“Not a word you hear every day,” said Lefarr, “on any part of Co:pern:ica. But when a man is stripped of his fain, he sometimes turns to faith as a substitute. The men of Alavon found their comfort in
the myth of Agawin, even though nothing
was known of his life, perhaps
because
nothing was known of his life. I should explain, by the way, that in some men the superstition runs so deep that they dare not even look upon the figure in front of you.”
“I’m afraid that might have to change,” said Bernard.
Harlan raised his eyes to meet thetech:nician’s. “You’ve spotted
something?”
“These signs have been carefully arranged,” said Bernard. “At a casual glance, they appear to be just an irregular jumble. But they’re actually a complex of four overlying patterns.”
Lefarr murmured in agreement. “Yes, I see it. Could they be star maps – or constellations?”
“Not from any system I know,” said
Bernard. He stretched his fingers over thecarvings and made a few comparativemeasurements. “Do you see the smalldepressions where some of the ‘stars’would be?”
Lefarr nodded.
“Put your fingertips into them.”
“It’s a key,” breathed Harlan, hisexcitement growing. He placed all tendigits into the patterns. “Colm, comeinside. We need four to complete thecircle.”
Colm Fellowes hovered in the doorwaystill. “This is madness,” he hissed at Mathew. “Who knows what dangers thedais holds. We’ve already had a warning. We should leave, Mat. Now.”
“No,” said Mathew. “I believe in thesemen. If you abandon this, Colm, we three
will simply return tomorrow with another volunteer. We need to resolve this. We
owe it to the tribe.”
Colm Fellowes ran a hand across his shaven face. He and his conscience fought for a moment. Then he stepped across the threshold, into the circle. The natural ruddiness of his cheeks began to blanch as he saw the symbol of the winged man, but he set his fingers down where shown.
“What now?” said Lefarr, as Harlan filled the last ten spots. His gaze jumped from hand to hand. Nothing was
happening.
“We must commingle,” said Harlan.
Colm gritted his teeth. “You know that’s not possible in the Dead Lands.”
“It may be enough to show like intent. Close your eyes. Concentrate on knowing
the meaning of the dais.”
But still nothing happened, though a gentle vortex of air was beginning to strafe the inner walls of the tower. It
rippled the loose parts of everyone’s clothing and stirred up the dust round the base of the dais. And though it did not have the strength to move a man, its agitated wail was enough to worry Colm.
“This isn’t working,” he said. “We should leave, while we can.” He pulled his fingers away.
“No, wait,” said Harlan, his eyes racing over the patterns again. “Colm, come back. I think we need to overlap hands. Like this.” He demonstrated quickly to Lefarr, placing his right hand where Mathew’s left would have been.
“Yes,” said Bernard. “Yes, that could
work. Our arms will mimic the crisscrossing theme.”
“Colm, come on,” Mathew implored him. “One more try, then we go.”
Colm took up position and closed his eyes again.
Almost immediately, the vortex was back and building in strength.
“Hold fast!” yelled Harlan, as it started to yowl like a creature trapped. It tugged at the pouches of skin on his cheeks and evaporated most of the moisture from his eyes. The ground was shaking, and so too the tower, throwing loose mortar from between its joints.
Suddenly, Mathew Lefarr cried out: “Harlan, look up!”
There, in the circle of light above, was the apparition they had all imagined but
never made flesh. A terrifying beast with wings like giant sheets of canvas. Eyes of yellow oil. Teeth like daggered rocks. It twisted and hissed and roared at the men, all the while lashing its dark red tongue. Colm Fellowes screamed and ran out onto the hillside. Bernard, likewise, fell against the wall, burying his face in a huddle of fright. Only Harlan and the valiant Mathew Lefarr were witness to what happened next. The creature twisted its ingenious neck (every scale readjusted in one flowing arrow) and aimed its snout downwards. Squeezing its nostrils tight, it sent forth a column of blue-white fire. The point of the flame struck the centre of the dais. It burned for a sec in a crown of light, then was sucked back into the nostrils of the dragon. In its wake,
something extraordinary followed. There was a grinding noise at the centre of the dais, and the spot marked by the image of Agawin began to turn and work its way upwards. At first it appeared that a plug of pure stone had lifted from the structure. But as Harlan’s eyes readjusted to the light, he saw that it was a receptacle of sorts. A cylinder, about the length of a man’s hand, made of a glistening, trans:lucent matter. With cinders in his hair and uncomfortable traces of singeing in his nostrils, he took a breath and closed his hand around it. The outer structure
vanished as if it was dust, but when he pulled his hand away, inside it was something from another world.
Lefarr was too awestruck to speak at first. “What is it?” he asked eventually.
Harlan ran his thumb along the curvedand jagged surface. “Something beyondour reality,” he whispered. “I believe it’sthe claw of a dragon.”
6
Once again, at mid-morning on the dayafter the climb, the Tribe of Alavongathered in a circle in the clearing by thehuts. The claw lay on a stump of wood atthe centre, for all the men to see. Mathew Lefarr told the story of the journey, settingout all that had happened. When he wasfinished, he invited every man to examinethe claw and hold it if they wished. Nonedid. Instead, they turned to the man whohad discovered it and asked him what was
to be done with this wonder.
That question had been on Harlan’smind all night. “First,” he said, “let us beclear about one thing. I’ve spoken withour medic, Terance Humbey, and he
agrees with me that the claw is not of human origin. It therefore cannot be the remains of Agawin.”
“Agawin was a winged man,” Hugo reasoned. “Is it not possible that he evolved claws like a bird?”
The men murmured in agreement.
