The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (11 page)

“Have you come far?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Are you lost?”

I was looking round, not really listening to her. To the west of the hill we were on, a long spine of mountains ran into the

distance, none with a shape I remembered or recognised. And there was something else, too. On the horizon, a vast grey shimmer. “Is that…
 
the sea
?” I asked. I

had heard about this endless stretch of

water and always hoped I would visit it one day.

Guinevere looked casually over her shoulder. “If that surprises you,” she said, “you really are a long, long way from home. That’s the Great Sea of the North.

My favourite place in the world. When Idie, I want to float out there and let myspirit gaze at the stars.” She cleared herthroat, making me look at her. “The milk?”she said, smiling.

“Um. Sorry.” I sat down and put myhands to work. That was when I noticed a

change in myself. My hands were larger

and nowhere near as delicate.

You have aged
, said the Fain.

“How much?” I said aloud.

“Sorry?” said Guinevere, raising her

head.

“I… was… wondering how much milk

you wanted.”

She tilted her head and looked at me

oddly. A warm breeze caught the sides of her hair and lifted it back, away from her face. “Till they’re done, of course. But don’t leave them sore. You do
 
know
 
how

to milk a goat, don’t you?”

I nodded like an oaf and looked down

at the pail.

By now, Galen’s auma was spreading

through me, growing more active as it

melded with my mind. I could sense my surroundings like I never had before. I was measuring distance in all directions, through lines in the Earth I never knew existed. I drew a mental image of Mount Kasgerden and was able to calculate how far we’d come. A whole landmass. Thirty days’ ride on horseback. Though why the tornaq had delivered me here was yet to become apparent. Just then, a small bird flew into the tree. My nostrils swelled and my ears moved back. I could smell the creature in every detail, from its waxy neck feathers to its stalky little legs. I could detect its movements from the heat

trails it left. More importantly, when I pitched those senses further afield I was able to register a human form. Higher up

the hill, in a set of small interlocking caves, was the old woman Guinevere had talked about.

“She’s called Gwilanna.”

My ears flexed again, making me

wince. “Gwilanna?”

“I thought I saw you looking. Up there.

At the caves. You’ll meet her soon

enough. She probably knows you’re here

already.”

“How?”

“She’s a sibyl.”

She saw my face change.

“You’ve met one before?”

“Briefly,” I said. “Are you apprentice

to her?”

She moved the goat and whistled toanother. It trotted forward. She began to

milk that. “You speak as if you know about such things. Are you a seer’s boy? You dress like one.”

Boy. So I was still not a man, despitethe shift of time and the look of my hands. “I was on a quest. I had to leave my seerbehind.” And what had become of Yolen?

I wondered. Would he be looking for menow – or still?

“And it brought you to Iunavik, this ‘quest’?” she said.

“It’s a long story.”

“I like stories, Agawin.” She flipped her hair and went back to her goat. But this time, instead of conversing with me, out of her mouth came a beautiful song. There were no words to it, just a spiralling melody that seemed to bend the

hill flowers and charm every cloud in the sky to a stop. The dragon within me began to stir. But rather than rise up or twist my ears, all I felt was calm flowing through me. Before I knew it I was falling sideways. I slumped over, kicking the pail down the hill.

I came round in Guinevere’s arms. She

was carrying me,
 
carrying me
, towards the caves. “H-How are you doing this?” I asked. Though I was young, I had to be heavy. And she was so slight.

“I don’t know,” she said. “When I ran to your aid I found you were no heavier to lift than a bird.”

The dragon
, said the Fain, soundingdistant   and   fuzzy.
 
Galen is able to

suspend his mass.

How?

By commingling with the universalenergy field. A procedure that enableshim to step outside of time
.
 
We do notfully understand this yet.

And neither did I, though it made methink of Brunne and the secret he was

trying to reveal. “Where are you taking

me?”

“To Gwilanna. She heals all ills.”

Be wary
, said the Fain.
 
Be wary of thissibyl.

“What happened? Back there, on thehill?”

“I was singing and you collapsed.”

“Singing?”

“Laaa… and then you fell over.”

“Where are the goats?” I tried to look

back for them.

“In a pen. Don’t worry. They can’t stray

or be taken.”

“Pen?” I said. The hillside was broad

and mostly grassy; I hadn’t seen any sign of an enclosure. But when I looked back I

saw four square sides of fencing poles with the goat herd gathered inside them. “How did that get there?”

“I made it,” she said, with a gentle shrug.

I gave her a questioning look.

“Don’t you imagineer, where you come from?”

Before I had a chance to query that, shesaid, “Can you walk now?”

I nodded and she set me down.

“Promise me you won’t float away on the breeze?” She smiled and pointed to the caves. “This is it. We’re here.”

We were standing in front of a rockyoutcrop about halfway up the hill, facinginto the valley. Apart from a ragged slit inthe stone, barely wide enough for a goat toslip through, there was nothing to suggestthat anyone lived here. “It’s biggerinside,” she said.

As she made to go in, I held her arm. “Tell me about the pen. Are you sayingyou imagined it in your mind and itappeared exactly the way you saw it?”

She nodded. “It’s not a difficult

construct.”

“The sibyl taught you this skill?”

“Everything I know I learned from

Gwilanna.”

“How long have you served her?”

