The Fire Ascending

by Chris D'Lacey

  “It’s injured,” gasped Rosa. There were gouges in its side. A hanging wing. One limp foot.

  “Not injured enough,” David said. And he was quickly proven right. Hearing the sound of human voices, the creature twisted its venomous head, rolled its berry-like eyes toward them, and launched an immediate attack. It flailed at David, slashing and spitting. He went down, wrestling its prickly arms, the needle teeth all the while snapping at his face. “Now would be a good time to use the knife!” As he yelled this he managed to lift the creature, bring his feet up, and kick it hard in the underbelly. The darkling was thrown against Gawain’s prison. Its spine gave a crack as it slid down, winded. When it looked up, Rosa was there with the knife.

  She plunged the blade into an existing wound, leaving it embedded above the fraying wing. The darkling shrieked but barely winced. To her horror, Rosa realized she hadn’t done enough. Instead of inflicting a mortal blow, she had stood off too far and barely caused the creature any more pain than it was already in. Instantly, it coiled up and sprang at her. Rosa raised her arms to protect herself, but the darkling’s leap only measured the length of its scrawny tail. Amazingly, Gwilanna had used Gawain’s weight to warp their prison wall and trap the darkling’s tail at its tip. The creature was pinned, but the danger wasn’t over. The darkling looked back, assessed the situation, and bit clean through the tail at its base. Rosa screamed as it came for her again. But the second lunge was even shorter than the first. David by now had found the arrow that Zanna had extracted from his shoulder. As the darkling opened its jaws to bite, David thrust the arrow into its mouth, breaking its central teeth in the process. The darkling clamped on the arrowhead and gulped. A trail of black fluid oozed from one ear. The creature blinked, shuddered, and then fell sideways, dead.

  Rosa took refuge in David’s arms.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “It’s done now. Gone. But there are going to be others. You have to contact Gwilanna. I think that demonstrates whose side she’s on.”

  Rosa settled her nerves and stared at the dragon, who was flipping his bemused gaze between the two women. “What do I say to her?”

  “Make contact, then I’ll guide you. Commingling is just a form of advanced telepathy.”

  “That easy?” She pulled a trying face. “Don’t know why I bothered reading the manual.”

  “Just think of her, Rosa. She’ll come.”

  She looked at the dragon again. “I’ve got a question.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just concentrate your mind.”

  “Do you love me, David?”

  “Do I …?” His chest deflated a little.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Later, eh?”

  “Yes. I …” He glanced at Zanna, his face a model of pure confusion. “Yes … later.”

  So Rosa closed her eyes and focused on the voice. Within moments, she jerked her head and said, “Okay. I’ve got her.”

  “Good. Tell her we want to free Gawain. Ask her how the force field was put together. Was it imagineered or is it magicks?”

  Rosa put the question into her mind. “Magicks, she thinks. She’s not sure. Voss did it.”

  David clicked his tongue in frustration. If Zanna had put the barrier in place, it would have been easy enough to remove it. “Does she know a way out?”

  The dragon shortened its gaze and blew a fireball at him. “No. She was hoping you knew a way in. By the way, she says you’re useless.”

  David stared into the sad, jeweled eyes. Like this is my fault, he thought. “You said she was scared. Why is she frightened?”

  Rosa’s face screwed up in concentration. “She’s close to the core. About to break through. She says there’s something on the other side.”

  “Does she know what?”

  “She says … ‘Trick or treat, boy?’”

  In other words, she had no idea. To make matters worse, a light groan from the floor alerted him to the fact that Zanna was coming around. Pri:magon. Sore head. Lethal combination.

  Rosa seemed unaware of it and was still reporting back her conversation with Gwilanna. “She thinks whatever it is won’t be keen on meeting a tainted dragon. She agrees she needs to get out. She says —”

  “Forget it, Rosa. We have to go.”

  “But —?”

  “Seriously, we have to run.”

  She blinked in confusion. “As in ‘away’?”

