The Fire Chronicle

by John Stephens

  “Perfectly fine. Shall I throw these away then? We’re agreed?”

  She dangled the glasses off the side of the tower.

  “No! I need them! Please.”

  “Oh, very well.” The elf girl skipped over and handed Michael his glasses. “To the rest of the world, you may be terrifying to behold, but to me you will always be the most handsome man alive. Provided, of course, I periodically look away from your face.” She curtsied. “Princess Wilamena, at your service.”

  “You’re … a princess?”

  “Well, of course! Why do you think I wanted my crown back so badly?” She touched the gold circlet now around her brow. “Don’t you think it becomes me?”

  “What? Oh, uh, sure. Lots.”

  With his glasses on, Michael could finally see the elf girl clearly. She was a perfect living duplicate of the ice sculpture. Her hair, he decided, was the color of morning sunlight. Her eyes were bluer than a cloudless summer sky. Her nose—

  Bluer than a cloudless summer sky? Michael thought. What’s wrong with me? She’s got blond hair and blue eyes; that’s it.

  But even then, Michael heard himself comparing her voice to birdsong, the whiteness of her skin to new snowfall—

  Stop it, he told himself. You’re being duped by some elf magic, is all.

  “Oh, wonderful.” The elf girl clapped her hands. “You’ve already fallen in love with me!”

  “I have not—”

  “Don’t be silly! You should see the ridiculous look upon your face! By the way, have you noticed the way my hair moves?”

  “Listen,” Michael said with as much sternness as he could muster, “I need to know you’re not going to turn back into a dragon. You’re not, are you?”

  At this, the elf princess grew somber and reached down to pick up the severed gold bracelet from where it lay amid the rubble. Michael saw that the bracelet had shrunk down to person size, but even so, it looked large and bulky in the elf maiden’s delicate hands. Wilamena ran her fingers over the cut made by Michael’s knife.

  “It was almost two hundred years ago when I came upon Xanbertis in the forest. He offered me this bracelet as a symbol of the friendship between the Order and my people. I had no knowledge then of the atrocities he’d committed. So I accepted the gift, and became his slave. Two centuries of darkness and fire. A prisoner in my own horrible body. But no more. The dragon is dead and I am saved—all because of you!”

  She gazed up at him with tearful, adoring eyes.

  And Michael thought, Poor thing, she’s had a rough time of it.

  Then he thought, Her hair really does move all by itself.…

  The elf princess clapped her hands in delight.

  “Oh, you are in love with me!”

  “What—no, I just—”

  “Yes, you are! My own rabbit!”

  “Please, don’t call me Rabbit.”

  “Bunny!”

  And she leapt forward and kissed him on the cheek, causing Michael to stumble back.

  “Don’t do that either! I’m serious.”

  He could feel his cheeks burning and a tingling where she’d kissed him.

  “True,” she said. “There’ll be plenty of time for kissing later. Oh yes indeed!”

  Enough of this elf nonsense, Michael thought.

  “I want to see my sister. Now.”

  They found Emma in the Guardian’s quarters, a low-roofed building tucked along the back wall of the fortress. The furnishings were spare—a wooden chest, a cot, a stool, a table—but considering the Guardian’s own fairly filthy appearance, the room was surprisingly clean and tidy. Gabriel had laid Emma on the cot and covered her with several blankets, and when Michael and the elf princess entered, he was sitting beside her, holding her small, lifeless hand in both of his. Michael had the impression that Gabriel had been sitting like that, without moving, for hours.

  Gabriel, whose head was wrapped in a bandage, rose and embraced him.

  “I am very proud of you.”

  “Oh, well … you know …” Michael was suddenly tongue-tied. “… It’s no big … well, you know …”

  Then Michael tried to return Gabriel’s knife, but the man refused to take it.

  “You have earned it. King Robbie would agree.”

  Michael thanked him and slid the knife back into his belt.

