Raising Fire

by James Bennett

  With a roar of effort, the White Dog was changing, Ben saw, forcing his body against the music, his claws sprouting, retracting, his wings unfolding, then crumpling, a quick tide of dampened transformation. Shrieking to shatter the night, he writhed in the radiance, a surge, a push, his bulk overcoming the penetrating song. Resisting the souring magic, the weakening lullaby. Fangs snapping, his tail came sweeping out, the black barb on the end of it aimed at Jia.

  There came a flash of brilliance. A cry and the clang of lunewrought on concrete.

  Leaping back to avoid his sting, Jia tumbled onto her back, the harp skittering away from her.

  At once, the ground slowed, rumbling to a standstill. In full dragon form, Mauntgraul sprang over Ben, his claws splayed, intending to crush the sin-you, turn her into mincemeat on the wharf. Instead, she rolled away from his landing, one arm reaching for the harp. Ben was up and on the move at once, leaping towards her, come what may. Her fingers closed around the artefact and she pulled it towards her, meeting resistance as the fused metal relic jerked in her grasp.

  She looked up to find Ben crouching over her, his features pained as he clutched the harp.

  The lunewrought burned his flesh, a frosty heat. He felt its music in his skull like a fire, as though its light would burst from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. But he didn’t let go. If it took all he had to stop her, avert her from her dangerous course, then he was ready to die in the attempt.

  I’m the Sola Ignis. The lone fire. And honey, this is fucked.

  Jia shouted something up at him, but he couldn’t make out her words, the scaling melody blasting in his ears. And for all his intent, he couldn’t hold on for long, a few seconds at best, the sin-you wrenching the harp from his grasp.

  But not before the collar around his throat rippled and grew soft, the alien metal rendered molten by its closeness to the harp. Roaring, he felt the restraint loosen, then spring free, reduced to mere beads of silver. The drops sailed through the air, a dazzling shower merging with the artefact in Jia’s grip, releasing him with a shudder of pain and a gasp of unfettered air.

  There wasn’t any time to relish his freedom. The White Dog bellowed, pounding across the wharf, a wall of white scales and fangs. The shadow of wings fell over them, veined and vast, bringing certain death.

  Ben and Jia exchanged a glance, a frantic meeting of dread.

  “You’ll kill us all!” Ben spat at her.

  “No. I will save us.”

  Then she was on her feet, scrambling away from him, the harp recovered, clutched to her breast.

  Ben turned as Mauntgraul barrelled into him, a claw closing around his chest, dragging him across the wharf. But Ben was changing too, his red-scaled bulk exceeding the limits of the dragon’s grip, his wings snapping out, pulling them both into the air over the harbour.

  Despite his wounds, his muscles sang with his release, his blood hot in his veins. He roared again, partly in pain, partly in joy, as the two of them soared up into the night, a tangle of wings, tails and thrashing claws.

  Mauntgraul, clearly realising that he’d grabbed the wrong prey, fought to release himself, hurl Ben away from him and turn back for Jia and the harp.

  Ben wasn’t about to let that happen. He held on fast, his talons digging into flesh. Mauntgraul lashed out his tail, his sting darting close, but Ben closed a claw around the base of the vesicle, trapping the barb at foreleg’s length, venom splattering the air. The White Dog was a wasted creature, little more than a skeleton now, a collection of scale and bone, eaten alive by the harp. But as the two of them grappled in the sky, their eyes locked and Ben caught a spark of the old fire, the old hatred. Mad or no, Mauntgraul wasn’t about to give up. If Ben hoped to stop Jia, first he was going to have to get this monster out of his way. No matter what, he couldn’t let the White Dog get hold of the harp. Who knew what evils he’d summon out of the earth? What slaughter he’d leave in the wake of his madness. With his own embers burning in his belly, Ben realised that the dragon was never going to stop.

  As Jia shrank to a glimmering dot on the wharf, Ben understood that the time had come to face his destiny.

  Blood on snow. Old as dust. The Red and the White.

  It was time for an ending. One way or the other.

  TWENTY

  Across the bay the dragons swept, carried by their flailing wings. As their claws locked, their hind legs scratching for the softer parts of each other, the junks and the ferries below passed by in a radiant blur, tossed on the tides of their passage.

