Dark Fire

by Chris D'Lacey

  Lucy raised her hand. “No, she’s my friend. You protect her as well.” For now, she thought. She put the vial deliberately into her pocket, making sure that Bella knew that her trust was under scrutiny.

  Grockle gave the cat an extended glare. He growled but appeared to have understood. Leaning forward, almost kneeling, he rested one paw on the ground next to Lucy.

  “I’m supposed to climb on?” she asked. Not quite the romantic carriage she’d hoped for. In the movies, the princess always rode on the dragon’s shoulder. But laying vanity aside, she pressed herself into the contours of his “hand,” wincing as his claws closed around her in a cradle. The smell of them almost made her heave. In the quick between toe and claw were remnants of dried blood and rotting meat. It made her wonder how dragons had ever come to suffer persecution.

  With a whoosh, Grockle extended his wings, making shadow puppets on the trembling ground. Lucy clicked her fingers. “Bella, come on.” The cat swished her tail and bolted up. In one leap, she bounced off Lucy’s thigh and settled herself in the crib of the girl’s arms. Gwendolen, a little more sedately, opted for a pocket of Lucy’s coat.

  I will not squeal. I will not be sick, Lucy told herself, though she nearly committed both in the first three seconds after takeoff. They were above the house in half that time, looking down on a vast depression of splintered timbers and broken roof slates. Surprisingly comfortable in Grockle’s grip, and shielded from the wind by his skillful use of air-deflecting scales, she was able to view her surroundings with ease. She was praying that she might see a lonely figure staggering around the base of Glissington Tor. But though there were cracks in the grassy strata in the area nearest the rear of the guesthouse, there was nothing human moving among them.

  Grockle banked and the ground rushed away in a blur. Up they climbed, into colder, paler skies until, with a slight breathtaking jolt, Grockle backswept his wings and went into a kind of angelic hover. The next sensation Lucy felt was akin to traveling down in an elevator. Lower, lower, until Grockle brought her level with the Glissington cairn. Lucy was impressed. As “rides” went, it beat anything a carnival had to offer. The whole flight had taken less than fifteen seconds.

  “Take me nearer,” she said.

  He moved her forward, until the “eye” was as close as a basketball hoop. Bella turned her head, chattering in the way that Bonnington often did whenever he was slightly unsure of something. Lucy ignored her and peered into the tear-shaped hole. There was nothing to see, other than a snippet of the far horizon at the end of a long, long carpet of green. She could not find the moon and that panicked her briefly, until she remembered that it must, of necessity, be above them and behind. It always struck her as strange that the moon could sometimes be seen in a sunlit sky.

  With more than a hint of nervousness, she repositioned Bella and put her hand into the pocket containing the vial. This, she warned herself, might be the biggest anticlimax of all time. She was no sibyl. She knew not a word of mirror-forming magicks. All she had was her ancestry — and faith.

  “Please work,” she whispered, and drew the stopper.

  She had been expecting drama, of course, but nothing of the sort that was about to follow. As she lifted the vial, Bella immediately slashed at her hand. A fine trail of scarlet scratch marks manifested quickly on Lucy’s wrist. Even before Grockle could react to her scream, the cat had struck again, this time targeting the vial itself. The result was that Lucy let go of both. Bella twisted through the air, righting herself, narrowly avoiding the sweep of Grockle’s tail as he attempted to spear her with his isoscele. She landed, as cats often do, on all fours and ran into the shadows at the base of the cairn, before turning her sequin green eyes to look up. No doubt she was confident of seeing the vial come tumbling down to its destruction after her. But that was not to be. For at the moment Lucy had pulled the stopper, Gwendolen had fluttered out to watch the proceedings. It was a simple task, when Lucy dropped the vial, for Gwendolen to zip down and catch it.

  Lucy saw the cat’s face and the fury in it. But what concerned her more was the added look of fear. She saw Bella’s frightened eyes suddenly flick sideways. Gwendolen was nearing the cairn.

  Bella wailed as though her life depended on it.

