Lucy meets her destiny
The arrival on the scene of darklings and hordes of Ix entities intensifies the situation even further and a full-scale battle commences in the skies over Scuffenbury.
Dun-dun-dunnnn … You know what to do to find out whether Lucy — or any of the other characters — survive or not. What happens to Liz’s child — if indeed it is a child? What fate has Gwilanna brought upon herself?
What is the new species that is to be introduced into the world, according to David? Will Mother Earth herself turn against its human occupants if the Ix win the battle and an inversion occurs? Will the light of the world turn finally to an eternal dark …?
Without giving too much away, the dramatic conclusion to the battle at Scuffenbury Hill sees the story take a sideways step into another dimension — literally.
Co:pern:ica, the “Fire World” of the title, is an experimental world created by the Fain using templates of humans from Earth. Thus, the people of Earth have counterparts on Co:pern:ica, “constructs” who are similar but not identical to themselves. The Co:pern:ican versions may differ by name or relationship, but have largely similar roles to play in their respective lives. All the regular characters from the first five books are here, but not as you’ve known them before. For example, Anders Bergstrom, on Earth a mentor to David Rain, becomes Thorren Strømberg, a psychological counselor to David Merriman. The people who inhabit Co:pern:ica have the ability to “imagineer” — to materialize objects from thought and intention alone. The idea behind the manifestation of this world was to create a society whereby everyone had access to all they needed, within certain limits set by the Higher (as the Fain are collectively known on Co:pern:ica).
Problems first occur when David, then twelve years old, begins to imagineer outside the Grand Design. This becomes apparent during his sleep cycles, when he has nighttime disturbances so severe that he is taken by his parents, Eliza and Harlan, to see Counselor Strømberg, who films him while asleep. The film reveals a surprising and frightening development.
For the first few frames, David lay on his back with his hands tucked under his therma:sol sheet. Then, just as if a pin had been stuck into his foot, his head twitched away from the camera and came violently back, making an audible whack against his pillow. He drew up his knees. His back arched slightly. His hands began to push the sheet away.
Suddenly, the screen flashed as if a light had popped. At the same time, David jerked up in bed with his jaws wide open and his lips curled back. Two of his teeth seemed slightly extended. His eyes, normally so placid and round, slanted sideward and briefly changed color from their usual deep blue to a strong shade of brown. With both hands he clawed wildly at the space in front of him, though nothing appeared to be occupying that space. And out of his throat came an uncommon noise. A roar, not unlike the sound of an engine.
On replaying the film at a slower speed, it becomes evident that David (morphed into a polar bear) was fighting something. Even more strangely, firebirds, the only creatures other than katts on Co:pern:ica, were involved in allaying the danger.
This time, as the colors slipped through the blinds, it was possible to see them re-expand into the familiar long-tailed shapes of the creatures that inhabited every part of Co:pern:ica. Firebirds. Four of them. Green, cream colored, sky blue, and red. They flew to David’s bed and hovered in the region of his flashing hands. It was then that Harlan witnessed something even more extraordinary. Just in front of David, over an area approximately two feet long, the air was rippling in a vertical line, as if the fabric of the universe was being torn apart.
“In the name of Co:pern:ica, what’s that?” Harlan muttered, and watched in fascination as the firebirds went about sealing the rift with bursts of the white-colored fire that was sometimes seen to issue from their nostrils. When it was done, they went back the way they’d come….
Harlan buried his hands inside his pockets and let his worried gaze drift back to the screen. The image of David remained there for a moment before Strømberg hit a button and cleared it. “He could be a danger to us all,” he said.
So how could a young boy morph into a polar bear? And what was he fighting? Counselor Strømberg asks David’s father, who is a scientist, a Professor of Realism, to investigate. Harlan subsequently discovers that the rift is a portal to another dimension, but within the same time frame. The disturbing conclusion from this is that something from another world has tried to contact David….
Thus, for his own safety, it is decreed that David be taken to Bushley librarium, to help calm him down. The librarium is a huge museum of books, and the largest firebird aerie on Co:pern:ica.