  For all Ben’s intent, the White Dog had gained the upper hand, his wings spread over Ben, clutching his struggling form. It was clear that Mauntgraul was driving them on, pushing them towards the city. If this was the last engagement, then true to form, he meant to destroy as much as possible. That much was clear. He wrestled above Ben, jaw snapping, teeth connecting with flesh. Roars echoed across the harbour. Blood sprayed the night, hissing into the waters below.

  He fought with the last of his strength, Ben knew, a weakened yet no less formidable opponent, fuelled by rage, the insanity left by the absence of the harp. It was all he wanted to do now; perhaps the only thing left that made sense. If the dragon had been in full health, Ben would’ve stood little chance. As it was, Mauntgraul fought with the fury of the mad, barely pausing in his assault, trying to wrench his sting out of Ben’s grasp. Unable to do so, he took advantage of Ben’s handicap, landing a series of heavy blows, his claws scoring scales, painting crimson with crimson. And Ben, for his part, had no choice but to defend himself, slashing at the White Dog’s snout, his belly, his neck. Anything to stop him, bring him down.

  In a jumble of wings and limbs, the two of them crossed the boundary of the southern shore, shooting over the piers of the Star Ferry terminal. Distantly, Ben heard screams rising from the streets beyond, people looking up, shocked by the spectacle flying out of the night. Phone cameras flashed. Traffic screeched to a standstill. The neon blaze of Hong Kong wouldn’t spare anyone the sight. There were no shadows deep enough in which to hide. Panic shuddered up from the ground, a city stricken by terror.

  Come the dawn, they’ll think us a nightmare. A mass hallucination. A fake video.

  But the damage, he knew, would remain.

  Together Mauntgraul and Ben crashed into the upper floors of the Two IFC Tower, the second tallest building in the city. Glass shattered. Steel screamed. Lights fizzled out. Snarling, the White Dog forced Ben back into the wreckage, the showering debris thumping on his wings, his horns, forcing him downward. Mauntgraul roared, green flames blustering from between his jaws, his heat blackening scale and glass. Ben answered with his own blast, a crimson pennant twisting with emerald, crackling above them as they fell, locked in battle. Claws around each other’s necks, the two dragons gouged a furrow through thirty-odd floors, shooting towards the ground. Metal sparked off the ridges of Ben’s spine. Office furniture took to the air, spinning out over hundreds of feet. Desks, chairs, computers, reduced to splinters on the road below.

  Glancing down the flank of the building, Ben saw people several floors below, their faces pressed to the broad window of an observation deck, the glass cracked and shuddering. Silently he sent them a warning to get back, get away, but it was much too late for that. Another minute and the dragons’ combined bulk would crash through the floor like a wrecking ball, taking half the tourists with them. Thrusting his hind legs into the framework, Ben growled and pushed himself clear of the tower, his muscles straining as he forced the White Dog away, out into the open air.

  There’ll be no more deaths on my watch. Only one, if I can help it …

  Below, people froze in the road, looking up, their muffled screams stinging his ears. Cars skidded to a halt, passengers spilling from hastily opened doors. He roared, warning the crowds to scatter as he folded his wings, renewing his grip on Mauntgraul. Gravity was his only hope. The wind screaming around them, he let his weight carry the White Dog down, plummeting towards the ea
rth.

  And Mauntgraul was laughing, crazed in the thrill of battle, wyrm tongue flying from his throat.

  “Yes, Benjurigan. Yes. Now you show your teeth!”

  With a tremendous boom, draconic brawn met the ground. Cars crumpled under their weight, a ring of rubble and dust fanning out over the road. Mauntgraul’s laughter cut short.

  Echoes ricocheted between the skyscrapers. Streetlights guttered. Tarmac cracked. In the nearby bars, people looked up at the rattling rows of bottles on the shelves. Faces turned to one another in mute alarm, passing the same message back and forth—Earthquake! Earthquake! Shoppers in the Wan Chai district clutched each other in the tremors, frozen amid the shuddering racks of clothes. Souvenirs leapt off the shelves, lucky golden cats waving overtime, fans raining down, plaster models of the city’s buildings shattering on the floor like an omen of things to come. Trams clanged to a standstill, their bells ringing, the upheaval punching their tracks out of true. Neon signs sparked and fizzed, bulbs popping in the chaos. Along the peaks from High West to Mount Cameron, the hills overlooking the city, birds took to flight, squawking.

