Fire Star

by Chris D'Lacey

  8 A SPECIAL TREAT

  Wow,” said a voice. “So that’s what you get up to when you sneak in here …”

  “Thank you,” said David, clicking his mouse. The story of Thoran, Ingavar, and Chamberlain vanished to a box on the toolbar at the bottom of the computer screen.

  “It’s good,” said Zanna, looking over his shoulder. “Put it back up. Let me read some more. How much have you done?”

  “Four chapters — nearly enough, if I hadn’t been interrupted.” He closed the laptop shut. “I think my ice samples call.”

  “No, they don’t,” she said, and plopped herself in his lap.

  “Zanna, cut it out. This is Bergstrom’s office!”

  “Oh, getting picky now, are we?” She tossed her long black hair aside. “You didn’t complain when I came to keep you warm last night, author boy.”

  “That was different. That was private. Come on, Tootega might be in the lab.”

  Pouting, she reached out and pushed the door shut. It settled in the frame, displaying a poster of an Arctic landscape bathed in a dusky, purple light. “Blurghh to Mr. Inuit grumpy guts,” she said, sticking out her tongue and waggling it. “Have you seen that necklace he’s wearing today? It’s a shaman’s charm, full of bones and pouches and hanks of fur.”

  “I hear they’re all the rage up here.”

  “You can joke,” she said, “but it’s not funny for me. He thinks I’m an evil spirit.”

  “Don’t be dumb.”

  “I’m not joking. You’ve seen how he avoids me. He clocked this yesterday and flipped.” She pushed back the sleeve of her chunky knit sweater. On her arm was the legacy of her fight with Gwilanna. Three sticklike lines, climbing in a curving ragged stroke from just behind the elbow to halfway down the forearm.

  “That’s a mess,” said David, screwing up his nose.

  “Thanks. You look great in the mornings, too.” She pulled her sleeve back down to her wrist. “I saw Manorski, the medic, yesterday, to try to find out why it won’t heal over. He thinks the lacerations are infected, that’s all. He’s given me some antibiotic cream. I have to rub it in three times a day until the sibyl Gwilanna goes up in smoke.”

  “Good,” said David, hoping the metaphor would prove correct. Zanna had always refused to accept that the marks were anything more than deep-lying scratches. So why, David wondered, was Tootega so very jumpy around her? And why had he himself been so unnerved when he’d seen that near-identical arrangement appear in the head of a bear on a poster in Henry Bacon’s study? He glanced at the laptop. The sign had driven his urge to write, about Ingavar and Thoran and the history of the Arctic. But that was just a story, a saga in his head. Imagination coinciding handily with reality. A spooky synchronicity, nothing more.

  Wasn’t it?

  Zanna caught his eye and looked back at the machine. “What?” she queried.

  And that was one good reason she should not go reading his story yet: If she knew he’d based his “mark of Oomara” on her injury she’d go totally ape. “Nothing,” he said, tugging her around with a fistful of her sweater. “You look good like this, all kind of … homely.”

  “David, I look like a seal,” she said. “Arctic clothing is not very flattering.”

  He had to smile at that. Back home, she would have been midriff bare, bangle heavy, head to toe in purple and black. What a change a climate made.

  “Story,” she said. “Tell me something about it. On the flight over you said it began with a mother bear and cub sitting on the pack ice near the Tooth of Ragnar, talking about their ancestry and stuff.”

  “It did,” said David, “but since we’ve been up here I’ve had some new ideas. Everything I’ve written has been about these two male bears — one old and wise, the other young and aggressive — crossing the pack ice.”

  “Migrating north?”

  “No, that’s the twist. They’re coming in to town, not away from it. They’re following a star. Well, the old one is.”

  “Whoa, the baby Jesus lives in Chamberlain?”

  “In an igloo next to the inn. Try again.”

  “Um, the star’s a comet on a collision course with Canada? It’s going to wipe out all the bears unless someone stops it?”

  “Surprisingly, no. And that wouldn’t be too kind to our hosts now, would it?”

  “Sorry, Canada,” she said, saluting the flag on Bergstrom’s desk.

