Icefire

by Chris D'Lacey

  “But if the people were starving?”

  “No.” David frowned and shook his head again. “This didn’t have anything to do with need. Something turned them. Something bad. I’m not sure what. And the cub is no ordinary bear. He’s Ragnar’s only son. And when Ragnar finds out, he takes his bears and attacks the village. Bears from all parts of the ice join in. Not even the Nanukapik, their leader, can stop it. It’s a terrible disaster. And it shouldn’t have happened.”

  Dilys Whutton patted her chest. “Well, I’m breathless just thinking about it. An odyssey in the Arctic? We’ve never had that at Apple Tree before. This is very exciting, David. I want you to go away and write this, now. Send me six chapters and a synopsis of the rest. If I like it, I’ll consider making an advance.”

  “Advance?”

  “Money,” said Dilys, with a twinkle in her eye. “I wish I could give you something now, but I’d really have to see how the story pans out. How long do you think it will take you to write six —?”

  A knock at the door cut Dilys short. A young woman popped into the room. “Hi, Dilly. Sorry to interrupt. This just arrived by messenger for you.” She put a medium-size gift-wrapped box on the table, smiled briefly at David, and left.

  “Ooh,” gushed Dilys. “Who’s sent this?” She read the card and frowned. “Hmm. No name. But I’m to open it at once, apparently. Do you mind? I love surprises.”

  “No,” said David and took another cookie. He watched idly as Dilys tore into the wrapping, but his mind was still focused hard on the bears. Where had that story come from? Was it true? Why did it feel so real? He turned his head to look again at the window, and in that moment Dilys Whutton exclaimed, “Oh, how sweet! Someone’s sent me a dragon!”

  “Dragon?” said David, smearing chocolate off his lip.

  Dilys drew the sculpture out of its box. “How wonderful. It’s got a bunch of flowers.”

  “What?” A shower of crumbs flew across the table.

  “I wonder if they’re scented,” Dilys said, and put her nose to the dragon’s bouquet.

  “No!” cried David. “Dilys, don’t —”

  But Dilys had already sniffed. “Ooh,” she went again, sitting back, looking dizzy. Her eyes crossed and she blinked a few times. She put the dragon down on the table. “Hmm, yes, I … hmm, would you excuse me a minute?”

  “Certainly,” said David, turning on the dragon the moment Dilys had stepped outside. “What in clay’s name are you doing here?”

  Furrff! went Gretel, very rudely indeed, as if to say she’d rather be anywhere than here. Home: that was where she wanted to be, keeping an eye on the Pennykettle dragons. She picked up a bookmark of Kevin the Karaoke Kangaroo and launched it into David’s coffee.

  “Pack it in,” he hissed. “I asked you a question. Why has Gwilanna sent you here? What was in that flower you made Dilys sniff? This is an important meeting, Gretel. You’re going to ruin everything if you —”

  Suddenly the door reopened. In a flash, Gretel re-assumed her solid form. David flopped back in his chair and sighed. This was all going to go horribly wrong.

  But Dilys sat down looking strangely chirpy. “I’ve just had a word with our publisher,” she smiled. “I’ve told her I want to sign you up.”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to make you an offer, Mr. Rain. For Snigger — and the polar bear book.”

  From the corner of his eye, David saw Gretel blowing pollen off her claws and polishing them smugly against her breast.

  “It would have to be a standard contract, I’m afraid. You’re an unknown, so we’d be taking a chance.”

  David raised his hands. “Hang on, this isn’t right.”

  Gretel scowled at him darkly.

  “Oh,” said Dilys, looking disappointed. “Well, if you’d rather negotiate — through an agent, perhaps?”

  Oh yeah, thought David. Aunty Gwyneth: the agent from hell.

  Dilys shuffled in her chair and said, “We’d pay you a thousand on signature. Another thousand when you deliver the manuscripts; the rest on publication.”

  “A thousand?” David’s mouth fell open.

  “Dollars. It’s not a bad offer, David. If you agree, I can have a contract drawn up by the end of next week.”

  A thousand dollars? The figure was making David giddy. He could go to the Arctic on that. And clear his overdraft at the bank.