She tossed her hair and looked towards

the mountains. “She found me, abandoned, on the shores of the sea. I remember

nothing  before  Gwilanna.   She’s  the closest thing I have to a mother. Come on.”

We dipped our heads and squeezedinside. The entrance was tight, but withina few paces the rock had opened up into anatural void and I could move around

freely without the pressure of stone against my chest. There was a slight smell of dung, as though something wild had sheltered here once. But the overwhelming odour was of charred wood and smoke.

The only light was the daylight that

followed us in and a faint amber glow from a passage to our left. From the back of my throat came a stream of clicks, too fine for Guinevere to hear but strong enough to bounce off the walls of the cave. They described in their echo every dent and swollen curve of our surroundings. At the same time, the muscles behind my eyes began to stretch as the dragon reworked their limited capabilities. Well before we had entered the final chamber, where the sibyl sat tending a modest fire, I could see the entire shape of her dwelling. Larger than mine in the hills beyond Horste. Strewn with furs and bones and pots, all containing seeds or dried-up plant life. And on a ledge hollowed out of the rock in front of her was a skull, sitting on a

folded piece of cloth.

“You’re late,” she said, without looking up. She was hunched over the fire with her back to us. I thought I saw a black-winged beetle crawling in the knots of her crusted hair. A stone cooking pot hung over the heat. Something like rabbit was stewing in it, casting its sickly-sweet scent around the walls.

“I found a boy,” said Guinevere. “He needs your help.”

The sibyl sat up, slow and straight.

She knows you are Premen
 
, the Fain said warily.

Can she read the dragon?

Too early to tell.

She wagged a finger at a boulder by her right knee. “Let me see you, boy.”

I looked at Guinevere, who gave aquick nod. I sat down. The sibyl slantedher gaze my way. She had a downturnedmouth and shaded crescents underneath

both eyes. Her cheeks resembled the skin of a plum that was just about ready to sag and wither. At first glance she appeared to be as old as the cave. Yet, in her eyes, was the liveliness of youth. And though I had no memory of her faded face, strangely, like Guinevere, I felt I knew her.

“What ails you, boy?”

“He had a fainting sickness,” Guinevere said, perching on a rock at the sibyl’s other side.

“I wasn’t talking to you. Where’s my

milk?”

“I left it so I could bring him here. It’s

safe. The bears won’t find it.”

“Bears?” I sat up, mildly alarmed. If a bear had strayed towards Yolen’s cave, we would have been out with firesticks, scaring it.

“From the woods, further north. They snuffle around the cave mouth, foraging for scraps. They’re harmless as long as

”

—

“Be quiet,” said Gwilanna. She turned to me again. “Give me your hand.”

Show no aggression
 
, the Fain advised. I could feel them keeping the dragon in check.

I extended my arm. The sibyl took mywrist. Her touch was light, but as cold asdeath. Her fingernails curled like the toes

of a bird, drawing the blood to the surface of my skin. “What were you doing when this sickness struck you?”

“We were milking,” Guinevere put in again, “and I was singing him an old lullaby. The dragon song. The one you taught me. Maybe he just fell asleep?” Her green eyes shone. She put her hair behind her ears.

Gwilanna tightened her grip on my arm. By now, the Fain had completely shutdown, masking Galen’s presence. But Iwas sure the sibyl was searching forsomething she wouldn’t expect to findwithin a normal boy. “Where are youfrom?” she asked, barely parting her lips. She leaned forward, shaking dust from herclothes. She wasn’t dressed like a hill

woman should be. Her garment was long and filthy and ragged, severed at the knee for ease of movement. But it wasn’t plain: there was stitching round the neck. It struck me that it could have been made in

—

“
Answer me
.” The sibyl’s hand burned against my skin.

“Don’t hurt him,” said Guinevere. “What harm’s he done to us?”

“I think I’ve travelled far,” I told Gwilanna. “But… I’m not sure how I got here.” And perhaps because there was some truth in this statement the sibyl decided to let me go.

“The boy is not ill; he’s hungry,” she said, throwing my hand back into my lap.

“Can he share your stew?”

“No, he cannot. I will prepare him a herbal broth. Go outside, girl. Pick some mushrooms. Do not dally or talk to bears.”

I shot a glance at Guinevere. “You talk to bears?” She made objects out of nothing and she
 
talked
 
to bears?

“We share a love of the land,” she said. “What resonates in Gaia, speaks through Gaia. Where
 
are
 
you from if you don’t

know that?”

“Leave us,” said Gwilanna, batting a

hand.

The girl jumped up. “By the way, hedoesn’t imagineer.”

“I said, leave us.”

Guinevere sighed and hurried out.

The sibyl picked up a twisted branchand poked the fire as if she was stabbing

an old wasp’s nest. “I must intrigue you greatly, boy. Your face is full of a thousand questions.”

I straightened my mouth. “Will you

answer   one   for   me?   How   does

‘imagineering’ work? How can you make an object appear just by… thinking about it?” I was picturing Guinevere’s pen around the goats, but remembering that the Fain had also used the term to tell me how

my   tapestry   had   developed.   From nowhere, the child’s voice swam into my mind.
 
Sometimes we will be Agawin. And sometimes we will be…

“Tell me,” said the sibyl, “have you ever seen a dragon?”