  “Wait!” Lucy shouted. But Gwendolen, thinking she was saving the day, had flown to the eye and tipped the vial. The glass fell away, shattering on the hard gray stones below, but a droplet of its contents was drawn into the opening. It glittered like a jewel at the absolute center. And nothing, Lucy knew, would draw it out.

  Suddenly, there was a neon blue flash. The light made Lucy blink and lose focus. When she was able to see again, a film of shimmering water, as delicate as the surface of a bubble, was stretched right across the eye of the cairn.

  “Move me away,” she said to Grockle, though her voice was somber with uncertainty. As Gwendolen returned and settled in her pocket, Lucy looked for a final time at Bella. The cat was transfixed, staring at the moon. It was in position over Scuffenbury Hill.

  Lucy ordered Grockle to take her there and set her down close to the white horse carving. The flight took less than thirty seconds. She had barely put one foot on the slope when the mirror across the vale began to shimmer erratically and a burst of silver light was drawn down from the moon and redirected onto the hill. It hit the horse precisely where Rupert Steiner had predicted it would, at the point on its head where the horn grew out.

  Lucy gasped and stood back a pace. The beams of light were done within an instant, but on the hillside the chalky figure was ablaze. Any normal fire would have left Lucy baked. But this was like the fire that David had written about. The blue-white fire that melted no ice. “The fire of creation,” he sometimes called it. And it was powerfully at work on the hill. As it raged, the flames leaped up and froze, each one changing to a solid strand of flesh. Layer upon layer, thread upon thread, until they had formed the shape of a unicorn.

  For a moment or two, there was absolute stillness. The Vale of Scuffenbury waited in silence. Then with a tremendous snort of air the creature bucked its hind legs and scrambled to its feet. It tossed a mane that still retained sparks of white fire and opened its eyes. They were pure violet.

  A soft breeze played around Lucy’s face, picking up a few loose strands of her hair. In an instant, the unicorn had her scent. “Stop!” Lucy shouted, sensing it would run. But it turned and fled so fast that a ghost trail of replicates was left in its wake. There was nothing between Lucy and the legend now but an ordinary, windswept grassy hill.

  But the unicorn had not deserted the hill. It was Grockle who saw it next, standing on the peak, facing Glissington. He snorted at Lucy, who was just in time to see the creature lower its head and point its celebrated horn at the Tor. A jagged bolt of white light crackled across the valley and struck the ancient burial mound. The Tor exploded like the shell of an egg, spraying sods of earth in a shuttlecock arrangement back toward Scuffenbury Hill. Lucy yelped and covered her head, though none of the pieces had the range to reach her. When she looked again, Glissington Tor had broken into four distinct mounds, and rising from its smoking center was the most terrifying dragon she had ever seen.

  It was green, savage, and at least three times the size of Grockle. When it threw out its wings it blocked the sun and seemed to draw the landscape around it like a blanket. From nostril to tail it must have measured half a small field. For a moment or two it kept its head folded into its chest, but when it raised its snout and Lucy saw the redness in one eye, the bones at the base of her spine turned to jelly. The dragon had been horribly attacked at some time. Or maybe something had failed with its fire tear? Or the eye had become diseased in some way? She couldn’t tell. Nor could she bear to look at it for long. But little did she know she would soon be forced to. For just as the unicorn had sensed her presence, suddenly the dragon seemed to scent her as well. The scales around its neck came up in a frill and black smoke gushed from its long, narrow snout. Paying
no heed whatsoever to Grockle, it turned its damaged gaze on Lucy. At first she told herself it couldn’t have seen her. She had to be a mile and a half away, at least. But with a wallop of wings that tickled the blades of grass around her feet, the thing took off and headed their way. In mid-flight, it uncoupled its jaw and let out a squeal that sounded like a pig being forced through a grinder. Lucy saw Grockle tense. The squeal gathered force and grew into a roar, which seemed loud enough to shatter the dome of the sky. Lucy covered her ears and screamed.

  The Queen of Dragons was coming for her.

  And she intended to kill.

  43 WAYWARD CRESCENT, TEN MINUTES EARLIER

  So what brought about the change?” asked David, following Zanna up the stairs to Liz’s room.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I got a shout from Arthur while you were talking to Lucy and went to check Liz out. She’s been mumbling incoherently and her temperature’s up, but nothing out of the normal range for her.”

