Fire Star

by Chris D'Lacey

  It was a good dinner. An extraordinary dinner. Henry had cooked a spectacular turkey, which he carved with such culinary expertise that the meat almost fell into supermarket-ready slices. He had also concocted a homemade punch that he insisted could not make a goldfish dizzy but had Liz giggling after one large glassful.

  As the afternoon wore on, Henry took orders for coffee and felt his way to the kitchen. While he was gone, David turned in his chair and cast his eye about the room.

  “What you after?” asked Liz, covering her mouth to stifle a bubble of returning punch.

  “Remote,” said David. “It’s Saturday. Want to check the soccer results.”

  “You can’t do that. You’re a guest in someone’s house.”

  “I used to live here,” David reminded her. “Henry won’t mind. Besides….”

  “Wozz the madder?” Liz said, befuddled by the pause.

  He had stopped at the edge of the shaggy white rug as if he was suddenly afraid to cross it. “Something’s happening,” he said, putting out his hand. The air above the rug was rippling like a heat haze. Everything beyond it, the TV, the sideboard, was swimming way out of focus, as though his eyes were wrapped in a layer of polythene. Then, something extraordinary happened. At rug level, a wicker basket pulsed into view. It was the one Liz had found when Lucy had been taken. The one that Snigger had been jailed in and released from. He was in it again now, gnawing at a corner. Chewing through it. Breaking out. This can’t be right, David thought, his brain all at sea. But when he tried to say so his voice was muted, as though he was caught in a waking nightmare. The air shimmered again, and suddenly he understood what was happening. He was seeing a replay of Lucy’s abduction — or rather, a second or two after that incident. The air movement was a rip in space, a rip that was fast resetting itself. But not fast enough to beat a nimble squirrel. Snigger leaped forward, and with a pop as quiet as a soap bubble bursting, he completely disappeared. The wicker cage dissolved from view.

  The room returned to normal.

  David swept around. “Did you see that?”

  Liz was falling forward, holding her head. “Feel tired,” she mumbled. “Brainz gone to sleep.”

  “There was a disturbance,” said David. “Some sort of time slip. I saw Snigger, going through a kind of wormhole. I thought you told me you’d released him in the garden?” He shook her to her senses.

  She blinked and said, “Snigger?”

  “Do you remember letting him go?”

  Her green eyes swam, but it wasn’t the drink. “No,” she said.

  “But you must. Where’s the basket?”

  “Bazzket?”

  “The cage you found?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Black or white?” said Henry, coming through with a tray.

  David answered for them. “Liz’ll have black. Good and strong. I need to run back home for a moment.”

  “Now? What’s so urgent, boy?”

  “Thought I heard the phone ringing. Might have been Lucy.” And he was gone before the first drop of coffee was poured.

  In the hallway at number 42, Gollygosh was fixing a set of Christmas lights. “Come with me,” David told him, snapping his fingers. “I might need you to wake G’reth.”

  Hrrr? went Golly, who didn’t think it was quite in order to bring a wishing dragon out of his winter stasis.

  “It’s important,” said David, going into his room. He crossed to the windowsill, where he found Gadzooks pacing crossly back and forth. “What’s the matter? Zookie, what is it? Did you sense what happened next door just now?” He glanced at G’reth. The wisher hadn’t moved a single scale.

  Gadzooks gave a snort and turned his pad. Scrawled across it was the word:

  Far

  “Far what?” asked David.

  Zookie whipped his tail. Hrrr, he complained. “You were interrupted? This is only the start of a word?”

  Gadzooks tapped his pencil hard against his teeth.

  “What stopped you?” The dragon slid his eyes toward G’reth. “The same force that’s stopping him completing his mission?”

  Hrrr, went Gadzooks, settling down in a heap. David looked into the dark night sky. “Something’s playing games with us, isn’t it?” he said. “Something with the power to change the course of events?”

  Something with its finger on the pulse of the universe. The question was, what?

  Christmas came. Although they’d agreed not to buy each other presents, David gave Liz a pair of amber earrings — green to match her eyes. She in turn gave him a sculpture: a sleek white polar bear.

