The Fire Chronicle

by John Stephens

  At this, Michael’s memory of the night before returned. He recalled the feeling of flying, of the wind rushing by, of the forest below, dark and silent and still; he recalled the heat radiating from the dragon and the muscular beating of her wings; he recalled trying to prop up Gabriel even as his own strength began to fail, and Emma shouting that they needed help, and the dragon diving down into the trees; and he recalled being surrounded by a hundred singing voices as gentle hands lifted him to the ground.

  “Did I pass out?”

  “The elves sensed that you were very weak. Their song put you to sleep.”

  “But where’s Emma? And Gabriel—”

  “They are both here and have both been tended to. Emma had only cuts and bruises and minor burns on her hands. Gabriel’s wounds were serious, but the elf physicians are highly skilled. He is out of any danger.”

  “But I was going to heal him! With the Chronicle—”

  “A generous offer. But the power of the Books must always be the avenue of last resort. Sleep and rest will heal Gabriel now. Oh, and if you were wondering, the Chronicle is beside you.”

  Michael leaned over, and there on the floor was the book. He had grown so used to its pull that only now, seeing it, did he become aware of the tug at the center of his chest. Secretly, he was relieved he would not have to heal Gabriel. As far as he was concerned, he’d be happy if he never touched the Chronicle ever again.

  “You can pick it up, if you like,” the old man said, eyeing him closely.

  “Thank you, sir, that’s not necessary. I did want to ask about Princess Wilamena. Is she still a dragon or—”

  “The Princess has been returned to her normal, lovely form. And let me say”—there was a hint of the old sparkle—“you have quite an admirer there.”

  “Well, that’s a relief to hear. The first part, I mean. Listen, Dr. Pym, I need to talk to you about the Chronicle—”

  The wizard held up his hand. “I’m sure you have many questions for me, just as I have many for you. But I think I see your breakfast.”

  An elf was approaching along the branch, carrying a tray laden with covered cups and bowls and a tiny porcelain kettle. The elf wore green breeches, high white stockings, black shoes with bright gold buckles, and a tight-fitting, short-waisted green jacket that had a kind of gold brocade and was buttoned to the neck.

  Really, Michael thought, the amount of time they must spend getting dressed.

  Then he thought of the elves he’d seen wrapped in their cloaks in the courtyard of the fortress and felt ashamed. Never forget what they did, he told himself.

  “Thank you,” the wizard called. “We’ll sit outdoors.”

  A low table and several large cushions had been set out on the branch, and the elf spent a few moments carefully arranging the breakfast, then plumped up the pillows and, with a bow, carried away the empty tray.

  “Shall we?” the wizard said. “We can talk after you’ve eaten. Your clothes are at the end of the bed.”

  As the wizard stepped outside, Michael picked up his folded shirt and pants, which had been cleaned and mended during the night, and got dressed. He found the blue-gray marble, still attached to the strip of rawhide, and slipped it over his head. He noticed that his hands were no longer burned, and his cuts and bruises had all but vanished. He flexed his ankles and felt no pain. The elf doctors, it seemed, had healed him as well.

  “Come along, my boy!” the wizard called. “The day is fine! Oh, and bring the book.”

  With some reluctance, Michael picked up the Chronicle, pulled on his boots, glanced about for his bag—remembering only then that it was gone—and headed outside.

  The day was indeed fine, with a cool breeze drifting through the trees and the sunlight warming them from above. The meal was simple: nuts, berries, cream, honey, some sort of tea made from flowers. But the berries were like none Michael had ever seen: strawberries as big and red as apples, blueberries so fat and deeply purplish blue that they looked like plums, giant raspberries spongy with juice.…

  “You don’t mind sharing, do you?” the wizard said, reaching over to dunk a fist-sized strawberry into the cream. “Oh my, yes, delicious.”

