled up to look at him. No threat present, merely helplessness. For a man who had striven to love all God’s creatures, it troubled Brother Bernard to see this animal humiliated so. But if, as the general attitude suggested, it had not been created by the hand of heaven, then they could take no chances with it. And yet here was he, having slain a hare, having left his prayers to deceive a fellow monk with an order from the abbot when no such order had ever been given. If this dishonesty should ever be exposed, many diffi
cult questions would have to be faced. But maybe none so difficult as that which had kept him awake through the night: Could this creature converse?

  “Are you hungry?” Bernard said, without offering the hare.

  The nostrils flared but the head went down. To all intents and purposes, no response.

  Bernard steadied his nerve and tried again. “Are you hungry?” he repeated, but this time in a dialect he had learned in his days as a missionary among natives of the Canadian High Arctic.

  Amazingly, the dragon lifted its head. A membrane slithered half across its eyes, narrowing the gaze to terrifying slits. Bernard’s bones almost rattled the cobbles. Had the creature understood him? Were those scales, flexing and changing color on either side of its head, ears? He lifted the hare out of the paper and dangled it by its large back paws. “Eat?” he said, in the northern tongue.

  The dragon tilted its head.

  “What are you?” said Bernard.

  Grrr-ockle, went the creature.

  Answer or involuntary response? The growl had a strange onomatopoeic resonance, but other than that it made no sense. He threw the hare to it. It fell just outside the neck chain’s reach. The dragon stretched, chomping its jaws in frustration.

  Irritation and pity ravaged Bernard’s soul. Finding a broom with a head that was almost as bald as his, he pushed the meat into the dragon’s path. It gathered it and quickly sliced out the innards, gorging itself on the soft red offal.

  For a man who abstained from animal flesh, this was almost too much to bear. What was he doing here? How could this savage beast possibly communicate? Was this a means of confirming Brother Vincent’s sanity or an act of sordid curiosity on his part? Which of them was the lunatic, truthfully?

  He looked at the creature again, sucking fur from between its teeth. It burped as if it was grinding stone. Bernard shuddered and turned away, sickened. He was almost at the door when the dragon made another sound, deep within its throat.

  Waaarrtttrrrr.

  A vortex of fear whirled the monk around. “Water? You want water?”

  The dragon opened its jaws to show a parched black tongue, stained here and there with streaks of hare blood.

  Bernard pushed a hand across his throbbing brow. Was this a dialogue or an acknowledgment of need? He stumbled backward, nodding his head. He filled a bucket from the tap outside and took it back, nudging it forward with the brush. The dragon bent its head and drank, lapping in the manner of a domestic cat. When it was done it tipped the bucket over and rolled it back to Bernard’s feet.

  Waaarrtttrrrr, it croaked.

  He filled it again.

  It took five to quench the dragon’s thirst. After the fourth, it squatted and sprayed a jet of urine, drenching the moldy straw behind it. The stench was horrendous. There were white marks on the creature’s feet where it had stepped unavoidably in its own excrement and the scales had crusted over with some kind of fungus. It was hideous. Inhumane. It was written in the holy scriptures that man should have dominion over animals … but how could the brethren stoop to such tyranny as this? Bernard decided there and then he must speak with the abbot. Make a plea on the creature’s behalf. The animal was intelligent and clearly suffering. But one trick with a bucket would not convince the Order to show it mercy. To end the persecution they would have to see a much higher level of sentience. And so he spoke again, this time more pointedly:

  “Where did you come from?”

  The dragon raked the ground. It seemed to understand, but its answer was vague and made no sense.

  Zannnnnaaaa, it growled.

  “Zannnnaaa? What is Zannnnaaa?” Bernard said, frowning.

  The dragon swung its head. The chain links rippled in the flashes of daylight streaking through the holes in the derelict roof.

  Muuuuutthherrrrr.

  The word rumbled around the stable. In a glassless window high in the gable away to their right, the raven landed with a flutter of its wings. A tic developed at Brother Bernard’s mouth. “Mother?” he whispered.

  The dragon whimpered.

  “Then who is your father?”

  With another fierce toss of its head, the dragon graarked as though the question was worthy of a bolt of fire. But no fire came. That area of its body still bound by mailing tape bulged with the instinct to spread its wings. But there was no release. Its muted tail pounded the floor in frustration. Its talons raked the earth. It gave no answer.

  “Tell me,” said Bernard, his throat growing sore from the demands of a language so lacking in vowels. “Who is your father?”

