Fire Star

by Chris D'Lacey

  Mr. Bacon made a strange kind of whimpering noise. “You’ll be telling me next that a squirrel knocked this table together from an oak tree. Wonderful woman, Mrs. P. Does have some fanciful notions, though. Ever studied Einstein?”

  David shook his head.

  Mr. Bacon gave a snort of despair. “Try reading something other than cereal boxes one day. Very profound and clever man, Einstein. Helped us understand how the universe works. Geniuses like him have allowed modern science to trace our origins back to one billionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang.”

  David sat up brightly. “I’ve heard of that! So it all began with an explosion, then?”

  “No.”

  “You just said it did! A bang is a bang. Ker-poww. Ba-boom!”

  Henry shuddered manfully and took off his gloves as though it was going to be an awfully long morning. “It was more of a rather large stretching out, like ripples on a pond, like God breathing.”

  “Or burping,” said David. “That’s more explosive.”

  “Don’t be facetious,” Henry said. “What you should be considering, boy, is why the scientists can’t go all the way back to the ‘bang,’ but have to stop one billionth of a trillionth of a second after it.”

  “Yeah, so what’s the answer?”

  “No one knows.”

  “That’s not an answer!”

  “Of course it is. Read your Bible. John: chapter one, verse one. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’”

  David sat forward, jostling his knees. “Well, here’s the gospel according to David. In the beginning was the word and the word was … durr? You can’t plant God in there just because it suits you. You have to prove it.”

  “Nonsense. Proof’s all around you, boy. Air. Aquarium. Carpets. Rubber plant. All part of the grand plan. God put energy into the void. The void expanded, creating heat and simple elements: hydrogen and helium, giant clouds of gas. When the gases cooled, gravity condensed them into stars. Each star was a giant chemical factory, transforming the simple elements into far more complex ones, ninety-two in all. Those ninety-two bits combined together to make planets, worlds, all life as we know it.”

  “Even me?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. And that’s only the stuff we can see.”

  “Eh? We can see all of it, can’t we?”

  Henry flicked his duster. “No. And that’s another godly conundrum. Only about ten percent of the known universe is visible. The other ninety is made up of dark matter.”

  “Dark matter?” said David, perking up. “What’s that?”

  “No one knows.”

  “Whaaat?”

  “Don’t squeak!” said Henry, tucking his elbows into his sides. “Makes my capped teeth grate.”

  “Well, don’t keep dangling metaphysical carrots, then taking them away from me, then! Is there anything about the universe we know?”

  Henry set his beady eye hard upon his neighbor. “The Lord made it, in his vast mysterious way, and for some unfathomable reason chose to include you. This is giving me a headache. I need a drink.”

  “Too right,” said David. “What have you got?”

  Henry opened the cabinet in his sideboard. “Sherry for me; orange juice, in the fridge, for you.”

  “Very generous. I’ll pass, thanks. OK, let me get this straight: Everything we see is made from stardust?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “What if a new star appeared? What would that mean?”

  Henry knocked back his sherry and said, “Wouldn’t see a new star forming, boy. More likely an old one, dying out. Supernova. Massively bright cosmological spectacle. Huge release of energy. Blast wave felt throughout interstellar space.”

  “You can see a star dying?” Was that what was happening with the fire star, David wondered? Somehow, that didn’t feel right.

  Henry popped the decanter and poured another drink. “Probably from thousands of years ago. Takes a long time for the light of the explosion to reach us.”

  “And when it does, what happens then?”

  Henry gave a shrug. “Bit more stellar radiation passing through.” He patted his tummy. “Get it all the time.”

  “So, it wouldn’t have any effect on the Earth or any … creatures on the Earth?”

  Henry wiggled his mustache, spraying a droplet or two of sherry. “Not in your lifetime, boy.”

  “Even if I’d seen one, in the Arctic?”

  “Without a telescope?” Henry hooted loudly. “You probably saw a shooting star — or knowing you, lights from the alien mother ship.”

  “Very funny,” David muttered, as the telephone rang.

  Henry picked it up. “Bacon residence? Ah, Mrs. P. Yes, he’s here.” He passed the phone to David.

