Ice: The Book of Fire Trilogy, #3

By David Dawson

The final book in "The Book of Fire Trilogy", a series of middle grade fantasy novels for ages 9 and up.

The cold is coming.
The shadows will win.
Humanity will die.

Cressida and her allies must stand against the Shadow Assemblage one final time. If they fail? Frostma will freeze the planet and the shadow gods will rule.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Dawson
• Release date: May 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781507022849

David Dawson

David Dawson is Assistant Professor of Religion at Haverford College.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – The End

At the Magefield Home for the Magically Insane there was a patient.  She had blonde hair, nervous fingers, and she liked to sleep under a potted palm tree outside the mayor’s office.  For years she had been obsessed with the cold.  It was all she could think about.

The cold is near, she muttered, rocking back and forth.  Soon...

Mayor Bishop stared down at her with distaste and sighed.  He’d put up with this for long enough.  The woman would sleep in her own cell whether she liked it or not.  How was he supposed to work properly with her insane ramblings screaming down the corridors?

Marge Thiebold, this has to stop, said the mayor.  There is no cold coming.  Maybe we do have the occasional snow storm but...

Her eyes locked onto his.  He gasped.  Her eyes were white and frosted over.

I am the herald of Frostma, said Marge.  Her voice was deep, her breath coming out as mist.  She is coming and the world will be frozen.

Mayor Bishop backed away as she stood up.  Marge reached forward and clasped his wrist with her hand.  Her touch was like ice.

Get off me, he begged, shivering, as ice swept from her hand up his arms.  Please, you’re hurting me!

This cold is as nothing to what the great Frostma will bring, said Marge.  She will freeze this world and all who dwell upon it!  It is my duty to inform the world of her arrival so they can...

An orderly flung a sleeping spell at her.  She screamed an inhuman scream and toppled to the floor, peaceful in slumber.  Mayor Bishop looked to the orderly who had saved his life and offered him his thanks.

Are you all right, sir? the orderly asked.

Mayor Bishop rubbed his arm.  He couldn’t stop shivering, but frankly his arm appeared to be going back to its pink/red color. 

I’m fine, he said.  He looked down at Maggie.  Put her in a cell and keep her permanently sedated.  She’s become dangerous now.  She seems to think Frostma is returning to freeze the world!  What nonsense!

The mayor and the orderly laughed.  As if Frostma could return! 

Marge dreamed as she was levitated away.  For the first time in her life she knew her purpose.  That purpose was to tell the world that Frostma was returning.  Only now she couldn’t tell anyone because she was asleep.  Forgive me, Frostma, she thought.  I tried to tell them but I was thwarted.  What shall I do now?

Her dream representation of Frostma, a pair of glittering eyes that appeared out of a cold mist, regarded her for a moment and said, You will be spared, my herald, in respect for your service.  Wait for me and I will come.

She smiled.  Thank you.

Marge drifted in and out of sleep as the doors to her cell were padlocked and magically secured.  She couldn’t help but laugh.  She had tried to tell them but they didn’t believe her.  Won’t they be in for surprise when Frostma freezes the world?

Chapter 2 – What Next?

Cressida stared with grief stricken eyes at the ruins of her home.  There was nothing much left of it now as it had burned merrily away all night.  She had hoped that maybe some of the stuff that had been blown out of her bedroom had survived but they hadn’t found any debris anywhere.  Abe thought that maybe her things had gone adrift in the winds, probably to wind up in someone’s garden miles away. 

I’m truly sorry, said Abe.  I can see how much your home meant to you.

Saying you’re sorry won’t bring it back, Cressida snapped, a light wind caressing her long white hair.  It’s gone forever.

I never had a proper home, said Abe.  So I don’t know what you’re going through.

She sat down on the grass and put her head in her hands.  Everything had gone wrong.  Emily and Bram were revealed to be traitors and they’d kidnapped Joe, taking the Book of Fire with them.  Corona was dead.  Her mother and agent Seth were statues, sitting at the bottom of a mile deep lake.  They’d searched for their camp in Blackberry forest but hadn’t found it.  The Drake triplets, sleeping on the sky platform, had been blown away Goddess knows where.  Now the Shadow Assemblage could use the Book of Fire for their insane plan to have the ancient ice serpent Frostma freeze the planet.  It was all so hopeless.  She hadn’t wanted to descend into misery again.  It was just so hard not to.

To top all that off I don’t have magic any more, she thought.  The book gave me magic and, when the book was taken away, it took away the magic too.  I’m back to my old magic-less self again.