It rose out of the flowers like a great gray monolith. A single tall building with an uncountable number of floors. The upper floors were lost in wisps of cloud and the whole structure seemed to be bending backward as though it had reached a critical mass and was ready to topple over at any moment. Fine red sand (or something like it) was raining down from the joints in the brickwork and being taken away in skirts on the breeze. At ground level there was just one door. It was made of wood (unusually) and was twice Harlan’s height. It was already halfway open, despite the fact that a small sign badly attached to the door frame invited visitors to R NG THE BE L. Harlan moved forward to do just that and stepped on something that had spilled out of the doorway. It was a large-format book. He reached down and picked it up. It must have been thirty spins since he’d seen one. He smoothed a film of the red sand off the glossy cover and handed it to Eliza.
“The Art of Baking Cakes,” she read.
Harlan shrugged. “Welcome to the librarium.”
Eliza opened the pages and looked at several of the ancient digi:grafs. “Why do we keep this stuff? I could easily imagineer anything in this. I don’t understand what use this is to anyone.”
“Historical value,” Harlan said. He took the book from her and flipped through its pages. He showed a digi:graf of a chocolate gateau to David. The boy’s eyes lit up and he quickly imagineered a miniature version. He gave it to his mother.
Eliza smiled and de:constructed it. “Bad for your purity of vision,” she said.
“I think books are rather quaint,” said Harlan. “And they’re real, of course, not constructs.” He closed the book and laid it back in the doorway. “Our ancestors would have relied on these things.”
Eliza shook her head and looked up at the building. “Is this real, do you think?”
Harlan touched the brickwork, feeling its roughness, though that in itself was no proof of authenticity; anyone on Co:pern:ica could imagineer a brick. “Yes,” he said. “I’d be surprised if anyone had enough in their fain to put up something as large as this and still be able to maintain it.”
Eliza sighed and put her hands on David’s shoulders, pulling him back toward her a little. “Why would Strømberg send him to a relic like this?”
“Well, let’s begin the process of finding out.” This time, Harlan did press the bell.
To their surprise, the bell is answered by a girl named Rosa, who quickly becomes David’s best friend. Rosa is his age and the assistant of Mr. Henry, curator of the librarium. Her job, and now David’s, too, is to put the books into order, both by subject matter and alphabetically. This sounds a thankless — and deadly boring — task, but David soon finds out that books are not only fascinating things for all the information and entertainment they can provide, but also that these particular books, along with the building itself, are alive and filled with auma — energy. The only small niggle in David’s and Rosa’s idyllic lives is that they can never find a way to get beyond Floor 42, into the levels where they know the firebirds live.
All continues well until Harlan, while trying to recreate the rift in his lab, inadvertently causes a time-jolt and he and everyone connected with him ages eight years, instantly.
For this “crime” he and his assistant, Bernard Brotherton, are banished to the Dead Lands, a huge area of abandoned wasteland beyond Co:pern:ica Central’s city limits. Here, they find that isolated pockets of survivors are scratching out an existence for themselves, and the two men are sheltered by one such group, calling themselves Followers of Agawin, a mythical man-dragon of legend. Near to the group’s camp is a hill called the Isle of Alavon (it used to be surrounded by water). On the peak of this hill is a tower. Legend has it that the tower was the home of Agawin and is protected by a wraith. Harlan decides to investigate. Along with Bernard and two other men from the group, they reach the tower and find a large stone dais inside it….
Suddenly, Mathew Lefarr cried out: “Harlan, look up!”
There, in the circle of light above, was the apparition they had all imagined but never made flesh. A terrifying beast with wings like giant sheets of canvas. Eyes of yellow oil. Teeth like daggered rocks. It twisted and hissed and roared at the men, all the while lashing its dark red tongue…. The creature twisted its ingenious neck (every scale readjusted in one flowing arrow) and aimed its snout downward. Squeezing its nostrils tight, it sent forth a column of blue-white fire. The point of the flame struck the center of the dais. It burned for a sec in a crown of light, then was sucked back into the nostrils of the dragon. In its wake, something extraordinary followed. There was a grinding noise at the center of the dais, and the spot marked by the image of Agawin began to turn and work its way upward. At first it appeared that a plug of pure stone had lifted from the structure. But as Harlan’s eyes readjusted to the light, he saw that it was a receptacle of sorts. A cylinder, about the length of a man’s hand, made of a glistening, trans:lucent matter. With cinders in his hair and uncomfortable traces of singeing in his nostrils, he took a breath and closed his hand around it. The outer structure vanished as if it were dust, but when he pulled his hand away, inside it was something from another world.
Lefarr was too awestruck to speak at first. “What is it?” he asked eventually.
