“You don’t,” said Joseph. “There is no battle for any of you.”
“But the tapestry?” said David.
“Ended at Scuffenbury Hill, with Gadzooks. When time resets, you will all be returned to a natural life – and all that
that life entails.”
“You can’t take on Voss and his
darklings alone.”
The boy smiled. “I don’t need to, David. In following the fire tear down to the core, Voss has organised his own destruction. As for the darklings… ” He closed his eyes, and moments later a spume of lava erupted from the pool, helped on its way by a bellow from the
seat of Gawain’s huge lungs. “That will bring them down. Avrel and his bears will do the rest.”
Tam coughed and spluttered and beathis chest. “How can they fight when theycan hardly breathe?” The gaseous mixturein the air was horrendous.
“The bears will breathe well enough,” said David, guessing now at Joseph’s intent. “But the change in air composition, the added sulphur, will block the darklings’ spiracles, right?”
Joseph nodded. “Goodbye, Ingavar. We will not meet again. Tell your bears to look for a miracle. Enjoy your future life.”
“Wait,” cried Lucy. She let go of Tam’s hand and ran to her brother. “Where will
you be, when time goes back?”
“I will be here,” he said. He touched her heart with a spark of white fire.
In an instant, he turned into Gideon again. And they barely had time to admire his plumage before he flew through the force-field and disappeared into
Gawain’s body.
19. The Fire Ascending
Although his primary reason for flying offthe island was not to get involved in thegrind of the battle, it had irked Voss to seehis darklings losing. There were only so
many
stains
he could take before the need to fry a bear got the better of him. Their subtle attempts at imagineering were a laudable addition to their basic strengths (of hitting and squashing and being large), but none of them could cope with his own dark fire. He had taken out… ten, a dozen, maybe more, when the first real trace of the gatekeeper’s auma had begun to trickle into his sensory detectors. He had tried to lock onto it right away, but the signal
strength was carefully encrypted and the frenzied twisting of locator stigs was actually beginning to hurt his head. He suspected that the girl was merging in and out of the timeline at random. Or
dissociating into the
ganzfeld
as required. She was clever. He admired that about
her. The very fact she had Travelled the nexus was impressive. Here was an opponent worthy of respect. An intelligent hybrid. Gatekeeper to the core. If her mood was right, he might let her survive. She would make a valuable addition to the
Shadow.
In the end he found her by chance,during what must have been a lapse inconcentration – hers, not his. At the timehe was considering one more kill, to
eliminate an irritating monster of a bear that had had the bizarre audacity to track him – a ludicrous exercise on the bear’s
part. He, Voss, could easily outfly the most fleet-footed lump of white gristle. This one was only keeping pace with him because of his height and angle off the sea. It would have been amusing to zigzag a little and watch the brute die of a sprained neck. But a burst of dark fire or a
poisoned barb would settle the issue much quicker. Then he could focus on his search again.
And then he felt it. A surge of auma that only a being of superior intelligence would have the power to transmit. He forgot the stupid bear and turned his sensors to their maximum sweep. The
signal was intermittent. But when it was there it was strong and clear, as if the girl had peeked out from her hiding place to look for something she might have lost. Voss was not to know that his island
enemy, David Rain, was working on his behalf just then. It was David, calling the dragons away, that had made Alexa expose her position. Through his best intentions, he had put his daughter’s life in peril.
Voss swooped down, big and menacing, every bit as ugly as he was chilling. “Hello, Alexa,” he said, making the greeting seem as dark as the ooze that pumped around his veins. “Please don’t try to escape. Now that I have your auma trace I can follow you anywhere, even into
the field. I don’t want to hurt you – or your dragon.”
Alexa glanced at her hands. The dragons (plural, Voss had yet to discover) had come back a moment too late for her
to flee. She was surprised to see Gollygosh was active, and worried that Voss might ask about the toolbox. For now, the dragon was keeping it hidden, tucked away awkwardly behind his knee. “This island belongs to the bears,” she said.
Voss larruped his three-forked tongue. “No,” he assured her, “it’s definitelymine. I am the Prime. Your mother is my Pri:magon. Your father is being…converted to the Shadow. I’d like you tojoin us in our adventure. Why don’t you
stop this temperamental nonsense and take my hand so we can all be one?”
“What have you done to Gawain?”
“Ohhh, dragons,” he sighed, flicking his tail, “such a flawed and rather outdated design. Why are humans so obsessed with them? Ah, but I’m forgetting. You’re not entirely human. What
do
the Higher label you, child?”
“Angel,” she said. “They call me Angel.”
“A good term,” he conceded. “A powerful name. Angel: part dragon, part Fain, part human… part bear, even?”
She felt Gollygosh gulp and prayed he wouldn’t rattle. “No,” she said. “I couldn’t be a bear.”
“And why is that?”
“I’m not very good at sneaking up on people.”
Voss was quick to note this deceit. Was that a hint of eagerness in her voice? Certainly a glitch in the corner of her eye. Treachery was at work in the girl.
Something was approaching him from behind…
Too late, Kailar was on him. Andunlike the previous attack on the darkling, Voss was allowed no time to turn. Kailar
had stalked him since his landing, using every skill his mother had taught when hunting for slippery, nervous seals. The long low crouch. The brush of paws hidden in the sigh of a breeze. The silent, deadly leap.