  Michael didn’t reply. He was already cramming handfuls of almonds and walnuts into his mouth. He hadn’t eaten anything since Gabriel’s stew the day before, but until sitting down, he hadn’t realized just how ravenous he was. For a few minutes, he forgot about everything else and focused on breakfast. Soon, his fingers and lips and teeth were stained a dark purple-red. And it was only when the wizard pressed him to try the tea—the first sip like drinking sunshine, a glowing, golden warmth spreading through his still-exhausted body—that Michael began to eat more slowly, and to savor each bite.

  The branch that Michael and the wizard sat on was perhaps ten feet wide and perfectly flat. Glancing over the edge, Michael put the ground—half hidden in the gloom of the forest floor—at a dead drop of three hundred feet. Closer by, he could see rooms, similar to his own, dotting the surrounding trees and accessible by staircases that corkscrewed up and down the great trunks. But most amazing to Michael—and what made him long for his lost journal and camera—was how a branch from one tree would reach out and wind about the branch from another tree, then continue on to connect with a branch of a third tree, creating a complex web of pathways along which Michael could see dozens of elves moving about fearlessly. There was a whole city up here, Michael realized, suspended in the sunlit reaches of the forest.

  He turned back and saw the wizard staring at him.

  “What is it? Do I have something on my face?”

  “Oh yes. Quite a bit. However, I was looking at you and thinking of the boy I knew, and thinking also of the boy who’s performed such amazing feats these past few days. Your sister and Princess Wilamena have told me everything. Michael, I’m very proud of you. And I hope you are proud of you.”

  Michael considered this carefully. He knew that in times past he would’ve been pompously telling the wizard that it was no big deal even as he not-so-secretly believed that it was a big deal and that no one else could’ve pulled the affair off quite so well. But he didn’t say that now. He was thinking about the Guardian and his brothers, and the long, long years that they had spent protecting the book. And he thought about Wilamena and the elves putting themselves in danger to defend him and his sister. And he thought about Emma, staying with him in the volcano as Gabriel fought for his life.…

  He said, sincerely, “I had a lot of help.”

  “True. But still you recovered one of the lost Books of Beginning! You returned a princess to her people! You brought yourself and your sister through fire and war to safety! Resourcefulness. Bravery. Coolheaded intelligence. Credit where credit is due, my boy. How right that you should be Keeper of the Chronicle!”

  “Dr. Pym, before you say any more, all this Keeper business—”

  “And how doubly appropriate,” the wizard went on, as if Michael hadn’t spoken, “that tomorrow is your thirteenth birthday. You truly are growing up.”

  “Wha—gugh!”

  “Are you all right, my boy?”

  In his surprise, Michael had first inhaled, then choked on, then coughed up a blueberry the size of a robin’s egg. He managed to say, “What?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your own birthday?”

  “I … excuse me … I guess I did. Anyway, isn’t it kind of silly to think about birthdays with everything that’s going on?”

  “Again, I disagree. These markers are important. Leave it to me. I will think of something appropriately festive. But now I promised you a talk.”

  “Right, well, like I was saying—”

  “Why don’t I begin by telling you what I’ve already told your sister, hmm? Where I’ve been, the things I’ve discovered, et cetera, et cetera.”

  Michael was getting the distinct sense that Dr. Pym knew what he intended to say and was putting him off. Fine, he thought, but sooner or later, t
he wizard would have to hear that Michael had no intention of remaining Keeper of the Chronicle. He and the Chronicle were simply a bad match; there was no use pretending otherwise. But for the time being, he took another sip of tea and gave the old wizard his attention.

  “You last saw me in Malpesa, struggling with Rourke on the rooftop. Well, after the building on which we stood collapsed into the canal—I was not injured, thankfully—I immediately made my way to the chamber where you and I discovered the skeleton. To my dismay, I found the chamber had already been ransacked by Rourke’s minions. I then had a choice. I could either follow Rourke as he pursued you and your sister, or …” Here the wizard paused and pulled out his tobacco pouch. “Tell me, my boy, what do you know about the reading of minds?”

