“They weren’t snowflakes, Zanna. They were bear flakes. A small pack of them, come to battle the Ix.”
He leaned back in his chair. His foot tapped the floor. “Two of them landed on my hands. Since then I’ve remembered things about the Arctic — stuff I shouldn’t know, legends I can’t know — coupled with a crushing desire to protect you and Lucy.”
Zanna put her cookie down on a plate. She dropped her hands into her lap and glanced at Gauge, who was sitting on the windowsill just behind Tam. The timing dragon made a five past zero pose. Five minutes before dinner came out of the oven. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave now,” she said. “In any other circumstance, I’d invite you to stay for dinner. But things have been difficult. Your presence won’t make it easier.”
She lifted his car keys out of a wicker bowl and put them down on the table in front of him. “It’s still in Blackburn, I’m afraid.”
He gave a nod of understanding and rose to leave.
“One thing,” she asked, as he repositioned his chair. “Why would Lucy’s … aunt think she’d met you before?”
He glanced at the drawings Alexa had made. “Must be that scent of polar bear,” he said. “Are you familiar with the word ‘Nanukapik’?”
“I might be. What of it?”
“There is a great bear in the Arctic — but I think the world is about to discover that he’s not confined to the north. Tell Lucy I called.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Zanna averted her eyes. Her gaze was still fixed on Bonnington’s cat flap when she heard the front door close. “Question,” she said to the listener, in dragontongue. “What color were his eyes?”
“Brown,” it replied.
Brown, like a bear’s. Zanna swallowed and felt a sudden weakness in her back. When she’d first met Tam, she’d remembered them as blue.
It was like a viral sickness. A condition that didn’t quite bring you down, but that you carried every day, in every fiber of your being, wondering if it was ever going to come to an end.
So many signs were pointing to David.
So many times, Zanna felt so alone.
She made Alexa promise not to talk about Tam and told Lucy of his visit herself the next morning. Lucy was in her bathrobe, eating breakfast. Her mouth stayed open for a full ten seconds. She was not a pretty sight, with rings of tiredness darkening her eyes, her hair unbrushed and like a squirrel’s nest, and milky half-chewed cornflakes around her teeth.
Strangely, the expected tantrum didn’t happen. Lucy, though shocked and clearly disappointed, seemed to understand. “Will he come back? Do you think I should call him?”
Zanna recalled his remark about protecting them. “He’ll come back.”
Lucy put her bowl down. “I’m scared,” she wailed. “I have dreams about the Darkling hunting for us, hurting Mom, killing the dragons.”
On the fridge top, the listener rattled its scales.
“It won’t come,” Zanna said, stroking the brilliant red hair. “Tam told me how you fooled the Ix by making the Darkling without a heart. That was pretty smart.”
“What did you do with it?”
“With what?”
“The heart.”
Zanna frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t be dumb. ‘Course you do. They made me use it on Mom. You knocked it from my hand. It must still be in the garden. I’m going out to look.”
“Whoa!” Zanna caught her as she tried to stand. “That knife was the Darkling’s heart?”
“Yes!”
And Gwilanna must have known it, Zanna decided. That was why she didn’t want to see it tossed out. Tough. The thing was in pieces now. “It’s in the trash, wrecked. When the garbage men come tomorrow it’ll be nothing but dust.”
“It’s evil,” said Lucy, meeting Zanna’s eyes.
“It’s dust,” Zanna told her, and clinked the cereal bowl, indicating Lucy should get on with her breakfast.
That afternoon, Zanna had a visitor. Henry Bacon dropped by looking thwarted. “Gwyneth,” he grumbled, spread-eagling himself on Bonnington’s favorite chair (and just about filling half the kitchen).
Zanna was ironing. “Yeah, I’ve got some issues with her myself. What’s the scheming old crone been up to now — other than abandoning Liz to me and Gretel?”
“Gone,” said Henry.
Zanna lifted the iron. “What, you mean she left?”
“Just took off.”
“Not —?” No, ravens were best left out of this.
“Can’t understand it,” Henry muttered. “One minute she was grateful for the use of the room, then she disappears without a word of good-bye. All very odd.”
And deeply suspicious, Zanna thought. She and the iron both blew a little steam.
“Perfectly within her rights, of course. I mean, there was no … affiliation.” Henry coughed.