“That’s not the feeling it gives me,”said Harlan. He spoke boldly, aiming hiswords around the circle. “I was one with
the dragon for long enough to know that the claw came from its kind, not from ours.”
“Very well,” said Hugo. “This we must accept. But why was it placed in the dais at all? What significance does it have?”
“Aye, and what power?” said one of the men, which raised an even louder hubbub of voices.
Hugo clapped his hands for silence. “Friends, Bernard Brotherton will speakon this matter.”
All eyes turned towards the tech:nician.
Bernard, the bottom half of his facenow shaded with a jet-black stubble, saidthis: “The claw was not placed in thedais, it was hidden. It was meant to bediscovered by someone with the capacityto understand complex math:e:maticalpatterns. What this tells us is that whoeverset the key was intelligent themselves.”
Roderic raised his hand. “Could it bethat the claw was secreted in the dais to
protect it when the land was Re:duced?”
“Very possibly,” said Bernard.
“Who by – Agawin or the beast?” Colm
said.
“That we don’t know.”
“Well, we have it and that is that,” said Hugo. “Harlan, as its finder, you must be accountable for its safe keeping. The tribe will aid you and protect you in any way it can, but I urge you to keep the discovery hidden – at least until we ascertain what it might be used for. We are now in the dangerous position of knowing something about the Dead Lands that the Aunts don’t.
The meeting is closed.”
Harlan looked at Hugo and nodded. Heslipped off his seat, wincing as his injuredfoot touched the ground. It had beenstrapped with rough bandages by Terancethat morning, after the painful descentfrom the hill. He hobbled into the circle
and picked up the claw. “Before we disperse, does any man know the word ‘Isenfier’ or the name ‘Gawain’?”
The men glanced at one another andshook their heads. “Why do you ask?”said Thomas Spilo, whose whole facewas surrounded with dark curly hair.
“The words came to me when the
dragon commingled, though in what capacity I couldn’t be sure.” Harlan looked at Lefarr, who cast his eyes down. He slipped the claw into his robe and limped away.
“That was dangerous,” Mathew said, when they were back in his hut. “Why didn’t you tell them that Isenfier was a warning?”
Harlan threw the question back. “Why didn’t
you
?”
Lefarr sighed and sank into his crosslegged pose. “I didn’t want to alarm them. But Colm knows the truth. He may not
keep it to himself for long.”
“Then we’d better do as Hugo implied,” said Bernard. “And find out what that thing is for.”
Harlan held the claw up to his face, massaging the tip between his thumb and forefinger. “There’s something fluid in here that I can’t squeeze out.”
“Is it wise to?” said Lefarr. “What if
it’s toxic?”
Harlan clicked his tongue and thought about it. “Do you have anything clean and white I could shake a droplet onto?”
“Actually, I do.” Mathew took a sheet of paper from his robe, which he unfolded in front of the others. “It’s a letter – from
my grandmother to my grandfather, just before he died. She liked the old-
fashioned permanence of writing. I
managed to smuggle it out of my pod when the Re:movers came for me. It’s a little
crumpled. I had to crush it into my hand when the machines stripped me.”
Harlan pushed his tongue between his lips and grimaced. “Mathew, I can’t use that.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “My grandmother would have been proud to know that her words were being mixed with the essence of a dragon.”
Harlan smiled and took the letter from him. “I’ll aim at a corner,” he said. Yet, no matter how hard he shook, nothing would leave the tip of the claw. “This is bizarre,” he said, looking at it end on. “I’m convinced I can see a tiny aperture with the fluid welling up behind. It ought to come out.”
Before Bernard could reply with aswatch of phys:ics, Mathew said, “Whathappens if you touch the tip to the paper?” He looked at the scientists and shrugged.
Harlan tried it. He scratched the claw
down a margin of the letter and a thin vertical line was produced. “That’s extraordinary,” he breathed. But there it was: a line, coloured green.
“Then it’s a
pen
?” Bernard queried, craning his neck to see it.
“But why?” said Lefarr. “Why hide away a pen?”
“Maybe,” said Harlan, looking at the letter and its beautiful script, “it’s not the pen that matters, but the words it writes.” And he applied the claw to the bottom of the paper and wrote,
ISENFIER
, in small block letters.
For two heartbeats, nothing happened.
But Harlan was sure he could feel the
world turning. Whatever force his mind was resonating with suddenly moved his
gaze to the door. “Firebird,” he whispered, just before the cry went up outside.
“Firebird! Firebird!”
And then the world was indeed turning.
And the first jet of flame hit the roof of the hut.
7
Within moments, the calls had changed inboth frequency and length. “Fire!” the menwere shouting wildly. The accumulatedthunder of their running feet shook theground on which Harlan was sitting. Asmall portion of the roof cover crackled. Cinders fell from its disappearing edgesas the fire took hold and the weave waseaten up in a running line.
Mathew leaped to his feet. “Quickly. We have to get out before it collapses.” He came over and shouldered Harlan
upright, then ran into the daylight, shouting for help.
By the time Bernard and Harlan had joined him, most of the men were grouped
together, busily watching the sky. Some were helping others to clear what they could from the huts on fire. Harlan counted five in total. No one was running for water, he noticed. But then, what good would it have done? The fires were raging too fast to be contained. And even if sufficient water could be brought, the men had no means of spraying it onto the flames.
“There!” cried a voice laced with
resentment. Thomas Spilo pointed upwards through a break in the smoke.
“Where? What are we looking at?” Harlan said, spinning.
“Black firebird, right overhead,” whispered Mathew. He stepped sideways to gain a better view.
“
Black?
” said Bernard.