  “That’s the flag of Norway,” David groaned. “The clue’s in the missing maple leaf.”

  “Never in the Girl Scout guides. Flags are not my strong point. OK, why’s the other one coming?”

  “Other what?”

  “Bear, knucklehead. If one is a wise pack leader from the East, what’s the other guy’s agenda?”

  “Oh, Ingavar. He’s been shot in the shoulder. He’s coming because … he wants to be healed.”

  “By the good kind fair-haired Dr. Bergstrom?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Really? Is Bergstrom in it?”

  David glanced at the laptop again. “There might be a character based on him.”

  “Don’t be cagey. Zannas like truth.” She tugged a finger at the neck of his sweater.

  He told her a partial truth: “I’m waiting for Gadzooks to decide.”

  “Cool. You’ve pictured him?”

  “Hmm. Kind of. He sent me a cryptic letter this morning.”

  Zanna shook with surprise. “That’s some smart dragon. How much writing can he get on that pad?”

  “Not Dear David, how’s it going?, you doofus. A letter from the alphabet.”

  “Was it Z?” she asked brightly, showing her perfect, dentist-daddy teeth.

  “No. It was G. No words or phrases. Just a capital letter G. I’m still trying to work out what it means.”

  “Dragon name. They all begin with a G.”

  “Great, that narrows things down a bit.”

  She slapped his shoulder. “Don’t get smart. Maybe he’s trying to tell you something. About Grockle, say — or Gretel?”

  “Stop fishing,” said David, shaking his head. “I didn’t get any bad vibes from him and it didn’t feel specific to any one dragon. Besides, he normally only writes when I’m stuck with a story.”

  “Are you?”

  “Hmm, maybe.” He planed a hand. “I wasn’t planning for my bears to be stranded on pack ice at the water’s edge, but I think I’ve resolved that.”

  “How?”

  “Not telling you. Wait and see.”

  “Howww?” she persisted, trying to persuade him with a peck on his lips.

  At that moment the door swung open and a tall lean figure in jeans and a buckskin jacket looked in. “Hey, lovebirds.”

  “Hey, Russ.” Zanna sat up, swinging a leg.

  “I assure you, this is not what it looks like,” said David, feeling a rush of color to his cheeks. He patted Zanna’s hip, trying to move her off his lap.

  She, true to form, stayed put.

  Russ laughed and said, “If I was where you are, I’d be whistling, David.” He winked at Zanna and tipped his battered old cowboy hat. “Got a message from Anders. He’s been delayed a while longer, because of bad weather.”

  “Is he stuck on the pack ice at the water’s edge?”

  “Huh?”

  “Ignore her,” said David. “It’s a dumb inside joke.”

  “Whatever,” said Russ. “Anders wants a couple of the team to drive in to Chamberlain and grab some supplies. Naturally, I thought you swingers would be up for it.” He threw Zanna a set of keys. “The pickup?” she whooped, looking out the window at the long red truck parked across the compound, next to a pen of rusting oil barrels.

  “Don’t wreck it,” said Russ. “There’s a big bad desert called the tundra out there, packed with potholes and killer lemmings. Stick to the road and take it slow. Weather flips quicker than a dime up here. If the wind kicks in from the north, it’ll be just like driving through icing sugar. You get
stuck, you buzz in on the com, OK?”

  “No problem,” said David, pressing his fingertips together in excitement.

  “Here’s a list,” said Russ, handing him one. “There’s a trading post in the center of town. You can’t miss it. Sells everything you need from a button to a beaver.” He took out his wallet. “Here’s two hundred bucks. Put it in a pocket without a hole.”

  Zanna leaped off David’s lap. “How long can we stay?”

  “I want the both of you back in the base before seven, or I’ll have Tootega feed your butts to the huskies.”

  “If we get lost,” Zanna said, big-eyed, “will you come and rescue us in your chopper?”

  David groaned and slapped a hand across his face in embarrassment.

  Russ pointed a serious finger. “This is a treat, girl. Don’t mess up.” He opened the door and backed into the lab.

  “Russ?” David called him back.

  “Yup?”

  “Any chance we’ll see a bear?”

