The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (10 page)

“Listen to me,” he said. He picked up her hands. “They’re not inside you. Not any more. But because they work in the planes of thought, your memory of them makes them feel active. You can learn to

control that. You might even be able to use

your feelings against them.”

“How?” She didn’t look convinced.

“You’ll  be   able  to   sense   their

presence, long before anyone else can.”

She shivered and said, “I don’t want them near me.”

He gave a nod of understanding. “Thenjust answer this. On Farlowe, when the Ixforced you to sculpt a model of theirdarkling, you left out the heart. You madethe creature deliberately flawed, is thatright?”

“Yes,” she said.

He hummed in thought. “Can youremember what you were thinking whenyou made that decision?”

Lucy rolled her head to one side. “Do

we
 
have
 
to talk about this?”

“It might help me to understand

Gwillan’s condition. These are highly-

intelligent beings, Lucy. Yet somehow you managed to fool them into believing the darkling was whole. Did you call on the auma of Gawain, for instance?”

Lucy crossed her legs and flicked out a foot. “All I remember about the heart was

that I didn’t want to put it into anything evil because a heart is supposed to be… a receptacle for love. While I was making it I tried to fill it with all the happy thoughts I could so that the darkling could never be entirely evil. I
 
did
 
think about Gawain, because he’s strong and good. Then I sort of had the idea not to put the heart in the darkling’s body anyway and… I just got away with it, I s’pose. Maybe the Ix aren’t as smart as you think?”

David smiled at her. “Maybe not.” He

stood up quickly. “Thanks. That’s really helpful. Oh, there’s something else I want to ask you as well. A really big favour, actually.”

“OK,” she said, a little warily. She ran a hand inside her sweater and rubbed her

shoulder.

“I want you to go to Scuffenbury Hill.”

“Scuffenbury? Why?”

“There’s a dragon there, remember?”

“So… ?” She spread her hands.

“I want someone I can trust to go and check it out.”

A laugh escaped like a hiccough from

her throat. “Erm… ”

“I’ll swing it with your mum. You’ll be

chaperoned, I promise.”

“By you?”

“Uh, uh. I was thinking Tam Farrell.”

Her jaw almost hit her knees. “Tam?

Do you
 
know
 
him?”

“We’ve met – he kind of owes me a

favour.”

She chewed her upper lip. “I can’t goanywhere with Tam.”

David continued to stare at her silently.

“No,”   she   emphasised,   lookinguncomfortable. “Can’t
 
you
 
go?”

He shook his head. “This is a job for ajournalist – and a red-haired daughter of Guinevere.”

Lucy played with a bouncy twist of thathair as if she’d just pulled a very shortstraw. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said.

But she laughed again, as if he must be

teasing her. All the same she asked, “Is the

dragon going to wake?”

“Maybe. If it’s time.”

“So… what would I have to do?”

“Observe. That’s all.”

She stretched her arms into the valleyof her knees. “I don’t know. That’s kind of

scary.”

“Lucy, can you come down here, please? And if David’s with you, tell him I’m ready.”

“You don’t have to think about it now,” he said. He knuckled her arm and stepped towards the door. “Your mum and I are

going to see Henry. Do you want to

come?”

Grimacing, she dug her hands between

her thighs. “I don’t like hospitals much.”

“That’s all right. No pressure. See you

later.”

“David,   wait.   Can   I   ask
you
 
something?”

“Anything. Sure.”

“Yesterday, in the garden, when that light went off on your watch, you looked like  the  white  rabbit  in Alice  in

Wonderland – sort of anxious.”

He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe I waslate for a very important date.”

“It’s not a proper watch, though – isit?”

He turned and answered truthfully,

“No. It’s a  communications device. It

keeps me in touch.”

“With the dragons? In the Arctic?”

“With the universe,” he said, giving

nothing away. “Just like you use that.” He nodded at the computer. “I’ll tell your mum you’re busy with your homework.”

Again she stopped him. “It’s not homework,” she blurted. She traced a finger over the keyboard. Committed now, she met his gaze. His eyes were like a dragon’s: mesmerising. “Would you be mad if I told you I was writing things?”

Gwendolen took in a gulp of air.

He looked at the computer screen, going through updates. “A story?”

“No. A sort of journal. About us. Gawain. The dragons… you.”

He glanced at Gwendolen, swishing her tail again. “No, I’d have no objection to that. I think it’s good for people to write things down. Helps you make sense of the

jumble up here.” He tapped the side of his

head.

“Lucy, have you been abducted by

aliens or what?!”

Lucy’s feistiness returned at lightspeed. “Tch, mothers! They’re such apain.” Her hand moved purposefully overthe mouse as she began to close thecomputer down. “Tell me I won’t grow upto be like her.”

David laughed. “On the contrary, Ihope you’ll grow  up to be
 
exactly
 
likeher. Can I read some of your journal? Justan extract, perhaps?”

Lucy gritted her teeth. From a traybeside the computer she picked up acouple of sheets of paper. “All right,there’s a bit here. But if you laugh at it I’ll

never speak to you again.” She slapped it to his chest and swept from the room.

