"We went to Cambridge," Lucy blurted as if it was an alternative form of hello. "Why did you send Gadzooks to that professor?"David's gaze shifted sideways and he shrugged. "I didn't""But... there was a dragon in his room that wrote things down.""The description Professor Steiner gave us sounded very much like Zookie," said Liz."Oh, I'm sure it was him," said David, moving his toe against the ground. "But he wasn't sent to Cambridge on my orders. For the moment, he's in the service of a dragon called G'Oreal. "Who's G'Oreal?" Liz and Lucy spoke together.David smiled and looked at them in turn. Give or take a few wrinkles, they could have been twins. "He's an ice dragon, the leader of a colony that's settling in the Arctic. What message did Gadzooks leave?'"Scuffenbury," said Lucy, in a quiet voice. "Do you know where it is?"David looked inside himself, recalling something distant. "Yes. There's a dragon there.""Oh?" said Liz."Hidden? Not dead?" asked Lucy."In statis," David said. "it's one of the last twelve.""Liz and Lucy exchanged a glance. They knew the legend of the last twelve dragons very well, but to be suddenly confronted with evidence of it... Excerpted from Dark Fire by Chris D'Lacey All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