  “Hi, Liz. It’s me.”

  “Can you come home?” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure. I’ll be there in a minute. You OK?”

  “I need to talk to you,” she said again, after a pause. “Please don’t be long.” The telephone burred and David slowly lowered the handset.

  “Everything all right, boy?” Henry said, easing the phone from the tenant’s grasp and cleaning the mouth part thoroughly with his duster before replacing it on the cradle.

  “Um, yeah,” said David. “Thanks for the info. I need to go.” And falsifying a smile, he walked away, gradually increasing the pace of his footsteps until he was outside and jogging across the driveway. He could sense that something wasn’t right, for in the half-second gap between Liz ceasing speaking and hanging up the phone, he had clearly heard her sob.

  27 BAD NEWS FOR DAVID

  What is it? What’s the matter?” he asked, the moment he set foot in the Pennykettles’ hall.

  Liz waved a hand in front of her face as though speaking was just too much for her then. But in a breaking whisper she managed to say, “Come into the front.” And taking his arm she guided him there, making him sit in his usual chair.

  “Is it Lucy?” he asked, almost bouncing straight out of it.

  “No.” She motioned for him to sit again. Interlacing her fingers, she paced the floor twice. Finally, she found the wherewithal to speak. “I had a telephone call while you were out at Henry’s.”

  David glanced suspiciously at the instrument, as if he’d always suspected it of underhanded treachery. “Who from?”

  “Your instructor. Dr. Bergstrom.”

  “Bergstrom?” A flicker of panic crossed David’s face. He clicked his thumbnails one against the other. “What did he want?”

  With one hand resting against her throat and the other picking at the sleeve of her cardigan, Liz said carefully, “There’s been an accident in the Arctic. Zanna’s gone missing.”

  Across the room, on the table that stood in the bay, there was a sudden clink of pottery and Gretel emerged from behind a shallow planter. She had been collecting pollen from the trumpetlike flowers of a Christmas cactus and her paws and snout were stained bright yellow. Hrrr? she queried, turning her violet eyes first on David, then on Liz.

  “Answer her,” said David. “What kind of accident?”

  But Liz could say no more. With a short cascade of sobs, she broke down and openly started to cry. Gwillan, who’d been dusting the mantelpiece clock, flew with haste to the tissue box and returned with a handful of paper comfort.

  David immediately picked up the phone and simultaneously pulled his wallet from his jeans. He flipped through it quickly and punched out the number on the scrap of paper next to his credit card.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Liz wept.

  He counted eight long rings, one for every five beats of his heart. “Pick up,” he urged, and his prayer was answered. There was a crackle and a rugged male voice broke through: “Manitoba Polar Research Base.”

  David turned in his chair, pulling the base of the phone off its table, almost clouting Bonnington in his basket. “Russ? Russ, that you?”
/>   “David? Jeez. Where are you calling from?”

  “Home. America. I just heard about Zanna.”

  There was a flat, dead pause. The pilot said, “Oh.”

  A ripple of fear squeezed David’s chest. “What’s happened, Russ?”

  “Didn’t Anders call you?”

  “He spoke to Liz, my landlady here. She says there’s been an accident, but she’s too upset to tell me. What’s going on? I need to know.”

  The pilot sighed, clouding the line for another few seconds. He muttered something that seemed to strengthen his courage, then in a solid voice he said, “OK. This morning, Zanna came out with me and Tootega to transport the bear you rumbled with in Chamberlain to a safe zone north of the town. We got caught in this … freak whiteout, and three more big ones came to party.”

  “Three bears? Together?”

  “Straight off the sea ice. Almost as if they’d been waiting for us. In sixteen years of working with these animals, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  David swallowed hard and looked across at Liz. A fretful Gwillan was perched on her shoulder, desperately trying to stem her tears. Gretel appeared to have flown from the room and Bonnington had gone back to sleep in his basket.

  “You still there?” asked Russ.

  David gave an involuntary nod. “Was she mauled? Is she —?”

  “She disappeared, David. That’s the best I can tell you.”