  The red leather book was on the table beside the cot. Michael had felt its pull the moment he’d entered the room, and his hands itched to hold it. But as he took Gabriel’s place on the stool, he gave all of his attention to Emma. Save for the fact that she was lying down and covered with blankets, she appeared exactly as she had the night before. Her eyes stared out at nothing. There was the same crease of anger on her brow. Her mouth was still slightly open. Michael picked up the clenched hand that rested on the outside of the blanket. It was as cold as a stone.

  It’s okay, he said silently. I’m here now.

  And only then, finally, did he turn to the book.

  It was both smaller and fatter than the Atlas. In size and shape, it reminded him of The Dwarf Omnibus, a book Michael considered to have near-perfect proportions. As Michael had predicted, the Chronicle showed no signs of having been submerged in a pool of lava; indeed, it was in far better shape than the Omnibus, whose black leather binding was scarred and worn with age. Michael did find, however, that a design had been carved into the leather cover. He couldn’t say what it was for sure, but the network of ripples and whorls made him think of tongues of flame. For a moment, Michael wondered about the significance, then filed the question away and turned his attention to the most intriguing, and unusual, aspect of the book.

  Two metal hooks, fixed along the edge of the back cover, were clutching what looked like an old-fashioned pen. It was four and a half inches long, smooth and slim, and it tapered to a point at one end. It appeared to be made of bone.

  “What is this?”

  “That’s the stylus.” Princess Wilamena was standing behind him; and even with his back to her, Michael was frustratingly aware of her presence, and of the fact that her hair smelled of springtime and honey and—

  Focus, he told himself.

  “What do I do with it?”

  “You silly, that’s how you get the Chronicle to work! You write in the name of whomever you wish the Chronicle to fix upon, and voilà! The thing is done! Is that helpful?”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “Actually, it is. Thank you.”

  “Is it worth a kiss perhaps?”

  Michael ignored that. He snapped the stylus out of the brackets. It was very light; it felt almost hollow.

  “And now I just write Emma’s name in the book? Seems so easy.”

  The elf girl laughed. “Do you even know what the Chronicle is, you rabbit you?”

  “I told you—”

  “Hush! You’re about to learn something. The Chronicle is a record—you could even say the record—of all living things. Any creature that walks or talks or breathes or sings or laughs or cries or runs or blows bubbles—I do like blowing bubbles!—is listed in its pages. And the list is constantly changing as the lives around us bud and wither. By writing someone’s name in the book, you add them to the scrolls of the quick.”

  “But Emma’s already alive; she’s just frozen—”

  “As I was about to explain, the Chronicle is, first and foremost, a record; but the stylus allows you to focus the power of the book—the power of life itself—upon a specific being, either to call them into existence, or—and think now of your dear, sweet sister—to heal them. But all you have to do is write the name down with your little rabbit hand.” And then Michael heard her whisper to Gabriel, “He doesn’t like me to call him Rabbit, but I do it anyway because he’s such an adorable rabbit. Don’t you agree?”

  Gabriel gave a noncommittal grunt.

  Michael opened the book. He was not surprised to find the pages blank, although, unlike the Atlas, whose pages were smooth and white, these were rough and marked wit
h tiny splinters of wood. Michael flipped through to the middle and flattened the book on his knee. He paused. He had the sense that this was one of the shining moments of his life. To get here, he’d triumphed over great odds and great danger. He imagined Dr. Pym learning of what he’d done, or Kate, or King Robbie, or even, one day, his father. As Michael set the tip of the stylus to the page, a smile creased the edges of his habitually serious face and, with a confident stroke, he wrote his sister’s name.

  Nothing happened.

  “Um, Rabbit …”

  “What?” Michael said irritably.

  “You will need ink. The letters won’t just magically appear.”

  “Well, you could have told me that. Does the Guardian have any—”

  “Oh, you don’t use normal ink.” The elf princess came forward and took his thumb in one hand and the stylus in the other. Michael was about to ask what she was doing—even as he marveled at the rose-petal softness of her skin—when she jabbed the sharp point of the stylus into his thumb.

  “Oww!”