  “New line,” she said, sheepishly. “Exclusive to you. Thought you’d like it. Something to keep your writing focused.”

  “It’s great,” he said.

  “You have to name it, you know.”

  “Is it —?”

  “I didn’t use the icefire. No.”

  “It won’t —?”

  “David, just give it a name.”

  “Thoran,” he said. “The hero of my book.” There was wisdom in its eyes. History in its paws. Determination in the set of its jaw. “If I could choose to reinvent myself, I’d be a bear like this.” He stood up and gave her an enormous hug. Her body shuddered and he knew she was crying. “Hey, hey, what’s the matter? Shush.”

  “I miss Lucy,” she sobbed. “I’ve never had a Christmas without her before.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I miss her as well.” He ran a hand between her shoulder blades and knuckled her back. “Zanna, too.” He thought about the black feather under his pillow. Wherever you are, merry Christmas, he wished her.

  “Oh, David, what’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She dropped her head deeper into his shoulder, her soft red hair creeping under his collar. “It’s all so strange. I never thought I’d fear Gawain, but I do.”

  David closed his eyes, trying not to picture the dragon in his mind. Everything had been so quiet lately, but in two months’ time … “Bergstrom has plans. We’ll find Lucy, I promise.”

  She eased back, bouncing her fists off his chest. “You’re an idiot. You can’t take on a dragon.”

  “People said the same about Guinevere, once.”

  She laughed through her tears and beat him again. Behind them, Bonnington’s tail brushed the Christmas tree, making half the ornaments shudder. “Arthur used to call me his Guinevere,” she said.

  The clock chimed softly. David raised a hand and moved the hair off her face. “Who could possibly blame him?” he said, and let her cry into his shoulder again.

  In the dictionary, there were over two hundred words or phrases beginning F-A-R. None of them delivered any spark of understanding. But the mystery of that Christmas dinner remained. Though he checked the room carefully while Henry was away, David could find no evidence of a wormhole, nor a single squirrel hair in the white tufts of the rug. But for two things, he might have put it down to Henry’s fruit punch: Liz had no memory of letting Snigger go, and the wicker basket was nowhere to be found.

  Mystified, he returned to his writing. The story unfolded, but it was different now. With every passing week he felt an expectation growing, as though he was being carefully monitored. Not by anything he could name or see, but by the auma of the universe, pressing in around him. Dark matter. It moved with his fingers as they hurried across the keyboard. And he sensed it shadowing his every thought. Zanna, drawing within range of the Tooth. Ingavar, already prowling the ice. Grockle, out there, seeking his fire. Lucy, dreaming of a girl by a stream. Bergstrom and his talisman, readying for battle. Gwilanna in a damp cave, waiting, plotting. In the sky above them all, a fire star coming.

  The book, White Fire, drew to a conclusion. With it, the weather began to improve. Cold bright sunshine. Tangible rain. Colors came alive through the windows again.

  Dragons awoke: Gretel first, hurrying Gruffen and others along. G
’reth, still nursing the rejuvenating Fain, remained on the windowsill, taking his time. From its high point on the fridge, the listening dragon broke all the winter news. The house breathed. The calendar turned.

  The month of February arrived.

  David paced his room, ever more anxious that his time was approaching, wondering why Bergstrom hadn’t been in touch. On his desk lay almost three hundred sheets of paper. His part of the bargain. The story, delivered. Twice he’d called the Polar Research Base, only to hear the boring answering machine. He thought back to his parting with Bergstrom at the college. When we move, we move quickly, the scientist had said. David checked the calendar. February the ninth. Talk about cutting it close.

  It was February the eleventh, midmorning, when it all changed.

  David was in the front room cradling Bonnington. The cat was dying, in progressively slower stages. Sleep had replaced all forms of activity. Any pursuit now was in the cat’s dreams. “Why can’t you help him?” David asked Golly. The healer was sitting on the arm of the sofa. Lately, he had kept a much closer vigil. Gretel, too, was never far away, sweeping the air with soothing lavender. G’reth was on the coffee table, looking on.

