The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (32 page)

Grella’s father sank to his knees. He

shook his head, struggling to understand. “Who are you? What vile magick is this?”

Gwilanna looked down at the woman

she called mother. Grella was a whisper away from death. The sibyl began to shake with rage. It was the only time I saw her wounded by grief. “Murderer. You will pay for this… ”

“No,” Rune said. He tried to stand. “It was an accident, I swear. I—”

Before he could finish, Gwilanna opened her throat and squealed like a wild crow in his face. Rune was bent back as if

he’d walked into a blizzard. By the time he’d managed to cover his ears, blood was trickling out of them. “What would you have me do?” he shouted.

From the shack came a long, low groan.

Despite her mauling, Griss was alive.

Gwilanna picked up the kachina doll. Her hand trembled as she tidied the red

woollen hairs. “Bring her,” she ordered. “Bring me
 
Griss
 
.” Her voice could have rasped the edge off the wind.

Rune Haakunen shook his head. “Why? What good would it do?”

“I need her auma,” Gwilanna said darkly. She stroked the kachina’s mouth.

Rune squinted in confusion. “No, there is evil in this. I will play no part in your foul iniquities.”

“You already have –
 
Grandfather
 
.”

Hearing this, Rune made a whiteknuckled fist, as if he might strike the sibyl down. All that stopped him was a pure sweet sound, rising like a wisp from

Grella’s lips. A lullaby no louder on theair  than  a  feather.  “Daughter?”  he

whispered.

He moved forward, wanting to cradle her again, but Gwilanna snapped, “Do as I say if you want her to live.”

Rune’s eyes shrank back to points. “You can save her?”

Gwilanna glanced at the doll. Runecould not see the change in it, but I was ina lofty position by now and the squirrelcould see what Gwilanna could see. The

little stitched mouth had begun to twitch – making the shapes of Grella’s song. “She

was   touched  by  a  unicorn  once,” Gwilanna said. “She can call upon a trace of the healing horse. But she needs more auma. Quickly, man. Her time is running

short.”

Rune stood up, still in something of adaze. As he turned towards the shack

Gwilanna spoke again. “Just the head,”she said. “The rats can have the rest.”

Rune, the hardened traveller, gulped. With a vacant look in his weary eyes, hestaggered to the shack like a newborn calf,there to finish what Stygg had begun. And I could have changed the squirrel’sposition and borne witness to the slayingof the Nomaad mother, but that was onething I could not watch.

All I heard was the clump of the sword.

At the same time, Gwilanna took asharp breath of air.

I saw the kachina doll’s eyes turn green.

Then out came Rune with his gruesome

trophy. He was holding the head at shoulder height, the way I’d often seen Griss with her lantern. In the other hand he

wielded his sword again, its blade now soiled with Nomaad blood. Having the weapon back in his grasp seemed to have renewed his purpose and courage. He lobbed the head between Gwilanna’s feet.

The stuck-on hair parted away from thescalp.

Rune made a bold announcement. “This

deed I have done to avenge my daughter and the people of Taan who were robbed and murdered by these Nomaad wretches. I will have no alliance with you. Be gone, witch. Take yourself far. Leave me in peace to mourn my child. My mind is changed. I will not subject her to any of

your magicks. She feels my pain, I know she does. In the next life, she will forgive my hand. I defend her right to a natural death.”

“Then you die here with her,” Gwilanna said, “which, incidentally, was always the plan.”

Hearing this, Rune’s course was easy. He roared at her and swung his sword high.

Gwilanna spoke a sibyl curse.

The sky awoke like a great black cat. Out of it came a vein of lightning. It struck Rune’s sword and passed along the steel blade into his arm, shaking him as if he were a piece of straw. For a moment or two, a halo of energy held him taut. Then the bolt retracted like a shrivelled root,

sucking all the colour out of the man. A black tree in the shape of his final lunge now marked the spot where his daughter lay.

The kachina doll stretched its arms.

Gwilanna stroked its cheek, then kneltdown and placed it on Grella’s chest.

It began to kick its limbs.

“Feed,” said the sibyl.

A small word, quietly spoken, but outof all proportion to the evil it suggested. What looked like trails of glittering smokepassed from the remains of Rune and Griss and entered the kachina doll throughits mouth. The tree that was Rune

remained unaltered, but the flesh shrank away from Griss’s head until all that was left behind was her skull. I realised then

why Gwilanna had been so evasive about it. It was Griss, not Grella, that had sat in her cave.

Gwilanna raised her mud-splatteredarms to the sky. “I command a new life,for all I have lost!”

Above   her,  the   heavens   rumbleduneasily. The rain stopped and started. The moon turned grey.

Grella’s lullaby began to falter.

“Forgive me, Mother,” the sibyl saiddarkly. “My kachina needs your auma aswell.” A death rattle crept into Grella’sbreathing. The smoke trails began to leaveher body. Gwilanna spread her arms andclosed her eyes. “I have a name for mydoll. I always did. Guinevere. I hope youapprove.”

And I watched the kachina doll grow insize. Until it was a red-haired human girl. Beautiful, just like Grella had been. Withone exception.

Its eyes were black.

At that moment, I could bear it nolonger. The need to bring Grella somekind of comfort overcame Joseph’s rulesof Travel. I left the body of the watchingsquirrel and let Alexa materialise into the

scene.  Hovering  in  the  air  behind Gwilanna, I found the last thread of Grella’s auma. I willed her to open her eyes. She was weaker than a blade of grass, but her lids flickered up and she glimpsed me there. A flying girl. An angel of mercy. A ray of joy to enter her failing heart.