  “Far away. We should try to find Alexa. Zanna’s recovering. When she comes to she’ll overcome the change and go back to the Shadow. We’ve failed here. There’s nothing else I can do. Come on.” He took her hand and yanked her toward the light.

  Halfway there, she wrestled herself free. “Wait. Why don’t you just kill her?”

  “I can’t,” he said, looking back, pained. “She’s the mother of my child. I can’t do it. Please, Rosa. We have to go. Now.”

  “No,” she said, standing firm. “You can’t desert her. I won’t let you abandon her.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I hate what she is and I hate the fact you want her more than me, but if she has a chance at humanity again we ought to try for her. I ought to try for her. Maybe there’s another way?”

  “There isn’t,” he insisted, “and we’re wasting time.”

  “Gwilanna had an idea.”

  That stopped him dead. “When?”

  “Just now, while we were commingling.”

  He threw up his hands. “Why didn’t you say?”

  “Because you stopped me.” She folded her arms. “It’s dangerous anyway. You wouldn’t approve.”

  “Tell me. Quickly.” Outside, voices were calling the alarm. The battle was closing in.

  She swallowed and gave a tight-lipped nod. “All right. But there’s something I need to do first.”

  He looked away, distracted by a polar bear’s roar. When he turned back, Rosa was right in front of him. “Do you remember when we sat by the well on Co:pern:ica and I made you a bracelet of violet-colored daisies?”

  David grimaced. There was no time for this. All the same, he let his mind drift back. He’d been twelve years old, happy and relaxed with her, taking time off from their work in the librarium. “Of course I remember. It was … a beautiful day.”

  “The best,” she said.

  “Special,” he agreed. “Rosa, what’s the matter?” Her eyes were glistening with tears.

  “I made the bracelet to tell you how much I loved you, because I wasn’t brave enough back then to do this….” And she pulled him toward her and kissed him passionately. Then she stepped back, and kept on stepping back. “I’ll miss you, David.”

  “Rosa, what are you talking about?”

  “Gwilanna knows a way to speed up your cure. All it needs is a powerful burst of auma.”

  And at last he understood what she planned to do. “Rosa?! No!”

  But she was already running.

  Zanna, by now, was bent over but on her feet.

  Hearing someone approaching, she turned and saw Rosa standing over her. “Need a hand?” Rosa asked, extending hers.

  Without thinking, Zanna gripped it.

  Above and below their hands, a vertical flash of light emerged. Then the universe hummed and their bodies came together as the timeline moved to heal the paradox. A pressure wave pulsed in all directions. The light contracted to a single point. And when it was done, there was only one girl left in the chamber.

  Zanna.

  In the early stages of the battle at sea, the conflict between the bears and the Shadow had gone very much the way of the bears.

  Another lone darkling had raised the alarm. From a height well above the motionless water, it had seen the bears forming like giant blocks of ice and witnessed the ease with which Kailar had dispatched its reckless companion. Straightaway it had turned and headed for the island, calling out a warning that had initially gone unheeded. Then the first snowflakes began to fall on the chain of rocks to the nor
th and west of the main isle. The brood of darklings nestling there were immediately scattered by the roars of the bears that materialized among them. Many were cut down before they could fly. One of those which got away badly mauled was the one that had made it to the chamber, and David. The shock of surprise had given the bears an early advantage, which could be measured by the carcasses strewn across the sea and the trails of black fluid running down the rocks. But it wasn’t long before Voss’s creatures began to hit back. Only then did the battle begin in earnest.

  In theory, everything favored the darklings. They had the medium of air for a start. Greater speed, better maneuverability, complemented by a startling array of claws, stigs, toxins, and teeth. Their ability to paralyze the nervous systems of organisms such as bears and humans was known to cause instantaneous blindness and several other forms of sensory disarray. Plus they had the option of self-division. Their rapidly developing genetic footprint supported a form of self-cloning called budding. Ten darklings could become twenty in minutes.

  Despite their early losses, they were confident of victory.