You turned them into marble statues, said Cressida.  She knew she was being mean but she didn’t care.  He had caused all this.  Just because he’d changed sides now didn’t mean she had totally forgiven him.

Abe looked at the ground, feeling searing guilt, thinking about everything he’d been through lately.  He’d totally changed his life.  Gone was his service to the Shadow Assemblage.  In its place was...well, he wasn’t sure yet.  All he did know was that he needed to prove to Grace, the woman he loved, that he wasn’t just a monster and a killer.  He needed Grace in his life.

We should probably go back to looking for the camp, Abe suggested.  I can at least try and turn Martin and Miss Weber back.

Cressida nodded her head.  She wanted to do something, and finding the camp would keep them occupied.

I’m sorry for being mean, she said.

You have every right to be, said Abe.

Too right I do.  Cressida calmed down.  I’m still sorry, anyway.

Cressida was sure she could retrace her steps from the ruins of her home to where the camp was.  When they’d fled there last night during the confrontation with Elias Tombs and Phobos, she hadn’t really had time to notice where they were going, but it was worth a shot anyway.

They hadn’t spoken of Emily since Cressida realized she had to kill her to get the Book of Fire into her hands again.  Abe remembered the first person he had killed, a tenacious but greedy journalist who had somehow stumbled upon the Shadow Assemblage.  The journalist in question had tried to bribe him with money and other things when he caught up with her but he didn’t pay her any heed.  He had killed her without a thought.  It was only later when he’d begun to see her brown face everywhere he looked that he broke down and cried.

I can’t let you do it, he told her.  They were still in the air.  Abe was using a levitation spell on the two of them so they could search the forest from above the ground.  Now Cressida was almost sure she knew the way they didn’t have far to go.  That was good, as Abe looked tired.

Do what? she asked.

I can’t let you kill Emily, said Abe.  It will change you forever.  You’ll never be able to get her face out of your head for the rest of your life.

I don’t have any other choice, said Cressida.  I’m the only other person who knows the language the Book of Fire is written in.  We have to get the book back, release the protection spell on it, and burn it.  We can’t allow the Shadow Assemblage to resurrect Frostma or perform any of the other vile spells in that book.

You learned ancient Elvish, the language of the book?

Cressida hesitated.  I learned some of it.  The Book of Fire requires that I understand the language the spells inside it are written in.  That’s the only way the spells will work.  I’m fairly certain I understand the language now.  Emily may be a treacherous backstabber but she taught me well.

Abe laughed.  He was about to say something he thought he’d never say in his entire life.

You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met, he said.

Cressida blushed.  Miss Weber said a similar thing.

The Shadow Assemblage terrifies me.  Even the thought of going up against them makes me want to curl up in my nest and sleep for a thousand years.

I’m scared too.  I’m just trying not to think much about it.

He could feel the grip the Shadow Assemblage had on him.  They thought they owned him.  In a way they did.  He would show them they couldn’t order him to kill innocents any more.

Abe said quietly, I will be brave too.  I will kill Emily.

I can’t let you do that, said Cressida.  You couldn’t kill me and Emily is the same age as I am.  What if you freeze up?

Emily is evil, said Abe.  I’m hoping that will make a difference.

Cressida wasn’t so sure.  A child was still a child, no matter if they were sweet and innocent or pure unadulterated evil.  However, Cressida couldn’t help but be slightly relieved; she hadn’t relished the thought of killing Emily, despite the fact she hated her with a fiery passion.  I started to think of her as a sister, she thought. It’s like I gained a sister but she died.  How could she do this to me?

The lengths the Shadow Assemblage had gone to staggered her.  Plans and counter plans converging, almost obliterating each other because one didn’t know about the other, just to get their hands on the Book of Fire.  Her enemies were fiendishly clever.  Any hole in their plans could easily be patched up with more plans, and she hated to be at the center of it.

How did you get to work for the Shadow Assemblage, anyway? she asked Abe.  She was curious about him, and not in the least afraid, not anymore.  She trusted this man with her life now.  In any other situation she would’ve found that strange, but here she didn’t.  He had trusted her enough to show her his true face, that of a spider.  He wasn’t the enemy any more.

My parents were researchers for the Shadow Assemblage, Abe explained, his face going dark.  They created new dark magic spells to be used on their enemies.  They actually filled up one of the few remaining blank pages in the Book of Fire, via Blueoak translating, with one of their most famous spells; the arachnid-morph.