  “Not much,” Michael said. “In The Dwarf Omnibus, G. G. Greenleaf calls it ‘wizard sneakery.’ No offense.”

  Dr. Pym huffed. “First off, sneakery is not a word. Secondly, I do wish Mr. G. G. Greenleaf would not hold forth on subjects about which he is so appallingly ignorant. In point of fact, to gain access to another’s thoughts is a very difficult and sticky business. With someone like Rourke, it can even be quite dangerous. Luckily, when we clashed on the rooftop, his attention was so fixed upon destroying me that I was able to slip past his defenses and glean several valuable pieces of information.” He stuck the end of the pipe in his mouth. “Your parents are no longer prisoners of the Dire Magnus.”

  “What?!” Michael’s shout carried through the trees, startling a flock of birds in the canopy.

  Dr. Pym nodded sympathetically. “I had much the same reaction. But consider what occurred just before your battle at the volcano. Why would Rourke have presented you with a fake father if the real one had been available? It raises the question, does it not?”

  Michael admitted the wizard had a point. “But are you absolutely sure? Not that I don’t believe you—”

  “No, no, you are quite right to ask. As it happens, in my nauseating trip through Rourke’s mind, I also was able to learn the location of your parents’ prison—”

  “That’s where you went?!” Michael exclaimed. “When you left Malpesa? Where was it? I bet it was some desert where it hasn’t rained in a hundred years! Or a jungle filled with cannibals and giant poisonous insects! Or—”

  “They were held in New York City.”

  Michael stopped, thinking he must not have heard Dr. Pym correctly.

  “For ten years,” the wizard went on, “your parents were kept prisoner in a mansion on the island of Manhattan. And to think of the time Gabriel and I spent scouring the far-flung reaches of the globe, pushing out the very corners of the map! I even knew the house where they were held! A hundred years ago, the Dire Magnus’s followers operated from its premises. Yet never once did it cross my mind that our enemies would be so bold as to use that house as your parents’ prison. Oh, Michael, there is no fool like an old fool.”

  And he sighed, looking very old indeed.

  “But you did go there?” Michael prompted.

  “I did. The mansion is cloaked, but I found it easily enough. It had been abandoned. My suspicion is that once Richard and Clare escaped, their captors fled, perhaps imagining that your parents’ friends—that is to say, myself and others—would seek retribution. Whatever the case, I was free to do a careful search. So to answer your question, yes, I feel certain that they were there and have now escaped.”

  “When?”

  “My guess, and it is only a guess, is quite recently. Within the last few weeks.”

  “Then … where are they?”

  “Where are they? Who helped them escape? Sadly, my boy, I am as in the dark as you.”

  The wizard fell silent and blew a large smoke ring, watching as the breeze lifted it away. Michael knew it was a good thing that their parents had escaped, but what had it actually changed? The Dire Magnus still wanted him and his sisters, still wanted the Books. They still didn’t know where their parents were.

  “It did make me think,” the wizard went on, “that perhaps they have tried to contact us. I am referring to the glass orb that arrived at Cambridge Falls, the one you now wear about your neck.”

  Michael’s fingers caressed the marble, and he felt a shiver of excitement. The wizard was right; it was more likely than ever that the marble had been sent by their parents. But then he remembered how it had been addressed to “The Eldest Wibberly,” and something in him pulled back. He was not yet ready to take that title from Kate.

  “Maybe.”

  The wizard shrugged. “Of course, it is yours to do with as you please. Now, while searching the mansion, I made one other discovery that is worth mentioning. Do you remember my saying that the Dire Magnus has been a presence in this world for thousands of years?”

  Michael said he did.

  “Well, interestingly, there is only one known way of achieving immortality—”

  “You mean the Chronicle?”

  “Exactly so. And we know in his case that was not an option. So how did he do it? It has always been my belief that discovering his secret is essential to defeating him once and for all.”

  “But you’ve been alive just as long! How’d you do it?”

  The wizard shook his head. “That’s not important.”