  “Go home and think it over,” Dilys said, packing Gretel into her box. “Give me a call in a couple of days. It’s been lovely to meet you. I’m so glad you came.” She floated her hand and David shook it. “Lovely dragon as well.” She slid the box across the table. “I’m glad you were able to do a bit of shopping. That will make a beautiful present for your aunt.”

  David smiled at her weakly. Gwilanna had thought this through very neatly. A potion for the contract and a potion to enable Gretel’s return. He would have a few words to say to his “aunt” as soon as he and his “present” got home.

  On the journey, he questioned Gretel again. As the train drew near to Scrubbley North station, the volume of passengers gradually thinned until he was finally alone in the carriage. He tapped on the lid of Gretel’s box. The dragon forced her way out. She puttered to the window, looking fidgety and anxious.

  “What you did up there wasn’t clever,” David told her. “It’s not right, using potions to influence people. She’s giving us money. That’s fraud, you know.”

  Furrfff!

  “And you can cut that out. Especially in here.” David pointed at the NO SMOKING sign.

  Phoof! went Gretel, and covered it with ash.

  David threw up his hands. “What is the matter with you all today? First, Gadzooks is plotting something, and now you’ve got this ridiculous huff on. Did I ask you to come to Boston and —”

  He stopped speaking then, as if a plug had been pulled. There was a strange, uncomfortable feeling in his head, as if he were standing at the center of a balloon and someone had let out all the air. Whatever had gripped him had also taken Gretel. She staggered backward away from the window and started to reel like a circus clown. With a violent and noisy shake of her wings, she stumbled into the side of the box.

  David grabbed her and held her steady. His vision was blurring now, and Gretel’s figure was ghosting badly. But David could see her well enough, and what he did see chilled him right to the bone. The dragon’s eyes were swimming with fear, their color flickering violet, then green, then violet … then gray.

  “Gretel, what’s happening? Gretel? Gretel!”

  Too late. The dragon had no reply. She let out a screeching wail more grating than the train wheels braking on the tracks. She shook like a demon and her scales began to stiffen. And yet, with one courageous effort, she reached back into her quiver and drew out a flower. Her paw opened and she dropped it at her feet.

  And that was how she stayed: stopped, like a clock. Something had drained the auma from her and left just a tired gray husk behind. All the color that remained of the potions dragon was wrapped in the single orange rose, sliding back and forth on the seat, rocking and rolling with the motion of the train.

  David lifted it up to her nostrils. But in his heart, he knew she would not respond. For she had made no attempt to bring the flower to her snout, and that could only mean one thing: It was a cry for help, not a cure for ills.

  The rose was meant for him.

  28

  DAVID TURNS

  Approximately ten minutes later, David burst into the Pennykettles’ house and skidded to a halt outside his room. “Aunty Gwyneth! Are you there? There’s something wrong with Gretel!” He looked down at the potions dragon, frozen solid in the open gift box, and ran a warm thumb along her snout. “Aunty Gwyneth, let me in!” He hammered the door. At last it opened with a tired creak. “I was on the train,” David spluttered, “and — Lucy? What are you doing there?” She was standing in the doorway with her head bent low, gentle snuffles rising out of her throat. With
a sob, she left the door swinging open and flung herself down on the bed by her mom.

  David edged his way in. What had once been his student housing was now little more than a ramshackle hovel. A cold, dark hovel at that. A candle burning in a jelly jar on his desk was the only source of heat and light, apart from the egg in Liz’s hands. It was glowing with a strong, amber yellow luminescence, sending shadow pulses up the damaged walls. The dragon child inside it had grown considerably and was now curled double, almost breaching the shell. Liz, despite the devastation all around her, still appeared to be sleeping soundly.

  And yet there was something horribly wrong. Lucy was in tears, and the house, which had always been so vibrant and warm, had been struck by the creeping odor of damp and a sinister strain of wanton neglect. David listened out. Not a hurr could be heard. Where on earth were the whuffler dragons? Why weren’t they heating the place? He shook Lucy by the shoulder and asked her what was happening.