  “Don’t be a baby bunny. Here, you see?” And she dipped the stylus into the drop of blood welling on the pad of his thumb. “Not only does it function as ink, but the blood also forges the connection between you and the book. A bit gruesome, but very effective. Now wake up your poor sister, we’ll all go outside, and I’ll let you braid my hair!”

  Michael said nothing about this last suggestion (though a small voice in his head thought it sounded wonderful), but took a deep breath, gave one final glance at his sister’s motionless face, and touched the stylus to the page.

  He jerked upright. It was as if he had jammed a fork into an outlet; an electric current was coursing up the stylus, along his arm, and out through his entire body.

  “What’s happening?” he heard Gabriel demand. “Is he in danger?”

  “No, he’s linked to the Chronicle,” the elf princess whispered. “Watch.”

  It seemed to Michael as if all of his nerve endings, from the tips of his fingers, to his earlobes, down to the bottoms of his feet, were humming. After the initial shock, the feeling was not painful, or even unpleasant, and as Michael began to relax, he realized that his senses had become almost supernaturally keen. He saw flecks of gold he’d never noticed in Emma’s eyes; he smelled the faint oatmealy odor of the soap they used at the orphanage in Baltimore; he even heard, though this seemed impossible, the soft, fluttery beating of her heart.…

  He began to write, and the letters smoked and bubbled as he laid them down, as if he were somehow soldering his sister’s name into the pages of the book; and then Emma lurched upward, shouting, “You’d better not—” She stopped and looked about, saying, “Huh? How did—” and a loud and joyful chaos broke loose all around her. Gabriel swept her up in his arms, Wilamena clapped and kissed Emma, declaring that she was so happy that they were to be sisters, and Emma said, “Huh? Who are you? Where’s that dragon?” and in the midst of this, only Michael was silent, sitting there on the stool, his hands trembling as he closed the book, his face bled white with fear.

  “So there I was in the clearing, and this big, stupid dragon—” Emma glanced at Wilamena. “Sorry.”

  “Oh la!” The elf princess waved her hand. “It’s nothing. We’re family, after all. Or we soon will be.”

  “Huh?”

  “Skip it,” Michael said.

  “Well, then we flew over the forest,” Emma went on, “which was actually kind of cool, and landed on the tower, and that hairy, smelly guy jabbed me with a needle, and next thing I knew, I was here.”

  Here being the Guardian’s quarters, where they were all still gathered. Emma had just been told, partially by Michael, but mostly by Gabriel and Wilamena, everything that had transpired since she’d been frozen: how Michael and Gabriel had tracked her to the fortress, how Michael had gone into the volcano alone, how the Guardian had tried to murder them, how Michael had figured out that the dragon was really the elf princess, how he’d managed both to lift the curse and retrieve the Chronicle.…

  “The rabbit was quite extraordinarily brave,” Wilamena had said.

  “What rabbit? There’s a rabbit?”

  “She means me,” Michael had said glumly.

  “He was willing to lay down his life for you. Imagine a little rabbit like that standing up to a dragon with only a puny dwarfish knife.”

  Michael had felt everyone staring at him, and he’d quickly asked Emma to tell her story. When she was done, Gabriel announced it was time to think about leaving.

  “It is a long journey back to the plane, and we will be hard-pressed to arrive before nightfall. Still, we cannot walk on empty stomachs. How much food is kept in the fortress?”

  “Oh, quite a bit,” the elf princess said. “I can show you.”

  Sensing his chance to escape, Michael said that while she and Gabriel did that, he was going to try and wash the mud out of his hair, and he hurried out the door.

  Michael went directly to the keep. Slivers of light stretched across the floor of the chamber. The Guardian sat lashed to a column, his hands tied behind him, his chin resting on his chest. Michael stopped a few feet away. He was trembling; he had kept himself together ever since Emma had woken up, knowing he could come here.

  “I need you”—he tried to keep his voice from shaking—“I need you to tell me how to use the Chronicle. Princess Wilamena tried to tell me, but … she must’ve missed something or not known it. I need to know what I’m doing wrong. You know, I know you do!”

  Slowly, the man lifted his head off his chest and looked at Michael. Amazingly, he seemed even more ragged and wretched than before. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was matted with dried blood, and his tunic was ripped open at the shoulder.

  But upon seeing Michael, he smiled. “So you used the Chronicle to bring back your sister. What happened, boy? I want to hear all the details.”

  “Just … tell me how to use it. I have to know. Please.”

  “You don’t want to say, fine. I will. For a moment, you were connected to your sister. Her heart became yours. Anything she’s ever felt, you felt. And I’m guessing that you didn’t like it, did you?”

  His tone was gleeful, and what he described was exactly what Michael had experienced. He had felt the power of the book rising and rising, but he’d been entranced, enchanted, and by the time he’d finally realized what was happening, it’d been too late. Like a swimmer who finds himself in a strong current and can only watch the shore recede, Michael had been carried out to sea.

  Or rather, he’d been carried toward Emma. Just as the Guardian had said, her entire life had opened before him. Not just her life, but her heart. He’d understood what it had been like growing up as the youngest sibling, with no memories at all of their parents, no memories of a life that didn’t involve moving from orphanage to orphanage, no family but him and Kate. He’d understood, at a level he never had before, that he and Kate were Emma’s entire world, that Emma, the bravest person he knew, was completely governed by fear, the fear that she would somehow, someway, lose her brother and sister and then be utterly alone. And Michael had felt how, when he’d betrayed her and Kate to the Countess, the slender foundations of her world had been destroyed. And he’d understood how much it had cost her to forgive him, to trust him again, but how that sense of certainty she’d once felt, knowing that her brother and sister would always be there, had never returned.

  “Just tell me,” he said, wiping the tears from his face, “what I’m doing wrong.”

  “What you’re doing wrong? The only thing you’re doing wrong, boy, is imagining that you’re the Keeper.” The man leaned forward, furious now, straining against his bonds. “The Chronicle forms a connection between you and whoever’s name appears in the book. That person’s life, however awful, however terrible, however painful, becomes your life. What they feel, you feel. That is the way it is.”

  “But—that’s not fair!” Michael cried, knowing he sounded like a child,
but not able to stop himself. “The Atlas just takes you through time. Why can’t—”

  The man laughed. “It is the Book of Life! And life is pain! The true Keeper must be able to bear the pain of the world. Is your heart that strong, boy? I don’t think so. You can scarcely carry your own pain, much less anyone else’s. The moment I saw you, I said, This boy hides from life. He’s doing everything to run away from pain. But there’s no running away from the book.” The Guardian spat, and the look on his face was pure scorn. “You wanted the Chronicle—it’s yours. But you’re not the Keeper!”

  Michael found a barrel of water along the side of the keep and dunked his head, again and again, scrubbing at the hardened bits of mud still stuck to his hair and scalp. When his hair was as clean as it was going to get, he dried his face on his shirt and leaned against the barrel, taking long, slow, deep breaths.

  “Michael?”

  Quickly slipping on his glasses, Michael turned about. It was Emma.

  “I was looking all around for you.…”

  “Sorry,” he said, “I—”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “What?”

  “I just thought you might be mad at me. You know, for not listening to you last night and getting caught—”

  “Of course not. No. How could you think that?”

  Water dripped from his hair onto the lenses of his glasses, but Michael saw Emma clearly, with her muddy hair and dirt-streaked face; she looked small and uncertain.

  “Only, you didn’t seem all that glad to see me, and then you just kind of ran away … and … I can’t believe the things you did.” Her eyes were shining with tears. “You fought a dragon for me, and I didn’t say it before, ’cause it’s none of that elf girl’s business, but I’ll never, ever forget what you did, never, and if you’re mad—”

  “Emma, I’m not mad at you. I just …” And he knew he had to say something, so he chose something that at least was true: “I was scared. I’m sorry.”

  Emma let out a sob of relief and rushed at him, seizing him in a fierce clench. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve listened to you.” They stood like that for several seconds, and Michael, who’d just barely succeeded in stitching himself together, thought he might break apart all over again. Be strong, he told himself, you have to be strong.