  “But—”

  “We are talking about the Dire Magnus. Let us not get sidetracked.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, very well. I wrote the Chronicle.”

  Michael opened his mouth, then closed it. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this.

  “Don’t look so surprised. The Books didn’t write themselves, and you know I was part of the council that created them.”

  “You … wrote it?”

  “Transcribed it, would be more accurate. The knowledge and power in the Chronicle are far greater than my own. The wisdom of the entire council of magicians passed through me, and I committed it to paper. In the process, some small sliver of the Chronicle’s power stayed with me. Now can we discuss the Dire Magnus?”

  Michael nodded. He was still somewhat dumbfounded.

  “First, we must look at the particular nature of his longevity. Do you remember Dr. Algernon referring to him as the Undying One?”

  Again, Michael said he did.

  “Well”—and here the wizard smiled—“far from never dying, the Dire Magnus has died many times.”

  “But you said—”

  “And each time, he has been reborn. He dies and is reborn, dies and is reborn, over and over.”

  “You mean he’s reincarnated?”

  “Not exactly—”

  “So it’s more a rising-from-the-ashes thing?”

  “Nor that either—”

  “Does his spirit possess some poor kid’s body? I saw that in a movie—”

  The wizard held up his hand. “We could speculate all day. That has been my dilemma. Many theories, but no proof. However, all magic, especially powerful magic, leaves traces, and in that mansion, I finally found what I needed.”

  Michael was doing his best to remember every word the wizard said, but oh, how his hand ached for pen and paper! There was just no substitute for a written record.

  The wizard blew another smoke ring and then asked, abruptly, “My boy, what do you think happens when the universe dies?”

  “Huh?”

  “You can’t imagine that all this will just go on forever. The universe is a mass of constantly expanding energy, and one day it will collapse upon itself. Like a cake left too long in the oven. Then what? Nothingness?”

  Michael shrugged. He had no idea.

  The wizard leaned over the table. “It will be reborn.”

  Michael almost said “Huh?” again.

  “The life of the universe is not a straight line. Rather, imagine a circle. And along that circle, the universe is born, destroys itself, and is born again, over and over, endlessly. You understand?”

  “I … think so.”

  “Well, here is
the truly amazing part. Just as the universe is reborn over and over, so is everything in it.” The wizard waved his arm in a broad, encompassing gesture. “This forest, the valley, the world outside, all the creatures who inhabit it, have all existed before, and will all exist again.”

  “You mean, we’ve all … been alive before?”

  “Exactly so. You, me, Emma, Katherine, Gabriel, this tree—in a pattern repeated for eternity. Who knows how many times you and I have sat here, having this exact conversation? And what the Dire Magnus did was to make contact with those earlier versions of the universe, to reach into them and pluck out his other selves and bring them here. How many times he did this, how many copies of himself he gathered together, I cannot say. But he then threw these other selves out across time, each further than the last, like stones tossed into the ocean, so that every few hundred years, another would be born into this world.”

  “But … why?”

  “Because long ago, it was prophesied that the full power of the Books would not be unleashed for thousands of years. And without the power of the Books—all three, you understand, working in concert—he had no hope of achieving his goal. So—”

  “Dr. Pym,” Michael interrupted, “do you realize that you’ve never said what exactly his goal is?”

  “I haven’t?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Why, to usher in an age of magic in which he wields ultimate power! In which humanity is enslaved! That is his goal! And has been, these many, many centuries!”

  “And he could do that?”

  “Could he do that? My boy, the power of the Books is inseparable from the fabric of existence. Think of it this way—each time Katherine used the Atlas, each time you used the Chronicle, the world about us was changed. And that was done unconsciously. Imagine someone who wanted to change the world. Oh yes, if the Dire Magnus controls the Books, he can achieve his goal.”

  Michael nodded, wondering what he had done, what he had changed, each time he’d used the Chronicle. No wonder Dr. Pym called the Books an option of last resort.