  For a moment, all was silence. All was dust.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, tyres screeching to a halt some way from the shallow smoking crater in the middle of the road. Not daring to come any closer.

  A claw gripped the edge of the crater, bloody and red. Groaning, Ben hauled himself up, a scaled heap of broken limbs. Dragging himself along on his belly, he shook out his wings, debris clattering all around him. For several minutes he lay in the road, breathing heavily, allowing his pinions to straighten, his bones to reset. He didn’t have time to fully heal; wounded would have to do. Through his pain, hot knives along his body, he managed to clamber onto all fours, his snout swinging as he cleared his head.

  Get up. Get up, you idiot. She’ll be getting away with the harp.

  He knew it was true. He didn’t have a second to spare. The sooner he put an end to the White Dog—he took courage from his wishful thinking—the sooner he could catch up with Jia, wrench the stolen harp from her grasp. What he would do with the relic was anyone’s guess. Returning the fragments to the Guild and the Chapter was out of the question. The Lore was over now, he knew it in his bones, and neither organisation had exactly filled him with trust. Maybe he could drop the damn thing in a volcano. Fling it out to sea …

  In his mind, an echo of Von Hart, calling to him from beyond.

  Catch her.

  What the hell did it mean? Why would the envoy wrap him up in all this when he was after the harp in the first place, stirring up rebellion? Right from the start, Von Hart had called to him, reaching him through the invasive touch of the Ghost Emperor. Obviously the fairy was trying to tell him something. With some spell or other, the envoy had tried to warn him back in Paris with his weird little message in the fortune cookie.

  When the time comes, let me fall.

  There was a choice here. And a plea. If the fairy was indeed using Jia as a tool, a way to recover the harp, then it struck Ben that he was using him too. Either way, he’d taken a desperate gamble. It was hardly surprising that he’d try to play the odds. Perhaps Von Hart had thrown in a wild card, keeping one last trick up his sleeve.

  Is that why he kept you in the game? Wherever he is, whatever he made Jia do, it seems like he’s aiming for damage limitation. She was his student, just like you. And, well, he saved your arse, didn’t he? Think, damn it! Whatever the truth behind this Ghost Emperor, he doesn’t believe she’ll survive her mission …

  Sprawled in the road, Ben tasted the likelihood of this, sensing he’d hit upon something.

  Catch her. Let me fall.

  With a knot in the pit of his stomach, he realised that for this plan to work, Von Hart hadn’t thought that Ben could stop her, that she’d best the Sola Ignis at every turn. And the worst thing about it was that it was the truth.

  Mauntgraul. Jia. Him. All played.

  It had been there all along, hadn’t it, the deception? Even the message itself, a warning that had been more visual than literal, now he came to think of it. What was a fortune cookie but a western fabrication, an American confection that had nothing whatsoever to do with China? A sweet sham. A clever lie, like Jia Jing’s mission of mercy. Ben got that now.

  He knew that you couldn’t talk her out of it. Tell her that she was wrong.

  And all of this to undo the lullaby? To start a war? He couldn’t help but feel that there was more to it than that …

  Never trust the Fay.

  Behind him, Mauntgraul spoke.

  “I told you that I would show you destruction. See how your world burns.”

  Ben turned, hauling himself up on his hind legs, claws bunched to defend himself. The White Dog stood on the far side of the crater, his bulk swaying, his wings pale rags. Above them, the Two IFC Tower, a smouldering gouge down its side, flames spluttering from the damaged building. But Ben realised that this devastation wasn’t what the dragon meant.

  To clarify, Mauntgraul swept out an arm, indicating the road behind him.

