The Fire Eternal

  Bonnington leapt off the windowsill and went haring from the room as if he’d been stung.

  Liz glanced at the sky. A feisty wind was spiking the tops of the trees and stirring the clouds in a circular motion, blending them into a uniform gray.

  “A mantra,” Arthur muttered. “They are chanting a mantra.”

  No, not a mantra, Liz decided. For she could hear a sequence of notes now, too. Hollow, tonal harmonies. That was a chime. Suddenly, alarm bells sounded in her head. “Lexie?!” she yelled. She sprinted to the landing and leaned over the banister. “Lexie, where are you?!”

  “Here, Aunty!” The child’s voice floated out of Zanna’s room.

  Liz hammered downstairs and burst right in. “Are you all —?” Her words failed when she saw what Alexa was doing. On the bed lay the plastic box from the freezer. The girl was holding what was left of the snowball. David’s four dragons, Gadzooks, G’reth, Groyne, and Gollygosh, were sitting on the windowsill facing her. Alexa gathered up a piece of ice and put it on the healing dragon’s snout. It melted through his nostrils, turning his eyes an intense shade of violet, the same color, Liz noticed, as the other three dragons.

  “Alexa, what have you done?” she gasped.

  “They have to go now,” said the girl.

  “Go where?” said Liz, half-sinking to her knees in confusion.

  Gretel, who had followed Liz in, hurred and pointed to the cardboard mobile. The fairies were jerking madly as they turned, though there wasn’t a breath of wind in the room.

  From the garden came an urgent yowl.

  Liz stood up with a start.

  “Come on,” Alexa said and put out her hands. The dragons came to her like pigeons to a grain-covered bird table.

  “No, stay there,” Liz said, backing out. “Gretel, don’t let her out of your sight.” And clutching her sleeves into the middle of her palms, Liz ran outside to go and find Bonnington.

  Alexa looked at Gretel, Gretel at Alexa. Alexa pointed to her drawing pad. On it was a sketch of the dragon she called G’lant. Around his head were several flying creatures, like the fairies in the mobile but not the same.

  Gretel asked for an explanation.

  “They’re nearly-fairies,” Alexa announced. The wind chimes tonged. Alexa picked up the note and in dragonsong hummed the rest of the melody. Gretel jolted in surprise. The picture had suddenly come to life. The scales around the dragon’s eye compressed as he blinked. The Earth at its center began to turn. The planet tilted north toward the polar ice cap and the “nearly-fairies” began to shimmer.

  “Aunty Guinevere’s helping Daddy,” said Alexa, hurrying outside and leaving Gretel quite mesmerized.

  By now, Liz had caught up with Bonnington. She had found him by the rockery, facing the fairy door, stretching and yowling in the way he sometimes did if he was going to vomit. She hunkered down, not sure whether to touch him or not. He did not appear to be in any sort of pain, but his coat was going through rapid changes, as if he were molting in time-lapsed photography, or speed-dialing a number — or flashing out a code.

  Suddenly, he halted on plain brown tabby.

  There was a click. Violet light strobed the bottom of the rockery.

  The fairy door opened and a being fluttered out. Liz gasped, and now she did grip Bonnington, though he was showing no signs of fear. The creature hovered in midair, beating wings as barely visible as drifting dust motes. It was the size of a large rose petal and just as fragile, the main part of its body taking the form of a semi-translucent, flexible membrane. When it moved (in the way that certain marine animals swam), light flowed through it in pastel-colored waves. As more beings appeared, Liz noticed that they had a humanoid appearance, though their faces were characterless and impossible to tell apart. One of them settled on Bonnington’s nose. It put out what appeared to be a probe of some kind and touched the space between the cat’s eyes. A gradient of light from lilac to violet pulsed simultaneously through the creatures.

  Bonnington gave a contented purr.

  Alexa knocked her fists together in delight. “They just said hello to the fairy in Bonnington.”

  Liz turned her head. The girl was right behind her, with David’s dragons. “Lexie, stay away. They’re not fairies. I think their name is fainies — and they’re not very nice.”

  Do not be afraid, said a voice.

