The Last Dragon Chronicles #4: The Fire Eternal (25 page)

“Because it would have been worse if I hadn’t,” Zanna whispered.

And the tears went on. And the guilt poured out.
“It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” Zanna told her, time after time.

Then the dam broke and Lucy began to blubber frenziedly, finally spilling out what had happened after Blackburn, words about the island, and the Darkling — and Tam.

Zanna pulled back a little so she could see Lucy’s eyes. “You mean Farlowe Island? That’s where the time rift took you?” She gave the girl a
shake. “Lucy, talk to me. This is important. Tam went after you. No one’s heard from him since. Did he reach you on the island? Lucy, what happened?”

“They got him,” she said. Her head lolled against her shoulder.

Zanna swallowed tightly and looked away. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know.” And the tears came again.

“All right,” Zanna said, rocking her gently. “Listen, I want you to go to bed. I
want you to sleep for as long as you need to. You’re exhausted, Luce. You need to lie down and rest.”

“Can’t. Mom needs me. She —”

Zanna cut her off with a gentle shush. With a palm supporting Lucy’s cheek, she said, “Your mom is better left alone right now.”

Alexa came into the hall just then, carrying a half-peeled mushroom. She paused, knock-kneed, wondering what was happening.

Zanna said,
“Lexie, will you sit upstairs with Lucy? She’s tired — but she wants someone to talk to for a while.”

Alexa put the mushroom on a step of the stairs. She called Bonnington, who came trotting on four kitty paws down the hall. Alexa picked up Lucy’s hand. “Shall we read a story?”

Lucy’s bottom lip trembled.

“A story would be perfect,” Zanna said. And to her great relief, all three of them went
up.

A dark silence gathered at the foot of the stairs. Zanna took out her cell but didn’t dial. She stared at the door and thought about Tam. His quest to find David, his bravado at Blackburn. And how she had cursed him a dozen times since, not because it should
have been her on that island, but because she had known that one day she might have to sit like this and deal with the crushing responsibility
of the moment.

She called Arthur, seeking advice.

He called back ten minutes later. He had tried to contact Bernard, but that line was dead, and the brethren’s general communications had only just been restored. There was “sickness” on the island, he said.

“Sickness?”

“A partial euphemism. They don’t want visitors, Zanna.”

“Did you ask about Tam?”

“The brother I spoke to claimed he knew
nothing. When I pressed him, he was clearly too afraid to speak out. But before he hung up he gave me a clue: He said their rowboat was gone.”

Zanna looked at the door again, at the chain bolt dangling free. She walked away from it, down the hall into the kitchen. “Are we in danger?”

“I don’t think so. I believe the Ix are defeated — for now. Have you had the television on today? The mist
across
the Arctic has bulged near the pole. Reconnaissance photographs are showing some kind of developing activity. One of the pilots who witnessed it said it was ‘like a child playing underneath a blanket.’ An aircraft dropped a probe into the cloud, but all signals were immediately lost.”

“And this is good?”

“I don’t feel it’s bad. Has … Alexa said anything?”

Zanna peered at the drawings, still
tacked to the kitchen wall. Dragons and polar bears. That fabulous eye. “No, nothing. But Liz knows about Gwillan.”

“Shall I come home?”

“If you can. It might help. I’ve asked Gretel to give her a potion. She’s resting now, but when she wakes again the grief is going to come back hard. It would comfort her to know you’re around.”

There was silence a moment, then Arthur said, “She’ll be grateful
you told her — you know that, don’t you?”

Zanna touched the hollow at the nape of her neck. “I hate myself, Arthur.”

And she ended the call.

For the next half hour, Zanna busied herself with the stuff of housekeeping, mainly preparing an early evening meal. She was putting dinner into the oven when the doorbell rang.

The listening dragon pricked its ears.

Alexa came thumping down the stairs
and as usual reached the door first. As she opened it, Zanna gave a terrified start. It was him. Tam Farrell. Clean shaven. Kind eyes. Heart-melting lowlands accent.

Tam.

“Hello, Zanna.” He glanced sweetly at Alexa. A genuine smile. No hint of any threat.

“You’re Lucy’s friend,” said the child.

He gave a splutter of surprise. “Yes. Yes, I am. Is Lucy … in?”

“She’s sleeping,” said Zanna, moving
forward. She grasped the edge of the door, making a barricade in front of Alexa.

