Dark Fire

by Chris D'Lacey

  “No,” she protested and shook the tusk again.

  This time, there was no sense of travel, but something did free itself from her hand.

  “Groyne?” said Lucy, opening her eyes. A Pennykettle dragon was hovering in front of her.

  It turned and blew a confident smoke ring.

  Not Groyne.

  Gwillan.

  47 AN UNWELCOME RETURN

  I love you.

  The words pricked at Zanna’s heart. There was no passion in the way he’d said it. No lasting promise in his dark blue eyes. What he’d left her with were memories of that day in the Arctic.

  I love you.

  Like a soldier, going to war.

  She sat in the kitchen making origami roses from a white paper tissue. In the front room, the news reports kept on coming. Verifiable footage of “Steiner” dragons was now being beamed across every continent, backed by endless eyewitness accounts of dragons emerging from “spiritual” sites all over the Earth. Colonization. A true “New Age.” A revolution in consciousness. Was this it? Was this what her life had amounted to? To see the world reinvented from a lonely kitchen and humankind divided into wonder or madness? What did all this mean for her, when everything she cared for was under threat and might, at any moment, be taken away?

  On that thought, Alexa walked into the kitchen and spontaneously gave her mother a hug.

  “Talk to me,” Zanna said. “Tell me what you are.”

  “I’m your little angel,” Alexa said.

  Zanna bent forward and quietly cried.

  “I want to go into the garden,” said the girl.

  Zanna folded her tissue away. “No. Stay inside today.”

  “But there’s a squirrel. I want to talk to it.”

  “Squirrel?” said her mother. She couldn’t see one — but she didn’t look hard.

  “It came yesterday,” Alexa said. “It’s very smart.”

  “I’m sure it is,” said Zanna, standing up. “But you’re not to go into the garden, is that clear?”

  Alexa sighed and plonked her white horse on the table. Zanna glanced at it and did a double take. A horn had emerged on the sculpture’s forehead. She pointed to it. “Did you do this?”

  “It just came,” said the girl. “Please can I go out and see the squirrel? It does tricks, Mommy.”

  Zanna shook her head. How could a horn just happen like that? “No … run upstairs and talk to Gwillan.”

  “I can’t.” This time, the little girl stamped her foot.

  Zanna stared down at her. Bad temper in Alexa was extremely uncommon. “Why not?”

  “He’s gone away, with Daddy.”

  “Don’t be silly, Alexa. Gwillan’s in the den.”

  “No, he isn’t,” she insisted, letting her black curls sweep across her back.

  “Zanna!” Arthur’s voice called down from the bedroom. Strident. Urgent. Needy.

  Alexa said, “Can I go and play with Bonnington, then?”

  “What? Oh … yes, if you want to,” Zanna said. She got up and strode into the hall, stopping just once to look back into the kitchen. Alexa was juggling Bonnington’s favorite toy: a plastic ball he liked to chase around.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve got to do something for me.”

  “I’m in a hurry, darling. What is it?”

  “My horsey wants to sit with Gawain and Guinevere.”

  The unicorn. Zanna came back and picked it up. “Tell me again how this happened, this horn?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Alexa.

  No, thought Zanna. It never does. “Be good,” she said and rushed upstairs.

  Alexa smiled and gave a little girl wave. Then she dropped the ball into Bonnington’s bed and quietly opened the kitchen door.

  At the top of the stairs Zanna shouted to Arthur, “I’m on my way! Need to check something first!” She burst into the den and went straight to the bench. No Gwillan. No guard. Groyne fast asleep. A hint of panic rippled through her chest. Her hand shot straight to her phone.

  The line to David was dead. But by then he and Grockle were in the air above Scuffenbury, fighting under the name of their i:lluminus, G’lant. There was no connection to Lucy’s number either by the time Zanna had swept into the bedroom. “Take my phone,” she said to Arthur, thrusting it at him. “If Lucy answers, give it back to me.”

  Alexa, for reasons known only to herself, had put Liz’s dragons on the dressing table, spookily facing the mirror. Zanna put the unicorn down between them and sank onto the bed. Liz was drenched in sweat and had thrown aside the bedspread, spilling most of Gretel’s potions to the floor in the process. From her shaking mouth was coming one word, “No.”

  “Nothing,” said Arthur, offering the phone back.

  “Keep trying,” Zanna said, damping Liz’s forehead. “Gwillan’s gone. He’s tricked us. I think he’s stolen Groyne’s powers, maybe some of the others.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “To Scuffenbury — I don’t know!” Her temples reddened under pressure from her fingers. “We’ve got to warn them. If the dark fire —”

  Arthur held up the phone. “The line is dead.”

  Zanna groaned and hammered her thigh in frustration.

  “You must go,” he said. “Use your power, like before.”

  “I can’t. I can’t leave Liz like this.”

  Arthur leaned over and gripped her arm. “If you don’t warn David, it may not be just Liz who’s in trouble.”

  “But I can’t leave her.”

  “You can,” he said. “You told me Agatha Bacon gave you a card — so that you could contact her.”

  Agatha. Of course. Zanna foraged in her pocket. She pulled out the card and ran her thumb across it. Agatha’s picture came up right away. “I don’t know how to use it.”

  “The image may be all that’s required,” said Arthur. And it was. Right at that moment, the doorbell rang.

  Zanna pounded downstairs, already pushing back her sleeve to expose the mark of Oomara on her arm. She yanked the door open.

  “You called?”

  On the step was the figure of Agatha Bacon.

  Zanna threw her arms around her. “Oh, you don’t know how pleased I am to see you!”

  Agatha pushed her gently back. “Invite me in, girl. The magicks can’t work without your wish.”

  “I wish,” said Zanna.

  A smile of satisfaction spread across Agatha Bacon’s face. She stepped over the threshold into the hall. The two sibyls exchanged places.

  “Can’t explain now,” Zanna continued. “In a kind of rush. Liz needs your help. She’s in the bedroom. Arthur’s with her.” She fed her fingers into the scars.

  Agatha nodded. “Where is your daughter?”

  “I’m not sure. Playing with the cat, I think.”

  “Then waste no more time here. Be gone, girl, be gone.” The old woman waved good-bye and the door closed quickly in Zanna’s face.

  For a moment, Agatha stared at her surroundings. Then, with a smile, she raised her chin and set off briskly toward the kitchen. She stood by the window, looking out.

  “How delightful,” she said to herself. The cat and the girl were both distracted by the squirrel she’d magicked. The only opposition would be the blind fool upstairs.

  She locked the kitchen door and took her time going up, wondering briefly why the idiot dragons were all engaged in domestic cleaning duties. At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped to break apart a missed cobweb, putting its tiny creator out of its misery by scooping it onto her snaking tongue.

  As she entered the bedroom and looked down at Elizabeth, she saw no reason to maintain her disguise. It had been a simple matter to intercept messages to Agatha Bacon and appear in another sibyl’s image: a modest deception to guarantee unchallenged entry to the house. But now she yearned for her “natural” look. Arthur Merriman was aware of the deception anyway, tipped off by a cry from her old familiar
, Gretel.

  “You,” he said, fumbling for any kind of weapon. He tried for the bedside lamp but in his panic only knocked it onto the floor. One click from the sibyl’s fingers threw him backward into his chair.

  “Sit there, don’t move, and I will let you comfort her when I’m done.”

  “What do you want?” raged Arthur, gripping the chair until his knuckles drained of color.

  From a pouch at her waist, Gwilanna drew out her most treasured possession, the isoscele of the dragon, Gawain. “What do I want?” she sneered, testing its point, noting its sharpness, reveling in its ancient power. She cast her eyes down again and smiled. “What I always want, Arthur. I’ve come to attend to Elizabeth….”

  48 ON HEROISM AND DEATH

  DA-VIDDDD!”

  Lucy’s call thinned out across the valley, far too weak to attract his attention. In the sky he was twisting, shadowing Gawaine, while the darklings continued to strafe the queen. Meanwhile, Gwillan, having flown from Lucy’s hand, was hovering a short distance away. The movements of his head suggested he was following the fight with keen interest, as if he were assessing the strength of both sides before committing himself to the skirmish.

  Lucy plunged a hand into her pocket. Her phone was there — but the signal wasn’t. She threw it down in dismay. Her other pocket was suddenly a bundle of movement as Gwendolen fought to be released and get a look at what was going on.

  Gwendolen!

  Lucy yanked her out. “I need you to be brave,” she whispered to the dragon, anxious that Gwillan should not hear.

  Gwendolen’s gaze swept warily upward. A roaring burst of flame sucked the cold out of the air.

  “I know it’s dangerous,” Lucy went on, “but I need to tell David that Gwillan’s here.”

  Gwendolen’s eye ridges came together.

  “Please,” said Lucy, her voice cracking.

  There was a squeal in the distance. Gawaine again. Hurt.

  Gwendolen turned a circle or two (her favorite activity when she was thinking). She came back with a long, slightly gabbled hurr. David is fighting. Distracting him might be fatal. There might be a better way to warn him.

  “What? Tell me.”

  Gwendolen fluttered down to the phone. She hurred at length again. The Pennykettle dragons can communicate over distance through a listener, she said.

  “Yes, yes,” said Lucy, urging her to hurry.

  Gwendolen pointed at the discarded phone. If she used it to boost her auma, she said, she could bypass the listener and send a message directly to …

  “… Gadzooks,” gasped Lucy, catching on. “And he’d know how to reach David.” She looked up. Gwillan had disappeared. “Do it,” she said. “Do it. Now.”

  If the conflict over Scuffenbury Hill had been waged on strength and size alone, the darklings would have been mapped and destroyed long before Gwendolen began to transmit her SOS. But the tactics of the Ix did not rely solely on the venom and wounding power of their creatures. Their modes of attack were far more devious. They knew, for instance, that the unicorn, Teramelle, would not attempt to come to the rescue of the dragons and would only defend itself if attacked. Therefore they simply left it aside — a bonus, a treat, once the dragons were eliminated. They were also aware that Gawaine (and possibly the Fain i:lluminus) could be weakened if they could reach inside her mind. So the matriarch became their first target. One darkling, the first of the replicates, was given the privilege of destroying her.

  There were two ways the Ix could disrupt the dragon’s wits. First (and most commonly) a breakaway Cluster could invade through her sensitive pineal gland. This would provide a neural highway into the spongy cells of her brain. Once inside, they could rip her consciousness apart until her motor functions were lost or frozen. They could then torment her or simply bring her down. The union of gravity and ground would do the rest.

  In order for the leap to be effective, however, the darkling had to be in the dragon’s eyesight. At the optimum point of transfer (usually when the dragon was confident of a kill) the Ix Cluster would rapidly detach from its host, leaving the darkling temporarily unruddered and as vulnerable as paper to the chemistry of fire. In short, it was a suicidal lunge. Annihilation was a likely and acceptable forfeit, but a minor sacrifice if it left the quarry addled. Such a transference called for skill and precision, but it had been achieved by the replicate darkling — just before Gawaine had turned it to ash.

  At that triumphant juncture, with the queen in a spin, the three remaining darklings were preparing to focus their attention on the juvenile, only to see him fly to the queen’s aid. They watched him commingle with the failing matriarch and must have been alarmed to see her recover. He had cleansed her mind and restored her sanity. She would be stronger for it and learn from the experience. To terminate her now would require real cunning.

  The squeal that Lucy had heard while she was talking to Gwendolen was partly a result of their renewed assault. For the second, more dangerous, means of transference required a darkling to attach itself to its prey so it might poison the blood as well as the mind. To maximize their chances, the darklings separated. The alpha (that born from the gut of the raven) sped toward G’lant, hoping to draw him away from the queen. The Ix Cluster controlling the creature was in no hurry to engage the Fain i:lluminus, certainly not on the battleplanes of thought, even though he was probing, willing them to try. Instead, the beast rolled under him, crying out as a length of its stringy tail was half consumed by G’lant’s well-aimed arc of fire. It retaliated swiftly by spitting a cloud of venom at his feet. The object: to get inside the pouches of his claws where the muscles were unprotected by scales. G’lant hissed in pain as the venom struck home, but still managed to coil his tail and tangle the darkling within its loops. Using a violent whipping motion, he attempted to shake the creature giddy. But the Ix were reinventing their host creature with each new act of aggression they faced. On the second beat of G’lant’s tail, the darkling dissociated its atomic structure and slipped through the prickly coils like water. By the time G’lant was aware of the escape, the darkling had reconfigured its shape and was back alongside him, pouring its toxic breath into the run of spiracles by his jaw, hoping to infect his secondary airways. Choking, and almost driven wild by the irritation in his claws, G’lant swerved away from Gawaine. Mission accomplished. The other two darklings moved in on the queen.

  While one of them led her in a zigzagging chase (back toward Lucy, still watching from the Tor) the other creature came in silently above her, dropped swiftly, and clamped itself to her left shoulder. She saw it as she fully unveiled her eye, but could do little to shake it off. She could reach it with her tail, she was certain of that, but to attempt that maneuver during flight would destabilize her balance and send her tumbling earthward again. Her only hope was that G’lant would come to her aid again. But for the moment she could not see him. And the darkling was wasting no time.

  Its objective had been to puncture her spine or dislocate the bones of her ear canal. But as the steady reinvention of its wickedness continued, it considered a far more hateful attack. Bringing its two front feet together, it found it was able to merge its claws and make a jagged cutting tool, not strong enough to carve up a dragon’s scales, but easily able to tear through a wing….

  Gawaine squealed in agony as the claws went in. Realizing what was happening, she found a supportive thermal and glided into it, knowing that to beat her wings with any thrust might result in a rip that would not only leave her helpless in the air but negate any chance of a safe landing. The creature dug again and she heard the awful high-pitched whistle that was air rushing through her punctured sails. In desperation she flipped upside down, not a position she could hold for very long, but long enough, perhaps, to throw the creature off. The darkling wobbled but did not fall. It snarled in annoyance and clamped its teeth into the kitelike bones that framed her wing, gnashing back and forth until one of them cracked. Sickened and dizzy, Gawaine
was forced to right herself. Even then the beating did not stop. The darkling stamped on the bone repeatedly, gargling with pleasure as it snapped clean through. The pain was almost unbearable, but by now the queen was forming an idea. One slim chance of escape. She turned again and dipped the injured wing, knowing that the sharper angle of roll would throw the darkling toward the front boom. She felt the creature stumble and she instantly struck, throwing out one of her retractable stigs (the thorns that decorate an adult dragon’s skeleton, particularly along the wings). The stig itself had no physical receptor, but the mulching sound of perforated flesh and the lurch of weight to the front of her wing told Gawaine her aim had been true. With a roar of pain she shed the stig and watched it sink to the green fields below. Every instinct encouraged her to chase down and burn it, and not stop until a well of fire raged in the Earth. But her wounds were severe and there was poison in her blood. She had no option but to land.

  As horrific sights went, the sight of a darkling impaled on the curving stig of a dragon wouldn’t have been far out of Lucy’s top ten. She shrieked and jumped back in terror, even though the stig had landed yards away, point-first into a chunk of the Tor. She saw the darkling’s body convulse. Black fluid oozed like oil from its mouth. Its legs and tail hung as limp as a willow. Its staring eye still shone as brightly as a doorknob.

  She yelped again as its death tremors slid it down the stig. It came to rest in a pool of vital fluids, stopped by and draped across the broken earth, its repulsive head thankfully turned away from her.

  Picking up a rock, she stumbled toward it. Why she chose to, only she knew. Maybe a desire to kill beyond doubt.

  Gwendolen was stupefied beyond comprehension. Hrrr? she cried. What was Lucy doing? The message to Gadzooks was sent. They should just wait now. Wait — and hide!

  But Lucy pushed on, her feet slipping sideways as she climbed the mound of soil. She stopped a few paces from the twitching beast. The rock felt cold and heavy in her hand. The creature’s head looked easy to crush.