  Liz squealed in fright and fell back with a hand clamped across her left ear.

  Alexa knelt down and let the dragons fly free. Immediately, each dragon was surrounded by fairies, guiding them like tall ships onto the rockery.

  “No!” cried Liz, trying to reach out and stop it. “The Fain attacked Arthur! They attacked me. Lexie, don’t —”

  Not us, they said, and several came to settle on her arm.

  Liz rocked back again. Her head felt light, like a room that had just been cleared and aired. As she struggled to find a focal point, the garden seemed to fold itself away and for a moment a whole new world appeared. A place of high mountains and lush vegetation. A stream bed. A village. A place of dragons. And that voice …?

  We are like you, Elizabeth.

  When she looked again, the fairies had red hair.

  We must commingle with the image of Godith, they said.

  And as she watched them fly away, one fairy went to G’reth and literally flew right into him, dissolving through the hard scales on his chest. The same thing happened with Gollygosh and Groyne. When it came to Gadzooks’s turn, Liz saw him tremble and shake his wings. He lost his footing briefly, sending loose stones tumbling down between the rocks. He had the airy look of a newborn bird. When he coughed, a jet of white flame erupted from his throat.

  The fairy door opened a little farther.

  “Wait,” said Liz, as the fairies guided the dragons toward it. “I made these dragons. I can’t let them go without knowing what will happen to them.”

  Alexa picked at her red gingham dress. “Say bye-bye to G’reth,” she said.

  The wishing dragon was on the threshold, looking deep into a matrix of swirling color. He stroked Bonnington, who had padded forward to sit beside the door like a big furry bouncer, then disappeared through it with a quick snap of light. Groyne and Gollygosh quickly followed. Gadzooks was the only one to cast a glance back, first at Liz, then at his beloved suburban garden. Hrrr, he said.

  Liz laced her fingers and hunkered down like a pixie. “Hrrr. I love you, too,” she whispered.

  There was another snap of light and the door creaked shut. Alexa went to it and tugged at the handle. She peeked in, but all that could be seen behind the doorway now was rock.

  Just then, a thin crash of metal from somewhere near the house made Alexa catch her breath and whirl around.

  “Hi, did you miss me?” said a girl’s voice.

  And there was Lucy, feet outstretched, clanking back and forth on her rusty garden swing.

  In her lap was a knife of poisoned obsidian. And on the patio next to her lay a broken wind chime.

  Part Three

  33

  THE FIRE ETERNAL

  For only the second or third time in his life, Kailar felt truly afraid. In fourteen or so winters roaming the ice (the precise number blurred like the hairs thinning yearly on his prominent snout) he had fought many bears, survived the harshest blizzards, dug his way out of an avalanche (as a cub), escaped men and their dogs, nearly had his eye taken out by a walrus, been imprisoned near a shantytown, laughed at starvation, tasted poison and very nearly died from it, run with spirits, watched a blue-eyed bear turn into a man, come to know every pore of his body through the power of a purifying white fire, carried the eye of a creature called a dragon, and endured the prattling words of a Teller. But he had never seen anything like this before; every ice bear (or near so, surely) drawn together into one huge pack. He shuddered to speculate how it was possible. It worried him even more to know by what enchantment they were being kept calm. It terrified him to wonder at their fate.
r />   “What is this?” he demanded, with the growl of a brave, indignant champion.

  “This is a new beginning,” said Ingavar. He looked outward and nodded. To Avrel’s astonishment, the first row of bears began to lie down. Like trees falling, the rest followed suit.

  “I like what I have. What I’ve always had,” said Kailar, and despite the burden still hanging around his neck, he pawed the ice as if he could pick it up and carry it in his chest.

  “What you have is under threat,” Ingavar said calmly, appealing to Avrel as well as to Kailar. “We have walked a long way together. Now is the moment your must hear and understand. You heard me speak some days ago about a race of beings who call themselves the Ix.”

  “Do they plan to harm us?” Avrel said quickly, standing tall to show his solidarity with Kailar. As much as he admired Ingavar’s wisdom, he did have some sympathy with the fighting bear’s stance.