  There were police cars parked on the corner, their lights flashing in a line across the street. In the illumination, Ben saw the hastily erected barrier, the raised guns of officers crouching behind it. Too far out of range, he reckoned, but how long that would last, how long until soldiers arrived with rocket launchers and grenades … he didn’t want to think about it. He saw the crowds pressing behind the cars, a sea of faces drawn with shock. The bright audience of mobile phones. The glint of film cameras borne on shoulders, journalists pressing through the throng. He heard the throb of rotors somewhere above, helicopters circling, no doubt with their own cameras poised, recording the monsters in the road.

  From New York to Egypt, Beijing to London to Hong Kong, Ben had left evidence of his presence, the clips stacking up, the news stories growing, the age-old doubt evaporating. Seeing the watchful eyes of the crowd, he realised, with shoulders slumped, that the time for hiding was over. The Lore was shattered. The Pact undone. The humans were beginning to learn that fabulous beasts were among them. Myths crashing into the modern world. And as the knowledge spread and the fear grew, he also knew that nothing good could come of it.

  “We’ll end this,” he told the White Dog, his words desperate, fierce. “You and me. And when this is over, I’ll go from here. Vanish like smoke. They’ll forget. They always do.”

  Mauntgraul laughed, shaking his head.

  “You old fool. They will hunt you down. All of you. You are looking at your death.”

  “War is not the answer.”

  “No? Then you hope to bid for peace? These maggots know it not among their own kind. Better to scratch out their eyes.”

  Despite the bitter truth of this, Ben knew that the White Dog had hit the nail on the head, putting his hope into words. He hadn’t even realised the depth of it until he did so, the private resolution that he craved. And Jia, misguided, manipulated, had shown him too. This was no time for despair. The Lore might be over, the Pact no more than a lie, and a catastrophe to end all catastrophes approaching the earth like a runaway train, but there had to be another way, didn’t there? Remnants and humans had managed to reach some kind of accord before, however oppressive, however doomed to failure. But times had changed. There was still a chance, surely. He had to believe that.

  He was on his own. The lone fire. Standing guard.

  It was all he had left.

  “I can’t … I won’t let you do that,” he said.

  Mauntgraul grinned, baring his fangs.

  “Come then. Try and stop me.”

  With that, the White Dog spun and bounded down the road for the line of police cars, his horns lowered, ready to gore. People screamed, scattering, a juggernaut heading right for them. Guns cracked, bullets sparking off the dragon’s scales, doing nothing to stop him.

  Ben bunched his hind legs and leapt, wings fanning out to carry him over the hole in the road. Tarmac buckle
d as he landed, stamping down on the White Dog’s tail, catching his sting in mid-flail. Thus checked, Mauntgraul howled, his body twisting around, a fist smashing into Ben’s snout. Blood flew, a couple of fangs sailing through the air. Flames shot into the night, wild and green, scorching Ben’s chest and neck. Bellowing, he scrabbled for purchase, locking his foreleg around the White Dog’s head. Together the dragons rolled, crushing the roofs of cars, flattening trash cans and parking meters and crashing into the shops on the left-hand side of the street, bricks and glass raining down.

  Ben’s fist worked overtime, pounding on Mauntgraul’s skull. The dragon’s laughter, shrill, maniacal, gradually became a series of grunts, the buildings collapsing around them. Then Ben was lifting the White Dog from the rubble, his wings pumping, catching the wind. Muscles aching, wounds screaming, he dragged the dragon into the air, rising from the ruins in much the same way as two beasts had long ago battled their way from a hill in Wales, released by a legendary wizard to centuries of enmity. The white of vengeance. The red of blood.

  “This is what you wanted,” he snarled in Mauntgraul’s ear, his fangs locked. “Tooth and claw. A reckoning.”

  “It is … the way of things,” the dragon growled, wrestling in Ben’s grasp.

  Up and up the two of them soared, the city receding below them, the Two IFC a smear of neon and flame, the sirens lost to the wind, the crowds reduced to milling ants. Clutching the White Dog’s tail, his foreleg locked around his throat, Ben speared directly upward, over the night-bound waters of Victoria Harbour. Mauntgraul struggled, his claws wheeling, scratching at nothing. In Ben’s grip, the dragon felt like a bundle of bones, a sack of scales ebbing in strength, reaching the limits of endurance. The harp had done its worst. The Sola Ignis would do the rest.