  She swept into the bedroom with David close behind. He immediately sat down and picked up Liz’s hand. Her eyes were still closed. And though it looked from her expression that she was dreaming again she didn’t appear to be unduly disturbed.

  “Anything? Any words?” David said to Arthur.

  The professor was on the other side of the bed. He, too, had taken hold of one of Liz’s hands. “Nothing I can make any sense of,” he said.

  David frowned and bent close to her ear. “Liz,” he said in dragontongue, “if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

  A second passed. Zanna held her breath. The potions dragon, Gretel, flew off Liz’s pillow and positioned herself by David’s knee. Together, they saw Liz’s knuckles lift.

  “Yes,” said Zanna, clamping her hands together in relief. “She responded.”

  Gretel raised an eye ridge and whizzed to the bedside table, there to dip her paw into one of the many small crucibles she’d been brewing her concoctions in. She settled like a feather on Liz’s chest, then smeared her patient’s lips with a pale blue liquid. No one questioned what was in the potion, but it seemed to work. Like a shoot breaking out of its seed, a word passed across Liz’s lips: “Lu-cy.”

  Gretel knocked her paws together in triumph. David touched the dragon’s spine in gratitude. He bent toward Liz’s ear again. “Lucy’s fine,” he said (he saw Zanna grit her teeth). “She’ll be here soon.”

  A vein pulsed in the side of Liz’s neck. She turned her head to one side, nestling into Arthur’s outstretched hand. The professor rolled his eyes across the bed toward David. Despite silence and blindness his message was clear. Is this true?

  David patted Arthur’s shoulder and motioned Zanna to the door. “I need to talk to you in the den,” he whispered.

  Zanna drilled him with one of her famous stares. She cast a glance at Liz and stepped out onto the landing. “How could you say a thing like that about Lucy? Arthur’s not stupid. He can sense you’re lying. Maybe Liz can, too.”

  “I’m not lying, Zanna.”

  “No. You’re just being ‘economical with the truth,’ as usual. It sounds to me as if Lucy’s in a heap of trouble. And what about Tam? Is he …?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

  “I don’t know,” David said, gesturing her to keep her voice down. “Somehow Lucy got away from the sibyl. She was helped by its familiar.”

  “What?” Zanna was right in his face again. A sprig of hair jumped from where it had been tucked behind her ear. “And you let that pass? Have you learned nothing about these women? How do you know Lucy’s not been tricked?”

  “Grockle’s there now. She’s safe,” he said.

  She drew a breath. “That’s what you said about Tam.”

  Before either of them could speak again, Alexa emerged from the Dragons’ Den holding two dragons out in front of her.

  “Lexie?” said her mother. “What are you doing with them?”

  The child was carrying Liz’s cherished dragon, Guinevere, and its male companion, which they appropriately called Gawain. In all the time Zanna had known the family, neither of these dragons had ever been removed from the den, though Lucy had once told her how David had managed to break Gawain during his first few months in the house, while he was still innocent of Liz’s gifts. Of all the special dragons these two were arguably the most important, certainly the most mysterious, for they were always present when a new dragon was kilned. Yet no one ever really talked about them — and Zanna had never heard either of them speak. To see them being carried along the landing was an oddity indeed.

  Alexa merely said, “Aunty Liz needs them.”

  “In what way?” Zanna asked, but David touched her arm, indicating she should leave it.

  Together they watched Alexa drift away, as though she were a bridesmaid going up an aisle. She turned at a stiff right angle into Liz and Arthur’s room. And that was that.

  Zanna shook her head and slipped into the den, where the atmosphere seemed to be remarkably composed. No board games today. Strangely, no chatter. “Tell me about this familiar,” she said.

  “It’s a cat, called Bella.”

  “Bella?” Zanna paused.

  “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  Zanna narrowed her gaze. “There was an e-mail from someone named Bella — on Lucy’s computer. Some days earlier than the others, I think.” Her worried eyes found his.

  “Check it,” he said.

  She folded her arms and backed out of the room.