Harlan ran his thumb along the curved and jagged surface. “Something beyond our reality,” he whispered. “I believe it’s the claw of a dragon.”
Meanwhile, back in Bushley, David, hearing of his father’s arrest, has gone back home. To make matters worse for Rosa, two unethical “Aunts” named Primrose and Petunia, representatives of the powers-that-be on Co:pern:ica, arrive at the librarium. Under the orders of the Aunt Su:perior, Gwyneth (Gwilanna by any other name — oh, dear …), they attempt to steal the auma from the books to boost their powers of imagineering. Rosa finds the machine they are using to do this:
It was a thin flat pad, about half the size of a standard book cover. It had a sleek black screen, which appeared to have a number of thumbprints on its surface. Flashing lights were jumping back and forth across the bottom, as if the device were waiting for an input. Rosa had never troubled herself with elec:tronics and hadn’t sent a single :com in her life. Even so, she picked up the pad and pressed her finger to a likely area of the screen. It lit up at once. A message invited her to SCAN OBJECT. She looked at Aurielle. The firebird frowned. Object? thought Rosa. What object? And then it struck her: the books, of course. She picked one off the bed and slowly brought it into contact with the pad. To her horror, the pad came alive. Numbers. Lights. Menus. Colors.
The machine asks Rosa whether she wants it to absorb the collected energy, but instead she hurls the pad across the room and runs to the nearest shelf of books. She pulls one down and opens it —
For one moment nothing happened. But as she tilted the book, the periods, the commas, the question marks, and eventually the words themselves all began to slip from their places on the page until they were falling like ash around her feet.
“No,” she wailed. She sank to her knees, clutching the book to her heart.
They were dead, all of them. She knew it at once. Their auma taken. Their power destroyed….
Rosa looked tearfully over her shoulder. The Aunts were waking. She narrowed her gaze.
Good.
A tussle follows and the machine accidentally disgorges its auma into a strange three-lined scratch on Rosa’s arm. Not only can Rosa now read dragontongue, the language in which the mysterious Book of Agawin is written (maybe Agawin is not just a legend, after all?), but she can also understand the firebirds when they communicate. Invited onto the upper floors by them, she and David discover an egg (which looks as if it is ready to hatch) and a tapestry allegedly made by Agawin. They get a huge surprise when they discover that they (or rather, their Earth counterparts) are among a group of people depicted on the tapestry, along with a small dragon, holding a pad and pencil…. This is Gadzooks, of course, as you will know if you have read Dark Fire. The tapestry shows a scene from the Battle of Isenfier, a vision from Agawin’s distant future. Eventually, David and Harlan discover that Gadzooks has stopped the battle by suspending time and that a beacon or distress call is being sent out across the universe — to them.
Tapestry of Isenfier
Meanwhile, by her usual devious means, Aunt Gwyneth has gotten hold of the dragon’s claw which Harlan found in the Dead Lands. Taking the form of a katt so that she can enter the librarium undetected, she commingles with a firebird infected by the Ix and learns it was they who came through the rift in search of David.
We will answer your questions, they said weakly.
“Very wise. Tell me more about David Merriman. How can he have the auma of a dragon when no such thing exists on this world?”
The Ix paused. He is between worlds, they said.
“There are three Davids?”
Negative, said the Ix. There is one entity, varying at quantum speeds between the time points. His auma alternates across the planes. This is a primary condition of the nexus.
“Is his life on Earth different — when he’s there?”
Yes, but his purpose remains the same. Only the connections vary.
“Connections? What connections?”
The Ix took a moment to consider this question. The mammal in the book is one.
“The squirrel? Why would an insignificant creature mean so much to someone like him?”
On Earth, he has resonated strongly with them. We do not know what their function is.
“And where do I, Gwyneth, fit into this?”
You are another connection.
Suddenly, the tic around the eye was back. “Are you telling me that I have another life — on Earth?”
We must Cluster to answer that.
“Do it,” she snapped, flashing the katt’s tail. “Try anything and I’ll neutralize you all.”
We accept this, said the Ix.
She let them regroup. After several moments of neural activity, they reported they had an answer.
“Well? What is it?”
At the time of Isenfier, Gwyneth does not exist.
“What?” The katt’s teeth began to chatter fiercely.
On Earth, you are called Gwilanna. You die before Isenfier begins.
“How? In what circumstances?”
Fear, they said, buzzing around her brain. Fear of the Shadow. Fear of the Ix.
