The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (13 page)

“But that means the bush is not an

illusion. It’s real. You
 
grew
 
something, out of the Earth. Not even Gwilanna can

imagineer like that.”

I looked back at the caves. The sibyl was still there, studying me carefully.

“What do you know about Gwilanna’s mother?”

“Her mother?”

“Or the skull she keeps by the fire?”

Guinevere   lifted   her   shoulders.

“Gwilanna doesn’t talk about her mother

much, though I’ve heard her mumbling to

the skull at night. All I really know is her

name: Grella.”

My heart thumped, making the dragonskrike. Could this be
 
true
 
? That the tornaqhad moved me through time and space butkept me in touch with a strand of my past?

Gwilanna is Hilde’s child
 
, said the

Fain.

The child Grella took from Mount

Kasgerden.

A daughter fashioned by Voss – and the

Ix.

Saying nothing of this, I followed

Guinevere back to the cave mouth. The

Fain, having put their all into theconstruct, were too exhausted to commentfurther. But as we approached the sibylagain, she clapped her hands in silence

and said, “Very impressive – for a boy who’s never imagineered before.” She rolled back Gideon’s eyelid. In the centre of his eye was a vital glint. “Take it to the spring,” she said to Guinevere. “Give it water. The bird will recover. When it

does, let it go. Then return here.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer inside the cave?”

“Birds do not like caves,” said Gwilanna. “Dragons, of course, are a different matter… ”

Her eyes grew large as they took in

Gawain.

Guinevere sighed and started up thehill. “Look after him,” she whispered,touching my arm.

“And don’t forget the milk this time!”

“I won’t.”

The sibyl turned her gaze on me. “Whatare you gawping at, boy?”

Her dress. It was soiled by years ofaccumulated dirt but I was certain now

that it was not the clothing of a humble cave dweller. The garment had been made by a hand skilled in needlework. I thought back to her reaction on hearing my name and knew there was no point dancing round the truth. With a surge of boldness, I lifted my chin. “I know who you are. You were raised by Grella of Taan.”

And just as audaciously the sibyl countered, “And you, if I’m not mistaken, are the boy who disappeared after a fall from  Mount  Kasgerden.   My  mother always spoke so fondly of you,
 
Agawin
 
.”

So she knew. And she truly believed

that Grella was her mother, a falsehood invented by Grella, perhaps, to make the upbringing easier. But did she know what part Voss had played in her birth, or of the evil that lurked inside her?

Leaning forward she sneered, “Whatare you, boy? A construct? A spirit? Orsome other wonder?”

I did not have to answer that. Gawain

threw out his wings and went
 
hrrr!
 
in her

face.

A gobbet of spittle landed on her cheekand fizzed along one of her manywrinkles. “Little monster!” she squealed,pulling back. She rubbed her face dry andswept towards the cave. “Bring thatinside. Put it by the fire. When the sungoes down it will need more warmth than

you
 
can give it.”

I looked down at Gawain. He was

indeed shivering. But it would not be long before his scales began to show, before he would get the insulation he needed. Dragons grew fast, if I remembered Yolen’s teachings correctly. He might look surprisingly vulnerable now, covered in juvenile pimply skin, but in just a few days   he   would  be   battle-hardened. ‘Plated’ was the term the old ones used.

So I did as Gwilanna instructed. I went

inside and set him by the fire. Right away, he scented the stewing rabbit and leaped into the pot, devouring every chunk, using his  tail  to   skewer  pieces  up.   To Gwilanna’s annoyance, he lapped up all the juices as well. Then he licked his feet

and isoscele clean and settled in the pot with   his   tail   curled   around   him, unconcerned by the heat from the flames.

Gwilanna cussed and went to a place in the wall from which she pulled some poorly-baked bread. She tore it in two and grudgingly threw one half at me. “Eat. You don’t look much like a ghost.”

“I am not a ghost,” I said to her, plainly. “Tell me how Grella died.”

“Tell  me  how  you
 
survived
,” she snapped back. She ripped at the bread with her crooked teeth. “In my mother’s stories,   you  were   carried  down  a mountain. Nothing human could escape the fall she described. And yet here you are, gladly eating my bread.”

I broke off a chunk and tried her

‘bread’. It tasted of mould, but at least it was food. “People speak badly of women like you. Why should I tell you anything, sibyl?”

“Impertinent whelp,” she said with a snarl, spitting flecks of bread off her ghastly tongue. “My mother always said you were an arrogant snipe. I’m surprised she searched for you as long as she did.”

That stopped my bite. “Grella searched for me?”

“A pointless quest, spurred on by your

seer.”

“Yolen?” I gasped. “Yolen was with

her?” So the men of Taan had survived

Hilde’s potion. And Yolen, sweet Yolen,had not given up on me.

She wrinkled her nose. A touch of

indifference.   “That   is   the   name   I

remember, yes.”

“What became of him? Where is he? I

must go to him at once.”

“Spare yourself – unless you can wriggle like a worm.” She wiped her bread around a bowl of fat. “He’s dead.”

She pushed the bread into her mouth.

I buried my face in my hands. And eventhough Galen strived to give me courage, Icould feel my poor heart wanting toshatter. “What happened? How long agowas this?” How long, I wondered, was Ilost in time?

“Look at my face,” the sibyl croaked. “Is your history not measured in these ugly creases?”