She clasped her hands around the stonefrom Mount Kasgerden.

And as the smoke trails shimmered

violet, she died.

Suddenly, the air fanned out in ripples as Gwilanna, aware of the presence of
 
something
, tried to whip around to see what it was. It seemed to require a millennium of moves, but by then I was back in the librarium, with Joseph.

“So now you know what became of Grella,” he said, “and how the power of reflection broke Hilde’s curse. It was

Rune’s misfortune to tell the child she was

beautiful.   That  and  the   mirror   set

Gwilanna free.”

“But did she see me?” I asked, knocking

my fists together.

Calmly, he stared at the Is. The firestars were speeding by so fast they wereforming into streaks of infinite light. Theywere twisting into the spiralling markwhich dragons and unicorns understood tomean ‘sometimes’. “The timestreams are

realigning,” he said. “You interfered, Agawin – but the Is records that you always did.”

“What?” I said, fluttering my wings to keep myself stable. “You
 
knew
 
this would happen?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice unruffled. “The Is records that the sight of an angel appearing to Grella raises a powerful surge of light, enough to overcome Gwilanna’s intent and make the baby’s auma turn violet. Without you, Guinevere

might have been evil and my mother,

Elizabeth, a maker of darklings.”

“So… I was a part of Guinevere’s

birth?”

“A vital part. And of the timeline she

shared with Gawain.”

The complexities of this, the paradoxesit raised, were too much even for anillumined mind. “Why violet?” I had neverunderstood the significance of the colour.

“A sign of the dragon,” he said. “Theirfire is called ‘white’, but violet is a closerdescription.   Gwilanna   will   alwayssuggest that the colour is merely anirritating defect in the eyes of anyoneclose to dragons, but that is because shecould never admit that she came to love

the child she’d created.”

“Love?” I scoffed.

Joseph nodded. “Ultimately, what thesibyl considers a ‘weakness’ will be thething that saves her. For all her faults, Gwilanna is capable of feeling loss. Yousaw it briefly outside Stygg’s shack. Youknow this instinctively, which is why you – as Alexa – have always reserved somesympathy for your ‘aunt’.”

“But she was trying to imagineer amonster. A female likeness in Voss’s

image.”

“She was young,” he said, “and fuelled by anger. She was obeying the only impulse she knew. Later, the goodness she experienced   through   living   with Guinevere suppressed Voss and brought the unicorn forward, allowing it to self-

heal to a degree. But the balance of Gwilanna’s mind is delicate and readily affected by negative influences such as the Ix. The conflict is slowly turning her mad.”

Misguided, not evil, as David often

said.

In the Is, a giant image of Gadzooks hadappeared.

“Isenfier is upon us,” said Joseph. “Youmust return to the Crescent, where youwill be safe.” He stood up and made afirebird call. Gideon and the three that had

saved me at Kasgerden came flying down from the upper floors.

“Joseph, wait. You never did tell me what happened to Elizabeth.”

“Just stay in the Crescent. For my sake

now.”

“But I vowed to stop Gwilanna.”

“You can’t,” he said. “Only Gwilanna

herself can do that.”

I spread my wings with a determined
phut
 
! “I have a duty to Galen and the lasttwelve dragons. Let me be Agawin. Let

me
 
fight
.”

“What makes you think there will be a

fight?”

No fight? “Then what is your plan?”

“Gwilanna has set the conditions for

Isenfier. Everything now depends on her. We will give her what she craves and letthe timeline adjust. It begins the secondafter she takes you from the woods.”

Back in the dawn of history. With Gawain.

“Your book will record it all,” he said.

He nodded at the lectern where the book

was waiting.

But my mind was still hovering firmly

on  Gwilanna.   “Give  her  what  she

craves?”

He signalled to Gadzooks. The dragonlifted his pencil.

And as I felt the strange tug of theuniverse turning, I watched Joseph Henryfade away and commingle with the bodyof the firebird, Gideon. “We need to giveher what she’s always wanted, Agawin.” He spread his brown wings and snortedfire from his nostrils. “Illumination to a

dragon.”

Part Seven

Isenfier

1. Woodland, Iunavik Region,

Unrecorded Time

Rosa came crashing through the trees,rearing her unicorn up beside David. “Ismell burning. What happened? Where’s Agawin gone?”

“It was a trap,” David said, kneelingdown beside Thoran. “Gwilanna was

here, with the tornaq. She took him.”

The unicorn bucked again. “Well, do

we go after her or what?”

David shook his head. “Thoran’s hurt.

He needs help. This thorn in his paw isgoing to kill him. We need to remove it. Is Gretel with you?”

The potions dragon zipped through thetrees and came to land on an exposed treeroot.   Thoran   was   fading   out   ofconsciousness, but still awake enough toknow the meaning of pain. “Knock himout,” David said in dragontongue to Gretel. “Quickly.”

“No, wait.”

The potions dragon flicked her tail andblew an impatient smoke ring at Rosa. Thebear, as David said, was fading fast.

Rosa slid off the unicorn’s back.

“Surely Guinevere has to be the one who saves him? If we interfere we’ll be

changing the—”

“Hhh! Let me see him!” Before Rosa

could finish, Guinevere came crashing through the bracken and knelt down,

pushing her hair behind her ears. Gently, she lifted Thoran’s paw and turned it to examine the wound. “Where’s Agawin?” she asked, suddenly aware that he wasn’t with them.

“Taken by Gwilanna,” David said bluntly.

“Taken? Why? Why would she do that?” Guinevere looked at them both in

turn. “Is this supposed to happen? You know my legend, don’t you? Does he always disappear like this?”