Fire World

by Chris D'Lacey

  “He is physically perfect,” the Aunt reported. “As good as the day he was constructed. He isn’t blind — but he is seeing things.”

  “Dreaming?” Strømberg asked.

  “Deeply.”

  “Is he calm?”

  The Aunt nodded. “He is in a recurring alpha wave.”

  A twitch of relief pulled at Strømberg’s mouth. “Do you know when he might wake?”

  Aunt Gwyneth shook her head. “He is in an unusual form of stasis, brought on by a strong melancholia.”

  “What does that mean?” Rosa couldn’t help herself. Bravely, she stepped forward and picked up David’s hand.

  “It means he’s sad,” said Mr. Henry, stepping forward, too. He moved his jaw from side to side, the way he sometimes did when he was musing in his study. “He was trying to save a firebird when he was attacked. It fell a great distance. It was probably dead. He would have been moved by that.”

  “His fain is not resolving it,” Aunt Gwyneth said.

  “So mend him,” said Rosa.

  “I just tried,” said the Aunt, with steel in her voice. Her eyes scanned David’s body again. “The boy is ec:centric and emotionally flawed. He is beyond the help of an Aunt. His situation must be reported to the Higher.”

  “And your recommendation would be?” said Strømberg.

  Aunt Gwyneth raised her chin. “De:construction,” she said.

  18.

  No! screamed Rosa, looking at the faces of all three adults. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you hurt him.”

  “Get this child out of my sight,” said Aunt Gwyneth, with such a degree of vehemence that a shower of spittle sprayed across Rosa’s dress.

  “Rosa, come with me.” Mr. Henry gripped her arm.

  “No!” she cried again, freeing herself. “How can you stand there and let her say this?”

  “Rosanna, go to a rest room. Now.”

  The girl planted her feet. “I’m not leaving David.”

  Then thunder rose in Mr. Henry’s chest and blood boiled in the veins of his face. “GO!” he bellowed, clenching his fists — not to strike her, Rosa was sure about that, but simply to try to get a grasp on his emotions. She’d never seen him so expressly disturbed. (And he’d never used her name in full before.) Nevertheless, she stared at him in utter betrayal. He calmed himself and spoke in a gentler tone, as if asking her to pardon this dreadful outburst. But by then the hurt could be seen in her eyes. She shook her hair wildly and ran from the room.

  Charles Henry dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it across his gibbering mouth. “Whatever’s to be done, do it quickly,” he said. “I want no part of it.”

  “Nothing is to be done,” said Strømberg.

  Aunt Gwyneth turned on him at once. “You would defy my ruling?”

  Strømberg picked up a book and put it back onto a shelf (in no particular place). “No, Aunt. I support your ruling; this incident must be reported to the Higher. But as David’s approved counselor I will be expected to submit an assessment of his case, and my recommendation would be that he is kept in the librarium and watched.”

  Aunt Gwyneth snorted her displeasure. “For what reason?”

  “Until this day, no one in the history of Co:pern:ica has ever been rendered melancholic by a firebird. I find that intriguing. I believe the Higher will, too. They will want me to study the boy.”

  “Poppycock,” the old woman sneered. (Mr. Henry raised an eyebrow at the use of this word and found his glance drawn toward his dictionary shelf.)

  Unfazed, Strømberg put his hands into his pockets and idly continued to stare at the books. “Then, of course, there is your professional reputation to consider.”

  “What?” said the Aunt. A tiny sprig of hair jumped out of her bun.

  “I understand from Harlan Merriman that you’ve accepted the boy’s mother for training?”

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  Strømberg turned to face her. “Would it not be considered odd — anomalous, even — that an aspirant, chosen by you, had recently had a child de:constructed? Hardly the ideal qualification for Aunthood.”

  Aunt Gwyneth took a step forward. She seemed to grow in height as she sought to meet Thorren Strømberg’s eye. “You are treading a dangerous line, Counselor. Do not think to interfere with my business.”