  The pilot rolled a piece of gum against his cheek. “Maybe, though most should be up on the headland by now. You know the drill, right?”

  Zanna laid her face against her steepled fingers. “Lie down and play dead.”

  “Takes a lot of bottle to do that, honey. Better to drop an item of clothing. Bears are curious by nature; they’ll stop to check it out. Back off real slow and keep dropping if you have to, till you reach the nearest house. There’s an unwritten law in Chamberlain that folks don’t lock their doors. No one’s gonna thank you for bringing home a bear, but they won’t turn you away either.”

  “What if you run out of clothing?” Zanna asked.

  Russ laughed and tipped his hat at her again. “Better to arrive butt naked than dead. Never run or look a bear straight in the eye. Makes ‘em kinda testy. My advice is, you steer good and clear of those boys. If you’re gonna go sightseeing, shy away from the rocks on the shores of the bay. High season, the bears hang out around there. You wouldn’t be the first to be surprised by a sleepy male dreaming of his next seal supper. You copy that, David?”

  “Sure,” he said, fingering the polar bear’s tooth around his neck.

  “OK. Get wrapped. It’s like the arctic out there.”

  “Cool,” said Zanna.

  “You’d better believe it,” said Russ. “Don’t forget the toilet paper or the beans.”

  9 STRANGE GOINGS-ON

  Meanwhile, back in Wayward Crescent, something odd was happening in the Dragon’s Den. The stained-glass ornament which hung in the window behind Liz’s workbench suddenly twirled on its string, and this was followed by a gentle fall of soot down the chimney. Gruffen, who was over by the door as always, sitting on his book of dragon procedures and dozing (because Lucy had forgotten to alert him), shook himself awake and went to investigate. The fireplace seemed to be largely undisturbed. Even so, he flew up it a ways, straining his violet eyes into the gloom. There was nothing to see. And when the atmosphere of filth began to irritate his nostrils, he went back to his perch and fell soundly asleep.

  But unbeknownst to him and every other dragon present, something solid had landed in the grate. When it was sure it would not be detected, it flew silently across the room, invisible except for the flecks of soot that were tracing its outline and flicking off its wings. It landed on the workbench. On tiptoes it approached the stone dragon, Grockle. It tilted its head in a sympathetic manner, placing a paw on the edge of the basket as if it would like to rock Grockle in his sleep. It did not touch the cold gray scales, but waved its paw in a circular movement over Grockle’s head as though it was trying to break the cruel spell that had seen the poor creature born without fire. Grockle did not respond and the visiting dragon showed no sign of expectation that he would. Instead, it now walked across the table, leaving nothing but the faintest black prints on the wood. Then it carefully and cleverly opened David’s letter. Now it faced a more difficult task, for its mission was to tear out Zanna’s blood spot. But this it did, making barely a sound. Then it flew across the room and landed next to Gretel’s cage. Sensing a presence, she drew toward the bars.

  The invisible dragon stretched out its paw and dropped the blood spot and a small white flower inside the cage.

  Gretel, no stranger to magics and spells, having once been a cohort of the sibyl, Gwilanna, showed admirable composure when these objects mysteriously appeared at her feet. She glanced at the sleeping Gruffen, then secreted the items away. On silent lips, she asked the dragon its name.

  On the quietest of whispers it told her: Groyne.

  Then it was gone, back to the chimney.

  And no one, especially not Gruffen, had seen it.

  For a short time after this strange encounter, Gretel did nothing but sit and think. Then she picked up the blood spot and warmed it in her paw, until the paper was crumbling in on itself and the tiniest prick of her mistress Zanna’s blood had liquefied, ready to evaporate. With expert timing, she let it drip into the center of the flower. Its petals turned from white to a stormy shade of purple.

  Then she began to cough.

  Gruffen was awake in an instant. He saw Gretel tottering, holding her throat, a dark flower clasped between her stout front paws. The potions dragon. With a flower! How?

  He zipped to her cage and peered warily in. Gretel, spluttering smoke from her nostrils and ears, seemed for all the world to be choking. Gruffen gripped the bars, completely taken in. As he put his snout close and asked what he could do, Gretel said, “sleep,” and wafted the flower. The guard dragon jolted. His sparkling eyes stilled. He turned nine-tenths of a circle and fell.