  “Disappeared? How?”

  “Like I said, there was a storm; I couldn’t search on foot. By the time I could get the chopper in the air there was hardly a trace of Zanna or the bears. I did a fifty-mile sweep, but —”

  “They took her?”

  Russ gave out an anguished sigh.

  “They took her?” David repeated angrily. “Why didn’t you shoot them?”

  “It was Tootega’s call. He fired a couple of rounds, trying to scare them off. Then he just … I dunno … he just froze.”

  David shook his head. “No, Russ. You’ve gotta do better than that. If Zanna was in danger, why didn’t you pull the trigger and keep on pulling? I thought that’s what you were trained to do?”

  A defeated silence connected the miles. “Something went wrong. That’s all I can tell you. Tootega peed his pants. He was out of his wits when I got to him. He saw something that totally freaked him out.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” said the pilot, on a taut and troubled rein. “He hasn’t said a word since we came back to base. And before you ask why I didn’t shoot, I had a raven in my face.”

  Raven? David tugged at the phone cord as if he’d like to drag the entire Arctic continent down the wire and into his fist. “Where’s Bergstrom?” he asked through tightly clenched teeth.

  “Heading for Toronto. He’s flying to the US — to see Zanna’s parents.”

  David’s heart lurched. “No,” he said. “He knows what happened. Bergstrom always knows.”

  “David, how could he? He was nowhere near.”

  And though he was aware that his voice was breaking and tears were channeling down his cheeks, David said, “No. That can’t happen. Not Zanna. She can’t be gone.”

  The phone crackled and Russ said, “I’m sorry, David. I know how much you loved her. We all did, fella. But the chances of us finding her alive are —”

  “No!” David cried, from a place deep within, a place he had hardly ever dared reach into. “She’s not gone. She’s not gone. She can’t be gone.” He felt Liz’s warm arms closing around him and fell sideways into them, dropping the phone.

  “Shush,” she whispered, singing sweet dragonsong into his ear.

  Russ’s disembodied voice spoke out near the floor.

  “I want her back,” David wailed to Liz.

  “I know,” she said, and hung up the phone. “Listen,” she whispered. “Listen to me now.” And she sang him a lullaby that could have calmed a dragon.

  And long before she was finished, he was still.

  28 A CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE DRAGON KIND

  It was the best show on Earth. Except he wasn’t on Earth. He was flying among the stars. And seeing wonders.

  G’reth stretched out his paws as far as they would reach, as though to catch every passing atom. So much beauty in so much darkness. It was just like being a piece of fluff, dancing on the breeze through a garden filled with spectacular flowers. Every time he spiraled, a new cluster of lights came into view. Galaxies, billions of miles away. Turning, glistening, radiating life. If he lifted his paw in front of his snout, his thumb could blot them out as if they were salt grains. So close, and yet so far away. The universe. The playground of a wishing dragon.

  For an unknown time, over an unknown distance, on an unknown winding path he traveled.

  Then one day, if days there could be, the force that had gathered him brought him to a halt on the orbit of the fire star shining back to Earth.

  The wisher quietly beat his wings, for he was treading space now, neither here, nor there, nor anywhere in between. And though the star was burning brightly, casting its yellow heat over his scales, it was a different kind of warmth that touched his mind.

  Somewhere close was a special kind of auma.

  He pushed a paw forward. Space rippled. He pulled his paw back. Space flattened out.

  His wingbeats quickened. His tail flicked. He was on the edge of something. Something new. Something that did not seem to exist. Something invisible from where he was hovering. Something dark to a dragon’s eye.

  I wish I knew the secret of Gawain’s fire tear.

  He closed his paws and put the wish out to the universe once more.

  And right there, in front of him, a hole opened. A hole that had gathered sufficient light to give its perimeter a soft, fuzzy edge.

  G’reth looked in. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. And yet felt … drawn.

  He flicked his wing tips and drifted through.

  He had a startling impression of emptiness now. No light. No color. No temperature. No smell. And yet he sensed he was not alone.

  He was not.

