The Fire Chronicle (26 page)

“We will find your sister and kill the beast that took her.”

“But what if—what if she’s already—”

Gabriel lunged, seizing a handful of Michael’s shirt. His face was cloaked in shadow, his voice a growl.

“She is alive. She is alive, and we will find her. Now—come!”

And he sprinted away across the clearing, with Michael staggering along behind.

Michael lost track of time. Half an hour. An hour. Gabriel kept disappearing into the darkness, leaving Michael to carve his own path through the thicket of ferns that blanketed the forest floor. Again and again, just when Michael was convinced that Gabriel
had finally abandoned him, the man would appear from behind a tree, hissing, “This way! Faster!” and Michael would push himself on as the ferns beat at his arms and face and the same refrain played over and over in his head:

You lost Kate, and now you lost Emma.…

You lost Kate, and now you lost Emma.…

You lost Emma.…

You lost Emma.…

Then, abruptly, the trees and ferns ended, and Michael stepped out onto a rocky plain and found Gabriel waiting. Free of the weight of the forest, Michael felt the immense openness of the night sky, and he took a deep, relieved breath.

“There. You see?”

Gabriel was pointing up the valley to where the volcano rose from the plain, a quarter of a mile distant. It had not occurred to Michael what direction they were heading in, and he stared now in wonder. The volcano took up almost the entire width of the plain, a perfect pyramid rising nearly to the height of the canyon walls. Looking up, Michael could see an ominous red glow emanating from the cone.

Unbidden, the memories he’d acquired in Malpesa came surging up, and he had again the feeling of déjà vu. The
Chronicle
was close.

“You see it?” Gabriel asked.

Michael realized that Gabriel was pointing to a spot about a third of the way up the volcano’s slope, where a light flickered in the dark. Squinting, Michael could just discern the outline of a large structure. The dead man’s memories filled in the rest.

“It’s the Order’s fortress,” he said. “This is where they brought the book.”

“What I care about,” Gabriel said, “is finding your sister.”

And they set off once more.

The lower slope of the volcano was a jumble of giant black rocks, and Michael had to clamber upward on all fours as Gabriel strode ahead. Soon, the boulders gave way to small rocks and scree, and for every two steps, Michael slid back one. Still, he kept on. By now, the fortress was in sharp relief, and Michael could make out thirty-foot-high walls of black stone, ramparts and battlements where a defender might take position. He could see nothing of the buildings inside the walls save a lone tower that rose into the sky, at the crown of which a fire blazed forth.

It was an impressive, imposing structure, but Michael couldn’t help but question the wisdom of building on the side of a volcano.

“I mean,” he muttered, panting his way up the slope, “they do blow up after all.”

Gabriel was standing before the fortress gates, a pair of heavy wooden doors the height of the walls, and Michael arrived trembling and out of breath.

“Sorry. I’m … actually in excellent shape. Must be the altitude—”

“Look.”

Gabriel gestured to the three interlocking circles carved into the door. The fortress, the whole valley, was still and silent.

Michael whispered, “Do you … think they know we’re here?”

Gabriel picked up a large rock and hammered—
thud—thud—thud—thud
—till the doors swung open. He dropped the rock.

“Yes.”

With Gabriel leading, they passed into a courtyard of packed earth. Michael waited, and when no arrows came whistling out of the dark, he relaxed and allowed himself a quick survey. The fortress had been built on a flattened plot a hundred feet wide and perhaps twice that in depth. The central courtyard—where he and Gabriel stood—was dominated by a two-story stone building with long, narrow windows. The high, flame-topped tower rose from the building’s back corner. A wooden skeleton of ladders and catwalks clung to the inside of the fortress walls, providing access to the battlements. Other than that, Michael saw a few ramshackle structures—a small pen for livestock, a blacksmith’s forge, several storerooms—and all were dark and empty.

Gabriel unsheathed his falchion. “Stay behind me.”

Michael didn’t argue.

Gabriel kicked open the door of the stone building, and they stepped into a large, high-ceilinged room. Thick-bodied columns ran the length of the chamber, while an eerie red glow, rising from a gap in the floor, pushed back the darkness. The building was a keep, Michael realized, a place to retreat to should the fortress be breached.