Gwyneth instantly decides she must change the timeline so that “she” does not die after all. But by doing that, she will change not only her own life on Earth, but also those of everyone else in the tapestry.
Will she succeed? Who or what can stop her? Will Gadzooks’s message be picked up? And who is the young boy who has suddenly appeared in the tapestry? — and what hatches out in the aerie? It certainly doesn’t seem to be a firebird….
The seventh and last book in the series follows what happens when Gwilanna dramatically attempts to save herself by altering the Earth’s natural timeline. Her actions cause ripples back through history, enough to change history itself, including the legend of Gawain.
The Fire Ascending begins on Earth, in the era when the last twelve dragons decide to give up their conflict with humans and isolate themselves on mountaintops all around the world. One of them, Galen, comes to land in an area called Kasgerden. This is observed by a young goatherd called Agawin, who is apprentice to a seer named Yolen.
It is traditional that a pilgrimage takes place to honor and pay last respects to a dying dragon, in hope that sparks of its fire tear (known as fraas) may be spread around and bring benefit and healing to any who experience its energy. However, Agawin’s excitement at taking part in this event is disrupted by an unexpected commotion.
Those at the rear began crying out a warning. I looked back and saw people stumbling and falling, children being picked up and rushed aside. The ground rumbled to the sound of galloping hooves. Horses were upon us. Arriving at high speed. The crowd parted like a flock of startled birds and I saw an old man knocked brutally sideways by the leading horse. It was as black as the unlit cave, with a mane that flashed around its neck like a blaze. Its eyes were full of blood and anguish. In the center of its forehead, at the level of the eyes, I thought I saw a stump of twisted rock, rough hewn at its point and oozing a kind of syrupy fluid. But my gaze was mostly on the rider, not his mount. Astride the horse sat a thumping brute of a man, with hair as long as the children of Horste. The menace in his eyes was as dark as the fists that gripped the black reins. And though I had no reason then to be afraid of him, a fateful chill still entered my heart. For even I, a boy of twelve, could tell he was mesmerized by the prospect of the dragon. He was hunting more than fraas, I was sure.
The rider of the violated black unicorn turns out to be a man named Voss, who, with his men, mounts a further attack on the pilgrims. He wishes to kill Galen and take control of the whole area, although he himself is controlled by the Ix. In league with Hilde, the local sibyl, he uses the broken-off portion of the unicorn’s horn as a means of gaining and wielding power.
Agawin and Yolen are invited to take refuge with a local villager, Rune, and his family. Rune’s daughter, Grella, sees visions of dragons, and makes them into tapestries, at which she excels. When Agawin is invited to try his hand at starting a tapestry picture, he finds himself drawing a small dragon holding a notepad. He has no idea that this is Gadzooks or what the significance of his drawing might be. Meanwhile, the men of the village are invited to a meeting to decide what to do about Voss, and Agawin takes a walk. He stumbles across a tumbledown dwelling, wherein sits an old man. This is Brunne, a blind seer, who seems to recognize Agawin’s importance and tells the boy that he needs to know the secrets of time. Brunne is about to explain further when …
He swiftly raised a hand and some force pushed me back into the shadows of the krofft. He gave out a groaning sound like nothing I had heard from man or beast before — a rasp that rattled every bone in his chest, followed by a shudder that seemed to expel something more than air from his lungs. I gasped and covered my face. Whatever Brunne had concealed within his body was now in mine and sheltering there. The last thing I heard him say to me was this: “Keep Galen within your sight.”
Within seconds of this transfer, Brunne is murdered by one of Voss’s men, and the building is set alight. In the meantime, Agawin hurries back to Rune’s krofft. He finds the men drugged and learns that Grella has been taken by Hilde to Voss’s campsite on Mount Kasgerden. He follows, with the intention of rescuing Grella, but walks into a trap and is captured himself. Strangely, Voss is in possession of Agawin’s tapestry — which now has a young girl pictured in it, a figure that Agawin did not draw. It later transpires that the tapestry is being imagineered by Agawin’s own memories and future visions. But who is the child in the picture, and what is she trying to tell Agawin before he is sent hurtling off the mountain by one of Voss’s henchmen …? Amazingly, Agawin survives the fall and to his surprise reappears in a distant valley, in front of a striking young woman who introduces herself as none other than Guinevere — the girl who, in legend, will catch Gawain’s fire tear.