  Password, hurred Gretel.

  In his flower-giddy state, poor Gruffen was helpless to resist. Hrr-rr-aar-re-rurrr, he murmured. The door clicked open and Gretel walked free.

  Dragons around the room began to clamor with alarm, but Gretel, completely unmoved by the fuss, flew, posthaste, to Grockle’s basket. By now, Liz and Lucy were hurrying up the stairs, with Gadzooks flying on and G’reth just behind him. Calmly, Gretel made her move. She placed the newly darkened flower in the straw by Grockle’s snout, stroked his head, and breathed in deep, making fire in the back of her throat. And with one quick jet of blue-white flame, she set the straw and the basket alight…

  10 ON THE ROAD TO CHAMBERLAIN

  This is awesome,” said Zanna, clinging hard to the pickup’s steering wheel as they swept through clouds of onrushing snow. “If the weather on the pack ice is anything like this, I’d tell your bears to build a nice warm den and park their furry butts for a while.” She smudged a gloved hand across the misting windshield and cranked up the speed of the wiper blades. A fan-shaped view of the road appeared, gray and straight, rolling with white spray blown off the surface of the neighboring tundra. “How’re you getting them across the water, then? Come on, you know you want to tell me, really.”

  David, hunched inside a bottle green parka, pulled on the earflaps of his moose-fur hat. “When they wake, it will still be dark and the star will be reflecting across the ocean. Everywhere its light falls, an ice floe will form.”

  “To make stepping stones?”

  “Yep.”

  “Neat. I like it. So this star is kind of magical, then?”

  David glanced through the window at the ice-pocked wasteland, punctured here and there by tufts of grass. “Not sure yet. The story’s still developing. All I know is, the star is what holds it all together. This place is phenomenal. Look at the trees.”

  “What trees?” said Zanna. As far as she could tell the ground was flat for miles around.

  David pointed to some stunted firs. “See how they only branch on one side? The wind must have stripped them clean. Amazing.”

  “On the whole, I prefer the library gardens,” she said, dipping her lights as a battered old Chevy came cruising past.

  David broke open a packet of gum and folded a clean stick against his tongue. “When we first arrived, I asked Bergstrom how I could describe
the tundra. ‘The unshaved face of God,’ he called it.”

  The truck took a slight uneven bounce. “Well, next time you see Our Lord in Heaven, tell him to shave more often,” said Zanna. “Hey, there’s a thought.”

  “What? God shaving?”

  “No, just God. There’s a capital G if ever there was.”

  David flicked his gaze sideways at her. “God? A dragon?”

  “Could be,” she said.

  The wind buffeted the side of the truck. David placed his feet against the dash for support. “I was joking.”

  “Naturally. You’d have to be.”

  “Why?”

  “God’s a woman. Any sensible person — and sensitive guy — knows that. Interesting, though. There are loads of creation myths involving dragons.”

  “Hmm,” David grunted, trying to sound as though he wasn’t really paying attention. Inside his sweater, he touched the tooth on its thin leather strip, letting his fingers run over its curves till his thumb was caressing the sharpened tip. The temptation to reveal what he knew about Gawain and his connection with the Arctic ice cap was immense. But Bergstrom had warned him if he spoke of these things in the presence of the tooth, the spirit of Ragnar would be unleashed. Although he wasn’t fully certain what that meant, David sure as heck didn’t want to find out here. “Woman?” he said, as a gender-challenged afterthought.

  “Actually, in Inuit folklore, the world was made by a raven.”

  “What?” David almost lurched from his seat.

  “You OK?” said Zanna, glancing across.

  “Lost my footing. Raven, you said?”

  “Mmm. Can’t remember exactly how it goes. It creates the Earth, then night and day. It can do all the usual stuff: turn itself into things; animals; humans.”

  “Man or a woman?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  David chewed his lip.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Come on,” she said, “spill.”

  He interlocked his fingers. How much dare he tell her? “There’s a raven in my story. It sends Ingavar into Chamberlain.”