“I should think not,” Zanna said sternly, feeling as if she’d morphed into a Victorian governess. “You listen to me Henry, Gwil — ‘Gwyneth’ is just about the most selfish woman I’ve ever met. You don’t know her. I do. You’re far better off without her. Trust me.”
He pursed his lips and frowned. “Think she might have gone to Scotland.”
“What?” said Zanna. A sudden chill gripped her heart. “Whereabouts in Scotland?”
Henry opened his hands. “Not sure. Made me show her a map of the islands. Then she was gone before you could shake a kilt.”
“Mommy!” Alexa dashed in from the hall.
“What, darling?”
“Lucy says you’ve got to come and look at the tellingvision.”
“Television, Lexie, how many times? In a minute, I’m talking to Henry.”
“But there’s snow, going upward!”
“Not technically possible,” said Henry. “Gravity wouldn’t allow it, child.”
“Zanna?!” Lucy’s voice shouted through from the front.
Zanna switched off the iron. She aimed a finger between Henry’s eyes. “Stay away from that woman. She’s … well, just do as I say, OK? Go on,” she said to Lexie, and followed her into the den.
On the screen were aerial pictures of the Arctic. To Zanna’s amazement, Alexa’s description was accurate. The northern sky was filled with an upward-moving blizzard. But at ocean level, it was still impossible to see any ice or any structure resembling ice.
“Awesome,” said Lucy. She was on the edge of the sofa, clutching a cushion. Gretel and Gwendolen were with her, holding paws.
“What are the scientists saying?” Zanna asked.
Lucy gave a snort of derision. “That it’s a vortex, a kind of tornado, caused by a freak combination of ocean currents and atmospheric doo-dahs. They’re wrong, of course. It’s Gaia. It’s —”
Suddenly, both Lucy and Zanna became aware that the dragons were humming. It was the same mantra they had heard from the congregation in the Crescent. Zanna glanced at Henry. His face was a picture of bliss and his mouth, though silent, was clearly following the cadence of the hymn. Zanna passed a hand in front of his eyes. He was completely transfixed.
“What do you think?” Lucy said.
Zanna glanced at the television. “I guess we keep watching,” she said.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Elizabeth Pennykettle was dreaming — perhaps. She was feverish but she could clearly hear dragonsong and it was making her think of her beloved Gwillan. “Lucy?” she whispered. “Lucy, are you there?”
Eyes closed, she laid her hand across the bed.
A strong but gentle hand came to cover it.
“Arthur? Are you home?”
Like a wind from another world a voice said, “Dream it.”
Liz rolled her head against her pillow, and there was David, sitting and holding Gwillan.
Her mouth trembled and she said, “Is this it? Am I dying?”
“No,” he replied.
“You look … Are you real?”
He stroked
her fingers. “Sometimes,” he said.
She gazed at Gwillan, drained of color, solid. “Can you help him?”
“I’m here to help you all.”
Liz’s face was a sea of questions.
“His tear is not lost, that’s all I can tell you. Will you give Zanna a message for me?”
“She’s just downstairs. She —”
He held a finger to his lips. “Tell her to go to the library gardens.”
He stood up then and let her hand slip back onto the bed.
“David? Don’t leave me. I’ve missed you so much.”
He leaned over and kissed the center of her forehead. “Gawain is with you. Be at peace. Sleep.”
The television stayed on into the evening. It was kind of like watching an old moon landing, long and laborious but strangely compelling. Twice Zanna went upstairs and found Liz sleeping. Before her third visit she reminded herself that even if the world was on the brink of a major ecological change, a household didn’t run itself. So she did a few chores. One was to take the kitchen trash out. Although it was dark, she hesitated before dropping in the plastic bag. She put it to one side and tilted the can. Her heart beat double when she didn’t hear a sizeable chunk of obsidian go rolling across the bottom. Gwilanna. The thieving …
Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong. Gwilanna wanting the knife in the first place, then disappearing to the Scottish Islands. Her strange suggestion that she’d met Tam before and the even stranger suspicion that she was running away from him. The light inside the rock that wasn’t a knife but was really a heart. Why did that make Zanna’s blood run cold? Why did it make her think fearfully of Gwillan?