  “It’s my business to advise people,” Strømberg said frankly. “In my opinion, the facts are very plain. It’s up to you what you do with them, Aunt.”

  Her gaze slanted sideways to David. “The boy might never wake up.”

  “Then what threat can he be?”

  Aunt Gwyneth breathed in deeply. “Very well,” she said, waving a hand. “You may keep your ‘therapy’ intact. But I will be back to see this boy again. If his melancholia worsens or his terrors return, that will be an end to it.” And with one more skewed look at David Merriman, she strode out of the room, kicking a book across the floor as she departed.

  Mr. Henry sighed with relief. “Thank you,” he whispered, patting Strømberg’s arm.

  “We must go carefully now,” Thorren Strømberg told him. “That encounter will have prickled her spine. I may not always find a winning argument against her.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Exactly what I told her. You must monitor the boy.”

  “Do you think he will recover?”

  Strømberg considered the question carefully. “I hope so. I think he’s got a lot more to show us.”

  “His parents, will they be informed of his condition?”

  “The mother may learn through the Aunt, but I’d rather keep it from his father, for now. Telling him gains us nothing. He’s already accepted that the boy is out of bounds while in our care. I don’t want him losing focus, not with his research at such a critical stage.”

  Mr. Henry nodded. “What about this?” He held up the dragon book.

  “I’ll take that. I need to talk to Rosa. Where will I find her?”

  Charles Henry pointed to the nearest window. “Outside, in her favorite place — the fields.”

  Rosa was sitting cross-legged among the daisies, with her back to the librarium, her hair dancing in the breeze. She did not take her gaze away from the horizon when Thorren Strømberg came and crouched beside her. Speaking quietly he said, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Aunt Gwyneth has gone. David is staying in the librarium.”

  The girl swallowed hard and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the lashes were wet. She noticed Strømberg looking and said, “I suppose you think I’m a freak as well, don’t you?”

  Strømberg shook his head. “Very few of my ideas coincide with Aunt Gwyneth’s.”

  Rosa’s face grew dark with loathing. “I hate that woman — if she is a woman.”

  “Oh, yes, she’s human,” the counselor said. “She would have had emotions once, but her fain overpowered them long ago. She’s not all bad, Rosa. She’s in the business of producing perfect offspring for perfect parents in a perfect world. You’re always going to be an irritation to her kind.”

  The girl picked a daisy and twiddled it in her fingers. “Will David be OK?” How could any world be perfect without him?

  “I’m not sure,” Strømberg answered truthfully. “If he stays melancholic, he will fade away.” He saw her shoulders drop and he pressed on quickly. “What happened, Rosa — in the room, before you ran? How did you come to have this?”

  She looked at the dragon book in his hands. “The red firebird came. It picked it off a shelf and dropped it on David.”

  “To hurt him?”

  Lips tight, she shook her head. “It looked sort of … sorry for what it had done.”

  “So the book was a gift?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Strømberg thought about this for a moment. He ran his hand across the tops of the daisies, enjoying the sensation of their petals on his skin.

  “Do you know how to get into
the upper floors?” Rosa asked.

  “No,” said Strømberg. “You’ve found the door, haven’t you — to Floor Forty-Three?”

  Rosa looked away, but immediately confessed. “I was trying to get through it when ‘Aunty’ turned up. She said there’d be a key, but I couldn’t find a lock.”

  Strømberg stared at the horizon and smiled. “Nothing is straightforward in the librarium, Rosa. You of all people should know that. Aunt Gwyneth is correct; there will be a key. We just don’t know what it is — or where to find it. Maybe the book is a clue.”

  At that moment it started to rain. A single droplet of water landed with a splat on the picture of the dragon. Rosa clutched at her upper arms and shuddered. “Come inside,” Strømberg said, cutting short her next intended question. “I must leave here soon and I’ve more to show you.” He stood up and offered his hand. She looked hesitantly at it and he added, softly, “Some interesting things — in other books you’ve not seen.”