Guinevere takes Agawin back to the cave where she lives with a local sibyl — Gwilanna. Each is immediately suspicious of the other. Agawin learns that the sibyl was brought up by Grella (whom Gwilanna falsely believes to be her mother), but Gwilanna will not talk about her. Similarly, Gwilanna distrusts Agawin because Grella always told her he had died in his fall. During a tense dialogue, Guinevere rushes into the cave to say that an eagle has appeared carrying an egg between its claws. The eagle is Gideon, and the dragon, about to hatch, is none other than Gawain.
Once he is out of his egg, Gwilanna is not thrilled by the new arrival, even though he is the last-known dragon in the world.
Gawain threw out his wings and went hrrr! in her face.
A gobbet of spittle landed on her cheek and fizzed along one of her many wrinkles. “Little monster!” she squealed, pulling back. She rubbed her face dry and swept toward the cave. “Bring that inside. Put it by the fire. When the sun goes down it will need more warmth than you can give it.”
I looked down at Gawain. He was indeed shivering. But it would not be long before his scales began to show, before he would get the insulation he needed. Dragons grew fast, if I remembered Yolen’s teachings correctly. He might look surprisingly vulnerable now, covered in juvenile pimply skin, but in just a few days he would be battle-hardened. “Plated” was the term the old ones used.
So I did as Gwilanna instructed. I went inside and set him by the fire. Right away, he scented the stewing rabbit and leaped into the pot, devouring every chunk, using his tail to skewer pieces up. To Gwilanna’s annoyance, he lapped up all the juices as well. Then he licked his feet and isoscele clean and settled in the pot with his tail curled around him, unconcerned by the heat from the flames.
Gwilanna decides that Agawin and Guinevere must leave with the dragon because it would attract too much attention and bring danger to them all. She sends them to an island along the coast, where they believe Gawain will be protected by a nearby tribe called the Inook. Not long into their journey, however, they come upon two unusual riders, a man and a woman, dressed like no one they have ever met before. The woman is riding a white unicorn; the man, a horse. It soon becomes clear that Gawain recognizes the man, and he rushes out of hiding to greet him. After a tense encounter, the man identifies himself as none other than David Rain. His companion is Rosa, Zanna’s “alternate” from Co:pern:ica.
David reveals that they have stepped through a fire star on Co:pern:ica, in response to a distress call sent out by Gadzooks. They are here, he says, to seek out Gwilanna. When Guinevere asks why, David explains that in the future, Gwilanna has learned to Travel through time, creating havoc. He goes on to say that the fire star has brought them to early Earth so that they might discover how Gwilanna has gained this ability, and hence find a way to stop her. Agawin pledges his allegiance to the quest and swears he will do all he can to aid them. But Gwilanna, as always, proves to be a difficult and cunning adversary. Before long, she has concocted a plan to abduct Agawin and take him back to Mount Kasgerden. There, using one of Gawain’s claws, she rewrites the timeline in her own favor, and sends Agawin over the cliff edge again….
I fell and I fell, with no tornaq to protect me. But my life did not end at the foot of the mountain. It simply took a different course again. Gwilanna’s dishonest use of the claw had sent signals rippling through the fabric of the universe, signals that Traveled infinitely faster than a seer’s apprentice could chance to fall. As the darkling rushed away from my sight, three other creatures filled the space around me. Firebirds. One green, one red, one a beautiful cream color with apricot flashes around her ear tufts. It was she who spoke to my consciousness saying, Agawin, we are monitors of time and the agents of Gideon. Do not be afraid. Joseph Henry is with you.
Joseph Henry? I asked. My voice had the texture of thickened mud.
But all the firebird said was this: You have been chosen for illumination. You will die and live again, through the auma of Gawain. All you have to do is give yourself up to it.
I do not want to die. Panic gripped my heart.
It is a change, she said. Simply a change.
I was floating now, less aware of my body. All around me, the tiniest stars were glittering. I felt that if I let my consciousness touch one, I would instantly pop into another life. What of Galen?
He will always be with you. In your new form, he will not hinder your progress.
What is the new form?
A hybrid of human, dragon, and Fain.
But that is what I am now.
This time, the energies will be fully commingled. You will go back, to observe Gwilanna. Joseph Henry himself has decreed this. You will be hidden from the sibyl — but always within her sight.
How? How is that possible?
Choose a [fire] star, the firebird said. There are many probabilities. Let your instinct guide you.