Gwendolen   immediately  made   to follow, but a thought impulse from David kept her by the keyboard. He cast his eyes over the writing:

Last night, before dinner, we lit acandle  for  our  neighbour,   Henry Bacon. We kept a minute’s silence,like they do at football matches whenthey want to remember a deadplayer. Not that Henry’s dead, just…close to it, Mum says. She went tothe hospital to see him yesterday. Shesaid he was like a pale pink eggshell,still and fragile, waiting to crack. Thethought of it fills my chest with pain. I

can’t say Henry was a nice man. He was grumpy and annoying – and he HATED squirrels. But I will miss him all the same if he dies. Mum always said that his heart was in the right place, but Mum tends to see the best in everyone. He did let David stay with him once and he gave Alexa some fairy pictures. OK, he  thinks the sun shines out of Zanna, but anyone can make a mistake ☺.

The thing I don’t get about Henry is this: somehow, he’s managed to play a vital part in our understanding of dragons, despite the fact he’s never believed in them. David talked about it

during the shepherd’s pie last night. He said we shouldn’t underestimate

Henry’s ‘contribution’. For instance, on Henry’s study wall is a blow-up photoof a polar bear looking up from theice. The photo was taken by Henry’sgrandfather, and the bear, accordingto David, is none other than the onethat Anders Bergstrom met/was partof/turned into. Bergstrom. Snowball. Icefire…dun dun dun. And now we

find   out   that   Henry   had   some photographs of dragontongue that had been burned into the walls of a cave

on the Hella glacier. In other words, the grouchy old curmudgeon (love that word) had proof of the existence of dragons for years. Pity he might not live to know it.

At the end of the last dragon era, it

came to a point where there were just twelve left. Driven from their eyries by wild-hearted men who knew no better than to kill a creature they couldn’t tolerate and didn’t understand, the dragons came together and  decided to   surrender.   They   didn’t   give themselves up for capture or sacrifice; they just refused to fight any more. This, to me, is the saddest story ever. I grow tired of people who only think of dragons as fire-breathing, maidensnatching,   cave-dwelling   monsters. Dragons had heart. Morals. Courage. Zanna always says they were the spiritual guardians of the Earth, and for once I agree with her. We don’t really know what happened to the

twelve. The legend is they separated and flew away to isolated places, remote volcanic islands and the like, where they could live out their lives in peace,   and   where   they   could eventually die in peace. Up until yesterday, the only location I knew about was the Tooth of Ragnar, where Gawain set down. Now, if David is telling the truth, there’s one hidden underneath Glissington Tor, near to Scuffenbury Hill, not a million miles from here. Arthur, being the scientist he is, was sceptical about it. He reminded David that Glissington Tor was excavated, a tunnel dug into its centre. How could they miss anything the size of a dragon, he

said? David had a really cute answer. He made his shape-shifting dragon, Groyne, stand on all fours the way a natural dragon would, then he rolled a pea between Groyne’s front legs. Voilà. The archaeologists dug under him. It’s kind of funny when you think about it…

David rested the pages back beside thekeyboard.

Hrrr?
 
said Gwendolen. Could she go

now?

“No. I want you to do something,” he

said.   “It  has   to  remain  a   secret,

Gwendolen.”

The little dragon gulped as she felt his

auma wave.

“Download the whole file and translate

it into dragontongue. From the beginning.

All of it.”

Then what?
 
the little dragon hurred. “Store it – until Lucy’s ready.” Gwendolen tilted her head.

“She’s going to put it out on the

internet,” he said.

A journey north

Henry Bacon, by virtue of his prudentinvestments into a long-term personalhealth plan, had been given his own room

at   the   exclusive,   private   hospital,

Lightways
 
, just a few miles south of Scrubbley. Liz and David arrived in theearly afternoon and were immediately metin the reception area by a nurse who’dbeen attending to Henry the day before. Liz’s   smile   of  recognition   quicklydissolved when she saw the look of

professional sympathy on the nurse’s face. Greeting them quietly, the nurse took them aside and said, “I’m sorry to tell you that Henry’s   condition   has   become considerably worse overnight. We don’t

expect him to see the day out.”

Liz steepled her hands beneath her

nose.

The nurse touched her arm. “I’m so

sorry.”

“Can we see him?” asked David.

“Yes, of course,” the nurse said. “Just be aware that because he’s very frail we may have to come in if things… develop. By the way, his sister, Agatha, is here. She was in Henry’s room a few minutes ago, but I think she may have gone off to find a sandwich.”

“Thank you,” Liz said, fighting off a sniff. She linked  her arm through David’s and pointed down a corridor. “This way.”

Henry’s bed was located on the first floor.

A flowering cherry tree blocked most ofthe view from his doubly glazed window,but  the   room  was   light  and  airy

nevertheless.

Henry was lying peacefully on hisback, his head supported by the tilt of thebed and a cluster of plain white pillows. He was dressed in a medical gown andhis arms, which lay to either side of him,were bare from the elbow down. Some

kind of breathing apparatus was plugged into his nose and he appeared to be connected to a machine that was silently monitoring his heartbeat in waves, though the exact point of contact was hidden by the gown.

Liz approached him first. She said, “Hello, Henry,” and stroked his hair

across his forehead. When he didn’t

respond she turned to the vase of flowers on his table and began to extract any dead leaves or stems. “This must be odd for

you,” she said, as David came up and peered at the sallow-faced old man. “Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

David nodded. “Just before I went to

the Arctic.” He lay the back of his hand against Henry’s temple – and smiled.

“What’s the matter?” said Liz.

“He’s dreaming of polar bears. Take his hand. I’ll show you.”

Although her look suggested she was a little unsure, Liz slid her fingers over Henry’s knuckles, surprised at how taut and bony they were.