They advanced slowly to the gap in the center of the floor. It was perhaps fifteen feet square, and there were a dozen steps leading down to a heavy iron gate, past which Michael could make out the mouth of a tunnel. The red glow was coming from deep in
the volcano, and the heat rose up and stung Michael’s eyes. Still, he could feel himself being pulled forward by an invisible force.

“The
Chronicle
is down there,” he said quietly.

“Then it is not alone.”

Michael glanced at him, questioning.

“That gate locks from the outside,” Gabriel said. “It is not meant to keep us out; it is to keep something in.”

He nodded upward, and Michael found himself looking through a large, jagged hole in the keep’s ceiling. The hole was directly over the mouth of the tunnel, and Michael imagined that something very big—something, say, dragon-sized—had come roaring out and blasted through the roof of the keep.

Except that the gate over the tunnel was down and locked, which meant the dragon had returned home. Michael thought of the creature he’d glimpsed in the clearing, the huge, razor-sharp talons, fangs the length of his arm.…

“I guess,” he said, trying to sound gruff and ready and not completely, bone-shakingly terrified, “we should go down there, huh?”

“Yes.”

Michael nodded. And suddenly he knew that scared or not, if going into the tunnel was the way to save Emma, he would do it. Though he wondered if he should take a moment to stretch.

“But first,” Gabriel said, “we will search the tower.”

“What? Why?”

“The dragon did not close that gate. I want to know who did.”

He headed for a doorway in the far corner, through which a set of stairs could be seen climbing upward. Michael hurried after him, and for a few moments, the chamber was still. Then a shadow separated from one of the columns, and a cloaked figure drew a sword and followed.

“Emma!”

Michael ran forward and threw his arms around his sister.

He and Gabriel had reached the top of the tower. Climbing the last flight of stairs, Michael had looked up and seen the night sky still brimming with stars, the looming, snowcapped mountains, the red and smoking cone of the volcano; he’d seen a fire burning in a brazier on the tower wall; he’d been nervous, not knowing who or what might be waiting in ambush; then he saw Gabriel stiffen in surprise, and he turned and there was his own sister, alive and unharmed.

“Oh, Emma!” He hugged her as if he would never let her go ever again. “I was so worried! Gabriel too! We were both really, really worried!”

Gabriel said his name, but Michael ignored it.

“Emma,” he said, holding her arms and stepping away. Now that she was safely back, he felt the need to be the stern older brother. “I know you’ve been through an ordeal, but I did ask you to stay out of that clearing. I think there’s a lesson here, don’t you? Perhaps you should pay more attention when I tell you things?”

“Michael …”

“Just a moment, Gabriel. Emma, do you hear me?”

“No, I do not think she does.”

“What? What’re you—?” Then Michael finally realized that the whole time he’d been hugging her, Emma hadn’t once groaned or tried to push him away or made a joke about why didn’t he go hug a dwarf.

“Something has frozen her,” Gabriel said.

For a moment, Michael stared at his motionless sister. Her arms were stiff at her sides and her eyes unblinking; the curled tip of a fern was stuck in her mud-caked hair. As he reached over and plucked it out, he felt the coldness of her skin.

Then he said faintly, hopelessly, “Can you fix her?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“What about Dr. Pym?”

Gabriel hesitated only a fraction of a second, but Michael understood. They had left the wizard fighting for his life in Malpesa. Who could say when they would see him again?

“Never mind,” he said. “I know—”

Without warning, Gabriel spun around, his falchion hissing through the air; there was a loud metallic
clang
, and Michael turned to see a cloaked, sword-wielding man stagger back.

The man had almond-colored skin, long, unkempt black hair, and a wild black beard. He was shorter than Gabriel and very thin. His clothes were ragged and patched and looked to have been salvaged from a dozen different sources, giving him the appearance of a down-on-his-luck harlequin. Michael’s eyes went to the man’s tunic, where, stitched into the fabric, were three faded, interlocking circles.

Gabriel took a step forward, more to shield Michael than to attack, but the man dropped his sword, threw up his hands, and
fell to his knees, crying, “I yield! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill poor Bert!” and promptly burst into tears.

“He’s not what I expected,” Michael said.

“He has likely been here a long time,” Gabriel said. “Perhaps alone. Solitude can have a terrible effect on the mind.”