  She thought about this for a moment, then gripped his hand and raised herself up. He set off toward the librarium. He was three or four paces ahead when he realized she wasn’t following. He looked back to see her standing in the rain, her wet hair clinging to her pretty face. Her eyes were busily scanning the ground. “Rosa? Have you lost something?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell him, but the daisy chain bracelet was nowhere to be found. That, in its way, was as crushing as the thought that David might not wake. “Did the fire go inside him?” she whispered. “Did David absorb it through his tears?”

  Strømberg glanced at the dragon book again. A raindrop had run beneath the eye of the creature depicted on the cover, making it look as if it were crying. “No,” he said. “Aunt Gwyneth would have found it.”

  “Then what happened? What was the flash I saw?”

  “I don’t know,” said Strømberg. And he walked away without another word.

  19.

  Back in the room where David lay, Mr. Henry had already begun the process of restoring his spilled books to their proper places. He was halfway up the once-hidden ladder when Strømberg and Rosa came in.

  “Charles, I’d like to show Rosa something special about dragons. Could you find me an appropriate text?”

  The curator stopped what he was doing. His eyebrows rose to a point well above the frame of his spex. At first, Rosa thought he was going to refuse. But instead he leaned sideways and the ladder slid with his weight (and his intent). It not only traveled three feet horizontally but up two shelves as well.

  Wow, thought Rosa. Where was that when she and David were at their most industrious?

  Once again Mr. Henry pressed a button somewhere and what looked to be an ordinary shelf of books revolved to display a hidden one. On it was a large old book, held together by some kind of stiff brown binding. Mr. Henry stepped down off the ladder with it. Blowing dust off the cover, he said, “This is the rarest and most valuable book in the building.” He handed it to Strømberg, but his gaze was on Rosa. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Thorren.”

  Strømberg said, “Sit down, Rosa.” With a sweep of his hand he imagineered a table and three upright chairs.

  Rosa tutted (even though she was secretly impressed at the speed and power of the blond man’s fain) and pulled out a chair at the side of the table from which she could still see David. The boy slept on like a statue, barely breathing.

  Strømberg sat down beside her but put the old book aside temporarily. Instead, he held up the glossy one again, showing the cover of the roaring dragon.

  “What are those horrible things?” Rosa asked.

  “Good question,” said Strømberg. “No one really knows.”

  “Then why have we got books about them?”

  Mr. Henry joined them at the table. He took off his spex and polished them on the corner of his jacket. “Thorren, are you sure it’s right for her to hear this?”

  Thorren Strømberg merely said, “Do you know what a ‘myth’ is, Rosa?”

  “Sort of,” she replied. She remembered Aunt Gwyneth using the word just before her chilling warning: You are never to touch this book again. Part of her was willing to accept the Aunt’s caution. The roughness and terrifying size of the creatures, compared to the mountainous landscape they were pictured in, really did frighten her. But they were strangely compelling, too.

  “It’s a word we use to describe a phenomenon that has no foundation or basis in truth, and yet is somehow strong enough to survive in our consciousness.”

  “It’s not in mine,” said Rosa, nodding at the dragon.

  “Yes, it is,” said Strømberg. “It’s merely been suppressed.”

  Mr. Henry rubbed a hand across his forehead and sighed.

  “Charles, bring me something on zo:ology, would you?”

  “No, Thorren. She’s not ready for that.”

  “Animals, Charles.”

  “Are you insane?” The old man looked up sternly. “She’ll be in the boy’s state before you know it.” He jutted a finger at David.

  For a moment, there was stalemate. Rosa, unsure of what to do, remained quiet. Everything seemed to rest with Mr. Henry. Finally, the curator scraped back his chair and again struck one of the panels between the shelves. It opened on a dark, cubicle-shaped cupboard. Inside the cupboard was a small book, hardly any bigger than a man’s hand. Mr. Henry brought it over and placed it on the table. A Comprehensive Field Guide to Small Mammals.

  Strømberg picked it up and flicked through a few pages. They were stiff and difficult to hold in place. He found what he was looking for and showed it to the girl.