Tam eased back, sliding his hands into his pockets. There were raindrops staining his black pilot jacket.
“I’ve come a long way, Zanna. Farther than Blackburn.”

She let his gaze sink into her, and hated him briefly for disabling all her doubts.

“Are you going to stay for tea?” Alexa asked Tam. She was up now, turning
sideways on her toes.

He looked at Zanna. She let her shoulders fall. “Go into the kitchen,” she said.

They had a cup of tea. Cake. All the Pennykettle trimmings. Alexa chattered furiously and showed Tam her drawings. He in turn recited poems that made her laugh. Zanna found it all just a little surreal. She was beginning to wonder just where this was going when Bonnington put in a moody appearance.
He was trying to escape from Gwilanna, who entered via the back door just as Tam was offering to juggle apples for Alexa.

He rose politely instead.

“Who is this?” Gwilanna snapped, every bit as austere as the gray two-piece suit she was wearing.

“A friend,” Zanna said.

Tam proffered a hand.

The sibyl refused it and quickly passed her right hand in front of his face. Zanna saw it was a hex,
a mild form of hypnosis, and was about to utter sharp words of rebuke when she realized Tam Farrell hadn’t flinched.

Gwilanna breathed in sharply. With a voice that might have driven forth a blizzard she said, “He has the mark of Oomara upon him.” She gave a disgusted sniff. “And he smells of
bears.”

“I like bears,” said Alexa.

“Be quiet, child.” Gwilanna narrowed her gaze. “Who are you? Why
are you here?”

He sat down calmly, slipping his fingers through the handle of the mug he’d just emptied of tea. “My name is Tam Farrell. I’ve come to fulfill a promise to Lucy. I said I would help her to … protect the environment.”

“He’s a journalist,” said Zanna.

“Is
he,” said Gwilanna, but it was not a question. She ran an overgrown fingernail under Tam’s eye, digging down slightly to lower
the lid. “You’ve
commingled,” she whispered, reading his retina with the telescope of her witchery. “You —” She stopped speaking and pulled away sharply. “You and I have met before. How can that be?”

“Tam tells poems,” Alexa said gaily.

“And stories — of the North,” he added darkly, turning the handle of his mug toward Gwilanna.

The sibyl, slightly startled, jutted her chin. “How is Elizabeth?”
she snapped at Zanna.

“Talking. I had to tell her about —”

“Good.” The sibyl opened the door again.

“Hey, slow down. Aren’t you going up to see her?”

“Tomorrow, perhaps. Gretel knows what to do.” And glancing warily at Tam, the old woman swept out as quickly as she’d come in.

Zanna threw up her hands.

Alexa said,
“Hhh!
She didn’t take her mushrooms.”

“Good, ‘cause I’d be tempted to —”

“Poison them,” Zanna was about to say, but stopped herself when she realized that this was her chance to
be alone finally with Tam. “Yes, well, you’d better run after her, then. Stay a while if you want to.”

Alexa grabbed a basket. “Will you juggle apples for me when I come back?”

“Four,” said Tam. “And an orange, too.”

Alexa’s eyes grew as large as saucers. She set her shoulders straight and
whizzed away.

“She’s cute,” he said, as Zanna shut the door.

“She’s none of your business. All right, talk.”

“I would
like
to see Lucy.”

“She’s asleep. You talk to me.”

“You still hate me?”

“Not if you tell me the truth.”

He put a hand to his heart. “You saved my life, Zanna. Lucy’s, too. Why would I want to lie to you?” And he told her all that he remembered from the island. Everything
about the Ix, the Darkling, and how he had escaped. “At the end, I couldn’t be sure whether the Ix had left the monks completely, so I stowed away in the boathouse and rowed off the island the next day when
the water was calm. I’ll go back at an appropriate time and tell the brothers what I know.”

By now, he was onto his second mug of tea. Zanna opened a fresh box of cookies. “That creature you
mentioned, the one that disappeared. What do you think happened to it?”

“The Darkling was on a time rift. Something either cloaked it — or moved it for safekeeping.”

“The Ix?”

He shook his head. “No, don’t think so. Not unless it was an emergency measure. They appeared to be defeated by then anyway. I think it was the same source that sent the snow.”

She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. It made
her look quirkily beautiful, he thought.

“Snow is a natural phenomenon, Tam. It’s not sent, it falls.”

“Not in the shape of polar bears, it doesn’t.”

She snapped a cookie in two and laughed.

“They weren’t
snowflakes,
Zanna. They were
bear
flakes. A small pack of them, come to battle the Ix.”

He leaned back in his chair. His foot tapped the floor. “Two of them landed on my hands. Since then
I’ve remembered things about the Arctic — stuff I shouldn’t know, legends I can’t know — coupled with a crushing desire to protect you and Lucy.”

Zanna put her cookie down on a plate. She dropped her hands into her lap and glanced at Gauge, who was sitting on the windowsill just behind Tam. The timing dragon made a five past zero pose. Five minutes before dinner came out of the oven. “I’m afraid
I’ll have to ask you to leave now,” she said. “In any other circumstance, I’d invite you to stay for dinner. But things have been difficult. Your presence won’t make it easier.”

She lifted his car keys out of a wicker bowl and put them down on the table in front of him. “It’s still in Blackburn, I’m afraid.”

He gave a nod of understanding and rose to leave.

“One thing,” she asked, as he repositioned
his chair. “Why would Lucy’s … aunt think she’d met you before?”

He glanced at the drawings Alexa had made. “Must be that scent of polar bear,” he said. “Are you familiar with the word ‘Nanukapik’?”

“I might be. What of it?”

“There is a great bear in the Arctic — but I think the world is about to discover that he’s not confined to the north. Tell Lucy I called.”

He leaned forward and kissed
her cheek. Zanna averted her eyes. Her gaze was still fixed on Bonnington’s cat flap when she heard the front door close. “Question,” she said to the listener, in dragontongue. “What color were his eyes?”

“Brown,” it replied.

Brown, like a bear’s. Zanna swallowed and felt a sudden weakness in her back. When she’d first met Tam, she’d remembered them as blue.

It was like a viral sickness. A
condition that didn’t quite bring you down, but that you carried every day, in every fiber of your being, wondering if it was ever going to come to an end.

So many signs were pointing to David.

So many times, Zanna felt so alone.

She made Alexa promise not to talk about Tam and told Lucy of his visit herself the next morning. Lucy was in her bathrobe, eating breakfast. Her mouth stayed open
for a full ten seconds. She was not a pretty sight, with rings of tiredness darkening her eyes, her hair unbrushed and like a squirrel’s nest, and milky half-chewed cornflakes around her teeth.

Strangely, the expected tantrum didn’t happen. Lucy, though shocked and clearly disappointed, seemed to understand. “Will he come back? Do you think I should call him?”

Zanna recalled his remark about
protecting them. “He’ll come back.”

Lucy put her bowl down. “I’m scared,” she wailed. “I have dreams about the Darkling hunting for us, hurting Mom, killing the dragons.”

On the fridge top, the listener rattled its scales.

“It won’t come,” Zanna said, stroking the brilliant red hair. “Tam told me how you fooled the Ix by
making the Darkling without a heart. That was pretty smart.”

“What did
you do with it?”

“With what?”

“The heart.”

Zanna frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t be dumb. ‘Course you
do.
They made me use it on Mom. You knocked it from my hand. It must still be in the garden. I’m going out to look.”

“Whoa!” Zanna caught her as she tried to stand. “That knife was the Darkling’s
heart?”

“Yes!”

And Gwilanna must have known it,
Zanna decided. That
was why she didn’t want to see it tossed out. Tough. The thing was in pieces now. “It’s in the trash, wrecked. When the garbage men come tomorrow it’ll be nothing but dust.”

“It’s evil,” said Lucy, meeting Zanna’s eyes.

“It’s dust,” Zanna told her, and clinked the cereal bowl, indicating Lucy should get on with her breakfast.

That afternoon, Zanna had a visitor. Henry Bacon dropped by looking
thwarted. “Gwyneth,” he grumbled, spread-eagling himself on Bonnington’s favorite chair (and just about filling half the kitchen).

Zanna was ironing. “Yeah, I’ve got some issues with her myself. What’s the scheming old crone been up to now — other than abandoning Liz to me and Gretel?”

“Gone,” said Henry.

Zanna lifted the iron. “What, you mean she left?”

“Just took off.”

“Not —?” No, ravens
were best left out of this.

“Can’t understand it,” Henry muttered. “One minute she was grateful for the use of the room, then she disappears without a word of good-bye. All very odd.”