The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (43 page)

Dangerous. The third was a pure white icedragon. It bowed towards the girl and sheto it. Then she turned and raised her arms

in the same manner her father had. But

rather than commingle with the ice dragon’s body, Alexa’s top ripped open at the back and two small wings emerged through the fabric. Within seconds, she and the dragons had gone. The garden was still, save for a few green leaves dancing energetically on the grass.

Gawain and Guinevere bowed their

heads.

They reached behind the unicorn, and

quietly joined hands.

The return of Gadzooks

With the queen dragon grounded andseemingly no threat, the two remainingdarklings concentrated their attack on the Fain i:lluminus, G’lant. This time their Ixmasters, confident of victory, chose toaccept the dragon’s enticement to engagein battle on the high-vibrational darkenergy thought planes. It must haveseemed a strange encounter indeed toanyone, like Lucy, watching from theground.

“What are they
 
doing
?” she said to Tam. Several times now, G’lant and thedarklings had come to a kind of mid-airstandoff. On each occasion they wouldhover in close proximity for a while,

before the challenge broke down and each reappeared again in a new and more aggressive spatial formation.

“I don’t know,” Tam said, still brushing soil from his clothes and hair. “But if that really is David fighting up there, believe me, it’s no ordinary contest. How’s Gwendolen doing?”

Lucy knelt down. The IT dragon was deep in concentration and had plugged her tail into Lucy’s phone again. Suddenly, her eyes popped open and she gave a little snort.

“What is it?” said Lucy.

Gwendolen gulped and peered across

the Vale.

“Did you get a reply from Gadzooks?”

Gwendolen nodded.
 
Hrrr
, she said.

“What’s the message? I missed it,” said

Tam.

Lucy   stood   up,   cradling   Bella. “Gadzooks is coming. And he won’t bealone… ”

In the sky, G’lant was finally aware of Gwillan’s escape. The little dragonsuddenly appeared in the sensory matrixbetween G’lant and the third cloned

darkling. The matrix instantly dissolved and the darkling pressed forward with a physical assault. Teeth bared, front legs stretched, it clicked out its claws, ready to make short work of the intruder. G’lant, still in balance with the alpha darkling, could do little to intervene. But he had no

need to. With a flash of blue sparks,

Gwillan and the darkling came together. When they were seen again, Gwillan hadsomehow increased his mass and was

holding the darkling in two slightly oversized paws…just like the paws of a wishing  dragon.   The   energy  matrix reformed around them, and something odd began to happen to the darkling. It didn’t lose its colour as the others had done, but it did change shape, until it was a mirror of Gwillan  himself. He had created a

small black dragon.

Joseph, look to the light
, said a voice. David’s voice, inside Gwillan’s head.

The young dragon cast its gaze down. At the place called Scuffenbury, a column of pearlescent light had formed between the moon and the peak of the hill. All

around it the ground was beginning to

move  as   flame-filled  cracks  sawed

through the green fields. Gwillan – Joseph Henry – turned his head and saw a host of dragons descending from the clouds. One of them was not a dragon at all, but the child, Alexa, who had played with him. He watched her open her arms and saw the effect this had upon the Earth. The centre of the hill simply crumpled inwards creating a large, saucer-shaped caldera. In its midst was a well to the Fire Eternal, the greatest creative force in the universe. The boy inside Gwillan filled up with joy. He looked at the black dragon he’d created and embraced it. And what had

been evil was now made pure.

But as this remarkable transcendence

was happening, the alpha darkling was also going through changes. In response to the sudden appearance of Gwillan, yet more of the Ix had poured into their creature, committing themselves in vast numbers. With an impulse that stunned G’lant’s   neural   core,   leaving   him

overwhelmed  and helpless, they broke the matrix and gave their darkling physical expression again. It reared back ready to rip G’lant’s throat – but it dwelt half a second too long.

It felt a rush of air and turned just in time to see a perfect view of Gawaine’s yellowing, broken
 
moyles
 
– the final rows of teeth at the back of her jaws. Even as she clamped down and swallowed the beast whole she was banking back

towards Scuffenbury Hill. She closed her wings and put herself into a spin. The Ix worked through her, terminating muscles, freezing synapses, unhinging her mind. She was probably dead and certainly insane by the time she plunged into the Fire Eternal, but the disorientation created by her dive had prevented the Ix from escaping her body. What was left of the evil in the skies above the Vale she took

with her to the centre of the Earth. The

will of her Wearle was finally done. And she had claimed revenge for the loss of her sons.