That much, Michael thought, was obvious.

The man had finally stopped whimpering and seemed to believe, at least for the time being, that Gabriel and Michael were not going to murder him. He was sitting on the short wall that encircled the tower and consoling himself by munching on a fat black beetle he’d taken from a pocket of his cloak.

“I just expected someone … cleaner. And not named Bert.”

“Do you want to question him or shall I?” Gabriel asked.

That was clearly the next step. Finding out who the man was. Was he indeed a member of the Order? Was he alone here or were there others? Was the dragon locked safely inside the volcano? Was it guarding the
Chronicle
? What was the dragon’s connection to the man? Why had it left Emma atop this tower? And, most importantly, what exactly had happened to her and could it be reversed?

Michael looked at his sister. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she’d been on the point of speaking; her eyes were narrowed, and there was a wrinkle of fury on her brow. Michael saw that her hands, down at her sides, were clenched into fists. He knew the signs and was not surprised: his sister had been fighting when she’d been frozen.

“I will.” Emma was his sister, his responsibility.

“Very well. I will be here if you need me. But be quick.” Gabriel gave him a meaningful look. “Sooner or later, the dragon will return.”

Michael conceded that Gabriel had a point. He stepped forward.

“Right. I want to ask you a few questions.”

The man had been picking at his teeth with one of the beetle’s legs, but now he sat up, running a hand down his beard, and put on an eager-to-please smile. He was crazy, Michael thought, but he appeared to be nice-crazy, and not I’ll-kill-you-I’ll-kill-you crazy.

“Happy to talk. Love having visitors. Bert hasn’t had any in, well, ever.” He spoke in choppy, heavily accented English. “Oh, Bert’s very sorry about the whole”—he mimed hacking at them with an imaginary sword. “He thought you were elves.”

“Yes, well, that’s certainly understandable,” Michael said. “No one wants elves sneaking about.” As he spoke, Michael was mentally reviewing passages from
The Dwarf Omnibus
about the art of interrogation (the
Omnibus
, as Michael had often reflected, really did touch on everything). He remembered that G. G. Greenleaf suggested first establishing rapport with your subject. He also said that when the subject’s guard was down, the interrogator should “whack him in the head with a club. He won’t see that coming! Ha!” Michael wasn’t planning anything quite so violent, but considering how skittish the man was, building rapport seemed like a good initial step. With that in mind, Michael tried to make his tone as chummy as possible. “So tell me, friend, you’re one of the Order of Guardians, aren’t you?”

The man shook his head. “No, no! Bert’s not one of the Order—”

“But you’ve got the symbol on your—”

“Bert’s not one of the Order! He’s all of the Order! He’s the last there is! Beginning, middle, and end!” He thumped his chest proudly.

Michael thought of the silent, deserted fortress and decided the man was telling the truth.

“What happened to the others?”

“Gone,” the man said quickly, in a way that told Michael there was more to the story. “Bert’s been alone for a very, very, very, very long time.” And he popped another beetle in his mouth.

“But you’re not completely alone. I mean, there’s a dragon here.”

The man jerked forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You’ve seen the dragon?”

“Yes. In the forest.” Then, as if it were the most casual thing in the world, Michael asked, “Just out of curiosity, where is the dragon now?”

The man raised a finger to his lips and pointed toward the volcano, whispering, “… Sleeping … best not to wake.”

Michael was taking note of the things he would return to later: the dragon, what had happened to the man’s comrades.… He decided it was time to come to the key issue.

“What can you tell me about my sister?”

The man’s eyes widened. “That’s your sister? Oh. Oh no.…”

“What do you mean, oh no? What’s happened to her?”

“Well, she’s frozen, isn’t she? Thought that much was fairly obvious.”

“I can see that!” Michael felt his let’s-be-friends mask slip for a second. “But what froze her in the first place? Dragons don’t freeze people. It’s not in any of the literature.”

The man began nervously braiding his beard. “Hmm, well, Bert didn’t know she was your sister. Dragon just dumped her in Bert’s lap! She was very loud. Lots of threats. About how a certain fellow was going to cut off Bert’s head! Shouting, shouting, shouting. All these years alone, Bert isn’t used to so much yelling. And she kicked Bert in the shin—hard! Bert will have a bruise tomorrow!”