He was exploding through the air as
Alexa was finishing her final sentence. Any normal creature, even one of abovehuman height like Voss, would havecrumpled under his immense weight. But Voss had speed and unnatural strength. Not only did he absorb the impact, he putout his wings and lifted the gallant bearoff the sea. Out from the notches in his
stooping spine came four deadly triangular thorns. Kailar howled as the spikes ground in. (Bears reporting to Avrel later claimed they could feel the fighting bear’s pain, even though they were miles away.) Blood emerged in spurts from each wound, turning Kailar’s undersides red. When the thorns had done their grisly work, Voss withdrew them, letting his attacker slide off his back and fall down
with a sorry
crump
. In his enraged state, the Prime turned and blasted the sea
around Kailar with a wide spray of dark fire. It travelled a hundred searing paces. G’reth’s amazing wish was shattered. The Great Sea roared and ran wild again.
At the same time in all directions, bears were pitched into open water. Those who made it back to shore (carried on the huge incoming waves) told how Voss had attacked without mercy, killing bears freely – to be sure, perhaps, that Kailar was dead. Whatever the reason, their champion, their noble leader in battle, descendant of the bear who gave The Tooth of Ragnar its name, was not seen by any of the survivors. He was dead, they claimed. Assumed drowned.
It was not just bears thrown into thewater. When Voss struck, the Pennykettledragons were swept right out of Alexa’shands and sent tumbling through theheaving waves. Swimming was notsomething that came naturally to them (there’d been very little call for it at Wayward Crescent). They could do it, ofcourse. Any dragon could. And they wereexperts at shielding their fire in water (holding their smoke, they called it). Evenso, a lot of shape changes took placebefore they decided that Gwendolen wasthe one to get them to the surface, wherethey could look for Alexa again.
The little dragon spread her wings andstabilised their fall. But as she kicked her
feet and arrowed her tail she was aware
of Kailar sinking beside her. Her heart wrenched as she saw his huge paws moving, stirring up the blood spilling out of his wounds. Despite the severity of his injuries, he was still bravely fighting for life. Still, in his mind, defending Alexa. Gwendolen called on the others for
assistance. What could be done to help the bear?
Nothing
, was the distressed answer from Gretel. The water had washed her
flowers away. What did the guard dragon’s book suggest? Gruffen took shape and opened it. Amazingly, the pages did not become waterlogged and none of the printed words were blurred. He repeated Gwendolen’s question: What could be done to save the bear? The pages fluttered and stopped at ‘I’. One word
appeared there: ‘ISENFIER’.
Isenfier. None of them knew what it
meant. And time was running out for Kailar. The bear, though instinctively treading water, was still going down, not up. Bubbles were streaming out of his nose. There was only one possible option left. Gadzooks took shape and wrote the word on his pad.
The response was a little vague. All the same, the universe heard his intent and sent him an instant reply: BLOW. The word arrived in his ear like a mote of dust
(or maybe an off-course plankton), spoken, he thought, by Elizabeth Pennykettle.
“Blow,” he transmitted to the others.
“What?” said Gretel, ever the sceptic.
Gadzooks didn’t bother to repeat theword. He just did what dragons do best:breathed fire.
Out into the water went his breath.
Instantly, it turned to ice.
HRRR!
The others saw it and quicklyunderstood. They were born of Gawain,the maker of ice. And ice, they knew,floated on water. They swam under Kailarand made the largest raft they could. Loand behold, as it began to take shape, itlifted the stricken bear to the surface.
And bobbed up under their worstnightmare.
Voss had been carefully scanning thewater for signs of Alexa or her body. Hissurprise at seeing Kailar, on a tablet of
ice, was only bettered by his intrigue
about Gadzooks.
Gadzooks backed up to Kailar’s flank. The bear was breathing thinly, too weak tostand.
Voss flashed his tail and circled it tightaround Zookie’s middle. He yanked thelittle creature close to his face. “The
mysterious tapestry dragon,” he said. “So, we meet at last. What is your name, creature?”
“His name is Gadzooks,” said an unexpected voice. “A foolish-sounding name, I grant you that. But it literally translates as ‘claws of Godith’. Which
makes him rather powerful, Father.”
Voss whirled around to see Gwilanna
on the far side of the ice. Beside her was a
boy in a shimmering robe. No other humans were near. Voss’s attention was
briefly taken by a darkling spluttering out of the sky. The third he’d seen drop in as many minutes. “How did
you
get here? How are you even alive?”
“I was called,” she answered truthfully. “The dragon you’re crushing ‘invoked my auma’. He does things like that. Elizabeth, I now see, was very blessed. Surely Zanna warned you about them?”
Voss twisted Gadzooks like a pepper grinder. Yes, the Pri:magon had talked about these creatures. Dragons from clay. He’d paid it no attention.
He did now.
“Who’s the boy?”
“My grandson… in a manner of
speaking.” She pinched his perfect cheek. “Joseph is also remarkably powerful. It was him who freed me from your construct and gave me back my human… shape.”
Voss eyed Joseph Henry with
suspicion.
“He’s kindly offered me a chance of redemption for all the misdemeanours I’ve committed.”
“Grandma?” he tutted.
“Oh, very well. I suppose I was plain
bad
sometimes.”
In the distance, the island finallyerupted. Fire arcs lit the sky. Wave afterwave of them. Trail upon trail. Breakingup steadily into stars.
The boy said, “Alexa has opened the
core.”
“She sends her apologies,” the sibyl added. “She came to the island seeking help from her father and had to avert a major crisis. There’s been a little problem with g’ravity, apparently. Thanks to you, our universe is in danger of collapsing into Quantum.”
“Quantum?” sneered Voss.
“Your sea of white fire. The world we
mistakenly ‘budded’ from. Oh dear, am I sounding like Arthur Merriman?”