I did look at her, but only for a moment.

She is not all that she seems
, said the Fain. And although they could offer noreal explanation, I understood what theymeant. There was such deep bitternessembedded in her words, as if she blamedme for making her old. Once again in hereyes I saw a hint of youthfulness, asthough she was wearing a cloak ofwizened years and underneath was naughtbut a resentful girl. “Please, Gwilanna,what else can you tell me?”

She belched at me loudly. I had to turnaway from the stench of her breath. “I noteyour eagerness for conversation when
 
I
have something to offer
 
you
, boy.”

I put my hand in my pocket and touchedthe tornaq. “I am young. Forgive my lackof respect. I will tell my side when I know

about Yolen.”

The sibyl found an awkward morsel inher teeth and spat it sideways into thedarkness. “My mother, myself, and thehorse she rode back were the onlysurvivors of the battle at Kasgerden. Shemet your seer at the foot of the mountain. The men of three tribes were with him.

They had recovered from a sleeping spell,put upon them by a sibyl – whom you musthave met?”

Your true mother
 
, I was thinking. The Fain made sure I kept my mouth fromblurting it. But I did say this: “I barely mether; she did not use her magicks on thewomen or the children. Tell me now about

Grella.”

Gwilanna chewed on her thoughts for a

moment. She belched again and said, “My mother told Yolen all she had seen, but he always refused to believe you were dead. They spent one turn of the moon together, hiding from the Taan—”

Hiding?
 
I thought, but I did not interrupt.

“—searching   the   plains   around Kasgerden. In time, the seer became ill with grief. His heart broke and his spirit left him. He is buried under stones at the

foot of the mountain. I cannot say exactly

where.”

I closed my eyes and swooped through Galen’s memories of the land. In doing so, I made this pledge to myself: one day Iwould find that cairn of stones and bless

them with the auma of the dragon that

Yolen had fought to protect. “Hiding?”

“What?” the sibyl grunted.

“You said they were hiding. Whywould Grella need to hide from her own

tribe?”

The sibyl flexed her foot. “Because of

me.”

The   flames   leaned   towards   the

watching skull. I felt my heart muscles guttering with them. I thought back to the moments just before my fall. Grella saying she would care for the baby – Hilde’s baby – no matter what it was, no matter what the cost.

“When they saw me – the good men of Taan and Horste – they wanted to throw me over the cliff. I was the child of a

villain, they said. A monster, fathered by

darkest magicks. Most of them pitied my mother, but they also feared the woman she’d become. A dear girl robbed of her innocence, forced to give birth on a timescale not even a dog could master. Some said Grella should see the cliff, too. Is this turning your stomach, boy?”

It was. But not for the reasons

Gwilanna imagined. How brave (orfoolish) must Grella have been to acceptthe child (and the prospect of death) whenall she had to do was admit it wasn’t

hers?

“Yolen was the only one to take her side. He argued for my life, saying that a child could not be judged on its heritage alone, only by the deeds it went on to commit. The men of Taan muttered

amongst themselves. They talked about honour and superstition. In the end my mother was spared, but banished. Even her father agreed to this. And a price was put on her head.”

“How so?” My fingernails strained in their sockets. Galen would have spread his claws if he could.

“She was told she must return once a

year to Taan, on the anniversary of that day, and show me to the elders of the tribe at the border. If they found me unholy, I would be slain. If she failed in this duty they would hunt her down and kill us both.”

I looked at the skull. My spirit raged. After all their hospitality, was I now atwar with the elders of Taan? “Tell me

how she died.”

The sibyl raked her hair. “I do not wish

to talk about that.”

“But I want to know.”

“You do not,” she snarled. “With Yolen

gone,   my   mother…wandered.   She travelled with me until the Great Sea

stopped her. We made a life here, among bears and goats.
 
That
 
is all you need to know.”

There is falsehood in this
 
, the Fainsaid to me.
 
Her auma betrays her words. We do not believe this version of events
 
.

But I had no chance to question it. In astrange, almost mocking twist, she said, “Now I will hear
 
your
 
story, Agawin. And do not try to fool me, boy. I can spota lie as clearly as a pebble in your eye. I

know you are Premen. That much was clear from the way you entertained that idiot bear. How did you survive the fall?”

The Fain said,
 
Do not give in to this
 
.

But once again I ignored their advice. If my adventures had taught me one thing, it was that boldness sometimes brings the greatest rewards. I reached into my robe and drew out the tornaq, curious to know how the sibyl would react. “This is what saved my life.” I let it sit in the palm of my hand. And though the Fain implored me not to let her touch it, I allowed Gwilanna to pick up the charm.

She closed her mouth and breathed out

through her nose. A crumb of bread fell from the end of her chin. “Where did you get this?” She sucked the words in with a

greedy relish.

“Grella gave it to me,” I told her

truthfully.

Gwilanna stared at me in disbelief.

“She found it in a cave on Kasgerden, I

swear.”

“Was it my father’s?”

I shrugged and looked away. Maybe it had once belonged to Voss. But I wasn’t going to speculate. And I wasn’t going to mention my encounter with Hilde.

The sibyl ran her thumb along the whorls, digging her nail almost enviously into them. For one anxious moment I

thought she might shake it and disappear with a hideous cackle. Instead she asked, “Do you know what this symbol means?”