  “A katt?” she said. “It looks a bit fierce. Why are the letters wrong?”

  “It’s a wild cat,” said Strømberg, “and the spelling is correct. Try this.” He flipped to another page. There was an image of the most extraordinary little creature Rosa had ever seen. It had fur like a katt, but its hairs were just a series of short gray spikes. Two slightly bulging eyes were positioned on the sides of its mischievous-looking face. It was sitting upright, on the branch of a tree, balanced by a bushy tail that curled right over its back.

  “That’s a squirrel,” said Strømberg.

  Rosa shook her head, confused.

  “One more,” he said, “then this goes away.” And he showed her a picture of something long and sleek on the bank of a river. The book labeled it an “otter.”

  “Thorren, that’s enough,” Mr. Henry said grimly. He took the book out of Strømberg’s hands and dropped it into his pocket.

  Strømberg leaned back against his chair and said, “All the creatures in that book existed once, Rosa, including the habitats you saw them in.”

  “They’re beautiful,” she said. “What happened to them?”

  “They died out — as our fain evolved.”

  “How? Why?”

  “That’s a mystery many people have tried to unravel, me included. We have physical evidence, in a place called the Dead Lands, that squirrels, cats, otters, and thousands more species like them once roamed Co:pern:ica. But they’re not there now. Interestingly, there is nothing to suggest that dragons were ever among us, except for precious books like these. Yet I can tell you, without exception, they are in the auma of every child I have ever counseled. Somehow, even though we’re not aware of it, we collectively believe in dragons and no one, not even an Aunt, can say why.”

  Rosa shuddered and turned up her nose. “Are we all flawed?” she asked.

  “Possibly,” Strømberg said. “But I think there’s a much more intriguing answer still waiting to be uncovered. And this building might be at the heart of it.”

  Rosa looked at Mr. Henry. The old man was holding his breath.

  Strømberg pushed the dragon book aside and opened the one from the secret shelf. Rosa cast her gaze across the page. All she could see was a pattern of fading ink marks that made no sense to her. She placed her hands in her lap and waited. Strømberg turned another page. “We are si
tting underneath the largest firebird aerie on Co:pern:ica, and yet we know nothing about it. Many people — learned people, like Mr. Henry and myself — have attempted to reach the upper floors to study the birds’ habitat, but with little success. Interest in the birds has gradually dwindled. Most Co:pern:icans now accept them as nothing more than a colorful aspect of the Grand Design. But they don’t know about this.” He ran his finger around a corner of the binding. “Do you know who found this book, Rosa?”

  She shook her head.

  “You did.”

  “Me? How?”

  “It was on your first day,” Mr. Henry said. “You were running around like a month-old kitt-katt and hit your head on the post at the foot of the stairs.”

  “I remember that,” she said. “It’s the only time I’ve done it. Well …” (She didn’t mention that day’s encounter with the door to Forty-Three.) “After that you taught me how to move with the building. So how did …?” She turned her head and stared at the secret cubicle.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Henry. “You opened a hidden compartment at the foot of the stairs and in it was … that.”

  She looked up at Strømberg.

  “We believe this book holds the truth,” he said. “We believe that firebirds and dragons are connected. If we can make sense of that link, we think we will unlock the secrets of Co:pern:ica — possibly the entire universe.”

  Rosa leaned forward and glanced at the page. “With a load of smudges?”

  Strømberg laughed politely. “I agree at first glance it does appear quite indecipherable. But this is a book, remember. These marks are a language. Almost certainly an ancient language. Long forgotten by us. Probably never used by us.”

  “Who’s the author?” Rosa asked. Without waiting for permission she closed the book and looked at the cover. “There’s nothing on it.”

  Strømberg turned it over. “You read this book from right to left.”

  And there, in what she’d once heard Mr. Henry describe as “gothic script,” Rosa saw a title. “The Book of Ag … a…”

  “Agawin,” Thorren Strømberg said.