  Hrrr, Golly whispered, so as not to wake the cat. Bonnington was paws up, snoring peacefully, making small wet bubbles on his pink-tipped nose.

  “How can you say it’s all right?” David said, wiping a dribble from Bonnington’s mouth. “He’s dying, Golly. He’s going away.” Behind the gum, he could see the swelling, raising the tongue.

  But the healing dragon had nothing to add. He simply folded his wings, blew a faint wisp of smoke, and fixed his big blue eyes on the cat.

  David sighed and lifted Bonnington’s paw, slipping back through his memories of their time together. He was wondering if Bonnington was doing the same, revisiting ridge tiles, fences, walls, his treasure trove at the bottom of the garden, his basket in the kitchen, David’s blanket, when all of a sudden the atmosphere shifted and the dragons stirred.

  “What was that?” David said, laying Bonnington on the sofa. He was about to stand up when he felt a slight tingling sensation in his hand and a rather strange clearing calm in his head.

  I am Fain, said a voice from the center of the calm. Shall we commingle?

  If you like, said David, thinking rather than saying the words. It was a tentative offer, for he no longer felt quite part of the room. And everything in it was tinted blue. Besides, if the thing was inside him already, he didn’t seem to have a lot of choice …

  You have a high vibration, said the Fain. You attract.

  Attract what? said David.

  Everything, it said. The universe moves within you and without you.

  David shook his head.

  Do not wobble, said the Fain. The room swam violet.

  Sorry, but I don’t understand you, said David.

  You have connections, it said, to Godith.

  You mean through Gadzooks? And Golly and G’reth?

  More, said the Fain. You are one with Arthur.

  David sat forward, concentrating hard. What do you know about Arthur? he asked.

  He is becoming like us. Like Fain.

  Changing things by the power of thought?

  Arthur is reaching out, it said.

  How can I find him?

  You already have.

  The mailbox rattled, making David jump. Instantly, the Fain disconnected from his auma and returned to its favored host, G’reth.

  Seconds later, Gadzooks landed breathless on the sofa. He dropped a small white envelope at David’s knee.

  It was addressed to David, in shaky green writing.

  42 Wayward Crescent, Scrubbley.

  By airmail. Postmarked Scotland, UK.

  David tore it open as Liz walked in.

  “This came,” he said. A folded sheet of paper. Gretel snatched the envelope and pawed at the ink. “Hey, what the —?” David tried to snatch it back, but she hurred aggressively and flapped away.

  Gadzooks, meanwhile, was growing more and more agitated.

  “He wants to see it,” said Liz, nodding at the note. David, still wondering what the Fain had meant about Arthur, slowly opened it. Two words, in the same green ink:

  Farlowe Island

  Hrrr! went the writing dragon, beating his wings.

  Liz knelt and cupped her hands around his body. “What’s the matter with him? What does it mean, that note?”

  David chewed his lip, his eyes darting back and forth. “At Christmas, he tried to write a message beginning F-A-R. Something stopped him before he could finish. I’d bet my last chestnut this was what he had in mind.”

  “But who’s sent this?” she said, taking it from him, fighting to keep it out of Gretel’s clutches.

  “Don’t know,” David muttered, going over to the shelf where Liz kept a number of reference books, among them an atlas. He flipped it open at the British Isles. “There,” he breathed excitedly. “There, it exists.” He showed Liz the map. “Farlowe. It’s one of the Scottish islands.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” she said. “It’s a holy place, owned by monks. It’s famous because it’s shaped like a cross.”

  “Monks,” David muttered, tapping the map against his chin. “Monks … Wait, that must be it!” He snapped his fingers and looked Liz in the eye. “Where do people who drop out of society go?”

  Before she could answer, Gretel was tugging at the letter again.

  This time, David caught her and turned her to face him. “This ink. What is it?”

  Gretel’s eyes grew wild.

  “What is it?” he repeated, this time in dragontongue.

  Blood, she hurred.