  A gust of wind lifted up a screen of ice spicules. When they had settled, David Rain stood in place of Ingavar again. “Not directly,” he said, in the voice of the bear.

  Kailar, growing weary of this, set himself down and let the eye of Gawain wriggle free from his neck. Green light fizzed around the place where it landed, but the dragon did not wake and the lid remained closed.

  David spoke quietly to Avrel. “I was sent here to protect you, because of the ice bear’s history with dragons. The North is experiencing a period of decline, aided, in part, by the actions of men. The Ix are preying upon this. They are making human beings forget what this region is worth to them and convincing them that nothing can be done to save it. If they succeed, the ice will melt, bears will die out, and the ways of the North will be lost forever. The auma of the Earth will suffer greatly. Then will come a period of grief and fear. The Ix will harness this mood to ignite dark fire in the hostile dragons they refer to as Darklings. A large flock of these creatures could destroy every living being on this world — or worse, induce them to destroy themselves. This would clear the way for the Ix to mine the resources they need to continue breeding Darklings. Ultimately, they will use this planet as a base to generate something called an Inversion. Imagine a permanent polar night with the dark sky gradually closing in — that’s the only way I can describe it to you, Avrel. This will happen if we do not act.” David put his face to the sky. The spirit arena by now was vast. “The spirits of the North are trying to resist, but alone they cannot hold out or defeat the Ix.”

  Avrel glanced at the throng of bears. “And why are they here? What can they do?”

  David walked toward the eye of Gawain. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Avrel felt a sense of panic grip the center of his chest and then wondered at the back of his mind if Gwilanna’s warnings should not have been heeded after all.

  David stared into the thoughtful, almond-colored eyes. “The dragon gave you birth. Now is his time to save you.” And he stood beside the eye of Gawain and stretched his arms sideways. The air above him shimmered in four oval patches.

  Avrel stood back, snorting in alarm.

  Four strange little creatures had just landed safely on David’s arms. “Hello, guys,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  Zanna had never known a gridlock like it. Yet there was no road rage or blaring of horns, and everyone seemed in remarkably good spirits. Glancing across to the car at her right, she saw a family of four — a mom and three girls. The youngest girl looked about nine, the oldest maybe fifteen. The middle one nearest to Zanna was clutching a book. David’s book, White Fire.

  Zanna opened her window. “Hey?”

  The girl nudged her mother. Their passenger window slid down.

  “Do you know what the holdup is?”

  The mother leaned forward. “It’s coming. Don’t you feel it?”

  All Zanna felt was the need for a sandwich. She hadn’t eaten since setting off from Blackburn. “I, uh, got here a bit late. What did I miss?”

  Mother and daughter exchanged a few words. “Haven’t you read the book?” The girl tapped the cover.

  “Once or twice,” Zanna said quietly.

  “Then you must feel it?” said the girl.

  “A new beginning,” said the mother.

  Zanna glanced at the youngest child and was about to suggest there must be something weird in the water supply that day, when thunk! An object landed on the roof of her car. The girl with the book gave a yelp of fear.

  “What is it?” Zanna asked. “What the heck hit me?”

  Bizarrely, a raven’s beak tapped her windshield.

  The girl’s window immediately slid up.

  The raven hopped sideways and tapped again.

  Still struggling to make any sense of all this, Zanna whacked the windshield with the side of her fist. “Get off. I only just washed this car.”

  Hrrr, said Gwendolen, risking turning around. She’d been traveling on the shelf again, looking out the back.

  “Not a bird? Of course it’s a bird,” said Zanna.

  Gwendolen shook her head. She pointed to the rose petal in the raven’s beak, then flew to the passenger door and pressed the electric window release. As the window slid down she gave a quick hrrr. With a caark and an awkward flutter of wings, the raven was suddenly in the car.

  “Close the window,” it snapped, spitting out the petal.

  Zanna recognized the voice immediately. “Oh my God, I don’t believe this. I thought you were dead.”

  “In your family, that’s a common mistake,” said Gwilanna.