  “It would be better if I answered that,” said a voice, and Aunty Gwyneth drifted in. David stood back with a start. Her hair was down and rougher than rope; her face so very lined and ugly that it was possible to wonder how the bones could bear to support her skin. Her neat designer two-piece suit had gone through an odd metamorphosis of rips until it resembled a piece of sacking. This was no longer Aunty Gwyneth. This was the ancient sibyl Gwilanna. As she approached, she raised her hands. Resting upon them was a plastic box — a plastic box with a pale blue lid. “There has been an interesting development,” she said. “Such a pity you missed it all.”

  “Go away! I hate you!” Lucy screamed. She sat up and threw a handful of dirt.

  “Insolent wretch,” Gwilanna sneered. She spat at the dirt and the crumbs turned into a posse of spiders. They came hurrying back in waves to the bed. Lucy screamed and drew up her feet. Gwilanna laughed and the spiders dissolved to dust.

  “What’s going on?” David demanded.

  “She’s killed all the dragons!” Lucy yelled. “Oh, Mom, wake up. Please wake up.” She threw her arms around Liz’s shoulders. But Liz’s sleep was deeper than quicksand. No matter how firmly Lucy shook her, her eyes refused to open.

  Gwilanna tilted the box to one side. From it came the sound of gently sloshing water. “There was a loss of power while you were out. I have yet to establish how it happened. I suspect it was sabotage, but that is by the by. When I came to investigate, I found the kitchen door open and the child in the garden, secreting this box and its contents in the snow.”

  “The snowball,” said David, beginning to catch on.

  “I was trying to save it from melting!” yelled Lucy. “And she stole it! And now none of the dragons can move!”

  David pulled Gretel out of the gift box. “Is that why she went like this?”

  “Break her!” cried Lucy, lunging forward. “She’s evil. Break her! Do it now!”

  “Calm down,” snapped David, pushing her back. He turned to Gwilanna. “Are they all like this?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, with a broken-toothed grin.

  David gulped and thought of Gadzooks, remembering the vacant feeling on the train. “Are they dead?”

  Gwilanna moved closer, searching David’s face as if she had lost a few of the lice that crawled through the fraying twists of her hair. “No, they’re suspended in a kind of … half-world, kept alive by virtue of the fact that Elizabeth, when she created them, gave them a little of her natural auma — as well as a crystal of … shall we call it icefire?”

  “I hate you,” said Lucy. “When Mom wakes up —”

  “When your mother wakes up,” Gwilanna cut in, snarling like a rabid dog, “she will tell me where this snowball came from or lose her precious dragons for good.”

  “She won’t! She won’t tell you anything! Ever!”

  “Then I will pour the water away and leave her dragons as hollow as a drum!” Gwilanna made a rasping hrrr and the lid came flying off the box as if it had been lifted away in a storm.

  Lucy squealed with fear.

  “Stop!” cried David. “This is ridiculous. I thought we were all on the same side, here?”

  “You can’t side with her,” whined Lucy.

  “Be silent,” said Gwilanna. “Let the boy speak.” She scraped David’s cheek with the one of her nails. “Well, boy? What have you to say?”

  David pulled away in disgust. “I know what you’re up to, Gwilanna. All that business with Gretel in Boston. Making the publisher give me a contract. You want me to go to the Arctic, don’t you? You want me to find the fire of Gawain.”

  “No!” cried Lucy.

  “Shut up,” snapped David. And now a cold light entered his eyes. The candle flickered. The floorboards creaked. The tenant turned his gaze on the plastic box. “What you have there is a speck, am I right? A droplet of a droplet of the dragon’s tear?”

  “Less than a cinder,” Gwilanna said tiredly.

  “What if I could get you the rest?”

  “No!” Lucy shouted

  “Hold your tongue!” Gwilanna roared.

  And poor Lucy found her tongue shored up against her teeth. The hex only lasted a second or two, but it frightened her enough to shut her up for two weeks. Sobbing heavily, she tried to run away. David held her back. “Sit down and behave.” Lucy kicked him halfheartedly and swerved away. This was all too much. Her mother lost, her dragons gone, and the tenant who had written her birthday stories and saved the life of an injured squirrel … was he deserting her, too?