  “Dragon’s?”

  She nodded.

  A rippling hrrr ran through the house.

  “I have to go,” said David, snatching up his jacket. “I can book a flight over the Net.”

  “Flight? Flight where?” said Liz.

  “Go? Go where?” said Liz.

  “To Britain. To Farlowe. To him. Arthur is there, Liz. I think he’s found what Bergstrom needs.”

  “David, slow down!” She hauled him back. “This doesn’t make sense. Even if it was Arthur, why would he write to you? He doesn’t even know you exist.”

  “I think he does. I think he’s been sending me clues all along.”

  Liz glanced at Gadzooks.

  “Yes, via him. Zookie didn’t write Arthur’s name for nothing. He’s a physicist, Liz. A man who loves stars and the stuff of space. I think he knows about something called dark matter and how to control it — us included. He’s on that island, and that’s where I’m heading.”

  “But why would he send you this letter?” she said, anxiety running right through her voice.

  David paused to think. “Why does anyone light a beacon?”

  “You think he’s in trouble?”

  “I just know I have to find him.”

  And without another word, he dashed out of the room.

  PART THREE

  43 FARLOWE ABBEY, TEN DAYS EARLIER

  Enter.”

  The door swung slowly back and the tall, stooping figure of Brother Vincent stepped into Abbot Hugo’s office. The abbot was sitting with his back to the door, on a dark oak pew with a fleur-de-lis pattern cut into the backrest. There was no movement in the fabric of his robe, but his head was not bowed and he was clearly not at prayer. All the same, Brother Vincent did not approach. Humility and rank forbade such arrogance. Instead, he clasped his hands together and waited, muttering on a downward slant: “You wished to speak with me, Abbot?”

  “Yes. Close the door.”

  With a nod of his tonsured head, Brother Vincent pushed the door until it clicked against the keeper. The sound echoed madly in the hollows of his chest, beating at the fear he felt rising there. Doors in the abbey were rarely closed, to demonstrate trust and openness. And though speech was not forbidden within the Order, it was usually restricted to arranged times and emergenc
ies. To be summoned, thus, meant all was not well.

  “Come and sit beside me, brother.”

  Vincent shuffled across the floor, his sandals barely raising a sound from the boards. Although the island was deep in the last throes of winter, the modern heating system at work in the abbey meant there was no need for shoes indoors. He joined the abbot on the three-seater pew, resting his hands in the hollow of his lap and fixing his gaze through the wide arched window across the green acres of pasture land that ran away eventually down to the sea.

  Hugo took off his wiry brown spectacles. From somewhere deep within his bushy white beard, his lips produced a stream of warm, wet air. The small round lenses of the spectacles clouded. Using a fold of his habit as a duster, he wiped them clear before looping them back around his ears. On a table at his side lay a small wooden box. From it, he took out a folded piece of paper. It crackled drily as he opened it out.

  “This was on the floor of the chapel,” he said, disapproval evident in the jut of his chin. “There is no identifying mark, but it was found in the spot where you are known to kneel.” He ran a myopic eye across it. “Is it yours, brother?”

  Calculations. Vectors. Stellar trajectories. The final approach path of the star. Brother Vincent tried not to seem ruffled, but the gulp in his throat as he swallowed his guilt must have sounded like a cannon shot. Abbot Hugo was a watchful, perceptive man. He knew the answer to his question already. What he was seeking here was admission.

  “Before I joined the brethren,” Vincent said, “I had a substantial interest in astronomy. God’s hand was never more at work than in the stars. Sometimes, their movements lure me still.”

  Abbot Hugo sucked in through his nose. It was deeply indented and hooked like a beak. His presence about the abbey could always be detected from the sound of his pinched, headmasterly breathing. He pressed his thumbs together till the skin turned white. “I know the contents of our library very well. I have never seen any book in there relating to astronomical procedures, or any kind of ephemeris giving planetary positions. You have no telescope in your cell. And yet you are able to write and draw figures which suggest you have computed something of great importance in the heavens. What do you have to say about that?”