  “But you were in the Arctic when Lucy —”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” the bird squabbled insanely, perching on the swollen leather lip of the seat. “There’s no time for all that. Elizabeth has sent me to bring you home.”

  Hrrr, said Gwendolen, stroking the petal. She confirmed that Liz’s auma was indeed on the flower.

  Zanna put the car into neutral. Her foot ached, she’d been waiting in first for so long. “As you can see, I’m headed there, but …” She gestured at the windshield. The traffic wasn’t moving. And now people were turning off their engines and abandoning their vehicles. What’s more, they were humming a harmonic mantra.

  “Hurry, we must go,” Gwilanna said impatiently.

  “How?” said Zanna, gesturing again. “Besides, I’m not going anywhere with you. I wouldn’t trust you farther than a frog could hop. You don’t just show up out of nowhere making demands. I want some explanations. What the heck is going on?”

  “I bring … good tidings,” Gwilanna said acidly.

  Zanna threw her a scorching glare.

  “Your boyfriend is alive.”

  Zanna sat a moment, frozen, not knowing what to say.

  Hrrr-rrr, offered Gwendolen, humming the mantra.

  “I’ve seen him, girl.”

  Zanna gritted her teeth.

  “Don’t you realize, he’s the one who’s causing this.”

  “That’s it. Get out.” Zanna grabbed a street atlas from the pocket of the door. She was just about to bat the bird out of the window when a middle-aged man came past the car, bumped the wing mirror, and stopped to set it straight. He was carrying a copy of David’s book. Zanna checked her anger and looked around. She could see others now, many of them with the book. Some were reading from it as they walked. Some were holding it high like a sign. “No,” she said. The rush of denial was unfathomably deep, but her eyes were beginning to glisten and burn.

  “Show me your arm,” Gwilanna caarked. She hopped onto the parking brake and pecked at Zanna’s sleeve.

  “What are you doing, witch?” Zanna slapped her off.

  “The mark. I didn’t give you the mark for nothing. Haven’t you learned to use its powers yet?”

  Zanna looked at the three red lines on her arm. The scratch that never healed. The mark of Oomara.

  “Hold it and think yourself a bird,” said Gwilanna.

  “What? Why?”

  “So we can fly away and reach your daughter quickly.??
?

  “Alexa? She’s in trouble?”

  “In that house, there is always trouble.”

  Zanna reassessed the traffic. Dead. Every car. No way forward. No way back. She switched off her engine and lowered the window.

  “Good. Now, hurry or I’ll leave you,” said Gwilanna.

  Zanna studied her arm again. She slowly curled her fingers around the mark. Several seconds went by and nothing happened.

  “Give in to it,” Gwilanna said impatiently.

  Zanna’s hair fell forward. “It’s no good, I can’t.”

  “You’re a sibyl! Choose a form and it will —”

  Suddenly, the air popped. And then there were two ravens in the car.

  “Hurrah,” said Gwilanna, blowing away a loose feather. “I’m glad we got that sorted out. Now, concentrate, girl. Hold the spell. It wouldn’t do to change again in midair, would it?”

  “What about Gwendolen? It’s too far for her to fly.”

  Gwilanna fluttered to the window ledge and studied the sky. Gray, but no snow. Minimal wind, despite the moving cloud banks. “You’re strong. Carry her on your back if you must.”

  Zanna signaled Gwendolen to her. In her active form, the dragon was hardly any burden.

  Gwilanna prepared to launch.

  “Wait,” Zanna said.

  “What now, girl?”

  “If you’re lying about any of this, I’ll kill you.”

  Gwilanna clicked her beak. “I believe there’s a line for that privilege,” she said. And with a caark at a startled passerby, she took off.

  Seconds later, Zanna and Gwendolen were with her.

  And, Zanna had to confess, it was a heck of a way to beat the traffic.

  “What breed are they?” asked Avrel, trying to find a memory to describe the new arrivals. He had seen many birdlike creatures before, but never in these shapes or colors or …? It never occurred to him that they might be small dragons.

  David replied, “They are my helpers.” He turned to his left where a mound of ice leveled off at waist height. He set the dragons down there.