  Caarrkkk! went the raven, making Bernard jump. This bird was beginning to make him uneasy. There was a dark light in the center of its eye. Why was it so often in attendance to the dragon? Was it some kind of familiar? he wondered. A spirit that served the needs of the creature? He heard footsteps nearby. The raven heard them, too. With another moody caark, it circled the barn and swooped back into the open air. Startled voices remarked upon it: Brothers Terence and Peter. Bernard centered on the dragon again, “Quickly. Your father?”

  The yellow eyes closed. The arches of the nostrils flared like trumpets. Gaaaawwwaaaaaainn, said his distant descendant, Grockle.

  Bernard backed away with a hand against his throat.

  Gawain.

  That was all the proof he needed.

  52 ABBOT HUGO’S OFFICE

  Abbot Hugo, I must speak with you, urgently.”

  The abbot’s hand was raised before Brother Bernard was halfway through his sentence. He immediately slowed to a halt, lowered his head, and spoke an apology.

  The abbot’s hand drifted sideways and pointed absently to the pew seat. He himself was in the leather chair at his desk, hunched forward, reading Brother Vincent’s manuscript.

  Brother Bernard chose to stand. For the next few minutes he waited patiently, gathering his thoughts as the abbot meticulously turned the pages, lifting them gingerly by the corner and laying each one facedown upon the last in crisp and perfect register. Finally, after reading a page barely one-third filled with the looping green script, he sat back in his chair and removed his glasses.

  “What am I to make of this?” He sighed, widening his hands above the leaves of paper as though addressing the cast of characters within.

  “Abbot —”

  “Is it the work of a madman or a genius?”

  “I have only glimpsed through it. I cannot comment. May I speak with you about the creature?”

  Abbot Hugo seemed uninterested. “It appears to be a children’s fable, and yet …” he paused and hung the arm of his spectacles off his lower lip, “… there is a definite substance to it. He spoke of this story in the folly, did he not?”

  “Yes,” said Bernard, trying not to show any sign of impatience. “He claimed it was a fictionalized account of true events.”

  The abbot gave a burp of incredulity. “Explain.”

  Now Bernard cursed his slackness of tongue. Five hundred years ago, Brother Vincent would have been sealed alive into these walls for a single mention of the word “dragon,” and though his fate in present times would be far less devastating, any affirmation of his beliefs would be met with ridicule and almost certain expulsion from the Order. But to lie would be a sin in itself. Perhaps an outline of the theory of dark matter, followed by the evidence accumulated at the stables, might be enough to persuade the abbot to review these happenings without any prejudice?

  “He …” But from the beginning, Bernard was stumbling for a choice of words. “He was a physicist before he came here.”

  Abbot Hugo rocked his chair at a pace befitting his age and stature. “He was. Go on.”

  Bernard turned to the window. “He believes that reality is not what it seems. If I understand it correctly, he has a theory that contemporaneous events, that is, those happening at identical times but in a different place, can be accessed via a realm of the universe he labels dark matter, a realm invisible to you or I — though he leaves the impre
ssion that all of us, all humankind can attain this ability, through an expansion of consciousness.”

  Abbot Hugo clicked his tongue, a sound he only made when considerably displeased. “Is he taking a drug?”

  Bernard turned sharply to face the old man. “A drug?”

  “How is he achieving this … growth of awareness?”

  Bernard slipped his tongue between his lips. They felt cracked and dry. “By using the claw. He seems to think it amplifies the process. He believes, in his … cloud of confusion, that dragons are the guardians of the dark realm. My Lord, the creature —?”

  Once again, Abbot Hugo raised his hand. “I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to write with this artifact, but I can manage no more than a droplet from it. Did he demonstrate the process?”

  “Yes, but —”

  The abbot raised a hand for no more interruption. Built onto his desk was a stack of box drawers. Turning the knob on the middle one of three, he slid the drawer open and removed the claw from it. “Please, be good enough to show me.”

  Bernard loosened his shoulders. Any protest was pointless. “Very well. Your water.” He pointed at a half-filled glass.

  Abbot Hugo slid it across the desk.

  “Should I write on the manuscript?”

  The abbot shook his head. He tidied the two stacks into one and turned it all face up. Then he took a piece of paper no larger than the size of a small chocolate wrapper from a pigeon hole next to the set of box drawers and pushed it within Brother Bernard’s reach.

  Bernard dipped the claw and squeezed it gently. As he did so, he felt an odd euphoria sweeping through him. A pleasing dizziness he could neither comprehend nor begin to explain. He touched the claw to the paper, squeezed again to produce a flow of ink, and wrote the words “Farlowe Island” across it.

  “Intriguing,” said the abbot. “Let me try.”