She went upstairs to check on him. He was there, in the den, on the table where she’d left him, but he appeared to have moved slightly. She didn’t remember him facing the window. Maybe one of the others had turned him? She would have asked but, like Henry, the dragons were transfixed. All of them were looking at the sky. Everyone, it seemed, was looking at the sky.
She went in to see Elizabeth. “Oh, hi, you’re awake. How are you feeling? Have you been crying? You look so sad.”
Liz was sitting up, her red hair falling in waves across her pillows. “I’m OK. In fact, I feel a little better.”
“Could have fooled me.”
Liz shook her head. “Come and sit down. You’re a treasure, do you know that?”
“I do my best,” Zanna shrugged. “Everything’s shipshape. Cat fed. Shirts ironed. Daughters occupied. Physics genius solving equations somewhere.”
“And what about you? What about Suzanna?”
“Learning. Steeply. But then I have had a very good teacher.”
Liz glanced at the night sky. “Something’s happening, isn’t it?”
Zanna shrugged again. “Funny weather in the Arctic.”
Liz smiled, long and deeply. “How’s the shop?”
“Shop? Good question. Haven’t been in for a couple of days. I really ought to go down there, I suppose.”
“Go tonight.”
“What? At this time? Don’t be silly. There’s far too much to do here. I’ll find time tomorrow. There’s nothing that won’t —”
“Go tonight,” Liz insisted. “Go and visit the library gardens. They’re beautiful in the moonlight. Take Alexa with you.”
It was the oddest of suggestions, but Zanna nevertheless warmed to it. Leaving Lucy and Henry glued to the television, she buttoned Alexa into her coat and drove her down to a deserted Scrubbley Main Street.
An odd sense of déjà vu started to grip her as they stood by the shop window and Alexa waved at Gruffen (who’d gone back some weeks before). The candle had burned down, right to a stub, but the valentine card was still there beside it, still giving out its message of love.
Hrrr, went Alexa and knocked the window. Gruffen looked out for prying eyes. Finding none, he hurred on the candle and relit the wick.
Alexa reached up and gripped her mother’s hand. “Can we go to the gardens, Mommy?”
Liz was right about the gardens. But it wasn’t just the moonlight. The glow from the amber lamps that David had described so beautifully in Snigger and the Nutbeast was creating a stunning collage of shadows, all across the paths, right down to the duck pond.
“I want to say hello to Conker,” said Alexa. She meant the grave under the tree, where a squirrel of that name had been buried long ago.
“Be careful,” said Zanna, as they parted hands. “Don’t run, Lexie. If you trip on something —”
“Hhh!” said the girl.
Zanna saw her freeze, a little way along the path. “Lexie?”
Then the child was running again.
“Lexie?” Zanna shouted. “Lexie, come back. There won’t be squirrels at this time of night.”
And that was true. But as Zanna quickened her pace and took a twist of the path, she saw Alexa running toward the silhouette of a man. He was standing where the path leveled out, waiting.
Alexa was slightly above him when she took off. She almost flew through the air, landing in his arms and squealing, “Daddy!”
Zanna stopped walking. There was a handrail beside her that she reached for and gripped, but only to stop her body from collapsing. She sat down on the path.
“Hello, Zanna,” he said.
Zanna let go of the handrail and wept.
Above their heads, the sky was suddenly lit by a brilliant all-encompassing sweep of violet.
Alexa looked up and gasped, “What is it?”
“A kind of angel,” said David.
For there was a great light in the north.
And dragons had returned to the Earth once more.
About the Author
Chris d’Lacey is the author of several highly acclaimed books for children and young adults, including the other books in the Last Dragon Chronicles, The Fire Within, Icefire, Fire Star.
In July of 2002, Chris was awarded an honorary doctorate by Leicester University for his services to children’s fiction. Chris lives with his wife in Leicester, England.
Visit www.icefire.co.uk to learn more
about Chris d’Lacey’s books.
Copyright
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book was published in hardcover in the United States by Orchard Books in 2008 and in Great Britain by Orchard Books, a division of Hachette Children’s Books, a Hachette Livre UK company, in 2007.
Copyright © 2007 by Chris d’Lacey.
Cover art © 2007 by Angelo Rinaldi
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. ORCHARD BOOKS and design are registered trademarks of Watts Publishing Group, Ltd., used under license.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-36546-8
Chris D'Lacey, The Fire Eternal
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends