The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (10 page)

Then Voss did a very strange thing. He raised his arms high above his head, holding the unicorn horn between them. I thought,
 
Why would a man, even one controlled by the Ix, come this far and not attempt to fight the dragon?
 
Right away I knew the answer. “He wants to die,” I muttered.

“What?” said Grella, shaking in my

arms.

“Voss
 
wants
 
the dragon to kill him.”

So that he could live again. But in what

form?

“Go to the cave,” I told her.

“No, don’t leave me!”

But I knew I had to.

I tore myself away from her and rantoward Voss. What was I to do, though? What was I to do? Any impact would takeus both off the cliff. I could try to draw thehunting knife from his boot, but would Ihave the courage to plunge it into him? Thankfully, neither of these options arose. With a thunder of hooves a horse ran in

front of me, blocking my approach. I looked into its eye and saw a sparkle of life that did not belong there. The Fain. So that’s where they had gone.

We had to shelter from the Ix
, they said coming back to me, commingling all their intentions at once.
 
Voss would have seen

us in you with ease. You must leave and take Grella. Voss and Hilde have

planned a great evil. We cannot defeat it. And the dragon has few reserves of fire.

No. I slapped the horse and it moved away. “Voss!” My heart thumped with youthful defiance. My mouth filled with ice. My eye was on the dragon. I saw Galen in all his monstrous glory. Claws undressed. Nostrils flaring. Crescent fangs coated with sulphur and bile. The smell of him scoured the back of my throat. The heat of him stoked my fear – and my pride. What did it matter that his colour was

fading? That his scales were not shining green or bronze? Every muscle in his vast, incredible body was primed to wreak destruction on Voss. But he would not

fight this villain alone. Or be tricked by any false sacrifice. I started to run for Voss again, but was thrown back by Galen’s deafening roar. There was heat in my ears, possibly some blood, and my skull felt like the egg of a bird that had had its yolk blown out through a hole. The dragon had called and the Earth had answered. A giant crack had appeared in the ledge. It ran towards the cave and split the lintel of rock above it. The mountain

shifted a little. Out of the fissure came a

burst of flame.

The fire eternal
 
, the Fain commingled. I did not recognise or know the term then,but I felt the reverence they gave to it. Ifwe died here now, in the fire ascendingfrom the core of this world, we would be

taken into the arms of Gaia.

But Gaia was not ready to take me thatday.

I saw the flames roll towards Voss. He

must  have   been  using  a  powerful enchantment to keep himself in front of Galen, for he was still positioned exactly as before, with his arms raised high, holding onto the horn. He seemed unaware of the approaching danger. Or maybe he was simply waiting for it. Without warning, he switched the horn to one hand and pointed it at the dragon’s breast. Finally, Galen responded with force. He closed one set of claws around Voss and

popped him like a ripened berry. I turned my head as the pulp began to run. When I looked again, the claws were encased in

fire. There was nothing to identify Voss the man, barring a glimpse of burning skull. But he had left a deadly thorn behind. With a squeal more akin to a rabbit than a dragon, Galen pulled back, drawing a trail of the fire eternal with him. In the flat of his foot was the unicorn

horn.

He is poisoned
, said the Fain,
 
the Ix

are within him
.

The dragon thrashed his tail andsquealed again.

The cave
, said the Fain.
 
Agawin, we

must hide
 
.

No. I would not desert Galen now. I

shook my head and ran to the cliff edge. “Galen! Galen! Look at me!” I roared. I

had no idea what I was doing. I was just a

boy who wanted to aid a dragon. A child befuddled by seers and tapestries and the beauty of a girl and the lure of a quest. Perhaps it had always been my destiny to stand on Kasgerden on the day that Galen died. Or perhaps I was just the lucky one. The voice that would carry his name into the future and one day illuminate the world about dragons. I called once more. Galen turned his head. A hideous and

cruel metamorphosis had gripped him. His body was shrinking and turning black. Every crack of his bones put a twist in my gut. His striking face had contracted into ugliness. Where there had once been dignity was horror.

But in his eye, there was still a measure of goodness. I saw his wretchedness and

he saw mine. A small teardrop appeared on his lower lid. The final remnants of his

spirit, his fire tear. As blackness flooded the soft tissue of his eyeball, he roared a last time and tossed his head. The auma of

the dragon flew towards the mountain. It sparkled once and struck me in the eye.

“Agh!” I fell back, covering my face.

The Fain swarmed around Galen’s

auma. For several moments the entities

wrestled, leaving me shaking and jerking on the ground. The fire raged and the mountain moved. But in my head a strange calm began to settle. With it came a heightened  power   of  awareness.   A blossoming sense of universal truth. I sat up and looked at the enemy in the sky. I knew what it was. Anti-dragon. Darkling.

A thing without conscience. Physical evil. Its transformation was now complete –apart from one thing.

It did not have fire.

I touched its auma wave and felt its

frustration. Voss’s frustration. He had

died and been born again with needle teeth and wings. Yet Galen had thwarted him, right at the last. Voss had not been able to trap the dragon’s tear and adapt it into what the new creature needed: dark

fire.

It turned on me and clicked its claws.

Unafraid, I picked up the hunting knife; theonly thing Voss had left behind. From thecleft in the rock the fire still gushed. I heldthe knife by the blade and plunged it in. When I withdrew, my arm was unaffected

but the knife was a cross of fire. I saw the

darkling hesitate. But down it came, an untamed ball of spitting hatred. I launched the knife and my aim was true. The creature veered, but not quickly enough. The knife point entered under one wing and the flames of Gaia engulfed the beast. The darkling skriked and turned onto its back, then exploded in a mass of burning flakes. Voss was gone. And so was Galen. I touched my heart and wept inside.

I was twelve years old.

I had seen a dragon die.

But that was not the end of my adventures that day.

As the fire receded into the mountain I

heard a voice say, “Agawin, is it safe?”

Through the smoke, I caught sight of

Grella. She was just outside the cavemouth, holding a baby.

“Where is Hilde?” I shot an anxious

glance at the cave.

Grella shook her head. “The flames…

they took her.”

Hilde gone, too. But not her child.

An innocent
, said the Fain.

Despite Voss’s potion.

“It’s a girl,” said Grella. And it was wrapped, of all things, in the tapestry of Gawaine. “I will care for her, Agawin, no matter what she is.”

She will grow to be a sibyl,
 
the Fainresponded.
 
Be wary of this child. Youmay meet her again.

“And there was this.” Grella lobbed

something small towards me.

“The tornaq,” I muttered, catching it cleanly. I turned it in my hands. It wasn’t even scorched. And that was not all that

had survived the fire. As I took a pace forward, my foot became caught in something on the ground. It was the tapestry Voss had lain before me. It, too, was undamaged, but the drawing had grown again.
 
How is this happening?
 
I asked the Fain.

It is being imagineered
, they said.
 
Webelieve these are your memories – orfuture visions.

I looked at the image. It was just what I’d seen when Voss had questioned me. Awide valley patrolled by natural dragons,the strange writing dragon, the young childholding it, two people behind them, two

more in the distance – one carrying a katt, of all things. I looked at the man who was closest to the child. There was something about him that resonated powerfully with my auma. The dragon inside me was strongly drawn to him. And yet it was the child I was most intrigued by. Whenever I looked at her, my head began to spin. And the tornaq began to feel strangely warm. “Sometimes… ” I whispered, looking at the symbol. And I thought I heard a child’s voice in my head, as if the girl on the tapestry was speaking for both of us.
 
Sometimes, we will be Agawin,
 
she said.
 
And sometimes we will be
—

“LOOK OUT!”

I heard Grella scream and turned to

look for danger. But I had turned the

wrong way. What felt like a roaring bull rammed into me. It was Gunn – I could tell

from his bare, bloodied chest. He clamped his arms and his foul sweat around me.

His face was nothing but ripped flesh andholes. My feet left the ground. I droppedthe tapestry. Even with my newly-foundpowers of awareness I had no time tostifle the assault. Grella screamed again. A wail of pure terror. A sudden rush ofcold air hollowed my cheeks. Over Gunn’s shoulder I saw Kasgerden’s peakin the sky. A beautiful point of ice androck,   steadily  growing  smaller   andsmaller.

Gunn’s weight had carried us off the

cliff.

He howled like a madman and let me

go. He went to meet ground he could barely see and I closed my eyes so I would not see. The sensation of falling was not unpleasant, like floating in a pool of salted water. Had it not been for

Galen’s auma, that might have been thefeeling I took to my grave.

The tornaq
, his spirit said.
 
Use thetornaq.

It was in my right hand and falling withme. Any moment now, we would hit theground.

I shook the tornaq. I did not see visions. And I
 
did
 
hit the ground, though withbarely enough force to flatten a daisy. When I opened my eyes I was in a greenvalley, in the shade of a tree. There wasno sign of Kasgerden, and certainly no

Gunn.

My heart was warmed to hear the tinkleof bells. I sat up, shaking a leaf from myhair.

“Hello. Where did
 
you
 
come from?”

I whipped around, startled by the voice of a pretty young woman. She was older than me, probably by as many years again. “Where am I?” I asked.

“Iunavik,” she said, as if I ought to know. She looked up at the tree, wondering, perhaps, if I’d been hiding there. If I had, I felt sure she would have forgiven me for it, she had such a pleasant and trusting nature. “Do you know anything about goats?” A dozen or more were grazing on the hill.

“Yes,” I burbled.

She smiled and said, “Then maybe youcould help me. They need to be milked. Ihave to take milk to a woman in the

caves.” She pointed to an elbow of pale grey rock, jutting out of the hillside further up. “What’s your name?”

“Agawin,” I told her.

“I like that,” she said. She put out her hand and helped me up. She had stunning red hair and skogkatt eyes. “Welcome to Iunavik, Agawin. I’m Guinevere.”

Part Two

The Flight of Gideon

She sat down, cross-legged, beside a goat. She was dressed, like me, in a singlegarment – made, I thought, from hides, notflax. It was belted at the waist though Icouldn’t see a clasp. On the belt hung acouple of rabbit fur pouches. Like any hilldweller, she travelled light. Her legs werebare, a little tanned by the sun. On her feetshe wore ankle boots, also made of hide. Her arms, likewise, were naked to theshoulder, though the flesh above herelbow was caressed by her hair. I hadnever seen a girl quite like her before. And yet, in a strange way, I felt I knewher.

She put a silver pail underneath hergoat and started to collect its milk. “So,

how did you get here? I thought I knew

everyone in these hills.”

We have moved through time and

space
, said the Fain, swarming into my consciousness again.

I picked up a spare pail and took it to a tame-looking   goat   nearby.   “I’m… a traveller,” I said, opening my hand. There was the tornaq, resting on my palm. How could a simple piece of bone have brought me from Kasgerden to this hillside? I put it away in the pocket of my robe.