  “These two can’t tell you anything,” he said, tilting his head toward Lucy and Liz. “Only the bears know the secret of the fire.”

  “Bears are charlatans, never to be trusted.”

  “Maybe not, but they seem to trust me. They want me to work for them; you knew that, I suppose? But they can’t give me what I want.”

  “And what is that?” said Gwilanna, narrowing her gaze.

  David looked down and stroked Gretel’s wings. “I saw what she did in Boston. If it’s really that easy to get me a contract, it won’t be difficult arranging a best-selling book. I’m not like you people; I didn’t hatch from an egg or find a way of living that was way beyond my expiration date. I’m normal, and that’s how I’m going to stay, unless you give me something more. Help me achieve success with the books and I’ll lead you straight to the fire tear. But I’ll need Gadzooks restored. The bears work through him. He’s my contact with them. The other dragons can go to the clay.”

  From the top of the bed, Lucy made a sound like a wounded dog. Tears came pouring down her cheeks.

  Gwilanna, however, was not easily convinced. “You? A storytelling nincompoop? Why should I put my trust in you when it was your dragon that led a revolt to try to steal the contents of my case?”

  “She’s got the scale!” cried Lucy. “She brought it with her.”

  David ignored her and looked at the sibyl. “Revolt? What are you talking about?”

  Gwilanna snatched Grace up from the desk. “This was hiding in the wardrobe. While I was out of the room with the girl, the others used her to speak the password. But I returned, unexpectedly, and battle was done. They had a guard: the dragon called Gruffen. It tried to burn me with a prick of fire … and only succeeded in melting the snowball. Amusing, don’t you think? Their heist ruined by their very own auma. Every dragon froze where it stood. I found your scribbler on the windowsill. It had opened the window in order that the stupid wishing dragon could attempt to fly the scale away.”

  David sighed and sank down onto the bed. So that was why Gadzooks had been drawing an escape route. “Where are they — Gadzooks, Gruffen, and the wisher?”

  “I cast them aside, among the rubble in the corner.”

  David didn’t even look. “And Grace? Why have you kept her back?”

  “I was intending to crumble her to dust, for amusement. She may be in a void, but she can still know discomfort. She was the informant. She needs to be punished. They all need to be punished. But wh
y don’t I let you have this pleasure? If you wish me to trust you … break her ears.”

  “No! She’s Sophie’s dragon!” squealed Lucy.

  “Take her!” rapped Gwilanna.

  And David did. Pressing his thumbs against the paper-thin ears he calmly met Gwilanna’s gaze. “Betray me and we’re enemies forever,” he said.

  “No!” shrieked Lucy.

  But her squeal of protest could not disguise the sharp click click of clay. By the time her voice had faded into silence, the listening dragon could hear no more.

  29

  THE SECRET OF THE ROSE

  Well, well,” said Gwilanna. “How the worm turns.”

  “I hate you!” Lucy screamed at David. “I wish you’d never come! I never wanted a tenant! And I don’t want a stupid brother either!” And before anyone could stop her, she had snatched up a lump of ceiling plaster and brought it crashing toward the egg. But it was she, not the egg, which came off worse. A shower of sparks lit up the room as the plaster turned red and started to fizz. Lucy gave out a yowl of pain, but the tears that followed really had more to do with her torment than her burns. She flung herself down in a pitiful heap, sobbing so heavily the bed began to shake.

  “Idiot child,” Gwilanna sneered. “Did you think I would leave the egg unguarded?”

  “She’ll learn,” said David, chewing his lip. He rolled Grace onto a spare bit of mattress and dropped the broken ears in a hollow beside her; they clinked forlornly against her scales. “What do you intend to do about the dragons? Won’t you need Gretel? Can she be revived?”

  “That we will discover shortly,” said Gwilanna. “I have placed a small quantity of icefire water inside a drawstring pouch in the garden. It should be frozen — wait! What was that?”

  David turned his head. Like Gwilanna, he had heard something rattling in the kitchen. “Sounds like Bonnington using his cat flap.”