  He felt it enter through the tip of his tail, lift the scales along his spine, and whisper through the tunnels of his spiky ears. Intelligence, finding its level, like water. A youthful, happy being, fusing with his auma.

  What are you? it said, tickling his thoughts.

  What are you? G’reth asked it.

  I am Fain, it said. Shall we commingle?

  Hrrr! G’reth gave out a breath of surprise as the being opened his eyes from within. And in that one momentous second, the darkness cleared and G’reth could see. Not land, not water, not sky, not stars, but a different world: a world of possibilities.

  You are in the image of Godith, said the Fain. Will you stay with me? I will teach you things.

  But G’reth, as taken as he was by this marvel, shook his head gently and repeated his wish.

  The being moved to his paws and closed them. Then, let me go with you, it said.

  The hole reopened and drew them through.

  And G’reth returned to the known universe, enlightened, inspired, and more aware than ever.

  But even he, for all his newfound sentience, could not have known just then that when a being looks into the mirror of his dreams, something in the mirror is always looking back….

  29 A CHALLENGE FOR DAVID

  When David woke, he was lying on his back on the floor of the living room with his head supported by a large, fluffy cushion. Gretel was sitting in the center of his chest.

  “Welcome back,” said Liz. She knelt down beside him and wiped his brow. David angled his head. The curtains were drawn. “How long have I been out?”

  “Long enough,” she said.

  Bonnington padded up and touched his nose to the tenant’s cheek. Chicken-flavored Chunky Chunks. “Lovely,” said David.

  Nyeh, went the cat, and padded away.

  With some difficulty, David focused on Gretel. She had her paws behind
her back and was tapping her foot. “What does she want?”

  Gretel, who like any living creature resented being spoken about, rather than to, snorted and spiked him once with her tail.

  “Ow!”

  “She wants to give you something. They all do,” Liz said.

  David widened the scope of his vision. On the chairs, the sofa, the coffee table, the mantelpiece — on every available surface, in fact, sat one of Liz’s special dragons. “Zanna,” he said, suddenly remembering, suddenly filled with a rush of grief.

  “Later,” she soothed him. “We’ll talk about her later. Right now, stay with the dragons. They’ve found G’reth — or rather, he’s found them.”

  “Really?” David tried to push up, only to be spiked by Gretel again. “Ow-ww! Will you please stop doing that! Where is he?”

  “Out there,” Liz said. She gestured with her hands to nowhere in particular. “They made contact with him through Gadzooks. He’s got a kind of plan. Something he wants you to do.”

  With a flutter of wings, Gadzooks landed awkwardly on David’s chest. He, too, had his paws tucked away behind his back.

  “What are they hiding?” David asked, caution in his voice. “What exactly do they want to give me?”

  Liz nodded at Gretel, who showed him her paws. In them was a lump of clay. She laid it in the hollow of David’s chest. Gadzooks leaned forward and did the same. Then Gruffen. Then Gwillan. Then the listener from the kitchen. Every special dragon in turn.

  “OK, what am I s’posed to do with that?” There was now a sizeable mound of clay staining one of David’s favorite shirts.

  “Make a dragon,” Liz said, playing with the ends of her wavy red hair.

  “Pardon? Are you kidding?”

  “No,” she said. “That was the message. G’reth wants you to make a dragon.”

  30 THE CALL OF GWENDOLEN

  Lucy loved her mother. Of course she did. She missed her from the moment she woke in the morning till the time she fell asleep through the long Arctic night. For the first few days of her life as a hostage on the Tooth of Ragnar, the floor of the cave was so wet from her tears that Gwilanna complained she could smell black mold growing in the damp rock. Lucy, by reply, would turn her back and cry into the musty, sealskin furs, hoping that Gwilanna would catch a chill when next she rolled up in them. But the sibyl never did. And the molds never grew. And in time the crying slowed, until the day came when Lucy did not weep at all. That day, she made a pact with herself. She knew by now she could do little of practical use to escape the clutches of her so-called “aunt.” So she resolved to make the most of her strange predicament. One morning, after breakfasting on double-stewed lemming (the remains of “dinner” from the previous night) she lifted her head and said, “May I go for a walk?”