But there was still one dark twist to

come. For as Gawaine’s body was accepted by the Fire, witnessed by a ring of praying dragons – including Alexa,

holding   Gadzooks   –   the   unicorn, Teramelle, that had done so much to restore the queen was overcome by a series   of  extraordinary  fits.   Zanna, temporarily overwhelmed by the sight of her daughter hovering like an angel, came

to  her senses and ran to it. She cried out as

it tossed her brutally aside. David, now parted again from Grockle, rushed to her and gathered her into his arms. Gwillan was at his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“Its eyes,” she panted, “look at its eyes.”

But the unicorn had gone, leaving fiery black prints anywhere its nimble hooves touched the ground. It crested what remained of Scuffenbury Hill and it too

plunged into the Fire Eternal.

The white light reaching the moon went out. Those dragons on the ground, including Grockle, spread their wings, anticipating conflict. But the darkness that emerged from Scuffenbury Hill could not have been fought by a thousand dragons. It was a shadow, an inversion of the Fire Eternal, a force that could fold both space and time. It appeared to them as a darkling with a unicorn’s horn, but only inasmuch as it needed a shape through which it might be duly recognised and
feared
. The two dragons that went to engage it were obliterated before their fire sacs had

opened, their atomic structure crushed into a single point of matter – dark matter, quickly absorbed into the shadow.

From the ground, Gwillan let out a

brave
 
hrrr!

“Gwillan, no!” David shouted. But the

shadow had heard him and turned.

A twisting bolt of dark fire burstthrough the air. But at the moment when itshould have hit the little dragon’s snoutand turned him into particles of darkmatter too, it crackled to a halt and wassuddenly snapped sideways.

“What’s happening?” said Zanna, stilltrying to recover. A great wind blew,making trails of her hair. “Where’s Alexa? I want to be with Alexa.”

“Close   your   eyes,”   David   said, covering her head, pressing it firmly into his chest.

“Alexa?” she cried out. “Where’s my

little girl?”

“She’s here with us,” said David, almost having to shout. The ground was tearing up in strips around them. “You’ll see her again, but things might be different. Trust me, Zanna. Just hold on tight.”

“No!   What’s
 
happening
?!”   Zanna demanded. She kicked out and finally struggled free.

Alexa was now kneeling beside her parents, with Gadzooks sitting on her outstretched  palm.   Her  wings   were folded, her blue eyes closed in deep meditation. Her delicate fingers were resting on the ridges of the dragon’s spine, keeping Gadzooks both focused and calm. The dark fire flowing out of the shadow

had been directed to the end of his pencil. Despite the turbulence the shadow was creating, he was keeping it there as he wrote on his  pad. Alexa was mouthing every letter he wrote. Zanna saw the ‘s’ and the ‘o’ and the ‘m’ before she shut her

eyes and clung against David.

“Will I still know you?” She gripped

his shirt.

“Yes,” he whispered, and kissed her

head.

And then they were gone, all of them. David. Lucy. Tam Farrell. Zanna. Thecatgirl, Bella. The watching dragons. Gone like a wind to another world.

Thus it would be written in the

Chronicles of Dragons:

In the new beginning
 
was
 
the Word.

And the Word of Gadzooks was…

sometimes

**
 
to be continued
 
**

About the Author

Chris d’Lacey originally wanted to be asongwriter, and only started writing bookswhen a friend suggested he enter acompetition to write a children’s story.

Since then Chris has had over twentybooks published, including
 
Fly, Cherokee,

Fly,
 
which was Highly Commended forthe Carnegie Medal.

In July 2002 Chris was awarded anhonorary doctorate by the University of Leicester (where he worked until recentlyas a scientist of sorts) for his services tochildren’s literature. Chris is married and

lives in Leicester, England. You can read

more about him by visiting his website:

www.icefire.co.uk

www.thelastdragonchronicles.com

www.orchardbooks.co.uk

www.orchardbooks.co.uk

www.hodderchildrens.co.uk