He stopped for a second, afraid of continuing.  Whenever he recalled the past he wanted to hit things.  The way his parents had treated him had been abominable.  Cressida deserved to know the truth, though.  He owed her that.

The spell has the power to turn living humans into spiders, said Abe.  That might not sound like some evil dark magic spell but it is.  In the form of the spider the person is then compelled by the spell caster to do their bidding; usually building webs and stinging people they’ve been ordered to assassinate.

Cressida went white.  Do you have a poison stinger?

I used to, Abe admitted.  The asylum cut it off after I accidentally killed three of their staff.  I can still remember the pain like it was yesterday...Where was I?  Oh yes, my negligent parents.  Anyway, while they were perfecting this spell they thought it might be a good idea to test it on their newborn baby.  They hated me.  I had been an inconvenience for them during such an exciting time in their research, but because abortion is illegal they were forced to have me.  Now, though, I could finally be useful to them!  So they tried the spell on me.  It didn’t work, obviously.  I was stuck in a state halfway between spider and man, but they refused to change me back.  I was to be a living example of the punishment I deserved for interrupting their orderly lives.

Cressida said, I’m sorry.

He wiped a tear from his eye.  I hardly remember them now.  They’re just a dim memory of cruel faces.  When I was five years old I accidentally stung my father; he died.  My mother went insane and killed herself, and Elias Tombs decided I wasn’t worth keeping any longer so they threw me into an asylum for the magically insane, and it was there I met Copernicus Silver, the father of the woman you know as Miss Weber.  He taught me the marble statue spell and made me realize I could be a good enchanter.  It was that spell which primarily drew me to the attention of the Shadow Assemblage.  They later arranged for me to get out of the asylum and I’ve been working for them ever since.  Well, until now anyway.

He laughed.  It’s strange.  No matter what happens I’ll always be grateful to the Shadow Assemblage.  They gave me a home and a purpose in life.  I regret most of what I did in employ with them but if not for their job I’d still be in that damn asylum, rotting away like all the other unfortunates there.

He suddenly remembered something; an inmate at the asylum, a woman who everyone thought had been in an accident involving ice. She had moaned and screamed about ice and cold and how we they all going to freeze.  Was she a clairvoyant or just simply mad?  Had she seen the coming of Frostma, and did that mean they couldn’t stop it?

It began to snow again with a suddenness that startled them.  In a matter of seconds they were covered in a blanket of the white stuff.

These peculiar changes in weather are a sign, said Cressida.

I’ve been thinking the same thing, Abe admitted.

Does that mean that Frostma can’t be stopped?

Maybe it just means she’s coming.

Chapter 3 – Back Together

They suddenly dropped a few inches in the air.  Cressida grabbed hold of Abe’s arms, steadying herself.  He looked so tired.

Okay, put us down, she ordered him.

We haven’t found the camp yet, said Abe, visibly sagging.

You’re so tired you’re going to end up dropping us, said Cressida.  So put us down on the ground.  We can rest for a bit.

Abe agreed, and started lowering them to the ground when his feet touched down on something hard.  Cressida did the same and she was suddenly fearful of a Shadow Assemblage attack when she heard a polite giggling.

They had landed on the sky platform.

Why did you sneak in on us like that? she demanded, feeling like an idiot.

We haven’t had anything to amuse us in a while, said the Drake triplets.  Their faces were lit up with smiles.

Cressida grinned and ran over to hug the middle one.  He seemed surprised, and even more so as the two others came in for a group hug as well.  Cressida was so glad to see them.  Not merely because they would be a great help in the battle to come but because she liked them and was happy to see them unscathed.

As she pulled away from the triplets she noticed the hostility they betrayed towards Abe.  One of them even began mumbling a spell.  She decided to set them straight before Abe was hurt, or worse.

Abe is on our side now, she said.  That’s all you need to know.

The Drake triplets regarded him coldly before replying.  Fine.

The triplets did not like being used.  This man had put a sleeping spell on them and sent them adrift on the sky platform.  When they’d finally woken up they’d found themselves fourteen miles away from the city and with five pigeons trying to make a nest inside Miss Weber’s chair.  Still, they couldn’t be angry, only mildly annoyed.  Abercrombie Hayden was a powerful enchanter after all.  He would be a great asset.  Perhaps they could recruit him to work for the government.

The camp was located five minutes later.  It was easy to spot, what with the marble branches of a tree statue reaching out towards them.  The sky platform was parked