  So they attacked with arrogance at first, strafing the bears with jeers and hisses and gobbets of vile acidic spit, aimed at delicate parts of the body: the eyes, the shells of the ears, the tail. Then the first darkling landed on the hump of a running bear’s back. It rode along for a few rough strides, gaily swinging its ugly head to the scooping rhythm of the bear’s gallop. It goaded the enemy with taunts of a terrible, agonizing death. Yet the bear made no attempt to throw it off. Annoyed by this haughty show of indifference, the darkling decided to move to the kill. It cranked its jaws and sank its numerous retracted teeth into the scruff of the bear’s thick neck.

  Crunch.

  There was a nauseating crack of bones. White spikes sprang out of the darkling’s head, as if it had swallowed a ball of thorns. Black stains flooded its bulging eyes. Spittle trickled from the sides of its jaws. Its vicious hooked claws relaxed their grip. A few more seconds elapsed before its lifeless body leaned sideways into the wind. Then it tumbled down the polar bear’s shoulder, falling away to be kicked aside and trampled to mulch by the next set of paws that came pounding along. Those darklings that witnessed this bewildering fatality swept down and attempted to exact revenge. The outcome for most of them was the same. One by one they fell away dead or injured, or leaped off their victim, screaming in pain. In one spectacular case, a rider exploded. This pattern was repeated all over the sea, and many more of Voss’s multitude perished before he could transmit the vital information that the bears were protected by some kind of magicks. In fact, the truth was more straightforward than that.

  The bears had been taught to imagineer.

  On Earth, in the dominant timeline that had seen them evolve from the brown bear, Thoran, on a bed of frozen water made by Gawain, bears had ruled the Icelands for thousands of years. When the risk of dark fire had become a real threat, the Higher had removed this iconic species into the safety of the thought plane of the nexus they called Ki:mera. There the bears had remained in stasis, ready to return when the threat was removed and the timeline was stable. One of them, however, proved a little troublesome. The bear known as Avrel refused to cooperate. Despite the Higher’s most intensive efforts, the self-styled “Teller of Ways” would not (or could not) close down his mind. The Higher subjected him to rigorous testing. Avrel’s capacity for information storage amazed the Fain beings, who had only ever noted this level of ability in Collectives such as theirs (or the Ix Shadow). The ice bear was carefully nurtured. His extraordinary mind was allowed to move freely within the Is. In time, certain developments were noted. Interesting constructs began to appear, unlike anything the Higher had seen before. The entire history of the Icelands of the North began to float out of Avrel’s memories and take physical shape as it spun around his head. This went on for as long as it needed to, until one exceptional memory stood out: the shedding of Gawain’s fire tear. As it dripped from the dragon’s eye, the image froze and the tear hung in the Is like a jewel. The Teller opened his eyes and squinted. Something could be seen inside the teardrop. A sculpture, in ice, of a woman holding hands with a boy. A bear was spread-eagled at their feet. The Teller blinked. The scene in the fire tear immediately changed. Suddenly, a girl with wings appeared, sitting cross-legged on a static sea. In her hands was a small green dragon that was constantly blurring its shape, moving quicker than light itself. “It’s time,” said the child. The dragon in her hands opened its enormous paws and hurred. Avrel blinked again. To the Higher’s astonishment, a fire star opened in Ki:mera. Even more bizarrely, they were helpless to stop the ensuing exodus. Polar bears drifted to the Earth as snowflakes, led by Avrel and the fighting bear, Kailar.

  But they were changed, these bears. On their journey, through a kind of morphic resonance, Avrel had taught them how to use their minds like his. Their first test was to protect themselves against darklings. Temporarily hardening their fur into spikes was a tactic adopted by most of the pack. And even when the darklings learned to avoid making physical contact, the bears grew more ingenious again. They imagineered blizzard “nets,” which could freeze a wing and make the creatures drop from the sky. Once a darkling was on the surface, one swipe of a bear’s paw did the rest.

  Of course, there were losses on the bears’ side, too. Sometimes, out of fear or recklessness, a bear would forget the Teller’s training and revert to brute strength alone. On one distressing occasion, Avrel witnessed a hotheaded yearling underneath a skriking cluster of darklings. For that bear, there was no hope of survival.

  On the island itself, opposition was minimal. This was partly due to confusion. Even as news of the bears began to spread, men could be seen wandering aimlessly about, examining their skin or their companions’ eyes. Something was draining the Shadow out of them. They were becoming human again. Snow fell on every shoreline all the same, greatly outnumbering the men who were there. They were faced with simple choices: fight a physically superior opponent, hide where they could, or lay down their weapons. Under Avrel’s orders, those that fought were dealt with mercifully. Those that surrendered — the vast majority — were shuffled into groups and guarded. Those that hid were simply ignored.

  One of those who managed to escape the roundup was the man who’d been ordered to hold Lucy hostage. His plan had been to keep her in a cave at sea level. She was a feisty, kicking wretch, and a journey to the windswept higher ledges with an ex-commander who was constantly spouting all the different, colorful ways she could kill him was deeply unappealing.

  The arrival of the polar bears changed his mind.

  “Up,” he ordered, jabbing her ribs with the butt of his sword. Though wary of her old authority, he was still far broader and stronger than she and there was little she could do to resist — except talk.

  “Let me go, you idiot! Voss needs me to fight.”

  “There ain’t no fighting.”

  “Let me see!”

  He allowed her to stop and shuffle around. Sure enough, he wasn’t lying. Voss’s men were being herded into groups by bears. One bear, a young-looking animal with a deeply intelligent air about him, was set apart from the rest. He was scanning every dent in the lower escarpments. A sudden rumble drew his gaze to the peak of the island, offering Lucy a better look at his face. “I know him,” she murmured.

  “’Course you do,” the guard said. He bundled her around and forced her up the slope. “I was very good friends with the fish I had for lunch. Walk.” They had gone ten steps when another rumble sounded, causing a quake that chased a flurry of rocks into their path. The guard slipped and cussed as he tried to avoid them. “What’s wrong with that idiot dragon?”

  Lucy’s reply was to turn and kick him under the chin. She heard the crisp smack as his jaw snapped shut. He staggered backward, swimming in air, then eventually lost his balance and fell. Lucy scrabbled down to finish him off. One more kick, she hoped, would knock him out. But the guard was more shocked t
han hurt. He caught her foot and with a roar upended her, leaving her close to a serious drop. She wriggled away from the draw of the edge, desperate to find a snag of stone she could use to cut the bindings from her hands. But he was up again, dragging an arm across his mouth. He spat out a tooth and picked up his sword. “You’ll wish you ’adn’t done that.”

  He taunted her with a sweep of the blade. Instinctively, she scrabbled away. But as she swapped her gaze between the drop and the sword, she saw an opportunity to reason with him. “Your hand. Look at your hand.”

  He snorted with laughter. “I ain’t falling for yer tricks. You ain’t livin’ to tell no tales of this. When I’m done here, trust me, no one’s gonna find yer.”

  “I mean it. Your hand. You’re changing. We all are.” She could feel it — and definitely see it in him. The weblike patterns of the Shadow were fading.

  Still he ignored her and whirled the sword. He might have been approaching humanity again, but he was dredging up the very worst side of it. “Never liked taking your orders neither.”

  Then a new voice said, “You should be careful, soldier — making admissions like that.”

  The guard whipped around and immediately took another blow to the chin, this time from the end of Tam Farrell’s fist. The man pirouetted once and fell without a sound, into the maw of rocks below.

  On the distant clank of the sword, Lucy said, “Technically, that’s treason, Commander.”

  He knelt and untied her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t I have a history of saving your life?”

  She gripped her wrist and flexed some bright red blood into her fingers. Green veins. Pink skin. Red blood. Red hair. “What happened to us?”

  “Don’t know exactly. Maybe these guys can tell us.” He showed her the polar bears glowing in his palms.

  Before she could comment, the ground around them juddered and the sky was set alight by a plume of flame. “Look out!” cried Tam, as a shower of ash and white-hot debris came fizzling down like angry rain. He grabbed Lucy and flattened her against his chest.