  David, in the meantime, turned toward Gwillan. The little dragon was still on the workbench. He tapped his foot as David approached, as though he’d been waiting for this moment for some time. David glanced around the shelves and noticed the absence of Gruffen, G’reth, and Gollygosh — all of them last seen doing housework (Golly had been shining the bathroom taps). But where on Earth was Groyne? His orders had been to stay with Gwillan.

  “You look well,” David said, drawing up a stool.

  Hrrr, agreed Gwillan, swishing his tail.

  David reached forward and touched his thumb to the side of Gwillan’s snout. The dragon looked down his nose at the digit, thought about biting, and pulled away.

  “How do you want me to address you?” asked David. He watched the scales around Gwillan’s neck change color. Interesting. Was the youngster reading his mood?

  Gwillan lifted his shoulders.

  “Are you Gwillan or Joseph Henry?”

  The dragon chewed its lip. Hrr-rr, he replied. Both — sometimes.

  David nodded. The irony made him smile. “Your mother isn’t well.”

  That made Gwillan look beyond him, as if he could stare through the walls at Liz. His handsome eye ridges crumpled a little. His violet eyes gave a blink of concern.

  “She’s using all her strength to protect you, isn’t she?”

  Gwillan tilted his head.

  “To control the darkness?”

  The little dragon contracted his claws.

  “If you let me take you north, they won’t hurt you, Gwillan. The illumined dragons can help you to the light, just like they once helped me. Then Liz will be free again — and so will you. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

  “David!” Zanna’s voice rang out from Lucy’s bedroom. Gwillan lifted his head, focusing hard on the direction of the sound. “David, get in here. You need to look at this.”

  David put his hands between his legs and pushed himself leisurely off the stool. “Soon, there won’t be any choice, Gwillan. You go with me — or the natural dragons take you. Don’t let Liz suffer.”

  With that he went next door, where Zanna was peering hard at the computer.

  “Mmm, glasses,” he said. “I’d forgotten how cute you look in them.”

  “Shut up,” she said. “This is important.” She turned the flat screen through forty-five degrees, so they could both read the e-mail there. “This is from a girl who signs it ‘Bella.’ See that?” She pointed to the header. “‘Tales of Gawaine.’ Sh
e knows how to spell it.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  Zanna scrolled down. “She gives a lot of basic stuff we already know about Glissington, but this is the crucial bit, here. She describes this as a legend, but it’s beginning to sound horribly real.” Her finger traced a paragraph of highlighted text. “‘At the end of the last great Wearle, Gawaine, the Queen of Dragons, came to the valley in search of the unicorn, Teramelle. She (Gawaine) was heavily pregnant and injured from a conflict with forces of darkness that had driven her from her eyrie in the ice lands of the North. The unicorn, Teramelle, protected her and tried to heal her wounds. What strength the queen had, she put into bearing her eggs.’”

  “Eggs? Plural?” Now David was fully awake.

  “Hang on,” said Zanna. “It gets worse. ‘The birth weakened the matriarch further. Knowing she would have no strength to rear the wearlings, and fearing she would die if she did not enter’ … I don’t know this word: coelacanthis?”

  “Stasis,” David said.

  “Stasis,” she repeated, “‘before the wearlings could be hatched, she entrusted the eggs to the sanctuary of two agents of Teramelle. One, the eagle Gideon. Two, the red-headed girl who combed the creature’s mane and looked to its needs. Gideon flew his egg back to the ice lands where some say the wearling hatched and lived secretly for a time among humans untainted by the darkness. But the girl was murdered by the forces who sought to end Gawaine’s life. A black witch’ — sibyl, anyone? — ‘dressed in the likeness of the girl, stole the second egg, blinding the queen in one eye with the girl’s poisoned tears so that the dragon could not easily pursue her. The egg was broken and spilled in sight of the queen. Distraught, she lay down to die, but was kept alive by the wishes of the unicorn which also chose to lay down close by’ … blah, blah, blah … Do you know what this means?”

  David was already backing toward the door. “A black witch dressed in the likeness of the girl. When Gawaine sees Lucy she’s going to remember how she was betrayed.”