So I reached out in search of a different life. And in a timescale I could not measure or estimate, I found the star that was right for me, at a point on the timeline of huge significance, located at a place called Wayward Crescent. I chose, for my dominant form, to be human. And I chose to be born to a very special mother, one who had cause to be close to Gwilanna. The last thing I remembered before I touched my mother’s star was the memory of the child I had seen on the tapestry. And at last I understood her purpose and her words. Sometimes we will be Agawin, she had said….
From here begins the most unusual twist in the entire series. The fire star Agawin touches, the mother he chooses to be reborn to, is none other than Zanna. In his new life, far along the timeline, he becomes Alexa Martindale. Little wonder, then, that Alexa has always been thought of as “special”!
But what of the quest to stop Gwilanna?
Not surprisingly, the sibyl’s irresponsible meddling causes even more chaos. The timeline alters dramatically again. In this version of it, Voss survives and raises a darkling army. The battle at Scuffenbury Hill, suspended in time at the end of Dark Fire, begins again but swings in favor of the Ix. The Earth is gripped by the Ix “Shadow,” a negative force that sucks color out of vegetation and turns humans and animals alike into ugly “inversions” of themselves, lacking any soul or desire for independence.
The blue planet seems doomed.
But there is one character who is not at all fazed, for he has been carefully engineering some of this, knowing that sometimes the only way to prevent evil flourishing is to let it believe it has won. That character is Joseph Henry, Elizabeth Pennykettle’s unborn son. Joseph was at the battle of Scuffenbury Hill (in the guise of Gwillan, a Pennykettle dragon), but was cleverly released from it by Gadzooks when the battle was stopped. Free to roam the Universe thereafter, Joseph has studied every possible timeline and found the only course of events that assures victory for David. Not that it seems straightforward when he explains it to Alexa during a meeting in the librarium on Co:pern:ica.
“Isenfier is upon us,” said Joseph. “You must return to the Crescent, where you will be safe.” He stood up and made a firebird call. Gideon and the three that had saved me at Kasgerden came flying down from the upper floors.
“Joseph, wait. You never did tell me what happened to Elizabeth.”
“Just stay in the Crescent. For my sake now.”
“But I vowed to stop Gwilanna.”
“You can’t,” he said. “Only Gwilanna herself can do that.”
I spread my wings with a determined phut! “I have a duty to Galen and the last twelve dragons. Let me be Agawin. Let me fight.”
“What makes you think there will be a fight?”
No fight? “Then what is your plan?”
“Gwilanna has set the conditions for Isenfier. Everything now depends on her. We will give her what she craves and let the timeline adjust. It begins the second after she takes you from the woods.”
Back in the dawn of history. With Gawain.
“Your book will record it all,” he said. He nodded at the lectern where the book was waiting.
But my mind was still hovering firmly on Gwilanna. “Give her what she craves?”
He signaled to Gadzooks. The dragon lifted his pencil.
And as I felt the strange tug of the universe turning, I watched Joseph Henry fade away and commingle with the body of the firebird Gideon. “We need to give her what she’s always wanted, Agawin.” He spread his brown wings and snorted fire from his nostrils. “Illumination to a dragon.”
And that is exactly what happens. Gwilanna becomes illumined to Gawain himself. David and Rosa are captured by Voss’s army and brought before the “inverted” dragon. Who in this dreadful dark world can save them? Well, Joseph Henry and Alexa are far from defeated. Nor are the polar bears that disappeared at the end of Dark Fire. And there is one other group of characters that should never be underestimated by the most evil of warlords. Here are some clues to their identity: They’re green, spiky, made of clay, have large flat feet and trumpet-shaped nostrils, and usually announce themselves with a little hrrr….
This chapter has been a very swift run-through of some of the funny and some of the exciting story lines. As with all the other books in the series, there are many more plots that I have deliberately barely mentioned, or not even touched on, in The Fire Ascending. That leaves a lot for you to discover and to enjoy for yourself. Look out in particular for a gruesome story from Gwilanna’s childhood, the truth about Guinevere’s origins, and a rather unusual (to put it mildly!) finale….
In the Last Dragon Chronicles we meet, respectively, squirrels, polar bears, monks, alien thought-beings, darklings, firebirds, and skogkatts (not to mention a unicorn or two). If you like any or all of these, you’ll probably like these stories. And it might go without saying that these books are certainly for you if you can’t get enough of:
